Vacrix
10-13-2008, 05:18 PM
DOA. Yes the acronym for "Dead or Alive". Its also the acronym for "Devesating dreams Or Apocalypse", or "Devastating dreams, Obliterate, Apocalypse". This deck IS essentially dead or alive as I believe it has great matchups against aggro and contol, but poor matchups against combo, burn and ichorid. You decide.
I need suggs if you please:
DOA Version 1.0
1 Apocalypse
1 Devastating Dreams
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Remand
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Nihilith
1 Fire//Ice
1 Pyroclasm
2 Mishra’s Factory
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodedstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
4 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
SB:
1 Apocalypse
3 Devastating Dreams
1 Obliterate
1 Overmaster
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
4 Stifle
4 Leyline of the Void
Card choices:
Apocalypse (Apoc): Excellent for blowing the board. Its obliterate at 5 mana and takes care of epochrasite and random shit. This is the mass removal spell you play against slower aggro, stompy, control and aggro control. Note that discard your hand happens after the spell resolves.
Devastating Dreams (DD): Also excellent for blowing the board but doesn't deal with vials. Resolving this at 3 or 4 should pretty much screw an aggro player as most aggro (even goyf's at turns 1-4) have creatures with toughness 4 or less (ie. myr enforcer and goyf are the largest you see usually). you can also play DD against stompy if you are feeling adventurous. Not recommended against control though as you usually cant get rid of all of their land in one go, and you have to discard X cards as an additional cost to play the spell. Not good if you run into countermagic.
Mystical Tutor: Very versatile. Can fetch you discard, but usually combo pieces. Fetch a pyroclasm to slow them down if you want to Apoc on turn 5-7.
Burning Wish: Also very versatile. You can fetch obliterate against control, overmaster to draw a counter, shattering spree to get rid of vials, equipment, etc. pyroclasm to slow aggro down, or more importantly Apoc or DD.
Thoughtseize: Grab goyf's or anything else that deals damage quickly to slow down aggro. grab counter magic against control. grab discard against discard. or combo enablers against combo. Pretty self explanatory and great for protecting your combo.
Duress: sure it doesnt work against aggro cause you can't grab creatures. Well not really. you dont like to see vial if you are play DD as you can't remove vial with DD. You also don't like to see StP on your suspend creatures either. Its more protection against control and more distruption against combo.
Brainstorm: Dig through your deck a little. Shuffle away some stuff you don't want with a fetch. Protect combo pieces from discard. I like it alot.
Remand: Time walk against aggro. Functions as a counter against control (ie. i play burning wish, you counter, i remand BURNING WISH, play it again or next turn.). Also functions as a counter against combo (ie. lotus petal, dark rit, infernal contract. remand contract. ok you get back contract but not dark rit and lotus petal).
Greater Gargadon (GG): great against control. Apoc, sac the rest of my lands to leave one counter on GG, pass, next turn smash for 9, following with another smash next turn. This guy usually kills in 2 turns if your opponent plays with fetches. Not as good against aggro as it comes down slower if you are playing with DD and not apoc (less to sac and higher suspend).
Nihilith: this guy has amazing synergy with DD as your opponent will lose 3 to 4 land (loses 3 to 4 counters) and 1- 4 creatures (1 -4 more counters). He has fear to boot, making him swing FTW even if the opponent does lay down blockers. He's like a free creature against ichorid, and he works well with discard. I love this guy. Sometimes though he comes down too early cause his suspend runs out and then he gets removed by obliterate or Apoc. But that is more likely my play mistake then anything else.
Fire//Ice: Its a decent draw to slow aggro a little, but is more useful as removal for gaddock teeg or meddling mage (or wellwisher or random shit like that).
Pyroclasm: Its sick to have the option to tutor up pyroclasm and go off with Apoc instead of DD against aggro. This makes GG come down a little faster. Also, once you go off, its nice to be able to tutor one up to remove blockers once you have a GG down, or if they manage to rebuild too quickly.
Mishra's Factory: Random 2 include? its just good. nice blocker against aggro. nice top deck after a mass removal spell. If you play DD and sac a bunch of lands, leave this one as if you draw another land, fac will function as a creature. Its nice against control too to put a little pressure on and if you get lucky, draw an StP (and you can chump their factories as well)
Fetches: thin the deck a bit, works well with brainstorm.
