I'm doing some research on the MTGO meta and I wonder which are THE WORST matchups for each deck, like nigh unwinnable bad. Be specific enough, not just like "Deck X loses to counters."
Feel free to contribute match-ups and/or other decks to the list:
RUG Delver
BUG Delver
UWR Delver
Goblins
Shardless BUG
Jund
Maverick
D&T - Elves
Miracles
Esperblade
Deathblade
4x Lands/Loam Control
12 Post
Burn
Belcher
Oops! All Spells!
Painter
Elves
Storm
Reanimator
Sneak & Show - D&T
Omnitell
RUG Delver - Pox
BUG Delver - Merfolk or Burn?
UWR Delver - Lands
Goblins - Zoo
Shardless BUG - Elves or Merfolk
Jund - Burn or Omni/Sneak Attack (with Leyline)
Maverick - Belcher or Miracles
D&T - Belcher or Elves
Miracles - 12-Post
Esperblade - 12-Post
Deathblade - Jund?
4x Lands/Loam Control - High Tide
12-Post - Pox
Burn - Reanimator or any Show and Tell strategy with Leylines
Belcher - Reanimator
Oops! All Spells! - Reanimator
Painter - Burn or Goblins
Elves - Reanimator
Storm - Team America or Dragon Stompy
Reanimator - Miracles
Sneak & Show - Death and Taxes
Omnitell - UWR Delver (Edit: changed to Reanimator, after noticing someone else's response)
Dredge - B/W Helm Combo
The Delver strategies pretty much don't have an "unwinnable matchup" because the combination of tempo counters, mana denial, and a blistering fast clock will ensure you're at least in every game.
Last edited by lordofthepit; 07-22-2014 at 11:56 PM.
Reanimator's worst matchup is probably BUG / Deathblade. Deathrite Shaman, counter magic, Thoughtseize and often Lilly main let them interact with you in every zone, and can lock you out from ever really being "in it" fairly often. Post board, many of them also have access to either Scavenging Ooze, Surgical Extraction, or both. Miracles probably was the deck's worst matchup, but then they cut their best card in RIP from the main for some reason and went down to like, two on the board. In the past year, Miracles has gotten much easier for reanimator pilots that know the matchup, so BUGx gets my vote for current nemesis, with Maverick close behind.
11th at SCG Baltimore - 6/02/2013
2nd at SCG Philadelphia - 6/23/2013
28th at SCG Worcester - 7/07/2013
Maveric due to DRS/Ooze? I don't know, they normally switch to the S&T plan post-board. D&T also has decent game against Reanimator.
Is it the Monogreen or the UG variant that does well versus various control decks like Miracles or doesn't it really matter that much?
RUG Delver - Dredge, Nic Fit, 4c Loam, maybe pox? With the "typical" SB, Id vote Dredge.
BUG Delver - Burn
UWR Delver - ???
Goblins - Deathblade, Zoo, Reanimtor, Belcher/Allspells. They are all terrible.
Shardless BUG - Painter or Burn or S&T. Probably Burn being the worse.
Jund - Burn, Painter or S&T. S&T probably the worst.
Maverick - Miracles or Belcher
D&T - Elves or Jund
Miracles - 12 Post, then Goblins
Esperblade - 12 Post
Deathblade - Burn. Then, Shardless BUG or Jund.
4x Lands/Loam Control - ??? High Tide makes a lot of sense to me. I also know this MU always feels super easy with Miracles.
12 Post - ??? Omnitell, or pox maybe? Depending on the build/SB, reanimtor or storm might be tough too
Burn - Belcher/All spells/Storm/Reanimator
Belcher - ??? Not sure what the actual WORST matchup is. Maybe Team America? Daze, discard, FoW, AND null rod/pneedle AND golgari charm.
Oops! All Spells! - Miracles or anything that runs leyline of the void
Painter - Burn???
Elves - Esperblade, Jund or Reanimator
Storm - MUD, Miracles, Team America
Reanimator - Miracles
Sneak & Show - D&T or Reanimator
Omnitell - ??? This always feels really easy with Miracles
High Tide - ??? Again, this always feels really easy with Miracles
Dredge - Miracles or Reanimator
Affinity - Nic Fit or DeedStill
Nic Fit - Show and Tell, 12 Post or MUD
Merfolk - Goblins
MUD - ???
12 Post hates playing against storm. More than half of the sideboard is designed to fight this matchup.
Maverick due to drs abs ooze attacking your graveyard, Thalia attacking your ability to dig and counter, wasteland constraining your mana, revoker turning off griselbrand's draw, teeg removing your force of wills, knight of the reliquary removing your ability to show and tell (since they just go find karakas), cavern removing your ability to really interact, pride made removing your ability to pithing needle, mind censor attacking your ability to entomb and fetch... The list goes on. Most builds of maverick are just awful for us. Thinks like massacre help, but at the end of the day it's KotR into Karakas and Maze that really just does it. Maverick seems like a bye on paper and a nightmare in practice.
DnT is kind of the reverse since the inception of Sire of Insanity (and more recently for me, Admonition Angel in the "non legendary answer to permanents" slot), since they A) have less actual "karakas" in their deck then Maverick since they dont have KotR and B) have generic beater guys that can't fight reanimator monsters where Maverick has "even more god damn hate bears". I actively consider DnT favorable anymore after testing with a local DnT player and running against it weekly at the LGS.
I'll stop hogging the thread now, but honestly guys, Miracles isn't the death match it was for us. Bugx, uwr, maverick are all much harder since miracles moved off of being a Rip combo /control deck (which I still don't understand at all).
