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Thread: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

  1. #81
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Cool stuff, Koby. Faster combo is Big Red's primary concern and Blood Moon isn't always great there, unfortunately. Did you get a chance to cast Koth or Reforge during the day? And if so, was your opponent able to answer Koth?
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  2. #82
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Hi all

    Been keeping tabs on this thread for a while now.

    My friend borrowed the deck from me for a local win-a-FoW tournament and took it down. I don't know the details as I wasn't able to attend but know the field had EsperBalde, Dredge, Jund, Enchantress, Zombardment etc.

    I played the following list at a legacy side-event this weekend at GP London:

    4 Sneak
    4 Through the Breach
    2 Pyromancy
    4 Emrakul
    4 Worldspine Wurm
    3 Griselbrand
    3 Inferno Titan
    4 Defense Grid
    4 Faithless Looting
    4 Simian Spirit Guide
    4 Seething Song
    1 Lotus Petal
    1 Grim Monolith
    4 Ancient Tomb
    3 Sandstone Needle
    2 City of Traitors
    1 Karakas
    8 Mountain

    We played 5 rounds of swiss with no cut to top 8. Unfortunatley I didn't take any notes so cannot give you a full report but I did manage to beat Junk, Jund, Maverick and Goblins going 4-0 into the final round. I then lost a close 1-2 against EsperBlade and finished in 2nd.

    I had a good amount of turn 2 Emrakuls and Wurms! I hard cast Titan against Maverick taking out his Thalia, Hierarch and Dryad Arbor making his Cradle useless - that was sweet! I will definately consider the SDT and 5 fetches switch for the Lootings, 4 Mountains and the Karakas. As Koby says, it would be good to play 1 Looting as well but I'm not sure what to cut...

    The event was £10 entry and I walked away with 8 packs of Gatecrash and a French FBB Plateau. Not a bad day!

    Cheers,
    Ben

  3. #83
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    I played the 3rd Griselbrand over Reforge the Soul. Maybe I should try Reforge instead
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  4. #84
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    @Cabs:...Awesome! Can't wait to see how many others have "been keeping tabs" on the thread and start crushing events now that we have some finer tuned lists.

    @Koby: YAY! Killing teeg with Titan is one of my favorite plays with this deck. I wouldn't enjoy playing this deck half as much online. The look on people's faces when titan hits the board and does ridiculous things is priceless.

    I have mixed feelings about a singleton faithless. As soon as I cut them, I thought about how often I would still end up with extra combo pieces in my hand and would still want one. But I looked at every card and wanted it more than a faithless, no clue what to cut...so I guess we're all in the same boat on that idea.

    SCG Edison Report (Only notes are life totals and memories, skip to bottom for reflections)
    Legacy Challenge (4 rounds, prizes based on record): 3-0-1
    Main Event (9 rounds, cut to top 8) 4-4 drop

    This was my second SCG event. I managed to avoid any game losses for being dumb, or even any warnings for being, anything. YAY. I wasn't sure what to expect other than a wide open field. There were 60? people in the legacy challenge and 250+ for the main event.

    List

    4 sandstone needle
    4 ancient tomb
    4 scalding tarn
    1 wooded foothills
    2 city of traitors
    4 mountain

    4 seething song
    4 simian spirit guide
    1 lotus petal

    3 worldspine wurm
    2 griselbrand
    4 emrakul, the aeons torn
    2 inferno titan

    4 sneak attack
    4 through the breach
    3 pyromancy

    3 sensei's divining top
    1 increasing vengeance
    3 defense grid
    3 blood moon

    //SB
    4 leyline of sanctity
    1 defense grid
    2 volcanic fallout
    2 chaos warp
    1 blood moon
    2 trinisphere
    3 chalice of the void


    Legacy Challenge
    R1 Elves.
    Game 1 I take 4 damage from ancient tomb and his life goes 20-15-3-1-X I did a lot of turn one play ancient tomb, cast top, spin top all day. It's awesome.
    Game 2 I get attacked for 3 points of damage, his life doesn't change, win. I like playing elves, I think it's our best matchup.
    1-0

