[Deck] MonoU OmniTell

[Jessenator]

vs counterbalance you can enter the infinite and if they have a 2 drop for ants you can play emrakul take the extra turn, annihilate their counterbalance and then kill them next turn.
alternatively, after you annihilate them you can cunning wish for noxious revival, put ants on top, draw them with gitaxian probe or ponder and then ants them out.

Or you could just Trickbind the CB Trigger.

[Tom T]

Or you could just Trickbind the CB Trigger.

I don't think Trickbind will work on a Counterbalance floating a 2-drop. Noxious Revival could handle this situation, but only until the opponent clashes a new 2-drop. A Rushing River or Emrakul will seal the deal in this case.

[phazonmutant]

from the OP. imo def seems better except in CB situations, but in cb situations you have trickbind or at least potential to trickbind.

vs counterbalance you can enter the infinite and if they have a 2 drop for ants you can play emrakul take the extra turn, annihilate their counterbalance and then kill them next turn.
alternatively, after you annihilate them you can cunning wish for noxious revival, put ants on top, draw them with gitaxian probe or ponder and then ants them out.

Or you could just Trickbind the CB Trigger.

I know it's difficult to remember as far back as a week ago, but we already had this discussion. Emidln posted a very comprehensive guide to beating Counterbalance after Entering. Summary: Cunning Wish for Rushing River / Wipe Away. Bounce Counterbalance. Then Cunning Wish for Ants. Come on, this isn't hard.

Also, Trickbind the CB trigger? What is that supposed to accomplish, wasting a Cunning Wish?

Edit:
Didn't see Tom T's post before I submitted. Props to Tom T for knowing how Cunning Wish works.

[apple713]

vs counterbalance you can enter the infinite and if they have a 2 drop for ants you can play emrakul take the extra turn, annihilate their counterbalance and then kill them next turn.
alternatively, after you annihilate them you can cunning wish for noxious revival, put ants on top, draw them with gitaxian probe or ponder and then ants them out.

has anyone tested Emrakul vs lab maniac?

they both lose to humility

maniac loses to

cb maybe (trickbind answers this)
humility
split second removal (these arnt played commonly in any format)


emrakul loses to

ensnaring bridge
peacekeeper
humility
better board presence




both are very narrow. cb and better board presence seem to be the most likely of all the options and i guess its just personal preference at that point.

Does CB have that many 3 drops typically? vendilion and entreat? is that enough to make lab maniac not the preferred method?

[Anusien]

Maniac actually doesn't lose to Humility. I assume you run it in your sideboard and access it with Research. If you do, you just put your bounce spell in the cards you put into your library with Research it, draw it with one of your abundant draw spells from Enter the Infinite and bounce the Humility before you go off. Also split second removal doesn't necessarily beat Laboratory Maniac. Let's say you cast Laboratory Maniac. Then you cast Ponder and they respond with Wipe Away. You let Wipe Away resolve, then counter your Ponder. Then you can cast Laboratory Maniac again. If they kill it somehow, you just wish for Noxious Revival and then draw it and recast it.

Emrakul does a different thing than Laboratory Maniac. It doesn't compete with either Release the Ants OR Laboratory Maniac. Emrakul is your extra, maindeck win condition. You can run Release the Ants without Emrakul and you can run Laboratory Maniac with Emrakul.

[Tom T]

has anyone tested Emrakul vs lab maniac?

I guess Lejay did. Emrakul enables extra lines (like when you don't have your EtI), Lab Maniac doesn't. Lab only wins post-EtI and those games are won anyway because of the Cunning Wish.
The only time Emrakul is used post-EtI is in case of specific hate permanents and a lot of those hate permanents aren't solved by a Lab Maniac.



they both lose to humility

maniac loses to

cb maybe (trickbind answers this) No, Rushing River or Emrakul
humility No, Release the Ants or Rushing River
split second removal (these arnt played commonly in any format) Emrakul (has protection from colored spells), Release the Ants


emrakul loses to

ensnaring bridge No, Rushing River/Release the Ants plan
peacekeeper No, Rushing River/Slaughter Pact/Sapphire Charm/Release the Ants plan
humility No, Rushing River or Release the Ants plan
better board presence No, Rushing River->Cunning Wish->Noxious Revival(Rushing River)->Ponder->Rushing River->attack with Emrakul (10 permanents gone+ 15 damage) or Release the Ants plan


The more I read this thread the more I think the deck shouldn't be discussed. At this rate, there is nothing to discuss except for the MUD- or possibly the RUG Delver matchup in my opinion.
All other posts contain questions already asked or plain retardedness.

Edit: Not all posts obviously, but a lot of them in the past few pages..

[apple713]

The only real thing to discuss is making the deck more efficient. Shorter lines of play / increased consistency.

[Corto]

About the Counterbalance problem :
If a 3 drop is floated, doesn't that blank all the cunning wish, thus every possibilities of concluding with what you propose ? ( wipe away, release the ants and so forth )
Maybe I missed Emidln's post and if it is explained in it I apologize for the inane question.

[alphastryk]

About the Counterbalance problem :
If a 3 drop is floated, doesn't that blank all the cunning wish, thus every possibilities of concluding with what you propose ? ( wipe away, release the ants and so forth )
Maybe I missed Emidln's post and if it is explained in it I apologize for the inane question.

Well, you can cast Emrakul through it. :)

Postboard, for CB on 3 you can bring in Trickbind and hit the trigger for whatever 3 you need to resolve (C Wish).

For CB on 2, you can wish and get rid of it (Rushing River / Wipe Away)

If they have a 2 and a 3 you have to be on Emrakul I think.

[Corto]

Obviously you can cast Emrakul, I was merely replying to ideas that gravitate around "C.wish into something".
For trickbind to work, it means you have it main deck, which I've not found in samples side tables.

[alphastryk]

Obviously you can cast Emrakul, I was merely replying to ideas that gravitate around "C.wish into something".
For trickbind to work, it means you have it main deck, which I've not found in samples side tables.

Yes, game one you cannot use wish to get rid of counterbalance (Emrakul is the only real plan here). I'm advocating boarding in the trickbind in the matchup, not playing it main.

[phazonmutant]

About the Counterbalance problem :
If a 3 drop is floated, doesn't that blank all the cunning wish, thus every possibilities of concluding with what you propose ? ( wipe away, release the ants and so forth )
Maybe I missed Emidln's post and if it is explained in it I apologize for the inane question.

Ok, I guess I was forgetting where that post was from. It's pretty reasonable that people might not have seen it. Emidln made an excellent post/primer for his version of the deck here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24583-Deck-U-R-OmniTell&p=718270&viewfull=1#post718270
Which is over 2 months old and in a different thread :rolleyes:

Scroll to the bottom to find his advice on beating Counterbalance. Note that it requires a Trickbind either in the main or boarded in, but he advocates 2 in the 75. That doesn't seem right out to me.



If they have a 2 and a 3 you have to be on Emrakul I think.

Or you can run them out of mana. Chances are decent that you have more business spells than they have mana, depending on your maindeck configuration.

[emidln]

Ok, I guess I was forgetting where that post was from. It's pretty reasonable that people might not have seen it. Emidln made an excellent post/primer for his version of the deck here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24583-Deck-U-R-OmniTell&p=718270&viewfull=1#post718270
Which is over 2 months old and in a different thread :rolleyes:

Scroll to the bottom to find his advice on beating Counterbalance. Note that it requires a Trickbind either in the main or boarded in, but he advocates 2 in the 75. That doesn't seem right out to me.

I feel like the no maindeck win configuration vs Counterbalance is one of those things that will separate people who have either tested the deck or thought about it deeply from those that merely pick it up because "durr, SnT I win!!!".

I feel like everybody talking about Split Second cards has missed the fact that I play Duress effects in my sideboard and can cast them via Omni OR Dream Halls prior to casting Lab Maniac.

I've cut the 4th Force of Will from my deck entirely. It was in the sideboard, and I simply gave up on the corner case where I have a really bad cancel. I replaced its slot in the sideboard with a 2nd (for my 75) Flusterstorm. This lets me have a Fluster wishable and one main against blue control decks that will side in Fluster against me, while siding it against combo decks.

I haven't been playing graveyard hate for a few weeks now. I was on Surgical Extraction, since the only scenarios that ever mattered to me were hitting a Cabal Therapy or Griselbrand. The Griselbrand matchup isn't actually that bad when you have 2 Duress, 1 Thoughtseize, 2 Fluster, 3 Force as you match their disruption and still have a very fast clock (somewhere between turn 2 and 5 depending on the particular hand and whether they target your disruption or your combo). I'm willing to just lose most of my matches to Dredge due to it not being heavily played.

I'm strongly considering dropping the sidedboarded Intuition as I haven't wished for it in a long time. I'd like to find room for another bounce/removal spell that I can side in against hate bears and this might be how I get it. I'm also considering a Careful Consideration as something to do when the dust begins to settle after an attrition war.

[Kirika]

How does this compare to Reanimator and The Epic Storm as far as speed and consistency especially with needed to assemble a 3 card combo? I found I prefered Reanimator and The Epic Storm to Sneak and Show as far as combo decks as both were faster and more consistent. Reanimator has the issue that it gets hit by all the dredge hate and Epic Storm is a headache to play at long tournaments.

[phazonmutant]

How does this compare to Reanimator and The Epic Storm as far as speed and consistency especially with needed to assemble a 3 card combo? I found I prefered Reanimator and The Epic Storm to Sneak and Show as far as combo decks as both were faster and more consistent. Reanimator has the issue that it gets hit by all the dredge hate and Epic Storm is a headache to play at long tournaments.

Speed? Hand dependent, but most often turn 3. Occasionally turns 2 or 4-5. Never turn 1. So, a bit slower than S&S (0.5-1 mean turns slower), much slower than TES and Reanimator (1-1.5 mean turns slower). That's assuming that any arbitrary man Reanimator poops onto the table is GG (more or less true).

Consistency? Difficult to hate out. I believe Counterbalance and hatebears are the best hate and neither are played that much. Discard hurts, but the deck has redundancy and Leylines (if you run them). I think this question is the biggest discussion point for the deck. Catmint thinks that every deck other than Canadian Thresh is garbage, including this one; and lejay and emidln think this deck is the second coming of Academy-Tinker.
My opinion is that S&S is easier to hate out and slow as you mentioned, although it's pretty resiliant; Reanimator is reasonably easy to hate out and somewhat inconsistent to boot; the only real contender for me is TES. TES is more easily locked, but that's offset by just being faster than most hate. I haven't taken Mono-U OmniTell to a big tournament yet, so I can't really say whether it's more or less consistent than TES yet. It's at least comparable, maybe better.


emidln - thanks for sharing your updates! Some questions:
Does your meta not have many hatebear decks like Maverick or Death and Taxes? There's a bunch, and my meta even has a couple 4c Loam decks like what Jeff Hoogland's been advocating. Eladmri's Call has been great in those matchups. Thoughtseize was also a solid card, but you're down to 1. What's your strategy and boarding for those matchups?

[emidln]

emidln - thanks for sharing your updates! Some questions:
Does your meta not have many hatebear decks like Maverick or Death and Taxes? There's a bunch, and my meta even has a couple 4c Loam decks like what Jeff Hoogland's been advocating. Eladmri's Call has been great in those matchups. Thoughtseize was also a solid card, but you're down to 1. What's your strategy and boarding for those matchups?

I never really sided in thought seize vs hatebear decks. I never really wanted to get wasted, which is what happens when you fetch sea to cast thoughtseize. I used to bring in wrote away and other bounce leaving slaughter pact in the side as a wish target. I cut my extra bounce (I mentioned this in a previous post) for a sb emrakul and a sb call. This let's me bring in emrakul and use wish for call as an alternate way of beating hatebears without first removing them. My sideboard has been:

1 FF
1 R&D
1 Lab Man
1 FSM
1 E. Call
1 Wipe away
1 Slaughter Pact
1 pact of negation
1 flusterstorm
1 trickbind
2 duress
1 thought seize
1 swamp
1 intuition

[KobeBryan]

Why do you guys use lab instead of ants/emmy.

Lab still requires enter the infinite to trigger before you can go off.

With emmy, you can have it independent to the ETI as a win con.

[Philipp2293]

First, enter the infinite needs to resolve, not to trigger.

I think the reasons for running Lab Man have been explained by Emidln and others before, same as the reasons Emrakul is ran.

Lab Man has the advantage of not targeting as well as being independent of the structure of your opponents library, which can be relevant against e.g. Sneak Show.
Emrakul, by my understanding, is mainly ran for the Wx Tax Decks (Maverick and Death and Taxes) in order to have a threat which you can push through Thalia/Spheres more easily.

[catmint]

Catmint thinks that every deck other than Canadian Thresh is garbage, including this one; and lejay and emidln think this deck is the second coming of Academy-Tinker.


I am shocked that my comments might have given the impression that I think this way...or are you just fooling me? :eyebrow: For me the great thing about legacy is that a lot of decks are strong and viable (also this one) and given the right tuning, a skilled/trained pilot, (a favourable meta) and a bit of luck with pairings and draws a lot of decks can go top 8. Certainly this deck is not garbage as I said a couple of times. There are strength and weaknesses which I pointed out compared to it's closes relatives (other show variants), but neither variant is "strictly better", so instead of replacing anything this decks adds to the legacy variaty.

[apple713]

Catmint thinks that every deck other than Canadian Thresh is garbage, including this one; and lejay and emidln think this deck is the second coming of Academy-Tinker.


unfortunately canadian thresh's mana base is too weak to be the best deck and its a tempo deck so its heavily dependant on its draws and an early jump start.

and the second coming of academy tinker already happened, it was called hulk flash...hulk flash was probably better than academy tinker cause the win was instant and turn 0. Even if this deck was equateable to hulk flash it wouldnt be played as much and its victories be as widespread because of the cost. The deck is not very cheap and its very niche so you probably dont have all of the cards for it just lying around or 300 to spend on show and tells.

The deck is great. Its pretty streamlined for a combo. I like it better than ant cause there are less things that could go wrong. ANT gambles on ad nauseum and doesnt have great control elements as back up until they make an instant thoughtsieze....

Omni anything can just trollop most aggro decks and runs into a few problems against control decks cause it packs so much fewer counterspells. I'm working on a UR variant that should improve consistency much more.

[Dark Ritual]

unfortunately canadian thresh's mana base is too weak to be the best deck and its a tempo deck so its heavily dependant on its draws and an early jump start.

and the second coming of academy tinker already happened, it was called hulk flash...hulk flash was probably better than academy tinker cause the win was instant and turn 0. Even if this deck was equateable to hulk flash it wouldnt be played as much and its victories be as widespread because of the cost. The deck is not very cheap and its very niche so you probably dont have all of the cards for it just lying around or 300 to spend on show and tells.

The deck is great. Its pretty streamlined for a combo. I like it better than ant cause there are less things that could go wrong. ANT gambles on ad nauseum and doesnt have great control elements as back up until they make an instant thoughtsieze....

Omni anything can just trollop most aggro decks and runs into a few problems against control decks cause it packs so much fewer counterspells. I'm working on a UR variant that should improve consistency much more.

Only bad variants of hulk flash could win on turn zero wish spirit guide, gemstone caverns, flash in hulk, kill you. See Steve Sadin's hulk flash list for reference. It ran countertop for crying out loud. Also, ANT gambles on ad nauseam? You haven't played ANT or if you have, you're very much doing it wrong. The name might as well be past in flames tendrils/PIFT because that's how you win over 90% of the time. The name is just a carry over from the mystical tutor days.

@Emidln: Wouldn't fact or fiction be better for recovering after an attrition war? See's one more card, can be cast off just one island if that is somehow relevant, and it draws the same amount of cards as careful consideration or more if your opponent is bad at splitting the piles. The only real downside is if you flip over something like 3 lands, show and tell, omniscience but even then you couldn't combo with just SnT + omni anyways.

[Lejay]

I want to personally thank Lejay and his friends for their hard work on this deck.
Thanks for your trust and running a very close decklist to what I advise, it paid off. Two of your changes were coherent in a meta with less discard (if that was the case) and I don't see having a wishable flusterstorm instead of defense grid a major mistake.

I've been playing unsummon instead of sapphire charm, I really did not find the phasing to be relevant enough to go finding that card in copious boxes of crap.
I have no idea why unsummon is better than vapor snag since people can kill themselves theoretically. But I can assure you that it isn't a good idea to unsummon/vapor snag a meddling mage or a canonist when you play show and tell - > omniscience the turn after.

Good. If the deck can be hated sufficiently and isn't warping the format, it doesn't need to get banned. It really is that simple. This is how players are supposed to respond to new and powerful decks - preparing for them, not merely calling for a banning. It always bothered me as an American player that what seems like the majority (most vocal?) of American Legacy players in fact do call for a banning as opposed to preparing and playing hate. You noticed this too, and I'm assuming that's why you made your call to all the SCG grinders. It makes me happy to see that us Americans appear to be playing smarter this time.

And I realize it's been said, but I want to say it again after reading that sentence: not everyone wants to join you in your efforts of getting Show & Tell banned, and seeing so many crusades against it is getting pretty old. Some people, like myself, actually enjoy the card: it enables archetypes in a similar manner as LED or Æther Vial or what not. When it starts affecting the metagame in a manner similar to Mental Misstep, sure, call for its banning then. Until then, just suck it up please. I don't enjoy playing against certain decks or cards but at least I realize that my beliefs are not universal. "I don't like this card" isn't sufficient reason for a ban, and I think the calling on "those slow to adapt American SCG grinders" (my quotes, not yours) to help you in your crusade comes across as wee bit shady, even if you didn't intend it to or if there are Americans who happen to agree with you.

