I played the mengucci list at the local event tonight, 4 rounds cut to top 4, and then the top 4 split.
Round 1 UB reanimator 2-0
My first round was against UB re-animator which went very well. Game 1, I tore apart his hand with cabal therapy and thoughtseize followed by a gurmag while he tried to play through force of wills. Gurmag finished the game quickly. Game 2 I had force, fluster, and surgical and 4 lands in my opening hand, and kept. I drew into thoughtseize, cabal therapy, and eventually found a pyromancer which i chained a bunch of cantrip into for a fast clock.
Round 2 Doomsday 2-0
My good friend was my opponent, and it went very similarly to round 1. Tons of disruption, followed by a threat. He almost won game 2, but lost to himself when he burning wished for a draw spell instead of a doomsday from the side. Sad. I always hate playing my friends in an important event, but he went 3-1 and made top 4.
Round 3 12post eldrazi 2-1
This match up was fine as long as I saw blood moon in the sideboard games. Game 1, I saw a bunch of discard and force of wills with a gurmag on the field, and he couldnt land any threats. I ended the game quickly with a gurmag, and going bolt snap bolt on his end step, untapping and swining for 7 damage, then casting another bolt from hand for exact lethal of 16. Game 2 he cast an ulamog through a blood moon since I didnt present a clock, and made a land drop every turn. Game 3 I saw blood moon again and this time had a fast clock.
Round 4 UR delver 2-1
Game 1 He went delver, delver, stormchaser, and I did not see any removal. Game 2, I sided in every piece of removal I had, and dragged the game out until I eventually had him in top deck mode and captripped my way to victory with young pyromancer. Game 3 was very close, he had me down to 8 life with an unflipped delver. All I had was 6 lands on the field and flusterstorm in hand. I drew into a preordain, that allowed me to cantrip chain into 6 elemental tokens and finally tapping out my last red source for a pyroblast targeting delver that I found with a ponder. He had no cards in hand, and I had lethal on the board. He scooped.
Overall, I had some very favorable matchups. I was also very fortunate with my draws, but I also don't think I made any glaringly obvious misplays. I used the advise from EJexpresss that was posted above, and ended up siding out 2-3 handhate spells in the delver match, which helped a lot.
Andrea Mengucci
Lands
4 x Scalding Tarn
4 x Polluted Delta
2 x Underground Sea
3 x Volcanic Island
1 x Bloodstained Mire
1 x Badlands
1 x Swamp
2 x Island
Creatures
3 x Gurmag Angler
4 x Young Pyromancer
2 x Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 x Gitaxian Probe
1 x Inquisition of Kozilek
4 x Lightning Bolt
4 x Preordain
1 x Kolaghan's Command
4 x Force of Will
4 x Brainstorm
1 x Thoughtseize
4 x Ponder
4 x Cabal Therapy
1 x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 x Fatal Push
Sideboard
2 x Pyroblast
2 x Flusterstorm
2 x Blood Moon
2 x Baleful Strix
2 x Diabolic Edict
1 x Painful Truths
1 x Kolaghan's Command
1 x Toxic Deluge
2 x Surgical Extraction
Also, I went down on a volcanic for a basic mountain, as I hate to get wasted off of a color.
Has anyone in this thread played much with Miracles? I've played maybe 10-20 matches with it and it made me wonder a bit about this deck - the other cantrip/jace deck of the format. There are obvious comparisons to draw between pyro/mentor and bolt/swords and such, but I wondered if anyone had any firsthand insights. Having access to discard is probably the biggest difference, for instance, but I'm unsure how big a difference that makes from matchup to matchup. Anyone in here played both decks?
Hey!
I'm friend with Claudio Bonanni and I had the chance to play some games against him running his Mentor Daze Miracle list. I felt pretty much unfavored for many reasons: 1. Discard spells are not so great in the match up, due to the huge amount of cantrips and card advantage he has. 2. Our deck is built mainly around 1 for 1 spells (I was running the Dagen list as I think Snapcaster Mage is not great in this deck) while his is full of card advantage: playsets of both Snap and Predict are huge. 3. Kolaghan's command is pretty bad bc our creatures never reach the graveyard. 4 Mentor outpowers Peezy 5. Gurmag Angler is pretty bad. 6. Post sideboard Pyroblast is great, but we only have two. Snapcaster might be worthy just for the reason of having more than 2 pyroblasts available post sideboard.