    R2 Burn.
    Game 1 I take two swings from a goblin guide and he dies.
    Game 2. This was a really tough game to lose. I open with a leyline and a chalice on 1. I lose the game. He dropped an ensnaring bridge on turn three, I would have won on my turn 3. Couldn't find the pyromancy or warp before he sulfiric vortex, flame rift, flame rift, POP. If I had been smart and played around Price of Progress I would have won this game. It didn't even cross my mind that I could lose with all my defenses up.
    Game 3. I draw the nuts. Thank you planeswalker in the sky, you must have seen that last game.
    2-0

    R3. Esperblade.
    Game 1 When he taps out for stoneforge he's forced to pitch spell pierce to FOW my moon. His inquisition of kozilek only lets him save time and move to game 3.
    Game 2. I keep a really strong 7 but vendillion clique is a better clock then Stoneforge. FOW can still be cast for free. And thoughtseize is better discard than inquisition. He gets there.
    Game 3. This is a real close game, Pyromancy throws Wurm->Grisel->Emrakul with two turns before a clique finishes me off.
    3-0

    R4 Sneak Show.
    This guy was sitting next to me a round earlier and was fascinated by my deck. He seemed real nice, and I was real hungry. So I offered a draw, I think I woulda got there but 25 credit, 3 Gatecrash, and someone to talk with tomorrow sounded better than 50 credit and someone to avoid eye contact with tomorrow.
    3-0-1

    Get some food and go crash for the night. Don't get much sleep because people are up testing late and loud.

    Main event.

    R1 BUG Control
    Game 1 He never draws any business. Creeping tarpit and FOW are all I see so I'm thinking some sort of landstill, wrong.
    Game 2 Goyf beats me down to 6. I run him out of disruption and get there.
    1-0

    R2 ANT
    Game 1. I die turn 2 before I get to untap my sandstone and double stone rain him.
    Game 2. I mull once or twice, keep a decent hand with leyline. Turn 1 he chain of vapors it. Turn 2 he kills me
    1-1

    R3 RUG (I had a 15 minutes of fame moment here. I sat down and my opponent said "I don't play legacy but I know who you are" I think he saw my picture on the jupiter website. it was cool)
    Game 1. I get there.
    Game 2. I blow this game. I have the chance to drop an early trinisphere. It gets double dazed. I had a guide in hand and one on top of my library with a top in play. I was so caught off guard by the second daze that I forgot to draw the guide and pitch it to sure up the game. I resolve titan. He gets one swing in. A lot of brainstorms and ponders later a mongoose shows up. That and a lightning bolt get my titan. He grinds me out with a really big goyf.
    Game 3. I get there.
    2-1

    R4 Belcher
    Game 1 I keep 7 that has everything but seething song. I spin my top off an ancient tomb turn 1. He makes 18 goblins. I am a spirit guide short of getting there with wurm.
    Game 2. I have to go to 4 to see a single board card after bringing in 13. my 4 is leyline, wurm, wurm, fallout. In hindsight that was the keeper. I go down to 2 and see chalice land. I play chalice at 0 and pass. He casts belcher through a chalice at 0. I draw a chaos warp. He draws and activates belcher with a chalice on zero still. Oh well. Was hoping to avoid this one.
    2-2

    R5 Jund
    Game 1 One Thoughtseize is not enough to stop me.
    Game 2. Now I understand why Jund is a deck. I Sensei's top my way past Thoughtsieze, Hymn and Duress. And for the first time, I resolve wurm and he does not end the game. It's a little fuzzy here. He's at 14 with liliana, Goyf, Deathrite, Bob and an x/2, I swing, he blocks with the x/2. Going to 1, He removes wurm in response to the shuffle trigger, going to 3. Liliana makes me sac a token. Abrupt Decay gets another one, and a now 3/4 goyf and bob are ready to block the last one. By the end of this turn he's at 2. so I choose not to attack since it puts my board state at nothing and his with an active lilliana and cards in hand. I am banking on bob killing him. Bob flips a 1 drop and I die while hes at one life. This was the closet game I played all day. Well done Dave Ride, well done.
    Game 3. He knocks me down to 11 and I get there.