I'll try to be brief to avoid restarting a ban debate in this thread. But people have to run so much combo hate it is a problem. When other combo decks start to disappear completely because of this combo hate and that top 16 is more and more filled with blue decks it starts to be a problem. A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that it was already the case with a lot of other decks that disappeared because of show and tell. He was saying for example that in a metagame such as what we saw in recent SCGs there is no way a deck like dragon stompy shouldn't prosper if that wasn't for show and tell. But sneak and show had made it obsolete. Show and tell is of course creating archetypes but it makes a lot of decks too weak to be good enough. That should be more and more true as the months pass.

Lets assume that Leyline is 100% better in all situations where it is in your OPENING hand.

Let's assume your opponent plays several discards and not just one.

The more I read this thread the more I think the deck shouldn't be discussed. At this rate, there is nothing to discuss except for the MUD- or possibly the RUG Delver matchup in my opinion.

The only real thing to discuss is making the deck more efficient. Shorter lines of play / increased consistency.
Tom T is right, apple713 is wrong. I don't mind people adapting slots to metagame, I don't mind people playing emidln's list, but seriously this thread should mainly focus on discussing tactics in precise match-ups rather than deckbuilding strategy.

I'm strongly considering dropping the sidedboarded Intuition as I haven't wished for it in a long time.
It has some minor drawbacks but if you play FF in the sb and intuition main this is perfectly fine.
and lejay and emidln think this deck is the second coming of Academy-Tinker.
for the 758th time, the deck has positive match-ups against almost the entire field. That doesn't mean it is a legendary broken deck. If you've got 52 to 56% against a wide range of deck and 65 against some that doesn't make you an academy or flash competitor.
@Emidln: Wouldn't fact or fiction be better for recovering after an attrition war? See's one more card, can be cast off just one island if that is somehow relevant, and it draws the same amount of cards as careful consideration or more if your opponent is bad at splitting the piles. The only real downside is if you flip over something like 3 lands, show and tell, omniscience but even then you couldn't combo with just SnT + omni anyways.
I've played both last year, starting with fact. You prefer careful consideration because often situations where you are both attritioned with enough time to rebuild through wish-> draw spell are against decks with lots of discard. In that case the opponent will often know the content of your hand and will make pretty horrible piles. Also in these situations it won't be that rare that you need to find 2 combo pieces. In which case careful consideration is once again much better.

[blindspotxxx]

Played this deck to a 4-0 last night. Leyline baby loves me :)

I now understand the importance of Emrakul.. That thing is totally needed against Maverick!

[KobeBryan]

I'm having a very hard time beating my brother's bant deck.

He runs the GSZ style deck with 4 FOW and 3 spell pierces

in the side, he has 2 flusterstorm, 1 negate, and 1 teeg.

He just overwhelms me with the control from his deck.

any suggestions? He isn't too afraid of defense grid since he blows it up pretty fast with pridemage. and when defense grid is in play, he just has the mana to pay it.

[Megadeus]

I mean I feel like Bant is such an uncommon deck you shouldn't even worry too much about it...

[Lejay]

I feel like you brother kind of focuses on beating you, so...

I would advise you to play another deck. That is probably the only way to solve the problem.
Just play a non combo deck and teach him about magic.

[KobeBryan]

I feel like you brother kind of focuses on beating you, so...

Just play a non combo deck and teach him about magic.

I played against him with other decks too. Dredge, patriot, and jund.

he seems to have a pretty good matchup against those decks too. I'd have to say, his deck is pretty consistent.

[Lejay]

So I guess you are the main problem.

[KobeBryan]

So I guess you are the main problem.

Why do you always have this elitist attitude. I think you are one of the worst posters in this forum. So what if you tested this deck to hell. I'm asking an honest question here. What do you think the forums are for?

I just realized i blocked you on cockatrice, I think you exhibited this same bs attitude on there too.

[Lejay]

Why do you always have this elitist attitude. I think you are one of the worst posters in this forum. So what if you tested this deck to hell. I'm asking an honest question here. What do you think the forums are for?

I just realized i blocked you on cockatrice, I think you exhibited this same bs attitude on there too.
Maybe you misunderstood me. I wasn't saying you are personnally a problem. I was just implying that maybe if he beats you with a non DTB deck against all of the 4 very different decks you used against him, then maybe, he makes less mistakes than you do which bends the results.

[Jin Gitaxias]

KobeBryan, Because most of the questions you ask can be found in the opening post, you do not provide nearly enough details for people to actually help you in the bant matchup, and a couple of posts back you are telling other people what is correct and what is not correct when you obviously do not have much of a clue when playing this deck.

[catmint]

Kobebryan. Yes, Lejay can have the charm and empathy of a bulldozer, but I would try to ignore that and check if there is some good advise in there. In this case he has a point.

With your brother playing one decent deck and you many different ones shows that he probably masters his and you have lack of experience/practice in what you try out. My advice is:
- Stop playing against your brother if you can't handle losing or if you play just focus on the right play and learning don't "try to beat him". Maybe you can get your bro' to proxy up other decks to get more testing value. Competition hurts testing!
- Try to practice with other people and more variety of decks which also represent what the meta consists of.
- Focus on "mastering decks and magic" instead of "playing the best deck which wins by itself" (hint: there is no such thing).

[apple713]

Let's assume your opponent plays several discards and not just one.



Correct lets assume the opponent is playing an average amount of discard. 4 thoughtseize 4 hymn. To counteract those, post board you'll have 4 brainstorms 4 diverts, and even 4 FOW too if you really dont want to get hymned. Imagine that you'll draw your answer about as often as he draws his threats.

worst case your opponent is playing 12 discard spells, duress thoughtseize and hymn, you'll still draw your answers as often as he draws his...12 threats for him, 12 answers for you. Most decks that play discard dont also play heavy counterpsells. Also if your opponent is playing more than 12 discard his deck probably isnt very good cause he'll try and win with the rack...

[Lejay]

Maybe in "apple713land" brainstorm answers perfectly discard, fow has no drawback, and divert is always active, but in my experience brainstorm is not perfect at protecting when you need most of the time to gather a 3 card combo, fow is a pain against discard, and divert is useless turn 1 on the draw, is a tempo sink if you always keep it open, is weak as soon as opponent's turn 3, and is useless against duress.

[phazonmutant]

for the 758th time, the deck has positive match-ups against almost the entire field. That doesn't mean it is a legendary broken deck. If you've got 52 to 56% against a wide range of deck and 65 against some that doesn't make you an academy or flash competitor.

I am shocked that my comments might have given the impression that I think this way...or are you just fooling me? :eyebrow: For me the great thing about legacy is that a lot of decks are strong and viable (also this one) and given the right tuning, a skilled/trained pilot, (a favourable meta) and a bit of luck with pairings and draws a lot of decks can go top 8. Certainly this deck is not garbage as I said a couple of times. There are strength and weaknesses which I pointed out compared to it's closes relatives (other show variants), but neither variant is "strictly better", so instead of replacing anything this decks adds to the legacy variaty.

Damn, I'd best not use that silly little rhetorical technique called "hyperbole" in the future.



I never really sided in thought seize vs hatebear decks. I never really wanted to get wasted, which is what happens when you fetch sea to cast thoughtseize. I used to bring in wrote away and other bounce leaving slaughter pact in the side as a wish target. I cut my extra bounce (I mentioned this in a previous post) for a sb emrakul and a sb call. This let's me bring in emrakul and use wish for call as an alternate way of beating hatebears without first removing them. My sideboard has been:

1 FF
1 R&D
1 Lab Man
1 FSM
1 E. Call
1 Wipe away
1 Slaughter Pact
1 pact of negation
1 flusterstorm
1 trickbind
2 duress
1 thought seize
1 swamp
1 intuition

Whoah, you're devoting 2 slots to the Emrakul plan without playing it main? Is that really an efficient use of sideboard space? Seems like just playing Emrakul main would be better.
So comparing your and Lejay's list, it seems like you're on the plan of just playing through discard or countering it with Flusterstorm, and you've also dropped the Defense Grids. Has Canadian Thresh not been a concern? Or is Defense Grid too narrow / not good enough?

[apple713]

I never really sided in thought seize vs hatebear decks. I never really wanted to get wasted, which is what happens when you fetch sea to cast thoughtseize. I used to bring in wrote away and other bounce leaving slaughter pact in the side as a wish target. I cut my extra bounce (I mentioned this in a previous post) for a sb emrakul and a sb call. This let's me bring in emrakul and use wish for call as an alternate way of beating hatebears without first removing them. My sideboard has been:

1 FF
1 R&D
1 Lab Man
1 FSM
1 E. Call
1 Wipe away
1 Slaughter Pact
1 pact of negation
1 flusterstorm
1 trickbind
2 duress
1 thought seize
1 swamp
1 intuition

i really like your list and main deck but your deck is 100% dependant on cunning wish right? if they get extirpated or surgical'd its game over? i guess you really only need to worry about this game 2 but do you side in the emrakul g2 just for that reason?

[emidln]

Damn, I'd best not use that silly little rhetorical technique called "hyperbole" in the future.




Whoah, you're devoting 2 slots to the Emrakul plan without playing it main? Is that really an efficient use of sideboard space? Seems like just playing Emrakul main would be better.
So comparing your and Lejay's list, it seems like you're on the plan of just playing through discard or countering it with Flusterstorm, and you've also dropped the Defense Grids. Has Canadian Thresh not been a concern? Or is Defense Grid too narrow / not good enough?

I firmly believe that maindeck consistency is more important than sideboard slots. My maindeck is almost entirely 4-ofs/1ofs because I want to be as redundant as possible. The 1-ofs I play are absolutely required to make Cunning Wish more reliable (Intuition + Trickbind) and are powerful in and of themselves. (Think of Flusterstorm as Force of Will #4.) This helps a lot when facing discard. I haven't felt the need for Leyline of Sanctity (pretty much ever, you'll note that I haven't really posted many lists advocating it) because cantrips + redundancy has been enough. It's not as much of a cakewalk, but I still seem to win the games (and I am awarded 3 points for a win whether it was a cakewalk or hard fought grindy battle). As such, I devoted slots elsewhere. Countering discard isn't super effective (the only time you really want to do it is with Disrupt) since you're down a card anyway.

BTW, drawing Emrakul and Dream Halls is the worst feeling in the world. Drawing Emrakul with SnT isn't actually super awesome since half of the time you can't even protect your SnT due to Pact and are thus better off waiting until you can Omni + Enter/Wish anyway. In the matchups where you actually need Emrakul, you can side it in (against surgical/extirpate, counterbalance (it makes it a lot easier than needing trickbind + stack knowledge, and it can beat more than 1 counterbalance), and hatebears). In all of those other matchups, he's not a dead draw. If you need to beat some random scenario where your opponent has 4 split second removal spells (i.e. casting 3 discard spells won't win the game), you can even stack Emrakul in your R&D pile to make them sac 6 then wipe away your Dream Halls so they can't cast the split second before casting Lab Man (admittedly, this is the slimmest of the corner cases).
.
Canadian Thresh is easier for me with Fluster+Duress/Seize than it is for you with Defense Grid. You (as a player playing Defense Grid) will flat out lose a lot of games because your opponent casts Flusterstorm. This is true whether they pay 4 for Flusterstorm or whether you never even resolve that Defense Grid. The deck is incredibly weak to Flusterstorm and needs to compensate for that with some combination of Xantid Swarms, Silences, multiple Defense Grids, discard effects, or Flusterstorms of its own. I'm playing a basic swamp and siding in 3 discard spells to go with my maindeck Fluster and 4 Wish->Flusters to address this problem. I moved to Duress over Thoughtseize, which is much better vs UW and SnT mirror, so I'd be more likely to be able to cast the 2nd discard spell if I drew it against RUG/UR/UWR tempo without taking as much damage. You're likely just getting blown out by Flusterstorm.

Duress/Seize/Fluster happen to be a lot better against most of the decks you happen to have trouble with. The weakness it that I'm playing more fetches than most to find my Underground Sea (which is maindeck) and I'm playing a sideboarded Swamp (with 4 Deltas) so I can reliably cast discard early in the face of Wasteland. This is a tradeoff most people seem unwilling to make becaues they have "the Fear" (of being wastelanded when they don't need black). I can count on one hand the number of games I've lost, including testing, because my opponent Wastelanded my Underground Sea and I never recovered. I've lost count of the number of times Thoughtseize and Duress have KO'd other SnT decks, Reanimator, Tin Fins, Storm, and Can Thresh.

There is no fundamental difference in playing Emrakul+Call as a response to hate permanent-based hate (like Teeg/Thalia) with the idea of siding in Emrkaul than playing Echoing Truth + Sapphire Charm. Emrakul has uses in slightly more matchups and has some pros/cons against individual bounce spells, but it serves the same purpose.


but your deck is 100% dependant on cunning wish right? if they get extirpated or surgical'd its game over?

The non-Lab Man lists are 95% dependent on Omniscience. If it gets extirpated/surgicaled/slaughter games'd their only out is finding a 1-of Emrakul and a 4-of Show and Tell. And then hoping after all that time that Emrakul, go is actually good enough.

[KobeBryan]

KobeBryan, Because most of the questions you ask can be found in the opening post, you do not provide nearly enough details for people to actually help you in the bant matchup, and a couple of posts back you are telling other people what is correct and what is not correct when you obviously do not have much of a clue when playing this deck.

The only thing i commented on was the intuition in the sideboard.

I think everyone here believes that intuition in the side and wished from a cunning wish is ideal


Kobebryan. Yes, Lejay can have the charm and empathy of a bulldozer, but I would try to ignore that and check if there is some good advise in there. In this case he has a point.

With your brother playing one decent deck and you many different ones shows that he probably masters his and you have lack of experience/practice in what you try out. My advice is:
- Stop playing against your brother if you can't handle losing or if you play just focus on the right play and learning don't "try to beat him". Maybe you can get your bro' to proxy up other decks to get more testing value. Competition hurts testing!
- Try to practice with other people and more variety of decks which also represent what the meta consists of.
- Focus on "mastering decks and magic" instead of "playing the best deck which wins by itself" (hint: there is no such thing).

I'm trying to playtest the shit outta the deck. I cannot suddenly become the best player overnight. Of course I'm going to run into problems and will ask people on the forums for help. But i can see that people in this thread don't really like to help

[warfordium]

took 2nd/12 players today in a 5-rounder. lost r1 to deathblade, then won out against jund, BG pox, TES, and deathblade again. always drew (seems correct, you always want the cards), attempted to mulligan post-board to the leylines (I was initially reluctant to put them in the board, and never hit one, but didn't actually need 'em). took home a savannah.

I've been trying the lab man kill with a couple Lim-Dûl's Vault but have ditched the main deck intuition and gone to 10 islands, 1 emrakul, 1 trickbind, 3 dream halls with ants/Eladamri's call instead. the MD emrakul kill was crucial after both enter and show and tell were extirpated vs Pox. very happy with the board, though I was using 2 Defense Grid and kind of wanted a trickbind and wipe away in the board (the latter instead of echoing truth). I have more discard than counter magic in my meta and am pondering a probe/therapy/Lim-Dûl's Vault build with an underground sea. 4 misdirection instead of 4 leyline is another possibility…

deck is sick. not as fun as tin fins, but it has a couple of nice lines. will stick with it for a bit.

(sidebar: one reason this deck hasn't taken over the meta we came up with over beers after the tournament was that the derpy type of show and tell player who WOULD play it doesn't want their expensive sneak attacks to rot in their binder)

[KobeBryan]

How often do you guys wish for fireminds?

I see some people don't run impulse with fireminds, do you board in trickbind each time then?

[Koby]

How often do you guys wish for fireminds?

I see some people don't run impulse with fireminds, do you board in trickbind each time then?

They wish for it when it can win the game under a given scenario. If a list is running Firemind's Foresight and does not have a 2cc instant in the deck, they have misbuilt the deck.

[KobeBryan]

Thanks. I kept thinking that these guys are wasting the 2CMC.

What deck are u playing next weekend?

[blindspotxxx]

A bit surprising but I beat Sneak Show 4 times yesterday pre-board. This deck can beat a Griselbrand lol So many ways to fetch counter back up when going off that sometimes drawing 14 ain't enough. Of course he was the one who always show and tells 1st for Griselbrand, that might be the misplay.

[Natedogg]

@ Kobebryan, the reason people keep giving you grief is not because your questions are stupid, it's because they have already been answered in the OP. Also because you need to give more information and context.

As far as the bant matchup goes, it's not the best, but it's also not that common of the deck. Sounds like you testing is a little biased. Slamming defense grid is not always right. But even if it just buys you one turn, it's done it's job. There is really nothing you need to counter from them (except maybe JTMS if you are still looking for combo pieces and you're out of cantrips). So just eat a counterspell or pridemage with your grid and combo off. In all honestly, their best hand doesn't have a chance against your best hand. Pridemage + double force + hate bear + clock? Yea, that's pretty tough. But it usually doesn't happen that way.

[KobeBryan]

@ Kobebryan, the reason people keep giving you grief is not because your questions are stupid, it's because they have already been answered in the OP. Also because you need to give more information and context.

As far as the bant matchup goes, it's not the best, but it's also not that common of the deck. Sounds like you testing is a little biased. Slamming defense grid is not always right. But even if it just buys you one turn, it's done it's job. There is really nothing you need to counter from them (except maybe JTMS if you are still looking for combo pieces and you're out of cantrips). So just eat a counterspell or pridemage with your grid and combo off. In all honestly, their best hand doesn't have a chance against your best hand. Pridemage + double force + hate bear + clock? Yea, that's pretty tough. But it usually doesn't happen that way.