Meanwhile I texted Andrea Mengucci, as I know him a little bit, and he told me he likes the matchup against Miracles, even when he was playing the original Dagen list. He says he happens to grind them out most of the time. Dagen himself in his article says he feels slightly favored.
So it might be we are doing something wrong or we just need to practice more
Overdosed on confidence
Have you tried the Grixis lists that the japanese are running now:
http://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/k/kD08501W/
They are playing snapcaster mages for the mid to late game grind which i think adds an extra dimension of viability in case your pyro and angler just get plowed.
I think this deck is severely weakened by cutting preordains and adding reactive cards. The principle behind the initial list is to have a few reactive cards and use cantrip to select wether you want your counterspells or your removal spells. By cutting cantrips and adding fatal pushes you'll draw removal spells vs combo more often and it's not really safe either with just 19 lands.
Also snapcaster in my opinion is only good to flashback pyroblasts, it's not worth it to waste slot to flash back cantrips or bolts.
This version you posted is strictly worse than 4C Czech Pile in my opinion, whereas Grixis Pyro just has a different gameplan so you can't really compare it to Czech Pile. This Japanese list adjusts its game plan to be more similar to Czech Pile but, in fact, worse.
Overdosed on confidence
I would tend to agree that the match feels unfavored. I'm running 2 snaps in the main (the mengucci list) and it still feels like they have crazy advantage in the match with terminus, portent, predict, and snaps. I'm not sure I have an answer on how to deal with UWx control, but I can say the times that I won I went turn 1-probe/cabal turn 2-cabal or other discard/ turn 3 angler with force back up.
Back from holydays I started grinding the deck on mtgo again yesterday. 4-1ed a league where I beat RW Death&Taxes, Grixis Delver, 4C Leovold and Burn and lost a very close one against 4C Leovold again. List was very close to Dagen's. No snapcaster mages nor the new 3/4 which I don't like that much. At 4 mana I'd much rather play Jace tms most of the time.
I got the footage of the league on YouTube but unfortunately it's in Italian, might record in English next tims so I can share it here.
Overdosed on confidence
Of course I can! It's like that:
4 Angler
4 Peezy
4 BS
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Probe
4 FoW
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition
1 Engineered Explosives
1 K-Command
2 Jace TMS
4 Delta
4 Tarn (I have Misties on mtgo because I can't afford Tarn but obv you want to run Tarns! )
1 Bloodstained Mire
3 Volc
2 U-Sea
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Swamp
---
2 Pyroblast
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Blood Moon
2 Counterspell
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Flusterstorm
1 Painful Truths
1 K-Command
1 Pyroclasm
1 Toxic Deluge
Baby Jace wasn't bad by any means but I found the bigger Jace (Tms) to be better in grindy games, where you really want him. Against fair decks baby Jace rarely sticks, but he has the upside of being less bad against combo decks.
Faerie Macabre was included over Surgical Extraction because we don't run any Snapcaster Mage and Faerie is better against Reanimator (bypasses Chancellor even OTD) and Dredge (takes away 2 dredgers instead of just 1 if he discards 2 with a Looting effect). Surgical is better against Lands and Show&Tell tho. They both have their upsides against Storm.
Overdosed on confidence
I play 1x of her in a Jace TMS slot. I only played her once and she ate a pyroblast. The rest of the time i saw her with cantrips and i never felt she was useful. 4 cmc were too high in an eviroment full of wastelands. I will keep testing her but she's probably not worth it.
I was inspired by the Vial Smasher list when I initially saw it. Since then I've built it on paper and mtgo. In the process I've tuned it a little to me liking. I've been really struggling with a few matchups. How do you beat graveyard combo decks, BR Reanimator, BU Reanimator, Dredge. I really only have counters, therapies (which aren't even great) and a pair of sideboard surgical extrctions.
Blood Moon? What the heck do you actually bring them in against? With the pending rules update, it seems awful to bring in against lands.
I've been playing the Vial Smasher list, and changed it by adding 3 DRS in the Portent slot because it felt like the deck only started doing anything on turn 3, which is a bit too slow. DRS probably also helps the graveyard matchup, although I haven't played it yet, and I might want to include a single trop in the list in the badlands slot to eat creatures from the graveyard.
Not sure about lands though. Beats me, and I don't have any local lands players so I don't have to worry about it haha.
