I play Invasive Surgery in the same slot as Flusterstorm. Storm players will name flusterstorm and force of will with cabal therapy but nobody knows about surgery. It's a little sideboardtech.
Against Eldrazi I have no problems. Bitterblossom produces chump blockers and getting 1 life loss from an attacking 4/4 is just fair.
Cards which help me: Engineeted Explosives, Decay, Toxic Deluge, Pithing Needle, Swords to Plowshares
Gesendet von meinem HTC One mit Tapatalk
Magic, Food and Nerdstuff Instagram here .
My Blade Deck~> here
My Decks, Ideas and Development->here<-
My magic orientated Blog
~greetings from Germany~
#abolishthereservedlist
For Eldrazi Toxic is the best sweeper, it can be painful but Verdict is just too hard to cast for this deck.
@First_Revenge: Other good cards vs Eldrazi: Baleful Strix, D-Edict, Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere, Liliana of the Veil, Council's Judgment
Since I don't play Abrupt Decay I like EE as a bootleg answer to Counterbalance (you can pump the casting cost up as much as you want, just make sure you're only spending 2 different colors of mana on it to set it to 2).
I ended up with:
2 Meddling Mage
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
1 Containment Priest
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Bitterblossom
1 Pithing Needles
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Disenchant
=15
Excited about Disenchant versus shardless and death and taxes.
I wish I could fit a Divert into my sideboard, but no space.
I played a version of Esper StoneBlade (no Deathrite Shaman) that had an amazing matchup vs. Eldrazi. My friend coined the term "Strixblade" because the main source of card advantage was the three maindeck Baleful Strix.
4x Stoneforge
3x Strix
2x True Name
2x Snapcaster
1x Clique
4x Thoughtseize
4x Force
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Ponder
1x Spell Snare
1x Vindicate
1x EE
1x Verdict
1x Jitte
1x Batterskull
2x Jace
4x Delta
4x Strand
2x Marsh Flats
2x Sea
2x Tundra
1x Scrubland
2x Island
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Academy Ruins
1x Creeping Tar pit
1x Karakas
Baleful Strix and Academy Ruins is an unbeatable interaction against Eldrazi.
He did really well at the Worcester open in 2016 where Eldrazi was a big part of the meta. I've been tuning Esper ever since.
Played in a ~40+ weekly (not typical, but it was awesome to see that many players!)
I split 1st place at 4-0-1 (and the draw was in the last round because 1st and 2nd were the same prize). When I played out the last round I won in 2; so, I consider it a 5-0 performance.
Played the following list:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
=15
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
= 3
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana of the Veil
=2
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Thoughtseize
3 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Vindicate
1 Ponder
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Mana Leak
= 20
=40
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Wasteland
= 21
=60
Sb:
2 Meddling Mage
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
1 Containment Priest
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1 Bitterblossom
1 Pithing Needles
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Disenchant
=15
Rd1, vs Grixis Delver. 2-1. Opponent was a good buddy of mine.
G1, I mulled to 5 bc of land light hands. Got wasted out.
G2, he played delver. I played whatever. He played cabal therapy and saw Bitterblossom and sacrificed delver to it because he didn't have an answer to that card. I won shortly afterwards.
G3, I steadily cast spells in a measured way though removal and fought over the last Spell I wanted to resolve. I landed Bitterblossom and blocked delver for 4ish turns. Eventually stuck a more significant threat.
Rd2 vs TES. 2-0. Knew my opponent was on TES because I saw him sitting next to me.
G1, mulled to 6 looking for action. Got a mana leak. Opponent went off while I was at 1 mana on his 2nd turn, I brainstormed and hit a force of will and won.
G2, I kept a hand with thoughtseize. I cast it and saw infernal, led, led, burning wish, dark Ritual, the red ritual. I took Infernal I'm pretty sure. He again went off the next turn but I had top decked a force of will and won.
Rd 3, vs Aluren. 2-0
G1, I couldn't identity my opponent for a long time. I held back creatures for a while, which is just plain bad. Eventually I landed threats and swung in to win. Opponent did mostly nothing...strange.
G2, opponent mulled to 4. I won but not before my opponent nearly clawed back into the game on the back of coiling oracles and Baleful strix. Saving grave was that my opponent got to 4 mana but there was no second green source in hand for the Aluren. I cast Thoughtseize and my opponent scooped.
Rd 4, vs ur delver control. 2-1.
I had seen this deck take down bant Blade earlier so I knew after board he would bring in several Smash to Smithereens.