Duals: color fixing
Basics: anti blood moon, or if you want to run blood moon effects yourself
Leyline of the void: nice side in against thresh and ichorid.
Stifle: post board 8 stifles? should help against combo.
This deck has very different game plans depending on the opponent.
AGGRO:
They win somewhere between turns 3-7. Count on losing turn 4 if you don’t go off. You can generally push it to turn 5 if you have adequate distruption. Essentially you want Devastating Dreams ASAP. I can play it turn 3 quite often. You will generally either play thoughseize/duress on turn 1, and then burning wish, and then, suspend gargadon + dreams. Or you can play turn 1 mystical tutor, turn 2 suspend nihilith, turn 3, 1cc spell + devastating dreams. Generally you want to resolve dreams for 3, but if they have 4 land, go for it. Also, you can hold back on when you play it if you have seen 4 land in their hand because of a discard spell, that way you hit all of their land. Once dreams hits with a suspended creature to back it up you should be fine. Nilith is actually the ideal creature to suspend vs. aggro because it will essentially come into play when they lose 3 or 4 land and 1-5 creatures. Its also cool because it has fear so it will evade any blockers your opponent can manage to lay down in its way. Greater gargadon is a little worse because you will only have 3 or 4, maybe 5 land if you get lucky to sac to GG to make it come down faster. Once it is down though, it has a faster clock than nihilith or equal (if they lay down blockers to chump). It makes up for coming down slowly by killing quickly, most likely with just 2 swings due to all the fetchs and thoughseizes floating around in aggro strat. Aether vial can be a problem for you if you cant get rid of it with dreams. You can also go for Apocalypse if your opponent is playing really slowly, or if you need to get rid of something that DD can’t get rid of. I aggro matchups should be the same after boarding. You get more DD’s but they know what you are playing and know to distrupt your mana base and what colors to keep you off of if they have that strat. Remand is good for stalling, duress can take vials, or concordant crossroads, or StPs. Thoughtseize can take what duress can but can also take goyfs. By the way, a couple tricks you can do with the deck against aggro:
Tutor up pyroclasm to slow them down that way you can remove vial or whatever else with Apoc.
Tutor up Fire//Ice or pyroclasm to deal with difficult creatures that prevent you from resolving DD.
Tutor up pyroclasm with either mystical tutor or burning wish to clear the way for your suspend creatures if your opponent rebuilds successfully.
Brainstorm, leaving mishra’s factory and a land on top, then land DD. You have a creature in 2 turns in addition to a suspend creature if you already suspended one.
Brainstorm + fetch to get rid of stuff you don’t want.
The aggro matchups should be fairly good I think.
CONTROL:
The way to play control is to slow play into apocalypse. DON’T PLAY DD THEY WILL COUNTER IT. DD says that you must discard X cards at random as an additional cost to play the spell, as in Apoc it is a part of the spell if it resolves. Believe it or not, remand is actually very strong here. If you play burning wish, they can counter it. But if that happens, you can remand your own spell instead of their counter, draw, and then try again next turn. It functions like a counterspell that is easier to cast and it draws you a card. It works with Apoc too, and mystical tutor, and even discard if you want it that badly. Before you go off though, I would recommend having several land, enough to cast a discard spell and scope it out, then play Apoc with remand back up, or burning wish. The cool thing about burning wish is that your opponent CANNOT let it resolve. If they do let it resolve, you just fetched obliterate and its on to the next game. They can’t counter your suspend creatures until its too late. By the way, with all the card draw, you draw quite a few suspend creatures throughout a control game. I usually draw about 3, which is enough to beat down any landstill player. Having suspend creatures also can put the opponent to some very difficult decisions in which you resolve a GG at instant speed if you know they have to counter a burning wish or an Apoc. The aggro control matchups are more difficult because those actually put you on a clock instead of dedicated control that kills you turn 30. In thresh, you really have to go for Apoc. In play testing, slow playing into obliterate against slow control was the ideal path for me, but it doesn’t work that easily against thresh or fish. The good thing is that they have very little countermagic so your discard should be enough. Also you don’t fear CB as much as other combo because the only thing that is going to counter Apoc is force, and if they are that slow, go for obliterate. Meddling Mages and some builds that run gaddock teeg can prevent you from resolving Apoc, but you can always search for Fire//Ice or pyroclasm. Overmaster is also a nice burning wish choice if you want to draw a counter or make your Apoc uncounterable. It usually just functions as drawing the counter though. I used to run vexing shusher and magus of the moon/blood moon in here to improve the game but I haven’t really tested either yet. I assume that if they thresh matchup is bad enough, I could add 6 blood moon effects and cut some stuff. I think that the control match ups in general are favorable.
