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Thread: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

  1. #221
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Interesting, I'm debating a green splash for some tech and Painful Truths seems good out of the board, I don't have any copies of Infernal Contract.

    I played in a 5 round 1k yesterday, went 2-3. Wins were against blue Maverick and Punishing Maverick. Losses were to 4c Pile, Bant Miracles, and Burn. I think I need a 2nd Lily Last Hope, that card is bananas.

    EDIT: This is what I'm going to play for a little while, test the waters. I think Hymn to Tourach should have been in the 75, and for now it's in the maindeck. I cut down to 1 Reanimate (it was 'meh') and because the emphasis on reanimating Street Wraith is lower I'm cutting to 3 Wraiths. I think this is fine considering I'm on 4 Watery Grave and 0 Underground Sea.

    4x Death’s Shadow
    4x Delver of Secrets
    3x Street Wraith
    2x Gurmag Angler
    1x Brazen Borrower
    4x Brainstorm
    4x Ponder
    4x Force of Will
    2x Hymn to Tourach
    1x Spell Snare
    4x Daze
    2x Dismember
    2x Fatal Push
    4x Thoughtseize
    1x Reanimate
    4x Polluted Delta
    3x Misty Rainforest
    1x Marsh Flats
    4x Watery Grave
    1x Island
    1x Swamp
    4x Wasteland

    Sideboard
    2x Surgical Extraction
    1x Nihil Spellbomb
    2x Bitterblossom
    1x Diabolic Edict
    2x Ratchet Bomb
    1x Liliana, the Last Hope
    2x Plague Engineer
    1x Brazen Borrower
    1x Blue Elemental Blast
    1x Narset, Parter of Veils
    1x Force of Negation


    I don't like playing Infernal Contract with basic lands, I don't think the BBB will ever be reasonably hit. I'm going to try Narset in those slots as a way to gain card advantage against the Pile/Miracles lists. Once I get a 2nd Liliana Last Hope I think that will replace the Narset. I'm also curious about the 4 Gargoyle plan over Delver...it's slower to get started, but a little easier to turn on as an aggressive threat. It makes Stubborn Denial a better counterspell, for sure.
    Last edited by Mr. Safety; 02-10-2020 at 11:04 AM.
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  2. #222
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Is there potential for Standstill to come in out of the board for the control matchups? I would think Thoughtseize/Fatal Push/Daze/Force of Will should keep t1 open to land a t2 Standstill and really put pressure on Pile/Miracles. Having played Dreadstill in the past, I know that getting at least 20 lands into the deck is probably necessary, so maybe Mystic Sanctuary + {other utility land} could come in as well to make 20 lands to go with 3x Standstill.

    Thoughts?
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  3. #223

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Is there potential for Standstill to come in out of the board for the control matchups? I would think Thoughtseize/Fatal Push/Daze/Force of Will should keep t1 open to land a t2 Standstill and really put pressure on Pile/Miracles. Having played Dreadstill in the past, I know that getting at least 20 lands into the deck is probably necessary, so maybe Mystic Sanctuary + {other utility land} could come in as well to make 20 lands to go with 3x Standstill.

    Thoughts?
    You have no options to draw into pressure that goes past the standstill (ie Factory) so if you play standstill on an empty board your opponent just ignores it and plays draw-go until they have like 10 lands on the battlefield and then breaks the standstill in your endstep when you have 7 cards in hand already. Now your opponent has enough resources to hardcast Terminus and play around your Dazes and such. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me

  4. #224
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    You have no options to draw into pressure that goes past the standstill (ie Factory) so if you play standstill on an empty board your opponent just ignores it and plays draw-go until they have like 10 lands on the battlefield and then breaks the standstill in your endstep when you have 7 cards in hand already. Now your opponent has enough resources to hardcast Terminus and play around your Dazes and such. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me
    Good call. I think without landing a threat first (Delver/reanimated Street Wraith) it would be terrible without Factories. Mana advantage gets sticky too, when they draw more lands (as you say.) I'll leave it out. I was just trying to come up with a more efficient way to gain card advantage than Infernal Contract. Search for Azcanta comes to mind as well. I want to figure out something that doesn't cost 3 mana that isn't a PW; once the 3 mana threshold gets hit Liliana the last Hope and Narset are both superior choices, in my opinion, than a draw 3 for 3.