    3-2
    R6 MUD
    Game 1 all I see are a welder and metal worker. I get there
    Game 2 I get there through a loadstone.
    4-2

    R7 R/U Burn
    Game 1 Emrakul gets through the breached. I get pretty light on land thanks to ancient tomb and having to needle my way through pierce and daze. He finds two lands and we're both at 1. I'm spiinning my top and hes brainstorming. He wins by casting price of progress, maintaining priority,dazing his POP, and Dazing his Daze, returning his two Volcs to his hand. Nice play Doug McKay...Nice play.
    Game 2. Favorite opening hand alert. I Turn 2 cast seething song into Defense grid with 3 mana up to pay for pierce daze, he can't do anything but let it resolve, (if he forces, he knows I'll just resolve someting else, he plans to get to three mana before I can go off) and with three floating and his counters turned off I dropped trinisphere. Game over quickly follows.
    Game 3 He gets there. Tomb doesn't help me and I'm either a mana or two life (depending on how you look at it) short of getting there. Actually I think I would have won this game if one of my tops had been a faithless. I knew the second card down, but didn't have enough to spin my top and cast it. If I could have faithlessed, I woulda been able to do it.
    4-3

    R8 Bant
    I don't remember this one at all. I was so tired and all my teammates were ready to leave as soon as I got my next loss. An exalted Geist makes pretty good work of me. It goes to 3 games and I think I"m going to win, I pop my top, set the card aside and cast through the breach, it resolves, and I flip over the emrakul that I pulled from the top of my deck. It's a sandstone needle. What, really? Wheres the emrakul? I lose. Must be hallucinating from lack of sleep. Drop and go home.
    4-4 Drop.


    Reflections
    Leylines are out. It messes up how I mulligan and its SUCH a dead draw. Pyromancy isn't even in the deck for those matchups. I want some combination of Mindbreak Trap, and Pyrostatic Pillar.

    In a little over a year playing in upstate NY I haven't run into Belcher or ANT. I have met TES a few times, but it was limited. These decks are FAR more common in huge open tournaments. Our game against them sucks. Not sure how I want to approach that one. It makes me understand why you guys are running pyroclasm over fallout. Having to ship hands to see board cards means less land, and hitting double red/3CC before zounds of goblins trample you isn't always possible. I think the clasms are coming in. Fallout is far more important in a lot of situations. Clasm is almost as good in all of them and this situation is far more important.

    It was a pretty good weekend. Didn't get a lot of good matchups but still ended up doing ok. Never felt completely out of any match but the Belcher and I just drew some terrible hands, what are you gunna do. Back to the drawing board.

    Keep Sneakin
    -HDeck

  5. #85

    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    I've been playing the deck a lot more and had a lot of success. I agree with the discussion on using Leylines and think I'll be using Grafdiggers instead. When playing Dredge I found that I often was drawing into the Leyline without the ability to cast it, or in a situation where I was pondering whether to mulligan an otherwise good hand.

    Other changes I made, was swapping out Bloodstained Mire for Scalding Tarns, which seemed to keep people on their feet as to whether I had counters. Went two and two overall, with 0-2 vs Dredge and, 1-2 vs Maverick.

    Without delving the topic off course too much, I found that the Scalding Tarn lead to a game 1 Cabal Therapy for Show and Tell, with Sneak Attack the second game (when he figured out I wasn't running Show and Tell. Keeping the deck effectively the same, has anyone considered running 2x Volcanic Islands and and 4x Show and Tells?

  6. #86
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Quote Originally Posted by hessenbob View Post
    I've been playing the deck a lot more and had a lot of success. I agree with the discussion on using Leylines and think I'll be using Grafdiggers instead. When playing Dredge I found that I often was drawing into the Leyline without the ability to cast it, or in a situation where I was pondering whether to mulligan an otherwise good hand.

