[PRIMER] Spiral Tide

[feline]

Forcing Stoneforge mystic, I saw that at the open a couple weeks ago as well and at first I was like "is that a good idea?" But Sword of feast & famine are becoming more popular and on top of that, if you do force their stoneforge mystic and they have no other means of a clock, then you have alot of time to draw more cards, especially if they don't drop another threat the following turn and start searching for their next threat or are literally waiting to top deck it. Because of that, while I at one time would have not recommended burning a counter on Stoneforge mystic, I can see it becoming more common in comparison to before, though it's all still situational depending on specifics, I can understand that line of play more so now.

[TiMeWaLk]

Thanks :)

I was actually very close to go on tilt... There were so many good match ups in the room and I had to face the only Show and Tell
Loosing the roll dice all the time + mulligan 3 times in 2 matches because of having no lands was also incredible. However, after dealing with Spanish Inquisition I got really lucky with the deck check against the Burn player and everything went fine after.

@ side board against Burn

I also read what Lejay proposed and I am not so afraid of Surgical in Burn (because they don't play discard effects). However, I like the idea of having access to more High Tide. All my Wishes transform into potential High Tides, with matters when your Scroll can get countered by Red Elemental Blast. In game 2, assuming I won game 1, I like to be a bit more on the "control" side against burn because I am not sure I can race them on the draw (that's also why I brought Remora for game 2 and went back to Pact on game 3). I have to say that I am really not sure if my line of play is correct. Maybe I should be the "aggro" also on the draw. Pact of Negation is not the best card against Burn, but it was looking better on the play than Remora. I need to test a it more against Burn. I looks like a decent match up but I don't want to be fooled at the GP.

@ Force a Stoneforge

It can be a mistake. But, I did not know his version (with the Tourach). I was just assuming that I can destroy his clock. When I realized he ran Tourach it was too late... Considering my opening hand (I think with 1 Element of the combo), I should have probably kept the Fow. For game 2 or 3, it's a more correct play since they can search for Swords.

I discovered that line of play the exact same way as feline.

@ Zomby

There is a misunderstanding. The deck I faced is not a mono black but a deck with Goblin Bombardment, Gravecrawler etc... In my opinion the deck was too fast for keeping Meditates in. Again, this is a match up I never faced (maybe once, so my side board strategies can be strange).

@ Merfolk

The deck was really strange because of the Chalice turn 1 possibility which cuts Spell Pierce, Cursecatchers... He was putting so much emphasis on Chalices (with moxes) that I felt the Candelabra were less required. In the end, it would help only against Daze while the cards I brought in were required. Pact was also better because the main threat apart Chalice was Fow.

I think against another version of Merfolk keeping Candelabra would have made a lot of sense.

@ all

Do not hesitate to give your impressions on the side board strategies. It helps me a lot! (and I hope all the other users too)

TW

[Di]

@ TimeWalk sideboarding

Most of these are fine. There's always a small buffer on what you can get away with in boarding so there's no "exact" means of doing it, so I can't say you did anything incorrectly. Although I was a bit surprised you elected to board out a Meditate against the Stoneblade player knowing that they run discard. Outside of Stoneforge Mystic they don't have any clock at all, so I would likely keep this in the deck. The High Tide against Burn is really a choice of preference; I personally like to keep it in the deck because it increases your odds of naturally having it or finding it when most times it is difficult to survive to Wish for High Tide, but at the same time it's a perfectly logical choice to maximize Wish's efficiency to find it should you be able to stall them the first few turns. Another thing on Burn, but if the version you play against is rather creature heavy I'd consider boarding in the Snap as well. This is also nice because it helps the possibility of going off with fewer lands or turn three. The lack of Meditate against the Zombardment deck isn't crazy, but I'd likely keep it given their clock isn't amazing and they lack the permanent benefits to punish you for playing it (like Jund which has Liliana and Dark Confidant) so it's worthwhile to use to fight discard.

@ Force of Will on Stoneforge Mystic

This is pretty much always the wrong play, regardless of if you knew he had discard. Unless you're sitting in a late game situation where both decks are in topdeck mode and you can simply hardcast a Force, this is the wrong play. I haven't countered a Mystic in over a year, and the last time I did it cost me a match. It really shouldn't matter what they're getting, whether it's Feast and Famine or not. My philosophy here is if you have the option to Force it, then those cards are expendable anyway and can be discarded later by Feast and Famine so it isn't worth countering. The clock is 5-6 turns at best with this, which is plenty of time to find cards and win the game while still having that Force of Will as protection. Granted if they're attacking you with it for 4+ turns and you haven't won then it isn't likely, but point being you should be able to do before then. If they get Batterskull, then their clock is slightly larger but they lack that element of disruption which is better for you. Now if you Force it, you slow their (already slow) clock, but now lack two cards to protect against anything else in hand. I'd prefer to have them make me discard one at a time and take a few damage than lose my Force of Will when it could be used on something better. Plus, using Force on the Mystic also runs the risk of getting completely blown out if they have a second one. If you burn your Force on it and they follow that up with another one the following turn, you wasted the Force, whereas their second Stoneforge Mystic wasn't going to be relevant at all.




Also, I'm thinking we should simply close this thread and link to the new primer for future discussion (well done btw).

[feline]

Oh yea, I guess making a link to it would be a good idea, and thank you ^.^ I will always continue to add more to it, whether it's something I think of to add or anyone else that notes something significant, I also have a "candelabra discussion" in which I currently have about 19 "mini" paragraphs, literally 19 points / arguments / etc as to why to run candels, though I didn't know if I should add it because just with the evidence presented by previous decks and what's noted already, it should be fairly obvious to anyone doing research that candels are something worth getting.

-edit- actually now that I've typed that out and thought about it, I am going to make a -for- & -against- candelabra section, then people can see for themselves whether or not it's worth it to run them at all.

Anyhow the "updated primer" at the risk of selfishly promoting my own work: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...Deck-High-Tide

[Di]

We can continue any discussion in there from now on. And I also suggest you link the shit out of this thread as well Feline.