Anecdotal evidence, but from what I’ve heard the Japanese meta is different than what we’ve got over here. I’ve heard that miracles is very popular over there, which may be why tasigur seems to pop up on Japanese lists but not American ones(as far as I can tell anyway). I’ve tried tasigur but that was a while ago. Personally, I don’t really like him, for a few reasons, which I’ll outline below. These are just my thoughts, feel free to critique/criticize me.
Pros:
1. Doesn’t die to AD or fatal push
2. Can provide card advantage
3. Fairly beefy body
4. If you play DRS, you could potentially favorably sculpt your graveyard to increase your odds of being handed a good spell.
Cons:
1. Dies to gurmag angler/tombstalker. I see both of these cards potentially being huge players in the upcoming meta, hell these guys have been turning up in my shop for weeks. Having a 5/5 cast against your 4/5 is so awkward.
2. It’s “quasi” card advantage. The problem is really you’re giving your opponent a choice. I’ve been handed useless cards about as often as I’m handed useful ones. Which brings me to my next con.
3. 4 mana. That’s JTMS mana. 4 mana in legacy usually means you’re about to win this game. This is a lot of mana to be paying for a spin at the roulette wheel.
4. No evasion, same problem as gurmag, beefy body but can get chumped indefinitely.
5. IF DRS becomes the king of legacy, it makes generating meaningful card advantage more difficult. DRS may eat the meaningful spells left over after you delve away the chaff. With an active DRS you’d essentially be forced to flip over a meaningful spell and a land to get anything worthwhile.
As much as I want to like him he feels like he’s trying to be card advantage and a beater at the same time, but he seems to be mediocre at both. At 4/5 he’ll die to the other delve fatties seeing play. Paying 4 mana to get a card back even at instant speed is really expensive. And it’s a card of your opponent’s choosing so you could just be handed jank.
I think you have to pick what you want, do you want a body or do you want cards? If you want a body I’d try tombstalker, a 5/5 with evasion is actually surprisingly effective and tough to answer without swords. Also he eats delvers for breakfast. If you want cards try painful truths, it’s 3 mana and at sorcery speed, but in grindy matchups it can put games away.
Biggest con to Tasigur IMO is that he is bounced by Karakas and then likely rots in your hand for the rest of the game.
Could be... I mean a core tenant of our deck is dropping a T2 TNN or Leovold. That doesn't even mention the opposing DRS that could be taxing your yard.
Just curious how severely are your deathblade lists changing? I'm probably flexing around 3-4 slots MD and 2 slots SB due to the whole miracles thing
Was running a true Esper deck since I don't have to run Decay and did 1-1-1 but they were close.
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Baleful Strix
2 True-Name Nemesis
2 Vendillion Clique
2 Tombstalker
2 Tidehollow SCuller
2 Wasteland Strangler
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 wasteland
8 fetch
3 usea
3 tundra
1 trop
1 scrubland
1 swamp
2-1 Infect
* Tombstalker beats did most of the work. Lots my equps to Viridian Corrupter every game, which was spicy.
0-2 Sneak
* G1 Emmy T3
* G2 I could've containment Priested T2, but he was on 1 island, so I figured a Sculler was safe first. BS in response, 2 S&T and a Tomb in hand. Shit.
1-1-1 Nic Fit (Jund)
* G1 Tombstalker eventually gets there after a Deed, some Pfires, and other stuf
* G2 We both mull to 6 or 5. He struggles on mana for awhile but eventually climbs to a PTitan and I keep missing critical turns by 1 mana.
* G3 Game ends with me on double DRS, Strix, SFM, and I'm about to draw Tombstalker. 19 to 3. Damn it.
Not sure what I'd change. Things went pretty smoothly. Anyone running Gurmag is missing out. Tombstalker is WAY better. I was flying over all kinds of obnoxiousness. I brought him as a way to subdue the expected BUG decks that can't TNN him.
I think I may change my TNNs and Scullers to more real cards. I think sculler should be Hymn, TNN should be... don't know. I'll start with Hymn for Sculler I think and go from there. TNN might move to Snapcaster but evasion is good. Maybe 1 land should be that one that creatures 1/1 flyers.
NOTES:
A few things to consider going forward.
