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Thread: [Deck] UWx Stoneblade

  1. #101

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Congratulations on the great finish cliché!

    A new week, some minor changes. -1 Supreme Verdict in the main deck, replaced by 1 Sorin Lord of innistrad. My deck feels threat light, and the lifelink is relevant. In the main deck I removed 1 thoughtsieze for an inquisition of kozilek. In the sideboard I removed 1 meddling mage for 1 inquisition of kozilek. This is because esper is quite life intensive, a good number of my wins come down to 3-5 life remaining. Thoughtseize has also been awkward in delver matchups where they really pressure your life total. Crack fetch/thoughtseize against delver decks is essentially handing them a free lightning bolt. I’ve normally sided them out for this reason but I did miss the information the card gave. Inquisition sidesteps this problem. Meddling mage got cut in the SB because it felt a lot like living in a glass house. I’ve never truly felt safe with him in play. He’s still a super solid card though, I may have to roll this change back down the road.

    Match 1
    UR Delver(0-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    I feel like I got some pretty bad luck here. I start the hand with snapcaster, brainstorm, pierce, and lands. He does end up playing 2 stifles, but I have enough basics to develop a manabase. The problem ends up being that I can’t find any removal over the next 3 turns and delver/burn spells end up killing me off.

    Game 2:
    -3 FoW
    -2 Jace(too slow, and red blasts are problematic)
    -2 Thoughtseize
    -1 Search for Azcanta
    +2 Flusterstorm(deal with stifle)
    +1 Unearth
    +1 Inquizition of Kozilek
    +1 Path to Exile
    +1 Fatal Push
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +1 Supreme Verdict


    More bad luck. Keep a good hand of basics, some removal, brainstorm. We trade resources for a while, then when I brainstorm to find some more gas I find 3 tundras, and I have no way to shuffle. He sticks a threat the next turn and I end up dying because of the horrific brainstorm.

    Match 2: Burn(2-0 Win)
    Pretty much same as least week, collective brutality sees me through. I do win a race under a resolved sulfuric vortex with 2 TNNs. To be fair, my opponent did appear to be drawing quite poorly.

    Match 3: Grixis Delver(1-2 Loss)
    Not really sure what to make of this loss. I thought I’d be more prepared, but both losses were to resolved TNNs so shaving a verdict may have been a mistake.

    Game 1:
    I handily crush him. I have all the removal in the world, then in the late game I resolve a jace and run away with it. Importantly, I find out he runs stifle.

    Game 2:
    -2 Jace(too slow, pyroblast is a problem)
    -2 Thoughtseize
    -3 FoW
    -1 Search for Azcanta
    +2 Flusterstorm(deal with stifle)
    +1 Unearth
    +1 Inquizition of Kozilek
    +1 Path to Exile
    +1 Fatal Push
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +1 Supreme Verdict

    Sideboard plan is identical to UR plan, the decks largely behave the same. Pierce/flusterstorm are even more important in stopping both stifle and cabal therapy.
    I make one mistake I’m aware of. Against a grim lavamancer on board and a known hand of stifle, brainstorm, flusterstorm, unknown card I cast collective brutality. My plan is to take stifle as it really screws with a lot of cards, jitte/SFM/batterskull for example. I have only one other card in hand, spell pierce. The question is whether I escalate it by pitching pierce or protect my brutality with pierce. I have plenty of land so the flusterstorm/daze tax isn’t a problem. The real concern is my opponent brainstorm a FoW and countering me. I end up playing it safe, and keep the pierce back. I grab the stifle, but as a consequence the lavamancer gets to live and probably deals me 4-6 damage over its lifetime. This lost life ends up costing me down the road.

    This game goes very long, I deal with all his threats, and I’m even snapcaster mage flashing back supreme verdict at this point. I cast sorin in a bid to stabilize at 2 life, but it simply isn’t enough. His grim lavamancer/DRS kill me.

    Game 3:
    Another heartbreaker. We trade resources early, and so on. The real backbreaker ends up coming on turn 4 or 5. I have jace in hand that I want to resolve to win the game. The previous turn I had cast collective brutality and inquisition taking FoW and daze, but leaving him a brainstorm. I have 3 basics in play, with a tundra in hand as land number 4. My opponent has 2 volcs and a wasteland, I’m assuming he’ll waste the tundra as soon as he sees it, so I really only have one shot at this jace. I attempt to cast the jace, he brainstorms finds daze and counters it. I lose pretty much on the spot after that.

    Match 4: Concede
    I end up getting paired up against a friend who is 2-1. Since I’m 1-2 I just snap concede so he can prize out, he plays the eldrazi post deck so I didn’t really like my odds anyway. End up playing a burn deck for fun.


    General note, I did miss the 2nd supreme verdict maindeck, I’ll probably slot that back in. I did like the inquizitions a lot so those will stay.
    I’m thinking seriously about going down to 1 jace. Pyroblasts/low to the ground decks are making him awkward. Jace is still an amazing card, he just hasn’t been the slam dunk win he used to be I guess. Not sure what replaces him if anything at all. Liliana the Last Hope is possible, but her BB means I play into wastelands. Kaya has potential since her -1 gains life. But now that I’m aware of how tight life margins can be, her 0 ability costing 2 life is a significant turn off.
    Search for Azcanta is probably out. Its soft to pyroblast and wasteland, both of which I have in abundance over here. And its flip side is pretty good, but it does cost a LOT.

    Another thing I’m noticing more is how important DRS green gainlife ability was now that I don’t have it anymore. At least in my play, esper seems to have a chronic problem of stabilizing at very low life totals, then dying to a random top decked lightning bolt. Not sure what the solution to this problem is.

  2. #102

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Hello Everyone! Long time no post! ~6 months?

    Anyway, here's what I think I'll be running out, let me know your thoughts:

    4 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 Baleful Strix
    3 Snapcaster Mage
    3 True-Name Nemesis
    1 Umezawa's Jitte
    1 Batterskull
    =15

    4 Swords to Plowshare
    2 Fatal Push
    3 Thoughtseize
    2 Collective Brutality
    =11

    4 Brainstorm
    2 Ponder
    4 Force of Will
    =10

    2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Engineered Explosives
    =3

    Lands:
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Marsh Flats
    3 Underground Sea
    2 Tundra
    2 Scrubland
    2 Island
    1 Swamp
    1 Plains
    1 Karakas
    1 Academy Ruins


    SIDEBOARD:
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Zealous Persecution
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Containment Priest
    1 Ethersworn Canonist
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
    1 Liliana the Last Hope
    2 Council's Judgment
    1 Vendilion Clique


    Some notes:
    - I'm at 61 cards, I'm considering cutting a single Stoneforge Mystic, but I'm worried I'll be threat light.
    - I'm very excited about Liliana the Last Hope. I think she improves our control matchups (new Miracles, 4-color control) because she is a must answer that they will have to devote resources to. If she ever ultimates, we can work on preventing them from racing as the multiplying zombies will be incredibly hard for them to deal with.
    - I chose to go light on main deck counter magic. It feels like combo is somewhat more sparse (in paper) right now. If anything, I would cut the two Collective Brutality for 2 Spell Pierce, but I think the discard ability of CB does a good job approximating Countermagic until you reach the post board games and it's versatility helps bolster other random matchups, like Burn.
    - I wanted to run 2 Lingering Souls, but couldn't find the room. I might still run 2. The likely cuts would be -1 True-Name Nemesis and -1 Collective Brutality? Less sure about the CB.
    - I wanted to run 2 Wasteland, but I decided that 2 colorless sources plus 4 Main Deck basics might screw up our first 2 or 3 turns. I tried to be resilient to wasteland and to be able to cast my True-Names and Jaces on T3 and T4.
    - The 1x EE main and side feel very important. I am not the hugest fan of Supreme Verdict as we often have to wipe away a creature of ours. Maybe I'll go back to having Verdicts. My thinking is that we most typically want to clear away Angels, Monks and Elementals - all can be killed with a EE at zero, True-Names and Leovolds, which can technically be hit with an EE, and decks like Elves which EE is effective against, as well.
    - I prefer Sorin, Lord of Innistrad to Gideon, Ally of Zendikar but I'm thinking that the Gideon emblem might be important to preserving our infinite x/1s. I will probably audible back to Sorin, because I love the lifelink, I like that Sorin ticks up to create a token creature and it's ultimate is corner-case awesome (mostly versus new Miracles).

