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Thread: [Deck] Zombardment

  1. #501

    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    I think he's too dangerous in a grindy deck. Unplayable without a sac outlet, and I don't mean having one in the deck I mean having one available at all times.

  2. #502
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Last night, played in my community league and it was a rough one. I believe Marit Leige is the bane of my existence in the multiverse.

    Round 1 was against burn. They win the die roll and double fireblast me the turn before I can end the game. The opposite happens in game 2 and game 3 is a literal repeat of game 1. This feels like a very 50/50 matchup that is play draw dependant. I'm playing hymns in the sideboard discard spot over collective brutality. I think hymn is a better sideboard card overall. Besides who plays burn in the real world anyway?

    Round 3 I played against Turbo Depths again. Game 1 I'm dealing with a 20/20 before I can even cast lingering souls. Game 2, I board in 11 cards, they take my edict, make a 20/20. I play bridge and they abrupt decay it. Feels like groundhog day from my paper event. That being said, I ended up talking to my opponent for a bit about the theory of the matchup. He said that if I faked an edict, he wouldn't have gone for it. That being said, I don't can't just pretend to have it for multiple turns without playing to the board.

    At this point, I'm going to start playing Path to Exile over Abrade. The manabase can easily support it and there is a very bizarre corner case where you can path your token to get the land to trigger bloodghasts. Normally STP would be the go-to card, but it goes exactly against all the synergies of this deck. I haven't really been that impressed with abrade overall, as a maindeck card, fine as a sideboard card though.

  3. #503
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Has anyone ever pondered the value of Undiscovered Paradise compared to another Fetch? Paradise is like the coolest land and THIS is the deck to play it in, but, how good (or bad) is it? I've been thinking about it in my frequent obsessions over the deck and here's what I've come to:

    It starts with what role you give the card in your deck. Paradise is either part of your manabase, or part of your spells. As a part of your manabase, here's what it has going for it:

    Pros:
    -Adds 3 colors

    Cons:
    -Returns to your hand every turn preventing you from making tempo gains with additional land drops
    -Nonbasic (vulnerable to x, y, z)

    The fact that it returns to your hand every turn makes it unfit for an opening land. It is certainly too much of a drawback as your Land drop #1-2 and can even incur important losses as a 3rd Land drop. You basically can't keep a 1 lander with Looting and Paradise and a 2 Lander can be severely slowed down by a Paradise in the mix. This means Paradise leads to more mulligans and more sub-par hands when it is part of your manabase.

    Verdict: Paradise can't be calculated as a part of your manabase. If you need 20 or 21 lands to optimize your curve, you will need 20 or 21 real lands. If you need half a land (like 20.5 lands), that is the grey area where a Paradise is acceptable as a 21st Land but not necessarily optimal. Another fetch is likely to be superior as I will further explain below.

    Now, if you view Paradise as a spell in your deck, it might come to no surprise that triggering Landfall every turn at the cost of a land drop and adding any color of mana is quite underwhelming. Compared to all the other cards you could be playing instead, that small bit of synergy is extremely narrow. When is the last time you've thought: "Man, if I draw Paradise in this matchup they are in deep sh..." ? Even a fetch as a "spell" has more value in most matchups because it reads as:

    -Pay 1 life, reduce the cost of Delve spells by 2 (Gurmag synergy)
    -Pay 1 life, search your library for a Basic Land (Against Wasteland, Moons, and PoP)
    -Trigger Landfall once, you may pay 1 life and trigger landfall again at any time (Additional immediate synergy with sac effects and good against Surgical and sorcery speed sweepers)
    -Significantly decreases the odds of drawing a Land over the course of a long game which translates to more live draws with a developed manabase.

    If Paradise is not a good Land and not a good Spell, and there are plenty of superior alternatives out there, why are we still playing it? Perhaps I am missing something here and someone could enlighten me. I think we play it because it looks nice and it tickles our fancy when players have to read our cards... Paradise makes us feel special.
    Last edited by Qweerios; 09-13-2018 at 03:27 PM.
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  4. #504
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by maCHOOga View Post
    Last night, played in my community league and it was a rough one. I believe Marit Leige is the bane of my existence in the multiverse.

    Round 1 was against burn. They win the die roll and double fireblast me the turn before I can end the game. The opposite happens in game 2 and game 3 is a literal repeat of game 1. This feels like a very 50/50 matchup that is play draw dependant. I'm playing hymns in the sideboard discard spot over collective brutality. I think hymn is a better sideboard card overall. Besides who plays burn in the real world anyway?