    Other changes I made, was swapping out Bloodstained Mire for Scalding Tarns, which seemed to keep people on their feet as to whether I had counters. Went two and two overall, with 0-2 vs Dredge and, 1-2 vs Maverick.

    Without delving the topic off course too much, I found that the Scalding Tarn lead to a game 1 Cabal Therapy for Show and Tell, with Sneak Attack the second game (when he figured out I wasn't running Show and Tell. Keeping the deck effectively the same, has anyone considered running 2x Volcanic Islands and and 4x Show and Tells?
    At that point, you're just better off playing Sneak Show. The difference here is that Through the Breach replaces Show & Tell in the Mono-red version; with an adjusted manabase to enable both Sneak Attack & TtB.
    West side
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    * Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
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  7. #87
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    I played in a 34 person tournament this weekend. Didn't play Big Red but saw someone else that I didn't know playing what looked like my Jupiter list. That felt pretty cool. Just wanna say thanks to everyone for helping me tweak this list to something much more powerful than what I started with. Probably takin a break from the mountains for a bit, but I plan on taking GP DC down with Big Red in 9 months so keep tuning!

    @guy playing Big Red at Mythic Games 2/16/13: If you read this thread, say Hi. I didn't really have a chance to thank you for having faith in the deck. I was too busy trying to remember how to play islands :-(. If you take it to Jupiter in two weeks, cut the leylines for 2 pyrosatic pillar, 1 mindbreak trap, 1 trinisphere, and switch 2 maindeck defense grid for 2 sideboard trinispheres. If I play it, that'll probably be my update.

  8. #88

    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Quote Originally Posted by hdeck12 View Post
    I played in a 34 person tournament this weekend. Didn't play Big Red but saw someone else that I didn't know playing what looked like my Jupiter list. That felt pretty cool. Just wanna say thanks to everyone for helping me tweak this list to something much more powerful than what I started with. Probably takin a break from the mountains for a bit, but I plan on taking GP DC down with Big Red in 9 months so keep tuning!

    @guy playing Big Red at Mythic Games 2/16/13: If you read this thread, say Hi. I didn't really have a chance to thank you for having faith in the deck. I was too busy trying to remember how to play islands :-(. If you take it to Jupiter in two weeks, cut the leylines for 2 pyrosatic pillar, 1 mindbreak trap, 1 trinisphere, and switch 2 maindeck defense grid for 2 sideboard trinispheres. If I play it, that'll probably be my update.
    Hi,

    I'm kinda new here.
    I've been playtesting the deck on cockatrice & irl for a while now. Very happy with how it turns out :)

    I have a question. Don't you think that trinisphere just screws up SDT?
    I mean if you board in 2 other Trinisphere against combo & stuff, you have to side out your SDT because this is not synergetic enough? don't you think?
    It's like Chalice + SDT. If you side in Chalice, 80% of the time you do it @ 1. And when you topdeck your SDT with a Chalice on play it just makes me want to cry :)

    Seriously, I used to play Chalice MD because I think it's just awesome and so powerful. But when you made this version with SDT it was just non synergetic, found myself several times with the situation above... it just killed me.

    What's your opinion?

    I really appreciate what you did with the deck, really, great job :)
    Last edited by Kid; 02-19-2013 at 08:37 AM.

  9. #89
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Let me start by saying casting a SDT behind a trinisphere is WAY less face palming than behind a chalice at x=1. It's a little counter intuitive, but lets look at the play lines and you'll (hopefully) see why there's not much wrong with playing trinisphere in the main deck along with top.

    There are two important differences between Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere.
    The first is that we actually can still cast a Sensei's Divining Top through a trinisphere. Yes it cost 3, but lets be honest, mana is sort of our thing. The second is in the casting cost. Casting a chalice at x=1 means two mana. We can do this with an ancient tomb, a mountain and Simian Spirit Guide or two guides. With trinishpere you need a tomb and a guide, a mountain and 2 guides or 3 guides. The number of keepable hands that cast a turn one 3 drop are dramatically lower than the number of hands that cast a turn one 2 drop. So you will still have most of your turn ones to cast top. I don't recommend keeping an all in turn 1 trinisphere hand. It's no blood moon.

