yeah i agree with grixis the mana base is just better and the pyro and the pyromancer are just better. i came also to the conclusion that yesterday was a bad day and had bad pairings. i also understand now better the difference between grixis and esper. well after my disturbing saturday i gonna test grixis now. i also agree with you now about daze. i tested the whole morning with grixis phoenix. also echoing truth seems necessary for bounce dark depths or reanimate peace's.
the only thing i would change in the sb is play at least 1 ee. i just think it's a really strong card atm+ 2 lili the last hope what i found always overperforming.
Second place in the MTGO Challenge today, so close! Coupled with Tommy Ashtons insane display of 14-1 at the SCG open it's been a pretty nice weekend for the birds.
Matchups were
R1: 2-1 vs Turbo Depths
R2: 2-0 vs UB Shadow
R3: 2-0 vs DnT
R4: 0-2 vs UR Delver
R5: 2-0 vs Punishing RUG midrange
R6: 2-0 vs Slow Depths
R7: 2-0 vs Slow Depths
QF: 2-0 vs Moon Stompy
SF: 2-0 vs Pile
F: 1-2 vs ANT (Cyrus)
It was my first time testing Dark Confidant and they really performed, definitely going to continue playing with them. Petals have also consistently been performing, and with Dark Confidant the card disadvantage can be mitigated while giving you a good chance to beat the harder matchups. Really liked this maindeck, I only cast two sideboard cards the whole challenge and they didn't really do very much. No need for a sb if the opponent is dead!
3 Dark Confidant
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Arclight Phoenix
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
3 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dark Ritual
4 Buried Alive
2 Daze
3 Lotus Petal
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Polluted Dela
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
Sb:
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Engineered Plague
2 Abrade
2 Goblin Cratermaker
2 Spell Pierce
2 Echoing Truth
With both the tombstalker list and your bob list doing very well this week, what do you like about the two choices?
16 vs 15 lands?
Congrats on the great result, Whitefaces!
Between your and Tommy Ashton's lists, I like that you cut Liliana, the Last Hope from the sideboard. The card is obviously great against Miracles and Grixis Control, but with the recent move towards more Stoneblade, I feel Liliana became a liability against opposing TNNs. The amount of free wins she grants against control just went way down. When I tested against Death & Taxes, I also encountered some situations where my opponent had a Mother of Runes and my deck's lack of other removal spells couldn't break through to make Liliana truly great. And of course she doesn't kill Ethersworn Canonist, which is a beating against us. Same for Containment Priest, but that's not as bad as Canonist.
How has Goblin Cratermaker been? It looks a bit clunky. Is killing Emrakul worth paying three Mana to destroy artifacts or hatebears?
I managed to get in some testing with Counterbalance. Be aware that I might be slightly biased because I've played a fair share of miracles and really enjoy the Counterbalance subgame ;)
*
On Friday, I played some practice matches against Grixis Control and Miracles. Against Grixis, Counterbalance was fine but not game breaking. They've got a number of important spells (Snapcaster, Hymn) on CMC 2, which our Counterbalance curve lines up poorly against. Countering their cantrips, Extractions and Kolaghan's Commands is nice though. Against Miracles, Counterbalance was bonkers. They rely way more on their cantrips than Grixis Control. They CMC 2 Problem is still there, but some of their most dangerous cards (Mentor, Back to Basics) are on CMC 3, which we've got covered. In one game, my opponent had 2 Rest in Peace and a Canonist in play, while I had Counterbalance, Jace and some Pyromancer tokens to protect the planeswalker. Of course, that was a perfect set of cards on my side, but beating Miracles at their own control game was somewhat impressive.
On Saturday, I played a small 4 round event. I didn't do too well, but still learned some lessons. I won against Slivers and lost against Lands, Esper Blade and UB Shadow. Against Lands, there wasn't much I could do. I easily won G1 with a fast combo, but lost both post SB games to an early Sphere of Resistance paired with lots of mana denial. Against Esper Blade, I kept a potential great hand with one Land, Dark Ritual + Buried Alive, Brainstorm and 2 discard Spells. Sadly, I brainstorm locked myself on T2 and died because I found the second land on T5 or so. I then screwed up my sideboarding and lost G2. I boarded out my removal, because I don't really care about their G1 creatures and Containment Priest can be beaten with hardcast Birds. I completely missed that it's pretty likely Stoneblade has Canonist in the SB. I could get rid of the first Canonist with Jace bounce + Therapy, but the second one got me. Counterbalance was great tough. It kept me way longer in that game than I should have. If I had removal for the Canonist, it would have been an easy game to win. Against UB Shadow nothing special happened. I still think the matchup is positive, but sometimes you just lose a match of magic. Maybe I made some errors, but I can't recall any major punts.
