I play asap to avoid spell pierces.
-rob
I play asap to EAT spell pierces.
For whatever motivation you choose, the typically correct play is to cast Defense Grid ASAP. Maybe if it's not a turn 0/1 play, you can sandbag casting some mana spells with the intention of casting D.G./Ruby Medallion first or second in a turn, using one for bait to resolve the other.
What do you generally board out when boarding in grids?
been goldfishing a bit and have really enjoyed this list. while i think other lists i wrote more recently are probably optimal, when this version is lucky the payoff is better. maybe it's better to just hope to have a good day when running this deck:
// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
// 11 Instant
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song
3 Desperate Ritual
// 14 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
6 Mountain
4 Sandstone Needle
// 23 Sorcery
3 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
3 Past in Flames
4 Act on Impulse
3 Reforge the Soul
2 Hazoret's Undying Fury
4 Bonus Round
// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Artifact
SB: 4 Defense Grid
SB: 2 Silent Gravestone
// 9 Sorcery
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Fiery Confluence
SB: 1 Hazoret's Undying Fury
SB: 1 Rite of Flame
SB: 1 Reforge the Soul
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
Last edited by mistercakes; 08-21-2018 at 11:59 AM.
-rob
played last night at my local weekly.
happy to say i won and went 4-0.
i had some pretty good hands, and only mulliganned a few times. (maybe 3 or 4 times out of 10 games)
as i said the last list felt like a good one if i had a lucky day and it didn't disappoint.
LIST
// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
// 11 Instant
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song
3 Desperate Ritual
// 14 Land
4 Ancient Tomb
6 Mountain
4 Sandstone Needle
// 23 Sorcery
3 Rite of Flame
4 Burning Wish
3 Past in Flames
4 Act on Impulse
3 Reforge the Soul
2 Hazoret's Undying Fury
4 Bonus Round
// 15 Sideboard
// 6 Artifact
SB: 4 Defense Grid
SB: 2 Silent Gravestone
// 9 Sorcery
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Grapeshot
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Fiery Confluence
SB: 1 Hazoret's Undying Fury
SB: 1 Rite of Flame
SB: 1 Reforge the Soul
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
matchups
r1: jakob: reanimator depths (2-0)
rough draws for opponent. his combos never really came together.
r2: max: goblins (2-0)
g1: raced through a lackey + port. sandstone needle was fine as it was tapped.
g2: he had turn 2 mogg war marshall, turn 3 earwig squad. fortunately i had a lot of threats and was able to storm through it. we played some casuals after post board and i think i won 2 more and lost 1.
r3: david: miracles (2-1)
g1: i knew he was on miracles before and kept a risky 0 land hand but could do a bunch of storming because he had mulliganned once and i felt greedy. i played petal + a bunch of rituals, led's etc into burning wish which resolved. i didn't feel confident getting empty because he brainstormed in resp to wish. i got reforge and fizzled. the game went back and forth quite a bit and i ended up resolving a ruby medallion. over the next few turns i miracled 2 or 3 reforge the souls. he was unable to get a threat down and i just had too much mana and spells.
g2: i can't recall most of the details, but he had force, flusterstorm, spell pierce. he squeezed through with a clique and mentor. i do recall drawing a defense grid and thinking that i should hold it until the turn i go off in a more grinding station style. however he cliqued me and let me keep the grid, getting rid of my hazoret's. i drew dead and died to the guys there.
g3: i was able to resolve a silent gravestone and when he ran out of countermagic i played a bonus round and goldfished. it was a bit of a grindy game, but having access to a ton of mana and threats through multiple turns was a bit much. i think i finished by casting fiery confluence a few times.
r4: francesco:food chain (2-1)
g1: i kept a hand on the draw with mountain, rof, desperate, seething song x2, hazoret's, led. i played out my hand and revealed past in flames, bw, led, land. meh - sometimes you just get lucky.
g2: he was able to combo off faster. i can't recall too many details unfortunately.
g3: i kept a 6 card hand with 3 defense grids, a sandstone needle and something (non-business). i scry'd an ancient tomb to the top. he fow'd my turn 2 grid, but i resolved the other 2. it was pretty close. (his draw was turn 2 manipulate fate, turn 3 scourge, turn 4 food chain into scourge, bird, bird). then he hit me with one attack, cantripped and couldn't find a ballista. attacked a 2nd time and couldn't find a ballista through ponder (shuffle), manipulate fate (draw and whiff), sac relic of progenitus (draw and whiff).
