[Deck] Bant

[TSmiley]

Br reanimator feels faster than drs- in game one at least. As far as the eldrazi matchup goes- I've found tnn just wrecks them- and adding an equipment into the equation makes it a landslide- is anyone else having trouble with eldrazi?


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[limbo]

Br reanimator feels faster than drs- in game one at least. As far as the eldrazi matchup goes- I've found tnn just wrecks them- and adding an equipment into the equation makes it a landslide- is anyone else having trouble with eldrazi?


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I also really like the Bant v Eldrazi matchup, from the bant side. Plow, TNN, daze, equipment all do work. They have to have a very aggressive hand to compete. Bant also plays well through chalice.

[Whitefaces]

I still think this deck is pretty good, I've got access to a friends online account for a bit and played it through a league yesterday going 5-0 - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593828#paper

You should be able to watch a replay here if anyone is interested - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/128458927

There's a bunch of mistakes in the Miracles match, ignore those! I'll be running it a few more times and see how it goes.

[HSCK]

I was excited to see that list do well, I'd def want a Bayou though, maybe over Waste 4?

[Mirrislegend]

I still think this deck is pretty good, I've got access to a friends online account for a bit and played it through a league yesterday going 5-0 - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/593828#paper

I like that list a lot! SB Nahiri is super spicy.

My only real concern is the mana base (but it is very possible that I'm just out of date). No basics? Fetching for a single basic Forest early on, to guarantee the capacity to cast your mana dorks through Wasteland and Blood Moon, seems like a huge boost in stability for fairly little cost.

[Whitefaces]

I was excited to see that list do well, I'd def want a Bayou though, maybe over Waste 4?

Yeah, there's been a bunch of spots where I've wanted a Bayou in the deck, but I'm also trying to keep the amount of non blue duals to a minimum because of Daze. Of course Wasteland swapping for it wouldn't make a difference in that regard, though having the full set with the dorks and dazes has given this pretty surprising tempo game to it. I'll try a Bayou over the fourth Waste though, could be a good change. I used to only have Decays in the board and the full set of StP main, so the manabase is a throwback to that. Will need to change up the fetches to accomodate this ambitious manabase.


I like that list a lot! SB Nahiri is super spicy.

My only real concern is the mana base (but it is very possible that I'm just out of date). No basics? Fetching for a single basic Forest early on, to guarantee the capacity to cast your mana dorks through Wasteland and Blood Moon, seems like a huge boost in stability for fairly little cost.

I used to have a forest in the list last year but it was always too awkward on the mana. The decks leans on the eight dorks very heavily, but I've not been too punished by it yet. I've been happier without the basic.

[TSmiley]

Efro featured the deck on the 18th in one of his weekly articles- looks like it's whitefaces list who someone took to 5-0


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[Whitefaces]

Efro featured the deck on the 18th in one of his weekly articles- looks like it's whitefaces list who someone took to 5-0


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Sweet! Yeah that's me (on a friends account), thanks for pointing it out.

[TSmiley]

Thumbs up!


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[TSmiley]

How has dropping sylvan library been? With the number of abrupt decay running around I've considered it but I really like it game one against miracles.


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[Whitefaces]

How has dropping sylvan library been? With the number of abrupt decay running around I've considered it but I really like it game one against miracles.


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I've been really low on Library for quite a while, I cut it some time last year. The format feels too fast and efficient for it and we have so much raw power in the deck the CA isn't needed I think. VS Miracles I'd prefer to be attacking them with Planeswalkers and hard to answer threats like TNN or Leovold.

[TSmiley]

Yeah- it would be in addition to the threats included- just finding the spot is challenging


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[Whitefaces]

I made top eight at the BoM Eternal Weekend yesterday. The deck was great all day, really feel like it has game vs everything.

It was a cut to 16, I lost to Elves in the Quarters after an unfortunate mull to 5 and got brainstorm locked on one land.

2-1 vs BR Reanimator
2-1 vs Shardless
2-0 vs 4c Control
2-0 vs Goblins
1-1 vs Shardless
2-1 vs Grixis Delver
1-2 vs Cloudpost Eldrazi
2-0 vs BUG Delver (Goose and Stifle)
2-0 vs RUG Delver

2-0 vs Food Chain
1-2 vs Elves

Decklist

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of trest
2 Jace, the mind sculptor
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's jitte
1 Sword of fire and ice
4 Force of will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Swords to plowshares
3 Tropical island
2 Tundra
2 undegrround Sea
1 Scrubland
4 Flooded strand
4 Polluted delta
1 Misty rainforest
3 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
3 Meddling mage
2 Surgical extraction
1 Gideon, ally of zendikar
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Invasive Surgery
2 Zealous persecution

I've got sb tables written down, can post them a bit later if people would like.

[Serch]

I've got sb tables written down, can post them a bit later if people would like.

First of all congrats for your result!

Go ahead with your sideboard table, sounds interesting!

[TSmiley]

I was about to post that someone top 16'd with your list- but congrats on it being you! I am running something very similar for the scg next weekend.


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[mistercakes]

congrats, how are your miracles matchups?

[Whitefaces]

First of all congrats for your result!

Go ahead with your sideboard table, sounds interesting!

Thanks! Will put the tables tonight, hopefully get some more discussion on this deck going :)


I was about to post that someone top 16'd with your list- but congrats on it being you! I am running something very similar for the scg next weekend.

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Thanks! Good luck on the weekend, what are the differences you're playing?


congrats, how are your miracles matchups?

It's OK. I'd like think we're favoured a bit, but in reality it can be tough. Pyroblast/REB is very good against the deck so we can fall behind in tempo with those and Snapcasters sometimes, and Jace is a problem if we have no board presence. Currently two Thoughtseizes are being sided in which I don't like at all so there are some improvements to be made.

[Whitefaces]

Here's some sideboarding tables, feel free to ask questions or critique! I'm still unsure on a few things myself. Some are not clear cut either, vs Miracles you'll need to judge if they're the kind of player to board out CB vs you, and some Delver variants differ etc. But in general these have felt right.

Spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_DhcuQu5dXm2FMMpG0pG30h-PAqr-9Gg_SEsr-XQKcI/edit#gid=0

Predict/Entreat the Angels Miracles:

-1 Abrupt Decay
-2 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Daze
-2 Noble Hierarch
-1 Umezawa's Jitte

+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

If you suspect Mentor from the SB leave in the Jitte over another Hierarch.

Mentor Miracles:

-2 Swords to Plowshares
-4 Noble Hierarch

+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

BUG Shroud:

-3 Abrupt Decay
-2 Swords to Plowshares

+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Flusterstorm

If seen Mandrils, keep 2 StP over a Jace and Jitte.

Food Chain:

-2 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Force of Will
-2 Daze

+3 Meddling Mage
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Vendilion Clique

Aluren:

-2 Force of Will
-1 Abrupt Decay
-1 Daze

+3 Meddling Mage
+1 Vendilion Clique

Burn:

-2 Jace
-4 TNN

+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Meddling Mage

BR Reanimator:

-4 Stoneforge Mystic
-4 True-Name Nemesis
-1 Batterskull
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice
-1 Tropical Island

+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Flusterstorm
+3 Meddling Mage
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Vendilion Clique

Lands:

-3 Daze
-4 Stoneforge Mystic
-1 Batterskull
-1 Jitte

+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
+2 Invasive Surgery
+3 Meddling Mage

Infect:

-4 True-Name Nemesis
-2 Jace
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice

+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Vendilion Clique

Elves:

-4 Daze
-4 Deathrite Shaman
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice
-2 Jace

+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Thoughtseize
+3 Meddling Mage
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Flusterstorm

Show and Tell:

-2 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Abrupt Decay
-3 True-Name Nemesis
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-1 Batterskull
-4 Stoneforge Mystic

+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Thoughtseize
+3 Meddling Mage
+2 Surgical Extraction

Storm:

-3 Abrupt Decay
-2 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Umezawa's Jitte
-4 True-Name Nemesis
-2 Stoneforge Mystic

+2 Surgical Extraction
+3 Meddling Mage
+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Vendilion Clique
+2 Invasive Surgery

Shardless:

-4 Force of Will

+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Eldrazi:

-2 Leovold

+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Czech Pile/4c Control:

-4 Force of Will
-2 Abrupt Decay

+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Zealous Persecution

Grixis Delver

-2 Jace
-2 Force of Will
-2 Daze

+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
+1 Vendilion Clique

BUG Delver (Hymn):

-4 Force of Will

+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
+2 Flusterstorm

Death and Taxes:

-2 Force of Will
-4 Daze

+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Thoughtseize
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

Moon Stompy:

-2 Leovold

+2 Thoughtseize

Painter:

-2 Leovold
-2 Jace

+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Surgical Extraction

UR Delver:

-2 Jace

+2 Flusterstorm

Tin Fins:

-4 True-Name Nemesis
-2 Jace
-1 Sword of Fire and Ice

+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Thoughtseize
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Vendilion Clique

[fetzonk]

Here's some sideboarding tables, feel free to ask questions or critique! I'm still unsure on a few things myself. Some are not clear cut either, vs Miracles you'll need to judge if they're the kind of player to board out CB vs you, and some Delver variants differ etc. But in general these have felt right. ...

Congratulations Whitefaces. Great result! As a Stoneblade/Deathblade player coming out of his 2 year retirement I want to try this deck for the next events I participate in. I pretty much would sleeve up the list you played (need to squeeze a containment priest into that sideboard, though (metacall)). I have a question about the dazes in your sideboard plan:

I am not used to play with daze, but i learned from other players that siding out the dazes on the draw is often the right plan. Do you keep the dazes even on the draw? It seems that siding out the dazes would reduce the amount of blue cards too much to have enough pitchables for FoW.

Also, for the matchups in which you side in Meddling Mage: Which are the specific cards you want to name? Most of them seem to be obvious, but i never played with meddling mage and my knowledge of the archetypes is rusty/probably outdated.

Thx

[Whitefaces]

Congratulations Whitefaces. Great result! As a Stoneblade/Deathblade player coming out of his 2 year retirement I want to try this deck for the next events I participate in. I pretty much would sleeve up the list you played (need to squeeze a containment priest into that sideboard, though (metacall)). I have a question about the dazes in your sideboard plan:

I am not used to play with daze, but i learned from other players that siding out the dazes on the draw is often the right plan. Do you keep the dazes even on the draw? It seems that siding out the dazes would reduce the amount of blue cards too much to have enough pitchables for FoW.

Also, for the matchups in which you side in Meddling Mage: Which are the specific cards you want to name? Most of them seem to be obvious, but i never played with meddling mage and my knowledge of the archetypes is rusty/probably outdated.

Thx

Thanks! Please report back how you get along. Containment Priest was the last card to get cut from the sideboard as I needed one more card for the Storm matchup, which was the third Meddling Mage. So definitely a good inclusion if it'll be good in your meta.

Yeah, I keep in Dazes vs almost everything, they're pretty key to the deck and work especially well with all the mana dorks since you don't fall behind as much as you usually would. Since the deck can slam 'must answer' threats in SfM, TNN, Leo, Jace etc, having free interaction can be backbreaking. I'll say with confidence that Daze was the best card in the deck for me at Eternal Weekend. You also get an edge that this deck still isn't on everyones radar. And as you correctly point out, the blue count is very low so they're necessary for FoW too.

Aside from that, I feel like people board out Dazes and Forces because they're 'meant to' much too much. You have to pay attention to the opponent too. I keep in two Daze vs Miracles generally, but if they seem like they don't know the deck after game 1 and haven't seen it, I might keep a third in. Or if they play around it game 1 I'll side out another, or maybe both.

For Meddling Mage, it will be very context dependent, but some rough guide would be

Food Chain:

This one will really depend on what the game is like, but you probably name Walking Ballista first as that can kill MM. Food Chain and Misthollow Griffin are reasonable too. If you get multiple down, naming Abrupt Decay can be too to protect the first one.

Aluren:

Normally name Cavern Harpy, then Abrupt Decay.

Burn:

Mage isn’t great in this matchup, but if they suspend a Rift Bolt you can name that and they can’t cast it. If you have a SfM live, name Smash to Smithereens to protect Batterskull. Otherwise Price of Progress.

BR Reanimator:

Again, quite game dependant, especially what other kind of disruption you have. If you have a DRS, probably name Exhume or Collective Brutality (esp this if you have Surgical in hand and no countermagic). Entomb or Reanimate are good to name if they are shorter on mana and you have soft disruption like Daze and Fluster. If you have Invasive Surgery in hand name Animate Dead.

Lands:

And again, really depends. If you are relying on Dorks and can’t disrupt Punishing Fire, name that. Gamble or Loam are usual names too.

Elves:

Usually Natural Order or Glimpse of Nature.

Show and Tell:

The deck has a lot more ways to counter SnT than Sneak Attack, so unless your hand is weak to the SnT name Attack. If they’re on the Omni version name SnT. After that name Cunning Wish.

Storm:

Usually Tendrils of Agony.

[fetzonk]

Great! Thx a lot for the guide.

[TSmiley]

I like naming infernal tutor with mage vs storm- but can see tendrils


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[Whitefaces]

I like naming infernal tutor with mage vs storm- but can see tendrils

Yeah, Tutor is totally reasonable too, it all depends on so many things.

Note on playing vs Storm, if you can help it after sideboard don't fetch for Scrubland or Tundra and play Mages off dorks since lots of lists have Massacre these days.

[Whitefaces]

TSmiley, how's the SCG Open going?

HJ_Kaiser just went 5-0 with 3 Winter Orbs in the sideboard, nice idea! I'll have to try them. - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/612032#online

I also ran the deck through another league (same list as Eternal Weekend) and went 5-0 vs DnT, Aluren, Eldrazi, Shardless and Infect.

[TSmiley]

Finished 77th cut to day two went to 70th. Didn't play particularly tight but with the way the matches played out it easily could have been 8-1, 7-2.
Round 1 miracles won 2-0
Round 2 ub reanimator won 2-0
Round 3 death and Taxes won 2-0
Round 4 death and Taxes won 2-0
Round 5 death and Taxes loss 1-2
Mulled each game and lost two tight ones.
Round 6 elves loss 2-0
Didn't mulligan aggressively enough and made a bad line in game two
Round 7 eldrazi win 2-1
Round 8 miracles loss 1-2
Had opponent at 6 with no top and my Gideon, leovold and drs, he drew entreat, entreat, have bounce drs to live at 2. Prolly could have done something different but his natural draws at the end were pretty brutal.
Round 9 burn win 2-1

Deck is great, I played stifle and a slightly different sideboard- but things could have gone a lot better.


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[TSmiley]

The have was supposed to be jace, and he was empty handed on those three draw steps- it was pretty savage.


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[TSmiley]

I like the idea of winter orb- I'll have to check out what gets cut from the sb to figure out if I want to try it!


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[limbo]

I haven't gotten to play against this the new 4c control (BUGR) deck. Anyone have experience with this matchup? Insight would be appreciated.

[Whitefaces]

Finished 77th cut to day two went to 70th. Didn't play particularly tight but with the way the matches played out it easily could have been 8-1, 7-2.
Round 1 miracles won 2-0
Round 2 ub reanimator won 2-0
Round 3 death and Taxes won 2-0
Round 4 death and Taxes won 2-0
Round 5 death and Taxes loss 1-2
Mulled each game and lost two tight ones.
Round 6 elves loss 2-0
Didn't mulligan aggressively enough and made a bad line in game two
Round 7 eldrazi win 2-1
Round 8 miracles loss 1-2
Had opponent at 6 with no top and my Gideon, leovold and drs, he drew entreat, entreat, have bounce drs to live at 2. Prolly could have done something different but his natural draws at the end were pretty brutal.
Round 9 burn win 2-1

Deck is great, I played stifle and a slightly different sideboard- but things could have gone a lot better.

That's a massive shame about those losses Thomas, after such a good start. Those kind of games vs Miracles can be so tilting.


I haven't gotten to play against this the new 4c control (BUGR) deck. Anyone have experience with this matchup? Insight would be appreciated.

I've only played it once at Eternal Weekend, but it felt very good for us. TNN is a big problem for them, as is Stoneforge Mystic. Just be careful of Kolaghan's Command.

I boarded like this.

-4 Force of Will
-2 Abrupt Decay

+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Zealous Persecution

But that's a very small sample size, if anybody has some more insight that'd be nice.

We've finally got a name on MTGGoldfish (Bant Deathblade)! Two more 5-0s yesterday, and Thomas Leger came 26th at the SCG open - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/613132#paper



One thing I'm noticing in a lot of peoples sideboards, there's a large amount of fair cards. Garruk Relentless, extra Decay, Pithing Needle etc. I don't think this works well for SBing tables against combo. While working out my current SB, I had the two dedicated slots for Sweepers and TNN (Zealous Persecution), then could only give one slot to fair matchups (Gideon) as we have so many weak cards in the MD (SfM, TNN, StP, Decay, Jace etc). This probably means people are leaving in subpar cards after board.

[joylusa]

Finished 77th cut to day two went to 70th. Didn't play particularly tight but with the way the matches played out it easily could have been 8-1, 7-2.
Round 1 miracles won 2-0
Round 2 ub reanimator won 2-0
Round 3 death and Taxes won 2-0
Round 4 death and Taxes won 2-0
Round 5 death and Taxes loss 1-2
Mulled each game and lost two tight ones.
Round 6 elves loss 2-0
Didn't mulligan aggressively enough and made a bad line in game two
Round 7 eldrazi win 2-1
Round 8 miracles loss 1-2
Had opponent at 6 with no top and my Gideon, leovold and drs, he drew entreat, entreat, have bounce drs to live at 2. Prolly could have done something different but his natural draws at the end were pretty brutal.
Round 9 burn win 2-1

Deck is great, I played stifle and a slightly different sideboard- but things could have gone a lot better.


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hi everyone,

It´s been a long time without posting, but I made some top´s with BANT.I also tried other decks like Food chain or 4c nemesis delver but Bant keeps beening the strongest one IMO

@TSmiley can you post your last deck list? the one with stifles?

Congratz @Whitefaces for your recent top

[Whitefaces]

hi everyone,

It´s been a long time without posting, but I made some top´s with BANT.I also tried other decks like Food chain or 4c nemesis delver but Bant keeps beening the strongest one IMO

@TSmiley can you post your last deck list? the one with stifles?

Congratz @Whitefaces for your recent top

Hey joylusa, thanks. I remember you getting some nice finishes last year! Glad you're still with the deck. Got any more tournaments coming up soon?

[joylusa]

Hey joylusa, thanks. I remember you getting some nice finishes last year! Glad you're still with the deck. Got any more tournaments coming up soon?

Yeah I do, the last weekend of april I got a hole weekend tournament. it will be the new edition of the big tournament I won last year (170-250 ppl).
I need to find something to beat elves. This machup is just awfull, for winning it I just have to draw perfectly and my opo must draw shit. I tried to run perish but it is not enough.
Lets see if tsmiley post his list and we can see his new sideboard.

I will post all my new ideas for the mb and the sb.

[Sibelius]

Here is the tournament report on the Top8 finish by the Dark Bant player!

https://thelibraryatpendrellvale.com/banter-in-paris/

I hope you all enjoy it!

Sib

[TSmiley]

Sorry for the late reply! Here is my list and some changes I'd like to make.

4 deathrite shaman
3 noble Hierarch
4 stoneforge mystic
4 true-name nemesis
2 leovold

4 brainstorm
4 daze
4 force of Will
2 stifle
2 abrupt decay
2 swords to plowshares
2 jace the mindsculptor
1 batterskull
1 sword of fire and ice
1 umezawa's jitte

4 wasteland
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
3 tropical island
2 tundra
2 underground sea
1 scrubland

I went down to 7 dorks again because miracles was target 1 and noble isn't the best in that matchup. Two decay is fine especially when the good miracles pilots are siding out counter balance against decay decks. Stifle was gas for me all day.

Sideboard:
2 zealous Persecution
2 surgical extraction
2 flusterstorm
1 containment priest
1 Gideon ally of zendikar
1 invasive surgery
2 meddling mage
1 pithing needle
1 vendilion clique
2 thoughtseize

Really close to the list I ran in Baltimore- I really wish I had a canonist somewhere in the side.


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[Hanni]

4-0'd my LGS tonight with the following list:

UGwb Nobleblade

Lands (21)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Karakas
4 Wasteland

Creatures (20)
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Spells (19)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull

Sideboard (15)
2 Meddling Mage
2 Flusterstorm
4 Thoughtseize
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Painful Truths
1 Containment Priest
1 Rest in Peace
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

My matchups were:

2-0 UG Infect
2-0 Br Reanimator
2-1 RUG Threshold
2-1 Burn

My sideboard might be overkilled on combo hate... not really sure. I could probably trim down 1-2 Thoughtseize, but I don't know what I would want to replace them with. I do like all of the other cards in my board, though.

I like the SoFI in the board better than main. In most of the matchups where I want 3 equipment, I want them in postboard games after they bring in artifact removal (vs Miracles, D&T, Elves, etc).

The Clique's in the main were great, as was the Karakas. Both were relevant in the Br Reanimator matchup. Clique was good against Infect. Didn't play any grindy matchups to really get value out of Karakas with Clique/Leo, but the deck overall felt great.

This archetype is super sweet; the 8 mana dork plan is great.

[Whitefaces]

Nice result!

Clique is indeed great in the deck, I used to play two MD before Leovold was printed. I'm trying to find a way to get another into my sideboard at least, I couldn't cut the Jaces from the main with the dork plan I think. I do like that it's more combo interaction in the md, though.

I don't think you're overloaded on combo hate, there are a lot of bad cards in the main, we need to have a big board to take them all out.

I've been deliberating over Sword being in the main or side loads recently, but ultimately have been liking it in the main to give us another big bomb vs Miracles game one. It's so important in that matchup to make Nobles into real threats, and close it out quickly before we draw too many of our bad cards.

[Hanni]

Jace is a super powerful card, but I decided not to run it because I don't feel like this deck needs anymore midrange grindy cards maindeck. Even with the mana dorks, this deck can still be a little slow and clunky, and it has tons of midrange power already; Stoneforge + Leo for CA and TNN + equips is powerful enough as-is.

I wouldn't mind having Jace postboard for grindy matchups, but most of the grindy matchups right now have Red Blasts postboard, so I felt that Painful Truths was better for that role.

I don't disagree that SoFI is strong against Miracles, but 3 equipment feels a liitle overkill in most game 1's, and Jitte strapped to a Hierarch makes Hierarch a serious threat against Miracles too. I prefer Jitte over SoFI against the Mentor plan, although the recent trend has been back to Entreat maindeck instead, so that's a moot point for game 1. Ultimately, I'm happy with SoFI in the sideboard, but I don't think it is wrong to run it main either.

[TSmiley]

I've been playing the deck online quite a bit- anyone have any uncommon sideboard cards vs elves? I know we have access to perish and cursed totem- but I'm trying to get that matchup to be close- I think in my last 4 leagues I've lost to elves a total of 5 times


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[limbo]

I've been playing the deck online quite a bit- anyone have any uncommon sideboard cards vs elves? I know we have access to perish and cursed totem- but I'm trying to get that matchup to be close- I think in my last 4 leagues I've lost to elves a total of 5 times

My best success against elves has always come from boarding against glimpse of nature specifically: 1x ZP, 2 MMage, 1x Canonist, and then leaning on my maindeck counters for NO, and equipment and TNN to overcome their generic beatdown plan. It isn't perfect, but I like this approach to the matchup; Based on my opener and first draw, I try to play the game so they can only beat me using one of their three paths, and see if they recognize the available path and then have the cards to do it. We are a dog in game 1, and I don't have a strategy that I like for getting the postboard games to 70%+ you need to make the overall matchup favorable, but I think this board plan gives you a reasonable chance.