G1, I jammed threats until I landed sfm and equipped it with sofai prompting a quick scoop.
G2, I pumped HARD. I had tnn, sfm, drs in play with wasteland, 3 duals, a basic Plains, a wasteland and a Polluted delta. I didn't play around Price of Progress at 13 life. Tapped wasteland, basic Plains and two duals for jitte and equip cost. I had two Swords in hand. My remaining dual was a tropical. When my opponent cast pop the first time I cracked for an ISLAND?! Then my opponent Snapcaster targeted the pop. I had 6 available life from Jitte and drs activation but the tnn he had plus the extra 8 pop damage.
G3, he played 1st turn top. I played 2nd turn Bitterblossom and he Spell pierced. I eventually fought through some counters and landed Sorin lord of innistrad. I ticked Sorin up until I had 4 lifelinker vamps and then ticked down. He eventually scooped and showed me bolt, pop and Smash to smithereens. Essentially, he punted back to me, not realizing pop could redirect at sorin.
Rd 5, ID vs show and tell classic. We play it out and I 2-0 him
G1, I cast drs, then Thoughtseize and sfm for sofai. Quick win.
G2, I cast Thoughtseize and take Cunning Wish or force of will. He had 2 sneak attack and a griselbrand in hand. I was sort of experimenting because I had a Meddling made in hand and I figured I could 3 for 1 him. Anyway? He eventually drew show and tell and I brainstormed into Pithing needles. He swings twice with griselbrand but I eventually find Vindicate and win with a tnn and 2 deathrite.
So I typically play some variant of Stoneblade as I really enjoy playing with Lingering Souls, Baleful Strix, and Academy Ruins. But I have recently decided to try my hand at a Deathblade variant.
I have decided on this list for Friday.
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x True-Name Nemesis
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thoughtseize
2x Jace, the Mindsculptor
2x Ponder
1x Vindicate
1x Spell Snare
1x Spell Pierce
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Tropical Island
2x Wasteland
1x Island
1x Plains
1x Swamp
Sideboard:
2x Meddling Mage
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Containment Priest
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Path to Exile
1x Zealous Persecution
1x Flusterstorm
1x Go For the Throat
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Disenchant
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1x Pithing Needle
I like having the EE maindeck, it's a nice catch all answer against a lot of tricky cards. But I don't have a ton of experience playing it in the same deck as DRS, so I may just move it to the board. I'd also like to find room for a Bitterblossom in the board, although I'm not sure what to cut.
I'm a big fan of having Karakas. In a meta plagued with Sneak and Show, BR Reanaimator, and Turbo Depths, it is a very relevant answer. Also having access to the (soft) lock of Vendilion Clique and Karakas is not something that should be ignored.
Just my two bits. I actually ended up yanking karakas out of my deck because I didn’t find it to be super effective.
I’ve played the reanimator matchup a lot, and karakas just felt weak. The most common target for them has been griselbrand lately, and having them draw 7 or 14 in response to a karakas unsummon felt like prolonging the inevitable. The same problem exists with a griselbrand that gets put in via show and tell.
I didn’t really like it against marit lage decks either. They can make marit tokens at instant speed, and they pack wastelands. So it felt like the same problem as reanimator. Sure I guess I’d stop the first attack, but then watch my karakas get wastelanded and scoop the next turn.
Wound up replacing it with a wasteland instead.
2 Artifact
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
15 Creature
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Noble Hierarch
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Enchantment
1 Sylvan Library
15 Instant
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Abrupt Decay
20 Land
1 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Island
3 Planeswalker
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Garruk Relentless
4 Sorcery
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Sideboard
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 1 Painful Truths
Been running this list, been liking it in testing so far, but it's far from a traditional Deathblade list but i wanted to find a way to jam Daze into the deck because of how aggressive the format is atm, right now i am mostly looking for more strong Green Sun's targets because the card is great, the single Melira in the SB is there to abuse the GSZ package vs infect and it's a hilarious card to resolve against them especially since they won't know that the GSZ is potentially lethal for them, also trying some of the SB options that Reid was using in his Bant list just to see how i like them, although i was already running the Dread of Nights since DnT is normally such a bad matchup, the card really reins it in and makes it very hard for them to win.
Also Leovold is an absolute beast, the fact you can GSZ for him is awesome, and speaking on Karakas i think it is honestly not that great in most of the match ups that we would normally want it, mostly for the reasons stated above, if you are at the point of needing it you porbably have other problems that need dealing with, now that's not to say it's useless but in a 3 color deck that is often splashing for 4 i think having a non basic that produces 1 color can be fairly detrimental with all the wastelands running around.