    Round 3 I played against Turbo Depths again. Game 1 I'm dealing with a 20/20 before I can even cast lingering souls. Game 2, I board in 11 cards, they take my edict, make a 20/20. I play bridge and they abrupt decay it. Feels like groundhog day from my paper event. That being said, I ended up talking to my opponent for a bit about the theory of the matchup. He said that if I faked an edict, he wouldn't have gone for it. That being said, I don't can't just pretend to have it for multiple turns without playing to the board.

    At this point, I'm going to start playing Path to Exile over Abrade. The manabase can easily support it and there is a very bizarre corner case where you can path your token to get the land to trigger bloodghasts. Normally STP would be the go-to card, but it goes exactly against all the synergies of this deck. I haven't really been that impressed with abrade overall, as a maindeck card, fine as a sideboard card though.
    I feel you, Burn is a cutthroat matchup that is probably around 55/45 in their favor. The fact that most Burn players are not expert Legacy players brings the matchup closer to 50/50, especially when they make dubious SB choices. I would argue that Brutality is better than Hymn as a SB card because it offers hand information if you are going for a discard play, synergy with the discard ability, and it is extremely versatile. I would only bring Hymn against non-GY Combo decks and some Control decks and that's not where I want to be postboard in those matchups anyway.

    I play against Marrit Lage on average once a week. However there are twice as many Lands players as Turbo Depths players in my meta and the Depths matchup is a bit worst. My track record for these matchups is positive but BG is often too fast and has all the right tools to take us down before we can take over.

    After realizing that 3 Surgical and 1 Purge wasn't nearly enough to take out Reanimator and that BG Depths was too unfavorable for my taste, I looked into StP and Path as a replacement for Push in my SB. This meant I had to squeeze in the 3rd Scrub in the main and make a choice between what the best exile removal was. For what removal is intended to in your SB, StP is far superior to Path. Here's why:

    Reanimator, Turbo Depths, and Lands (All Tier1)
    -You don't want to give them heaps of life. Path is better here. Note that exiling a reanimated threat is usually a 2-for-1 to begin with and they may have already paid the 8-9 life you are giving them back. Giving 20 life to Depths and Lands is still a 2-for-1 exchange but 20 life is a considerable chunk.

    RUG Delver (Tier1)
    -Path is better than StP but giving life is negligible. This is not a race matchup but one we take control.

    Death Shadow (arguably Tier1)
    -Giving them life by exiling any of their creature can clear the board of all Shadows. StP is a clear favorite.

    DnT (Tier1) and Maverick
    -Giving them a basic land is a big no-no on a any early Mom/Thalia. Giving them 1-3 life points is marginal.

    Eldrazi (Tier1)
    -If they pack a single Waste, Pathing can be devastating. If they don't, Pathing is better. I have a feeling we might see more basics when Trophy comes out...

    Infect (Tier 1.5)
    -Don't give them lands...

    Elves (Tier 1.5)
    -Path is a death sentence. StP is better.

    Dredge (Tier1.5)
    -Path is better here because they have no basics.

    Goblins (Tier2)
    -Pathing a Lackey is bad... Doesn't matter if you give them 1-2 life.

    Burn (Tier2)
    -Don't give them cards at any cost. This is a race matchup so you don't want to give them life either. However you can gain life with StP.

    Even though Path is clearly superior to Plowshares against the two Marrit Lage decks, StP is clearly superior to Path against the plethora of Tier1-2 aggro/tempo decks that we can struggle against. It is only fair to give Depths players 20 life after they have expended 2-6 cards into their combo and it is usually not enough for them to claw back into the game.
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by Qweerios View Post
    Verdict: Paradise can't be calculated as a part of your manabase. If you need 20 or 21 lands to optimize your curve, you will need 20 or 21 real lands. If you need half a land (like 20.5 lands), that is the grey area where a Paradise is acceptable as a 21st Land but not necessarily optimal. Another fetch is likely to be superior as I will further explain below.

    Now, if you view Paradise as a spell in your deck, it might come to no surprise that triggering Landfall every turn at the cost of a land drop and adding any color of mana is quite underwhelming. Compared to all the other cards you could be playing instead, that small bit of synergy is extremely narrow. When is the last time you've thought: "Man, if I draw Paradise in this matchup they are in deep sh..." ? Even a fetch as a "spell" has more value in most matchups because it reads as:

    -Pay 1 life, reduce the cost of Delve spells by 2 (Gurmag synergy)
    -Pay 1 life, search your library for a Basic Land (Against Wasteland, Moons, and PoP)
    -Trigger Landfall once, you may pay 1 life and trigger landfall again at any time (Additional immediate synergy with sac effects and good against Surgical and sorcery speed sweepers)
    -Significantly decreases the odds of drawing a Land over the course of a long game which translates to more live draws with a developed manabase.