I have played humility and moat from time to time, depending on my build at that time. Those are both cards that have metagame value and help the matchup significantly, but I can't really advocate them over other cards at the moment. Humility plus equipment is outstanding in a field of elves, aluren, food chain, and Sneak and show. It is also extremely good against most of the current miracles builds, making Jace their only real threat. If you are looking for a card to test, break that one out. Running an event where you cut your gideon and 1 ZP/Clique for 2 humility, will let you have plenty of access and see if it is something you want as a 0,1, or 2 of. That is the best suggestion I have.

[Hanni]

I've been playing the deck online quite a bit- anyone have any uncommon sideboard cards vs elves? I know we have access to perish and cursed totem- but I'm trying to get that matchup to be close- I think in my last 4 leagues I've lost to elves a total of 5 times


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Perish is strong against Elves, but too symmetrical. Killing our own mana dorks + Leovold is bad.

Right now, I board in 2 Meddling Mage, 1 Containment Priest, 2 Zealous Persecution, 1 Sword of Fire and Ice.

The best answer to Elves is Engineered Plague, period. It also has use against D&T and Grixis Delver naming humans. Although irrelevant, it's also good against Goblins. I think Zealous Persecution is a more versatile card for the sideboard, but if you want dedicated Elves hate, Plague is as good as it gets.

[fetzonk]

Yesterday, i played the deck the first time in a tournament. Used the bom-list of whitefaces and managed to achieve a 3-2. Not very impressive, but i would like to give some feedback.

Vs death&taxes: 2-0 win (game 1 mana dork into tnn, game 2: mana dork, daze a stp, t2 mana dork, t3 jace. Brainstorming each turn and a devastating zealous persecution ended the game comfortably).

Vs white eldrazi&taxes: 2-1 win (both wins after a stalled boardstate by vialing in equipment for tnn. Lost to stax elements game 2(both thalias on board with only fetches in hand, that entered tapped and fetch tapped duals)

Vs imperial painter: 1-2 loss ( awesome match, grindy, lost t5 of extra turns. Game 1 had to mulligan to a mediocre hand, opponent had all the tools he needed to finish me of quickly. Game 2 the mana dorks were awesome, managed to surgical extract painter servant while deathrite and hierarch produced abrupt decay mana to destroy blood moon. Opponent was hellbent having a bridge, but noble hierarch with a jitte managed to attack through it, dealing 5 per turn. Game 3 pretty much the same like game 2, although i didn't see surgical extraction. Opponent managed to get rid of hierarch and deployed a blood moon. Finally he found the painter and he milled me. Didn't draw a fow :(). The opponent won the tournament

Vs a black devotion deck(blue splash): 2:0 win (he had alot of sweeper, even in the main, trying to finish off with tombstalker/phyrexian obliterator. Post board i faced a no mercy. Jace bounced a tombstalker which won match 1. Match 2 was won by the equipment. Facing no mercy, jitte and sofai on board, equipped stm, deathrite and hierarch did their damaged before being destroyed by no mercy.

Vs deathblade/bant: 0:2 (pretty much the mirror -4 hierarchs - 4 daze, + discard, ponder, more early disruption. Game 1 mull to 5. Opponent had a quick tnn, i had mana dorks....later the opponent had 2 tnn+deathrite, i had batterskull and deathrite online which didn't help. Game 2: just outvalued me. Late mana dorks and lands were bad draws, while he played stm into batterskull, leovold and jace. I have to admit that i tilted a little. While i couldn't make any tempo plays, the opponent had the answers and the top end gas).


Overall the deck was awesome. I only lost big in the mirror. What is the sideboard plan here? +2 thoughtseizes, +1 clique, +2 zealous persecution? I boarded out jace because of the tnn, wrong?

[joylusa]

I've been playing the deck online quite a bit- anyone have any uncommon sideboard cards vs elves? I know we have access to perish and cursed totem- but I'm trying to get that matchup to be close- I think in my last 4 leagues I've lost to elves a total of 5 times


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I tried persish but it is not enough to beat them, crused totem make us a lot of damage to, so I dont think it is a good solution. elves is my worst muchup so far and i ve been trying to find something to balance this muchup. I lose like 4 of my last 6 games vs elfes. I ve been thinking about playing 3 zealous as d&t is beeng more common.

Next weekend I ll be in a big tournament so I will inform you about any updated list.

joy

[Whitefaces]

Jace is a super powerful card, but I decided not to run it because I don't feel like this deck needs anymore midrange grindy cards maindeck. Even with the mana dorks, this deck can still be a little slow and clunky, and it has tons of midrange power already; Stoneforge + Leo for CA and TNN + equips is powerful enough as-is.

I wouldn't mind having Jace postboard for grindy matchups, but most of the grindy matchups right now have Red Blasts postboard, so I felt that Painful Truths was better for that role.

I don't disagree that SoFI is strong against Miracles, but 3 equipment feels a liitle overkill in most game 1's, and Jitte strapped to a Hierarch makes Hierarch a serious threat against Miracles too. I prefer Jitte over SoFI against the Mentor plan, although the recent trend has been back to Entreat maindeck instead, so that's a moot point for game 1. Ultimately, I'm happy with SoFI in the sideboard, but I don't think it is wrong to run it main either.

Jace isn't there for this extra 'midrange power' necessarily, it's very important to have another angle of attack to fight Miracles on that doesn't die to Terminus. I think without PWers you'll struggle in the MU. I'm trying to find a configuration to fit a second Gideon in the SB, it might come by swapping a True-Name in the MD with a Clique so there's one less card to board out vs combo.


My best success against elves has always come from boarding against glimpse of nature specifically: 1x ZP, 2 MMage, 1x Canonist, and then leaning on my maindeck counters for NO, and equipment and TNN to overcome their generic beatdown plan. It isn't perfect, but I like this approach to the matchup; Based on my opener and first draw, I try to play the game so they can only beat me using one of their three paths, and see if they recognize the available path and then have the cards to do it. We are a dog in game 1, and I don't have a strategy that I like for getting the postboard games to 70%+ you need to make the overall matchup favorable, but I think this board plan gives you a reasonable chance.

I have played humility and moat from time to time, depending on my build at that time. Those are both cards that have metagame value and help the matchup significantly, but I can't really advocate them over other cards at the moment. Humility plus equipment is outstanding in a field of elves, aluren, food chain, and Sneak and show. It is also extremely good against most of the current miracles builds, making Jace their only real threat. If you are looking for a card to test, break that one out. Running an event where you cut your gideon and 1 ZP/Clique for 2 humility, will let you have plenty of access and see if it is something you want as a 0,1, or 2 of. That is the best suggestion I have.

Yeah, I play it similarly. Use Meddling Mage to either turn off NO or Glimpse depending on the board state. It's not a great matchup, but the deck has the tools to beat it between discard, hate bears, countermagic and jitte. I feel like it's a case of midrange decks vs combo though, we have to draw the right part of our deck in the right order to beat their draw.

Humility is an interesting idea. Narrow, but very powerful. I think Aluren and Food Chain are good matchups for Bant, but Sneak and Show can be troublesome too.


Yesterday, i played the deck the first time in a tournament. Used the bom-list of whitefaces and managed to achieve a 3-2. Not very impressive, but i would like to give some feedback.

Vs death&taxes: 2-0 win (game 1 mana dork into tnn, game 2: mana dork, daze a stp, t2 mana dork, t3 jace. Brainstorming each turn and a devastating zealous persecution ended the game comfortably).

Vs white eldrazi&taxes: 2-1 win (both wins after a stalled boardstate by vialing in equipment for tnn. Lost to stax elements game 2(both thalias on board with only fetches in hand, that entered tapped and fetch tapped duals)

Vs imperial painter: 1-2 loss ( awesome match, grindy, lost t5 of extra turns. Game 1 had to mulligan to a mediocre hand, opponent had all the tools he needed to finish me of quickly. Game 2 the mana dorks were awesome, managed to surgical extract painter servant while deathrite and hierarch produced abrupt decay mana to destroy blood moon. Opponent was hellbent having a bridge, but noble hierarch with a jitte managed to attack through it, dealing 5 per turn. Game 3 pretty much the same like game 2, although i didn't see surgical extraction. Opponent managed to get rid of hierarch and deployed a blood moon. Finally he found the painter and he milled me. Didn't draw a fow :(). The opponent won the tournament

Vs a black devotion deck(blue splash): 2:0 win (he had alot of sweeper, even in the main, trying to finish off with tombstalker/phyrexian obliterator. Post board i faced a no mercy. Jace bounced a tombstalker which won match 1. Match 2 was won by the equipment. Facing no mercy, jitte and sofai on board, equipped stm, deathrite and hierarch did their damaged before being destroyed by no mercy.

Vs deathblade/bant: 0:2 (pretty much the mirror -4 hierarchs - 4 daze, + discard, ponder, more early disruption. Game 1 mull to 5. Opponent had a quick tnn, i had mana dorks....later the opponent had 2 tnn+deathrite, i had batterskull and deathrite online which didn't help. Game 2: just outvalued me. Late mana dorks and lands were bad draws, while he played stm into batterskull, leovold and jace. I have to admit that i tilted a little. While i couldn't make any tempo plays, the opponent had the answers and the top end gas).

Overall the deck was awesome. I only lost big in the mirror. What is the sideboard plan here? +2 thoughtseizes, +1 clique, +2 zealous persecution? I boarded out jace because of the tnn, wrong?

Thanks for giving it a go. Painter can be tough, as can all Moon decks, sometimes you're not able to get the dorks out there fast enough.

In the mirror you definitely don't want to be cutting Jace and True-Names. They're two of the best cards. Thoughtseize is only good vs Stoneforge Mystic, and you want to have as many live draws as possible later in the game so I don't think I'd board them in. You can fight Equipment with your own equipment theoretically, and so you don't bank on TS lining up well with their draw.

I'd probably go

+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Vendilion Clique
+1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
-2 Force of Will
-2 Daze


I tried persish but it is not enough to beat them, crused totem make us a lot of damage to, so I dont think it is a good solution. elves is my worst muchup so far and i ve been trying to find something to balance this muchup. I lose like 4 of my last 6 games vs elfes. I ve been thinking about playing 3 zealous as d&t is beeng more common.

Next weekend I ll be in a big tournament so I will inform you about any updated list.

joy

Totem also hits our DRS, Hierarch and SfM, not an option I think.

A third ZP might be a good idea! Not sure how to make the space in the SB though.

I've found making a SB for this deck to be quite hard since there are so many poor cards vs combo in the md (SfM, equipment, TTN, StP, Decay...) that there needs to be that many slots to bring in. I've only got Gideon and the two ZP dedicated to fair matchups at the moment.

Best of luck in your tournament! Looking forward to hearing about you taking it down ;)

I have a big tournament next week too, the winner gets flights and accommodation plus byes to GP Vegas.

[Hanni]

Jace isn't there for this extra 'midrange power' necessarily, it's very important to have another angle of attack to fight Miracles on that doesn't die to Terminus. I think without PWers you'll struggle in the MU. I'm trying to find a configuration to fit a second Gideon in the SB, it might come by swapping a True-Name in the MD with a Clique so there's one less card to board out vs combo.

Miracles matchup? What is that?

[limbo]

Brush up on your elves matchup folks.

Snap reaction: With the top banning, I expect more fast combo, delver and elves for the next month or so while things shake out. I think I am happy about this change, but I will be curious to see where the format goes. I expect UW to run walkers and stoneforge-equipment for a while as win cons, so I would pack a Kgrip and a council's judgment for a while. I would also think this lowers the value of decay in our deck vs StP, and probably means going back to 4 swords is right for a while, moving the decays back to the board and shallowing the black splash a bit in favor of better mana or a basic again.

[Hanni]

Elves is definitely a matchup to address. I will be cutting the Painful Truth and 1 Thoughtseize for 2 Engineered Plague in my sideboard.

I still like a 3/2 (StP/Decay) split on the removal. Decay destroys Jitte and other problematic permanents, so there is still value in them.

[TSmiley]

Storm and elves get a huge boost- engineered plagues and ethersworn canonist look really good for sb slots.


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[fetzonk]

Thanks for the feedback, Whitefaces. Just to clarify, i didn't board out TNN. I boarded out Jace because i thought he couldn't be protected reasonably. I will stick with your sideboard plan next time.

As for the Painter matchup....who knows how many Painter decks will be left after the Top-ban? One blood moon deck less to worry about? Probably Stoneblade-variants will be on the rise again.

[Whitefaces]

Miracles matchup? What is that?

Touche :D

Agree with you guys, time to pack some Plagues! I think we can go back to a full set of Swords to Plowshares in the maindeck too and cut down the Underground Sea count to one.

EDIT: Sorry limbo, just realized you said the exact same thing! Glad we're on the same page.

I'm very worried about the splash damage of -1-1 effects though, might hit us quite hard.

[limbo]

I'm very worried about the splash damage of -1-1 effects though, might hit us quite hard.

Indeed, though I always found that equipment is highly protective in those situations making us slightly more resilient than the average creature deck.

[Whitefaces]

Indeed, though I always found that equipment is highly protective in those situations making us slightly more resilient than the average creature deck.

True true, maybe I'm overreacting. We can always Gideon ultimate too :cool:

[Hanni]

Zealous Persecution in response to a Zealous Persecution? lol...

[Manipulato]

Hey guys,
I'm tinkering about playing this deck in the new meta because I think it's good positioned.

How would you guys build your 75 now? Could you post your new lists? Would be cool!

I'm especially interested for the manabase configuration and SB because I think that the MD will not change that much exept for the full 4 Swords instead of a AD /Swords split, right?

Edit: I'm not 100% sure you guys really want Engineered Plague vs Elves as your #1 hate card tbh. The deck plays quite alot of non-elve dudes (4 Symbiotes/2 Dryad Arbor/1 Scavenging Ooze/2 Behemoth) or x/2's in form of 4 Shaman & 4 Sentinel which dont die to the plague. Other thing is it's more slow at cc3 than Zealous Persecution or similar effects & can be killed by AD or Reclamation Sage out of Green Suns Zenith. A small creature count is already enough to Behemoth us into death...I think cards like Containment Priest/Zealous Persecution/Ethersworn Canonist will be more efficient vs them.
How do you guys see that?

[Hanni]

Hey guys,
I'm tinkering about playing this deck in the new meta because I think it's good positioned.

How would you guys build your 75 now? Could you post your new lists? Would be cool!

I'm especially interested for the manabase configuration and SB because I think that the MD will not change that much exept for the full 4 Swords instead of a AD /Swords split, right?

My list was slightly unconventional to begin with, but I'll keep running the same maindeck, with only minimal changes to my sideboard based on how the meta shifts.

My list was posted on the previous page.

[TSmiley]

Hey guys,
I'm tinkering about playing this deck in the new meta because I think it's good positioned.

How would you guys build your 75 now? Could you post your new lists? Would be cool!

I'm especially interested for the manabase configuration and SB because I think that the MD will not change that much exept for the full 4 Swords instead of a AD /Swords split, right?

Edit: I'm not 100% sure you guys really want Engineered Plague vs Elves as your #1 hate card tbh. The deck plays quite alot of non-elve dudes (4 Symbiotes/2 Dryad Arbor/1 Scavenging Ooze/2 Behemoth) or x/2's in form of 4 Shaman & 4 Sentinel which dont die to the plague. Other thing is it's more slow at cc3 than Zealous Persecution or similar effects & can be killed by AD or Reclamation Sage out of Green Suns Zenith. A small creature count is already enough to Behemoth us into death...I think cards like Containment Priest/Zealous Persecution/Ethersworn Canonist will be more efficient vs them.
How do you guys see that?

I am planning on playing plague in addition to the mentioned cards- a lot of the trouble elves can get us into are value loops with symb/visionary which plague stops- or dryad arbor quirion ranger blocking loops to stop jitte counters. It also overloads their abrupt decays with jitte/leovold/meddling mage/plague.


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[Hanni]

Hey guys,
I'm tinkering about playing this deck in the new meta because I think it's good positioned.

How would you guys build your 75 now? Could you post your new lists? Would be cool!

I'm especially interested for the manabase configuration and SB because I think that the MD will not change that much exept for the full 4 Swords instead of a AD /Swords split, right?

Edit: I'm not 100% sure you guys really want Engineered Plague vs Elves as your #1 hate card tbh. The deck plays quite alot of non-elve dudes (4 Symbiotes/2 Dryad Arbor/1 Scavenging Ooze/2 Behemoth) or x/2's in form of 4 Shaman & 4 Sentinel which dont die to the plague. Other thing is it's more slow at cc3 than Zealous Persecution or similar effects & can be killed by AD or Reclamation Sage out of Green Suns Zenith. A small creature count is already enough to Behemoth us into death...I think cards like Containment Priest/Zealous Persecution/Ethersworn Canonist will be more efficient vs them.
How do you guys see that?

Engineered Plague is most certainly the best Elves hate available. The only thing it doesn't kill is Deathrite Shaman, Nettle Sentinel, and Wirewood Symbiote. Plague isn't unbeatable, but it is devestating regardless.

Firstly, Plague wipes most of their board. Then, it sticks around to shut them down until they find an Abrupt Decay. Even if they do, the damage is already done. If they don't have an immediate Abrupt Decay, we are likely so far ahead on board that it won't matter if/when they finally do.

If you're skeptical, I recommend trying it before criticizing it. Or just ask some Elves players what they think.

[Manipulato]

Engineered Plague is most certainly the best Elves hate available. The only thing it doesn't kill is Deathrite Shaman, Nettle Sentinel, and Wirewood Sentinel. Plague isn't unbeatable, but it is devestating regardless.

Firstly, Plague wipes most of their board. Then, it sticks around to shut them down until they find an Abrupt Decay. Even if they do, the damage is already done. If they don't have an immediate Abrupt Decay, we are likely so far ahead on board that it won't matter if/when they finally do.

If you're skeptical, I recommend trying it before criticizing it. Or just ask some Elves players what they think.

I played the card on my own in Food Chain and I'm well aware of what it does and what not, your 2nd sentence was superfluous, but thx for the input

[Whitefaces]

Hey guys,
I'm tinkering about playing this deck in the new meta because I think it's good positioned.

How would you guys build your 75 now? Could you post your new lists? Would be cool!

I'm especially interested for the manabase configuration and SB because I think that the MD will not change that much exept for the full 4 Swords instead of a AD /Swords split, right?

Edit: I'm not 100% sure you guys really want Engineered Plague vs Elves as your #1 hate card tbh. The deck plays quite alot of non-elve dudes (4 Symbiotes/2 Dryad Arbor/1 Scavenging Ooze/2 Behemoth) or x/2's in form of 4 Shaman & 4 Sentinel which dont die to the plague. Other thing is it's more slow at cc3 than Zealous Persecution or similar effects & can be killed by AD or Reclamation Sage out of Green Suns Zenith. A small creature count is already enough to Behemoth us into death...I think cards like Containment Priest/Zealous Persecution/Ethersworn Canonist will be more efficient vs them.
How do you guys see that?

Hey! Glad you're thinking of coming over to this, I agree that it looks quite well positioned, my only worry is an uptick in -1-1 effects like we talked about on the last page. But we'll see.

I need to work on a SB still, so this is subject to change, but I think my maindeck to start now will be the below.

The noticeable differences are.

1) Removed the Abrupt Decays and went back to the full set of Swords to Plowshares, I think this change is obvious.
2) Removed the Sword of Fire and Ice, from the maindeck at least. With Miracles gone it loses a lot of value, I think we need to see how the meta shapes up. If there's a lot of 4c control and TNN then it'll come back.
3) Basic Forest. There's a good chance both Delver and Lands see a lot more play which will punish our manabase more than before. I'm considering a Loam in the SB for this reason too.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull

2 spare slots, possibly Ponder or Stifle

3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Wasteland
9 fetch
1 Forest

[mike1987]

Hey! Glad you're thinking of coming over to this, I agree that it looks quite well positioned, my only worry is an uptick in -1-1 effects like we talked about on the last page. But we'll see.

I need to work on a SB still, so this is subject to change, but I think my maindeck to start now will be the below.

The noticeable differences are.

1) Removed the Abrupt Decays and went back to the full set of Swords to Plowshares, I think this change is obvious.
2) Removed the Sword of Fire and Ice, from the maindeck at least. With Miracles gone it loses a lot of value, I think we need to see how the meta shapes up. If there's a lot of 4c control and TNN then it'll come back.
3) Basic Forest. There's a good chance both Delver and Lands see a lot more play which will punish our manabase more than before. I'm considering a Loam in the SB for this reason too.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull

2 spare slots, possibly Ponder or Stifle

3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
3 Wasteland
9 fetch
1 Forest

Nice list, maybe this is where i will start too! i think our weaker match-ups are lands and combo like Storm, Sneak Show, elves so maybe our sideboard can be tailored more towards it.

2 Flusterstorm (elves, Show and tell, storm, reanimator)
2 Engineered Plague (elves, Dnt, tribal)
1 Containment Priest (dredge, br reanimator, elves)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (opposing TNN, creature decks)
1 Pithing Needle (catch all)
2 Thoughtseize (combo)
2 Surgical extraction (combo, graveyard)
2 Abrupt Decay (catch all, delver, creatures)
1 Garruk, Relentless (grindy matches, shardless, bug)
1 Zealous Persecution (TNN decks, elves, DnT)

What do you guys think?

[Whitefaces]

Nice list, maybe this is where i will start too! i think our weaker match-ups are lands and combo like Storm, Sneak Show, elves so maybe our sideboard can be tailored more towards it.

2 Flusterstorm (elves, Show and tell, storm, reanimator)
2 Engineered Plague (elves, Dnt, tribal)
1 Containment Priest (dredge, br reanimator, elves)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (opposing TNN, creature decks)
1 Pithing Needle (catch all)
2 Thoughtseize (combo)
2 Surgical extraction (combo, graveyard)
2 Abrupt Decay (catch all, delver, creatures)
1 Garruk, Relentless (grindy matches, shardless, bug)
1 Zealous Persecution (TNN decks, elves, DnT)

What do you guys think?

Yeah, I agree on those matchups being the ones we should concentrate on!

I want some Meddling Mages in my sideboard I'm sure, that card is always an all star. After that I really like Canonist too as Storm and Elves look like they will be big.

I'd like to try and not dedicate too many slots to fair matchups, if anything a Gideon or two, but our MD is quite well set up for that and we also have those two spare MD slots at the moment.

I'll go over numbers and options when I get a chance :smile:

[TSmiley]

I like keeping sofi main with what I think will be an uptick in tnn decks. I went 4-1 in a league yesterday only losing to slivers... crystalline sliver is pretty good.

I played 4 swords 2 decay main because decay is still great against Delver.


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[Hanni]

I still like running a couple of Decay main, too. It still deals with a great deal of things, from Jitte to Chalice. I've been pretty happy with 3 StP and 2 Decay myself, but 4/2 would be even better if the meta goes aggro heavy and combo light.

[joylusa]

I like keeping sofi main with what I think will be an uptick in tnn decks. I went 4-1 in a league yesterday only losing to slivers... crystalline sliver is pretty good.

I played 4 swords 2 decay main because decay is still great against Delver.


