I was running Burning Wish for quite a while, actually (SCG Denver last August, although my sideboard was pretty awful and it hurt me all day). And now that I think of it - it's probably worth testing again in a new configuration. I could see cutting the 2 Reanimates and Tendrils from my list above for 3 Burning Wish. Would have to figure out the mana, obviously, but it may be ok. My biggest problem with BW is the mana requirements though - it's not nearly as powerful without LED's. But, as a 3 of tutor for Tendrils, reanimation, Snt, and other answers it may be fine. We do go infinite fairly easily, so making enough mana to actually go off should be fine. Will have to think about this and test it out.Originally Posted by phazonmuant
The best sideboard to date (in my opinion) has been with the red splash as well. It transforms into Grixis Sneak and Show very easily with BW acting as more copies of SnT. This might also lend credence to running a singleton Mox Diamond again as well to activate Sneak Attack. Definitely will have to get brewing with this...
As far as Doomsday goes - I wasn't a huge fan when I tried it. I attempted a Lab Maniac win as well as SI/Emrakul, and neither seemed very satisfactory. Not running SDT or Gitaxian Probe main means that you're taking up a LOT of sideboard space for the packages. And if you're boarding into DDFT, then you need LED's as well - and you're already over your 15 cards. SI/Emrakul is also pretty bad against tempo decks, and loses pretty bad to Karakas which would get boarded in after Game 1 reanimation anyway. That said - with Burning Wishes, it could be more viable. Something else to test, I suppose.
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
Huh, that actually sounds like a reasonable sideboard, but working red into the manabase is pretty miserable, and you likely end up with 0 or 1 basics, which is very unexciting. I'd be curious to see how much those changes affect your game 1 consistency.
I guess a SB splash for something like Ground Seal would be terrible? It turns off Goryo's Vengeance, but it does leave your shallow graves online, while turning off their targeted hate. The big issue is the green mana.
Pithing Needle is used against the same hate (Deathrite Shaman, Faerie Macabre), but also being able to shut down Crypt, Relic, Karakas, Planeswalker and stuff like Sneak Attack. That being said. Green does enable abrupt decay, solving Counterbalance and Chalice of the Void locks.
Edit: i hope my order is in time this weekend for a tournament as i am going to play this deck again with some slight changes in the protection suite.
Ground seal shuts down Extirpate effects as well though which needle cannot do.
If there is a green splash for protection, I would probably first look at City of Solitude. That turns off EVERYTHING during your turn, leaving you free to go crazy. Was looking at Abeyance for a while in the white splash for the same reason, but was finding that producing an addition 1W during the combo turn to be a little prohibitive.
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
I thought about ground seal too, but I just don't think it's where we want to be. It still doesn't stop Crypt, Relic, or Grafdigger's Cage, and Pithing needle is just much more versatile, cutting off things like Karakas and Jace that can be a real pain in the ass postboard. Personally, I'm starting to lean towards the idea of SnT + another combo postboard. RiP/Helm seems toughest to disrupt, and fairly compact. Something like
4 RiP
4 Helm
4 SnT
3 Pithing Needle
Although to be honest, I've been pretty happy with Show and Tell, Needle, Bounce, and Cabal Rits.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I still haven't played this deck against a non-combo opponent who was playing any reasonable disruption. Also I have only been playing it for four days or something so take this with a grain of salt. That said, I used to play regular Reanimator quite a bit and my biggest issues with the Show and Tell sideboard plan were:
1. Because it was impractical to side out ten reanimation spells and four Entombs and depend on four Show and Tells to win the game I always felt pulled between the reanimate plan and the Show and Tell plan. This led to two plans that are good on their own but, watered-down, it really wasn't as effective.
2. If everything went well and I cast Show and Tell on turn 3 to get a fatty into play it didn't feel fast enough to win the game consistently. Granted, this was when Jin-Gitaxias was the target of choice before Griselbrand came out, but I was still looking to get some advantage and turn that into a win rather than just get a big creature into play and win that turn. It made my Dazes worse and I couldn't Entomb for the right creature for the situation. Swords to Plowshares, Jace, Lilliana, Karakas and more are all big problems for the Show and Tell plan.