    If Paradise is not a good Land and not a good Spell, and there are plenty of superior alternatives out there, why are we still playing it? Perhaps I am missing something here and someone could enlighten me. I think we play it because it looks nice and it tickles our fancy when players have to read our cards... Paradise makes us feel special.
    I like mulling over this card choice, which, as you mentioned, may be default-included in lists because it is oddball.

    My play style/decklist with Zombardment makes me think of Undiscovered Paradise as an over-the-top value engine that can be a trump card in grindy fair match ups, particularly against Miracles. That value assumes enough sac outlets in the deck (I play Feeders in addition to Bombardments). The endless recursion of Bloodghasts is pretty brutal for them, especially since it's a "may trigger" so you can hedge against Terminus/StP if your sac-outlet is M.I.A.

    That said, I found that in multiples Undiscovered Paradise is a real detriment to hitting three mana, so I've moved to only playing one (along with 4 basics, 5 duals, 1 Urborg, 1 Phyrexian Tower, and 8 fetches for 20 land total). I like playing 3-mana sideboard cards and I want to keep 2 lands hands that have a Faithless Looting.

  6. #506
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by maCHOOga View Post
    Last night, played in my community league and it was a rough one. I believe Marit Leige is the bane of my existence in the multiverse.

    Round 1 was against burn. They win the die roll and double fireblast me the turn before I can end the game. The opposite happens in game 2 and game 3 is a literal repeat of game 1. This feels like a very 50/50 matchup that is play draw dependant. I'm playing hymns in the sideboard discard spot over collective brutality. I think hymn is a better sideboard card overall. Besides who plays burn in the real world anyway?

    Round 3 I played against Turbo Depths again. Game 1 I'm dealing with a 20/20 before I can even cast lingering souls. Game 2, I board in 11 cards, they take my edict, make a 20/20. I play bridge and they abrupt decay it. Feels like groundhog day from my paper event. That being said, I ended up talking to my opponent for a bit about the theory of the matchup. He said that if I faked an edict, he wouldn't have gone for it. That being said, I don't can't just pretend to have it for multiple turns without playing to the board.

    At this point, I'm going to start playing Path to Exile over Abrade. The manabase can easily support it and there is a very bizarre corner case where you can path your token to get the land to trigger bloodghasts. Normally STP would be the go-to card, but it goes exactly against all the synergies of this deck. I haven't really been that impressed with abrade overall, as a maindeck card, fine as a sideboard card though.
    Curious as to how Path (or Swords, whatever you choose) plays out for you.

    It does suck when you bring in most of the board against something like Turbo Depths and they disard/Decay/needle away all the hate pieces. I play two Magus of the Moon in the board as one more potential haymaker... obviously it can also be hit by all those cards, but since they sometimes "go for it" and tap out to tutor a key land combo piece (Sylvan Scrying or the like) the Magus can really gum of their works.

  7. #507
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by shonenkakumei View Post
    I like mulling over this card choice, which, as you mentioned, may be default-included in lists because it is oddball.

    My play style/decklist with Zombardment makes me think of Undiscovered Paradise as an over-the-top value engine that can be a trump card in grindy fair match ups, particularly against Miracles. That value assumes enough sac outlets in the deck (I play Feeders in addition to Bombardments). The endless recursion of Bloodghasts is pretty brutal for them, especially since it's a "may trigger" so you can hedge against Terminus/StP if your sac-outlet is M.I.A.

    That said, I found that in multiples Undiscovered Paradise is a real detriment to hitting three mana, so I've moved to only playing one (along with 4 basics, 5 duals, 1 Urborg, 1 Phyrexian Tower, and 8 fetches for 20 land total). I like playing 3-mana sideboard cards and I want to keep 2 lands hands that have a Faithless Looting.
    It's interresting to me that you see Paradise as a value engine against Miracles where I see it as a liability. The reason why I think so is because Miracles GY hate is mostly a combination of Surgical and Priest. When I grind Miracle out with Ghast and Bombardment I want to make sure I have 1-2 fetches in play in order to be able to keep up the pressure against any incomming GY hate (Surgical + Priest, Snap + Surgical). At this point we are talking about a 2-3 land board + 1-2 fetches + Bombardment + Ghast(s). To me that's a fairly advanced lategame stage and Paradise over any of those cards isn't necessarily pushing it over the top. By the time they start throwing removal spells and snap bodies under the bus, you know they have their back against the wall and you should very likely have fetches in play and/or spare lands in hand by that point. To me the bottom line to this play pattern is that if I have this kind of board already, Paradise might as well be anything else and I would likely still win the game.