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I think im going to play 3 stp 2 decays and keep playing without forest. My main doubt is to play or not stifles. And side board should get some changes.
I will let you know my ideas

Joy

[limbo]

A card that I think should be on peoples' radars to include in the deck over the next few weeks is judge's familiar. Haven't settled on a configuration yet, but I always liked this one when combo and burn are popular. In a world where Delver rises, lingering souls is also worth keeping in mind. Just putting those ones out there because they have not seen play in a while but might be primed for a come back.

Example of a pure bant list that I think might be reasonable:

Land (19)
4x Flooded Strand
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Savannah
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
4x Wasteland
2x Windswept Heath

Artifact (3)
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte

Planeswalker (2)
2x Gideon of the Trials

Creature (16)
3x Judge's Familiar
4x Noble Hierarch
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x True-Name Nemesis
1x Vendilion Clique

Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
4x Force of Will
4x Swords to Plowshares

Sorcery (4)
4x Ponder

Sideboard (15)
1x Chill
1x Disenchant
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Flusterstorm
1x Garruk Relentless Flip
1x Invasive Surgery
1x Krosan Grip
2x Meddling Mage
1x Path to Exile
1x Rest in Peace
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Sword of Feast and Famine

[drocker23]

I think these lists don't have enough removal for early deathrite shaman which i think is something you will want to focus on beating no matter what deck you're playing. Expect an uptick in deathrite shaman and combo decks.

[Whitefaces]

I think these lists don't have enough removal for early deathrite shaman which i think is something you will want to focus on beating no matter what deck you're playing. Expect an uptick in deathrite shaman and combo decks.

I've not really found DRS to be as threatening vs Bant than from other shells. Because of the equipment and our own Shamans its late game power is severely mitigated. You can afford to leave them around a lot more than you can from a Delver deck as we're not trying to disrupt the opponent, but to establish our own game plan which is usually far superior. Just a bit harder to set up. And anyway, a full set of StP, Jitte and some people are playing Decays still, it's not nothing.

Combo on the other hand is a worry, I'm considering either a pair of Spell Pierce or Stifles ala TSmiley in the maindeck.

[TSmiley]

I agree- our own drs counter drs from Delver quite well. Also- I don't think judges familiar is where we want to be unless you want to play a trest shell with the 1gu 2/2 that makes your guys damaging ophidians.


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[Hanni]

Combo on the other hand is a worry, I'm considering either a pair of Spell Pierce or Stifles ala TSmiley in the maindeck.

Vendilion Clique is a pretty strong card against combo that does good work in alot of other matchups...

[Whitefaces]

Vendilion Clique is a pretty strong card against combo that does good work in alot of other matchups...

It is, but there are already a lot of three drops. If we add a Clique to the main it's in the slot of a TNN, Leovold or Jace I think. I don't like the sound of that as all of those look set to be great in this new meta.

[Mirrislegend]

Without Miracles demanding lots of Abrupt Decay between the maindeck and the sideboard, what will our removal package evolve into? Is it worthwhile to still play any Abrupt Decays? What about Fatal Push? I'm also fond of Disfigure, as it hits Deathrite (!), Delver, Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor, Stoneforge, Baleful Strix, Aluren combo pieces, all of Burn's creatures, all of DnT's creatures (besides Crusader), and all of Elves' creatures (besides Craterhoof), and probably more.

I'm thinking 4 StP and 2 Decay MD, with 2 Disfigure and maybe a Krosan Grip or two in the SB.

Lastly, isn't Engineered Plague fairly narrow? Unless you expect truly overwhelming numbers of Elves or Death and Taxes, I cannot see justifying more than 1 in the SB. Zealous Persecution is just so much more flexible.

[KobeBryan]

Without Miracles demanding lots of Abrupt Decay between the maindeck and the sideboard, what will our removal package evolve into? Is it worthwhile to still play any Abrupt Decays? What about Fatal Push? I'm also fond of Disfigure, as it hits Deathrite (!), Delver, Pyromancer, Monastery Mentor, Stoneforge, Baleful Strix, Aluren combo pieces, all of Burn's creatures, all of DnT's creatures (besides Crusader), and all of Elves' creatures (besides Craterhoof), and probably more.

I'm thinking 4 StP and 2 Decay MD, with 2 Disfigure and maybe a Krosan Grip or two in the SB.

Lastly, isn't Engineered Plague fairly narrow? Unless you expect truly overwhelming numbers of Elves or Death and Taxes, I cannot see justifying more than 1 in the SB. Zealous Persecution is just so much more flexible.

Why disfugure over push

[Whitefaces]

Yeah, I don't see any reason to play Disfigure anymore.

Also, with four StP and equipment I don't think you should play more non-sweeper removal. Especially not taking up precious SB slots.

[Mirrislegend]

Why disfugure over push
Things that Disfigure hits that Push does not hit on default mode:
Monastery Mentor, Vendilion Clique, Sanctum Prelate, Recruiter of the Guard, Flickerwisp, Palace Jailer, Parasitic Strix.

Significant cards, but not a significantly large list, so I think you're right and Disfigure would just be Fatal Push.



Especially not taking up precious SB slots.
The format is prepared to devolve into Deathrite duels. He who has the last Deathrite standing wins. SB removal just for killing Deathrite seems worthwhile to me.

[Whitefaces]

I think I'm settling on something like this

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest


SB:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
3 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

[TSmiley]

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170426/469b78b78ce0e920756bd3ba5f6f4bdc.png

Pretty good new Facebook group for stoneblade stuff.


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[Hanni]

This is the list I'm going to run at my LGS tomorrow night:

U/G/b/w Nobleblade

Lands (21)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Karakas
4 Wasteland

Creatures (20)
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Spells (19)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull

Sideboard (15)
2 Meddling Mage
1 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
1 Pithing Needle
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

If Elves picks up in my local meta, I'll probably cut the SoFI for an Engineered Plague.

[TSmiley]

If Delver rises up to prey on the combo decks- 8 3s might be too much. I like it as a starting point though.


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[Hanni]

8 three drops is worse against Delver than 6 three drops and 2 four drops? Clique doesn't even get hit by Spell Pierce like Jace does...

[Whitefaces]

We're pretty close on decklists, which is a good sign! Swapping Cliques for Jace is really interesting, and running through the gauntlet of decks I'm expecting it actually looks good on paper. Gonna have to think about this, but improving the combo matchup and lowing the decks curve seems like a solid change if we're expecting Delver, Storm and Elves.

[TSmiley]

I haven't seen Delver decks running pierce main in a while- but I didn't take a close look at what you dropped for clique- I just saw -1 stp -1 sofi and thought those were the cuts for the clique.


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[Whitefaces]

I have two tournaments over the weekend, I'll try the below on Saturday and see how it feels for the bigger one on Sunday.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Vendilion Clique

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Abrupt Decay

1 Ponder

1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest

SB:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
3 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

[limbo]

In a world with lots of delver and combo, I like the new Gideon a lot, especially if those delver decks are RUG or 4c with a minimal number of decays.

[Whitefaces]

In a world with lots of delver and combo, I like the new Gideon a lot, especially if those delver decks are RUG or 4c with a minimal number of decays.

Oh man, I want to try this so much. Neat idea!

[Hanni]

I have two tournaments over the weekend, I'll try the below on Saturday and see how it feels for the bigger one on Sunday.

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Vendilion Clique

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
1 Abrupt Decay

1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest

SB:
3 Thoughtseize
2 Flusterstorm
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Rest in Peace
3 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

Your maindeck only has 59 cards.

[Hanni]

In a world with lots of delver and combo, I like the new Gideon a lot, especially if those delver decks are RUG or 4c with a minimal number of decays.

I'm not sure why Gideon of the Trials would be good against RUG Delver...?

[Whitefaces]

Your maindeck only has 59 cards.

Good catch. Last card is a Ponder, not the most exciting.

[Hanni]

We're pretty close on decklists, which is a good sign! Swapping Cliques for Jace is really interesting, and running through the gauntlet of decks I'm expecting it actually looks good on paper. Gonna have to think about this, but improving the combo matchup and lowing the decks curve seems like a solid change if we're expecting Delver, Storm and Elves.

Yea, for the most part, the core is pretty solid and seems mostly agreed upon.

When I first started tuning my list, the first thing I noticed was that Jace was so much less good in this deck than it is in control decks. The deck also has tons of other stuff to do/cast throughout most of the game, so many times Jace just sits in hand for a long time. Honestly, there are very few matchups where I'd rather have Jace instead of Vendilion Clique.

Jace is still an incredibly powerful card. It's not necessarily wrong, and can be strong in the right meta. However, Clique just fits into this decks gameplan much better. Evasive Jitte carrier, disruption on a body, etc.

It may also be the way I view this deck. To me, this deck is a big tempo deck reminiscent of New Horizons, except obviously much better. To me, this deck is as much or more of an aggro deck than it is a control deck. Blue Maverick, if you will. A better Maverick, in my opinion. But at the same time, it's big tempo, so it's also like a midrange Delver deck in a way. Either way, Jace just doesn't really seem suited to those plans, for me.

[TSmiley]

I've always played it like a tempo deck using Jace to go over the top- clique main is very good right now so a 1/1 split could be right- I'm not ready to cut Jace completely though.


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[Whitefaces]

Yea, for the most part, the core is pretty solid and seems mostly agreed upon.

When I first started tuning my list, the first thing I noticed was that Jace was so much less good in this deck than it is in control decks. The deck also has tons of other stuff to do/cast throughout most of the game, so many times Jace just sits in hand for a long time. Honestly, there are very few matchups where I'd rather have Jace instead of Vendilion Clique.

Jace is still an incredibly powerful card. It's not necessarily wrong, and can be strong in the right meta. However, Clique just fits into this decks gameplan much better. Evasive Jitte carrier, disruption on a body, etc.

It may also be the way I view this deck. To me, this deck is a big tempo deck reminiscent of New Horizons, except obviously much better. To me, this deck is as much or more of an aggro deck than it is a control deck. Blue Maverick, if you will. A better Maverick, in my opinion. But at the same time, it's big tempo, so it's also like a midrange Delver deck in a way. Either way, Jace just doesn't really seem suited to those plans, for me.

I see where you're coming from. I've always seen it as more of a midrange deck, but there is a tempo aspect to it with the dazes.

I'm not sure it's right to compare Jace to it in control decks though, it's arguably just as good here as in any BUG shells. And Jace won't ever be as good as in Miracles. But as Thomas says below, I like it as a way to push over the top of other fair decks, powering out either Clique or Jace is a strong play, but we have disruptive elements and threats already. Jace has been nothing but amazing for me in the deck and while the meta is changing, I'm not convinced that it's hostile enough against Jace to cut them altogether yet.


I've always played it like a tempo deck using Jace to go over the top- clique main is very good right now so a 1/1 split could be right- I'm not ready to cut Jace completely though.


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Agree, I'll try this 1/1 split and let you guys know.

[limbo]

I'm not sure why Gideon of the Trials would be good against RUG Delver...?

It comes down and +1 to get out of bolt range while taking the edge off of one of their creatures. So if resolved, it costs RUG at least a card and a creature attack to remove. If they don't kill it you have the option of slowing them, making an emblem, or pressuring. The importance of the emblem against the RUG is that we often stabilize between 5-1 life against them, and then have to fade a burn spell while we turn the corner and kill them. The emblem, especially if it is on 4 loyalty locks out that lane for them almost entirely. The argument can be made that Leo is a better card against RUG, but it only earns 1 card against a bolt, and can't profitably interact in combat against them at all. Gideon plays the angles well, and I already traded for 2 so I can run them this weekend.

Also of note, gideon emblem is a straight G1 lock against several combo decks including ANT.

It may turn out that there are too many swarm decks, abrupt decays, trample creatures, and walking ballistas out there to really make it worth a spot, but it looks really good right now. Since we have TNN and a tempo build, buying 1 turn with him could well be all that it takes to swing a lot of games.

[maharis]

It may also be the way I view this deck. To me, this deck is a big tempo deck reminiscent of New Horizons, except obviously much better. To me, this deck is as much or more of an aggro deck than it is a control deck. Blue Maverick, if you will. A better Maverick, in my opinion. But at the same time, it's big tempo, so it's also like a midrange Delver deck in a way. Either way, Jace just doesn't really seem suited to those plans, for me.

I've always viewed the deck the same way, and even used the same term "big tempo" to a lot of blank stares.

I'm considering bringing back classic hierarch/zenith bant with some RIPs in the side. Not sure if that means I would play Knight/Goyf and board them out when RIPs come in, but I think this deck has some possibility at being a good RIP deck with hierarch/sfm/tnn/clique/trygon predator? and fighting the DRS decks on that axis.

[Hanni]

It comes down and +1 to get out of bolt range while taking the edge off of one of their creatures. So if resolved, it costs RUG at least a card and a creature attack to remove. If they don't kill it you have the option of slowing them, making an emblem, or pressuring. The importance of the emblem against the RUG is that we often stabilize between 5-1 life against them, and then have to fade a burn spell while we turn the corner and kill them. The emblem, especially if it is on 4 loyalty locks out that lane for them almost entirely. The argument can be made that Leo is a better card against RUG, but it only earns 1 card against a bolt, and can't profitably interact in combat against them at all. Gideon plays the angles well, and I already traded for 2 so I can run them this weekend.

Also of note, gideon emblem is a straight G1 lock against several combo decks including ANT.

It may turn out that there are too many swarm decks, abrupt decays, trample creatures, and walking ballistas out there to really make it worth a spot, but it looks really good right now. Since we have TNN and a tempo build, buying 1 turn with him could well be all that it takes to swing a lot of games.

I can understand Gideon against combo, sure, but RUG Delver seems like one the abosulte worst places for it.

The challenge against RUG Delver isn't about needing more powerful cards; we've already got those. The problem with RUG Delver is in casting those cards in a relevant timeframe. The manabase is built to produce UU, not WW.

Nimble Mongoose blanks the +1, then smacks in and ruins your day. The 4/4 gets stonewalled by Tarmogoyf. Delver smacks in the air to knock it down to 1 counter after you +1 and then make an Emblem, so if they Bolt, they are only trading 1 for 1.

I'd rather play Knight of the Reliquary if I wasn't satisfied with TNN for whatever reason, which isn't the case.

Pure and simple: new Gideon is awful against RUG Delver. But if you disagree, feel free to try it out; there's no harm in playtesting things.

[Hanni]

I've always viewed the deck the same way, and even used the same term "big tempo" to a lot of blank stares.

I'm considering bringing back classic hierarch/zenith bant with some RIPs in the side. Not sure if that means I would play Knight/Goyf and board them out when RIPs come in, but I think this deck has some possibility at being a good RIP deck with hierarch/sfm/tnn/clique/trygon predator? and fighting the DRS decks on that axis.

I run 1 Rest in Peace in my board already. There is very little clash with only 4 Deathrites, and in the matchups where I want RIP, I'm fine with shutting off my Deathrites. I like my current split of graveyard hate to not want more than 1, but my point is, you don't need to cut DRS to run RIP in the board.

Also, I think SFM + TNN > Goyf + KoTR.

[Whitefaces]

I run 1 Rest in Peace in my board already. There is very little clash with only 4 Deathrites, and in the matchups where I want RIP, I'm fine with shutting off my Deathrites. I like my current split of graveyard hate to not want more than 1, but my point is, you don't need to cut DRS to run RIP in the board.

Also, I think SFM + TNN > Goyf + KoTR.

I agree with you on both points, I have a RiP in the board too and am fine clashing with DRS.

I managed to run the list through a league on MTGO quickly. Feels good, but I played vs Chalice twice and having only a single Decay in the 75 was very noticeable. I think 2 maindeck is still warranted, at least until we're more sure what people are doing.

I'm not sure to cut a Swords to Plowshares or the Ponder for the second Decay.

Matchups if interested were

2-1 Eldrazi
2-0 Storm
1-2 Storm
2-1 'Miracles' - Caleb Durward
2-0 Aggro Loam

[TSmiley]

I got a 5-0 today with the list we were talking about on Facebook- I was fortunate against alluren to cut him off black to win game three- but I really enjoyed the storm matchup with the sb setup. Still think I want decay #2 as well for extra removal, not sure what goes- I could see going back to the 19 land I played for a long time.


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[Hanni]

Scrubbed tonight at my LGS, going 2-2

Matchups were:

Colorless Eldrazi 2-0
Death & Taxes 2-0
Food Chain 0-2
Manaless Dredge 0-2

In the Food Chain matchup, he had the absolute nuts that even my Daze and FoW + blue card couldn't stop in game 1. Game 2, my draws lined up poorly with his, and a topdecked Toxic Deluge for 2 blew me out (I ended up mana screwed). I don't think this is a bad matchup for us, but those two games felt awful. We played a third game for fun that I won, but I'd really like to playtest this matchup more.

Against Manaless, he crushed me game 1 and I punted game 2 really badly. Oh well.

Overall, I was happy with my configuration. Clique was great everytime I played it, and I never once wished it was a Jace instead. Karakas didn't do much for me this time around, but I still think it's worth running in my build.

There is a FNM Legacy tomorrow night locally, so maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow. I still think this is one of the strongest decks in the format right now.

[Whitefaces]

I got a 5-0 today with the list we were talking about on Facebook- I was fortunate against alluren to cut him off black to win game three- but I really enjoyed the storm matchup with the sb setup. Still think I want decay #2 as well for extra removal, not sure what goes- I could see going back to the 19 land I played for a long time.


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Nice job! Yeah, I think the storm matchup is OK after board. I've seen a large uptick in Empty too, main and side, so I think Meddling Mage is slightly less reliable than usual. I think I'll go 3 Canonist, 2 Mage.

19 lands is interesting, a friend suggested yesterday to cut a land for the Ponder we've been wanting to play.


Scrubbed tonight at my LGS, going 2-2

Matchups were:

Colorless Eldrazi 2-0
Death & Taxes 2-0
Food Chain 0-2
Manaless Dredge 0-2

In the Food Chain matchup, he had the absolute nuts that even my Daze and FoW + blue card couldn't stop in game 1. Game 2, my draws lined up poorly with his, and a topdecked Toxic Deluge for 2 blew me out (I ended up mana screwed). I don't think this is a bad matchup for us, but those two games felt awful. We played a third game for fun that I won, but I'd really like to playtest this matchup more.

Against Manaless, he crushed me game 1 and I punted game 2 really badly. Oh well.

Overall, I was happy with my configuration. Clique was great everytime I played it, and I never once wished it was a Jace instead. Karakas didn't do much for me this time around, but I still think it's worth running in my build.

There is a FNM Legacy tomorrow night locally, so maybe I'll have better luck tomorrow. I still think this is one of the strongest decks in the format right now.

Food Chain can do that if you don't have good draws. I played it (FC) at our monthly last week and lost to Bant in the semis, but I was one card or mana off comboing a couple of times. Deluge is insane I imagine. I agree that it's usually a very good matchup.

Manaless can do that too, I don't think 2-2 is indicative of you or the deck doing anything wrong!

I'm happy with a 1/1 split of Jace and Clique at the moment I think. With 2 Cliques, and a potential uptick in Reanimator strategies I like Karakas too. Let us know how FNM goes!

[TSmiley]

I always just name infernal tutor with mage- I like shutting off the tutors more than the win con


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[tescrin]

I've honestly been considering to run a main beater of Mirran Crusader, stacked with 4 Nobles and 2-3 QPM now that Decay can eat me.

While Mirran crusader is normally a 4/2 TNN (certainly much worse against some decks, like D&T), Dat DoubleStrike Doe. The idea of Noble->Crusader T3 swing for 6 (or 8 if you drop a QPM) is brutal. I realize that's a little christmasland, but doing that with other guys who massively benefit from exalted (Tarmogoyf being another) seems like an OK way to shave some 3-drops for some different ones.

If one wanted to go batshit, an Elspeth next to him can crank out a T3, 6/6 double striking flyer :s


I don't know about you, but I'm looking at the opportunity to deal massive damage and really exploit the lack of flying/white. People running Decay, Push, K-Command, or similar, banking on TNN blocking, and then hit by flying Tarmos and Crusaders just sounds like a dream. Rather than try to remove everything like normal, just having a mid-range offensive push that people aren't ready for sounds like one of the best times you'll have in magic hah.

Since I'm still coming up with a list, I'll put a rough thought below:

-20/4-
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Deathite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendillion Clique

-2-
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant

-18/14-
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 ?
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will


Could use a little work, but I think that kind of clock, between Flying, Protection and Exalted, could be gross. Seems like it needs something for D&T just cause mom + flyer is quite a roadblock.

[Whitefaces]

Honestly I don't see any appeal in Crusader when we have access to TNN, which is even easier to cast. Grixis Delver is picking up too, so there are plenty of Lightning Bolts flying around, as well as lots of the lists are running Forked Bolts and Sudden Demise to deal with Elves.

Quasali also doesn't match up very well vs the rest of the metagame atm, the top decks are Storm, Grixis Delver and Elves, giving it very few targets.

[Hanni]

Another benefit to TNN is that it is blue. The blue spell count for Force of Will is a big concern for lists heavier in non-blue creatures.

Quasali Pridemage is definitely a strong creature, but I think you have to move the deck in a radically different direction to incorporate him. Something with GSZ most likely, at which point, you may be better off just playing Maverick.

Honestly, I haven't had any major concerns with how quickly I can kill my opponent's outside of combo matchups, and even then, I'd rather have hatebears than a faster clock.

Also, 2 Abrupt Decay has been sufficient for dealing with artifacts and enchantments for me so far.

[TSmiley]

Lightning bolt is making more of a comeback as well- I don't think crusader is where we want to be. When it was all bug- sure- but now it's not the best.


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[KobeBryan]

With lightning bolt comes blood moon.

[Whitefaces]

With lightning bolt comes blood moon.

Er, no it doesn't? Bolt is from Delver, Moon is from Chalice decks.

I've seen some Grixis control lists run a couple of moons in the board, but I don't see how this is relevant to anything.

[TSmiley]

With lightning bolt comes blood moon.

The uwr stoneblade deck I played against had Blood Moon, I had to take it with a thoughtseize- it may have just been a 1 of in the board.

[Ewlandon]

I have been playing the new gideon and really like it. It is very good vs delver decks (maybe not rug but who plays that?).

I played in the MKM series in Frankfurt yesterday and went 8-2 getting 15th place (only one 8-2 made top 8). I run 8 dorks and 21 lands including 2x scrubland. I lost to storm (after winning game 1 and nearly locking him out of the game game 2), and a pretty close game 3 loss to punishing jund.

[TSmiley]

We played online yesterday- was the 3cc Gideon sideboard? I like the 4cc Gideon much better with the meta moving to a lot more midrange- but I can see 3cc Gideon doing work against Delver.


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[limbo]

It is possible that with Top gone we might be entering a combo winter.
Early results:
Frankfurt champs (http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/coverage-mkm-series-frankfurt-2017-legacy/#top8decks)
Lotus Tournament (https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/68dhfn/we_had_a_80_person_win_a_black_lotus_tournament/)
In which case, Yippee! I love Bant verses combo, and also of note there are Bant decks in each of these top 8s.

Edit: I personally don't think combo will rise too high, as I expect Delver and stoneblade decks to adapt and balance the format, but apparently the combo decks are the week one winners.

[joylusa]

hey guys, i was wrecked last sunday playing bant. there were 7 rounds and 180 ppl. I had really bad luck, doing a lot of mulligans and losing won games due to top decks of my opponets in the last turn , but still love this deck.