Thanks.

I was playing against my friends maverick deck yesterday. This guy is the luckiest guy in the world.

it was turn 3, he turn 1 EOT gets enlightened tutor for a ethersworn cannonist. Turn 2 drop ethersworn.

Turn 3, my turn, I slaughter pact the ethersworn. i go off with show and tell omniscience, this guy proceeds to drop a gaddock teeg. Pretty lucky hand.

[lebarion]

Thanks.

I was playing against my friends maverick deck yesterday. This guy is the luckiest guy in the world.

it was turn 3, he turn 1 EOT gets enlightened tutor for a ethersworn cannonist. Turn 2 drop ethersworn.

Turn 3, my turn, I slaughter pact the ethersworn. i go off with show and tell omniscience, this guy proceeds to drop a gaddock teeg. Pretty lucky hand.
Your friend was really lucky, but you should take into account the number of times you just killed him on turn 2 or 3 :wink:
I've found that multiple hatebears - and multiple ways to find them through GSZ and E. Tutor - are pretty hard to beat, even more so than counterspells. Not to say hatebears put you in a clock and usually come with some numers of Pridemages together, which may not be a problem by themselves, but can make a bad situation worse.
I don't think there's a easy way to handle multiple hatebears - there's Sudden Spoiling, but it is only usefull with Omniscience, so it seems bad. Against Maverick, I either try to combo ASAP or using Dream Halls, in order to avoid them showing a Gaddock or Canonist.

[Esper3k]

@emidln: Just curious, but why are you running the 2/1 split of Duress/Thoughtseize in the board as opposed to just 3 Duresses? Since I assume you're not bringing in the Thoughtseize against hate bear decks anyways, wouldn't a 3rd Duress just be better?

[emidln]

@emidln: Just curious, but why are you running the 2/1 split of Duress/Thoughtseize in the board as opposed to just 3 Duresses? Since I assume you're not bringing in the Thoughtseize against hate bear decks anyways, wouldn't a 3rd Duress just be better?

Thoughtseize is more valuable against blue decks because you can hit VClique/Snapcaster Mage/Meddling Mage with it. I limit the number of Thoughtseizes to avoid shocking myself too much against RUG. I actually considered playing Therapy. I pretty much always know what my opponent is holding when I want to cast Therapy (or rather, what I need to not be in his hand), so it has a pretty high effectiveness for me.

[Pyroman]

I just recently finished this deck and tested it out at a GP Vegas Legacy event with about 200ish people. The deck was insanely good and led me to an X-1 finish. Unfortunately the tournament was just Swiss +1 so I ended up missing out on a shot at the Moat for first. The decklist I used was pretty standard, I have included it below for reference.

4x Show & Tell
4x Omniscience
4x Enter the Infinite
4x Dream Halls
4x Cunning Wish
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Preordian
3x Force of Will
3x Pact of Negation
1x Emrakul
1x Trickbind
1x Intuition
7x Fetches
8x Islands
4x City of Traitors

Sideboard:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Defense Grid
1x Force of Will
1x Pact of Negation
1x Eeladamri's Call
1x Echoing Truth
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Wipe Away
1x Firemind's Foresight
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Research/Development

In the tournament my only loss came to a UW Stoneforge list (No Countertop) playing flusterstorms in the main. Flusterstorm was very difficult to play around and defense grid was only a partial answer to it. I would like your input on some of the issues that came up during the tournament.

1. Play or Draw? Based on my limited testing and advice from others, I choose to draw in all unknown game 1's. As far as games 2 & 3 are concerned, I decided to play against combo (ANT and Elves) and anything with Chalice of the Void. After testing out the merfolk matchup, it seems right to play as well. What are your thoughts on this, and what other matches would you choose to play in?

2. Against decks where pact and leyline are both useless, such as D&T, what would you advocate bringing in for the pacts. I choose to bring in Echoing Truth, the fourth Force and left a pact in. Occasionally I found myself wanting a force in the wishboard to wish for. Any suggestions on the sideboarding for these matchups?

3. 4 Leylines vs 2 flusterstorm 1 defense grid 1 misdirection? After playing against flusterstorm the other option seems more reasonable. the flusterstorms and misdirection help out against discard and are also useful in other matchups. They are also better when drawn beyond turn 1. How necessary do you think the leylines are in an unknown meta?

[KobeBryan]

I just recently finished this deck and tested it out at a GP Vegas Legacy event with about 200ish people. The deck was insanely good and led me to an X-1 finish. Unfortunately the tournament was just Swiss +1 so I ended up missing out on a shot at the Moat for first. The decklist I used was pretty standard, I have included it below for reference.

4x Show & Tell
4x Omniscience
4x Enter the Infinite
4x Dream Halls
4x Cunning Wish
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Preordian
3x Force of Will
3x Pact of Negation
1x Emrakul
1x Trickbind
1x Intuition
7x Fetches
8x Islands
4x City of Traitors

Sideboard:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Defense Grid
1x Force of Will
1x Pact of Negation
1x Eeladamri's Call
1x Echoing Truth
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Wipe Away
1x Firemind's Foresight
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Research/Development

In the tournament my only loss came to a UW Stoneforge list (No Countertop) playing flusterstorms in the main. Flusterstorm was very difficult to play around and defense grid was only a partial answer to it. I would like your input on some of the issues that came up during the tournament.

1. Play or Draw? Based on my limited testing and advice from others, I choose to draw in all unknown game 1's. As far as games 2 & 3 are concerned, I decided to play against combo (ANT and Elves) and anything with Chalice of the Void. After testing out the merfolk matchup, it seems right to play as well. What are your thoughts on this, and what other matches would you choose to play in?

2. Against decks where pact and leyline are both useless, such as D&T, what would you advocate bringing in for the pacts. I choose to bring in Echoing Truth, the fourth Force and left a pact in. Occasionally I found myself wanting a force in the wishboard to wish for. Any suggestions on the sideboarding for these matchups?

3. 4 Leylines vs 2 flusterstorm 1 defense grid 1 misdirection? After playing against flusterstorm the other option seems more reasonable. the flusterstorms and misdirection help out against discard and are also useful in other matchups. They are also better when drawn beyond turn 1. How necessary do you think the leylines are in an unknown meta?

I can tell u one thing...you need an intuition in the board.

[Tammit67]

I can tell u one thing...you need an intuition in the board.

Need? I dunno about need. He has one in the main after all. Cutting the force in board for it doesn't sound terrible though.

[KobeBryan]

Need? I dunno about need. He has one in the main after all. Cutting the force in board for it doesn't sound terrible though.

Intuition for cunning wish has been my target 80% of the time.

[Lejay]

And 90% of the time Wish -> FF -> Intuition is as good. This has been said, like, at 3 different points in the thread.

[blindspotxxx]

Is Impulse really that worse than cutting the SB Trickbind? I understand that you can still FF your main deck Trickbind. I also love that singleton Flusterstorm.

So it's like 1 Flusterstorm vs 4th Dreamhalls for the Emrakul slot. Thoughts?

I am currently playing the BOM 1st place version but I fear getting discarded then Surgical'd on my Cunning Wish which leaves me with 0 Win cons. Emrakul is also badly needed against Maverick and hatebears.

[Esper3k]

Thoughtseize is more valuable against blue decks because you can hit VClique/Snapcaster Mage/Meddling Mage with it. I limit the number of Thoughtseizes to avoid shocking myself too much against RUG. I actually considered playing Therapy. I pretty much always know what my opponent is holding when I want to cast Therapy (or rather, what I need to not be in his hand), so it has a pretty high effectiveness for me.

Thanks! I was just curious on your reasoning for the one-of Thoughtseize.

@Pyroman: You can always run a discard package like Emidln's to preemptively deal with Flusterstorms.

[Adan]

Is Impulse really that worse than cutting the SB Trickbind? I understand that you can still FF your main deck Trickbind. I also love that singleton Flusterstorm.

So it's like 1 Flusterstorm vs 4th Dreamhalls for the Emrakul slot. Thoughts?

It's not like that, Flusterstorm is in the slot of the 4th Force of Will which has been moved to the SB for access cia CWish. I don't think the slots "4th DreamHalls" vs. "Emrakul" are comparable. Emidln's build is maximum redundancy which I really enjoy, it even trumps UR Omnitell in that regard for my feeling while being much more resilient to hate.


I am currently playing the BOM 1st place version but I fear getting discarded then Surgical'd on my Cunning Wish which leaves me with 0 Win cons. Emrakul is also badly needed against Maverick and hatebears.

The likelyness of these two things happening are not as high, although I must admit that I have lost to an Extirpate once because I suck (seriously, ditching the SnT to Smallpox was the most stupid thing ever).

Anyway, if someone manages to do that against you, you simply have to accept your defeat. But it's not like you have LLoS in your board to protect yourself against that. Playing your Brainstorms defensively also helps big time. As long as you don't get your CWishs or EtIs extracted, you can still win.

Last tournament also changed my mind about LLoS because I played against BRG Nic Fit (a kind of modern Scapeshift ported to Legacy with Deeds, Cabal Therapy, Burning Wish) which ran Slaughter Games in the SB. Without Leyline, you are stone dead to that card.

However, there is nothing wrong with running Emrakul somewhere in your 75. I'd probably just do it like emidln and run one in the SB because a maindeck Emrakul is pretty useless. For one you are not running Release the Ants (and even if, Enter the Infinite is enough to win clashes against almost every deck except for SneakShow) and in addition it's highly anti-synergetic with Pact of Negation. You can cast Trickbind on the trigger next upkeep, but ehhh...

And well, somehow the metagame has become so fast and/or prepared that SnT -> Emme is the most unbroken thing you can do. I've seen guy doing SnT -> Emrakul just to get smashed by Natural Order -> Craterhoof or simply get walked over by 4 Gayfolk-Lords with Islandwalk. With the new legend rule it's getting even worse because the opposing Emrakul is going to attack you first.

He's only useful against Mav or DnT where you have to side out your Pacts anyway, so I think the best place in the 75 is in the board.

As for cutting the 4th FoW, I don't fully agree here. It's necessary. The existence of Belcher is enough reason for me. I find that matchup pretty painful actually because "Lion's Eye Diamond, go" absolutely blanks your Snow and Tells, at least if you don't have LLoS.
Furthermore, in matchups like DnT, I want to be able to board in my 4th FoW because Flusterstorm obv. can't hit Thalia, Canonist or Aether Vial.

Discardspells are excellent against Flusterstorms and are good for people that are afraid that Lab Maniac could get hit by Sudden Shock, but on the other hand they are worse against decks with discard strategies (Esper, DeathBlade, Jund, Pox).

This is really a question of your metagame, if Flusterstorms are all over the place, I believe blacksplash with Duress effects is the way to go. But in the dark, I'd probably carry Leylines with me (also good against Belcher for example).
The decks that play Flusterstorm are - with the exception of CanThresh - rather slow in terms of their clock.
So if they Flusterstorm a Show and Tell, you still have DreamHalls which cannot be countered by Fluster, but then again is prone to Spell Pierce.

You kinda have to see how to bait some stuff in these MUs, but overall I think they are fair. As I said, I'd have easily won against Canadian Thresh if I'd just have gone YOLO. The only issue are decks that are heavy on permanent-based hate (MUD, DnT, Maverick). They make me want to play 4 bouncespells in the slot of LLoS, that's how annoying they are.

But in the end you can't win them all.

[Pyroman]

And 90% of the time Wish -> FF -> Intuition is as good. This has been said, like, at 3 different points in the thread.

Exactly why I am not running a SB Intuition or Trickbind. This frees up SB slots while still allowing for the Wish-FF-Intuition-EtI. I never have wanted to wish for an Intuition to set up the combo. Wasting two turns and exposing yourself to Surgical/Extirpate doesn't seem worth it.

I have not tried out the discard package yet, but it should be excellent against flusterstorms. I will have to try it out. The swamp seems like a much better idea since it is not vulnerable to wasteland. I am not sure if I want to run a basic swamp in the board, but it seems much better than having one in the maindeck. It also seems like there would be issues getting the black on time since there are only 5 sources (4 fetches and the swamp).

[Esper3k]

First, I wanted to thank all the posters and work people have put into this deck, especially Lejay and Emidln!

I've been taking the deck for a spin and it's been a blast! I really enjoy the High Tide-esque feel of the deck where you just ignore your life total until you -have- to go off, then just kill your opponent (but without all the durdling that High Tide does).

I've played both Lejay and Emidln's lists so far and haven't found a huge difference so far in how the two builds fundamentally combo off.

I did have a question for Emidln's list, which is how to sideboard in certain matchups, especially regarding the blue tempo matches?

So far against decks like RUG, I've been boarding:

-3 Force of Will
-1 Trickbind (is it wrong to side this out since it leaves us 0 2-drops to get with FF? It seems so bad in the matchup...)
+1 Pact of Negation
+2 Duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Swamp
-1 Island (again, I'm not certain this is correct since against those Stifle / mana taxing decks, every land matters)

I faced off against D&T and ended up 1-1 (3-3) so far and man, that matchup is rough. Hate bears + CIB effects = annoying. I had one game I lost where my opponent went (on the draw), T1: Cavern (on humans) -> Mother of Runes, T2: Thalia, T3: Karakas, Mangara. Ugh.

I haven't faced off against the BUG / Esper Deathblade decks that have heavier hand disruption and a light smattering of countermagic with Emidln's list and would also like some sideboarding tips if anyone has any (with Lejay's list, the sideboarding becomes much simpler against those discard decks due to the Leylines).

Thanks!

[sauce]

I faced off against D&T and ended up 1-1 (3-3) so far and man, that matchup is rough. Hate bears + CIB effects = annoying. I had one game I lost where my opponent went (on the draw), T1: Cavern (on humans) -> Mother of Runes, T2: Thalia, T3: Karakas, Mangara. Ugh.


show and tell Kederekt Leviathan, game.

[herbig]

show and tell Kederekt Leviathan, game.

It's kind of funny how terrible a suggestion that is. I guess you'll get a five point swing in before they untap with Mother of Ruins again. You do have four Show and Tells..

[sauce]

It's kind of funny how terrible a suggestion that is. I guess you'll get a five point swing in before they untap with Mother of Ruins again. You do have four Show and Tells..

Show and tell Plague Spitter?

(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)

I'll show myself out.

[emidln]

I do the following against RUG:

-1 Trickbind
-1 Intuition
-2 Dream Halls
-1 Cunning Wish

+2 Duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Swamp
+1 Pact of Negation

Intuition is too slow and they probably have Surgical Extraction anyway. Trickbind isn't useful against maybe 1-2 VClique. Dream Halls isn't what you want to be doing most of the time. Cunning Wish just isn't efficient as you don't get many turns, and running it out there for protection if you don't absolutely require the Flusterstorm opens you to REB + Surgical. Emrakul is arguable, but your best protection spell is Pact of Negation thus potentially leaving you in a very awkward situation for protecting SnT->Emrkaul.

Against black-based tempo, you actually sideboard differently. Discard means they can control whether Wish or Enter the Infinite wind up in the graveyard (thus exposed to Surgical/Extirpate). This makes Emrakul valuable enough to play (to keep you in win conditions). Also, with more discard, Pact isn't normally as good so you need to attempt to tease out the number of Snapcasters and Vendilion Cliques to guage how many you want. Something that is known is the number of Dream Halls sits firmly at 4 due to the opponent being able to pick apart your hand (and thus you needing the relative cheapness of Dream Halls (5 mana is castable) combined with its ability to cheat Enter the Infinite or Wish->Intuition->Enter the Infinite (possibly broken up over two turns if they're hitting you with a bunch of discard). My sideboarding here looks more like this:

-1 Trickbind
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
-3 Force of Will

+2 Duress
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Pact of Negation
+1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
+1 Swamp

Force of Will comes out as it is less efficient than Pact or Duress/Thoughtseize (overall, I'm +1 disruption spell from preboard, but my disruption spells are more efficient with my resources (cards in hand valued over 1 mana)). You won't be protecting SnT->Emrakul with Force, but you also probably don't really want to SnT->Emrakul unless you've already cast a discard spell due to them possibly playing liliana (on their turn) for the blow out.

That brings my protection postboard against RUG to this:

3 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Cunning Wish->Flusterstorm

with 9 Fetch, Sea, and Swamp as my black sources.

My 75, for reference is this:

4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
3 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
3 Pact of Negation
1 Trickbind
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
5 Island
2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Rushing River
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Firemind's Foresight
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Research / Development
SB: 1 Laboratory Maniac

[Adan]

I'm back home, just finished 2nd (4-1-0) in a local event, 26 people I believe.

Mono R Burn 2-1 (I kinda lost to a Pyrostatic Pillar despite LLoS in g2 because I did not board bounce/Emrakul and there were a few burnspells I didn't see coming like FLame Rift and Sulfuric Vortex)
Death & Taxes 2-1 (Emrakul = GOLD in this MU)
TES 0-2
UWr Miracles 2-0
Dredge 2-0 (performed fast SnTs in both g1 and 2, g2 protected with Leyline against Therapies)

The build was the same as always, except that I cut the SB Intuition and the Surgical Extraction (I never needed that one ever) for Emrakul and Eladamri's Call.
I must say, Emrakul is very nice as a quasi-3rd bouncespell against decks that are heavy on permanent-based hate. And it kinda gives you another broken permanent to put into play against certain MUs (I also brought it in against Miracles because it's the easiest way to win against CBalance).

