[Deck] Sneak and Show

[JPA]

Sneak & Show

Old thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...B-Sneak-Attack

Introduction and History

Sneak and Show is a blue-red combo-control deck, which primarily operates by trying to resolve either Sneak Attack or Show and Tell to put a huge, most often game-ending fatty like Griselbrand and/or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play.

The deck first burst into the competitive Legacy scene in mid-2010 with the printing of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, a fatty overpowered enough that it was worth building a whole deck around.
While Survival of the Fittest decks certainly dominated most tournaments in 2010, Sneak & Show and similar Show and Tell based strategies steadily rose to the top tier of Legacy decks, claiming its first Grand Prix Top 8 in Columbus, where Korey Age piloted a list with Woodfall Primus as the fatty of choice alongside Emrakul.

Shortly after Survival got hit by the ban-hammer, a new format-defining card arrived in the form of Mental Misstep. Conveniently for Sneak & Show, its combo enablers were completely unaffected by the free counter, while Misstep found its way into many lists, providing protection against disruptive 1-mana spells such as Thoughtseize or Spell Pierce.
However, Sneak & Show wasn’t the no. 1 Show and Tell deck during most of the Misstep-era, due to Hive Mind, a mostly 3-card-combo deck that could kill on the spot without the need to actually attack with an Emrakul, being THE deck to beat at the time.
Still, Sneak & Show put up some solid results during that time, sneaking two similar lists into the Top 16 of the Bazaar of Moxen 2011 (Rodrigo Togores and Johannes Gutbrod).

With Mental Misstep banned, the format sped up slightly, which improved Sneak & Show’s position over Hive Mind.
Grand Prix Amsterdam saw two copies of Sneak & Show making Top 16 of the tournament, piloted by teammates Jan Van der Vegt and Erwin Sneek.

The deck continued to put up results in larger tournaments like SCG Opens in late 2011 and early 2012, thanks to the increasing popularity of fair slow decks like Maverick and Stoneblade, which were excellent matchups.
When Griselbrand got printed in May of 2012, Sneak & Show quickly became THE combo deck to beat, and many voices calling for a ban of either Show and Tell or Griselbrand rose up. While you certainly had some outs to Emrakul or Progenitus, Griselbrand’s card-drawing ability made it extremely difficult to turn the game around once the life-linking demon had entered the battlefield. It also made the Sneak Attack part of the combo much better, since it could cheat a Griselbrand into play, who could draw enough cards to find another red source and an Emrakul to end the game on the spot.
Sneak & Show’s tournament success spiraled upwards drastically from there, winning 7 SCG Opens in 2012 and 2013, as well as Top 8ing countless large tournaments and GPs.
Even established professional players like William “Huey” Jensen appreciated its raw power and picked up the deck, putting up consistent great results, culminating in the 2013 SCG Indianapolis Invitational, where Huey, Gerry Thompson, Brian Braun-Duin and Brad Nelson, who took down the tournament in a mirror finals against Huey, all made Top 8 with Sneak and Show.

The huge hype around the deck started dying down in 2014. It still put up great, consistent results, but with dedicated hate-cards like Containment Priest emerging, it was more difficult to just walk through tournaments without much resistance.

Khans of Tarkir game-changers Treasure Cruise and Dig through Time created a completely new Legacy metagame, with seemingly infinite amounts of Red Elemental Blast effects running around to keep the overpowered Delve spells in check.
Still, it managed to make it into the Top 16 of the largest Legacy Grand Prix ever, GP New Jersey 2014, piloted by Jonathan Anghelescu (yours truly ;) ), incorporating Dig Through Time as a “super-cantrip” and main deck Fire // Ice to combat UR Delver, the S tier deck of the time.

Shortly after that, Treasure Cruise got banned in early 2015, slowing the format down significantly. This time was the birth of the 4 Dig through Time – powered version of Omnitell, which became the new boogeyman of Legacy and, even though slower, was consistent and powerful enough to take Sneak & Show’s place as the premier Show and Tell strategy.

However, Dig through Time followed Treasure Cruise to the ban-grave shortly thereafter, and Sneak & Show reclaimed its spot as Show and Tell deck no. 1.
Yet, the overall popularity of the strategy was at an all-time low and except winning the Legacy Magic Online Championship (piloted by yours truly) it didn’t put up many significant results during late 2015 and early 2016.

A new version of Sneak and Show emerged in 2016, a hybrid of Sneak and Omnitell, therefore called OmniSneak. With a better Eldrazi and Death and Taxes matchup than traditional Sneak & Show, it proved to be a strong meta-choice, making it to the Top 8 of GP Prague and winning three SCG Legacy Classics.

In late 2016, traditional Sneak & Show made a triumphant return, with Kentaro Yamamoto winning Grand Prix Chiba, the greatest success the deck has ever seen. Another copy snuck into the Top 4, while OmniSneak didn’t make it past the Top 32.



To be continued (…)

Ways to build the deck

The deck consists of 5 different parts that comprise the maindeck:
1. Enablers

Sneak Attack: One half of the name-sake, no card in the history of magic more effectively cheats creatures into play for such value…again and again.

Show and Tell: The other half of the equation, Show and Tell enables all the broken spells at the cost of 2U. Note that you can use it to put in Sneak Attack, saving one red mana. Unlike Sneak Attack, it is a symmetrical effect, which makes it a little more dangerous, in case your opponent puts their own Emrakul or a hate-permanent like Humility into play.