    I used to think "there's no harm in playing 1 copy" until I really tried to figure out where this card belongs. Granted there will be times when Paradise does provide that grind, I would argue they are few and far between. However, the losses incurred by having Paradise as a part of your manabase or as a lackluster spell are much more common.

    I play 11 fetch, 6 duals, and 3 basics for a total of 20 Lands. I want to get 2-3 Land hands in my openers every game and I want to be able to keep 1 landers with Looting. In order to accomplish this you need 20-21 Lands in your deck that can be your first 1-3 land drops. Paradise and Tower fall in the 21st+ category where they start competing with flex slots like removal spells.

    How do you like Urborg? I really like how it allows us to preserve fetch activations but there are a few things I am really not OK with. The big one is that I don't want to give Lands and Depths players the ability to tap Depths for mana. The next reason is that I don't want to allow any deck playing Tomb to tap it without losing 2 life. I don't mind potentially fixing my opponent's mana, or being slightly more vulnerable to nonbasic hate if it means I get more freedom over my fetch activations.
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  8. #508
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    @ Qweerios
    I'm glad we have the same train of thought regarding the removal. Obviously STP > Path but I wasn't sure if there was enough time to grind lands/depths down by an additional 20 points without playing the matchup.

    Celestial purge, that seems like a reasonable 1-of.

    The thing you forgot to mention is undiscovered paradise is terrible in multiples. It's happened to me one, but I just looted the 2nd copy away.

    Regarding the list of tier decks, this deck is Tier Z. :-)

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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by Qweerios View Post
    It's interresting to me that you see Paradise as a value engine against Miracles where I see it as a liability. The reason why I think so is because Miracles GY hate is mostly a combination of Surgical and Priest. When I grind Miracle out with Ghast and Bombardment I want to make sure I have 1-2 fetches in play in order to be able to keep up the pressure against any incomming GY hate (Surgical + Priest, Snap + Surgical). At this point we are talking about a 2-3 land board + 1-2 fetches + Bombardment + Ghast(s). To me that's a fairly advanced lategame stage and Paradise over any of those cards isn't necessarily pushing it over the top. By the time they start throwing removal spells and snap bodies under the bus, you know they have their back against the wall and you should very likely have fetches in play and/or spare lands in hand by that point. To me the bottom line to this play pattern is that if I have this kind of board already, Paradise might as well be anything else and I would likely still win the game.

    I used to think "there's no harm in playing 1 copy" until I really tried to figure out where this card belongs. Granted there will be times when Paradise does provide that grind, I would argue they are few and far between. However, the losses incurred by having Paradise as a part of your manabase or as a lackluster spell are much more common.

    I play 11 fetch, 6 duals, and 3 basics for a total of 20 Lands. I want to get 2-3 Land hands in my openers every game and I want to be able to keep 1 landers with Looting. In order to accomplish this you need 20-21 Lands in your deck that can be your first 1-3 land drops. Paradise and Tower fall in the 21st+ category where they start competing with flex slots like removal spells.

    How do you like Urborg? I really like how it allows us to preserve fetch activations but there are a few things I am really not OK with. The big one is that I don't want to give Lands and Depths players the ability to tap Depths for mana. The next reason is that I don't want to allow any deck playing Tomb to tap it without losing 2 life. I don't mind potentially fixing my opponent's mana, or being slightly more vulnerable to nonbasic hate if it means I get more freedom over my fetch activations.
    Definitely a good point about the fetches vs. Containment priest. Although in game 1s vs. Miracles' frequent main deck Back to Basics, the Paradise feels great. In terms of Urborg, yes, it is terrible to fix the mana of Turbo Depths (although if they play their own copy, then no prob) or give Tomb-decks the choice to avoid losing life. And letting Brainstorm decks have more flexibility over their fetches is no joke. But the upside with Ghasts can be insane, and I tend to sandbag it if I don't need it. It is the same problem you mentioned with Paradise--it's more like a spell than a land many times. The utility land that I have found the best, surprisingly, is Phyrexian Tower. The sac outlet is quite good, but the fact that is a double-black sol land at times can be very swing-y and powerful... Feeder+Crawler can be a real clock, but it's slow and mana intensive, and the tower has been great there. Since Tower is quite powerful but doesn't yield colored mana right away, I like pairing it with Urborg.

