[Deck] MonoU OmniTell

[teonsw]

so is the clash version better because it's harder to stop than lab maniac?

It just seems like a more direct way to kill them. In addition Lab Maniac doesn't run a main deck emrakul. Due to this if your cunning wish gets surgical'd you lose your win con if you did not board it in.

[catmint]

And the fact that many sneak and show players didn't immediately drop the deck they spent thousands of dollars on to switch to this one means that this is an inferior deck.

Got it. Thanks for the balanced critiques everyone.

I would like to point out this deck has been a deck for about a month now. it also has 3 top 16s at SCGOpens. That has to be some sort of record or something. Look how long it took for DnT to make it to top 16!

The thread is really not balanced but more into the direction that people think they have the new hulk flash or think it is the best deck in the format or whatever. People making "negative" statements is not "criticism" - it is a more realistic evaluation. Nobody (or not many) say the deck is crap or not viable which would be inbalanced in the other direction.

Concerning switching to omniclash:
1) It is not expensive for any show player to switch so that is surely not a reason.
2) After Omniscience was released it immediately replaced sneak attack in a hype and after a while it got more balanced until it fell out of favour for sneak again. So this comparison is much more fitting that comparing it to D&T.

The argument that it has not taken over sneaks place must therefore have others reasons. In my opinion there might be 2 factors:

1) It was invented and successful in europe first. It takes a while for europeans and SCG to pick up european innovations but if there is something happening in SCG everyone seems to hype it up really fast (even if its total crap like cutting stifle or replacing mongoose with snapcaster in Canadian). We can see what happens now that the deck showed up in SCG.

2) Sneak has a good Omniclash matchup and a significantly better combo matchup so many sneak players might think: "come on people switch to clash and kick out my bad RUG matchup - see you at the top tables". If you compare that to the time when omnishow came out: Omnishow had to resolve show&tell as well, but they could then cast a emrakul and have a significant advantage no matter if sneak shows in emmy or Grisel so with the last "show switch" the dynamic was very different.

[n0mad]

It just seems like a more direct way to kill them. In addition Lab Maniac doesn't run a main deck emrakul. Due to this if your cunning wish gets surgical'd you lose your win con if you did not board it in.

I am going to try the list I top 16 with on Wednesday with -1 dream halls and +1 emrakul and see how it plays.

[apple713]

2) Sneak has a good Omniclash matchup and a significantly better combo matchup so many sneak players might think: "come on people switch to clash and kick out my bad RUG matchup - see you at the top tables". If you compare that to the time when omnishow came out: Omnishow had to resolve show&tell as well, but they could then cast a emrakul and have a significant advantage no matter if sneak shows in emmy or Grisel so with the last "show switch" the dynamic was very different.

+1



First off i want to say that im not trolling here, i really want to like the deck. It wins as soon as it goes off, but doesnt get there nearly as often as I would like.

What i've found is that it gets there against discard decks and would still ge there against them without maindeck leyline. It has enough digging spells to find the missing piece even if they get 1 or two of them. What it lacks severly is its control matchup. It pretty much folds to any control deck with more counters. Spell pierces forces and + anything else really cause problems for this deck.

Lejay, Please test your sneak and show matchup, i tested 10 games last night and omni tell lost 9 out of 10 games all for the same 2 reasons. The 1 game it did win was because sneak and tell kept a 1 land hand just to see if omnitell had a chance. It doesnt have enough counterspells to beat sneak and show or it can resolve omniscience but doesnt have a way to get enter the infinite. Dream halls is only good if you have a omniscience.

What i like about the deck is that it has cunning wish to get answers to things it might need via cunning wish. I'm not sure if cunning wish is necessary because there are fewer ways to disrupt it if it resolves. It's mono blue and I like how blue foils look. HOWEVER...

What it needs

way to improve consistency / more control comparably to Sneak and show



The answer to that might be through red. Red opens up possibilities of Burning wish burning wish finds not only show and tell but also, enter the infinite. those are the most important pieces of the deck. In addition to this it could run REB in sideboard to improve control matchups which are difficult for this deck.

