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Thread: Grixis Phoenix

  1. #61
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quote Originally Posted by shonenkakumei View Post
    Hi Whitefaces,

    Congrats on your nice finishes and thanks for pioneering this sweet deck.

    I was wondering if you had a sideboard guide that you used? I was wondering, for instance, about the Grim Lavamancers. Also, thoughts on/plans for playing against Chalice decks?
    Hey, thanks!

    This probably isn't the answer you're looking for but so far I've been siding differently vs the same decks a lot of the time based on what they've seen game one. There are general play patterns, but for example if I'm playing vs a deck like Grixis Control which I know will be playing Surgicals I'd sometimes trim a Dark Ritual and Buried Alive. It's still great in the matchup, but because we know they have a good answer to it we're only looking to execute the plan after seeing their hand first and paving the way for it to work, so the game will be slower and we have time to find the combo pieces while sculpting. But if they lost to a Young Pyromancer in game one and didn't see the combo I'll be keeping all of it in. They might know the decklist at this point, but you need to consider things like this.

    The other thing is the sideboard is still very much a work in progress, so it's changing a lot.

    But on your questions, Grim Lavamancer is for things like Death and Taxes, Delver or any other creature decks. I wasn't very impressed with it though, it did very little in the challenge, even vs Elves playing it turn one on the play it felt too slow. I think Lightning Bolts would be better in this slot. Dnt especially though you need some removal for.

    Vs Chalice decks I'll bring in every answer to it, so Abrade and Echoing Truth, Spell Pierces vs Moon Stompy too. Cut some or all Cabal Therapy and Preordain/s can be trimmed.

    I've been playing an Esper version of this deck the past week and I think it's actually even better than the Grixis one. The gist of it is Mentors > Young Pyromancer, better sideboard cards and some more fast mana with Lotus Petals. Mentor is absolutely broken in the deck, still tweaking on the list and sb but the core is

    4 Monastery Mentor
    2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
    4 Arclight Phoenix

    4 Ponder
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Preordain
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Cabal Therapy
    2 Daze
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Buried Alive
    4 Lotus Petal

    2 Underground Sea
    2 Tundra
    1 Scrubland
    1 Volcanic Island
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Island
    1 Swamp

    Jaces have been so-so, might get cut soon but worth trying more.
    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Storm was killed by Leovold
    Quote Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat View Post
    The power of blue is overrated...I personally play Jund and I consistently top 4 FNMs with it.

  2. #62
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    What type of white sideboard cards do you mean? When I think about white, the first thing that comes to mind are hatebears. But both Canonist and Containment Priest hinder our own game plan. Removal like StP/Path or Disenchant/C.Judgment?

    Is flooding on fast mana an issue with both Petal and Ritual in the deck?

    Gesendet von meinem ONEPLUS A5010 mit Tapatalk

  3. #63
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quote Originally Posted by Baum View Post
    What type of white sideboard cards do you mean? When I think about white, the first thing that comes to mind are hatebears. But both Canonist and Containment Priest hinder our own game plan. Removal like StP/Path or Disenchant/C.Judgment?

    Is flooding on fast mana an issue with both Petal and Ritual in the deck?

    Gesendet von meinem ONEPLUS A5010 mit Tapatalk
    I'm currently playing with some combinations of Disenchant, Serenity, Swords to Plowshares and Kambal. There's a lot of options in Esper colours though, plenty I've not thought of yet.

    You can flood on them, but with all the cantrips and 8 'payoffs' it's not too common.
    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Storm was killed by Leovold
    Quote Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat View Post
    The power of blue is overrated...I personally play Jund and I consistently top 4 FNMs with it.

  4. #64
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    I re-dub this deck 'British Birds'.

    You're welcome, Whitefaces.

  5. #65
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Tried this build with 4 Bolts in the Daze/Reveler slots. Idea was to help win races and accelerate out phoenices easier. Didn't really come up, though. Daze may have been marginally useful vs. Chalice.

    4 Arclight Phoenix
    4 Young Pyromancer

    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Buried Alive
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain
    4 Lightning Bolt
    4 Cabal Therapy
    4 Thoughtseize

    2 Liliana of the Veil

    18 land

    3 Surgical Extraction
    3 Force of Will
    2 Echoing Truth
    2 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Abrade
    2 Pithing Needle
    1 Flusterstorm

    R1 Deadguy Ale WW
    R2 TES WW
    R3 Humans LWL (g3 i made a crucial error -- on the play they had hierarch into prelate on 1. I had an abrade and a pyromancer, plus preordain, and thought it was better value to get YP in play then abrade and preordain next turn. But: Kitesail Freebooter ruined my day. Basically, nuke a prelate on sight if you can)
    R4 Eldrazi LL (scooped to a chalice on the play in g1. g2 i kept a one-lander and thoughtseized a chalice off a sea, but they drew wasteland and i never drew another land before TKS came down)
    R5 Burn WLW (finally a little luck -- was able to get phoenices quickly g1, but got beat by cage in g2, in g3 i shredded their hand with pyro and therapy when they got stuck on 1 land and then abraded a cage and ritualed out phoenices)

  6. #66
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    After watching Jarvis stream last night, I believe the Lotus Petals should be Cabal Rituals, although it's arguable that they could be something else as well. There were multiple situations where drawing Petals prevented going off with Buried Alive where Cabal Ritual would have worked. I didn't pay attention to see if there were any situations where he had Threshold and the extra mana would have been relevant, but that's something to consider as well.

    There were lines for Buried Alive that required Daze, but I did not like it in the Mentor lists. I think Force of Will would have been much better overall. I can dig Daze in the Young Pyromancer lists, however.

    I do think the Esper build with Mentor is much stronger. The mana may be a little worse, but the power level is considerably higher, and the deck has enough mana acceleration to compensate for the extra cost of Mentor vs Pyromancer. I do think there should be a couple of Meddling Mage in the sideboard, though.
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  7. #67
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quote Originally Posted by Hanni View Post
    After watching Jarvis stream last night, I believe the Lotus Petals should be Cabal Rituals, although it's arguable that they could be something else as well. There were multiple situations where drawing Petals prevented going off with Buried Alive where Cabal Ritual would have worked. I didn't pay attention to see if there were any situations where he had Threshold and the extra mana would have been relevant, but that's something to consider as well.

    There were lines for Buried Alive that required Daze, but I did not like it in the Mentor lists. I think Force of Will would have been much better overall. I can dig Daze in the Young Pyromancer lists, however.