    Things trinishpere does for us.

    1. Turns off counterspells, swords to plowshares and discard until opponents third land drop. This is mostly what defense grid was doing, but defense grid does it better. Cost one less to play, and adds three to the casting cost, not just >= 3. It's for reason two that I want the Trinispheres.

    2. Keeps ANT/TES/HighTide/Elves from winning unil they remove it. This is why its time for trinishpere over grid. Combo is on the rise. We have no counterspells. In red, the best we can do is REB. Which DOESN'T counter Tendrils of Agony, Empty the warrens, Dread Return, or Goblin Charbelcher. It doesn't even counter the rituals that people are using to power out these bombs. Being able to slow down the cantrips/mana accelerants is where I want to be right now.

    3. Makes Blue/X decks decide if they want to cantrip or counter until the 6th land drop (cause then they can do both). This is for people playing Pierce/Daze/FOW/Brainstorm/Ponder plus X. If they don't open on some free counterspells then they have to start cantripping. If they do that, their land is tapped down and they can't cast counters.

    On to lines of play.

    In order to cast a turn 1 trinishpere we need three cards minimum. A free mana, an ancient tomb and the trinishpere. Lets say that is our standard for keeping a turn 1 or 2 trinishpere. (Trinishperes in the late game can be useful but usually aren't. This is the same case with grid. So we aren't losing anything on that front.) Also you never want to play a turn 1 city of traitors unless you're 100% sure you can win on or before your next land drop. Your sphere can get countered, your next spell can get countered, Thalia can hit the board. It's terrible, trust me. So the assumptions I'm making are that you have an ancient tomb or sandstone needle, A trinisphere, a top and a mountain or a guide

    Turn 1, play tomb, play top, spin top, turn 2 play mountain cast trinisphere, turn 3, 3 land up plus whatever you play.

    Turn 1 play tomb, pitch guide cast trinisphere, turn 2 play land cast top, turn 3 spin top, have 2 land us plus whatever you play.

    Turn 1 play sandstone, pass. Turn 2 play tomb, cast Top then Trinishpere, Turn 3 spin top with 3 land up plus whatever you play.

    Turn 1 play sandstone, pass. Turn 2 play mountain. This is the only line that you need to think for. If they played a ponder, brainstorm or 5 color land, on turn 1, you cast trinishpere. If they played a mana dork or discard spell NOT named Duress then you play top and start looking for business

    If you just go three mountains then you have plenty of time to play top. If top isn't in your opener and Trinishpere IS, then you must have a good enough hand to just win. If the game turns into a grind and you're in top deck mode...paying three for sensei's is WAY worth it.

    So anyways, playing top and 3sphere seems pretty bad but our sol lands keep it in our favor. And it's nothing like chalice. Early game, you just have to sequence correctly and late game there should be no problem tapping three colorless to cast a sensei's top if necessary. If you want to avoid all this, just pile in some Magus of the Moons. I'm currently using those slots to improve the storm match and try to catch some counterspells too. If you really wanna make people cry, add more 3spheres, and a set of Chrome Moxen and Seismic Mages. Hope this helped. Good Luck!

  10. #90
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    seeing magnus of the moon makes me think of blastminer, and dwarven blastminer lol, Hey Hdeck, what's yourthoughts on pyrostatic pillars versus storm and elves?

  11. #91

    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Quote Originally Posted by hdeck12 View Post
    Let me start by saying casting a SDT behind a trinisphere is WAY less face palming than behind a chalice at x=1. It's a little counter intuitive, but lets look at the play lines and you'll (hopefully) see why there's not much wrong with playing trinisphere in the main deck along with top.