2. Fatties

Since the printing of Griselbrand, there is not much room for discussion about the main deck fatty configuration. 4 Griselbrand/ 4 Emrakul are basically set.
In the Omnisneak hybrid, 3 Omniscience made their way into the deck, removing 1 Emrakul and 1 Griselbrand.

3. The Search Engine

Brainstorm: In case you haven't heard, this card turns out to be quite strong in strategies with access to Blue mana and fetch lands.

Ponder: Next best after Brainstorm, Ponder is preferable to Preordain in this strategy because it digs a card deeper and the deck craves the pieces of its 2 card combo.

Intuition: Provides versatility within the maindeck and sideboard. Most often it grabs the most effective combo piece or creature for a given situation, though other times it grabs counter-magic or a specific sideboard piece. Intuition gets blown out by Surgical Extraction post-board, so it gets boarded out a lot.

Preordain: Offers more redundancy.

Sensei's Divining Top: Another effective card filtering option, Top is especially effective in the mid-game and against heavy-discard strategies. It is less effective against fast decks.

Gitaxian Probe: This probably belongs more in the "Protection"-paragraph, but it does some minor cantripping as well. Probe is a nice card to support Sneak & Show's main game plan - resolving a Show and Tell or Sneak Attack as fast as possible. Against Tempo, it shows you how many counters your opponent has that you need to fight through. Against Death and Taxes, you can see which hate you need to play around. In the mirror and against Reanimator you might even catch your opponent at a point where you can just win via Show and Tell into creature.
More experienced Sneak & Show players might be able to read their opponent well enough to know how many counters / hate they have, but fact is that you can't ever be 100 % sure. Gitaxian Probe dispenses with the need to "guess" and makes everything easier by just showing you what's up.
Generally, you want to cast it in the turn you go off. If you don't know what you're playing against, casting it right away is the better choice, since it allows you to make decisions like whether or not playing around cards like Stifle and Wasteland, leaving mana open to cast your Spell Pierce, etc.

4. Protection

To be able to protect the combo against control decks and discard, and to counter opposing cards that would stop the creatures from attacking like Peacekeeper, Moat, Humility, Blazing Archon, and Ensnaring Bridge, as well as taking the control-role against other combo decks, Sneak & Show utilizes a strong counter-suite that consists of:

Force of Will: Nothing to argue about here; we play a blue (nonblack) deck that needs protection so we play a playset of Forces.

Misdirection: Most often acting as a fifth Force of Will, it can also provide blowouts against cards like Hymn to Tourach and Maelstrom Pulse.

Daze: Opinions differ a lot whether or not Daze fits into Sneak & Shows counter-suit. It is another free counterspell to protect your combo, but it does set you back a whole turn if it doesn't result in an immediate win or has to be used defensively. This is especially tough for this deck, because you want to get to 3/4/5 mana as fast as possible.

Spell Pierce: Ultra efficient and versatile. Counters everything that worries the Sneak & Show player, from Counterspell, over Thoughtseize to Liliana of the Veil or Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

Flusterstorm: Some prefer Flusterstorm over Spell Pierce because it's more effective against storm strategies and Reanimator. However, the fact that it doesn't hit Planeswalkers and other non-instants/sorceries like Aether Vial makes it much more narrow than Spell Pierce.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: Jace is very good against control decks and in the mirror, providing both another must-counter and even an alternate win-condition.

5. Acceleration and lands

Recommended stock mana configuration:

4 Scalding Tarn
3 other blue fetchlands
5 sol-lands (3-4 Ancient Tomb and 1-2 City of Traitors)
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Lotus Petal

This can be customized to fit one's own playstyle of course, but this is considered the stock manabase. Simian Spirit Guide is another playable accelerant, blanking an opponent's Daze and enabling a surprise Sneak Attack activation on your opponent's turn.

Main Deck Construction Guideline

Ultimately, this is what the stock shell currently looks like:

Traditional Sneak & Show
16 combo pieces (4 Emmy, 4 Grisel + 8 Sneak & Show)
4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
9 Flex-slots (e.g. Gitaxian Probe, Preordain, Spell Pierce, Misdirection, Daze, Flusterstorm, Sensei's Divining Top, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Omniscience, etc.)

OmniSneak
16 combo pieces (3 Emrakul, 3 Griselbrand, 3 Omniscience, 3 Sneak Attack, 4 Show and Tell)
2-4 Cunning Wish
1 Impulse
4 Brainstorm + 4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
0-4 Preordain / Gitaxian Probe
2-4 Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm



6. The Sideboard

There is a huge amount of options in the deck's colors. I will try to list the ones most relevant in the current (December 2016) metagame. Also, I will only include cards that have been thoroughly tested in competitive settings and have had tournament success.

Blood Moon: The best permanent answer to Karakas as well as an almost complete lock-out against many of the format's most popular decks (Eldrazi, Shardless BUG, Deathblade, BUG Delver, etc.).

Red Elemental Blast / Pyroblast: Very versatile and especially good against Delver decks, where it can act as both a counterspell and a removal for Delver of Secrets to buy some time. Also strong against cantrip-reliant combo-decks and Jace-decks like UWr Miracles and Shardless BUG.