I played :

4 nobles
3 deathrite
4 nemesis
4 stone
2 leovold
1 vendilion
2 decays
4 swords
4 daze
4 fow
4 BS
1 jace
1 batter
1 jitte
1 sofi
4 pollute
4 flooded
3 tropi
2 tundra
1 scrubland
2 Usea
4 wasteland

SIDE
2 cannonist
1 contaiment
2 fluster
2 surgi
1 gideon 4cc
2 meddling
2 zealous
1 plage
2 seize

[Ewlandon]

We played online yesterday- was the 3cc Gideon sideboard? I like the 4cc Gideon much better with the meta moving to a lot more midrange- but I can see 3cc Gideon doing work against Delver.


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Hi, yeah I remember playing the mirror yesterday, ended up 4-1 in that league. I actually changed the mana base and started out playing 3x gideon of trails main for testing purposes and it turned out to be very good. Basically never lost a game where I cast it and it resolved, however, 3 was way too many. I am playing 1 main now and I like it a lot. I dont have trouble casting it like i did the 4 mana gideon when I used to play that.

[tescrin]

Didn't get to try it this weekend for reasons, but I'm pretty interested in testing Elspeth a bit. the Flying she adds and the +3 is basically extra "equipment." I've moved to Dryad Arbor instead of DRS to give me another equipable/elspethable dude; and "flash" seems good with that.

I think 'S'eth is well positioned against TNN and YP due to that Flying, but we'll see how it turns out Thursday. Getting excited to waste people out with KotR again :D

EDIT: I should say, i'm mainly on bant for KotR->Karakas because Sneakshow seems to be the former-Miracles deck of choice and I got munched by it last time. Instead of Decay I'm playing the Blue-Pulse too, or Detention Sphere as it's more likely known. I'm going that route to help with the same issue, help with the big-cmc baddies, and to deal with TES's gobbo plan and the uptick in BSKs I expect. The fact it could help if Omnishow pops up is nifty as well.

It may not come up, but the added benefit of occasionally getting CA from it seems ok.

Regardless of DSphere, KotR is a mainstay to me for wasting BUG and dealing with the more obnoxious Legends that are flying around. I was even Emrakul'd by Nic Fit the other day (sneak attack), so having fat, wasting power, and karakas seems good

[Hanni]

Didn't get to try it this weekend for reasons, but I'm pretty interested in testing Elspeth a bit. the Flying she adds and the +3 is basically extra "equipment." I've moved to Dryad Arbor instead of DRS to give me another equipable/elspethable dude; and "flash" seems good with that.

I think 'S'eth is well positioned against TNN and YP due to that Flying, but we'll see how it turns out Thursday. Getting excited to waste people out with KotR again :D

EDIT: I should say, i'm mainly on bant for KotR->Karakas because Sneakshow seems to be the former-Miracles deck of choice and I got munched by it last time. Instead of Decay I'm playing the Blue-Pulse too, or Detention Sphere as it's more likely known. I'm going that route to help with the same issue, help with the big-cmc baddies, and to deal with TES's gobbo plan and the uptick in BSKs I expect. The fact it could help if Omnishow pops up is nifty as well.

It may not come up, but the added benefit of occasionally getting CA from it seems ok.

Regardless of DSphere, KotR is a mainstay to me for wasting BUG and dealing with the more obnoxious Legends that are flying around. I was even Emrakul'd by Nic Fit the other day (sneak attack), so having fat, wasting power, and karakas seems good

Why is Dryad Arbor any better than DRS at wearing equipment or flying in the air? There isn't a "cannot attack" clause on DRS...

Also, I don't think the Maverick/blue is a bad approach to a Bant deck, but it is significantly different than the 8 mana dork + TNN + SFM plan that maybe there should be a new thread created? This thread is called Bant, which is super generic...

I personally refer to the deck as Nobleblade, but I've seen tons of various names for the deck, from Dark Bant to Leovold Stoneblade.

[Barachai]

Why is Dryad Arbor any better than DRS at wearing equipment or flying in the air? There isn't a "cannot attack" clause on DRS...

Also, I don't think the Maverick/blue is a bad approach to a Bant deck, but it is significantly different than the 8 mana dork + TNN + SFM plan that maybe there should be a new thread created? The thread is called Bant, which is super generic...

I personally refer to the deck as Nobleblade, but I've seen tons of various names for the deck, from Dark Bant to Leovold Stoneblade.

Dryad Arbor can be tutored with any fetch, ie it has "flash", and you run effectively more copies.

[Hanni]

Dryad Arbor can be tutored with any fetch, ie it has "flash", and you run effectively more copies.

How does that make it better at wearing equipment or flying in the air from Elspeth, though?

If you read the post I was quoting, he made it sound like DRS couldn't do either of those things.

[Barachai]

How does that make it better at wearing equipment or flying in the air from Elspeth, though?

If you read the post I was quoting, he made it sound like DRS couldn't do either of those things.

Also reading that post, seems that the point is that a single Arbor gives quite a bit more access to dudes to equip, not to mention having flash is very good with equipment in play. The point has little to do with DRS being poor at it, so much as just making the deck as a whole better at wearing equipment. It seems to me to be more a matter of personal taste in deckbuilding.

[tescrin]

How does that make it better at wearing equipment or flying in the air from Elspeth, though?

If you read the post I was quoting, he made it sound like DRS couldn't do either of those things.

It's not that he can't, it's just a rarity. The flash helps quite a bit with Thalias, removal, and whatnot since your opp may open themselves up. It also means your dead draws are more live.

If you think about it in terms of "Creature density", you have ~9 more live draws if you're dead on board (8 fetch, 1dryad, 2 gsz in my case; vs 2 drs I had in the list)

That's not to argue not doing that is wrong, it's just why it (IMO) makes equips better.

[anwei]

It is possible that with Top gone we might be entering a combo winter.
Early results:
Frankfurt champs (http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/coverage-mkm-series-frankfurt-2017-legacy/#top8decks)
Lotus Tournament (https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/comments/68dhfn/we_had_a_80_person_win_a_black_lotus_tournament/)
In which case, Yippee! I love Bant verses combo, and also of note there are Bant decks in each of these top 8s.

Edit: I personally don't think combo will rise too high, as I expect Delver and stoneblade decks to adapt and balance the format, but apparently the combo decks are the week one winners.

The Lotus list is mine. And I'm not sure which column this goes in, but the T8 seemed pretty non-representative: walking around, there were tons of fair decks in the room. So although combo seemed to over-perform against the field, there wasn't actually that many present. (I kind of think it was a pretty soft room, where competent players and linear combo decks will always do well.)

I'm not sure about the Arbor plan, but I do love boarding in Natural Order when slow fair decks are rampant. Progentius doesn't have a lot of answers and eats Stoneblade and Maverick alive.

[Hanni]

The Lotus list is mine. And I'm not sure which column this goes in, but the T8 seemed pretty non-representative: walking around, there were tons of fair decks in the room. So although combo seemed to over-perform against the field, there wasn't actually that many present. (I kind of think it was a pretty soft room, where competent players and linear combo decks will always do well.)

I'm not sure about the Arbor plan, but I do love boarding in Natural Order when slow fair decks are rampant. Progentius doesn't have a lot of answers and eats Stoneblade and Maverick alive.

That actually sounds like a really strong transformational plan against alot of decks. I might try that out at some point.

[Mirrislegend]

How do you guys deal with Ancient Grudge? My Delver opponents always seem to cantrip into it and force me to play fair. Should I play extra equipment in the MD or SB? Do I board out part of the Stoneforge package if I expect a lot of hate?

[tescrin]

Sounds like you're specifically talking either RUG or UBRg (grixis.) In theory, keeping them off Green mana is reasonable. Grixis normally has a single green land.
If it's Delver in general, you may just consider Loam in the side. It happens to be reasonable against BUG and the other midrangers you'll be fighting too as finding it is probably game even if you don't lock them out.

Weirder answers would be Meddling Mage; which is generally a good card.

Grafdigger's Cage shuts the good half of it down. DRS can eat it from the grave. Depends what you're looking for.

Of the the above, MMage seems the most reasonable as you may spam him for Combo/Lands anyway.

[limbo]

How do you guys deal with Ancient Grudge? My Delver opponents always seem to cantrip into it and force me to play fair. Should I play extra equipment in the MD or SB? Do I board out part of the Stoneforge package if I expect a lot of hate?

There are lots of matchups where I board out some stoneforges and an equipment or two, but delver is not typically one of them.

Protecting our equipment can be very powerful against Delver and control decks, but don't go overboard or fret too much if they do destroy one of your equipment. I haven't seen a lot of grudges but more wouldn't surprise me going forward. Decay has always been the card to worry about for equipment. I have brought back an old favorite, divert, as a one of in my board against decks that hate on the equipment (and frequently also have a ton of removal). Decays often happen without extra open mana, as people feel it is a safe play, so divert works regularly. Decay decks are also almost always creature decks so you regularly get maximum value, rather than just redirecting to a less important permanent you control. It is a weak card by legacy standards but very good at what it does. I wouldn't play more than one, but I like one a lot.

I think if you are bringing in grafdigger's cage against ancient grudge you are overboarding and fighting the wrong battle. MMage has some corner case value in fair matchups but it often needs to be set on the most likely removal spell left in the opponent's deck before you can hit a target of longer term interest, so again I think it is the wrong approach against delver decks which have many spells that kill creatures. Your Deathrite (if you splash black) can eat a grudge in the yard before it gets max value, and your counters should also help. I get that equipment is important but if you try too hard to protect it you will simply give up too much in other areas of the game. That is my general feeling on the subject anyway.

[tescrin]

smart stuff
Actually yeah, forget what I said.

I was eyeing my diverts the other day when I was building and remembered that they also kill opposing TNN's (your opponent is targeting) and don't activate Leovold (same thing.)

If people start pushing more Hymns and 2+ mana cost spells I could see running diverts/misdirections. It doesn't solve the Ancient Grudge problem.. but if you get CA and tempo off of them not only nuking their own dude but requiring a second spell to get your equip, you're in a great spot.

[Whitefaces]

Actually yeah, forget what I said.

I was eyeing my diverts the other day when I was building and remembered that they also kill opposing TNN's (your opponent is targeting) and don't activate Leovold (same thing.)

If people start pushing more Hymns and 2+ mana cost spells I could see running diverts/misdirections. It doesn't solve the Ancient Grudge problem.. but if you get CA and tempo off of them not only nuking their own dude but requiring a second spell to get your equip, you're in a great spot.

That's not how Divert (or Misdirection) works, you still target Leovold and (fail to) target TNN with it.

[TSmiley]

That's not how Divert (or Misdirection) works, you still target Leovold and (fail to) target TNN with it.

If your opponent controls the spell/ you can divert misdirect to target their own tnn.


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[TSmiley]

He was trying to say that if your opponent is using a removal spell to kill one of your things, you can divert/misdirect back onto a tnn or leovold they control- without triggering Leo- because they still control the spell targeting their own tnn or Leo. I prolly explained it poorly in the last post.


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[tescrin]

That's not how Divert (or Misdirection) works, you still target Leovold and (fail to) target TNN with it.
It is *really* hard not to write a snarky, trolly post.

If it's been four years since the release of a card and you still don't know how it works or what counters it, please just google it and click the first link. (http://mtg.summoning.ru/cards_eng/TrueNameNemesis.shtml)

[Whitefaces]

Right, anyone got a hat I can eat? :tongue:

I'm really surprised this has never come up before! I knew Redirect worked, but the word 'target' on Divert and Misdirection threw me off.

[tescrin]

Went 2-1 at a local, 0-2 to a 4c Bant deck (leo), 2-0 against lands, 2-0 against Elves.


-15/2-
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Vendillion Clique

-7/2-
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Umezawa's JItte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Detention Sphere

-20/14-
2 Green sun's zenith
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will

3 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Moorland Haunt
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Savannah
1 Karakas
1 Forest
3 Wasteland

SB:
1 Mana Maze
2 Containment Priest
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Chill
1 Humility
1 Rest in Peace
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Phrexian Revoker
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Ensnaring Bridge


4c Bant:
G1 - he lands DRS and I find no removal for an absurd amount of time. T2 Leo, T3 3cmc Gideon; I go Noble->QPM->KotR IIRC. I end up brainstorming, forgetting about Leo, and have to use KotR to fetch Karakas. This is alright, I get a Haunt and make spirits to hold him off and beat for three when he pusses out; but never find anything interesting (Elspeth, Equips, removal) and Gideon turning off KotR, DRS shrinking him, etc. makes it so I can't get anything done. I also goof and lose a KotR thinking he'd have one more +1 (probably thinking he'd fetch a wasteland and use it) and lose him. Lame.

G2 - I mull a bit, keep a tempo hand with KotR. I end up with 2x Noble, KotR (tapped for a reason I don't remember), and a Trop. I could drop an Elspeth or I can get him back to 1 land, 1 DRS, so I do that. I get ZP'd, Decayed, wasted. This game sucks and I hate it. I just needed to pull the trigger on Elspeth and I cannot remember why I didn't. Fuck me.

I really feel like G2 I just misplayed and he got the nuts. G1 I feel like I could've drawn a damn Swords, Equip, Elspeth, *something*, and instead stalled out on gay shit.


Lands:
G1 - I see Taiga and have Force. Just be belcher you son of a bitch. I dare you.

Turns out he then Diamonds, which I allow, then I daze or force a loam (next turn?) I go Trop-GSZ->Arbor, Tundra->Noble->QPM, and he's loaming away. I think I waste somewhere in here. He does a ghost quarter and sees me get a forest and loams into a wasteland. I get SFM, fetching SoFaI. I end up Waste+QPMing him back to low mana to gain tempo. He makes a Lage and I plow it. I then drop a KotR, attach a sword next turn, and beat for 11 a turn with Karakas ready to fetch. GG.

G2 - We both mull to 5. I keep Savannah, Plow Plow KotR, Force. Garbage. But I draw a RiP as my first card and decide not to play a land. He gives me a weird look but I know I need to get 2 mana at once and make him work for it. I draw into Noble (thank da lor') and Sav->Noble. He drops the waste and nails it as expected, but i get a brainstorm, get a wasteland, and get to play the rip the next turn; giving me a massive advantage. Noble->[SFM?]->Waste->KotR->Waste->Waste ends up keeping him on the back foot. Beautiful.


Elves:
G1 - A jitte flips out while he's cutting and I make a joke about how I'm storm and Jitte is my out for Elves. He starts with a Heritage Druid. How come every fucking time I joke about playing against Elves or Sneakshow or Miracles, it's the deck I joked about.

Anyway.. I have a Noble->SFM and do it. I force a Wirewood that would've turned on Heritage because I think I can get things going before he can [I have a daze for NO or something I think.] I end up slowly establishing with 2xSFM while wasting a cradle and maybe something else, get Jitte and Sword attached and because there's no symbiote he quickly loses his board and the match. I rub it in by giving the double-equipped SFM an Elspeth Flying 3/3 boost haha. He's hinting that his favorite crackers are Saltines.

G2 - I keep something awkward with Force + Daze + 2 Ponder + Containment Priest. I drop Priest to buy some time and draw a few wastelands. I force something dumb and accidentally pitch ponder. He decays priest, so I drop Scooze and start beating for 3 at a time. He drains me a bit, decays Jitte when I equip it (I think) and whatnot, but he's still at basically no cards and I have the ability to beat. The ponders find me another priest and then while we both sit there I draw another Force. He goes for a glimpse and I force it (against his empty board) after wasting a cradle, and he is salty. Salty like a cool breeze on the pacific while drinking a margarita...

..Speaking of..!

Meta tonight:
1 Storm
1 Elves
1 Patriot Control(?)
2 Infect
1 Reanimator/StifleNought hybrid
2 Burn
1 D&T
1 Pox
1 Nic Fit
2 Bant (me and that idiot som' bitch)
1 Sneakshow?
[my drink is kicking in and I'm missing ~5 decks]



So, not the biggest baddest report ever, but it was a good time. I think I'll swap that SoLaS and Bridge out. If I'm not gonna use bridge for Lands.. I may as well put a real card there. SoLaS seems meh; but it was a "hey maybe against D&T?" kinda card. Not sure what I want. Lands felt like I was playing on Expert mode. Some risky decisions really paid off. GSZ, Teeg, and Cage feel weird. I don't know why they never have before, but I think it's that when you're in blue, doing shitty things is dumb.

GSZ was good. Killed BSK. Ramped me a couple times. Got a.. Scooze to harass lands.
Didn't see Clique. Elspeth was almost good.
KotR wasted people. awesome.


I haven't read white-dude's reply about TNN yet cause I'm a bitch about internet drama, so I mean.. I'll do that in a sec so I can re-read my post and see how much of a dick I was haha. I gotta make another drink. If people have super-cool (or terrible) suggestions for the 2 sideboard slots go nuts. I think the main felt alright.

EDIT: No biggy whitefaces. I'm normally more of an ass than I need to be.

EDIT2: Savannah sucks and I hate it. I could use a basic island so I might do that.. I may go for a 4th Trop.

[mike1987]

Is it imperative to play 8 mana dorks instead of let's say 7? I am contemplating to cut one hierarch and one jace just to allocate 2 ponder in the main. What are your opinion of adding additional cantrips to the main? (if we take Chris's MKM list as a reference).

[Whitefaces]

Is it imperative to play 8 mana dorks instead of let's say 7? I am contemplating to cut one hierarch and one jace just to allocate 2 ponder in the main. What are your opinion of adding additional cantrips to the main? (if we take Chris's MKM list as a reference).

I'd say yes, it is, games starting with a dork vs ones without are day and night. The deck has a pretty focused gameplan of turn one dork, turn two TNN or Leovold. The deck also leans on the dorks very heavily to support the weak manabase so cutting one makes you more vulnerable to wasteland and daze etc from clunky draws. Both DRS and to a slightly lesser extent Noble Hierarch (with TNN) have text in the late game too, so it's not like we have completely dead draws later either.

Ponder doesn't fit the decks curve very well I think, when I used to play a couple they were never cast until turn 4+. Fwiw Chris got the list from me and just made a couple of sb changes the day before mkm, so I can probably help with any questions on that. I realize I was contemplating adding two Ponders just a few pages back, but I've gone off the idea now, they were just generic placeholders / flex slots.


On another note, since the deck has evolved a lot since the beginning of the thread, what do others think of starting fresh? I can write, or help with, a primer.

[limbo]

Is it imperative to play 8 mana dorks instead of let's say 7? I am contemplating to cut one hierarch and one jace just to allocate 2 ponder in the main. What are your opinion of adding additional cantrips to the main? (if we take Chris's MKM list as a reference).

I am going to disagree with Whitefaces on this one. I had the most success with the deck while running 7 dorks. 7 is enough to regularly have a mana boost. If you are inclined to go that way give it a try.

[Theonlyone]

A new primer would be really awesome!

[Whitefaces]

I am going to disagree with Whitefaces on this one. I had the most success with the deck while running 7 dorks. 7 is enough to regularly have a mana boost. If you are inclined to go that way give it a try.

Fair enough, I just always feel like the deck is a lot worse without one on turn one (to point out the obvious :smile:). Seven is the accepted number of dorks to reasonably have one on turn one iirc, Frank Karsten crunched the numbers.

If you do cut a dork I'd recommend it be a DRS, without Ponders to find the necessary fetches he's not as reliable as Noble is to curve out. That's my experience anyway.

[limbo]

If you do cut a dork I'd recommend it be a DRS, without Ponders to find the necessary fetches he's not as reliable as Noble is to curve out. That's my experience anyway.

This I agree with. Getting consistent mana is extremely important to this deck.

[TSmiley]

I've gone back and forth between 7 and 8 dorks, but the true reason why it's correct to run 8 is that you get roughly a 6% increase in having at least one mana creature in our opening hand. Since the deck is built around access to a mana advantage early- and since the loss of miracles makes hierarch better- I think we definitely want 8.


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[DudeItsCorey]

I've gone back and forth between 7 and 8 dorks, but the true reason why it's correct to run 8 is that you get roughly a 6% increase in having at least one mana creature in our opening hand. Since the deck is built around access to a mana advantage early- and since the loss of miracles makes hierarch better- I think we definitely want 8.


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I have to agree. I starting playing this deck since the top ban (Equipping TNN is really where I want to be). It's so busted to have a turn 3 TNN or Leovold that I always want to increase my percentage of having a mana dork in my opening hand. I went down to 3 stoneforge mystics. I figure they're not a threat and mostly just a tutor. SFM seems to be the last card I play out of my hand. Again, I just started to play the deck so I don't quite know the ins and outs, but so far it feels right.

[KobeBryan]

I have to agree. I starting playing this deck since the top ban (Equipping TNN is really where I want to be). It's so busted to have a turn 3 TNN or Leovold that I always want to increase my percentage of having a mana dork in my opening hand. I went down to 3 stoneforge mystics. I figure they're not a threat and mostly just a tutor. SFM seems to be the last card I play out of my hand. Again, I just started to play the deck so I don't quite know the ins and outs, but so far it feels right.

You bait the counters with the sfm. The tnns are their to end the game.

You dont want your tnn to get countered. If you drop a turn 2 sfm, their turn will consist of them removing that threat.

Thats how you waste their turn for you to drop thr tnn. Dont go lower than 4 sfm. Its straight card advatange with brainstorm and jace

[Hanni]

What I like most about SFM is that it helps increase the probability of having a high impact turn 2 play. Sometimes, you don't have a turn 1 mana dork. Sometimes, you're turn 1 mana dork gets killed. SFM helps improve your curve; SFM helps reduce the games where you do nothing impactful until turn 3. When you do stick a turn 1 mana dork, it's nice to be able to Daze turn 1 when you have to, and still have a turn 2 play. So on and so forth.

Trimming to 3 on Hierarch or SFM is most certainly possible, but maxing out at 4 increases consistency.

[DudeItsCorey]

You bait the counters with the sfm. The tnns are their to end the game.

You dont want your tnn to get countered. If you drop a turn 2 sfm, their turn will consist of them removing that threat.

Thats how you waste their turn for you to drop thr tnn. Dont go lower than 4 sfm. Its straight card advatange with brainstorm and jace

I don't really know if I understand your logic since TNN blanks their removal spells. Leovold allowing card advantage because it replaces itself if it gets removed. You also have permission as well to ensure that your threat sticks. I don't even mind spending turn two playing two more mana dorks (unless you suspect Toxic Deluge), because it puts you so far ahead and basically makes their soft permission dead cards. Especially with terminus in the trade binder, I feel like I want to jam TNN out ASAP to start a clock and then later equip it with Jitte or SoFi to finish out the game. I guess I am taking a more Mid-Ranged approach to the deck rather than a control approach to the deck.

[TSmiley]

I don't really know if I understand your logic since TNN blanks their removal spells. Leovold allowing card advantage because it replaces itself if it gets removed. You also have permission as well to ensure that your threat sticks. I don't even mind spending turn two playing two more mana dorks (unless you suspect Toxic Deluge), because it puts you so far ahead and basically makes their soft permission dead cards. Especially with terminus in the trade binder, I feel like I want to jam TNN out ASAP to start a clock and then later equip it with Jitte or SoFi to finish out the game. I guess I am taking a more Mid-Ranged approach to the deck rather than a control approach to the deck.

You can use the SFM to bait fow or daze from your opponent, or have them spend a turn answering the sfm before dropping your tnn with an extra land drop out of daze range. Also- some of the time you will have a dork turn 1, but no 3 drop- sfm fills the void in your turn two after you brainstorm to sculpt your hand further as well.