Have you explored the red option? Maybe there is something better than a win through release the ants.... hell release the ants seemed kinda like an anti climatic way to win anyways especially when you can cast any spell in magic for free :)

[Corto]

2) Sneak has a good Omniclash matchup

Could you explain this a bit please ?
The way I see it is that the SneakShow player has to win through Sneak attack, because every Show and tell is a liability ( you'll get killed next turn, or quite likely, as the opponent can drop Omniscience or Dream Halls or Emrakul ) , while the Omni player can cantrip every turn to sculpt his hand and combo you in one turn with roughly has much hardcounters.
I don't really see how you can write with such authority that the match-up is definitely in favor of SneakShow.

To be fair, after thinking a bit about what I said, I admit that Show and tell into griselbrand can hope to ward of shenanigans like "omniscience/dream halls into enter the infinite", but you have to draw a great deal of good stuff, because on his turn the Omniplayer can really put pressures with wish, cantrips into disruption and or other kills.

[Lans89]

I did win a lot vs Sneak Attack, but that was all behind a Defense Grid! But Sneaky Show is certainly not a good matchup..

[apple713]

Could you explain this a bit please ?

To be fair, after thinking a bit about what I said, I admit that Show and tell into griselbrand can hope to ward of shenanigans like "omniscience/dream halls into enter the infinite", but you have to draw a great deal of good stuff, because on his turn the Omniplayer can really put pressures with wish, cantrips into disruption and or other kills.

+1

griselbrand is better to have in play than omniscience. if they play a S&T i'll let it resolve to drop a griselbrand cause i know i'll win. I'll draw counters to live through their turn and then i'll cast a sneak attack with emrakul on my next turn cause i just drew 15 cards, 14 from griselbrand and 1 for turn. the only way they could have the advantage is if i end up with an emrakul, but if thats the case i'll wait till i get the sneak attack with the emrakul and kill them that way. they cant recover after losing all their lands.


@Lans89

defense grid really hurts Seank attack. in fact, it hurts sneak attack so badly i took it out of my sideboard and went with other options that are better against control. Unfortunatly those options arnt available to omnitell. Boseiju and through the breach.

maybe omnitell is what Sneak attack needs to board to against D&T and some of Sneak attacks other bad matchups. Sneak attacks weaknesses are cards like humility, ensnaring bridge, karakas....pretty much things that deal with sneak attacks creatures. Omnitell doesnt have those problems, so after opponent boards all those cards in you could simply switch your deck to eliminate their boarding choices....

i was just ramblin but after some thought this might not be a bad idea.

[catmint]

Could you explain this a bit please ?
The way I see it is that the SneakShow player has to win through Sneak attack, because every Show and tell is a liability ( you'll get killed next turn, or quite likely, as the opponent can drop Omniscience or Dream Halls or Emrakul ) , while the Omni player can cantrip every turn to sculpt his hand and combo you in one turn with roughly has much hardcounters.
I don't really see how you can write with such authority that the match-up is definitely in favor of SneakShow.

To be fair, after thinking a bit about what I said, I admit that Show and tell into griselbrand can hope to ward of shenanigans like "omniscience/dream halls into enter the infinite", but you have to draw a great deal of good stuff, because on his turn the Omniplayer can really put pressures with wish, cantrips into disruption and or other kills.

As sneak you never show into emrakul. If you show (which is a big if) then into griselbrand with the possibility to draw 14. I would still never show because they can have their random Emrakul or multiple winconditions and/or counters 3+ in the deck. On the other hand omniclash can only show if they expect to beat all the counters that Griselbrand might draw them. If sneak did not combo first they likely have mana open and counters in hand + what Griselbrand can draw them. So unless sneak is outtapped and omniclash has the absolute nuts like (show, omni, enter, double counter - but anyway both decks can have nut draws) casting show is pretty risky so mainly it comes down to the enchanments.

Sneak runs 4 sneaks, 4-5 sol lands and 4 petals casting and activating regularly turn 3-4 only disruptable by opposing force of wills (5 mana can also be split to 2 turns 4+1 while dreamhalls needs 5 mana in one turn).