STOMPY:
Stompy is build to beat storm combo. Dragon stompy and Faerie stompy are too slow to kill you before you can resolve Apoc, and stompy is weak against well placed discard. Fortunately, blood moons do nothing to you, as you run basics that you can fetch and Apoc is a red spell. if anything, blood moon should make Apoc easier to play. Trinisphere doesn’t slow you down. Chalice at 1 is not that strong because you still have burning wish, remand, and Apoc. Chalice at 2 is not that strong either because you still have mystical tutor, brainstorm, and discard. I think that the stompy matchups should be very favorable.
DISCARD:
This is a little harder for you to beat. Mystical tutor and brainstorm are excellent here. Watch out because they will hit your suspend creatures if you leave them sitting in your hand. Better to get those out of your hand first. Brainstorm can hide what you need. Mystical tutor in response to a discard spell protects whatever you were searching for. I still think that this matchup is good. I think this matchup is favorable.
SLOW COMBO:
Slow combo takes time to set up, though it can sometimes go off quickly. The advantage that you have though, is that your opponent will have no idea what you are play, so they will expect force, various countermagic, stifle, even counterbalance. I think that if they see blue they will not try to go off too fast and run into problems. Discard should be very useful here, especially if you go first. Yeah sure they can brainstorm, but remand can stop business pretty well in that the opponent still has to play dark rit to get to infernal contract or something like that, so its not a dead card against combo in fact its not bad. In game one, you SHOULD have a bad matchup but you have little bit of an edge if they opponent doesn’t know what you are playing. Nihilith is sooo unbelievably good here. If it suspends it will be down in 3 to 4 turns tops. Especially with all the discard you are playing and all the fetches your opponent is playing. GG is not so good, but can end the game quickly if you can some how get it down. The good thing is that slow combo tends to need its lands to go off more so then other combo that relies more upon fast lotus petal/chrome mox action, so if you can pull off DD or Apoc then by all means go for it. Mostly I think that the way to go is to just tutor up a lot of discard, keep the opponent on his toes, guessing at what your playing, smashing ASAP with nihilith and GG if you can get it down, and hope he is suspicious of that one blue you keep leaving open bluffing stifle. Post board, you get 4 stifle. Keep the discard flowing, smash with nihiliths, and stifle their fetches if you have multiples, and save one for the storm. Most likely they won’t be able to look for chant and have a good hand for going off if you have discard often enough. I think that this matchup is even to slightly unfavorable.
FAST COMBO:
Fast combo rapes you pretty hard. All you can really do is get lucky, bluff force and stifle as often as possible, try to do what I said against slow combo, and smash ASAP with nihilith. You can beat them but its really hard and definitely not favorable. Post board you get stifles. 8 stifles? You should be beating them. They can try to go off turn 1, but if you mull for stifle, they will think you were looking for force and slow play it, and then you just leave mana open for stifle, and let them down their work into gaining 2 life and me losing 2 life. Congrats, now I will smash you with a suspend creature until you die. I think this matchup is even to favorable (after boarding, you should lose game 1).
ICHORID:
Board in leyline of the void, and pray for it. Once it comes down, protect it (hopefully they don’t run grip). Discard to get rid of their draw if you want. Nihilith is like a free creature here with all the shit going into their grave. DD is actually good here in that you can get rid of just about everything they can play except troll. This matchup is not favorable in game 1. In game 2 you get leyline, and that will essentially stop them and if you can protect it with remands and discard you are golden (you remand their spell, they run few land so they can’t replay it that turn, then you make them discard it on your turn. This matchup should be even to unfavorable.
BURN:
The decks worst matchup by far. God all you can really do is pray that they only have 3 land, and that they are winning on turn 4 and not turn 3, and that you can get DD by that turn, and then try to win with a suspend creature. You don’t get anything out of the board. This matchup is very unfavorable.
