[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

[Quasim0ff]

Okay I will try that SB option with -2 FoW and +2 Thoughtseize vs Deathblade. I don't know if I would side Night of Sou's Betrayal against only (average) 3 cards in their deck. Especially with 3 Liliana / Deluge in the mainboard.

And when I play Miracles I usually like to use the opponent's Liliana against them. You do this by floating an Entreat with SDT and making the Liliana's controller go into Hellbend. Since discard spells isn't that good against Miracles the instant they put a top onto the board. Be careful going to hellbend vs Miracles.

Damn, here I thought I was being smart by actually floating cards on top of my library with top! Damn, and you also do this tactic?
Liliana is the best card vs miracles, as the deck is so tight on having lands in play, that ultimating is the most important thing.

[defector]

I've been cutting Liliana and the spot discard vs miracles in my current round of testing. I feel like lots of ca and Force of Will are the best cards in the match up. Rushing a liliana ultimate while powerful is definitely and "all in" approach to the problem. I don't know if this is correct or not as I may just be unlucky in my Liliana races. Also, if the miracles player doesn't have a top out then the Lilli race is a lot more winnable. I think Miracles is a little bit favored against us, but we can outgrind them. I think some late fow are the best answers in that approach. Anyway, more testing tomorrow, good luck guys.
cheers
defector

[Megadeus]

Isn't liliana like one of the best cards against miracles?

[Tormod]

isn't liliana like one of the best cards against miracles?

qft

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

It is when they don't have top, if they have top, she can be pretty mediorcre at times as they'll just float lands/useless cards on top to draw and discard with.

Not to say I'd board her out, but wouldn't call her one of the best

That said, Miracles is favorable for us I feel, if the game drags out long enough they can play a huge entreat but honestly a resolved visions is backbreaking for them, and a second one is near impossible to come back from in my experience

Nevermind terminus against a deck with Shardless Agent is usually never that good

[Jessenator]

I think Liliana is one of the best cards against Miracles, no matter if they have top or not. Sure, they can float cards on top to affect you. But what exactly can they float to make you lose the game? Jace isn't terribly exciting because you'll have Tarmogoyf / Shardless to put pressure on the opponent (can be deadly sometimes), basically only Entreat/Vendilion are your outs here. With that being 3-4 cards out of the deck, (not counting your interactions), I don't think we should be afraid to use her vs Miracles. If cast early, I don't think Miracles can come back unless exceptional conditions are met.

The more time you give Miracle player to durdle with Top, the more time they have to find these blow-out answers to your hellbent board state. I would just jam her whenever possible, and don't weigh the possibility of them having outs too heavily.

Don't forget Ancestral Visions is the most powerful in this matchup too!

Please feel free if your thoughts differ from mine! thanks!

[defector]

I've lost all the games where I jam her early. It's not a huge sample, say 0-4 or so. Maybe its just a bad run. Its gotten me a little gun shy of using her though. I agree with a vision being the best card. I love it. Ive also started to ad top in response to terminus miracle draw. Must kill top!

[btm10]

How do you usually lose to Miracles? Do you get Top-locked? Do they Plow/Verdict in such a way that you can't pressure them effectively? When I resolve Lily against Miracles they usually end up empty-handed pretty quickly and then I get to fire off her ultimate, frequently multiple times (in one particularly grindy game I got to split their permanents three times).

If Terminus is the problem, make sure you hold your fetches after you have 4 lands in play so you can shuffle your library. Miracles also is slow enough that you can usually set up your Cascades with Sylvan and Brainstorm, so your Agents should almost invariably go for the 'right' cards. If you aren't running MD Force, I'd bring them in. If you are, I'd keep them in.

[Megadeus]

Yeah with Deadguy, I generally bait all of their removal until I get to land a Liliana, and if I do, it is pretty easy for me. Different deck, but still. They have no way to answer her outside of flashing in a dude with her at low loyalty, and maybe an EE or a DSphere generally.

[defector]

@btm10

In my 4 losses to Miracles I got killed by Clique twice, Jace once and Entreat once. They were able to keep me off creatures and Jace beats Lilli, Clique beats Lilli and Entreat beats player. Again, its a small sample size, so maybe they just dug well? I have a thing for seeing t1 tops, so it may have been better alignments for them than me? I play with force in the main and I keep them in. It could be that I just need to play it more, as I'm sure I will my local has a few dedicated Miracles players. I think the Lilli ultimate is awesome, but haven't gotten it off yet. I'll keep grinding. I'll do my next local in a few weeks, I'll post a report for analysis.
cheers
defector

[btm10]

I think the Clique losses are just variance. If they're hitting a 1-of with you unable to find a more-than-4-of to kill it you're just unlucky. Against Jace, Liliana is actually pretty good because she doesn't need to wait as long to ultimate and unless you're far behind already will be able to, at worst, Jace/Lands split them before Jace fires. Liliana + Jace or Liliana + Sylvan should just be game over for them unless you're dead on board. Them Entreating for a bunch of Angels can be problematic if you don't have Deluge main.

Preboard the most important things to do agianst Miracles are: don't go hellbent with Lili out, keep pressure on but don't overextend into Verdict or Terminus (DRS + Goyf is plenty), use Vision effectively, and don't waste Decays. Out of the sideboard you have incredible options against them if you need them: Maelstrom Pulse, Zur's Weirding, Null Rod, Krosan Grip, Notion Thief, additional copies of Sylvan Library are all great.

[infiniteJ]

Lilliana is at it's best vs miracles. Miracles is one of this deck's best matchups precisely because of Lilliana, and therefore she is the reason to play this deck. She is easy to ultimate and it is really hard to lose if you ultimate her. Just watch out for clique. Once you ultimate, it should be very hard for them to effectively entreat. I'm not going to get into split decisions-they usually have few permanents. Color screwing them should be the goal. In general, I force top early, use them to jam Lilliana in the midgame, or prevent an entreat later. Don't board out force of will! Don't board in much discard-they play great off the top of their deck and you can't afford the dead draw. I usually don't go out of my way to abrupt decay a naked counterbalance unless I have visions resolving. I value wastelands in the midgame despite them searching for basics because you can often waste a fetch in response to top flips and they need double white for entreat late. I don't like blind shardless's, especially without a fetch land to shuffle after bstorm.

I like 1 golgari charm post board as an additional answer to RIP, CB, and clique and occasionaly verdict. I like a null rod or needle for top, but don't overload on this effect. Pulse is also excellent to mop up angels and to a jace. I play with creeping tarpit which is huge in this matchup but understand those who don't like it. Vclique or notion thief are also good threats. Hedging against RIP by boarding a meddling mage in for a goyf is not unreasonable-naming terminus or entreat usually.

Sideboarding is obv build dependent (yours and theirs-are they RIP, are they 4 stp, do they have REBs?).

Anyways, good luck.

-IJ

[defector]

I agree about the Clique variance, those games felt like fucking robbery:) Thanks for the advice guys. I'll keep banging away:) I'll keep Lilli in for the next local tourney. I'm out for the next couple weeks, but when I get back to it I'll post the current list and report.
cheers!
defector

[wwoning]

Preboard the most important things to do agianst Miracles are: don't go hellbent with Lili out

Could you elaborate on that btm? I dont really understand.

[btm10]

Could you elaborate on that btm? I dont really understand.

Emptying your hand (or going to a single card with Liliana out) against Miracles is a bad idea because it shows that you don't have any responses to their shenanigans and it leaves you open to things like Venser or Clique in response to Liliana's +1 activation. The sheer quantity of instant-speed interaction that Miracles presents means I usually place a premium on holding a copy of Abrupt Decay and/or Force against Miracles to make sure my bases are covered. Basically, if you're both drawing a card and discarding to Liliana (even with an empty hand) but they have Top out, you're leaving yourself open to ways they can get back in the game, and you can be sure that they'll be able to use whatever they draw.

[defector]

Using Lilli vs Miracles is challenging and poses a lot of risks. Lilli can't beat a top and that's a serious problem, but Lilli's ultimate is fantastic against Miracles mana hungry board. Cutting their lands in half is very strong. I think Lilli+Jace is great or Lilli with some A. Visions. Just blindly jamming and ramping her up is a high risk proposition and near suicide against an active top. I think Lilli is on empty boards a good t3 DRS ramp play as that is early enough where an aggressive ramping is probably OK, but any turn later and thinsg get harder, otherwise if they have top or we beyond the fifth turn, I feel like BUG slides into a control role where we want to cast lilli into a Jace controlled board. I'm not sure if thats accurate, but I think thats the approach I'm taing in current testing.
cheers
defector

[Jessenator]

Hi all, I've taken Shardless BUG to the invitational and Open at SCG Columbus Origins this weekend, and I'd like to share some thoughts. It was a long weekend and I don't really remember how I won a lot of games but I'd like to focus on my losses. Hope it helps. Credits to Lejay for his brilliant main/sideboard. Made slight adjustments to the SB to my liking

SB:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Thoughtseize
1 Savannah
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Golgari Charm

With a combined result of (3-1 Legacy invitational, and 6-4 Legacy Open). Lost to RG Lands in the invitational, and my 4 losses at the Open were to D&T (eventual winner, congrats!), Storm, RUG Delver, BUG Delver. I beat Junk Maverick Depths, BUG Delver, BUG Delver, Storm, Storm, Deathblade.

Was X-2 going into round 8 and lost the last two rounds. With a disappointing finish in the last 2 rounds, due to light misplays and mulligans, although I do blame my loss on myself more than the deck.

When I played vs Delver decks, I did not really SB any cards at all. Maybe 1 Golgari Charm vs the Delver decks with Dark Confidants / True-Name Nemsis. I thought this deck had a very easy time vs Delver decks, and I think Lejay thought so as well. I kept in all my FoWs vs the Delver decks due to my mentality that I needed more tempo against them while I tried to make land drops and cast my more expensive spells. In hindsight, I think I underestimated the matchup where I did not resolve any of my Ancestral Visions vs RUG Delver unfortunate and was Tempo-ed out by BUG Delver's DRS, Submerge and Wastelands. D&T I made a very bad misplay in game 1 of not FoW his blind Phyrexian Revoker while I had 2 Liliana of the Veils in my hand, was punished and I will learn from my mistake in the future. Game 3 I drew 10 cards in my last turn window and did not find a single sweeper in my main deck, I think I could have won if I did. Congrats to you sir again for winning the tournament! I won't bore you guys with how I lost to Storm :)

I think the maindeck is almost perfect for the current North American meta, nothing really to complain about there. Basic lands were absolutely amazing all weekend and 4x Wastelands are extremely good vs every deck especially combo.

I would like to add some cards vs BUG / RUG Delver decks in the future in the SB, maybe I have the wrong mentality about the SB, maybe I have the wrong SB, or maybe I underestimated the deck. I would like to start at Baleful Strix / Disfigures in the SB and maybe adding a few Strix back in the mainboard.

Toxic Deluge was absolutely insane, if I was able to cast the card during a creature matchup, I did not lose the game.

I've used every single SB card multiple times during the tournament, Pithing Needle/Null Rod and Night of Soul's Betrayal were the MVPs of the sidedeck, resulting in wins every time each card was resolved.

Maybe someone can give me some insight about the RUG / BUG Delver matchup? I think it's still very positive on our end but I maybe be having the wrong mindset coming into the tournament. Meddling Mage was obviously insane vs Storm each time.

Cheers, hope this disorganized report can bring up some discussions and improve us as players!

Oh ya, if you aren't playing Sylvan Library, you probably should. I have no idea why that card is legal and absent from people's decks.

[defector]

Thanks for the report! RUG sometimes just gets you, between stifle and bolt and a timely wasteland. I think we play BUG over RUG because of the middle level and lower level draws, the high level draws from RUG are just unbeatable. I'd put that up to variance. I think DnT is kind of the Mav of the current era and if they curve out against us they just win, ces lav vie you can't get them all. I'm not sold on the Mage sb, but maybe thats correct? I really want a Garruk Relentless in the board, and maybe there's room. I alwasy felt like Sylvan was a potential singleton, I'll try it out. Better luck next time!
cheers
defector

[defector]

@ Jessinator: Testing with one Sylvan main and its is pretty awesome. I won't be able to get to my local with it for 2 weeks,but it feels like its home to stay. It is both amazing as a casade hit and as an enabler for future cascades as well as just a solid turn 2 play. It breaks up stalled boards as well. Just a wonderful one of, go Sylvan! In last weeks local I went 3-1 and lost to Miracles again. Lilli has let me down for the last time, I'm siding her out from here on. She can't beat Top or Jace so they have seven cards to our 2-3 copies of Lilli that needs 4 successful untaps to ultimate. I know I'm the minority report on this, but she has failed me for the last time. I run the no FoW list with 8 HD main. I'm keeping TS in on the play to try and snag tops and Hymn in on the draw for max value, no more than 4 total to reduce bad late games. I think with practice I can probably get closer to Miracles but right now it feels unwinnable. I know I'm still new with the deck, so hopefully that perception will change with some more experience. Besides that I love the deck. I'll post a full list and local report in two weeks as I am still tinkering and brewing, in the mean time good luck to you all with it regardless of the flavor you play.
cheers
defector

PS have given up on my singleton Garruk in the board, with TNN and Councils Judgement it just feels hard to play him right now as anything other than win more.

[lordofthepit]

For those of you with more experience with this deck, how would you compare the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional version with those of Lejay's version?

[wcm8]

For those of you with more experience with this deck, how would you compare the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional version with those of Lejay's version?

Lejay's version basically throws away the combo matchup Game 1 in favor of stomping over every other fair deck. It is pretty much pure card advantage with the exception of Force of Will. The sideboard then devotes quite a bit of space towards beating combo via Cascade-able hate (discard, Meddling Mage, etc.)

Overall I think the Lejay version is a better, more cohesive deck that is probably the best 75 to play in a meta that focuses on midrange, control, and (to an extent) aggro. There are some matchups you will almost always lose to though, e.g. Burn and Blood Moon/Painter.

In a combo-heavy metagame, I'd rather just play Team America.

[haymaker18]

I couldn't find any discussion on the following within the Shardless shell:

I wondered if anyone had tried adding 2x Sword of the Meek and 2x Thopter Foundry, 1-2x Enlightened Tutor to the main or board (counting on the Savannah in the board per LeJay's lists). Another alternative would be 2x Leyline of the Void, 2x Helm of Obedience, and 1-2x Enlightened Tutor in the board. A combo transformation could be minimally invasive out of this shell. Obviously, you're not really all-in on either combo (you would be playing a very different deck in that case), but the thopter/sword combo in particular could be cascaded into with Shardless Agent, helps you stay alive in close aggro matches, and would add another layer of inevitability against creature strategies if combined with 1-2x Ensnaring Bridge in the board (also fights against Deathrite draining you out). Our own Deathrite, Thopter Tokens, and even Shardless can operate fairly well under a Bridge. I find Tarmogoyf to be the weakest link in this deck against the field and could be the main card swapped out to make room for either combo. Flying blockers are incredibly relevant against many scary cards...Inkmoth Nexus, Serra Avenger, Flickerwisp, Delver, etc...

I used to play Thopter/Sword in UB Tezzeret, but that deck's lands were rough and your opening draws had too much variance. Going this route may encourage us to play more Baleful Strix since it is an artifact. Games with this deck go quite long and either combo seems like a way to find some inevitability in these matchups (and maybe give yourself a chance to find a quick kill against a bad combo matchup in post-board games...giving yourself SOME chance to luck into a quick win is better than NO chance).

Would love to hear some feedback on this idea.

[ESG]

I couldn't find any discussion on the following within the Shardless shell:

I wondered if anyone had tried adding 2x Sword of the Meek and 2x Thopter Foundry, 1-2x Enlightened Tutor to the main or board (counting on the Savannah in the board per LeJay's lists). Another alternative would be 2x Leyline of the Void, 2x Helm of Obedience, and 1-2x Enlightened Tutor in the board. A combo transformation could be minimally invasive out of this shell. Obviously, you're not really all-in on either combo (you would be playing a very different deck in that case), but the thopter/sword combo in particular could be cascaded into with Shardless Agent, helps you stay alive in close aggro matches, and would add another layer of inevitability against creature strategies if combined with 1-2x Ensnaring Bridge in the board (also fights against Deathrite draining you out). Our own Deathrite, Thopter Tokens, and even Shardless can operate fairly well under a Bridge. I find Tarmogoyf to be the weakest link in this deck against the field and could be the main card swapped out to make room for either combo. Flying blockers are incredibly relevant against many scary cards...Inkmoth Nexus, Serra Avenger, Flickerwisp, Delver, etc...

Someone has tried this, and it worked out very well for him: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_shardless_bant_with_.html
Rudy dumped Tarmogoyf and picked up Stoneforge Mystic, which pushed him into white rather than black. He's playing STP instead of Deathrite Shaman, probably for the same reason. He's playing an Enlightened Tutor package in the main, including Ensnaring Bridge. The deck is indebted to Shardless BUG but is not Shardless BUG.

[James_Nguyen]

For those of you with more experience with this deck, how would you compare the strengths and weaknesses of the traditional version with those of Lejay's version?

I think Lejay's version sacrifices a lot of your ability to interact with them in the early game for more mid-game power. Sometimes you are one the draw and they play things on turns one/two and you cant interact with them because you have cards like stalker/library in your hand and then die. With cards like thoughtseize and strix at least you have a punchers chance of being in games when they curve out and you are on the draw. I think that throwing away your combo match up to improve your creature match up is not a good idea at larger events. Your miracles match up is probably the equal with both version, you get cards like library and Liliana which are great but you also have clunkers like stalkers and deluge.

[lordofthepit]

Lejay's version basically throws away the combo matchup Game 1 in favor of stomping over every other fair deck. It is pretty much pure card advantage with the exception of Force of Will. The sideboard then devotes quite a bit of space towards beating combo via Cascade-able hate (discard, Meddling Mage, etc.)

Overall I think the Lejay version is a better, more cohesive deck that is probably the best 75 to play in a meta that focuses on midrange, control, and (to an extent) aggro. There are some matchups you will almost always lose to though, e.g. Burn and Blood Moon/Painter.

In a combo-heavy metagame, I'd rather just play Team America.


I think Lejay's version sacrifices a lot of your ability to interact with them in the early game for more mid-game power. Sometimes you are one the draw and they play things on turns one/two and you cant interact with them because you have cards like stalker/library in your hand and then die. With cards like thoughtseize and strix at least you have a punchers chance of being in games when they curve out and you are on the draw. I think that throwing away your combo match up to improve your creature match up is not a good idea at larger events. Your miracles match up is probably the equal with both version, you get cards like library and Liliana which are great but you also have clunkers like stalkers and deluge.

Thanks for your responses, and congratulations to James on your victory at Portland.

My intuition is that discard (traditional build) is easier for most combo decks to beat than Meddling Mages (Lejay's version), although this may not be altogether accurate and neglects the fact that Meddling Mages strain the manabase.

[James_Nguyen]

Thanks for your responses, and congratulations to James on your victory at Portland.



Thanks!

But I have never played any sb games with meddling mages vs combo, but they seem great. The only reasonable informative input i can give is on main deck and i personally like more early ways to interact. Maybe the correct build is having discard in the main and mages in the board to really beat combo.

[festeringGAB]

Hello, I'm a n00b of Shardless and I need some advice to beat Miracle!
I play a standard build with:

3 Fow
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hytt
1 Silvan Library

My sb:
2 Toxic D.
1 Pulse
2 Disfigure
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flustestorm
2 Vendillon
1 Cage
2 Surgical
2 Golg Charm

have you a side in-out guide for me?or other advice for different sb cards?

thanks :)

[Dragonslayer_90]

Hello, I'm a n00b of Shardless and I need some advice to beat Miracle!
I play a standard build with:

3 Fow
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hytt
1 Silvan Library

My sb:
2 Toxic D.
1 Pulse
2 Disfigure
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flustestorm
2 Vendillon
1 Cage
2 Surgical
2 Golg Charm

have you a side in-out guide for me?or other advice for different sb cards?

thanks :)

Side in pulse, cliques, and charms. Side out thoughtseizes, hymns, and a strix if you have any main deck. I don't think you need to run too much to beat miracles since this deck is naturally good against it if you know how to play the matchup. Other sideboard options you can consider: 1-2 Pithing Needle, Null Rod, another sylvan, Notion Thief, basically things that are permanent-based disruption and/or card advantage engines.

[James_Nguyen]

Hello, I'm a n00b of Shardless and I need some advice to beat Miracle!
I play a standard build with:

3 Fow
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hytt
1 Silvan Library

My sb:
2 Toxic D.
1 Pulse
2 Disfigure
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flustestorm
2 Vendillon
1 Cage
2 Surgical
2 Golg Charm

have you a side in-out guide for me?or other advice for different sb cards?

thanks :)

on the draw i would go -2 hymn -1 force -1 strix for +2 clique +1 pulse +1 charm.
on the play i would go -2 force -2 hymn for +2 clique +1 pulse +1 charm
I want thoughtseize to fight REB because most of the game revolves around visions and jace advantage.

[James_Nguyen]

James, I was happy to see your name in the top 8 of Portland because I just assumed you were playing a deck with Counterbalance. Then I checked the decklists and was sad.

:tongue:

Alright, I guess I'm happy that you won, even if you did have to resort to playing BUG.

Thanks man. I getting too old to play that deck, my brian hurts after every round :)

[Emo]

I am going to sleeve this deck up for SCG Baltimore

Although I am still debating about a few cards in my main and my sideboard, here is the list:

Creatures :14
4 deathrites
4 shardless agents
4 tarmogoyfs
2 baleful strixes

instant sorceries : 19
4 Ancestal visions
4 brainstorms
4 abrupt decays
3 FoWs
3 hymns
1 Toxic Deluge

other: 5
3 Liliana
2 Jaces

Lands 22

3 seas
3 wastes
2 bayous
2 trops
4 catacombs
4 mistys
1 Delta
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 creeping tarpit

Sideboard

1 FoW
3 Thoughtseizes
2 Golgari charms
1 Nihil spell bomb
2 Graftdigger cages
1 Vendillion clique (surgical extraction?)
2 disfigures
1 toxic deluge
2 flusterstorms (1 null rod 1 flusterstorm?)

I was thinking about cutting the Baleful strixes for 1 tombstalker and another FOW in the mainboard. Also How has Clique been performing? I haven't play tested too much combo in my area and if I were to cut it from my Sideboard what should I include instead?
Againsts Combo I have included the 2 flusterstorms- How has flusterstorm performed? I am debating cutting it down to one and playing either a Null Rod or a swan song?

My general siding stragegy for these more difficult matchups is as follows (again, I haven't played much combo in my meta so I need some sideboarding advice)

ANT-

- 1 deluge, -4 shardless agents, -3 AD +2 flusterstorms +3 thought seizes +1 Force, +1 spellbomb +1 Clique

Elves-

-3 Lili -2 Jace -2 Strixes -1 visions -1 agent +1 deluge +2 charms +2 disfigures +2 cages + 2 thoughtseizes

Sneak and Show-

-4 decays -4 visions - 1 Deluge / +2 charms +3 thoughtseizes +2 flusterstorms +1 FOW +1 Clique

[blindspotxxx]

After 3 Tournaments scrubbing out, this baby brought me to the top tables again :)

Main Deck:

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Tombstalker

3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Force of Will
1 Sylvan Library

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats

Sideboard:

1 Null Rod
1 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague (Couldn't get my hands on a Night of Soul's Betrayal)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Meddling Mage
1 Savannah

Brief Report:

Round 1 Elves: Teammate gave me the match lol lame getting paired early!

Round 2 Burn:

Game 1: Turn 1 Deathrite, Turn 2 Shardless Agent, Turn 3 Double Goyf. He couldn't race me and it didn't help that
he flooded.

Game 2: I wasn't even in the game. Liliana helped but I had no threats to kill him before a resolved
Sulfuric Vortex killed me at 4 Life.

Game 3: Early DRS, Early Goyf... A few turns later I had 2 DRS eating at Creatures in the yard. His triple Goblin
Guide draw got Maelstrom Pulse'd

Round 3: Esper Stoneblade

Game 1: 4 Wasteland wins games... He got screwed and couldn't keep with the Tempo Loss.

Game 2: He missed land drops again and double Wasteland takes me to victory. His double equipment and
single creature coulnd't handle a top decked Liliana leaving him with 0 blockers.

Round 4: RUG Delver

Game 1: Drew 3 Force of Wills and got controlled pretty hard with a single large Goyf killing me

Game 2: Kept a 2 land hand with Brainstorm... Failed to get more lands. DRS dies and I scoop.

Round 5: UWR Miracles

Game 1: Finally a very good match up. He stabilizes at 4 Life but I resolve a Visions. It doesn't help that
everytime he draws a Counterbalance I draw the Decay to kill it. A Liliana Ultimates killing all his White mana
and Jace.

Game 2: Meddling Mage makes his life harder as I have more threats in the deck. Kept 2 Force of Wills for
back up. Liliana and Jace give me the win and time was called. He also missed a Land Drop turn 2 and when he drew the
fetches he needed I was able to kill his Top. It's pretty hard to lose when you have Liliana, JTMS, Sylvan and
Null Rod all in play with him on 4 lands.

Round 6: ID

Top 8: Shardless BUG (Mirror)

Matched up against a friend. We talked about getting him to top 4 because his sideboard and main deck are better suited for the
semi's and decide to split the prize.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

What did you board in/out for meddling mages against miracles?

[blindspotxxx]

What did you board in/out for meddling mages against miracles?

-2 Toxic Deluge
-1 Force of Will
-1 Tombstalker
-1 Underground Sea

for the package:

I forgot if I boarded in the Golgari Charm but I boarded out another Force of Will
for Null Rod.

[trollking21]

What do you guys think of the shardless bant list that placed 10th. I'm posting here because it's closest to this and SCG named it shard less bug


Shardless BUG
Paul Lynch
10th Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 7/20/2014
Legacy


Creatures (9)

4 Shardless Agent
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
Planeswalkers (2)

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Lands (22)

1 Forest
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Windswept Heath
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
Spells (27)

1 Batterskull
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Detention Sphere
4 Brainstorm
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Ancestral Vision
Sideboard

1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Meddling Mage
1 Humility
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Flusterstorm
1 Path to Exile
2 Supreme Verdict

[blindspotxxx]

What do you guys think of the shardless bant list that placed 10th. I'm posting here because it's closest to this and SCG named it shard less bug


Shardless BUG
Paul Lynch
10th Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 7/20/2014
Legacy


Creatures (9)

4 Shardless Agent
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Vendilion Clique
Planeswalkers (2)

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Lands (22)

1 Forest
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
2 Windswept Heath
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
Spells (27)

1 Batterskull
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sword of the Meek
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Detention Sphere
4 Brainstorm
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Ancestral Vision
Sideboard

1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Meddling Mage
1 Humility
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Flusterstorm
1 Path to Exile
2 Supreme Verdict

Totally Different Deck :) It's more of a Thopter Sword deck with Shardless Agent. I'd still prefer the BUG Version.

[trollking21]

Totally Different Deck :) It's more of a Thopter Sword deck with Shardless Agent. I'd still prefer the BUG Version.


Fair enough I'll go sort it out in the new and developmental decks then.

[exallium]

After 3 Tournaments scrubbing out, this baby brought me to the top tables again :)

Main Deck:

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Tombstalker

3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Force of Will
1 Sylvan Library

4 Wasteland
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats

Sideboard:

1 Null Rod
1 Golgari Charm
1 Engineered Plague (Couldn't get my hands on a Night of Soul's Betrayal)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Meddling Mage
1 Savannah

Brief Report:

Round 1 Elves: Teammate gave me the match lol lame getting paired early!

Round 2 Burn:

Game 1: Turn 1 Deathrite, Turn 2 Shardless Agent, Turn 3 Double Goyf. He couldn't race me and it didn't help that
he flooded.

Game 2: I wasn't even in the game. Liliana helped but I had no threats to kill him before a resolved
Sulfuric Vortex killed me at 4 Life.

Game 3: Early DRS, Early Goyf... A few turns later I had 2 DRS eating at Creatures in the yard. His triple Goblin
Guide draw got Maelstrom Pulse'd

Round 3: Esper Stoneblade

Game 1: 4 Wasteland wins games... He got screwed and couldn't keep with the Tempo Loss.

Game 2: He missed land drops again and double Wasteland takes me to victory. His double equipment and
single creature coulnd't handle a top decked Liliana leaving him with 0 blockers.

Round 4: RUG Delver

Game 1: Drew 3 Force of Wills and got controlled pretty hard with a single large Goyf killing me

Game 2: Kept a 2 land hand with Brainstorm... Failed to get more lands. DRS dies and I scoop.