* Flying is big. TNN can't fly and everyone is banking on TNN being an evasive stonewall
* Big mana costs are a huge deal. Decay + Push => anything Delve, and other cheaty costs is big. Crusader and TNN also get around that.
* Mana denial is going to start becoming a thing big time as decks get lower to the ground. I'd probably move farther from 4-colors and get 1-2 basics in there.
Local looked like:
1 Burn
2 Nic Fit
1 Infect
1 Sneak Show
1 Reanimator/StifleNought hybrid
1 Esper
1 TES
1 Shardless
1 Pox
1 D&T
1-2 BUG
1 Elves
0-3 ?
Don't remember exactly how many or what they'd be,
Interesting.. I haven't really seen Blade decks that run Tidehollow or Wasteland Strangler or even Daze... I don't know how I feel about that list.
First off, daze is always pretty bad in blade decks because you're not a tempo deck, you're a midrange/control deck. So you want to be hitting your land drops every turn so you can play the batterskull that gets stuck in your hand or Jace. The exception to that rule is if you're running multiple mana dorks like bantblade, they're running 4 noble hierarch and 4 deathrite shaman. That's why they can get away with playing daze. But you're not evening running a lot of the top heavy cards so it doesn't matter too much.
Secondly, the wasteland Strangler and Tidehollow could be traded out for snapcaster mages and regular discard like thoughseize/inquisition. But I like the little combo it allows where you can exile cards from their hand and they never get them back.
I mean, if the list is working for you and you're winning then keep doing what you're doing! It just looks like a weird deadguy ale hybrid to me.
"The enemy is getting too close! Quick! Inflate the toad!"
It’s an interesting list, feels more aggro than control. It’s kinda tough to evaluate since you’re pretty far off the norm for a deathblade list.
A few comments. I’m not sure about baleful strix. I get why he’s good, but given the meta going forward I can’t help but imagine it’s better to outright kill your target than have a strix hovering around. I personally converted these to fatal pushes as I expect the game to get flooded by cheap critters.
I feel like thoughtseize is just better than tidehollow. Costs one less mana and gets rid of the card for good. I kinda get what you’re trying to do, thoughtseize them and get an aggro body out of it. But I don’t even think you get a body out of it. If you really do get a key card under the sculler you can’t really toss him into combat against anything, so the body seems like a moot point.
Wasteland strangler? I’ve never really considered this card. 3 mana feels kinda expensive. I just don’t have enough experience to say anything concrete about this card, but my suspicion is that you’d like snapcasters more as they end up costing the same when you snap back a spell.
I kinda like the idea of daze. I mean as the meta gets lower to the ground daze does seem to make sense in a certain light. That being said, as Frowny already expressed, stoneblade isn’t a tempo deck so from that point of view daze doesn’t really make sense. Personally I’d probably turn these into other spells like spell pierce/thoughtseize/counterspell/ponder, etc...
Just a general feeling, but it seems like you’re pretty soft to combo. You only have 4 real hard counters, dazes can slow them down, but once they realize you’re running them they should adjust and dazes become useless. I get what you’re trying to do with tidehollow, but again I’d be nervous tying up a key card under a vanilla 2/2. I’d have to see more combo matches from your deck to know for sure.
It is good to hear that tombstalker is working out for you, I’ve been considering sliding one into my deck.
Regarding your manabase, it looks pretty dicey. For starters you run 20 lands, the average, at least on this board is 21-22. So you’re one land short already. Then you also run 3 wastelands, the average is 2 wastelands. Which means you run 17 color sources while the average is around 19-20 color sources. This issue is further compounded by a lack of basics and no ponders. I wouldn’t lean too heavily on DRS as a mana source since he’s probably going to be the new king of legacy and has a huge target on his back. It also seems like blood moon might become a lot more common so basics might be pretty important.
That being said, I do like 3 wastelands, but I suspect the 3rd wasteland you want to include will come at the cost of one of your spells rather than one of your blue sources. That’s the debate im having in my head anyway. For reference here’s my manabase:
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
The big takeaway was Tombstalker being good.
Thoughts on people's thoughts:
* Strix felt meh. He's mostly there to shore up Delver/Edrazi since I didn't know what to expect. Not sure what to think here.
