Page 2 of 12 FirstFirst 123456 ... LastLast
Results 21 to 40 of 226

Thread: Bumbleberry Pie

  1. #21

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    • Ran 2 test leagues, went 40%. Meta is incredibly fair blue. Some notes:
    • I really like the oath of Kaya. As mentioned by fox, having some life gain is incredibly helpful vs lightning bolt and Marit Lage. The reach was surprisingly good; e tutor plus Aminatou does a bad bolt snap bolt impression.
    • Moat is gg vs merfolk g1. Flavour fail. Overall etutor package is great.
    • I still think Stoney is better than CB vs combo, but cb is way better in other mus. It is also cute with aminatou and raises the floor of etutor vs fair blue.
    • Switching mana to be stabler is nice, but the power of sanctuary is great. I think a 1 of sanctuary that you only play as flood insurance or if you have a draw with a bunch of labes (no cards that rely on it like terminus) is fine. Until the opponent reveals they are on a non-wasteland deck I will just fetch basics.
    • I agree with fox overall that the deck already has a great cealing, so concentrated on increasing the floor of the deck. Cut 3 drop engines for CB and another land. Cut land tax plus Karakas for labe plus seat of the synod. If I need to use etutor for Blue mana I better get something that gives it to me right away and can’t get dazed. Cute with etutor plus CB.
    • Delver is fucking everywhere; my 3 drops are already good vs blue and my 1 drops (etutor) are bad. Thus my blue hate needs to be 1 cmc. I think splashing reb is too risky, so I am running 4 mystical Dispute as the discount version. Dispute is much better vs Urza echo and UBx combo at least. Also I should consider paths in the sideboard as additional delver/depths hate.

  2. #22

  3. #23

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    If esper vial can make gilded drake + soulherder great, could puca's mischief be good in this deck?

  4. #24
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    I wouldn't run Puca at all, it costs 3, sorcery speed, can't be cheese'd into play uninteractively (Cavern, Vial), has to pass the turn, and dies to Pyroblast for zero value. Also you can't use Charming Prince-type abuse.

    Edit: It's dangerous to pull lessons from decks that aren't playing 'real' legacy. If they're cheating on mana or abusing the best card in the format [Oko], and you're not....you really don't want try to photocopy their nonsense.

    On the mana, I don't like wishing into a land that dies to Karn and Oko. I dislike Counterbalance, for more reasons than playing it is basically cheating (it just makes you worse at magic; this hearthstone-random crap shouldn't be legal) - you can't really support it, and it's not getting better in multiples. Still missing Sevinne's. Too many E-Tutor, but you're still doing this 80 card thing...You could just as easily play Kaheera + 1x FoV exploit on 60. I see a lot of excessive copies, just to fill 20 extra slots without gain of function.

    I mean you can do all this on 60 and if you wanted also play Lutri maindeck [elemental] with Kaheera, if you wanted Snapcaster'y functionality.

  5. #25
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2011
    Posts

    4,776

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    The manabase looks much better than the OP list. Vista is very good.

    The deck also looks much more interactive and lower to the ground, able to compete with faster decks.

    ETutor package looks strong. I really like ETutor and enchantments in UWx control right now just because popular cards like Oko and Abrade cannot interact with them.

  6. #26

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Fox:

    • Not sure why you say I can’t abuse it. Steal a thing, get the thing you gave back with aminatou or 3feri (estrids returns by itself if you stack triggers correctly). Not to mention trading a dsphere for an oko or a labe for a delver or a trial for a library is perfectly fine by itself. The pyro and needing to untap though are indeed large problems.
    • Counterbalance is not a key card, I just need it to be a hymn. I have brainstorm, 4 estrids, 4 omen, and sanctuary To support it. Just having an enchantment so I can cast estrids Before court is fine; I don’t need the first bounce to always generate value. The second copy generates some value because of fetches. In blue decks the entire format has condensed to 3 drops and 1 drops; I am totally fine with it as a counter every 3rd spell enchantment.
    • So does astrolabe, and on t2 I’m more worried about daze than those cards anyways. Being able to hit your landrop and immediately start cantripping seems vital.
    • Yorion has been shown to be a decent way for fair decks to beat Snowko (struck/d&t). Sevinnes would definitely be a consideration for a list without Yorion or Rip. Yorion also provides a clock and solves the surgical problem.