    I do think the Esper build with Mentor is much stronger. The mana may be a little worse, but the power level is considerably higher, and the deck has enough mana acceleration to compensate for the extra cost of Mentor vs Pyromancer. I do think there should be a couple of Meddling Mage in the sideboard, though.
    Based on the games I get where you're coming from with Cabal Ritual over Lotus Petal, in a fair few spots it would have been better. But there weren't many 'Mentor games', on the flip side I've been winning without the combo a lot more than what was shown yesterday where Petal is a lot better. Like I said, totally get where you're coming from on that but Petal has been great. He also flooded out a bit more than what I've seen so far, not complaining but the deck doesn't run out of steam that often from all the cantrips. It also allows more consistent turn ones, where you cantrip if you have two of Ritual, Buried or Petal and find the third piece, you'd need all Dark Rit, Buried and the Cabal already in hand for that. I wasn't playing Petals before because I thought this wouldn't happen very often, but it really does.

    Admittedly I've not tested Force of Will in this Esper shell but I disliked it quite a lot in Grixis. The cost of pitching a cantrip is really high in a deck like this, when all you want to be doing is cantrip every turn pretty much.

    I agree that Esper looks better, I think it is, the mana isn't really much worse either. It's just replacing the red lands with white ones and having a single Volc to cast birds. Worse yes, but not by much. Meddling Mage maybe, it's on a list of things to try!
    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Storm was killed by Leovold
    Quote Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat View Post
    The power of blue is overrated...I personally play Jund and I consistently top 4 FNMs with it.

  8. #68
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Would JTMS be reasonable in the spot of prodigy Jace? There are enough accelerants that you can power him out early/ through soft countermagic. (2 lands petal and ritual gets JTMS mana iirc) I have not played with prodigy so I cannot speak on his upside/ place but mind sculptor seems like much higher impact. Maybe the deck doesn't need/ want that though.

    On looking at it on paper I am hesitant with only 8 "threats" but the first buried alive is also a threat, also with 12 cantrips you are probably just chewing through your deck. I don't have much time to play these days but this is definitely cool!

  9. #69
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasDowd View Post
    Would JTMS be reasonable in the spot of prodigy Jace? There are enough accelerants that you can power him out early/ through soft countermagic. (2 lands petal and ritual gets JTMS mana iirc) I have not played with prodigy so I cannot speak on his upside/ place but mind sculptor seems like much higher impact. Maybe the deck doesn't need/ want that though.

    On looking at it on paper I am hesitant with only 8 "threats" but the first buried alive is also a threat, also with 12 cantrips you are probably just chewing through your deck. I don't have much time to play these days but this is definitely cool!
    I've ended up cutting the Jace VPs too, they were nice but like you say this deck doesn't need that effect, I imagine it's the same with Mind Sculptor. I tried him in Grixis a bit but it wasn't great.

    The number of threats has been fine, again like you say the cantrips find you what you need. The first is usually so powerful that you don't need more.
    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Storm was killed by Leovold
    Quote Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat View Post
    The power of blue is overrated...I personally play Jund and I consistently top 4 FNMs with it.

  10. #70

    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quote Originally Posted by Hanni View Post
    After watching Jarvis stream last night, I believe the Lotus Petals should be Cabal Rituals, although it's arguable that they could be something else as well. There were multiple situations where drawing Petals prevented going off with Buried Alive where Cabal Ritual would have worked. I didn't pay attention to see if there were any situations where he had Threshold and the extra mana would have been relevant, but that's something to consider as well.
    I sent a bit of time testing more combo-focused builds back when Whitefaces started talking about the deck. Earlier builds had Rite of Flame and Cabal Ritual along with more payoff cards like Empty the Warrens. I tried Dark Petition (too expensive), Burning Wish (moving a Buried Alive to the board is awkward), LEDs (curves super-well with Rite of Flame, Burning Wish, into Buried Alive, but too all-in; three Phoenixes isn't as good as ten Tendrils).

    *Anyway*, Lotus Petal turned out to be the best accelerant for the combo after Dark Ritual despite not actually counting as a spell for Buried Alive because you often have to dig for a piece of the Dark Rit/Buried Alive combo. It's not that uncommon in my experience to keep a hand with one combo piece, a Petal and a cantrip and to hit the missing piece off the first cantrip. Lotus Petal really helps the deck go off turn 1-2, while Cabal Rit is probably going to help more with turn three lines.

    The Petals do eat into the spell density, which sucks, but IMHO they should mostly replace lands from the earlier builds. I think Jarvis was running 17 land/3 petal; I've had a decent amount of success with 16/3. One slot shouldn't matter that much, but it's worth keeping an eye on the overall spell density.

    Cabal Ritual seems like it gets a bit better with planeswalkers since the 'walkers give you more sinks for black mana while adding non-instant and sorceries to the deck as a whole.

    Quote Originally Posted by ThomasDowd View Post
    Would JTMS be reasonable in the spot of prodigy Jace?
    I think the main drawback is the second blue mana. At 3U it would be easy to Dark Ritual out turn one (with a Petal) or turn two (without). I haven't tested JTMS though.

  11. #71
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Well, the bolt build is over .500 at least...

    D&T LWL
    Esper Phoenix WLW
    TES WW
    BUG depths LL
    RUG dack lands keranos brew WW

    Got my first look at the Esper deck by playing against it... Lost to a turn 1 Mentor in g2. Seems like that's the big trump card. Unfortunately seemed a little unwieldy otherwise but I'll take for a spin.

  12. #72
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Hei dear People

    I have to say this Deck is a blast to play! After whitefaces shared the Deck i was hyped to play that. In the End i agree with him a Esperbase list feels more strong.

    // 60 Hauptdeck
    // 4 Artifact
    4 Lotus Petal

    // 8 Creature
    4 Arclight Phoenix
    4 Monastery Mentor

    // 12 Instant
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Daze
    4 Dark Ritual

    // 16 Land
    2 Underground Sea
    2 Tundra
    1 Scrubland
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Swamp
    1 Island
    1 Volcanic Island

    // 20 Sorcery
    4 Cabal Therapy
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain
    4 Buried Alive


    // 15 Sideboard
    // 2 Artifact
    SB: 2 Engineered Explosives

    // 11 Instant
    SB: 2 Disenchant
    SB: 4 Force of Will
    SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
    SB: 2 Flusterstorm

    // 2 Planeswalker
    SB: 2 Liliana, the Last Hope

    The Mainboard is quit fix and there is so far not really something to change...I like it a lot. Mentor doing really well also with petal.
    Daze is so good. This is the Sideboard i have right now. I played today some matches against mainly Grixis Control and different stompy decks.
    Grixis control feels really good. Even stompy does. Of course t1 chalice gets us but it gets also 70% of other deck sometimes. I see 4 FoW as needed against those type of Deck and also against Comboish strategy's.It helps a lot. I Played against RB Reanimate and it feels quit a bad match up. so 3 surgical helps a lot and also against lands for example to slow them down. Still R/B reanimated was really though because they are fast and can still go off after we had the combo+ Chancellor. i probably gonna play a 4th hate like Crypt.
    Overall how do you guys Board? Like its really hard sometimes. Do you guys take out cards like burial or Phoenix? or just 1 of each cards sometimes. i tried it sometimes when i was awaiting surgical like control Match up and played lili in the slot. She's basically a t1 win if she's resolve against the most control deck and Dnt decks. I'm happy with the 2 EE for overall delver/Shadow and chalice match ups. Also disenchant seems quit good but not sure if 2 are needed.
    In the End what do you cut when? for me i really need more brainstorming. but i cut sometimes some therapy's + lotus and also some of the daze for example.
    Those are probably the card i try to cute somehow something. I'm still also really on brainstorming.

    Greets

  13. #73
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    I haven't played the esper build yet but with the grixis / 4 bolt build I board all 4 buried alives first in postboard matchups vs. combo decks.

    Once the buried alives are out I bring in an entire blue package of 3 force, 2 echoing truth, and 1 flusterstorm at the very least and start trimming from dark ritual next, then bolt/liliana depending on the matchup and additional cards to come in (surgical, crypt etc)

    While ritual->buried->3rd spell is powerful, almost any other combo deck is more so. I'd rather just play a hard control game with 8 discard spells and 4 counterspells.

    Of course, Echoing Truth is the hardest part of the board plan, but we need blue cards and it has some minor blowout potential:

    -vs. empty the warrens (this actually happened yesterday where I was dead af and peeled the echoing truth)
    -vs. show-omniscience on an empty hand, or griselbrand in response to draw 7, or a cast sneak attack then pass
    -vs. almost any reanimator target
    -vs. marit lage (sometimes it works but the mu is so bad no matter what you do it seems)

    It's possible that this is not how the deck will end up tackling combo, but the U package (especially sb forces) solves a couple key problems problems I've had with the deck:

    -It makes the deck more focused vs. very fast strategies. While we are likely the beatdown in most fair matchups, against combo decks I don't think this deck can keep up unless the combo player keeps terrible hands postboard. Every arclight, buried alive, ritual etc in our hand is not disrupting decks that can kill us out of nowhere. These decks are built to take damage along the way to assembling turn 3-4 wins. Hoping for turn 2 ritual-buried-spell to get us there against decks with more streamlined plans is just not something i'm comfortable with (but it's fine if that's how you want to play it)

    -We can board in the whole package vs. Chalice decks as well. Chalice is a beating for this deck. Echoing Truth has more utility there (since it can bounce CotV at 1 and most chalice decks also play Leylines). I don't board out the whole combo in those matchups, though i will occasionally trim it. Flusterstorm isn't as good in those matchups and you can just go 17 U cards w/3 force if you want, but in some cases (like 4c loam, since it hits GSZ and some other things, and is a way to counter a fiery confluence vs. red prison)

    What I'm really looking for is a better option in the echoing truth slot. I considered far//away, since it also hits emrakul and TNN, but it doesn't bounce multiple leylines or deal with Empty.

    Also, I think depths is a lost cause for this archetype and it's not worth devoting board cards to beat it. Though the karakas in the white versions may be more helpful (as well as closing speed on Mentor). Perhaps Whitefaces will want to weigh on on this but I would say this deck's matchups go like this:

    -Miracles, UBx midrange/control: favored to very favored, we have tons of relevant disruption even postboard, discard wrecks them
    -Delver/Vial and/or Thalia decks: about 50/50, Wasteland can be very relevant in these matchups. Sequencing is crucial, very tricky
    -Storm/Show and Tell: favored (until they start boarding in leyline of sanctity )
    -Reanimator: slightly unfavored because of their raw power more than anything. The fact that we are playing 5 pieces of GY hate is really rough on our sideboard.
    -Chalice decks: unfavored because like us they can present bomb after bomb and we do not have enough answers
    -burn: unfavored but winnable with good sequencing and bad luck by them

  14. #74
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    I haven't played the esper build yet but with the grixis / 4 bolt build I board all 4 buried alives first in postboard matchups vs. combo decks.

    Once the buried alives are out I bring in an entire blue package of 3 force, 2 echoing truth, and 1 flusterstorm at the very least and start trimming from dark ritual next, then bolt/liliana depending on the matchup and additional cards to come in (surgical, crypt etc)

    While ritual->buried->3rd spell is powerful, almost any other combo deck is more so. I'd rather just play a hard control game with 8 discard spells and 4 counterspells.

    Of course, Echoing Truth is the hardest part of the board plan, but we need blue cards and it has some minor blowout potential:

    -vs. empty the warrens (this actually happened yesterday where I was dead af and peeled the echoing truth)
    -vs. show-omniscience on an empty hand, or griselbrand in response to draw 7, or a cast sneak attack then pass
    -vs. almost any reanimator target
    -vs. marit lage (sometimes it works but the mu is so bad no matter what you do it seems)

    It's possible that this is not how the deck will end up tackling combo, but the U package (especially sb forces) solves a couple key problems problems I've had with the deck:

    -It makes the deck more focused vs. very fast strategies. While we are likely the beatdown in most fair matchups, against combo decks I don't think this deck can keep up unless the combo player keeps terrible hands postboard. Every arclight, buried alive, ritual etc in our hand is not disrupting decks that can kill us out of nowhere. These decks are built to take damage along the way to assembling turn 3-4 wins. Hoping for turn 2 ritual-buried-spell to get us there against decks with more streamlined plans is just not something i'm comfortable with (but it's fine if that's how you want to play it)

    -We can board in the whole package vs. Chalice decks as well. Chalice is a beating for this deck. Echoing Truth has more utility there (since it can bounce CotV at 1 and most chalice decks also play Leylines). I don't board out the whole combo in those matchups, though i will occasionally trim it. Flusterstorm isn't as good in those matchups and you can just go 17 U cards w/3 force if you want, but in some cases (like 4c loam, since it hits GSZ and some other things, and is a way to counter a fiery confluence vs. red prison)

    What I'm really looking for is a better option in the echoing truth slot. I considered far//away, since it also hits emrakul and TNN, but it doesn't bounce multiple leylines or deal with Empty.