Yesterday, I started a league. I still have to play the last two matches, but since I cast Counterbalance in all three matches so far, I guess I can write about them as well.
Match 1 was against Slow Depths (2:0). I mostly won because I had fast draws and they durdled with Dark Confidant. Having Counterbalance with a one on top to be safe from Crop Rotation was nice though. That being said, I don't think we have enough time to set up a counterbalance against a good Depths draw.
Match 2 was the mirror (2:1). In G2, I counterbalanced them after deploying Pyromancer. I was pretty far ahead anyway, but counterbalance put the game completely out of reach for them.
In Match 3 I played against Elves (2:0). G1, I had a T3 kill on the play and my opponent couldn't kill me on his T2. Counterbalance was good in G2. Countering a Zenith for Scavenging Ooze with a blind flipped Buried Alive was hilarious.
So what's my verdict for Counterbalance? I think the card is good in the deck and adds a unique angle of attack against some decks. I still have to test against Storm and Sneak Show. I honestly have no clue if it's better or worse than Tombstalker or Dark Confidant. I guess all these cards shine against a different set of strategies. I think I'll keep on testing counterbalance for a bit, just to get more information. Bob sound really nice though... :)
Congratulations for you result. Can we have a link for the Ashtons result? Don't see him here http://www.starcitygames.com/decks/S...imore_MD_US/1/
glad to hear this "new ideas" seem to work
I strongly agree.
I still don't have so much testing (not enough time) but I've tried a few different builds, including UR without Buried Alive. I am now thinking one can try to merge the UR-delver-pteramander version and the grixis phoenix one. I think the ceiling with Buried Alive is too high to drop it; meanwhile, one should try to raise the floor (which is very low with cards like Thought Scour/Mental Note etc).
I think it would be good to try a delver version instead of pyromancer: this way one can really pressure the opponent since the very beginning, and assemble the combo while he is trying to fight a very different axis (if the opponent search for cards to resolve the board threats, he could disregard the "fight for the stack", leaving the way open to resolve our spells). I think Pteramander has way more potential than Tombstalker (sure, it's a little slower and more prone to common removals, but he is also not weak to unsummon effects, you can play it as soon as turn 1, and you can easily play multiples). If you happen to draw a dark ritual and you don't plan to spend it differently (= for the combo) you can also surprise the opponent adapting it very quickly (a single ritual counts for 4 mana on the 8 adapt costs!).
Final considerations: personally I like to have some copy of FoW; since I play in a field of back to basics, and we need the basic swamp way more than the basic mountain, I thought I could try fatal pushes above lightning bolts (as for now, I never needed the reach - the classic bolt to the face). For a moment, I even considered Contagion as a possibility for a free spell count.
The list I tried last saturday:
3 Pteramander
4 Arclight Phoenix
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Buried Alive
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
3 Force of Will
3 Fatal Push
2 Spell Pierce
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Pyroblast
3 Invasive Surgery
2 Rough//Tumble
2 Abrade
2 Perilous Voyage
I went for a poor 2-2 winning against Miracle and Eldrazi and losing to Death and Taxes and ANT, but I really liked the list: I don't think the reasons for my losses were poor choices in the list or bad playing. Against D&T (I knew he played it) I kept a hand that could potentially do 12 damage in the second turn (I had delver ritual and buried alive) but I needed to draw a black mana source since I had only a basic island. I was on the draw, so between lands and cantrips I considered roughly 75% of probability to "go off" t2. I never drew a land in 5 turns and died. G2 he went for cavern on humans, thalia, prelate on 1 (which of course is even worse than chalice). Against ANT, I was again OTD g1 and had a discard t1 and the combo for t2 (so the kill for t3), of course he killed me on his third turn. In g2 I cantripped forever without ever finding anything relevant after a couple early discards. So I don't think I should be disappointed, it was simply inevitable to lose those games I think.
I think both are good. I've been working with Tommy on the deck, I can't say for sure which is better, we're still trying different things out and with both performing well it's hard to say. I trimmed a land because of the Dark Confidants, if I wasn't playing them I think I'd play 16.
Thanks!
Honestly I was a bit sad to cut Liliana, I had one in the sb until the last moment when I signed up and she's great in the deck imo, but everything you say is true that while it's a nice angle for the deck to have she makes good matchups better, and I've run into the same issue vs Mother of Runes, it's a fair critique, I've not cut her for good though.