Round 5: UWR Miracles

Game 1: Finally a very good match up. He stabilizes at 4 Life but I resolve a Visions. It doesn't help that
everytime he draws a Counterbalance I draw the Decay to kill it. A Liliana Ultimates killing all his White mana
and Jace.

Game 2: Meddling Mage makes his life harder as I have more threats in the deck. Kept 2 Force of Wills for
back up. Liliana and Jace give me the win and time was called. He also missed a Land Drop turn 2 and when he drew the
fetches he needed I was able to kill his Top. It's pretty hard to lose when you have Liliana, JTMS, Sylvan and
Null Rod all in play with him on 4 lands.

Round 6: ID

Top 8: Shardless BUG (Mirror)

Matched up against a friend. We talked about getting him to top 4 because his sideboard and main deck are better suited for the
semi's and decide to split the prize.

This is card for card the list I've got sitting in my backpack and am running tonight =) Thanks for the report! Any more details you can give on how you sideboarded / what you feel worked and didn't work?

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

-2 Toxic Deluge
-1 Force of Will
-1 Tombstalker
-1 Underground Sea

for the package:

I forgot if I boarded in the Golgari Charm but I boarded out another Force of Will
for Null Rod.

Wouldn't boarding out the forest be better than the u.sea?

[blindspotxxx]

Wouldn't boarding out the forest be better than the u.sea?

I guess but I'm afraid of the random Blood Moon that Miracles can use.


This is card for card the list I've got sitting in my backpack and am running tonight =) Thanks for the report! Any more details you can give on how you sideboarded / what you feel worked and didn't work?

I almost sideboarded every card and every things seems to work well. What matchups do you have difficulty on?

[exallium]

I guess but I'm afraid of the random Blood Moon that Miracles can use.



I almost sideboarded every card and every things seems to work well. What matchups do you have difficulty on?

I realized once I got there I actually have -1 duress +1 strix, but that seems not quite good, as it weakens what is already a bit of a weak combo matchup G2.
Last night I played Death & Taxes, Bug Delver, and UR Delver. The deck (shardless) seems to be able to just run over the Delver decks, generating so much card advantage.

VS Death and Taxes, Crusader is very problematic, as your only answers to it are Jace (temporary) and Toxic Deluge.

I also ran this list at a Legacy Premiere event at a local store, and didn't do so well. I think the deck has a bit of a weakness to burn,
but perhaps I just sideboarded incorrectly (I played 2 burn decks in 4 rounds and lost both games).

Generally, combo decks with this deck game 1 are very rough. Game 2 gets better but you do need to be casting proactive spells and getting threats on the table.

[hobart]

YO, I just got 3rd-4th place last weekend at a decent sized event!

SCG IQ, 46 players
6 rounds of Swiss and cut to top 8

Shardless Sultai: 60 cards

Creatures: 14
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmagoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix

Spells: 18
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
2 Toxic Deluge

PlanesWalkers: 5
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Lands: 23
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
1 Swamp
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Volrath’s Stronghold

Sideboard: 15

3 Thoughtseize
1 Surgical Etraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Golgari Charm
2 Chill
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Notion Thief
1 Submerge

Let me explain some choices. My meta is mostly fair decks with a plethora of Delver, Deathblade, DnT, Maverick, and Miracles archetypes running wild. I chose this deck because I believe Shardless (with it's gluttony of removal and capability to run bombs like Toxic Deluge maindeck) is especially equipped to handle any creature based strategies. In my testing I noticed that I just won so many games on the back of Liliana of the Veil, and I really didn't like discard spells with Lili. I much preferred to be creating board control, possibly get hellbent before my opponent, use her +1 on a controlled board to gain straight card advantage, and wait for a suspended Ancestral to resolve or a topdeck Shardless or Jace to leap way ahead in the game. Force of will also supported this plan, hence the 4 of main. It controls early threats until I can get my card advantage bombs online. The fact that it also hedges slightly against combo was nice as well. I knew there was a decent chance I would run into some combo along the way, so I dedicated large portions of my board to help even up some of those matchups.

report (from memory):

0-0-0
Round 1 vs Imperial Bomberman:
This is a pretty fantastic and fun rogue deck that this guy plays around town. It's based on the Auriok Salvagers/LED combo and it runs tutors in the form or Trinket Mage and Imperial Recruiter. I'm lucky to know his deck pretty well before the match begins, as it's a beating if you're not ready. I'm not so scared of his combo since I can remove all the creatures, but he does run Magus of the Moon maindeck and tutors for it so I have to be careful.
Game 1 - I have a nice hand of removal, visions, shardless, and mana. He derps around with top and developes mana as I drop threats, waste his lands, and make planeswalkers on the board. Suddenly, around turn 5 or 6, he drops LED, then drops Imperial Recruiter, it resolves (I have no force), cracks LED in response to trigger, finds Salvagers, has enough mana to play salvagers and activate getting LED and infinite mana, and with Pyrite spellbomb in the graveyard he combos me out that turn.
Sideboard: yay a combo deck, time to board in a bunch of cards!
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughseize
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - My hand is spicy with disruption. Null Rod, Pithing Needle, Thoughtseize, and who cares that else. I thoughtseize turn 1, taking something pretty scary like a Magus or a recruiter, then he plays top off of an ancient tomb on his turn. I'm pretty sure he's hurting for land so I waste his land and pass. He manages to find another land to drop and passes. I drop the Null Rod which turns off at least half of his deck. He drops another sol land and plays imperial recruiter and searches up Mangara of condor. I know have time before that will be active so I get some threats going. He drops Mangara, I drop needle naming him, and then proceed to beat face in quickly to end the game.
Game 3 - My hand has both nihil and surgical, which will break up his combo, and an abrupt decay, which I am determined to hold up mana and use for a bloodmoon effect. He gets some tutors going, I get the spellbomb down and still hold up decay mana. He drops an LED on an early turn, and I consider abrupt decaying it and surgical to just remove the combo from deck, but I think better of it as I still want the decay for bloodmoon and I can just surgical when he tries to combo. A few turns later He attempts to combo off with salvagers in play and he has lots of mana going, I spellbomb his graveyard in response to the salvagers activation, he responds with spending the rest of his mana on salvager activations trying to get as much of his yard back as possible, i respond with surgical on LED, and end his chance of comboing. Unfortunately, he still has utility artifacts like spellbomb going with salvagers so I can't seem to stick a threat for long. We draw due to time because I can't do the last point of damage for like 10 minutes. Oh well.
0-0-1
Round 2 vs Elves!
This is a buddy of mine. He is a young player but a very competent elves pilot. I've tested with him and feel great after board, and probably close to 50/50 game 1 due to the 2x Deluge.
Game 1 - I lose the die roll, and he mulls to 6. This has got to be my biggest misplay of the tourney, as I keep what figures to be a good hand against an unknown deck, but his deck is known and my hand was bad against it: Visions, visions, deathrite, decay, wasteland, lands. He starts off doing his elf thing, with quirion ranger and Elvish Visionary and friends. I decay a symbiote I think on my 2nd turn. On his third turn he glimpses and drops a heritage druid makes like 5 more creatures keeping his hand full. I desperately drop a liliana on my next turn and 3 mana edict him for something irrelevant. He drops cradle and casts behemoth and attacks me for about 30 damage on his next turn.
Sideboard: I am forced to board in a shit ton of cards.
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-1 Creeping Tar Pit
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Ancestral Visions
+3 Thoughtseize
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Submerge
Game 2 - I'm giddy as I spread an opener with Grafdigger's, thoughtseize, deluge, and stuff. I drop the cage turn 1 (turning of GSZ), he playes deathrite. I thoughtseize turn 2 and I believe I took something like a thoughtsieze. He doesn't like the implication of that at all. I drop threats as he drops elves. I land a pretty nice deluge and easily coast with goyfs.
Game 3 - A medicre opener but not too shabby, especially with him on the play and a mull to 5. I have double grafdiggers, thoughtseize, goyf, brainstorm, and lands. He drops quirion, I do a cage. He drops visionary, I brainstorm, make it "perfect" by throwing away the extra cage and fetch a land to thoughtseize. His hand is kindof scary, as he has NO, GSZ, and a few of the good elves, including that hot new reclamation sage that will kill my precious single cage! So ofcourse I take that. He starts making great things happen with mana elves, visionary, and symbiote. I'm throwing removal at the scariest threats, but I haven't drawn any sweepers, and I notice he's got a full grip and I'm down to nothing but a goyf on board (at least I've been swinging for a few each turn, and he's been missing land drops), but i'm getting scared. This is from his mull to 5 on the play remember. So I realize I'm probably dead real soon as he can continue to draw several each turn from the visionary tricks with a druid and nettle in play. But my deck loves me, as I topdeck toxic deluge with no cards in hand, sweep his board (except a bounced visionary ofcourse), and swing with a weakened goyf for 3 damage dropping him to 5 life. He misses a land drop again on his next turn and plays visionary and passes. I topdeck an abrupt decay on the next turn and remove his dude to swing for exactsies with my goyf. He reminded me the rest of the day how lucky I was to topdeck that deluge.
1-0-1
Round 3 vs UWR Delver:
This is a regular at my LGS and I know what he's on. Finally one of the good matchups I've mainboarded for. The least threatening of the delver decks. I basically get to keep any hand with lands and spells.
Game 1 - I win the die roll and lead with a suspended visions. He leads with Delver. Delver doesn't flip for a few turns so I feel no pressure. I play a goyf, then it get's swordsed and I'm thinking sarcastically "Oh noes the aggro deck has me down to 21 on turn 4 and I have a visions about to resolve, what will I ever do ?" I believe I then get a Lili pierced. Next turn We have a force of will war over the ancestral which I win and get to draw some cards, then I just have all the things as he bricks on topdecked lands. He finally gets an SFM going but it's too late I can just do stuff like decay things, Force the batterskull when it gets hardcasted and win shortly after.
Sideboard:
-4 Force of Will
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - He leads with Grim Lavamancer this time and I follow up with a suspended visions. He then plays delver, and on my next turn I land Golgari charm to blow him out. I have more gas and he can't keep up, easy win.
2-0-1
Round 4 vs RUG Delver:
At this point I'm very happy I've dodged the spellbased combo decks around the room and the burn, omg so much burn. Multiple burn players at my same table this round and I'm so happy I'm not playing against one of them.
Game 1 - He wins the die roll and lead with Tropical into Ponder. I kindof recognize this guy and I have a read that he's on Canadian thresh, so I'm mindful to fetch all my lands when he's tapped out for the rest of the match and it really pays off, I don't think he lands a single stifle on one of my fetches. I believe I get a deathrite going turn 1. He is unable to kill it but plays out delver with wasteland. I land goyf and eventually get abrupt decay for his goyf. I somehow resolve a Jace and he gets way behind. I felt almost no pressure and I drew enough lands to withstand his wastelands. Easy win.
Sideboard: this is one of the only fair decks I don't board out Forces for, I need the help against early pressure and denial. If I can survive to mid-late game I should definitely win.
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+1 Submerge
Game 2 - He plays fetchland go. And i feel so lucky that I just happen to have 2 actual dual lands in my hand, so I will be able to evade stifle. I drop underground and suspend visions. He fetches tropical and plays out a mongoose and passes without playing land. I play a Baleful strix which he refuses to attack into for several turns. Next turn he wastelands underground and surgical extractions it. Now, I ended up getting surgicaled twice in the tourney, and I feel like it's a terrible card against us, is it pure desperation that people are boarding it in against me? Anyway, he hits the two other undergrounds in my deck, but it's not like he's taking me off of anything there, so I'm really not worried about it. So, he has tapped trop and mongoose in play, I draw a wasteland. I wasteland targeting his trop, and in response he submerges my strix only to respond by dazing his own submerge to pick up the trop. Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose, but overall I still feel great about the situation. He drops another mongoose and passes. I drop a goyf and pass. He plays some cantrips to dig for land, finally drops one, and then he walks away to talk to a judge for a long time I'm guessing to ask if he can stifle my visions. Meanwhile I'm just looking at the board state and the cards in my hand (I believe it was double decay, deluge, and shardless, and lands) and I was pretty sure he could not win this game. Sure enough he passes, stifles my visions, and then I proceed to crush him with goyfs and card advantage and mana advantage
3-0-1
Round 5 vs Belcher:
I tested a bunch with him but not with Belcher, but I know what he's on. I think its' a bad matchup for me, but at least I have forces and deluge so let's see.
Game 1 - I win the die roll, and pretty much snap keep with Deluge in hand an the mana to cast it. I'd rather have a force ofcourse, but with deluge at least I blank 60% of his win conditions. He has to mull twice. There is a bit of mindgames here because he knows that I know what he's on, and he's gotta figure if I snap keep there's a good chance I have force of will, so he's a little afraid to go all in on Belcher (if he even has it). I suspend visions turn 1, he makes 12 goblins, I drop goyf, he swings, I block one, and go to 8. I deluge his everything on my next turn, and win with goyfs 2 turns later.
Sideboard:
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-1 Creeping Tar Pit
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Ancestral Visions
-1 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughtsieze
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Chill
Game 2 - He mulls twice, and I mull twice since I get two hands with no disruption at all. I don't love it but I keep a 5 hand with a lone golgari charm for disruption and no draw spells, but at least his mulls are always terrible for him. He gitaxian probes and passes, I drop a land and play something irrelevant like a deathrite shaman. He just draws and passes, I do something irrelevant again on turn 2. His turn three he topdecks an initial mana source in Elvish spirit guide, plays it and goes off with tinder walls and LED with enough mana to cast Belcher and then LED to activate Belcher to naturally belch me and flips like 50 cards before hitting his land.
Game 3 - Neither of us mull, but I get to keep a 7 card hand with Force of will, blue card, and Null rod, fantastic! I play fetchland go. He probes on his turn to see all the hate, groans, moans, and then just plays a lotus petal and passes. I drop my null rod turn 2 and I'm feeling very confidant. He draws and plays a Land grant for taiga and plays tinder wall and passes. I rip a thoughtseize, and see that he's a got a just a bunch of mana and goblin charbelcher. He ends up doing nothing the whole game and by the time its over I've got 2 Forces and blue cards just in case. I was his only match loss of the day.
4-0-1
Round 6 vs top seed and we ID
Top 8
I get paired vs a local player that is on U/G Turbo Eldrazi. I haven't really tested this matchup at all but I can tell he's very confidant as he knows my exact list.
Game 1 - I'm on the play from being the 4th seed. I like my hand with a wasteland, a couple visions, and Lili. I suspend some visions, wasteland a cloudpost and develop my board with Lili and Jace. He gets top down, spins it around a lot and makes land drops but doesnt accelerate. By late game he's stayed alive but at reasonably low health due to tarmagoyf, and I've been Jacestorming for like 4 turns which enables me to find all 3 of my wastelands over the course of the game. Eventually he is able to show and tell in a Primeval Titan and I have nothing to drop. Because of his low health he's forced to get a glacial chasm and Cloudpost. I'm able to lili edict his big dude and just keep brainstorming with jace. He bricks out and chasm alone cannot save him. If i didn't have the jace he could just primeval out a Dryad arbor but he knows with double planesalkers creatures alone won't save him.
sideboard:
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Toxic Deluge
-1 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - He drops glimmerpost into Top, THen I thoughtseize to see a cloudpost, trinket mage, brainstorm, Glimmerpost, and pithing needle. I grab pithing needle as I happen to get the double wasteland opener and I realize he doesn't currently have any colored mana. He spins top and gets some colors of mana but I waste his cloudposts and get a reasonably early lili. I'm like plus plus plus with lili and there's not too much else going on. On some mid game turn I have lili at 6, and a tarmagoyf in play and he has about 2 or 3 cards in hand. His board is glimmerpost, cloudpost, Tropical, Tropical, Island, Top. I decide that if I just ultimate Liliana I should be able to just win with the goyf in a few turns no matter what, as I plan to leave him with the colorless mana or the colored mana, so I do it. He responds by spinning top but does not flip. I stick top in with the colorless mana and do my piles. He tanks for a long time but eventually realizes he just needs the colors too bad. He is unable to find an answer for goyf within the next few turns and that's gg.
Top 4
I'm paired against the top seed, the guy I IDed with in the final round of Swiss, and he says he's on some kind of BUG midrange deck. So I naturally assume (somewhat incorrectly) that it's one of the popular BUG control lists you see placing at the big events.
Game 1 - I keep an opener on the draw of 2x Force of Will, Deathrite, Tarmagoyf, and lands. He turn one plays a deathrite and I force of willed it pitching force. I really wanted to be king of the deathrites this game and I had no removal in hand, but in hindsight I really questions this play as it may have been very bad. I play deathrite on my first turn. He decays my deathrite. I play goyf. He plays TNN. I play shardless into Ancestral Visions but stil can't find an answer for TNN. He plays goyf. We each end up with a couple deathrites in play but he's still swinging with TNN. I find no answers in time and lose.
Sideboard:
-4 Force of Will
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Notion Thief
+1 Submerge
Game 2 - I have decent opener with Deathrite, visions, jace, Golgari charm, and lands. I open with suspended visions, he opens with land go, I play a deathrite, he plays another land go. I decide to tap out for a Jace, probably walking into a pierce, but instead he hard casts a Daze, very unexpected. but hey I've got visions about to resolve soon and I'm sure he boarded out the forces. Nothing else really happens and then I attempt to cast Visions, and them BAM, Misdirection! Totally out of left field, this guy is just getting me at all the right times and I'm left with no gas. I was so hoping I had drawn that Notion thief at any point during this game. He gets a Jace online and I'm unable to do anything about it for way way too long. He's not really pressuring me at all, I have the answer for his eventual TNN, but it just doesn't matter as I can't draw enough gas to get anything going. At some point he surgicaled my Jace as he had said it's the only topdeck he feared, but again I really didn't think it was that good since all he really did was spend a card to get a card out of my deck. But the guy had the right plays at the right time and deserved the win even though I think that just looking at the lists I may have been favored.

I felt really comfortable with this deck all day, and I gone back and read this entire thread over the last few weeks in preparation for this tournament so I really appreciate the posts! I realize this post is very long but I wanted to include as many details as I could remember.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I plan to continue running this awesome deck!

[blindspotxxx]

YO, I just got 3rd-4th place last weekend at a decent sized event!

SCG IQ, 46 players
6 rounds of Swiss and cut to top 8

Shardless Sultai: 60 cards

Creatures: 14
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmagoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix

Spells: 18
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
2 Toic Deluge

PlanesWalkers: 5
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Lands: 23
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
1 Swamp
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Volrath’s Stronghold

Sideboard: 15

3 Thoughtseize
1 Surgical Etraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Golgari Charm
2 Chill
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Notion Thief
1 Submerge

Let me explain some choices. My meta is mostly fair decks with a plethora of Delver, Deathblade, DnT, Maverick, and Miracles archetypes running wild. I chose this deck because I believe Shardless (with it's gluttony of removal and capability to run bombs like Toxic Deluge maindeck) is especially equipped to handle any creature based strategies. In my testing I noticed that I just won so many games on the back of Liliana of the Veil, and I really didn't like discard spells with Lili. I much preferred to be creating board control, possibly get hellbent before my opponent, use her +1 on a controlled board to gain straight card advantage, and wait for a suspended Ancestral to resolve or a topdeck Shardless or Jace to leap way ahead in the game. Force of will also supported this plan, hence the 4 of main. It controls early threats until I can get my card advantage bombs online. The fact that it also hedges slightly against combo was nice as well. I knew there was a decent chance I would run into some combo along the way, so I dedicated large portions of my board to help even up some of those matchups.

report (from memory):

0-0-0
Round 1 vs Imperial Bomberman:
This is a pretty fantastic and fun rogue deck that this guy plays around town. It's based on the Auriok Salvagers/LED combo and it runs tutors in the form or Trinket Mage and Imperial Recruiter. I'm lucky to know his deck pretty well before the match begins, as it's a beating if you're not ready. I'm not so scared of his combo since I can remove all the creatures, but he does run Magus of the Moon maindeck and tutors for it so I have to be careful.
Game 1 - I have a nice hand of removal, visions, shardless, and mana. He derps around with top and developes mana as I drop threats, waste his lands, and make planeswalkers on the board. Suddenly, around turn 5 or 6, he drops LED, then drops Imperial Recruiter, it resolves (I have no force), cracks LED in response to trigger, finds Salvagers, has enough mana to play salvagers and activate getting LED and infinite mana, and with Pyrite spellbomb in the graveyard he combos me out that turn.
Sideboard: yay a combo deck, time to board in a bunch of cards!
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughseize
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - My hand is spicy with disruption. Null Rod, Pithing Needle, Thoughtseize, and who cares that else. I thoughtseize turn 1, taking something pretty scary like a Magus or a recruiter, then he plays top off of an ancient tomb on his turn. I'm pretty sure he's hurting for land so I waste his land and pass. He manages to find another land to drop and passes. I drop the Null Rod which turns off at least half of his deck. He drops another sol land and plays imperial recruiter and searches up Mangara of condor. I know have time before that will be active so I get some threats going. He drops Mangara, I drop needle naming him, and then proceed to beat face in quickly to end the game.
Game 3 - My hand has both nihil and surgical, which will break up his combo, and an abrupt decay, which I am determined to hold up mana and use for a bloodmoon effect. He gets some tutors going, I get the spellbomb down and still hold up decay mana. He drops an LED on an early turn, and I consider abrupt decaying it and surgical to just remove the combo from deck, but I think better of it as I still want the decay for bloodmoon and I can just surgical when he tries to combo. A few turns later He attempts to combo off with salvagers in play and he has lots of mana going, I spellbomb his graveyard in response to the salvagers activation, he responds with spending the rest of his mana on salvager activations trying to get as much of his yard back as possible, i respond with surgical on LED, and end his chance of comboing. Unfortunately, he still has utility artifacts like spellbomb going with salvagers so I can't seem to stick a threat for long. We draw due to time because I can't do the last point of damage for like 10 minutes. Oh well.
0-0-1
Round 2 vs Elves!
This is a buddy of mine. He is a young player but a very competent elves pilot. I've tested with him and feel great after board, and probably close to 50/50 game 1 due to the 2x Deluge.
Game 1 - I lose the die roll, and he mulls to 6. This has got to be my biggest misplay of the tourney, as I keep what figures to be a good hand against an unknown deck, but his deck is known and my hand was bad against it: Visions, visions, deathrite, decay, wasteland, lands. He starts off doing his elf thing, with quirion ranger and Elvish Visionary and friends. I decay a symbiote I think on my 2nd turn. On his third turn he glimpses and drops a heritage druid makes like 5 more creatures keeping his hand full. I desperately drop a liliana on my next turn and 3 mana edict him for something irrelevant. He drops cradle and casts behemoth and attacks me for about 30 damage on his next turn.
Sideboard: I am forced to board in a shit ton of cards.
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-1 Creeping Tar Pit
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Ancestral Visions
+3 Thoughtseize
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Submerge
Game 2 - I'm giddy as I spread an opener with Grafdigger's, thoughtseize, deluge, and stuff. I drop the cage turn 1 (turning of GSZ), he playes deathrite. I thoughtseize turn 2 and I believe I took something like a thoughtsieze. He doesn't like the implication of that at all. I drop threats as he drops elves. I land a pretty nice deluge and easily coast with goyfs.
Game 3 - A medicre opener but not too shabby, especially with him on the play and a mull to 5. I have double grafdiggers, thoughtseize, goyf, brainstorm, and lands. He drops quirion, I do a cage. He drops visionary, I brainstorm, make it "perfect" by throwing away the extra cage and fetch a land to thoughtseize. His hand is kindof scary, as he has NO, GSZ, and a few of the good elves, including that hot new reclamation sage that will kill my precious single cage! So ofcourse I take that. He starts making great things happen with mana elves, visionary, and symbiote. I'm throwing removal at the scariest threats, but I haven't drawn any sweepers, and I notice he's got a full grip and I'm down to nothing but a goyf on board (at least I've been swinging for a few each turn, and he's been missing land drops), but i'm getting scared. This is from his mull to 5 on the play remember. So I realize I'm probably dead real soon as he can continue to draw several each turn from the visionary tricks with a druid and nettle in play. But my deck loves me, as I topdeck toxic deluge with no cards in hand, sweep his board (except a bounced visionary ofcourse), and swing with a weakened goyf for 3 damage dropping him to 5 life. He misses a land drop again on his next turn and plays visionary and passes. I topdeck an abrupt decay on the next turn and remove his dude to swing for exactsies with my goyf. He reminded me the rest of the day how lucky I was to topdeck that deluge.
1-0-1
Round 3 vs UWR Delver:
This is a regular at my LGS and I know what he's on. Finally one of the good matchups I've mainboarded for. The least threatening of the delver decks. I basically get to keep any hand with lands and spells.
Game 1 - I win the die roll and lead with a suspended visions. He leads with Delver. Delver doesn't flip for a few turns so I feel no pressure. I play a goyf, then it get's swordsed and I'm thinking sarcastically "Oh noes the aggro deck has me down to 21 on turn 4 and I have a visions about to resolve, what will I ever do ?" I believe I then get a Lili pierced. Next turn We have a force of will war over the ancestral which I win and get to draw some cards, then I just have all the things as he bricks on topdecked lands. He finally gets an SFM going but it's too late I can just do stuff like decay things, Force the batterskull when it gets hardcasted and win shortly after.
Sideboard:
-4 Force of Will
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - He leads with Grim Lavamancer this time and I follow up with a suspended visions. He then plays delver, and on my next turn I land Golgari charm to blow him out. I have more gas and he can't keep up, easy win.
2-0-1
Round 4 vs RUG Delver:
At this point I'm very happy I've dodged the spellbased combo decks around the room and the burn, omg so much burn. Multiple burn players at my same table this round and I'm so happy I'm not playing against one of them.
Game 1 - He wins the die roll and lead with Tropical into Ponder. I kindof recognize this guy and I have a read that he's on Canadian thresh, so I'm mindful to fetch all my lands when he's tapped out for the rest of the match and it really pays off, I don't think he lands a single stifle on one of my fetches. I believe I get a deathrite going turn 1. He is unable to kill it but plays out delver with wasteland. I land goyf and eventually get abrupt decay for his goyf. I somehow resolve a Jace and he gets way behind. I felt almost no pressure and I drew enough lands to withstand his wastelands. Easy win.
Sideboard: this is one of the only fair decks I don't board out Forces for, I need the help against early pressure and denial. If I can survive to mid-late game I should definitely win.
-1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+1 Submerge
Game 2 - He plays fetchland go. And i feel so lucky that I just happen to have 2 actual dual lands in my hand, so I will be able to evade stifle. I drop underground and suspend visions. He fetches tropical and plays out a mongoose and passes without playing land. I play a Baleful strix which he refuses to attack into for several turns. Next turn he wastelands underground and surgical extractions it. Now, I ended up getting surgicaled twice in the tourney, and I feel like it's a terrible card against us, is it pure desperation that people are boarding it in against me? Anyway, he hits the two other undergrounds in my deck, but it's not like he's taking me off of anything there, so I'm really not worried about it. So, he has tapped trop and mongoose in play, I draw a wasteland. I wasteland targeting his trop, and in response he submerges my strix only to respond by dazing his own submerge to pick up the trop. Desperate times call for desperate measures I suppose, but overall I still feel great about the situation. He drops another mongoose and passes. I drop a goyf and pass. He plays some cantrips to dig for land, finally drops one, and then he walks away to talk to a judge for a long time I'm guessing to ask if he can stifle my visions. Meanwhile I'm just looking at the board state and the cards in my hand (I believe it was double decay, deluge, and shardless, and lands) and I was pretty sure he could not win this game. Sure enough he passes, stifles my visions, and then I proceed to crush him with goyfs and card advantage and mana advantage
3-0-1
Round 5 vs Belcher:
I tested a bunch with him but not with Belcher, but I know what he's on. I think its' a bad matchup for me, but at least I have forces and deluge so let's see.
Game 1 - I win the die roll, and pretty much snap keep with Deluge in hand an the mana to cast it. I'd rather have a force ofcourse, but with deluge at least I blank 60% of his win conditions. He has to mull twice. There is a bit of mindgames here because he knows that I know what he's on, and he's gotta figure if I snap keep there's a good chance I have force of will, so he's a little afraid to go all in on Belcher (if he even has it). I suspend visions turn 1, he makes 12 goblins, I drop goyf, he swings, I block one, and go to 8. I deluge his everything on my next turn, and win with goyfs 2 turns later.
Sideboard:
-1 Volrath's Stronghold
-1 Creeping Tar Pit
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
-2 Ancestral Visions
-1 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughtsieze
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Chill
Game 2 - He mulls twice, and I mull twice since I get two hands with no disruption at all. I don't love it but I keep a 5 hand with a lone golgari charm for disruption and no draw spells, but at least his mulls are always terrible for him. He gitaxian probes and passes, I drop a land and play something irrelevant like a deathrite shaman. He just draws and passes, I do something irrelevant again on turn 2. His turn three he topdecks an initial mana source in Elvish spirit guide, plays it and goes off with tinder walls and LED with enough mana to cast Belcher and then LED to activate Belcher to naturally belch me and flips like 50 cards before hitting his land.
Game 3 - Neither of us mull, but I get to keep a 7 card hand with Force of will, blue card, and Null rod, fantastic! I play fetchland go. He probes on his turn to see all the hate, groans, moans, and then just plays a lotus petal and passes. I drop my null rod turn 2 and I'm feeling very confidant. He draws and plays a Land grant for taiga and plays tinder wall and passes. I rip a thoughtseize, and see that he's a got a just a bunch of mana and goblin charbelcher. He ends up doing nothing the whole game and by the time its over I've got 2 Forces and blue cards just in case. I was his only match loss of the day.
4-0-1
Round 6 vs top seed and we ID
Top 8
I get paired vs a local player that is on U/G Turbo Eldrazi. I haven't really tested this matchup at all but I can tell he's very confidant as he knows my exact list.
Game 1 - I'm on the play from being the 4th seed. I like my hand with a wasteland, a couple visions, and Lili. I suspend some visions, wasteland a cloudpost and develop my board with Lili and Jace. He gets top down, spins it around a lot and makes land drops but doesnt accelerate. By late game he's stayed alive but at reasonably low health due to tarmagoyf, and I've been Jacestorming for like 4 turns which enables me to find all 3 of my wastelands over the course of the game. Eventually he is able to show and tell in a Primeval Titan and I have nothing to drop. Because of his low health he's forced to get a glacial chasm and Cloudpost. I'm able to lili edict his big dude and just keep brainstorming with jace. He bricks out and chasm alone cannot save him. If i didn't have the jace he could just primeval out a Dryad arbor but he knows with double planesalkers creatures alone won't save him.
sideboard:
-2 Baleful Strix
-2 Toxic Deluge
-1 Abrupt Decay
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Null Rod
+1 Pithing Needle
Game 2 - He drops glimmerpost into Top, THen I thoughtseize to see a cloudpost, trinket mage, brainstorm, Glimmerpost, and pithing needle. I grab pithing needle as I happen to get the double wasteland opener and I realize he doesn't currently have any colored mana. He spins top and gets some colors of mana but I waste his cloudposts and get a reasonably early lili. I'm like plus plus plus with lili and there's not too much else going on. On some mid game turn I have lili at 6, and a tarmagoyf if play and he has about 2 or 3 cards in hand. His board is glimmerpost, cloudpost, Tropical, Tropical, Island, Top. I decide that if I just ultimate Liliana I should be able to just win with the goyf in a few turns no matter what, as I plan to leave him with the colorless mana or the colored mana, so I do it. He responds by spinning top but does not flip. I stick top in with the colorless mana and do my piles. He tanks for a long time but eventually realizes he just needs the colors too bad. He is unable to find an answer for goyf within the next few turns and that's gg.
Top 4
I'm paired against the top seed, the guy I IDed with in the final round of Swiss, and he says he's on some kind of BUG midrange deck. So I naturally assume (somewhat incorrectly) that it's one of the popular BUG control lists you see placing at the big events.
Game 1 - I keep an opener on the draw of 2x Force of Will, Deathrite, Tarmagoyf, and lands. He turn one plays a deathrite and I force of willed it pitching force. I really wanted to be king of the deathrites this game and I had no removal in hand, but in hindsight I really questions this play as it may have been very bad. I play deathrite on my first turn. He decays my deathrite. I play goyf. He plays TNN. I play shardless into Ancestral Visions but stil can't find an answer for TNN. He plays goyf. We each end up with a couple deathrites in play but he's still swinging with TNN. I find no answers in time and lose.
Sideboard:
-4 Force of Will
+2 Golgari Charm
+1 Notion Thief
+1 Submerge
Game 2 - I have decent opener with Deathrite, visions, jace, Golgari charm, and lands. I open with suspended visions, he opens with land go, I play a deathrite, he plays another land go. I decide to tap out for a Jace, probably walking into a pierce, but instead he hard casts a Daze, very unexpected. but hey I've got visions about to resolve soon and I'm sure he boarded out the forces. Nothing else really happens and then I attempt to cast Visions, and them BAM, Misdirection! Totally out of left field, this guy is just getting me at all the right times and I'm left with no gas. I was so hoping I had drawn that Notion thief at any point during this game. He gets a Jace online and I'm unable to do anything about it for way way too long. He's not really pressuring me at all, I have the answer for his eventual TNN, but it just doesn't matter as I can't draw enough gas to get anything going. At some point he surgicaled my Jace as he had said it's the only topdeck he feared, but again I really didn't think it was that good since all he really did was spend a card to get a card out of my deck. But the guy had the right plays at the right time and deserved the win even though I think that just looking at the lists I may have been favored.

