[Article] Eternal Europe: A Saturday's Worth of Thoughts

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

This time I'm trying to do things a little differently by combining a detailed tournament report with comments on various subjects either playing in or writing about the tournament made me think of. Check it out:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/23585_Eternal_Europe_A_Saturdays_Worth_Of_Thoughts.html

Enjoy!

/edit: Fixed the link :/

[RJM]

Hey Carsten. Found the article, but your link appears to be broken.

Reading it now, expect it to be as good as always.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Hey Carsten. Found the article, but your link appears to be broken.

Reading it now, expect it to be as good as always.

Argh, damn it. Thanks for warning me! (Fixed now)

[Finn]

With respect to the Vendilion concession, either your opponent was a clod or I am. If I am following the story correctly, he just draws the Knight again. Was your expression sufficient to make him forget how the card works?

Or was there something I did not pick up on?

[majikal]

With respect to the Vendilion concession, either your opponent was a clod or I am. If I am following the story correctly, he just draws the Knight again. Was your expression sufficient to make him forget how the card works?

Or was there something I did not pick up on?
It would appear his oppenent forgot how the card worked. Sometimes a look of confidence makes lesser players make extremely stupid plays.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

With respect to the Vendilion concession, either your opponent was a clod or I am. If I am following the story correctly, he just draws the Knight again. Was your expression sufficient to make him forget how the card works?

Or was there something I did not pick up on?

No, you're right he obviously wasn't dead. You're just looking at the situation too calmly and therefore realize what's going on. Without the stress of this being the last turn with him trying to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat, I don't think this kind of play could ever work.
What I did was to take a situation that looked like I he had got me, thought for a (short) while to try and find an out before confidently going into action and following a line of play that, or so I projected, would still win me the game.
By making it look like I had figured out a plan that would work, I managed to draw my stressed out opponent into this fictive reality where I had found a way to win. Once he bought into this fantasy I created I only had to supply something that looked lethal - in this case him seeing his empty library while knowing Clique makes him draw a card - to get him to concede for no reason at all.

Most classic schemes con artists use to rob people blind in ways you wouldn't believe anybody could be stupid enough to fall for work in this same way by creating a false reality before profiting from people believing in it. Falling for something like that doesn't mean you're a clod, incredible things can be done by manipulating the subconscious through performance combined with high stress levels, even to highly intelligent people wise in the ways of the world. If you don't believe me you should read some stuff on scams that have been pulled off - a pretty fascinating subject anyway.

It seems I had a good day as far as my acting skills were concerned and was lucky enough to catch my opponent at an unstable moment so I could exploit his stress levels.

[Finn]

I don't think it is all that crazy now that you describe it in detail. Magic is probably not an area for which this would work on me - which is why I can't easily see how this fellow fell for it. But I can see myself getting conned in areas I am less confident in. I am far too trusting.

[alderon666]

That's why I think the pimpest kinda card is the English Foil. It shines and whenever you need, you can actually read what the card does!

I liked the trick. It was a hell of a long shot, but you gotta work with what you have. That trick will probably only work like 10% of the time. But under stress situations like that, some people just want the game to end one way or the other and will be subject to such tricks.

I actually think exploring this kind of situations will make you a better player. But actually practicing playing Magic and/or tuning you deck and sideboard will give you better results.

[The Treefolk Master]

Question regarding the deck:

I only own 1 Moat. Are there any substitutes for the 2nd one?

Vedalken Shackles?

It's not the same in the sense that it cannot hold down infinite dudes, but it starts to trade 2 of their dudes, so if they get rid of it, their board presence isn't all that insane...

Plus, it acts as a wincon.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Finn: Jup, the principles are actually rather basic but it's still easy to get caught.

@alderon666: A good deck/perfect actual in-game skills will win you many more games. These kinds of situations do come up though and are another way to gain a few percentage points, and a pretty impressive one to consider when it does happen.

@The Treefolk Master: There aren't any perfect substitutes but I'd probably try Enlightened Tutor first as you do have access to one Moat (you really want something that totally locks up the board especially against Tribal decks and shroud guys/Prog) and only if you're unhappy with that move on to testing either Shackles or a MD Wrath because both can often serve very similar functions.