    FTW.
    • Fox may be right that the etutor makes more sense as a sideboard finder than a md piece, since the meta is so fair

    .

  7. #27

  8. #28
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    So at deck construction I go in with Goyf tests, so basically running the deck against abstract 'course ghosts.' Things like oppo is on Burn or oppo has turn 2 4/5 Goyf, how do I win/not die. I also run a course ghost vs turn 2 Dreadhorde/turn 3 Oko/Wasteland, Daze, FoW+blue [RUG Delver ghost] and turn 1 Astro/turn 2 Library/turn 3 Oko/double FoW backup [4c SnowOko ghost]. This is every game I am expecting my deck to compete against.

    So run tests like this vs your heavy 3 drop plan, knowing that the 3 drops don't really do much without something to blink/copy having resolved. Add to this that your PWs are real bad when 3/3 hasters are bearing down right after you tapped out; you don't have a lot of time to pull crazy tricks or get much out of your PWs. You add Puca to the mix, and it's slower than your PWs and jankier...and like you can't even threaten Oko with the guys you're stealing since he's an endless spring of Elks and high loyalty. Say you trade Puca for Oko...they just steal it back and are still the better Oko deck since PWs dodge summoning sickness. It's also basically impossible to kill Oko with his ultimate (you'd give them too much time to modify loyalty off [5]).

    The tldr is that your payoff PWs are pretty awful vs Oko, and you're absorbing this mismatch on a piece A that needs piece B. This kind of thing really needs a mana exploit like Vial to get away with. Stepping back I see you saying "Esper Vial is doing it, so can I" but you're missing the part where they are mana cheaters, and things that apply to them will not be easy/realistic for you. Then the same thing was happening on Sanctuary where without FIRE, you don't want to try to emulate the play of necro'ing a 1-for-1 in this format.

  9. #29

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    You don’t have to trade puca for oko. You could easily trade the detention sphere you used to kill the first one for it or trade unelked labes for elked ones. But I’ll buy that the higher ceiling of puca doesn’t outweigh the blue 4 drop without acceleration that needs to untap problem.

    Haste elks are definitely a problem, but between spell Pierce, counterbalance, detention sphere, double oath of Kaya burn it shouldn’t be too hard.

    Burn: use one of my 8 cheap removal spells to answer their 8 creatures, fow/Pierce a few spells, and dig into either CB or oath of Kaya for the hard lock.

    Elves: g1 is definitely harder without etutor, but the plan was kill something every turn until you can find etutor for e. Plague or moat.

    Rug: Plan for arcanist into oko OTD would be EoT plow arcanist. If they daze, they can’t oko and I can untap and trial. Otherwise I can Pierce around daze.

    Snowko: run out counterbalance which is usually a must fow, answer oko or uro with dsphere/Pierce/plow or out value it with the court plus estrids engine. Both pw can also help stop oko from resolving. 3feri with fow and aminatou with CB.
    Estrids plus trial keeps oko under control until court of grace 2 4/4s > 3/3s.

    12post: buy time with b2b or counters, then Yorion/court Or acid/blink engine to end the game

    Generally I was losing to carpet and blasts, not oko. Several times I chugged through an oko plus arcanist/Klothys with aminatou plus 3feri (bounce plus draw every turn) or estrids plus court (2 4/4s every turn). I agree that I rely on synergies but that is inherent to not just playing Snowko. Snowicles and snow day are playing narset and jtms which are even worse vs haste elks. Aminatou plus any other permanent in the deck is a bit different than reanimate plus entomb.

  10. #30
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    If you're finding it's working, that awesome. I just see a lot of combo parts that don't play well together. Drawing running CBs or Estrid's doesn't accomplish anything, add in Aminatoa or Teferi into this and we're doing yet more nothing. There's a lot of slots of "what's the plan here exactly?" You've got pretty high likelihood of seeing these effects in hand at same time at such high slots.

