Nice finish was rooting for you to top 8.
How did Darkblast perform?
Well, I think I've settled on a list. I played a Wiley-style list with 3 Cruise over the Bobs and a 19th land, Sylvan Library, and MD Clique over the Stifles at a GPT yesterday and while it was fine, I wasn't. I played this today at a different GPT and finished 2nd, with my only match loss coming in the finals:
Land (19)
8 Fetch
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
Creatures (13)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Tarmogoyf
1 True-Name Nemesis
Draw/Manipulation (10)
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Treasure Cruise
Disruption/Removal (18)
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
2 Dimir Charm
2 Liliana of the Veil
Sideboard (15)
2 Spell Pierce
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
1 Zur's Weirding
1 Krosan Grip
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
I played Remy (MUD, 2-0), Paul (Infect, 2-0), Ian (BUG Delver, no Cruises, w/ Confidants, 2-1), and ID'ed with Adam (Miracles, but we played it out for fun. I won 2-0), and Dan (12post). In the top 4, I played Dan, winning 2-0 and Remy again in the finals, losing 2-1. I played the finals fairly loosely and could easily have won game 1 had I mulliganed a marginal seven into something more reasonable and I absolutely punted game 3 at a multiple points. Dimir Charm continues to impress me, and I'd like to find room for the fourth Ponder. The True-Name Nemesis is the obvious cut, but the thing I find myself digging for most frequently is creatures. The Thoughtseizes play well with Liliana, handle things that Decay can't kill preboard, and I like having the discard as additional disruption against combo, so I don't think I'd be down for cutting either of them.
Darkblast is very powerful, but a bit narrow. I like running 1.
I think Dimir Charm is in a good place for you as well; doubly so if you are like me and you recite out loud what it does and then proceed to cast a Treasure Cruise into it anyway. I guess technically I can say I was trying to clear the path in case I drew a Show and Tell, but regardless, it seems well-positioned if people are going to be running TC everywhere. I hope Zur's Weirding catches on too, because when that card is good, it's devastating.
You did have a lot of spot removal in the board, though. Did it feel like overload alongside 3 Disfigure? I totally dig the Tar Pit. I ran without it this weekend, but it should probably come back to the board because I'm boarding at least one four-drop in in some matches, and it may be the extra threat I was referring to above.
Thanks! TC is insane, so Charm being a counter for it is just a bonus. I too hope to create more confusion with Weirding.
Last edited by btm10; 10-20-2014 at 02:37 PM.
Can anyone find anything they don't like about Sam Roukas's list?
19 LANDS
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Misty Rainforest
12 CREATURES
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Scavenging Ooze
29 INSTANTS and SORC.
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Treasure Cruise
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
SIDEBOARD
1 Spell Pierce
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Null Rod
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Golgari Charm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Disfigure
2 Flusterstorm
I'm thinking maybe cut a Thoughtseize for a maindeck Darkblast and leave the rest as is, I really like just about every card here. Should I be more worried about Blood Moon decks? I feel like that's the sacrifice to cutting the Thoughtseize. I also see some tension in the board plan against Death and Taxes, since you want both Jitte and Null Rod, but they both feel so impactful that they warrant slots. Lastly, I'm worried a out not respecting Burn enough but I don't know what constitutes a sufficient plan without watering down too many other matchups. What am I missing?
The deck doesn't have enough G to reliably activate ooze enough to make it better than goyf, so -1 ooze for 4th goyf is for sure.I'm thinking maybe cut a Thoughtseize for a maindeck Darkblast and leave the rest as is, I really like just about every card here. Should I be more worried about Blood Moon decks? I feel like that's the sacrifice to cutting the Thoughtseize. I also see some tension in the board plan against Death and Taxes, since you want both Jitte and Null Rod, but they both feel so impactful that they warrant slots. Lastly, I'm worried a out not respecting Burn enough but I don't know what constitutes a sufficient plan without watering down too many other matchups. What am I missing?
Otherwise, Deluge should also probably be something else. Biggest issues TA has outside of its truly difficult matchups like Elves are red spells and resolved JTMS. If you cut Thoughtseize and Deluge you should consider cards that help with either of those. Darkblast just isn't powerful enough for serious consideration.
Great success!
