Valid. I got you wrong
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Originally Posted by Echelon
I tried boarding out all three Chrome Moxen all weekend against Miracles. It cost me my second round of the Legacy Open versus BBD two games in a row where I resolved Ad Nauseam and then had to pass only to have him peel an insane card off the top. I'll be leaving in a singleton Mox from now on.
I may cut the third decay for something else, five cards for Miracles was overkill. I'm just not sure what it should be, I don't miss Returns at all and don't think an extra Xantid/Chain are needed either.
Last edited by Bryant Cook; 06-16-2014 at 01:32 PM.
Question:
Did you side in Tendrils in that match ups?
How Pyroblasts were for you vs miracles? I would like to determine how pyro is vs miracles, from my own experience is not so good - its quite situational.
-2C.M,-1EtW,-2Ponder,-1Duress = +3A.D, +2Pyro,+1T.Seize
I think I would prefer:
-1C.M,-1EtW,-1Ponder,-1Duress = +3A.D, +11T.Seize
What do you think?
My Parfait Build
My Psychatog Build
Yes, I am advanced and you know it...
Suggestion: Play Magic as a Hobby. Competitiveness is uniquely usefull in this Era and just to evolve the human being to a certain extent...
If you're looking for an extra SB option, You could try Bribery for Sneak/Reanimator. Or the 2nd Ad Nauseam for outspeeding combo in general (could be relevant in MTGO, where combo is pretty prevalent, though lately that hasnt been the case for me). Both options are somewhat narrow, but are both considerations to fill the 15th slot. Beyond that, if Chain/Xantid aren't worthwhile, I can only think of corner case stuff like Chain Lightning or another discard effect/EtW etc.
EDIT: You could also try a karakas to curb reanimator, SnT, Teeg and Thalia, not sure how good thatd be though, its the one color of mana we dont play right now :/
Alternatively, you could just move Trop back to the SB as it's just an Island that can get wasteland'd in matchups where you dont have green cards. To fill the 60th slot maindeck, you could run another cantrip or chrome mox, though that could be overkill in either case, or perhaps a singleton ritual effect, maybe Cabal Ritual or perhaps even Manamorphose, just for greater mana density. It's too bad there arent other good tutor effects or that mainboard PiF is too high a CMC
On a slightly different note, I have a question for everyone about the BUG Delver and 12 Post matchups:
For 12 post, I've been boarding xantids and pyroblast, and treating it sorta like sneak and show. I've been successful so far, as they have a smattering of counters postboard but no real removal as the worst they could do is rotate/titan in a pendrell vale (note: that'd prolly be terrible for them anyway, in the case of rotation). I'm wondering if anyone has some other different plan for it, since it's kinda hard to peg them on some hate permanent when chalice hurts them too.
Regarding BUG Delver, and by extension BUG in general, aside from the obvious challenges of the matchups, I've been perturbed by Null Rod postboard. It's a one of that blanks nearly 20% of my deck and makes Ad Nauseam pretty bad. Is the weight of Null Rod enough that I should consider Chain of Vapor postboard (especially on the draw), or should I just try to aggressively discard it ?
Last edited by wonderPreaux; 06-16-2014 at 09:36 PM.
Bryant, is the list on the front page your most recent 75? It says it's updated as of 5/18, but the post was last modified 6/10.
In particular I'm wondering if you're still running the two Cabal Rituals that have been discussed in the last few pages, which aren't reflected in the deck presented in the OP.
The list in the opening post is correct. But I'm not sure how long that'll be the case.
EDIT: I'm going to test this over the next few weeks. I know it's not too different from previous weeks, but I'm trying to find that sweet spot with the list.
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Chrome Mox
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ad Nauseam
Sideboard
1 Tropical Island
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Pyroblast
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Thoughtseize
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Massacre
1 Past in Flames
Part of the problem with Cabal Ritual was it's slots took away from business and drawing a lot of mana sucked, well I'm pretty happy with tutor in the side and this is an alternative option to get another spell in the deck. I know going down to two mox isn't going to please everyone, but it's worth attempting for more raw power.
Last edited by Bryant Cook; 06-17-2014 at 10:32 AM.
I'm curious how would you sidedeck against esperblade or miracles with this list? If you generally cut EtW, a single ponder and a single chrome mox (keeping one for ad nauseam as you mentioned in an earlier post), thats only 3 cards out for the 4 you want for esperblade (tendrils, pyroblast x2, trop) or 5 youd want for miracles (decay x2, pyroblast x2 ,trop). it feels like there are too many cards to side in without hurting consistency (either from losing too many moxen or ponders) or just swapping some long game cards for other long game cards.