Omniclash runs only 3 dream halls and only 3 sol lands so it will be very often a turn 5 play since they need either a land drop every turn or if they miss a land drop one of their 3 sol lands. If they arrive at that point all spell pierces that sneak runs are live and if they don't run spell pierces they usually run flusterstorm - also not the best for omniclash as we know.

Post board there is defense grid which omniclash can bring to protect and probably some bounce effects and the intuition to find dream halls siding out show & tell. Maybe it is also correct to plan to go off with show & tell behind a defense grid - interested what lejay has to say about the post board plan. Sneak attack sides out show and brings in additional disruption like red-blasts/flusters/surgical and 2 through the breach to have 6 enablers. If Sneak runs intuition they can keep them safely for more consistency without fear of surgical extraction.

The only way I can see it work out post board for omniclash is if a defense grid resolves against a Sneak player keeping a slow combo / all protection hand which is suboptimal anyway.

Concerning consistency vs. speed.
In this matchup speed is way more important for obvious reasons.
Consistency: Omniclash runs 2-4 more cantrips (not counting gitaxian probe) since some number of preordains are also pretty common in sneak, but therefore requires more combo pieces. Omniclash is more consistent in scultping/killing versus a deck like RUG - where sneak can easily fall apart, but in terms of faster goldfish omniclash does not match up with sneak - not even close.

[apple713]

As sneak you never show into emrakul. If you show (which is a big if) then into griselbrand with the possibility to draw 14. I would still never show because they can have their random Emrakul or multiple winconditions and/or counters 3+ in the deck. On the other hand omniclash can only show if they expect to beat all the counters that Griselbrand might draw them. If sneak did not combo first they likely have mana open and counters in hand + what Griselbrand can draw them. So unless sneak is outtapped and omniclash has the absolute nuts like (show, omni, enter, double counter - but anyway both decks can have nut draws) casting show is pretty risky so mainly it comes down to the enchanments.

Sneak runs 4 sneaks, 4-5 sol lands and 4 petals casting and activating regularly turn 3-4 only disruptable by opposing force of wills (5 mana can also be split to 2 turns 4+1 while dreamhalls needs 5 mana in one turn).

Omniclash runs only 3 dream halls and only 3 sol lands so it will be very often a turn 5 play since they need either a land drop every turn or if they miss a land drop one of their 3 sol lands. If they arrive at that point all spell pierces that sneak runs are live and if they don't run spell pierces they usually run flusterstorm - also not the best for omniclash as we know.

Post board there is defense grid which omniclash can bring to protect and probably some bounce effects and the intuition to find dream halls siding out show & tell. Maybe it is also correct to plan to go off with show & tell behind a defense grid - interested what lejay has to say about the post board plan. Sneak attack sides out show and brings in additional disruption like red-blasts/flusters/surgical and 2 through the breach to have 6 enablers. If Sneak runs intuition they can keep them safely for more consistency without fear of surgical extraction.

The only way I can see it work out post board for omniclash is if a defense grid resolves against a Sneak player keeping a slow combo / all protection hand which is suboptimal anyway.

Concerning consistency vs. speed.
In this matchup speed is way more important for obvious reasons.
Consistency: Omniclash runs 2-4 more cantrips (not counting gitaxian probe) since some number of preordains are also pretty common in sneak, but therefore requires more combo pieces. Omniclash is more consistent in scultping/killing versus a deck like RUG - where sneak can easily fall apart, but in terms of faster goldfish omniclash does not match up with sneak - not even close.

@ speed vs consistency, omnitell is a very consistent turn 3-4 win if it doesnt run into counters or discard. unfortunatly every deck now a days has one or the other.

@ defense grid if omnitell plays t2 defense grid, sneak attack has an opening to win on their turn... defense grid seems terrible here. especially if sneak attack has a spell pierce cause the omni tell player wont have 6 mana. to cast 2 counterspells.

@ boarding out S&T vs omnitell, probably wouldnt do it cause we normally win this show and tell.