    I only play in paper, so my number of reps is pretty low, sadly... my ideas come more from theory-crafting than extensive gameplay.

    All that said, I think you're arguments for a clean (fetches/duals/basics) manabase make sense--it probably is optimal. I'll give it a shot in the coming weeks. Spicy stuff is fun, but so is consistency and winning.

  10. #510
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by shonenkakumei View Post
    Definitely a good point about the fetches vs. Containment priest. Although in game 1s vs. Miracles' frequent main deck Back to Basics, the Paradise feels great. In terms of Urborg, yes, it is terrible to fix the mana of Turbo Depths (although if they play their own copy, then no prob) or give Tomb-decks the choice to avoid losing life. And letting Brainstorm decks have more flexibility over their fetches is no joke. But the upside with Ghasts can be insane, and I tend to sandbag it if I don't need it. It is the same problem you mentioned with Paradise--it's more like a spell than a land many times. The utility land that I have found the best, surprisingly, is Phyrexian Tower. The sac outlet is quite good, but the fact that is a double-black sol land at times can be very swing-y and powerful... Feeder+Crawler can be a real clock, but it's slow and mana intensive, and the tower has been great there. Since Tower is quite powerful but doesn't yield colored mana right away, I like pairing it with Urborg.
    I play 2 Swamp and a Mountain already so one of the only things that Paradise brings to the table against B2b is the ability to hardcast Souls when all my Scrubs have been fetched/tapped. It also acts as a 4th Land which is more relevant in this narrow scenario. Paradise is not bad here but isn't a trump card by any stretch.

    If Depths play their own Tomb then no prob? No, the problem is still there and you've increased their odds of going off earlier by playing Tomb yourself... Say they have 2 Tombs in their deck and on average they see 2-3 cards before going off, this gives them roughly 1/3 odds of going off with Tomb. If we add 1 Tomb from our side to the mix they now have 1/2 odds of going off with Tomb. Accelerating Marrit Lage by a turn is a huge drawback for our deck. If it wasn't for this one drawback I would consider Tomb as a boon. As of now, Uborg seems more like a solution in search of a problem (Tower).

    In general Tower will grant you one extra mana per turn at the cost of a body, and will give you worthless colorless mana without any spare bodies. Feeder + Crawler + Tower doesn't give you any mana advantage without another spare body to sacrifice. In fact, without a spare body, Tower doesn't even provide a single colored mana... The only good body to sacrifice here would be a Bloodghast and it requires a Land to recur. At that point dropping a fetch instead of a Tower in the mix gives you +3 to Feeder (2x Landfall + mana) while Tower gives +2 (landfall trigger gets used for 2 mana). If you have multiple Ghasts, Tower > Fetch becomes a drawback. Note that in the absence of Crawler altogether, Feeder + Ghast benefits less from a Tower than a Fetch too. The best use for Tower in my list would be to slam a T2 Liliana with proper T1 setup. Again, I don't play Feeder anymore because I don't like sinking resources in a more vulnerable version of Gurmag that can't block. Sadly, I don't think colorless nonbasics have a home in this deck...

    Bottom line is: Fetches are better than all the utility Lands you could play. More fetches makes a better deck!
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by Qweerios View Post
    Bottom line is: Fetches are better than all the utility Lands you could play. More fetches makes a better deck!
    Sound reasoning. I'll give it a shot.

  12. #512

    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    I went 3-0 (id the last match, it was maverick, thank god ) on our weekly 4 rounds tournament last monday with the list very similar to qweerios (1 explosive 2 abrades maindeck, changed fatal pushes to swords to plowshares on the board);

    Matches were vs miracles, sneak n show and punishing naya zoo(something like that)!

