If you need to replace the Cliques, how about Mystic Snake? It has flash, is a creature and has added utility for the deck.
Thanks metamet. The tournament isn't until tomorrow evening but will be sure to report how it went! If you can be bothered would you care to comment on my current SB then?Originally Posted by metamet
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Submerge
2x Moment's Peace
1x Progenitus
1x Terastodon
1x Gilded Drake
4x Natural Order
I'm fairly happy with it except I don't have any artifact/enchantment removal. I started to think that won't be a problem except if my opponent drops an Ensnaring Bridge which I have yet to see live for more than 2½ months of weekly legacy.
You have Terry for the Ensnaring Bridges. :) I don't have any art/enchantment hate right now, and I'm not too terribly concerned... perhaps I'll be wrong, tho. KGrip is solid.
I would fit in 3 spell pierce/flusterstorm, as you want to bring in more counters when going all in on NO. I think you only need 3 pieces of gy hate depending on your meta, so maybe -1 relic, -2 Moment's Peace? Hrm... or maybe -1 Terry, but that card is pretty sweet, especially if you draw your other NO target.
Thoughts? I think we ought to get some more permission in there.
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I like the Snake, but I worry 4CMC is just a little high on the curve. Hmm...
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Terry... took me a minute :p
Umm, I see what you mean about additional counter magic. How about Daze over Spell Pierce? With pierce we need 5 mana to attempt a NO... it seems to be a recurring dilemma for me. Daze or Spell Pierce
PS: Just pre-ordered the new 15/15 wurm. :)
What counterspells do you have main? I'm running 4 FoW and 3 Daze, been pretty happy with it.Terry... took me a minute :p
Umm, I see what you mean about additional counter magic. How about Daze over Spell Pierce? With pierce we need 5 mana to attempt a NO... it seems to be a recurring dilemma for me. Daze or Spell Pierce
PS: Just pre-ordered the new 15/15 wurm. :)
Putting 3 Pierce in the side means that we're waiting that extra turn, but that extra turn typically doesn't matter much against control players, as they're durdling around and trying to get a good enough hand to match ours. We just have to outcounter them.
The 15/15 is sweet, if not for StP being out there... Grr. I am, however, thinking more and more about Empyrial Archangle. That card is bonkers against RUG and Burn, assuming we're able to land it.
And NO can't be hit by REB. Score.
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So I also don't have any Vendilion Cliques but I do own 4x Mystic Snakes from back in the day. But I chose to replace the two Cliques with 2 Wall Of Blossoms to get another draw off of it. Goldfishing it doesn't seem too terrible but I'd be open to suggestions on something better. I know lots of times when I draw the Wall Of Blossoms I wish it was one fo the 2 Wall Of Roots. Not sure the Snake is the answer though, but I do have them and would love a chance to play them again.
What do yo udo when you draw a second or third Manipulate Fate? Obviously the first one strips the Misthollow Griffins out. But I often draw another one and have no idea what to do with it. I have been stripping the deck of fetches at that point to thin it. Is that the right play?
Some times the deck just seems to flop around until turn 4 or 5 and I worry that is too long. Then some times it's a turn 2 Grizz and Spaghetti Monster at the same time.It's definately more fun, I just wonder if it's a 2-2 deck at best for my weekly tourney. I've been 3-1 and finishing 4th on tie-breakers for far too long. I need to get over that hump.
I used to run 1 Wall of Roots and 1 Mulldrifter before I cut them for Cliques. Those used to work really well.So I also don't have any Vendilion Cliques but I do own 4x Mystic Snakes from back in the day. But I chose to replace the two Cliques with 2 Wall Of Blossoms to get another draw off of it. Goldfishing it doesn't seem too terrible but I'd be open to suggestions on something better. I know lots of times when I draw the Wall Of Blossoms I wish it was one fo the 2 Wall Of Roots. Not sure the Snake is the answer though, but I do have them and would love a chance to play them again.
What do yo udo when you draw a second or third Manipulate Fate? Obviously the first one strips the Misthollow Griffins out. But I often draw another one and have no idea what to do with it. I have been stripping the deck of fetches at that point to thin it. Is that the right play?
Some times the deck just seems to flop around until turn 4 or 5 and I worry that is too long. Then some times it's a turn 2 Grizz and Spaghetti Monster at the same time.
Extra Manipulate Fates hit the other Manipulate Fates and whatever cards aren't relevant. I typically hit green cards such as mana accell, as blue cards are good with FoW.
Although the deck can take a few turns to go off, it's important to be aggressive with the mulligans. I'm not too afraid to go to six, but five I get a little hesitant over. As we run so many cantrips, hands with a portion of our combo already in hand are easily rewarded later on.
Don't forget you can take the alt route of killing people with 3/3 flyers. We easily transform into a very mediocre UG midrange deck while waiting for the last piece of our combo.