    EDIT: sorry, I didn't realize Contract drew 4 cards. I love the synergy, hate the mana cost.
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  5. #225

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Good call. I think without landing a threat first (Delver/reanimated Street Wraith) it would be terrible without Factories. Mana advantage gets sticky too, when they draw more lands (as you say.) I'll leave it out. I was just trying to come up with a more efficient way to gain card advantage than Infernal Contract. Search for Azcanta comes to mind as well. I want to figure out something that doesn't cost 3 mana that isn't a PW; once the 3 mana threshold gets hit Liliana the last Hope and Narset are both superior choices, in my opinion, than a draw 3 for 3.

    EDIT: sorry, I didn't realize Contract drew 4 cards. I love the synergy, hate the mana cost.
    Last Hope is a good complement to Contract (I'm playing 2 of each) because you need some way to clean up miracles value creatures so they can't chip you out, and it's also a threat that eventually wins the game.
    Narset is alright but compared to contract 4 cards is significantly more than 2 and it doesn't have the Mystic Sanctuary synergy. (The fact it's Pyroblastable is also a significant drawback in the metagame currently)
    Search for Azcanta "costs 2" in the top right corner but you still have to tap 3 other lands every time you want to use it

  6. #226
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Is Jace, The Mind Sculptor too greedy out of the sideboard? In matchups where games will go longer he seems like a strong way to supplement Bitterblossom/Liliana as must-answer threats. I'm only playing 18 lands, but I know that I'll hit land drops in the Pile/Miracles matchups due to games going longer.

    EDIT: I forgot to add that I would also put a Mystic Sanctuary into the sideboard, both coming in together (Jace + Sanctuary) to give me 19 lands.

    I'm also agonizing over Spell Pierce vs Spell Snare vs Force of Negation vs Stubborn Denial maindeck. I only have room for 1 now that I have 2x Hymn in the maindeck (committed to that for now) so I know it's a small thing to stress over. I feel like Stubborn Denial is just too conditional to ever do anything more than Daze already does (playing only 6 creatures to turn it on as a hard counter.) Snare seems great in problematic matchups (Death and Taxes) while Pierce hits PW's more reliably. Force of Negation seems fine, but it doesn't protect my threats during my turn.
    Last edited by Mr. Safety; 02-14-2020 at 10:58 AM.
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  7. #227

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    New result (local paper event)
    4 Shadow
    4 Gargoyle
    4 Wraith
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 FoW
    4 Daze
    4 Hymn
    4 Thoughtseize
    2 Stubborn Denial
    2 Dismember
    1 Preordain
    1 Fatal Push
    4 Waste
    4 Grave
    2 Sea
    8 Blue Fetchlands

    SB:
    2 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Liliana's Triumph
    2 Plague Engineer
    2 Ratchet Bomb
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Infernal Contract
    1 Mystic Sanctuary
    1 Grafdigger's Cage
    1 Surgical Extraction

    R1: Eldrazi Stompy 1-2
    R2: Infect 2-1
    R3: Aggro Loam 2-0
    R4: RUG Delver 1-2
    R5: Moon Stompy 2-1
    T8: Stryfo Pile 2-0
    T4: RUG Delver 2-1
    Final: Eldrazi Dynamo 1-2

    List seems good
    You could maybe move 1 FON to the main over a stub or the preordain to open another SB slot

  8. #228
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    New result (local paper event)
    4 Shadow
    4 Gargoyle
    4 Wraith
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 FoW
    4 Daze
    4 Hymn
    4 Thoughtseize
    2 Stubborn Denial
    2 Dismember
    1 Preordain
    1 Fatal Push
    4 Waste
    4 Grave
    2 Sea
    8 Blue Fetchlands