Anyway would love to hear some thoughts from other long time Deathblade players.
I went 3-0-1 at FNM. In the final round my opponent and I drew intentionally to split prizes, and I won our friendly match. So it is safe to consider it a 4-0 night.
2-1 vs Belcher
2-0 vs D&T
2-0 vs BR Reanimator
2-1 vs Shardless BUG
Here is the list:
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x True-Name Nemesis
2x Snapcaster Mage
1x Vendilion Clique
3x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thoughtseize
2x Jace, the Mindsculptor
1x Ponder
1x Vindicate
1x Spell Snare
1x Spell Pierce
1x Mana Leak
1x Diabolic Edict
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull
1x Umezawa's Jitte
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
1x Marsh Flats
2x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Tropical Island
2x Wasteland
1x Island
1x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Karakas
Sideboard:
2x Meddling Mage
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Containment Priest
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Path to Exile
1x Zealous Persecution
1x Flusterstorm
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Disenchant
1x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
1x Pithing Needle
1x Force of Will
1x Engineered Explosives
I recently decided to cut the fourth FOW in the main deck so I could play a third True-Name Nemesis. In the short tournament against two decks where it would have mattered, it didn’t. So I may continue with the fourth FOW sticking to the side board.
The Belcher match was decided in Game 3 by me having a Mana Leak and a Spell Snare in my hand.
The D&T matchup went as they usually do. I was lucky in drawing my basics or being in a spot where Port and Wastland did not take over the game. Thoughtseize was able to rip critical pieces from my opponent’s hand and Karakas kept Thalia and Mangara from developing any sort of advantage.
My BR reanimation opponent was beaten with a well timed Thoughtseize and Deathrite Shaman in Game 1. Game two my opponent mulliganed to three and lost quickly.
I won Game 1 against Shardless of of two TNN with Sword of Fire and Ice. Game two, Liliana of the Veil with two Tarmogoyfs made quick work of me. Game three, Hymn de Tourach hit neither my SoFi nor my Batterskull, and a DRS yielding both ended the game quickly.
I have made recent changes that reflect ClimbGneiss’ list, minus the LoTV. Mana Leak was great last night, Seraphix's idea to add it to the deck. No one tries to play around having to pay three for there spell to resolve when staring down an Underground Sea and a Scrubland.
I like Spell Snare a lot. I don’t think I’ll ever play a Deathblade variant without it. Karakas was greedy, but worth it tonight. I’m going to keep it in the deck for now even though it feels terrible playing a 3.5 color deck with two white sources.
Last edited by glazed; 01-07-2017 at 04:10 PM.
So after the big tournament today I have to change some gameplans. The meta was: 5 Show and Tell, 3 Reanimator, 1 Dredge out of 27 players.
Engineered Explosives: It's a nice card to have in a creature heavy meta. But it can't handle the decks above so I kicked it to break my deck down to 60 cards.
True-Name Nemesis: With 3 mana quite slow and not fast enough to win. Since I need more counter and come more controlish I decide to Play a Flusterstorm instead.
Also thought about Tombstalker and Keep Nemesis. I can pitch it for Force of Will as well.
Bitterblossom: I like the card a lot. After my judge reward Vendilion Clique it's my favorite Card. But it's too slow. I cut one for Baleful Strix and the second for Vendilion Clique. Without Punishing Fire is Clique quite strong. It's a flyer which controls the opponent's hand
Also I need a better Sideboard, I guess. Sword of Fire and Ice is not that strong right now. Lost Legacy seems good enough against combo decks
My look would look like this:
Lands:
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
1 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Wasteland
1 Swamp
1 Island
Creatures:
3 Stoneforge Mystic
2True-Name Nemesis
1 Tombstalker
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Leovold, Emissary of Traft
1 Baleful Strix
Instant & Sorcery
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Thoughtseize
2 Spell Pierce
3 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Ponder
1 Painful Truth
Other
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Sideboard:
2 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling Mage
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Engineered Plague
1 Swan Song
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Lost Legacy
Maybe Sword of Fire and Ice will get better. I love this Card a lot.
Last edited by Neo900; 01-15-2017 at 12:06 AM.
Magic, Food and Nerdstuff Instagram here .
My Blade Deck~> here
My Decks, Ideas and Development->here<-
My magic orientated Blog
~greetings from Germany~
#abolishthereservedlist
Hi,
I’ve been lately wondering if Meddling Mage was actually effective or not. I see two of them in every SB slot and I’ve recently stopped using it (I’ve just added two Spell Pierce against combo, a match that I think is not that favorable to this deck)
The reason why is that I don’t really know what to name, especially against storm, could you help me out?
