http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...82#post1028082
Report is up.
Going to do a postmortem on my decklist and cover some brief sideboarding things quickly.
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Carnage Tyrant
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Burning Wish
2 Scapeshift
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Sylvan Library
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Badlands
4 Taiga
2 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
sb::
1 Scapeshift
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Innocent Blood
1 Lost Legacy
2 Slaughter Games
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pulse of Murasa
2 Steve: This deck is a bit top-heavy in both fair and combo plans, so you really want some extra acceleration alongside the Vets. Steve plays very nicely with Tracker, as well -- he puts you into Tracker + clue quicker, or represents a block and a clue if drawn later.
Nissa, VWS: Your goal is to get to 7 lands quickly anyway, so her condition for flipping is already met. She's super easy to flip -- basically any time you want to Zenith for her, you're probably flipping her. She also flips in response to removal by way of fetchlands, which a cool trick. Once she flips, her card draw and her token protector are both relevant, as well. She has continued to be very good for me.
2 Tracker: Tracker is fine here due to the large land count (24) and amount of ramp spells -- again, turning a lategame Steve into a cantrip is perfectly fine. He also lets you draw a bunch of cards off a Scapeshift if you can't kill them with it for some reason (leyline of sanctity or whatever). He also grows to tangle with Gurmags quickly, and pressures combo while drawing into more disruption.
Regis: Regis & Kelly successfully killed a couple planeswalkers on the day, although I never played against something like Czech pile, which is where the card shines in particular. Good value guy, good aggression, and threatens a nasty turn with Carnage Tyrant if Regis sticks around.
Carnage: He's the biggest, dumbest idiot and sometimes you need a big, dumb idiot. He beats everything except the largest Goyfs (and Goyf is super out of favor atm). Like I said in my interview (https://go.twitch.tv/videos/183919079 at 3:31), the best thing most decks currently can hope to do to him is throw a Strix in the way, in which they're still taking 6 on the block. Hexproof is important, as is trample. Uncounterable matters less, but does come up sometimes.
Primeval Titan: A plan unto himself, plays well with both Valakut and also with the "lands as cards" theme of Tracker and Vital Force. He's not always relevant, and he does get boarded out a lot, but he's an insane bomb when you need him.
Discard suite: This became industry standard towards the end of Scape's previous life cycle, and seemed fine on the weekend as well. Sometimes I boarded out the Thoughtseizes to improve my topdeck quality, but they were nice to have in the maindeck to get more information or have slightly more protection against combo or control.
2 Decay: I do kind of still wish I had room for another removal spell or two maindeck, but the deck honestly feels pretty tight at this point. Decay was definitely the right call -- Chalice of the Void is on the upswing, and while we don't typically need to kill Chalice all the time, sometimes it does matter if our hand is choked on 1s vs Eldrazi or some such. I also blew up a random Trinisphere from the Cloudpost deck, and being uncounterable is great vs Delver, as we all know.
2 Vital Force: This card is bananas in the metagame right now in general and Scape, in particular, uses it very well. Every mode on this card is important, and knowing when to off her for her emblem is challenging but rewarding when you get it right. Don't forget that if you have her Emblem and you play a Fetchland, you can hold priority in response to the Emblem trigger and fetch, which will result in you drawing 2 cards after your fetch resolves.
Manabase: felt about as stable as it ever does in this deck. Sometimes you run into awkward draws, especially against an opponent who is determined to screw with your manabase, but in general it's pretty robust and holds up to even a pair of Wastelands pretty well. Again, don't forget to priority fetching for basics unless you know the coast is clear. The deck runs off a basic Forest pretty well -- that basic Forest is your first goal, and then from there you can spread outward.
Wishboard: Everything felt pretty solid. I still hate the Innocent Blood, but I know that as soon as I take it out, I'm going to have to deal with a bunch of Show and Tell nonsense. I still wish there was a 1B -2/-2 pyroclasm variant :(
Sideboard: Everything was good here, too. The Pulse of Murasa could potentially be a 3rd Surgical, but I liked having the Pulse -- it performed well for me a couple times on the day when I needed it to.
Brief sideboarding notes:
Vs Grixis/RUG Delver:
-2 Nissa Vital
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Regisaur
+1 Pyroclasm
+1 Pulse of Murasa
+2 Lightning Bolt
Pretty standard. You kinda want both Pyroclasms in postboard against Grixis if they're high on Pyromancers, but that means you need to cut an additional card, which is tough. Vastwood Seer is /probably/ the 5th cut if need be, but you're going to definitely have times where you miss it.