    All the stuff not working great together has pretty high mana investment, and it's not unlikely to have a scenario where hand does nothing and you're blindly speculating about which combo piece A you should deploy [on a does-nothing turn] based on unknown topdeck piece B. The thing about synergy vs 1-card combos is that multi-turn planning kinda needs to be dependable. So you've got the tools to make speculative payoff plays, but you're also walking blindly through a minefield. In that example you might be casting Estrid without anything to copy since it can lead to a Dead Drop next turn, but then you step on the Aminatoa topdeck landmine and realize Estrid + Aminatoa in a vacuum does nothing.

    So if it's working for you, dissect the games and figure out if you can clean up the amount of uncertainties/possible outcomes through deck construction. I don't know that the deck really rewards precise planning as built.

  11. #31
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2011
    Posts

    4,776

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    I agree with Fox that 4 Aminatou + 3 Estrid looks like too much 3-mana durdle.

    The magical Xmasland scenario is great. They generate immediate value the turn you cast them and then keep generating value every turn. That engine should pummel nonblue fair decks. Creature decks drawing 1 card per turn cannot compete with a blink engine generating +1 extra card per turn, especially when you curve that into Yorion. You'll bury combo decks too, assuming you have the counters to disrupt their first wave.

    The problem is playing the very popular fair blue decks and getting the engine disrupted. Aminatou and Estrid basically do nothing on their own. They require you to have resolved a relevant enchantment to blink. If they countered or Decayed your T2 enchantment (Omen? Trial? CB?) then your 3 drop does nothing. Or if you drew the wrong T2 enchantment, then you're generating the wrong value at the wrong time. Do you want a 3-mana Preordain (Omen) when facing fast beatdown? Do you want to copy Trial on your upkeep or mainphase when they have no non-haste/flash/Uro creatures? If you draw the right cards in the right order it's fine, but this seems like unnecessary variance for what's already an 80-card deck, and that may be why you're only winning 40%. Is the engine assembling correctly often enough?

    What if you tweaked the numbers so you have more 3-mana business and fewer blink slots? Remember, you still have Yorion to abuse them. 3feri's - ability also works as a cantripping blink. Yorion and 3feri don't generate as powerful an engine, but they also don't cost you variance in your draws.

    Maybe more copies of 3feri and Oath of Kaya and Detention Sphere, down to 2 Aminatou + 2 Estrid.

    You could shave a Court of Grace too. 3 copies seems excessive for a conditional 4-drop.

    What about more MD interaction with Oko? Trial and Oath just kill an Elk, but then they are still ahead on cards. Both Forces leave you down a card. CB will be hard to set at 3 fast enough to stop a turn 3 Oko. Detention Sphere is your best answer so far. Still, it leaves you slighly behind in the trade: you both spend 3 mana and a card, but they keep a 3/3 Elk and have the chance to remove Sphere to get Oko back.

    Edit: To interact with Carpet and Blasts, maybe you need to board into faster interaction like Blasts and Pierces.

  12. #32

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    You are making two different points:

    My engine cards need specific things to go with them and don’t synergize so I have too many dead draws

    My curve is too high.

    The latter I could buy, especially with Yorion already providing flood insurance. Probably should cut 4th CB and 3Rd estrids for a spell Pierce and a preordain.

    The former I disagree with. Aminatou plus CB is a one side chalice plus mini-dac. 3feri plus CB turns your ponders and preordains into Counterspell. Aminatou plus 3feri is a 3feri uptick plus down tick every turn.

    Estrids plus counterbalance gives you some value with fetches and lets you run out court of grace into a losing board. Planeswalkers plus estrids resets it if it got stuck without something to copy. Astrolabe means the floor of the planeswalkers is a draw 2 with upside.

  13. #33

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Sorry missed your message FTW. I still think I want 8 engines, but 3feri could be less win more than the other 2. It seems that you think I should play more interaction and rely more on Yorion as a value engine.

    I do think 3feri and aminatou/ CB synergize well and are not do nothings. I didn’t think my curve was too high since it was a just scaled up Bant miracles deck; but perhaps as fox mentioned I was not taking into account uro cheating on mana costs.

    Using your guys advice:
    4 CB
    3 Pierce
    4 Aminatou
    3 Estrids
    3 Court
    2 3Feri
    2 Dsphere
    1 Oath

    To

    3 CB
    2 Estrids
    4 Pierce
    2 Aminatou
    3 Dsphere
    2 Court
    4 3feri
    2 Oath


    I hope I don’t come off as too defensive; FTW and fox you have been very helpful in distilling the deck down to better floor cards while still keeping the uniqueness.