Storm (this is the critical one): I was thinking about the tutors (but if you name Infernal, you haven’t seen his hand, and they have B Wish is gg, it’s quite bad the other way around as well)
Sneak Attack: Show and Tell over Sneak attack?
Lands: Should we use It here?
Against Smash to Smithereens: Is it worth trying to protect your equipment? Even if your mage gets bolted?
Miracles: quite effective for terminus
Any other ideas will be welcome
Starting a new habit, I’m going to try and write an after tourney report. Mostly it’ll be my stores weekly legacy games on Mondays. Might be long, but I want to record good moments but mostly mistakes/lessons learned. If this is too spammy lmk and I’ll keep it to myself. Do give me feedback if you see any opportunities to do so.
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-13
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 True-Name Nemesis
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Snapcaster Mage
Spells: 23
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
2 Bitterblossom
3 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vindicate
Artifacts: 2
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
Planeswalkers: 2
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Sideboard:
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
2 Flusterstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Engineered Plague
1 Pithing Needle
2 Meddling Mage
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Round 1 – Omnitell - Win
Game 1:
Not really any mistakes I could identify. Just didn’t get enough counterspells in hand, he resolved show and tell with omniscience, played emrakul, and I lost.
Game 2:
Sideboard:
-3 True Name Nemesis
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Vindicate
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Meddling mage
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
Kept a reasonable starting hand with some counters. At some point through draws or brainstorms I found invasive surgery and surgical extraction. Managed to stick a stoneforge mystic and batterskull on board. When he went for the show and tell it got countered. Afterwards surgical extraction targeting show and tell taking away his primary win con. Batterskull closed the game out.
Game 3:
Really sloppy game on my part. Started well counterspells and surgical extraction popped up again. Managed to stick a bitterblossom and a deathrite shaman about a turn or two before he attempted to show and tell. Show and tell got countered and surgically extracted again which was great for me. Game stalled out from there. Managed to land a stoneforge mystic/batterskull and glued the batterskull to a faerie token. However, he had resolved a Talrand, Sky Summoner and eternally chumped my faerie token. I managed to stick a jace and brainstormed like a madman for counterspells. I would have been dead to a top decked Dream Halls.
Major mistake was missing several deathrite shaman drain activations. I won in the end, but the missed deathrite drains gave him around 2-3 turns extra to try and find dream halls in a deck full of cantrips. Got away with murder on that one.
Round 2-Miracles-Loss
Game 1:
Stuck a bitterblossom early, but he had engineered explosive early. Got a faeire suited up with a jitte and got him to 5 life, but he had a terminus to get rid of the faeries and another terminus to deal with the follow up true name nemesis. Then got locked out with the counterbalance lock. Terminus sucks.
Game 2:
-4 Deathrite Shaman
-2 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Stoneforge Mystic
-1 True Name Nemesis
-1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Meddling Mage
+1 Surgical Extraction
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Invasive Surgery
Awkward mana, in retrospect I should not have kept this hand. 1 Wasteland, 1 Swamp, 1 Fetch, 2 Meddling Mage, 1 Invasive Surgery, can’t remember 7th card. In either case the plan was to lock him out with the meddling mages, but I never found another blue or white source to cast them. The hand stalled out and I got locked out by counterbalance.
Generally speaking this is my least favorite game of magic to play .
Round 3 – Sneak and Show – Win
Game 1:
Didn’t have enough counter magic. Lost to a griselbrand that got snuck into play. Not much to say here. Don’t think I could’ve done differently, just couldn’t stop show and tell from resolving.
Game 2:
-3 True Name Nemesis
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Bitterblossom
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Meddling mage
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Pithing Needle
Probably my luckiest win to date. Opening 7 was a one land hand with no cantrips. I mulliganed down to 6, then 5, then 4, then 3. None of the hands had any lands in them. When I got to 3 cards no lands I tilted and was about to concede. My opponent encouraged me to play it out.
Three cards were a deathrite, vendilion clique, and a spell pierce. Scry revealed a land on top. Passed the turn, drew the land played it and passed back. Next turn drew a fetchland, and clique’d opponent at endstep, taking a force of will. He spent the rest of the game drawing lands while I found counterspells. Lesson of the day, don’t tilt.