* Tidehollow was meh. Was trying him next to Strangler but is completely unnecessary
* Strangler was alright. I could see going to Snaps. He was tossed in because I'd never used him and always wanted to give him a shot.
* Tombstalker -> Casted every time without issue. Crushed souls when they saw 5/5 flying :D
* Manabase -> I could see adding a land. Didn't really have any issues. I think the perception people have is coming from Decay, but green being an anti-Dredge/Reanimator color rather than a mainstay is probably the difference
* DGA -> yeah it is sort of a weird hybrid
On combo:
* Don't know. Wasteland and Cliques help
* most of the sideboard was geared that direction. Scullers count, but they were meh, as mentioned
I think I'll be on Bant the next local. The loss to SneakShow is burning in my brain and Wasting people with KotR sounds entertaining. I just reported mostly for the Tombstalker and the meta, obviously not a crazy finish to an evening :D.
I play Tombstalker for a long time now. He is greagz. Comes as a one off in good situations and ends the game fast. Also Baleful Strix is quite. Strix trades 2:1. If the opponent doesn't remove it, we are able to equip it and hit always thanks to flying. Especially swords benefits from evasion. Tidehollow skuller seems okay. He brings pressure in form of his 2/2 body and exiles a card (temporarily). Wasteland Stranglee doesn't seem good at all. The issue is that his ability is an etb trigger.
Daze works against us. We have to develope and gain resources to get constant pressure on the opponent. Tempo cards like daze are good while you have a fast clock on the board like delver. But we need the mana for 2 drops, 3 drops, even 4 drops. By taking a land back to our hand we loose pressure and control over the board.
Besides that I'm not a fan of playing 8 mana dorks. Deathrite is great. He generates pressure with his other abilities. Exalted is okay but attacking for 3 or 4 makes not a difference when our creature becomes blocked. Also is drawing a noble hierarch (and often deathrite shaman) in the late game quite bad.
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So how is everyone else adapting to the new meta so far? I feel like we are positioned better now that miracles is officially gone (not just Deathblade, mostly all blade decks are taking the mantel as the control decks).
I've officially dropped the Karakas in my list and haven't been missing it.
I'm also thinking about dropping Liliana of the Veil from my list and maybe running her in the sideboard, I feel like bumping the Jace count up more instead of trying to run multiple Planeswalkers in the main and making our color requirements even more intensive.
"The enemy is getting too close! Quick! Inflate the toad!"
I feel like doing this right when Combo is likely to uptick (especially Reanimator/Sneakshow) seems bad. Lily and Karakas are both main-deck hate against those decks while viable elsewhere.
i mean, no skin off of my nose, but it seems like you'd be adding those in instead of taking them out.
If for some reason my meta sporadically changed to lots of Sneak and Show I might add the Karakas back in just as some kind of hate against the deck. But I feel Liliana comes in a little too late or doesn't put any pressure on my opponent. Against storm/dredge/reanimator/elves, it's always been too slow to play. But that's just my personal experience.
"The enemy is getting too close! Quick! Inflate the toad!"
I’ll take a stab at it, here’s my deathblade list in our bold new post top world. I have it sleeved up and ready to go, but I missed my local event this week so I won’t actually get to test it until next Monday.
The list:
Lands-21
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Wasteland
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
Creatures-14
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 True-Name Nemesis
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Tombstalker
Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
2 Fatal Push
3 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
Artifacts: 2
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
Planeswalkers: 2
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sideboard:
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
2 Flusterstorm
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Path to Exile
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
2 Meddling Mage
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Surgical Extraction
This list shouldn’t look too different from shells I’ve been running in the past, but I’ve made some small but important adjustments. Here are the cards that changed in the maindeck
-1 Baleful Strix
-1 Vindicate
-1 Stoneforge Mystic
+2 Fatal Push
+1 Tombstalker
Before delving into particulars, if you haven’t noticed there are 6 point removal spells, 4 STP and 2 Fatal Push. This is probably the biggest thing to come out of the top ban. I expect creature decks like delver/deathrite/elves to be everywhere. The additional 2 fatal pushes make me feel a lot better against creature decks. It should be noted that if DRS really does become the next big thing in legacy, being able to kill a DRS could be viewed as a form of mana denial. Coupled with wastelands in the maindeck it could be pretty good.