    Also, I think depths is a lost cause for this archetype and it's not worth devoting board cards to beat it. Though the karakas in the white versions may be more helpful (as well as closing speed on Mentor). Perhaps Whitefaces will want to weigh on on this but I would say this deck's matchups go like this:

    -Miracles, UBx midrange/control: favored to very favored, we have tons of relevant disruption even postboard, discard wrecks them
    -Delver/Vial and/or Thalia decks: about 50/50, Wasteland can be very relevant in these matchups. Sequencing is crucial, very tricky
    -Storm/Show and Tell: favored (until they start boarding in leyline of sanctity )
    -Reanimator: slightly unfavored because of their raw power more than anything. The fact that we are playing 5 pieces of GY hate is really rough on our sideboard.
    -Chalice decks: unfavored because like us they can present bomb after bomb and we do not have enough answers
    -burn: unfavored but winnable with good sequencing and bad luck by them
    I changed my sideboard alot. Also tried to figure out a better plan. I cutted the fow completly it maybe can be good but the card disadvange is just to big. Also it allows us to play more important cards.

    My sideboard now.

    2 EE
    2 Disenchant
    2 Tormods crypt
    3 Surgical
    3 Fluster
    2 Lili last hope
    1 Kambal

    I dont agree in the Match ups.

    Uwx Miracle/Grixis Control/stoneblade

    I feel all of them are quit favered. It might ne a surprise effect atm but that i play like 3 strategies that are synergating (phoenix/mentor/lili) are quit good against them. Won so far all of those match ups. I usualy side out 1 of the 4 offs of the combo but not the Dark ritual to enable a t1 lili or t1 or t2 mentor with therapy. Also the discard is just so good to play around surgical. Also kambal is quit sweet in those match ups.

    Stompy Decks
    I really dont think those are that bad match ups. Ee and disenchant helps alot. Of course t1 chalice / moon is really hard. But the thing is its always strong against the most decks.
    I also think the the best way here is to enable the combo really fast or a mentor. I felt so far quit even but i have to test deeper but the board strategy works quit good.

    Reanimator
    I agree its a really bad match up and probably the ways are to take out phoenix combo and to play just.mentor/kambal + hard control strategy. Also with all the hate it should work quit good.

    Storm/snt i also think they are favered. This sb is also quit strong against them. Also here is it maybe correcr to take out the combo and playing the same strategy as with reanimate. What do you guys think.

    All the nonblue match ups like Dnt/lands/aggro loam/burn/elves. Also with nonblue decks i feel the best way to enable the combo fast as possible. What do you guys think?

    Also there is the idea to bring in cards like surgical/gutshot/ cabal ritual to make the t1 combo more possible against certain decks. What do you think?

    Greets

  15. #75
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    tried the esper build (Straight lift from Jarvis's stream) and didn't do so hot. I think I went 2-3 and 1-3 drop. Storm is still a bye, def beat that in both leagues.

    It's a much trickier deck than the grixis build, but Mentor gets you out of many jams. Worth continuing. Actually, I just feel like Lotus Petal is a good card in Mentor decks... not sure how good phoenix really is comparatively.

  16. #76
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    i don't agree that storm is a buy. Depending on the sideboard. Today i played against a friend (i also play ant a lot) and he's not a bad ant player. g1 is quit rough. g2 gets probably better. i decided to take out the combo package because you need to take it out and it can get quit annoying and inconstant to board. i feel mentor + kambal or other hate is the better plan. anyway i think its quit even after boarding. btw. what's the list of you and jarvis?
    that's my board:

    2 Crypt
    3 Fluster
    3 surgical
    1 Kambal
    2 lili of the last hope
    2 ee
    2 disenchant

    i'm tending to play a second kambal or something like a null rod(does not synergate with ee and petal though) but mostly they play the leds down so yeah it's just a idea.

    i agree the deck is tricky to play and you need to know how to play. also a good sideboard strategy helps a lot! try to figure it out. i defeated today multiple miracle,grixis, death shadow in matches. against mono U snt and storm i'm litte behind but after that i changed my strategy to side the combo out same against reanimater and its just soo much better so far. but lets test more.

    greets Pascal

  17. #77
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Yesterday I tested Esper Phoenix at a local ~50 person event. I played the MD from Jarvis' stream and ended up at 5:1. Last Friday, I tested a version with 2 Daze and without Spell Pierce but 1 Liliana, the Last Hope and 1 Liliana of the Veil in the MD. I played only a couple of matches, but found it to be a little clunky at times, so playing more cheap spells instead of MD Lilianas sounded reasonable.

    4 Arclight Phoenix
    4 Monastery Mentor

    4 Buried Alive
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Lotus Petal

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain

    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Cabal Therapy
    3 Daze
    1 Spell Pierce

    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Underground Sea
    2 Tundra
    1 Scrubland
    1 Volcanic Island
    1 Island
    1 Swamp

    Sideboard:
    3 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Surgical Extraction
    1 Flusterstorm
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    3 Path to Exile
    2 Disenchant
    2 Serenity
    1 Plains

    Path to Exile instead of Swords to Plowshares is something I wanted to try out because I think that against decks like Delver of Eldrazi, the game can come down to a tight race and they usually don't play basics. It possibly is really bad against D&T, but I could not test against them so far.

    On Sunday I played against all the Griselbrands -.-

    Sneak Show (2:1)
    Sneak Show (1:2)
    UB Reanimator (2:1)
    BR Reanimator (2:1)
    UB Shadow (2:0)
    Grixis Phoenix (2:0)

    Random thoughts about the deck:

    - The matchup against Sneak Show seems really sketchy. They have a lot of different stuff we care about (combo pieces, Blood Moon, GY hate), so blind Therapies are hard. They also topdeck really well, even if we hit them with a couple of discard spells. Maybe I'll try out one or two Liliana of the Veil again.

    - 4 Mentors might be one to many. I boarded down to two quite often (both against combo and Delver decks). That said, the card is busted if we can untap with it. But I usually don't want to play a naked Mentor into possible removal spells, so most of the time I cast a couple discard spells and cantrips first. When we see a lot of cards anyway before deploying Mentor, maybe we can find it consistently enough with only 3 in the deck. The 4th Mentor could be a possible cut for a Lili of the Veil.

    - The Spell Pierce could also be a Liliana but I'm still not sure how many 3-drops the deck can actually support.

    - There definitely is a tension between casting both Daze and our expensive cards in time. Not sure if two or three is the right number. The first Daze is great, the second usually is awful.

    - Sideboarding with the deck is really hard.

    Favorite moments from Sunday:

    - Racing Griselbrand followed by a Blood Moon by putting in a Mentor with S&T and ripping a Lotus Petal from the top to cast the Phoenix combo :D

    - Winning the die roll in the mirror and drawing an opener of 2 lands, 2 Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Mentor and Buried Alive. Ending the first turn with a Mentor, 2 Tokens and 3 Phoenixes in play is completely reasonable...