Game 3:
Won pretty handily. Turn 1 pithing needle on sneak attack. His keep was greedy, a one land hand, I was able to punish it with a wasteland. Game durdled a bit, managed to stick a stoneforge in and get batterskull in play. Almost made a huge mistake. I had a meddling mage in hand that I didn’t play because I didn’t know what to target. I could have resolved it safely. In retrospect the call was obvious, show and tell. At the time I choked and just kept it in hand. Next turn he attempted to resolve a top decked show and tell. I felt incredibly stupid looking at an uncast meddling mage in hand which could have prevented this problem. Thankfully, brainstorm bailed me out, a force and a spell pierce were in the top 3. Countered the show and tell and ran him over with batterskull shortly thereafter.
Other Thoughts;
Meddling mage is house again show and tell decks. I do need to learn decks better if I want to leverage it properly.
Surgical Extraction overperformed. I like it way more than I like nihil spellbomb. I will be yank the spellbomb in favor of another extraction next Monday.
Invasive surgery’s delirium trigger is more difficult to activate than I anticipated. It was still solid as a 1 mana counterspell though. Maybe it becomes a flusterstorm down the road.
Meddling Mage is a powerful card.
What you name with it depends on the situation and the informatipn ypu might have.
Miracles: Terminus is fine. It creates pressure. Even counterbalance on turn 2 could be ok to prevent the lock.
Storm: typical here is infernal. Agains tes it is hard because they have burning wish as well.
Show and Tell; Show and Tell. We have needle and priest for sneak attack. Show and tell is just the more flexible card.
Reanimator: you can use it to minimize their options to reanimate something. I name exhume because it doesn't target and is harder to hate with shaman or surgical.
Dredge: dread return or cabal therapy. They don't cast anything else.
Magic, Food and Nerdstuff Instagram here .
My Blade Deck~> here
My Decks, Ideas and Development->here<-
My magic orientated Blog
~greetings from Germany~
#abolishthereservedlist
I think its crucial to have hatebears in the sideboard and wouldn't advise cutting all your hatebears for Spell Pierces. Any good combo deck can beat spell-based interaction like permission, discard, or even both. By adding permanent-based interaction (which also attacks-very important because this deck has a slow clock), you force the combo deck to find answers for your spells AND creatures order to execute their gameplan.
Meddling Mage is the hatebear with the most versatile effect and pitches to Force of Will so its the first one I play, but I often add Ethersworn Canonist and/or Containment Priest as well.
As to what to name with Meddling Mage, it depends a lot on what's going on in the game, i.e. the cards you and your opponent have and the board state. But its good to have a few guidelines for different matchups.
Storm: First you need to identify which Storm variant your opponent is playing in G1. Keep in mind that A.N.T. is far more popular than T.E.S.. Generally, A.N.T. can be distinguished by having a basic Island, only Black Rituals (Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual), and its most straightforward kill involves Past in Flames, Infernal Tutor, and Tendrils. T.E.S. plays Red Rituals like Rite of Flame along with Burning Wish and will often go for a very fast Empty the Warrens. Against A.N.T., I name Infernal Tutor because their easiest routes to victory require it (they can definitely win without casting it, but its less likely and potentially more difficult). Against T.E.S. I would name Burning Wish because again it provides their easiest route to victory (they can win without it too as long as they've brought some win cons or interaction into their deck).
Sneak & Show: Even with no hand information I plan to name Show & Tell first. Its the scariest card for me because it comes out the soonest, and my list doesn't play Karakas or Liliana of the Veil so I'm often cold to a quickly resolved Show & Tell-->fatty. Showing in Sneak Attack with only one Red up to activate it in the same turn is quite dangerous as well. Sneak Attack is also scary but is slower and I can interact with it using Pithing Needle, Disenchant, and sometimes even Wastelanding Red sources.
Lands: Punishing Fire and Life from the Loam are great cards to name. Naming Fire allows you to protect Deathrite Shaman and put pressure on them with creatures. Naming Loam is great because the Lands deck becomes much less powerful when they can't Loam. I generally feel compelled to name Fire first, but its not always correct. Keep in mind they can have other ways of killing creatures like Kozilek's Return and Molten Vortex.
Burn: I wouldn't use it in this matchup.
Miracles: I bring it in here but I don't expect it to be great and it rarely is. They have so many problematic cards that its hard to meaningfully disrupt them by cutting one thing off in most board states.
Thanks a lot for answering
I'll try using MMage then.
In any case, if you don't bring MMage to Burn / URDelver matches, how do you deal with Smash to Sm ? It kinds of destroy all our game plan.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)