    SB:
    2 Liliana, the Last Hope
    2 Liliana's Triumph
    2 Plague Engineer
    2 Ratchet Bomb
    2 Force of Negation
    2 Infernal Contract
    1 Mystic Sanctuary
    1 Grafdigger's Cage
    1 Surgical Extraction

    R1: Eldrazi Stompy 1-2
    R2: Infect 2-1
    R3: Aggro Loam 2-0
    R4: RUG Delver 1-2
    R5: Moon Stompy 2-1
    T8: Stryfo Pile 2-0
    T4: RUG Delver 2-1
    Final: Eldrazi Dynamo 1-2

    List seems good
    You could maybe move 1 FON to the main over a stub or the preordain to open another SB slot
    How important is hymn to the Gargoyle plan? I like the idea of playing gargoyle over delver. I may just take your list to a weekly and see what it does.
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  9. #229

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    How important is hymn to the Gargoyle plan? I like the idea of playing gargoyle over delver. I may just take your list to a weekly and see what it does.
    Pretty key I think, but the deck should play 4 Hymn regardless in my opinion, and then you can consider whether you want to play 2 Gargoyle + 2 Angler or 2 Jace + 2 Gargoyle or 2 Jace + 2 Angler or whatever
    (i.e. it's not like "wow gargoyle is so good I want to play 4, then how can I enable it, I must play 4 hymn": it's the other way around, gargoyle is viable because the deck happens to have 4 hymn in it)

  10. #230
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Cool, thanks for the response. I think a split between Gargoyle/Angler might be bad, considering it lowers the blue count for forces. As it stands I only have 22 blue cards total, which is probably ok. I really like the idea of keeping in Reanimate, so I'm going to try and cram that in there as well. It makes it so I have 10 threats instead of just 8.

    4x Death's Shadow
    4x Street Wraith
    4x Vantress Gargoyle
    4x Brainstorm
    4x Ponder
    4x Thoughtseize
    4x Hymn to Tourach
    4x Daze
    4x Force of Will
    2x Stubborn Denial
    2x Fatal Push
    1x Dismember
    1x Reanimate
    4x Polluted Delta
    3x Misty Rainforest
    1x Marsh Flats
    4x Watery Grave
    1x Island
    1x Swamp
    4x Wasteland

    Sideboard
    2x Plague Engineer
    2x Brazen Borrower
    2x Bitterblossom
    2x Ratchet Bomb
    1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1x Mystic Sanctuary
    2x Surgical Extraction
    1x Nihil Spellbomb
    1x Force of Negation
    1x Liliana, the Last Hope


    This is what I'm going to sleave up for Thursday night. I'm also curious about a more mid-range approach with 19 lands maindeck and playing a 2/2 split of Engineer/Borrower maindeck over Delver/Borrower/Gurmag slots. Reanimate gets a lot more value this way, maybe even maindecking Last Hope, and just dropping the Stubborn Denials. I think without at least 6+ creatures to support Stub it isn't worth including.

    Also, this list just won a Hareruya event in Japan. No Street Wraiths, maindeck Borrowers, basics over USeas. This is basically my mana-base, which is cool to see. Only 27 players, but still a good showing. A full 4 Mystical Dispute in the sideboard.

    https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=24657&f=LE
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  11. #231
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    I'm hoping to make it to FNM tonight, taking kombatkiwi's maindeck list with only minor changes: -1 Preordain/+1 Reanimate and my budget manabase. There are several local players that jam Reanimator and Dredge, so the Reanimate will be quite good as disruption and a 9th threat. I know he isn't a huge fan of Brazen Borrower, but I love the card so I'm playing that in the sideboard instead of Edict/Triumph. It solves some of the same issues (Marit Lage, Griselbrand) but doesn't solve others (Emrakul, TNN). Luckily, I don't see many of those threats other than Marit Lage. I could see cutting a Surgical or the spellbomb for an Edict/Triumph but I'll jam this for now and see how it goes. Thoughtseize/Hymn are both very good in the Sneak/Show matchup alongside Stub/Daze/Force and Negation out of the board. One other card I'm really interested in playing a 1-of is Umezawa's Jitte. It should really help against D&T, Delver decks, and help manage life total against something like Burn.

    2x Brazen Borrower
    2x Plague Engineer
    2x Ratchet Bomb
    2x Bitterblossom
    2x Surgical Extraction
    1x Nihil Spellbomb
    1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1x Liliana, the Last Hope
    1x Mystic Sanctuary
    1x Force of Negation
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  12. #232
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Holy shit is Vantress Gargoyle a bad card. That list was hot fucking garbage. I only attacked once with it, and I never had enough threats. Delver, Gurmag, and Borrower back in.

    I don't know what field that 8 threat 4 hymn list is good in, but I am beyond skeptical. Fucking garbage.
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    The Vantress giveth and the Vantress taketh. How many Uro and Gurmag did you run into?

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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    The Vantress giveth and the Vantress taketh. How many Uro and Gurmag did you run into?
    Zero. Lost to shadow mirror, eldrazipost, and bomberman. All matchups where traditional threats would have been infinitely better. Gargoyle giveth fucking nothing. Most of the time couldn't attack, most of the time couldn't block. Pitching to force and making room for sideboard cards is the best I can say of it.

    Edit: shadow deck was grixis with arcanist/bolts instead of gurmags.
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  15. #235

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    Zero. Lost to shadow mirror, eldrazipost, and bomberman. All matchups where traditional threats would have been infinitely better. Gargoyle giveth fucking nothing. Most of the time couldn't attack, most of the time couldn't block. Pitching to force and making room for sideboard cards is the best I can say of it.

    Edit: shadow deck was grixis with arcanist/bolts instead of gurmags.
    Obviously having Delver in your deck is better vs Bomberman and especially Post, I have never denied this. I also basically never block with Gargoyle either

    Against those kinds of Grixis deck if you play more games you might find that you can exploit the fact that you don't have creatures that die to bolt

    There are a lot of other questionable things about your list as well
    - Mystic Sanctuary in the board without Infernal Contract or any other highly impactful card to return with it
    - Trying to make the rest of the list work with the budget manabase, specifically playing 4x Hymn with a basic island and Mystic Sanctuary with a basic swamp. (And then because of the basic swamp you also have the tension of playing Mystic Sanctuary with 1 Marsh Flats)

    It's fine to not like playing the list without Delver (and even then 4 gargoyle is not essential either, you could easily play like 2 Gargoyle and 2 Angler if you wanted) and it's definitely not a strict upgrade. (i.e. I don't think it improves literally every matchup, but I prefer it because on balance I think it's overall better against the meta)

    I just think that if you want to play Thoughtseize and Delver of Secrets in the same deck then Grixis Delver (no Shadows) is a better choice

  16. #236
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Quote Originally Posted by kombatkiwi View Post
    Obviously having Delver in your deck is better vs Bomberman and especially Post, I have never denied this. I also basically never block with Gargoyle either.
    If you are only playing 8 threats, blocking is going to be pretty important. It would have been instrumental in some matchups for trading resources and stabilizing. I will say this several times during this post: Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card.

    Against those kinds of Grixis deck if you play more games you might find that you can exploit the fact that you don't have creatures that die to bolt
    Maybe, but they have more threats and an ability to play the same disruption game. If I had haymaker plays further up in the curve I could do a passable impression of a Grixis mid-range deck, but the options weren't there. Gargoyle was too conditional to be a valid resource on the board. Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card.