[TSmiley]

What I like most about SFM is that it helps increase the probability of having a high impact turn 2 play. Sometimes, you don't have a turn 1 mana dork. Sometimes, you're turn 1 mana dork gets killed. SFM helps improve your curve; SFM helps reduce the games where you do nothing impactful until turn 3. When you do stick a turn 1 mana dork, it's nice to be able to Daze turn 1 when you have to, and still have a turn 2 play. So on and so forth.

Trimming to 3 on Hierarch or SFM is most certainly possible, but maxing out at 4 increases consistency.

T1 Dork, plus T2 Wasteland SFM is great too.

[limbo]

Played Gideon a bunch at FNM. He is fine. I could see some decks that are super soft to combo liking him. I would liked to have played him against delver as I think that is probably where he would shine, but I didn't get that matchup tonight and he just doesn't seem as good for me as clique or Leo or Snapcaster or Jace. I will bring one with me tomorrow (GP legacy side events all day) but I suspect he won't make it in. Decided to go with a pretty lean main deck and a bit of spice in the board.

[limbo]

Played different versions of the deck a lot this weekend:

Friday FNM: I added a savannah and played two gideon of the trials, 3 wasteland (20 land), 1 ponder, 3 mystic, 1 snapcaster

Saturday GP event 1: no gideon or savannah, 4 wasteland, 1 clique, 1 Leo, 1 jace, 1 snapcaster, 4 mystic.

event 2: I played Aluren but got paired against a pretty stock looking bant deck in round 2 and lost to his T2 Leo G1 and T2&T3 TNN in game 2. I think BUG Aluren is favored in this matchup, but the fast three drop is the way for Bant to win.

event 3: Bant with 3 Leovold, no ponder, 3 wasteland, 2 sea and 1 scrub (20 land), 2 jace, normal everywhere else.

I had some flooding issues without the ponder (and library I use to also run). It is a small sample size but I like having the 5th can trip. I am never sad to see Leovold and throwing one out into removal or a counter with a second in hand (like most of our threats) is fine. I didn't see my one of sideboard divert at all throughout the weekend. That was a bit disappointing, but saw lots of moments where it would have been outstanding, so I am keeping it for the time being.

Edit: Also of note, I lost games to Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Choke in my 8 rounds on the deck yesterday and decayed 2 BtB and one blood moon. It might be worth going back to the forest, green fetches, and KGrip (board). The UW stoneblade decks I played both had BtB in the main. With that in mind, two decay main is very reasonable, so at least from my experience yesterday my 4 plow, 1 decay was wrong.

[tescrin]

Went 3-1 yesterday, despite 4 of my cards I replaced Elspeth, BSK, and 2 Ponders with a terrible experiment. I won't talk about those cards here.
Esper control - 0-2
Patriot Control - 2-0
Aluren - 2-1 [white BUG version]
Infect - 2-1 [mulled to 5 G1, the first being because of Dryad Arbor. probably could've won with my original hand were it 2 DRS instead of GSZ Arbor.]

Highlights:
* Tried a 1 of Spell Queller. That card is amazing. Holy crap. Won me a game against Aluren because when he went to decay Canonist and go off, I munched the decay. He quickly said "can't be countered" and then had to read the card. Good times. Flying for 2 won that game (and him dumping life into sylvan thinking he'd go off.)
* * Also played a huge role against Infect in a game as another removal spell essentially. Equip + Flying was essential to that game and he did that as well.
* * I will be moving to 2+ in the main I think. It's a house.

* KotR wasting Inkmoth nexus's and Pendlehaven multiple times.

* Clique causing a lot of awkwardness for Aluren and ultimately winning the game by making it so he couldn't go off without another answer.

* Holy shit, is canonist amazing against Infect, and was game-winning useful against Aluren. Swapping Teeg back to a second one seems way better.

* Brought 2 Submerge in the side to deal with Infect and the ever-present Goyf/BUG decks, helped win me G2 against Infect. I think it'd be useful against Aluren on the combo turn while Harpy is on the stack; but I only sided it in G3.


Notes:
* I think I'll swap the 2 GSZs, Haunt, and Arbor for 3 DRS/1 USea. I like GSZ for versatility, but that can be mitigated with cantrips. The main issue is arbor only tapping for green does occasionally come up [especially since it requires green to cast], as well as -1/-1 effects. DRS blocking opponent's DRS activations also seems like something I'd like to be doing again. Between Elves, BUG, etc. blocking a mana activation seems quite good. Obviously DRS eating things when you don't use the mana and can't attack is also a thing. The 2 toughness will come up quite a bit with Exalted too.

* The match I lost was a grindy Esper control deck; predictably to JtMS after we hosed loads of cards from each other. Unfortunately I removed the grindy cards that would've helped (and had been seen) for this MU. I am back to debating Elspeths.. [note: I bought a pair of jaces a couple years ago, but they were either stolen or.. more likely.. put somewhere stupid and I haven't found them.]

* The 3rd ponder vs. the 4th wasteland is a current predicament. I haven't yet needed the 4th Waste to seal the game, but I've needed the 3rd multiple times in my [only] two locals.

* I moved to 3 Daze a little bit ago and it feels pretty ideal. With 4 you're often stuffing it back in. Dazing late game has often become a lot better for me too. I find myself dazing 4-mana spells and spells that

* Screwed myself G2 with Aluren when I Brainstormed, had a Teeg on the field, and was going to use my GSZ as a shuffle effect and to get mana I needed. My opponent noted that that didn't work. Sad times. I knew the tension was there, but the slowdown there cost me the game I think.


Between KotR, Queller, and Clique; I feel the combo MU is getting really good. I'm winning a lot of G1's confidently and then getting a couple chances to really dig in on the following games.

I know people here are all in on the TNN plan but the reason I'm in the more classic bant style is the Combo MUs. KotR + Clique solves a lot of issues. I've also been quite happy to reliably triple-waste people a couple times now. People aren't used to it anymore I don't think, or they're new enough that they didn't actually play against Mav/Junk lists of old.

[Whitefaces]

Played different versions of the deck a lot this weekend:

Friday FNM: I added a savannah and played two gideon of the trials, 3 wasteland (20 land), 1 ponder, 3 mystic, 1 snapcaster

Saturday GP event 1: no gideon or savannah, 4 wasteland, 1 clique, 1 Leo, 1 jace, 1 snapcaster, 4 mystic.

event 2: I played Aluren but got paired against a pretty stock looking bant deck in round 2 and lost to his T2 Leo G1 and T2&T3 TNN in game 2. I think BUG Aluren is favored in this matchup, but the fast three drop is the way for Bant to win.

event 3: Bant with 3 Leovold, no ponder, 3 wasteland, 2 sea and 1 scrub (20 land), 2 jace, normal everywhere else.

I had some flooding issues without the ponder (and library I use to also run). It is a small sample size but I like having the 5th can trip. I am never sad to see Leovold and throwing one out into removal or a counter with a second in hand (like most of our threats) is fine. I didn't see my one of sideboard divert at all throughout the weekend. That was a bit disappointing, but saw lots of moments where it would have been outstanding, so I am keeping it for the time being.

Edit: Also of note, I lost games to Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Choke in my 8 rounds on the deck yesterday and decayed 2 BtB and one blood moon. It might be worth going back to the forest, green fetches, and KGrip (board). The UW stoneblade decks I played both had BtB in the main. With that in mind, two decay main is very reasonable, so at least from my experience yesterday my 4 plow, 1 decay was wrong.

Thanks for trying out a bunch of different things!

I'm going to try 3 Leovold myself again soon, the card seems even better positioned in the meta now. Probably in the slot of a Stoneforge Mystic.

Your event 3 sounds exactly like the deck I'm playing.

And yeah, on Moon, B2B and Choke, I've been discussing these cards with a friend and we've said if they start to be played more and more the basic Forest + K Grips is the way to go.

I'm still on 2 decays md, with 3 stp.

[TSmiley]

I've found that there are more bolts/pushes running around because of grixis Delver- 3 leovold might be too much.


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[TSmiley]

I know people here are all in on the TNN plan but the reason I'm in the more classic bant style is the Combo MUs. KotR + Clique solves a lot of issues. I've also been quite happy to reliably triple-waste people a couple times now. People aren't used to it anymore I don't think, or they're new enough that they didn't actually play against Mav/Junk lists of old.

I think one or two clique over leovold isn't gaining major percentage points against combo- and anyone who sees an active kor is going to get basics if they have them. The Karakas toolbox package could be a reason to run it but unless things like hex Depths take over the meta I don't currently see a reason to. I think TNN is the whole reason you want to be running the deck right now- and moving backwards from that significantly weakens the deck.


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[TSmiley]

Spell queller is still probably trash even with decay losing some presence- its still around and lightning bolt is seeing a lot more play.


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[tescrin]

By all means, I could be wrong. I'm just reporting. Spell Queller won me the only games I saw it in, one in a manner that no other legacy card can [specifically protecting me from decay.]

I admit I lose some fair MU points with the grindy decks. I'm still looking for how best to deal with that without overloading on three drops.


To counter the TNN point; I don't know why you'd be in Bant to run SFM+TNN. Bant gets you a couple of Hierarchs I guess, but the Trop/Bayou you'd run in Esper can cover a 2-of if you're desperate. They get Lingering Souls for the Grind if they want, as well as Gurmag/Stalker/Strix. I'm not sure what you gain in WUgb that you can't have in BUwg. There's less CA here than there is in Esper, less sword holders, little/no token possibilities. It's literally just for hierarch?

I'm in G specifically because KotR shores up Reanimator/Sneakshow/Infect/Lands (mostly Karakas, but wasting Inkmoths is good.) I get that I could do the TNN+KotR route, and I might.. I'm just feeling around the build space in an evolving meta. Fact is, in my meta right now, usually about 15-20 twice a week, there's 2+ infect, 1+ reanimator, 0-2 sneakshow, 1+ lands; and a SneakFit who's dropping T3 Emmy's on people. There's also a couple of very experienced storm and elves pilots. My money is not on grinding.

I know I *probably* dropped a game or two in the fair MUs in the couple of locals so far that are due to [x] being in TNN's slot. But that banks on the opponent not having answers, one of which had -1 effects, the other (who may have had that as well) had Judgement/Snaps. TNN is a reasonable card, but we're in a meta filling itself with -x/-x hate, combo, and delver. I sold my Leo's because I think he's got a limited time on his head and he hit his ceiling. I could be totally off, but I find it hard to believe he's not saturated.

So rather than play known quantities and tell you about how cards you already know are good are in fact still good; I'm giving you a perspective of "I realize this isn't what you guys are doing at the moment, but over in my oft-combo infested meta, this is performing [x]." This may well be annoying to you.

Lastly, my perspective is usually focused on how to make combo MUs sterling, while being bigger than Delver. Grindy MUs feel like the pilot's fault, or that a minor tweak could fix the deck, or that getting [x] online T3 would've gotten you there. Combo often feels like "my deck sucks." So I'm willing to slog it out with fair decks and take a couple points off while gaining a few points against combos; in part because fair games are so much more varied in how they play out that it's hard to tell when it's deck, pilot, or opp's draws.

Anyway, now that I've crapped a load of text, time to get to work :p

[TSmiley]

In response to the spell queller/decay reporting- obviously there are some cards that people play that win them games they wouldn’t have been able to win otherwise- but spell queller wasn’t good enough in an abrupt decay infested meta and now more efficient spells that remove it (bolt) are more abundant.

The green is to be able to play more mana creatures while accelerating the deck to be able to play daze and wasteland more efficiently. Without the dorks- you can play a stoneblade game with high impact spells and counter backup- but dark bant is far smoother and more tempo oriented than the midrange/controlling blade variants. I think Knight is a far more grindy card than true-name nemesis. The splash 4c deathblade decks with 7+ dorks are also super proven in the meta game and have shown over the last year that they are more than likely the best variant of stoneblade (this is arguable)

On the point of KoR vs Reanimator- I think that KoR is far too slow for the BR Reanimator matchup- and even if you can naturally draw the karakas for grisel- they will more than likely draw into an entomb for Tidespout or Sire. I would also argue that playing more mana dorks in a daze shell gives you a better matchup against combo than the traditional esper deathblade.

It’s obviously fine to say what happened at your local- but posting things like:

Highlights:
* Tried a 1 of Spell Queller. That card is amazing. Holy crap.

Are just asking to be commented on.
I should also get back to work!

[Seraphix]

...

I'm in G specifically because KotR shores up Reanimator/Sneakshow/Infect/Lands (mostly Karakas, but wasting Inkmoths is good.) I get that I could do the TNN+KotR route, and I might.. I'm just feeling around the build space in an evolving meta. Fact is, in my meta right now, usually about 15-20 twice a week, there's 2+ infect, 1+ reanimator, 0-2 sneakshow, 1+ lands; and a SneakFit who's dropping T3 Emmy's on people. There's also a couple of very experienced storm and elves pilots. My money is not on grinding.

I know I *probably* dropped a game or two in the fair MUs in the couple of locals so far that are due to [x] being in TNN's slot. But that banks on the opponent not having answers, one of which had -1 effects, the other (who may have had that as well) had Judgement/Snaps. TNN is a reasonable card, but we're in a meta filling itself with -x/-x hate, combo, and delver. I sold my Leo's because I think he's got a limited time on his head and he hit his ceiling. I could be totally off, but I find it hard to believe he's not saturated.

...



I've been on 3 TNN/2 Knight as 3-drops for a while. TNN is great, but Knight fulfills an important role as a threat that attacks from a totally different angle as you allude to. Its big, ramps you, gets Karakas, Wastelands the opponent to death, and doesn't get blown out by -1/1 effects. I certainly won't be dropping it anytime soon.

[anwei]

On the point of KoR vs Reanimator- I think that KoR is far too slow for the BR Reanimator matchup- and even if you can naturally draw the karakas for grisel- they will more than likely draw into an entomb for Tidespout or Sire. I would also argue that playing more mana dorks in a daze shell gives you a better matchup against combo than the traditional esper deathblade.


Definitely too slow for your main line of disruption, but it's excellent as a (functional) T3-4 hate bear that, with instant-speed access to Bog or Karakas, puts the game away.

I would say that Knight's general ability to do that against the major graveyard strategies, but also (more weakly) against storm and show and tell, while providing an impressive clock, could really potentially shore up the slow clock vs. combo. Few things make me happier with my creature lineup than fast combo matchups where I'm ready to cut all my SFMs and TNNs for a bunch of disruptive 2/2s and hope they can't find a way through in like 10 turns.

[TSmiley]

I set up twitch and did a test stream last night- going to finish the league tonight on stream.

https://m.twitch.tv/tsmiley7?desktop-redirect=true


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[Theonlyone]

Hello. I haven't played the deck since the release of decay and deathrite shaman. I just got my cards to build the version of the mkm frankfurt series. Is there somewhere an article or an updated primer of the 4c stoneblade leovold? Same question about videos, matches, mtgo leagues and so on...
What are the good/bad matchups of the deck? Sorry about rhe bunch of questions, I don't have the opportunity to test online and my legacy community counts very few people...

[TSmiley]

I wrote one a while back (after gp Columbus) but I think the hosting site is down- I got asked to do another one but I've been dragging my feet.

I did get to stream it over the last two night and ended up 5-1 on mtgo, going 1-1 vs grixis Delver and beating death and Taxes, ant, elves, and burn- the video is saved at the link I posted above.


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[Despiteful]

Hey Guys,

I wanted to talk about all the Swords of x and y.

Which Swords would you bring for which Meta?

Most people seem to only play fire and ice right now, or none at all.
Do you feel they are too slow right now?
And in which matchups are they bomb and the first to be tutored?

Unfortunatly the Swords are kind of my pet timmy cards so i try to somehow fit 2 in :)

[tescrin]

Right now? I'd probably do SoFaI and SoBaM if I ran two. Both get through TNN, BaM gets through all the other nasties except Stalker/Gurmag.

BaM dropping dudes on your lawn is pretty neat and means your opp falls way behind. It also is a guaranteed kill in 4 swings or so against most decks, though mildly risky against things like Loam (side it out.)

SoFaI is just grand. The immense clock it puts on people and CA is often back breaking. It gets through anything cute too, like Strix, TNN, Thopters, and even gives you a jace-block so he can't bounce you and stunt your tempo.

If you want to protect your dude SoLaS is also nice and usually that or SoFaF are the second sword if someone runs two. SoLaS protects you from every single legacy removal that targets I believe, unless it's on a 1/1 (which bolt can hit.) It has reasonable effect against Burn and D&T as well; and it flies through Grisel and Lage too, if the game is close enough for that to matter (sometimes it has been!) Note: I am not 100% as I don't have time to check, but I believe if DRS blocks the SoLaS trigger for the target, it will also block the life-gain. Same can happen if Mom blocks your SoFaI trigger IIRC.

SoFaF is there mostly for the BUG decks and provides a tempo boost; but I've not seen the appeal much. SoBaM gives a guaranteed thing and gets around TNN. Those wolves will add up IMO, but I haven't tried it, so maybe I'm dumb. Getting around TNN is currently the big thing you need to be doing


Imo; current meta I'd rank like this:
SoFaI (TNN, awesome triggers, reliable CA, potential, +2 CA per hit, Colorless Removal makes it still relevant to D&T)
SoBaM (GREAT evasion, ok trigger, reliable CA) and SoLaS (great evasion, great protection, relevant but unreliable triggers, unreliable CA)
SoFaF (ok protection and evasion, weak triggers potentially, unreliable CA)
SoWaP (ok protection, weak triggers potentially, never gives CA)

SoWaP not only has unpredictable effect, but misses protection against Decay, Push, TNN, Goyf, etc.. and it's triggers can be underwhelming in a drawn out game, which is where swords mostly come up. I own a copy and I've never convinced myself to main or even side it.


EDIT: On whether to use it; I think leaving without SoFaI is a mistake. the tempo it provides is huge. I plowed a Lage the other day and still killed the guy in three swings. Brutal. Getting through TNN is imperitive and making Noble Hierarch a relevant equiper can be the difference between a loss and a win. Pro-blue/red also prevents ~100% of flash dudes that matter from getting you or even blocking you.

[Richard Arschmann]

Honestly, I would consider running 0 swords maindeck: the extra slot could be a Ponder or a Thoughtseize. Fire and Ice is the best one but I feel like I would still rather have Jitte or Batterskull in the vast majority of situations. The other four are not playable in Legacy.

[TSmiley]

Hey Guys,

I wanted to talk about all the Swords of x and y.

Which Swords would you bring for which Meta?

Most people seem to only play fire and ice right now, or none at all.
Do you feel they are too slow right now?
And in which matchups are they bomb and the first to be tutored?

Unfortunatly the Swords are kind of my pet timmy cards so i try to somehow fit 2 in :)

I think the rankings right now go:
Fire and Ice
Feast and Famine
Light and Shadow
War and Peace
Body and Mind

[TSmiley]

Played mtgo last night and played against burn, bug Delver, sneak and show, allures, and mono red sneak attack going 5-0. The deck seems to be in a sweet spot in at least the online meta game- can't wait to play more in paper.


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[Corazu]

Played mtgo last night and played against burn, bug Delver, sneak and show, allures, and mono red sneak attack going 5-0. The deck seems to be in a sweet spot in at least the online meta game- can't wait to play more in paper.


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Congrats man you made the daily list :)

I need to get on top of moving some cards so I can at least build this online since it might be a bit before I can put it together in paper.

[TSmiley]

Congrats man you made the daily list :)

I need to get on top of moving some cards so I can at least build this online since it might be a bit before I can put it together in paper.



Thanks! I'm going to be streaming the legacy challenge today starting in 45 minutes- hopefully it continues to go well.

[TSmiley]

Thanks! I'm going to be streaming the legacy challenge today starting in 45 minutes- hopefully it continues to go well.

I finished 13th in the Legacy Challenge at 5-2 and then finished a league after- here is the link to the video.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/142932225

[limbo]

I finished 13th in the Legacy Challenge at 5-2 and then finished a league after- here is the link to the video.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/142932225

Thanks for posting these. It is nice to see the lines and thought processes of others.

Edit: also - Drinking Stout or Coke?

[TSmiley]

Diet Coke until the end where I have Night Shift Morph and then a 40 of Coors Light... :D

[TSmiley]

Finally got around to compiling the wins/losses for my experiences on mtgo- here is the run down- do what you want with the data! The later part of the list was the start of playing serious mtgo for me- and the win/loss ratio may be skewed because of unfamiliarity with the client.
Overall: 51-28 65%
Grixis Delver 9-4
Ant 5-4
Most Recent
Grixis Delver L 0-2
LED Dredge W 2-0
Bug Control L 1-2
Grixis Delver W 2-1
Grixis Delver W 2-1
Jeskai Punishing Thing L 1-2
Grixis Delver W 2-1
Maverick W 2-0
Grixis Delver W 2-0
Eldrazi W 2-1
Czech W 2-0
Grixis Delver L 1-2
Mono Red Sneak W 2-1
Alluren W 2-0
Sneak and Show W 2-1
Duke Bug W 2-1
Burn W 2-0
Grixis Delver L 0-2
Ant W 2-0
Elves W 2-1
Death and Taxes W 2-1
Grixis Delver W 2-1
Belcher W 2-0
Esper Stoneblade W 2-0
Ant L 0-2
Bug Delver W 2-0
Lands L 0-2
Jeskai Stoneblade W 2-1
Grixis Delver W 2-0
Grixis Delver W 2-1
Ant L 1-2
Shardless Bug W 2-1
Czech W 2-1
Grixis Delver W 2-1
BR Reanimator L 1-2
UB Thing W 2-0
Bug Delver W 2-1
Ant L 1-2
Fish W 2-1
Burn L 0-2
Ant W 2-1
Grixis Delver W 2-0
Twin Moon W 2-1
Elves L 1-2
Dark Bant L 1-2
Zombardment W 2-1
Burn L 1-2
Bug Delver W 2-0
Sneak and Show L 0-2
UW Stoneblade W 2-1
Dark Bant L 1-2
Twin Moon W 2-0
Twin Moon W 2-0
Bug Delver L 1-2
Maverick L 0-2
Mono Red Sneak W 2-0
TES L 0-2
TES L 0-2
Bug Delver L 0-2
Burn W 2-0
Czech L 0-2
GW Chalice Loam L 1-2
UR Delver W 2-1
Ant L 0-2
BR Reanimator W 2-1
4c Loam L 0-2
Aluren W 2-1
Jeskai Stoneblade W 2-1
Goblins W 2-0
Ant W 2-1
4c Delver W 2-1
Infect L 0-2
Sneak and Show W 2-0
Grixis Delver L 1-2
Ant W 2-1
Slivers L 0-2
Ant W 2-1
Esper Mentor W 2-0
Death and Taxes W 2-1
Start of Replays That Work

[anwei]

Tonight I played Natural Order and went 4-0. I don't think I particularly recommend it. Dropping white is probably easier on the manabase, and Knight gets killed a lot. But, the list was probably okay. I'd drop one Knight for a 3rd TNN and look to get 1-2 more fair cards in the board (Submerge? Path?).

21 Lands
4 Misty
4 Heath
3 Trop
2 Tundra
1 U Sea (note that half the fetches can't get this)
1 Bayou
3 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Karakas

Threats/etc. (21)
3 DRS
2 Hierarch
1 Pridemage
1 Ooze
3 KotR
2 TNN
1 Leovold
1 Progenitus
1 JTMS
3 GSZ
3 NO

Spells (18)
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 StP
4 FoW
3 Daze
1 Spell Pierce

Board
2 Fluster
2 Thoughtseize
2 Meddling Mage
2 Cannonist
1 Teeg
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Surgical
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Qasali Pridemage

[tescrin]

Tonight I played Natural Order and went 4-0
Pretty neat list! I agree that bringing kotr to 2 makes sense if you want him. I was going that route but I'm trying Esper a bit again. KotR, IMO, improves unfair MUs but makes fair MUs pretty mediocre.