on my last draw i drew an act on impulse which was able to get the combo started. i hit a bonus round and resolved 3 reforge the souls (with a copy for each one to let me cast lots of instants). he did have clique on one of them even through defense grids (b/c food chain added a lot of mana and clique is a creature, he took a past in flames and put it on the bottom, but i was able to push on through.) digging 42 cards was able to help find me another past in flames.
thoughts of deck
same as what i posted earlier, was very happy with reforge the soul and sandstone needle. bonus round while a little clunky at times is able to steal a lot of games. led still felt needed as it provided a ton of gas.
sandstone needles allowed me to get up to a larger amount of mana without compromising too much on the mana base. coming into play tapped is pretty negligible and is even worth it through decks with wasteland and port. remember those decks will still need to drop a threat and have the denial package + responding to how you play. you will sometimes get blown out by it, but most of the time you'll likely push right through it. they also let me get the RR which is harder to come by for bonus round.
i only had one turn 1 kill. most of my kills were actually around turn 3 or turn 4.
defense grids were fantastic postboard and i will stick to 4.
gravestones were pretty good, i think overall i would play those again. i did use the draw ability twice last night.
i would play one more fiery confluence in the main over 1 of the desperate rituals. i really like that it has so much versatility for sweeping, artifact kill, and a win condition after 2 bonus rounds.
reforge the soul allows you to play some more risky lines as you can refill for such a low investment if you trigger the miracle. with ruby it's just R.
sideboarding
(this is likely not optimal, but this is what i did)
sb vs goblins:
in: 1 defense grid, 2 gravestone, 1 fiery confluence, 1 grapeshot, 1 empty the warrens
out: 3 desperate ritual, 2 reforge the soul, 1 bonus round
sb vs miracles
in: 4 defense grid, 2 gravestone, 1 confluence, 1 empty.
out: 3 desperate ritual, 3 led, 2 bonus round (game 3 i sided in a 2nd led for something else, can't recall what it was)
sb vs food chain
same as the game 3 miracles configuration.
i can't really recall too many more details (i'm not a great notetaker, curious how bryant takes his notes as i'm always worried about writing out my hands. anyone know what he does? is it a cryptic kind of note or does he just not care if anyone sees it?)
happy to answer questions.
future list
now i just gotta buy a 2nd confluence and 2 more foil ancient tombs and the deck will hopefully be good for a while. (-1 desperate ritual +1 fiery confluence)
-rob
I've tried Hope of ghirapur in the defense grid slot. I think i like it, but might be a little early to tell, has been involved in about 7 mtgo league games so far. My first 2 interactions with it was kind of bad, did'nt really read the card beforehand so when i start ancient tomb -> hope + hope and MTGO asks me which one to keep it felt kind of bad :) Second interaction i had the choice of doing 20 goblins or get past in flames and try to go for the tendrils kill vs sneak and show, i was afraid that he would win next turn so i went for tendrils and fizzled. Had i remembered that he can't play spells during his turn i would have gone for goblins and won the game. Since then it has been forced 2 times and won me the game 2 times, at least one of those games grid would not have done it. I actually board it in on the play vs BR reanimator just to avoid getting killed on turn 2 and hopefully win on turn 3. The last game my opponent bolted it, and grid would have been better.
I like that it can't be spell pierced or spell snared or dazed (with ancient tomb) and that it also can be used to stop the dreaded turn 2 hymn when on the play if you draw multiples. Will probably go up to 4 for my next league to get a better look at it.
@Mistercakes
Do you ever feel like you have too many win conditions?
between 2x Confluence and a Tendrils, Warrens and a grapeshot, that feels like one or two of those could get trimmed to get more answers or other types of cards into the sideboard.
I know they are all slightly different but Grapeshot, at the very least seems very redundant. I think if you have the storm count to win with it Confluence or Tendrils will do the same thing and not hard to resolve.
They serve different functions.
Empty is for decks where you can steal games but not win outright.