    Some notes:

    - back to basics could have ended the game for me (3 swamps, 3 badlands, 3 scrubs, 11 fetches), basic mountain and arid mesa is something i wanna try next tournament;
    - abrade and explosives maindeck were very good, i was able to take ooze vs naya before things get bad... also got some jitte and monastery mentor;
    - cabal therapy is definately my favourite card of the deck, its very hard to play another deck after using cabal therapy to its maximum effect
    - never got the chance to use swords to plowshares;
    - 3 bombardment was a little weird, vs naya i was stuck with 2 on my hand and 1 on the play;
    - i found myself boarding out suppliers on every matchup, and that worked pretty well... grave hate is very high and being able to not mill my lilianas/gurmags worked out great! Its also better for playing around surgicals;
    - gurmag won me some games alone;
    - lingering souls is too strong in some matchups, the pressure is very high;

    Some thoughts:

    Sometimes the deck looses his gas pretty quickly when we dont draw lootings (happened vs sneak and show and miracles),
    I thought about using a light enlightement tutor package, so we can get the piece we need for, and makes the deck less reliant on graveyard. Some targets:

    - goblin bombardment
    - ensnaring bridge
    - bitterblossom
    - hidden stockpile
    - phyrexian arena
    - explosives
    - tidehollow sculler
    - maybe seal of cleansing instead of wear/tear

    There is probably a lot more!

    We already have the best tutor (entomb), and adding a second one contributes greatly to our game plan!

    Any thoughts on this?

  13. #513
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Nice going johncarvalho! I am glad it's working out for you.

    I played ETutor both before and after DRS and it doesn't work with Supplier. You end up playing too many narrow 1ofs in your SB that can get milled away. In many matchups you don't want to lose a draw step for a specific card. The silver bullets are also slow and narrow and tend to waste SB slots. Furthermore, the grindy bullets like Blossom and Arena are terrible to Etutor for when you think about it... The best ETutor targets I played were Tormod's Crypt, Pithing Needle, Alpine Moon, Bombardment and EE because they are quick and/or crippling. The worst ones were Ensnaring Bridge, Blood Moon, Jitte, Seal of Cleansing, Grave Pact, and Bitterblossom because they were all excruciatingly slow or just worst versions of availlable cards for the sake of being tutorable.

    Basic Mountain is a great silver bullet. I don't hesitate to side it out either when my land count is too high for the matchup. Mountain makes a big difference against Delver, DnT, PoP, B2B, Lands (Purge that single GQ and you're good to go!).

    I started playing even more lately and hit a monthly and 2 weeklies this week after being sick. My deck is very fine-tuned to my eyes so I am really grinding out details at this point. I ended up playing against the following decks:

    Lands (7-4) pre and post-StP SB
    Grixis Control (4-1)
    Stoneblade (4-0)
    Maverick (3-2)
    BR Reanimator (1-4) pre and post-StP SB - probably our single worst matchup!
    Sneak n Show (2-1)
    Death's Shadow (2-1)
    Eldrazi (2-1)
    Nyx Fit (2-1)
    Turbo Depths (1-2) pre-StP SB
    UW Delver (1-2)

    Here's my latest list and some card explanations:

    Core (35)
    4 Stitcher's Supplier
    4 Gravecrawler
    4 Bloodghast
    1 Scourge of Nel Toth

    4 Entomb
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Cabal Therapy
    4 Faithless Looting
    3 Lingering Souls
    3 Goblin Bombardment

    Flex (4)
    2 Abrade
    2 Engineered Explosives

    Manabase (21)
    1 Undiscovered Paradise
    4 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Polluted Delta
    2 Verdant Catacombs
    2 Marsh Flats
    1 Arid Mesa
    3 Badlands
    3 Scrubland
    2 Swamp
    1 Mountain

    Sideboard
    1 Coffin Purge
    3 Surgical Extraction
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    4 Wear // Tear
    3 Liliana of the Veil


    All the cards in the "core" section should be no surprise. I've tried and tested various configurations with Feeder, Bridge and Gurmag and those cards are not core but take up flex slots. I've devised a metagame map with the 10 tier 1 decks and 10 tier 2 decks and used this list to determine the flex slots. As long as DnT and Stoneblade decks will be at the top tables and that Chalice remains a common contender, a couple of Abrades are required. The biggest change I've come to realise lately is that the 2nd EE and the 21st Land are better than 2 Gurmag against more decks in the meta (DnT, Death Shadow, Blade, Stompy, Maverick, Storm, Lands). Furthermore, the decks against which Gurmag shines the most (Delver and Eldrazi) benefit even more from another Land against mana denial and EE has a similar impact than Gurmag on the board (Delver/Shadow/Mongoose Wrath and destroys Chalice). Besides, Scourge already plays Gurmag's part quite well in those matchups. By switching out Gurmag for EE I lose some percentage points against Grixis Control but this matchup is already extremely favorable (I Won my last match with a bad mull to 5). Another big reason to play EE>Gurmag is how it frees up SB space for a 4th StP. Between Plow and Gurmag, Plow is arguably the card I want the most... I could see a 1/1 Gurmag/EE split main with the second EE in the SB being valid because EE/Gurmag are both clunky in multiples so reducing them both to 1 copy avoids tension.

