I was refraining from posting due to the amount of posts that make my brain hurt, but this is something that is just outright bullshit.Originally Posted by Megadeus
Maybe it is his build, but I haven't seem him lose to UR. I mean if you get all of your Lightning Bolts sure. But how do you race an 8/8 KOTR with Protection?
There's an old adage a friend once told me which is applicable here: "When does Lightning Bolt kill Emrakul?" "When the controller is at 3 life".
It's basically the same idea here. We don't beat an 8/8 Knight with protection. We lose to that, the same way we lose to Emrakul, Griselbrand, or a Storm count of 10. The way we beat it is that we get the opponent to a very low life total before his Knight becomes unmanageable, and then burn them out from there. I can't explain it any better than that without watching the games your friend plays and seeing if, perhaps, he's getting lucky, perhaps the UR build is weaker to midrange than mine, perhaps the UR player is misplaying, and so on. Without that info, this is the best I can explain how I beat that matchup.
EDIT: I think perhaps you might be going about playing this deck the wrong way. A while ago, Andrew Schneider posted on this thread (I dunno...20 pages back or so?) about his build and his philosophy on playing the deck. At the time, Andrew said that he thought the deck was similar to burn in many aspects, and thus his sideboard plan for the matchups that were weak to burn would be to make his deck as close to burn as possible. He played stuff like Lava Spike in his sideboard, even. At the time, I thought he was insane, but as I became more accustomed to the deck I realized he was absolutely right. Rather than trying to play this deck as a Fish/Tempo deck (those types of decks have horrible midrange matchups), try playing it as a burn deck. That doesn't mean throwing bolts at your opponent's head willy-nilly (only bad burn players actually play burn that way); it means keeping careful track of life totals, planning 2-3 turns ahead of time so you know how much burn is in your hand vs how much life your opponent is at, and figuring out intelligent uses for your burn spells and your attack steps to make sure you get there when you need to.
Right. He said today actually that when he would play Andrew and his version he was a bit weaker. he probably had played against weaker opponents in sanctioned events. He said the best hands vs him were the delver hands. Goblin guide quickly becomes bad.
That's true, but you can't always draw the nuts, and Goblin Guide is better in most other matchups =P
I mean that is understandable. Im not saying GG is bad. Its a great card. That is probably the best T1 dude in the deck to play 90% of the time. Im just saying that against Maverick it gets outclassed easily. Which is why I could very well see Maverick being good against the Non delver draws of the deck. I legitimately would like to see the build that is good vs Maverick. I would like to know what he boards and such for it. Also the fact that Maverick can Swords its own 8/8 KOTR's to gain a bunch of life is solid. Along with MB Jitte for some builds. I can definitely see Maverick being a tough MU sometimes.
As I said, check out my build. It's on Page 51. It has a very good green-based midrange matchup. My sideboard, as previously mentioned, boards out the countermagic suite for a more burn and removal-heavy suite to try to race the tempo decks rather than trying to manage their threats with 1-for-2s and conditional countermagic. In particular, my general sideboard plan for green-based midrange is as follows:
-9x countermagic
+4x Submerge
+2x Smash to Smitereens (for Jitte, Batterskull)
+1x Price of Progress
+1x Fire // Ice
+1x Sulfuric ortex
+1x Engineered Explosives
Note that this is 9 cards out and 10 cards in; sometimes you bring in some cards and not other cards, depending on the particulars of the opponent's deck.
Why only the one vortex? It seems so good against like everything
What do you guys think of this list? Anybody tested Gitaxian Probe? Seems to me like it doesn't do enough against combo g1.
Mythic Games 3/9/13
Dan Bergquist, 7th Place
4 Goblin Guide
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Brainstorm
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning
3 Price of Progress
2 Vapor Snag
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Daze
3 Volcanic Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Arid Mesa
2 Island
2 Mountain
SB:
4 Submerge
1 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Smash to Smithereens
1 Force of Will
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Fire//Ice
I don't think it quite does what you think it does. A couple problems with Vortex:
1) The obvious one but the least one, it costs 3. This means you play it on turn 3. This means on turn 3 you're not playing Snap - Brainstorm, or Brainstorm - flip Delver - Bolt with Daze protection, or something else that costs 3 mana. It also means it's a dead card in your hand until turn 3.
2) Another problem, it costs RR. This means you can't curve Vortex easily into Snap - Brainstorm without fetching a Volcanic, which makes you weaker to Wasteland and your own Prices (you don't care about their Prices because you don't bring in Vortex against Price decks, but you do care greatly about your own Prices because you will often board both cards in at the same time). Casting it is awkward.
3) You never ever want to draw the second copy. The clock is just too fast, and having 2 cards that cost 3 basically ties up your mana for a large portion of the game. You can Brainstorm away the second one, but then you're not Brainstorming away land. Brainstorm is very strong, but you can't put too much pressure on it or it'll break.
4) Not enough room in the sideboard. It's really that easy. There was too much else I wanted to put in, and I ran out of space. The 16th card would probably be either the 2nd Vortex or the first Vendilion Clique.
My snap-judgments (which may or may not be accurate):
1) This guy's meta was full of Stoneblade. This looks like a build that really really wants to smash the crap out of anything playing Stoneforge Mystic. Between the Git Probes for their Forces, 10-piece countermagic for the counter-wars (with 2 more pieces on the board; I'm playing only 9 with 1 more on board), and the 3-piece Smash in the board, this guy did not want to get beaten by a Batterskull or Jitte, that is for damned sure.
2) This build looks like it might have some mana problems. 17 land is a bit lower than I'd like to play, especially in a deck running 3 Spell Pierce, 3 Price of Progress, and 3 Snapcaster Mage. He cut 1 Snap to compensate, but I'm not sure that's enough.
3) His sideboard looks razor-focused, which can be both good and bad. It can be good, because it means he knows what he wants to beat and he can always beat that, but it means that he loses game against the random decks that might pop up now and again. Against aggro decks that are nongreen, use few relevant artifacts, and don't use the graveyard much, there are at most 4 cards he can board in. This is a little low for my liking; I prefer a more well-rounded approach.
4) I've never played Git Probe, but I'm not quite sure what it does in this deck. Maybe he just wanted to play a 57-card deck? Maybe he wanted a 0-mana card that can get flashed back by Snapcaster due to his low land count? The card seems like a strange choice to me; I wouldn't play it without some more information on what it's there for.
Another list that should warrant some discussion :
Eudemonia 10/9/13
Jeffrey Tang, 2th
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain lightning
4 Vapor Snag
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Daze
3 Force of Will
1 Divert
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Underground Sea
1 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Mountain
SB:
3 Vendillion Clique
1 Force of Will
1 Divert
1 Sulferic Vortex
1 Umezawa's jitte
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Flustrestorm
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
3 Smash to Smithereens
So basically, this build is ditching Grim Lavamancer and Price of Progress for more counters and a full set of Vapor Snag, thus taking a more tempo-oriented direction but, at the cost of reducing the clock. I'd like to add that the creature count is lower than what seems like the accepted one but, by running the four Vapor Snag, removal isn't that scary anymore. I guess this is another example of builds leaning more towards RUG than Burn, which may prove accurate in the right metagame.
Last edited by Heresy; 04-04-2013 at 10:32 AM.
I could never ever imagine cutting Price of Progress from the main deck. Basically the only hope of beating Stoneblade G1 is maneuvering the game to a point where resolving Price or Vapor Snag on their Germ token wins the game.
Hello fellow UR Delver players, it's your cousin Nivmagus-Delver in the house again. Went 3-2 in GPT Strassbourg today, made it in top4 and went into finals, splitting Strassbourg bye's to other player who was going & getting 140 euros worth store credit for myself.
This tournament had pretty weird meta, there was another trial for big local tournament in other town same time. They had all the combo's, we had all the fair decks. Pretty many Rugs, few Bugs, Stoneblade variants and of course single Dredge and Turbo Eldrazi.
Something about matches & matchups.
Round 1 vs RUG Delver
Won the roll, T1 Nivmagus. He T1 Bolts it, I FOW with FOW, and eat it. Nivmagus 3/4. Nivmagus rolls the game by itself, getting pretty big and rolling over tarmogoyfs and Delvers, Game going to point where he double blocks 7/8 Nivmagus with 4/5 Goyf & flipped delver, bolting it, which I respond with flusterstorm, he scoops.
G2: He shuts himself out of green, by bolting T1 Nivmagus, I play second T2 and clout it. Clouted Nivmagus rides to victory while he finds green too late and Goyf gets submerged to clear way to lethal and massive Nivmagus.
Sideboard: -4x FOW -1 Daze, +3 Submerge +1 REB +1 Clout
1-0
Round 2 vs RUG Cascade
G1 I get there with big Nivmagus early and after he cascades board full of guys, I find Snapcaster to price of progress him for good amount.
G2 & G3, Techy Gilded Drake's & Firespout win him the games, also pretty good cascades.
I should probably not lose these games too often, since his deck needs mana and plays zero nonbasics. But yeah, happens sometimes. Luckily he is friend of mine.
1-1
Round 3 vs OOPS All Spells/Rogue Hermit/Boo yaa going for it
G1 Delver & Fow, Woop woop. He tries to go for it, but I have distruption needed and fast clock
G2 Have good distruption, but he has better. Two pact of negations get me despite very good hand and clock. Sutured ghoul swings me to game 3.
G3 Hand of Six consisting of 2 lands, Delver, ponder & 2 dazes. Delver blind flips from Flusterstorm. He was one turn short from Empty the warrens kill. Lucky me will luck.