    There are a lot of other questionable things about your list as well
    - Mystic Sanctuary in the board without Infernal Contract or any other highly impactful card to return with it
    - Trying to make the rest of the list work with the budget manabase, specifically playing 4x Hymn with a basic island and Mystic Sanctuary with a basic swamp. (And then because of the basic swamp you also have the tension of playing Mystic Sanctuary with 1 Marsh Flats)
    1) Mystic Sanctuary was fine, even re-bought me a Hymn once and allowed me to play lands on curve to play a Jace. Being a 19th land is it's floor, which it accomplished admirably, and it's ceiling with something like Infernal Contract would be incredibly unreliable as a one-of. It's a cute interaction, one that I'm sure will come up more often once the overall number of games played gets higher. That won't happen, the list is poor for all the reasons I'm describing. The one positive thing I learned was that Mystic Sanctuary is a great card in the sideboard, not just for being an extra land against Wasteland and casting 3-drops easier, but simply because re-buying a removal/discard/counter in the mid-late game is the kind of card advantage needed to grind through the control matchups. Jace is still fine as a 1-of where games might go long, it's a card that has the right power level higher in the curve to help when you need it. Of all the things that went wrong, sideboarding Mystic Sanctuary was not one of them, even if it was 'questionable' without infernal contract.
    2) My budget mana-base didn't prevent my deck from working, it worked fine, I played my cards. They just weren't good enough together to actually win. I only had 1 situation where basic Island was in my opening hand, and it still didn't prevent me from turn 3 Hymn. In fact, the basic Island was instrumental in casting a Jace, several Brazen Borrowers, and hardcast Force of Will. Don't use the 'budget manabase' minor variance to excuse a list that is fundamentally flawed by having too much disruption and too few threats (half of which are unreliable, basically having to hit the perfect mix to make it useful at all.) More than 1-2 Hymns is questionable, having 4 maindeck is a liability against anything short of combo decks. When people get on the board faster, and in greater numbers, top-decking another hymn is useless. So I would need a Gargoyle to stabilize, threaten blocking to hold the fort, but it can't do that while you try to play out the cards you actually have to actually play the game. Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card.

    It's fine to not like playing the list without Delver (and even then 4 gargoyle is not essential either, you could easily play like 2 Gargoyle and 2 Angler if you wanted) and it's definitely not a strict upgrade. (i.e. I don't think it improves literally every matchup, but I prefer it because on balance I think it's overall better against the meta)
    It wasn't about 'not liking playing the list without delver', it was the fact that there was too few threats period, then doubled-down when half of them were garbage. I mentioned in an earlier post that splitting the blue threats would be a bad idea because the blue count for Force of Will/Negation is borderline low already. Depending on how you manipulate the maindeck between 20-22 blue cards total, which is pretty tight considering 5-6 Force variants. I would rather work back in Gurmag Angler, an actual good card. Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card.

    I just think that if you want to play Thoughtseize and Delver of Secrets in the same deck then Grixis Delver (no Shadows) is a better choice
    I think this is pretty amusing. When all else fails, point in another direction. The combination of Thoughtseize and Delver is perfectly fine on it's own, both cards pulling their own weight but also working together (dealing with removal/threats, clearing the path for Delver, flipping delver on the top of the deck.) Compare that to Gargoyle which needs the perfect mix of criteria to do anything, mostly with the consent of your opponent. Delver and Thoughtseize don't care what your opponent has done, they are still good regardless. Gargoyle is depending on your opponent getting threshold to attack, but also making you somehow have 4 cards in hand to be a big enough threat to play defense (and you're playing a lot of defense when you are only playing 8 threats.)

    I'm not sure if I've said this already, but Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card. Playing 3-4 Hymns main might be ok alongside Gurmag Angler and Delver, both of which don't require it but benefit from it. Your main argument was that 4 Hymn is correct and Gargoyle just benefits from that. Four Hymn is certainly not correct, except against combo decks that don't play Veil of Summer, which as of right now are practically non-existent. I think you played a quirky list at a local paper event and got lucky. The list doesn't follow the traditional templates of any sort of proven strategy, so it's flawed. The threats don't pull double duty to play well like a mid-range deck (like Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage) and there are too few of them to be aggressive enough to race slower decks (minimum 12 in Delver decks, most are playing upwards of 13-14 lately.)
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  17. #237