I felt really comfortable with this deck all day, and I gone back and read this entire thread over the last few weeks in preparation for this tournament so I really appreciate the posts! I realize this post is very long but I wanted to include as many details as I could remember.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I plan to continue running this awesome deck!

Nice report I'll probably fit in some Baleful Strixs again. Why no Tombstalker? It's basically same with my main deck except for 1 less land and Tombstalker for Baleful Strix. :)

[hobart]

Nice report I'll probably fit in some Baleful Strixs again. Why no Tombstalker? It's basically same with my main deck except for 1 less land and Tombstalker for Baleful Strix. :)

As much as I love Tombstalker, I found that Baleful Strix did the job just as well on the defensive end, and I'm rarely hurting for a beater to close out the game once I have board control. Also, Baleful is easier to cast early when you need a blocker.

[btm10]

I tend to bounce between Shardless and the BUG control lists for different events, but I tend to go for either only Strixes or only Deluges. Did having both ever make your deck feel too removal heavy or light on other disruption?

[hobart]

I tend to bounce between Shardless and the BUG control lists for different events, but I tend to go for either only Strixes or only Deluges. Did having both ever make your deck feel too removal heavy or light on other disruption?

Too much removal can be a problem, and I did find myself often brainstorming or Liliana +1'ing away additional removal in my hand, which never seemed that awful against fair decks (since it meant I probably had board control). But yes it can lead to many hands which are too light on other disruption to stand a chance against combo. At least post board these hands are far less likely.

[mtgmafia]

Hi Guys,

New to the source, but not to legacy. I've decided to work on BUG as my new deck, but am struggling to decide on my sideboard slots.

I started with your list from Portland James, and have made minimal changes. Here's what i'm currently playing:

4 visions
2 thoughtseize
2 hymn
4 abrupt
3 force
1 toxic deluge
4 Brainstorm

4 goyf
4 agent
4 deathrite
2 strix

2 jace
2 lili

3 UG Sea
2 Bayou
2 Trop
1 Swamp
4 Misty
4 Verdant
3 Polluted Delta
2 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard is a bit of a mess right now, but here's the list so far:

1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Liliana
1 Disfigure
1 Venser
2 Golgari Charm
1 Jitte
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Hymn to tourach
1 Duress
1 Force of Will
1 Null Rod

I'd like to know what cards you guys are playing and why. I haven't had enough reps against different decks to know major weaknesses. obv burn, storm, and show and tell are tough. Also, if anyone has feedback on the meddling mage plan, i'd like to hear what you think. I'm not too partial to this strategy at the gut level, but haven't tested it yet.

Thanks!

[defector]

Hello guys, this is the tournament report for SCG Dallas.I placed 39th out of around 270(?). Shardless is so much fun! Great deck and great day, by and large. StarCity ean a great event, very smooth all day and all my opponents were great guys, so kudos to the DFW Legacy community. The only thing that sucked is that now SCG Legacy apparently starts at 09:00AM vs 10:00 so I arrived an hour late and gave away round 1. I'll include all the sideboarding that I can remember and I may be off in the round order. first off the list I brought.

Mana-22-
Verdant Catacombs X4
Polluted Delta X3
Misty Rainforest X2
Wasteland X4
Underground Sea X4
Bayou X1
Tropical Island X1
Creeping Tarpit X1
Forest X1
Swamp X1

Green
Tarmogoyf X4

Black
Hymn X2
Thoughtseize X2
Lilli X2

Blue
Brainstorm X4
Ancestral Vision X4
Force of Will X4
True Name Nemesis X2
Jace the Mind Sculptor X2

Gold
DRS X4
Ad X4
Shardless X4

Sideboard-15-
Hymn X2
Sower of Temptation x1
Disfigure X2
Golgari Charm X2
Grafdiggers X2
Life from the Loam X1
Liliana of the Veil X1
Blue Elemental Blast X1
Null Rod X1
Vendillion Clique X2


Star City Dallas Nine Round Swiss

Round 1: Loss showed up late.

Round 2: I don't really remember, I think this was a SFM deck, Hymn was good.

Round 3: Leylines. This deck has a very weak mana base and I just brainstormed around for some wastelands and got there. My opponent had some terrible draws here as well, and never really got a strong hand. I boarded out AD and boarded in Cliques and Hymns.

Round 4: RUG: Three very tight games against a very dangerous opponent. -4 FoW -2 Jace, +2 Hymn +1 Loam +1 Lilli +2 Disfigure. I won game 3 off loam and g1 off of runner runner goys vs mongeese.

Round 5: Dredge: G1 was LED and Faithless, which really failed him, but I draw lands so it's good and then I'm dead. G2 DRS closes out some awkward goofyness that I should have lost, I flashed a clique in as a blocker to get rid of some bridges. Game 3 I have cage in my seven and my opponet therapies me or DRS which misses and cage comes down. That Blue Elemental Blast should be a third GY disrupt, these games were very close.

Round 6: I've worked my way up to seat 6 and a feature match against Merfolk which completely destroys me. I get ruined game 1 on a fast draw and keep a shaky hand to start g2 and get mana screwed.

Round 7: I beat Jund barely. A Visions game 1 gets me too far ahead and I waste him down to just groves and he never sees a P Fire, Game 2 Bob beats my ass and Game 3 Life from the Loam forces a concession. That deck needs a better mana base, its tough. I am behind in that MU and was able to steal one there.

Round 8: Burn: This was extremely close. I think I only won because I went first in Game 1, get killed game 2 and in Game 3 I disfigure my own Shardless at one life to avoid searing blood and win on the crack back. Very very tight, Burn is a legit deck in legacy and a bit of a BUG killer.

Round 9: DnT This deck is tough. Lose Game 1, win G2 on 2 True Names and G3 Lilli puts a Wilt Leaf Leige into play which I can beat,, and when double mom joins the party then I'm not the one celebrating.

All in all a great day, great deck, SCG runs a great event and all my opponents were very nice guys, good people all around.

cheers
defector

[hobart]

Hello guys, this is the tournament report for SCG Dallas.I placed 39th out of around 270(?). Shardless is so much fun! Great deck and great day, by and large. StarCity ean a great event, very smooth all day and all my opponents were great guys, so kudos to the DFW Legacy community. The only thing that sucked is that now SCG Legacy apparently starts at 09:00AM vs 10:00 so I arrived an hour late and gave away round 1. I'll include all the sideboarding that I can remember and I may be off in the round order. first off the list I brought.

Mana-22-
Verdant Catacombs X4
Polluted Delta X3
Misty Rainforest X2
Wasteland X4
Underground Sea X4
Bayou X1
Tropical Island X1
Creeping Tarpit X1
Forest X1
Swamp X1

Green
Tarmogoyf X4

Black
Hymn X2
Thoughtseize X2
Lilli X2

Blue
Brainstorm X4
Ancestral Vision X4
Force of Will X4
True Name Nemesis X2
Jace the Mind Sculptor X2

Gold
DRS X4
Ad X4
Shardless X4

Sideboard-15-
Hymn X2
Sower of Temptation x1
Disfigure X2
Golgari Charm X2
Grafdiggers X2
Life from the Loam X1
Liliana of the Veil X1
Blue Elemental Blast X1
Null Rod X1
Vendillion Clique X2


Star City Dallas Nine Round Swiss

Round 1: Loss showed up late.

Round 2: I don't really remember, I think this was a SFM deck, Hymn was good.

Round 3: Leylines. This deck has a very weak mana base and I just brainstormed around for some wastelands and got there. My opponent had some terrible draws here as well, and never really got a strong hand. I boarded out AD and boarded in Cliques and Hymns.

Round 4: RUG: Three very tight games against a very dangerous opponent. -4 FoW -2 Jace, +2 Hymn +1 Loam +1 Lilli +2 Disfigure. I won game 3 off loam and g1 off of runner runner goys vs mongeese.

Round 5: Dredge: G1 was LED and Faithless, which really failed him, but I draw lands so it's good and then I'm dead. G2 DRS closes out some awkward goofyness that I should have lost, I flashed a clique in as a blocker to get rid of some bridges. Game 3 I have cage in my seven and my opponet therapies me or DRS which misses and cage comes down. That Blue Elemental Blast should be a third GY disrupt, these games were very close.

Round 6: I've worked my way up to seat 6 and a feature match against Merfolk which completely destroys me. I get ruined game 1 on a fast draw and keep a shaky hand to start g2 and get mana screwed.

Round 7: I beat Jund barely. A Visions game 1 gets me too far ahead and I waste him down to just groves and he never sees a P Fire, Game 2 Bob beats my ass and Game 3 Life from the Loam forces a concession. That deck needs a better mana base, its tough. I am behind in that MU and was able to steal one there.

Round 8: Burn: This was extremely close. I think I only won because I went first in Game 1, get killed game 2 and in Game 3 I disfigure my own Shardless at one life to avoid searing blood and win on the crack back. Very very tight, Burn is a legit deck in legacy and a bit of a BUG killer.

Round 9: DnT This deck is tough. Lose Game 1, win G2 on 2 True Names and G3 Lilli puts a Wilt Leaf Leige into play which I can beat,, and when double mom joins the party then I'm not the one celebrating.

All in all a great day, great deck, SCG runs a great event and all my opponents were very nice guys, good people all around.

cheers
defector

Great results and thanks for the report!

I notice you went with the popular 2/2/2 discard package instead of additional non-abrupt decay removal. This figures to be a safe choice against an unknown meta with a balanced mix of combo and fair, and I would probably make a similiar choice for that situation. I do think that your lack of sweepers (specifically toxic deluge) in the maindeck and board hurt you in at least two matchups (DnT and Merfolk) .Did you ever want to board out any discard in a matchup? Did you get many late game draws or cascades into discard that weren't that great? Also, how often did you have to blind shardless with possible dead cascades such as disfigure or blue blast? I try to avoid sideboarding into more bad cascades, since I'm pretty much never boarding out shardless, but that may not come up often enough to worry about.

[defector]

Thanks!!!

@hobart: In retrospect TNN was a little underwhelming and 2 Toxic Deluge in the main would have been huge. That would be 18 maindeck blue cards which is my absolute min for FoW. I boarded the TS out pretty often as either I felt like life total was too threatened(RUG/Jund/Burn/DnT) or stupid Dredge. The Hymns usually swapped in their place. If we had an adequate amount of Turn 1 plays I would drop the TS altogether. The Blue Blast went in once vs Burn and was never seen again. I blind threw Shardless all day as only 4 braainstorms makes it togh to guarantee a set up and I got screwed here and there, but I also hit A Visions a few times and one Goyf that I desperately needed. It's got a high variance card for a midrange control strategy and sometimes you spin the wheel of fish and get a red snapper and other times you get whats in the box. I definitely hit some of the most underwhelming Brainstorms in the history of tournament play. I think the Disfigures are too important in the mirror and RUG to not have 2 in the board. Anyway, I hope I covered all your questions and thanks again for the congrats:)
cheers
defector

[hobart]

Thanks!!!

@hobart: In retrospect TNN was a little underwhelming and 2 Toxic Deluge in the main would have been huge. That would be 18 maindeck blue cards which is my absolute min for FoW. I boarded the TS out pretty often as either I felt like life total was too threatened(RUG/Jund/Burn/DnT) or stupid Dredge. The Hymns usually swapped in their place. If we had an adequate amount of Turn 1 plays I would drop the TS altogether. The Blue Blast went in once vs Burn and was never seen again. I blind threw Shardless all day as only 4 braainstorms makes it togh to guarantee a set up and I got screwed here and there, but I also hit A Visions a few times and one Goyf that I desperately needed. It's got a high variance card for a midrange control strategy and sometimes you spin the wheel of fish and get a red snapper and other times you get whats in the box. I definitely hit some of the most underwhelming Brainstorms in the history of tournament play. I think the Disfigures are too important in the mirror and RUG to not have 2 in the board. Anyway, I hope I covered all your questions and thanks again for the congrats:)
cheers
defector

I feel the same way about TNN. The fact that it really competes with toxic deluge made it a dealbreaker for me. I'm kindof torn on the disfigures in the board. They are obviously great to draw, but I really just love jamming shardless blind on an empty board and knowing that what I hit will be relevant (except abrupt decay!). This is why I chose Submerge! Great in the mirror and RUG, and can't be cascaded into. And it's cheaper to cast. And you can even target your own shardless agent in response to some kill spell, for VALUE ofcoursE!

[Dragonslayer_90]

Hey guys. Took this deck to my local last night and 4-0'ed to end with $40 store credit. Here's the list I'm running:

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Sylvan Library
2 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Thoughtseize

SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Savannah
SB: 4 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Baleful Strix
SB: 1 Force of Will

I'm wondering how you guys would sideboard against Elves with this list? I played against it in the last round and went 2-1 against it, sideboarding in the following way: -2 Liliana -2 Jace -3 Hymn to Tourch, -1 Forest, -2 Tarmogoyf, -1 wasteland, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Night of Soul's Betrayal, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +1 Savannah, +4 Meddling Mage, +2 Golgari Charm, +1 Force of Will.

Meddling Mage was the best card out of my sideboard since it was a reasonable beater and forced my opponent to play fair at the same time. In general, the sideboarding worked out well for me last night but I'm not entirely sure about it. My friend who I like to bounce ideas off thinks I should be sideboarding in the following way with this list against elves: +1 Force +1 Grafdigger +1NoSB +2 Thoughtseize +2 Charm +4 Meddling Mage +1 Savannah -4 Tarmogoyf -2 Jace, the Mind -1 Tarpit -1 Sylvan -3 Ancestral. I totally disagree with cutting tarpit. Would rather cut a basic. I'm not sure about cutting all four Goyfs. He's pretty bad in this matchup but I still like having some to close out games. I am also not sure about cutting ancestral and sylvan since they help you grind out games and the elves matchup is often a grind.

[hobart]

I'm wondering how you guys would sideboard against Elves with this list? I played against it in the last round and went 2-1 against it, sideboarding in the following way: -2 Liliana -2 Jace -3 Hymn to Tourch, -1 Forest, -2 Tarmogoyf, -1 wasteland, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Night of Soul's Betrayal, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +1 Savannah, +4 Meddling Mage, +2 Golgari Charm, +1 Force of Will.

Meddling Mage was the best card out of my sideboard since it was a reasonable beater and forced my opponent to play fair at the same time. In general, the sideboarding worked out well for me last night but I'm not entirely sure about it. My friend who I like to bounce ideas off thinks I should be sideboarding in the following way with this list against elves: +1 Force +1 Grafdigger +1NoSB +2 Thoughtseize +2 Charm +4 Meddling Mage +1 Savannah -4 Tarmogoyf -2 Jace, the Mind -1 Tarpit -1 Sylvan -3 Ancestral. I totally disagree with cutting tarpit. Would rather cut a basic. I'm not sure about cutting all four Goyfs. He's pretty bad in this matchup but I still like having some to close out games. I am also not sure about cutting ancestral and sylvan since they help you grind out games and the elves matchup is often a grind.

All the bring ins are great ofcourse. I'm fine with cutting Sylvan. I actually agree with cutting the tarpit, as come into play tapped lands are not where you want to be in this matchup. It's all about early turn tapouts for removal and disruption. Jace is just too slow, fine cut. Lilianas are a toss up, I leave them in because she is removal, but I totally understand taking her out since she is really slow. A couple visions can definitely be cut, they are very slow, but they do help keep your blue count up for Force of will, so you'll probably want to leave some in. I would not cut any wastelands - wasting an arbor or cradle turn 3 or later is totally legitimate, and I really don't like cutting goyfs, since you need to kill them at some point (although if you are bringing in the Meddling Mages I guess a couple goyfs can be cut).

[mtgmafia]

Hey guys. Took this deck to my local last night and 4-0'ed to end with $40 store credit. Here's the list I'm running:

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Sylvan Library
2 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Thoughtseize

SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Savannah
SB: 4 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Baleful Strix
SB: 1 Force of Will

I'm wondering how you guys would sideboard against Elves with this list? I played against it in the last round and went 2-1 against it, sideboarding in the following way: -2 Liliana -2 Jace -3 Hymn to Tourch, -1 Forest, -2 Tarmogoyf, -1 wasteland, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Night of Soul's Betrayal, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +1 Savannah, +4 Meddling Mage, +2 Golgari Charm, +1 Force of Will.

Meddling Mage was the best card out of my sideboard since it was a reasonable beater and forced my opponent to play fair at the same time. In general, the sideboarding worked out well for me last night but I'm not entirely sure about it. My friend who I like to bounce ideas off thinks I should be sideboarding in the following way with this list against elves: +1 Force +1 Grafdigger +1NoSB +2 Thoughtseize +2 Charm +4 Meddling Mage +1 Savannah -4 Tarmogoyf -2 Jace, the Mind -1 Tarpit -1 Sylvan -3 Ancestral. I totally disagree with cutting tarpit. Would rather cut a basic. I'm not sure about cutting all four Goyfs. He's pretty bad in this matchup but I still like having some to close out games. I am also not sure about cutting ancestral and sylvan since they help you grind out games and the elves matchup is often a grind.


I'm curious how you like the meddling mage package? do you think that it is better than 15 answers in side that are more specific? Also, I'm also agreeing that goyf stays in for this matchup. We spent some time testing this matchup the other night, and most games that Shardless closes vs elves involves grinding em out of resources, and then forcing them into a spot where they have to block their team into oblivion. I also like leaving Lili in for this matchup because she is the perfect way to hold control after sweeping the board EOT w golgari charm. Also, elves has scary 2 card combos (glimpse+dude, NO+dude,) that you don't want them to be able to assemble. once their board is empty, being able to keep them hellbent helps reduce the % that they can put this together is important (IMO). She is terrible into a full board of elves though.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I'm curious how you like the meddling mage package? do you think that it is better than 15 answers in side that are more specific? Also, I'm also agreeing that goyf stays in for this matchup. We spent some time testing this matchup the other night, and most games that Shardless closes vs elves involves grinding em out of resources, and then forcing them into a spot where they have to block their team into oblivion. I also like leaving Lili in for this matchup because she is the perfect way to hold control after sweeping the board EOT w golgari charm. Also, elves has scary 2 card combos (glimpse+dude, NO+dude,) that you don't want them to be able to assemble. once their board is empty, being able to keep them hellbent helps reduce the % that they can put this together is important (IMO). She is terrible into a full board of elves though.

I've liked it a lot for my combo matcups. It gives you another angle of attack that can be cascaded into. I am not sure if it is better than more specific, targeted sideboard cards though. I have not done too much testing with this list yet as I only recently started playing the deck again, combining aspects I liked from American and Lejay's lists.

[tescrin]

Hey guys. Took this deck to my local last night and 4-0'ed to end with $40 store credit. Here's the list I'm running:

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Sylvan Library
2 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
2 Thoughtseize

SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Savannah
SB: 4 Meddling Mage
SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Baleful Strix
SB: 1 Force of Will

I'm wondering how you guys would sideboard against Elves with this list? I played against it in the last round and went 2-1 against it, sideboarding in the following way: -2 Liliana -2 Jace -3 Hymn to Tourch, -1 Forest, -2 Tarmogoyf, -1 wasteland, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Night of Soul's Betrayal, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +1 Savannah, +4 Meddling Mage, +2 Golgari Charm, +1 Force of Will.

Meddling Mage was the best card out of my sideboard since it was a reasonable beater and forced my opponent to play fair at the same time. In general, the sideboarding worked out well for me last night but I'm not entirely sure about it. My friend who I like to bounce ideas off thinks I should be sideboarding in the following way with this list against elves: +1 Force +1 Grafdigger +1NoSB +2 Thoughtseize +2 Charm +4 Meddling Mage +1 Savannah -4 Tarmogoyf -2 Jace, the Mind -1 Tarpit -1 Sylvan -3 Ancestral. I totally disagree with cutting tarpit. Would rather cut a basic. I'm not sure about cutting all four Goyfs. He's pretty bad in this matchup but I still like having some to close out games. I am also not sure about cutting ancestral and sylvan since they help you grind out games and the elves matchup is often a grind.

-4 Shardless
-2 Jace
-1 Sylvan
-3 Visions
-1 Forest

+1 Savannah
+2 GCharm
+2 TS
+1 Cage
+1 NoSB
+4 Meddling Mage

Take out stuff that is slow to impact or cast for things that are not. Shardless is slow and IMO pretty garbage without Goyf to actually kill the opponent here; further you don't want to trade with them; you want to win. Lily is good because it causes immediate impact and tells them they have to go off now. Visions is bad because without shardless you have to wait 3 turns. You want Hymns because with Brainstorm you can afford dead cards for free wins. Don't grind with them; beat them to death with 4/5s and be done with it. Wastelands are still good; don't cut those! You only have two to start with. I've won a few games by wasting Elves off of mana when they got greedy or a Hymn did all of the work.

This perspective comes from the idea that you're the aggro opponent here. It doesn't feel like it with all of these control elements, but they have the stronger late game of "LOL top-deck Hoof'd ya!" and "OOps, Progenitus!"; which is another reason you want to keep liliana.

[blindspotxxx]

Cascading into Flusterstorm is really awkward but Cascading into Meddling Mage seems golden for Combo Matchups.

[Ricflairwoo]

Cascading into Flusterstorm is really awkward but Cascading into Meddling Mage seems golden for Combo Matchups.

EXACTLY. against decks like storm, they attack your hand so much that flusterstorm rarely does what you want it to.

[Vandalize]

How many pieces of discard have you guys been running? I've settled down on 6, but I think it might be one too many, since discard is pretty useless in the late-game. Also, that Meddling Mage plan is really awkward, as it screws up the manabase even further for a card that can be easily replaced. Cascading into Meddling Mage is a thing, but in my testing, they didn't survive longe enough to be effective.

My latest list is, for reference:

Lands [22]
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Island/Swamp
1 Forest
2 Wasteland
2 Creeping Tar Pit

Creatures [12]
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent

Spells [26]
4 Brainstorm
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Thoughtseize
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard [15]
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm

Vendilion Clique does Meddling Mage's job fine enough, and stays on color.

About basic lands, what's the best configuration? Forest/Swamp or Forest/Island? I've tried both and haven't reached a conclusion.

About the Burn matchup, just try to dodge/scoop? Any real answers beside Hydroblast (which is awful)?

[hobart]

About basic lands, what's the best configuration? Forest/Swamp or Forest/Island? I've tried both and haven't reached a conclusion.

About the Burn matchup, just try to dodge/scoop? Any real answers beside Hydroblast (which is awful)?

If you are playing without Baleful Strix then Swamp and Forest seems optimal for the basics. Against anything where you are worried about Bloodmoon you can fetch up the basics first and cast some spells till you can fire off that Abrupt Decay. For burn, your main card is going to be Hymn, but I've been a big fan of Chill in the board. It's a bit narrow, and only comes in against mono red decks, but it sure hoses them bad if you can land one. It really gives us a shot in the toughest matchups imo.

[mtgmafia]

If you are playing without Baleful Strix then Swamp and Forest seems optimal for the basics. Against anything where you are worried about Bloodmoon you can fetch up the basics first and cast some spells till you can fire off that Abrupt Decay. For burn, your main card is going to be Hymn, but I've been a big fan of Chill in the board. It's a bit narrow, and only comes in against mono red decks, but it sure hoses them bad if you can land one. It really gives us a shot in the toughest matchups imo.

I've been running a one of jitte per James' winning list from portland. it is amazing, and if you can find it against burn, it will close a game very quickly. it's also just overperforms in every fair matchup out of the side.

[Ricflairwoo]

If you are playing without Baleful Strix then Swamp and Forest seems optimal for the basics. Against anything where you are worried about Bloodmoon you can fetch up the basics first and cast some spells till you can fire off that Abrupt Decay. For burn, your main card is going to be Hymn, but I've been a big fan of Chill in the board. It's a bit narrow, and only comes in against mono red decks, but it sure hoses them bad if you can land one. It really gives us a shot in the toughest matchups imo.