This argues, to me, that a transformational sideboard isn't the way to go for this deck. Regarding point #1, this deck does something really well. There aren't any graveyard hosers that can't be answered by tools available to us in these colors. Add a couple of Show and Tells, maybe, as a backup way to get Griselbrand into play but which are clearly secondary and keep most of the reanimation package as plan #1. I don't feel like Doomsday, Helm, etc are better than the main plan of the deck. Transformational sideboards are awesome but this feels like the danger of cool things to me.
Regarding point #2, with this deck's Dark Rituals, Lotus Petals, and Moxes it seems reasonable to Show and Tell before turn 3. Or fight through disruption in order to reanimate by turn 3-4. (Instant speed reanimation makes it easier as well). And, most importantly, once Griselbrand gets into play this deck often just wins that turn. It's harder without haste but still very doable. This is very often soon enough, especially against decks that bring in disruption rather than just try to race.
So those are my thoughts. Like I said, I haven't played the deck enough yet to feel authoritative about this. But I'm going to go with anti-graveyard hate (Pithing Needle and bounce), my own disruption (probably Force I'd guess if I can figure that out), and two or three Show and Tells and see if I can slow the game down if I have to to win through disruption in games 2-3.
What about Doomsday in the board....with Laboratory Maniac and Shelldock Isle, seeing as there is an Emrakul Main? Big issue I guess with that is that takes up a lot of sideboard slots and being vulnerable to wasteland. Does dodge the potential sideboard hate coming in.
I guess if you are going the Ground Seal route, you could also have Exhume since it's like Shallow grave in that it doesn't target.
I just built the deck, looks like a lot of fun. It's just the sideboard which I'm not sure of, especially seeing as I haven't played/tested the deck yet.
Oh wow. I didn't realize City of Solitude shut off Karakas and Maze of Ith too. That seems pretty hot.
I don't really get the plans to board in a 2-card combo that doesn't synergize with the main plan. How do you expect to find the pieces? They're still vulnerable to a quick clock and counterspells anyway.
Wilkin, if you look back one page, we discussed that exact thing.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
Yes, I'd forgotten it did both. Maybe that does what I wanted to do with Abeyance, but doesn't cost a thousand mana on the combo turn.
This might be a total pipe dream, but the idea (to me at least) is to still have a large number of "must-counter" cards, while ditching most or all graveyard dependence. You really switch from one plan of reanimating Grizzlebees, to Show and Tell + something unrelated. Granted there aren't tutors, but there never really have been for board pieces, and I think we all know that 8 cantrips can go pretty far most of the time.
Like I said though, I've been pretty happy with just a handfull of reactive cards in the board so far. There really isn't that much grave hate in the format right now that we can't play around. If this deck gets big, or Dredge or Loam or some other grave-centric deck starts to dominate though, that may change, so I'm just trying to think of some ways to avoid that hate altogether. In the original list, we just boarded into AnT, idea being you just shuffle your whole board into the deck ever round, so people never know if you've switched combos or not. It seems fairly silly at first, but I don't think we're giving enough credit to dead cards in opponents' decks. I played against a guy in Atlanta that went turn 1 Cage, turn 2 Needle on Griselbrand, and I just killed him with AdNaus into Tendrils.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
This is exactly why there are unrelated combos in the board. I did the same thing in atlanta - a Goblins opponent mulled to 5, had a T0 Leyline and T1 Pithing Needle on Griselbrand, and AdNaus -> Tendrils ate his lunch.
Maindeck, while extremely powerful, is also very vulnerable to (good) graveyard disruption and (good) storm combo disruption. Yes, we can theoretically deal with a lot of those in the colors that we're in, but boarding in enough answers to them I feel has a good chance of watering down the combo too much to be effective (usually anyway - the maindeck is extremely tight). So, the advantage to attacking on a different axis is that the answers that they board in to your extremely powerful maindeck aren't effective with your sideboard plan.
If you're worried about finding combo piece - remember, we do have 8 cantrips and an intuition. It's not like it's THAT bad. Furthermore, if you're running RIP/Helm, you could always run some E-tutors as well to find either piece you're missing. SnT still works here as you can use SnT as a duress for countermagic, and then slam down Helm anyway. And if they don't counter it, you either get a griselbrand, emrakul, or a combo piece in play.