[catmint]

@ speed vs consistency, omnitell is a very consistent turn 3-4 win if it doesnt run into counters or discard. unfortunatly every deck now a days has one or the other.

@ defense grid if omnitell plays t2 defense grid, sneak attack has an opening to win on their turn... defense grid seems terrible here. especially if sneak attack has a spell pierce cause the omni tell player wont have 6 mana. to cast 2 counterspells.

@ boarding out S&T vs omnitell, probably wouldnt do it cause we normally win this show and tell.

I am talking about omniclash which is quite different from omnitell. Everything you say is correct for omnitell but does not apply here at all.

[apple713]

I am talking about omniclash which is quite different from omnitell. Everything you say is correct for omnitell but does not apply here at all.

whats the diff? the deck im referring to is the one posted on the original post.

[Koby]

whats the diff? the deck im referring to is the one posted on the original post.

In this pairing, there is hardly a difference -- OmniTell typically is UR Burning Wish based; OmniClash is mon-blue and Cunning Wish based. In this pairing, they play identically.

The UR BW Omni deck still has a line of play that includes Griselbrand to draw a bunch of cards, or Emrakul to attack. I believe that the UR/BW version of Omni is much harder for Sneak Attack versions to beat because of the extra warm bodies - making a proactive Show & Tell a blank at best, and lethal at worst. The Cunning Wish builds only have one line of play: Omniscience.

The difference is small however, since any resolved Show & Tell will favor the player who has Omniscience. Such a deck is designed to win on the turn they resolve Show & Tell. Sneak Attack is not.

[catmint]

You are not aware of the difference between omnitell and omniclash?
Omnitell: With burning wish and omniscience into BW instant kill or emmy/grisel.
Omniclash: Monoblue with dream halls, cunning wish and enter the infinite. Emmy as a one off for an alternative kill.

What you say does not apply because

@ speed vs consistency, omnitell is a very consistent turn 3-4 win if it doesnt run into counters or discard. unfortunatly every deck now a days has one or the other.

omniclash is more turn 4 than turn 3 - the speed loss compared to omnitell and even more sneak is a fact. But it does not even matter here, because I talk about dream halls as the only viable wincon (except the supernuts).

@ defense grid if omnitell plays t2 defense grid, sneak attack has an opening to win on their turn... defense grid seems terrible here. especially if sneak attack has a spell pierce cause the omni tell player wont have 6 mana. to cast 2 counterspells.

Why would'nt you not tap out with omniclash versus sneak. You don't run pierce/fluster anyways (current lejay list at least) so open in sneaks turn does not help omniclash.
Defense grid helps omniclash because sneaks cards to disrupt post board are ~10-14 and omniclash has like ~6

@ boarding out S&T vs omnitell, probably wouldnt do it cause we normally win this show and tell.

You will try to avoid show & tell and win with dream halls.

[Tammit67]

What i've found is that it gets there against discard decks and would still get there against them without maindeck leyline. It has enough digging spells to find the missing piece even if they get 1 or two of them. What it lacks severly is its control matchup. It pretty much folds to any control deck with more counters. Spell pierces forces and + anything else really cause problems for this deck.

Lejay, Please test your sneak and show matchup, i tested 10 games last night and omni tell lost 9 out of 10 games all for the same 2 reasons. The 1 game it did win was because sneak and tell kept a 1 land hand just to see if omnitell had a chance. It doesnt have enough counterspells to beat sneak and show or it can resolve omniscience but doesnt have a way to get enter the infinite. Dream halls is only good if you have a omniscience.

Omni can beat one discard with decent regularity, as can any combo deck. The issue with discard is when they can curve it into a second discard spell and or liliana. I think these are the hardest matchups for us preboard: any deck that can curve discard into something that seals the deal whether it be ad nauseum, reanimate, liliana or dread return. Postboard leyline makes things much nicer.

