Here's a thought. If you are poor and can't pay out for a playset of sinkholes, would rancid earth be an acceptable substitute?
For reference: rancid earth BB1 sorcery: Destroy target land
Threshold: destroy target land and rancid earth deals one damage to each creature and each player.
True rancid earth costs one more mana. But is this disadvantage off set enough by the one damage effect? Note the ability to kill off your own Confidants while killing off your opponent's weenie's(BoP, elves, many goblins, soldier tokens, etc.). The only downside of the one damage is that it might kill your Nantuko Shade. But, I think you can avoid that preety easily.
Also notice that this method of Confidant removal does not result in card disadvantage. Finally, it's true that the threshold wouldn't happen until the late game. However, isn't that the time you want to knock off your Confidant anyway?
I'm not saying that rancid earth is better than sinkhole, I'm just wondering if you all would consider using it if you were poor and couldn't get sinkholes.
Thanks all
Throughout the entire Grand Prix, there was never a game where I wished to kill my own Confidant.
If you really can't afford Sinkhole, I would recommend playing Choking Sands in its place. It has no chance to backfire on you unless you also have a Wasteland and they only have one nonbasic land, and you get greedy and want the 2 damage more than you want to destroy 2 lands. If you avoid that trap, it's the best black land destroyer after Sinkhole. Rancid Earth just has too great a chance to backfire in this deck. Nothing's as good as Sinkhole though, and it's worth your while to get some.
I have a question for Chris Pikula - would you consider dropping the 2 Engineered Plagues for 2 more creatures? I tested out the deck with the 4th shade and one random wretch main deck, and it was nice to have more creatures, and I just wouldn't play the deck without 4 shades so something had to go. I believe shade is one of those non-debatable 4-ofs that you mentioned, and I'm surprised you couldn't find room for the 4th.
One more question - did you not play Chains of Mephistopheles in your sideboard because of unavailability, not knowing it existed, or a concious choice? It's my favorite black sideboard card because it's the strongest single disruption card vs. decks like Gro and Solidarity, and it's usable vs. Landstill and many other decks as well. It's also neat in this deck because you can cheat it with Dark Confidant, and be the only player who gets to draw extra cards. I would understand not playing Chains if you thought your game was more than good enough vs. all those decks (it is pretty good), but even then, 2 or 3 Chains sided in would increase your chances even higher, which isn't such a bad thing.
If that is the real Chris Pikula, I'd like to say hi, I'm the guy with the two lip piercings that was watching you play all day, and had you sign my Meddling Mages. First off, excellent job. Secondly, do you feel Negator is a wasted spot in sideboard?
Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin
Is the possiblilty of clearing part of your opponents board worth that of killing off your own threats? It seems like most of the time it would be card disadvantage. I think rain of tears would almost certainly be better, or you could look around at big tournaments. Alot of people have beat to shit sinkholes they're willing to get rid of.
edit: Actually, make that icequake, because fuck IBA, that's why.
Be my pupil on mybrute. It's fun. I swear.
I think trying to play the deck without Sinkholes would obviously make it a lot worse. That one mana means a lot when you are trying to keep them off 2 land.
You could drop the 2 Plagues for creatures if there weren't a lot of Goblins in your metagame. There are a lot of things you can do with that slot if you don't feel you want a way to get lucky game 1 against goblins.
I did not play Chains of Mephistopheles because I did not think my deck needed a sideboard card against combo decks. I had not considered how good it would be against Gro. The problem with the card is that it is hard to know how good it is without seeing your opponents decklist, although I guess every blue deck will have Brainstorm.
On a further note, why would you choose Rancid Earth over Rain of Tears as a budjet choice when you're running Confidant and Shade?
Very good point, laststepdown. Killing off your own creatures is usually bad. TorakTwoEye, if you're going to play this deck 'budget casual', Rain of Tears is fine. It seems though, that the rest of the deck could incur quite an expense. Last time I looked, Vindicates were going for $8-9 each.
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If you think a topic is dumb, don't add to it. Pretty simple. - Bardo
This deck costs a freaking fortune from scratch to assemble. Set of Sinkholes are $70, set of Vindicates will eat $25-30, triple Shade is $25, set of SCRUBlands is another $60. That's not including the Confidants, Hypnotics, and assorted and sundry other cards in the deck. It's quite possibly the most expensive deck that isn't FlameVault in the format.