Overall I think that with proper tuning, this should be able to have decent matchups against a lot of the meta. Its more tuned toward beating aggro and control than combo. I find that I see more control and aggro than anything else anyway (at least in my meta).
Some things I noticed from play testing this build:
I can usually resolve DD for 3 on turn 3, sometimes DD for 4 on turn 3, sometimes DD for 4 on turn 4.
I haven’t really run into many problems with winning after going off. I have 2 or more creatures about a ¼ of the time and against control its even more. So StP isn’t as big a problem as I originally thought.
I ran FoW at first but it wasn’t very good. Sure it helped by game against fast combo and slow combo, but I wasn’t able to go off with Apoc because I was missing land drops (yes I cut FoW for land). It worked though. The thresh matchup got better and its not like I had a plethora of blue to pitch to it anyhow. It was cool protecting Apoc against thresh or landstill but was usually overkill as my discard stripped them completely of protection more often then not (as did burning wish).
Remand is amazing against just about everything. It’s a time walk, against aggro, protects your spells against control, and its actually very decent against combo. I don’t think that anything else could take it’s spot.
I haven’t done as much testing as is needed to accurately depict each matchup, most of these matchups are just assumptions and hypothetical situations based upon what I know about the decks.
Combo and burn have been having problems against counter/top decks anyhow so I think that this could be a good choice for certain metas.
Also I noticed that the deck is quite adaptable to the meta:
Combo heavy meta, drop pyroclasm and fire ice from the MD, run 2 stifle MD, 2 in the board, and drop shattering spree and pyroclasm from the board to run 4 chalice of the void.
Aggro heavy meta. Drop 1 Fire//Ice and run 1 additional devastating dreams in the MD.
Control heavy meta. Blood moon effects in the board. Even vexing shusher.
Meta with multiple burn: 4 Chill, 2 chalice in the board.
Questions:
Could the leylines be better as something else? Like something I could board in 3 to fetch with mystical tutor, and 1 with burning wish?
Stifle. Is there anything better against slow/fast combo that I’m overlooking?
Burn. If it’s a problem and there is SB space, 4 chill?
Thresh. If it’s a problem, 6 blood moon effects? Its fits in just fine into the deck.
SB. Should I run a fetchable discard spell in the board that I can fetch with wish against slow combo or is that unnecessary?
Also, any suggestions?
I need suggs if you please:
DOA Version 1.0
1 Apocalypse
1 Devastating Dreams
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Burning Wish
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
4 Remand
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Nihilith
1 Fire//Ice
1 Pyroclasm
2 Mishra’s Factory
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodedstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
4 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
SB:
1 Apocalypse
3 Devastating Dreams
1 Obliterate
1 Overmaster
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
4 Stifle
4 Leyline of the Void
Card choices:
Apocalypse (Apoc): Excellent for blowing the board. Its obliterate at 5 mana and takes care of epochrasite and random shit. This is the mass removal spell you play against slower aggro, stompy, control and aggro control. Note that discard your hand happens after the spell resolves.
Devastating Dreams (DD): Also excellent for blowing the board but doesn't deal with vials. Resolving this at 3 or 4 should pretty much screw an aggro player as most aggro (even goyf's at turns 1-4) have creatures with toughness 4 or less (ie. myr enforcer and goyf are the largest you see usually). you can also play DD against stompy if you are feeling adventurous. Not recommended against control though as you usually cant get rid of all of their land in one go, and you have to discard X cards as an additional cost to play the spell. Not good if you run into countermagic.
Mystical Tutor: Very versatile. Can fetch you discard, but usually combo pieces. Fetch a pyroclasm to slow them down if you want to Apoc on turn 5-7.
Burning Wish: Also very versatile. You can fetch obliterate against control, overmaster to draw a counter, shattering spree to get rid of vials, equipment, etc. pyroclasm to slow aggro down, or more importantly Apoc or DD.
Thoughtseize: Grab goyf's or anything else that deals damage quickly to slow down aggro. grab counter magic against control. grab discard against discard. or combo enablers against combo. Pretty self explanatory and great for protecting your combo.
Duress: sure it doesnt work against aggro cause you can't grab creatures. Well not really. you dont like to see vial if you are play DD as you can't remove vial with DD. You also don't like to see StP on your suspend creatures either. Its more protection against control and more distruption against combo.