  18. #78
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Quite a lot to catch up on! Glad more people are trying the deck!

    Quote Originally Posted by Pdingo View Post
    Hei dear People

    I have to say this Deck is a blast to play! After whitefaces shared the Deck i was hyped to play that. In the End i agree with him a Esperbase list feels more strong.

    // 60 Hauptdeck
    // 4 Artifact
    4 Lotus Petal

    // 8 Creature
    4 Arclight Phoenix
    4 Monastery Mentor

    // 12 Instant
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Daze
    4 Dark Ritual

    // 16 Land
    2 Underground Sea
    2 Tundra
    1 Scrubland
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    1 Swamp
    1 Island
    1 Volcanic Island

    // 20 Sorcery
    4 Cabal Therapy
    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain
    4 Buried Alive


    // 15 Sideboard
    // 2 Artifact
    SB: 2 Engineered Explosives

    // 11 Instant
    SB: 2 Disenchant
    SB: 4 Force of Will
    SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
    SB: 2 Flusterstorm

    // 2 Planeswalker
    SB: 2 Liliana, the Last Hope

    The Mainboard is quit fix and there is so far not really something to change...I like it a lot. Mentor doing really well also with petal.
    Daze is so good. This is the Sideboard i have right now. I played today some matches against mainly Grixis Control and different stompy decks.
    Grixis control feels really good. Even stompy does. Of course t1 chalice gets us but it gets also 70% of other deck sometimes. I see 4 FoW as needed against those type of Deck and also against Comboish strategy's.It helps a lot. I Played against RB Reanimate and it feels quit a bad match up. so 3 surgical helps a lot and also against lands for example to slow them down. Still R/B reanimated was really though because they are fast and can still go off after we had the combo+ Chancellor. i probably gonna play a 4th hate like Crypt.
    Overall how do you guys Board? Like its really hard sometimes. Do you guys take out cards like burial or Phoenix? or just 1 of each cards sometimes. i tried it sometimes when i was awaiting surgical like control Match up and played lili in the slot. She's basically a t1 win if she's resolve against the most control deck and Dnt decks. I'm happy with the 2 EE for overall delver/Shadow and chalice match ups. Also disenchant seems quit good but not sure if 2 are needed.
    In the End what do you cut when? for me i really need more brainstorming. but i cut sometimes some therapy's + lotus and also some of the daze for example.
    Those are probably the card i try to cute somehow something. I'm still also really on brainstorming.

    Greets
    After trying Esper through a few leagues I was pretty blown away by its power level and convinced it's better than Grixis by quite a lot, but now after playing it a lot more I'm understanding it more. The higher power level comes with more variance and Grixis is more consistent I think. Young Pyromancer and Monastery Mentor are both better in respective matchups and I've really noticed Mentor make the Delver matchup worse, but things like Chalice decks better. Not sure this is where we want to be. I will say though, when Mentor is good it's unreal in this shell.

    Daze is great, but like Baum alludes to in their last comment the first is amazing but later ones can be punishing on a deck wanting mana. I played 2 copies in the challenge yesterday (went very badly, more on that later) which I feel like is a decent number.

    On Reanimator, I'm surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly?) positive vs it. This will be a recurring thing I say, but please play Tormod's Crypt over Surgicals as your main sideboard hate. It's so, so much better in the matchups we want it. We have very little countermagic so can't protect Surgical from discard spells which basically all these GY decks play, this is the main reason to play proactive graveyard hate. Combined with our clock potential and discard spells of our own reanimator burns through a lot of resources to force the activation of the Crypt, we usually kill them in time or cantrip into another. The other key part of Crypt is being able to play it through a Chancellor trigger and finding it off a cantrip and being able to play it immediately. By doing this we accept we lose to their turn one combos, which yeah sucks, but I think we lose more games by them being able to discard surgical before a combo than them T1ing. They all respect surgical after board and play slower.

    Anecdotal, but I played a pretty crazy game in the challenge yesterday, I lost game one as we usually will then game two they got a Chancellor and Grave Titan into play, I managed to combo through the Chancellor and had the 4th Phoenix in hand to Therapy, the 4 Phoenixes then traded off with the Titan and 2 Zombies, thanks to Therapy flashbacks I got them back again, traded off with Chancellor and the other zombies then finally got them back a third time for lethal.

    As I mentioned just above, boarding is quite hard, I still don't know what 'patterns' are right myself. A lot of the time will be trimming on things that are just worse than other cards, not that the card is especially bad in the matchup. I'll make a post after this one saying my general boarding patterns.

    EE seems nice, a friend mentioned it as a potential card but I haven't got around to trying it yet.

    Quote Originally Posted by maharis View Post
    I haven't played the esper build yet but with the grixis / 4 bolt build I board all 4 buried alives first in postboard matchups vs. combo decks.

    Once the buried alives are out I bring in an entire blue package of 3 force, 2 echoing truth, and 1 flusterstorm at the very least and start trimming from dark ritual next, then bolt/liliana depending on the matchup and additional cards to come in (surgical, crypt etc)

    While ritual->buried->3rd spell is powerful, almost any other combo deck is more so. I'd rather just play a hard control game with 8 discard spells and 4 counterspells.

    Of course, Echoing Truth is the hardest part of the board plan, but we need blue cards and it has some minor blowout potential:

    -vs. empty the warrens (this actually happened yesterday where I was dead af and peeled the echoing truth)
    -vs. show-omniscience on an empty hand, or griselbrand in response to draw 7, or a cast sneak attack then pass
    -vs. almost any reanimator target
    -vs. marit lage (sometimes it works but the mu is so bad no matter what you do it seems)

    It's possible that this is not how the deck will end up tackling combo, but the U package (especially sb forces) solves a couple key problems problems I've had with the deck:

    -It makes the deck more focused vs. very fast strategies. While we are likely the beatdown in most fair matchups, against combo decks I don't think this deck can keep up unless the combo player keeps terrible hands postboard. Every arclight, buried alive, ritual etc in our hand is not disrupting decks that can kill us out of nowhere. These decks are built to take damage along the way to assembling turn 3-4 wins. Hoping for turn 2 ritual-buried-spell to get us there against decks with more streamlined plans is just not something i'm comfortable with (but it's fine if that's how you want to play it)

    -We can board in the whole package vs. Chalice decks as well. Chalice is a beating for this deck. Echoing Truth has more utility there (since it can bounce CotV at 1 and most chalice decks also play Leylines). I don't board out the whole combo in those matchups, though i will occasionally trim it. Flusterstorm isn't as good in those matchups and you can just go 17 U cards w/3 force if you want, but in some cases (like 4c loam, since it hits GSZ and some other things, and is a way to counter a fiery confluence vs. red prison)

    What I'm really looking for is a better option in the echoing truth slot. I considered far//away, since it also hits emrakul and TNN, but it doesn't bounce multiple leylines or deal with Empty.

