Yesterday I was doing a bit of goldfishing (finally got the deck sleeved up, a bit busy at the moment) think I mulled a couple of times to 5 where passing the turn and then going of on turn 2 (because the scry card was important). Althought everytime, I ended up on 2 life, very dangerous. But one time I had a couple of D4's in hand, DR, mana source, Infernal Tutor and LED. 2 option, try to pull the D4, but with LED cracking in response in the hope you can go further (risky, tried it, failed) or the other play, which I tried (left the same 4 cards on top), was LED, DR, IT --> crack LED for blue, fetch slithermuse and D7. Went off on that first turn. I think if you have the option to D4 with one mana (preferably black) backup, sure, it's better, but other than that, this line of play on the first turn is 'always' paying of. I like it.Originally Posted by Silent Requiem
I think the main reason is that by playing belcher, the VC's are suboptimal, otherwise, be sure to try it, but like you said, the times I emptied my hand, or got that dryad Arbor (when I already played a land) for storm, thinning and activating belcher, does the trick.
So SB:
4 carpets (against all blueish decks)
4 blooms (against blue/control/taxing decks, skip them against chalice decks?)
2 EtW (against control decks or to race taxing decks)
1 forest (going to try it, instead of taiga, seems a solid choice)
2 Veil's (against counters)
2 Tomb of Urami (as an out against chalice decks? extra: veil can also protect your demon against possible blue bounce or fatal push, if they would be mad enough to keep it in)
So for example, against a UW control deck I might try:
+4 carpets, +4 bloom, +1 forest, +2 veil, +2 EtW (not against miracles..) (and if I'm kinky, and I know they remove STP, Tomb of Urami :-D)
-4 pact, -4 culling, -1 dryad Arbor, -1 DRS, -1 wild cantor, -1 IGG, -1 Tendrils
Against Aggro loam:
+2 Tomb of Urami, +1 Forest, +2 EtW
-1 IGG (lot's of gravehate), -2 pact, -2 culling
Against DnT:
+4 Blooms, +1 Forest, +2 EtW
-4 Pact, -3 Culling
Any comments?
I should have been clearer.
I take it for granted that I would not be siding in Belchers if I am running actual lands in the deck. Between Autumn's Veil and Xantid Swarm we can still drop a series of 'must answer' bombs, and we would also be able to run Tombs as uncounterable early pressure. The exact nature of the sideboard is something that I can work on later, if the compromises in G1 prove to be acceptable.
I'm not sure what you DnT sideboard is trying to do. It looks like you are going to lose masses of speed against a deck that loves to drop multiple hatebears starting on turn 2.So SB:
4 carpets (against all blueish decks)
4 blooms (against blue/control/taxing decks, skip them against chalice decks?)
2 EtW (against control decks or to race taxing decks)
1 forest (going to try it, instead of taiga, seems a solid choice)
2 Veil's (against counters)
2 Tomb of Urami (as an out against chalice decks? extra: veil can also protect your demon against possible blue bounce or fatal push, if they would be mad enough to keep it in)
So for example, against a UW control deck I might try:
+4 carpets, +4 bloom, +1 forest, +2 veil, +2 EtW (not against miracles..) (and if I'm kinky, and I know they remove STP, Tomb of Urami :-D)
-4 pact, -4 culling, -1 dryad Arbor, -1 DRS, -1 wild cantor, -1 IGG, -1 Tendrils
Against Aggro loam:
+2 Tomb of Urami, +1 Forest, +2 EtW
-1 IGG (lot's of gravehate), -2 pact, -2 culling
Against DnT:
+4 Blooms, +1 Forest, +2 EtW
-4 Pact, -3 Culling
Any comments?
I get that EtW and Pact are a non-bo, but surely -2 Pact +2 EtW gives you that option while not preventing you from winning in the 'traditional' way with the right opening hand.
I follow you, but the blooms can make 'sure' that you have the mana to go of against them, even through Thalia, isn't a garanty though.
Now that I think about it, you are right, -2 Pact +2 EtW is a better plan. I thought that Tomb might also be an option, since the will probably side STP out, but they still have chump blockers + flickerwisp.
On the other things, no comments? What against storm(ANT/TES)? Just keep everything the same? Since we 'should' be faster. Although carpets look appealing, especially since they have discard that can set us back. Carpets over Pact here (or a 2/2 split Pact/Culling?) to build resilience? On the other hand, the maindeck, is freakishly fast.