+1 Tropical
+2 Abrupt Decay
+2 Pyroblast
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Ponder
-1 Empty the Warrens
-2 Cabal Ritual
They tend to bring in Rest in Peace making Cabal Ritual pretty weak.
if youll forgive my lack of experience, could i ask where cabal ritual is really good? if you dont want it for UW control, tempo, prison, hatebear, or combo matches, im wondering where it really shines. Cabal Rit could be good for a midrange discard deck like jund or shardless, but i dont think those are particularly challenging matchups to begin with. Or is it generally about having more rituals g1 being worth the slightly worse Ad Nauseams and its not really matchup specific?
This is starting to look more and more like the TNT decks of a couple years ago. List for reference:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post600764
Obviously don't have the Gitaxian Probes (can't remember if the card was out back then), prefering a more fetchable manabase over the rainbow lands and having PiF/Tendrils instead of AdNauseam/Empty as the main plan.
Legacy: Rituals
Vintage: Drains
It's fine against Esperblade/Stoneblade, RUG Delver, BUG Delver, Shardless, Storm Mirrors, Death & Taxes (You now have 3 Moxes and Ponder to side out) and some others. Against Miracles I would leave it in if we didn't have so many cards to bring in, the problem is we have to take something out. It's really going to come down to whatever is in that slot.
We want a well rounded deck in game one, then just minor changes for higher chances of winning post-board.
Yeah dude, metagames change. Back then Spell Snare and Stifle were the nuts, it was right to play Silence then.
well, it's written on the primer, but I'll state this again:
the general goal of the deck is to resolve a empty the warrens, making the deck much faster than ANT and DDFT. (with consistency, unlike belcher and SI)
so, there are times you need to cast a spell for black, and combo through w/ red mana. also, being able to cantrip is essencial to the deck.
so give up the "playing around wasteland" with sheer raw power.
Yea I read the primer, but after taking a look at the 3 color old TNT lists which played a fetchable manabase and goldfished around T2 I thought it was still a valid point to bring up.
Legacy: Rituals
Vintage: Drains
well, I don't mean to be rude, but it's all about personal choice. if you feel like you should give it a try, you can and then give a feedback.
it's what a forum is all about: exchanging ideas and experiences to improve the deck. Besides, you don't have to play the exact 75 everyone here does.
I , for example, am playing the following:
4 gemstone mine
4 blue fecthes
2 Underground sea
2 volcanic island
1 tropical
4 BS
4 ponder
4 gitaxian probe
4 rite of flames
4 dark ritual
1 cabal ritual
4 LEDs
3 chrome M
4 lotus petal
4 cabal therapy
2 thoughseizes
4 burning wish
3 infernal tutor
1 ad nauseam
1 empty the warrens
SB
1 empty
1 tendrils
1 past in flames
1 massacre
1 infernal tutor
1 thoughtseize
1 grapeshot
2 surgical extraction (love this card)
2 chain of vapors
2 abrupt decays
2 xantid swarm
I play this 'cause of my meta (2 reanimators, no miracles , merfolk and omnitel playing chalice of the void, and a lot of pox and d&t). i still have no idea how to beat miracles, but this 75 has been really great for me.
so you gotta do, what u think you gotta do(playing 8 fetches w/ basics). think of here more of guidelines, instead of a rulebook =) (though this guidelines have been though a lot of testing...)
Right, I hadn't joined in with the discussion around adding Cabal Rituals, simply because I felt I couldn't support it but I didn't have time to disprove it, so I let it go for a while. But I do feel compelled to make a contribution, just to make sure another view is presented, so here it is. So the changes include:
+2 Cabal Ritual
-1 Infernal Tutor (moving it to the sideboard)
-1 ? (Mox, Discard, Ponder - whichever we feel isn't needed as much)
The reason for this change was that apparently some here wanted to improve the Past in Flames kill. Additionally, Cabal Ritual has benefits when trying to play around taxing counters. The cons include less likely fast Ad Nauseam kills (one less Infernal Tutor - we can now Wish for it, but that requires 7 mana instead of 5 after the tutor), and marginally worse Ad Nauseam when cast (one Cabal Ritual takes the place of a cheaper card). So all in all we improve the Past in Flames kill, at the cost of the Ad Nauseam kill.
My first question: Why would we want to do that? Both kills have their merits, but the nature of TES is that we want to go off as fast as we can. Past in Flames is our weapon of choice when we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we have time to prepare for it, but our main engines are the ultra-fast Empty the Warrens and Ad Nauseam. Yes, Empty the Warrens has become worse with Golgari Charm and the likes geing very prevalent in the meta, but we also run the full package of discard, which can help us protect the army of Goblins. And I don't think we should worsen our Ad Nauseam kill if we feel that Empty the Warrens is the problem.
Another argument against Cabal Ritual: it doesn't work very well for us. Yes, we did add some fetch lands, so we should be able to reach Threshold with more ease than before, but still we run a lot less fetch lands than ANT. On the other side we also have a meta full of Deathrite Shamans shrinking our grave. Granted, they don't do a lot of that on turn one, but then again we made our turn one kill worse, so the Deathrites will become a factor more often than in the old list. This brings me to my second question: can we not do better than Ad Nauseam? I'll try to answer this question after my conclusions.
