Karakas is one of the key cards against SnS, so a DnT player is more likely to keep a hand that contains one, which means that despite only being a 3-of, it's more likely to be in our G2/G3 keep. It's generally right for them to play around it rather than make a high variance play that loses on the spot half the time. G1 they often don't have a choice and have to play more recklessly (but the chances we'll have a Karakas is lower, because we didn't know we were playing vs SnS).
SnT -> Omni is entirely beatable by LRW and I do it all the time. Sometimes they win with the trigger on the stack, so Ethersworn is still the best option if you've got it, but Relic-Warder is still 2nd best in a vacuum. SnS players almost never just throw Emrakul out there like that anymore - and that's precisely why the match-up got much worse for us.
Well, I disagree with that. Trying to understand your reply I think you're basing your play in:
1 - The final result anticipated by AntiquatedNotion. I don't think that affects the play you take, sometimes you make the play you should and still losing, this is MTG and sometimes 1 + 1 != 2 here.
2 - The thoughts your opponent can be related with, or maybe not and he has another experiences in playtesting. That's subjective and fortunately not every Sneak & Show player is JPA.
I'd base my thoughts on pure statistics here. Let's say that sometimes you've to gamble while playing a combo deck and the risk is not that high in this case. You, as Sneak & Show player, are facing a deck that cannot manipulate his library to find one of the 3 cards he needs to see in 9 cards once the big buddy has touched the board.
Let's analize each scenario and see what would happen:
A - Show and Tell -> Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I think this option is the least likely because obviously is the worst in paper. Playing Leonin Relic-Warder your only out there is to see Karakas in the top 2 cards of your library. Jamming Palace Jailer you're still on the game and you're ahead cause the CA, the pressure going for free and having disruption in hand already with which he has to deal immediately.
B - Show and Tell -> Griselbrand. If I play Leonin Relic-Warder I'm in a spot pretty similar as the previous one, even worse because not necessarily he's gonna give me 2 draw steps to find Karakas. If I go for Palace Jailer it's gonna depend to what he does. If he draws 7 cards in response to trigger I still being fighting there and I'll be probably ahead as well because maybe those 7 cards are not enough to recover the disadvantage generated by going off so early for "nothing" and he would have lost 9 life + 2 from Palace Jailer swinging and having to deal with rough cards. If he activates Griselbrand twice he've just lost: 14 from Griselbrand + 2 from Ancient Tomb + 2 from Palace Jailer. You can neither activate Ancient Tomb next turn neither combine Force of Will on Thalia, Guardian of Thraben + fetch. And if you let that Thalia, Guardian of Thraben resolve you've lost anyway.
C - Show and Tell -> Omniscience. Here another card should be entering in the operation for him to do something relevant. That's not an easy thing given that he has just seen 8 cards and have 4 cards to start that have hurt, is not that easy that he has the fifth to close the game but I should evaluate that to take a decission. If I play Leonin Relic-Warder I'll keep playing if his extra card is not a Cunning Wish (if he's running that version) or if he just has not gas to follow that play. If Leonin Relic-Warder leaves the play at some point I'll be out anyway and the game is gonna go longer... Otherwise playing Palace Jailer I lose in the scenario given by AntiquatedNotion and if he has nothing to follow it up I'd try to play Leonin Relic-Warder in my turn and hope he didn't have countermagic.
D - Show and Tell -> Sneak Attack. Pretty bad option as well and unlikely if he has not played another Lotus Petal or cannot activate it that turn, because he can eat more of our cards and he would give us the oportunity to untap for it. Pretty weird line.
In addition to that, it could depend on the version as I said. One tipically runs 4 of each buddies + 2 Omniscience maindeck and the other has 3x of every one. But I think I'd take the same play anyway because statistics still being in my favor.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except DEATH & TAXES
Blind in that situation, the odds are roughly even if it's an enchantment or a creature, assuming they play 2 Omni, 4 Sneak, and 3 of each Griselbrand and Emrakul. I'm less sure of your play than I was earlier, because an enchantment just beats you while a creature can potentially be stopped if you topdeck Karakas. Then again, if you had reason to suspect they had fewer Sneak Attacks, I definitely would support your call.
The absence of Canonist is partially compensated for by Chalice.
Cataclysm is far superior to Gideon in almost any control matchup, Grixis included. However, I prefer Gideon right now to its flexibility, notably its ability to mitigate Dread of Night. Once some of these unhealthy trends pass, I will go back to Cataclysm.
I didn't say omni wasn't beatable by LRW. I said it was unlikely to be in the first turn. My train of thought is: turn 1 show and tell? I expect Emrakul or Griselbrand. Because I know I won't be able to beat omniscience. Ethersworn and LRW are terrific at ruining the late game for value show and tell into omniscience, because by then you'll have reduced their life total and resources somewhat. But if you drop them turn 1, they're not very likely to amount to much. You are turns away from being even threatening and they only need to find one piece of removal or another combo to win. The odds that they're gambling on you not having karakas or their griselbrand drawing them the win are much greater.
LOL! There's no hope for me now (I'm a dedicated SnT player while son is a dedicated DnT player.
Could I just clarify that we lowlifes tend to play with two versions:
- 2 omniscience in MB (no cunning wish / intuition version)
- 3 omniscience in the MB (cunning wish / intuition version)
In addition, is GY decks on the decline due to the meta (e.g. Death's shadow) or is the meta's sideboard still GY unfriendly? Because I've seen some games where son plays karakas T1, pass turn (not only to me obviously)
When I talked to AntiquatedNotion at the event (before he told me what his opponent put in), my line was also LRW.
I think P(Your opponent has the nuts with Omniscience or just wants to draw 7-14 with Griselbrand | He goes yolo on turn 1) > P(Your opponent is an idiot who wants to lose to Karakas, Disenchant variant or Revoker by putting in Emrakul or Sneak Attack | He goes yolo on turn 1). You can't do anything about Griselbrand drawing cards given you didn't have a Revoker in hand, Emrakul and Sneak Attack are both horrible plays and all other things being equal you shouldn't assume your opponent is an idiot, so I'd just play around the worst case scenario, which his all-in approach makes subjectively more likely.
That's IT I AM DONE WITH BALEFUL STRIX, DONE
Sleeving 2 Karma
The Play-Around-Karakas? thing got me thinking about something interesting that I've internalized but never seen explicitly written about.
So the raw probability of a Karakas being in a 7 card opening hand is 31%. If they tossed in an Emrakul, we could eat one attack, so we'd have two draws, which ups the chances of a Karakas appearing to 39%. That means that if robots were playing our cards for us and couldn't mulligan, turn 1 Emrakul is always a correct play, and 60% of the time we lose to the second stupidest creature ever printed. (Let's forget about the out of SnT in land + cast turn 2 Council's Judgment, that actually came up for me once.)
But let's say we have a strategy - as a DnT player, we always, 100% of the time, mull to Karakas. We're a new player, all we know about how to play the matchup is 'get Karakas' and that's what we're going to do. We draw 7 cards and we keep. From the opponent's perspective, what are the chances that there's a Karakas in our hand now? It's not 31%, it's 100%. If our opponent knows we mull to Karakas, now tossing in Emrakul will be a terrible play 100% of the time rather than 39%.
Related example: I used to play Dredge in Modern and the most effective SB card is obviously Leyline. When my opponent would keep 7 card hands and I knew they were on a Leyline deck, I'd mull an explosive hand to look for a disenchant effect. If they mulled to 6 (they're obviously on the play g2) I'd be more likely to keep a great hand without a disenchant effect and hope they'd mull to oblivion or end up with a 4 card Leyline hand that could be beat with hardcast Prized Amalgams.
Leylines are an example of the most straight-forward 'mull to this card' strategy. DnT players don't actually mull to Karakas, and everyone here would keep 'Vial, Thalia, C Priest, Wasteland, Recruiter, Port, Plains' even though it loses to turn 1 Emrakul. But the card is still one of the very best cards to have in the matchup, and will bias our keep and mulligans, we're more likely to keep okay 7s that have a Karakas and more likely to keep bad 6s because they have a Karakas.
This is why opponents always feel like DnT players have Vial and Chalice players have Chalice - not that everyone mulls to those cards in every spot, but you're more likely to keep bad hands with one, or mull a mediocre hand without one, which effectively ups the chances of it appearing from above the natural 40%. And from your opponent's POV, the chances of those cards being in your opening 7 should be greater than 40% precisely because you kept. You can't put an actual number on that because it depends on the player, but based on how some people play Chalice decks vs Blue decks it actually might approach 100%.
Tournament Report for 59th at the GP. http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=1979
I finally found some time to play Legacy again today, and decided to run D&T. I was paired against Grixis Control (2-0), ANT (1-2), UW Miracles (2-0) and Ug OmniShow (2-0). My list is kinda whacky anyway, so I decided to run a singleton Mangara of Corondor in my mainboard (for nostalgia, and over a singleton Orzhov Pontiff, since I haven't felt pestered by True-Name Nemesis that much any more lately), and what can I say... it was f*cking bonkers :D I snatched a Gurmag Angler, Bitterblossom and at least 3 lands from the Grixis player, the last two permanents the Miracles player had in game two (both basic lands), and a Sylvan Library from the Omnisneak player. Also, Sanctum Prelate. People still underestimate this card, I think - I have three copies post-board, and it does so much if you, er, play your cards right. I'm still on three Cavern of Souls, and I feel this card has upped Mangara's power considerably in absence of Aether Vials and a slow-ish meta.
Also funny: My sole game win versus ANT was powered by Shalai, Voice of Plenty from an Aether Vial @ 4 in response to opp's Tendrils of Agony. (My blind keep game one proved shitty against Storm, and in G3, he was just too fast for our archetype.) Good times! :)
Despite the fact that storm-based combos are less prevailing, what are your thoughts for SB:
Ethersworn Canonist vs. Chalice of the Void ?
Has anyone tested extensively with Chalice to provide a sound answer or position?
This has already been addressed. Not a flop, but rather our beaters change with the tides of the meta. With all the Bx lists running around, Mirran is the obvious winner for the slot. If miracles becomes the top list, Brightling reclaims the slot.
Really not a difficult concept unless you are used to thinking like a standard player.
I'm having a hard time justifying playing Batterskull after Assassin's Trophy goes live. It was always very meh vs Miracles, swings on turn 4 at the earliest vs combo and if BUG goodstuff becomes The Fair Deck to replace Grixis Control the card won't basically ever do anything. Replace with Darksteel Plate? Indestructible Flickerwisp, take that Strix.
That seems pretty limited for what it does.
Interesting ideas. Certainly batterskull being clunky can be very frustrating. However, Grixis already had kcommand as an answer right? But we’ve still played batterskull against it and in the format, because when it goes unanswered it’s quite potent. I’ve always liked it myself against miracles cause I viewed it as the second best flickerwisp target. Nothing is better following terminus than an instant speed 3/1 and 4/4 imo. I certainly would be one to agree it’s poor vs combo, though the stone gorge package as a whole is quite poor against most combo decks. All in all I still think it’ll be quite good and we will see an even greater uptick in crusader, but I also see where you’re coming from.
It's very likely that I'm still just in the "wtf they actually printed this omg"-phase. Without DRS around you can more likely keep your opponent off their mana for K-command whereas Ass Trophy just costs two, although it does give you land and fetching the Batterskull was still card advantage even if you lost quite a bit of tempo. Maybe it's not as bad as I think O̶n̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶I̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶t̶t̶y̶ ̶c̶e̶r̶t̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶T̶u̶r̶b̶o̶ ̶D̶e̶p̶t̶h̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶u̶n̶p̶l̶a̶y̶a̶b̶l̶e̶.̶ EDIT: Trophy might just help Depths more than hinder, playing against the card sucks but getting something that helps vs Lands/Aggro Loam/Jace is a nice plus.
Last edited by jolssoni; 09-23-2018 at 01:56 PM.
Assassin's Trophy doesn't impact D&T much, I guess - they can hit 4CMC creatures and lands with this, but everything else was dead to Abrupt Decay already anway. I see the stock of Mirran Crusader (and critters that have resistance to "destroy" effects built in, or that have pro-black) going up, but that's about it. A hassle, sure - but with D&T's virtually endless stream of basic Plains, nothing to be too worried about.
Bounty Agent is garbage.
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