Aren't there quite a few decks that have 8+ duals and FOW? All of those are going to be pricey.
Zoo runs 12 duals and 8 Fetchlands. That's pricey(and off topic). That being said, why is the conversation leaning towards the price of cards? Don't answer that-let's get back on topic, please. Do we feel that there are better 2 drops than Withered Wretch?
I can't imagine using a 2 drop other than Nantuko Shade or Withered Wretch except in a bizarre metagame. I'd have to see a heckuva an argument.
What can we say is the toughest matchup for Deadguy Ale?
I posted this over at Star City:
I played this deck at our weekly 1.5 tournament here in Vancouver... only four round went 2-2. Lost the first round 2-1 to a monored Burn/LD it was basically the same deck but with burn instead of discard and more expensive and less land destruction. He basically dumped his hand into heavy mox draws so he could just top deck and play whatever it was... worked out ok for him games 2 and 3 Razz
Second round I won 2-1 against a MUC deck with basically Intuition, Counters, and only Ophidian and Morphling to win with. First game I lost to Morphling, won the next to by hymning away Morphling, easy enough.
Third was a Bw deck that really just seemed like an older version of Deadguy Ale, won that one 2-0.
Last was a Survival/Madness deck. I have manage to become fairly proficient at destroying RG Survival (beat it 5-0 earlier in the day) but I just coulnd't get this decks number. He always had cards in his hand for his mongrels to dodge Perish, and discarding Rootwalla's to Survival just seems evil. This is probably the only match where I really wished that my Disenchants were Needles. On the upside I did pull 2 FoW with a single Hymn, pretty sure that was the game I won. The only critters I saw were Arrogant Wurm, Mongrels, Rootwallas, and Looters and it was the Mongrels that killed me each time despite having Swords and Vindicate to kill them somewhere in the deck.
So for what its worth it does seem like the deck has problems against Burn, or at least non pro players do Razz The Madness deck I just chalk up to him having superior playskill, and me not being able to figure out on the fly the best way to disrupt him. Him playing all basics didnt help any either.
After the tourny a few people were asking why I didn't have Therapy/Contagion/Jitte. Therapy I still think could be good, but playing more and more against real opponents really makes it obvious that the critters need to stay on the board. Contagion and Jitte just seem like they'd suck, dont really know what else to say about that. Confidant is good at recovering from various 3 card ritual plays, but I'd hate to have to rely on it to recover from Contagion disadvantage also. Jitte + 11 creatures seems to be the same as Therapy + 11 creatures.
Plus I muliganed at least 7 times across 11 games, at least twice down to 5. I honestly have never had that problem before when I've played this deck, and I didn't shuffle any differently than other times. Meh.
I should mention that the best 2 drop vs. Goblins is Black Knight, although Shade is better vs. most other decks and Withered Wretch is possibly the best graveyard hoser, so they deserve their slots.
I like Chains because I have seen most of my opponents' decklists. 1.5 might be the most diverse format, but most people still play net decks. And most decks that have blue (Landstill, Solidarity, Gro) tend to run 8+ draw spells, so it's not that much of a risk. It also badly hoses a lot of less common things that show up sometimes, like Phyrexian Arena. I just love the damn thing, but I understand if people don't want to pay 100 bucks to get a couple.I did not play Chains of Mephistopheles because I did not think my deck needed a sideboard card against combo decks. I had not considered how good it would be against Gro. The problem with the card is that it is hard to know how good it is without seeing your opponents decklist, although I guess every blue deck will have Brainstorm.
Although I mention Chains before in another forum, I really haven't ever wished I'd had one. Generally the discard in the deck is more then enough for decks that rely on card advantage to win, and I've taken to putting Perish in the SB for NQG and Survival.
Only deck that I really still have continuous problems with are non goblin Red decks. I lost to one last week and thought it was just bad play on my part, but I've played against it abit on Workshop and usually end up on the wrong end of the shitty stick.