    Edit: as an aside, in this meta do you think mystical dispute or Pierce is better?
    Pros:
    Urza, Emry, Hullbreacher, delver, leovold, soulherder, coatl, sprite dragon, non-cavern doomsday piles etc
    Much harder tax to play around
    Chalice/Prelate
    Can be cast vs anything late game.
    Cons:
    Crop rotation/doomsday/valakut exploration/library/bolt/pyro etc
    Can counter chalice/3ball/choke etc.

  14. #34
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Let's do an example then: you're getting beat down by double Delver, and in two turns you're dead. So this turn you have 3 lands in play and an Estrid and a CB in hand - now whatever play you make has to have the best shot of not dying in two turns. So are you:
    -Jamming Estrid b/c they probably won't Daze it [empty board] and next turn topdeck the Edict enchant?
    -Conversely, are we hoping they Daze so Teferi next turn resolves and bounces a Delver?
    -Are you jamming CB b/c you can pay for Daze, and it can protect a topdeck wipe [D Sphere]?
    -What if the topdeck was going to be Amanitoa - were you supposed to jam CB, resolve Amanitoa countering REB with topdeck Plow, [+1] and choose to beat Bolt if you have running 1-drops or are you playing tricksy and leaving a Plow you can't cast in hand, putting Estrid's on top to counter their Oko tap-out?

    What was the best line in here? This kind of forking is avoidable at deck construction by selecting towards one type of synergy where regardless of the lucky business topdeck, either type of piece A is able to utilize the piece B. This kind of 50-50'ing yourself is avoidable. You don't have to do this to yourself.

    You've got these mana-intensive pieces, which is already tough, but then they don't even provide you a direction to turn skill into win%.

  15. #35

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Quote Originally Posted by Fox View Post
    Let's do an example then: you're getting beat down by double Delver, and in two turns you're dead. So this turn you have 3 lands in play and an Estrid and a CB in hand - now whatever play you make has to have the best shot of not dying in two turns. So are you:
    -Jamming Estrid b/c they probably won't Daze it [empty board] and next turn topdeck the Edict enchant?
    -Conversely, are we hoping they Daze so Teferi next turn resolves and bounces a Delver?
    -Are you jamming CB b/c you can pay for Daze, and it can protect a topdeck wipe [D Sphere]?
    -What if the topdeck was going to be Amanitoa - were you supposed to jam CB, resolve Amanitoa countering REB with topdeck Plow, [+1] and choose to beat Bolt if you have running 1-drops or are you playing tricksy and leaving a Plow you can't cast in hand, putting Estrid's on top to counter their Oko tap-out?

    What was the best line in here? This kind of forking is avoidable at deck construction by selecting towards one type of synergy where regardless of the lucky business topdeck, either type of piece A is able to utilize the piece B. This kind of 50-50'ing yourself is avoidable. You don't have to do this to yourself.
    I’m not sure if that is a fair example. 2 hullbreachers or library plus days undoing from this weekends top8 would look pretty bad in that situation too. Except for that pair and estrids plus pw every pair has extreme synergy. I get your point though and trimmed both above.

    It probably doesn’t help my case, but estrids doesn’t get the blink ability if it doesn’t copy anything. (If desperate you can reset with planeswalkers but) Almost always lines 1 and 2 are not an option. I don’t see the difference between line 3 and 4 since both involve casting CB now, drawing removal and then using a fetch to protect it.

  16. #36
    Member

    Join Date

    May 2015
    Location

    PDX
    Posts

    2,477

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    I’m not sure if that is a fair example. 2 hullbreachers or library plus days undoing from this weekends top8 would look pretty bad in that situation too. Except for that pair and estrids plus pw every pair has extreme synergy. I get your point though and trimmed both above.

    It probably doesn’t help my case, but estrids doesn’t get the blink ability if it doesn’t copy anything. (If desperate you can reset with planeswalkers but) Almost always lines 1 and 2 are not an option. I don’t see the difference between line 3 and 4 since both involve casting CB now, drawing removal and then using a fetch to protect it.
    Ok so after 12 dmg from Delvers, we'd place you at 3 vs Bolt in hand (which is the lethal blow). I guess we need that for the scenario you're trying to beat.