Defense Grid: The best card we have against Tempo(Delver)-decks' huge amount of counters post-board. If you decide to play with Defense Grid, only board it in against Tempo; it's not worth it against decks with less than 8 post-board counters. Though it can be effective against Miracles, I generally don't bring it in against them, since they have threats of their own (Jace, Counterbalance) that I want to be able to counter (remember that Grid is symmetrical).

Flusterstorm: Both a possible main deck and sideboard card (more often found in the sideboard than main, though). See above for explanation.

Through the Breach: Functioning as a one-shot instant Sneak Attack, Through the Breach can work as a supplement providing further redundancy to the creature cheating strategy as well as replacing Show and Tell in the mirror match, against decks that can abuse S&T's symmetry (Reanimator/Belcher) or vs hatebear-decks like Death and Taxes that have a lot of answers to Show and Tell / Sneak Attack.

Pyroclasm / Kozilek’s Return / Sudden Shock / Grim Lavamancer: Each of those red removal spells has its pros and cons. Pyroclasm is the cheapest sweeper we have access to, but can be somewhat blanked by Death and Taxes’ Mother of Runes. Kozilek’s Return acts at instant-speed and circumvents Mother of Runes, but costs 1 colorless mana more. Sudden Shock is excellent against blue decks that play problematic hate-bears, but less useful against swarm-decks like Elves. Grim Lavamancer provides a quite different angle and is very hard to remove, since most decks don’t leave in removal against Sneak & Show.

Grafdigger's Cage: Reanimator and Dredge are some of the more difficult matchups. Cage is great against Reanimator and ok against Dredge, while also blanking both Natural Order and Green Sun's Zenith against Elves and Past in Flames vs Storm.

Surgical Extraction: Even better than Cage against Reanimator, since it can't be bounced / Abrupt Decayed. Solid against Storm and great in the mirror against Intuition and at extracting a countered Sneak Attack.

Echoing Truth and Wipe Away: Bounce against permanent-hate like Ensnaring Bridge, Humility and Pithing Needle. Echoing Truth is also very good against Empty the Warrens decks like Storm and Belcher or the Entreat the Angels tokens of Miracles. Wipe Away can bounce a fatty against Reanimator and is generally better against Miracles than Echoing Truth, because it can't be countered. It can also randomly split second bounce Karakas if they wait until your turn to bounce your Emrakul.
Note that Wipe Away should also be boarded against Storm; bouncing a land in response to a hellbent Infernal Tutor turns Wipe Away into Cancel.

Engineered Explosives: Another catch-all that can also act as a sweeper.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor: In the matchups you board him in (mirror, slow combo, creaturelight control) you will often be able to win the game with Jace alone. Especially in the mirror, he gives a huge edge and lets you play the control-role very easily.

Vendilion Clique: A very good card against other combo-decks, creating a clock while being disruptive as well. Obviously great in the mirror, but also good against control-decks that board out their spot-removal.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All: The absolute trump-card against Miracles. Also useful as a 20th land against Delver-decks and very good in the mirror.

Omniscience: Another Show and Tell target that’s very good against Death and Taxes, against Containment Priest in general and in any matchup where you could get killed if you just drop in Emrakul off of Show and Tell (Storm, mirror, Reanimator, etc.).

Matchup Analysis and how to play Sneak & Show

The way you want to play the deck differs from matchup to matchup, so the MU-analysis and the how-to fall together.

Even though Legacy is a very diverse format, I won't cover non-Tier strategies, since those are not as relevant. Questions about specific matchups against less popular decks are welcome to be asked in the thread.

Note that “key-cards from x” means their key-cards against Sneak and Show, not their key-cards in general.

Miracles 55:45

An overall positive matchup (Legend Miracles is a different story, but much more rare than the Ponder build).

They have a lot of dead cards pre-board, which forces them to draw the exact right part of their deck to have a chance in game 1. They’ll still have 4 Terminus in the pre-board games, so a mere Show and Tell into Emrakul is a somewhat risky play, if you don’t have any counter backup.

Depending on your hand, Counterbalance/Countertop can be annoying, but usually they’ll only have two 4-drops and two to four 3-drops to counter your enablers with Counterbalance.
Very few lists run Karakas, which can provide an annoying additional angle of disruption towards us.

Post-board they get access to about 6 additional counters, as well as hate-bears such as Containment Priest and disruptive creatures like Vendilion Clique.
You should also be aware of Wear // Tear, which can be quite a blow-out if you cast Sneak Attack without additional mana to activate it right away.
The post-board games tend to get very long and grindy, unless you have an early protected business spell, when they haven’t developed their mana to cast multiple of their REB / Flusterstorm effects yet.

If you’re dedicated to beat Miracles, Boseiju is your most potent sideboard option against them. You should also bring in any bounce spells and at least 1 removal (Sudden Shock is probably the most effective one against them) for a potential Containment Priest.

Key-cards from Miracles: Force of Will, Counterspell, Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Counterbalance, Pyroblast, Flusterstorm, Containment Priest, (Venser, Shaper Savant (only in Legend Miracles))

Useful sideboard cards against Miracles: Boseiju, who shelters all, Red Elemental Blast, Flusterstorm, Vendilion Clique, Through the Breach, Wipe Away, Sudden Shock, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Omniscience

Grixis Delver 40:60

One of the more annoying Delver matchups. Attacking from both the counter- and discard-angle, Grixis Delver has many ways to disrupt our game-plan, paired with a fast, cheap clock.
Most Young Pyromancer - lists nowadays have both Cabal Therapy and Spell Pierce main, in addition to the standard playsets of Force of Will and Daze.