Against TES I felt kinda helpless, all I have postboard is 4 Force of Will and 1 Flusterstorm. However, I did not consequently mull to LLoS, so maybe that was the mistake (most likely, I kinda noticed that after getting hit by Cabal Therapy AND Orim's Chant g2).

[Patrunkenphat7]

So in terms of popularity, is this deck now more popular in large tournaments than Sneak and Show??

[apple713]

So in terms of popularity, is this deck now more popular in large tournaments than Sneak and Show??

as of this last month.... but if the deck stays in this DTB section for a long time then we'll see if it becomes more popular.

[catmint]

Curious to see how it will develop. If you take the old omnisho as reference. When it came out it was a lot more popular/successful then this version. But then surprisingly it got pushed back by sneak attack again.

[Esper3k]

@emidln: Thanks for the information! I notice that you board out Intuition/Trickbind against the tempo decks since it is slower. Do you find that you ever miss them at all when using Firemind's Foresight or are you finding that you very rarely look for FF at all? So far, FF isn't something that I have normally been wishing for but conversely, I haven't been playing against decks that use a lot of CIB triggered abilities to fight Show & Tell (which I assume is where FF really shines).

[alwaysdrawing]

Played this list at the Philadelphia Legacy Series at Top Deck. Went 3-3. :-/

3 City of Traitors
10 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
1 Flusterstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Impulse
3 Cunning Wish
4 Show and Tell
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
4 Omniscience
4 Enter the Infinite
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sideboard:
1 Pact of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
1 Noxious Revival
1 Sapphire Charm
2 Defense Grid
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Release the Ants
1 Trickbind
1 Intuition
1 Rushing River
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Firemind's Foresight

Matchups:
Round 1: BUG Walkers 0-2. Turn 2 Lily in Game 1, and double discard after a mull to 6 in G2 (not finding a leyline) was too much to overcome. 0-1
Round 2: Deathblade 2-0. Found the combo quickly, and in Game 2 had a Leyline in hand which was awesome against his mull into discard. Not much to report...released the ants. 1-1
Round 3: Dark Maverick 2-0. Beat an Aven Mindcensor in Game 1, and in Game 2, Forced the Mindcensor, and was able to EOT Cunning wish for Sapphire Charm to phase out Teeg, Untap, and Omniscience, Omniscience (to get around pridemage), and Enter the Infinite for game. 2-1
Round 4: Reanimator 0-2. Paired up into the reanimator matchup....yuck! I don't think this is a winnable matchup, and not worth going into detail....basically reanimator is faster, with more counters and even if I can Show and Tell, he can just drop Griselbrand and draw 14 to counter Enter the Infinite. By playing this deck I know I am dead to Reanimator decks, and it was brutal getting paired up into it to be kicked from contention. Oh well. Notably piloted by Seth Zulinski, who top 2'd SCG Philly and top 16'd SCG Baltimore with the same reanimator list. He's also killing it in the Wednesday legacy events at Red Cap's....I think I'm going to have to start handing out Faerie Macabre's to start hating Reanimator out of the local meta! 2-2
Round 5: Shardless BUG 2-0. Got there in Game 1 with a fast clock, and then landed a Leyline in Game 2. Had to dodge fewer Lilianas in the non-walker matchup, which makes it easier, as well as not enough MD counters/discard to really get me. BUG piloted by Pat Dickson, who just top 4'd the SCG Philly. 3-2
Round 6: UW Miracles 0-2. Lost to THREE blind flips off counterbalance in G1...a 3 (Blood Moon against my Show and Tell), a 5 (Force of Will against my Dream Halls), and a 3 (Detention Sphere to Show and Tell...YUCK!). Game 2, he responded to my Show and Tell by Enlightened Tutoring for Ethersword Canonist and Flipping Top into it. I've played this matchup before and Ethersworn Canonist is a huge problem...Even if I can Cunning Wish for Pact/Charm to go off, I can't counter if the Miracle player has counters. Definitely one of the strongest cards I've seen against this deck, especially being able to tutor for it. Total 3-3.

Top 8 of the tournament: ANT, TES, Bant Maverick (with Geist of Saint Traft), UW Miracles, Dark Maverick (piloted by Jack Wang), Reanimator, Zoo (with Ghor Clan Rampager!), and something else I forgot.

Any advice on how to play around Ethersworn Canonist is appreciated. The UW miracles matchup seems rough if I don't have a fast hand. Maindeck hate in the form of Detention Sphere can randomly win games, and Canonist and a clock coming out of the board (Geist), makes it tough, especially with E Tutor being able to tutor up Canonist or D Sphere at instant Speed.

Also, I played against Sneak and Show on Wednesday, and was beaten by Pact triggers on my Emrakul extra turn...made me wish I could have had a lab maniac kill, or perhaps had access to a 4th Cunning Wish. As it was, I knew I couldn't stifle both triggers, and my opponent was at 8 life after finally getting to Emrakul on the Clash, so I Wished for Sapphire Charm-->opponent draw a card, and stacked my 2 Pact triggers first so the charm would resolve first, and then after he drew, I wished for Noxious Revival, and Revival'd Release the Ants, which I impulsed into and then tried to release the ants for the rest of the damage to win with the Pacts on the stack, but couldn't get there when my opponent got another emrakul in 2 cards on the clash.

[emidln]

@emidln: Thanks for the information! I notice that you board out Intuition/Trickbind against the tempo decks since it is slower. Do you find that you ever miss them at all when using Firemind's Foresight or are you finding that you very rarely look for FF at all? So far, FF isn't something that I have normally been wishing for but conversely, I haven't been playing against decks that use a lot of CIB triggered abilities to fight Show & Tell (which I assume is where FF really shines).

FF is useful vs Control to find business + Trickbind to stop an EtB effect and vs aggro to help increase business density when racing. It's not particularly great against tempo that you really don't have to race (not killing you very often on turn 4-5) and don't play many problematic permanents. I find FF very useful against UWx, Goblins, Maverick, DnT, and UB Planeswalkers. It's not so hot against other combo decks like TES or ANT, it's marginal against SnT mirror (although it still lets you shave a slot by cutting the 2nd Intuition from your sideboard), and it's mostly supporting Dream Halls, which isn't really where you want to be against tempo decks such as RUG.


Also, I played against Sneak and Show on Wednesday, and was beaten by Pact triggers on my Emrakul extra turn...made me wish I could have had a lab maniac kill, or perhaps had access to a 4th Cunning Wish. As it was, I knew I couldn't stifle both triggers, and my opponent was at 8 life after finally getting to Emrakul on the Clash, so I Wished for Sapphire Charm-->opponent draw a card, and stacked my 2 Pact triggers first so the charm would resolve first, and then after he drew, I wished for Noxious Revival, and Revival'd Release the Ants, which I impulsed into and then tried to release the ants for the rest of the damage to win with the Pacts on the stack, but couldn't get there when my opponent got another emrakul in 2 cards on the clash.

Unless there was more to it you punted. You Wish->Trickbind, trickbind the first pact trigger, Wish->Revival, Revival Trickbind, Impulse into Trickbind, Trickbind the second pact trigger. Proceed to profit.

[alwaysdrawing]

Unless there was more to it you punted. You Wish->Trickbind, trickbind the first pact trigger, Wish->Revival, Revival Trickbind, Impulse into Trickbind, Trickbind the second pact trigger. Proceed to profit.

I only had one wish...I had already wished for one of the pacts. That's why I said I'm considering moving to 4 wishes.

[emidln]

I only had one wish...I had already wished for one of the pacts. That's why I said I'm considering moving to 4 wishes.

Read your quote. You wished for release the ants, pact, noxious revival, and sapphire charm or you mistyped the situation.

[alwaysdrawing]

Read your quote. You wished for release the ants, pact, noxious revival, and sapphire charm or you mistyped the situation.

Sorry, I was wrong, I wished for charm. Even so, I couldn't wish for Trickbind and Revival, which was the premise there. My mistake. I had 2 pact triggers I had to pay for.

[emidln]

Sorry, I was wrong, I wished for charm. Even so, I couldn't wish for Trickbind and Revival, which was the premise there. My mistake. I had 2 pact triggers I had to pay for.

You had already resolved Omniscience. Why couldn't you play something along the lines of:

SnT x3 for Tomb, Tomb/Island, Island and then Wish->Trickbind + pay for a Pact?

[alwaysdrawing]

You had already resolved Omniscience. Why couldn't you play something along the lines of:

SnT x3 for Tomb, Tomb/Island, Island and then Wish->Trickbind + pay for a Pact?

Show and Telling in lands to pay for pact never occurred to me....that actually sounds pretty good. Thanks!

[blindspotxxx]

You had already resolved Omniscience. Why couldn't you play something along the lines of:

SnT x3 for Tomb, Tomb/Island, Island and then Wish->Trickbind + pay for a Pact?

Nasty Trick :) On the brightside I've never had to pay for my Pact that way or had the option.

[apple713]

Played this deck in a small tournament went 3-1

lost to High tide... extremely embarrassing just cause i loathe that deck and want nothing more to crush all of the people who play it so they stop playing it.

beat burn, reanimator, and UB Tezzerator

Didnt really run into trouble except i need to make a lot of changes to the deck

I was running some makeshift cards and this is what i learned

Flusterstorm is probably the worst card to play against.

Thwart has no business in the deck.

Emrakul should be a sideboard card for Game 1

Cunning wish should be a 4 of

Trickbind is a sideboard card and should not be main deck because its completely wasted 99% of the time.

Impuse is a significantly better 2 CMC card if you are playing with Fireminds foresight.

Intuition main and in sideboard is very useful

I feel like Laboratory maniac is a better win con because many decks are running emrakuls now a days and winning 20 clashes in a row might not happen.

I was almost certain to cut noxious revival from the board but i think i could have used it once or twice to make things easier, but it didnt seem necessary if you make better decisions





Other thoughts

I like the idea of having thought seize/duress however are they better than just running flusterstorm?

Duress give you information about their hand including taking one of their counterspells

However it does require you to slightly weaken the mana base


flusterstorm can be used to fight counter spells in a similar way that duress can. If you have 4 mana, 3 for a S&T and 1 for a duress/ flusterstorm, what would you want to cast?

Duress IMO just because if they somehow have more counterspells than you, you dont wanna pact yourself out of the game. Also you can take that wipe away they are holding onto....Damn high tide players.


Seems like im supporting emidln's build with the black splash more than anything.

[blindspotxxx]

Played this list at the Philadelphia Legacy Series at Top Deck. Went 3-3. :-/

3 City of Traitors
10 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
1 Flusterstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
1 Impulse
3 Cunning Wish
4 Show and Tell
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
4 Omniscience
4 Enter the Infinite
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sideboard:
1 Pact of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
1 Noxious Revival
1 Sapphire Charm
2 Defense Grid
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Release the Ants
1 Trickbind
1 Intuition
1 Rushing River
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Firemind's Foresight

Matchups:
Round 1: BUG Walkers 0-2. Turn 2 Lily in Game 1, and double discard after a mull to 6 in G2 (not finding a leyline) was too much to overcome. 0-1
Round 2: Deathblade 2-0. Found the combo quickly, and in Game 2 had a Leyline in hand which was awesome against his mull into discard. Not much to report...released the ants. 1-1
Round 3: Dark Maverick 2-0. Beat an Aven Mindcensor in Game 1, and in Game 2, Forced the Mindcensor, and was able to EOT Cunning wish for Sapphire Charm to phase out Teeg, Untap, and Omniscience, Omniscience (to get around pridemage), and Enter the Infinite for game. 2-1
Round 4: Reanimator 0-2. Paired up into the reanimator matchup....yuck! I don't think this is a winnable matchup, and not worth going into detail....basically reanimator is faster, with more counters and even if I can Show and Tell, he can just drop Griselbrand and draw 14 to counter Enter the Infinite. By playing this deck I know I am dead to Reanimator decks, and it was brutal getting paired up into it to be kicked from contention. Oh well. Notably piloted by Seth Zulinski, who top 2'd SCG Philly and top 16'd SCG Baltimore with the same reanimator list. He's also killing it in the Wednesday legacy events at Red Cap's....I think I'm going to have to start handing out Faerie Macabre's to start hating Reanimator out of the local meta! 2-2
Round 5: Shardless BUG 2-0. Got there in Game 1 with a fast clock, and then landed a Leyline in Game 2. Had to dodge fewer Lilianas in the non-walker matchup, which makes it easier, as well as not enough MD counters/discard to really get me. BUG piloted by Pat Dickson, who just top 4'd the SCG Philly. 3-2
Round 6: UW Miracles 0-2. Lost to THREE blind flips off counterbalance in G1...a 3 (Blood Moon against my Show and Tell), a 5 (Force of Will against my Dream Halls), and a 3 (Detention Sphere to Show and Tell...YUCK!). Game 2, he responded to my Show and Tell by Enlightened Tutoring for Ethersword Canonist and Flipping Top into it. I've played this matchup before and Ethersworn Canonist is a huge problem...Even if I can Cunning Wish for Pact/Charm to go off, I can't counter if the Miracle player has counters. Definitely one of the strongest cards I've seen against this deck, especially being able to tutor for it. Total 3-3.

Top 8 of the tournament: ANT, TES, Bant Maverick (with Geist of Saint Traft), UW Miracles, Dark Maverick (piloted by Jack Wang), Reanimator, Zoo (with Ghor Clan Rampager!), and something else I forgot.

Any advice on how to play around Ethersworn Canonist is appreciated. The UW miracles matchup seems rough if I don't have a fast hand. Maindeck hate in the form of Detention Sphere can randomly win games, and Canonist and a clock coming out of the board (Geist), makes it tough, especially with E Tutor being able to tutor up Canonist or D Sphere at instant Speed.

Also, I played against Sneak and Show on Wednesday, and was beaten by Pact triggers on my Emrakul extra turn...made me wish I could have had a lab maniac kill, or perhaps had access to a 4th Cunning Wish. As it was, I knew I couldn't stifle both triggers, and my opponent was at 8 life after finally getting to Emrakul on the Clash, so I Wished for Sapphire Charm-->opponent draw a card, and stacked my 2 Pact triggers first so the charm would resolve first, and then after he drew, I wished for Noxious Revival, and Revival'd Release the Ants, which I impulsed into and then tried to release the ants for the rest of the damage to win with the Pacts on the stack, but couldn't get there when my opponent got another emrakul in 2 cards on the clash.

Where can I see the decklists of the event? :) That zoo deck is intriguing lol

[alwaysdrawing]

Played this deck in a small tournament went 3-1

lost to High tide... extremely embarrassing just cause i loathe that deck and want nothing more to crush all of the people who play it so they stop playing it.

beat burn, reanimator, and UB Tezzerator

Didnt really run into trouble except i need to make a lot of changes to the deck

I was running some makeshift cards and this is what i learned

Flusterstorm is probably the worst card to play against.

Thwart has no business in the deck.

Emrakul should be a sideboard card for Game 1

Cunning wish should be a 4 of

Trickbind is a sideboard card and should not be main deck because its completely wasted 99% of the time.

Impuse is a significantly better 2 CMC card if you are playing with Fireminds foresight.

Intuition main and in sideboard is very useful

I feel like Laboratory maniac is a better win con because many decks are running emrakuls now a days and winning 20 clashes in a row might not happen.

I was almost certain to cut noxious revival from the board but i think i could have used it once or twice to make things easier, but it didnt seem necessary if you make better decisions





Other thoughts

I like the idea of having thought seize/duress however are they better than just running flusterstorm?

Duress give you information about their hand including taking one of their counterspells

However it does require you to slightly weaken the mana base


flusterstorm can be used to fight counter spells in a similar way that duress can. If you have 4 mana, 3 for a S&T and 1 for a duress/ flusterstorm, what would you want to cast?

Duress IMO just because if they somehow have more counterspells than you, you dont wanna pact yourself out of the game. Also you can take that wipe away they are holding onto....Damn high tide players.


Seems like im supporting emidln's build with the black splash more than anything.

How did you beat Reanimator?

To the question above...not sure if decklists have been posted. The Zoo list seemed like a typical zoo list...bolts, nacatl, chain, goyf, etc + Domri and Ghor Clan.

[Titan2k13]

I played the deck for the first time last weekend.
Before I read your primer and made some goldfishing at tcgplayer.com.
My result was 3-1-1 at a local tournament with 25 players.I finished place 6.
Instead of your 3xdefense grid which were stucked in mailing I had to play 3xmisdirection.

My matchups were: Result:

R1: Canadian Threshold 1-1
R2: UB-Tezzeret 2-1
R3: Death and Taxes 2-0
R4: Deathblade 0-2
R5: Esper Stoneblade 2-0

UB-Tezzeret-Decklist:

Main:
3 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Vault of Whispers
4 Talisman of Dominance
2 Dimir Signet
4 Baleful Strix
2 Solemn Simulacrum
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Engineered Explosives
1 The Abyss
2 Damantion
4 Jace, the Mindsculptor
4 Tezzeret, Agnet of Bolas
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Force of Will
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Nihil Spellbomb

Board:
4 Duress
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Engineered Plague
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
1 Ratched Bomb
1 Virtue’s Ruin

Deathblade-Decklist:

2 Marsh Flats
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra

2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Dark Confidant
4 Stoneforge Mystic
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Baleful Strix

3 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm

3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize


Board:

3 Meddling Mage
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Baleful Strix
2 Detention Sphere
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Flusterstorm




@Lejay:Please answer the 3 following questions:
1.)what would you play as a replacement for 3xdefense grid?
2.)how would you sideboard in your list against UB-Tezzeret?
3.)How would you rate your matchup in percentage vs. Deathblade?