[The Treefolk Master]

Nevermind, negotiations to acquire a second one have been started :tongue:

[OrGy]

Hi Carsten,

I piloted your list without change to a third place in a 71 persons Bazar of Moxen Trial this weekend.
I lost only one round during the swiss : Shroud reanimator, while winning against Countertop Bant, Aggro Loam, Blue Zoo, 2 Regular Reanimators and drawing against TT). I won a thought matchup in quarter finals against Aggro Bant and lost to mediocre draws against a perfectly played ANT in the semis.

The list is really fine and metagame-tuning aside, performs particularly well.

Right now, my thoughts are that Enginered Explosives could earn a spot in the side, replacing a Path to Exile. The lack of fife gain whatsoever is kind of frustrating though as the pack suffers greatly to Tempo Zoo and TT.

Did you consider cards such as Timely Reinforcement or similar during the pack devellopment ?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Hi Carsten,

I piloted your list without change to a third place in a 71 persons Bazar of Moxen Trial this weekend.
I lost only one round during the swiss : Shroud reanimator, while winning against Countertop Bant, Aggro Loam, Blue Zoo, 2 Regular Reanimators and drawing against TT). I won a thought matchup in quarter finals against Aggro Bant and lost to mediocre draws against a perfectly played ANT in the semis.

The list is really fine and metagame-tuning aside, performs particularly well.

Right now, my thoughts are that Enginered Explosives could earn a spot in the side, replacing a Path to Exile. The lack of fife gain whatsoever is kind of frustrating though as the pack suffers greatly to Tempo Zoo and TT.

Did you consider cards such as Timely Reinforcement or similar during the pack devellopment ?

Congrats, nice to see the deck starts to perform for others :) Too bad you lost to ANT but well played ANT is hard to beat with any deck as long as they get good draws. That being said, if I expected more Storm in my meta (there is essentially zero) there would be a third Spell Pierce in the board - a minor change but something that raises the frequency of drawing enough early countermagic relevantly.

EE is something I already had in my board and it's pretty sweet. I'd definitely consider running it again as it's very good against Zoo and Elves or anything presenting you with stuff like EtW, Counterbalance, Chalice, Bitterblossom, Mongeese and Argothian Enchantress. Definitely a card on my SB shortlist.
Paths are cheaper and can kill KotR and JinG, though, which is why I've been running them lately. I've definitely been considering exactly the switch you mentioned, though.

As for not having lifegain, the problem with the lifegain cards is that they're only good against a very limited number of decks (Burn, Zoo and UR Delver, essentially) which leads to me never finding room for them (lately those decks are rarely seen here). Lifegain spells I considered running but never do because my meta doesn't warrant them:

Samite Ministrations: nice against PoP if you've drawn a lot of non-basics, Fireblast and Flame Rift. It also always 2 for 1s a Bolt

Pulse of the Fields: you should be able to get this off twice at the very least against Burn at which point it should usually pull you out of reach. If you ever manage to use it three times you've probably won the match. The biggest problem with it is costing three against UR because it's much more likely to run into Daze. It also eats up a lot of white mana and can interfere with your use of removal against Zoo and Delver.

Timely Reinforcements: I really like what this card has to offer against Zoo but it's probably the weakest option against the other two. Against Burn you generally simply gain six life for three mana, which is fine but much weaker than the other options. Against Delver it suffers from the same Daze issue as Pulse and the dudes are often irrelevant even if you get them.

Rest for the Weary: Modern tech. This is probably what I'd use if I wanted lifegain and my meta had a meaningful amount of Burn and UR Delver. Gaining eight for two mana at instant speed (crack a Fetch) is pretty significant against those decks and doing it again with Snapcaster is generally game over.

As lifegain is usually used mainly against burn-style decks, Circle of Protection: Red, while not lifegain per se, is also an option, especially if you keep the ETutor board.

Finally, for what it's worth, I've StPed many a Clique against Burn in response to the last Bolt when the deck still saw more play and it's been surprisingly effective (almost all my games against Burn are won on the back of ramping Jace like mad anyway).

[OrGy]

Thanks for the detailled comments.

As a matter of fact, Storm combo is not hugely represented in the French meta : French players always had this strange inclination for Aggro Control. Pierre Sommen which was my opp during the QF won GP Amsterdam piloting his trademark Stonebant, a strong hint on the french meta. Various Bant, Punishing Fire Maverick, Stoneblade represent a large portion of the field.
The most notable exceptions are TT and Tempo Zoo, growing in numbers and performances, thus my interrogations on a possible lifegain inclusion, and the PTE / EE swap.

Agreed on EE, definitely a card to consider, on par with PTE. Knowing that a wise ANT player will commit most often to a Storm +5 ETW to win in short order post-board, the luxury to go simply E.Tutor for EE, cast and crack is invaluable.
As such, the card also provide an out post-board to Sylvan Library, a key card for RUG aggro Strategy to go nuts regarding our lack of pressure on their life total, without being irrelevant at all in the MU.

If Tempo decks continue to rise in popularity, I'll consider some of the options you presented for possible SB inclusions :wink:

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

No problem, if you have any other questions or suggestions let me know. On a related note, are you planning on writing a tournament report? (btw, I do read French if there is one up somewhere already)

[OrGy]

Yep, I made a report on Legacy-France. I should have given the link first : Fixed (http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=8493&view=findpost&p=148805")

Nice read :)

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Yep, I made a report on Legacy-France. I should have given the link first : Fixed (http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=8493&view=findpost&p=148805")

Nice read :)

Thanks, that was a fun read. One thing that I think does a lot to explain why you could pick up the deck and succeed with it without much experience is actually quite telling as to Caw Cartel's nature: you tested ANT before picking it up. One of the hardest things to do right with the deck is maximizing the cantrip engine and there are few decks that teach that skill as well as ANT does. That's something I'd recommend doing for anybody who wants to play Cartel, actually. Play/goldfish some UB ANT/High Tide to learn the ins and outs of the cantrip engine.

Other than that, there are a few things I disagree with in your SBing plans. I hope you don't mind:

- boarding out a Preordain: The cantrips are the heart and soul of the deck and while the minor loss of cardflow is hard to realize, removing any disturbs the correct development of the deck much more than any card from the board could be worth. Those ten cards shouldn't ever be touched under any circumstances.

- vs Delver: while B2B is powerful against them, there are too many situations where it's just a dead card and you'd rather just deal with their threats instead of attacking their mana. I also massively dislike pushing the curve as high as you did against a mana denial deck (adding Wrath to all the other four-drops in the deck). I usually just do this if they have Mongeese:

- 2 ORing
- 2 StP (assuming they don't run basics PtE is a strict upgrade)
- Elspeth
+ 3 PtE
+ VClique
+ 1 Spell Pierce

If I expect KGrip, I also turn Moats into Wraths.

- Against Bant: You board out Counterspells a lot more than I do. I should probably give turning into a hardcore boardcontrol deck postboard instead of a more flexible stack control deck against decks that win with creatures, too, as it seems to have worked well for you. I generally feel like you're going to easily plow through them if you can stop Knights and Jaces from hitting, so that's what I focus on. Counterspell is good at that, Spell Snares aren't. I also tend to bring in much less removal simply because I've never felt the need for it (and drawing Counterspell is much better than drawing Path if your opponent's threat is a Jace instead of a Knight). You beat him convincingly, though, so maybe both approaches are totally valid.

- Not bringing in Clique against combo: As you mentioned, you can often be somewhat short on ways to put pressure on them. Clique is by far the best way to do so while not tapping out and it's also more disruption. Against ANT in particular I generally do this (though I generally don't expect my opponents to have a ton of EtWs in their board so I'd keep a Moat in instead of the Elspeth in your situation):
+2 Pierce
+1 Clique
+1 ETutor
+1 Canonist
+1 Extraction

-2 ORing
-2 Moat
-1 StP
-1 Elspeth
When I didn't have the ETutor board, I generally took out the same cards and went to the full three Extractions. When I had the third Pierce I sometimes even took out the fourth Jace (something I rarely do). The four-drop threats simply aren't great against them and for once just running out a chain of Hawks is actually a relevant plan. Getting off a Hawkcestral is pretty gamebreaking, too, so I definitely want the Hawks available here. ANT is just much better at going long than something like Reanimator so you want some way to break card parity.

[OrGy]

Thanks (again) for the comments. Be reassured, I do see no problem at all taking some piece of advice from you on the matter.

Indeed, one of the factors that helped me in piloting the pack is some intensive testing on ANT these past few weeks. Furthermore, I assisted a partner of mine during his training sessions with High Tide, in preparation for the Rencontres Legacy de Paris.