Since at the Batcave I have it on authority that there are only 2 goblins that show up, and they both have bad players I've moved the plagues to the SB and MD'd two Wretches. I'll probably shave 2 of the plagues out of the board even. Still looking for something that's not 4 mana or double white that is good against red. So far I've come up with Honorable Passage and... what... Warmth? Also had a few moments where Confidant life loss got scairy but I think that's from keeping slower hands.
With Gro varients on the rise, another potential two drop to consider would be Spectral Lynx. It can survive most forms of removal such as Keg/EE, as well as Deed in Tog varients, Disk/Starstarm in UR Landstill. Its bonus reside in the nice Pro Green attached to it. It can block Werebears all day long, and provided that you keep the threshold in check with Wretch, the Lynx can block the Mystic Enforcer all day long as well. Seeing how Enforcer's got Pro Black, short of StP and discard, Vindicate, Shade, and Hippy's got nothing on that guy. The Lynx would be very useful in that aspect.
Nothing witty to say.
My tools against Gro is
1. Perish
2. Withered Wretch
3. Spectral Lynx
And to beat up Enforcer... umm... S2P? Somewhere you people have gotta run more of these. Perish is also another way to kill off Enforcer, as I mentioned.
Meddling Mage is a bitch to deal with. But Vindicate can take of him very easily.
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"The Citrus-God just had a Citrus-Supernova... in your mouth."
I played the deck today and went 3-0-1 in swiss and split the top 4. I actually won all my matches 2-0 and IDed in the last round so I didn't lose a single game today, although I only played 6. I beat a kid playing life, then turboland, then a more traditional suiblack deck. One of the games vs suiblack was extremely close, I won by scrolling him for specter when I had 2 in my hand out of 5 cards, with confidant's ability on the stack, which would've killed me that turn. I also took 14 from Confidant one game vs life, but I wouldn't consider that game close since he had no cards in hand or creatures in play when I won, and I had 6 good cards in hand. Engineered Plague is very, very good vs. Life btw. The Chains of Mephistopheles helped game 2 vs. turboland, it's one of the decks that gets hosed really badly by that card. The other suiblack deck had a lot of land destruction, which almost won him game 1, and Phyrexian Arena, which I might have sided in Chains for but I didn't see it game 1. I sided out the plagues for STPs because he had the same creatures as me except for Juzams, which I would rather have STP for anyways.
I did notice that Confidant is more risky in this deck than it is in decks with more creatures. When I was testing this archetype with Confidant in it, I had about 20 creatures in my deck so it was never hard to deal more damage to my opponent than Confidant was dealing to me. I can see why Pikula kept siding in extra creatures, because putting more pressure on the opponent is often needed, more than life gain would, with a Confidant on the table. On the flipside, I won one game vs. Turboland with 2 Confidants on the table because playing the 2nd sped up my clock a turn. Then again, that deck doesn't damage you until it's comboed out already.
The Spectral Lynx idea is very interesting. I don't think it's strong enough for a sideboard slot (you could play Perish if you were really worried about green creatures), but it is something to consider if the main deck creature count is to be increased. I still think Black Knight is clearly better vs. Goblins because it's harder to kill and holds off their army with no mana open. If the Plagues were taken out for creatures, putting Knights in their place would at least mean you still had an anti-goblin card in that spot. Lynx would be much better vs. Gro, but I just don't think that's a bad matchup. On the other hand, I have the card Gro fears more than any other in my sideboard to seal the deal in that matchup. After today though, I do agree that more creatures should be in the deck. If the Plagues and Verdicts were removed, that would leave room for 15 creatures. I'd play 4 of each of the basic 3 and 3 Black Knight to keep the game winnable vs Goblins, but Wretch could be maindecked in a different meta.
I really dont see all this talk about Gro (assuming you mean NGQ or 'Threshold'), its not on overly difficult match up. Now I do run Perish in the SB (which kills every creature but Meddling Mage) so that may make it easier but also they mana base for that deck is stretched crazy thin.
Keeping them off blue is pointless but both Green and White are viable, mostly white though. Screwing them for white means you dont have to deal with swords or enforcer or mage (conviently the only creature you can't perish). Then of course Wretch can usually keep them off threshold if he comes down soon enough, at least against the Threshold deck I generally face.
I really think the only support the deck needs in the SB is something against Non Goblin Red, since its consistantly a pain. However I guess no one else lives in a Red/Black meta :P
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