[Esper3k]

FF is useful vs Control to find business + Trickbind to stop an EtB effect and vs aggro to help increase business density when racing. It's not particularly great against tempo that you really don't have to race (not killing you very often on turn 4-5) and don't play many problematic permanents. I find FF very useful against UWx, Goblins, Maverick, DnT, and UB Planeswalkers. It's not so hot against other combo decks like TES or ANT, it's marginal against SnT mirror (although it still lets you shave a slot by cutting the 2nd Intuition from your sideboard), and it's mostly supporting Dream Halls, which isn't really where you want to be against tempo decks such as RUG.


Thanks again for the tips! Do you find yourself ever missing the 4th FoW in the 75? My meta has all of the sudden been infested with D&T, so every time I draw Pact in G1 (of course, it always comes up!), I just want to punch myself in the dick.

In the matchup against hate bear decks, would you board in the Emrakul to give you another pseudo method of dealing with hate bears?

As much as I'd love to cut the Intuition from the side, I've ended up too many times where I have Omniscience+EtI in hand, but only a Cunning Wish to Wish -> Intuition -> Show & Tell (I know, super slow) so it's hard for me to give up something I've gotten quite a bit of use out of.

[apple713]

How did you beat Reanimator?

To the question above...not sure if decklists have been posted. The Zoo list seemed like a typical zoo list...bolts, nacatl, chain, goyf, etc + Domri and Ghor Clan.

seemed like luck. Every turn that went by i was thinking How the hell am i gonna pull this off.

I got game one with a quick S&T i think and got lucky cause that they didnt have iona or something. Im pretty sure they durdled for a bit.

G2 they got iona and i entered the scoop phase immediatly

g3 I got lucky (i think) and ended up casting a S&T into omni. They angel of despaird my omni. I was sitting on an ETI in hand. I took the hit from angel then i cast a dream halls on my turn with 2 pacts for their two forces and won with ETI.

Definatly not impossible but certainly not favorable with show and tells main. I took 3 out and cant think of what i put in. I know that after the changes i mentioned I would have put in 4 discard spells and surgicals.

[HoneyT]

Won another local tourney the other day with the following list:

// Lands
2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
9 Island
3 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn

// Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
4 Brainstorm
3 Cunning Wish
4 Dream Halls
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Force of Will
1 Intuition
4 Omniscience
2 Pact of Negation
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell
1 Trickbind

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 1 Firemind's Foresight
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Noxious Revival
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Release the Ants
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Wipe Away



R1 vs Jund 1-2
R2 vs Goblins 2-0
R3 vs High Tide 2-0
R4 vs Maverick 2-1

Top 4
Semis rematch vs Jund 2-1
Finals vs RUG Delver 2-1

Good for a 1st place and a Bayou.

I'll be more than happy to type out details if any of you are interested.

[Esper3k]

Well done! I'm always interested in reports and how people sideboard!

[blindspotxxx]

I now see the advantage of this deck when compared to Sneak Show. This deck has no redundancies or dead cards. Sneak Show has the problem of Drawing too many fatties and no action lol and it actually faces less hate because Karakas is not a problem for this deck.

Drawback of this deck as compared to Sneak Show is this is less resilient and it has no early game protection from discard and counter for threats that kill it. Flusterstorm is also a beating to OmniTell when it goes all in. I will continue to test this deck more with the upcoming events.

[Esper3k]

I now see the advantage of this deck when compared to Sneak Show. This deck has no redundancies or dead cards. Sneak Show has the problem of Drawing too many fatties and no action lol and it actually faces less hate because Karakas is not a problem for this deck.

Drawback of this deck as compared to Sneak Show is this is less resilient and it has no early game protection from discard and counter for threats that kill it. Flusterstorm is also a beating to OmniTell when it goes all in. I will continue to test this deck more with the upcoming events.

Well, it does have dead cards in that none of your main combo pieces do much until you assemble Voltron.

The pros & cons as I see it are:

Pros
- Doesnt rely upon the graveyard, your life total, or attack step to combo off (thus more resilient to the various forms of dedicated hate)
- More protection than many combo decks
- Usually kills you immediately the turn it goes off
- Pretty much immune to Wasteland

Cons
- You are assembling a 3 card combo (usually) so are more vulnerable to hand disruption
- Again, havig to assemble 3 cards makes you slower than many existing combo decks

[Varal]

I don't know it is your metagame but the deck is pretty popular here and I expect it to be between 15% and 20% at the next tournament. Some players were going to increase their hate against this deck. I wonder what are the silver bullets I need to protect against. Is it only permanent removal and Red Elemental Blast that I have to worry about or is there other ones? I even wonder if playing red for Red Elementa Blast would be worth it for the mirror.

[Esper3k]

I don't know it is your metagame but the deck is pretty popular here and I expect it to be between 15% and 20% at the next tournament. Some players were going to increase their hate against this deck. I wonder what are the silver bullets I need to protect against. Is it only permanent removal and Red Elemental Blast that I have to worry about or is there other ones? I even wonder if playing red for Red Elementa Blast would be worth it for the mirror.

Permanent based hate can be really annoying so make sure not to skimp on your bounce spells.

I'm actually really digging Emidln's discard package right now both as protection (Flusterstorm wrecks our shit) and as disruption against other combo decks for a very marginal increase in succeptibility to Wasteland (you have to play an Underground Sea).

[csy]

Im not a fan of the black splash at all, here are my reasons. Feel free to chime in.

1. If you know you want to seize, you're going to want to do so on turn 1-2. If this walks you into a hand with 1 disruption spell and they have a wasteland, was it really worth it?

2. Flusterstorm Flusterstorm Flusterstorm. Id much rather keep 9 islands and be wasteland proof and fight disruption with flusterstorm than run 1 underground seize and 1-2 thoughtsieze. 1-2 flusters seems way better.

3. I also take the draw on the unknown games, in those games seeing Black source, go.. Im not going to want to crack a fetch for a Usea and Tseize on turn 2.


Id much rather stick the plan of, ponder, preordain, bstorm, 'still go all these' Than try and sculpt MY hand and my opponents hand.

[Esper3k]

Im not a fan of the black splash at all, here are my reasons. Feel free to chime in.

1. If you know you want to seize, you're going to want to do so on turn 1-2. If this walks you into a hand with 1 disruption spell and they have a wasteland, was it really worth it?

2. Flusterstorm Flusterstorm Flusterstorm. Id much rather keep 9 islands and be wasteland proof and fight disruption with flusterstorm than run 1 underground seize and 1-2 thoughtsieze. 1-2 flusters seems way better.

3. I also take the draw on the unknown games, in those games seeing Black source, go.. Im not going to want to crack a fetch for a Usea and Tseize on turn 2.


Id much rather stick the plan of, ponder, preordain, bstorm, 'still go all these' Than try and sculpt MY hand and my opponents hand.

1) I personally don't generally T1 hand disrupt unless I'm playing against another combo deck. If I'm playing it defensively, I'm going to usually use it the turn I go off or the turn before I go off.

2) The problem with your own Flusterstorm is 2-fold: 1) You have to have +1 mana the turn you go off 2) While it's good for ending a counterspell fight, if say you have to tap out to Flusterstorm, you've now made their Dazes live again.

3) The hand disruption package from Emidln's list is in the sideboard - you shouldn't be playing it Game 1 so you should never be using it against an unknown deck.

[alwaysdrawing]

1) I personally don't generally T1 hand disrupt unless I'm playing against another combo deck. If I'm playing it defensively, I'm going to usually use it the turn I go off or the turn before I go off.

2) The problem with your own Flusterstorm is 2-fold: 1) You have to have +1 mana the turn you go off 2) While it's good for ending a counterspell fight, if say you have to tap out to Flusterstorm, you've now made their Dazes live again.

3) The hand disruption package from Emidln's list is in the sideboard - you shouldn't be playing it Game 1 so you should never be using it against an unknown deck.

I agree that it does make daze live again, which is relevant, but I think Flusterstorm is great. I've cut one main Pact for it, and added one to the wishboard. Sometimes it's just necessary to win a counter war, and it's nice to have access to it against Storm, where Pacts are dead.

[Esper3k]

I agree that it does make daze live again, which is relevant, but I think Flusterstorm is great. I've cut one main Pact for it, and added one to the wishboard. Sometimes it's just necessary to win a counter war, and it's nice to have access to it against Storm, where Pacts are dead.

I agree Flusterstorm is great too, but the purpose of it is different than hand disruption. Flusterstorm is great at fighting 1 for 1 counterspells like FoW, Pact, Counterspell, etc. If you're trying to combat opposing Flusterstorms though, I think hand disruption is much better than having your own Flusterstorms.

[phazonmutant]

I agree Flusterstorm is great too, but the purpose of it is different than hand disruption. Flusterstorm is great at fighting 1 for 1 counterspells like FoW, Pact, Counterspell, etc. If you're trying to combat opposing Flusterstorms though, I think hand disruption is much better than having your own Flusterstorms.

I'm not sure I see where you're coming from. Most of the time Flusterstorm is Last Word against Force of Will, Counterspell, etc, so we're agreed there. But it's also usually just as good at countering opposing Flusterstorms - your copies just target their copies. Sometimes they have enough to pay for some and turn Flusterstorm into Force Spike, but that's not incredibly often in my experience.

I like hand disruption because it's versatile, but I think Flusterstorm and Duress complement each other to turn the rough combo matchup around.

[emidln]

I'm not sure I see where you're coming from. Most of the time Flusterstorm is Last Word against Force of Will, Counterspell, etc, so we're agreed there. But it's also usually just as good at countering opposing Flusterstorms - your copies just target their copies. Sometimes they have enough to pay for some and turn Flusterstorm into Force Spike, but that's not incredibly often in my experience.

I like hand disruption because it's versatile, but I think Flusterstorm and Duress complement each other to turn the rough combo matchup around.

Strictly speaking, Duress is always better than Flusterstorm at handling opposing Flusterstorms. It will always deal with Flusterstorm for 1 mana. Flusterstorm requires at least 1 mana and then 1 mana for each mana your opponent can spend. The tradeoff is Duress's utility in situations where Flusterstorm has no effect (against a Goblin Charbelcher) and where playing your disruption preemptively (like against Storm or Reanimator) might matter has to be weighed against requiring you to play more fetchlands and then duals and/or non-blue basics in your 75.

[Esper3k]

I'm not sure I see where you're coming from. Most of the time Flusterstorm is Last Word against Force of Will, Counterspell, etc, so we're agreed there. But it's also usually just as good at countering opposing Flusterstorms - your copies just target their copies. Sometimes they have enough to pay for some and turn Flusterstorm into Force Spike, but that's not incredibly often in my experience.

I like hand disruption because it's versatile, but I think Flusterstorm and Duress complement each other to turn the rough combo matchup around.

Sure, your copies can target their copies, but if they have mana to pay for some, that means that's just more mana we have to have on our turn going off.

Think of the tempo matchups. Often, they're going to be dropping a threat on T1 and probably on T2, then not tapping out anymore for the rest of the game. If they have 3 mana when we go off, that's just more mana we have to have open to deal with their Flusterstorms (since they just pay for some copies of ours). If we tap out to pay for Flusterstorms or to cast Flusterstorm, that opens us up to their Dazes as well.

I do play both Flusterstorm and hand disruption, so I have both options, but I've been liking the hand disruption as a way to just straight up deal with Flusterstorm for B (as well as the applications it has against faster combo decks).

[apple713]

Discard is better IMO than flusterstorm for a couple reasons... In just about every situation actually. Discard gives you information that you didn't have before. Information is important, especially when you are playing combo, even more so when you are playing with pact.

Situation 2: let's say your opponent tries to counter your duress, you most likely got the card you wanted anyways.

Situation 3: let's say your opponent tries to counter your duress with fluster or spell pierce. Pay the mana and go off next turn. Thank them for the card advantage. (You play discard on the turn you go off)

Situation 4: your opponent is playing death and taxes, and their only outs are to play that t2 Thalia to slow you down. You can't counter it with flusterstorm, but you can discard it on t1 before they play it.

There are probably more

[apple713]

On a separate note has anyone noticed that this deck has some of the best flavor text?

Cunning wish (judge)

Flavor Text: The foolish wish for that which they desire. The cunning wish for that which they require.

Omniscience

Flavor Text:
"The things I once imagined would be my greatest achievements were only the first steps toward a future I can only begin to fathom."
—Jace Beleren

Pact of negation

Flavor Text:
Those who expect betrayal at every turn are seldom disappointed.

Brainstorm

Flavor Text:
"I see more than others do because I know where to look."
—Saprazzan vizier

Show and tell

Flavor Text:
At the academy, "show and tell" too often becomes "run and hide."

Enter the infinite

Flavor Text:
"Don't just have an idea—have all of them."
—Niv-Mizzet

[Larzdk]

On a separate note has anyone noticed that this deck has some of the best flavor text?

It does indeed. I'll be taking my deck to its first tournament tonight, going with the LabMan kill and no discard. Looking very much forward to see how much power this thing has.

[Rush80]

I have done some testing on MTGO confirming:
-3 or 4 are the sol lands out of 19-20 lands
-the deck must stay Mono or quasi-Mono (e.g. Thoughtsieze + Underground Seas) to curve to 5 as quick as possible.

Worth testing Boseiju vs Defensive Grids and replacing a couple of the zero counters (out to 7) with 1 CMC counters.


I am experimenting:

A) replacing SB Slaughter Pact with Beast Within (with 2 tropical island MD). Kind of 50/50.
In the Mono version you have not swamps/USeas, hence Beast Within > SB Slaughter Pact in most cases.

B) One Boseiju MD and 1 SB as they are critical for a waiting game: some players board out wastelands/ stifle when they see a Mono deck.

[apple713]

I have done some testing on MTGO confirming:
-3 or 4 are the sol lands out of 19-20 lands
-the deck must stay Mono or quasi-Mono (e.g. Thoughtsieze + Underground Seas) to curve to 5 as quick as possible.

Worth testing Boseiju vs Defensive Grids and replacing a couple of the zero counters (out to 7) with 1 CMC counters.


I am experimenting:

A) replacing SB Slaughter Pact with Beast Within (with 2 tropical island MD). Kind of 50/50.
In the Mono version you have not swamps/USeas, hence Beast Within > SB Slaughter Pact in most cases.

B) One Boseiju MD and 1 SB as they are critical for a waiting game: some players board out wastelands/ stifle when they see a Mono deck.

Boseiju seems like a good idea but its not and the reason is because you don't really care if omni or dream halls resolvebecause what you really need to resolve are the spells that allow you to cast enter the Infinite or cunning wish into intuition into something.

[rxavage]

Boseiju seems like a good idea but its not and the reason is because you don't really care if omni or dream halls resolvebecause what you really need to resolve are the spells that allow you to cast enter the Infinite or cunning wish into intuition into something.

I am completely confused by this response...

[menace13]

Boseiju seems like a good idea but its not and the reason is because you don't really care if omni or dream halls resolvebecause what you really need to resolve are the spells that allow you to cast enter the Infinite or cunning wish into intuition into something.
Spells that allow me to resolve infinite or cunning... hmmm, tuff one.
Oh, right. You mean like Omni and Dreamhalls?

[blindspotxxx]

Went 2-2 last night at our local.

Gave the last round to my teammate who needs points lol So we didn't fight.

Only lose came to Miracles, after sideboarding my God that much up is super horrible. No amount of Sculpting can prepare you for REBs, Flusterstorms and Force of Will.

You also have to Force the Counterbalances they play and Entreat the Angels if the game goes long so you can't really pack up for the big Counter War.

[Esper3k]

Boseiju only works for Show & Tell, btw. Doesn't do anything if you're casting Dream Halls with it...

[Larzdk]

Managed to go 3-2, losing to Tin Fins (2-0, game 2 going to turn 18 where I had 3 Omniscience, a Leyline plus 11 lands in play and never saw a single drawspell past the first 2 turns... yeah) and Esper Deathblade with Meddling Mages in 3 games. Won vs Miracles, Team America and a non-Pox discard deck. Deck seems very strong, but I really need more practice playing against Thoughtseize decks.

[Rush80]

Boseiju seems like a good idea but its not and the reason is because you don't really care if omni or dream halls resolvebecause what you really need to resolve are the spells that allow you to cast enter the Infinite or cunning wish into intuition into something.

In my experience, the counter war starts when attempting to resolve Omni/Dream Halls.
Once resolved it, you have quite an advantage.

On a side note Rapid Hybridization is stronger than Slaughter Pact for a MonoU shell.

[Rush80]

I wonder if anybody has tried adding 2-3 Eureka and replacing 1-2 counters whilst keeping 2 DH in MD.

E.g. something like:

Eureka + SnT + Boseiju + Omniscience

You gain one turn with Eureka vs Dream Hall. I acknowledge the benefit of the dual role of DH.

The nice bit of Omni deck (and HiveMind and Painter) vs traditional Snt (+ eureka) shell is that you win before the opponent main phase.
These days and possibly going forward makes a huge difference. Hence Eureka has its drawbacks but it is an additional cheaper enabler.
As I look to the historical Legacy tournaments reports I see little usage of Eureka + SnT.
I wonder if anybody has done some testing.

[emidln]

On a side note Rapid Hybridization is stronger than Slaughter Pact for a MonoU shell.

No it's not. It costs 1. 1 > 0. Particularly given that the sideboard strategy against hatebears usually brings in any 1, 2, and 3 cc spells to leave Slaughter Pact in the sb so Cunning Wish remains 3-4 copies of a removal spell for 3.