I'm not saying it's the best - as I've never really been happy with any sideboard plan. The reactive ones have all felt really bad to me as it feels like you're always on your back foot, and the transformations are kind of mediocre. I did kind of like the Sneak/Show transformation, and obviously had some pretty good success with an ANT transformation though...
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
I think the Sneak/Show transformational board might have the most strength, as the only hitch to attacking with fatties from hand becomes permanent based lock pieces (Ensnaring Bridge, Humility, etc) and a solid clock. Running Dark Ritual and Petal and discard really makes that plan viable for when the deck needs to put away the G/Y shenanigans.
Using 3 BW maindeck:
3 Sneak Attack
3 Show & Tell (leaving 1 in the board for BW)
3 Emrakul
Taking out:
3 Entomb (leaving one 1 as a shuffle effect ;)
3 Shallow Grave
3 Goryo's Vengeance
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
I kinda like the idea of a SB of hosers.
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [PD3] Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [RTR] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ARE] Chill/Warmth/White Leyline? Chill has applications vs gobs and doesn't require a splash.
SB: 2 [CS] Deathmark
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 [A] Meekstone
Why would you not switch to omnitell instead? If I counted correctly that leaves wo more slots in the sideboard for either wincons or situational cards.
4 Omniscience
3 Show and Tell
equals seven. Maybe two Emrakuls to make sure you have more SnT Targets to draw into, or play off of Omniscience.
Chill might help vs. Goblins, but Leyline of Sanctity helps vs Discard which is way more popular and in a Deck like this much more a concern than a semi-fast clock. To be honest I don't see what Deathmark is doing better than Chain of Vapor. Chain is much more versatile and in rare situations performs as a Storm engine, especially if you play multiple Chrome Moxen in the 75. I might be overlooking something, but right now I am convinced by the board you're suggesting.
regards
Decks I play and/or care about:
Reanimator
ANT
LED - Dredge
My opponent would need to have a ton of discard before I felt White Leyline was necessary (Pox?) and maybe not even then. Discard is pretty bad against this deck since half the combo you can put into the GY for later. You can be hellbent and draw a Shallow Grave and win. Meanwhile, if you fill your deck full of dead cards it'll make it much harder to combo off when you want to.
Burn is a much bigger concern because it takes away from the actual resource we need to combo: our life total. If Chill or Warmth is better than Leyline at protecting my life total, I want that card.
I've been a fan of Deathmark in the sb of my storm decks for a long time. Ideally, you'll have a good draw and then it won't matter what you're using to get rid of their Ethersworn Canonist, but sometimes you simply don't have the combo, and that Deathmark is a useful spell that nets you three turns that a Knight of the Reliquary would've been Wastelocking you.
It takes two mana to answer a Thalia either way. What if you pass the turn with two mana up, ready to Chain it, and they Wasteland you? You're going to sit there and hope you draw another land, that's what. Meanwhile, something like a Dread of Night or a Deathmark would've let you answer the threat when you had the mana to do so.
Chain answers some forms of graveyard hate, but Pithing Needle does that better, and I don't want to overload on that sort of effect because, again, I don't want to flood on non combo pieces.
Not saying that sb is any good, it's just what I'm testing, but I wanted to give my rational for the slots.
The Omniscience plan would require you to have at least 3-4 Burning Wish mainboard. Making red splash. Then you're sideboard needs 2 cards dedicated as a wincon, ergo Petals of Insight and Grapeshot. Next to this you would want 4 Show and Tell in the side. After boarding in 4 Omniscience and 3 S&T to the main leaving 1 S&T as a BW target in the side. As you said you would want some extra S&T target like 2-3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn leaving you with 2-4 flexibel sideboard slots. Which is about the same as with the Sneak Attack plan. As for the Omniscience plan vs the Sneak Attack plan i think Sneak Attack is more consistant as you can cast Sneak Attack on its own, where Omniscience requires Show and Tell. So in the Omniscience plan wou would defenitly require tutors like Intuition and/or Lim-Dul's Vault to fetch the missing combo piece. While this plan is really cool to play, it solves just a part of the problem and only distracts the game away from gravehate. Gravehate can pretty easily be dodged with some bounce like Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth and/or Pithing Needle effects. Fighting thru countermagic is still an issue. And to much discard effects can be some trouble to. Especially combined in the same deck. Like the BUG or Esper Stoneblade.