    Also, I think depths is a lost cause for this archetype and it's not worth devoting board cards to beat it. Though the karakas in the white versions may be more helpful (as well as closing speed on Mentor). Perhaps Whitefaces will want to weigh on on this but I would say this deck's matchups go like this:

    -Miracles, UBx midrange/control: favored to very favored, we have tons of relevant disruption even postboard, discard wrecks them
    -Delver/Vial and/or Thalia decks: about 50/50, Wasteland can be very relevant in these matchups. Sequencing is crucial, very tricky
    -Storm/Show and Tell: favored (until they start boarding in leyline of sanctity )
    -Reanimator: slightly unfavored because of their raw power more than anything. The fact that we are playing 5 pieces of GY hate is really rough on our sideboard.
    -Chalice decks: unfavored because like us they can present bomb after bomb and we do not have enough answers
    -burn: unfavored but winnable with good sequencing and bad luck by them
    I don't know this for sure, but I think we should be keeping the combo and cutting the creatures vs combo actually. Or maybe just from Esper since Mentor is clunkier, this is what I've been doing and keeping all the combo, since YP is cheaper maybe it isn't right to do this in Grixis. It's really hard! But I don't think just because other combo decks combos are more powerful than ours is a reason to cut it, it's still our best clock and not resource heavy to pull off. We can still play a control game but with this combo as our clock, though it does make Therapy worse admittedly. But at the same time being so much faster gives them less topdecks, which this deck has a problem with.

    I like Echoing Truth vs a lot of decks too, I played 2 in the main yesterday, it's such a great card with Cabal Therapy. I don't really like it vs ANT, but I would side it in vs TES (btw your opponent was streaming in the league you said the other day, twitch/tv/graapeshot). I was siding it in vs SnS too, they're often forced to throw out a Sneak Attack without a creature and it's a way for us to interact with that. I wouldn't side it in vs reanimator, it's fine vs Chancellor or Iona or something, but I think we need to play the gameplan of not letting them get anything into play ideally. I think this is more a case of making a reason to play it because of how many cards need to come out, rather than it being good. Great vs Marit Lage yeah, unlikely it stays in our hand for long, but it's an out at least. You wanting to find an alternative card to it so it can come in with Forces is more a strike against Force than anything. Etruth has legit been great for me.

    I'll try sb forces again at some point, but I've mentioned it before somewhere but I was pretty disappointed with them. The cost of pitching a cantrip is very high, and seemingly comes with the cost of siding in E Truth every time just because it's blue, I'm not convinced this is really the way to go. And like Surgical, we struggle to protect it from discard, I think proactive hate is the way to go in this deck. There are other ways to fight combo than countermagic, we're very heavy on discard obviously, sure our combo isn't as powerful as theirs but when it's a 2 turn clock after we've discarded them a bit it's often getting there. But we should be more specific when we say combo too, you can pinpoint weaknesses for each deck. For example Tormod's Crypt is absolutely insane vs ANT when we have a clock. They struggle to natural storm kill since they'll be lower on resources from our discard, they're under a clock from phoenixes which can shut off Ad Nauseum fast, and Crypt shuts off PiF, their usual way to beat us. An example of knowing the weakness of ANT, again yesterday in the challenge I snap kept a hand of Crypt, Ritual, Ritual, Petal, Phoenix, Land, Land. T1 Ritual, Petal, Phoenix for the 'clock' and Crypt to take out PiF, I drew another Phoenix which was ritualed out T3. They were forced to Tendrils just to stay alive before dying a couple turns later since both Past in Flames and Ad Nauseum were cut off.

    On Chalice matchups, yeah this is almost specifically the reason I put Etruth in the deck. Sure Force is good vs these matchups too, probably where it shines actually as we can lose to topdecks, especially from the moon stompy kind of decks but I've been finding them OK. I wouldn't ever be boarding out the combo vs them, it's how we get a lot of the free wins and throwing out Buried Alive T3 then throwing 3 spells into a Chalice works a lot of the time.

    Agree on Depths, I'm close to giving it up. In Grixis Alpine Moon is pretty decent, I've spoken with Negator77 and solnox a fair amount about how to fight the matchup, they've agreed Alpine is probably the best option from Grixis and in Esper StP are fine-ish, but the best strategy is some discard, a quick Mentor and hope that gets there.

    Agree that most fair decks feel very favoured too, worth noting that Grixis was crushing Delver in my esp but Esper is struggling.

    I think Reanimator is about 50/50 if you're playing enough Tormod's Crypts. Bit of a coin flip as always, if you get a turn you're probably OK, if you don't you got got.

    I've found Chalice decks to be slightly favoured, especially with Esper. We play enough answers to their things and they're fairly soft to quick combos.

    Quote Originally Posted by Pdingo View Post
    I changed my sideboard alot. Also tried to figure out a better plan. I cutted the fow completly it maybe can be good but the card disadvange is just to big. Also it allows us to play more important cards.

    My sideboard now.

    2 EE
    2 Disenchant
    2 Tormods crypt
    3 Surgical
    3 Fluster
    2 Lili last hope
    1 Kambal

    I dont agree in the Match ups.

    Uwx Miracle/Grixis Control/stoneblade

    I feel all of them are quit favered. It might ne a surprise effect atm but that i play like 3 strategies that are synergating (phoenix/mentor/lili) are quit good against them. Won so far all of those match ups. I usualy side out 1 of the 4 offs of the combo but not the Dark ritual to enable a t1 lili or t1 or t2 mentor with therapy. Also the discard is just so good to play around surgical. Also kambal is quit sweet in those match ups.

    Stompy Decks
    I really dont think those are that bad match ups. Ee and disenchant helps alot. Of course t1 chalice / moon is really hard. But the thing is its always strong against the most decks.
    I also think the the best way here is to enable the combo really fast or a mentor. I felt so far quit even but i have to test deeper but the board strategy works quit good.

    Reanimator
    I agree its a really bad match up and probably the ways are to take out phoenix combo and to play just.mentor/kambal + hard control strategy. Also with all the hate it should work quit good.

    Storm/snt i also think they are favered. This sb is also quit strong against them. Also here is it maybe correcr to take out the combo and playing the same strategy as with reanimate. What do you guys think.

    All the nonblue match ups like Dnt/lands/aggro loam/burn/elves. Also with nonblue decks i feel the best way to enable the combo fast as possible. What do you guys think?

    Also there is the idea to bring in cards like surgical/gutshot/ cabal ritual to make the t1 combo more possible against certain decks. What do you think?

    Greets
    I like a lot of this sideboard, except I'd recommend more Crypts over Surgical (I'll stop going on about it soon).

    Vs reanimator I've been taking out Mentors and keeping combo. Mentor is a liability since they can discard it and go for Reanimate/Animate Dead on it, forcing us to Surgical or Crypt ourselves.

    Vs Sneak and Show I agree on taking out some of the combo, they play Pierces and Flusters so the creature side of things is easier to resolve. It can be a tough matchup though, usually we need to disrupt what we can, put them under a clock asap and hope to not get topdecked.

    Agree vs non-blue we want to combo asap. I still wouldn't board in the spells you mentioned to try and do it turn one though, it's still fine on turn two.


    Quote Originally Posted by Pdingo View Post
    i don't agree that storm is a buy. Depending on the sideboard. Today i played against a friend (i also play ant a lot) and he's not a bad ant player. g1 is quit rough. g2 gets probably better. i decided to take out the combo package because you need to take it out and it can get quit annoying and inconstant to board. i feel mentor + kambal or other hate is the better plan. anyway i think its quit even after boarding. btw. what's the list of you and jarvis?
    that's my board:

    2 Crypt
    3 Fluster
    3 surgical
    1 Kambal
    2 lili of the last hope
    2 ee
    2 disenchant

    i'm tending to play a second kambal or something like a null rod(does not synergate with ee and petal though) but mostly they play the leds down so yeah it's just a idea.

    i agree the deck is tricky to play and you need to know how to play. also a good sideboard strategy helps a lot! try to figure it out. i defeated today multiple miracle,grixis, death shadow in matches. against mono U snt and storm i'm litte behind but after that i changed my strategy to side the combo out same against reanimater and its just soo much better so far. but lets test more.

    greets Pascal
    Agree that Storm isn't a bye, I find game one is in their favour at least then we can be favoured postboard. I've been cutting down on Mentors and keeping all combo vs them. Kambal is obviously insane too, I've only drawn it once vs ANT so far though weirdly in quite a few matches, they conceded on the spot at least.

    Interesting that you say reanimator has felt better after cutting down on the combo though, I'll have to try that next. Keeping it all has been working OK for me, but I genuinely don't know, so next times I'm paired vs it I'll do that, I'm just very scared of dying to my own Mentors!

    I like Kambal in quite a lot of matchups, it's excellent vs stompy decks too as a way to combat Ensnaring Bridge. Admittedly I've cast it three times vs them, they've taken ~8 damage then topdecked a Chandra or Fiery Confluence to kill it, but the potential is there, I'll keep trying 2 copies.

    Quote Originally Posted by Baum View Post
    Yesterday I tested Esper Phoenix at a local ~50 person event. I played the MD from Jarvis' stream and ended up at 5:1. Last Friday, I tested a version with 2 Daze and without Spell Pierce but 1 Liliana, the Last Hope and 1 Liliana of the Veil in the MD. I played only a couple of matches, but found it to be a little clunky at times, so playing more cheap spells instead of MD Lilianas sounded reasonable.

    4 Arclight Phoenix
    4 Monastery Mentor

    4 Buried Alive
    4 Dark Ritual
    4 Lotus Petal

    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Preordain

    4 Thoughtseize
    4 Cabal Therapy
    3 Daze
    1 Spell Pierce

    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Flooded Strand
    2 Underground Sea
    2 Tundra
    1 Scrubland
    1 Volcanic Island
    1 Island
    1 Swamp

    Sideboard:
    3 Tormod's Crypt
    2 Surgical Extraction
    1 Flusterstorm
    1 Liliana, the Last Hope
    3 Path to Exile
    2 Disenchant
    2 Serenity
    1 Plains

    Path to Exile instead of Swords to Plowshares is something I wanted to try out because I think that against decks like Delver of Eldrazi, the game can come down to a tight race and they usually don't play basics. It possibly is really bad against D&T, but I could not test against them so far.

    On Sunday I played against all the Griselbrands -.-

    Sneak Show (2:1)
    Sneak Show (1:2)
    UB Reanimator (2:1)
    BR Reanimator (2:1)
    UB Shadow (2:0)
    Grixis Phoenix (2:0)

    Random thoughts about the deck:

    - The matchup against Sneak Show seems really sketchy. They have a lot of different stuff we care about (combo pieces, Blood Moon, GY hate), so blind Therapies are hard. They also topdeck really well, even if we hit them with a couple of discard spells. Maybe I'll try out one or two Liliana of the Veil again.

    - 4 Mentors might be one to many. I boarded down to two quite often (both against combo and Delver decks). That said, the card is busted if we can untap with it. But I usually don't want to play a naked Mentor into possible removal spells, so most of the time I cast a couple discard spells and cantrips first. When we see a lot of cards anyway before deploying Mentor, maybe we can find it consistently enough with only 3 in the deck. The 4th Mentor could be a possible cut for a Lili of the Veil.

    - The Spell Pierce could also be a Liliana but I'm still not sure how many 3-drops the deck can actually support.

    - There definitely is a tension between casting both Daze and our expensive cards in time. Not sure if two or three is the right number. The first Daze is great, the second usually is awful.

    - Sideboarding with the deck is really hard.

    Favorite moments from Sunday:

    - Racing Griselbrand followed by a Blood Moon by putting in a Mentor with S&T and ripping a Lotus Petal from the top to cast the Phoenix combo :D

    - Winning the die roll in the mirror and drawing an opener of 2 lands, 2 Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Mentor and Buried Alive. Ending the first turn with a Mentor, 2 Tokens and 3 Phoenixes in play is completely reasonable...
    Nice result! That sure is a looooot of Griselbrands, so it's especially good.

    I've been meaning to try Lilianas in Esper, I was worried that they'd be more clunky adding extra 3cmcs exactly like you say, thanks for the feedback. I like Last Hopes like Pdingo has been playing in the sb quite a lot still, it's such a nice play with Ritual and auto wins a lot of matchups. Veil was excellent in the Grixis deck but that struggled vs stompy decks a little bit more than Esper where she can ultimate fairly easily to take out a lot of lock pieces and beat Ensnaring Bridge.

    - I like the idea of Path over swords a lot actually, racing is common in the deck. Worse vs some decks for sure, but enough upside vs others. Also people are always siding in Surgical vs this deck, someone suggested a split of Path and StP to play around this too.