On the topic of Boseiju, in addition to taking a full turn to come online, it doesn't confer counterspell immunity to anything other than Show and Tell and Cunning Wish (and the 1-of Intuition, if you play it). Boseiju only grants its affect to Sorcery and Instant spells. In practical terms, only allowing you to resolve SnT or CWish (pre-Omni) means that you must have Omniscience, and it just moves the fight to your draw spell. This only matters in practice if you have spare Cunning Wishes that you want to turn into Pact/Flusterstorm but no ability to wait a turn to cast Wish normally. Given that Boseiju costs a card, you need to be holding 2 Wishes that you couldn't previously cast for Boseiju to really be worth it over a random piece of disruption.

[Rush80]

[QUOTE=emidln;735518]No it's not. It costs 1. 1 > 0. Particularly given that the sideboard strategy against hatebears usually brings in any 1, 2, and 3 cc spells to leave Slaughter Pact in the sb so Cunning Wish remains 3-4 copies of a removal spell for 3.



If you are under a resolved omniscience it is irrelevant but under DH a blue card like RH may matter.

In the more general case you are without any enchantment on the board, you may play Rapid Hybridization at the end of opponent turn and go off next turn whilst with Slaughter Pact you cannot due to upkeep cost.
For example this allow you to go around an opposing resolved Ethersworn Canonist.

[Esper3k]

If you are under a resolved omniscience it is irrelevant but under DH a blue card like RH may matter.

In the more general case you are without any enchantment on the board, you may play Rapid Hybridization at the end of opponent turn and go off next turn whilst with Slaughter Pact you cannot due to upkeep cost.
For example this allow you to go around an opposing resolved Ethersworn Canonist.

In your example, you can just Slaughter Pact the Canonist on your turn, then go off...

Also, a much more common situation is having to fight through a Thalia where the mana costs matter.

[emidln]

In your example, you can just Slaughter Pact the Canonist on your turn, then go off...

Also, a much more common situation is having to fight through a Thalia where the mana costs matter.

Casting Slaughter Pact on your own turn was the obvious line. It slipped my mind that someone suggesting Pongify might not understand that.

[Rush80]

Casting Slaughter Pact on your own turn was the obvious line. It slipped my mind that someone suggesting Pongify might not understand that.

Yes thank you for suggesting both are equal in case the opponent has no counter.
But wait.
How about, the more likely scenario where you and your opponent have a counter and there is a resolved EC in play?

RH is also better in rare, rare cases where you must win with Emrakul and you have not access to Trickbind.

There are scenarios, mentioned before (e.g. Thalia), where RH is less good.

[useL]

Yes thank you for suggesting both are equal in case the opponent has no counter.
But wait.
How about, the more likely scenario where you and your opponent have a counter and there is a resolved EC in play?

RH is also better in rare, rare cases where you must win with Emrakul and you have not access to Trickbind.

There are scenarios, mentioned before (e.g. Thalia), where RH is less good.

Lists with counters rarely play Canonist though.

[emidln]

Yes thank you for suggesting both are equal in case the opponent has no counter.
But wait.
How about, the more likely scenario where you and your opponent have a counter and there is a resolved EC in play?

RH is also better in rare, rare cases where you must win with Emrakul and you have not access to Trickbind.

There are scenarios, mentioned before (e.g. Thalia), where RH is less good.


If they have a counter then they counter pongify or slaughter pact. Letting it resolve to maybe counter dream halls or snt turns on a fistful of counter magic well before they might lose to a slaughter pact trigger (if the player can't trickbind or fetch sea). An opponent can't risk EC's removal turning on the omni players main game plan because those odds are highly unfavorable for the control player.

[Rush80]

If they have a counter then they counter pongify or slaughter pact. Letting it resolve to maybe counter dream halls or snt turns on a fistful of counter magic well before they might lose to a slaughter pact trigger (if the player can't trickbind or fetch sea). An opponent can't risk EC's removal turning on the omni players main game plan because those odds are highly unfavorable for the control player.

Thats' right; it means you gain 1 turn with Pongify vs SP:

EoT (opponent): Pongify / Countered
You turn: SnT (omnisciance or DH) or cast DH
Your next turn: ETI

You turn: SP / Countered
You next turn: SnT (omnisciance or DH) or cast DH
Your following turn: ETI

[GundamGuy]

Thats' right; it means you gain 1 turn with Pongify vs SP:

EoT (opponent): Pongify / Countered
You turn: SnT (omnisciance or DH) or cast DH
Your next turn: ETI

You turn: SP / Countered
You next turn: SnT (omnisciance or DH) or cast DH
Your following turn: ETI

New poster here. I don't follow.... aren't you still talking the corner case where they have Canonist and counter spells? Should we make card choice decisions based on the more common Thalia case?

[jbeam]

Any tips on mulliganing? Are hands with island plus cantrips generally considered keepers, or do you look for at least one combo piece in your opener?

[Esper3k]

Wheels fell off a little this week at our local Legacy tournament. Made some mistakes that cost me games, but at least I recognized them, heh.

Played Emidln's list with -1 Trickbind / +1 Intuition in the board.

Round 1 - vs Mono W Stax

Ugh, these decks seem to be a tough matchup for us. Chalices, Trinispheres, Thorn/Sphere effects from the board sound hellish for us to play against.

Game 1: He wins the die roll (this is a common theme this tournament - I actually win 0 die rolls yesterday, heh). Opens with Wasteland and passes. I look at my hand of Brainstorm, Ponder, Ponder, and go whew at least I get to cast one. Play an island and pass. T2, he plays Ancient Tom-> Crucible of Worlds. Woohoo! I cantrip, cantrip, cantrip, and kill on T4 with Dream Halls.

-3 Pact of Negation
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Rushing River
+4 Hand Disruption Package

Game 2: He again opens with a Wasteland and I lead with a cantrip. T2, he taps 2 mana... for Defense Grid! It resolves and I'm ready to take it up the butt next turn from a disruption piece I can't stop. I keep digging and he doesn't drop a disruption piece! I Duress him and see Smokestack and O-Ring and take the Smokestack since I have a Trickbind in hand. I end up going off with just Show & Tell -> Omniscience -> Trickbind the O-Ring Trigger -> Brainstorm and drop a second Omniscience just in case and leave a Ponder on top of my library (I had no more fetches) and have to pass the turn. The second Omniscience ended up mattering since he had a second O-Ring. Ponder finds me Preordain, play a fetch and crack it, Preordain which tucks away two bad cards... and ETI on the blind draw!

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - vs Deathblade

Game 1: He has a T2 Bob into Thoughtseize into V. Clique which just disrupts long enough to get me.

-3 Force of Will
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
-1 Trickbind
+4 Hand Disruption Package
+1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
+1 Pact of Negation

Game 2: We both durdle around for awhile and I sculpt a hand that allows me to go off with Dream Halls, but my only protection piece is a Duress. T3, I Duress to set up for a T4 Dream Halls and see: Bob, Jace, FoW, Notion Thief, Stoneforge Mystic. Notion Thief - are you kidding me!?!? Why does Dream Halls have to be symetrical! *shakes fist* . I surreptitiously look at my library and sadly, I have considerably fewer cards due to cantripping + fetching. So, I take the Force of Will and have to sit for a few more turns with the game plan of either finding a counterspell or going off with EtI when he has less cards in the library than I do (so his Notion Thief decks himself). He finds hand disruption for me before I can find any countermagic and I die.

1-1 (2-2)

Round 3 - vs Mono R MUD

Another Chalice deck?!? Damnit!

Game 1: He leads off with a T1 Wasteland and I'm ok with it. He goes T2 Metalworker, T3 reveal Spine of Ish Shah, Mox Opal, Mox Diamond, Voltaic Key, casts the Spine (makes the Show & Tell in my hand happy) and blows up one of my islands. I drop some fetches and dig for the next few turns while he draws mana stones and attacks me with the Metalworker. Show & Tell -> Omni -> EtI ends the game a turn or two later.

-3 Pact of Negation
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Rushing River
+4 Hand Disruption Package

Game 2: He goes T1: City of Traitors -> Grim Monolith -> Metalworker. I think about Forcing the Metalworker, but I decide I don't ultimately care about it. My patience pays off as he goes for a T2 Chalice and I have the Force for it then proceed to go off on my turn.

2-1 (4-2)

Round 4 - vs Imperial Painter

Hooray for playing Islands, right?

Game 1: He goes first and I mull to 6 keeping a hand of Show & Tell, Ponder, Ponder, Fetch, Fetch, Sol Land. Of course, he goes T1 Blood Moon and I die as I draw fetch, fetch, sol land as my only land and get killed by bears.

-3 Force of Will
+1 Rushing River
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Game 2: He drops a T2 Thorn of Amethyst which annoys me, but I have plenty of lands. I fight through two red blasts to go off at 3 life after casting Dream Halls then Rushing River the Thorn away and EtI.

Game 3: He drops an early Top and Painter then tries to REB one of my Islands. I have a double Cunning Wish hand along with my Show & Tell and Cunning Wish for a Pact and let me island die. He plays Imperial Recruiter, finding Jaya Ballard, leaving 1 Mountain open. At this point, I have Cunning Wish, Show & Tell, Omniscience, EtI, Pact, Ponder vs his 3 cards. I gamble on them not being REB/REB/Simian Spirit Guide. I was wrong and lose to my Pact trigger on my upkeep. In hindsight, I should have waited a turn to Cunning Wish for a Force of Will then gone off with double protection. Ah well, we only learn when we're punished for our mistakes, right?

2-2 (5-4)

[KobeBryan]

Wheels fell off a little this week at our local Legacy tournament. Made some mistakes that cost me games, but at least I recognized them, heh.

Played Emidln's list with -1 Trickbind / +1 Intuition in the board.

Round 1 - vs Mono W Stax

Ugh, these decks seem to be a tough matchup for us. Chalices, Trinispheres, Thorn/Sphere effects from the board sound hellish for us to play against.

Game 1: He wins the die roll (this is a common theme this tournament - I actually win 0 die rolls yesterday, heh). Opens with Wasteland and passes. I look at my hand of Brainstorm, Ponder, Ponder, and go whew at least I get to cast one. Play an island and pass. T2, he plays Ancient Tom-> Crucible of Worlds. Woohoo! I cantrip, cantrip, cantrip, and kill on T4 with Dream Halls.

-3 Pact of Negation
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Rushing River
+4 Hand Disruption Package

Game 2: He again opens with a Wasteland and I lead with a cantrip. T2, he taps 2 mana... for Defense Grid! It resolves and I'm ready to take it up the butt next turn from a disruption piece I can't stop. I keep digging and he doesn't drop a disruption piece! I Duress him and see Smokestack and O-Ring and take the Smokestack since I have a Trickbind in hand. I end up going off with just Show & Tell -> Omniscience -> Trickbind the O-Ring Trigger -> Brainstorm and drop a second Omniscience just in case and leave a Ponder on top of my library (I had no more fetches) and have to pass the turn. The second Omniscience ended up mattering since he had a second O-Ring. Ponder finds me Preordain, play a fetch and crack it, Preordain which tucks away two bad cards... and ETI on the blind draw!

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - vs Deathblade

Game 1: He has a T2 Bob into Thoughtseize into V. Clique which just disrupts long enough to get me.

-3 Force of Will
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
-1 Trickbind
+4 Hand Disruption Package
+1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
+1 Pact of Negation

Game 2: We both durdle around for awhile and I sculpt a hand that allows me to go off with Dream Halls, but my only protection piece is a Duress. T3, I Duress to set up for a T4 Dream Halls and see: Bob, Jace, FoW, Notion Thief, Stoneforge Mystic. Notion Thief - are you kidding me!?!? Why does Dream Halls have to be symetrical! *shakes fist* . I surreptitiously look at my library and sadly, I have considerably fewer cards due to cantripping + fetching. So, I take the Force of Will and have to sit for a few more turns with the game plan of either finding a counterspell or going off with EtI when he has less cards in the library than I do (so his Notion Thief decks himself). He finds hand disruption for me before I can find any countermagic and I die.

1-1 (2-2)

Round 3 - vs Mono R MUD

Another Chalice deck?!? Damnit!

Game 1: He leads off with a T1 Wasteland and I'm ok with it. He goes T2 Metalworker, T3 reveal Spine of Ish Shah, Mox Opal, Mox Diamond, Voltaic Key, casts the Spine (makes the Show & Tell in my hand happy) and blows up one of my islands. I drop some fetches and dig for the next few turns while he draws mana stones and attacks me with the Metalworker. Show & Tell -> Omni -> EtI ends the game a turn or two later.

-3 Pact of Negation
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Intuition
-1 Cunning Wish
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Rushing River
+4 Hand Disruption Package

Game 2: He goes T1: City of Traitors -> Grim Monolith -> Metalworker. I think about Forcing the Metalworker, but I decide I don't ultimately care about it. My patience pays off as he goes for a T2 Chalice and I have the Force for it then proceed to go off on my turn.

2-1 (4-2)

Round 4 - vs Imperial Painter

Hooray for playing Islands, right?

Game 1: He goes first and I mull to 6 keeping a hand of Show & Tell, Ponder, Ponder, Fetch, Fetch, Sol Land. Of course, he goes T1 Blood Moon and I die as I draw fetch, fetch, sol land as my only land and get killed by bears.

-3 Force of Will
+1 Rushing River
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Game 2: He drops a T2 Thorn of Amethyst which annoys me, but I have plenty of lands. I fight through two red blasts to go off at 3 life after casting Dream Halls then Rushing River the Thorn away and EtI.

Game 3: He drops an early Top and Painter then tries to REB one of my Islands. I have a double Cunning Wish hand along with my Show & Tell and Cunning Wish for a Pact and let me island die. He plays Imperial Recruiter, finding Jaya Ballard, leaving 1 Mountain open. At this point, I have Cunning Wish, Show & Tell, Omniscience, EtI, Pact, Ponder vs his 3 cards. I gamble on them not being REB/REB/Simian Spirit Guide. I was wrong and lose to my Pact trigger on my upkeep. In hindsight, I should have waited a turn to Cunning Wish for a Force of Will then gone off with double protection. Ah well, we only learn when we're punished for our mistakes, right?

2-2 (5-4)

The deck is already easily disruptable that splashing for underground seas actually make this deck worse.

[Esper3k]

The deck is already easily disruptable that splashing for underground seas actually make this deck worse.

I haven't found this to be the case. So far, I haven't run into any situations where the Sea screwed me over as opposed to having another basic island.

[KobeBryan]

I haven't found this to be the case. So far, I haven't run into any situations where the Sea screwed me over as opposed to having another basic island.

This deck is a slightly slower combo, can't go off on turn 1 and needs to be built up. Don't you hate getting wastelanded and stifled against RUG

[Esper3k]

This deck is a slightly slower combo, can't go off on turn 1 and needs to be built up. Don't you hate getting wastelanded and stifled against RUG

Certainly it's slower than many other combo decks, but against RUG, I actually don't think Stifle/Wasteland are the biggest problems we have.

Other than fetches, Stifle is pretty bad against us and it's usually not too difficult to play around (plus if they're keeping Stifle mana up, that usually delays their threats a turn or two).

Likewise, with all the basics we have, Wasteland really isn't any issue. Like I said, I haven't run into the case yet where I had to play the Sea from my hand, had it Wastelanded, and had it affect the game. When we bring in the hand disruption package, we bring in that basic swamp as well, so that allows us to get a Wasteland-proof source of black mana.

[KobeBryan]

post your list man

Use capitalization and punctuation please. Also, posts require more content than this. Thanks. -zilla

[Esper3k]

post your list man

This weekend I played Emidln's deck, just -1 Trickbind / +1 Intuition from the board.

[AEnesidem]

Hi guys, esper player here with some questios about the matchup.

I Will be facing omnishow in the first round of a seasonal top8. How is your matchup against esperblade? Which cards are most problematic for you and which sideboard hate do you experience as most problematic?

thanks in advance!

[KobeBryan]

Hi guys, esper player here with some questios about the matchup.

I Will be facing omnishow in the first round of a seasonal top8. How is your matchup against esperblade? Which cards are most problematic for you and which sideboard hate do you experience as most problematic?

thanks in advance!

Very good. Especially once targeted discard comes into play.

Flusterstorm

[GundamGuy]

New OmniTell Player here.

Have some questions about the sideboard slots, namely Rushing River, Sapphire Charm, and Slaughter Pact. I see many lists run all 3 of these in the board, and I guess I'm having a trouble seeing the scenarios where you would want all three of these in the board, instead of just Rushing River, and Slaughter Pact?

Rushing River is there to deal with hatebears and problematic perms after Omniscience or Dream Halls.
Slaughter Pact is the same but is better at dealing with heatbears that need to die prior to going off....
Sapphire Charm seems like the same as Slaughter Pact but not as good as it cost U. Maybe I'm missing some of the other uses of Sapphire Charm.

I'd like to open up SB slots but want to understand better some of these choices before I make any rash decisions.

FYI

This is the SB I'm currently tinkering with.
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Research // Development
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
1 Sapphire Charm
1 Trickbind
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Rushing River
1 Pact of Negation
1 Intuition

I've been contemplating moving Trickbind and Intuition MB and adding Fireminds' Foresight SB + Noxious Revival, but that involves making a cut that I'm not eager to do. Either - 1 Pact of Negation (2 instead of 3), -1 Cantrip (:frown:), -1 Dream Halls, -1 Cunning Wish. None of which seem right.

Any thoughts or help on this?