As for the advices :
SBing out Preordain against Aggro Loam and Bant : I agree with what you said, for the exact same reasons you said it :)

Against TT : My opp played to my left 2 rounds before we met and I picked that he was playing Grip. Hence my choice to board a Moat and add Wrath. It would have been wise not to bring in the second WoG though (or swap WoG/Moat entirely). Funny thing is that you would have opted to board out the Elspeth that gave me the draw. OK, I know it's biased and result oriented :P

Against Bant : The fact that his list seemed loaded with two drops convinced me to keep in 2 Snares at the expense of the 3 Counterspell. In retrospect, I think your approach is best here as Knight and Jace are the only threats needing immediate countermeasures.

Against ANT : You picked a typo here. Thanks :)
I boarded-in the third clique, cutting a STP (keeping 3 STP is vital post-board to keep Xantid Swarms in check). Turns out my opp was playing a cool Tombstalker Sideboard tech which earned him several games that day, but unfortunatly for me, he didn't drew into that (I had a STP in my 6 cards grip).
I fixed the error in my report.

As it turns out, one of the few real problems of the list is its slow pace, which can penalize its pilot to some extends :
- obviously, there's a risk of running short on time during the rounds. On the contrary, trying desperatly to maintain a quick pace can be risky as you can make mistakes playing too quickly or in autopilot-mode. I guess some more practice is in order.
- Less obvious is the lack of time to collect intels on what your opponents are playing. As a regular combo player, that was one of the few times I sat down during the semis without a f***ing clue what my opp was on. A really disturbing feeling, indeed.

[movingtonewao]

aww man i really wanted to read the report (there are few on this deck) but I don't read french :(

on a side note, what would you board out against dredge? Do we take out force?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

aww man i really wanted to read the report (there are few on this deck) but I don't read french :(

on a side note, what would you board out against dredge? Do we take out force?

Google translate usually renders things understandable, if not particularly fun to read. Works with Spanish things for me, at least. :)

As for boarding against Dredge, the first thing to come out are Spell Snares (useless) and after that I start cutting into Counterspells, the fourth Jace and other slow cards. I always keep FoW to stop discard outlets in case they can't go for the DDD plan because of mulligans.

[movingtonewao]

thanks for the reply :smile: on a side note, I made a few observations by playing with the guys at my local card shop today.
1) I'm having trouble with lingering souls. Some guy proxied up the esper stoneblade which tom martell used in indy and lingering souls is a real pain in the ass.
2) RUG aggro is a harder matchup than I thought. Sylvan library can go bonkers knowing that I can't interact with their life total.
3) Thrun the last troll...anything we can do at all against it? Thalia is pretty annoying too but thrun is pretty savage.

I'll be taking part in a store tournament on the coming sunday, so any advice on addressing the aforementioned will be much appreciated.

[LowBeyonder]

I've also recently picked up the deck, with some success. Any thoughts on Cursed Totem in the board? I've used it before in Thopter-Top and 43 Lands to shut down Maverick, or at least cut down on their number of outs, forcing them to draw a Grip instead of going Zenith for Pridemage.

(I'm pretty sure the answer to Thrun is Moat. Trolls can't fly. A resolved Sylvan Library is rough, though.)

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

thanks for the reply :smile: on a side note, I made a few observations by playing with the guys at my local card shop today.
1) I'm having trouble with lingering souls. Some guy proxied up the esper stoneblade which tom martell used in indy and lingering souls is a real pain in the ass.
2) RUG aggro is a harder matchup than I thought. Sylvan library can go bonkers knowing that I can't interact with their life total.
3) Thrun the last troll...anything we can do at all against it? Thalia is pretty annoying too but thrun is pretty savage.

I'll be taking part in a store tournament on the coming sunday, so any advice on addressing the aforementioned will be much appreciated.

1) Usually UW is a great matchup but I'm quite sure Souls makes it a lot more difficult, especially as the damn things fly. Don't have any testing against it yet, after all the GP was yesterday...

2) Sylvan is pretty sick (try to counter/Ring it) and Mongeese are troublesome. Everything else is actually relatively easy to play through. Make sure you protect your mana as much as possible and you should be doing fine.

3) Your answer to Thrun (and other Shroud guys) in game one is Moat, which is your endgame plan anyway (you don't have enough removal game one to just win on Jace alone). In games 2&3 you also have Wrath. Know it's there, hold back your answers for it where applicable.