Grapeshot functions as a way to deal with smaller threats like Thalia, delver, teeg (and also a wincon)
Tendrils is to get around cards like energy field, glacial chasm and to get an easy 10 Storm.
Confluence (at least the one in the sb functions as an alternative way to kill via bonus round, deals with artifacts, sweeper and gets around leyline of sanctity).
I ran 3 Desperate Ritual instead of 2+confluence maindeck. I'm not completely sold on it, but having a 2nd wincon besides burning wish maindeck that has utility seems great.
-rob
Ok makes sense. I wonder if grapeshot is a more effective sweeper than something like Anger of the gods or Pyroclasm or confluence though? Since it's main function isn't as a win con.
Pyroclasm could be better. I like it as a sb card. If you plan on siding it in, you could also play kozilek's return. Pyroclasm is definitely good though.
Last edited by mistercakes; 08-22-2018 at 12:52 PM.
-rob
I’m testing last mistercakes’ list and seems that it works fine.
This last evolution makes harder T1 kills, but opening with a sandstone needle gives you a push of mana that improve the percentage of solid T2/T3 combos.
Including another 4 non basic lands, we force our opponent to take decisions about the target of his wastelands.
LED is also a master piece in this engine.
Not being sold (yet) on playing Hazoret’s in main deck, i’m testing with faithless looting (3 copies), cutting one desperate ritual for the third slot.
Monored Prison (chalice of the void) has lost his tier 1 condition and I think it’s time to test faithless looting to take some thoughts about its power, filtering land draws and feeding the grave.
I always loved Burning Vengeance as a solid board controller when playing grave strategies. Do you think that it could be tested?
It’s a bit different of Guttersnipe, and I prefer this little goblin because he plays around Leyline of the Void and can activate his ability with every instant or sorcery, but the enchantment could work fine against Thalias.
Come on guys, we have a bomb in our hands, we must brainstorm around it!
Hazoret's is mostly in there as another thread and not as a filtering engine. Faithless is solid card but not really another business card. With bonus round both are powerful cards.
Guttersnipe/burning can help get around grave hate, but I think bonus round + act on impulse can do the same effectively.
Burning also doesn't do much vs leyline of the void.
Guttersnipe is proven card and I don't have much against it. I just don't like turning on their removal spells.
The deck changes a lot for more as I care mostly about goldfishing (since I don't get to play much).
As I went 4-0 at my last weekly I'll want to test this build a bit more but with 1 confluence over the 3rd desperate before changing it up more.
I won't make my next weekly but am going to try to take it to the following one.
-rob
i started updating the primer, if anyone wants to contribute to the matchups section just write up it and i'll copy/paste. just make sure they have some useful information. i wrote up a few so far and i think what i have written should be the bare minimum in terms of where the bar is set to be on the primer.
-rob
-rob
List I've been trying on cockatrice. Been performing neatly so far. I plan on buying the deck on paper by the end of this year (minus the LEDs, replacing them with 3 Desperate Rituals and maybe an additional Mountain) so I can start giving actual tournament reports.
Since this list leans heavily on PiF Silent Gravestones are very much needed to protect against Surgical Extraction, which seems to be the most common piece of grave hate running around. Fragmentize serves to deal with RIP/Leyline.
// 60 Maindeck
// 12 Artifact
4 Lotus Petal
4 Ruby Medallion
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
// 3 Creature
2 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Anger
// 8 Instant
4 Manamorphose
4 Seething Song
// 15 Land
9 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Sandstone Needle
// 22 Sorcery
4 Burning Wish
3 Past in Flames
4 Rite of Flame
4 Faithless Looting
3 Reforge the Soul
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Gamble
// 15 Sideboard
// 3 Artifact
SB: 3 Silent Gravestone
// 3 Creature
SB: 3 Hope of Ghirapur
// 9 Sorcery
SB: 1 Past in Flames
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Reforge the Soul
SB: 1 By Force
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Goblin War Strike
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Fragmentize
SB: 1 Grapeshot
gl with it, i'd cut the anger. seems pretty suspect since you need the mountain in play for it to work.
-rob
It has served its purpose in a few games but you're right that it is the most disposable card in the main and should probably be replaced.
Maybe I'll go back to that single Catalyst Stone that I tried before.
Sounds good, then you can also run 8x sol lands.
-rob
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
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