I'd say goldfish it for a while. I've been playing the deck for too long to remember the key points to picking it up fresh, so maybe some others might have better feedback for starting with it.
One small bit of advice: if you have Griffins RFGs and both a Fierce Empath and a Food Chain in hand needing to be resolved, remember that people will kill the Empath if it's already in play in response to you casting the Chain, so lead cautiously.
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Have been running 4 FoW and 2 Spell Pierce in my last 2 (very succesful) tournaments, but think I'm going to go back to Daze and up the count to 3 like you do.
Our lists are very similar. Where they differ (slightly) is that you run 3 Manipulate Fate whereas I only run 2. I'm happy with just 2 as it becomes dramatically less good after casting the first. That said, I can see the argument for running 3 as you would like to cast it every game. I also run Wall of Blossoms over Wall of Roots.
I really like Empyrial Archangel. It having Shroud really gives her the edge. I want a 2nd NO target. Just for redundancy's sake in case we start with Progenitus in hand and no Brainstorm. At the moment it is between: Terastodon, Worldspine Wurm and Empyrial Archangel. I'm tempted to take the easy way out and say that choice is meta dependant. Ideally we'd have a spot for 3 creatures in SB and could then side in the 2 most useful against any given match up. The Archangel is superb against RUG delver, Death & Taxes and other "fair" decks. But in some match ups, 5-power just isn't enough and won't end the game fast enough. Meh, if only the Worldspine Wurm would've had shroud! :)
Some things I toiled with early on was stuff like getting the right amount of counter magic right. I tinkered with playing as many as 10, playing 4x Force of Will, 4x Daze and 2x Misdirection. That is ultimately too many and I wouldn't recommend running more than 6-7 counter cards MB.So I also don't have any Vendilion Cliques but I do own 4x Mystic Snakes from back in the day. But I chose to replace the two Cliques with 2 Wall Of Blossoms to get another draw off of it. Goldfishing it doesn't seem too terrible but I'd be open to suggestions on something better. I know lots of times when I draw the Wall Of Blossoms I wish it was one fo the 2 Wall Of Roots. Not sure the Snake is the answer though, but I do have them and would love a chance to play them again.
What do yo udo when you draw a second or third Manipulate Fate? Obviously the first one strips the Misthollow Griffins out. But I often draw another one and have no idea what to do with it. I have been stripping the deck of fetches at that point to thin it. Is that the right play?
Some times the deck just seems to flop around until turn 4 or 5 and I worry that is too long. Then some times it's a turn 2 Grizz and Spaghetti Monster at the same time.
I also found that running too many cantrip-creatures made the deck too unreliable as they were great when you had Food Chain in play but were decidedly sub-par when you didn't. That means that all of those mediocre-looking creatures you might see on some lists such as Raven Familiar, Court Hussar and Coiling Oracle really are quite mediocre and you should limit or completely avoid them. Instead load up on Ponders and 1 or 2 Sylvan Library. A Jace is also nice.
Hi,
I dunno why do you want à NO plan in sb, it's just worth than Emrakul
-NO can be countered, and if it is you have lost à creature
- having a Progenitus let 2 turns to your opponent to find a solution, if Emrakul you get an extra turn and then instant win cos your opponent has no board to cast a WoG
I think that 1 Maga, traitor to mortals in SB is enough as an alternate wincon when Emrakul isn't good enough, it's instant win too and can't be hated
The NO plan lets you completely trick your opponent. For example:
You play against Maverick. You win game 1. They side in: 2x Krosan Grip, 2x Ethersworn Canonist and 2x Enlightened Tutor. You side out 4x Food Chain, 1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and side in 4x Natural Order and 1x Progenitus. They now have 6 dead cards and are completely un-prepared for your NO plan.
I think it can work. It is not a question of whether NO into Progenitus is better than Food Chain into Emrakul. It's a question of changing strategy to avoid SB hate :)
Lol, against Maverick 2-3 Krosan grip are enough in SB, no need NO plan
Not sure I completely agree with that. Krosan Grip doesn't counter Krosan Grip. It also doesn't deal with Quasali Pridemage.
Anyway, I have still to test it out tonight. Might not be as good as we hope, but I'm fairly optimistic. Will let you know this time tomorrow :)
I'm with you nevilshute. Pridemage and opposing KGrips are issues we can't always efficiently get around. The NO plan effectively sidesteps needing to.
I have high hopes for it. Looking forward to hearing your results! I plan on playing with NO on Thursday, so I'll be sure to have some feedback by then as well.
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I had also thought about the NO plan as well, mostly because I have them and wanted to do something with them. So this is sort of morphing into a two-for-one special for me. Something I was thinking about was running a single Dryad Arbor main deck and siding 2 Green Sun's Zenith. Couple reasons here, so hear me out. The main deck Arbor could be fetched in a pinch since it IS a Forest so it isn't totally dead. It also sacs to the Food Chain for a single mana which makes it less dead as well. And more importantly, post sideboard you can turn 1 GSZ into it to ramp a bit if you didn't hit a mana dork, then sac it to the NO as well.