I completely disagree with the "folds to control decks with more counters". I'm a little confused how you think spell pierce out of control is a problem- simply keep playing lands until you beat 2 pierce and then drop the win? Sometimes out of RUG it is an issue simply because they have the clock to force your hand, but control does not have this. If you are talking about some weird landstill build with 4x counterspell and 4x force of will, well that deck isn't really viable for one, has a terrible clock letting you sculpt your hand for two, and between 4 pact 4 force and 3 defense grid you should be fine.

The sneak and show matchup is a strange one for sure. The maindeck flusterstorms some versions play do a number on our protection suite. Consider though that they have significantly worse topdecks going forward game 1: their show and tells are dead (unless they plan to show and tell sneak attack), additional petals aren't amazing, emrakyl and griselbrand beyond the first are likewise weak draws. The depth of our cantrips combined with their inconsistent draws once the game hits turn 5 means we slowly gain ground over them I think (I will just start hard casting omniscience and dreamhalls until something sticks). If they don't know what you are on you can get lucky and they will cast the show and tell for you.

Postboard they get REBs usually, but defense grid is a fine countermeasure. Ideally you drop grid turn 2 and force them to either have the sneak attack + mana to activate + emrakyl or you combo off in relative safety when you untap. They have the same issues going long, although through the breach can really hurt. Late game dropping of defense grid with mana open to combo cannot be ignored: you'll have much more mana to work with in my experience and the tools to find pieces/disruption faster.

Sneak has a rather large window of opportunity pre and postboard when it can resolve sneak attack when it has spell pierce/flusterstorm/force/misdirection backup (depending on version) and we do not yet have 5 mana in order to hardcast force/pay for pact the following turn. If they cantrip to take advantage of that, they might not have the mana available to pierce/flusterstorm our responses.

[apple713]

Omni can beat one discard with decent regularity, as can any combo deck. The issue with discard is when they can curve it into a second discard spell and or liliana. I think these are the hardest matchups for us preboard: any deck that can curve discard into something that seals the deal whether it be ad nauseum, reanimate, liliana or dread return. Postboard leyline makes things much nicer.

I completely disagree with the "folds to control decks with more counters". I'm a little confused how you think spell pierce out of control is a problem- simply keep playing lands until you beat 2 pierce and then drop the win? Sometimes out of RUG it is an issue simply because they have the clock to force your hand, but control does not have this. If you are talking about some weird landstill build with 4x counterspell and 4x force of will, well that deck isn't really viable for one, has a terrible clock letting you sculpt your hand for two, and between 4 pact 4 force and 3 defense grid you should be fine.

The sneak and show matchup is a strange one for sure. The maindeck flusterstorms some versions play do a number on our protection suite. Consider though that they have significantly worse topdecks going forward game 1: their show and tells are dead (unless they plan to show and tell sneak attack), additional petals aren't amazing, emrakyl and griselbrand beyond the first are likewise weak draws. The depth of our cantrips combined with their inconsistent draws once the game hits turn 5 means we slowly gain ground over them I think (I will just start hard casting omniscience and dreamhalls until something sticks). If they don't know what you are on you can get lucky and they will cast the show and tell for you.

Postboard they get REBs usually, but defense grid is a fine countermeasure. Ideally you drop grid turn 2 and force them to either have the sneak attack + mana to activate + emrakyl or you combo off in relative safety when you untap. They have the same issues going long, although through the breach can really hurt. Late game dropping of defense grid with mana open to combo cannot be ignored: you'll have much more mana to work with in my experience and the tools to find pieces/disruption faster.

Sneak has a rather large window of opportunity pre and postboard when it can resolve sneak attack when it has spell pierce/flusterstorm/force/misdirection backup (depending on version) and we do not yet have 5 mana in order to hardcast force/pay for pact the following turn. If they cantrip to take advantage of that, they might not have the mana available to pierce/flusterstorm our responses.

sneak and show games dont make it past turn 5 unless they have been disrupted. you dont have time to play extra lands in omni cause sneak atatck puts you on a clock of winning 1-2 turns faster. and i'll cast show and tell all day against omni as long as i have a griselbrand. I guarantee in the 14 cards i draw i'll counter whatever you have.