As against every Delver deck, try to play around Daze and, if you can, around Spell Pierce as well. They might draw the wrong part of their deck (Bolts and multiple creatures) in the pre-board games, but you don’t want to get blown-out by Daze if you can avoid it.
If your opponent doesn’t know what deck you’re on in game 1, hold on to your Lotus Petals to make their blind Cabal Therapies less effective. They will most likely name Counterbalance or other Miracles-cards if you lead off with blue fetch-lands or basic Island.

Post-board, Grixis Delver loads up on counter-magic (Pyroblast and Flusterstorm, sometimes Invasive Surgery) and might add additional Cabal Therapies, paired with Surgical Extraction. Some lists also run Vendilion Clique and/or permanent-based hate like Pithing Needle, which makes up for their comparatively low number of counters for Sneak Attack (both Pyroblast and Flusterstorm don’t hit it).

Their clock gets somewhat less effective in the post-board games, since they’ll most likely board out Lightning Bolts and possibly Gurmag Angler. Mass-removal like Kozilek’s Return / Pyroclasm can buy you even more time to allow you to develop your mana-base to play around soft-counters and sculpt a hand that can overwhelm one or two hard-counters.
Blood Moon is often too slow against them, especially on the draw. Sometimes, they can even let it resolve and kill you with a Young Pyromancer, backed up by Force of Will(s) and Pyroblast(s). Against the 4-color Delver versions without Young Pyromancer it can be viable to bring in Blood Moon, more on the play than on the draw, however.

Key-cards from Grixis Delver: Force of Will, Daze, Young Pyromancer, Cabal Therapy, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Pyroblast, Surgical Extraction

Useful sideboard card against Grixis Delver: Flusterstorm, REB, Pyroclasm/Kozilek’s Return, Sudden Shock, Grim Lavamancer, Wipe Away / Echoing Truth, Defense Grid, Engineered Explosives

Colorless Eldrazi Stompy 60:40

Unlike other combo decks like Storm, Sneak and Show doesn’t get hit as hard by Chalice of the Void, which makes the Eldrazi matchup slightly positive overall. Still, there are certain draws from them that are very hard to beat; usually involving an early Thought-Knot Seer or an Endbringer they put into play off of your Show and Tell.
They also have the potential to curve out into a turn 4/5 kill, so a late Show and Tell can sometimes get raced.
You should also be wary of getting caught off-guard by Warping Wail, even though they’ll usually tap out to cast their threats instead of leaving mana open to cast Wail, especially if they don’t know that you’re on Sneak and Show.

This matchup is slightly easier for the OmniSneak variant, since Omniscience doesn’t care about Endbringer and Show and Tell into Omniscience Emrakul can beat some scenarios where Show and Tell Emrakul would lose to an alpha-swing.

Post-board the they get access to Thorn of Amethyst effects, which are annoying, but not back-breaking. Some lists also run Revoker / Pithing Needle, so you should board in bounce-spells, removal and Through the Breach to hedge against that.
Blood Moon is a huge trump-card against Eldrazi, locking them out of casting their most relevant creatures, Thought-Knot Seer, Eldrazi Smasher and Endbringer.

Note that the white Eldrazi version (containing both Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Thalia, Heretic Cathar, as well as Karakas) is a much more problematic matchup. Luckily, the Colorless variant is much more popular.

Key-cards from Colorless Eldrazi Stompy: Thought-Knot Seer, Endbringer, Warping Wail Thorn of Amethyst, Phyrexian Revoker / Pithing Needle

Useful sideboard cards against Colorless Eldrazi Stompy: Blood Moon, Through the Breach, Wipe Away / Echoing Truth, Omniscience


Death and Taxes 35:65

One of the most difficult matchups, the most difficult of the tier decks. Their main deck contains a high amount of disruptive permanents, from annoying tax-effects like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (paired with Rishadan Port) to Phyrexian Revoker hard-locks (either Phyrexian Revoker on Sneak Attack + Sanctum Prelate on 3 or Revoker on Sneak Attack + Karakas).

Pre-board, you should just jam your combo as early as possible and hope they don’t have an answer, which is unlikely, but possible. Waiting for Sneak Attack to play around a potential Karakas will only leave you vulnerable to Phyrexian Revoker. Especially an early Griselbrand via Show and Tell can be a route to victory, drawing enough cards to be able to kill through a single hate-piece like Karakas or Sanctum Prelate.
In the post-board games, you get some significant interaction to break their locks (Kozilek’s Return even gets around Mother of Runes), and the matchup becomes much less hopeless. They get access to some additional hate, like Pithing Needle, but overall, most of their relevant hate is in the main deck already.

Thanks to Omniscience and Cunning Wish (which can find Kozilek’s Return), OmniSneak has a much easier Death and Taxes matchup than traditional Sneak and Show, even though Revoker + Prelate on 3 is still a (pre-board) lock.

If you expect a lot of Death and Taxes in any given tournament, adding dedicated sideboard answers like Sulfur Elemental, Progenitus (they can’t beat Show and Tell into Progenitus) or Massacre Wurm / Inferno Titan is a viable option. Main deck answers to Phyrexian Revoker, such as Fire // Ice, are also an effective possibility.

Key-cards from Death and Taxes: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Phyrexian Revoker, Sanctum Prelate, Karakas, Palace Jailer (rare), Pithing Needle

Useful sideboard cards against Death and Taxes: Kozilek’s Return / Pyroclasm, Sudden Shock, Grim Lavamancer, Wipe Away / Echoing Truth, Engineered Explosives, Blood Moon, Through the Breach, Omniscience

Show and Tell mirror

The mirror, be it the “real mirror” or the one against Omnitell, is a rather unpleasant affair and comes down to luck a lot of the time. However, there still are some guidelines one can follow to increase their chances.

Generally, you should wait for your opponent to make the first move. If you have Sneak Attack with double FoW backup, it’s a different story, but often times if you go for it with one counter-backup, they’ll have two and kill you on their following turn.
I like to assume the hard-control role in the mirror, playing draw-go while making my land drops for as long as possible. If I can manage it, I’ll only go off when I draw the 8th card for my turn and have a hand full of counters for protection.

Gitaxian Probe obviously helps a lot in the mirror, and, just like Omniscience, allows you to leave in a few Show and Tells for the post-board games. It also allows you to catch your opponent off-guard, if they kept a counterless hand, in which case you can combo off much earlier than you’d usually do with the defensive playstyle where you have to assume the worst from your opponent’s hand.

If you’re really dedicated to increase your chances in the mirror, Vendilion Clique, Boseiju, who shelters all, Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Through the Breach should probably be somewhere in your 75.

Key-cards in the mirror: Sneak Attack, Force of Will, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Boseiju, who shelters all, Through the Breach, Omniscience, Vendilion Clique

Useful sideboard cards in the mirror: Vendilion Clique, Omniscience, Boseiju, who shelters all, Through the Breach, Flusterstorm, REB

Storm (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) 55:45

A very close matchup. Pre-board your goal should be to get Griselbrand into play as fast as possible. As long as you are at a healthy life total you can't really lose from there (remember to activate Griselbrand only when you need to find a counter, otherwise you leave yourself vulnerable to their discard). Show and Tell Emrakul after Turn 2 often just results in dying on your opponent's turn, so you should only go for it if it's the only thing you can do.

Spell Piercing or even using Force of Will on a Ritual can be necessary, so keep an eye on the amount of cards in their hand and think how much mana they could still generate. Letting a Dark Ritual resolve might just blank your Force of Will because of a Duress or Cabal Therapy cast after the resolved Ritual.
They will rarely go off without at least one form of protective disruption against you, so if they cast a Duress on Turn 2 and start Ritualing on Turn 3 while you drew a Force of Will after their Duress, you can definitely save that counter for their Infernal Tutor or other business spell.
If they didn't cast a discard spell yet and only have one - producing land in play countering the Ritual they cast with that land is often the right way.

Post-board many ANT lists have access to Xantid Swarm, which is very annoying, since it even blanks Griselbrand. Therefore, you should always board 1-2 sweepers against Storm, which also hit a potential Empty the Warrens or Dark Confidant.
Other problematic sideboard cards from them are Flusterstorm, which can catch you off-guard very easily, and Karakas, though that is a rather rare choice nowadays.

Note that Wipe Away turns into a Cancel, when it bounces a land in response to a hellbent Infernal Tutor, which is pretty neat.

Use REB to counter their cantrips / Probes aggressively.

This matchup takes a lot of practice and you definitely need to know how ANT operates to fight it optimally.

Key-cards from Storm: Cabal Therapy + Duress, Past in Flames, Xantid Swarm

Useful sideboard cards against Storm: Flusterstorm, REB, Grafdigger’s Cage / Surgical Extraction, Echoing Truth / Engineered Explosives / Pyroclasm / Kozilek’s Return, Omniscience

BR Reanimator 45:55

One of the fastest combo decks around these days, BR Reanimator has replaced its UB brother in the Legacy metagame for the most part. UB Reanimator was one of the most difficult matchups for Sneak and Show. Thankfully, BR is somewhat easier, since they only have discard as disruption.
However, the matchup is still very scary and I always know that I have a tough match ahead of me when my opponent shows me Chancellor of the Annex as the first turn starts.

Cantrip-heavy hands are quite good against their heavy discard-plan. Show and Tell gets cast more often than you’d think against BR Reanimator, since they often empty their whole hand of fatties with Faithless Looting. Plus, unless they have Griselbrand or Tidespout Tyrant, you can overpower a Chancellor of the Annex (the most likely creature they could have, since it’s the only 4-of fatty in most lists) or Sire of Insanity off of a Show and Tell quite easily.

Note that Intuition is a cute answer to Exhume, since you can search for 3 Griselbrands to exhume one into play.

Post-board you can take on the control role very nicely, with additional counters and graveyard-hate, plus Vendilion Clique, Jace and Through the Breach as additional finishers. They get access to Pithing Needle, so remember to board your bounce spells in; incidentally, Wipe Away and Echoing Truths are also quite efficient answers to many of their fatties.

You have to accept that there will be some hands from BR Reanimator you won’t ever beat, but if the game goes long, you are heavily favored, especially post-board.

Key-cards from BR Reanimator: Chancellor of the Annex, Unmask, Thoughtseize, Pithing Needle, Blazing Archon

Useful sideboard cards against BR Reanimator: Flusterstorm, Through the Breach, Grafdigger’s Cage / Surgical Extraction, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away, Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Omniscience


Shardless BUG 60:40

One of the easier matchups. They only have 4 Force of Wills and about 6 discard-spells to disrupt you pre-board, as well as the occasional Liliana of the Veil or Jace, the Mind Sculptor to punish an unprotected Show and Tell into Emrakul (you should still go for it most of the time, since many Shardless BUG lists have cut down on planeswalkers).
Their clock is also rather slow, which gives you a lot of time to find your combo pieces. As against all discard-heavy strategies, cantrips are very effective against them and are the cards you most want to see in your opening hand. Spell Pierce also does a lot of work against their discard and Planeswalkers.
Misdirection is definitely your card with the most blowout-potential against Shardless BUG, hitting both Maelstrom Pulse and Hymn to Tourach, even Ancestral Vision!

Post-board they bring in additional discard and disruptive permanents like Pithing Needle or Vendilion Clique. Some lists used to run Meddling Mage, but he has largely disappeared from their sideboards.
They also usually have some number of Golgari Charms, which makes a naked Sneak Attack (without mana to activate it) a little riskier. Still, most often you should rather take the small chance of them having Golgari Charm than having your Sneak Attack discarded by a Thoughtseize or Hymn to Tourach, which is much more likely.

You get to board in a lot of bombs against them, including Blood Moon, Jace TMS, Through the Breach and clean answers to many of their threats, like Red Elemental Blasts and Vendilion Clique (which is great against their planeswalkers).
Even though almost all lists play 2 basics these days, Blood Moon is still very often game-ending against them.

Key-cards from Shardless BUG: Hymn to Tourach, Thoughtseize, Force of Will, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Liliana of the Veil, Pithing Needle, Vendilion Clique

Useful sideboard cards against Shardless BUG: Blood Moon, REB, Flusterstorm, Through the Breach, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away / Engineered Explosives, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Vendilion Clique

Lands 65:35

Lands is one of the easiest matchups, even more so for the OmniSneak version.
Their only way to win pre-board is a fast Marit Lage arrival. Their grind-engines around Life from the Loam and Punishing Fire are mostly useless against you. Try to counter their Explorations, Gambles and Crop Rotations and remember most lists don’t have Karakas main deck, so Show and Tell Emrakul is often good enough in the pre-board games.

Most Lands builds these days have moved away from Rishadan Port, replacing it with Ghost Quarter, which is much less disruptive for us than Port.

Post-board they get access to Sphere of Resistance, which is quite annoying, especially when their mana denial plan works. Still, we have enough sol-lands and Lotus Petals that it shouldn’t matter too much. If you have a hand that is soft to Sphere, it is very viable to FoW it.
Blood Moon is an obvious blow-out against them, even though they have Krosan Grip as an out to it. Also be wary of Grip when casting Sneak Attack. For example, if you have 4 mana and an uncracked fetch-land, crack it before casting Sneak Attack, since they might Krosan Grip it if you fetch to activate after resolving Sneak Attack.

Key-cards from Lands: Crop Rotation, Exploration, Dark Depths + Thespian Stage, Sphere of Resistance, Krosan Grip

Useful sideboard cards against Lands: Blood Moon, Through the Breach, Wipe Away / Echoing Truth, Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Omniscience

Aggro Loam (4 color Loam) 60:40

Similar to Lands, Aggro Loam is an overall positive matchup, though a bit trickier than Lands.
They have quite a few answers to Show and Tell into creature, in the form of Knight of the Reliquary (searching up Karakas) and Liliana of the Veil. Most of their other main-deck disruption, like Chalice of the Void, doesn’t matter too much against you.
Dark Confidant and Green Sun’s Zenith (x=2 Gaddock Teeg, x=3 Knight of the Reliquary) are among their most dangerous cards (along with Knight and Liliana).

Note that you can still get Sneak Attack on the battlefield with Gaddock Teeg on board by Show and Telling it into play.

Their boarding plan contains discard and some potential hate-bears, which increases their chances only minimally, since you get access to removal and huge bombs like Blood Moon.

Key-cards from Aggro Loam: Knight of the Reliquary, Karakas, Liliana of the Veil, Gaddock Teeg, Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Containment Priest (rare)

Useful sideboard cards against Aggro Loam: Blood Moon, Through the Breach, Pyroclasm / Kozilek’s Return / Grim Lavamancer / Sudden Shock, Engineered Explosives / Wipe Away / Echoing Truth, Vendilion Clique

Esper Deathblade 60:40

A rather positive matchup, which gets much more difficult post-board.

Pre-board they usually have some amount of Spell Pierces and Thoughtseizes alongside the playset of Force of Will. Stoneforge Mystic provides a fast-clock and Liliana of the Veil is very difficult to deal with. Other than that, most of their deck is rather useless against you, so unless they draw the right part of their deck, game 1 should be heavily in your favor.

Post-board they get access to a variety of hate-cards, attacking you from different angles with additional discard (more Thoughtseizes, sometimes Duress), counters (Flusterstorm / Invasive Surgery / more Spell Pierces, sometimes even Blue Elemental Blast) and hate-bears (Containment Priest, Meddling Mage).
You get to bring in some impactful cards like Blood Moon and removal for the hate-bears or Stoneforge Mystic, which buys you a lot of time. The games will usually go very long post-board, unless you have an explosive hand you manage to push through.

Key-cards from Esper Deathblade: Force of Will, Spell Pierce, Thoughtseize, Liliana of the Veil, Flusterstorm, Invasive Surgery, Containment Priest, Meddling Mage, Notion Thief

Useful sideboard cards against Esper Deathblade: Blood Moon, REB, Flusterstorm, Through the Breach, Pyroclasm / Kozilek’s Return / Sudden Shock / Grim Lavamancer, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away, Engineered Explosives, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Vendilion Clique

UR Delver 60:40

One of the easiest Delver matchups. Even though they have a fast clock, their only disruption comes in the form of counters (4 Daze 4 Force of Will main), so it’s usually not difficult to resolve an early Show and Tell.

Even though they don’t play Wasteland, try to avoid fetching too many Volcanic Islands, to hedge against Price of Progress.

If you have the choice between dropping Emrakul or Griselbrand off Show and Tell, try to go for Emrakul early on and Griselbrand in the later stages when your life total is low enough that you could get alpha swung to death through an Emrakul.

Post-board they get additional counters, usually Pyroblast and Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm, as well as Pithing Needle as an out to Sneak Attack.
Some lists run Sulfuric Vortex in their sideboard, so keep that in mind when deciding between Emrakul and Griselbrand off Show and Tell.

Red Elemental Blast is one of your best cards against UR Delver, acting as both protection for the combo and removal against Delver of Secrets and Stormchaser Mage.

Key-cards from UR Delver: Force of Will, Daze, Pyroblast, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Pithing Needle, Sulfuric Vortex

Useful sideboard cards against UR Delver: REB, Defense Grid, Flusterstorm, Pyroclasm / Kozilek’s Return / Sudden Shock / Grim Lavamancer, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away, Engineered Explosives, Boseiju, who shelters all

Elves 65:35

A very positive matchup that can get more difficult if they construct their sideboard hatefully enough.

Pre-board their only way to win is to race you. In order to do that, they usually need to resolve either Glimpse of Nature or Natural Order, for which you have both Force of Will and often Spell Pierce as well. Keep in mind that they have access to Reclamation Sage in game 1 and no way to strip Sneak Attack out of your hand (again, pre-board), so try to avoid playing a naked Sneak Attack and passing the turn.

Unlike with other decks, you don’t care about the Wirewood Symbiote / [CARDS]Elvish Visionary[CARDS] value engine, so usually, there is no need for you to counter either of them.

There will be times where you struggle to assemble the combo and you’ll get beaten down by the little pointy ears, but generally you should be able to hold them off of their combo and end the game in the first few turns.

Post-board they’ll usually have some amount of discard to interact with you, but you also improve your position after sideboarding with mass-removal and Grafdigger’s Cage. Games get a lot grindier post-board, but they’ll get punished very hard if they don’t mulligan aggressively for hands with discard.
Some few lists run Crop Rotation + Karakas in the sideboard, so be prepared for that, even though it is rather rare.

Key-cards from Elves: Glimpse of Nature, Natural Order, Cabal Therapy, Thoughtseize, Pithing Needle

Useful sideboard cards against Elves: Grafdigger’s Cage, Pyroclasm / Kozilek’s Return / Sudden Shock, Grim Lavamancer, Flusterstorm, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away, Engineered Explosives

General early-game plan

As you can see, your game-approach changes quite a bit from matchup to matchup. Still, often you don't know which deck your opponent is on and don't know whether you should fetch for a basic, Ponder on Turn 1 or rather keep up your Spell Pierce to counter their discard.
Gitaxian Probe helps a lot here, another reason why it fits the deck so well.

Some general tips if you are on the play and have no idea what deck your opponent is playing:

• Always fetch up a basic island if you want to go for turn 1 Ponder.

• If you Ponder and don't shuffle, try to play around discard by leaving your business / important spells on top instead of drawing them.

• If you have the choice between turn 1 Ponder and keeping up Spell Pierce without a Force of Will in hand, always keep up Spell Pierce against discard and fast combo decks.

• If you have a Spell Pierce and a Brainstorm with a land and a Lotus Petal, it can be ok to give away information by playing Lotus Petal, since it gives you the ability to cast both Spell Pierce and Brainstorm if you are forced to.

Tips and Tricks

Even though you don't have that much room for interesting plays like other decks do, there are still some "tricks" to get around certain hate cards or bait a response that benefits you out of your opponent.

How to beat Karakas
I assume everyone who played with or against Sneak & Show before knows how this works, but it might help the others.
To do this you need and Emrakul, it doesn't work with Griselbrand. If you have RR you can start it in your turn, with only R you have to wait until your opponent's end of turn. Then you activate Sneak Attack, putting Emrakul into play and enter your turn. You give your opponent priority in your beginning of combat step. If they bounce Emrakul then, you regain priority, and can activate Sneak Attack again to put Emrakul back into play. If your opponent lets you move to the declare attackers step and bounces Emrakul in response to the Annihilator trigger, they don't lose life, but you can just kill them on the following turn, because their board will be wiped and you get to keep Emrakul in hand.
The easiest way around Karakas is Blood Moon or a surprise Wipe Away.

How to use Griselbrand
I have seen many players die with Griselbrand on board, because they get greedy or use his ability at the wrong time. This shouldn't happen, if you try to follow these guidelines:

• Never activate Griselbrand's ability against Delver decks with Lightning Bolt, unless you absolutely have to.