Just a thought.
I have been thinking about a one of Dryad Arbor as well, maybe nixing one of the fetches for it. Not sold on the GSZ, however, as the 75 is pretty cramped as it is.
I'd consider giving the Arbor a run.
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Well I ended up going a decidedly avarage 3-3 last night:
vs BUG loam control - WON 2-0
vs Know and Tell - WON 2-0
vs Death and Taxes - LOST 0-2
vs Mono Red Burn - LOST 0-2
vs Maverick - WON 2-0
vs UB Delver control - LOST 1-2
The ones in bold are where I sided in our NO package. Against D&T I lost game 1 fairly clearly. Game 2 went much smoother and I was just waiting to hit a Natural Order having enough control over the board that it would win me the game (had 2x hierarchs and 1 bird so plenty of sacking targets and had a Clique swinging for 5). I even had a Sylvan Library which I shuffled twice with fetchlands and still didn't see a NO. 3 turns passed and he was at 5 but had by then established enough of a lead on the board to kill me and I just never got the NO. Against Maverick the NO package worked a treat. Caught him quite off guard and he just didn't have an answer for turn 4 Progenitus. Against UB Delver Control (which was played by a very good friend of mine) I won game 1, decided not to side in NO for game 2 and lost. Then sided it in for game 3 and lost that as well despite going off. It was stupid of me to bring in NO when I knew he was playing with Diabolic Edicts and no real sideboard plan for Food Chain anyway.
All in all I'm happy with the NO package and am going to keep it. I really liked Terastodon because twice it killed a Liliana of the Veil which would otherwise have seen me sacrifice Proggy.
I won't say the NO plan was a jaw dropping miracle cure for our deck but it definitely adds some flair against certain match ups such as Maverick and Death and Taxes. A thing to be aware of, however, is that it is far from a no brainer move between game 1 and 2. There are several match ups where it's certainly not an auto switch. In these cases it's better to not switch between g1 and g2 and instead wait and see if he has some answer in his SB for Food Chain that you weren't aware of.
Here's my list for reference:
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
3x Ponder
2x Manipulate Fate
3x Misthollow Griffin
3x Noble Hierarch
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Fierce Empath
2x Mulldrifter
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Wall of Blossoms
1x Aethersnipe
1x Griselbrand
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Sylvan Library
4x Food Chain
4x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Windswept Heath
1x Flooded Strand
2x Ancient Tomb
3x Forest
3x Island
4x Natural Order
1x Progenitus
1x Terastodon
2x Submerge
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Moment's Peace
2x Spell Pierce
So to sum up: All in all I'm happy with how the NO plan worked... and all in all I hate Death and Taxes - that deck seems so hard to beat it's silly. But even though it didn't pan out I felt like the NO plan gives us a big boost especially against D&T.
Thanks for the writeup! I can see how digging for one of four cards can catch you up, as it's happened to me with FC before as well.
Quick thoughts on that: what if we sided in the NO package in addition to FC? Say something like:
-2 Mulldrifter
-1 Misthollow Griffin
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-1 Gris
+4 NO
+1 Progenitus
That way we have 8 cards to dig for. Thoughts?
And I can see how Terry would be perfect when our opponent has a Lily. Forgot she's a card. :)
And why are you still running Maga?! :P
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That's not a bad idea at all. I jus finished testing that SB strategy against a friend of mine (UB delver control) and it seemed smoother.
Think there are still match ups where it will work nicely to side out Food Chain altogether and just run the NO package with whatever else you might need for that match up. Think it will take some time for us to get the hang of when to do what but I'm really pleased with the flexibility the NO package offers us :)
And regarding Maga... well I've actually been thinking a lot about it and here's the thing:
you're running 3x Empath and 1 Emrakul, I run 2x Empath, 1x Emrakul and 1x Maga. If you take away that Empath can tutor for Grissy and Aethersnipe then we're basically left with 4 win condition draws each, if you follow. And I have to admit I like having the chance to get a win condition that instant kills and gets around stuff like Ensnaring Bridge or a board with 6-7 Bitterblossom faeries and 5-6 swamps and me on low life.
The argument that Maga can be countered whereas Emrakul can't is well and good. But Maga is there in place of a Fierce Empath and the Empath can be countered as well. Also, if you're sitting with Maga in hand and a Griffin RFG and a Food Chain on the board and you try to go off then what is going to get countered most of the time is your griffin, in my experience. If your Griffin resolves then 99% of the time it means they can't counter.
Anyway, Maga rant over :p
Seems fair. We can chalk this one up to style points. :P
I will be playing it tonight and will hopefully have some feedback. Glad to hear your thoughts on the NO+ sideboard! Especially if the Food Chain gets countered and is just a decoy anyway. haha.
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