I can't comment on the Loam matchup because I've never played it. I think Carpets are wrong against storm, though.
Carpet is for playing the attrition game. They (our opponent) either gives us a ton of mana every turn, or they just try and whittle us down with Delver or something, with only one Island (and probably a bunch of fetchlands) in play. In other words, they have to go slower, or they help us go faster.
Storm, though, just doesn't care about either of those things if they are going off anyway. They will happily watch us side out acceleration and business to bring in Carpets. That allows them to focus their discard on the stuff in our hand that is actually relevant.
If you want to side something in against them, consider Past in Flames. That turns back on all the stuff they made you pitch earlier. Or Leyline of Sanctity, for the lols. Shuts off their win conditions AND their disruption.
Edit: A coincidentally relevant comment from the Belcher thread.
I see cutting the Reverent Silence, Hull Breach, Pyroclasm for other things as these are the least wished for cards and fall into niche roles. One card that has been doing well for me is Leyline of Sanctity. I have been running 3 to good results against Discard because I find it is the most common way people try and hate us out of the board.
I have some experience playing vs Loam, but not as a Storm/SI player.
Most of the Loam decklist is completely irrelevant vs us due to our speed and lack of targets:
Dark Confidant, Life From the Loam, Knight from the Reliquary, Punishing Fire, GSZ (needs 3 mana to tutor Teeg and their accel is Mox Diamond and GSZ for Dryad Arbor only), Toxic Deluge, Liliana of the Veil, Sylvan Library, Abrupt Decay.
While at the same time they have a few very powerful hoser cards in the deck list vs us:
4x Chalice (hopefully at 1 in g1, because 0 is worse)
4x Mox Diamond acceleration + hatebears:
MD/SB 1x Gaddock Teeg (typically MD)
SB 0-2x Ethersworn Canonist
SB 0-2x Containment Priest (they can bring this in vs tokens)
SB 0-3x Thalia 1.0
SB 2+ Thoughtseize, assuming they are not running MD 2+ Collective Brutality already.
Tomb of Urami is a risky move IMO because they have 4x Wasteland, 1 Karakas, 1 Maze of Ith and 4x KotR for finding the Karakas/Maze which they are likely to keep in because KotR is their best clock, Karakas is a W mana source and much of their sb is useless in the mu. They can also make a Marit Lage token to block, and they might be forced to leave a few Lilianas in because it sucks less than most of their sideboard vs us, which can accidentally kill the Urami token.
Against most Loam builds, us bringing in 4x Leyline of the Void + 1 or more Helm of Obedience would be a strong play. Teeg still hits us badly, but they are likely to run only 1 in the 75. They can tutor it up with GSZ, though. Otherwise, Empty the Warrens on the play (before they get to drop hatebears or chalice) and Goblin Charbelcher on the draw (which can get through everything except Teeg, note that Spirit Guides help vs Thalia 1.0) seem like solid plans to me. If you manage to land a Charbelcher early before their Teeg lands, even if you fizzle on the first try or lack some mana, I think their only "out" is GSZ for 1of Reclamation Sage/Qasali Pridemage, which is slow at 4 mana. Assuming they knew enough about our deck to SB in the Sage in the first place (Pridemage can be in MD, though).
I goldfish'd a few dozen hands last night with Verdant Catacomb in place of Land Grant. Mostly there was no difference, and a couple of times I had to work slightly harder to reach lethal storm. Only in one game did being unable to get Hellbent turn a win into a loss.
I need to actually run some tests against blue decks, though. I'm not particularly keen to drop the money needed on a playset of VC unless it has a meaningful impact on our blue matchups.
Good points. Dammit, that still doesn't solve my sideboard issues.
Maybe -2 tomb +2 thoughtseize, don't know yet, willingly to test the tombs out. Mostly because they need to answer it immediately, and if they are trying to do that, we can still go off the traditional way.
Karakas/Maze is an out, but they can only tutor for it with knight or draw it naturally, and tutoring it with knight is as soon as turn 3. Which mean they will probably focus a bit more to stop the demon than to disrupt us. Which is fine I assume. Wasteland isn't an issue, since you won't drop tomb unless you have 4 mana. Liliana and Marit Lage can also stop us. But again, if they spend their first turns to stop the demon, it gives us time to actually drop belcher or go off.
But I'm probably wrong.