I've been using the chill to some success in the mtgo daily events. Burn is heavily represented online and as hobart said it basically completely shuts them down... even if they flood out they can only play 1 spell a turn and you should be able to beat that. playing around price of progress by fetching forest/swamp 1st and only playing out 1 underground sea makes their best card a 2 mana shock to the face. I only play more lands out when I can play a wasteland to protect the blowout.



I think the meddling mage plan that Lejay innovated has been the best thing that's happened to shardless bug outside of toxic deluge. It shores up so many bad match ups that were FOW/HYMN or bust. If you run his mana base it's not really janky at all. I've never have a hard time casting it on turn 2.

[James_Nguyen]

About the Burn matchup, just try to dodge/scoop? Any real answers beside Hydroblast (which is awful)?

I dont think its worth boarding in specific cards for the burn match, unless you are playing on modo. I think the match up is sooooo bad that, to me, its not worth having crappy cards like chill in my sb. Also i think everybody should be playing Jitte in the sb right now. Its the best card vs some of the more popular decks in the format. It also helps against burn! :smile:

[mtgmafia]

I dont think its worth boarding in specific cards for the burn match, unless you are playing on modo. I think the match up is sooooo bad that, to me, its not worth having crappy cards like chill in my sb. Also i think everybody should me playing Jitte in the sb right now. Its the best card vs some of the more popular decks in the format. It also helps against burn! :smile:

I agree. anytime that you can take a narrow card out of your board and replace it with a versatile one it is a win as long as it helps enough. I think jitte does that.

[Ricflairwoo]

I dont think its worth boarding in specific cards for the burn match, unless you are playing on modo. I think the match up is sooooo bad that, to me, its not worth having crappy cards like chill in my sb. Also i think everybody should me playing Jitte in the sb right now. Its the best card vs some of the more popular decks in the format. It also helps against burn! :smile:

I agree with James about chill in paper. If I have to play in the qualifiers for the mocs I might play 3 in my sb. :laugh: I've yet to test Jitte in that slot, I'll give it a try this week.

[mtgmafia]

I dont think its worth boarding in specific cards for the burn match, unless you are playing on modo. I think the match up is sooooo bad that, to me, its not worth having crappy cards like chill in my sb. Also i think everybody should me playing Jitte in the sb right now. Its the best card vs some of the more popular decks in the format. It also helps against burn! :smile:

James, I wanted to ask you how much you like Karakas and whether or not you are still playing it? I haven't had a chance to do a lot with it yet, but I do like that it is uncounterable and still useful if you don't need it to solve a problem right away. Are you planning to continue running this card or would you recommend something else in it's place?

[James_Nguyen]

James, I wanted to ask you how much you like Karakas and whether or not you are still playing it? I haven't had a chance to do a lot with it yet, but I do like that it is uncounterable and still useful if you don't need it to solve a problem right away. Are you planning to continue running this card or would you recommend something else in it's place?

I probably wouldnt play with it again. Its kinda only good when they show n tell emrakul and bad in most other spots in that match up. The changes i would make to the deck are; the md stronghold out for a tar pit or wasteland. The fetches i played were wrong because i didnt have access to 4 deltas, so it should be 4 detla, 4 catacombs and 2 mistys. And in the board, the karakas and leyline should be cut for other cards.

[mtgmafia]

I probably wouldnt play with it again. Its kinda only good when they show n tell emrakul and bad in most other spots in that match up. The changes i would make to the deck are; the md stronghold out for a tar pit or wasteland. The fetches i played were wrong because i didnt have access to 4 deltas, so it should be 4 detla, 4 catacombs and 2 mistys. And in the board, the karakas and leyline should be cut for other cards.

thanks. i have cut the karakas and leyline, but wanted to make sure that I wasn't overlooking anything. as far as the stronghold goes, I have really liked it in grindy matchups... do you think that it's good but the other lands are just better, or has it not performed consistently for you? If you had to choose between an additional tarpit or wasteland what seems better to you? I have been considering finding a way to add a tar pit to the main as it is often amazing.

[James_Nguyen]

I only played it in one tournament so this may be a small sample size, but all my creatures kept getting swords or terminus so it felt like in the matchup where i wanted to return creatures the most, it never really worked out how i wanted it to. It does seem insane in the mirror and vs jund, but its probably one of those "better in theory than in practice" card. I would probably add a tar pit, i dont really find myself aggressive using wasteland. but thats a play style thing.

[mtgmafia]

I only played it in one tournament so this may be a small sample size, but all my creatures kept getting swords or terminus so it felt like in the matchup where i wanted to return creatures the most, it never really worked out how i wanted it to. It does seem insane in the mirror and vs jund, but its probably one of those "better in theory than in practice" card. I would probably add a tar pit, i dont really find myself aggressive using wasteland. but thats a play style thing.

cool. thanks. I'm going to try the tar pit. I don't use the wastes aggressively either. I think they are just there to solve problems like clique/karakas or grove. In testing, the stronghold has closed a lot of mirror matches and some delver games, but is usually mediocre and too slow. Thanks for your thoughts!

[JayOSU]

-4 Shardless
-2 Jace
-1 Sylvan
-3 Visions
-1 Forest

+1 Savannah
+2 GCharm
+2 TS
+1 Cage
+1 NoSB
+4 Meddling Mage

Take out stuff that is slow to impact or cast for things that are not. Shardless is slow and IMO pretty garbage without Goyf to actually kill the opponent here; further you don't want to trade with them; you want to win. Lily is good because it causes immediate impact and tells them they have to go off now. Visions is bad because without shardless you have to wait 3 turns. You want Hymns because with Brainstorm you can afford dead cards for free wins. Don't grind with them; beat them to death with 4/5s and be done with it. Wastelands are still good; don't cut those! You only have two to start with. I've won a few games by wasting Elves off of mana when they got greedy or a Hymn did all of the work.

This perspective comes from the idea that you're the aggro opponent here. It doesn't feel like it with all of these control elements, but they have the stronger late game of "LOL top-deck Hoof'd ya!" and "OOps, Progenitus!"; which is another reason you want to keep liliana.

I feel like siding out Shardless is never an option, in any matchup. They are your main engine to help ensure you play spells you want to and they also pitch to FoW. I always side out goyfs for the MM's.

[tescrin]

I feel like siding out Shardless is never an option, in any matchup. They are your main engine to help ensure you play spells you want to and they also pitch to FoW. I always side out goyfs for the MM's.

By all means, test it out. It's just my hypothesis that keeping a deck that does stuff before the turn you lose is going to do better than a deck that is trying to assemble engines. I cut all the engines that didn't effect elves and made the deck proactive. If you keep shardless and not goyf you're more prone to dragging out the game and, I would guess, losing.

I'd note that Shardless's CA is completely canceled by Reclamation sage and that he's prone to trading with garbage. On top of that? Goyf can profitably block small-hoof numbers and is quite good against the trample; so having that big butt may well save you.

[James_Nguyen]

Vs combo decks, why not cut all the slow cards like jace and visions and turn into a delver style deck? I have never cut agent post board and i never will.

[James_Nguyen]

I'm wondering how you guys would sideboard against Elves with this list? I played against it in the last round and went 2-1 against it, sideboarding in the following way: -2 Liliana -2 Jace -3 Hymn to Tourch, -1 Forest, -2 Tarmogoyf, -1 wasteland, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Night of Soul's Betrayal, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +1 Savannah, +4 Meddling Mage, +2 Golgari Charm, +1 Force of Will.



With your list i think i would board like this:
-2 Liliana
-3 Hymn
-1 Wasteland
-3 Visions
-1 Library
-1 Jace

+2 Charm
+4 Mage
+1 Savannah
+1 Night of S
+1 Cage
+1 FoW
+1 Thoughtseize

In general, i would like this configuration. On the play i am more likely to leave in both jaces and not bring in the 3rd thoughtseize. Post board i dont think they try to combo you and play more of a board presence game.

[tescrin]

Vs combo decks, why not cut all the slow cards like jace and visions and turn into a delver style deck? I have never cut agent post board and i never will.

How is this different than what I'm suggesting other than Shardless? You have to get those slots from somewhere and cutting disruption seems dumb. You're replacing shardless with mage, so you run the same number of threats but loads of extra disruption. I think the slots we're really arguing over are Hymn vs. Shardless, which I could sort of see (but I'd rather land strong disruption and beat in with Goyfs than land no disruption and have a 4/5 and a 2/2)

[James_Nguyen]

Its not different, I just dont think Lilianas and Hymns are good vs elves post board

[Dragonslayer_90]

With your list i think i would board like this:
-2 Liliana
-3 Hymn
-1 Wasteland
-3 Visions
-1 Library
-1 Jace

+2 Charm
+4 Mage
+1 Savannah
+1 Night of S
+1 Cage
+1 FoW
+1 Thoughtseize

In general, i would like this configuration. On the play i am more likely to leave in both jaces and not bring in the 3rd thoughtseize. Post board i dont think they try to combo you and play more of a board presence game.

Thanks for the input man. Very much appreciated coming from you! The reason I kept visions in for the most part is to keep the blue count for Force of Will at about 19, thought they did help me grind out games as well. You bring up a good point though about Elves not going for the combo plan as much postboard. Do you think that helps make it okay to have only 16 blue spells in the deck (including FoW) postboard? Also, why do you prefer to keep Jace over Liliana?

[James_Nguyen]

I dont think liliana protects you from Natural order, which i think is their main way to win post board. Liliana going up doesnt do anything and going down kills one creature which is a pretty inefficient. They have been getting Worldspine Wurm not progenitus so shes not pretty bad vs that. If you ever try to ride her to her ultimate, they even have decays of their own to stop that plan. I dont have Mages in the sb like others so she may be ok if you can go mages for natural order and then play her, but i assume that the first mage always names glimpse. From my experience she have been not so good. Plus you have like 10 cards to bring in so something needs to get cut. I like jace because he can close games. If you spend the first couple of turns killing things and thoughtseizing them, it lets you reload and keep the cards flowing. Its even an out to Worldspine Wurm. So my game plan post board would be; kill everything that matters, play some crappy creatures and then slam jace. If you are worried about your blue card count then you can leave a force in the board and bring in the thoughtseizes.

[James_Nguyen]

Also i am not a shardless bug savant. Just someone who has played the deck A LOT. We all have our own play styles so if you find something that works for you then by all means go with it.

[Dragonslayer_90]

Also i am not a shardless bug savant. Just someone who has played the deck A LOT. We all have our own play styles so if you find something that works for you then by all means go with it.

No problem man. I don't like to emphasize it but someone like you who has had big success with the deck means your opinion carries more weight than most. No offense to anyone else's and their opinions. I have looked at everyone else's posts as well though and will keep your guys' input in mind so thank you all! :smile:

[GerryT]

FWIW I like Hymn against Elves and Liliana is fine in small numbers. It depends on your blue card count also. That said, I haven't played that matchup in a long time.

[Dragonslayer_90]

FWIW I like Hymn against Elves and Liliana is fine in small numbers. It depends on your blue card count also. That said, I haven't played that matchup in a long time.

That's the main reason I kept Ancestral Visions postboard against Elves last time I played it at my lgs. It kept my blue count at like 19 or 20 (with Force of Will). Would you be okay going down to 16 blue cards or would you still be more comfortable keeping it at 19 or 20 Gerry?

[mtgmafia]

FWIW I like Hymn against Elves and Liliana is fine in small numbers. It depends on your blue card count also. That said, I haven't played that matchup in a long time.

Gerry, I heard you saying that you are planning to play this list again this weekend. I know that the meddling mage sideboard plan was implemented after you stopped piloting this deck. What are your thoughts about potentially boarding 4 mage and a savannah? I have just put this sideboard plan together to test it out, but haven't really seen it in action yet. thoughts?

[James_Nguyen]

Why do you like hymns gerry? To me, the the match up feels like it is about very specific cards and not about card advantage.

[infiniteJ]

I've cut some number of goyfs in the elf matchup before when bringing in the mages. I cut the forest and would consider cutting the tarpit. I'd cut the jace. I'd cut 1 Lilliana. I'd cut some number of visions. Just my 2cents.

[mtgmafia]

Why do you like hymns gerry? To me, the the match up feels like it is about very specific cards and not about card advantage.

I realize I'm not Gerry, but I want to ask why you would cut the hymns for this matchup? the individual cards in elves are terrible and require the rest of the cards around them to be any good. It seems to me that the more resources they are denied, the better. I used to play team Italia before TNN showed up, and I played a lot of games vs. elves. It was a pretty interesting matchup, but the games that I could win consistently were often the ones where my sweeper came down after shredding their hand. It prevents them from rebuilding quickly and would give me time to take over. That deck doesn't have U though, and maybe the counter magic changes the need for discard?

[drocker23]

Hello everyone! I will be running Shardless BUG in an upcoming large tournament and I cannot decide on the 15th sideboard slot. If I could get some help/suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. Here is the list.

Shardless BUG (60 Cards)

Lands 22

2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland

Creatures 14

2 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants 11

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will

Sorceries 9

4 Ancestral Vision
1 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

Planeswalkers 4

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard 14

2 Disfigure
2 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
2 Golgari Charm
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Null Rod
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge


So what should the 15th sideboard card be? Please explain your answer.

[mtgmafia]

Hello everyone! I will be running Shardless BUG in an upcoming large tournament and I cannot decide on the 15th sideboard slot. If I could get some help/suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. Here is the list.

Shardless BUG (60 Cards)

Lands 22

2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland

Creatures 14

2 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants 11

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will

Sorceries 9

4 Ancestral Vision
1 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

Planeswalkers 4

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard 14

2 Disfigure
2 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
2 Golgari Charm
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Null Rod
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge


So what should the 15th sideboard card be? Please explain your answer.

Jitte ☺ it helps against burn, and is great for any fair matchup.

[btm10]

I like Jitte as card #15 if you drop the Disfigures; it looks like removal overload otherwise. I don't like Flusterstorm at all, though - boarding it in means brining some number of Agents out (or opening yourself up to bad Cascades), which means losing blue cards, etc. It's probably better as either Duress or Therapy. Also, Krosan Grip is conspicuous by its absence.

[drocker23]

I like Jitte as card #15 if you drop the Disfigures; it looks like removal overload otherwise. I don't like Flusterstorm at all, though - boarding it in means brining some number of Agents out (or opening yourself up to bad Cascades), which means losing blue cards, etc. It's probably better as either Duress or Therapy. Also, Krosan Grip is conspicuous by its absence.

i think flusterstorm is just fine. seeming as how the matchups you really want them in are the matchups where you don't wanna be just throwing out hasty shardless agents. you're more interested in casting your hand hate spells and holding back counterspells. shardless agent can stay in post board, but i think it's better that you have a grip on the game before you cast him otherwise yea, you might durdle into random flusterstorms. if you've torn their hand apart and you can just cast shardless agent into whatever, it probably doesn't matter at that point then what you cascade into honestly. you should have the game wrapped up. the argument can be made for flusterstorm that they can get rid of it with duress or therapy, but they can also get rid of meddling mage with abrupt decay or chain of vapor. but i think flusterstorm is more useful in more matchups. i am referring to the combo matchups mainly of course. if you don't have flusterstorm then you have to have meddling mage which i disagree with.

[drocker23]

after watching the invitational and some of the open series this weekend, i'm starting to consider the meddling mage sideboard plan. reason being is i wonder if going forward, people are going to be bringing a lot of combo to this event to beat the fair decks, or if they are just going to play what they saw in the invitational which would pretty much be shardless bug, miracles, and deathblade, unless people also jump on the u/g infect bandwagon. i'm wondering if cutting the discard for cards like sylvan library and adding more wastelands makes your deck more threat intensive in the fair creature matchups. i may want meddling mage vs miracles but i'm wondering what a final 75 would look like for next weekend. 22 or 23 lands? meddling mages or not sb? if one of you all who plays shardless bug all the time consistantly wouldn't mind posting a deck list post invitational results, i sure would appreciate it.

[Whitefaces]

Adding white gives you access to Gaddok Teeg too which is great against miracles.

[MinosSnt]

I don't understand why you would like to play Gaddok against Miracle because firstly it's a reaally good match up, and secondly, gaddok shuts down your own Jace.

By the way, you have more Plainswalkers than Miracle, Decay for Counterbalance and Vision to make more CA, so you should explain why it can be hard. With the sideboard you can add null rod against top and Meddling Mage (which is a really good hate against all combo, more than fluster that you can cascade into)...

[exallium]

I'm looking at the list that top 8'd Washington and saw 2 chills in the board. What do people think of this as a hedge against Burn? I realize we can cascade into it, and that burn is in general a bad matchup for us, but was wondering if there's anything else we could be using to pull the burn matchup into our favour without having two sideboard slots dedicated to a "probably just won the game card" vs burn.

[Whitefaces]

I'm playing a fairly stock list tonight at my LGS, but I don't take these nights too seriously so want something a bit different. I'm probably just going to throw Groves and Punishing Fire in there with a Keranos. Anything else worth trying out?

[exallium]

I'm playing a fairly stock list tonight at my LGS, but I don't take these nights too seriously so want something a bit different. I'm probably just going to throw Groves and Punishing Fire in there with a Keranos. Anything else worth trying out?

One-of restore balance for value.

[Lejay]

Troll them with a playset of strixes+opposition. Very nice versus sneak show and death and taxes.

[infiniteJ]

Ended up running Lejay's list at the SCG invitational and Legacy open. -1STP +1 disfigure. -1 wasteland +1 creeping tarpit b/c I got nervous about colored mana and miracles. -1 null rod +1 pithing needle because I like the flexibility to hit sneak attack (came up in two rounds) and thespian stage.

Deck performed great. I didn't miss baleful strixes (only 2 delver matchups in 16 rounds) or notion thief. Blew people out w/ deluge and night of souls betrayal. The extra jace was better than notion thief in the board. I've been playing this deck for a while now and firmly stand by the no discard in the main. Have even stolen plenty of g1's vs combo. The white splash has been a nice way to keep the blue count and threat level high post board vs combo.

5-2-1 in legacy in the invitational. I drew a tight 3 games vs miracles early. Lost to dnt with a ton of hate and keranos/mulliganning out of UWR stoneblade (not delver/miracles). I can't remember all the matchups but I think the wins were vs bug delver, the mirror, miracles, monored sneak attack, and ?. I went 3-3 in standard though b4 dropping.

Started out 4-0 in the Sunday open against BUG Nic fit, DNT, Sneak/show, and miracles before losing to Shehar Shenhar DNT in a really tight g3. Mindcensor prevented two fetches and a Deluge blowout. Lost next to punishing jund w/ md gamble and life from the loam. Ended up scooping and dropping at 5-2 when my Non-shardless bug opponent wouldn't concede to my overwhelming board in turns. No reason for us both to be dead in the tournament and I was tired/hungry.

[infiniteJ]

Also, having basic swamp/forest was great throughout as I faced multiple bloodmoons. I drew out of a bloodmoon lock vs Monored sneak and show. I even searched up two basics vs BUG nic fit for the blow out.

[Whitefaces]

Troll them with a playset of strixes+opposition. Very nice versus sneak show and death and taxes.

I totally would if I had any Oppositions!

I was playing with the idea of having some Disciple of Deceit and a toolbox of two drops. Sylvan Library, Snapcaster Mage, Hymn to Tourach, Life from the Loam, Golgari Charm and Dimir Charm as well as Goyfs and Decays. :tongue:

[mtgmafia]

Troll them with a playset of strixes+opposition. Very nice versus sneak show and death and taxes.

Lejay,

I've been moving my list closer to what you're running. I have the playset of Force and i've cut my discard down to 2 thoughtsieze main. I've added a forest, and have moved away from hymn. I've been very impressed so far! I expected to really dislike this configuration initially, but the mana is much better without hymn, the deck is faster, and it's able to maintain it's advantage better with the 4 of force. Thanks for bringing some interesting innovations to this list. :)

[mtgmafia]

James,

I wanted to get your thoughts on flusterstorm. I decided to test it out of the side, and while I expected it to be weak, I have instead found that it is a pretty impressive card. It does set you up to occassionally have a bad cascade, but the upsides seem to outway the low% that you might only get a 2/2 out of your agent. Are you still on this card in your side? If so, how many are you running and what matchups do you bring them in for besides obvious combo decks? Miracles and delver? thanks:smile:

[James_Nguyen]

James,

I wanted to get your thoughts on flusterstorm. I decided to test it out of the side, and while I expected it to be weak, I have instead found that it is a pretty impressive card. It does set you up to occassionally have a bad cascade, but the upsides seem to outway the low% that you might only get a 2/2 out of your agent. Are you still on this card in your side? If so, how many are you running and what matchups do you bring them in for besides obvious combo decks? Miracles and delver? thanks:smile:

I am actually a big fan of spell pierce atm. I feel like its better than Flusterstorm right now. It counters bloodmoon, which is important right now vs show and tell and miracles. Countering Jace and sometimes top on the play is nice too. Flusterstorm is sometimes a hard counter for show and tell, which is a plus, but I like the fact that pierce can counter a fast show/sneak/moon. I dont think the bad cascade is really a thing, you play about 25 cascade targets pre and post board. Even after playing 5 of those cards, theres still 20 left. So only a 5% chance you get unlucky. I am playing one right now, im thinking about playing 1 of each just to hedge.

[swoop]

I took out some stuff, put in a few alurens, a cavern harpy and imperial painter. Now I've got a fun deck. Try it

[TheHeff]

Hi all, recently made the switch from BUG Delver to Shardless and I'm loving it! The deck always seems like it has answers and insane card advantage/quality. Fits my playstyle much better and I've been playing the B/G shell for a long time in both Modern Jund and Legacy. My full list is in my sig below but it's a pretty stock list, 2 Strix, 2/2 Jace/Lili split, 3 FoW, 2 Hymn + 2 Thoughtseize, 1 Deluge MD. My SB is duplicated below because I have some questions:

2x Disfigure
2x Flusterstorm
1x Force of Will
2x Golgari Charm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Null Rod
1x Thoughtseize
1x Toxic Deluge

The Null Rod is a carryover from my BUG Delver list, it's a ridiculous card against Storm (probably one of our worst matchups), Stoneforge decks, Aether Vial decks, and even splashes some Miracles hate against Top. It's so good sometimes I want two, it's hard to believe some lists don't play it! My real question is Flusterstorm- I see why it's in the SB, but as has been discussed at length, it's a bad cascade and it forces you to hold mana open and play more reactively. It is blue, however, and I guess it's useful if you tend to heavily cut Visions/Shardless in combo matchups to keep your blue count up? Wouldn't they be better spots for a third Lili, another Thoughtseize/Hymn to max out on discard? Also, I have a single Cage SB for Dredge/Elves MU's, has anyone found it to be pointless? Most lists I see are content with Spellbombs. Thanks for any advice you guys have!

[drocker23]

Hi all, recently made the switch from BUG Delver to Shardless and I'm loving it! The deck always seems like it has answers and insane card advantage/quality. Fits my playstyle much better and I've been playing the B/G shell for a long time in both Modern Jund and Legacy. My full list is in my sig below but it's a pretty stock list, 2 Strix, 2/2 Jace/Lili split, 3 FoW, 2 Hymn + 2 Thoughtseize, 1 Deluge MD. My SB is duplicated below because I have some questions:

2x Disfigure
2x Flusterstorm
1x Force of Will
2x Golgari Charm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Null Rod
1x Thoughtseize
1x Toxic Deluge

The Null Rod is a carryover from my BUG Delver list, it's a ridiculous card against Storm (probably one of our worst matchups), Stoneforge decks, Aether Vial decks, and even splashes some Miracles hate against Top. It's so good sometimes I want two, it's hard to believe some lists don't play it! My real question is Flusterstorm- I see why it's in the SB, but as has been discussed at length, it's a bad cascade and it forces you to hold mana open and play more reactively. It is blue, however, and I guess it's useful if you tend to heavily cut Visions/Shardless in combo matchups to keep your blue count up? Wouldn't they be better spots for a third Lili, another Thoughtseize/Hymn to max out on discard? Also, I have a single Cage SB for Dredge/Elves MU's, has anyone found it to be pointless? Most lists I see are content with Spellbombs. Thanks for any advice you guys have!


i'm having a few of the same issues you are. although i'm playing 3 thoughtseize 1 hymn main deck, so i need an extra hymn in the board, i have also noticed that most people over the last year either run grafdigger's cage, or spellbomb. i don't think you need cage as badly vs elves because we play toxic deluge maindeck. so as long as we can keep them off Craterhoof Behemoth whether it be hardcast or via Natural Order, we can let them overextend and roflstomp them with Toxic Deluge. Golgari Charm also helps quite a bit too. Dredge and Reanimator are both decks I wouldn't mind having Cage for over spellbomb, but these decks have been played fairly infrequently lately that i'm not sure if another GY hate card is something you really want. I guess perhpas it depends on the decks you're looking to face. i'm trying to figure that out myself. what decks i'm expecting to face in st. louis so i know how to round out my sideboard. i know people talk a lot about how bad it is to cascade into flusterstorm but no one ever talks about how awful it feels to cascade into thoughtseize. and most of the time, it's just as bad. so don't let people use the cascade argument to divert you from playing flusterstorm if you want to. because in my opinion, a bad cascade isn't good enough to board shardless agent out, or not run flusterstorm at all. if you played meddling mage then there would be no need for flusterstorm. but i'm not sure that's where the decks wants to be right now.

on a side note: taking out shardless agent in a combo matchup doesn't sound unreasonable but not because of the fear of cascading into flusterstorm. i'm not sure that card advantage matters too much in combo matchups. what i want is a bunch of discard, maybe a counterspell of some kind for insurance, and a threat to win the game. shardless agent isn't really that threat. not sure i really wanna tap out on 3 for shardless agent and give them the green light. however, a shardless agent a few turns later, or a brainstorm + shardless agent + hymn to tourach to blow out their hand is fine. so it'll be up to you and your judgment whether or not to keep shardless agent in post board against the decks you bring flusterstorm in against. just don't base it all of the potential for a bad cascade. also, someone told me once that having flusterstorm against elves isn't bad either. usually they can cast a bunch of spells in a turn or at the very least, it can choke their mana some when they try to combo out. something to think about.

[Einherjer]

Streaming Shardless BUG with Patrick Dickmann on http://www.twitch.tv/ofe1ia
Will start in about 2 hours from the date of this post. Come join, watch and enjoy!

Greetings

[mtgmafia]

I am actually a big fan of spell pierce atm. I feel like its better than Flusterstorm right now. It counters bloodmoon, which is important right now vs show and tell and miracles. Countering Jace and sometimes top on the play is nice too. Flusterstorm is sometimes a hard counter for show and tell, which is a plus, but I like the fact that pierce can counter a fast show/sneak/moon. I dont think the bad cascade is really a thing, you play about 25 cascade targets pre and post board. Even after playing 5 of those cards, theres still 20 left. So only a 5% chance you get unlucky. I am playing one right now, im thinking about playing 1 of each just to hedge.

In testing so far, I have been very impressed with the one of spell pierce. It answers a lot of problems efficiently, and nobody is playing around it. Seems like a great way to gain an edge on miracles especially and still does almost everything I want it to against combo.

[TheHeff]

So I've finally settled on a list I'm pretty comfortable with but I'm having some issues working out how to sideboard. I realize some of these might be noob questions, but I'm new to legacy (only have about a year of exp) and am a total noob with this deck (only played about 20 games with it). I also realize that every situation and sideboard choice can be different depending on deck "quirks" and the way an opponent is playing/sideboarding, I'm just looking for some broad-strokes advice on these questions moving forward until I get enough exp to know exact numbers/situations. Thanks in advance!


When do you add extra SB discard? Only against combo?
Are there decks where Hymn is better than Thoughtseize, and vice-versa?
Do you take out Jace against decks like ANT, RUG Delver?
Do you take out Lili against Elves and D&T?
Do you keep FoW in against any non-combo decks? (RUG Delver or Miracles)
When do you take out the Shardless/Visions package? Any times where it's only Visions or only Shardless?
If you must have them, Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce? If not, what do you add? Extra Lili?

[Whitefaces]

When do you add extra SB discard? Only against combo?

Usually, though I might bring in Thoughtseize vs SFM decks.


Are there decks where Hymn is better than Thoughtseize, and vice-versa?

I find Hymn to be better vs storm decks as they need a critical mass to go off. TS is much better against combo decks that are matching A and B together (Sneak and Show for example).


Do you take out Jace against decks like ANT, RUG Delver?

Yes and yes. I take out Jace vs all Delver decks as their plan is to screw you on mana, you just don't want 4 CMC cards in your deck. And he's too slow vs storm combo decks too. Though you absolutely keep him in vs SnT as the bounce is very relevant.


