The pilot is a friend of mine. He played the guy in first on Maverick and Waterfalls only loss of the day. I'm not sure how much combo my friend saw that day honestly, I only caught a few of his matches when I was not playing.
My buddy has only played legacy now for about 4-5 months. His first event was SCG Edison and he top 64ed with a budget mono blue deck. This is his second big legacy event so he's doing pretty well respectively.
He did mention a misplay in Game 3 as soon as we were walking out. There was one show and tell in the yard already and he could have attempted to surgical the SnT which might have slowed things and kept the griselbrand off the board a few more turns. I have not watched the replay yet, but I will have to see.
Waterfalls seems like a really fun deck to play and it seems to have some potential.
I agree, I do think it has potential. Just like every deck has that general weakness to something (usually its combo) just need to find a reasonable answer. I mean, comparing this to Punishing Jund, that's another deck that struggles vs combo. The difference being that Jund uses the proactive approach (hand disruption) and has access to other black tricks, RUG has the more responsive approach.
So after a summer that has shown a marked increase in the usage of midrange and creature decks, but with still a fair number of combo decks, how do you feel about this deck's place in the meta? I've been trying out variations of Shardless decks beyond BUG. Bant has some excellent power with Stoneforge, but in the end it lacks the disruption/removal you'd need going forward.
I've been playing a Shardless Bant deck with Stoneforge and Counterbalance (and Thopter Combo), and it's been pretty good and a ton of fun. I run 4 swords to plowshares and 2 terminus, with 1 more terminus in the board. It has a very good matchup against creature decks, and counterbalance helps a lot against storm decks.
Only difference from this list is -1 Celestial Colonnade, +1 Shardless, -1 Savannah +1 Forest, with the Moat & Sideboard FoW swapped.
That's all well and good, but is anyone working on RUG or just the Thopter variant?
I've been playing my stock RUG list during the summer, and one of my friends had a final and a top8 with it (in 25+ man events). Here's the deck
3 sensei's divining top
4 noble hierarch
4 tarmogoyf
2 grim lavamancer
4 shardless agent
4 bloodbraid elf
4 brainstorm
4 lightning bolt
2 fire / ice
4 force of will
4 ancestral vision
3 tropical island
3 volcanic island
1 taiga
1 island
1 forest
1 mountain
4 scalding tarn
4 misty rainforest
3 wasteland
SIDE
3 counterbalance
2 surgical extraction
2 trygon predator
1 grafdigger's cage
3 red elemental blast
2 mindbreak trap
2 submerge
The main change I've done are the 3 tops in the main: other than their standard use, they are good in setting up cascade and, most of all, they pair up with the counterbalances in the side to fight combo which has always been this deck worst matchup.
Other than that I play 2 grim lavamancer over 2 fire, which has been proved right with all the elves/shaman/delver/etc flying around. I don't think I'd play more but I'm very happy with 2.
Regarding deathrite shaman: I've played it for some time, but than I found myself too weak to wasteland (I love to have a basic of each type), too weak to grave hate (RIP blanked 8 of my threats) but most of all I hated when I couldn't activate the mana ability for lack of lands in the graves or opposing shamans.
Hierarch, while not providing red, it always gives mana and make you win goyf or shardless wars and speed up the clock.
Aggro deck are not a problem with all the removals, effcient creatures and card advantage.
Control is all in NOT overextending into terminus.
The side is tailored to fight combo and grave, with an eye against Jace (REB).
Ignorance is strength
I do dislike the conditional mana acceleration, but Deathrite can turn off their Deathrites, burn, and provide a g1 answer for GY strategies.
That's sure but in my experience I found that:
- this deck is very mana hungry, so I want a reliable mana dork
- since I want my mana to cast my spells I'm not inclined to use it to activate the shaman abilities
- not having basics hurts a lot, especially if they manage to keep you off black mana so that you can't burn with shaman
- you became very grave dependant
I'm aware, however, that there are other players who have consciounsly taken in account the risks of running shaman in 4-color builds, because of the great power and versatility it gives. Burg tempo is a clear example:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...eck-bUrg-Tempo
However that deck is full of cheap drops (it tops at 2 with two goyfs and two abrupt decay) and so is less susceptible to land destruction and can make good use of spare mana with DRS.