11th at SCG Baltimore - 6/02/2013
2nd at SCG Philadelphia - 6/23/2013
28th at SCG Worcester - 7/07/2013
Lands - Imperial Painter, Burn, fast combo
While these matchups are theoretically winnable (and I have beaten Burn before) they are extremely bad. Painter is probably the worst matchup for Cloudpost as well. Some other matchups I've noticed are REALLY bad, through playing one side and/or the other:
BUG Delver - Elves, Lands
Miracles - Punishing Jund (I've only lost this matchup once in tournament play as Jund, and that was due to extremely bad play on my part)
Deathblade - Nic Fit
RUG Delver (or really any Delver deck) - Jund Depths/Pox
Although nobody plays it anymore, the Gate is also an awful matchup for Delver decks.
Yeah, I forgot about Belcher for D&T. That's an abyssal match-up for D&T as well.
Doesn't Shardless really struggle against Painter with all those moon effects, too?
RUG Delver -> Pox ?
BUG Delver -> Elves !
UWR Delver -> ?
Goblins -> Oops all spells - If good combo/gravehate sideboard then it's probably a Pfire deck.
Shardless BUG -> Burn !
Jund -> ?
Maverick -> ?
D&T -> Elves
Miracles -> Cloudpost !
Esperblade -> Cloudpost !
Deathblade -> ?
4x Lands/Loam Control -> Omnitell
12-Post -> Pox ?
Burn -> Reanimator
Belcher -> Reanimator
Oops! All Spells! -> BUG Delver or reanimator
Painter -> Omnitell !
Elves -> Reanimator or some Pfire control
Storm -> MUD
Reanimator -> BUG Tempo ?
Sneak & Show -> Death and taxes !
Omnitell -> Reanimator !
Dredge -> Miracles helm ?
CLICK HERE FOR THE RULES OF A VERY FUN MULTIPLAYER CASUAL FORMAT
You very likely can build it without spending any money, just out of what you already have.
An example with my (very large) list in a visual form
Reanimator is a good suggestion, but what do you mean by Pfire control? Miracles, Jund? Jund is fine.
Esperblade and Jund shouldn't be in there.
For my votes:
Elves - Reanimator, LED Dredge. Miracles, Storm, UWR Delver are all unfavourable but can be fought. Those two are just abysmal though, LED Dredge especially. Everything Elves does is just too slow and/or too small. Against reanimator stuff is just slow but at least your gravehate works.
Storm - Reanimator. Faster combo deck with Force = sad times.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
For Uwr delver the worst matchup is Pox and not Lands. Lands is still winnable with a very fast start
Reanimator worst matchup is not Miracles is UWR delver.
Manaless Dredge - G2 & G3 vs. anything with a good SB
Pfire control doesn't mean a punishing fire deck OR a control deck. It means a control deck playing punishing fire. Not really established archetypes but I have seen several times grixis or rug pfire control decklists.
Nic fit decks with Pfire could also enter that category depending on the decklist.
CLICK HERE FOR THE RULES OF A VERY FUN MULTIPLAYER CASUAL FORMAT
You very likely can build it without spending any money, just out of what you already have.
An example with my (very large) list in a visual form
Zombie might have been referring to the fact that on rare occasion miracles lists run punishing fire. I don't think any have top'd anything big lately, but they do well at smaller events occasionally.
It's interesting to hear that Miracles/Elves isn't that lopsided - it makes sense when you put it this way. One thing I'm sort of surprised by is with so many people pointing out that MUD has a number of good matchups (basically everything aside from BUG variants and Elves seems fairly winnable) that the deck isn't played more. Its 12-post matchup is pretty bad (I think?) but there aren't many people going full 12-post.
That makes sense - I'm very inexperienced with RUG as I said before, and I'll admit to a somewhat irrational anti-Stoneforge bias so I probably underrate any deck running it matchups.
Do you have any example lists to show?
My typical experience with PFire is that it's too slow, but if it's in a heavy blue control shell it will be trouble. Depends heavily on the build, though - many recent Miracles/midrange adaptations should do good work in those matchups too.
Originally Posted by Lemnear
I'm probably updating the OP post when a consensus is found on certain match-ups.
From what I've gathered so far:
RUG Delver - Pox? Dredge?
BUG Delver - Merfolk? Burn? Elves?
UWR Delver - Lands?
Goblins - Zoo??? Oops, All Spells?
Shardless BUG - Burn
Jund - Burn, Omni/Sneak Attack (with Leyline)
Maverick - Belcher, Oops, then Miracles
D&T - Belcher, Oops, Elves
Miracles - 12-Post
Esperblade - 12-Post
Deathblade - Jund? Shardless BUG? Jund? Burn
4x Lands/Loam Control - High Tide? Miracles? Other fast, spell-based combo? Burn? Painter?
12-Post - Pox? RUG Delver?? Storm?
Burn - Reanimator or any Show and Tell strategy with Leylines
Belcher - Reanimator
Oops! All Spells! - Reanimator
Painter - Burn, Goblins? Omnitell? Cloudpost?
Elves - Reanimator
Storm - Team America, Dragon Stompy, MUD?
Reanimator - Miracles? Maverick (black splash)? D&T?
Sneak & Show - Death and Taxes
Omnitell - Reanimator
Dredge - anything with decent GY hate, maybe D&T due to Thalia blocking their spells?
Edit: Dredge removed from the Elves matchup
Last edited by Barook; 07-24-2014 at 08:46 AM.
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