  3. #103

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Looking at your list, damn you must play a lot of creature decks. The reason I say this is you run 4 STP, 2 Fatal Push, 2 Collective Brutality, and 3 Baleful Strix. I find myself agreeing with the viewpoint that Baleful Strix is essentially a conditional removal spell that trades at 2-1. Essentially to me, this means your deck is running 11 maindeck kill spells, which is a very large amount.

    I’ve found mixing in 1 or 2 inquitizitions with your thoughtseize suite is helpful, especially if you aren’t bumping into a lot of combo decks. The 2 life you pay with thoughtseize is really consequential, especially in esper where life margins can be razor thin.

    Don’t really like karakas. I’ve moved away from it due to it being a non fetchable plains that is susceptible to wasteland/blood moon. Its real strong suit is strength against combo decks, but if you aren’t encountering those maybe this isn’t such a good idea?

    I used to be on the 4 Brainstorm and 2 Ponder suite, I’ve since gone up to 3 ponder, it does give a lot of consistency and another way to shuffle yourself out of bad situations.

    I’ve also cut down to 3 FoW. Like you I’m encountering less combo, so having 4 FoW is relatively unnecessary, considering moving the 4th copy to the SB.


    Quote Originally Posted by ClimbGneiss View Post
    - I wanted to run 2 Lingering Souls, but couldn't find the room. I might still run 2. The likely cuts would be -1 True-Name Nemesis and -1 Collective Brutality? Less sure about the CB.
    I think you have an overabundance of killspells. I’d go -1 Strix and -1 Fatal push.

    Quote Originally Posted by ClimbGneiss View Post
    I am not the hugest fan of Supreme Verdict as we often have to wipe away a creature of ours. Maybe I'll go back to having Verdicts.
    If you go back a page and look at my list you’ll notice that I run unearth, which is largely meant as a way around this very problem. I’m a huge fan of fire and forget spells like verdict given all the daze/pierce/FoW running around in delver decks. Unearth lets you bait the board then wipe it with a verdict from relative safety. Since most of our creatures are 2-1s, unearth is usually a 2-1 play.

  4. #104

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Made some fairly significant changes based on some feedback I got.

    I’m down to 1 thoughtseize largely as a meta call. I can’t remember the last time I encountered sneak and show in my meta. I am however, drowning in delvers/aggro decks so kozilek is better. If this changes, then the number of thoughtseizes shifts up.

    Cut search for azcanta. Too many pyroblasts/wastelands running around. The land half of it was great, but more often than not I’d be staring at an opposing wasteland unsure if I should flip it. The impulse ability is great, but basically meant I was doing nothing else that turn. Card is fantastic in miracles, but it feels mediocre in stoneblade.

    Down to 1 Jace in the main. Did this to make room for other threats. Not sure if this is right or not. Liliana acts as a “killspell” and Sorin will hopefully help stabilize. There are also a lot of pyroblasts running around so jace can be iffy to keep in play/resolve.

    Intuition is another spice card I put in my list. It seems like we can generate a lot of value piles with the card with snapcaster/unearth/relevant card. Lingering souls could potentially add to this plan, but I couldn’t really find the space and I’m not sure if it’s worth it.

    Supreme verdict is back as a 2 of maindeck, I missed it last week.

    Gideon has been added to this list to combat grindy decks like pile or other blade mirrors. He’s fairly experimental though, not sure if he’ll be a permanent fixture.

    Council’s judgment has shifted to the sideboard. It felt clunky in the main deck. If I need it do deal with random stuff in my opponents deck I’ll bring it in.


    Lands-21
    3 Island
    2 Plains
    1 Swamp
    3 Tundra
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Scrubland
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Marsh Flats

    Creatures-9
    3 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 True Name Nemesis
    3 Snapcaster Mage

    Spells-26
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    3 Ponder
    3 Force of Will
    3 Collective Brutality
    2 Inquisition of Kozilek
    2 Spell Pierce
    2 Supreme Verdict
    1 Thoughtseize
    1 Unearth
    1 Intuition

    Artifacts-2
    1 Batterskull
    1 Umezawa’s Jitte

    Planeswalkers-3
    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope

    Sideboard:
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Containment Priest
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Council’s Judgment
    1 Disenchant
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Force of Will
    1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

    Pretty poor 1-3 performance last night, feel like i got unlucky in a few spots, but definitely made some mistakes.

    Match 1: Burn(0-2 Loss)
    Same deck as previous weeks so I won’t go too much into detail. Game 1 I’m about to turn the corner and land jace to stabilize. But he topdecks sulfuric vortex. I’m at 5, he’s at 19, GG.

    Game 2 I don’t remember much, he had a good hand and I guess mine was mediocre.

    Match 2: UR Delver(0-2 Loss)

    Game 1:
    Heartbreaker, one where I definitely felt I got unlucky. We 1-1 a lot, and eventually I put him on a young pyromancer and a bunch of tokens. I get stuck on 3 lands for 3 turns with a supreme verdict in hand. Had I been able to deploy the verdict I’m pretty convinced I could have won that game.

    Game 2:
    -1 Thoughtseize
    -3 Force of Will
    -1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
    -1 Collective Brutality
    +1 Fatal Push
    +1 Path to Exile
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +2 Flusterstorm

    Not sure if boarding out jace is correct or not, I assume they bring in pyroblasts for him so I generally yank him. This game opens as normal I deal with 1 or 2 opening threats. He starts going wide with pyromancer again, but I’m not terribly nervous as I have verdict in hand with 3 lands in play. On his endstep I brainstorm to find the 4th. It’s a polluted delta, tundra, and something else. I end up putting a spell, then tundra on top. My intent is to draw the spell, crack the delta, then play the verdict to shuffle away the extra tundra. My major mistake is that I forgot he plays stifle. Polluted delta gets stifled and now I’m a turn away from deploying verdict. Had I just taken the tundra I could have deployed verdict and ignored stifle. I think he deploys a wasteland as well, knocking my verdict well out of reach.

    Match 3: Storm(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    Haven’t played against this deck in a long time. Game 1 I roll him up on the back of two collective brutalities. I take his tutors and he can’t find anything else to keep himself going. Stoneforge and batterskull close it up from there.

    Game 2:
    -3 TNN
    -2 STP(Keep in case he runs Xantid Swarm)
    -1 Unearth
    -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    -1 Liliana the Last Hope
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +1 Sword of Fire and ice
    +1 Force of Will

    Probably one of the most miserable games of magic I’ve ever played. This game goes to probably turn 15. I fend off his initial onslaught and draw all the countermagic in the world, but I can’t find any sort of clock to pressure him. Eventually he rebuilds and busts through all my hate. I burn through 3 cantrips, literally seeing nothing but 3 lands each time.

    Match 3:
    Pretty much an easy win. My opponent mulligans down to 5, then gets mana screwed, he’s stuck on a single island and all his spells are black. SFM and Sword get there and wrap this one up.


    Game 4: DnT(1-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    Ends up being a heartbreaker. Trade resources early, he has mom, batterskull(with germ), and revoker on jace. I’m at 3 life with 2 TNN on board I attempt to deploy sorin and create at 1/1 Token so the germ can’t attack profitably. His last card is a STP, enough to push the token through and end me.

    Game 2:
    -1 Thoughtseize
    -1 Force of Will
    -3 Collective Brutality(kinda clunky against thalia)
    -1 Unearth(Bad against STP)
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Containment Priest
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Council’s Judgment
    1 Disenchant
    1 Engineered Explosives

    True name gets to carry the jitte in. He attempts to cataclysm, but it doesn’t get TNN/jitte off the board.

    Game 3:
    Start out with a land heavy hand, which isn’t necessarily a problem against DnT. I burn through 2 killspells, but then topdeck essentially nothing but more land which is now a significant problem. Eventually some random assortment of creatures ends up running me over. While I stare at a pile of land.