After I lost my first game to portent being a bad magic card, I cut them. Miracling a Temporal Mastery isn't the same as a terminus! I turned 3 Portent into 1 Murderous Cut and 2 Jace, TMS. Both of the cards have pulled their weight, but I can definitely see a reason to play DRS. Having another lightning rod will increase the chances of vial smasher living. I've starting to question the temporal mastery(s), they are only good when you are ahead on board and basically a blank draw in an empty board. I'm going to make some updates and collect more data.
How do people feel about Chart the Course in the deck? Seems like Nights Whisper is viable in this deck and chart just seems better. I might test 1 or 2, being blue and losing no life seems like great upside.
This deck don't need Chart for now.
After two months of playtest, imho the free slot are very few and, with Pyromancer, maybe a simple cantrip like Preordain is better then Chart...anyway i don't think who we need other cantrip in add to Brainstorm, Ponder and Probe.
My two cents.
I disagree about temporal mastery, honestly. Its interaction with brainstorm is pretty great, and being able to pitch it to force makes it so much better than thunderous wrath. I actually ended up cutting wrath, and switching it to bonfire. It's not as bursty(obviously) but it's very very relevant in a lot of matchups even without miracle. I also put it in the board, and have 2 strix in the main.
Basically, while I think skewing the deck too far for smasher is wrong, I also think that some card choices are just not bad at all, like temporal mastery and potentially bonfire. I'm looking to move away from strictly combo pieces(wrath) and more towards things that have incidental value outside of vial smasher. I'll post another list in a few days once i've nailed things down a bit more.
Has anyone had any luck with Kess actually playing her? She did alright on camera at EE a few weeks ago, and I saw the Brainstorm Show list has her as a 1x. The 4 mana and not immediately affecting the board or doing anything (unless you have 5+ lands) makes me hesitant to pick up one or two.
Here's my current list right now. My friends had a faux intervention and finally got me to stop playing temporal mastery, which I'm still very sad about. I think the deck is in a much better place though.
Land (18)
1x Badlands
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Island
4x Polluted Delta
4x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
3x Volcanic Island
Creature (13)
2x Baleful Strix
3x Deathrite Shaman
4x Vial Smasher the Fierce
4x Young Pyromancer
Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
2x Kolaghan's Command
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Logic Knot
Sorcery (13)
2x Bonfire of the Damned
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
Sideboard
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Darkblast
1x Dread of Night
2x Flusterstorm
2x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Kess, Dissident Mage
2x Murderous Cut
1x Pithing Needle
2x Pyroblast
1x Toxic Deluge
Here's my reasoning on some card choices:
DRS - Before I added it, the deck felt like it also just started doing things on turn 3, which is fine sometimes but often too slow. In addition, in some matchups, DRS can be a pretty decent threat all by itself or add enough to your clock to get there. I tried 4 for a while, but it just felt like having more than 1 was pretty often absolutely terrible, and that it was better to see 0 than to see 2.
Strix - Replaces itself, can sometimes get some damage in, and stalls when necessary. Perfect.
Logic Knot - Usually counterspell with the upside of 11ing people in the late game if they let you stick a vial smasher. If I ever play the deck without Vial Smasher, obviously this just becomes regular counterspell, but as for now the upside is pretty large and the downside is usually not relevant.
Bonfire of the Damned - I ended up playing this over Thunderous Wrath because even with the wombo combo of Vial Smasher plus Wrath, the game was often not over, and the card was just absolutely dead outside of that context. Instead, Bonfire is a mainboard board wipe which is relevant against a lot of the field, can still be cast from hand if you draw it and can't miracle it, and it's also still crazy when you have the Smasher, turning all of your lands past the first one into a bolt, and probably wiping any creatures they have. This is part of my ongoing effort to include cards that are good with Vial Smasher but have value outside of the ideal situation, and turn the deck back towards a control deck and away from a bad combo deck.
Kess in the sideboard - As HammerAndSickled mentioned, the card is just crazy value, and that's important against Leovold and Delver. That being said, I'm only playing her in the side because the deck already has a lot of higher cost spells, and the deck needs at least a little game against combo.
Murderous Cut in the side - Just more removal for matchups where it's relevant, our graveyard is often full, and the upside of fiveing someone and it being unconditional is worth more imo than fatal push
Last edited by FiliusIcari; 10-02-2017 at 05:52 PM.
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