I cast a sideboard card 3 times in the whole event yesterday, and lost 2/3 of those games (both in the finals). So the evidence suggests we shouldn't have a sb Jokes aside he's been fine while playing with him before, it is slower and a bit clunky, but quite versatile. It's especially geared for Eldrazi where taking out either a lock piece of creature has come up pretty clutch. I like that it's castable vs Moon too, kills Rabblemaster/Legion Warboss, and kills Delver too though I'm not sure if we bring it in there. It really does a lot, just on the expensive side but with the fast mana I'm at least interested in trying it more.
A shame that the Saturday event didn't go great, but you're right that sometimes there are games that you make the right decisions but can't win, happens. At least you learnt something from it. I like keeping bolts vs Stoneblade decks since like you found out they very often have at least Containment Priest, and sometimes Canonist, Meddling Mage etc.
Nice testing! Thanks for the feedback, I still lean on the side of what PDingo was saying before that while it may perform well it's not necessarily an approach we want to take, but please keep trying it and relay everything here, it's great. It's certainly a unique angle that's for sure.
Thanks!
Tommys team didn't make T8 unfortunately, but I posted his list on the last page and it's on the SCG results somewhere. It was a team event, but his personal record was 14-1.
And apologies that I didn't try out Dark Confidant sooner since you suggested it, a couple of friends had suggested it to me too but I didn't think the idea was very good honestly, but as the deck has evolved and especially the addition of Lotus Petals makes him more appealing.
Your list is interesting, and quite a different approach. I'll be totally honest and say I'm not a big fan of a lot of what's going on, but that's based on my experience playing the 'usual' list. If you can come back to us with some feedback after playing more that would be cool.
I was just thinking about sideboarding with the Bob/Petal list. Against grindy blue control decks, would you side out some/all petals?
Yeah that's what I've been doing. Generally all 3 Petal come out and some number of bolt depending on the exact mu, I'd keep all bolts vs UW blade, 2 vs Miracles, probably 0 vs Grixis, but I've been changing sbing up half based on intuition and then if the match goes to a game 3 I think it's especially important with this deck to reevaluate sbing based on what hate cards you've seen.
I don't even play this deck but I come here just to say: very good job WhiteFaces!
Sadly your amazing perform against Depths is not valid because you dodged me. I'm glad that you finally shaved Alpine Moon tho.
Is there a reason to play tormod's cryp over nihil spellbomb ? Is the chancellor trigger a good one ?
I think spellbomb is better especailly against control decks suchh as miracle, grixis control etc ...
draw one card is good
You're right that Chancellor is part of the reason, second is being able to cantrip into a Crypt from turn one. Since they're almost exclusively for GY based decks, most of which are very fast, it's better to have speed over the card draw. Spellbomb would be better vs control yes, but I'm not sure we'd even side them in there tbh, it's fine in control mirrors but we attack those matchups a bit differently, not with incremental value.
Tormod's Crypt is by far the most asked about card, I really need to update the primer and do a good section on it. Will try to soon!
Wouldn't a split of Crypt and Surgical be more effective than 3-4 of just one effect? I realize that most graveyard-centric strategies aren't playing the anti-hate game with effects like Pithing Needle anymore, but there are some decks that play Cabal Therapy that could strip multiple copies of a singular hate piece. I'd personally run a split, but maybe that's just not necessary in the meta these days?
I've sometimes played 3 Crypt 1 Surgical, I know some others play 2/2 but when the Crypt is being played proactively the only time a Cabal Therapy is catching it is turn one really, and you can still cantrip into them. I just want consistency in a gameplan vs these decks that give you very little time. It's also crucial for the Storm matchup, I attack the deck on two of their 'pillars', being life total (Ad Naus) and GY (PiF). If you negate Ad Naus line with the combo, which one hit will mostly do, then Crypt shuts off a PiF they need to natural storm you, this relies on a critical mass which our discard is very good at stripping down. If you don't get both these angles in check then they beat you pretty easily. In this gameplan Surgical is easily discarded and doesn't fulfill the roll I want from that card. Every time I've had it in hand vs reanimator it's just discarded too, it's what their deck is built to do.
Congrats on the finish. I know you mentioned you rarely saw SB cards, but could you explain the rationale behind the Engineered Plague slot? It seems fine against Storm (name Goblins), okay against Dragon Stompy (again name Goblins), but seems like overboarding when bringing in possibly 7 other cards, and would be great against D&T naming Human...except Bob and Pyromancer are also Humans and I can't imagine boarding those guys out against D&T. I guess it hits TNN or Germ vs Stoneblade?
I like the EE and Cratermaker slots a lot.
Some nice media in the wake of the weekend
Article on SCG where they talk about the deck, some high praise - http://www.starcitygames.com/article...ak-Legacy.html
Cedric Phillips interview Tommy Ashton after his performance at the SCG open - https://soundcloud.com/thecedricphil...-for-tommy-mtg
I really, really need to update the primer now!
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