4 leylines and 2 iggy's is a good out :-) but then the sideboard takes a whole different turn, to adapt to decks, that we can 'normally' beat, except for aggro loam. So maybe I can ignore it. We'll see tonight if I face him :-)
You could consider running 4x grave titan and some other kinds of acceleration. Might be okay. I can try to goldfish some draws and try.
another transformation i considered was:
4 dark confidant
3 monastery mentor
1 savannah
2 bayou
3 cavern of souls
2 abrupt decay
goldfished a bunch. i'm not sure i like dark confidant so much in here. would maybe just go for a 4 mentor cavern package. maybe some cabal therapy would compliment this.
would propose the following
4 cavern of souls
1 savannah
4 monastery mentor
4 cabal therapy
2 magus of the will (or abrupt decay)
Last edited by mistercakes; 06-16-2017 at 02:54 PM.
-rob
I've been testing my anti-blue sideboard, which is essentially the standard PSI approach to blue:
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Autumn's Veil
4 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Forest
This has worked reasonably well against control decks, but it has been failing miserably against tempo decks. Most of the cards in this sideboard need to pair up to actually do anything - Autumn's Veil does nothing unless I can immediately follow it up with an actual threat (ie, Goblin Charbelcher). Tempo decks don't give you the time to try this more than once, and holding cards back to build up a critical mass can be especially problematic if they are also attacking your hand with discard effects.
I'm going to mess about with a traditional 'man plan', but I wondered if anyone had a sideboard plan that they liked against tempo.
you could try running 4 swarm and then that would require the tempo deck to deal with it immediately or potentially lose. you should give that mentor plan a try if you have some time. (the last one i mentioned) the 2 magus could be anything else.
-rob
Went 2-2 last Friday.
First match, I could start, but I had to mull to 5, passed the turn, because I needed one extra card. (had a culling package ready)
He played land, mox diamond, chalice on 1 (great, another loam player) I tried to do anything, but scooped rather quickly.
Game 2, went off turn 1 (yaay)
Game 3, he started with a thoughtseize, I could go off turn 2 or 3, he GSZ to teeg (fuck). Ok, I still had the 'demon'-plan, had 2 cabal rituals, some enough mana on the board and a IT. So I could create 6 mana --> IT --> tomb. The only thing I needed was something I could play out of my hand, normally not a problem, drew 1 of the 2 summoners pact still remaining... So I cast it to pay for it the next turn. So that single card set me back 2 turns... At that time he played a Ethersworn Cannonist, and the turn after a knight, game over...
0-1
Second match: Burn
Won 2-1, miscounted in game 2, and should have stopped the chain on time, to still go off the turn after. This is clearly lack of experience. Went 2 times off with belcher.
1-1
Match 3: Grixis Delver
Went of rather fast and he didn't have force.
game 2: he didn't play his daze agressively enough, and he fetched into islands for my carpet, big mistake, could go off easily. 2-0
2-1
Match 4: Miracles
Was actually a very tight game, but had to many counters and didn't see a veil. 0-2 was good as a learning experience. Blooms also helped here, but due too to many counters, I couldn't get through.
My sideboard:
4 carpets
4 blooms
2 veils
2 EtW
2 tomb of urami
1 forest
If you're going down the land route then I think you might be better off building an Ad Nauseam deck by cutting the Pacts/ESGs and Draw 4s for fetchlands, Green Sun's Zeniths, Xantid Swarms and Diabolic Intent. It's pretty neat when you can use your acceleration and disruption as the fuel for your Culling/Diabolic and the fetclands, GSZs and Swarms are all generally more useful and less all in than the Land Grants, Pacts, SSGs etc. I'm picturing a sort of BUG TES like list, which would be interesting because even tho' I think it'd probably be worse than TES the U/G and B/G fetch manabase would let you bluff Daze.
Like
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Diabolic Intent
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Xantid Swarm
4 LED
4 Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
14 Lands
You could even use that kind of shitty colorless Xantid Swarm or add more business and acceleration by cutting Git Probes? But yeah, if you aren't playing Belchers then lands are just better than L.Grants. Personally, I still really like the old version of the deck with 7 swamps and kobolds myself.
That looks... really, really interesting. And intimidating, because I'm not actually a terribly good innovator, and that looks like it needs a great deal of work.
My first thought is that 4 Xantid is probably wrong. Just as we run SP as a toolbox, we probably want to do the same with GSZ. So one Xantid, one Tukatounge Thallid, and possibly a Wild Cantor. And Dryad Arbor, of course.
Nothing to stop us bringing in more from the side for the U matchup, of course.
