The new board and MD changes with Agent look good. Looking forward to seeing how it affects your results.
Dreamstealer looks like a good addition.
How is Murderous Rider for you? Should one of those Soul Shatters be a Rider (to have more threats), or does Soul Shatter already answer everything important in both blue and Chalice matches? Is the 1BB harder for you to support in the Agent list (I assume 0 Urborgs now)?
Noetic Scales looks awkward against even things like Ice-Fang Coatl, Goblin Rabblemaster, Endless One, Emry, Lurker of the Loch. How often would it be better than Bridge?
I have had dreamstealer in and out of the list for a while due to its comparative weakness vs combo, but if I don't have to worry about combo anymore it seems great.
Soul Shatter was primarily due to cutting urborg yes. However it is considerably better at dealing with t2 karn than rider, which is the primary consideration. Vs blue rider is better but I am not 100% that I even want to side it in their over spyglass or plague engineer.
Played 1.5 Leagues & a Challenge. Opposition Agent was absolute gas as expected. It stole multiple fetchlands & was a must answer for elves & doomsday. Additionally the 3/2 flash blocker was way more relevant than I expected, killing unflipped delvers, arcanists, & karn the great creators.
Unfortunately it is bugged to not show hidden zones on MTGO, please upvote bug report here: https://feedback.wizards.com/forums/...-showing-hands.
Other than agent, the challenge I went 4-3 for top 32. 2-2 Delver, 2-0 Elves, 0-1 the rock. Apparently the newest update on MTGO broke Cruel Reality; it triggers for each player instead of just the enchanted player. This directly lead to my loss vs BG. Vs delver they would usually concede before it came back to my turn luls so it didnt affect that.
Hey Reeplcheep,
yesterday I stumbled upon Elspeth's Nightmare while I was searching for good discard spells and I think that it could be a very good addition for this deck.
Pros:
It
- hits unflipped delvers, small Goyfs, Arcanists, Thalia, Teeg, Ouphe, Ninjutsu enablers and Dark Confidants
- fires off a Duress the turn after it enters the battlefield which is very nice, because it makes a big difference if you play a discard spell, your opponent hides a counter with brainstorm and your bomb next turn gets countered by their hidden counter or if you play the bomb the same turn as the discard spell
- removes graveyards as a nice bonus
- pairs well with Karn --> Hex Parasite resetting Elspeth's Nightmare (killing additional creatures, firing off additional Duresses)
- doesn't result in a 2 for 1 against you if your opponent has Veil of Summer
Cons:
- costs 1 mana more than Eliminate
- doesn't hit Oko
Hex Parasite can be used as removal for planeswalkers.
My suggestion for your list would be:
MD: -2 Eliminate, -1 Pelakka Predation, +3 Elspeth's Nightmare
SB: -2 Soul Shatter, +1 Elpeth's Nightmare, +1 Hex Parasite
EDIT: I have also thought about boarding strategies against RUG a bit. Maybe a valid boarding strategy on the draw could be: -7 Curses, +4 Plague Engineer, +1 Soul Shatter, +1 Elpeth's Nightmare, +1 Dreamstealer. RUG doesn't have good answers to Curse of Misfortune, but the question is: How often do you land it postboard against RUG? How often are Curses stranded in your hand or get countered?
Last edited by Smea.gol.lum; 11-23-2020 at 10:06 AM.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...cheep_th_placeWhat is your current list
If you check the primer, I tried nightmare and it wasn't horrible. I just value the smoothing of pelakka predation very highly. Hex parasite takes way too much mana to kill an oko imo. A lower opportunity cost if you want to try it out Nesting Grounds. That was an idea I had thats worth testing but I never got around to.
You aren't going to outgrind rug with removal; thats the whole point of this list. I cut karn instead.
I do love the idea of trying a single Elspeth’s Nightmare just because all three sagas are excellent against most of the format, especially Delver
A pretty interesting list just 5-0ed...
https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...nathanlipetz_-
Its identical to your list except for...
-4 Pellatka Predation
-2 Eliminate
+3 Ensnaring Bridge (to stop creatures)
+3 Sorcerous Spyglass (to stop Oko)
This approach might have merit though losing the extra consistency Pellakta Predation offers is a bummer.
The bigger issue with this approach is that Chrome Mox might not have any black cards to exile.
Do you think Predation really needs to be a 4 of?
What if you instead go with...
2 Pellatka Predation
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Eliminate
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
Last edited by Captain Hammer; 11-28-2020 at 11:33 PM.
I discussed that list with nathan before he ran it; he changed it to be more like mine as he was not threat dense enough before. I think his choice of flex slots is defensable but I prefer mine. In what mus do you want bridge & spyglass over eliminate? I like predation because there are soo many mus where you just need to hit your land drops
I tried it in the past. It is just a bit awkward and expensive compared to eliminate.
Thoughts of Field of Ruin as a way to further break opposition agent? Its a muldovi acid moss that draws a land with agent out, and is still a cantripping sinkhole vs delver/dredge/gaak/loam otherwise.
Also mox + chalice + drit + field of ruin is a t1 chalice + stripmine through daze at card parity vs rug.
Thoughts on focusing more lock pieces on shutting down draw engines?
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
12 BU L
4 Chrome Mox
1 Cruel Reality
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Overwhelming Splendor
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Curse of Misfortunes
2 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Eliminate
4 chains of mephistopheles
4 hullbreacher
2 wheel and Deal
Sideboard
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Torpor Orb
4 Plague Engineer
3 Necromentia
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Dystopia
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Helm of Obedience
Shutting down draws does seem very strong right now with the current control decks playing 23 draw a card effects. I think I prefer notion thief because of sharing types with agent. MD blue cards makes the mana denial more impactful than only bringing in blue cards vs decks without mana disruption (doomsday/snowko/urza).
I was thinking only 7 blue sources with sideboard seat of the synod + notion thief.
Wheel and Deal is a lot worse than Echo, especially when you're already running Karn, which tutors for LED. I realize that eats up space and changes some of the focus, but it's a much stronger engine.
EDIT: Chains of Mestopheles works better with Wheel and Deal, and LED is a non-bo with Trinisphere, so you can disregard my original post.
Last edited by Hanni; 12-10-2020 at 10:15 PM.
I think there is a lot of potential for a UB wheel stompy deck like nekrusar in edh.
Notion thief, narset, USA mask and hull breecher plus echo, days undoing, dark deal, and ancil of Bogardan is a ton of redundancy.
However kinda, it makes more sense in a tezzerator/Urza shell than curses. Petal and opal splash significantly better than chrome and rit, lower curve means you can take advantage of fair wheels better, and led echo is just the best wheel currently legal imo. Brainstorm/personal tutor plus reforgethe soul could be better but doesn’t work in chalice shells.
I don't think you want very much redundancy actually. The wheels are pretty bad without hullbreacher or narset in play and ~30% or so of decks still don't run draw engines, making those lists pretty high variance. I rly like just focusing on some anti draw hate (6-10 pieces) with some light synergy for these thrown in (2-4 wheels). Then a SB focused on removing this stuff when you're vs. Dnt or moon stompy or goblins or burn or cloudpost etc...
Echo is fine when you're emptying most of your hand and then drawing a fresh one while the opponent only gets to draw an extra card or two (during the 1st couple of turns), and you should typically have a Narset or Hullbreacher on the board by the point where the opponent has emptied most of their hand, to break the symmetry.
The fact is, Echo adds a ton of card advantage and consistency to a shell (aka Stompy decks) that sorely need it.
Still though, it's an entirely different deck that doesn't really make sense to try and work into Curse Stompy.
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