    There are two important differences between Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere.
    The first is that we actually can still cast a Sensei's Divining Top through a trinisphere. Yes it cost 3, but lets be honest, mana is sort of our thing. The second is in the casting cost. Casting a chalice at x=1 means two mana. We can do this with an ancient tomb, a mountain and Simian Spirit Guide or two guides. With trinishpere you need a tomb and a guide, a mountain and 2 guides or 3 guides. The number of keepable hands that cast a turn one 3 drop are dramatically lower than the number of hands that cast a turn one 2 drop. So you will still have most of your turn ones to cast top. I don't recommend keeping an all in turn 1 trinisphere hand. It's no blood moon.

    Things trinishpere does for us.

    1. Turns off counterspells, swords to plowshares and discard until opponents third land drop. This is mostly what defense grid was doing, but defense grid does it better. Cost one less to play, and adds three to the casting cost, not just >= 3. It's for reason two that I want the Trinispheres.

    2. Keeps ANT/TES/HighTide/Elves from winning unil they remove it. This is why its time for trinishpere over grid. Combo is on the rise. We have no counterspells. In red, the best we can do is REB. Which DOESN'T counter Tendrils of Agony, Empty the warrens, Dread Return, or Goblin Charbelcher. It doesn't even counter the rituals that people are using to power out these bombs. Being able to slow down the cantrips/mana accelerants is where I want to be right now.

    3. Makes Blue/X decks decide if they want to cantrip or counter until the 6th land drop (cause then they can do both). This is for people playing Pierce/Daze/FOW/Brainstorm/Ponder plus X. If they don't open on some free counterspells then they have to start cantripping. If they do that, their land is tapped down and they can't cast counters.

    On to lines of play.

    In order to cast a turn 1 trinishpere we need three cards minimum. A free mana, an ancient tomb and the trinishpere. Lets say that is our standard for keeping a turn 1 or 2 trinishpere. (Trinishperes in the late game can be useful but usually aren't. This is the same case with grid. So we aren't losing anything on that front.) Also you never want to play a turn 1 city of traitors unless you're 100% sure you can win on or before your next land drop. Your sphere can get countered, your next spell can get countered, Thalia can hit the board. It's terrible, trust me. So the assumptions I'm making are that you have an ancient tomb or sandstone needle, A trinisphere, a top and a mountain or a guide

    Turn 1, play tomb, play top, spin top, turn 2 play mountain cast trinisphere, turn 3, 3 land up plus whatever you play.

    Turn 1 play tomb, pitch guide cast trinisphere, turn 2 play land cast top, turn 3 spin top, have 2 land us plus whatever you play.

    Turn 1 play sandstone, pass. Turn 2 play tomb, cast Top then Trinishpere, Turn 3 spin top with 3 land up plus whatever you play.

    Turn 1 play sandstone, pass. Turn 2 play mountain. This is the only line that you need to think for. If they played a ponder, brainstorm or 5 color land, on turn 1, you cast trinishpere. If they played a mana dork or discard spell NOT named Duress then you play top and start looking for business

    If you just go three mountains then you have plenty of time to play top. If top isn't in your opener and Trinishpere IS, then you must have a good enough hand to just win. If the game turns into a grind and you're in top deck mode...paying three for sensei's is WAY worth it.

    So anyways, playing top and 3sphere seems pretty bad but our sol lands keep it in our favor. And it's nothing like chalice. Early game, you just have to sequence correctly and late game there should be no problem tapping three colorless to cast a sensei's top if necessary. If you want to avoid all this, just pile in some Magus of the Moons. I'm currently using those slots to improve the storm match and try to catch some counterspells too. If you really wanna make people cry, add more 3spheres, and a set of Chrome Moxen and Seismic Mages. Hope this helped. Good Luck!

    Ok, I see.
    Makes sense...
    Thank you for your insights and tips. Very helpful.

    So the deck would be something like that :

    4 Sandstone Needle
    2 City of Traitors
    4 Mountain
    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 Arid Mesa
    1 Bloodstained Mire
    4 Simian Spirit Guide
    1 Lotus Petal

    4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
    2 Griselbrand
    3 Worldspine Wurm
    2 Inferno Titan

    4 Sneak Attack
    3 Pyromancy
    3 Through the Breach

    4 Blood Moon
    4 Seething Song
    3 Sensei's Divining Top
    2 Defense Grid
    2 Trinisphere

    SB : 1 Trinisphere
    SB : 2 Defense Grid
    SB: 3 Pyroclasm
    SB: 3 Chaos Warp
    SB: 1 Through the Breach
    SB: 1 Woodfall Primus
    SB: 4 Chalice of the Void

    I wonder why don't you put a 4th TTB directly in the maindeck?
    Is there a reason? Afraid of Extirpate? Surgical Extraction?