    Pretty disappointing week. I keep running into delver/dnt decks, so maybe I’ll add 2 persecution to the sideboard for even more sweepers. I do like Sorin a lot, he didn’t work out this week, but I feel that was more due to bad luck than him being a bad card. Definitely made 1 or 2 misplays, but some bad luck in there as well. This deck can be really unforgiving to pilot.

  5. #105

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Quote Originally Posted by First_Revenge View Post
    Lands-21
    3 Island
    2 Plains
    1 Swamp
    3 Tundra
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Scrubland
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Marsh Flats

    Creatures-9
    3 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 True Name Nemesis
    3 Snapcaster Mage

    Spells-26
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    3 Ponder
    3 Force of Will
    3 Collective Brutality
    2 Inquisition of Kozilek
    2 Spell Pierce
    2 Supreme Verdict
    1 Thoughtseize
    1 Unearth
    1 Intuition

    Artifacts-2
    1 Batterskull
    1 Umezawa’s Jitte

    Planeswalkers-3
    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope

    Sideboard:
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Containment Priest
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Council’s Judgment
    1 Disenchant
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Force of Will
    1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

    Pretty poor 1-3 performance last night, feel like i got unlucky in a few spots, but definitely made some mistakes.

    Match 1: Burn(0-2 Loss)
    Same deck as previous weeks so I won’t go too much into detail. Game 1 I’m about to turn the corner and land jace to stabilize. But he topdecks sulfuric vortex. I’m at 5, he’s at 19, GG.

    Game 2 I don’t remember much, he had a good hand and I guess mine was mediocre.

    Match 2: UR Delver(0-2 Loss)

    Game 1:
    Heartbreaker, one where I definitely felt I got unlucky. We 1-1 a lot, and eventually I put him on a young pyromancer and a bunch of tokens. I get stuck on 3 lands for 3 turns with a supreme verdict in hand. Had I been able to deploy the verdict I’m pretty convinced I could have won that game.

    Game 2:
    -1 Thoughtseize
    -3 Force of Will
    -1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
    -1 Collective Brutality
    +1 Fatal Push
    +1 Path to Exile
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +2 Flusterstorm

    Not sure if boarding out jace is correct or not, I assume they bring in pyroblasts for him so I generally yank him. This game opens as normal I deal with 1 or 2 opening threats. He starts going wide with pyromancer again, but I’m not terribly nervous as I have verdict in hand with 3 lands in play. On his endstep I brainstorm to find the 4th. It’s a polluted delta, tundra, and something else. I end up putting a spell, then tundra on top. My intent is to draw the spell, crack the delta, then play the verdict to shuffle away the extra tundra. My major mistake is that I forgot he plays stifle. Polluted delta gets stifled and now I’m a turn away from deploying verdict. Had I just taken the tundra I could have deployed verdict and ignored stifle. I think he deploys a wasteland as well, knocking my verdict well out of reach.

    Match 3: Storm(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    Haven’t played against this deck in a long time. Game 1 I roll him up on the back of two collective brutalities. I take his tutors and he can’t find anything else to keep himself going. Stoneforge and batterskull close it up from there.

    Game 2:
    -3 TNN
    -2 STP(Keep in case he runs Xantid Swarm)
    -1 Unearth
    -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    -1 Liliana the Last Hope
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +1 Sword of Fire and ice
    +1 Force of Will

    Probably one of the most miserable games of magic I’ve ever played. This game goes to probably turn 15. I fend off his initial onslaught and draw all the countermagic in the world, but I can’t find any sort of clock to pressure him. Eventually he rebuilds and busts through all my hate. I burn through 3 cantrips, literally seeing nothing but 3 lands each time.

    Match 3:
    Pretty much an easy win. My opponent mulligans down to 5, then gets mana screwed, he’s stuck on a single island and all his spells are black. SFM and Sword get there and wrap this one up.


    Game 4: DnT(1-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    Ends up being a heartbreaker. Trade resources early, he has mom, batterskull(with germ), and revoker on jace. I’m at 3 life with 2 TNN on board I attempt to deploy sorin and create at 1/1 Token so the germ can’t attack profitably. His last card is a STP, enough to push the token through and end me.

    Game 2:
    -1 Thoughtseize
    -1 Force of Will
    -3 Collective Brutality(kinda clunky against thalia)
    -1 Unearth(Bad against STP)
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Containment Priest
    1 Path to Exile
    1 Council’s Judgment
    1 Disenchant
    1 Engineered Explosives

    True name gets to carry the jitte in. He attempts to cataclysm, but it doesn’t get TNN/jitte off the board.

    Game 3:
    Start out with a land heavy hand, which isn’t necessarily a problem against DnT. I burn through 2 killspells, but then topdeck essentially nothing but more land which is now a significant problem. Eventually some random assortment of creatures ends up running me over. While I stare at a pile of land.


    Pretty disappointing week. I keep running into delver/dnt decks, so maybe I’ll add 2 persecution to the sideboard for even more sweepers. I do like Sorin a lot, he didn’t work out this week, but I feel that was more due to bad luck than him being a bad card. Definitely made 1 or 2 misplays, but some bad luck in there as well. This deck can be really unforgiving to pilot.
    Hi,

    As I feel like you for most cards you are currently playing, I am just sharing my actual thoughts and considerations to play more efficient cards. My remarks are not supported with tournament results but only with training sessions and experiences (I only have tournaments in march).

    Supreme Verdict seems essential but proves being too hard to cast. Even if you think that you get unlucky, or that you should had turn around stifle to have 4 manas, I am currently switching my point of view. You can avoid being in such situation, I mean when the situation is Verdict or die by playing cheaper and more efficient cards (instant cards and cards that you can easily flashback with snap). You may play 1 fatal push instead of 1 brutality. I also think that with 3 colors Engineered Explosives is much better than Verdict, so you may want to replace one.

    Burn is usually a good matchup, but I think you need cheap removal for their creatures.
    From my experience, UR Delver is very difficult for esper. Discard is not that great facing cantrips, cheap instant spells and haste creatures. Cheap removals and EE for 1 (or 3 for their TNN) are great.
    For your 2 other matches, you flood on 2 of them. You may consider to revert back to 2 Jace (even if against D&T in this particular moment of the game you also loose with Jace instead of Sorin). Stoneblade really needs Jace to keep control of the game in a long run. I understand that pyroblast is an issue, but you are playing discard spells so you can at least cast him and take advantage.

    In my opinion, Search is also great for the deck, but I think you are right to not play it in Esper. Search seems really nice for reactive decks such as UWr blade but not with proactive decks.

  6. #106
    Member

    Join Date

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    Broomfield, CO
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    102

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Hey there blade control friends.

    I’ve recently converted to esper blade from infect and ur delver. I’m having success against tier 1 decks but struggling with the random deck. I recelty went 4-1 irl, i 4-1’d 2 leagues online and followed them up with a solid 1-4. If I can avoid mono red sneak, and pox I feel great about my chances.

    Here’s the list I’m running:

    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Island
    3 Marsh Flats
    1 Plains
    3 Polluted Delta
    1 Scrubland
    1 Swamp
    3 Tundra
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Batterskull
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Counterspell
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Flusterstorm
    4 Force of Will
    2 Inquisition of Kozilek
    2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
    1 Liliana of the Veil
    2 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Lingering Souls
    2 Ponder
    1 Snapcaster Mage
    1 Spell Pierce
    3 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 Swords to Plowshares
    2 Thoughtseize
    3 True-Name Nemesis
    1 Umezawa's Jitte
    Sideboard:

    1 Council's Judgment
    2 Disenchant
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Flusterstorm
    1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
    1 Spell Pierce
    2 Supreme Verdict
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Zealous Persecution

    I think I want to cut 1-2 ponder, 1 counterspell (of any of the three probably actual cointerspell), and 1 jvp. I want to add 2 lands and another discard card (lotv or thoughtseize iok) I’m worried about the blue count for fow if I do that.

    I’m not a fan of collective brutality especially when I already have jvp to and lotv make me discard.