Sideboard: -2 Price of Progress (duh), -1 Chain Lightning, -1 Grim Lavamancer, +3 Surgicals +1 Shattering spree.
2-1
Round 4 vs Junk Stoneblade (BWG Deadguy or Rock/w Mystics, who knows)
G1 Grim Lavamancers and burn. He lacks some removal and does not much else than deny me blue-mana and discard all my nice blue cards that rot in my hand.
G2 Delver T1, Delver T2. He lacking removal again. Lingering souls gets flustered first time, he considers flashbacking, but see's Sulfur Elemental & other Flusterstorm with IOK. Plays BOB for that turn, already at 5. Forgots BOB trigger, I say to not put it on stack after judge call ,even while he's at five life. Draw Price of Progress I was hiding top of my deck from brainstorm turn before he IOK'd. I had this game on so many fronts, but now when I think back to it, I should probably submerged confidant in response to trigger to do 2 damage and be sure he draws at least one "do nothing"-card that turn.
Sideboard: -4 Fow,-1 Chain Lightning, +1 Sulfur Elemental, +2 Smash to Smithereens, +1 Shattering spree, +1 Clout of Dominus
3-1
Round 5 vs URW Stoneblade
This guy was undefeated in tournament. He offered ID, but since there was some variables like possibility 9 point guy paired to 6 point guy winning and dropping me if I take ID, so I choose to play. I lost 1-2, after three very tight games.
G3 was high point of this... I dropped a Delver & Clouted it, he supreme verdicts. I drop Delver & clout it, he supreme verdicts. I play 2 Nivmaguses in two turns and proceed to give both some counters with flusterstorm to play around STOP's. He has detention sphere.
3-2
Was pretty sure I was out of top 4, but then came good news of 9 points guy losing to six point guy. Top4 was consisting of URW player with 15 points, Rug Cascade I played with 10 points and yours truly with 9 points.
Played URW again in semi's this time snatching 2-0 win. First game was him not just getting past 2 lands. G2 was grindy and I was on 1 volcanic island for like atleast 5 turns, but managed to keep into game by shattering spreeing batterskull etc. After going back and forth, me smashing his SOFAF to smithereens and removal being flung, he disenchanting my sulfuric vortex. I was at three life and he was at 2 in the end. His board was 2 mystics, Ethersworn canonist after attack. He supreme verdicted and tried to snapcaster a bolt to my face, my hand was luckily do-nothing-fetchland & flusterstorm. Then I took turn and dropped chain lightning from top of my deck, which I had put there with brainstorm (for some stupid reason I put the cards in order vortex, chain lighting...).
My opponent was feeling pretty bad, since he was going to GP and I had said that I am not going. But I had traveled few hundred km for this tournament, and this game was difference between 35 and 60 euros store credits for me, maybe even more. It turned out to be much more after I split finals for 140 euros worth store credits.
I feel sincerely bad for my URW opponent, but sometimes you have to do what is right for yourself, even if it means crushing someone else's dreams.
The List
18 Lands
2 Island
2 Mountain
4 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
13 Creatures
4 Nivmagus Elemental
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Snapcaster Mage
27 Sorcery/Instant
4 Chain Lightning
3 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Daze
2 Price of Progress
1 Clout of Dominus
SB
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Submerge
2 Smash to Smithereens
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Price of Progress
1 Shattering Spree
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Clout of Dominus
Thanks for reading
Jani & The Nivmaguses
Starcitygames Invitational 21 Points or Better
Lord Andrew Schneider
Creatures (15)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Goblin Guide
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Snapcaster Mage
Lands (19)
2 Island
2 Mountain
2 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Volcanic Island
1 Wooded Foothills
Spells (26)
4 Brainstorm
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Price of Progress
3 Spell Pierce
4 Chain Lightning
3 Ponder
Sideboard
2 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Price of Progress
2 Pyroblast
2 Smelt
1 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Lava Spike
Are we back? I've switched to Sneak Show for a while lol Congratulations Andrew!
I mean Andrew is just really good with the deck. Is the only deck he plays lol
Haha thanks. I haven't checked in here much recently I've mostly been trying out other decks. I'm not sure if its fair to call U/R well positioned again, I just played the deck I knew I would do best with (the money at the invitational is too good to mess up). That is what half of legacy is about in my opinion. I did LOVE my board at this event. The lava spikes still feel so right. If only I didn't lose my standard win and in to top 8 I could have played more rounds of legacy. drats...
Thanks, but you know I've tried other stuff. I just lose way more matches :)
Might be useful for a 20 lands build :
EDIT : There's some applications there and there but it's just an inferior Fire / Ice. Possible SB material?
Andrew Schneider
First of all, congratulations. Will there be a tournament report?
http://roxiecards.com/welcome-to-atl...tional-report/
I see you went to 19 lands. ;)
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