    Kid

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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    @Kid: Looks solid for the most part. 2 things. Cut the woodfall from the board. I don't think he's good enough in any matchup.I went with grafdiggers cage. Since the main is a little stronger against combo I switched that spot to GSZ/graveyard hate. Second, 4 moons main is a lot. I think you should either go three moons and one Magus or just three moons and send one to the board (for the 4th through the breach). I've found having double moon gets clunky when we have no chrome mox or faithless looting. As for TTB...I go back and fourth between the 4th one in the board and the main. Its in the main right now, but thats also because I need as many targets for increasing vengeance as possible. Sometimes I leave it in the board because if you have sneak attack, and can resolve it, then they are dead cards. It's hard to cast them against blue decks, and sometimes one swing isn't even enough. So yeah, you play it where you want, but it probably belongs main.

  13. #93
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    um, has anyone tried gitaxian probe? It seems interesting and gives you information about the opponent's hand. It also gives you a free card.

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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    @goblins: I haven't tried Gitaxian Probe in this deck. I've thought about it but never wanted it over any of the other cards. The core being the sneak effects, the fatties, the guides and songs. The 'cut-able' cards include titan, moon, grid, top, 3sphere, pyromancy. They would speed the deck up. But they would also change how you mulligan. You couldn't reliably keep a hand with multiple probes expecting to draw what you need. They're no ponder. With cards that impact the board (or dig like top) you can at least develop a plan from your opening hand. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing probe, but I see having to mulligan even more which I don't want to be doing. We also don't interact with the stack a whole lot so information helps us less than other decks. Seeing soft counters is about the only thing that would change our game plan. And seeing an island means we play around counterspells and dig for multiple threats over creatures anyways. If you try probe give us some reflections

    @Everyone: So in practicing with islands I've been doing a lot of "brainstorming' and have come up with an idea. We want chalice in the main deck right? What if we turn the tops into scroll racks? First off I tried it out this weekend and the card is WAY above my head. But I saw a lot of potential.
    Upsides. We usually have cards in hand. Being able to draw 3-4 cards is way better than just looking at them. Being able to see the new cards before arranging the top of your library is awesome. You can plan so far ahead. % chance that griselbrand will brick drops to almost 0.
    Downsides. Cards in hand are a bit of a resource early in the game. It was hard to keep half my hand while activating scroll rack. I just wasn't drawing enough cards. When activating it for my entire hand, I would find what I wanted but was forced to wait another turn to go off. WAYYY more mental work. I made a lot of mistakes in ordering the cards I put back on top. I didn't really plan for disruption when arranging them, then ended up shuffling away things I needed, but thats fixable.

  15. #95
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Top is immune traditional removal while scroll rack is going to get hit with decays.

    Its like comparing Top vs Sylvan library I think. Top is obviously better if you have more mana, but some decks just cant afford that. This one can however.

    Henry's presence has been a constant terror to the decks Ive played for the past few years but Ive actually been thinking about making this deck for a while, and more so lately. I was just wondering, what are this decks bad matchups are? This is Evan btw.

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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Quote Originally Posted by TheArchitect View Post
    Top is immune traditional removal while scroll rack is going to get hit with decays.

    Its like comparing Top vs Sylvan library I think. Top is obviously better if you have more mana, but some decks just cant afford that. This one can however.

    Henry's presence has been a constant terror to the decks Ive played for the past few years but Ive actually been thinking about making this deck for a while, and more so lately. I was just wondering, what are this decks bad matchups are? This is Evan btw.
    Evan, you should make it and crush face with it. I never even thought about how top was harder to deal with. In playing top no ones ever tried to destroy it so I almost forgot its because its hard to kill, not because its irrelevant.