My conclusions:
1. I vote against worsening our Ad Nauseam kill. I want all four Infernals main deck, so I have a bigger chance of finding one. So I will just drop the plan for improving my Past in Flames kill.
2. Cabal Ritual seems suboptimal in TES. We should look for a better card to improve our game against taxing counters.
Let me drop a few cards on you guys that can help us against taxing counters:
A. (sideboard) Carpet of Flowers
Pro's:
- Helps us cast all our spells, so always useful
- High power level
Con's:
- Opponent has influence over its functionality
- Off colour
- Takes up a lot of sideboard space
- Bad after an Ad Nauseam
B. (main deck) Additional lands (I have used this tactic for a while, running 13 lands instead of 12)
Pro's:
- Less no-land mulligans
- More fetches improve our cantrips
Con's:
- Wasteable
- Doesn't add to storm count
- Minimal effect on taxing counters (opponent can do the math)
C. (main deck) Simian Spirit Guide!!
Pro's:
- Can catch an opponent by surprise
- Initial mana is never bad
- Improves the speed of the deck
Con's:
- High CMC makes Ad Nauseam worse, though the initial mana can also help after Ad Nauseam
- Doesn't add to storm count
If we want to improve our game against taxing counters, I suggest we try this change:
+2 Simian Spirit Guide
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 ? (Ponder, Discard, Wish - whatever you feel you can do without. I vote to cut one Ponder. This will also be my first test setup.)
NOTE: The above is all my personal opinions on this matter. I don't want to insult anyone who suggested, or believed in, the +2 Cabal Ritual, -1 Infernal Tutor change. I just disagree with that change, and wanted to explain why, and offer an alternative.
I c your point, but the main reason I loved the cabal ritual plan is the come back ad nauseam it enables. In several grindy matches i played, i was only made possible to return to the game via 2 mana, cabal ritual ad nauseam w/ no other cards in hand. So I would say, in that sense, cabal ritual improved my Ad nauseam kills, although it worsens the AN in the argument you just did.
I liked you first and secont plans against taxing counters, but the third one (spirit guide plan) isn't worth it, since it doesn't help the speed all that much... I mean, it doesn't fill the graveyard, doesn't help the past in flames, makes us vulnerable to stifle.. i think it's a bad tradeoff... (but the pro's are really there. one more mana can make all the difference...)
You are VERY incorrect:
TES needs both Red and Black initial mana to go off, but also Blue for cantrips and Green for sideboard Decay and Swarm. While playing less lands than ANT. ANT only needs Black as initial mana to go off. It can use LED to make red for Past in Flames, so for ANT the Blue and Black mana are most critical. Red initial mana is very rarely needed for ANT. So TES has more colour requirements to meet with only 12 lands. That's nearly impossible with only fetch and duals, let alone basics.
Lem has been explaining this four times now. And if you don't believe us, make a 12 land mana base for TES with four colours, duals, basics and fetch lands, and play a couple of goldfish games. You will disprove your own point within 15 minutes, I guarantee it.
The list with 2x Simian Spirit Guide doesn't need to fill up the yard, and it very rarely uses Past in Flames. If it does use Past in Flames, the card is no worse than it was when we just played 3x Chrome Mox. By the way, the list is way faster because it carries more initial mana and an additional tutor that you can use to blast out EtW or AdN turn 1-2.
I really don't feel we need to improve the Past in Flames kill. We can easily win without even using it. We didn't need it before it was printed, and what new cards were printed that made us need it now? Delver of Secrets? Deathrite Shaman? Not those. Maybe Terminus and the prevalence of -1/-1 sweepers make Empty the Warrens worse, but I really don't think this should force us to switch to a weird ANTish list. It makes more sense to me to actually choose between the two, taking into account the way the meta develops.
As I wrote before: ANT need the Fetches for thres.hold, runs more lands overall and doesn't necessarily opt to combo T1/2. there is a lot of difference if your gameplan involves to drop 3-4 lands for a 4c manabase or if you want to cast spells of all 4 colors off only 1-2 lands. Having Ad Nauseam as your main engine compared with ANT/TNT's PIF also indicates that you can't afford to eat damage by opposing creatures just to develop your land-manabase.
www.theepicstorm.com - Your Source for The Epic Storm - Articles, Reports, Decktech and more!
Join us at Facebook!
Cabal Ritual's real strength is that it allows for more Ad Nauseams with mana floating as well as creating enough mana to utilize Burning Wish as a way to find Ad Nauseam. With more mana floating we need less Chrome Mox.
These were precisely the arguments against Cabal Ritual I had in mind several pages ago; I appreciate your more thorough explication here.
As I stated before, my own solution has been +1 fetch land (for consistency, both in mana and Brainstorms), +1 Chrome Mox (additional stability, turning otherwise dead cards into mana and free storm-count).
@johbri on Twitter
Bloodcookie on MODO
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote