I disagree that going off as fast as possible is where we want to be. Postboard we can assume that the opponents deck will be much better equipped to fight against our combo. This means they'll be cutting sloppy cards like Stoneforge Mystic for threats like Meddling Mage, Vendilion Clique, more Thoughtseizes, etc. The strategy of "going off as fast as possible" seems extremely linear and lacking calculation for this reason. Because there's a higher number of cards that interact with us postboard, we as the combo player are forced to acknowledge this and change our game plan accordingly. We have to play our draw spells and counters such that we constantly take into consideration what they might have in their hand. This becomes very difficult to do while also trying to combo off as fast as possible because we have to reprioritize the value of certain cards, ex. If my opponent has Meddling Mage on the board, I Ponder into Pyroclasm over combo pieces or gas. Additionally, the intrinsic nature of sideboarding forces us to slow down and grind games more (since we're diluting the potency of our maindecks).
I don't think Lotus Petal is especially powerful against discard. It might let me go off a turn faster, but then its not just discard that it helps me play around - its also the top card of their deck (which could be anything). The problem with Lotus Petal is that it is only valuable if I have the rest of the combo assembled. A hand of Lotus Petal, Tomb, Show and Tell, Griselbrand is great! But what about Lotus Petal, Land, and Draw Spells or Petal, Counter, Counter, etc. ? I know it may seem anecdotal but the point is that Lotus Petal doesn't really synergize with the rest of the cards I could have UNLESS its the entire combo. And because I'm /forced/ to grind out games to fight additional hate, there's less of a chance that I'll have Petal and the combo together through the course of the game.
The course of the game and the purpose of my cards falls into 2 categories: either the game ends fast and each card I play is devoted to speeding up the game, or the game ends late and the cards I play focus on getting me to the late game. I personally feel the latter option is more consistent, so a card like Lotus Petal, which doesn't contribute to this game plan, isn't really where I want to be postboard. I'd rather have another card that helps me fight, or another must-answer threat (like Blood Moon).
Changing gears a little, I played in a local tournament yesterday and went 2-2. I punted one match handily, but the other loss could have been avoided by better mulliganing or sideboarding. I also had a couple questions to ask:
1) Do I only board Blood Moon in when my opponent plays 0 basics? How about 1? 2? What's the threshold and what criteria are you using to evaluate that? One thing I did last night was pay attention to my opponents fetching patterns - G1 he fetched only for duals so I thought Blood Moon would be good. It hurt a bit though G3 because he naturally drew a Swamp and then fetched for a basic.
2) I am not a fan of Leyline. I don't like the concept of having to open with a specific card or otherwise have it do nothing for the rest of the game (I think with 4 copies its a 39% chance? which is really low...). So, last night I tried the Misdirection/Divert package. What I realized was that Divert is miserable on the draw, when a turn 0 discard spell can ravage my hand. Misdirection was fantastic though, but I question whether it caused me to lose the match vs the UBx deck (because I had to pitch a draw spell). Has anyone tried out Divert and under what circumstances was it successful?
EDIT: RE - SDT
Played with it for the first time last night and I have mixed feelings. Its probably because I wasn't spinning top correctly, but I found its usefulness to not live up to my expectations. What especially bothered me was the Top/Ponder interaction. Any tips or explanation on how to use Top?
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I was only talking about your Shardless BUG analysis; that's why I said they attack our hand much more than our spells on the stack or via other hate (except Lili/Jace). Therefore, going off as fast as possible is much better than becoming slower by boarding out Lotus Petals and getting ripped apart by discard.
It's difficult to argue about sideboarding, because there is no clear line on what you HAVE to side out. All Sneak & Show Top 8 competitors I talked to have different approaches to it. (Christopher Brunner, for example, never boards out Lotus Petal.)
To me, Lotus Petal (mana acceleration in general) is an important part of our strategy. Boarding out 1 against slower decks, 2 or more against UWr Miracles and other hard control, seems fine. But in general, you lose the games that go really long against those decks, because as you said, they usually have a wide variety of hate cards, and the longer the game goes, the broader their hate might get.
If you feel you have better chances winning the long game against control decks, board out Lotus Petal.
1) You can read my opinion on where Blood Moon should be boarded in the matchups-section of the primer. If there are specific matchups where you are unsure why you should/should not board them, feel free to ask again.
2) I don't like Leyline either, since it adds more clunk to all of your possible dead draws of multiple creatures. I haven't tested Divert, Jared Boettcher wrote positively about it in the article I linked in the primer: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...l-At-GPDC.html
My meta contains the following at almost every weekly tournament: D&T, Bant with TNN, Maverick, BUG Delver, Elves, Esper "True"Blade, and possibly Jund, Reanimator, Mono-Red Dragon Stompy, and Mono-Red Sneak Attack. I mention these because I'm trying to sculpt my sideboard.
I'm playing a Three-Gitaxian-Probe-with-singleton-Intuition List and there are probably some questionable inclusions that I should cut for something else, but I'm at a loss as to what direction to take.
Here's my "core" SB:
2 Blood Moon
2 Pyroclasm
2 Red Elemental Blast
Here's the flex:
1 Wipe Away - Great "uncounterable" catch-all bounce spell, but bad synergy with Defense Grid
2 Grafdigger's Cage - Shuts off GSZ in Maverick, Bant, and Elves, and Natural Order in Elves, as well as the occasional Reanimator
1 Massacre Wurm - Particularly good against D&T and anything running little guys, and the lifeloss can close out a game (super secret tech).
2 Vendilion Clique - Great disruption and another way to peek at hands, as well as a clock against control, not to mention great against equipment-heavy decks.
1 Through the Breach - All around good and can be a closer, great against hatebear decks.
2 Defense Grid - I think this card is a damn fine insurance policy against Midrange Blue decks, as they board in insane amounts of counters.
Here're my thoughts:
My first cuts would be Defense Grid, a single Grafdigger's Cage, and possibly Massacre Wurm, all in favor of redundant hate, more bounce, or more counters/redirections. Thoughts?
Whack lists currently playing:
Rector Nic Fit
Bizarro Stormy
Rest In Pieces
Personally, I think a key part of designing your sideboard has alot to do with if you are playing Intuition. When I am playing Intuition I often ensure that I can cast it to get whatever I run in my board either in the 3 Bloodmoon way or say 2 Spell Pierce and the 1 Flusterstorm post board.
Contentwise our boards do look almost identical though.
I would recommend these stock sideboard choices against your described metagame:
D&T, Bant and Maverick: These are pretty similar, since they all attack you with hatebears (Bant also has a nice counter-suite and Jace+Clique, it's a very tough matchup!). Blood Moon, Pyroclasm, Through the Breach, Pithing Needle, Progenitus and Echoing Truth / Wipe Away are good sideboard cards against them (Cage is fine, but I would only board it if you have extra space).
BUG Delver: Blood Moon, Defense Grid, Red Elemental Blast
Elves: Pyroclasm, Grafdigger's Cage, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away
Esper Blade: Through the Breach, Pyroclasm, Red Elemental Blast, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Blood Moon, Vendilion Clique, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away
Jund: Leyline of Sanctity, Through the Breach, Echoing Truth / Wipe Away, Vendilion Clique, (Pyroclasm is ok, but not that great, since they have Goyfs)
Reanimator: Grafdigger's Cage, Surgical Extraction, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Vendilion Clique, Wipe Away, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, Red Elemental Blast
Mono-Red Dragon Stompy and Mono-Red Sneak Attack: These are very easy matchups, Through the Breach and Bounce are your best tools, if you need any
Overall, this is how I would build my sideboard against your metagame:
3 Blood Moon
3 Pyroclasm
2 Through the Breach
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Wipe Away
3 Grafdigger's Cage
With 3 Blood Moon, 3 Pyroclasm, 2 Through the Breach and 2 Wipe Away, you should be well equipped to fight the hatebear-decks (you can side out most of your counters).
Maybe that makes your board too cluttered with anti-Maverick/Bant/D&T cards, so if that's the case you can decrease numbers, and add 2 Vendilion Clique or Jace, the Mind Sculptor.
How about Trinishpheres as a sideboard option? I play it long long time ago and I love it, what about now?
Just wanted to add that for his expected meta Clique seems more appealing than Jace and could come in against more of the listed match ups.
It's only useful against Storm combo and Elves in Sneak and Tell lists. You'll want 3 of them and possibly Intution. Don't try to be cute against tempo decks with it. They have a better chance of clocking you then locking you out under 6 mana.
I know this has been brought up before, but how exactly do you guys combat Delver?
You don't need to do much to combat Delver, really. You outrace him. Sneak and Show wins a lot faster than Delver decks. You probably don't want to waste countermagic on Delver and save it to protect your Show and Tells and Sneak Attacks, instead. A Griselbrand or Emrakul on the board stops him cold. If critters are giving you a hard time, you could try Pyroclasm or Firespout in the sideboard to buy yourself more time.
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
Delver decks of all sorts are generally tight matchups, but they aren't unbeatable. Lotus Petals and Sol lands help a lot against taxing counters and you generally have more Force of Will effects thanks to Misdirection. Show and Tell is also lot more powerful in these matchups because postboard Gilded Drake aside, resolving a Show and Tell against a Delver deck is unbeatable because they never really run answers like Karakas, Oblivion Ring, Jace 2.0, Liliana, etc. Unlike other matchups where the postboard games become more about resolving Sneak Attack, Show and Tell is great in all three games.
So its incorrect to board out Misdirection? I also had another question -- lets say you have lands (including 1 fetch) and 1 combo piece and you're casting the last cantrip in your hand. It reveals another cantrip and some fluff cards. Do you take the cantrip and then shuffle the other two away? Or do you shuffle and try to draw the missing combo piece?
Thanks for the response JPA. I settled on:
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Blood Moon
3 Pyroclasm
2 Through the Breach
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Wipe Away
... and ended up playing Match 1 against Manaless Dredge with Ballustrade Spy. Yeah, not much to help me in that matchup except Cage, which of course I didn't draw :)
Anyway, it seems like a good SB against everything that's normally in my weeklies. We'll see how it goes.
Whack lists currently playing:
Rector Nic Fit
Bizarro Stormy
Rest In Pieces
The correct technical play involves alot more information. Do you need protection? Is fluff protection? What is the remaining composition of your deck? Can you afford to give yourself another turn to wait to combo?
As a general rule I would opt for the guarantee on the cantrip. It will give you better results in the long run then a blind draw. Better the devil you know and all that good junk.
Against Maverick we have any options about sb?
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What are you concerened about against Maverick?
I usually run some mix of Pyroclasm, Angel of Despair 2.0 and Bloodmoon to solid results against them.
Has anyone here tried Young Pyromancer in the sideboard?
What would Young Pyromancer even be good against? You can make a handful of extra 1/1 creatures, which do nothing ultimately. I'm not sure where you're going with this.
I've been testing with a Burning Wish-based version of Show and Tell, and early results are decent. It gives you access to some nice removal and/or discard game 1, as well as the 5th-7th copy of Show and Tell in the face of discard, and less dead cards against opposing Show and Tell decks. Don't ask me for a current build (yet), because it's still in testing and probably will be for a while. It's promising though.
Find me on Twitter at @JMJACO and @EternalCentral. If you have an interest in Vintage Eldrazi, check out my book Eldrazi Meditations.
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