I always wanted to try the NO plan, looks like it's nifty! Maybe a Worldspine would make it better?

[Richard Arschmann]

When you're in topdeck mode on an empty board, both NO and Progenitus seem like awful topdecks, and Bant is already Awful Topdecks: The Deck with all the dorks. DRS is the exception, I guess, so it seems like you should run four of him.

[anwei]

If you are in topdeck mode, it's rare that you don't have a fetch for Arbor up.

But, I guess Progenitus and the 2 Hierarchs aren't great? I'm not sure that's too damning.

[limbo]

I like the dark bant shell and have different packages I like based on combo heavy, delver heavy, mid-range/control heavy metas, etc.
Tonight I tested some more slightly different packages aimed at countering the rise of other stoneblade and control decks.
19 land: 9 fetch, 1 basic, 8 dual, 1 academy ruins, 0 wasteland
3 Leo, 2 ponder, 3 daze, 8 dork, 2 decay, 3 plow, 1 jace
Board: 1 EE, 2 thopter foundary, 1 sword of the meek

I really liked the consistent mana of this build. That was my big take away from the evening. I didn't miss having access to wasteland this evening. The EE and Thopter-sword were intended for stoneblade mirrors and for UR delver. Ruins was intended to support that package and give me an equipment buy back option against decay decks if the game got long. Sadly I didn't get to play those matchups. So I can't give much insight, but I still like the idea and though I would throw it out for people to consider. I played MUD, Dredge, ANT, and Infect. 4-0.

Trying to tune up for a quest for power event and then Vegas. Hopefully results from this weekend in Louisville will start to set up the metagame a bit.

[tescrin]

I like the dark bant shell and have different packages I like based on combo heavy, delver heavy, mid-range/control heavy metas, etc.
Tonight I tested some more slightly different packages aimed at countering the rise of other stoneblade and control decks.
19 land: 9 fetch, 1 basic, 8 dual, 1 academy ruins, 0 wasteland
3 Leo, 2 ponder, 3 daze, 8 dork, 2 decay, 3 plow, 1 jace
Board: 1 EE, 2 thopter foundary, 1 sword of the meek


I tried thopter sword 2-3 weeks ago and was *very* unhappy about it. I wouldn't even post what the cards were because they were so mediocre/bad. I really think the Thopter sword combo in anything but a tezz bulid is basically bunkl

[TSmiley]

big data dump with the breakdown of my last 115 matches- gives a pretty good expectation of the online metagame.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mknF4bjchKs4WQTihfIjvp5NXjgpEFntE8OEoE9yjUM/edit

[limbo]

Nice breakdown, thank you. Do you have any guesses about how the online metagame will compare to the paper meta in Vegas?

[TSmiley]

I do- thats what I was going to do later today! I'll post an expected metagame from the data I have


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[limbo]

I do- thats what I was going to do later today! I'll post an expected metagame from the data I have


Perfect. Thank, I look forward to it.

[Noctalor]

I tried thopter sword 2-3 weeks ago and was *very* unhappy about it. I wouldn't even post what the cards were because they were so mediocre/bad. I really think the Thopter sword combo in anything but a tezz bulid is basically bunkl

Thopter combo used to work in a specific bant version with shardless agents and stoneforge mystic back in the days

[tescrin]

Thopter combo used to work in a specific bant version with shardless agents and stoneforge mystic back in the days

I had forgotten about that; I did play that once or twice and enjoyed it a bit but I admittedly didn't go that deep when I tested it recently. I was just looking for 4-slots of "I win" for fair decks by going "bigger" than TNN. I ended up doing Elspeths (pretty good card!) and other token producers.

Shardless definitely makes it better by psuedo-tutoring it and giving you a tempo boost potentially (and being a sac target.) It feels a lot better to cascade into SFM into SotM than to cast SFM into SotM.
_______________

I guess for my happenings of late: I had a 1-0-2 night in Bant a week back, stalling out against a pair of fair decks and crushing elves again. The first draw was to Czech Pile; and I had him on the ropes but couldn't finish in time because he kept spending removal on tokens in the final turns. Humility is excellent against them by the way. The second draw was to Stoneblade where we just didn't make it into G3 really. All in all I was quite happy with Elspeth if you can muster the double-white. She clocks people hard and the Flying is no joke.

Both of these were drawn out "Snap-Plow, Snap Push, Snap Decay" affairs where the game just dragged. I went to Esper for the moment for extra tokens at the expense of (mostly) Noble.

[TSmiley]

I think here is where the data and my experience with decks that are underrepresented online and over represented in paper tournaments fall in with respect to the GP Vegas metagame:

Expected Metagame GP Vegas
Aggro 45%
Grixis Delver 18%
Bug Delver 5%
Ur Delver 5%
Death and Taxes 5%
Burn 4%
Maverick 2%
Bant 2%
Eldrazi 2%
Infect 1%
Other 1%

Combo 35%
Ant 12%
Sneak and Show 6%
Br Reanimator 5%
Elves 3%
Mono Red Sneak 3%
TES 2%
Aluren 1%
Hex Depths 1%
Other 2%

Control 20%
Esper Blade 3%
Czech 3%
Shardless Bug 3%
Jeskai Blade 2%
Uw Blade 1%
4c Loam 1%
Lands 1%
Bug Control 1%
Duke Bug 1%
Other 4%

[TSmiley]

This article is great http://itsjulian.com/too-much-information-mkm-series-frankfurt/


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[limbo]

This article is great http://itsjulian.com/too-much-information-mkm-series-frankfurt/

That is a great article, but I will need to go through it a couple more times....

Also I have three other thoughts:
1) I think the sideboard card you are looking for to improve control matchups and be solid against Lands and Delver is Lingering Souls. Two copies in the board. I have played this deck enough to know when I find the right card. I have that feeling.

2) 3 Leovold, 1 Jace.

3) Less certainty on this one, but I think the correct answer to the mana base is 8 dorks, 19 lands, no wastelands. They have been a security blanket for me for years, so don't howl if I end up back on 2 of them, but I think I like the more stable mana and fewer mulligans that this build provides. Our spells are powerful and versatile, casting them is good for us.

The deck, built like this is smooooth.
In light of the above article, I can understand sticking with the stock form but this is where I am at.

[TSmiley]

Lingering souls doesn't seem to be great against tabernacle- I like 4c Gideon as my anti control card.

I can't see playing without wasteland- it's just amazing right now. Wasteland gives you a ton of play against the current legacy mana bases where you can just cut your Delver opponent off a color which is almost as good as putting them on no lands.


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[tescrin]

I can't see playing without wasteland- it's just amazing right now. Wasteland gives you a ton of play against the current legacy mana bases where you can just cut your Delver opponent off a color which is almost as good as putting them on no lands.

Agree that it's basically required. Winning because you kill a Cradle, Inkmoth, Maze of Ith, Tabernacle, Karakas, Port, Grove, or just color screwing your opponent is a big deal. Every once in awhile when you boardstall and see someone break out the Creeping Tar pit, you'll be happy that your land flood did more than bluff counterspells/answers

[13b]

Is anyone playing any version of this deck, midrange (gsz) or stoneblade or really any bant variant w/o deathrite? I dont like the idea of splashing just for him. I know its good but I like to keep the bant color scheme alive

[limbo]

Is anyone playing any version of this deck, midrange (gsz) or stoneblade or really any bant variant w/o deathrite? I dont like the idea of splashing just for him. I know its good but I like to keep the bant color scheme alive

Most of us have settled on deathrite versions, extending the black splash for a few abrupt decays and a few other sideboard cards.

The basic structure for Bant only fall into two main catagories:
1) stoneblade decks with 3-4 TNN, 2-4 KotR, 21 lands (4 wasteland, 1 karakas), 4 noble (often 1 bird) and sometimes a small GSZ package
2) Natural order package and 3-4 GSZ plus target package, 20-21 land including 1 Dryad arbor, 2-3 wasteland, 1 karakas. Forces are sometimes in the main, sometimes in the board depending on GSZ package.

Each of these is hugely tunable. The down side is that they are intricate, where changing 1 or 2 cards affects the entire deck and game texture and you need to get the build right for a given tournament.

[JackaBo]

I'm putting together this. However I'm pretty sure that saying no to DRS, Leo, Decay and ZP is a bad decision.

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Creatures:15
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Tarmogoyf
4 True-Name Nemesis
1 Rafiq of the Many

Spells:25
4 Brainstorm
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Daze
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Batterskull
4 Force of Will

Lands:20
3 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Wasteland
2 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:15
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 Meddling Mage
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
1 Rest in Peace


Created with Decked Builder
http://www.deckedbuilder.com/

[tescrin]

Is anyone playing any version of this deck, midrange (gsz) or stoneblade or really any bant variant w/o deathrite? I dont like the idea of splashing just for him. I know its good but I like to keep the bant color scheme alive

I was/sort-of am. Mine has 3 DRS at the moment and a Bayou IIRC. DRS, even if you aren't banking on the black ability, is still a grave-hating Birds of Paradise that doesn't increase your weakness to -1/-1 effects. It's basically that simple. Simply having no Black sources and swapping other ramp dudes for him will increase your % against DRS decks (you can block their mana), Burn, Lands (eat those pesky cards!), Reanimator, Dredge..

It's not a problem to treat him as a super llanowar elves, and the benefits of it are pretty far reaching. I literally ran 1 black card, which was an Engineered Plague

[ryscott85]

Lingering souls doesn't seem to be great against tabernacle- I like 4c Gideon as my anti control card.

I can't see playing without wasteland- it's just amazing right now. Wasteland gives you a ton of play against the current legacy mana bases where you can just cut your Delver opponent off a color which is almost as good as putting them on no lands.


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Any thoughts of worship as a one of? With a tnn in play most decks can't beat it..
Also has anyone ever tested out a couple of painful truths main? I feel like a draw three (possibly on turn two with enablers) would be pretty sweet.

[KobeBryan]

Any thoughts of worship as a one of? With a tnn in play most decks can't beat it..
Also has anyone ever tested out a couple of painful truths main? I feel like a draw three (possibly on turn two with enablers) would be pretty sweet.

Worship...for 4 mana i want to win on the spot.

If i have a TNN in play with equipment, its already GG

[tescrin]

Any thoughts of worship as a one of? With a tnn in play most decks can't beat it..
Also has anyone ever tested out a couple of painful truths main? I feel like a draw three (possibly on turn two with enablers) would be pretty sweet.

Was that you bringing up worship somewhere else too?

Without needing to find better reason to say "nuh uh"; DRS, Infect, Emrakul, Tendrills, and Flickerwisp beat it.
Without going through all the other caveats like Liliana, -1/-1 effects, Venser, QPM, Pulse/Vindicate/Judgement, Collective Brutality, Siege Rhino, that this is a 2-card 7-mana creature-based combo that doesn't win you the game, what decks does it even beat?

Elves? No
D&T? No
Junk/Maverick/Dega/Jund/DGA? No
Czech/Esper/BUG/Bant/Grixis? No
Sneakshow? no
Storm? no
Infect? no
Tezz? No
Aluren? No
RUG? You're getting to 4+ mana, successfully casting it, have a board presence, and can't win?

It seems like it's only good against UW/UWr Stoneblade variants*. It's also difficult to protect, because at 1 life you can't FoW the thing they want to kill it with.

*Note: These decks still run Forces, Pierces or other counterspells, Council's Judgement, Snapcaster, Disenchant, Venser, and other such nonsense. They're not just cold to it.

Lastly, it's a terrible card unless you both: Can keep a dude on the board AND are behind. Toxic Deluge clears any possible board state you can conjure up here. I don't buy it, and had to rant after seeing this in the third or so thread it's popped up in recently. Worship is bad.

[ryscott85]

Was that you bringing up worship somewhere else too?

Without needing to find better reason to say "nuh uh"; DRS, Infect, Emrakul, Tendrills, and Flickerwisp beat it.
Without going through all the other caveats like Liliana, -1/-1 effects, Venser, QPM, Pulse/Vindicate/Judgement, Collective Brutality, that this is a 2-card 7-mana creature-based combo that doesn't win you the game, what decks does it even beat?

Elves? No
D&T? No
Junk/Maverick/Dega/Jund/DGA? No
Czech/Esper/BUG/Bant/Grixis? No
Sneakshow? no
Storm? no
Infect? no
Tezz? No
RUG? You're getting to 4+ mana, successfully casting it, have a board presence, and can't win?

It seems like it's only good against UW/UWr Stoneblade variants*. It's also difficult to protect, because at 1 life you can't FoW the thing they want to kill it with.

*Note: These decks still run Forces, Pierces or other counterspells, Council's Judgement, Snapcaster, Disenchant, Venser, and other such nonsense. They're not just cold to it.

Lastly, it's a terrible card unless you both: Can keep a dude on the board AND are behind. Toxic Deluge clears any possible board state you can conjure up here. I don't buy it, and had to rant after seeing this in the third or so thread it's popped up in recently. Worship is bad.

No I did not know that anyone had mentioned it, but Thanks🤔? I was thinking elves when I'd said it since I thought that they usually use abrupt decay and not Krosan grip by what I've seen. I remember Reid saying elves was his worst match up, however he didn't have white in his build and I'm sure z. Persecution does a fairly good job.Actually, I was more interested in the idea of painful truths for possible card advantage and if anyone has tried it's use in this deck yet...

[tescrin]

No I did not know that anyone had mentioned it, but Thanks🤔? I was thinking elves when I'd said it since I thought that they usually use abrupt decay and not Krosan grip by what I've seen. I remember Reid saying elves was his worst match up, however he didn't have white in his build and I'm sure z. Persecution does a fairly good job.Actually, I was more interested in the idea of painful truths for possible card advantage and if anyone has tried it's use in this deck yet...

Unfortunately I can't comment on Truths here. It seems ok but may stretch your manabase a bit thin. On duke, I'm guessing you mean his excursions into BUG Tnn decks or something [because you specify non-white]?

Bant (and Esper) have a good Elves MU IME. If you can counter their first hoof attempt or two and get a jitte online or just a lot of evasive beats, you'll kill them dead. Post-board with your -1/-1 effects, Priests, Cages, Pithing Needle/Revoker, it's a great MU. I think I've had 4 matches with elves so far since top's banning, and they were all easy wins.

The meta information from Frankfurt unfortunately shows only 3 matches between the decks (and none from other UWx decks) but it's 2/3rds in Bant's favor there too; whatever that's worth.

I think the issue they have is that Jitte + Evasion => they can't drag the game with Glimpse or value chains, they have to go for Hoof, and if you have a Force, and even sometimes just a Daze or Clique; they can get stuffed and you jitte them out of the game. It's been very helpful for me to have a SoFaI around too, since a lot of times they'll kill or Needle the Jitte. SoFaI does a good enough impression. Daze is live a lot more than you'd think when they go for an early 4-mana Hoof or a late 8-9 mana hoof. I'm not sure, but I think the reason I haven't been seeing Glimpse chains is because being part-black implies you may wipe them for getting too greedy. Maybe they jsut haven't been getting the hands for it.

[streetMage]

Any thoughts of worship as a one of? With a tnn in play most decks can't beat it..I ran one in the sideboard for the Eldrazi match-up. Don't think I ever drew it and haven't played the deck in awhile..but I think its reasonable tech.

[TSmiley]

Eldrazi isn't really a solid choice anymore- and imo elves is one of our tougher matchups


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[TSmiley]

Worship is just prolly better in modern, 4 mana is a lot. I think in most circumstances (sans pyroblast) I would want a Jace.


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[limbo]

Quick FNM rundown, testing my no wasteland version of the deck:
BUG midrange: W2-0
Esper Mentor: W 2-0
Welder MUD: W 2-1
UR Delver: W 2-1
UWr Stoneblade: ID then played to a draw 1-1-1
Top4:
UR Delver: L 0-2

I marked the cards that would have been wastelands with small paper slips in the sleeves, just to get an idea for how the changes were playing. My Esper opponent had a one land situation were wasteland would have potentially been better than a ponder. In my game loss against MUD a wasteland would have been way better than Karakas. Karakas tapped for white a few times, but wasn't great. I didn't play against any of the decks where it is good. Lingering souls was excellent, I brought it in against everything but MUD. A basic forest and karakas together are probably not optimal but I was generally happy with how the deck ran.

Curious to hear what other stuff people are trying out.

[Hanni]

Came in 1st place at a local 1k yesterday: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1391581244269423&id=1011709535589931

My sideboard in the link is missing 1 card, which should be a Surgical Extraction.

Anyway, my matchups were:

1-2 Br Reanimator L
2-0 BUG Delver W
2-1 Omni-Sneak W
2-0 UG Infect W
2-1 UGw Infect W

4-1 put me in the first seed going into the Top 8.

2-1 UG Infect W
2-1 BUG Delver W
2-1 Jeskai Control/Miracles W

I'll post some more details later if I have time. Three of my matches were on camera, but haven't been posted on YouTube yet. I'll post up a link to them once they do.

The deck felt great all day long.

Both BUG Delver players were on the Hymn version.

I punted super hard in game 3 in the finals against Miracles, but I was still able to win the game.

My loss to Br Reanimator was unavoidable, he had the nuts g1 and the super nuts in g3. In game 3, my hand was Force, Daze, Flusterstorm, Thoughtseize, and 3 land. He goes first, has a turn 1 Chancellor trigger, and Rituals out a Sire of Insanity that I couldn't recover from.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that there were 28 players.

[Ezuri]

I hope I'm in the right place to post this:
Is nobody playing a Bant list like this?

I've been starting of with this list for now. It's been playing quite fine.
I know I'm missing a lot of counter (FoW) due to the fact that I currently don't have the cards in my possession.
I tried MoM and Sylvan safe keeper without succes. Played 4 wastelands for a while but ended up with mana problems.

Land (25)
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Forest
1x Karakas
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Savannah
1x Sejiri Steppe
1x Taiga
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
2x Wasteland
4x Windswept Heath
1x maze of ith
1x thespian stage
1x dark depths

Planeswalker (1)
1x Elspeth, knight-errant

Creature (10)
1x Birds of Paradise
4x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Vendillion Clique/Voice of resurgence


Instant (16)
4x Brainstorm
4x Daze
2x Spell snare
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Chain of Vapor

Enchantment (4)
3x Retreat to Coralhelm
1x Sylvan Library

Sorcery (4)
4x Green Sun's Zenith


I'm currently thinking about fixing the lands (choosing between KWR + Taiga OR dark depths + stage instead of both).
Maybe adding a big creature in like Sigarda or Rafiq. Maybe add a crop rotation main deck.

Tips are most welcome!

[anwei]

I made a dedicated thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?30043-Brave-Sir-Robin-(Bant-Knight-Retreat)/page6) when first playing it, and have updated occasionally.

Edit: Here're quick thoughts:
- Knight is a bit poorly positioned, since everything but RUG can kill her at a reasonable tempo cost to you, and she's pretty much your only threat. One of the big weaknesses of the deck is having Plan A Knight beats, Plan B Knight+Retreat, Plan C Knight Depths. You have lots of Knights, with GSZ, but if they keep killing them, Czech Pile will beat you to death with Strix before running out of removal. I originally ran Sigarda + 2 Clique main, and later went to Sigarda+TNN as my secondary beaters to blank all their removal, and Retreat+GSZ makes a T3 Sigarda if you think Knight is just going to die. I've played Rafiq as a fun-off, with TNN, but I don't think anything beats Sigarda at dodging what Knight is weak to.
- Definitely you don't want both land packages. Here's how to think of them: Knight+Retreat already wins the game, alone, with 2 lands and up to 6-7ish blockers. In particular, you can nearly always hit 20 damage against the combo decks of the format by ending the fetch chain by double-wasting them (or yourself) and never needing special lands. There are 2 main reasons to play one of them:
- First, if you have active Knight (without Retreat), and they don't have removal, you often win. But, KWR or Depths helps break ground stalls and accelerate your clock, especially against TNN. Depths is usually better at this in most board states (maybe 80/20), especially because if they don't have removal, you can use Steppe to push it through Strix or something. The main advantage of KWR is being 1 turn faster, if you can fetch out Taiga, in grindier games where the extra points of damage are enough.
- Second, if you have active Knight+Retreat, as above, you often win. However, sometimes you don't: if you're too low on life to use all your fetches, if they have active DRS or grave hate that has reduced your gy land count, if they've gained life from StP or Batterskull, or if they have TNN, they you want a reliable out, and both KWR and Depths usually beat all of these scenarios. KWR+Dork lets you get in for an extra 12 or so trample damage, which typically closes a gap and beats TNN. Depths lets you combo on their turn, tap down their whole team, and swing with 2 lethal-isn guys with Steppe backup. When this comes up, KWR is better (maybe 65/35), since you don't have to pass the turn. Passing the turn opens you up to un-tap-down-able threats (TNN or pro-blue (SoFI?)), DRS, and Burn. If you're that low on life, KWR is potentially constrained by your ability to fetch, but Depths definitely is. Incidentally, Depths is more resilient against instant-speed sweepers, but the SDT ban significantly reduced the importance of this.
- Third and smaller, naturally drawing KWR is better than Stage, but more often worse than drawing Depths+Stage. This is probably a wash.

Overall, I find that the first scenario (active Knight taking over, ideally with Depths) is much more common than the second (needing to get extra points, which may be needed ASAP, which therefore wants KWR), so I will be sticking to Depths. (And probably a maindeck Crop Rotation.)

[Ezuri]

@Anwei,

Thank you very much for the tips. I'm active on your thread aswel. Though there is very little discussion going on I gave this thread a shot.
How would you tweak my list? Sigarda, Elspeth, Rafiq, crop rotation, clique, drs etc are all in my possession. TNN is not.

So in your opinion Depths + stage > KWR + Taiga?

[anwei]

I briefly responded in the BSR thread - the Bant thread has remained fairly streamlined.

[Hanni]

I've been thinking a lot about the Sword of Fire and Ice in my sideboard; the matchups where I would want it, etc. And then I remembered a really spicy card that seems like it would be better in most of the matchups where I would want to bring SoFI in against, and I am curious to hear what others think about.... Llawan, Cephalid Empress .

Llawan is out of Abrupt Decay range, out of Kologhan's Command range, requires revolt for Fatal Push, and can be protected with Karakas. Llawan is a pretty savage beating against Food Chain and Aluren (and Merfolk). Llawan hits the mirror, Czech Pile, other Stoneblade decks, Shardless BUG, and can even do work against the new Miracles deck.

A short list of relevant creatures that get hit:

Baleful Strix
Snapcaster Mage
True-Name Nemesis
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
Shardless Agent
Cavern Harpy
Misthollow Griffin
Vendilion Clique
Blighted Agent
Delver of Secrets
Stormchaser Mage
Cryptic Serpent

Obviously it hits Parastic Strix, Dream Stalker, Darting Merfolk, Coiling Oracle, and other stuff from Aluren too, but yea. It can also hit other fringe stuff like Venser, Shaper Savant, Spellstutter Sprite, Spell Queller, Meddling Mage, etc.

Does anyone have any opinions on Llawan? Getting to 3U shouldn't be that hard for this deck to do in most of the matchups where it would be coming in against. At the very least, it seems like it would be insane in the mirror...