    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    If you are only playing 8 threats, blocking is going to be pretty important. It would have been instrumental in some matchups for trading resources and stabilizing. I will say this several times during this post: Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card.
    Ok, but you are going to be cutting some other card that also does the role of "trading resources" (e.g. Hymn) and a lot of other tempo creatures aren't very effective at blocking either (Delver, Arcanist, Borrower). Angler and Pyro are fine and like I keep saying you can play a very similar deck with Anglers if you want

    Maybe, but they have more threats and an ability to play the same disruption game. If I had haymaker plays further up in the curve I could do a passable impression of a Grixis mid-range deck, but the options weren't there.
    This is like, almost getting it, but I think this has been explained in the thread before

    1) Mystic Sanctuary was fine, even re-bought me a Hymn once and allowed me to play lands on curve to play a Jace. Being a 19th land is it's floor, which it accomplished admirably,
    I'm not trying to suggest that all of my concerns would have become immediately apparent in 3 matches but in the long run it's something I would be concerned about

    The one positive thing I learned was that Mystic Sanctuary is a great card in the sideboard, not just for being an extra land against Wasteland and casting 3-drops easier, but simply because re-buying a removal/discard/counter in the mid-late game is the kind of card advantage needed to grind through the control matchups.
    Yes, being able to turn an extra land into a reclaim for a counterspell is very useful when you're ahead on board

    Jace is still fine as a 1-of where games might go long, it's a card that has the right power level higher in the curve to help when you need it. Of all the things that went wrong, sideboarding Mystic Sanctuary was not one of them, even if it was 'questionable' without infernal contract.
    I'm still not sure it offers anything that isn't served better by other cards considering the high manacost and the vulnerability to red blast.

    2) My budget mana-base didn't prevent my deck from working, it worked fine, I played my cards. They just weren't good enough together to actually win. I only had 1 situation where basic Island was in my opening hand, and it still didn't prevent me from turn 3 Hymn. In fact, the basic Island was instrumental in casting a Jace, several Brazen Borrowers, and hardcast Force of Will. Don't use the 'budget manabase' minor variance to excuse a list that is fundamentally flawed by having too much disruption and too few threats (half of which are unreliable, basically having to hit the perfect mix to make it useful at all.)
    Again I'm just saying this manabase will cause issues in the long run, I'm not trying to say that it was directly responsible for your 0-3

    More than 1-2 Hymns is questionable, having 4 maindeck is a liability against anything short of combo decks. When people get on the board faster, and in greater numbers, top-decking another hymn is useless. So I would need a Gargoyle to stabilize, threaten blocking to hold the fort, but it can't do that while you try to play out the cards you actually have to actually play the game. Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card. It wasn't about 'not liking playing the list without delver', it was the fact that there was too few threats period, then doubled-down when half of them were garbage. I mentioned in an earlier post that splitting the blue threats would be a bad idea because the blue count for Force of Will/Negation is borderline low already. Depending on how you manipulate the maindeck between 20-22 blue cards total, which is pretty tight considering 5-6 Force variants. I would rather work back in Gurmag Angler, an actual good card. Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card.
    Ok

    I think this is pretty amusing. When all else fails, point in another direction. The combination of Thoughtseize and Delver is perfectly fine on it's own, both cards pulling their own weight but also working together (dealing with removal/threats, clearing the path for Delver, flipping delver on the top of the deck.) Compare that to Gargoyle which needs the perfect mix of criteria to do anything, mostly with the consent of your opponent. Delver and Thoughtseize don't care what your opponent has done, they are still good regardless. Gargoyle is depending on your opponent getting threshold to attack, but also making you somehow have 4 cards in hand to be a big enough threat to play defense (and you're playing a lot of defense when you are only playing 8 threats.)
    There is a real inherent tension in playing a deck with 4 Delver of Secrets and 0 burn spells and again I'm not going to elaborate on this because it's all been said before

    I'm not sure if I've said this already, but Vantress Gargoyle is not a good card. Playing 3-4 Hymns main might be ok alongside Gurmag Angler and Delver, both of which don't require it but benefit from it. Your main argument was that 4 Hymn is correct and Gargoyle just benefits from that. Four Hymn is certainly not correct, except against combo decks that don't play Veil of Summer, which as of right now are practically non-existent.
    If you say so