Do you take out Lili against Elves and D&T?

Vs Elves I used to keep in one or two as they are most probably boarding in Progen, but you have to have a sweeper to set that up. She's just a 3 mana edict which gains you a life otherwise, which is nowhere near good enough. I board them all out now though as we have Deluge. 10 life is a lot, but it is at least an answer to the big scary monster. VS DnT I board her out. The edict can be very good, but a lot of players have Wilt Leaf Liege now which just wrecks us. Don't give them the chance of popping it into play for free.


Do you keep FoW in against any non-combo decks? (RUG Delver or Miracles)

I keep FoW in against Delver decks, you just have to be very careful and pick your moments to use them. Try and play around Daze at all times, spell pierce is harder to play around. But the Delver matchup is about board presence rather than CA. VS miracles, having the FoW to stop a T1 top can win a game, and it's an answer for their Jace and/or Entreat that they only have 4 cards of CMC 5 to flip to CB (unless they have Keranos too).


When do you take out the Shardless/Visions package? Any times where it's only Visions or only Shardless?

I haven't ever cut either completely, they're a huge backbone of the deck. I have shaved one or two Visions and replace them with TS against combo decks though.


If you must have them, Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce? If not, what do you add? Extra Lili?

I'd aim for a split. Fluster is obviously better than pierce at what it does, but with Miracles being everywhere there are a lot of annoying Enchantments hanging around.




There's a chance people will disagree with me, but this is how I SB.

[infiniteJ]

The correct answer to all these questions is "It depends" (2p2 rep). Depends on your build and manabase and on their build and manabase. It depends on their sideboard plan and on history.

My perspective: I play the no discard in the main list. Discard is deceptive. When you are behind on board it is terrible, and shardless often plays from behind in the early turns. Legacy's power level is so high and there are so many cantrips that spending your turn and cards to attack their hand can be counterproductive. I'm not saying it can't be good, but that on balance I like to leave it in the board. I also prefer to leave in force of will in some number in most matchups.


So I've finally settled on a list I'm pretty comfortable with but I'm having some issues working out how to sideboard. I realize some of these might be noob questions, but I'm new to legacy (only have about a year of exp) and am a total noob with this deck (only played about 20 games with it). I also realize that every situation and sideboard choice can be different depending on deck "quirks" and the way an opponent is playing/sideboarding, I'm just looking for some broad-strokes advice on these questions moving forward until I get enough exp to know exact numbers/situations. Thanks in advance!


When do you add extra SB discard? Only against combo?
All of it comes in vs combo in my list. I board in usually a small number of thoughtseize vs miracles to snipe REB or top on the play. I keep in all force of wills to hard counter entreat (and occasionally jace). Do not counter terminus unless it wins the game. I don't force top blind. This is controversial. I also bring in a couple vs stoneforge decks.
Are there decks where Hymn is better than Thoughtseize, and vice-versa?
Yes but I don't play Hymn. I've been running meddling mage to good success. Hymn is one of my favorite cards but I don't like the variance and the BB mana cost. Be wary of misdirection out of losset miracles, but I don't like it much vs miracles anyways.
Do you take out Jace against decks like ANT, RUG Delver?
Yes. I leave in vs BUG delver, especially if they have tombstalker.
Do you take out Lili against Elves and D&T?
No. I leave them in as expensive 3 mana edicts. I find lilly to be fine to good vs DNT. Just be wary of wilt leaf liege. It is only a 2 of and you can check for it with thoughtseize. Ironically, lilliana is one of the few ways most lists have to actually kill a 4 mana 4/4 outside of tarmogoyf combat. One easy way to close out games vs these decks is to deluge into lilly.
Do you keep FoW in against any non-combo decks? (RUG Delver or Miracles)
Yes. Yes.
When do you take out the Shardless/Visions package? Any times where it's only Visions or only Shardless?
I never board out Shardless. I think elves is the only matchup I have boarded out all the visions before. Vs combo I'm boarding out 4 decay 2 deluge sylvan sylvan a land a jace etc to bring in the meddling mage package and spot discard[/B]
If you must have them, Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce? If not, what do you add? Extra Lili?
Spell pierce>flusterstorm in today's meta. I don't see much storm and hitting sneak attack is huge. That said, I don't rock either.


I should

[btm10]

So I've finally settled on a list I'm pretty comfortable with but I'm having some issues working out how to sideboard. I realize some of these might be noob questions, but I'm new to legacy (only have about a year of exp) and am a total noob with this deck (only played about 20 games with it). I also realize that every situation and sideboard choice can be different depending on deck "quirks" and the way an opponent is playing/sideboarding, I'm just looking for some broad-strokes advice on these questions moving forward until I get enough exp to know exact numbers/situations. Thanks in advance!


When do you add extra SB discard? Only against combo?
I MD between two and four Thoughtseizes and zero Hymns; I bring in Duress against Burn, and Duress (2-3) and any remaining Thoughtseizes against combo and Blade variants. I tend to do some Duress/Thoughtseize interchange against Miracles because looking at their hand is frequently valuable, but I'd rather use my life to draw cards with Sylvan Library

Are there decks where Hymn is better than Thoughtseize, and vice-versa?
Storm and Sneak and Show, but Meddling Mage can help a lot in those matchups. I'm still sort of torn between Meddling Mage vs. more discard, but as others have said, Hymn's time has really come and gone. The randomness factor is real, and for ever game you steal with Hymn, you'll waste a Cascade or BB to make Brainstorm marginally worse.

Do you take out Jace against decks like ANT, RUG Delver?
Against ANT/TES he's too slow, but I bring in a Clique to keep the blue count up for Force, especially if I'm not running Meddling Mage. Against RUG he's generally too expensive. In all other matchups, I keep him in.

Do you take out Lili against Elves and D&T?
3 mana Edict against Elves is fine, though not ideal. I keep her in, but I only have 2 Deluge/2 Golgari Charm/1 Cage postboard. If you have Mages, she's probably cuttable. Liliana is a real beating against D&T.

Do you keep FoW in against any non-combo decks? (RUG Delver or Miracles)
Yes. Force has been inexplicably underrated by the Legacy community for years because of card disadvantage, and we can definitely afford to give a little bit of that up. Well placed Forces win games, period. Jund is the only matchup where I seriously consider bringing them out

When do you take out the Shardless/Visions package? Any times where it's only Visions or only Shardless?
I only run 3 Visions main, but Shardless generally stays in no matter what, and Visions only comes out when I have enough blue cards to bring in to support Force while not being concerned about needing more draw or pitching SB cards

If you must have them, Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce? If not, what do you add? Extra Lili?
I'm only just looking into the SB counters now, but I'd say Pierce - Blood Moon and Sneak Attack (and to a lesser extent, Rest in Peace) are too good against us to not be able to hit them. Previously, I'd bring in Hymns against combo alongside Mages and/or Revokers

[infiniteJ]

BTM had a good response.

I should add to the force of will discussion:

It is fairly important and not often too difficult to not walk your force of will into a daze or spell pierce effect. Keep track of your RUG delver opponents habits and brainstorms. Often times they will shuffle back in dazes as the game goes on and their hand becomes easy to read.

Additionally, hard casting force of will is extraordinarily common with this deck in the late game, especially vs miracles. Even not against miracles, this scenario comes up often: AV goes off, opponent REBS or counterspells, you hard cast force of will. Or, as in a recent game vs BUG nic fit where I had extra mana from vet explorer (2 basics woo), AV goes off, opponent flashes in notion thief, you brainstorm into force but no second blue card, hardcast force.

-IJ

[mtgmafia]

So I've finally settled on a list I'm pretty comfortable with but I'm having some issues working out how to sideboard. I realize some of these might be noob questions, but I'm new to legacy (only have about a year of exp) and am a total noob with this deck (only played about 20 games with it). I also realize that every situation and sideboard choice can be different depending on deck "quirks" and the way an opponent is playing/sideboarding, I'm just looking for some broad-strokes advice on these questions moving forward until I get enough exp to know exact numbers/situations. Thanks in advance!


When do you add extra SB discard? Only against combo?
Are there decks where Hymn is better than Thoughtseize, and vice-versa?
Do you take out Jace against decks like ANT, RUG Delver?
Do you take out Lili against Elves and D&T?
Do you keep FoW in against any non-combo decks? (RUG Delver or Miracles)
When do you take out the Shardless/Visions package? Any times where it's only Visions or only Shardless?
If you must have them, Flusterstorm or Spell Pierce? If not, what do you add? Extra Lili?



I have wrestled with the board a lot, and wanted to share that in testing, meddling mage has overperformed for me so far. That being said, if you've only been playing legacy for a year, this may be a bad choice for you as you have to be very in tune with your opponents card choices. I have moved away from hymn as I feel that unless you are cascading into it, it seems to slow your development and board presence more than I would like. The double black often forces your mana to be awkward more often as well.

[mtgmafia]

Since we're talking a lot of sideboard options, I thought I'd share that I was testing a few weeks ago with my buddy Stephen who is a solid miracles player. I was asking how much he liked null rod in my board against him. He asked why I wasn't playing needle instead. It has been way better for me so far. I've liked how it plays vs sneAk and show, it is a better top deck against miracles as it can it more cards, and is a little bit of help vs other decks as well. Seems to play a more versatile role than the null rod did.

[rancOr_]

I think they are both equally good, Null Rod can come in versus ANT,.. aswell. But that sure is a valid point. I agree with meddling mages and no hymn, works best for me too.

[tescrin]

Well i mean rod is debatably better against equip decks. If they run EE it can be better there. It helps in storm and such.
Needle is better for belcher itself (but worse if you get a T2), if you get lucky mana denial, or like to target, Sneak, and other random things.

I think having 1 of each would be worth it potentially. I will say I've never been impressed with my own Needle/Revoker effects out of the board though.

I've been randomly hosed by Rod when I sided in EE in a Junk deck against Shardless. His splash hate slowed my ability to deal with his guys substantially; so remembering how many players use EE in the side is a thing as well.

[Dragonslayer_90]

@InfiniteJ: I'm curious is your no discard build similar to Lejay's? If so how different is it? I'm thinking playing a no discard build with discard in the sb is better for an ultrafair meta like the one we seem to have at the moment.

[infiniteJ]

Since we're talking a lot of sideboard options, I thought I'd share that I was testing a few weeks ago with my buddy Stephen who is a solid miracles player. I was asking how much he liked null rod in my board against him. He asked why I wasn't playing needle instead. It has been way better for me so far. I've liked how it plays vs sneAk and show, it is a better top deck against miracles as it can it more cards, and is a little bit of help vs other decks as well. Seems to play a more versatile role than the null rod did.

I've always played needle over null rod bc sneak and show is more prevalent than storm. I 1 mana vs 2 is not insignificant. Also many miracles players have moved away from eng explosives so that angle is not important. Shutting down equipment out of DNT would be the big draw for me of null rod but that's not usually the issue as our plan there is to kill all their guys.

-IJ

[infiniteJ]

@InfiniteJ: I'm curious is your no discard build similar to Lejay's? If so how different is it? I'm thinking playing a no discard build with discard in the sb is better for an ultrafair meta like the one we seem to have at the moment.

I'm playing usually anywhere between 70 to 75 of his 75 and have been for a year or more now.

4 deathite
4 tarmogoyf
4 shardless agent
4 ancestral vision
4 brainstorm
4 foce of will
4 abrupt decay
3 Lilliana
2 jace
2 toxic deluge
1 maelstrom pulse
1 sylvan library
1 flex spot (he runs ponder. I'm looking for anything else as I have not been impressed at all with ponder)
22 land
swamp
forest
4 wasteland
bayou
trop
4 underground
10 fetch

sb
4 meddling mage
1 savannah
3 thoughtseize
1 duress
1 night of souls betrayal
1 spot removal (I ran disfigure in NJ invitational/open, he runs STP which I can see the merit of and might try this weekend).
2 cage (or nihil spellbomb which is only necessary vs loam/fire decks).
1 pithing needle
1 anti miracles card-He now runs the aforementioned null rod but this has been Jace and notion thief in the past. This week I ran Jace Memory Adept. I have even tried Dissolve.

Lately also I've been sneaking a tarpit into the main for a wasteland or underground to help combat miracles.

The miracles matchup used to feel real strong with this type of build. Lately it's feeling closer to even with their blasts, councils judgement and keranos. I may try bitterblossom or garruk although I'd prefer a permanent win condition that doesn't pop out creatures and is not blue. Any ideas?

-IJ

[Dragonslayer_90]

Cool. Thanks for the reply infinitej. I'm trying to wrap my head around Lejay's build. Lately I've been playing shardless a lot more and, like I said earlier, I think a no discard-main version is better atm so I'm on board with that. However, I can't wrap my head around playing 4 wasteland in this deck still. Maybe I need to test more. In testing Lejay's build it feels like I have to mulligan more than I'd like because I don't have enough color sources in hand. Maybe there is something wrong with how I'm playing the deck. Do tell how 3-4 wasteland has been working out for you.

[DalamarTheDark]

Played in a tourney in New England yesterday, utilizing Shardless BUG. I've only been playing this deck for about a month now; and while I'm not new to Legacy, I am new to this deck and taking Legacy more seriously (I prefer Eternal formats).

I managed a 4-2-1 record, losing to Reanimator in the win-and-in (for me, not for my opponent - he didn't want to concede) match.

That said, I have some questions:

1. How is the BUG matchup vs the Lands Deck(s) suppose to go? I drew with the blue version (Intuition). Game one, DRS ate all his Darth Depths and I used Jace's ultimate; Game two, Punishing Fire ate all my DRS and I died to a 20/20 in turn 4 of extra turns.

How do we sideboard (I don't use the Meddling Mage sideboard)? What are the key cards?


2. What's the plan versus the various Deathblade/Stoneblade decks? This would have been a draw as well, had my opponent not graciously conceded because his ride was leaving (thanks guy!). Nevertheless, many cards are shared and both decks are very grindy. How should this go and how should we board?


3. How the hell does Shardless BUG beat Reanimator?


4. Is there a way for Shardless BUG to mitigate the Stifle/Wasteland plan of the various Delver decks? is Delver suppose to be a good or bad matchup for Shardless? I always assumed good, due to the deck's great ability to grind and efficient removal. But one Delver deck absolutely ate me alive.

Thanks in advance and all your assistance helping me to learn this fantastic deck for GP NJ!

[btm10]

Played in a tourney in New England yesterday, utilizing Shardless BUG. I've only been playing this deck for about a month now; and while I'm not new to Legacy, I am new to this deck and taking Legacy more seriously (I prefer Eternal formats).

I managed a 4-2-1 record, losing to Reanimator in the win-and-in (for me, not for my opponent - he didn't want to concede) match.

That said, I have some questions:

1. How is the BUG matchup vs the Lands Deck(s) suppose to go? I drew with the blue version (Intuition). Game one, DRS ate all his Darth Depths and I used Jace's ultimate; Game two, Punishing Fire ate all my DRS and I died to a 20/20 in turn 4 of extra turns.

How do we sideboard (I don't use the Meddling Mage sideboard)? What are the key cards?

Lining up your graveyard hate and disruption with their draw is important. DRS will take over most games if you keep them off of Punishing Fire or just draw multiple Deathrites. In game 1 you just race - favor cascades into Goyf or Vision, sandbag Force + blue card, and Jace is just ok. Liliana's ultimate is great, but the other two modes are lackluster. Game 2 Pithing Needle is great out of the board, as is Surgical Extraction, but make sure they can't dredge Loam or recur Fire before going for the Surgical. Sylvan Library is great both pre and poatboard.

2. What's the plan versus the various Deathblade/Stoneblade decks? This would have been a draw as well, had my opponent not graciously conceded because his ride was leaving (thanks guy!). Nevertheless, many cards are shared and both decks are very grindy. How should this go and how should we board?

Hold up DRS to stop Snapcaster shenanigans, and protect Goyf from Swords with your countermagic. Use discard to stop Batterskull, but the rest of the equipment can be Decayed easily and other than TNN, their creatures aren't very threatening. I just bring in Clique, Pluse, and Krosan Grip, with the outgoing cards being determined by thier configuration. I also like Needle against Deathblade if you expect Explosives or just want another way to hose SFM. Golgari Charm is good against either TNN or Supreme Verdict. These are favorable matchups overall, because they're playing a bad deck, and you're not.

3. How the hell does Shardless BUG beat Reanimator?

DRS and counters preboard. Don't remove Decay postboard, and bring in Cages. Play around Daze, and Liliana is basically just an Edict. The Strix version is stronger overall in this matchup. Postboard, you must stop Show and Tell in addition to reanimation. Clique, Thoughtseize, and especially Duress is good. Hymn is bad.

4. Is there a way for Shardless BUG to mitigate the Stifle/Wasteland plan of the various Delver decks? is Delver suppose to be a good or bad matchup for Shardless? I always assumed good, due to the deck's great ability to grind and efficient removal. But one Delver deck absolutely ate me alive.

Always fetch on their upkeep if you are afraid of Stifle, and make your fetch for a basic count. If you have Strixes, they make this matchup way easier than it is with Deluge, but Deluge is still fine. Sometimes you just get Delvered, though. Against RUG, I'd say it's close to 50/50, maybe a hair better. Against BUG, it's closer because they have a better lategame.

Thanks in advance and all your assistance helping me to learn this fantastic deck for GP NJ!

I'll post my current 75 sometime soon.

[LarsLeif]

Cool. Thanks for the reply infinitej. I'm trying to wrap my head around Lejay's build. Lately I've been playing shardless a lot more and, like I said earlier, I think a no discard-main version is better atm so I'm on board with that. However, I can't wrap my head around playing 4 wasteland in this deck still. Maybe I need to test more. In testing Lejay's build it feels like I have to mulligan more than I'd like because I don't have enough color sources in hand. Maybe there is something wrong with how I'm playing the deck. Do tell how 3-4 wasteland has been working out for you.

I've been playing the Lejay version of the deck for some time now and I do believe that 4 Waste is the right way to go. Yes there are some more mulligans but it's important to remember that we are not a pure control deck, in a fair amount of games we are a pretty aggressive midrange/tempo deck. In those games we need the tempo/resource denial that wasteland provides.

[litenkatt]

where can i find lejays version?

[Dragonslayer_90]

where can i find lejays version?

Somewhere you can find Modo daily results. Here's his most recent version: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/246643#online

[btm10]

As promised, what I'm currently working from:

Creatures (13)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Vendilion Clique

Disruption/Removal (11)
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

Draw/Manipulation (8)
4 Brainstorm
3 Ancestral Vision
1 Sylvan Library
1 Ponder

Land (22)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest

Planeswalkers (4)
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard (15)
4 Meddling Mage
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Duress
2 Pithing Needle
1 Krosan Grip
1 Golgari Charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
1 Savannah

I'm not a big fan of Lejay's sideboard (beyond Savannah/Meddling Mage) or of limiting the MD disruption to Force, but that's my preference for more ways to interact with combo preboard. I think if you're playing in the broader US meta, Strix might be better than Deluge both as a blue card and is better against Delver decks, but Deluge is markedly better against D&T and Elves.

[litenkatt]

What's the reason we don't play dark confidant at all? I've seen BUG delver play him, but I don't think he necessary belongs in tempo decks only

[trollking21]

What's the reason we don't play dark confidant at all? I've seen BUG delver play him, but I don't think he necessary belongs in tempo decks only

Thoughtseize and toxic deluge already drain your life and dark confidant plus jace and force and several 3 drops seems bad. Furthermore ancestral visions and jace out CA most other decks.

[wcm8]

If Dig through Time and/or Treasure Cruise end up being 'real' cards, I think BUG Control should reconsider if the Agent/Visions 'engine' is still worth running. That's 8 slots of clunky midrange that also forces the deck to be built around it (e.g. no reactive counter-magic that isn't FoW due to cmc concerns).

Instead, if DTT or TC become the card advantage slots, we can then consider running Snapcaster + low cmc disruption and also be able to function at instant speed instead of running a purely tap-out strategy. I also wonder if the old Deedstill cards could make a comeback: Life from the Loam + Smallpox seem a lot better if you're running 'Ancestral Recall' to restock your hand. Perhaps Intuition or Entomb could serve as tutor effects. Anyways, just something to consider.

[tescrin]

Thoughtseize and toxic deluge already drain your life and dark confidant plus jace and force and several 3 drops seems bad. Furthermore ancestral visions and jace out CA most other decks.

Agreed.

-You could drop Shardless and/or visions for Bob, but you'll actually lose card draw and/or tempo doing it.
-Bob is best with low CMC cards
-Bob is best in non-blue decks; because he improves consistency by card draw (rather than manipulation.) You can combine both, but you may even lose consistency by filling a deck with easy to find 2/1s.
-Bob is best if you have a way to gain some of that life back (or push their life total directly.) I.E. Red or White compliment him excellently via BSK, Jitte, or Bolts/BBE.

[TheHeff]

After reading a lot of the comments on here I think I know the responses I'll get, but any thoughts on Byron King's list (found here) (http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=14671&iddeck=108497)? 3 Lili, 4 FoW, 1 Clique, 1 Pulse, no hymn main? I know a lot of people are moving more Hymns to the SB now that combo is taking a backseat to more "fair" decks. I'm thinking about making my list for my upcoming legacy night the same but with 2 Strix/no Clique. List is in the sig, thoughts? I'm thinking about making the 2 Pierce into Hymn + TS, but need more games.

Also, has anyone else had experience with Night of Souls' Betrayal in the SB? I've been running 2 Deluge/2 Charm to good effect and never really felt like I needed a persistent effect. Same with Notion Thief, anyone have any experience with it? Seems like a nice trick, but not always viable. Also, anyone have any SB experience with Jitte? Seems like it could be good, and help with Burn/Elves/Gobs matchups.

[btm10]

As a matter of personal preference I'd do something like -1 Maelstrom Pulse, +1 Thoughtseize, but I like that list otherwise. I I don't like being too board focused in unsideboarded games - we're already really strong there, and fewer than 6 slots of discard + countermagic seems like too little.

Sylvan Library should really be in there somewhere, that card is insane in Shardless. Maybe drop a Liliana for it?

[litenkatt]

I believe hymn is even better against fair decks than combo decks. Against combo decks you need to discard certain cards that actually wins them the game. Fair decks, you'd be happy to discard almost anything (well, ofc if you had the choice you probably rather want them to discard spells when they are mana flooded etc) but still, 2 random cards for 2 mana, 1 card. Idk, card seems and have always seemed very strong to me

[Razorwynd]

If Dig through Time and/or Treasure Cruise end up being 'real' cards, I think BUG Control should reconsider if the Agent/Visions 'engine' is still worth running. That's 8 slots of clunky midrange that also forces the deck to be built around it (e.g. no reactive counter-magic that isn't FoW due to cmc concerns).

Instead, if DTT or TC become the card advantage slots, we can then consider running Snapcaster + low cmc disruption and also be able to function at instant speed instead of running a purely tap-out strategy. I also wonder if the old Deedstill cards could make a comeback: Life from the Loam + Smallpox seem a lot better if you're running 'Ancestral Recall' to restock your hand. Perhaps Intuition or Entomb could serve as tutor effects. Anyways, just something to consider.

Do really think a deck can support any reasonable number of those card... I would say Two copies at most. I assume that between Deathrite Shaman and Snapcaster Mage your list would have a challenging time getting those spells to cost significantly less that cc 4.

[barcode]

If Dig through Time and/or Treasure Cruise end up being 'real' cards, I think BUG Control should reconsider if the Agent/Visions 'engine' is still worth running. That's 8 slots of clunky midrange that also forces the deck to be built around it (e.g. no reactive counter-magic that isn't FoW due to cmc concerns).

Instead, if DTT or TC become the card advantage slots, we can then consider running Snapcaster + low cmc disruption and also be able to function at instant speed instead of running a purely tap-out strategy. I also wonder if the old Deedstill cards could make a comeback: Life from the Loam + Smallpox seem a lot better if you're running 'Ancestral Recall' to restock your hand. Perhaps Intuition or Entomb could serve as tutor effects. Anyways, just something to consider.

I did some testing yesterday with some mates and Treasure Cruise on the opposing side is really a pain to deal with. Tarmogoyf decks don't get all the value from their own graveyard so when the opponent delves everything away to draw three cards it's a real beating.

[Dragonslayer_90]

I did some testing yesterday with some mates and Treasure Cruise on the opposing side is really a pain to deal with. Tarmogoyf decks don't get all the value from their own graveyard so when the opponent delves everything away to draw three cards it's a real beating.

Yeah, sad to say but I think this deck might be on its way out for good with these new draw spells about to enter the meta. Why spend two cards to draw three when you can get it in one card? I think for those looking to play a more controlling version of BUG it might be fruitful to look into incorporating either new delve spells in something like BUG Landstill or BUG TNN Control. RIP Shardless :cry:

[Dragonslayer_90]

i really don't agree with this at all. I think at first you may see some cute brews, but none of these cards are worth playing in my opinion. Ponder, Brainstorm, Ancestral Visions, and Gitaxian Probe are all much better cards than these and honestly I don't see any reason to play anything else. How many copies of a card do you really want to have in a deck that has Delve 6 or Delve 7 when your opponent is bringing the beats? Sure you may get to cast 1 in a more midrange/long game but that's only cute, not effective. How many slots are you willing to use to support running these cards? This card will look really dumb coming off the top of your deck when they put a RIP in against you. Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise are terrible in the legacy format. I don't think Shardless BUG is dead. in fact...

I wouldn't mind some help on how to readjust the deck to be better suited for this weekend. The decks I expect to see are Infect, DnT, Shardless BUG, RUG Delver, Miracles, and Elves.

I don't think I'm entirely done tweaking this list yet. But I certainly would appreciate some suggestions to help mitigate this deck a little bit. I'm even considering playing 61 cards and bringing the maelstrom pulse back in to the list.

Is your statement that these cards aren't worth playing backed up by some amount of testing? Making that claim you're going to have much of the community disagreeing with you, many of which have actually tested the cards. I can't vouch for Dig through Time because I haven't tested it much, but Treasure Cruise is the real deal.

As for your list, I think it's fine for the decks you expect except Elves. You'll probably still need a good amount of cards out of the sideboard to make that matchup at least even. Do you have a sideboard built? My sideboard plan against Elves with Shardless last time I play the deck was siding in Toxic Deluge and hateful permanents like Meddling Mage, Night of Soul's Betrayal, and Grafdigger's Cage. I sided out much of the grindy CA stuff since you need cards that stop their combo plan and/or affect the board in a significant way (i.e. not just three mana edict as Liliana usually is). The only Card Advantage I kept in was Shardless Agent and sometimes my sylvan library if I had enough cards to take out for what I wanted to side in. So all and all what you want against Elves is pretty much hateful permanents and more removal to get them to stumble, at which point you just kill them before they draw back into the game.

[drocker23]

Is your statement that these cards aren't worth playing backed up by some amount of testing? Making that claim you're going to have much of the community disagreeing with you, many of which have actually tested the cards. I can't vouch for Dig through Time because I haven't tested it much, but Treasure Cruise is the real deal.

As for your list, I think it's fine for the decks you expect except Elves. You'll probably still need a good amount of cards out of the sideboard to make that matchup at least even. Do you have a sideboard built? My sideboard plan against Elves with Shardless last time I play the deck was siding in Toxic Deluge and hateful permanents like Meddling Mage, Night of Soul's Betrayal, and Grafdigger's Cage. I sided out much of the grindy CA stuff since you need cards that stop their combo plan and/or affect the board in a significant way (i.e. not just three mana edict as Liliana usually is). The only Card Advantage I kept in was Shardless Agent and sometimes my sylvan library if I had enough cards to take out for what I wanted to side in. So all and all what you want against Elves is pretty much hateful permanents and more removal to get them to stumble, at which point you just kill them before they draw back into the game.

No my statements are not backed up by testing. My statements are backed up by knowing the Legacy format. You say Treasure Cruise is the real deal? Let's evaluate all the blue decks in Legacy shall we?