[phazonmutant]

your gonna get flamed for asking this question. There's some really intolerable people in this thread. I'm not allowed to answer anything because according to many of my questions asked, I should not be playing this deck.

Flamebait removed. -zilla


GundamGuy - multiple bounce/removal spells are there so that you can board in all but Slaughter Pact. Against the men decks, you want to be able to draw into them - you need to be prepared to play through multiple hatebears.

Lejay has a solid list and sideboard with a ton of testing, and if you search back a couple pages, emidlin posted his build which looks a bit different but also is backed by lots of testing. People playing in events seem to have pretty much followed one or the other with only minor changes, so that should give you a feel for what are reasonable "stock" options.

About Firemind's Foresight, Lejay argues that it hasn't proven to be especially necessary. It's only needed with some low-resource Dream Halls wins, but he board in the Leylines against discard to prevent that low-resource situation from happening.

[KobeBryan]

Flamebait removed. -zilla

GundamGuy - multiple bounce/removal spells are there so that you can board in all but Slaughter Pact. Against the men decks, you want to be able to draw into them - you need to be prepared to play through multiple hatebears. - Missed capitalization

Lejay has a solid list and sideboard with a ton of testing, and if you search back a couple pages, emidlin posted his build which looks a bit different but also is backed by lots of testing. - Run on

People playing in events seem to have pretty much followed one or the other with only minor changes, so that should give you a feel for what are reasonable "stock" options. - Run on. Poor sentence structure.

About Firemind's Foresight, Lejay argues that it hasn't proven to be especially necessary. It's only needed with some low-resource Dream Halls wins, but he board in the Leylines against discard to prevent that low-resource situation from happening. - poor word choice with "about". Should be "in regards"

[AEnesidem]

Since my comment got lost into the eternal abyss of internet quarrels i'm gonna go ahead and post it again :laugh:.

I'm an esperblade/deathblade player and i have to face Omnishow in the seasonal top 8 of my LGS. How would you describe your matchup against esperblade. Who is favored in the MU?
Also, which deck do you fear most Esper or deathblade and what are the sideboard cards you really don't want to see against you.

I've already read how you board against the deck but haven't found matchup percentages or real descriptions about how the matchup goes so it would be very nice to have some help.

,Thanks in advance!

[Lejay]

How could a match-up percentage be accurate without decklists. In my testing from january to may 2012 the match-up was very good pre board and slightly favourable post board for omnitell but people are now packing a ton of hate against it. A good example is the Brad Nelson vs Tood Anderson VS match in SCG premium. Just watching the deathblade decklist I knew Omniclash would be slaughtered and wrote a comment saying so before even watching the first game.
Asking for a match-up percentage without lists is a nonsense when there is a ton of possible variations.

And no sane omnitell player in this thread would give advice on what crushes him the most.

[apple713]

Since my comment got lost into the eternal abyss of internet quarrels i'm gonna go ahead and post it again :laugh:.

I'm an esperblade/deathblade player and i have to face Omnishow in the seasonal top 8 of my LGS. How would you describe your matchup against esperblade. Who is favored in the MU?
Also, which deck do you fear most Esper or deathblade and what are the sideboard cards you really don't want to see against you.

I've already read how you board against the deck but haven't found matchup percentages or real descriptions about how the matchup goes so it would be very nice to have some help.

,Thanks in advance!

No one will probably spell it out for you but if you read the whole post it's pretty simple to tell the problem cards are for the deck.

[AEnesidem]

How could a match-up percentage be accurate without decklists. In my testing from january to may 2012 the match-up was very good pre board and slightly favourable post board for omnitell but people are now packing a ton of hate against it. A good example is the Brad Nelson vs Tood Anderson VS match in SCG premium. Just watching the deathblade decklist I knew Omniclash would be slaughtered and wrote a comment saying so before even watching the first game.
Asking for a match-up percentage without lists is a nonsense when there is a ton of possible variations.

And no sane omnitell player in this thread would give advice on what crushes him the most.

Not asking for a percentage, i was just saying that i didn't find any detailed descriptions or statistics on the matchup. I'll take a look at the deathblade deck in question.

Not trying to get it all spelled out either, i was just fishing for some info. More often than not people do give tips on how to beat the deck in the thread. But i can see why people wouldn't.

[KobeBryan]

Not asking for a percentage, i was just saying that i didn't find any detailed descriptions or statistics on the matchup. I'll take a look at the deathblade deck in question.

Not trying to get it all spelled out either, i was just fishing for some info. More often than not people do give tips on how to beat the deck in the thread. But i can see why people wouldn't.

Your esper non-deathblade is really slow against this deck. Even if you win the first set of counters, the Omnitell deck would rebuild its hand up pretty fast with the 12 cantrips in the deck. You really need to put a clock on omnitell asap. Even if you need to waste a snapcaster mage.

That said, the cards that come in via sideboard are either the 4 leylines or the defense grids. Accordingly, you really need to board in your disenchants regardless.

You have over 7 dead cards against Omnitell after boarding, 4 swords to plowshares, vindicate, and maybe even jace.

Bring in flusterstorm if you have it. This deck has an inherent weakness to decks like UR delver or RUG where there is a clock and a countersuit to follow.

Hell, I can never beat my brother's bant deck with omnitell.

[Esper3k]

Not asking for a percentage, i was just saying that i didn't find any detailed descriptions or statistics on the matchup. I'll take a look at the deathblade deck in question.

Not trying to get it all spelled out either, i was just fishing for some info. More often than not people do give tips on how to beat the deck in the thread. But i can see why people wouldn't.

As with most combo decks, I tend to feel that BUG decks are among the tougher matchups since they have the ability to disrupt both through hand disruption and countermagic, so going all in on defenses against one or the other doesn't completely lock them out.

Omnitell decks are particularly weak against hand disruption because you're generally trying to assemble a 3 card combo. As others have stated, Flusterstorm is also very strong against us (since we usually are fighting a counter war over Show & Tell).

[HoneyT]

Won an 8 man side event at GP KC with the last list I posted.

Defeated Merfolk, ANT, and Jund.

[mulder]

Since my comment got lost into the eternal abyss of internet quarrels i'm gonna go ahead and post it again :laugh:.

I'm an esperblade/deathblade player and i have to face Omnishow in the seasonal top 8 of my LGS. How would you describe your matchup against esperblade. Who is favored in the MU?
Also, which deck do you fear most Esper or deathblade and what are the sideboard cards you really don't want to see against you.

I've already read how you board against the deck but haven't found matchup percentages or real descriptions about how the matchup goes so it would be very nice to have some help.

,Thanks in advance!

Arcane Laboratory seems like a good suggestion. Thalia, Ethersworn Canonist, Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere,... .

[Esper3k]

Won an 8 man side event at GP KC with the last list I posted.

Defeated Merfolk, ANT, and Jund.

Nice! How did you end up beating AnT? That faster combo matchup just seems rough for us.

[blindspotxxx]

Leyline of Sanctity owns Ant :)

[HoneyT]

Leyline of Sanctity owns Ant :)

Mostly this.

I lost game 1 to Probe seeing double Force followed by Therapy (which earned a Force) and Duress. He still would have lost if I'd ripped Show and Tell.

Games 2 and 3 were about Leyline. Stopping their proactive disruption in addition to stopping their kill condition makes it a must deal with card. Game 2 I kept a 7 with Leyline and a turn 2 kill. Game 3 he managed to Chain of Vapor my Leyline but didn't have enough time or disruption to play through my countermagic before I killed him.

[Esper3k]

Leyline of Sanctity owns Ant :)


Mostly this.

I lost game 1 to Probe seeing double Force followed by Therapy (which earned a Force) and Duress. He still would have lost if I'd ripped Show and Tell.

Games 2 and 3 were about Leyline. Stopping their proactive disruption in addition to stopping their kill condition makes it a must deal with card. Game 2 I kept a 7 with Leyline and a turn 2 kill. Game 3 he managed to Chain of Vapor my Leyline but didn't have enough time or disruption to play through my countermagic before I killed him.

While Leyline does keep them from mostly disrupting us, I think they still have the advantage since they can always just go off with Ad Nauseam (since we'll have 3-4 Forces at best to stop them), find their Chain, bounce Leyline, then kill us.

This isn't even considering that they can just Silence us before going off as well.

I guess on the plus side, we don't have to even pretend they have countermagic and go for pure speed, heh.

[HoneyT]

While Leyline does keep them from mostly disrupting us, I think they still have the advantage since they can always just go off with Ad Nauseam (since we'll have 3-4 Forces at best to stop them), find their Chain, bounce Leyline, then kill us.

This isn't even considering that they can just Silence us before going off as well.

I guess on the plus side, we don't have to even pretend they have countermagic and go for pure speed, heh.

You underestimate how much Leyline slows down ANT. They have to dig for their Chain of Vapor and disrupt all of our countermagic before they can go off. It slows their gameplan down a great deal, while allowing us to continue sculpting our hand unimpeded. ANT doesn't typically play Silence, so that point is moot. TES is a different animal though. They're fundamentally one turn faster than ANT and they play Silence. I'll grant that is a bad matchup, but straight ANT is fine if you're smart.

[Esper3k]

You underestimate how much Leyline slows down ANT. They have to dig for their Chain of Vapor and disrupt all of our countermagic before they can go off. It slows their gameplan down a great deal, while allowing us to continue sculpting our hand unimpeded. ANT doesn't typically play Silence, so that point is moot. TES is a different animal though. They're fundamentally one turn faster than ANT and they play Silence. I'll grant that is a bad matchup, but straight ANT is fine if you're smart.

Oh sorry for some reason I had it in my head you had played against TES.

Vs Leyline, AnT / TES don't necessarily have to bounce Leyline before they go off with Ad Nauseam if they're willing to gamble that we don't have countermagic. Finding a bounce spell post-Ad Nauseam is typically academic.

[blindspotxxx]

As many cantrips and wishes this deck has it's unlikely you don't have a single counter for their Ad Nauseam especially since you aren't being discarded.

[Esper3k]

As many cantrips and wishes this deck has it's unlikely you don't have a single counter for their Ad Nauseam especially since you aren't being discarded.

Lejay's list doesn't have a counter you can wish for other than Pact.

Emidln's list doesn't run Leyline.

My argument is that while Leyline certainly will be a speed bump for them, I don't think people should let themselves think that the matchup becomes good because of it.

[blindspotxxx]

Lejay's list doesn't have a counter you can wish for other than Pact.

Emidln's list doesn't run Leyline.

My argument is that while Leyline certainly will be a speed bump for them, I don't think people should let themselves think that the matchup becomes good because of it.

Well that's why i run a hybrid of the gp list and some cards from lejay's list. No leyline? Lol I would never run this deck without Leyline, so many black decks out there!

[HoneyT]

Lejay's list doesn't have a counter you can wish for other than Pact.

Emidln's list doesn't run Leyline.

My argument is that while Leyline certainly will be a speed bump for them, I don't think people should let themselves think that the matchup becomes good because of it.

If it's too hard to look at my list from a couple pages ago I can post it again for you as well.

[Esper3k]

If it's too hard to look at my list from a couple pages ago I can post it again for you as well.

I was talking about the main two standard lists that are being played.

That being said, the two Flusterstorms in the board you have should help some, but that's again assuming you get Leyline out.

And I think we all agreed that TES is an even worse matchup due to their ability to disrupt us through Leyline with Silence.

[GundamGuy]

I was talking about the main two standard lists that are being played.

That being said, the two Flusterstorms in the board you have should help some, but that's again assuming you get Leyline out.

And I think we all agreed that TES is an even worse matchup due to their ability to disrupt us through Leyline with Silence.


I guess the good news then is that TES is only a small portion of any field.

Any thoughts about Drew Levin's List (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56761) from Two weeks ago? Netted him 16th at an SCG Legacy Open.

[Esper3k]

I guess the good news then is that TES is only a small portion of any field.

Any thoughts about Drew Levin's List (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=56761) from Two weeks ago? Netted him 16th at an SCG Legacy Open.

Yeah and that Bryant Cook is apparently the only person who can really do well with it.

No real thoughts on Drew Levin's list. It seems pretty much the same as Lejay's list with a few slight changes.

[Esper3k]

Our local LGS is actually getting to the point of being able to do 2 Legacy tournaments a week, so I got to play again last night!

After playing both Lejay and Emidln's lists, I found things I liked from both lists so I thought I'd try something crazy... and combine the elements of both I liked into one version!

Here's the list I played with last night:


4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
7 Island
1 Underground Sea
3 City of Traitors

1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cunning Wish
3 Dream Halls
3 Pact of Negation
4 Show and Tell
4 Omniscience
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Force of Will

//Sideboard
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Swamp
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Release the Ants
1 Pact of Negation
1 Intuition
1 Trickbind
1 Rushing River
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Wipe Away

Essentially, I liked Lejay's main deck quite a bit. As funny as it is, 3 Dream Halls feels right to me - every time you draw multiples (or draw it in general), you just want to punch yourself in the balls. It's necessary, but man it's a lot worse than Show & Tell. Given our deck's weakness to hand disruption, I really wanted to go back to playing the Leylines just for those discard heavy matchups.

From Emidln's list, I really liked the proactive hand disruption option to fight Flusterstorms and to fight against opposing combo decks, so I kept that package in. I really wanted to fit the Firemind's Foresight package in but I simply didn't have enough room in the main/side to fit it in. As you can tell, my Wishboard is already pretty sparse as is.

Playing Gitaxian Probe from Lejay's list, I found that I really liked it and wanted a second one in there. The information you get on what to play around along with cantripping was just always amazing for me. So, I ended up cutting one of the lands for the second Probe.

Only 10 players for this Thursday event (we're still working on drumming up attendance since it just started recently).

3 rounds of swiss, cut to top 4.

Round 1 - vs UB Tezzeret

My opponent was new to Legacy (this was his first Legacy tournament), so it was particularly impressive that he had all the cards for the deck including the Seas and the Transmute Artifacts.

Game 1: He wins the die roll and opens with a T1: Ancient Tomb -> Chalice @ 1. Ugh. I Force of Will that and he doesn't have a Force back. I cantrip and sculpt my hand as he drops mana stones and eventually gets out a Thopter Foundry. I go off with Show & Tell -> Dream Halls -> ETI and kill him.

-1 Leyline of Sanctity
-1 Pact of Negation
+1 Rushing River
+1 Wipe Away

I left Emrakul in because I was expecting Thorn effects.

Game 2: He kept an iffy hand of 7 and while he had double FoW, I actually exercised restraint this time (I'm really learning to bide my time and be patient with this deck) and Cunning Wished for a second Pact to go along with the one in my hand before I went off.

1-0 (2-0)

Round 2 - vs Fast Zoo

This deck is actually pretty scary. It's that Zoo list that runs Experiment One, Vexing Devil, and a bunch of burn.

Game 1: He wins the die roll and leads off with T1 Nacatl, T2 Nacatl, Bolt, T3 Lightning Helix, Chain Lightning. Holy crap, my ass burns! I'm able to go off T3 though with Show & Tell -> Dream Halls -> Cunning Wish + 3 blue cards.

-3 Pact of Negation
-1 Emrakul
-2 Gitaxian Probe
+3 Leyline of Sanctity
+1 Rushing River
+1 Wipe Away
+1 Slaughter Pact

Game 2: I get stuck on 2 lands and die with Show & Tell + kill in my hand.

On the play now, so going for speed. I also should've left in the Emrakul to begin with.
-3 Leyline of Sanctity
+2 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Game 3: He leads off with T1: Experiment One, T2: Experiment One, Goblin Guide - yeesh!, T3: He drops a Vexing Devil, which I allow to stick into play and beats my face for 8 with the dubs Experiment One's. While I really wanted to Rushing River them, I stuck with my game plan and EoT Cunning Wished for Pact, then dropped an Island (I played City on my T3) for a T4 Dream Halls-> ETI. The Pact was actually needed to counter his REB!

2-0 (4-1)

Round 3 - 4 Color Delver

Game 1: I open a hand of Omniscience, EtI, Pact, 4 lands and keep. He has T1 Delver and I get more Lands, Pacts, Emrakul, and EtI's and die.

-1 Leyline of Sanctity
-4 Force of Will
+1 Pact of Negation
+4 Hand Disruption Package

Game 2: GP lets me know he has a Flusterstorm, so I make him use it on T3 with a Show & Tell (knowing I have a second one on top of my library), then get up to 5 mana on T4 to Show & Tell again. I win the fight vs his Force and have the 2 mana to pay for his double Daze.

Game 3: He gets some early beatdown and I'm forced to Show & Tell early with just Omniscience expecting to draw out a counter or two (I had a second one on top of my library). Instead, he drops a Mongoose, flashes in a Snapcaster, and I die.

2-1 (5-3)

We cut to T4 and we chop since one of the players had to go.

Still having fun with the deck and always learning something new!

After the tourhament, I played some matches against D&T and man, that matchup is just so miserable. It's certainly winable, but all those hate bears are just so annoying. Has anyone found any good way to deal with them? I was tempted to start sideboarding Massacres or something for those stupid bears...

[Pyroman]

I also just played this deck in a local Legacy tournament with 24 people. Went 4-0-1 with an intentional draw to the mirror (we both finished 4-0-1). I didn't run the discard package since I do not have the delta's and don't want to run just one sea as a black source. I used a fairly standard decklist as follows.