Brainstorm: Dig through your deck a little. Shuffle away some stuff you don't want with a fetch. Protect combo pieces from discard. I like it alot.
Remand: Time walk against aggro. Functions as a counter against control (ie. i play burning wish, you counter, i remand BURNING WISH, play it again or next turn.). Also functions as a counter against combo (ie. lotus petal, dark rit, infernal contract. remand contract. ok you get back contract but not dark rit and lotus petal).
Greater Gargadon (GG): great against control. Apoc, sac the rest of my lands to leave one counter on GG, pass, next turn smash for 9, following with another smash next turn. This guy usually kills in 2 turns if your opponent plays with fetches. Not as good against aggro as it comes down slower if you are playing with DD and not apoc (less to sac and higher suspend).
Nihilith: this guy has amazing synergy with DD as your opponent will lose 3 to 4 land (loses 3 to 4 counters) and 1- 4 creatures (1 -4 more counters). He has fear to boot, making him swing FTW even if the opponent does lay down blockers. He's like a free creature against ichorid, and he works well with discard. I love this guy. Sometimes though he comes down too early cause his suspend runs out and then he gets removed by obliterate or Apoc. But that is more likely my play mistake then anything else.
Fire//Ice: Its a decent draw to slow aggro a little, but is more useful as removal for gaddock teeg or meddling mage (or wellwisher or random shit like that).
Pyroclasm: Its sick to have the option to tutor up pyroclasm and go off with Apoc instead of DD against aggro. This makes GG come down a little faster. Also, once you go off, its nice to be able to tutor one up to remove blockers once you have a GG down, or if they manage to rebuild too quickly.
Mishra's Factory: Random 2 include? its just good. nice blocker against aggro. nice top deck after a mass removal spell. If you play DD and sac a bunch of lands, leave this one as if you draw another land, fac will function as a creature. Its nice against control too to put a little pressure on and if you get lucky, draw an StP (and you can chump their factories as well)
Fetches: thin the deck a bit, works well with brainstorm.
Duals: color fixing
Basics: anti blood moon, or if you want to run blood moon effects yourself
Leyline of the void: nice side in against thresh and ichorid.
Stifle: post board 8 stifles? should help against combo.
This deck has very different game plans depending on the opponent.
AGGRO:
They win somewhere between turns 3-7. Count on losing turn 4 if you don’t go off. You can generally push it to turn 5 if you have adequate distruption. Essentially you want Devastating Dreams ASAP. I can play it turn 3 quite often. You will generally either play thoughseize/duress on turn 1, and then burning wish, and then, suspend gargadon + dreams. Or you can play turn 1 mystical tutor, turn 2 suspend nihilith, turn 3, 1cc spell + devastating dreams. Generally you want to resolve dreams for 3, but if they have 4 land, go for it. Also, you can hold back on when you play it if you have seen 4 land in their hand because of a discard spell, that way you hit all of their land. Once dreams hits with a suspended creature to back it up you should be fine. Nilith is actually the ideal creature to suspend vs. aggro because it will essentially come into play when they lose 3 or 4 land and 1-5 creatures. Its also cool because it has fear so it will evade any blockers your opponent can manage to lay down in its way. Greater gargadon is a little worse because you will only have 3 or 4, maybe 5 land if you get lucky to sac to GG to make it come down faster. Once it is down though, it has a faster clock than nihilith or equal (if they lay down blockers to chump). It makes up for coming down slowly by killing quickly, most likely with just 2 swings due to all the fetchs and thoughseizes floating around in aggro strat. Aether vial can be a problem for you if you cant get rid of it with dreams. You can also go for Apocalypse if your opponent is playing really slowly, or if you need to get rid of something that DD can’t get rid of. I aggro matchups should be the same after boarding. You get more DD’s but they know what you are playing and know to distrupt your mana base and what colors to keep you off of if they have that strat. Remand is good for stalling, duress can take vials, or concordant crossroads, or StPs. Thoughtseize can take what duress can but can also take goyfs. By the way, a couple tricks you can do with the deck against aggro:
Tutor up pyroclasm to slow them down that way you can remove vial or whatever else with Apoc.
Tutor up Fire//Ice or pyroclasm to deal with difficult creatures that prevent you from resolving DD.