[AT87]

Hi to all community.
I'm a new player for Bant deck after the last ban; this is my list I usually play in my local store:

Creatures [17]
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis

Instants [17]
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Swords to Plowshares

Sorceries [2]
Ponder

Planeswalkers [2]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Artifacts [2]
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands [20]
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scrubland
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Wasteland

Sideboard [15]
2 Containment Priest
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
2 Meddling Mage
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Garruk Relentless

Have you a Spreadsheet (as on page 114) complete? Or do you know what to put up and take off (on the play and on the draw) against these deck? I have some ideas but I don't know if they are right and complete:

- 12 post In: 2 Mage, 2 Toughtsize, ??? Out:???
- Aggroloam In: 2 Surgical, 2 Mage, 2 Flusterstorm, 2 Toughtsize, ??? Out:???
- Dredge In: 2 Priest, 2 Surgical, 2 Mage, 2 Flusterstorm,??? Out:???
- Enchantress In: 1 Canonist, 2 Mage, 2 Zelous persecution, ??? Out:???
- Jund In: 2 Surgical, 2 Mage,??? Out:???
- Merfolk In: 2 Zelous persecution, 2 Priest, 1 Garruk Out:???
- MUD In: 2 Mage,??? Out:???
- Nic Fit In: 2 Flusterstorm,??? Out:???
- Stone/Deathblade (mirror) In: 2 Zelous persecution, 1 Vendilion,??? Out:???
- The rock In: 2 Flusterstorm,??? Out:???


This is a new deck for me and i need some advice.
Thank you.
In the coming weeks I will write tournament results.

[maharis]

I've been thinking a lot about the Sword of Fire and Ice in my sideboard; the matchups where I would want it, etc. And then I remembered a really spicy card that seems like it would be better in most of the matchups where I would want to bring SoFI in against, and I am curious to hear what others think about.... Llawan, Cephalid Empress .

Llawan is out of Abrupt Decay range, out of Kologhan's Command range, requires revolt for Fatal Push, and can be protected with Karakas. Llawan is a pretty savage beating against Food Chain and Aluren (and Merfolk). Llawan hits the mirror, Czech Pile, other Stoneblade decks, Shardless BUG, and can even do work against the new Miracles deck.

A short list of relevant creatures that get hit:

Baleful Strix
Snapcaster Mage
True-Name Nemesis
Leovold, Emissary of Trest
Shardless Agent
Cavern Harpy
Misthollow Griffin
Vendilion Clique
Blighted Agent
Delver of Secrets
Stormchaser Mage
Cryptic Serpent

Obviously it hits Parastic Strix, Dream Stalker, Darting Merfolk, Coiling Oracle, and other stuff from Aluren too, but yea. It can also hit other fringe stuff like Venser, Shaper Savant, Spellstutter Sprite, Spell Queller, Meddling Mage, etc.

Does anyone have any opinions on Llawan? Getting to 3U shouldn't be that hard for this deck to do in most of the matchups where it would be coming in against. At the very least, it seems like it would be insane in the mirror...

I picked one up after getting my face caved in by a zillion TNNs a couple weeks ago. I have been playing it in the board of a few decks but it hasn't really come up yet. I agree with you though, cleaning up their Leos and TNNs with the same card is sick. Trouble is Pyroblast I guess.

On another note, has anyone on the 8 dork deathblade deck tried Sigarda, Host of Herons? I've been playing it online in maverick for a few days and people just straight up scoop to it. I think this might be the only blue deck that can play it... I kind of want to have it for the GP.

[tescrin]

On another note, has anyone on the 8 dork deathblade deck tried Sigarda, Host of Herons? I've been playing it online in maverick for a few days and people just straight up scoop to it. I think this might be the only blue deck that can play it... I kind of want to have it for the GP.

I've been down on her since Strix and Terminus were everywhere. I realize both of those are less of the meta than they were, but they are still fairly obnoxious problems for the angel. To clarify, the only reason I'd bring up Terminus (which removes literally everything in the game but Norin The Wary I believe) is that a 2-3 drop that requires a terminus to get rid of is much more efficient than a 5 drop. Strix is a bigger sticking point though.

[limbo]

Quick report from win a recall tournament. Finished 15/113. Played 3 wasteland, no basic, 9 fetch, 20 land, 3 daze, 3 plow, 2 decay, 2 ponder, 3 leo, no SoFaI, 2 lingering souls in the board.

R1: Esper Deathblade (L 1-2) Close match, this player ended up finishing top 4. In both games I lost he found two wastelands to slow my development, then we entered board stalls and he drew out of it before I did. My win was a tempo win where he couldn't turn the corner. My opponent played well. Missed the sword in this one. Felt awful picking up a round one loss.

R2: Grixis Delver (W 2-1) He got game one with an early pyromancer that went very wide along with therapy to keep me off equipment. Brought in lingering souls, Zealous and my third decay. Game two was relatively close, but I was starting to build a board presence, so my opponent decided to go all in on a fire covenant to clear my deathrite and 2 nobles. I dazed, and covered his deathrite with mine so he couldn't pay. The four mana life swing followed by a TNN finished that game quickly. In game 3 he again tried to fire covenant targeting my deathrite and noble paying 3 life. I had a fetch and active noble open, which I used to cast a zealous persecution, protecting my guys and killing his unflipped delver. He wasn't able to recover from that. Both of those plays could have been played better by my opponent, and it is hard to know how things would have gone if he had taken slightly different lines.

R3: UR Delver (W 2-1) I squeaked out a very tight game 1. Game 2 he finished me off quickly culminating with a PoP on T4. G3 settled in better for me with an early deathrite and lingering souls allowing me to keep my life total high. I eventually got to 2 dazes in hand meaning PoP wasn't a concern and I was able to win.

R4: Death & Taxes (W 2-0) Inexperienced player who missed a few on board plays. I built overwhelming board presences and was able to push through resistance relatively easily.

R5: Ub Omnitell (W 2-1) G1 was a poor showing for both decks. He mulled to 6, I mulled to 5. I was able to win on ~T10 having played a few counters and getting almost all 20 damage from an attacking noble and an active deathrite. G2 was very interesting. I played T1 deathrite. He played T2 defense grid. My hand was canonist, MMage, Leovold, fetch, force, decay. I decided to let the defense grid resolve so that I would be guaranteed to have my choice of bear resolve on the next turn. I decided to play Leovold, figuring it was early game and he was unlikely to have the win soon, plus if he cast show and tell, I could put in another bear. The next turn he did cast show and tell. I had seen cunning wish game 1, so I knew he was running the firemind combo, so I put in the canonist. He put in Omniscience. The following turn he cast Emrakul. So if retrospect I should have played the MMage on the first turn post-defense grid. Lesson learned. Game 3 I played a T2 MMage with force back up, named show and tell. It got in for ~ 8 damage before he found a fatal push, which we had a fight over and I was able to keep. I then landed a Leo with a hand of force, daze, and brainstorm. I drew a surgical and attempted to extract his brainstorms (one in yard) to limit his outs to find more removal or dream halls. He brainstormed in response, fetched, brainstormed again, then brainstormed again. Wow. The fetch brought him to 5 life, which matched my power in play and his hand was dream halls, 2x force, cunning wish and omniscience. He moved to his turn. He drew and laid a land; his 6th. Cast his dream halls. I forced pitching daze, holding the brainstorm in case something crazy happened. He forced pitching force, but then couldn't do anything productive with the cunning wish since casting it with dream halls emptied his hand. Very interesting match.

R6: Aggro Loam (L 0-2) [CptHaddock] I mulled to 4 game 1, he had a punishing fire on 2 for my deathrite and grove to buy it back to kill my subsequent noble. I made him play it out, so I could get a little bit more information about his specific cards. Game 2 was interesting. I put on some early pressure and found a rest in peace. I cast a leovold when he was at 9. I cast deluge for 3, killing my Leo and another creature. I followed up with another Leo. He deluged again for 3, going down to 3 life. I followed up with a TNN, thinking I was in good shape. I sank in my chair when he immediately cast golgari charm. From there he was able to remove my RIP. I thought there was a chance I would deck him. He had used all 4 of his wastelands and a ghost quarter, hurting my mana, including killing all my white lands. I surgicalled his PFire and looking through his deck the only threats he had left were Bobs (not great at the 2 life he was then at) and 1 knight. He had 2 lily and a few decays left. Long story short I didn't find one of my two forces that I had left in and he landed a lily before I found a TNN, then found his last knight and was able to kill me before I could remove it. Officially out of Top 8. CptHaddock was able to draw in though.

R7: Maverick (W 2-0) I had two fast TNN draws and ended this one very quickly. My opponent stumbled on mana a bit making it relatively uneventful.

Overall: 5-2 (11-7)

Lingering Souls - I was very impressed. The ability to clog the skies and go wide both for aggression and defense was nice. Delver decks really have a hard time punching through this. I brought it in in R1-4, and R7.
Sword of Fire and Ice - Missed this in the loam and deathblade matches. I liked not having the third equipment eating a spot in the main but I am not sure what I would cut in the board to add it back.
Basic/# of wastelands - I am likely doing 2 wastelands, 1 forest, and change the fetches to accommodate for Vegas. I know everybody has their own opinions on this one.
RIP v Priest - Played the RIP today because I thought there would be a lot of lands (common near Baltimore). Happy with the choice based on what I saw in the room, though it did mean against aggro loam that I didn't bring in my lingering souls which could have broken me out of the one-for-one trading battle.

Position - The deck has game against everything, as we know. I am a bit concerned that in later rounds, at the higher tables, our relative lack of card advantage and fragile mana will get us in trouble especially against the streamlined UB and UWx decks with good pilots.

[AT87]

Quick report from win a recall tournament. Finished 15/113. Played 3 wasteland, no basic, 9 fetch, 20 land, 3 daze, 3 plow, 2 decay, 2 ponder, 3 leo, no SoFaI, 2 lingering souls in the board.

R1: Esper Deathblade (L 1-2) Close match, this player ended up finishing top 4. In both games I lost he found two wastelands to slow my development, then we entered board stalls and he drew out of it before I did. My win was a tempo win where he couldn't turn the corner. My opponent played well. Missed the sword in this one. Felt awful picking up a round one loss.

R2: Grixis Delver (W 2-1) He got game one with an early pyromancer that went very wide along with therapy to keep me off equipment. Brought in lingering souls, Zealous and my third decay. Game two was relatively close, but I was starting to build a board presence, so my opponent decided to go all in on a fire covenant to clear my deathrite and 2 nobles. I dazed, and covered his deathrite with mine so he couldn't pay. The four mana life swing followed by a TNN finished that game quickly. In game 3 he again tried to fire covenant targeting my deathrite and noble paying 3 life. I had a fetch and active noble open, which I used to cast a zealous persecution, protecting my guys and killing his unflipped delver. He wasn't able to recover from that. Both of those plays could have been played better by my opponent, and it is hard to know how things would have gone if he had taken slightly different lines.

R3: UR Delver (W 2-1) I squeaked out a very tight game 1. Game 2 he finished me off quickly culminating with a PoP on T4. G3 settled in better for me with an early deathrite and lingering souls allowing me to keep my life total high. I eventually got to 2 dazes in hand meaning PoP wasn't a concern and I was able to win.

R4: Death & Taxes (W 2-0) Inexperienced player who missed a few on board plays. I built overwhelming board presences and was able to push through resistance relatively easily.

R5: Ub Omnitell (W 2-1) G1 was a poor showing for both decks. He mulled to 6, I mulled to 5. I was able to win on ~T10 having played a few counters and getting almost all 20 damage from an attacking noble and an active deathrite. G2 was very interesting. I played T1 deathrite. He played T2 defense grid. My hand was canonist, MMage, Leovold, fetch, force, decay. I decided to let the defense grid resolve so that I would be guaranteed to have my choice of bear resolve on the next turn. I decided to play Leovold, figuring it was early game and he was unlikely to have the win soon, plus if he cast show and tell, I could put in another bear. The next turn he did cast show and tell. I had seen cunning wish game 1, so I knew he was running the firemind combo, so I put in the canonist. He put in Omniscience. The following turn he cast Emrakul. So if retrospect I should have played the MMage on the first turn post-defense grid. Lesson learned. Game 3 I played a T2 MMage with force back up, named show and tell. It got in for ~ 8 damage before he found a fatal push, which we had a fight over and I was able to keep. I then landed a Leo with a hand of force, daze, and brainstorm. I drew a surgical and attempted to extract his brainstorms (one in yard) to limit his outs to find more removal or dream halls. He brainstormed in response, fetched, brainstormed again, then brainstormed again. Wow. The fetch brought him to 5 life, which matched my power in play and his hand was dream halls, 2x force, cunning wish and omniscience. He moved to his turn. He drew and laid a land; his 6th. Cast his dream halls. I forced pitching daze, holding the brainstorm in case something crazy happened. He forced pitching force, but then couldn't do anything productive with the cunning wish since casting it with dream halls emptied his hand. Very interesting match.

R6: Aggro Loam (L 0-2) [CptHaddock] I mulled to 4 game 1, he had a punishing fire on 2 for my deathrite and grove to buy it back to kill my subsequent noble. I made him play it out, so I could get a little bit more information about his specific cards. Game 2 was interesting. I put on some early pressure and found a rest in peace. I cast a leovold when he was at 9. I cast deluge for 3, killing my Leo and another creature. I followed up with another Leo. He deluged again for 3, going down to 3 life. I followed up with a TNN, thinking I was in good shape. I sank in my chair when he immediately cast golgari charm. From there he was able to remove my RIP. I thought there was a chance I would deck him. He had used all 4 of his wastelands and a ghost quarter, hurting my mana, including killing all my white lands. I surgicalled his PFire and looking through his deck the only threats he had left were Bobs (not great at the 2 life he was then at) and 1 knight. He had 2 lily and a few decays left. Long story short I didn't find one of my two forces that I had left in and he landed a lily before I found a TNN, then found his last knight and was able to kill me before I could remove it. Officially out of Top 8. CptHaddock was able to draw in though.

R7: Maverick (W 2-0) I had two fast TNN draws and ended this one very quickly. My opponent stumbled on mana a bit making it relatively uneventful.

Overall: 5-2 (11-7)

Lingering Souls - I was very impressed. The ability to clog the skies and go wide both for aggression and defense was nice. Delver decks really have a hard time punching through this. I brought it in in R1-4, and R7.
Sword of Fire and Ice - Missed this in the loam and deathblade matches. I liked not having the third equipment eating a spot in the main but I am not sure what I would cut in the board to add it back.
Basic/# of wastelands - I am likely doing 2 wastelands, 1 forest, and change the fetches to accommodate for Vegas. I know everybody has their own opinions on this one.
RIP v Priest - Played the RIP today because I thought there would be a lot of lands (common near Baltimore). Happy with the choice based on what I saw in the room, though it did mean against aggro loam that I didn't bring in my lingering souls which could have broken me out of the one-for-one trading battle.

Position - The deck has game against everything, as we know. I am a bit concerned that in later rounds, at the higher tables, our relative lack of card advantage and fragile mana will get us in trouble especially against the streamlined UB and UWx decks with good pilots.

Congratulations for the rsult but as you can indicate the card enter and remove for each single match?

[limbo]

Congratulations for the rsult but as you can indicate the card enter and remove for each single match?
I used all 15 board cards, which is a good sign. RiP was the only one that I used only once but I played against the fair half of the room.

Deathblade: +1 decay, +2 ZP, +2 Lingering souls, +1 grip; I didn't see green or deathrite game 1, so I cut 2 plow for G2 but put them back for G3, -all 3 daze on the draw, -1 on the play, -2 force, -1 noble, -1 ponder. For slower matchups the noble and ponder cut are relatively safe.

Grixis Delver: +1 decay, +2 ZP, +2 Lingering Souls; -1 jace, -3 force and 1 daze on play, -2 daze and 2 force on draw

UR Delver: +1 decay, +2 Lingering Souls, +1 flusterstorm; -1 jace, -1 USea, -2 force (there is an argument for canonist here but I rarely bring it in)

Death and Taxes: Saw 2 caverns game 1 +1 decay, +2 ZP, +2 Lingering souls, +1 grip; - 3 daze, -3 force

Ub Omnitell: +2 MMage, +2 Canonist, +2 surgical, +1 flusterstorm, +1 invasive surgery; -4 stoneforge, -1 jitte, -1 batterskull, -1 wasteland, -1 noble

Aggro Loam: +2 surgical, +1 RiP, +1 grip, +1 decay, +2 MMage; -2 force, -3 daze, -2 ponder; If I wasn't running the RIP I would have brought in souls, and it is possible I should have anyway.

Maverick: Saw Cavern game 1. +1 decay, +2 ZP, +2 Lingering souls, +1 grip; - 3 daze, -3 force

I think this is what I did, but I don't follow a guide when I board.

[limbo]

FNM
R1: LED Dredge (W2-0)
R2: Elves (W 2-1)
R3: MUD (W 2-1)
R4: Sneak (ID)
Top 8: Portent Miracles (2-0)
Top 4: Split and go home

[walked]

FNM
R1: LED Dredge (W2-0)
R2: Elves (W 2-1)
R3: MUD (W 2-1)
R4: Sneak (ID)
Top 8: Portent Miracles (2-0)
Top 4: Split and go home

Would you mind sharing your current decklist? I searched a few pages and cant find it.

[limbo]

Would you mind sharing your current decklist? I searched a few pages and cant find it.

I haven't published a list in a while as I have been trying a bunch of cards, messing with numbers, etc.
Current:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-name Nemesis
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
2 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Lingering Souls


I cut two wastelands for a fetch and a basic and cut a daze for ponder. This makes the deck a little less aggressive but I like the ability to consistently cast my spells and to mulligan less frequently, minimizing the hands where wasteland is your only opening land.

Edit: worth noting that most people on this forum prefer the no basics, 4 strand, 4 delta, 4 wasteland, 4 daze, no ponder build, and souls isn't popular in the board, so if you are looking for a general list, mine might not be where you want to be.

[walked]

I haven't published a list in a while as I have been trying a bunch of cards, messing with numbers, etc.
Current:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-name Nemesis
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull

4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
2 Wasteland

Sideboard
2 Meddling Mage
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Krosan Grip
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Lingering Souls


I cut two wastelands for a fetch and a basic and cut a daze for ponder. This makes the deck a little less aggressive but I like the ability to consistently cast my spells and to mulligan less frequently, minimizing the hands where wasteland is your only opening land.

Edit: worth noting that most people on this forum prefer the no basics, 4 strand, 4 delta, 4 wasteland, 4 daze, no ponder build, and souls isn't popular in the board, so if you are looking for a general list, mine might not be where you want to be.

Thanks! Your list isnt too far off where I'd ended up, honestly. I'm on 3 Abrupt Decay, 2 Jace, and only 3 SfM and 2 Leovold. I may try your configuration to see if it feels any better; but we're really close already!

[order]

I am terrified with the UW matchup, is nearly impossible to win. They have terminus form creatures, jace + portent to control your top. And even have absetnt for equipment+jace. And they also run bloon moon( even in main deck)

I did not figure out a winning proposition strategy agains it... My first thought is to add manLands or a bruteForce sideboard (something like 2x armagedon to try to steal the game)

My current list
List:
4x hierarch
4x shaman
4x true-name
2x leovold
3x stoneforge
2x jace
1x jitte
1x batterskull

3x decay
2x plowshare
2x thoughtseize
4x daze
4x fow
4x brainstorm
+ 20 lands
3x wateland(*greedy), 9x fetches, 3x tropical 2x underground 2x Tundra 1xscrubland

side:
2x canonist
2x meddling mage
2x surgical
2x flusterstorm
2x zealous persecution
1x RIP
1x Needle
1x thoughtseize
1x plowshares
1x baleful strix

[limbo]

I am terrified with the UW matchup, is nearly impossible to win. They have terminus form creatures, jace + portent to control your top. And even have absetnt for equipment+jace. And they also run bloon moon( even in main deck)

I did not figure out a winning proposition strategy agains it... My first thought is to add manLands or a bruteForce sideboard (something like 2x armagedon to try to steal the game)

For this matchup, like old miracles, Sword of fire and ice is the best equipment by a wide margin. If you are worried about his matchup consider putting it in. I also really like 1 basic in this matchup. G2 of my FNM match against Portent Miracles this week he resolved back to basics on T3 and I ground him out with my forest, a sword, a series of lotus pedals (my lands), and a string of dorks who mostly just grabbed a sword and attacked. Leo, Jace, and TNN are good and you will get games with them but you need a source of card advantage and a way to play through their land hate. This matchup is another reason I like lingering souls or walkers (Gideon, Garruk, Elspeth) in the board as they go wide and produce more threats after a wrath or spot removal. Thoughtseizes aren't great in this matchup as they play off the top of the library well and frequently. Your build looks like it would be very good against combo decks but you are lacking some cards to compete in the control matchups.

[tescrin]

I can understand if people haven't gone this route but in my Esper Deathblade, which I branched from this deck with, I was able to comfortably work up to 3 basics with a couple adjustments. For me we have between 2-3 nic fit players in events of 25ish pretty regularly, between that and 1-2 Big Red/Moon Stompy or similar, a Merfolk who occasionally drops by with B2B (maybe even in the main?) and a few Lands and D&T players, .. so getting a few Basics in that environment was good.

Funny enough, that kind of land hate chases out a lot of the Delver decks, so it's a subdued 15% or so of the meta for the variety of 'em. I loaned a RUG Delver variant to a buddy and he immediately faced Junk-Fit one match, Sneak-Fit another match, and then something more managable after that; but I think another time he had like, CounterTop Miracles, D&T, and Lands. Abysmal place for delvers haha

EDIT: But long story short, if you can fit another basic it's pretty comfortable; but it does require a conscious effort to lessen the greed of the deck.

[order]

I can understand if people haven't gone this route but in my Esper Deathblade, which I branched from this deck with, I was able to comfortably work up to 3 basics with a couple adjustments. For me we have between 2-3 nic fit players in events of 25ish pretty regularly, between that and 1-2 Big Red/Moon Stompy or similar, a Merfolk who occasionally drops by with B2B (maybe even in the main?) and a few Lands and D&T players, .. so getting a few Basics in that environment was good.

Funny enough, that kind of land hate chases out a lot of the Delver decks, so it's a subdued 15% or so of the meta for the variety of 'em. I loaned a RUG Delver variant to a buddy and he immediately faced Junk-Fit one match, Sneak-Fit another match, and then something more managable after that; but I think another time he had like, CounterTop Miracles, D&T, and Lands. Abysmal place for delvers haha

EDIT: But long story short, if you can fit another basic it's pretty comfortable; but it does require a conscious effort to lessen the greed of the deck.

What's your list? Im a big fan of playing with a better manabase.

I am xurrently experimenting a version with 2x basics main deck and it really helped against stifle tempo decks. But I had to cut white maindeck and keep mana only for side:
-3x stoneforge -1 batterskull -2x plowshares
+2 ponder +2strix +2x fatalPush
Manabase:
Island, Forest, 3x wasteland, 9x fetches(all get green), 2x tropical 3x underground 2xscrubland)

[tescrin]

What's your list? Im a big fan of playing with a better manabase.

I am xurrently experimenting a version with 2x basics main deck and it really helped against stifle tempo decks. But I had to cut white maindeck and keep mana only for side:
-3x stoneforge -1 batterskull -2x plowshares
+2 ponder +2strix +2x fatalPush
Manabase:
Island, Forest, 3x wasteland, 9x fetches(all get green), 2x tropical 3x underground 2xscrubland)

I think Esper Deathblade in general can fit 2-3 basics if they don't go the Decay Leo route, because you just need the one trop. When I was in Bant, it looked more like:

-21-
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Qasali Pridemage
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Knight of the Reliquary

-3-
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

-16/12-
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stifle
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

-20-
3 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Karakas
1 Forest
1 Island

It's focused a bit more on screwing other people's lands. If you drop Knight you can change Karakas to a Plains at no loss.