    - Yep, SnS is hard. Mainly because of your last point, their topdecks game be gamewinning. I guess Esper we could play Containment priest and side out combo, haha. Maybe it's not the most insane idea ever?

    - I started this Esper list with 3 Mentors actually because I was worried about the reasons you're saying, poorer than Pyromancer vs combo and Delver for sure. I added the 4th quite quickly when it was clear how busted the card is in this deck, but maybe you're right. Fwiw I tried a build with 2 Kambal maindeck over the 4th Mentor and a Daze a few days ago, went 4-1 in the 2 leagues I tried. He didn't do too much, I played vs a lot of creature decks actually, but it might be worth exploring more. It can give us some free wins/a very big edge vs combo game one and vs fair we're good enough usually, and he still has text at least.

    - Certainly tension for Daze, I think 2 is a nice number, but that's mostly going off gut feeling now.

    - Nice! This deck can do some really crazy things, I've raced Griselbrand a few times even with Grixis, and like I said above where I got back Phoenixes 3 times to beat reanimator yesterday.

    - That's just messed up...I gotta say, I've been playing mostly Miracles for quite a while now, it's nice to have some free wins again.

    And finally yesterdays challenge which was a bit of a disaster

    R1 vs BR Reanimator - 2-1 - lost game one then won the sb games

    R2 vs Eldrazi - 1-2 - Won game one off a turn one combo, game two was close but I ran out of gas and ballista killed mentor, game three I mulled a 7 that maybe I should have kept, would anyone else have mulled this? 3x Mentor, 2x TS, 2x fetch. Felt like the deck can do better but maybe it was a mistake. 6 had no mana and 5 was pretty bad, got stomped.

    R3 vs ANT - 2-1 - lost game one, sb games Crypt won

    R4 vs - Punishing Fire/Blood Sun/Eldrazi thing - 1-2 - I punted g3 big time, pretty sure I win if I didn't, totally on me.

    R5 vs Grixis Delver - 0-2 - I lost both games pretty badly to a lot of Wastelands so didn't get to play much magic it felt like. I also tried siding out the full combo, pretty sure this is wrong but wanted to see if Mentor can do it, answer is no.

    R6 vs Elves - 0-2 - Got absolutely destroyed, I can't remember the details too well but I died on the early turns through a lot of disruption, they drew whatever I discarded :P Killed me turn four through a ZP game two!

    Drop at 2-4. I felt like with tighter play I'd have done a lot better, the deck was also showing the higher variance side, I felt like I mulled a lot. Unsure if this is a symptom of the deck or a bad day, but figured it's worth sharing all experience, even if it's bad.
    Last edited by Whitefaces; 01-14-2019 at 08:43 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Storm was killed by Leovold
    Quote Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat View Post
    The power of blue is overrated...I personally play Jund and I consistently top 4 FNMs with it.

  19. #79
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    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Here’s some general sideboarding thoughts. I’m still unsure that these are ‘right’, just sharing my experience so far. And ofc sbs will be different, so if there’s something that you should bring in that I’ve not mentioned, I’m just commenting on what’s mostly played.

    Vs control, Miracles and Grixis. – Don’t overboard too much, we’re set up pretty well already. Bring in Flusterstorm/Spell Pierce and any Lilianas, I like up to 2 Surgical vs Miracles as taking out Terminus can be big. We can cut Lotus Petals and one Buried Alive. I like trimming one Buried Alive vs decks I know will play Surgical, we need to set up to discard the Surgical so the games will go longer, giving us more time to find one. Could trim a Dark Ritual too if you’re not playing any Lilianas. Trim on Dazes if on 4 too, I like 2 I think.

    Vs SnS – I like cutting down on combo pieces since they play Fluster and Pierce as interaction. Bring in Fluster/Pierce ourselves and probably Surgicals to try and snipe things with discard, I feel like the matchup is hard so we need to take these high variance plays. Therapy vs them is a guessing game a lot of the time, one play to keep in mind if they brainstorm in response to one is naming Emrakul, since if you hit it shuffles their deck and the cards they've hidden away.

    Vs ANT – bring in Crypts/Surgicals, Fluster/Pierce and Kambal if in Esper. I’ve been trimming on creatures down to 0, but others have a different experience so I need to try cutting the combo next.

    Vs Delver – Trim on a Buried Alive for the same reasoning as vs control, I like trimming one of each TS and Therapy too. We need these in the mu but they put us under a quick clock so need some things for the board too, don’t want too much discard. Bring in any removal, I don’t know if we should bring in flusters, not pierce if you play them though. I've been struggling with Esper but Grixis felt great. Mentor being 3cmc is really the big thing, but I've been aggressively cutting more of the combo sometimes than I should, so I think I've been playing/sideboarding wrong.

    Vs Depths – bring in some crossed fingers! I cut a lot of discard, usually Therapies since it will be a low resource battle and we need proactive topdecks, bring in any removal for lage and fluster/pierce.

    Vs Stompy – Take out all discard on the draw, bring in all answers for Chalice and friends and any Lilianas. On the play I’ve been keeping 3 TS and 1 Therapy, taking out the StP and a couple Preordain. Kambal comes in vs Moon decks, not Eldrazi.

    Vs Thalia, dnt, mav etc – Take out some discard, maybe 2 TS 2 Therapy and bring in more removal.

    Vs Reanimator – seems like we’re all trying different things, so I’ll test different sbing configs soon. As I’ve said above I’m a bit scared of them discarding a Mentor and reanimating it, forcing us to use our hate on ourselves. While our combo can be discarded, it’s able to be played off low resources. It’s been working well for me, even if we don’t get it off super early, we just need to find Crypts first and foremost.
    Quote Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual View Post
    Storm was killed by Leovold
    Quote Originally Posted by LegacyIsAnEternalFormat View Post
    The power of blue is overrated...I personally play Jund and I consistently top 4 FNMs with it.

  20. #80

    Re: Buried Phoenix

    Dark rit into ensnaring Bridge seems very strong vs. Depths in the mentor version. At least while no one is expecting it. Plus it's solid vs others like reanimator/snt/eldrazi.
    Quote Originally Posted by Laser Brains View Post
    With the printing of Gigantosaurus, Thrashing Brontodon and Steel Leaf Champion the deck has evolved from good to very competitive. Anyway, give it a few play tests if you are interested and let me know what you think.

    Winter Maze
    Quote Originally Posted by CptHaddock View Post
    With veteran explorer I know that I 100% will not enjoy a 30 minute grindfest against someone who can barely afford dual lands and believes that their deck can cast a 10 mana 8/8.

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