    After all this talk about Lands I ended up playing a 2nd Mesa over Paradise as my 21st Land. I reverted to Paradise for as long I play 2 copies of EE mainboard. Paradise allows me to jam those stranded EE's at 4 against Miracles and Grixis (Jace, Kess, Gideon) while providing white mana against B2B to hardcast grindy Souls. I play no less than 21 Lands because it gives me aproximately an additional 6% chances of having 3+ lands by T3 (therefore decreasing my odds of having less than 3 lands by T3 by 6% in the process) and brings up my odds of having 2+ lands in my opener by about 4% IIRC. These are relevant percentage points against mana denial strategies.

    On to SB cards:

    3 Surgical and 1 Purge is still the best GY hate package I could figure out. Leyline is narrower and easier to deal with. The best way to beat BR Reanimator is to extract all copies of Griselbrand and grind it out with StP/Liliana. Surgical is more potent against Lands than other GY hate cards and offers needed disruption against SnT and Storm.

    3-4 StP do everything we need from 1 mana removal against Lackey, Swiftspear, Guide, Delver, Mom, Thalia, to fatty removal against Gurmag, Shadow, Goyf, Ooze, KotR, Eldrazi, to combo hate against Elesh Norn, Chancelor, Iona, Tyrant, and Marrit Lage. I will play the 4th copy as long as the 2nd EE remains in the main.

    4 Wear // Tear are simply a must if you want to win again Chalice + Leyline decks (Eldrazi, Loam, Steel Stompy, Red Stompy). Our deck cannot play against pressure + Leyline and Wear is the only card that can destroy a Leyline in time while simultaneously be able to destroy Chalice. They also work wonders against any SFM + RiP deck (Blade and DnT).

    3 Liliana as usual is my prefferred weapon against Control and Combo decks of all kinds. Symetrical discard leverages discard spells, GY synergy, and recurring sac effects quickly take over a fair board. Liliana may cost 3 mana but she does it all with a cherry on top.

    These cards are simply the most widely applicable, timely, and impactful cards I found through theory-crafting and testing. It's time to start tearing down major events now!
    Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
    Get it...? Ass, u, me?

    ... ffs I was trying to be funny...

  14. #514

    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Very nice man, thanks for all the text and card explanations! I will try the 2 EE no Gurmags list today!

    Your sideboard plan is just fight through the hate instead of a second approach, and i kinda like that very much! Staying true to the main deck concept!

    I will post a report tomorrow!

  15. #515
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by Qweerios View Post
    Here's my latest list and some card explanations...
    General question, with the removal of gurmags/carrion feeders. How often do you run into the situation when you end up with a gravecrawler in the graveyard and no zombie in hand/play to recur them?

    I agree that there are at most 5 flex slots in the mardu build if you entertain shaving a thoughtseize or entomb.
    *~*~*~*~*~*
    Looks like my list just posted to MTG Top8.
    Hopefully I get an opportunity to do some more tuning in the next 72 hours. Next step SCG Baltimore! :-)

  16. #516
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by maCHOOga View Post
    General question, with the removal of gurmags/carrion feeders. How often do you run into the situation when you end up with a gravecrawler in the graveyard and no zombie in hand/play to recur them?
    I will often dump the first Crawler to Looting and enable Crawler through Supplier or the next Crawler. The first Crawler can idle in the GY for a while. Nel Toth and Supplier are the main enablers. So far I haven't had issues with the zombie count but I also haven't played many games without Gurmag. I tend to go big on Ghasts and Souls for most of my games. I find that Crawler shines the most as a lategame machine gun enabler or early beats when going wide.

    What I dislike about Crawler + Feeder as an early play is that you are putting all your eggs in the same basket. Sinking mana into pumping Feeder is a poor use of my early mana. At the point when I want to start pumping Feeder, Gurmag is what I want to be casting.
    Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
    Get it...? Ass, u, me?

    ... ffs I was trying to be funny...

  17. #517

    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Went 2-2 yesterday , losing vs miracles(0-2) and infect(1-2), and winning vs pox(2-0, he is also a zombardment player) and merfolk(2-1).