Vs Czech:
-1 Pernicious Deed
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Green Sun's Zenith
-1 Veteran Explorer
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Lightning Bolt
+1 Pulse of Murasa
This matchup is mostly about making your draws better because this game is going to go long. Surgical comes in to "counter" Snapcasters at important junctions, and you take out a Zenith in order to Wish for one. Czech frequently has some amount of Invasive Surgery, so being able to protect a Zenith from that is also important -- aside from just increasing your bomb density (4 Zeniths to functionally 7). If you don't want to cut a Vet, you can cut a Steve or a Bayou or a Forest or something instead. You just need to cut /a/ mana source, it doesn't matter too much which one it is.
Vs Storm:
-1 Carnage
-1 Primeval
-1 Regis
-2 Nissa Vital
+2 Slaughter Games
+1 Cabal Therapy
+2 Surgical Extraction
You're trying to lean down your deck. Vital Force is actually decent against storm, but you need cheaper cards. Discard and Surgicals go after their support cards -- either mana or gas -- while Slaughter Games or BW->Lost Legacy goes after their actual win conditions; tendrils first, since forcing them on to Empty is actively good for us, and then Empty for the final blow.
Decay stays in because storm pilots will frequently try to park an LED or a Petal in play in order to protect it from our discard, and then we can nuke it from orbit. Deed has the same role, but also protects us from Empty to some degree.
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Hopefully that gives you some idea or insight into what I do -- should be able to extrapolate from that. Generally speaking you're looking to bring in like 3-5 cards and adjust your maindeck to the speed you need it to be as well as adjusting the plans that you have available to you.
Great write-up, and congrats on the finish!
Originally Posted by Giliean (via /r/mtglegacy)
Sweet write up dude! Watching the video...the arrogance of the announcer on the right (Buehler I believe) really rubbed me the wrong way.
Yeah, I usually like Randy Buehler, but his attitude really rubbed me the wrong way. Kinda strange coming from such an experienced Vintage/Legacy player.
Sigh, I guess I have to finally sleeve up Nic Fit.
Just saw the interview. It was very enjoyable, you did a great job explaining what Nic Fit is/does. Mark Hornung seemed to have quite the man crush going on, haha. For those interested, it starts 3 hours & 31 minutes in (rather than @3:31).
That's what you get for playing this deck. Makes it all the more fun when you blow people out of the water.
Last edited by Echelon; 10-27-2017 at 05:52 AM.
Hello Arian,
Again, congrats for you run.
I've just seen your R3 vs Storm. Wow that G3 is a very very loose keep if you ask me. 5 lands / 1 BW / 1 CT.
But whatever, as long as you won the match !
1) Here are a few comments about your sideboard plans:
Vs Grixis/RUG Delver:
-2 Nissa Vital
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Regisaur
+1 Pyroclasm
+1 Pulse of Murasa
+2 Lightning Bolt
-> I would definitively reduce/cut the Scape/BW package, here. I believe we don't need to go for a quick kill that is somewhat not always easy to assemble against Tempo decks.
That would help fitting the Toxic Deluge+PoM+IB.
Tempo's MU tend to be all about board states and I like having a lot of removal spells to throw at them because they don't have a lot of creatures anyway. And once their hand is depleted, you should win the topdeck war.
I know that BW grants between 0 to 4 more virtual removal/sweeper but I hate having to pay 2+the chosen card CMC which very bad tempo wise.
The only card that should stay in the side is 1 pyroclasm, in my opinion, because the worst ever game 3 is the double delver hand where there is only one line of play that might save your ass...
BW stays in the deck (between 2 or 3) so if you have a window to shut the door (scape), you can still do it !
I might be wrong, though.
By the way, I think we should try Bontu's Last reckoning instead of Toxic Deluge to assess whether the lifepoint liability is worse or better than the double black mana cost + the "doesn't untap" clause. I know we don't usually pay much life for Toxic and the answer may be pretty obvious here but still, the idea has some merit because Bontu is easier on us while facing Tempo and huge demons.
I pretty much agree with everything else.
2) Questions:
I know you already answered quite a few before the speaker but:
- After some days (and more reflexion), would you change anything in the list and why ?