Also I’m very big on having basics, I’ve never really liked 4C deathblade builds and the super shaky manabases that go along with it. I felt we became a 4C built to incorporate AD against miracles. With miracles gone I just don’t see AD being worth it. I’d consider my build to be 3.5C deathblade, splashing green for the odd DRS activation/leovold. As a rule I generally only play spells I can cast off my basics, the only two exceptions being leovold because he’s a straight up baller, and tombstalker which is on a trial basis right now. A lot of stuff I’m reading seems to indicate non basic hate will rise, so I’m even more firm in my belief that basics are important.
I took out baleful strix because it always seemed like a great card vs eldrazi, but pretty mediocre everywhere else. With eldrazi posed to take a dive it seemed like an easy cut. Replaced it with a fatal push since it seemed better to just outright murder their critter.
Vindicate just got too slow. At 3 mana it kinda worked as anti countertop tech since 3 mana can be kinda hard for them to come by. But as the meta got faster and fatal push got printed this just seems too slow. Replaced with fatal push, farewell old friend you will be missed.
Stoneforge mystic. This one I really agonized over, and I’m not sure it’s the right call. With the advent of fatal push and all these bug decks, the reality is making her stick may just be too big of a task. As a threat she’s a known quantity so just about everyone has a way to deal with her. So I cut one of her for a tombstalker, a more unusual threat which is harder to deal with. Time will tell if this is was a mistake or not.
I want to include an additional wasteland, snapcaster mage, or painful truths, but I just don’t have the room or I just don’t know what I’d cut at this time.
Here’s what happened to the sideboard:
-2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Path to Exile
I’ll be honest, I never liked abrupt decay. I don’t like that this card was really the reason deathblade became a 4c deck with a fragile manabase. With miracles gone I cut these cards with glee and never looked back.
Engineered explosives got put in as a 4th “sweeper” for creatures. Perhaps more importantly it got slotted in as an answer for chalice. If I start seeing more chalices in my meta I suspect I will just run more engineered.
Path to exile is a card I’m really interested in following. If greedy BUG decks or lands ends up taking over the meta path to exile seems really well positioned. Against BUG it’s a slightly better STP. Against lands it seems like a beating since they don’t even get the 20 life they normally would.
Feel free to critique, this is my first blind stab at this new meta we’re all looking at.
I like your list quite a bit. I would like more removal in my list like fatal push.
I've also determined that 3 stoneforge mystic is the way to go nowadays. You don't want to fully revolve around her in the deck because of how much removal there is and have a stuck batterskull in your hand, but she's still a core piece of the deck. You just don't ever want to see more than 1-2 per game.
This is my list for reference;
Creatures - 15
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Baleful Strix
1 Vendillion Clique
Spells - 19
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Spell Pierce
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
1 Painful Truths
4 Swords to Plowshares
Planeswalkers - 3
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Artifacts - 2
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Lands - 21
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
2 Wasteland
1 Island
1 Swamp
I really want to drop the Liliana of the Veil's from my list. They haven't been doing too much and I want something else, I'm just not sure what. I've also debated adding a 3rd Tundra and putting a Council's Judgement in. I also feel like I need to add a Karakas in the main... Overall I feel like I just need to take the deck apart and start from scratch.
Also my sideboard is in constant flux at the moment so I decided not to post it lol.
"The enemy is getting too close! Quick! Inflate the toad!"
My meta is full of BuG decks. Aluren and food chain especially. So I cut Abrupt Decay and play Krosan grip in this slot. Krosan Grip hits Aluren, Food chain, Stoneblade, Omniscience and Stompy decks with their chalice and thorn of amethyst.
Besides that I play 4 sfm and as 3rd equipment Sword of Light and Shadow. Solas gives my creatures pro Fatal Push, Decay and Swords to Plowshares. The abilities are crazy in grindy match ups. The lifegain is okay but the black ability allows me to generate so much card advantage by bringing back Snapcaster Mage and Baleful Strix and block in combat.
Batterskull and Solas make 9 life per turn and is unblockable for baleful strix which was always a problem.
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