So what i am trying to say is that transformational boards are really awesome, BUT this deck really needs support in its main combo plan. Reanimating Grisebrand asap and draw into a wincon in that same turn. I believe this deck is strongest when focussing on consistant turn 1/2 or at most turn 3 win ratio with solid protection to fight thru disruption. Last weekend i managed to finish 5th in a tournament (32 people), 4-1 and bricked top 8. Losses against Esper Stoneblade and some kind of 4c control with Jace, Lilliana, Punishing Fire, Snapcaster and counter magic. The deck now plays close to how i prefer it to be, a slight different from the version posted by .dk on #215, but still requires the finishing touch.
Edit: Come to think of it. Both or either Leylines in the board also is a crappy plan. You would have to mulligan to get it in your opening hand, making chances to solid opening hands smaller. And thats not what you want on a deck trying to win on turn 1/2/3.
2nd Edit: During the tournament i couldn't find an Entomb or the one-off Intuition. And sometimes i had Griselbitch sitting in my hand without any discard outlet. Having 4 Cabal Therapy and 2 Thoughtseize as is used those agianst my opponent for good reasons. So i am thinking about including Careful Study again and the 4th Griselbrand. This also means cutting 4 Ponder. And last, but not least i am also including Daze again. I really missed having the ability to go off turn 1 and not worry about a single FoW. Currently i am just goldfishing that build to see how it work out for me.
Last edited by Bobmans; 02-12-2013 at 11:02 AM.
The problem with trying to board into just Show and Tell is that Surgical/Extirpate on a countered/discarded Show and Tell is every bit as backbreaking as pulling Griselbrands pre-board. You have to have some kind of backup plan, whether it's leaving in some reanimation pieces (which is what I've been doing), bringing in another combo like Painter or Helm, or including Sneak Attacks.
Edit:
@bobmans - I would not cut Ponders. The card is amazing and the extra shuffle effects are absolutely worth it. I would also not bother screwing around with Daze, as a single FoW might set you back a couple turns, but it's by no means GG. The strength of this deck lies in redundancy. Personally I still like having some number of Careful Study, but I'm probably on the wrong side of history with that one. It may have just been a misplay to use your discard to target your opponent rather than yourself, but it's hard to say without knowing the rest of the game state. I will generally prioritize getting Grizzlebees in the yard over disrupting the opponent, because at that point all 7-8 reanimation spells become must-counters, which most decks can't deal with.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I tried Omniscience a long time ago, and honestly didn't like it much. It felt like you were boarding into a 3 card combo at that point (SnT, Omniscience, griselbrand/emrakul/burning wish). The Sneak/Show transformation I found to be more successful as I could at least cast Sneak Attack, and had sideboard room to add in the full compliment of Emrakul as well. YMMV, but I didn't feel like it was consistent enough as well as vulnerable to countermagic which would likely be boarded in after Game 1 anyway.
This seems pretty versatile for an answers type sideboard. I'm not a huge fan of any of the Leylines as you pretty much have to run 4, but Warmth is pretty good. I've had trouble against burn in the past, and that seems like a pretty good answer to that.
I also see your point with deathmark as well - pressure on your life total can be a big deal, and deathmark can buy you enough time in certain matchups to find your combo pieces. Same thing with meekstone (which is sweet, btw - good idea) - buys you enough time to throw more hay-makers at your opponents.
I think I would replace Leyline of the Void with 2-3 Surgicals, and maybe add the 2nd Chain and/or the 3rd Needle. Seems rare that you would want to be boarding in 4 cards anyway given how tight the maindeck is. Likely that you're usually going to be boarding in 2-3 at a time so as not to dilute the combo too much.
And I certainly understand the lack of Show and Tell - that card can be so powerful and so awful at the same time. It's a great sideboard against Chalice decks, but seems like everyone has an answer now. I remember sitting next to your match at GP Atlanta when Todd cast Show and Tell and you put in Humility...
Find me on Twitter: @beanaman
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote
