I would highly encourage you to test with at least 3 dazes. Dazes can just win you games against vengevine survival because a counterbalance blind flip at 2cc counters survival and your not exactly vulnerable either if you decide to tap out to play counterbalance(Assuming if it's the correct play at the time).
Also, you have the ability to play daze and spell snare on just one island when necassary.
Let's assume I don't play your same list, but I do play Confidants, Goyf, and every other colour you play as well.
I'm playing with 5 colours, splashing Red mainly foir Firespout and Grim Lavamancer.
Firespout is way too resolutive to be unplayed, since it just shut their early game against Goblins and can be quite useful even in other MUs (as Zoo and Merefolk).
Lavamancer may seem quite odd due to their slowness. They aren't as resolutive as Firespout but can kill Piledrivers and Warchief, getting quite useful if accompanied with counters. However I'm still not sure whether to bring them in or not in this match up.
Hope this helps :)
Actually I think your manabase has too many duals. Much depends on your sideboard anyway...
Mine is quite "Wastable" but I still carry two Islands.
Since you'll fetch a dual just when you'll need its non-blue mana, you can still play with Island and 1-2 duals per color. I feel like two is the right number as long as you won't use them expect for 1-2 cards.
I've dropped Lavamancers totally since they require too much red mana. Even if they can handle Merefolk alone, you'll still want at least two Volcanic Island in play. That won't happen before turn 4, if you still want to play Counterbalance, SDT and Confidant and on t4 you gain access to powerful spells such as Llawan, so just forget about the Lavamancers I mentioned.
To be able to play Firespout you just need a single source, so playing with just a Volcanic is alright, IMHO.
Ok I need some feedback here folks to determine whether or not im just overzealous, successful or just plain stupid. Or maybe a bit of both.
Folks, what about ghostly prison?
My local meta is sprawling with creature aggro, mostly tribal such as goboloids, fish n' chips and some zoo etc. I might sound like crazy, but wouldnt ghostly prison be pretty useful in such a meta? I've never seen dreadstill builds running them (incidentally, I do happen to run its substitute as well - peacekeeper. Yes., I am that serious about overcoming those match ups.) I've tried running engineered plague but it was too narrow. I've tried playing other decks and even dreadstill without CBtop alas, none of earlier mentioned alternatives have without less flaws than a typical dreadstill archetype.
I'm running a pretty standard dreadstill list without standstills of course (definately a no-go in my meta), splashing black for confidant. The only oddity is that I have 4 plows main. My SB looks like this:
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [WL] Peacekeeper
SB: 2 [6E] Perish
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [CHK] Ghostly Prison
So... thoughts on my thoughts?
I'm not a fan of Ghostly Prison for several reasons:
1: you will never have it online as a 2of - and it's really only feasible creature hate in multiples (barring the dredge.dec MU)
2: your opponents will board all their enchantment/artifact hate, so if G.P. really bothers them, they will just be getting rid of it ("having waste their hate on G.P. = saving my Noughts"-arguments don't count here.) You really want your hate to be gamebreaking.
3: Better alternatives: Path to Exile, Perish #3, Submerge, Hibernation,
1. That is why I complement it with peacekeeper. Like I said earlier though, both might be overkill. Peacekeeper is pretty much instant win vs merfolk though and it can help stall the game for a little while vs goblins for instance.
2. This is the best argument against ghostly prison so far in my opinion. You might be correct, I'll have to do further testing before im convinced though
3. Spot removals arent simply enough for the goblin onslaught and thats a major problem. In the last tournament here in my town, there were AT LEAST 5 goblin decks out of 27 participants. Perish, submerge and hibernation are all niched towards green creatures only and my meta is definately not infested with enough vengevine to justify running submerge/hibernation and I'm already running 2 perish.
I need something to deal large amounts of creatures and splashing red is not an alternative.
Calls for banning are almost always the scrubs way out. Real men view a challenge as something to overcome, a puzzle to solve, an opportunity to be had, and the source of evolution.
I really don't mind about posting my list since it isn't something secret :-)
Here it is:
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
3 Wasteland
2 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Trinket Mage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
1 Trygon Predator
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Sword to Plowshares
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Stifle
1 Trickbind
SIDEBOARD:
1 Trygon Predator
2 Krosan Grip
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Firespout
1 Llawwan, Cephalid Empress
1 Extirpate
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Hydroblast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Perish
1 Nature's Ruin
I know the list is quite odd, but isn't that strange actually.
First I'll explain why I play both Confidant AND Firespout.
Firespout is almost fundamental against decks like Merefolk and quite good against other decks like Zoo. I know that Perish-like cards are almost a winning condition in the Zoo matchup but lately in my area they are getting quite used to it, so Firespout is quite a threat.
In the Zoo matchup if Confidant gets to stay alive for a few turns, basically the time you need to get Firespout and the red source, you'll want your beast to die since you'll be quite low on the life total.
Against Goblins Firespout is lethal, since it resets the board and the only card that can help them to rebuild their board is Vial.
Is it true that Plague steals games against Gobs, but it isn't as powerful as Firespout in the Merefolk MU. They play between 12 and 14 Lords, so they'll easily avoid the Plague effect. Moreover BoB is an acceptable loss when compared to killing Lord of Atlantis or something lile that.
I really don't like playing something like Peacekeeper or Ghostly Prison. They can remove both between Pridemages, Grps, Bolts, Swords and everything else. If I should carry another hate card for this kind of matchup I'll maybe choose a second Explosive. If played well, it is enough tht along with Swords.
If you don't like any of these options, you can still play Chill :P
I do like Llawan against Merefolk, but I'm not so sure on getting four lands and a few 0-cost counterspells on t4..
Something you may consider odd is the number of Dreadnoughts. It is quote normal for me since I often find myself Stifle-ing something that'as not Nought. Moreover the artifact gets removed really often, that you will hardly win a mach with it.
Trygon is mainly for Mirrors, and other ct-based deck, since they're so common in my area.
Placed 5th at a 46 person tourney last night with Uwb Dreadstill. Same list as my last report.
I think that Uwb is the best version of the deck at present, but that may change depending on the next banned/restricted update. Dark Confidant and Peacekeeper are extremely good in the meta, with lots of decks playing minimal amounts of removal.
I sense Ugr might be the direction to take if Vengevine decks see a decline, but that may not be the case even if Survival gets banned. Goyf/Spout + REB/Grip were better in the CounterTop/Zoo era. We'll have to see if they make a comeback or not.
My matchups for the day were against Dredge, New Horizons, UW Tempo, 2x Eva Green, and UGW Survival.
- Dredge was a bye. Game 1 I resolved an early Nought and raced him. Game 2 I countered his first discard, removed his bridges with Nought, popped an EE to kill all his remaining tokens, then found and played another Nought.
- New Horizons blew me out with insane Daze/Spell Pierce draws both games. Couldn't find removal for his Knight.
- UW Tempo was close. Got lucky when he had no removal for Nought game 1 (after Trickbind dodged his hand of counters), lost game 2 to some weenies and multiple Wasteland off of Wayfarer, then game 3 he forgot to pay upkeep on Jotun Grunt and my Bob and Mishra's got there.
- Against the Eva Green decks I kept them off green mana with Wastelands and Needle on Verdant Catacombs, and assembled CBTop with a 2 and 3 cmc on top. Mishra beats in a couple games, Jace in another. Forced and Swords his Tombstalkers. Board out the Noughts in this matchup.
- UGW Survival couldn't stick a Survival through my wall of Spell Snare, Daze and then Counterbalance. He hardcasted Vine, but I traded with Mishras. I think a Nought came down eventually. Game 2 I topdecked 2 Peacekeepers and just held him off after gaining 12 life from a Nought. Waited to play Jace until I had plenty of mana open (time was on my side), and he eventually conceded.
Was seeded first going into top 8 (5-1), but then lost round 1 to aggro loam. Game 1 Pulse on my Nought, then burned me out with Seismic + Loam. Next game, I boarded out Noughts and EEs for Swords/Needle/Relic/Crypt and he needled Jace (taking out Noughts might not have been correct, but I figured he would board in Grip). The card advantage from Loam was too much. Would like to have Extirpate for this matchup. Maybe next time.
Last edited by keys; 12-14-2010 at 09:24 PM.
So, supposedly, Survival is confirmed to be banned.
To me, this increases Jaces value in the meta. With that many Vengevines running around, he was pretty underwhelming. I feel he's in a prime spot to dominate. Right now I'm looking at Uwr with two Jaces in the main, StP in the main, Peacekeeper and Firespout in the board. What are other peoples' thoughts on a Survival-free meta and Dreadstill? It doesn't seem like very many decks have adapted to the Survival meta in the first place, so it's probably not a big deal in relation to the bearing it has on deck building around here, but it's a pretty significant change that will require changes to our decks too.
Where's that picture from? Wizards, or did someone make it?
-Matt
Uwb Dreadstill has been where it's at for almost half a year now, and I don't see anything in the near future that will change this.
Suddenly, Fluffy realized she wasn't quite like the other bunnies anymore.
-Team R&D-
-noitcelfeR maeT-
Unless you're Rodney.... In which case Ur is what it has been about since day 1 of Dreadstill.
Anyways, the list Rico is talking about is this (roughly)
// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [P3] Island (2)
3 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (2)
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [A] Tundra
3 [B] Underground Sea
3 [TE] Wasteland
// Creatures
4 [MI] Phyrexian Dreadnought
3 [FD] Trinket Mage
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
// Spells
4 [5E] Brainstorm
3 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [DD2] Daze
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [OD] Standstill
4 [SC] Stifle
1 [TSP] Trickbind
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [6E] Perish
SB: 1 [7E] Plains (3)
SB: 3 [AT] Swords to Plowshares
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 3 [WL] Peacekeeper
SB: 1 [10E] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
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