Tutor up pyroclasm with either mystical tutor or burning wish to clear the way for your suspend creatures if your opponent rebuilds successfully.
Brainstorm, leaving mishra’s factory and a land on top, then land DD. You have a creature in 2 turns in addition to a suspend creature if you already suspended one.
Brainstorm + fetch to get rid of stuff you don’t want.
The aggro matchups should be fairly good I think.
CONTROL:
The way to play control is to slow play into apocalypse. DON’T PLAY DD THEY WILL COUNTER IT. DD says that you must discard X cards at random as an additional cost to play the spell, as in Apoc it is a part of the spell if it resolves. Believe it or not, remand is actually very strong here. If you play burning wish, they can counter it. But if that happens, you can remand your own spell instead of their counter, draw, and then try again next turn. It functions like a counterspell that is easier to cast and it draws you a card. It works with Apoc too, and mystical tutor, and even discard if you want it that badly. Before you go off though, I would recommend having several land, enough to cast a discard spell and scope it out, then play Apoc with remand back up, or burning wish. The cool thing about burning wish is that your opponent CANNOT let it resolve. If they do let it resolve, you just fetched obliterate and its on to the next game. They can’t counter your suspend creatures until its too late. By the way, with all the card draw, you draw quite a few suspend creatures throughout a control game. I usually draw about 3, which is enough to beat down any landstill player. Having suspend creatures also can put the opponent to some very difficult decisions in which you resolve a GG at instant speed if you know they have to counter a burning wish or an Apoc. The aggro control matchups are more difficult because those actually put you on a clock instead of dedicated control that kills you turn 30. In thresh, you really have to go for Apoc. In play testing, slow playing into obliterate against slow control was the ideal path for me, but it doesn’t work that easily against thresh or fish. The good thing is that they have very little countermagic so your discard should be enough. Also you don’t fear CB as much as other combo because the only thing that is going to counter Apoc is force, and if they are that slow, go for obliterate. Meddling Mages and some builds that run gaddock teeg can prevent you from resolving Apoc, but you can always search for Fire//Ice or pyroclasm. Overmaster is also a nice burning wish choice if you want to draw a counter or make your Apoc uncounterable. It usually just functions as drawing the counter though. I used to run vexing shusher and magus of the moon/blood moon in here to improve the game but I haven’t really tested either yet. I assume that if they thresh matchup is bad enough, I could add 6 blood moon effects and cut some stuff. I think that the control match ups in general are favorable.
STOMPY:
Stompy is build to beat storm combo. Dragon stompy and Faerie stompy are too slow to kill you before you can resolve Apoc, and stompy is weak against well placed discard. Fortunately, blood moons do nothing to you, as you run basics that you can fetch and Apoc is a red spell. if anything, blood moon should make Apoc easier to play. Trinisphere doesn’t slow you down. Chalice at 1 is not that strong because you still have burning wish, remand, and Apoc. Chalice at 2 is not that strong either because you still have mystical tutor, brainstorm, and discard. I think that the stompy matchups should be very favorable.
DISCARD:
This is a little harder for you to beat. Mystical tutor and brainstorm are excellent here. Watch out because they will hit your suspend creatures if you leave them sitting in your hand. Better to get those out of your hand first. Brainstorm can hide what you need. Mystical tutor in response to a discard spell protects whatever you were searching for. I still think that this matchup is good. I think this matchup is favorable.
SLOW COMBO:
Slow combo takes time to set up, though it can sometimes go off quickly. The advantage that you have though, is that your opponent will have no idea what you are play, so they will expect force, various countermagic, stifle, even counterbalance. I think that if they see blue they will not try to go off too fast and run into problems. Discard should be very useful here, especially if you go first. Yeah sure they can brainstorm, but remand can stop business pretty well in that the opponent still has to play dark rit to get to infernal contract or something like that, so its not a dead card against combo in fact its not bad. In game one, you SHOULD have a bad matchup but you have little bit of an edge if they opponent doesn’t know what you are playing. Nihilith is sooo unbelievably good here. If it suspends it will be down in 3 to 4 turns tops. Especially with all the discard you are playing and all the fetches your opponent is playing. GG is not so good, but can end the game quickly if you can some how get it down. The good thing is that slow combo tends to need its lands to go off more so then other combo that relies more upon fast lotus petal/chrome mox action, so if you can pull off DD or Apoc then by all means go for it. Mostly I think that the way to go is to just tutor up a lot of discard, keep the opponent on his toes, guessing at what your playing, smashing ASAP with nihilith and GG if you can get it down, and hope he is suspicious of that one blue you keep leaving open bluffing stifle. Post board, you get 4 stifle. Keep the discard flowing, smash with nihiliths, and stifle their fetches if you have multiples, and save one for the storm. Most likely they won’t be able to look for chant and have a good hand for going off if you have discard often enough. I think that this matchup is even to slightly unfavorable.
FAST COMBO:
Fast combo rapes you pretty hard. All you can really do is get lucky, bluff force and stifle as often as possible, try to do what I said against slow combo, and smash ASAP with nihilith. You can beat them but its really hard and definitely not favorable. Post board you get stifles. 8 stifles? You should be beating them. They can try to go off turn 1, but if you mull for stifle, they will think you were looking for force and slow play it, and then you just leave mana open for stifle, and let them down their work into gaining 2 life and me losing 2 life. Congrats, now I will smash you with a suspend creature until you die. I think this matchup is even to favorable (after boarding, you should lose game 1).
ICHORID:
Board in leyline of the void, and pray for it. Once it comes down, protect it (hopefully they don’t run grip). Discard to get rid of their draw if you want. Nihilith is like a free creature here with all the shit going into their grave. DD is actually good here in that you can get rid of just about everything they can play except troll. This matchup is not favorable in game 1. In game 2 you get leyline, and that will essentially stop them and if you can protect it with remands and discard you are golden (you remand their spell, they run few land so they can’t replay it that turn, then you make them discard it on your turn. This matchup should be even to unfavorable.
BURN:
The decks worst matchup by far. God all you can really do is pray that they only have 3 land, and that they are winning on turn 4 and not turn 3, and that you can get DD by that turn, and then try to win with a suspend creature. You don’t get anything out of the board. This matchup is very unfavorable.
Overall I think that with proper tuning, this should be able to have decent matchups against a lot of the meta. Its more tuned toward beating aggro and control than combo. I find that I see more control and aggro than anything else anyway (at least in my meta).
Some things I noticed from play testing this build:
I can usually resolve DD for 3 on turn 3, sometimes DD for 4 on turn 3, sometimes DD for 4 on turn 4.
I haven’t really run into many problems with winning after going off. I have 2 or more creatures about a ¼ of the time and against control its even more. So StP isn’t as big a problem as I originally thought.
I ran FoW at first but it wasn’t very good. Sure it helped by game against fast combo and slow combo, but I wasn’t able to go off with Apoc because I was missing land drops (yes I cut FoW for land). It worked though. The thresh matchup got better and its not like I had a plethora of blue to pitch to it anyhow. It was cool protecting Apoc against thresh or landstill but was usually overkill as my discard stripped them completely of protection more often then not (as did burning wish).
Remand is amazing against just about everything. It’s a time walk, against aggro, protects your spells against control, and its actually very decent against combo. I don’t think that anything else could take it’s spot.
I haven’t done as much testing as is needed to accurately depict each matchup, most of these matchups are just assumptions and hypothetical situations based upon what I know about the decks.
Combo and burn have been having problems against counter/top decks anyhow so I think that this could be a good choice for certain metas.
Also I noticed that the deck is quite adaptable to the meta:
Combo heavy meta, drop pyroclasm and fire ice from the MD, run 2 stifle MD, 2 in the board, and drop shattering spree and pyroclasm from the board to run 4 chalice of the void.
Aggro heavy meta. Drop 1 Fire//Ice and run 1 additional devastating dreams in the MD.
Control heavy meta. Blood moon effects in the board. Even vexing shusher.
Meta with multiple burn: 4 Chill, 2 chalice in the board.
Questions:
Could the leylines be better as something else? Like something I could board in 3 to fetch with mystical tutor, and 1 with burning wish?
Stifle. Is there anything better against slow/fast combo that I’m overlooking?
Burn. If it’s a problem and there is SB space, 4 chill?
Thresh. If it’s a problem, 6 blood moon effects? Its fits in just fine into the deck.
SB. Should I run a fetchable discard spell in the board that I can fetch with wish against slow combo or is that unnecessary?
Also, any suggestions?