• Don't activate Griselbrand in your turn against Combo decks that protect themselves via discard. Let them cast their discard spells with a small amount of cards in hand and wait for their business spell to go onto the stack to dig for your Force of Will(s).

Sneaky Griselbrand can block

If you are at a low life total (let's say below 14) or your opponent has a lot of power on the board, sneaking in Griselbrand and hope to draw an Emrakul can be very risky. In this case it's better to activate Sneak Attack after your opponent declared attackers, block his strongest creature, and draw cards on his turn.
You can also use this fact as a bait if you have Sneak Attack in play but no creature. Tap your red source around for a bit, pretending to think about putting Griselbrand into play and attacking, then pass the turn. That might keep your opponent from attacking in fear of a blocking lifelink demon.

Misdirection vs Stifle

When playing against a Stifle-deck, you always want to play around it (if you have no Brainstorm in hand). If you have Misdirection in hand, the playing-around means you can activate your fetchland in response to an activated/triggered ability of your opponent. If they Stifle your fetchland ability you can Misdirect that Stifle to their own trigger. You often want to keep your Misdirection for their counterspells, but it's an interaction you need to know of. Especially if resolving your fetch can mean playing around their soft-counters, it's often worth it to use your Misdirection, because it hurts their plan as well as helping yours to get around soft-counters.

Decklists

If you need a list for some initial testing before you make tweaks of your own, here are three tried and tested lists I’d recommend; one Preordain-build, one Gitaxian Probe - build, and the latest OmniSneak stock list:

Kentaro Yamamoto’s Sneak and Show
1st at GP Chiba November 2016

3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
2 Flooded Strand
3 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell
4 Spell Pierce

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack

SIDEBOARD
3 Blood Moon
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Flusterstorm
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Vendilion Clique

Gitaxian Sneak and Show

3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island

4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
4 Spell Pierce

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Lotus Petal
4 Sneak Attack

SIDEBOARD
2 Blood Moon
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Defense Grid
1 Flusterstorm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Sudden Shock
2 Through the Breach
1 Wipe Away

JPA93's OmniSneak
25th at GP Louisville January 2017

3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Volcanic Island

3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
1 Impulse
1 Intuition
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell
2 Spell Pierce

3 Lotus Petal
3 Omniscience
3 Sneak Attack

SIDEBOARD
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Defense Grid
1 Firemind's Foresight
1 Flusterstorm
1 Intuition
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Release the Ants
1 Sudden Shock
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Through the Breach
1 Trickbind
1 Wipe Away

Sneak and Show in action

Here are some great feature matches from GP Chiba (November), where Kentaro Yamamoto won the title with Sneak and Show.

Kentaro Yamamoto vs Death and Taxes
Kentaro Yamamoto vs Sneak and Show mirror
Kentaro Yamamoto vs Miracles


Sample Sideboarding Guide

As it is with probably every deck, there is no 100 % correct way to board with Sneak & Show. It's especially important that you construct your sideboard in a way that it is not clustered against a certain archetype, since you can seldom afford to board out too many cards without making your main game plan worse.

However, here are some guidelines, using the Gitaxian Probe list from the Decklists section:

Miracles:

-2 Lotus Petal
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-1 City of Traitors

+1 Boseiju, who shelters all
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 REB
+1 Sudden Shock
+2 Through the Breach

Grixis Delver:

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-4 Spell Pierce (You don't need Spell Pierce when you have Defense Grid)

+2 Defense Grid
+1 Flusterstorm
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Sudden Shock
+1 REB
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Boseiju, who shelters all


Colorless Eldrazi Stompy:

-2 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Spell Pierce
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

+2 Blood Moon
+2 Through the Breach
+1 Wipe Away
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Sudden Shock

Death and Taxes:

-4 Spell Pierce
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-3 Gitaxian Probe

+2 Blood Moon
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Sudden Shock
+2 Through the Breach
+1 Wipe Away

Show and Tell Mirror:

-2 Show and Tell
-2 Lotus Petal
-1 Mountain

+1 Boseiju, who shelters all
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 REB
+2 Through the Breach

Storm (Ad Nauseam Tendrils):

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Mountain
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

+1 Flusterstorm
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 REB
+1 Wipe Away

BR Reanimator:

-1 Mountain
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Griselbrand
-3 Show and Tell

+1 Flusterstorm
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Through the Breach
+1 Wipe Away

Shardless BUG:

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Lotus Petal
-2 Force of Will

+2 Blood Moon
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 REB
+2 Through the Breach
+1 Wipe Away

Lands:

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Force of Will on the play / -2 Spell Pierce on the draw

+2 Blood Moon
+2 Through the Breach
+1 Wipe Away

Aggro Loam:

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Force of Will on the play / -2 Spell Pierce on the draw

+2 Blood Moon
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Sudden Shock
+2 Through the Breach
+1 Wipe Away

Esper Deathblade:

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Force of Will
-2 Lotus Petal

+2 Blood Moon
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 REB
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Sudden Shock
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Through the Breach

UR Delver:

-3 Gitaxian Probe
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-1 Ancient Tomb
-1 Sneak Attack
-2 Force of Will

+1 Boseiju, who shelters all
+2 Defense Grid
+1 Flusterstorm
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Sudden Shock
+1 REB
+1 Wipe Away

Elves:

-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-3 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Sneak Attack

+1 Flusterstorm
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Wipe Away