1. RUG Delver - Can't remove it's gy because it needs threshold for Nimble Mongoose. Can even have trouble doing that in the face of Deathrite Shaman from time to time.
2. BUG Delver - Doesn't need it's GY except to utilize Deathrite Shaman. Ponder and Brainstorm are still better. They've even cut Tombstalker in order to make their threats cheaper.
3. UWR Delver - Plays Rest in Peace in the board. Could possibly replace Gitaxian Probe since this deck doesn't utilize it's graveyard. Still information in delver decks is so important in the early turns that it isn't worth giving up a fast card for a slow card.
4. Sneak and Show - A combo deck that doesn't need it's graveyard, but when sculpting a hand, Ponder, Brainstorm, Preordain are much better. Slots are pretty tight, not a lot of room to be adding in even more cards that are difficult to cast.
5. Omni-Tell - They play Enter the Infinite, so who cares about drawing 3 cards when you can draw your entire library?
6. Shardless BUG - It is a worse version of Ancestral Vision. Does the same thing but cannot be cascaded into. GY needed to manipulate deathrite shaman.
7. UW Miracles - This deck doesn't want this card, because it doesn't want to draw extra cards except when casting Miracle spells. Counterbalance is another reason for this deck to not want to draw 3.
8. Infect - Are you kidding? They're dead before you could even hope to delve enough. Tom Ross said he wouldn't even play the Delve pump spell so that should tell you something.
9. Reanimator - Needs it's GY to facilitate it's game plan. No delving here.
10. Esper Deathblade - This deck is already tight on space trying to shove every single good card in the format into 1 deck. Again, not useful here.
11. High Tide - This was a deck I thought perhaps could use it, but since they're trying to cast Time Spiral to keep shuffling their High Tides and junk back into the deck to redraw and recast them all again, it would not do them any good to be removing these cards from the game. Nonbo.
12. Merfolk - Doesn't have any use for the GY. Could potentiall see running this card in some few numbers to draw more gas, but the whole deck is permanant based and would have trouble casting this card for a reasonable amount since very few of your cards should be going to the graveyard.


So there are all the blue decks in Legacy. So tell me, what decks could possibly use this card? The answer is NONE. it's a bad card for the legacy format. It's bad. don't play it. It's bad. AGAIN? it's bad.

[hobart]

16 Creatures

3 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Vendilion Clique


17 Spells

4 Ancestral Visions
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sylvan Library

4 Planeswalkers

2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


23 Lands


3 Wasteland
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Swamp


I can see you're not expecting much if any combo, which seems optimistic for a big event, but it might be correct. With only 3 maindeck Forces and no targeted discard, however, you're going to have a bad time if you run into any. Also, if fair (creatures) is what you expect, I think you need to fit a toxic deluge in the main. It will save your ass against DnT and Elves, it's pretty damn good against infect, and just ok but occasionally very effective against the delver decks.

[Ocean]

How old are you?

[drocker23]

I can see you're not expecting much if any combo, which seems optimistic for a big event, but it might be correct. With only 3 maindeck Forces and no targeted discard, however, you're going to have a bad time if you run into any. Also, if fair (creatures) is what you expect, I think you need to fit a toxic deluge in the main. It will save your ass against DnT and Elves, it's pretty damn good against infect, and just ok but occasionally very effective against the delver decks.

that's what i'm trying to figure out. if people jump on the infect bandwagon, i want to be ready, rather than playing something more traditional and having a lousy matchup. i think i'm trying to change too many cards though.

[drocker23]

how old are you?

i'm over 9000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheHeff]

RIP Shardless :cry: I think this might be a bit of an overreaction :tongue:

Note: Theorycrafting ahead, I haven't played nearly enough games with Shardless against TC decks so this could be totally wrong.

I don't think things are nearly that bad, honestly it seems like TC is probably the best in decks without DRS and Goyf, if only because of graveyard hate. Being susceptible to Rest in Peace with two of our major pieces (DRS and Goyf) means that in SB games against white, TC will get much worse, when we're already guaranteed to see RiP boarded in. Every deck containing white will go long, and I'd rather not leave my main piece of sustain so susceptible to a common SB card. Yes, Jace will still do his thing, but our CA engine is already strong so I see no need to change it. It will most likely get picked up by decks like Deathblade/Esperblade, UWR Delver, and maybe even Miracles.

If you look at it another way, Shardless is probably one of the best shells to be playing against a meta that adopts more grindy, midrange cards and uses the Delve mechanic to selectively shrink goyfs. We have planeswalkers and artifacts that can quickly grow goyf, regardless of what our opponents delve away. Just my 2c!

[LarsLeif]

I think this might be a bit of an overreaction :tongue:

Note: Theorycrafting ahead, I haven't played nearly enough games with Shardless against TC decks so this could be totally wrong.

I don't think things are nearly that bad, honestly it seems like TC is probably the best in decks without DRS and Goyf, if only because of graveyard hate. Being susceptible to Rest in Peace with two of our major pieces (DRS and Goyf) means that in SB games against white, TC will get much worse, when we're already guaranteed to see RiP boarded in. Every deck containing white will go long, and I'd rather not leave my main piece of sustain so susceptible to a common SB card. Yes, Jace will still do his thing, but our CA engine is already strong so I see no need to change it. It will most likely get picked up by decks like Deathblade/Esperblade, UWR Delver, and maybe even Miracles.

If you look at it another way, Shardless is probably one of the best shells to be playing against a meta that adopts more grindy, midrange cards and uses the Delve mechanic to selectively shrink goyfs. We have planeswalkers and artifacts that can quickly grow goyf, regardless of what our opponents delve away. Just my 2c!

I totally agree, Although I believe that the meta-game will swing a bit with these cards. Firstly I guess we will see them jammed into everything with the colour blue, then people will realize that Rest In Peace becomes totally broken against these decks, and then TC/DTT will probably find a home in some decks, but I think people overvalue the cards because they are very good when they are good.

Secondly even if some decks will now be able to play some Ancestrals, we already play 4 of them for free. :)

[Dragonslayer_90]

I concur that I may have overreacted but it was a heartfelt overreaction. I really love this deck. Shardless BUG is one my favorite legacy decks of all time ever :wink:

As for what you said Heff, I somewhat agree with what your saying and think your prediction is totally reasonabe. However, I think you and many others are overvaluing how good Rest in Peace is against Team America. It is certainly good against a threat base with deathrite and goyf, but it is not back breaking. I have won many games against decks like UWR that bring in Rest In Peace in attempt to make a lot of our cards bad only to get screwed by either abrupt decay or the 2-3 Golgari Charms I sided in. Many times all Rest in Peace does is slow BUG Delver down. I have killed a good amount of opponents with deathrite squire beats because they still didn't actually deal with my board :cool: Now, you are correct that running TC in BUG Delver makes stuff like Rest In Peace more of a problem, but in that case BUG Delver players will adapt and bring in other cards from the board to minimize the effect of Rest In Peace and probably just side out treasure cruises in games two and three. I think Treasure Cruise provides too much upside to not run main deck, especially in a deck like BUG Delver where you're going to have a lot of cards in the gy by Turn 3/4, the point at which you want a card like Treasure Cruise.

[LarsLeif]

Depending on how much play TC/DTT sees, I would be surprised if people kept RIP in their sideboards. I'm no miracles expert, but if I wanted to metagame against the field in the first few week of TC/DTT being legal, RIP-Miracles seems like a solid choice.

Edit: It should be noted that RIP historically has been pretty bad against BUG as above stated, but it's ETB-effect becomes highly effective as even if people playing goyf/drs can refill their graveyard quite quickly, the exiling of your graveyard really slows TC/DTT down substantially.

[barcode]

I think this might be a bit of an overreaction :tongue:

Note: Theorycrafting ahead, I haven't played nearly enough games with Shardless against TC decks so this could be totally wrong.

I don't think things are nearly that bad, honestly it seems like TC is probably the best in decks without DRS and Goyf, if only because of graveyard hate. Being susceptible to Rest in Peace with two of our major pieces (DRS and Goyf) means that in SB games against white, TC will get much worse, when we're already guaranteed to see RiP boarded in. Every deck containing white will go long, and I'd rather not leave my main piece of sustain so susceptible to a common SB card. Yes, Jace will still do his thing, but our CA engine is already strong so I see no need to change it. It will most likely get picked up by decks like Deathblade/Esperblade, UWR Delver, and maybe even Miracles.

If you look at it another way, Shardless is probably one of the best shells to be playing against a meta that adopts more grindy, midrange cards and uses the Delve mechanic to selectively shrink goyfs. We have planeswalkers and artifacts that can quickly grow goyf, regardless of what our opponents delve away. Just my 2c!

Treasure Cruise is good against Shardless because the card defeats Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach while having the side effect of removing up to seven cards from the graveyard to keep Tarmogoyf and Deathrite Shaman in check.

Goyf decks aren't going to play Treasure Cruise, not by a long shot. UWR delver (or midrange) decks will begin to play it because they don't care about their graveyard but they sure care about three cards. No one is saying that for game two these UWR players must play Rest in Peace alongside Treasure Cruise (and they probably won't).

My experience following an afternoon of testing Shardless vs a UWR midrange deck is that it's Treasure Cruise that pushes it past the post. Pre-KTK their hand was shredded after Hymns and Thoughtseizes which fed our Goyfs and deathrites. Now they can undo our discard, steal Deathrite fuel and shrink Goyfs. That's a big game for one blue mana.

In the upcoming weeks I'm going to be looking more closely at Treasure Cruise vs Shardless (and how Treasure Cruise may fit into UWR Miracles) in advance of Eternal Weekend and GP NJ.


edit: I don't mean to say that Treasure Cruise kills Shardless. That isn't true. However, the card certainly makes certain matchups worse.

[tescrin]

Why can't a Goyf deck play it..?
You select the cards that go in.
It doesn't touch your opponent's graveyard.

Whenever I hit a Goyf deck with a Bojuka Bog (when I'm KotR-Junk) or a Nihil Spellbomb (sometimes comes in out of the side for discard since it cantrips) it barely touches the size. Honestly, if both decks are blue decks and actively delving; goyf will still be a 3/4 by your attack step, guaranteed, basically all the time. Running any tricks, such as artifact creatures, enchantment creatures, dryad arbor, or other such multi-type perms are enough to get him full size again in no time, let alone just efficient sized.

A 2/3 goyf is still often an OK enough deal. Yeah, a 2/3 bear isn't legacy playable, but a scaling bear is. If Rip didn't kill Goyf, neither will Delve, and vice versa.

[kryllex]

Yeah, it sucks with Tarmogoyf, better play Tombstalker instead. Uhm, wait... :really:

[Bobmans]

SCG forcing the name of the deck to be Shardless Sultai..... lame....

[TheHeff]

So I recently took this list to an unknown meta (just moved, new store), wanted to do a quick write-up:

4x Deathrite Shaman
2x Baleful Strix
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Shardless Agent

4x Abrupt Decay
2x Hymn to Tourach
2x Thoughtseize
1x Toxic Deluge
3x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Ancestral Visions

2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3x Misty Rainforest
3x Polluted Delta
3x Verdant Catacombs
2x Bayou
2x Tropical Island
3x Underground Sea
1x Swamp
2x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Wasteland

Sideboard:
2x Disfigure
1x Force of Will
1x Golgari Charm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Spell Pierce (under consideration: 2x Chill, some combo of Hymn/Thoughtseize/Lili)
1x Thoughtseize
1x Toxic Deluge

Round 1: Death and Taxes (2-0)
Boarded in- 2x Disfigure, 1x Maelstrom Pulse, 1x Null Rod, 1x Thoughtseize, 1x Toxic Deluge
Boarded out- 3x Force of Will, 1x Liliana of the Veil, 2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

I'm still messing with my SB plan here. You can make a case for adding in the Charm, 3rd Hymn, 3rd Thoughtseize, or Needle, but the only card I'd really want to cut is the 2nd Lili and even then, I only really want the 3rd Thoughtseize. I'll keep messing with this split though, feedback from you guys is very welcome!

Round 2: Mono-Red Sneak (1-2)
Boarded in- 1x Force of Will, 1x Hymn, 1x Maelstrom, 1x Null Rod, 1x Pithing Needle, 2x Spell Pierce, 1x Thoughtseize
Boarded out- 4x Abrupt Decay, 4x Ancestral Visions

This deck was pretty brutal, he played 4 maindeck Blood Moon, Chalice, and Revoker, as well as 3 boarded Trinisphere's. Usual wincon of Sneak Attack and Grisel/Emmy. Lost G1 to a T1 Chalice on 1, Turn 2 Blood Moon, Turn 3 Chalice on 2 (GG, on to boarded games). Game 2 the discard overload worked fine, ripped apart his hand and beat him down with creatures. G3 was very similar to G1 with a trinisphere on T3 instead, basically no way to come back from that. My takehome lesson here is that I really feel Spell Pierce is underpowered from the SB, I rarely find myself wanting to not tap out and I'd rather just pull a Thoughtseize, Hymn, or another Liliana.

Round 3: BUG Bogles Jank (2-0)
Boarded in- 2x Disfigure, 1x Toxic Deluge
Boarded out- 3x Force of Will

This poor guy had never played a legacy event before, and came with unsleeved cards, guildgates, and some other things (had never heard of Brainstorm before). Basically he played a handful of hexproof creatures, Champion of Lambholt, some trample aura, and some unblockable enchants and tried to push in combat damage with stuff like Primordial Hydra. The games weren't particularly close, so I gave him some tips on how to improve and felt really bad for sideboarding.

Round 4: Burn (2-1)
Boarded in- 1x Force of Will, 1x Hymn
Boarded out- 2x Thoughtseize

I think I sideboarded this one wrong, but was still able to pull out a win in close spots. I should probably remove both Jace's (as getting to 4 mana vs a PoP deck is reaaallly scary) and put in the two Spellbombs to clear the GY for Grim Lavamancer. Force felt ridiculously good in this matchup, as the Visions package was still around to regain lost cards and being able to snipe a really scary spell for 1 life and 2 cards was insane.

All in all, pretty good day. I think I'm going to turn my two Spell Pierce SB into 2 Chills for my next event/GPTs coming up. Little bit of excitement around that new Red Khans 1-drop after Bob Huang topped with U/R Delver. Also, does anyone play Shardless online? I've heard it's a lot of burn and combo decks, so the Chill SB should come in handy then too, and I'd love to test a 75 that I'll be taking to a tournament. Not nearly enough Legacy in my area to give me the practice I'm wanting, so I figured MTGO is the next "best" thing :tongue:. Thanks for reading!

[ivanpei]

This deck is very well positioned right now since it crushed Delver decks in general. Tested cruise delver against BUG Shardless and BUG Shardless is still the overwhelming card advantage king since pretty much every card generates advantage while Delver only has cruise and actually loses speed to accommodate cruises.

[adrieng]

I have found exactly the opposite. Shardless bug is now dead, UR delver is faster and has a ton of card advantage with TreasureCruise at least as much as BUGshardless (even more in testing),
has access to blood moon to punish you and PoP.
Though it seems that playing ourselves 3 TC might be a good idea and change the matchup

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Ur was already a hard matchup as it was ultimately more of a burn/aggro strategy than a tempo one

One deck =\= shardless being dead

[ironclad8690]

All in all, pretty good day. I think I'm going to turn my two Spell Pierce SB into 2 Chills for my next event/GPTs coming up. Little bit of excitement around that new Red Khans 1-ur Bob Huang topped with U/R Delver. Also, does anyone play Shardless online? I've heard it's a lot of burn and combo decks, so the Chill SB should come in handy then too, and I'd love to test a 75 that I'll be taking to a tournament. Not nearly enough Legacy in my area to give me the practice I'm wanting, so I figured MTGO is the next "best" thing :tongue:. Thanks for reading!

You can always play on cockatrice (pretty expensive to buy into shardless in a meta dominated by burn). That being said, the play is way tighter on MTGO and there are plenty of elves and miracles to prey upon.

[Dragonslayer_90]

You can always play on cockatrice (pretty expensive to buy into shardless in a meta dominated by burn). That being said, the play is way tighter on MTGO and there are plenty of elves and miracles to prey upon.

Is this real life? How can say Shardless is the deck to prey on Elves? Miracles yes. But ELVES.

[ivanpei]

I was referring more to Tempo Delver like UWR OR BUG. Ur is more similar to burn which is a terrible matchup.

[sealab2021]

Have any of you guys played against the newer UR treasure cruise/Swiftspear Deck?

I played against it in a mtgo daily last night and it seems like an awful match-up. I managed to win game three after he/she bricked like 6 turns in a row with me at 3 life.

If this deck is a real thing I was thinking of switching up my sideboard. I already run one Blue Elemental blast for mono-red, so I was thinking maybe a Zuran Orb or something to slow Price of progress down. Any thoughts on what you guys do? Mono Red is always a rough one and this deck seems really similar.

[LarsLeif]

Have any of you guys played against the newer UR treasure cruise/Swiftspear Deck?

I played against it in a mtgo daily last night and it seems like an awful match-up. I managed to win game three after he/she bricked like 6 turns in a row with me at 3 life.

If this deck is a real thing I was thinking of switching up my sideboard. I already run one Blue Elemental blast for mono-red, so I was thinking maybe a Zuran Orb or something to slow Price of progress down. Any thoughts on what you guys do? Mono Red is always a rough one and this deck seems really similar.

You could play Circle of Protection: Red actually, especially if you play with meddling mage-board (board in Savannah). It's both a cascade target and pretty castable with DRS. Have not tested that though. Chill seems pretty good too?

[TheHeff]

You could play Circle of Protection: Red actually, especially if you play with meddling mage-board (board in Savannah). It's both a cascade target and pretty castable with DRS. Have not tested that though. Chill seems pretty good too?

Chill is very good, I play almost exclusively on MTGO now and I pack 2 sideboard. That matchup is still rough, as they usually have some number of REB effects they bring in SB and it's just a very lean, efficient deck. Here's how I usually sideboard (full list is in my sig):

In: 2x Chill, 1 FoW (up to the full 4), 1 Hymn (up to max 3), 2x Disfigure, 1x Maelstrom Pulse
Out: 2x Thoughtseize, 1x Toxic Deluge, 2x Jace, 2x Ancestral

I'm thinking of adding in one Blue Elemental Blast sideboard as its very strong against Burn, UR Delver and has some splash hate for Sneak & Show, Painter, and random Blood Moon decks.

[LarsLeif]

Chill is very good, I play almost exclusively on MTGO now and I pack 2 sideboard. That matchup is still rough, as they usually have some number of REB effects they bring in SB and it's just a very lean, efficient deck. Here's how I usually sideboard (full list is in my sig):

In: 2x Chill, 1 FoW (up to the full 4), 1 Hymn (up to max 3), 2x Disfigure, 1x Maelstrom Pulse
Out: 2x Thoughtseize, 1x Toxic Deluge, 2x Jace, 2x Ancestral

I'm thinking of adding in one Blue Elemental Blast sideboard as its very strong against Burn, UR Delver and has some splash hate for Sneak & Show, Painter, and random Blood Moon decks.

I guess BEB is decent, I personally do not (with strong emphasis on not) like reactive spells below cmc 3 in shardless, probably the 3:d chill is better? Or Scavenging Ooze/Sun Droplet?

[tescrin]

I've never used droplet for fear of Smash2S. It might be fine if you go for discard and then get a Droplet or have a counterspell in hand.

[sealab2021]

Do you really think someone would side in a smash against your droplet and two main deck artifacts?

[tescrin]

Strix is an artifact, Shardless is an artifact; from that perspective it is 2. From the perspective that 10% of your deck is artifacts and you're really really likely to have one (especially after cantrips)..it's not ludicrous that they would have it.

Droplet seems fine, I'm just pointing out that if your hate is weak to Burn's sideboard strategy (which probably includes some number of smash; but maybe not) then your hate has less chance of working. Chill always works. I'm not a shardless player at the moment, but it happens to SFM decks for the same reason, hence you run an enchantment or creatures that hate on them (so they have to waste spells.)

EDIT: By "really really" i apparently mean 60% by your first natural draw, 72% if you use a cantrip and believe that the artifact creature is helpful to you; this is before including additional artifacts from the side.

[sealab2021]

I understand what are you are saying, but what are they siding out for 3 s2s? I feel like both searing blaze and searing blood are way better against you. This is why I hesitate to play a sideboard ooze.

I am thinking of going with a Zuran orb, because Pop is so insane against us, and the one sideboard Blue blast. Still going to be a rough one either way.

[TheHeff]

How has everybody been siding against miracles? I've been toying around today with the idea of no discard, going something like this:

In: 1x Force (up to 4), 1x Maelstrom Pulse, 1x Null Rod, 1x Pithing Needle
Out: 2x Thoughtseize, 2x Hymn

This is obviously for the non-SFM decks, but Miracles always seems to be able to power out of early discard using Top/Brainstorm/Ponder and discard is a terrible lategame topdeck. A lot of people seem to struggle with the metagaming aspect of leaving Abrupt Decay in if they're siding out Counterbalance, but it can still kill a top during its activation, kills Clique and Snap, and can take out an angel token off of Entreat at instant speed with uncounterability. Oh...and it also kills Blood Moon. The only thing it doesn't kill is Venser and Jace, but oh well. Sure way to stop a Venser is by Waste'ing their Karakas and Pithing Needle stops Jace (and Pulse in a pinch, but I REALLY like trying to save that for the Entreat tokens). Anyone have thoughts?

[mtgmafia]

How has everybody been siding against miracles? I've been toying around today with the idea of no discard, going something like this:

In: 1x Force (up to 4), 1x Maelstrom Pulse, 1x Null Rod, 1x Pithing Needle
Out: 2x Thoughtseize, 2x Hymn

This is obviously for the non-SFM decks, but Miracles always seems to be able to power out of early discard using Top/Brainstorm/Ponder and discard is a terrible lategame topdeck. A lot of people seem to struggle with the metagaming aspect of leaving Abrupt Decay in if they're siding out Counterbalance, but it can still kill a top during its activation, kills Clique and Snap, and can take out an angel token off of Entreat at instant speed with uncounterability. Oh...and it also kills Blood Moon. The only thing it doesn't kill is Venser and Jace, but oh well. Sure way to stop a Venser is by Waste'ing their Karakas and Pithing Needle stops Jace (and Pulse in a pinch, but I REALLY like trying to save that for the Entreat tokens). Anyone have thoughts?

A good miracles player will only play entreat at eot making your pulse dead. My plan is to board one abrupt out of you feel confident that counterbalance is out. I think hymn is pretty poor unless it hits all their lands, and the potential for misdirection to blow you out is huge with hymn. I like thoughtseize though. Helps you resolve spells like jace and vision. Needle it's fantastic in this matchup. One of the best cards is sylvan library. I've been playing one main and outs been phenomenal.

[IAmWill]

A good miracles player will only play entreat at eot making your pulse dead. My plan is to board one abrupt out of you feel confident that counterbalance is out. I think hymn is pretty poor unless it hits all their lands, and the potential for misdirection to blow you out is huge with hymn. I like thoughtseize though. Helps you resolve spells like jace and vision. Needle it's fantastic in this matchup. One of the best cards is sylvan library. I've been playing one main and outs been phenomenal.

I disagree about pulse being dead, sure a lot of times it will not be able to hit Angels but it does have it's uses in the match up. A 5th way to kill a counterbalance, not as good as Decay but it has a pretty good chance of resolving through CB. Killing Jace, it also has some more uses depending on your other permanents, if you have null rod on the board sorcery speed entreats become more common, or combined with Jace will allow you the chance to fateseal a top. I don't think the card is amazing in the match up by any stretch but I would not leave it in the board.

[DOM]

Sorry for a not very contributive post, but I am rather curious to know what future awaits for this archetype as I have been meaning to build it and now it seems that Treasure Cruise has made this deck at least a little inferior to others. So, will this deck remain a tier 1?

Also, maybe it would not hurt to pack a TC or two?

[wcm8]

Sorry for a not very contributive post, but I am rather curious to know what future awaits for this archetype as I have been meaning to build it and now it seems that Treasure Cruise has made this deck at least a little inferior to others. So, will this deck remain a tier 1?

Also, maybe it would not hurt to pack a TC or two?

Treasure Cruise is a great card. However, I don't think its presence invalidates BUG Cascade as a valid, Tier 1 archetype. Shardless Agent + Ancestral Vision is still a powerful combination, and the card advantage and filtering provided by Agent is powerful even when it hits different spells. Shardless BUG also has slightly less reliance on the graveyard than a BUG list that relies on TC for card advantage, and TC requires the deck to be built with it in mind (lots of cantrips and cheap spells, rather than playing mostly midrange haymaker permanents). Rest in Peace would be more frustrating for BUG Delver to deal with, whereas BUG Cascade would view that as more of a temporary speed bump.

If anything, I think BUG Cascade could still maintain the basic configuration it currently has, and maybe fit in 2-3 TC or possibly Dig Through Time as additional card advantage to go along with Vision + Jace.

The one advantage I'd say that BUG Delver with TC would have over BUG Cascade is a stronger combo matchup. Having Daze and a faster clock goes a long way towards beating combo, and now they have nearly the same option of card advantage as its 'big sister' deck. But luckily BUG Cascade has a strong sideboard configured to specifically deal with the combo matchup.

*one problem though, is if we begin to see a lot more cards like Spirit of the Labyrinth, Draw spells become more unwieldy. So that might be one possible fallout problem that BUG Cascade will have to face due to the TC hype train.

**Another problem: Legacy players as a whole often aren't the most imaginative bunch around, so I would expect many players to adopt the UR lists running TC. BUG has problems dealing with Blood Moon and Price of Progress. The more these cards are run, the worse BUG becomes for a tournament.

[btm10]

More broadly, I think that it's not helpful to think of this is an Ancestral Vision deck. Shardless Agent into Tarmogoyf or Baleful Strix assembles a very strong board presence very quickly. Stapling Hymn to Tourach or Abrupt Decay to your Grizzly Bears is still good. Blood Moon and Price of Progress are problems, but they can be worked around. If I'm reasonably confident that I won't hit too much combo, I'd be happy to play Shardless.

Also, I harped on this a little in the BUG Delver thread, but Dimir Charm is incredible. For Shardless, it's a hard counter for a lot of problematic cards (Infernal Tutor, Show and Tell, opposing TCs/Visions, just to name a few) while also serving as a not-dead cascade in a large number of situations.

EDIT: My current test deck is below.

Creatures (12)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf

Planeswalkers (4)
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Draw/Manipulation (9)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Sylvan Library

Control (14)
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Dimir Charm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

Land (21)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Forest

Sideboard (15)
4 Meddling Mage
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Duress
1 Krosan Grip
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Savannah

I'm less sold on Mages and Savannah in the new environment, but I need to test more. It might be worthwhile to do -4 Meddling Mage, -1 Savannah, +2 Chill, +2 Disfigure, +1 Duress or Dimir Charm. I'd also like to find a slot for a Ponder main. If this doesn't work out I'll probably switch to a different BUG Control list.

[mtgmafia]

More broadly, I think that it's not helpful to think of this is an Ancestral Vision deck. Shardless Agent into Tarmogoyf or Baleful Strix assembles a very strong board presence very quickly. Stapling Hymn to Tourach or Abrupt Decay to your Grizzly Bears is still good. Blood Moon and Price of Progress are problems, but they can be worked around. If I'm reasonably confident that I won't hit too much combo, I'd be happy to play Shardless.

Also, I harped on this a little in the BUG Delver thread, but Dimir Charm is incredible. For Shardless, it's a hard counter for a lot of problematic cards (Infernal Tutor, Show and Tell, opposing TCs/Visions, just to name a few) while also serving as a not-dead cascade in a large number of situations.

EDIT: My current test deck is below.

Creatures (12)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Shardless Agent
4 Tarmogoyf

Planeswalkers (4)
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Draw/Manipulation (9)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
1 Sylvan Library

Control (14)
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Dimir Charm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge

Land (21)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Forest

Sideboard (15)
4 Meddling Mage
2 Golgari Charm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Duress
1 Krosan Grip
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Savannah

I'm less sold on Mages and Savannah in the new environment, but I need to test more. It might be worthwhile to do -4 Meddling Mage, -1 Savannah, +2 Chill, +2 Disfigure, +1 Duress or Dimir Charm. I'd also like to find a slot for a Ponder main. If this doesn't work out I'll probably switch to a different BUG Control list.

When I saw dimir charm in your list I was pretty sceptical, but testing ids showing this card to be a real player in what seems to be a treasure cruise meta. Thanks for the tech, it has been way better than I expected!

[nossirag]

Might be a silly idea. But what do you guys think about squeezing Grizly Salvage into the list. I have been experimenting before with it, but it seems at least worth a thought in combination with Treasure Cruise
Edit: of course with cutting the visions and maybe (shardless)

[ESG]

what do you guys think about squeezing Grizly Salvage into the list

Then you would have all the bears ...

No, Grisly Salvage is not advisable. It's tempo loss, demanding on the manabase, and it makes you more dependent on your graveyard at a time when people are poised to attack the graveyard to weaken Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time.

[nossirag]

Then you would have all the bears ...

No, Grisly Salvage is not advisable. It's tempo loss, demanding on the manabase, and it makes you more dependent on your graveyard at a time when people are poised to attack the graveyard to weaken Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time.

You dont want all the bears?!

I agree its a tempo loss, but thats the case with every cantrip and I dont meant it to be a tempo giving card, thats why I was suggesting it in a midrange deck thread.
Additionally it makes you less dependent on your normal graveyard fill through fetches, cantrips etc. You have the options to: 1. FIll your graveyard with 5 cards 2. Cantrip for a needed creature while filling your graveyard with 4 cards. 3. Cantrip for fetchland or wasteland, which puts effectively 5 cards in your GY while stocking up on mana. which all works pretty nicely in combination with treasure cruise and tarmofriend.

I see the downside of spending 2 mana. And anything without a instant reward in Legacy is often just bad, especially in the second turn. and the costs of GB makes it not easier to play.

You are probably right, thats why I was talking about a "stupid Idea" Im gonna test it tonight nontheless ;P

[ESG]

You dont want all the bears?!

I agree its a tempo loss, but thats the case with every cantrip and I dont meant it to be a tempo giving card, thats why I was suggesting it in a midrange deck thread.
Additionally it makes you less dependent on your normal graveyard fill through fetches, cantrips etc. You have the options to: 1. FIll your graveyard with 5 cards 2. Cantrip for a needed creature while filling your graveyard with 4 cards. 3. Cantrip for fetchland or wasteland, which puts effectively 5 cards in your GY while stocking up on mana. which all works pretty nicely in combination with treasure cruise and tarmofriend.

I see the downside of spending 2 mana. And anything without a instant reward in Legacy is often just bad, especially in the second turn. and the costs of GB makes it not easier to play.

You are probably right, thats why I was talking about a "stupid Idea" Im gonna test it tonight nontheless ;P

Whether a deck is midrange or not, tempo is still important. This is a fast format. Spending two mana on a spell that doesn't affect the board or directly interact with your opponent is suspect. Your goal with Grisly Salvage is to fill up your graveyard faster in order to be able to play Treasure Cruise earlier, but your graveyard is already a soft spot due to Tarmogoyf and Deathrite Shaman. Grisly Salvage also does not allow you to keep any Treasure Cruises you reveal, so the only way you'd be coming out ahead is by already having the Cruises in hand (and having the first one resolve).

Grisly Salvage plays the same role as cantrips, with the cost of being slower and harder to cast. If you want to speed up the process of filling the graveyard, Thought Scour and Mental Note are both probably superior. I could maybe see Grisly Salvage being used if this deck had no blue in it, but obviously that's not the case. Feel free to test anyway.

[Vicar in a tutu]

I don't play BUG Shardless myself, but I gotta ask: Isn't this deck more or less obsolete now that Treasure Cruise is running rampant? What are the reasons for trying to setup Ancestral Visions with Shardless when you can just draw 3 for :u:? And more importantly, are those reasons good enough to stick with Shardless?

[btm10]

I don't play BUG Shardless myself, but I gotta ask: Isn't this deck more or less obsolete now that Treasure Cruise is running rampant? What are the reasons for trying to setup Ancestral Visions with Shardless when you can just draw 3 for :u:? And more importantly, are those reasons good enough to stick with Shardless?

It's not like Agent into Visions was the whole thing for this deck. If UR displaces BUG as the premier Delver variant, then perhaps too much combo will start showing up to make Shardless good. Otherwise, the deck still has fine matchups against non-combo decks. I know I said this above, but seriously - Agent into Tarmogoyf, or Brainstorm, or Abrupt Decay are still strong plays. Agent into Ancestral Vision still casts Ancestral Recall. Other decks having access to card advantage doesn't make this one obsolete, especially because of how Shardless generates that advantage.

[Rizso]

I don't play BUG Shardless myself, but I gotta ask: Isn't this deck more or less obsolete now that Treasure Cruise is running rampant? What are the reasons for trying to setup Ancestral Visions with Shardless when you can just draw 3 for :u:? And more importantly, are those reasons good enough to stick with Shardless?

Just play both :P

[ironclad8690]

I don't play BUG Shardless myself, but I gotta ask: Isn't this deck more or less obsolete now that Treasure Cruise is running rampant? What are the reasons for trying to setup Ancestral Visions with Shardless when you can just draw 3 for :u:? And more importantly, are those reasons good enough to stick with Shardless?

Black has a lot of tools to deal with the threats that these decks present. Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and Night of Souls Betrayal are all ridiculous right now. I think the "death of BG/x midrange" is exaggerated in legacy.

[btm10]

Black has a lot of tools to deal with the threats that these decks present. Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and Night of Souls Betrayal are all ridiculous right now. I think the "death of BG/x midrange" is exaggerated in legacy.

Yep. I need to put more time into testing Shardless (been focusing on UR Delver and BUG Delver), but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of playing Shardless at the GP. My main reservation is the amount of Burn I expect to see.

[amalek0]

Yep. I need to put more time into testing Shardless (been focusing on UR Delver and BUG Delver), but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of playing Shardless at the GP. My main reservation is the amount of Burn I expect to see.

TBH, if you want to beat burn in shardless, couldn't you just throw a couple of spellskites in the board and cascade into those to close the game out once you empty their hand?

Edit: or maybe like, a batterskull or something lifegainy?

[btm10]

TBH, if you want to beat burn in shardless, couldn't you just throw a couple of spellskites in the board and cascade into those to close the game out once you empty their hand?

Edit: or maybe like, a batterskull or something lifegainy?

Jitte is the obvious choice as it's Cascadeable, flexible, and cheaper than Batterskull. The downside of Jitte is that it's painfully slow and is an additional target for Smash to Smithereens. Nourish might be worth testing in the narrow context of the GP because the two decks I'm expecting to see the most of are UR Delver and Burn, and it's strong against both. It's probably just too narrow an effect outside of those matchups, though.

[Jo11ygrnreefer]

Why not run a couple of Chill in the SB, to help control red?

[btm10]

Why not run a couple of Chill in the SB, to help control red?

It's great early, but awful when you're at 5 life and they've got 4 lands. On the flipside, it does something against Painter and Sneak and Show, which Jitte really doesn't and Nourish definitely doesn't. It probably doesn't do enough in those matches because of sol lands to be considered as anything other than hate for UR and Burn. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to test this weekend, so this is all just speculation.

[DalamarTheDark]

Greetings fellow Shardless "Sultai" enthusiasts. This past weekend (11/2/14), I participated in a Grand Prix New Jersey Trial at Battleground Games & Hobbies in Abington, MA. I played the following list:

4 Polluted delta
4 Verdant Catacomb
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
3 Tropical island
3 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland
=22
I hate 21 land in this deck. Just seems like way too few, especially with the Planeswalkers.

4 DRS
4 'Goyf
4 Shardless Agent
1 Tombstalker (won me a game when I drew him)
=13

2 Toxic Deluge
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Treasure Cruise
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard:
3 Disfigure
2 Duress
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Notion Thief
2 Golgari Charm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle

The event itself had 23 participants, meaning five rounds. I completed the swiss with a record of 3-1-1, losing to a BGW Junk/Maverick deck and drawing with U/R Delver. I defeated Miracles, Goblins and "Jeskai" Delver.

I lost in top eight to the same Junk/Maverick deck. :-(


Couple of points on my experience:
1. I never had any trouble keeping Tarmogoyf a sizeable monster playing both DRS and Treasure Cruise. I think, in this archetype, the most the archetype can probably get away with is 1-2 Treasure Cruise.

2. I didn't miss having the 4th Ancestral Vision. It's a terrible draw late (where I'd much prefer to draw Treasure Cruise), no matter how much I'd like to cascade into it.

3. Delver can feel scary, but I think having access to Abrupt Decay really shines here. I also absolutely destroyed the U/R Delver in game two after he player a turn one delver, turn two Young Pyromancer into "make a token." I untapped, calmly cast Golgari Charm and we were onto game three.

4. Tombstalker, while it did win me a game, felt like too much Delve and will be cut. I missed the Baleful Strix, though I realize that card is likely poorly positioned (damn you Forked Bolt).

5. I boarded out the Planeswalkers A LOT, though Liliana less so. I honestly think that Jace just isn't where it's at right now and we ought to be cutting one if not both. I think Ponder, Sylvan Library or something else entirely should likely take up Jace's place. I can see having one in the sideboard, of course. Nevertheless, the card is just to slow right now and severely outclassed by Treasure Cruise. Oftentimes, you just don't have time to cast it.

6. The times that Treasure Cruise was cast against me, I never really felt all that behind, especially since this deck has FIVE draw-three's (not counting Brainstorm). Sometimes, those decks just draw air. Plus, the longer the game goes, the worse their soft permission gets.

7. I fear that this deck is slowly "evolving" to look more and more like Team America ("Sultai" Delver) with Shardless Agents.

8. I missed Dimir Charm. That card definitely would have been very useful.

9. I defeated numerous Rest in Peace's. Card is a little scary, but not unbeatable.

10. As for the sideboard, I really liked Disfigure, Golgari Charm, Maelstrom Pulse, Seal of Primordial, Null Rod and Pithing Needle. Those likely won't change as they all performed really well.

The Notion Thief I just never got to cast. It's probably to slow in this deck.

Grafdigger's Cage, with Dredge winning last weekend's SCG Legacy Open, probably needs to stay.

As for the rest of the slots, I have no idea. I like the idea of Darkblast; I wonder if sideboarding Hymn to Tourach is fine over the Duress (to better compliment the Thoughtseize's in combo match ups). Maybe Vendilion Clique? Should I be trying out the Meddling Mage sideboard?


How else should we adapt to the changing metagame? I'm all ears.

[SilkyPimP]

I fell in love with this deck in Dallas at a open when TNN came out.
I wanted to play Shardless for NJ but am having a real problem with the UR delver matchup. It seems to be my worse "fair" deck match other than elves.
with all the treasure druise kids running around i am thinking of dropping the most maindeck discard - 3 thoughtseixe and 2 hymn to the bored, maybe play 3 Lily tops (2 main 1 bored?) and 2 thoughtseize.

Normal build. only differences are running 1 Jitte
3 Strix
2 deluge
1 disfigure
1 pulse
3 vision

I will upload my real list soon.
Any advice?

[hobart]

My favorite builds of Shardless never ran any discard in the maindeck. I love 2x Toxic Deluge and I think upping the strixes to 3 sounds great in a UR meta.

[tescrin]

Has Thirst for Knowledge been tried, before or after Cruise?

I've been using it in casual (I know..) next to cruise and it's been pretty sweet. Instant speed allowed me to hold up counters, fill the yard by three while filtering, then cruise@1 a short time later. Unlike Thought Scour or other terrible cards, this has a reason to fill the grave; and with Shardless (and maybe Strix) you could easily toss an artifact and gain CA here.

It's a bit slow in a deck laden with 3 drops, but again, it's synergy with Cruise + semi-desirable artifact seems good while Shardless won't cascade into it (probably good.)

[btm10]

Has Thirst for Knowledge been tried, before or after Cruise?

I've been using it in casual (I know..) next to cruise and it's been pretty sweet. Instant speed allowed me to hold up counters, fill the yard by three while filtering, then cruise@1 a short time later. Unlike Thought Scour or other terrible cards, this has a reason to fill the grave; and with Shardless (and maybe Strix) you could easily toss an artifact and gain CA here.

It's a bit slow in a deck laden with 3 drops, but again, it's synergy with Cruise + semi-desirable artifact seems good while Shardless won't cascade into it (probably good.)

Thirst for Knowledge is the exact opposite of what we want. It's expensive, it's only conditionally good, and it's not Cascadeable. I'd rather run Manipulate Fate or Mana Severance, or another card that does something.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Thirst for Knowledge is the exact opposite of what we want. It's expensive, it's only conditionally good, and it's not Cascadeable. I'd rather run Manipulate Fate or Mana Severance, or another card that does something.

"I'd rather play Storm Crow than T4K"
-btm10

Has anyone tried Icefeather Aven? Maindeck S&T hate, cascadeable, pitches to Force, and it has evasion.

[infiniteJ]

So is Shardless actually dead?

[Klobster]

So is Shardless actually dead?

http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15254

No not at all.

[btm10]

"I'd rather play Storm Crow than T4K"
-btm10

Has anyone tried Icefeather Aven? Maindeck S&T hate, cascadeable, pitches to Force, and it has evasion.

It's pretty bad. Strix is also maindeck S&T hate (and is MD S&T hate unconditionally), is cascadeable, pitches to Force, has evasion, is an unusual card type, and is card advantage.


http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=15254

No not at all.

Glad to see this. Thanks for posting it.

[infiniteJ]

So is Shardless actually dead?

Played Shardless today in Atlanta. The deck is solid still.

2-0 vs infect
2-0 vs jund
2-0 vs TES
2-1 vs Enchantrass
2-0 vs UWr stoneblade
2-0 vs Lands
0-2 miracles (Win and in)
1-2 miracles (Win and in)
ID last round

The deck felt very smooth. I punted g3 of my last win and in. Hardcast force instead of pitching my second force to it. It was an autopilot play.

-IJ

[btm10]

Played Shardless today in Atlanta. The deck is solid still.

2-0 vs infect
2-0 vs jund
2-0 vs TES
2-1 vs Enchantrass
2-0 vs UWr stoneblade
2-0 vs Lands
0-2 miracles (Win and in)
1-2 miracles (Win and in)
ID last round

The deck felt very smooth. I punted g3 of my last win and in. Hardcast force instead of pitching my second force to it. It was an autopilot play.

-IJ

Sorry it didn't come together for you, especially dropping favorable matches in the win-and-ins. Do you mind posting your list?

[infiniteJ]

Sorry it didn't come together for you, especially dropping favorable matches in the win-and-ins. Do you mind posting your list?

4 shaman goyf agent
4 vision force brainstorm decay
2 jace
3 lily
2 deluge
1 pulse
1 sylvan
1 cruise
3 waste
1 tarpit
Forest swamp 10 fetch 6 dual

I used to run meddling Mage but wanted to fit in chills so sb:
2 chill
4 thoughtseize
2 duress
1 spellbomb
1 cage
1 needle
1 clique
2 disfigure
1 night of souls betrayal

I hate md discard. The clique was a flex spot and prob will go. The md pulse is a godsend. The sylvan and cruise were both solid to gamebreaking.

[SilkyPimP]

4 shaman goyf agent
4 vision force brainstorm decay
2 jace
3 lily
2 deluge
1 pulse
1 sylvan
1 cruise
3 waste
1 tarpit
Forest swamp 10 fetch 6 dual

I used to run meddling Mage but wanted to fit in chills so sb:
2 chill
4 thoughtseize
2 duress
1 spellbomb
1 cage
1 needle
1 clique
2 disfigure
1 night of souls betrayal

I hate md discard. The clique was a flex spot and prob will go. The md pulse is a godsend. The sylvan and cruise were both solid to gamebreaking.

Good job, I love this deck right now. I played it in ATL as well.I love the delver/maverick/D&T matchups ( E plague is awesome right now) I went 5-3-1 drawing first round against miracles in a looooong game 3. Beat 3 Delver decks/MUD/Miracles.
Losing to Hightide/S&T (mainboard blood moon) and a BUG loam/stifle/smallpox deck.

I think I spoke to you after your match with Chi Hoi. I have been running echoing truth in the board against Entreat/Marit Lage/Walkers/Etc. I played so many games in testing where I only lost because of a entreat/ Lage EOT

I also ran discard in board only.

So was the cruise good all day?
Is NOSB worth running over E plague?

Good luck in the future!

[infiniteJ]

It was great to meet you. Sorry I was way out of it after that long g1 and may not have been talkative. I think I played poorly g2 as a result too (not to mention having quite a bit of life total confusion). I too still think the deck is strong. I have not played the UR delver matchup though but it sounds like you've had good success there. Echoing truth certainly solves the angel problem nicely, but I want to try to find something more proactive. If I could just end the game a turn or two earlier each time... Maybe we need to run Thrun or Garruk or something but those seem so terrible.

Cruise was excellent every time I drew it. It used to be a ponder which I always hated. Ponder was good in theory and terrible in practice. I was very close to cutting the cruise for a 23rd land. Maybe that was right-too small a sample size to know for sure. What I do know is that a singleton cruise is not out of line in the list.

As to Night vs Plague. I much prefer night. It's a turn slower and hits your own men, but can completely lock out certain decks. UWR decks now needs to equip an 0/1 stoneforge or bolt you to do damage. It can hit v clique, tnn, and snapcaster. It's much better vs infect and it has added reach vs elves (hitting arbor and insects). I also like in theory that it hits the elementals AND the young pyro. I'm not sure I'll ever play enough to know for sure which is better though.


Good job, I love this deck right now. I played it in ATL as well.I love the delver/maverick/D&T matchups ( E plague is awesome right now) I went 5-3-1 drawing first round against miracles in a looooong game 3. Beat 3 Delver decks/MUD/Miracles.
Losing to Hightide/S&T (mainboard blood moon) and a BUG loam/stifle/smallpox deck.

I think I spoke to you after your match with Chi Hoi. I have been running echoing truth in the board against Entreat/Marit Lage/Walkers/Etc. I played so many games in testing where I only lost because of a entreat/ Lage EOT

I also ran discard in board only.

So was the cruise good all day?
Is NOSB worth running over E plague?

Good luck in the future!

[SilkyPimP]

It was great to meet you. Sorry I was way out of it after that long g1 and may not have been talkative. I think I played poorly g2 as a result too (not to mention having quite a bit of life total confusion). I too still think the deck is strong. I have not played the UR delver matchup though but it sounds like you've had good success there. Echoing truth certainly solves the angel problem nicely, but I want to try to find something more proactive. If I could just end the game a turn or two earlier each time... Maybe we need to run Thrun or Garruk or something but those seem so terrible.

Cruise was excellent every time I drew it. It used to be a ponder which I always hated. Ponder was good in theory and terrible in practice. I was very close to cutting the cruise for a 23rd land. Maybe that was right-too small a sample size to know for sure. What I do know is that a singleton cruise is not out of line in the list.

As to Night vs Plague. I much prefer night. It's a turn slower and hits your own men, but can completely lock out certain decks. UWR decks now needs to equip an 0/1 stoneforge or bolt you to do damage. It can hit v clique, tnn, and snapcaster. It's much better vs infect and it has added reach vs elves (hitting arbor and insects). I also like in theory that it hits the elementals AND the young pyro. I'm not sure I'll ever play enough to know for sure which is better though.

Like wise, I totally know how that can be no explanations needed. Was so happy to see another shardless deck doing well. Hate how the entreat can just pull them out of losing after grinding them out so hard. I really like your duress/thoughtsieze out the board, I feel discard is really bad right now main. Hymn as much as I love it, I am unsure about it "feeding" treasure cruise Vs Taking the cruise with it/ We all know how mean Hymn and deathrite on turn 2 can be.
In Dallas I ran 3 thoughtseize/2 hymn/3 Lily main when true name was released. Now I am more Blue based lol.


This is my current list I am thinking of running at the invitational.

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Baleful Strix
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Ancestral Vision
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Wasteland
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Force of Will
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Treasure Cruise

Cards I am playing with sideboading
SB: 1 E plauge.
SB: 1 Night of Souls Betrayal
SB: 1 echoing truth
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Liliana of the Veil
SB: 1 Garruk, the Veil-Cursed
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Disfigure
SB: 1 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Seal of Primordium
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 chill

[Requiem2]

Took down a local, and split the last round. Deck felt strong against Delver and stoneblade variants. Visions got sided out nearly every g2/g3. The deck feels right with 2 disfigures, however it did sometimes make me play differently with agents. The 2 krosan grips have been really good agaisnt stone blade, infect, mud/post and omni matchups.

14 Creatures:
2 strix
4 tarmo/drs/agent

24 Spells:
4 bs/ad
3 av/fow
2 tc/disfigure/thoughtsieze/liliana
1 jace/toxic deluge

22 Land:
1 swamp/forest/tarpit
3 waste
9 fetches
7 duals

SB:
1 vendilion clique
1 fow
1 toxic deluge
1 inquisition of kosilek
1 graffdiggers cage
2 golgari charm
2 thoughtsieze
2 disfigure
2 krosan grip
2 nihil spell bomb

R1 rug delver 2-1
G1 I keep 1 lander with 2 drs, they get burned and I get wasted. G2/g3 drs/nihil keep him off thresh. Abrupt decay/lily with a strix wall get me there.

R2 Zombardment 2-1
T1 shaman into t2 agent into goyf get me there fast. G2 I miss land drops and get wasted out. G3 Early agents into double goyfs close it out.

R3 shardless bant 2-0
We trade counters and I disfigure his sfm, and decay equipment. Agents get me strix and he plows. Lily hits the board and clears his hand, then tarmo beats get me there. G2 Grindy, he casts sfm, and I remove them. He removes my tarmos. Abrupt decay deals with sfm, I have 2 krosan grip in hand and get his skull, he gets another sfm and gets a second skull which gets thoughtsiezed.

R4 death and taxes split

[hobart]

I'm really at odds with Treasure Cruise in this deck. It's obviously a bomb most of the time, and we usually have no problem filling the graveyard, but I just don't like the idea of having more graveyard dependent cards. Rest In Peace Blanks at least 8 of our threats (the main ones), so I don't really want it to blank some of my card draw tools as well. I think Shadless is actually well positioned right now in a sea of Cruise decks because it doesn't rely on the card that everyone is gunning for. I feel like if we're not paired against a Cruise deck (and I already like our match up against those by the sheer power of our spells) then we're almost guaranteed to be playing against either Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus, or something like it. Am I being irrational here with my fear of graveyard removal?

[btm10]

I'm really at odds with Treasure Cruise in this deck. It's obviously a bomb most of the time, and we usually have no problem filling the graveyard, but I just don't like the idea of having more graveyard dependent cards. Rest In Peace Blanks at least 8 of our threats (the main ones), so I don't really want it to blank some of my card draw tools as well. I think Shadless is actually well positioned right now in a sea of Cruise decks because it doesn't rely on the card that everyone is gunning for. I feel like if we're not paired against a Cruise deck (and I already like our match up against those by the sheer power of our spells) then we're almost guaranteed to be playing against either Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus, or something like it. Am I being irrational here with my fear of graveyard removal?

I think you're being a little irrational. Miracles is the only major deck that runs Rest in Peace at this point and it's both a favorable matchup and one where you'll likely have unconditional artifact and enchantment removal postboard. I'm not particularly scared of Leyline because it's asymmetric - you can still work out of your opponent's graveyard, and no one is going to mull to it against Shardless unless they're playing in all-in Leyline/Helm deck. As for Relic, it's pretty marginal. It can counter DRS activations, but can't blank Goyf for more than a single attack step. If we can beat Rest in Peace (and we clearly can), beating Relic is easy.

[tons of fun]

Creature:
2 true name
4 shardless agents
4 strix
4 deathrite

Spells:
2 thopter foundry
1 sword of meek
3 thoughtseize
2 liliana of the veil
2 jace the mind sculptor
2 dig through time
4 force of will
4 abrupt decay
4 brainstorm
2 ancestral vision

Lands:
1 creeping tar pit
4 under seas
3 tropical
2 bayou
2 verdant
2 misty rain forest
4 polluted delta
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp

Sideboard:
2 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
2 toxic deluge
2 maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.

this is the list i swept a tourny with

[tons of fun]

Creature:
2 true name
4 shardless agents
4 strix
4 deathrite

Spells:
2 thopter foundry
1 sword of meek
3 thoughtseize
2 liliana of the veil
2 jace the mind sculptor
2 dig through time
4 force of will
4 abrupt decay
4 brainstorm
2 ancestral vision

Lands:
1 creeping tar pit
4 under seas
3 tropical
2 bayou
2 verdant
2 misty rain forest
4 polluted delta
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp

Sideboard:
2 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
2 toxic deluge
2 maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.

this is the list i swept a tourny with

r1 2-1 sneak and show
r2 2-0 mavrick
r3 2-1 mavrick
r4 2-0 poison stompy
r5 id
r6 id

top 8
R7 2-1 mavrick
then slip top 4 took first at final resaults

[tescrin]

I've been toying a bit with Shardless Thopters. I stuck in Tezz for Jace (with a couple of Tops to meet the artifact demand for his +1) and I enjoyed it. I just have a hard time with the limited amount of removal.

How do you feel against D&T. I've been having an issue with a large influx of them between my decks; not necessarily losing; but grinding super long games and dealing with Voltron.

[tons of fun]

I've been toying a bit with Shardless Thopters. I stuck in Tezz for Jace (with a couple of Tops to meet the artifact demand for his +1) and I enjoyed it. I just have a hard time with the limited amount of removal.

How do you feel against D&T. I've been having an issue with a large influx of them between my decks; not necessarily losing; but grinding super long games and dealing with Voltron.

thats y i have the charms and the daluge plus the jitte
they wreck face pretty hard against thos decks

[nossirag]

thats y i have the charms and the daluge plus the jitte
they wreck face pretty hard against thos decks

I cant see a jitte in your list.
Did you play tarmos before switching to thopters?
Oh and I count 61 cards maindeck is that intentional?

[tons of fun]

I cant see a jitte in your list.
Did you play tarmos before switching to thopters?
Oh and I count 61 cards maindeck is that intentional?

Sideboard:
3 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
1 toxic deluge
1maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.
1 jitte

sorry that was the older sideboard and yes 61 was intentinal

[nossirag]

Sideboard:
3 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
1 toxic deluge
1maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.
1 jitte

sorry that was the older sideboard and yes 61 was intentinal
No worries.
I tried your list, but got the feeling the thopter package are often dead cards in hand. But once resolved it wrecks decks like U/r deliver.



I saw those both lists in the top16 at scg philly.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78481

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78475

Especially the one list running 2 courser seems interesting. Whats the reason for the coursers? Life gain, Body?
Additionally Ive thought about including garruk relentless, for shooting at delvers etc. and producing bodies to fight pyromancers. What do you think guys.

[tons of fun]

No worries.
I tried your list, but got the feeling the thopter package are often dead cards in hand. But once resolved it wrecks decks like U/r deliver.



I saw those both lists in the top16 at scg philly.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78481

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78475

Especially the one list running 2 courser seems interesting. Whats the reason for the coursers? Life gain, Body?
Additionally Ive thought about including garruk relentless, for shooting at delvers etc. and producing bodies to fight pyromancers. What do you think guys.

the thpter package i had great success it works by it self with ur creture base cuz everything s artifacts and i also like having the meek just to make true names 4/3 and if i am a deck its useless which is marick match ups u bored it out

[nossirag]

the thpter package i had great success it works by it self with ur creture base cuz everything s artifacts and i also like having the meek just to make true names 4/3 and if i am a deck its useless which is marick match ups u bored it out
Yeah it works. But I had several cases when I was holding the thopter foundry in hand vs U/ R wishing it was a Tarmo because it won't help the board alone.

[tons of fun]

Yeah it works. But I had several cases when I was holding the thopter foundry in hand vs U/ R wishing it was a Tarmo because it won't help the board alone.

Far but with shardless and strix shouldnt of too much troublewit u/r delver pluss if i was gonna change em they be jitte and bitterblossoms

[tons of fun]

Far but with shardless and strix shouldnt of too much troublewit u/r delver pluss if i was gonna change em they be jitte and bitterblossoms

Idd also been debating on the 2 black kill spell from commander 2014

[Kyle]

The primer is long overdue for an update. Here's what I'll be adding (minus descriptions):

- Treasure Cruise (duh)
- Dig Through Time
- Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek

Anything else y'all can think of?

[nossirag]

The primer is long overdue for an update. Here's what I'll be adding (minus descriptions):

- Treasure Cruise (duh)
- Dig Through Time
- Thopter Foundry / Sword of the Meek

Anything else y'all can think of?


cool!
here:
- running discard package or not
- different removal(Deluge, Disfigure, etv.)
- Different creatures bases: Adding Cliques, Tnn, Courser of Kruphix
- Different Mainboard 1ofs: Sylvan Library, Umezawas Jitte
- Landbase: Wasteland or not, Manlands.
- Sideboard: Meddling Mage package
- Planeswalkers or not

That are the questions Im thinking about at the moment. Maybe something for the primer.

[tons of fun]

cool!
here:
- running discard package or not
- different removal(Deluge, Disfigure, etv.)
- Different creatures bases: Adding Cliques, Tnn, Courser of Kruphix
- Different Mainboard 1ofs: Sylvan Library, Umezawas Jitte
- Landbase: Wasteland or not, Manlands.
- Sideboard: Meddling Mage packagem
- Planeswalkers or not

That are the questions Im thinking about at the moment. Maybe something for the primer.

Muderous affliction

[wcm8]

Since this deck already splashes White for Meddling Mage in the sideboard, wouldn't Containment Priest be another powerful option? It hurts various combo decks without really negatively effecting our own strategy.

I have a feeling that the next B/R announcement may bring this deck back to Tier 1...

[Kyle]

I have a feeling that the next B/R announcement may bring this deck back to Tier 1...

Did you just play Preordian or something?

That's a mighty big presumption...

