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
I do play Phantasm a lot (in a tempo mill shell) but I can also tell you that reaching 10 cards in your oppo's yard is a challenge (even more when you are not playing any mills spells).
The meta is saturated with delve cards. Gurmag is no joke and often you've just accelerated your opponent.
If the threshold is no longer reached, Phantasm is a flying 1/1 whereas Salamander will always be a 5/5 once "adapted".
Not saying one is better than the other because it will mostly depend of the shell/deck where you are using it but in a Mono U Tempo Delver, my preference would go for the Salamander tbh.
Regards,
Ralf
Legacy & Homebrew **ONLY**
Brown Stax
Rainbow SWAT
Dimir Mill
Morph my Ride
Wally Wallah
Corona Syndrome
Reanimator and Storm are both kinda good decks, too. Feeding threshold against RUG Delver probably isn't great either. I think if you're doing a mill deck you need maindeck Surgical Extractions, maybe even Extirpate also, to offset the advantage you're giving your opponent. There are tons of decks that use their graveyard: Storm, Reanimator, Dredge, Lands, Aggro Loam, Snapcaster decks (Miracles, Grixis Control), Gurmag Angler decks (Grixis Delver, UB Shadow). In mono-blue I think Phantasm is just too risky. New salamander is a strict upgrade I think.
Also, you'll be using Thought Scour on yourself most of the time to feed Salamander, not your opponent. The risk is offset, it only supports your own strategy.
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
Furthermore, gurmag and other delve things can ‘overdelve’ to shut off your phantasm.
I’m on the side of trying the new salamander. Anyways, regarding stifle and bolt, it IS possible to just adapt again in response (would feel painful to do so though).
Have to say, this deck is starting to look really ‘heavy’. As in a bit slow and midrangey over tempo-y. Not sure if y’all agree.
My build is still rocking spellstutter sprites and judges familiar for mini-beats.
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
I don't think so at all. When there is a focus on velocity (cantrips) and cheap spells that enable cheap threats, it's all tempo. Spellstutter and Judge's Familiar are the mid-range cards; they naturally slow the game down by stalling your opponent without any serious pressure. If they were legitimate threats, even 2 power threats, it would be a good idea. What this new salamander does is provide another Delver to pressure opponents, starting at t1 with Daze/Force in hand.
I do think Psionic Blast will likely make it into the maindeck, probably 2 copies. It's a reasonable removal doing 4 damage and the reach will probably be necessary.
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
Milling the opponent is usually bad because of commonly played Legacy cards like:
Gurmag Angler
Reanimate
Animate Dead
Snapcaster Mage
Kolaghan's Command
Cabal Therapy
Golgari Grave-Troll
Past in Flames
Lingering Souls
Tarmogoyf
Grim Lavamancer
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Life from the Loam
There a few ways opponent could reduce graveyard size below 10, plus the risk that you're fueling him with free spells.
I think that outweighs the cuteness of occasionally messing up their Ponder/Portent/Delver flip/Terminus.
Maybe it’s me who’s misunderstanding tempo.. I’ve always thought of it as increasing threats while simultaneously delaying the opposing threats. For me, having the owl and the sprites means that I counter a thing while pushing my end/make my opponents play around a daze and letting me get in free beats. But I get your meaning though. I’m gonna have to test a more typical tempo-y build!
And that psionic blast - id forgotten that direct damage was a thing in U! Not sure if we really need the reach though (especially at 3 mana), and as removal, it seems a bit mana intensive (when we could run chain of vapor instead).
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Legacy decks: mono U painter, strawberry shortcake, imperial painter, solidarity, burn
EDH decks: zedruu voltron, rakdos the defiler, persistent petitioners, blind seer
Psionic Blast is great because it hits also planeswalkers
I don't think Flying Salamander and Thought Scour are good because the Flying Salamander can become a 5/5 only on turn 4 if you hit a Thought Scour dreadging some non-creature spells and investing 4/5 mana totally in very important turns. Otherwise if you don't have a Thought Scour, it becomes bigger minimum in turn 5.
My updated list is
4 Wasteland
9 Island
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Basilisk Collar
4 Delver of Secrets
4 True-Name Nemesis
3 Walking Ballista
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
3 Vapor Snag
2 Psionic Blast
1 Dismember
3 Force of Will
4 Daze
2 Disrupt
2 Misdirection
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Temporal Mastery
Sideboard
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
1 Gilded Drake
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Wipe Away
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Back to Basics
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
Walking Ballista is very good because can kill
- Mother of Runes and/or Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
- Delver of Secrets unflipped, Young Pyromancer, Baleful Strix
- Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage
I try to race aggressive opponents with the "silver bullets" (for example opponents' True-Name Nemesis')
Basilisk Collar and/or Temporal Mastery
Disrupt is so much better than Stifle at the moment
because half of legacy decks starts with
turn 1 Ponder
turn 1 Thoughtseize
and if is never dead because it can cycle itself targetting a random spell (even yours if you have 2 mana open)
you can even cast it on an opponent's Brainstorm so that he cannot fetch away spells he doesn't want.
(if opponents pays 1 mana, you still draw your card)
You aren't misunderstanding it, I was just making the point that in legacy pinging with a 1/1 isn't going to get the job done. Eventually they will be able to play around the bird and Spellstutter loses value when bigger spells get cast. The delver tempo decks in legacy are about as close to pure agro as we're likely to get, which means the speed of the clock is just as important as the disruption. The whole idea that this deck could make it is that we now have a potential 5/5 flyer for UU. It doesn't slow opponents down but it speeds our clock up. Spellstutter/Owl are fairly anemic as threats and as disruption aren't fantastic either, both being conditional. Yes they do both, but neither very well.
What I like about the new salamander is that it is basically a vanilla creature along the lines of Tarmogoyf: it doesn't really need synergy to be good, you just play a regular game of magic and it becomes good by itself. Playing a bunch of cantrips, force, and daze is likely enough to make it playable without even really needing any synergy. Threats need to be really, truly threats not something that kinda pressures opponents a little, kinda disrupting them sometimes. A very relevant piece of the puzzle is also that we have up to 8 free counterspells, meaning we can play something that is a legitimate threat t1, without any need for additional abilities, and still protect it while tapped out. I'm not wasting a blue mana to play an Owl t1 and then protecting it with Daze, that just seems so underwhelming. Add to the mix Stoneforge Mystic and equipment and all of the sudden Owl gets a lot better as an equip target that also disrupts if need be. Stoneblade is basically the only playable mid-range deck in the format right now but Owl isn't good enough for that deck, either (in my humble opinion.)
Regarding Psionic Blast, I think at most it will be a 1-of. I am always impressed with Lightning Bolt's ability to steal games. Even the ping from Vapor Snag isn't irrelevant.
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
Try a Tolaria West, it can fetch your Karakas, Maze of Ith, and a Wasteland if you need it. With 19 lands in there you can easily cut 1x Island for 1x Tolaria West. It's slow, but your blue disruption should buy you time to get a permanent solution (karakas, Maze) into play by turn 4 if tutored.
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
Never thought about Tolaria West. Nice one.
Could tutor me also Walking Ballista, Tormod's Crypt and Engineered Explosives if I had one copy in the side.
Tolaria West is an old card I used to play in Landstill 10 years ago. It's a great toolbox tutor but it's much better in a slow control deck. It's extremely slow and bad tempo. You either get stuck with an ETB tapped land or you tap out mainphase 1UU just to tutor, no interaction with the board yet and no mana up to disrupt the opponent. Landstill would usually Trasmute on turn 5 or later, holding up Spell Pierce/Spell Snare/Counterspell. At the time even Landstill was starting to cut it for tempo reasons, a decade ago, and that was literally a land-based control deck with a lot of mana. I can't imagine a 19-land tempo deck would want one now.
Try it out if you want. It can find a lot of useful cards in your build. It's just slow and bad tempo.
This is a fair assessment. I think the mid-range approach is fairly unreliable already, but if you're going to go there TWest isn't a bad option. Once you commit to grindier cards like Ballista you're already planning for the mid-game. I actually think 20 lands should be in there with 2 of them being Tolaria West and Academy Ruins.
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
Disrupt, Misdirection, Psionic Blast and Unsubstantiate are all excellent cards well worth testing....
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Flying Salamander
1 Thing in the Ice
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Vendilion Clique
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Back to Basics
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
1 Disrupt
1 Spell Snare
1 Spell Pierce
1 Misdirection
1 Thought Scour
1 Preordain
1 Vapor Snag
1 Dismember
1 Snap
1 Unsubstantiate
1 Counterspell
1 Psionic Blast
4 Wasteland
14 Island/Fetchlands
is a great starting point packed with a very diverse yet effective disruption suite. Are there any suitable cards that I left out?
I don't think you have enough threats, you only have 10. I'm in the middle of testing Winter Orb instead of Back to Basics, I think it could be very good out of the sideboard. Here are some other cards to possibly try out:
Repeal
Invasive Surgery
Chain of Vapor
Curfew
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
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
There are too many great cards in blue. Just for the sake of figuring out which ones warrant maindeck space, it might make sense temporarily to replace 3 Ponder with narrow but powerful cards like 1 Invasive Surgery, 1 Spell Snare and 1 Unsubstantiate.
4 Delver of Secrets
1 Flying Salamander
1 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Thing in the Ice
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Vendilion Clique
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Cryptic Serpent
1 Back to Basics
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
4 Force of Will
1 Daze
1 Disrupt
1 Spell Snare
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Spell Pierce
1 Misdirection
1 Repeal
1 Thought Scour
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Vapor Snag
1 Dismember
1 Snap
1 Unsubstantiate
1 Counterspell
1 Psionic Blast
1 Impulse or Flusterstorm or Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor or Annul or Repulse or Curfew or Walking Ballista or Something Else
4 Wasteland
14 Island/Fetchlands
The deck would just be packed full of blue good stuff and your opponent would have a damn near impossible time trying to play around your cards (they might for example delay a key play like Hymn or Natural Order for a turn to get around Daze only to eat an Invasive Surgery or Spell Snare).
I like Impulse because it’s instant speed so you can leave lands untapped until EOT to use Stifle or any of your counterspells or Flash creatures or even just to grab the most suitable 1cc instant for the situation from the top 4 cards.
Last edited by Captain Hammer; 01-15-2019 at 10:37 PM.
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