So I was jamming this in a few games yesterday. It was practically goldfishing against a BR... Something reanimator. It wasn't a Blue deck, anyway. Looks strange, plays stranger.
Creatures: 12
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Tarmogoyf
Spells: 28
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Daze
2 Counterspell
1 Dimir Charm
1 Sultai Charm
4 Force of Will
4 Dig Through Time
Lands: 20
4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
9 Fetchlands
No real sideboard, but that will come in time. Initial thoughts: I'm probably better off looking into a non-Delver deck. Later thoughts: Delver is broken, why would I not want to play it?
Nice work Akatsuki for the 11th place finish. With zero discard did your combo match ups suffer any?
Congrats on the placing! Did you like the Stifle build? Every time I've tested the deck, it seemed underpowered and clunky. But I've only done a few matches with it post-Khans, maybe that's changed.
Was Chill effective vs. UR and UWR? Seems like BEB would be more versatile and better - it hits important combo cards as well as serves as a Vindicate for red creatures. Chill seems like a speed bump at best, and ineffective against the dangerous U cards at worst.
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Stifle is powerful when unexpected, and it's simply well-positioned in a metagame filled with Miracles and SFM. It's also passable vs. combo and Delver. Thoughtseize was underperforming in testing against Delver/Miracles. Still, playing some in the SB (as well as TNN) might be good. Chill is good vs. Burn and UR Delver, which are both tough match-ups. Making Burn spells and creatures costing 2 more is a huge deal, but the primary downside is it doesn't do anything when you are already behind. I never ended up drawing it vs. UR though. I would not bring it in vs. UWR.
"Stifle is powerful when unexpected". I think that`s exactly the right thought about Stifle! If everybody would begin to play the Stifle version it would lose a bit of its power because people will play around it (like against RUG Delver).
I think for a big turney at this moment Stifle is a great card, but most of the time I play smaller local events and after the 1st turney everybody would know about the "Tech".
Thx for your answer.
Greetings
Currently playingEldrazi
Ran in a LGS GPT this past weekend taking it down with this and some help:
4x Deathrite
4x Delver
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Dark Confidant
4x FOW
4x Daze
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
4x Hymn to Tourach
1x Liliana OTV
4x Wasteland
4x Underground Sea
2x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
4x Polluted Delta
3x Verdant Catacombs
2x Misty Rainforest
SB
2x V. Clique
2x Graf. Cage
1x Needle
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Golgari Charm
3x Disfigure
1x Sylvan Library
1x K. Grip
2x Spell Pierce
1x Null Rod
18 players 5 rds cut top 8
Rd 1 - ANT
Game 1 - Keep with good hand versus unknown opponent, lose on turn 3.
Game 2 - Mull to find a better hand with force or pierce and daze or just Null Rod. Don't get one and lose a few on turn 3.
(0-1)
Rd 2 - Pox, non optimal build, but interesting
Game 1 - I have lots of land and am able to keep playing threats off the top. He entombs a Vengeful Pharaoh, kills my goyf. He casts it next turn and I race with Delver until another goyf and deathrite join.
Game 2 - I'm ahead the entire game and he dies shortly after
(1-1)
Rd 3 - Mono red Sneak the Breach
Game 1 - I force his turn 2 blood moon after he casts COV for 1 off Seething Song. I already have a deathrite in play and Bob is coming to the party. Bob gains me the needed cards to stop any other attempts and to take out COV.
Game 2 - I keep a mediocre hand with no force. He casts a turn 1 Blood Moon and I scoop.
Game 3 - I keep another non force hand, but has deathrite and Brainstorm. I hold the deathrite. He plays Mountain go. I am able to see FOW, FOW, land at eot so even if he did try for a turn 1 blood moon I could stop it. Bob comes down, I then FOW his Sneak Attack. I land Deathrite, but am out of counters. He gets an infernal titan through taking out my team. I rip a tarmogoyf. InfTitan domes my for three and goyf trades as he's a 6/7. We both play draw go. He tries to B.Moon, but I am holding K.Grip and kill it. Delver comes with Pierce and FOW. Delver goes the distance.
(2-1)
Rd 4 - 4 color deathblade
Game 1 - I am able to take control early as I won the die roll. I counter an early TNN and my threats keep coming even though they are getting swords. Bob is key once again this match.