  7. #107

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    That’s an interesting list shocked439. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a list this planeswalker heavy. You’re right that collective brutality probably doesn’t fit in this spot due to all the discard you run. This list is different enough that it’s tough to give advice. I would say though that you probably don’t want to cut ponders, in fact I’d probably advocate for 3. I don’t think you need another discard effect, you already have 4 thoughtseize/inquisition plus your existing Liliana package. I find thoughtseize/inquisition are fantastic in the late game, but can make pretty miserable top decks late game. For this reason I’m hesitant to go up to 5 of them. Maybe a 3rd lingering souls would be good considering how discard heavy your deck is? Just curious why the 3-1 split with STP/fatal push? I’ve been seeing gurmag/tombstalker pop up a lot.


    3-0’d tonight! And made some more changes to my list based on sagagx’s feedback. Biggest change was the removal of a copy of supreme verdict from the maindeck and the addition of 2 zealous persecutions to the SB. Engineered explosives got added to the maindeck as well, I’d like to find room for a 2nd copy if I can.

    Lands-21
    3 Island
    2 Plains
    1 Swamp
    3 Tundra
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Scrubland
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Marsh Flats

    Creatures-9
    3 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 True Name Nemesis
    3 Snapcaster Mage

    Spells-25
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    3 Ponder
    3 Force of Will
    3 Collective Brutality
    2 Inquisition of Kozilek
    2 Spell Pierce
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Thoughtseize
    1 Unearth
    1 Intuition

    Artifacts-3
    1 Batterskull
    1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    1 Engineered Explosives

    Planeswalkers-3
    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope

    Sideboard:
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Flusterstorm
    2 Fatal Push
    2 Zealous Persecution
    1 Containment Priest
    1 Council’s Judgment
    1 Disenchant
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Force of Will

    Match 1: BR Reanimator(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    This guy is normally on elves or burn, so I keep a reasonable hand against those two decks. He plays swamp T1 and it’s pretty apparent I’m screwed. I have no countermagic. I ponder looking for some, don’t find it, and griselbrand gets reanimated. GG.

    Game 2:
    -1 Jace
    -1 Sorin
    -1 Liliana
    -3 TNN
    -1 Jitte
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Containment Priest
    +1 SoFI
    +1 Force of Will
    Keep an okay hand, double spell pierce, SFM, batterskull, and land on the play. He shows chancellor essentially blanking my opening countermagic. His T1 is pretty explosive, thoughtseize taking a pierce, then lotus petal into faithless looting, pitching griselbrand and chancellor. My draw for the turn is STP. I end up piercing his exhume but he follows up with another and lands a griselbrand and draws 7. I swords griselbrand trying to keep the board under control. SFM gets played fetching SoFI. Batterskull gets cheated into play. My opponent reanimates chancellor and sire of insanity. Insanity is actually great for me, he is forced to toss away the advantage of his griselbrand draw 7. I plow the chancellor, glue SoFI to batterskull and win that way since his sire can’t block.

    Game 3:
    He mulligans to 5. My opening draws are very favorable, I find countermagic, extractions, and snapcaster mages. I end up just beating him down with snapcaster while stopping him from doing anything productive.

    Match 2: Pox(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    Essentially I fetch basics, and we trade resources and eventually I have about 5 lands in play and we are both in topdeck mode. I win the race by drawing Sorin, and start creating an army with his tokens. The token spam gets out of control and I win. Perhaps potentially a mistake, I know his deck runs bridges, I created a sorin emblem to up my clock, but it’s very possible that that emblem could have prevented me from going in under a bridge. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.

    Game 2:
    -3 TNN
    -1 Liliana the last Hope
    -2 Collective Brutality
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Force of Will
    +2 Fatal Push
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Council’s Judgment

    This isn’t much of a game. His T1 is the classic swamp->dark ritual->LoTV. My hand can’t deal with it and I pretty much lose on the spot.

    Game 3:
    My initial hand is some countermagic and SFM. My plan is to develop my manabase and ride batterskull to victory. My plan is foiled when I inquisition his hand and see 3 ensnaring bridge. Yikes. I hang in there for a while and eventually ponder into my Jace. Jace is resolved and I eventually ultimate him to win.


    Match 3: Hex Depths(2-0 Win)
    Game 1:
    I open with inquisition and see double pithing needle, elvish spirit guide, lotus petal and some lands. I have absolutely no idea what I’m playing against. I take one of the needles. He duresses, sees flooded strand in hand and I have another strand on the board. He attempts to resolve needle, I crack my strand in response. He names flooded strand. My next draw step is of course flooded strand, I now have two dead cards floating around in my hand. After that he kinda durdles around, I resolve a jace and start fatesealing to try and lock him out of the game and figure out exactly what he’s trying to do. One of my fateseals shows an expedition map and I’m pretty certain he’s on some flavor of dark depths at this point. In the meantime I’ve had a snapcaster+jitte pressuring his life total. He gets the dark depths combo to go off, but he does so at sorcery speed to block the snapcaster. Jace unsummons the token, and eventually I win.

    Game 2:
    -1 Sorin Lord of Innistrad
    -1 Liliana the Last Hope
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -3 Collective Brutality(Not sure if this was the right call or not)
    -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 SoFI
    I’m gonna chalk this one up to my opponent drawing poorly. My opening is some countermagic, SFM, and lands. Figure I’ll try and stick an early SFM and try and ride out the storm with my countermagic. That plan goes up in flames with a double duress on T1, stripping me of countermagic. He manages to land a sylvan library and starts digging. He finds dark depths early, but luckily for me it seems like he can’t find the second half of his combo. He ends up wanting cards from the library and takes at least 8 damage from it. He deploys sylvan safekeeper to make his token not die to STP. He’s at 6 life when I deploy TNN. I hit him down to 3 and then he finds the vampire hexmage to make his depths go live. But it’s too late, TNN slides under his blockers and kills him.

  8. #108

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    2-1 this week, got pretty lucky in some matchups, but I think I played fairly solidly. Same list as last week. Got to see intuition a few times this week, even if its sub optimal I really do enjoy casting it.

    Match 1: Burn (1-2 Loss)
    Game 1, I kind of stabilize, but then I get nailed with a sulfuric vortex I can’t outrace.

    Game 2:
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    -1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    -1 Thoughtseize
    -1 Intuition
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +2 Fatal Push
    +1 Council’s Judgment(Marginal, but it can get rid of sulfuric vortex)
    +1 Disenchant

    He kind of floods out, I have enough discard to power out a SFM without it getting bolted. Game is over in very short order thereafter.

    Game 3:
    I’m fairly sure I made a mistake here. I don’t remember my hand exactly, but at some point I’m looking at 2 collective brutalities after brainstorming. I remember shuffling one of them away to keep an extra STP in hand. Partly because my hand was pretty good all-around and I couldn’t really figure out what to discard. In retrospect I probably should’ve just binned STP since brutality does most of what that card does anyway. Ends in a loss.

    Match 2: BR Reanimator(2-0 Win)
    Game 1:
    Opener is Jace, ponder, brainstorm, inquisition, intuition, and some lands. Opening inquisition takes his only entomb and the only other card of consequence in his hand is unmask. I eventually resolve intuition and give him this choice:
    FoW
    FoW
    Snapcaster Mage

    He ends up giving me a FoW, which he can just unmask away. It’s not ideal, but not sure what else can be done here. Intuition piles are very interesting. Next I resolve a jace and +2, then he reanimates a griselbrand after unmasking my FoW away. The combination of renamimate+draw 7 puts him to 3 life. Jace has a pretty high loyalty count so i just start unsummoning his threats over the next few turns. Eventually he runs out of cards and at 3 life it’s difficult to reanimate anything. I think I eventually kill him with a snapcaster mage or something.

    Game 2:
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    -1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    -3 True-Name Nemesis
    -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Containment Priest
    +1 FoW
    +1 Containment Priest
    My opener is 6 lands and a batterskull. Obviously, shipped that back. Next 6 is pretty reasonable, FoW, brainstorm, snapcaster, SFM, and lands. His opening is explosive, 3 Lotus petals, and land. His first play is an entomb, which I FoW pitching snapcaster. I’m fairly convinced that one of his cards in hand is a reanimate spell, so entomb is a must stop. He follows up with another entomb which resolves and griselbrand is in the yard. He has one card left in hand and 2 mana up, and he passes the turn. Lucky me. His last card ends up being a sneak attack and now he’s hellbent. If he draws a critter he cheats it into play, and if he draws a reanimate spell the griselbrand in yard is live. Thankfully he draws pretty dead. SFM+SoFI get in there for the win.
    Match 3: UR Delver(2-0 Win)
    Game 1:
    Opponent mulligans to 5. I keep brainstorm, STP, brutality, FoW, and some lands. His opener is a grim lavamancer. I swords the lavamancer and he casts FoW pitching brainstorm to protect it, I FoW back, I’m ahead on cards, and investing this many cards(brainstorm especially) on a lavamancer signals to me his hand is pretty dead. Lavamancer ends up eating it. Brainstorm reveals some more lands and a Sorin. Collective brutality clears the way for Sorin, and when he resolves I start to use his +1. Opponent top decks a TNN. Sorin puts two tokens on the board before TNN+bolt kill him. The two tokens and TNN stand in a deadlock for a while. I eventually draw TNN and kill him with it.

    Game 2:
    -1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    -1 Thoughtseize
    -2 Collective Brutality
    -3 FoW
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +2 Fatal Push
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Sword of Fire and Ice

    Opponent mulligans to 5 again, unfortunate, but it happens sometimes. Opening 7 is keep able, Liliana, SFM, fatal push, SoFI, and some lands. I kill his opening threats and Liliana resolves. She ends up sitting there for a while, keeping my opponents critters in check. I try to resolve SFM, fetching batterskull. I manage to blink in batterskull at his EOT, but it gets abraded. On the next turn EOT SoFI gets blinked it. SFM carries it in for a big hit and an extra card. SoFI eats an abrade. TNN gets resolved on my opponent’s turn. My turn I can’t really do anything and pass it back. TNN connects with Liliana putting her to 2 loyalty. At his EOT I cast intuition and give him this pile with snapcaster in hand:
    TNN
    Unearth
    Supreme Verdict
    He ends up giving me verdict, which I use to clear the board. Liliana gets bolted. My next turn is Snapcaster, unearth, TNN. Those two eventually get in there for the win.

  9. #109

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    This week 2 tourney reports for whoever ends up reading these.

    Some other plans fell through, so my weekly legacy ritual got doubled this weekend. Went to another shop to play, which is important to do from time to time. This particular shop really leans hard into the combo segment of the meta while my home shop is firmly in the fair camp.

    Match 1: Turbo Depths(1-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    This one is pretty much over before it begins. Nothing really happens before T2, he has bayou and depths in play. I thoughtseize to take something relevant, and see 2x crop rotation, sylvan scrying, and hexmage. He’s basically one mana away from going off. I take the hexmage and pray he doesn’t draw land, it doesn’t work, and he draws his land for the turn and kills me.

    Game 2:
    -1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -1 Unearth
    -1 Collective Brutality
    -1 True Name Nemesis
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    +1 Force of Will

    Game 2, I keep a hand with STP and surgical extraction. Somewhere down the road he goes off, I plow the token and extract the depths.

    Game 3:
    I keep a very speculative hand. 2 Snapcasters, a surgical extraction, and some lands. I’m hoping to draw into some gas and start valuing out with snapcaster. But it doesn’t pan out. I draw blanks and he goes off eventually and kills me. In retrospect I probably should have taken a mulligan.

    Match 2: 8 Moon(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    I know he’s on 8 moon, so I’m pretty happy to see some basics, a FoW, and fetches in hand. He never really does much other than cast some burn spells and a late game chalice which didn’t really matter much to me. Eventually I get a TNN+Batterskull to start connecting for the win. I allow a hazoret to resolve so I can keep FoW backup for an ensnaring bridge. My life total is 25+ so hazoret is irrelevant at this point.

    Game 2:
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor(Assuming he has unlimited red blasts here)
    -1 Liliana, the Last Hope(Doesn’t really have a lot of X/1’s, and the BB makes me play into blood moon)
    -1 Intuition
    -1 Collective Brutality
    +2 Fatal Push
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Force of Will
    +1 Council’s Judgment(Lots of problematic permanents)
    +1 Flusterstorm(Mostly for fiery confluence, I’m not really even sure if I should board this in)

    Game 2 starts going my way, I get 4 basics in play before he manages to resolve a blood moon. My TNN sticks and starts beating him down. And just as I’m about to wrap it up, he topdecks stormbreath dragon while I’m at 4 life. I’ve never felt so dumb holding a STP. That’s a loss.

    Game 3:
    Hand to start is promising. Cantrips, spell pierce, FoW, and some fetches, about as good as it gets. I pierce and opening chalice, develop my manabase and deploy a TNN and a snapcaster to start beating down. I find a timely disenchant off the back of some ponders/brainstorms to deal with a resolved bridge so the beatdown can continue. He can’t deal with TNN and he dies not long after that.


    Match 3: Slivers(2-0 Win)
    This match I got paired down against a fairly new player, admittedly his deck was far from optimal. The concept seemed very neat, but my deck just had way too much removal for him to cope. Never encountered this deck before but here’s the cards I know he’s running, there’s definitely more to it though.
    Thran Quarry, Gemstone Mine, Aether Vial, Cavern of Souls, Swords to Plowshares, Leeching Sliver, Sinew Sliver, Winged Sliver, Frenzy Sliver


    Game 1:
    I keep a hand with 2 removal spells and snapcaster and figure that’s probably good enough. His T2 play is a muscle sliver off a Thran Quarry. Brutality kills the sliver and forces him to sack the land. After that TNN sticks and my point removal is just too much.

    Game 2:
    -3 Force of Will
    -2 Spell Pierce
    -1 Unearth(He is running STP)
    +2 Fatal Push
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Disenchant
    Basically I dump all my countermagic(he’s running caverns) and pour everything I’ve got into my removal suite. It’s much the same story as Game 1. I just have too many kill spells for him to overcome.

    Match 4: Omnitell(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    I know he’s on omnitell so I immediately mulligan into a hand with countermagic. FoW, spell pierce, blue card, and some lands. I hold off his initial onslaught, and get him down very low with TNN/snapcaster in play. But it’s not enough, sneak attack resolves and griselbrand ends it all.

    Game 2:
    -4 Swords to Plowshares
    -1 True Name Nemesis
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    -1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    -1 Unearth
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Force of Will
    +3 Surgical Extraction
    +1 Containment Priest
    +1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Council’s Judgment(probably marginal, but it can deal with sneak/omniscience in top deck scenarios)

    Game ends up being a nail biter. Fend off his initial attack and manage to stick SFM+SoFI on the board. I end up drawing everything I need, and my opponent draws horrifically. I get there.

    Game 3:
    Essentially, it’s the same dance again. My opening is FoW, Flusterstorm, surgical extraction, cantrips, and land. I take out his initial show and tell with a FoW and a Flusterstorm. I try and extract the show and tell, but he casts FoW to protect it, essentially telling me he’s got a second SnT in his hand. I cast snapcaster mage snapping back extraction to get that second SnT out of his hand. He reveals the second SnT in hand with emrakul, and nothing else. His only out now is sneak attack. His next turn he deploys a defense grid, and now things get interesting.
    At this point I have two pierces, brainstorm, and SFM in hand with 3 lands on board. My opponent only has emrakul in hand, so I’m only really worried about a sneak attack. Defense grid means I can only cast 1 pierce if I keep all my lands untapped. Or I could take a risk and deploy SFM to start putting a more severe clock on him. I elect to do the latter and deploy SFM fetching SoFI** to make him have it. He topdecks brainstorm, and of course he finds and deploys sneak attack. He doesn’t have the mana to deploy emrakul though so he passes the turn. It’s now do or die time for me, I cast the luckiest brainstorm I’ve ever gotten and find disenchant+surgical extraction. Disenchant the sneak attack and extract it for the win. A very unlucky break for my opponent, but he was a good sport about it.

    **Fetching SoFI was a mistake, it should have been a batterskull. SoFI turns the shields off for two turns, one to deploy the SFM and another turn to equip it. Batterskull only turns off the shields for one turn.



    End of a hot streak, was bound to happen, but it’s important to report your bad results along with the good. 1-2 for the night.

    Pox(0-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    I got for a T3 SFM with pierce backup knowing he has a deluge after I thoughtseize him. I forget what I took instead. I pierce the first deluge, but he topdecks another deluge and kills the SFM. He starts getting his pox engine going and I can’t draw more lands. I think I die with a lone island in play.

    Game 2:
    -3 TNN
    -3 Collective Brutality
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Force of Will
    +2 Fatal Push
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Council’s Judgment

    Game 2 is going pretty well, I avoid his pox spells, then land a Sorin. He takes his turn to play night of souls betrayal. Sorin was my win plan and I don’t draw myself out of that particular hole.

    Big Eldrazi(0-2 Loss)
    I’m not breaking this matchup down by game, honestly the whole affair is a dismal matchup for blade decks. The deck is kinda like the old 12 post lists. My deck just can’t handle it. Eye of Ugin finds him all his fatties one after another and cards like glimmerpost keep him out of lethal range. UWR decks are probably better positioned in this matchup. He runs a lot of ancient tomb, so bolt can really sneak in those last bits of damage. Blood moon is definitely a huge pickup in this match as well. But my deck doesn’t even have wasteland since I cut those slots for more basics. It’s a decision I still stand by, but this is one of those cases where it comes back to bite me.

    Playing this deck however did force me to re-evaluate my sideboard, more on that later.

    Game 3(Infect 2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    I have some killspells, but ultimately an inkmoth nexus connects with a bunch of pump spells behind it.

    Game 2/Game 3:
    -3 Thoughtseize(Infect is pretty redundant so not a lot of value in this card IMO)
    -1 Jace(too slow)
    -1 Sorin(too slow)
    -1 Unearth
    -1 TNN(Probably not the best since his critters routinely trample)
    -1 Batterskull(lifelink is worthless)
    +2 Fatal Push
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Force of Will

    Infect is a pretty linear deck so there’s not a lot of play decisions IMO. About the only real oddity is that you really do need to kill their creatures on YOUR turn. Yes, STP’ing during your main phase something that we almost never do, but it can force out a vines of the vastwood without giving them the opportunity to attack.
    I do break this rule once with zealous persecution. I’m fairly confident I can get a 3-1 out of it, and I have pierce/force backup in case something goes sideways. It ends up working out and nets me a game.
    Both games play out similarly, I have more removal than he has critters and I eventually kill him with some random guy.


    End Notes: I’ve decided to make room for back to basics in the sideboard. I’ll try out 2 for now and see if 3 ends up being justified. I probably wouldn’t advise this for most stoneblade builds, but I run an abnormally high basic land count so I think I can swing it. Additionally, I think I’m going to try going down to 20 land from 21. This is mostly for 2 reasons, I play so many basics for the most part I get to ignore wasteland anyway, and I play 7 cantrips which really smooth out my draws. I'm going to do some serious retooling and repost my list next week.

  10. #110

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    I didn't get to play much Magic last year, but I'm having more luck this year so far in getting free time to go into tournaments. Sad thing though that I had to create a new account here as I lost my old email! Here's a small tourney report for a local tourney a week or so ago.

    I felt like playing Meddling Mages instead of slogging around with Czech Pile, so I just tuned my Moonblade list from last year. Reduced some of the grindy cards to have more fun against combo.

    Moonblade (UWr Blade) 2.0

    Round 1 - Turbo Depths
    G1 I was able to handle the first major threats (kill Bob, counter an early Crop Rotation) and he was not able to recover. G2 Blessed Alliance nuked an early Marit Lage and then Meddling Mage locked out Crop Rotation. Vendilion Clique comes out a few turns after to ice the game. Blood Moon was MIA both games.
    1-0

    Round 2 - Dredge
    G1 my opponent was extremely unlucky and was not able to find a dredger. G2 I was able to counter an early Breakthrough resulting in a huge tempo swing. He had Silent Gravestone out but I did not see any Surgicals anyways. Meddling Mage on Faithless Looting and then a few turns after I found Containment Priest.
    2-0

    Round 3 - ANT
    G1 I just died. G2 he dropped a T0 Leyline of the Void. I had Canonist in play but I got overconfident and made a major play mistake by tapping out to cast Jace - he was able to go around the hatebear via LED LED Tutor Helm. Sad.
    2-1

    Round 4 - BR Reanimator
    G1 my single counter was not enough since he had duplicates of both parts of the combo (Faithless Looting, Entomb, Reanimate, Exhume). On G2 and G3 my opponent was not able to T0 Chancellor and that makes the matchup a whole lot easier as I had enough time to deploy my hatebears while still having counters/surgical in hand.
    3-1

    Round 5 - ANT
    I got paired down so had to play. G1 he was able to sculpt a very resilient hand: picked me off with some early discards and was able to go through a Counterspell. Both G2 featured double Meddling Mages. I countered a Swarm to ensure the victory. G3 I got out an Canonist early but unfortunately ran out of time (was one attack short of winning the game).
    3-1-1

    QF - Sea Stompy
    First time to see Sea Drake in action, it was very amusing! G1 Opponent had a quick start with T1 Sea Drake and T2 Serendib Efreet. He had no disruption though, so a T3 Batterskull (the bane of Stompy decks) plus an STP and Jitte made it easy for me to win. G2 he had a T1 Chalice (FoW nicely appears on my draw) but I got out a turn 2 SFM -> T3 Batterskull again. I countered his Jitte and then he just drew bricks.

    SF - MUD
    G1 I got hit by a turn 1 Chalice (FoW again shows up on my draw), ate a few Wastelands and got facerolled by Blightsteel via Kuldotha tricks after a few durdle turns. G2 an early SFM->Batterskull plus Blood Moon was able to finish the job pretty quick. G3 he mulled to 5 with first turn Metalworker. I had the removal though and that slowed him down by a lot. After that it was just cleanup with some slow beats plus counters and removal - Blessed Alliance ate a Steel Hellkite.

    F - Lands (Opp POV)
    G1 plan: Survive any early Marit Lages, find Blood Moon, deal with Molten Vortex (if any). Unfortunately Blood Moon was on vacation. One TNN dealt 57 damage and another chipped in for a clutch 3 (He was 2014 Ray Allen) for a total of 60, eventually winning me the game. G2 I drew some of my SB tech, Blood Moon finally comes back from the beach, and it was over quick.

  11. #111
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    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    A friend is trying to decided to play UWr UWb or UW Stoneblade and sell off his other duals. What impact does the lack of a third color make? Is UW still good enough or do you need the splash to compete?

  12. #112

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Quote Originally Posted by Darkness View Post
    A friend is trying to decided to play UWr UWb or UW Stoneblade and sell off his other duals. What impact does the lack of a third color make? Is UW still good enough or do you need the splash to compete?

    UW's biggest strength is its manabase. Its rock solid and you get to run 4 wastelands/back to basics. If your meta is full of greedy decks trying to jam 4 colors together this is a very good route to go. UW's biggest weakness is that it leans pretty heavily on countermagic. Without the tools in red/black you will need more counters than usual to stop threats.

    Red elemental blast is essentially THE reason to be playing UWr. Blood moon/lightning bolts are also solid cards. Its really difficult to oversell the impact that REB offers. Its a 1 mana counterspell/vindicate against much of the format. Its weakness is a slightly more difficult manabase as you have to incorporate a 3rd color. Playing non blue decks can also be somewhat awkward as it obviously nerfs the power of REB.

    UWb's biggest strength is thoughtseize. UWb gets to play magic proactively via hand hate. You an eliminate cards from an opponents hand and sculpt a gameplan based off perfect information. The other blade variants can't do this and they are largely reactive decks, dealing with threats as they come up rather than anticipating them. The printing of fatal push also helped us out, for us it effectively lets us run more of our best removal spell, STP. In a delver infested meta, more 1 mana instant killspells are just what the doctor ordered. UWb's biggest problem is that black definitely tends to be less of a "splash" color so your manabase is definitely the most complex and susceptible to wasteland issues. Its not UWb, its UWB. Another problem with UWB can be life total, UWB places a lot of pressure on its own life, fetchland into thoughtseize is basically bolting yourself. UWB is also pretty unforgiving, but IMO this variant has the most play to it.