Dryad Arbor is 1 of the 14 lands, however I disagree 100% with MD tool-boxing for Green Sun's Zenith. Xantid Swarm, regardless of removal, is the only other green creature you want in order to make all of your draws as relevant as possible. Post board, you can SB an artifact hate creature for Chalice etc. or a fatty for a man plan, but that is as far as I would go. You want to just get your Lanowar Elf turn and then hit your Culling or Intent and go off. You shouldn't need amything but Petal, Ritual, Led after Nauseam to finish ideally.
The only thing I doubt is Probe, because there is no discard but information is always useful.
I would just test what I posted first, it goes off pretty soundly on turn 2 to maybe 3. I had a really similar deck with Hermits and Tops, but I think without Top you have to play blue for consistency and the b/g Hermit/basic manabase just doesn't work with cantrips. I mean it's a bad TES, but the look on their faces when you attack with Xantid and then sac it for a T2 win lol.
Fair enough.
Is Veteran Explorer a thing here?
It was, when the deck had Sensei's Diving Tops to filter it could use Veteran Explorer with Diabolic Intent, Culling the Weak and Cabal Therapy to stay in B/G and build a mana base with basic lands. After SDT was banned tho, I don't think it's possible to exlcude blue, so the Tops and Explorers became cantrips and the Cabal Therapies became Xantid Swarms to stream line the deck into a T2 protected win.
You have wiggle room if you cut Probe to experiment, a 2nd Ad Nauseam, a Chrome Mox, an Empty the Warrens etc. I all tried but the deck has been mostly for laughs.
BTW, isn't 1 or 2 fatal pushes or abrupt decays interesting?
Push mainly against hate bears. Decay as an out to CotV/teeg/thalia/needle on Belcher /...
I gave the BUG ANT deck a spin last night, and it was pretty cute. I quickly felt like I preferred Chrome Mox to Gitaxian Probe, simply to make Ad Nauseam better. It's surprising how often the deck will go off turn two under the protection of Xantid Swarm.
Still messing about with PSI sideboard, though. The ANT deck got me wondering about something similar for PSI. Instead of taking out Culling the Weak, what about -4 Culling targets, +4 Xantid Swarm, -4 Pact, +4 Veil?
In other words, leave us much of the original deck concept in place as possible. I'll do some testing and report back.
PSI is never going to be an 'answers' deck. Without blue cantrips, we can't consistently find answers quickly enough to be relevant. We are far better off just dropping threats and being very, very fast.BTW, isn't 1 or 2 fatal pushes or abrupt decays interesting?
Push mainly against hate bears. Decay as an out to CotV/teeg/thalia/needle on Belcher /...
SI-TES, of course, can take a different approach, thanks to Burning Wish and Cabal Therapy. Note that actual TES still does plays the 'answer' game better, because it runs those same cards, AND blue cantrips, but at the cost of being a half turn slower.
Still not a big Xantid Swarm fan, but I'll replace the 4 blooms with swarms just to try out.
UW sideboard guide then becomes:
+4 carpets, +4 swarm, +1 forest, +2 veil, +2 EtW (not against miracles..)
-4 pact, -4 culling, -1 dryad Arbor, -1 DRS, -1 wild cantor, -1 IGG, -1 Tendrils
Your plan of keeping culling in appeals me (and sounds very logical), but what to remove then? Not putting the EtW in? Removing an extra Belcher? Removing a slithermuser or SSG?
The classic PSI sideboard is very carefully designed, as you would expect from Vacrix. The Carpet of Flowers gives you a ton of mana against slow control that allows you to play 'bombs' (D4, Belcher) while voiding soft counters, and without having to invest other cards to cast them. They keep having to throw away 2 cards to stop you from casting your single card, and you win via card advantage/attrition. It's no accident that Belcher casts nicely through Counterbalance.
However, when I play against modern tempo decks, I'm rarely get more than a single mana from Carpet, and often don't get any. This means that I have to invest other cards to cast Belcher (ie, Dark Ritual, etc). As soon as you have to do this the attrition model falls apart, even ignoring the fact that they have a much faster clock than they used to.
Belcher is a very expensive win condition, requiring 7 mana. If I've successfully stuck a Swarm or a Veil, is it actually the best win con? I'm not sure. But right now I'm feeling like I'd be better of transitioning into Great Sable Stag and friends than Belcher.
I do agree that bringing in EtW could be a very good idea for those shorter combo chains, but I want to nail down the protection package before focusing too much on the actual win cons.
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