Game 2 - The board state at the end was him at 9 and I have Deathrite, Bob, Delver, against TNN and Creeping Tar Pit. I'm at 14. He decides to swing with just the Tar Pit as he's dead to my alpha if he swings with both. I go to 11 and put him to 7. Bob reveals FOW and killed me.
Game 3 - I get control of the board again and clean up.
(3-1)
Rd 5 - ID
Top 8
Rd 1 - ANT
I get paired against the guy from Rd 1 playing ANT
Game 1 - He gets me early taking my only counter before going off.
Game 2 - I mull to six to get a hand with counter/null rod. I miss. He again takes my early counter and I manage to win by luck as AdN from 15 sometimes doesn't get you there
Game 3 - I have the perfect sculted hand to beat ANT and I do.
Rd 2 - My friend playing U/R delver
We already know the other pairing Miracles and RUG. We decide BUG has a better chance against either of those and I'm going to GP NJ. We play it out anyway and it comes down to game 3. He gets it, but still scoops
Final - Miracles
The Miracles player gets his opponent to scoop as he is also going to GP NJ.
Game 1 - Utter blowout as he is stuck on lands and I crush
Game 2 - I mull to 5 with the first 2 having no lands. He cleans up
Game 3 - Hymn to Tourach sees the game as it hit his 3rd mana source and I wasted his Tundra in play then slam down needle on top. He is stuck on a single blue for turns and that is that.
Prior to the tournament I was trying to decide on Treasure Cruise or not. My original build had two Tombstalkers and a second Lili, but I feel like I wanted more card draw and speed so I put in Bobs. TC provides card draw, but no instant threat. Delver already has a target on his head after he flips so I make my opponent choose which is more of a threat delver or bob. Could cruise have been great in some of my matches? Sure, it's a great card, but my plan against miracles never changes, be the fastest attack deck you can be.
I had a miserable night on Friday night going 1-2 with 0-2 to mana screw against Stoneblade and 1-2 inevitability against Merfolk. I did beat UR Delver for the third time though. I'm going to switch the list around a bit to deal with tribal. The losses to Elves were annoying but I figured every list has one really bad matchup. The loss to Merfolk kind of brought home how bad my list is against tribal.
I guess we're still in a rock-paper-scissors meta even with Treasure Cruise to help things out.
Yep on both counts. I'm not going to post lists at this point with the changes I'm making because Delver is out for now. But I'm having the same thoughts you are about Delver being too good not to play.
I am looking at Delver and DRS and wondering if they're not too much of a good thing between them as cheap assets that are not hard to manage for the opponent. Great power but vulnerable to lots and not standing off against many mid-game finishers at this point. They both work well with Golgari Charm though.
Congrats on your finish. I was there but played Modern instead, as my Legacy legs are quite rusty these days, and poor Nimble Mongoose is now under a serious Ship-shaped Shadow. But I'm hoping to play Delver in some form at GP Jersey, and I'm always glad to see your name up in the top standings.
My only question is, if you did cut Stifle for a tournament tomorrow, and assuming the metagame was going to be similar (Miracles, Delver, Combo, and some creatures), what would you replace it with? Hymn or Thoughtseize? Neither?
Most likely, I will just jam Stifle in a month and call it a day. But I am curious what the best replacement would be in the current metagame. I'm not too high on Thoughtseize either, and I love Hymn but it seems worse in an Ancestral meta, and the only other options I can think of would be more countermagic, Snare and Pierce most likely. Anyway, just wanted your two cents. I'm pretty psyched to put your list together and start playing Brainstorm again, it's been awhile.
I'm surprised it's still unexpected. Willey has top 8'd a few times with Stifle. That's a fair analysis of it though.
I definitely agree that Thoughtseize is underpowered for the maindeck. It's fine against combo, but not backbreaking against the field like Hymn. So it seems to me the options are either Hymn or Stifle. Hymn is very solid against Miracles and Stoneforge (although less so against Death and Taxes), and I think it's more powerful overall. The mana cost and needing 2 Bayous is a real cost though.
Well, we definitely agree on not bringing it in against UWR! Chill still just seems so narrow. I know people have suggested it before, but how about Jitte in the board? It's good against Burn, Elves, and fine against Delver.
Languages and dates for every set. For all you true pimps.
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