    I think you played a quirky list at a local paper event and got lucky.
    Ok cool, I think you played at a local paper event and got unlucky? You're not going to win a sample size argument with your 3 matches

    The list doesn't follow the traditional templates of any sort of proven strategy, so it's flawed.
    There are upsides to this kind of ruthless pragmatism but you obviously don't really subscribe to this philosophy otherwise you wouldn't be posting in the development forum trying to brew a UB Shadow/Dreadnought/Standstill deck

    The threats don't pull double duty to play well like a mid-range deck (like Baleful Strix, Snapcaster Mage) and there are too few of them to be aggressive enough to race slower decks (minimum 12 in Delver decks, most are playing upwards of 13-14 lately.)
    You don't need many threats to race when 4 of them are a 1 mana 8/8 and the other 4 are a 2 mana 5/4 flyer.
    The "minimum 12" idea is silly as well, all I have to do is scroll a few tweets down my feed as I'm typing this post and see this list with 11:
    https://twitter.com/birchloreranger/...60037972639744
    It wasn't uncommon for people to play RUG with 10

  18. #238
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Ok cool, I think you played at a local paper event and got unlucky? You're not going to win a sample size argument with your 3 matches.
    This is a fair statement...but I also had zero interest in pursuing the list further. If it neither wins nor is fun, what is the point of continuing?

    There are upsides to this kind of ruthless pragmatism but you obviously don't really subscribe to this philosophy otherwise you wouldn't be posting in the development forum trying to brew a UB Shadow/Dreadnought/Standstill deck.
    If you look closely, I'm still following a Dreadstill template. I am playing 4 Dreadnoughts, 4 other 1-drop creatures (Shadow instead of Delver), 3 copies of Factory (some play the full 4, I realize this) and then I am playing Borrower x2 and Scroll x2 instead of Scroll x4. I am playing free counterspells, Brainstorm, 5 removals (varying here slightly over the 4 because I don't have Street Wraiths to drive my life total down) and Thoughtsieze instead of Daze. I have 3 Standstill main, which isn't uncommon, to trade directly with 3x Confidant sideboard. I'm almost perfectly using a ruthless approach to templating, only veering away where I want to test alternate cards, not alternate effects.

    Finally, I may be incorrect, but I think Jace is a functionally more powerful card than Infernal Contract. I don't see this as dangerous at all, considering Delver variants have played a copy, even maindeck, in the past.

    Call me silly if you want, but if most of the delver variants are playing 12+ threats as a tempo plan I think it's wise to follow suit.
    Brainstorm Realist

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  19. #239
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Ark4n has been doing well with UB Shadow in the last few days.

    He even finished 18th in the last Challenge, but had he won his last game, he'd have top 8'd. You can see the VOD's in the link.

    Here is his list:
    Creature (14)
    4 Death's Shadow
    4 Delver of Secrets
    2 Gurmag Angler
    4 Street Wraith

    Sorcery (9)
    4 Ponder
    1 Reanimate
    4 Thoughtseize

    Instant (19)
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Daze
    1 Drown in the Loch
    1 Fatal Push
    2 Force of Negation
    4 Force of Will
    2 Snuff Out
    1 Stubborn Denial

    Land (18)
    1 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Flooded Strand
    1 Misty Rainforest
    3 Polluted Delta
    2 Underground Sea
    2 Verdant Catacombs
    4 Wasteland
    3 Watery Grave

    60 Cards
    Sideboard (15)
    2 Brazen Borrower
    1 Grafdigger's Cage
    2 Hydroblast
    3 Hymn to Tourach
    1 Null Rod
    2 Plague Engineer
    1 Ratchet Bomb
    3 Surgical Extraction

    IIRC, he was something like 14-1 in the Leagues before the Challenge. Or at least he was at one point on Friday, I think.
    "The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
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  20. #240
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    Re: [Primer] UB Death's Shadow

    Cool, thanks.
    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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