Hope that helps and let me know how you do!

@LowBeyonder: I prefer just going for removal overload aka kill everything instead of trying to actually keep a Moat around postboard, so I haven't really considered Cursed Totem much. I'd much rather just run more Wraths or Paths instead of stuff that still allows them to equip up and beat down. Moat is a necessity in most preboard games. With all the extra-removal I've actually considered boarding out Moats to not get into a situation where a topdecked Grip kills me before, though I've yet to fully pull the trigger on that plan (I did board out one before).

[movingtonewao]

off the top of your head, how do you think we could deal with lingering souls? I was actually thinking about boarding in 3 surgical extraction just to get rid of that annoyance. Stoneblade just got a lot more annoying.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

off the top of your head, how do you think we could deal with lingering souls? I was actually thinking about boarding in 3 surgical extraction just to get rid of that annoyance. Stoneblade just got a lot more annoying.

Surgical Extraction was the first card already available I thought of, too, though they can play around that rather efficiently (by always flashing it back immediately). EE might have to make a comeback in the board to counteract that and B2B has just become much more efficient against them now that they're solidly three-colors (it also makes it much easier to catch a Souls in the yard). As much as I despise bounce-effects, Echoing Truth might be worth testing, too (it can get you out from under Choke against Maverick, too).
I'll have to test the matchup a reasonable amount just to see how much the MD matchup changes due to Souls (it might be just a nuisance or it might change how things play out significantly, I simply don't know yet) and then to figure out effective SBing before I'll be able to offer suggestions that are definitely worth pursuing.

The first thing I'd try out without the time to test things is to make room for two EE in the board as those are also quite good elsewhere (Thalia, CotV, CB, etc) and offer a card-efficient solution to a swarm of spirits. Another approach would be to board in some kind of flyer with two toughness to simply neutralize the spirits' attack value and get back to playing the game as before.

[OrGy]

aww man i really wanted to read the report (there are few on this deck) but I don't read french :(

on a side note, what would you board out against dredge? Do we take out force?As Carsten said, Google Trads helps a lot but if you want some additionnal infos, feel free to ask :)

[Piceli89]

Surgical Extraction was the first card already available I thought of, too, though they can play around that rather efficiently (by always flashing it back immediately). EE might have to make a comeback in the board to counteract that and B2B has just become much more efficient against them now that they're solidly three-colors (it also makes it much easier to catch a Souls in the yard). As much as I despise bounce-effects, Echoing Truth might be worth testing, too (it can get you out from under Choke against Maverick, too).
I'll have to test the matchup a reasonable amount just to see how much the MD matchup changes due to Souls (it might be just a nuisance or it might change how things play out significantly, I simply don't know yet) and then to figure out effective SBing before I'll be able to offer suggestions that are definitely worth pursuing.

The first thing I'd try out without the time to test things is to make room for two EE in the board as those are also quite good elsewhere (Thalia, CotV, CB, etc) and offer a card-efficient solution to a swarm of spirits. Another approach would be to board in some kind of flyer with two toughness to simply neutralize the spirits' attack value and get back to playing the game as before.


Engineered Explosives is pretty narrow. They can play around it never overextending with their tokens. Since none of the decks is the total aggressor in the matchup, being an attrition war where roles turn sideways continuously, they can get there just with a mere 2 tokens as resources begin to scarce. Even if they were to flashback it, you may manage to sweep once, but they can recover easily.
Hakws aren't enough to keep LS at bay.

Thing is: you don't need one-shot solutions, you need something that seriously hampers their capability to get ahead in the game. A card that was already busted against traditional Stoneblade and now it becomes a proper win condition: Vedalken Shackles. It allows to contain the token army making one clash onto each other, as well as using them to trade for Snapcasters. They absolutely have no solution at all, expect for narrow stuff ran mainly as singletons, i.e. Disenchant and Oblivion Ring (EE at 3, maybe).
It's also pretty good against Maverick, if it wasn't for the Choke issue.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Engineered Explosives is pretty narrow. They can play around it never overextending with their tokens. Since none of the decks is the total aggressor in the matchup, being an attrition war where roles turn sideways continuously, they can get there just with a mere 2 tokens as resources begin to scarce. Even if they were to flashback it, you may manage to sweep once, but they can recover easily.
Hakws aren't enough to keep LS at bay.