in light of all the controversy towards these two decks there might be a solution. Porting omnitell/omniclash to the sneak attack shell. that way you dont have to give up consistency or control. Hear me out

Basic sneak and show list

2x island
1x mountain
4x scalding tarn
4x misty rainforest
3x ancient tomb
2x city of traitors
3x volcanic island

4x lotus petal

4x griselbrand
4x emrakul, aeons torn

4x force of will
4x spell pierce
4x sneak attack
4x show and tell
4x brainstorm
4x ponder

2x misdirection
2x intuition
1x preordain



Modified for omni****

3x island (added 1 land to = the current omni*** lists)
1x mountain
4x scalding tarn
4x misty rainforest
3x ancient tomb
2x city of traitors
3x volcanic island


4x omniscience
3x enter the infinite
4x Burning wish (instead of being just sneak attack it can get show and tell or enter the infinite)
3x show and tell (cut 1 for 1 in sideboard, personal tutor gets this)
2x personal tutor (gets enter the infinite or burning wish or show and tell)
2x dream halls (these are extra slots...they seemd appropriate)
1x cunning wish (to get your win, shouldnt need more than 1 cause if you draw your whole deck you'll have counters to make sure it sticks)

4x force of will
4x spell pierce
4x brainstorm
4x ponder

2x pact of negation (since this deck will win the same turn it goes off it gets the benefit pact over misdirection)
2x intuition
1x sensei's divining top


Sideboard

research // development
laboratory maniac (i prefer this because even tough its not instant speed you dont have to target your opponent. you can still run ants if you want and stick an enter the infinite on top...they probably wont be able to beat that, emrakul is kinda overkill)
13x whatever you want cards



let me know what yall think.

[Admiral_Arzar]

If Sneak casts Show and Tell against you, just drop in Defense Grid, untap, and win the game. Easy way to punish them postboard if they get greedy - I don't care how many cards you draw off Griselbrand if you are tapped out and I have a Defense Grid.

[n0mad]

If Sneak casts Show and Tell against you, just drop in Defense Grid, untap, and win the game. Easy way to punish them postboard if they get greedy - I don't care how many cards you draw off Griselbrand if you are tapped out and I have a Defense Grid.

maybe im not following this correctly... if they show and tell in sneak attack and you put in defense grid... can't they just activate sneak attack and murder you with emrakul?

[Koby]

maybe im not following this correctly... if they show and tell in sneak attack and you put in defense grid... can't they just activate sneak attack and murder you with emrakul?

Correct, that would be the only reason to ever cast Show & Tell from the Sneak/Show player. Doing so just to cheat 1 mana and then not activate it is throwing the game away.

So at this point, we've reasoned that casting Show & Tell in mirror matches is only beneficial to the player who can convert it to a win on the same turn. Both Omni builds are favored to cast S&T thus, but Sneak Show has more disruption (Flusterstorm & Misdirection). We can't possibly cover all permutations of cards in hand/kill cons from both sides, so let's just leave it at this: only cast Show & Tell if you're reasonable sure you can win the same turn.

[alphastryk]

maybe im not following this correctly... if they show and tell in sneak attack and you put in defense grid... can't they just activate sneak attack and murder you with emrakul?

Pretty sure SnT -> Griselbrand was what was being discussed, not SnT -> Sneak. I don't think many peol,e would be willing to SnT -> Griselbrand in this matchup however.

[Dark Ritual]

The funny side about this sneak and show v. omniclash debate? Let's say the metagame devolves into omniclash v. sneak and show. It's only making a VERY good case for banning show and tell if the meta revolves around a show and tell deck vs. a show and tell deck.

Also of note, defense grid is amazing against sneak and show when they resolve their show and tell and let you put in grid for free. It's the reason grid is there. If you want omniclash to be positive against sneak and show, splash black for thoughtseize. Suddenly when you grab their lone griselbrand and resolve your own show and tell you instantly win because they can't draw countermagic with their binned griselbrand instead they put in a derpy emrakul, sneak attack, or other meaningless permanent when you win the same turn.