Waterfall, instead, wants to reach 4 mana asap in order to make unfair cascades: that's the reason why I prefer a solid mana dork to a 1-mana-planeswalker in this deck.
If i'd want to swap the hierarch with shamans I would rearrange the mana base cutting the three basics and 1 wasteland for 1 underground sea, 1 bayou, 1 badland and 1 polluted delta. At this point I'd probably replace the lavamancer with 2 forked bolt (not sure about that, would need testing) to avoid relying too much on the grave: that would be though however, since Lavamancer is superb right now.
Of course if other black cards will be added (like abrupt decay) the mana base should change accordingly.
I don't think that playing DRS in this deck is straight wrong, but given my playstyle and the reasoning above I'm pretty sure is not completely necessary.
Ignorance is strength
Have you tried countertop in the SB? I've just jammed Red Blasts and Mindbreak Traps and hope for the best most of the time against combo.
Counterbalance has been very solid against combo and control: even against midrange has been good to the point that I'm contemplating moving it to the main deck.
I know that it seems strange with all the abrupt decay decks flying around, but they use it on the CB then they don't kill a goyf, which is fine.
If they don't, however, CB can lock them out off the game.
How can I say: I always loved aggro CB :-)
Ignorance is strength
I've found using it to be quite fun too. You really do want to jam Cascade guys quickly to gain an advantage and CounterTop is a great way to disrupt considering the spectrum of casting costs in the deck.
I had this together for a while and loved playing it. Ended up changing it to Shardless Bug for a bit, but just through something together last night as cascading is too much fun. The maindeck is a bit of an experiment, if anyone has any ideas, throw them at me. The spirit guides look weird, but they've been working like a charm. It's the sideboard I need help with. I always lose to a goblins player at my LGS, I'll be playing a small tourney tomorrow, what cards should I play? Pyroclasm? Or I guess whipflare is better...help is appreciated.
Maindeck:
4x Shardless Agent
4x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Vendilion Clique
4x Deathrite Shaman (maybe should be BoP instead?)
4x Brainstorm
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Force of Will
4x Ancestral Vision
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Wooded Foothills
4x Wasteland
3x Volcanic Island
3x Tropical Island
1x Taiga
1x Underground Sea
Since I play 4 lightning bolt, 2 fire // ice and 2 grim lavamancer main deck I've got less problems with aggro decks and I need less cards in side.
In your case I'd play a combination of engineered plague and pyroclasm: the former especially seems sweet in your deck since you have 8 ways (4 shaman and 4 guides) to cast it on turn 2, I'd play 3.
Regarding the guides: I think that in your deck elvish spirit guides are better than simians because they help you cast more cards when you are manascrewed (goyf, DRS, agent, BBE) while the latter helps only in casting bolts and BBE. However I can see an argument if you play REB in side, though in this case maybe I'd try a 2/2 split.
DRS is a better card than BoP and the main reason to splash Black, so I would keep them in.
Ignorance is strength
Here's my list.
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Punishing Fire
1 Sylvan Library
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Bloodbraid Elf
#60
Sideboard:
1 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Swan Song
4 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Plague
#15
I've taken it to 3 tournaments and the results have been okay vs fair decks, but I'm struggling vs combo. I've recently moved 2 Vendilion Clique from SB to main and updated my sideboard to address reanimator, omnitell and sneak attack, hope it works out. Used to have Engineered Explosives in the SB, but the dissynergy with cascade made me remove them in favor of anticombo.
Feedback appreciated.
Can Bloodbraid TNN be a real thing?
It would be nice, what to cut however? If you cut shardless you lose cascade triggers and if you cut goyf you raise the mana curve and cannot shardless-cascade into TNN...
Ignorance is strength
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