  13. #113
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    21

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    The only thing UW has going for it is the strong mana base and the potential to play wasteland/back to basics

    UWR is like UW except it trades power for a slightly weaker mana base

    UWB has the weakest mana base because black isn't a splash color. In return, it gets to play: discard/disruption, deathrite shaman, zealous persecution, and baleful strix

  14. #114

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Another solid finish at 3-1 tonight, things changed in the decklist a bit. In a nutshell, I cut a land, added another Jace, pushed Liliana to the sideboard, cut council’s judgement from the board for being too clunky, added search for azcanta to the main, cut containment priest and 1 fatal push in the board, and added 2 back to basics in the board.

    Search is back at least on a temporary basis. I’m not sure I gave it a fair shake last time, I still have reservations about its viability in such a wasteland heavy meta, but I’ve been impressed by its ability to run away with games in miracles decks.

    I’m also trying back to basics, it’s typically not seen in esperblade, but I’m running an absurd number of basics so I’m pretty sure I can swing it.

    Lands-20
    3 Island
    2 Plains
    1 Swamp
    2 Tundra
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Scrubland
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Marsh Flats

    Creatures-9
    3 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 True Name Nemesis
    3 Snapcaster Mage

    Spells-25
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    3 Ponder
    3 Force of Will
    3 Collective Brutality
    3 Thoughtseize
    2 Spell Pierce
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Unearth
    1 Intuition
    1 Search for Azcanta

    Artifacts-3
    1 Batterskull
    1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    1 Engineered Explosives

    Planeswalkers-3
    2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

    Sideboard:
    3 Surgical Extraction
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Fatal Push
    2 Zealous Persecution
    2 Back to Basics
    1 Disenchant
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Force of Will
    1 Liliana the Last Hope

    Match 1: UR Delver(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    This is my loaner deck so I knew exactly what I was playing against. Apparently the poor guy went 0-3 with it so I’ll have to do some serious re-tweaking. Game 1 he flips a delver and gets his pyromancer going. I can’t find enough killspells and eventually I get overwhelmed.

    Game 2:
    -3 FoW
    -3 Thoughtseize
    -1 Search for Azcanta(too slow, wastelands and pyroblasts galore)
    -1 Jace, the Mindsculptor(slow, and a lot of pryroblasts)
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Fatal Push
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Liliana the Last Hope
    +1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    Ends up being a long grindy game. We trade removal early and eventually I resolve a TNN and kill him with it. Opponent makes a critical mistake by boarding in more price of progress, not realizing I’m running 6 basics. He ends up dying with 2 of them in hand.

    Game 3:
    Not much of a game, he floods out really badly. Mixed feelings about winning this way, but he top decks 6 lands in a row and dies to a batterskull.

    Match 2: Grixis Delver(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    Close game, Much the same deal as the other delver decks, early game I establish a manabase and kill his stuff along the way. Sorin resolves and starts sticking lifelinkers on the board to stabilize my life total. Sorin gets bolted twice and dies which I’m ultimately okay with, he did his job. I resolve a TNN and eventually kill him with it. I’d estimate I probably gained 6 life off the tokens, Sorin soaked up 6 damage(2 bolts) so I probably net gained 12 life off him.

    Game 2:
    -3 FoW
    -3 Thoughtseize
    -1 Search for Azcanta(too slow, wastelands and pyroblasts galore)
    -1 Jace, the Mindsculptor(slow, and a lot of pryroblasts)
    -1 Intuition
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Fatal Push
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +2 Back to Basics
    +1 Liliana the Last Hope
    +1 Sword of Fire and Ice

    I choke on mana pretty hard, I eventually get going, but by the time I do, the game is all over but the crying. Game 1 took a long time so in the interest of having a full game 3 I concede.

    Game 3:
    Not much of a game, opponent mulligans to 4 so he’s way behind the 8 ball. I reanimate the same SFM twice, once with unearth and another time with Liliana, the Last Hope. It’s just too much value for his 4 card hand to keep up with. Eventually a TNN+equipment gets there.

    Match 3:UWr Stoneblade(0-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    Always dread this matchup, I feel like UWr blade is the grindier version of UWb blade. Normally I can win the long game, but I can’t seem to get it done here.
    He answers a TNN/Sorin/Jace in game 1 then kills me with a jace of his own.

    Game 2:
    -3 Collective Brutality
    -1 FoW(I pretty much lose to resolved Jace)
    -1 Thoughseize
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Fatal Push
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +1 Disenchant

    Games 2 and 3 feel terrible thanks to pyroblast. The card is the stone cold nuts against me. Couple that his playset of snapcaster mages and I really struggle to resolve anything. He blasts jace and TNN, then brainstorms to victory with a jace of his own.

    I’m fairly convinced this matchup is just straight bad for me. Doesn’t help that this particular pilot is really good.

    Match 3: Burn(2-0 Win)
    Game 1:
    My starting 7 is decent, TNN, SFM, fetches, pierce, and STP. Best I can figure I’m just gonna ride TNN+Jitte to victory. That ends up being pretty much what happens. Plow his opening dude, SFM fetching jitte. He bolts the SFM which is probably a mistake considering I can just hardcast the jitte anyway. TNN resolves then connects and the game pretty much ends.

    Game 2:
    -3 Thoughtseize
    -1 Search for Azcanta(too slow)
    -1 Intuition
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Fatal Push
    1 Disenchant
    1 Force of Will

    Game 2 ends up being a pretty close. With a brutality in the opening 7 and the rest of the hand being average, it’s pretty much a snap keep. T2 Brutality gets escalated twice revealing an awkward hand. Bolt(I take this one), rift bolt, double sulfuric vortex. He’s on two lands, so one more land and vortex resolves. My hand is FoW, TNN, Jace, STP. He blanks on land the next turn and TNN resolves. He blanks again and now I’m left with a choice, his hand is 2 vortexes with 2 land in play. My hand is FoW, Jace, and some non blue cards with 4 land in play at roughly 6 life. My TNN is putting a clock on him, but I’m low enough on life that I’m probably not winning through one vortex, let alone two. So here are my lines as best I can tell:

    Do nothing->If he draws land #3 FoW pitching Jace stopping the first vortex->Pray to find solution to vortex #2
    Resolve Jace->+2 put jace out of bolt range, pray he doesn’t draw land #3 since FoW won’t be live
    Resolve Jace->0 brainstorm, find a blue card to make FoW live, accept that jace dies if they draw a burn spell

    I ultimately take the jace brainstorm route, I have no idea if this is the right play. I find my blue card, and my opponent draws land #3 and I FoW it. After that I brainstorm into an answer for the second vortex. TNN finishes things up from there.

  15. #115

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    ^Why do you side in Fatal Push against the Blade semi-mirror?

  16. #116

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Quote Originally Posted by Mkr 2.0 View Post
    ^Why do you side in Fatal Push against the Blade semi-mirror?
    Honestly, you're probably right. I have enough STP, and fatal push doesn't add that much to my plan. I'd probably leave push in the board and keep a thoughtseize maindeck.

  17. #117
    Member

    Join Date

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    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    I have a tournament report from GP Las Vegas 2017. If you guys are interested, i can post it. I played all 15 rounds

  18. #118

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Quote Originally Posted by QKisMyName View Post
    I have a tournament report from GP Las Vegas 2017. If you guys are interested, i can post it. I played all 15 rounds
    Yes of course. Was you playing UWr ?
    Thanks

  19. #119

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Revised List this week, went 2-2. Definitely could have gone 3-1, but such is life.