    I found myself diluting the deck so much when sideboarding (im not good at sideboarding, still needs lots of practice), but every g2 i felt the deck was a lot more inconsistent. i never knew what to take out, so i need to craft a sideboard map vs every matchup and study it a little.

    some notes:
    - vs miracles g1 was pretty winnable, but I played only 2 lands (a scrub and a swamp), and died with looting and abrade in hand... an early game mountain/badlands woud have drastically changed the game; I chained like 3 suppliers in a row, with cabal therapys, got like 3 ghats on the grave, some looting, but never saw the red mana
    - I made some mistake vs infect players, doing a looting or something instead of putting up a blocker, that costed me the game on turn 2; I also boarded in 3 Lilianas, and the infect player told me after that they're not good, because they cant kill Inkmoth (lost the 2 games to it); it was my second time playing vs infect, so I was a bit lost;
    - 2 explosives maindeck felt like much... I think I prefer the previous list, with 2 gurmags instead of explosives and undiscovered paradise;
    - 2 abrades maindeck is very nice;
    - for some reason I found 4 Swords to Plowshares to be much, not really sure why!

    I have a big tournament on Sunday, still not sure which list to play!

    @machooga

    Saw your decklist on mtgtop8, pretty nice man! How is that Sorin working for you, and what is your take o post sideboard matches, what do you usually board out? I assume bridge from below is a g1 winner only.

    That's it, keep zombarding!

  18. #518
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Here's my map:

    Tier 1:

    ●Delver (Grixis, RUG, Shadow)
    -4 TS -3 Therapy
    +4 StP +3 Liliana

    ●Eldrazi
    -4 TS -4 Therapy -3 Bomb
    +4 StP +4 Wear +3 Liliana

    Death n Taxes
    -1 Scourge -4 TS -3 Therapy
    +4 StP +4 Wear

    Stoneblade
    -4 TS -3 Therapy
    +4 Wear +3 Liliana

    Grixis Control
    -2 Abrade -1 Mountain
    +3 Liliana

    Miracles
    -1 Scourge -2 Abrade
    +3 Liliana

    Lands
    -4 TS -4 Therapy -2 Abrade
    +1 Purge +3 Surgical +4 StP +2 Wear

    ●Sneak n Show
    -1 Scourge -2 Abrade -2 EE -2 Souls -2 Bomb -1 Mountain
    +3 Surgical +4 Wear +3 Liliana

    Storm
    -1 Scourge -2 Abrade -2 Souls -1 Mountain
    +3 Surgical +3 Liliana

    ●Reanimator
    -2 Abrade -2 EE -3 Souls -3 Bomb -1 Mountain
    +1 Purge +3 Surgical +4 StP +3 Liliana

    Tier 2:

    Burn / Goblins
    -4 TS
    +4 StP

    Maverick
    -4 TS -3 Therapy
    +4 StP +3 Liliana

    Steel Stompy
    -4 TS -4 Therapy
    +4 StP +4 Wear

    Dragon Stompy
    -1 Scourge -3 Therapy
    +4 Wear

    Aggro Loam
    -4 TS -4 Therapy -3 Bomb
    +4 StP +4 Wear +3 Liliana

    Infect / Elves
    -1 Scourge -3 Therapy
    +4 StP

    Turbo Depths
    -2 Abrade -2 EE -3 Bomb
    +4 StP +3 Liliana

    Dredge
    -4 TS -2 Abrade -2 EE
    +1 Purge +3 Surgical +4 StP
    Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
    Get it...? Ass, u, me?

    ... ffs I was trying to be funny...

  19. #519

    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    @qweerios very nice man! I will study that a bit!

    Thanks for the time you put into building this deck man!

  20. #520
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    Re: [Deck] Zombardment

    Quote Originally Posted by johncarvalho View Post

    Saw your decklist on mtgtop8, pretty nice man! How is that Sorin working for you, and what is your take o post sideboard matches, what do you usually board out? I assume bridge from below is a g1 winner only.

    That's it, keep zombarding!
    Sorin was a fun-of. He helped me rick-roll miracles. I wanted a way to make flyers and also be able to push through damage faster. Turns out that he is really weak to K-command, as if you make a token they will kill him and make you discard.

    It depends on the matchup and what time of removal they are running. I left it in against miracles because game 1 they played 2 supreme verdicts against me. Any deck with spot removal is fine. If they want to 2 for 1 themselves to clear a bridge that is fine by me. I also feel like I board in hymn in nearly every matchup.

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