    Problem Cards
    Iona, Shield of Emeria means count your land, if it's less than 9, scoop and go to the next game.
    Gaddock Teeg means you can no longer cast any sneak/pyromancy effects in your deck.
    Matchups (Cards that influence them)
    Bad Matchups (Number of 'stompy' artifacts): Absolute worst matchup is reanimator. As long as they're playing an Iona that is, I would never play reanimator without an iona so I just expect all my opponents to have one. Mono blue fringe decks are pretty troublesome too. Something like Hivemind, Dreamhalls, Omniscience. Anything that can kill the turn it goes off AND use counterspells/discard is our hard matchup. Sneak/Show isn't as bad because they have to attack and we're just as prepared to block as we are attack. I hate sitting down across from TES, Spy, Belcher, and High Tide. Those are the decks I expect to run into in the current meta.
    Neutral Matchups (Number of 'moon' effects): 3 color tempo/control. RUg, BUg, Junk, Esper, Jund. The ones playing delver and the full suite of soft counters are the hardest. If they flip a turn 1 delver with protection you're in trouble. If they can't pressure you then their one FOW and/or Discard spell is never enough. The Blade control decks are much easier than the delver tempo ones. KOTR into wastes isn't as bad as a lot of counters since we have the guides and rituals to supplement mana.
    Good Matchups (number of rituals and draw effects): Burn, Elves,, Goblins, D&T. When it comes to monocolor we're the fastest. Decks that try to grind out the opponent or go over the top in the long game are pretty easy too. Anything with punishing fire, veteran explorer or goblin bombardment, usually don't last long enough to get get their engine running.

  17. #97
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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    I don't think Top is an optional card anymore. You can't expect to draw or mulligan into the combo every hand. I want one in every single hand, unless I'm sitting across from combo. While combo is more prominent now, the fairer decks make up a larger portion of any meta and Top gives us the selection we need. It was probably just incorrect to not have them and some fetches since the beginning.
    The Quad Cities: twice as nice as the Twin Cities.

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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Ya I could see how iona would be pretty bad.

    I can take comfort in the fact that even the bad matchups can be improved if you think they will be more present in your meta. GY for reanimtor, pyroblast for blue fringe decks, mindbreak traps/stompy cards for storm decks.

    I cockatrised the deck a bit and BUG and RUG seem to be maybe slightly unfavorable, while junk/jund were much easier.

    I cant play legacy decks without tops in them anymore haha. Its so nice to have removal proof card selection every turn. Krosan grip, and an abrupt deck in response to cracking a fetch are all you really need to worry about with top.

  19. #99

    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    Tempo t resh & Maverick are 2 of the worst mashups for Big Red...
    Did a tourney yesterday..
    Won vs Sneak & Show (2-0)
    Won vs Junk (2-0)

    I was @ 2-0 (5rounds)

    Lost 0-2 vs t resh (shitty hands + mulligan hard + mass counters for him = gg)
    Lost 0-2 vs Maverick (Thalia MD + GT MD = gg. He topdecked the two GT...)

    I dropped. I was so dman pissed because the tourney began very nicely and just turned into a nightmare with horrible hands, mulligans everygame...
    Jeez...
    I sincerly don't know what to do about the t resh mashup...
    my meta is fucked up, some guys just still play Maverick even if the deckis dead for months now...
    I nightmare I tell you...

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    Re: Big Red (Mono-R Sneak Attack)

    @Kid: sorry to hear that. Sometimes you just get bad hands, it's a magic thing. I recommend running some pyroclasms main deck over moon or grid. They're really good early game against maverick. If you run leyline of the void in your board, you can actually bring it in against thresh to keep yourself off a clock. It's an awkward line but works when you open one in your 7. Pyroclasm is pretty good early game (late game too if you're using the void trick) against them too. And if they fail to pressure you, then it's usually a win anyways. We have a lot of weapons against them. You really just have to decide which direction you want to attack from....and then hope you draw some board cards.

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