Thing is: you don't need one-shot solutions, you need something that seriously hampers their capability to get ahead in the game. A card that was already busted against traditional Stoneblade and now it becomes a proper win condition: Vedalken Shackles. It allows to contain the token army making one clash onto each other, as well as using them to trade for Snapcasters. They absolutely have no solution at all, expect for narrow stuff ran mainly as singletons, i.e. Disenchant and Oblivion Ring (EE at 3, maybe).
It's also pretty good against Maverick, if it wasn't for the Choke issue.

Figuring out how much is needed to actually deal with Souls is exactly why I need to test before making definite suggestions. One shot solutions to a swarm of Spirits might well be enough considering how many more cards than they you draw/see. Shackles does indeed seem like a great card for that matchup, though.

[movingtonewao]

carsten, it'd be great if you could devote a small bonus section (in your next article) on this issue once you've found an optimal solution :) It looks like LS is going to be everywhere for now.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

carsten, it'd be great if you could devote a small bonus section (in your next article) on this issue once you've found an optimal solution :) It looks like LS is going to be everywhere for now.


Won't put this into the next article simply because I'd like to test different postboard configurations first and that'll take a little longer than it usually would as I'm actually not planning to run Caw Cartel as my tournament deck right now - nothing huge coming up and the combo bug has bitten me again (see article to come) ;)

Still, I've gotten some testing done and finally have a feel as to what Lingering Souls does to the matchup. I actually don't think you need to make massive adjustments to be favored against SoulBlade, you mainly have to start ramping Jace more aggressively (pushing Souls to the bottom). The matchup has gotten harder - as in they actually win a reasonable number of game ones now - but is hardly unfavorable. Hawks + Jace bounce and the spotremoval actually deal with them drawing a few Souls quite well. If the deck doesn't totally take over the meta I'd probably just add two EEs to the board. Having a cheap sweeper for the tokens seems like it should be enough to bring the matchup back to where it was before, as drawing twice as many cards as they do generally allows you to easily answer everything else, Souls or no Souls.

[wcm8]

Dread of Night is an elegant solution to all X/1 white creatures for any deck splashing black.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Dread of Night is an elegant solution to all X/1 white creatures for any deck splashing black.

True, though if I splashed black I'd probably just run my own Lingering Souls to trade off with theirs (not to mention Dread would also ruin my Hawk-blocking plan). I really dislike the idea of adding another color in a twenty land deck with a bunch of 4-cost bombs, though. Getting Wastelanded sucks.

[movingtonewao]

I wholeheartedly agree. I did consider sneaking in a swamp and underground sea just to play lingering souls but am thankful i did not.

Also, can we have a thread specifically for caw cartel? It feels funny that we're discussing a deck in a thread meant for a specific article. That CABjace thread seems to be a little dead.

[AndyTron]

Figuring out how much is needed to actually deal with Souls is exactly why I need to test before making definite suggestions. One shot solutions to a swarm of Spirits might well be enough considering how many more cards than they you draw/see. Shackles does indeed seem like a great card for that matchup, though.

Have you tried Mistveil Plains? It's been working out really well for me. It can create infinite hawks for trading with spirits as well as infinite hawk-cestrals. Coming into play tapped isn't great, but I usually just brainstorm it away until I need it then fetch it out during my opponent's EoT for my late game.

[movingtonewao]

its a good idea but I doubt we want to have another card open to wasteland. The comes into play tapped would hurt alot in my opinion, especially in the matchups where you actually want to recycle hawks.

[AndyTron]

Like I said, I usually only search it out with a fetchland during my opponent's end step when I'm ready to start recurring hawks so EtB tapped doesn't matter as much, and the Martell builds aren't running any wastelands. Test it out against his list and let me know what you think. I'm curious to know how other people find it.

[movingtonewao]

tested the mistveil plains. I must say its horrid against the delver decks or any other deck with wastelands. Don't forget that we run few plains so cutting a plain for another wasteland target really hurts. I have counted as least a few games where having the mistveil plains in my opening hand sucked quite a bit.

Forgive me if this has been mentioned before but 1) do we have room for another elspeth? shes too good and 2) do we have space for 4 wasteland? They look like they'd help a lot in the current meta with grove of burnwillows and whatnot (like the traditional U/W control builds from sometime back).