    Lands-20
    3 Island
    2 Plains
    1 Swamp
    2 Tundra
    2 Underground Sea
    1 Scrubland
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Polluted Delta
    1 Marsh Flats

    Creatures-10
    3 Stoneforge Mystic
    3 True Name Nemesis
    3 Snapcaster Mage
    1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

    Spells-24
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Swords to Plowshares
    3 Ponder
    3 Force of Will
    3 Collective Brutality
    3 Thoughtseize
    2 Spell Pierce
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Unearth
    1 Intuition

    Artifacts-3
    1 Batterskull
    1 Umezawa’s Jitte
    1 Engineered Explosives

    Planeswalkers-3
    2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

    Sideboard:
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Flusterstorm
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Fatal Push
    2 Zealous Persecution
    2 Back to Basics
    1 Disenchant
    1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    1 Supreme Verdict
    1 Force of Will
    1 Liliana the Last Hope

    Match 1: New Miracles(1-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    This is where no wastelands really bites me in the ass. My thoughtseize T1 sees 2 search for azcanta. I can’t stop them from resolving. Essentially, the game goes long, but he flips search and wins off the back of that card alone.

    Game 2:
    -1 Tasigur
    -2 Collective Brutality
    -2 Swords to Plowshares
    +1 FoW(Jace/Search are must stop cards)
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +2 Surgical Extraction

    We both trade resources for a while, I get a Sorin to stick an eventually win from there. Having walkers that can sidestep pyroblasts is really valuable in this spot.

    Game 3:
    Much the same story as game 1, he gets down a search that I can’t stop, he runs away with it. This matchup honestly feels really bad. I struggle to grind them out early, but at the same time I just don’t beat them in the long game.

    Match 2: Big Eldrazi(2-0 Win)
    Game 1:
    Historically, this is an atrocious matchup for reasons similar(ish?) to miracles. They just play tremendous threats, eye of ugin gives them inevitability, and I don’t play wasteland to keep them in check. Game 1 I expect to lose, but I get lucky. He draws nothing but chalices/trinispheres in the face of a SFM and its batterskull. I’ll take any win I can get against this deck.

    Game 2: Back to Basics or Bust!
    -2 Spell Pierce
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
    -3 Collective Brutality
    +1 Force of Will
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +2 Back to Basics

    I get a really awkward hand. Double brainstorm, STP, Ponder, back to basics, scrubland, and swamp. I know he’s a chalice deck. No blue mana and no FoW against a chalice/trinisphere deck essentially forces me to decide whether scrubland, swamp, and back to basics are good enough. I figure they probably are and I’ll just spend my next 3 turns praying for a blue source, one of the more reasonable requests I’ve made in my prayers. Basically it pans out as I assume it would. He gets off a slower T2 chalice on 1, but I don’t have a blue source yet so it doesn’t particularly matter, back to basics is literally the only live card left in my hand. His T3 play is the trinisphere, and he taps out for it! I think the previous turn I’d gotten my island, in any case, my T3 play is the back to basics which locks up his lands. He never recovers and eventually TNN pushes him into the 0-2 bracket.

    Match 3: Elves(2-1 Win)
    Game 1:
    I actually get TNN+jitte and manage to lose. TNN was a bit slow getting to the party and pendelhaven made jitte way less powerful than it would normally be. In a nutshell he goes wider than me, and pendelhave ensures that jitte can only kill 1 critter a turn.

    Game 2: Removal/Sweepers.Deck
    -2 Spell Pierce
    -2 Jace the Mind Sculptor(too slow)
    -1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad(Way too slow)
    -1 Batterskull(lifegain is mostly irrelevant in this match)
    -1 Unearth
    -1 Thoughtseize
    +1 Engineered Explosives
    +1 Fatal Push
    +2 Zealous Persecution
    +1 Sword of Fire and Ice
    +1 Supreme Verdict
    +1 Force of Will
    +1 Liliana the Last Hope

    In the early game I’m doing fairly well I think I ZP/Verdict him into oblivion. Then he nails me with a card I don’t see coming Nissa, Vital Force. Without FoW I’m caught flat footed and she starts beating me down with 5/5 Lands. I do have STP in hand and snapcaster so I can hold off the lands. Eventually I find TNN. I kill Nissa after I snap back plow killing her land and presenting 5 power on the board. Nissa eventually dies, but he’s now at 35ish life since I’ve been plowing his 5/5 lands like a madman. I draw pretty well and eventually TNN/Snap beat him down to zero. I have a pretty difficult time believing I actually won this one.

    Game 3:
    Much the same story here, early ZP/EE knock him off his early game and put him low on cards. I brainstorm and find Liliana. I deploy her, and he never recovers from her +1 machine gun. Liliana actually ultimates and wins eventually.


    Match 4:Pox(1-2 Loss)
    Game 1:
    We trade resource for a while and I eventually get him in a very awkward position. I get a SFM+Jitte(with counters)online. He has bridge and cursed scroll in play. His last card in hand is night of souls betrayal. Jitte counters means that he can’t kill SFM with cursed scroll. It also means his bridge does nothing. Even if he casts the last card in his hand, night of souls betrayal, SFM is 0 power, and can swing under the bridge, and get pumped pre-damage. SFM eventually kills him, I think I flash in a snapcaster at some point to stop a sacrifice effect.

    Game 2:
    -1 Tasigur(Can’t swing under a bridge)
    -3 Collective Brutality
    -1 Supreme Verdict
    -2 Thoughtseize
    -1 TNN(Can’t swing under bridge, and tons of -1/-1/sacrifice effects)
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Fatal Push
    +2 Flusterstorm
    +1 Disenchant
    +1 Force of Will
    +1 Engineered Explosives

    Not much of a game, I keep a kind of land light hand with some cantrips. I ponder and blank, then brainstorm and blank. I pretty much lose on the spot. Pox in particular is a deck you can’t get behind in lands against.

    Game 3:
    I’ll admit to tilting pretty hard this game. I survive the early game with 3 basics so I’m in decent shape. I think we’re both down to 1 card. He knows the last card in my hand is JTMS. We spend 3 turns awkwardly drawing and not finding anything. Eventually I top deck a brainstorm and absolutely brick. No lands, no fetches, no shuffle effects. I put JTMS 2nd from the top to hide him from discard effects. My opponent is wise to this and he draws a therapy while I’m busy drawing myself out of a horrific brainstorm. When I draw Jace, he therapies it away and I pretty much lose. And of course my next draw is a flooded strand. He resolves a Liliana and wins from there. Definitely a game I could have won with a resolved jace. But can’t win em all I guess.


    After today I’m pretty convinced that intuition isn’t worth it. It’s a trap that I’ve fallen in before, a sweet tutor card that ultimately doesn’t work because your opponent gets to pick what you get. After again being reminded of the inevitable power of Search of Azcanta I’ll probably run 2. Another note, I don’t think 2 surgical extraction is correct. Without DRS kicking around it really should be 3. So yet again more adjustments.

  20. #120
    Site Contributor

    Join Date

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    950

    Re: [Primer] UWx Stoneblade

    Some of your sideboarding seems a little weird to me.

    For Miracles i'd cut the swords entirely and also bring in the EE, Sword and Last Hope. Verdict doesn't make much sense normally, I think that a lot of lists have swapped to EtA and you're rarely going to catch that card with a verdict. If you see a bunch of mentors i'd probably bring in the 2nd. Swords and Last Hope are basically just resilient threats. I'm a little iffy about Tasigur but I feel like if you don't want him in these grindy matchups what do you actually want him in your deck for?

    In the big eldrazi matchup i'd keep in the pierces, they counter some of the early lock pieces/mana acceleration pieces. I don't think i'd bring in verdict, they're very rarely committing more than 1 threat on the board and most of their threats are game ending upon resolution anyways. Swords takes care off all of their creatures efficiently.

    I'm not really sure why you are bringing in removal for the Pox matchup. I don't know if anything has changed but pox has traditionally only played the 2/2 that comes back from the yard everytime and sometimes bloodghasts as creatures. Fatal push isn't really good any of those, and swords is going to be a dead draw.
    Quote Originally Posted by ThatDeleuzeGuy View Post
    I want to play as close to possible a 100% reactive deck that also approached 0% variance in how it played. I want to play magic with as little variance as possible. Also had a foiled out miracles deck that was an investment of about 6 grand that is now nearly worthless.
    Quote Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee View Post
    My original post did that.

    I'd love to have a battle of wits with you but I see you lack the necessary equipment.

    Good day.

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