  17. #37
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2011
    Posts

    4,776

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Looking forward to hearing how your deck does with all the recent iterations of changes.

    If you're getting beatdown by double Delver, you probably want Snapcaster Mage because your best out is double Plow.

    When I recently brewed UWx control with enchantments, I went a very different route with CB RipField, which is a prison strategy instead of an incremental value engine. That has very different implications for how you play around threats. The response to double Delver was to EOT cantrip/ETutor into Energy Field, with or without RiP. That 1 card then nullifies the double Delver and any other threats in hand for at least several turns, creating time to find RiP or Terminus to take back the game. DSphere was another option for 2 threats of the same name. Needing to only resolve 1 card to stabilize really simplifies card selection decisions and playing around counters. Traditional UWx control has Terminus as that reset button. Here, you don't really have a single out. You need to assemble an engine or draw into multiple removal effects. That makes it inherently harder to stabilize from behind, something that control needs to do against fast decks. Tweaking the numbers as above may help this.

    Why did you cut Terminus? No Dead of Winter either? You're a 0-creature deck so what's the downside? I think all the Yorion decks from the Companion era ran either Terminus or Dead.

  18. #38

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Looking forward to hearing how your deck does with all the recent iterations of changes.

    If you're getting beatdown by double Delver, you probably want Snapcaster Mage because your best out is double Plow.

    When I recently brewed UWx control with enchantments, I went a very different route with CB RipField, which is a prison strategy instead of an incremental value engine. That has very different implications for how you play around threats. The response to double Delver was to EOT cantrip/ETutor into Energy Field, with or without RiP. That 1 card then nullifies the double Delver and any other threats in hand for at least several turns, creating time to find RiP or Terminus to take back the game. DSphere was another option for 2 threats of the same name. Needing to only resolve 1 card to stabilize really simplifies card selection decisions and playing around counters. Traditional UWx control has Terminus as that reset button. Here, you don't really have a single out. You need to assemble an engine or draw into multiple removal effects. That makes it inherently harder to stabilize from behind, something that control needs to do against fast decks. Tweaking the numbers as above may help this.

    Why did you cut Terminus? No Dead of Winter either? You're a 0-creature deck so what's the downside? I think all the Yorion decks from the Companion era ran either Terminus or Dead.
    Terminus was the reason I started this deck, since aminatou makes it fast enough vs 2020 decks compared to Jace. Fox was of the (correct) opinion that it made your mana too sketchy with double t1 off colour; you become more reliant on mystic sanctuary and duals. Perhaps now that my black requirements are much lighter (6 cards, none t1) I can afford it again.

    If I added miracles back in I would probably cut the extra removal slot (oath) for 2 terminus and a court for an entreat.

    On the prison vs control strat I just thought ugx control is inherently good vs prison And e tutor was a lot of card disadvantage in fair blue. The sideboard as you can see still has a heavy prison element for unfair decks.

  19. #39
    Member

    Join Date

    Sep 2011
    Posts

    4,776

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Terminus looks good to add back in then.

    If you decide against the mass removal, Baleful Strix is another option. It doesn't work with Estrid, but it does work with Aminatou, 3feri and Yorion to generate cards and it also deals with things like early Delvers. Early Yorion decks were playing it as extra Coatls.

  20. #40

    Re: Bumbleberry Pie

    Considering how much elves there are right now, and wanting to keep the black a light splash, the mass removal is probably better.

    Thoughts on prison realm instead of d sphere?

    Getting your oko removal veiled/reB is really bad.
    You want the new wording to kill the 2nd oko with a blink. With banishing light if you blink it they have to choose which one to keep to the legend rule before you choose targets. Detention sphere has the old wording so your targeting trigger will resolve before the first, exiled, oko comes back.
    Increases the density of effects you want to copy with estrids.

    Doesn’t pitch to fow when dead.
    Can’t get the occasional 2 for 1 of elks.


    Edit: re above, I assume I am understanding the rules correctly that sba are checked before putting triggers on the stack, so I get to choose targets after the opponent resolves the legendary rule.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)