- Could you share your sideboard plan for Dnt ?
- After looking @ the standings, I think I would have drew the 9th round with your friend (but that is a very personal thing)
Thank you.
Ralf
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Grats on the finish. Any thoughts on the route I was thinking of taking Scapeshift? Would it potentially be viable?
As someone who plays Scapeshift in modern and owns most of this deck except for 4 Badlands and 3 Taigas (which is a lot), I really want to play this deck.
edit: I'm tempted to buy a Badlands and the Burning Wishes and just play with 3 Blood Crypts and 3 Stomping Grounds ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Gratz to Kevin and Littlesamsonite.
So has the Sneak version fallen out of favor that much? Is it still a thing people are doing?
Kagu-Tsuchi カグツチ (Jund NicFit)
Rhino's Abbondanza (Junk NicFit)
4c Aggro Loam
I don't think it is. Jund did get some nice new toys w/ Ixalan though.
What does your Sneak list look like?
Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-G935F met Tapatalk
Kagu-Tsuchi カグツチ (Jund NicFit)
Rhino's Abbondanza (Junk NicFit)
4c Aggro Loam
Imaginary, mostly. Don't have one.
Sneak doesn't really want to be playing any of the dinosaurs so it hasn't really gained anything from the new releases. I imagine it's still fine, but if the new dinosaurs make Scapeshift's fair gameplan viable again then why would you play the 'A+B' combo deck with a fair backup plan when you could play the 'A' one card combo with a fair backup plan?
Be warned, this is just my theorycrafting. I stopped playing Sneak/-y Fit when top was banned because even with top you could still have trouble putting everything together and without it I assumed there would be some more trouble, so I tried some other versions with either more tutoring and card draw (Crop Rotation and 4 Trackers) or the blue cantrip shell. Arianrhod mentioned here how he was having trouble making it work post top-ban, if I remember correctly. And I don't think I've seen anyone else posting about successful results with that version. I'm thinking the reason why Scapeshift is ok to play without tops is the Burning Wish-package, it's an extra tutor package that help you draw what you need when you need it: extra discard, sweepers, combo interaction or win condition. And it needed the creatures to have a relevant game aside from the Burning Wishes and Scapeshift, so [edit: but] the creatures probably aren't what's making the archetype relevant again, rather it's the slow meta making Scapeshift a good win condition and the consistency gained by using the Burning Wishes which is needed now that top is gone.
Last edited by pettdan; 10-31-2017 at 09:51 AM.
I moved off Sneak for mostly the reasons you mentioned, adding that drawing the second Sneak when you need a monster or -anything- else was just the worst feeling. Scape has better topdecks on average because your "combo" is one card and Wish offers a ton of utility when you aren't able to kill them with Scapeshift. In our post-top world you need higher average card quality in your non-Brainstorm decks, which is why Scape is where I'm focusing my attention at the moment. I don't think Sneak is a bad deck, it certainly has the best nut draws available to it, but the inconsistency that was propped up by Top is now just a bit too much to overcome IMO.
You could always run Mirri's Guile to shore that up...
Guile being popped by deed feels real bad tho.
It'll happen sometimes.
In my Nyx List I really did enjoy having 1 Guile to go alongside the couple of Libraries. Think about the timeline of your play. Sometimes you can manage Deed on turn 3 and then blow it turn 4. Vast majority of the time, Deed will come down and blow up same turn, and that would be turns 4+. Even in a scenario where you pop Deed on turn 4 or 5, if you can manage a T1 Guile, that is still a pretty incredible range of card selection, especially if you have a fetch or two to shuffle away bad options. Especially against combo, T1 Guile often helped setup to find additional discard or the right accelerant to go alongside Vet.
Deed -should- be wiping 2+ pieces from your opponent, so even losing a card to put yourself ahead shouldn't be frowned upon. Other situations, you'll draw the Library/Guile right after deeding and will be super happy to have it push you ahead and provide better topdecks than your opp.
IMO, we lost top. Have to deal with it with Libary/Guile until something better comes along.
BUG fit I think is the only version that can really get away from either, and even then, that's due to cantrips/strix/tracker/jace/(nissa?).
I've liked Sylvan more, drawing cards is nice and we have plenty to do on turn 1, but I also don't own Guiles and haven't tried them.
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