[nossirag]

Since this deck already splashes White for Meddling Mage in the sideboard, wouldn't Containment Priest be another powerful option? It hurts various combo decks without really negatively effecting our own strategy.

I have a feeling that the next B/R announcement may bring this deck back to Tier 1...


Very good suggestion. I'm going to try 2 in the sideboard and see how that works out.

[wcm8]

Very good suggestion. I'm going to try 2 in the sideboard and see how that works out.

Yes, the White splash goes a long way towards helping defeat combo. Containment Priest comes in against some of the most difficult problems for this deck: Sneak and Show, Dredge, GSZ/Natural Order, Reanimator, Aether Vial... The fact that it is cascade-able *and* functions as a clock makes it even better.

The way I see it, the Lejay approach to building the deck is correct: the maindeck is constructed to beat every 'fair' strategy pre-side, and the sideboard goes a bit overboard with dealing with combo via Meddling Mage, targeted Discard, Containment Priest, and various bomb singletons (e.g. Null Rod) to win games 2 and 3. Sometimes you can steal game 1 here and there against combo due to them fizzling and/or a timely FoW + Liliana or whatever.

Regarding the current format: Rest in Peace is at an all-time low right now due to people wanting to abuse Treasure Cruise, making BUG strategies better than they formerly were. While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here. Popular token-generating creatures like Young Pyromancer and the soon-to-be-released Monastery Mentor aren't too problematic as Black has plenty of ways with dealing with X/1 creatures: Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and various Enchantments (e.g. Night of Souls' Betrayal, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, etc.). Sure, Liliana isn't quite the bomb she used to be, but she's still fantastic against UW(r) Miracles and certain Delver strategies which remain popular.

The reason BUG hasn't been as popular is likely due to the common perception that other decks can slot in 4 TCruise and have virtually the same sort of card advantage without having to play clunky cards like Shardless Agent and Ancestral Visions. The flaw in this view is that playing a lot of filler cards like Gitaxian Probe to fuel TC and refill your hand isn't necessarily as powerful as working towards the endgame board-state that BUG permits. Drawing 3 cards is powerful, but not that amazing if you're only getting more cantrips or Daze in the late-game.

[nossirag]

Yes, the White splash goes a long way towards helping defeat combo. Containment Priest comes in against some of the most difficult problems for this deck: Sneak and Show, Dredge, GSZ/Natural Order, Reanimator, Aether Vial... The fact that it is cascade-able *and* functions as a clock makes it even better.

The way I see it, the Lejay approach to building the deck is correct: the maindeck is constructed to beat every 'fair' strategy pre-side, and the sideboard goes a bit overboard with dealing with combo via Meddling Mage, targeted Discard, Containment Priest, and various bomb singletons (e.g. Null Rod) to win games 2 and 3. Sometimes you can steal game 1 here and there against combo due to them fizzling and/or a timely FoW + Liliana or whatever.

Regarding the current format: Rest in Peace is at an all-time low right now due to people wanting to abuse Treasure Cruise, making BUG strategies better than they formerly were. While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here. Popular token-generating creatures like Young Pyromancer and the soon-to-be-released Monastery Mentor aren't too problematic as Black has plenty of ways with dealing with X/1 creatures: Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and various Enchantments (e.g. Night of Souls' Betrayal, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, etc.). Sure, Liliana isn't quite the bomb she used to be, but she's still fantastic against UW(r) Miracles and certain Delver strategies which remain popular.

The reason BUG hasn't been as popular is likely due to the common perception that other decks can slot in 4 TCruise and have virtually the same sort of card advantage without having to play clunky cards like Shardless Agent and Ancestral Visions. The flaw in this view is that playing a lot of filler cards like Gitaxian Probe to fuel TC and refill your hand isn't necessarily as powerful as working towards the endgame board-state that BUG permits. Drawing 3 cards is powerful, but not that amazing if you're only getting more cantrips or Daze in the late-game.


Very true words my friend, I can agree with everything you wrote. Ive been building my sideboard like this for quite some time now and I couldnt be happier with it.
Also I can absolutely agree on why BUG has been on the decline; drawing helps you to win the game, but it doesnt win the game alone. I feel there is still a lot of room in magic in terms of raw card quality vs drawing quantity and how to balance that and Ive always felt, even with Visions not being the best draw card anymore, that shardless got this balance quite right.

Edit: I saw someone on reddit posting how shardless did at the last scg legacy in philly, might be interesting for some:
"Shardless Sultai was involved in 12 matches, going 7-5 overall. It beat Elves, Grixis Control, Jeskai Stoneblade, Maverick, Miracles, Sneak and Show, and U/R Delver once each. It lost to Bant Deathblade, Elves, Grixis Control, Lands, and Storm once each."

[btm10]

Yes, the White splash goes a long way towards helping defeat combo. Containment Priest comes in against some of the most difficult problems for this deck: Sneak and Show, Dredge, GSZ/Natural Order, Reanimator, Aether Vial... The fact that it is cascade-able *and* functions as a clock makes it even better.

The way I see it, the Lejay approach to building the deck is correct: the maindeck is constructed to beat every 'fair' strategy pre-side, and the sideboard goes a bit overboard with dealing with combo via Meddling Mage, targeted Discard, Containment Priest, and various bomb singletons (e.g. Null Rod) to win games 2 and 3. Sometimes you can steal game 1 here and there against combo due to them fizzling and/or a timely FoW + Liliana or whatever.

Regarding the current format: Rest in Peace is at an all-time low right now due to people wanting to abuse Treasure Cruise, making BUG strategies better than they formerly were. While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here. Popular token-generating creatures like Young Pyromancer and the soon-to-be-released Monastery Mentor aren't too problematic as Black has plenty of ways with dealing with X/1 creatures: Toxic Deluge, Golgari Charm, and various Enchantments (e.g. Night of Souls' Betrayal, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, etc.). Sure, Liliana isn't quite the bomb she used to be, but she's still fantastic against UW(r) Miracles and certain Delver strategies which remain popular.

The reason BUG hasn't been as popular is likely due to the common perception that other decks can slot in 4 TCruise and have virtually the same sort of card advantage without having to play clunky cards like Shardless Agent and Ancestral Visions. The flaw in this view is that playing a lot of filler cards like Gitaxian Probe to fuel TC and refill your hand isn't necessarily as powerful as working towards the endgame board-state that BUG permits. Drawing 3 cards is powerful, but not that amazing if you're only getting more cantrips or Daze in the late-game.

I haven't tried Priest (I've actually dumped the White splash), but I'll definitely give it a shot. I was going to say that I've done some testing with Nourish as a sideboard option against Burn and UR, and it's been very good, especially against Burn. I've also been running 2 Dig Through Time and it's been incredible.

Also, I ran Quirion Dryad a long time ago (before I got Goyfs), and they were frequently just as good. They're definitely better in the early game than they are late, but they're pretty good whenever you draw them, and they also are nearly impossible to burn out if you get to untap with one in play. I might run one (or even two) as a thirteenth creature in my next event.


Very true words my friend, I can agree with everything you wrote. Ive been building my sideboard like this for quite some time now and I couldnt be happier with it.
Also I can absolutely agree on why BUG has been on the decline; drawing helps you to win the game, but it doesnt win the game alone. I feel there is still a lot of room in magic in terms of raw card quality vs drawing quantity and how to balance that and Ive always felt, even with Visions not being the best draw card anymore, that shardless got this balance quite right.

Edit: I saw someone on reddit posting how shardless did at the last scg legacy in philly, might be interesting for some:
"Shardless Sultai was involved in 12 matches, going 7-5 overall. It beat Elves, Grixis Control, Jeskai Stoneblade, Maverick, Miracles, Sneak and Show, and U/R Delver once each. It lost to Bant Deathblade, Elves, Grixis Control, Lands, and Storm once each."

I didn't see any of the webcast of the tournament, but there were two copies of Shardless in the top 16. Very different lists; my current configuration is close to Rudy Briksza's, but Joseph Herrera seemed to do pretty well with two MD Courser of Kruphix as well.

[DOM]

Good news everyone! I have almost completed this deck (plus BUG Delver) as I only need to wait for my Force of Wills and Underground Seas to arrive.

In the meantime I have been practising on Cockatrice. I used a pretty standard list and modified it as I seen fit. One of the newest changes was adding a singleton Treasure Cruise instead of the 4th Ancestral Vision. Understandably, the singleton Treasure Cruise was rather awful because this deck does not play a ton of non-creature spells and various Death and Taxes taxations as well as post-board graveyard hate made it even worse, thus I have replaced TC with Sylvan Library which has been great so far. And how do you fare with Dig Through Time?

My metagame is full of fair (Tempo, Aggro, Midrange, Control) decks and features a very little amount of Combo (I am excluding Dredge which is fairly common because I pack a legitimate amount of graveyard hate in sideboards of all my decks, thus Dredge has always been "lose the first game and win two others" thing for me). Though there is a chance to bump into Jund, which is not a good matchup for Shardless and the currently low amount of Burn decks can increase, though the "Burn era" has ended for quite some time due to the growth of the metagame. Another important factor is the high likelihood of meeting Death and Taxes, which can sometimes be troublesome (although testing proved this matchup to be in my favour). All in all, Shardless BUG seems suitable for my metagame as long as I am able to improve my chances against less favourable matchups post sideboard.

Here's my current sideboard:

1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Dread of Night
1x Duress
1x Pithing Needle
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Chill
1x Null Rod
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Baleful Strix
1x Golgari Charm
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Engineered Plague
1x Force of Will

I do not think that Meddling Mage package is necessary due to the low amount of Combo, but I could add it as long as you find enough room for 4-7 cards (if I add Containment Priests the white splash demands more slots) if you think I should do so. Any other suggestions are greatly appreciated!

And here's my 60 (for the full view of current 75):

4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Polluted Delta
3x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
2x Misty Rainforest
2x Creeping Tar Pit
2x Wasteland
1x Swamp

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Baleful Strix
4x Shardless Agent

3x Ancestral Vision
3x Thoughtseize
4x Brainstorm
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Sylvan Library
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Toxic Deluge
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Force of Will

I will be having TNNs, Vendilion Clique and whatnot at my disposal, so feel free to suggest anything that is worth inclusion.

Thank you for your time.

[Kyle]

While I think Ancestral Visions is the better card for this deck over Treasure Cruise, 1-2 Dig Through Time are a possibility here.

First note: I am running a Thopter Foundry list and have been loving it. I have dropped 'Goyfs in favor of Strixes and TNNs and until this delve fiasco goes by the wayside (which it probably won't) and I will not be returning to 'Goyfs for a while.

Getting that out of the way, adding 2 Dig Through Times has been absolutely wonderful and is very often a game-changer (hurray repetition of information). It is a perfect compliment to the other CA engines in this list, as well as a great mid- to late-game filter. I think Shardless BUG needs good quality filtering over an un-cascadable Sorcery-speed draw 3. I absolutely love Digging mid-game EOT on my opponent's turn and grabbing another Shardless and a Jace, and putting the rest of the crap underneath to help "clear the way" for Shardless (this happens 80% of the time and I guess it's just my luck).

For Shardless BUG, bringing on 2 more TRULY excellent ways to interact with the stack is important. Dig fits the bill for me. I'm not saying Treasure Cruise ain't good in this deck, because it certainly can be. I just find Dig to be better, faster, and stronger.

[tons of fun]

First note: I am running a Thopter Foundry list and have been loving it. I have dropped 'Goyfs in favor of Strixes and TNNs and until this delve fiasco goes by the wayside (which it probably won't) and I will not be returning to 'Goyfs for a while.

Getting that out of the way, adding 2 Dig Through Times has been absolutely wonderful and is very often a game-changer (hurray repetition of information). It is a perfect compliment to the other CA engines in this list, as well as a great mid- to late-game filter. I think Shardless BUG needs good quality filtering over an un-cascadable Sorcery-speed draw 3. I absolutely love Digging mid-game EOT on my opponent's turn and grabbing another Shardless and a Jace, and putting the rest of the crap underneath to help "clear the way" for Shardless (this happens 80% of the time and I guess it's just my luck).

For Shardless BUG, bringing on 2 more TRULY excellent ways to interact with the stack is important. Dig fits the bill for me. I'm not saying Treasure Cruise ain't good in this deck, because it certainly can be. I just find Dig to be better, faster, and stronger.

makes me happy to see my point of veiw on the digs and the thopter combo peices

[Kyle]

makes me happy to see my point of veiw on the digs and the thopter combo peices

People I play against actually get annoyed with the amount of targets they have to counter or destroy. It's kinda like Maverick back in the day.

[tons of fun]

People I play against actually get annoyed with the amount of targets they have to counter or destroy. It's kinda like Maverick back in the day.

its great

[Arksz]

First note: I am running a Thopter Foundry list and have been loving it. I have dropped 'Goyfs in favor of Strixes and TNNs and until this delve fiasco goes by the wayside (which it probably won't) and I will not be returning to 'Goyfs for a while.

Getting that out of the way, adding 2 Dig Through Times has been absolutely wonderful and is very often a game-changer (hurray repetition of information). It is a perfect compliment to the other CA engines in this list, as well as a great mid- to late-game filter. I think Shardless BUG needs good quality filtering over an un-cascadable Sorcery-speed draw 3. I absolutely love Digging mid-game EOT on my opponent's turn and grabbing another Shardless and a Jace, and putting the rest of the crap underneath to help "clear the way" for Shardless (this happens 80% of the time and I guess it's just my luck).

For Shardless BUG, bringing on 2 more TRULY excellent ways to interact with the stack is important. Dig fits the bill for me. I'm not saying Treasure Cruise ain't good in this deck, because it certainly can be. I just find Dig to be better, faster, and stronger.

Thopter list sounds fun, would you mind posting a deck list?

[tons of fun]

Thopter list sounds fun, would you mind posting a deck list?

Creature:
2 true name
4 shardless agents
4 strix
4 deathrite

Spells:
2 thopter foundry
1 sword of meek
3 thoughtseize
2 liliana of the veil
2 jace the mind sculptor
2 dig through time
4 force of will
4 abrupt decay
4 brainstorm
2 ancestral vision

Lands:
1 creeping tar pit
4 under seas
3 tropical
2 bayou
2 verdant
2 misty rain forest
4 polluted delta
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp

Sideboard:
3 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
1 toxic deluge
1 maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.
1 jitte

this is the list i swept a tourny with
r1 2-1 sneak and show
r2 2-0 mavrick
r3 2-1 mavrick
r4 2-0 poison stompy
r5 id
r6 id

top 8
R7 2-1 mavrick
then slip top 4 took first at final resaults

[nossirag]

guys, I think we are back in the T1/Decks to beat business!
:cool:

[wcm8]

Just as I predicted, Treasure Cruise is banned (also, Worldgorger Dragon is unbanned).

Some speculation:
-There will probably be way less maindeck Pyroblasts.
-Ancestral Vision returns to being the most efficient method of drawing 3 cards.
-Discard in general is powerful again -- Hymn to Tourach and Liliana of the Veil are now much more playable since the opponent can't just chain Draw 3's back-to-back to recover from discard.
-Some decks will try to just jam 4 Dig Through Time as replacement, but DTT is better in certain types of decks and not quite as broken in aggressive decks. DTT is +1 cards for UU instead of +2 for U -- a fairly significant difference. (Of course, BUG can still play 1-2 DTT itself.)
-The number of UR aggressive decks will likely subside significantly, which was often a poor matchup for BUG -- particularly lists running Price of Progress and Blood Moon.
-The 'velocity' of the format in general may slow down.
-Miracles may come back in force, one of Shardless BUG's best matchups.
-Some brewers might try to 'break' Wordlgorger, making turn 1 Deathrite Shaman an amazing play (it always is). Abrupt Decay also answers Animate Dead.
-Rest in Peace might become more common, an obvious negative for BUG.
-Even so, Tarmogoyf will likely become more common -- making Abrupt Decay better.
-Nimble Mongoose will also see play again -- making DRS and Liliana of the Veil + other edict effects better.
-Even though UR(x) strategies are weakened by the loss of Treasure Cruise, Young Pyromancer + Monastery Mentor are still potent threats that will see play. Sweeper effects such as Toxic Deluge and Golgari Charm are effective answers.

Overall, I'd say it's a net gain for BUG -- Shardless and Delver tempo styles both benefit from Treasure Cruise getting axed.

[LarsLeif]

Just as I predicted, Treasure Cruise is banned (also, Worldgorger Dragon is unbanned).

Some speculation:
-There will probably be way less maindeck Pyroblasts.
-Ancestral Vision returns to being the most efficient method of drawing 3 cards.
-Discard in general is powerful again -- Hymn to Tourach and Liliana of the Veil are now much more playable since the opponent can't just chain Draw 3's back-to-back to recover from discard.
-Some decks will try to just jam 4 Dig Through Time as replacement, but DTT is better in certain types of decks and not quite as broken in aggressive decks. DTT is +1 cards for UU instead of +2 for U -- a fairly significant difference. (Of course, BUG can still play 1-2 DTT itself.)
-The number of UR aggressive decks will likely subside significantly, which was often a poor matchup for BUG -- particularly lists running Price of Progress and Blood Moon.
-The 'velocity' of the format in general may slow down.
-Miracles may come back in force, one of Shardless BUG's best matchups.
-Some brewers might try to 'break' Wordlgorger, making turn 1 Deathrite Shaman an amazing play (it always is). Abrupt Decay also answers Animate Dead.
-Rest in Peace might become more common, an obvious negative for BUG.
-Even so, Tarmogoyf will likely become more common -- making Abrupt Decay better.
-Nimble Mongoose will also see play again -- making DRS and Liliana of the Veil + other edict effects better.
-Even though UR(x) strategies are weakened by the loss of Treasure Cruise, Young Pyromancer + Monastery Mentor are still potent threats that will see play. Sweeper effects such as Toxic Deluge and Golgari Charm are effective answers.

Overall, I'd say it's a net gain for BUG -- Shardless and Delver tempo styles both benefit from Treasure Cruise getting axed.

For sure, it feels great to be back. Although I never found RiP to be any real concern, just another target for AD that complements the main strategy of playing 1for1/2for1 and then reload with AV. I know of a lot of Miracles players for example that don't even bring them in against us.

[TheHeff]

So great to be able to break out my Shardless deck again! Before the TC era I was playing a fairly stock list (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/19-01-15-tNh-shardless-bug/), but with this sideboard:

2x Chill
2x Disfigure
1x Golgari Charm
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Null Rod
1x Pithing Needle
2x Thoughtseize (2 main)

I remember not being 100% thrilled with Chill sideboard, if you could land one early though Burn became an almost trivial matchup. With a potential influx of modern players looking to buy into a "more eternal" format after the Pod banning, I'm wondering if I should keep them in for a few weeks if people keep trying to jam the UR Delver shell or Burn. Maybe keep it a little more flexible with another Charm + Strix? Any thoughts?

[btm10]

I remember not being 100% thrilled with Chill sideboard, if you could land one early though Burn became an almost trivial matchup. With a potential influx of modern players looking to buy into a "more eternal" format after the Pod banning, I'm wondering if I should keep them in for a few weeks if people keep trying to jam the UR Delver shell or Burn. Maybe keep it a little more flexible with another Charm + Strix? Any thoughts?

I've been testing Nourish in the Chill slots and it's been good. It's like another Hymn that always hits two Bolts. The big gain is that it's good no matter when you draw it.

[MrShine]

Creature:
2 true name
4 shardless agents
4 strix
4 deathrite

Spells:
2 thopter foundry
1 sword of meek
3 thoughtseize
2 liliana of the veil
2 jace the mind sculptor
2 dig through time
4 force of will
4 abrupt decay
4 brainstorm
2 ancestral vision

Lands:
1 creeping tar pit
4 under seas
3 tropical
2 bayou
2 verdant
2 misty rain forest
4 polluted delta
1 forest
1 island
1 swamp

Sideboard:
3 chills
2 brain freeze
3 flusterstorm
2 leyline of the void
1 toxic deluge
1 maelstrom pulse
2 golgari charm.
1 jitte

this is the list i swept a tourny with
r1 2-1 sneak and show
r2 2-0 mavrick
r3 2-1 mavrick
r4 2-0 poison stompy
r5 id
r6 id

top 8
R7 2-1 mavrick
then slip top 4 took first at final resaults

This looks like TONS OF FUN. Actually. Awesome stuff!


---



Edit - What's going on with the Brainfreeze in the SB?

[drocker23]

This is Gary Wong's list from September 2014 which I feel is quite the STOCK list. I was thinking about just starting from here. I'm gonna be taking it with me to a local tournament this weekend because I think it could do very well. I probably won't play the swamp because I'm not really afraid of wasteland or blood moon going into this event. Other than that the only thing I can't decide is whether or not to make room for Dig Through Time, how many, and what to cut for it. Any other changes I need to consider going into this event with the recent bannings?

22 LANDS

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp

14 CREATURES

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix

20 INSTANTS and SORC.

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Maelstrom Pulse

4 OTHER SPELLS

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

SIDEBOARD

1 Force of Will
1 Thoughtseize
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Hydroblast
2 Golgari Charm
2 Disfigure
1 Flusterstorm
1 Vendilion Clique

[tons of fun]

This looks like TONS OF FUN. Actually. Awesome stuff!


---



Edit - What's going on with the Brainfreeze in the SB?

well its for miricales and set up style decks fucks there top order all up

[btm10]

well its for miricales and set up style decks fucks there top order all up

Isn't Dimir Charm strictly better at doing that?

[James_Nguyen]

I still wouldnt play chill in the board to beat burn. i still think that they can beat through a chill. The deck is pretty slow

[nossirag]

This is Gary Wong's list from September 2014 which I feel is quite the STOCK list. I was thinking about just starting from here. I'm gonna be taking it with me to a local tournament this weekend because I think it could do very well. I probably won't play the swamp because I'm not really afraid of wasteland or blood moon going into this event. Other than that the only thing I can't decide is whether or not to make room for Dig Through Time, how many, and what to cut for it. Any other changes I need to consider going into this event with the recent bannings?

22 LANDS

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp

14 CREATURES

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 Baleful Strix

20 INSTANTS and SORC.

4 Brainstorm
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
2 Thoughtseize
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Maelstrom Pulse

4 OTHER SPELLS

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

SIDEBOARD

1 Force of Will
1 Thoughtseize
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Hydroblast
2 Golgari Charm
2 Disfigure
1 Flusterstorm
1 Vendilion Clique


I would add the dig you mentioned and either 1 more Liliana or 1 Toxic Deluge. Additionally I would run the meddling package SB.
Also the Strixes might get cut, but thats meta dependent.
I probably cut some discard. As I and some other guys were running shardless without discard before TC happenned.
Im going to play a small FNM in a few hours, going to post list and results tomorrow.

[drocker23]

I would add the dig you mentioned and either 1 more Liliana or 1 Toxic Deluge. Additionally I would run the meddling package SB.
Also the Strixes might get cut, but thats meta dependent.
I probably cut some discard. As I and some other guys were running shardless without discard before TC happenned.
Im going to play a small FNM in a few hours, going to post list and results tomorrow.


Thanks, I would really appreciate that.

[drocker23]

I was looking at this list from Grand Prix Trail New Jersey by Nick Diprinzio, and I kind of like. The Dig Through Time main is pretty spicy. Although it's been a long time since I've played with Shardless BUG and having no board wipe and no answer to batterskull main is a little unsettling. The sideboard looks pretty decent in regards to the meta I'm expecting: Delver variants, Sneak and Show, Death and Taxes, Burn, Elves, some TNN type decks, and UB Tezzeret. So far the only change I've made to the list, is that I have cut the 4th Thoughtseize in the board for a Massacre. I don't know, what do you guys think about this list?

22 LANDS

4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Swamp

14 CREATURES

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix

20 INSTANTS and SORC.

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Force of Will
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dig Through Time

4 OTHER SPELLS

2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SIDEBOARD

1 Force of Will
1 Baleful Strix
1 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
2 Chill
2 Disfigure
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Golgari Charm

[drocker23]

I still wouldnt play chill in the board to beat burn. i still think that they can beat through a chill. The deck is pretty slow

Gerry Thompson mentioned you and your decklist in an article recently. http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30147_The-End-Of-An-Era.html

He said that if he were to play this deck again post bannings, he would start with your list and use it as a template. So my question is what would your list look like post bannings?

Here is the list for reference

Shardless Sultai

James Nguyen

6th Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 12/7/2014

Legacy

Creatures (14)

1 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf

Planeswalkers (3)

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (22)

1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland

Spells (21)

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
2 Disfigure
3 Force of Will
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Treasure Cruise

Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Notion Thief
1 Disfigure
1 Flusterstorm
1 Force of Will
1 Golgari Charm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Massacre
1 Thoughtseize

[TheHeff]

I was looking at this list from Grand Prix Trail New Jersey by Nick Diprinzio, and I kind of like. The Dig Through Time main is pretty spicy. Although it's been a long time since I've played with Shardless BUG and having no board wipe and no answer to batterskull main is a little unsettling. The sideboard looks pretty decent in regards to the meta I'm expecting: Delver variants, Sneak and Show, Death and Taxes, Burn, Elves, some TNN type decks, and UB Tezzeret. So far the only change I've made to the list, is that I have cut the 4th Thoughtseize in the board for a Massacre. I don't know, what do you guys think about this list?

22 LANDS

4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland
2 Bayou
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Swamp

14 CREATURES

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix

20 INSTANTS and SORC.

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Ancestral Vision
3 Force of Will
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dig Through Time

4 OTHER SPELLS

2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SIDEBOARD

1 Force of Will
1 Baleful Strix
1 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize
2 Chill
2 Disfigure
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Golgari Charm

Your list looks very similar to mine (you can find the full list in my sig) but with a few minor changes. I remember the talk about this argument from awhile back, but it comes down to how weak you want your MD to be against combo G1. I prefer the 4 FoW/2 Thoughtseize/3 Lili/1 Maelstrom Pulse disruption package main, then I stick 2 Thoughtseize/2 Hymn SB for more discard. Even against fair decks G1 (where you would most likely side out your FoW), there are always force targets and when you need Force, you REALLY want to have 4. I've found Hymn to be more of a liability main, but that's not to say it's not a ridiculous card but 99/100 times it's dead lategame. SB looks almost identical to mine, but am considering switching the Chill's out for something like Flusterstorm. Bad cascade, but a very good card for counterwars, stifle decks (which will see an uptick) and stops Storm cold. I would also consider adding at least one Pithing Needle (maybe for that 3rd Strix or Hymn) since it's so versatile. Just my 2c!

[tons of fun]

isn't dimir charm strictly better at doing that?

dimir charm doenst get around balance on 2 were the strom copies do do that

[drocker23]

Here is another list I would like to explore. I think you could ease up on the GY hate now that Treasure Cruise is gone. And I'm not sure if Pernicious Deed is needed, but overall the deck has a lot of elements of the classic versions of this deck as well as Dig Through Time to find specific sideboard cards and to keep the card advantage train rolling. Sideboard elements similar to Lejay's creation, although now with Containment Priest. Could be interesting to test out. Any thoughts?

Shardless Sultai

Rudy Briksza

13th Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 1/10/2015
Legacy

Creatures (12)

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf

Planeswalkers (3)

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (22)

1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wasteland

Spells (23)

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Ancestral Vision
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge

Sideboard

2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Containment Priest
2 Meddling Mage
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scrubland

[btm10]

dimir charm doenst get around balance on 2 were the strom copies do do that

Charm is also maindeckable and has other modes that do relevant things. Brain Freeze is good in no other matchups (aside from High Tide, I guess) and is pretty marginal against Miracles. And Counterbalance? Seriously? That's what you're worried about?


I still wouldnt play chill in the board to beat burn. i still think that they can beat through a chill. The deck is pretty slow

This is basically my argument for Nourish from above; I think the real question at this point is "is it even worth boarding for Burn?" rather than "what's the best sideboard card for Burn?".

[tons of fun]

Charm is also maindeckable and has other modes that do relevant things. Brain Freeze is good in no other matchups (aside from High Tide, I guess) and is pretty marginal against Miracles. And Counterbalance? Seriously? That's what you're worried about?



This is basically my argument for Nourish from above; I think the real question at this point is "is it even worth boarding for Burn?" rather than "what's the best sideboard card for Burn?".

charms other modes are just not as good as they should be and 2 it keeps the top draws off line so they cant end of the turn top draw entreat for the win see the point of a sideboard is to have cards that help specific match ups and guess what it helps against not only mircles it does wonders against show and tell decks especialy the brainstorm that responds to the thoughts seize i mean it works for what i want it for it does wonders its a bigger impact then u think cuz u mill and hit one maybe 2 entreats is huge against them cuz u can beat them in the grind match with miracles easily its the entreat u dont want to happen at the end of ur turn