What I've currently been playing is the below though, to good effect (last four locals I've gone 12-1-1), but that's been moved to it's own thread for a good reason.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31749-Quellblade

I'm not quite sure, after playing a bit, why people are married to Daze over Stifle. Stifle has really been playing incredibly well for me, where I was literally going like 1-2 or 1-1-1 in previous tournaments, and swapped to Stifles, and started doing awesome. Getting a snap-recursed removal or SFM trigger is good late game potential for that little card, while the free wins off screwing manabases or protecting your own from wastelands has been great.

The above could use a little work, but it's only real issue is that the basics/karakas eat the DRS activation slots for the most part.

As I mentioned, I really don't feel comfortable without my basics between Delver, D&T, Lands, Moon decks, B2B decks, and Nic Fit all encouraging me to have an ok basic count in my local meta.

[limbo]

Brian DeMars (https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-4-color-stoneblade-for-grand-prix-vegas/) is a convert.

[Whitefaces]

Nice. I have a feeling Bant is going to have a really solid showing this GP, fingers crossed!

[walked]

Yep; the more I've been jamming this on MTGO the more I'm becoming sold on it.

The numbers of cards is what I'm trying to work out. Brian's list is a single copy of Jace, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm also of the mind that I like 3x Leovold too.

Thoughts on his numbers?

[walked]

Here's the list I've been dabbling on for a few days now:

Deck: Untitled Deck (https://deckstats.net/deck-13345529-11f8861b3664523ebc67f804d736907e-en.html) https://deckstats.net/mana/m/w.gif https://deckstats.net/mana/m/u.gif https://deckstats.net/mana/m/b.gif https://deckstats.net/mana/m/g.gif

//Main
2 Abrupt Decay (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Abrupt+Decay)
1 Batterskull (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Batterskull)
4 Brainstorm (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Brainstorm)
4 Daze (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Daze)
4 Deathrite Shaman (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Deathrite+Shaman)
4 Flooded Strand (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Flooded+Strand)
4 Force of Will (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Force+of+Will)
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Jace%2C+the+Mind+Sculptor)
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Leovold%2C+Emissary+of+Trest)
1 Misty Rainforest (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Misty+Rainforest)
4 Noble Hierarch (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Noble+Hierarch)
4 Polluted Delta (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Polluted+Delta)
1 Scrubland (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Scrubland)
4 Stoneforge Mystic (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Stoneforge+Mystic)
1 Sword of Fire and Ice (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Sword+of+Fire+and+Ice)
4 Swords to Plowshares (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Swords+to+Plowshares)
3 Tropical Island (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tropical+Island)
3 True-Name Nemesis (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=True-Name+Nemesis)
2 Tundra (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Tundra)
1 Umezawa's Jitte (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Umezawa%27s+Jitte)
2 Underground Sea (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Underground+Sea)
3 Wasteland (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Wasteland)

//Sideboard
1 Containment Priest (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Containment+Priest)
1 Dread of Night (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Dread+of+Night)
1 Ethersworn Canonist (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ethersworn+Canonist)
1 Ethersworn Canonist (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Ethersworn+Canonist)
2 Flusterstorm (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Flusterstorm)
1 Pithing Needle (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Pithing+Needle)
1 Surgical Extraction (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Surgical+Extraction)
1 Surgical Extraction (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Surgical+Extraction)
1 Sylvan Library (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Sylvan+Library)
2 Thoughtseize (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Thoughtseize)
2 Zealous Persecution (https://www.mtg-forum.de/db/magiccard.php?lng=en&card=Zealous+Persecution)

https://i.hbtronix.de/chart_pie.png Display deck statistics (https://deckstats.net/deck-13345529-11f8861b3664523ebc67f804d736907e.html)

I'm continuously considering finding slots for a couple of basics with Dragon Stompy running around (I'm guilty of it being my secondary deck, even).

Other thoughts I'd like to get:
- Add another Jace? Cut what?
- Should I go -1 Leovold, +1 True-Name Nemesis? I think I'm leaning that way, but I first have to bring myself to spend $75 more for a singleton card when it's $25 in paper. Blech.
- I've seen some lists cut a Swords for an extra Abrupt Decay. I'm leaning towards a 4/2 split rather than 3/3.

[TSmiley]

I wrote up a sideboard guide with my current list for some of my friends heading to vegas- figured I would share it here- good luck to anyone making the trip!


Grixis Delver
Play: - 4 force, -1 jace
+ 2 zealous, +2 flusterstorm, +1 thoughtseize
Draw: -4 daze -1 jace
+2 zealous, +2 flusterstorm, +1 thoughtseize

Death and Taxes
-4 daze -2 force, -1 sofi
+2 thoughtseize, +2 zealous, +2 containment priest, +1 gideon

Ur Delver
-1 jace, -1 force
+2 flusterstorm

Eldrazi
-1 sofi -1 leovold, -1 clique
+2 meddling mage, +1 gideon

Burn
-1 jace, -1 clique, -2 leovold
+2 flusterstorm, +2 meddling mage

Infect
-1 jace, -1 batterskull, -1 stoneforge, -1 sofi, -2 leovold
+2 zealous, +2 thoughtseize, +2 flusterstorm, +2 ethersworn canonist

Jund
Play -4 force -1 sofi
+2 meddling mage, +2 thoughtseize, +1 gideon
Draw –4 daze -1 sofi
+2 meddling mage, +2 thoughtseize, +1 gideon

Maverick
-4 daze, -2 force, -1 sofi
+2 containment priest, +1 gideon, +2 thoughtseize + 2 zealous

Goblins
-4 daze, -1 force
+2 containment priest, +2 zealous, +1 gideon

Rug Delver
Play -1 force, -1 jace, -1 sofi
+2 flusterstorm, +1 surgical
Draw -1 daze, -1 jace, -1 sofi
+2 flusterstorm, +1 surgical

Mirror
Play -4 force, -1 daze
+2 thoughtseize, +1 gideon, +2 zealous
Draw -4 daze. -1 force
+2 thoughtseize, +1 gideon, +2 zealous

Team America
Play -4 force, -1 daze
+2 thoughtseize, +2 flusterstorm, +1 gideon
Draw -4 daze, -1 force
+2 thoughtseize, +2 flusterstorm +1 gideon

Stifle Bug Delver
Play -3 force
+2 flusterstorm, +1 gideon
Draw -3 daze
+2 flusterstorm, +1 gideon

Esper Deathblade
Play -4 force, -1 daze
+2 thoughtseize, +1 gideon, +2 zealous
Draw -4 daze, -1 force
+2 thoughtseize, +1 gideon, +2 zealous

New Miracles
-4 stp, -1 jitte, -1 hierarch
+1 gideon, +2 flusterstorm, +2 thoughtseize, +1 surgical

Grixis Pyromancer
Play -1 clique, -4 force
+2 thoughtseize, +2 zealous, +1 gideon
Draw -1 clique, -4 daze
+2 thoughtseize, +2 zealous, +1 gideon

Aggro Loam
-1 clique, -1 sofi, -3 daze
+2 surgical, +1 gideon +2 meddling mage

Lands
-2 stp, -1 jitte, -1 sfm
+2 meddling mage, +2 surgical

Ant
-4 stp, -4 sfm, -1 jitte, -1 sofi, -1 batterskull, -1 decay
+2 canonist, +2 flusterstorm, +2 zealous, +2 meddling mage, +2 thoughtseize, +2 surgical

TES
-4 stp, -2 sfm, -2 tnn, -1 jitte, -1 sofi, -1 decay, -1 jace
+2 canonist, +2 flusterstorm, +2 zealous, +2 meddling mage, +2 thoughtseize, +2 surgical

Sneak and Show
-4 stp, -4 sfm, -1 jitte, -1 sofi, -1 batterskull, -1 tnn
+2 containment priest, +2 canonist, +2 flusterstorm, +2 thoughtseize, +2 meddling mage, +2 surgical

Elves
-4 daze, -1 clique, -1 jace, -1 sofi, -1 sfm, -2 tnn
+2 containment priest, +2 canonist, +2 zealous, +2 meddling mage, +2 thoughtseize

Reanimator
-4 sfm, -1 jitte, -1 batterskull, -1 sofi, -1 stp
+2 surgical, +2 containment priest, +2 meddling mage, +2 flusterstorm

Hex Depths
-1 sofi, -1 jace, -2 sfm, -2 tnn
+2 surgical, +2 meddling mage, +2 flusterstorm

Dredge
-1 abrupt decay, -1 sofi, -2 leovold, -1 clique, -1 jace
+2 surgical, +2 meddling mage, +2 containment priest

Mono Red Sneak Attack
-4 stp, -2 leovold, -1 jitte, -1 sfm
+2 containment priest, +2 meddling mage, +2 thoughtseize, +2 surgical

Aluren
-4 daze, -1 batterskull, -1 jace, -2 force
+2 thoughtseize, +2 meddling mage, +2 zealous, +2 canonist

Belcher
-4 stp, -1 decay, -1 jace, -2 leovold, -2 tnn, -1 jitte, -1 misty
+2 canonist, +2 thoughtseize, +2 flusterstorm, +2 surgical, +2 meddling mage, +2 zealous

[TSmiley]

And the list I forgot to post:

1 Batterskull Sideboard
1 Sword of Fire and Ice 2 Containment Priest
1 Abrupt Decay 2 Meddling Mage
1 Umezawa's Jitte 2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 2 Surgical Extraction
4 Brainstorm 2 Thoughtseize
4 Daze 2 Zealous Persecution
4 Force of Will 2 Flusterstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares 1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
1 Scrubland
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Wasteland
1 Misty Rainforest

[fetzonk]

Thanks for this info, TSmiley. I am still learning and struggling a little bit with the sideboarding. Could you help me to understand the sideboard for the Eldrazi matchup? I really thought that the clique is quite nice in this matchup. Which card do you want to name with the meddling mages?

[TSmiley]

I've found the game revolves around being defensive until tnn plus equipment comes online- meddling mage usually names all is dust.


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[limbo]

My flight was cancelled. Good luck to all the Bant players at the GP. Play 2 lingering souls in the board.

[fetzonk]

I've found the game revolves around being defensive until tnn plus equipment comes online- meddling mage usually names all is dust.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thx, I understand. I like the list a lot and i am sure, i will try it soon. Mine is quiete similar. Limbos list is also intriguing. I played a non-basic/4 waste list last tournament and the 2 games i lost (3-2 overall), i was blood mooned or mana screwed big time. 2 times i had t1 deathrite t2 waste but my opponents only played basics. It was frustrating, i was colorscrewed. I like trying out 2 wastelands. I wish all of you good luck in vegas.

[limbo]

Congratulations to David Doberne for finishing 13th in Vegas!

4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Swords to Plowshares
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Wasteland
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
1 Scrubland


1 Thoughtseize
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Meddling Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Pithing Needle
2 Zealous Persecution
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
2 Containment Priest

[Theonlyone]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCajOAkU0AESzq_?format=jpg
Saito's list for information at 7/2 drop.
He said this was for him the best deck in legacy at the moment.

[limbo]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCajOAkU0AESzq_?format=jpg
Saito's list for information at 7/2 drop.
He said this was for him the best deck in legacy at the moment.

4-2 in matches played is less impressive (he had three byes) but he did say in the tweet that his losses were due to mistakes. Glad to see the deck is getting picked up by others.

[walked]

Checking in with everyone to see how the deck has been treating you all. Anyone have any updated thoughts, tweaks, etc?

[Jesture]

Checking in with everyone to see how the deck has been treating you all. Anyone have any updated thoughts, tweaks, etc?

Recently picked up the deck and played a couple of games with the Christopher Wilhelm MKM list, found here: http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/2017/04/30/christopher-wilhelm-stoneblade/

So far been a big fan of how the deck plays, but I'm not convinced the mana base is in the best place it could be. With this iteration, it seems like the deck has too many white sources and not enough green sources (I always find myself wanting access to green on turn 1, 2 at the latest.) What are everyone's thoughts on swapping out the Scrubland for a Bayou assuming the 3/2 split of Decay and Swords?

I've also seen a lot of lists, including Saito's list from Vegas move to a 4/1 split of Swords/Decay. Does anyone have any experience with this? If so, what does your mana base look like.

[Whitefaces]

Recently picked up the deck and played a couple of games with the Christopher Wilhelm MKM list, found here: http://series.magiccardmarket.eu/2017/04/30/christopher-wilhelm-stoneblade/

So far been a big fan of how the deck plays, but I'm not convinced the mana base is in the best place it could be. With this iteration, it seems like the deck has too many white sources and not enough green sources (I always find myself wanting access to green on turn 1, 2 at the latest.) What are everyone's thoughts on swapping out the Scrubland for a Bayou assuming the 3/2 split of Decay and Swords?

I've also seen a lot of lists, including Saito's list from Vegas move to a 4/1 split of Swords/Decay. Does anyone have any experience with this? If so, what does your mana base look like.

You play a Scrubland because the deck leads on Tropical Island 99% of the time, and you want the least non-island duals for Daze as possible. Scrubland simply fits the way the deck curves out and gives you all the colours alongside Trop. I've tried Bayou, Savannah and basic Forest too, but found 3 Trop, 2 Tundra, 2 Sea 1 Scrub to be the best. If you cut Decay from the md entirely, going to 1 Sea is fine.

4/1 StP/Decay is simply a response to CB leaving the format, which makes sense. I cut all Decays originally, but a lot of us started to miss the ability to take out equipment, vials and all that nonsense. 3/2 is very solid, but it's ultimately a meta call.

A couple of us have started to trim Wastelands for addition fetches though. I know some people are against this, which I understand, but personally atm I'd play

4 Strand
4 Delta
2 Misty (can be tarn too technically)
3 Trop
2 Tundra
2 Sea
1 Scrub
2 Wasteland

[Jesture]

You play a Scrubland because the deck leads on Tropical Island 99% of the time, and you want the least non-island duals for Daze as possible. Scrubland simply fits the way the deck curves out and gives you all the colours alongside Trop. I've tried Bayou, Savannah and basic Forest too, but found 3 Trop, 2 Tundra, 2 Sea 1 Scrub to be the best. If you cut Decay from the md entirely, going to 1 Sea is fine.

4/1 StP/Decay is simply a response to CB leaving the format, which makes sense. I cut all Decays originally, but a lot of us started to miss the ability to take out equipment, vials and all that nonsense. 3/2 is very solid, but it's ultimately a meta call.

A couple of us have started to trim Wastelands for addition fetches though. I know some people are against this, which I understand, but personally atm I'd play

4 Strand
4 Delta
2 Misty (can be tarn too technically)
3 Trop
2 Tundra
2 Sea
1 Scrub
2 Wasteland

Thanks for the detailed response. Do you have any thoughts on 2 JTMS main? Most recent iterations of the deck seem to have shaved down to 1 main 0 side, opting for other threats such as a singleton clique or a third Leovold.

[lime]

As for updates, two weeks ago I won tournament with around 40 people with the following list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Sylvan Library
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland

2 Zealous Persecution
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Meddling Mage
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar


As you can see, I played a classic list with two Jace and a Sylvan. I liked having access to two Jace, and I don't think I would like to change that. But I guess it depends on the meta.

What I am quite certain about, however, is that I would absolutely not cut the Sylvan. The card was crazy all day, and I have a really hard time seeing why it isn't played in more lists. Is there any special reason as to why it has fallen out of favor?

My matches were as follows:

Sneak and Show 2-1
UWR Stoneblade 2-0
UR Delver/Prowess 0-2
Miracles 2-0
Goblins 2-1
ID

Quarter: UWR Stoneblade (again) 2-0
Semi: UR Delver/Prowess (again) 2-1
Final: Jund(!) 2-1

[fetzonk]

...

That is kind of funny. Your list and sideboard is nearly the one i have settled for, with the exception of having only 1 Jace, 2 Wastes and two fetches more in the main. I definately want 20 lands. Because I was out of town for a while i couldn't test the list.
Regarding Sylvan Library: Maybe it is not that popular because it doesn't fit that perfectly into that big-tempo-deck plan (Slam a creature, pimp and protect it to victory). I like it a lot with the 10 fetches, expecially against mana denial strategies it can protect us from being shut out. In grindy matchups it gives us the ability to switch roles (paying life for cards as beatdown (esp. with batterskull lifegain)/ or use only the better card selection as control).

I would really like to have another Jace in the deck, but the only cut for it i can think about is sylvan library.

[Whitefaces]

Thanks for the detailed response. Do you have any thoughts on 2 JTMS main? Most recent iterations of the deck seem to have shaved down to 1 main 0 side, opting for other threats such as a singleton clique or a third Leovold.

No problem. I love Jace in the deck, it's perfect for him, but the reason people have been trimming is for SB considerations. The md is geared so heavily for fair matchups that imo the sb needs to be 13 combo cards and 2 Zealous Persecution since you have so much to take out. Not to pat myself on the back, simply to let you know where I'm coming from, Christophers list from MKM was mine that I sent to him just a couple of days before the event.

Vs a generic combo deck, you'll usually want to be cutting

2-4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 True-Name Nemesis
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay
1-2 Jace
1-3 Equipment

I think my last sideboard map had me wanting 14 cards to be cut vs Sneak and Show at least, for example (I have a spreadsheet of them pre-ban here if that helps - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_DhcuQu5dXm2FMMpG0pG30h-PAqr-9Gg_SEsr-XQKcI/edit#gid=0 )

So to help with this, we tried cutting a Jace for a Clique in the maindeck. Some others like Hanni have cut Jace completely for a pair of Cliques. Third Leo is also very good, I think Leo is better now than he was pre-ban too.

So to summarize, the number of Jace, Clique and/or 3rd Leovold will depend on your sideboard a lot.


As you can see, I played a classic list with two Jace and a Sylvan. I liked having access to two Jace, and I don't think I would like to change that. But I guess it depends on the meta.

What I am quite certain about, however, is that I would absolutely not cut the Sylvan. The card was crazy all day, and I have a really hard time seeing why it isn't played in more lists. Is there any special reason as to why it has fallen out of favor?

My matches were as follows:

Sneak and Show 2-1
UWR Stoneblade 2-0
UR Delver/Prowess 0-2
Miracles 2-0
Goblins 2-1
ID

Quarter: UWR Stoneblade (again) 2-0
Semi: UR Delver/Prowess (again) 2-1
Final: Jund(!) 2-1

Congrats! Very nice result.

I always found Library quite clunky, and the md is so tight for space. Maybe I should revisit it.

[TSmiley]

another reason people are trimming to 1 Jace is how many pyroblasts are running around in sideboards, grixis variants make up a huge percentage of the meta-with quite a few of them running snapcaster mages as well- trying to stick and protect a Jace in this metagame is extremely difficult.


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[Hanni]

The reason why I cut JTMS, and why I don't run Sylvan Library, is because this deck already has a super powerful lategame with TNN + equips, and is relatively mana hungry already as-is. I've never felt like I needed even more slow grindy cards. JTMS is much better in control decks, IMO.

What the deck wants more of is ways to interact with the opponent. Vendilion Clique is a better card than JTMS in this deck against almost every matchup; specifically, it is better against this decks more difficult matchups. The fact that Clique can carry a Jitte in the air is more in line with what this deck wants to be doing.

That's my 2 cents, anyway.

[lime]

Given our 8 mana dorks, I really like to be able to play an early Jace. It gives us another angle of attack (not in the sense that we will actually win with Jace ultimate, but in the sense that it is a card that needs to be answered immediately), and makes the deck a bit more resilient to sweepers. But I do see the point about pyroblasts + snap. If I were to expect a lot of those, I might cut a Jace as well.

But all of this seems to speak all the more for Sylvan. It is hardly slow, and immune to pyroblast. It helps us grind, and doesn't take much of a commitment in terms of mana.

[FZA]

This may not be the right place for this, but does anyone find it odd that Blade Control and Deathblade have been moved to DTB based on tournament placings that seem to be mostly Bant Deathblade, but the bant thread didn't get moved to DTB?

[TSmiley]

It's because of how mtgtop8 places bant deathblade in a bunch of different archetypes other than bant because of the black splash- it's definitely inconsistent categorization.


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[13b]

I am surprised to see there was no discussion on the NO/Pro Bant list the top 2'd that tournament in Japan - is the consensus that it is just a one off?

Here is the list I'm referring to for reference

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15949&d=298172&f=LE

24 LANDS
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Karakas
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
4 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath
13 CREATURES
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
2 Qasali Pridemage
23 INSTANTS and SORC.
3 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Natural Order
2 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares
SIDEBOARD
1 Arachnogenesis
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Containment Priest
3 Detention Sphere
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Krosan Grip
1 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Rest in Peace
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Supreme Verdict

[limbo]

I am surprised to see there was no discussion on the NO/Pro Bant list the top 2'd that tournament in Japan - is the consensus that it is just a one off?

Here is the list I'm referring to for reference

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15949&d=298172&f=LE


That is a very interesting deck with a lot of stuff going on. 3 Brainstorms has to be wrong. 4 stifle is interesting. I have played a lot of NO decks over the years. Geist and knight can apply a lot of pressure quickly so the NO package isn't the only win con. Indeed, NO is relatively slow when Progenitus is the only NO target. .... I don't know this looks like a pile of cards to me, I don't see what is holding it together. The sideboard doesn't clarify anything for me either, as it has a lot of one-ofs but doesn't have a tutor package or enough can trips to help you find them regularly. I would say congrats to the guy for the good result, but I don't see this one as having legs.

[limbo]

This popped up a few days ago. Delver and Knight together in the same deck. Postboard it looks like standard bant stoneblade but game 1 it is a bit wild. Worth taking a look at.
Mortician's Delver (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/benfriedman-07142017-moon-grixis-garbage-and-morticians-delver/)

[NEELEY]

I took down the mtgo legacy challenge yesterday with Bant Deathblade! Only 65 players. I played David's 75 from Vegas, the deck felt great!

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15926&d=298116

[Jesture]

I took down the mtgo legacy challenge yesterday with Bant Deathblade! Only 65 players. I played David's 75 from Vegas, the deck felt great!

http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=15926&d=298116

Congrats on the finish. How did the 3/3 split of Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decay perform? Also, what are your thoughts on the absence of JTMS in the maindeck?

[NEELEY]

Congrats on the finish. How did the 3/3 split of Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decay perform? Also, what are your thoughts on the absence of JTMS in the maindeck?

I like the split, decay has been great. It let me beat grixis control in the finals, taking care of blood moon. It also helped me beat a triple delver draw in the semis.

I messaged Dayv asking why he wasn't playing any Jace and he told me because the event he played before he was always sideing it out. I started doing better without Jace. I found out that this isn't a control deck, it's a tempo style deck and I needed to be more aggressive. The amount of lightning bolts I faced yesterday was insane, all 3 matches were grixis in the top 8 and I would never keep in jace vs them.

[scapiander]

Can anyone provide a general idea of Bant's (4 Noble/4 deathrite) matchups against Lands, Grixis Delver, Miracles, DnT, Czech Pile, and Storm?

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[NEELEY]

Can anyone provide a general idea of Bant's (4 Noble/4 deathrite) matchups against Lands, Grixis Delver, Miracles, DnT, Czech Pile, and Storm?

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I think all the match ups are pretty close. I will observe my mtgo history sometime soon and give a detail breakdown of wins and losses with the deck vs the match ups