7 fetches
8 islands
4 City of Traitors

4 Show & Tell
4 Omniscience
4 Dream Halls
4 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Enter the Infinite
2 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
1 Intuition
1 Trickbind
1 Emrakul

SB
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
1 Force of Will
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Research/Development
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Firemind's Foresight

Round 1 - Mono Black Reanimator

Game 1 - Choose to draw and put him on reanimator after I forced an entomb. He didn't draw much else and I killed him with dream halls into EtI to play around Iona.

SB
-2 Pact of Negation
-1 Show and Tell
-1 Omniscience
-1 Trickbind
-1 Island
+4 Leyline of Sanctity
+1 Echoing Truth
+1 Slaughter Pact (Not entirely sure on this choice, wanted a card to dig to if he reanimated Iona early.)

Game 2 - I get a quick Show and Tell kill with Slaughter pact backup in case of an Iona.

Round 2 Sneak and Show

I mull twice and keep a risky 5 card hand (omniscience land force Wish Enter) because I knew he was on Sneak and Show and he didnt know what I was playing. If he goes for an early Show and Tell then its pretty hard to lose this game. He doesn't and I lose to a Sneaked in Emrakul. My opponent puts me on merfolk cause I did absolutely nothing but play an island that game.

SB
-1 Cunning Wish
-1 Emrakul

+2 Defense Grid (Defense Grid into Shown and Tell allows you to win through Griselbrand and hands full of counters)

Game 2 is a really long game with me flustering a Show and tell and pacting a sneak attack. Eventually I draw the dream halls and EtI for the win.
Game 3 my opponent pulls to 4 and I win quickly with a show into Omni protected by defense grid on turn 4.

Round 3-Dredge
Game 1- I Force his first two plays (Breakthrough and Careful Stud) to buy some time. I win turn 4 or 5 with a dream halls into EtI

SB
-1 Trickbind
-2 Pact of Negation
+1 Echoing Truth
+2 Leyline of Sanctity (Not sure if the other two are necessary, decided to opt for consistency with the combo)

Game 2- I lose a show and tell to a blind t1 therapy. I force his first breakthrough and fluster a faithless looting. He resolves a breakthrough on his next turn and discards a ton of dredgers and bridges. I cantrip a few times and pass back. He doesn't dredge any narcomoebas to flash back the therapy (Would have had to name EtI anyways since I had omni and halls in hand with a show on top). I kill him next turn with the Show.

Round 4 - OmniHalls

We intentionally draw the mirror match. Could have played it out since he was on the mono blue release the ants (hadn't gottten the research/development in time for the tourney). Without the black splash, the ants kill is way worse since an Emrakul in my top 17-18 is unbeatable after he casts an EtI so he basically has to rely on wish into eladamri to win.

Round 5 - Deathblade with extra discard

Game 1 wasn't very exciting, he plays a deathrite and stoneforge and I win with an early show and tell with protection.

SB

-1 Trickbind
-1 Intuition
-1 Emrakul
-1 Dream Halls
+4 Leyline of Sanctity

Game 2 I have a Leyline in the opener with some fetches, cantrips, and a show and tell. He has a fast start with an early stoneforge and bob. This was the one game I missed being able to wish fr a Pact of Negation. Due to all of the fetching and early pressure I had an awkward situation where I was at 3 life after an attack with 2 island and 3 fetch in play. With a pact in the sb, I could wish for pact eot (going to 2) and show for the win with double counter backup. Since this was not the case, I went for it with just a FoW and lost to double FoW.

Game 3 I mull to 6 and keep a really solid hand with double show and tell and a pact. Discard takes a pact and Show a few turns later into Omni with force and wish backup. I wish for a trickbind to counter the D-Sphere trigger and win that turn.

This was my second time playing the deck in a legacy tournament (Went 5-1 at GP Las Vegas side event) so I am not 100% on some of the sb choices. I will definitely be adding in a pact of negation to the sb and will probably switch to the discard package as soon as I can get some delta's. Other than that, the deck feels insanely strong right now.


After the tourhament, I played some matches against D&T and man, that matchup is just so miserable. It's certainly winable, but all those hate bears are just so annoying. Has anyone found any good way to deal with them? I was tempted to start sideboarding Massacres or something for those stupid bears...

I haven't had much difficulty with the D&T matchup. The hatebears slow you down but don't put you under a very fast clock. As long as you hit your land drops to offset their mana taxing effects you should be fine. All of my losses to this deck have come from disruption + a fast clock (usually involves a t1 vial) or from them drawing a ton of hate post sb. G1 is likely in your favor and post-SB games depend on how much hate you have to fight through. The lists I have played against generally have 1-2 Canonist 1-2 O-ring and an enlightened tutor in the sb. I only ever try and remove a hatebear if I can kill them before they untap again. If they have a mom, I would abandon trying to remove the hatebears since its easier to go through them at this point. Its also really important to find the best line with your wishes and use them early, since your mana is gonna be really tight the entire game. Wishing for either Eladamri's call if you are going Emrakul or wipe away are prob the two I use most often. Also, don't be afraid to get your omni/halls under an O ring. This allows you to bounce the O-ring eot and go off with lots of untapped lands to pay for the taxing effects.

Basically dig hard for a show and tell, matches without it are significantly harder to win and hope D&T doesn't establish a really fast clock.

[Esper3k]

Without the black splash, the ants kill is way worse since an Emrakul in my top 17-18 is unbeatable after he casts an EtI so he basically has to rely on wish into eladamri to win.

The Release the Ants kill isn't actually that bad if you still have the Emrakul plan available. Against other decks running Emrakul, all you have to do is get them low enough for you to kill them with an Emrakul swing. Even if you can't kill them with a single Emrakul swing you can still just cast EtI again and let them try and do something through your ridiculous hand of countermagic.

[Pyroman]

The Release the Ants kill isn't actually that bad if you still have the Emrakul plan available. Against other decks running Emrakul, all you have to do is get them low enough for you to kill them with an Emrakul swing. Even if you can't kill them with a single Emrakul swing you can still just cast EtI again and let them try and do something through your ridiculous hand of countermagic.

Wow, can't believe I missed that...Guess my opponent missed it too so it worked out well for me. Makes me want to switch back to release the ants and get an extra SB slot. I'd be curious to know if there are any other cases besides leyline/sterling grove (Emrakul normally still works here) and an extraction on omni that the release the ants kill is inferior to the lab man kill?

[Esper3k]

Wow, can't believe I missed that...Guess my opponent missed it too so it worked out well for me. Makes me want to switch back to release the ants and get an extra SB slot. I'd be curious to know if there are any other cases besides leyline/sterling grove (Emrakul normally still works here) and an extraction on omni that the release the ants kill is inferior to the lab man kill?

Lab Maniac is more certain of a kill since there's almost nothing your opponent can do to stop it. Of course this comes at the cost of an extra sideboard slot too.

I've gone back to Release the Ants because generally speaking, I wanted the extra sideboard slot and honestly, I'm lazy and it annoys me when my opponents make me waste time walking through the Lab Maniac kill while the Release the Ants kill takes a lot less time to show someone.

[apple713]

I've gone back to Release the Ants because generally speaking, I wanted the extra sideboard slot and honestly, I'm lazy and it annoys me when my opponents make me waste time walking through the Lab Maniac kill while the Release the Ants kill takes a lot less time to show someone.

you are joking right? most of my opponents play out all 20 clashes... mainly because they are looking for that 1 or 2 of emrakul they have in their decks...

[emidln]

Lab Maniac is more certain of a kill since there's almost nothing your opponent can do to stop it. Of course this comes at the cost of an extra sideboard slot too.

I've gone back to Release the Ants because generally speaking, I wanted the extra sideboard slot and honestly, I'm lazy and it annoys me when my opponents make me waste time walking through the Lab Maniac kill while the Release the Ants kill takes a lot less time to show someone.

Release the Ants + Emrakul is the same number of slots in your 75 compared to Lab Man + R&D. With Wish->R&D, you're never drawing suboptimal cards in your maindeck, which is far more valuable than an additional sideboard slot, even to a deck with a Wishboard. Frankly, people would find a lot more room for the wishboard if they dropped the ridiculous protection against spot discard in Leyline and focused on the cards that actually beat them (hint: 12+ cantrips and 8+ of each combo piece isn't losing very often to discard but most pilots routinely drop games to Flusterstormwhen they don't have to).

[Esper3k]

you are joking right? most of my opponents play out all 20 clashes... mainly because they are looking for that 1 or 2 of emrakul they have in their decks...

Hah, that's funny! You can probably just shortcut into having them flip the top 20 cards of their library until they hit an Emrakul (or really just flip the top 5 and cast your Emrakul / attack them).


Release the Ants + Emrakul is the same number of slots in your 75 compared to Lab Man + R&D. With Wish->R&D, you're never drawing suboptimal cards in your maindeck, which is far more valuable than an additional sideboard slot, even to a deck with a Wishboard. Frankly, people would find a lot more room for the wishboard if they dropped the ridiculous protection against spot discard in Leyline and focused on the cards that actually beat them (hint: 12+ cantrips and 8+ of each combo piece isn't losing very often to discard but most pilots routinely drop games to Flusterstormwhen they don't have to).

Release the Ants + Emrakul + Eladamri's Call takes 1 less slot in the 75 than the Emrakul + Eladamri's Call + Lab Maniac + R&D though.

Really, the Release the Ants kill doesn't require Emrakul to be in your deck. I do the same thing that Lejay posted about - usually, I just put an EtI on top since barring the random Blightsteel Colossus, EtI only fails to beat Emrakul on a clash.

Again, with the current list I'm playing, I'm smashing together both your hand disruption board to fight Flusterstorms as well as Lejay's Leylines to fight hand disruption. I actually don't mind the Emrakul main since it's a 1-of. It's been fairly rare so far that I've drawn it and 1) had it affect the game negatively 2) not have a Brainstorm to get rid of it.

While I did like the idea of having 8 of each combo piece in theory, from playing the deck, I was just getting too angry every time I had double Dream Halls in my hand, so I went back to the 3 Dream Halls / 3 Cunning Wish split and opted for 14 cantrips (2 Gitaxian Probes).

[KobeBryan]

Hah, that's funny! You can probably just shortcut into having them flip the top 20 cards of their library until they hit an Emrakul (or really just flip the top 5 and cast your Emrakul / attack them).



Release the Ants + Emrakul + Eladamri's Call takes 1 less slot in the 75 than the Emrakul + Eladamri's Call + Lab Maniac + R&D though.

Really, the Release the Ants kill doesn't require Emrakul to be in your deck. I do the same thing that Lejay posted about - usually, I just put an EtI on top since barring the random Blightsteel Colossus, EtI only fails to beat Emrakul on a clash.

Again, with the current list I'm playing, I'm smashing together both your hand disruption board to fight Flusterstorms as well as Lejay's Leylines to fight hand disruption. I actually don't mind the Emrakul main since it's a 1-of. It's been fairly rare so far that I've drawn it and 1) had it affect the game negatively 2) not have a Brainstorm to get rid of it.

While I did like the idea of having 8 of each combo piece in theory, from playing the deck, I was just getting too angry every time I had double Dream Halls in my hand, so I went back to the 3 Dream Halls / 3 Cunning Wish split and opted for 14 cantrips (2 Gitaxian Probes).

why not impulse. it digs deep.

[Esper3k]

why not impulse. it digs deep.

Compared to Probe? Because it costs 2 instead of 0 and I've found that knowing your oppnent's hand (ie, what you have to play around) has been very helpful. Since I'm not playing FF right now, having a 2 drop main is less important to me as well.

[Larzdk]

4-1-1'd my LGS last night with this:

2 City of Traitors
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
10 Island

2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
3 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell

SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Rushing River
SB: 1 Release the Ants
SB: 1 Noxious Revival
SB: 1 Intuition
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Pact of Negation


Was convinced by a fellow Omni-teller to try and run 2 Emrakul with the new legend rule to just win outright with 2 extra turns on going off.

Lost to the Balustrade Spy deck in the first round - Mulliganned into a not-really-that-great of a hand which lacked the island for t2 kill, but he combos faster than I manage to find it. G2 he pacts early and bricks his combo, losing the game on his third upkeep. G3 he doublemulligans, and I have double Leyline and Revival in my starting hand (and 2 lands/2 ponder), so that sorta evens out his mulligans. I decide to keep it, and we play draw/cantrip-go for a few turns until he goes for it. Sadly, the very last card in his hand is the PoN that allows him to win through the Revival.
*Edit: I actually punted G3! I could have wished for my Slaughter Pact to break his combo. Just realized that :(
(0-1, 1-2 in games)

R2 is against Team Rocket Control / Death and Taxes - this is Denmark after all.
Game one I turn 2 SnT->DH and he pops out Thalia. I have no problems going off turn 3, as his plays for his turn is pitching random white cards to put in Crusader and Stoneforge.
Game two, I force his turn 2 Thorn, and I again turn 2 SnT him and I drop Emrakul. He doesn't have an answer in hand, and allows me to swing twice for the win.
(1-1, 3-2 in games)

R3 is against Ad Nauseam and we both spend our first turns setting up. On turn 3 he duress out my Cunning Wish and leave me with a non-hand (Force, Omni, Island, Emrakul, Emrakul), but I rip a Dream Halls, pitch my Force to play Omni, and drop the 2 Emrakuls to swing for 30. He shows me the Cabal Therapy in his hand, which he was saving for the following turn to rip out the Force prior to going off.
Game two he doesn't go off on turn 2 and spends the turn with cantrips . I Show into Omni on my turn 2 and EtIs with force and wish backup. He scoops and complains about godhands. We play a few games more pre-sb for fun, and we end up 4-2 in my favor. Wasn't as bad a match-up as I predicted.
(2-1, 5-2 in games)

R4 is also against Ad Nauseam and he decides to go for the turn 2 kill without seeing my hand. I force the Ad Nauseam and combo off 3 turns later when I finally find a Show.
I board in my Leylines, and start G2 with one - and the turn 3 kill in hand. I Ponder up a few forces, but he never tries to go off before I SnT->Omni->Emrakul him.
(3-1, 7-2 in games)

R5 is against BUG Delver, and he starts eating out big chunks of my lifetotal with a flipped Wizard and a Deathrite. I land a Show and Tell with Pact backup/Sol-Mana open for double-Daze on turn 4 and he scoops it up.
G2, we both mulligan, and I start out with a Defense Grid on turn 2 off a Tomb - He was really obvious about taking out Abrupt decays, so I decided to go with the Grid plan instead of Leylines. He's not happy, and I t3 Show in Omni and chain 6 cantrips until I find an Enter the Infinite.
(4-1, 9-2 in games)

R6 is against Goblins with Thalia. We ID to both get prizes, but play out the games for fun. Game one I wreck him with a fast Show, although he puts in Thalia, so I have to wait a turn to win.
Second game, I Show on the 2nd last possible turn, and Cunning Trickbind his Angel of Despair. I brick my drawstep and die. Could have played differently, but I was afraid he might have a piledriver in hand to kill me (or, if he didn't have an Angel, go for the Cunning win)
G3 I have lots of time, but fail to find either a SnT or a DH through 6 cantrips before the Goblins kill me down on turn 5.
("4-2", 10-4 in games)

The Extrakul was relevant a few times, and I really like it - although it costs me the Gitaxian Probe slot.

[Esper3k]

T4'd our new weekly Thursday Legacy event at our LGS. 17 players, 4 rounds.

Recently, our meta has had quite a bit of D&T (up to 25% sometimes), so I was tired of losing to hate bears and decided to try out 3 sideboard Massacres.

Continuing my playing of the Lejay/Emidln mashup:

//Main

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
7 Island
1 Underground Sea
3 City of Traitors

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
3 Gitaxian Probe
4 Show & Tell
3 Dream Halls
3 Cunning Wish
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Omniscience
4 Force of Will
3 Pact of Negation
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

//Sideboard

1 Release the Ants
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Inutition
1 Pact of Negation
1 Trickbind
1 Rushing River
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Wipe Away
1 Swamp
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
3 Massacre

Round 1 - vs Dark Maverick/Junk

Game 1: Of course after cutting Leylines, I come across a hand disruption deck. He Thoughtseizes me twice, then drops a Teeg and I die to Knight beats before I can get going.

-3 Pact of Negation
+3 Massacre

The Massacres aren't as good against the Maverick decks since Teeg shuts it off, but it's still just fine for Thalia/Canonist if they don't have Teeg out.

Game 2: He keeps a light hand with no disruption and I T3 him.
Game 3: He T2 Canonist into T3 Teeg, yeesh. However, I have the Show & Tell -> Omniscience->Cunning Wish so I go in on the Emrakul plan. Because of the Canonist, I have to Cunning Wish on his turn for Eladamri's Call, but I rip Wipe Away on my next turn after casting Omniscience and Wipe Away the Canonist and just go off from there with Emrakul.

1-0 (2-1)

Round 2 - vs UWr Miracles

This is my first time playing against CounterTop and wow does that feel miserable! I would appreciate tips on playing against & sideboarding...

Game 1: I'm on the play and he passes his T2 with 2 mana up, so I'm thinking Counterspell. However, I have the Show & Tell kill in my hand with Force + Pact backup, so I go for it on T3. He does have the Counterspell, but doesn't have the Force for my Force and Show & Tell resolves. I drop Omniscience and he drops... Vendilion Clique. Fuck. Clique disrupts me and even though I find a Brainstorm -> Preordain next turn, both draw blanks and I die.

-4 Force of Will
-1 Emrakul
+4 Hand Disruption Package
+1 Pact of Negation

Game 2: He has the T2 Counterbalance and I don't find hand disruption in time. He has double Brainstorm to back up the CB and I lose.

1-1 (2-3)

Round 3 - vs Dark Maverik

Game 1: He's on the play and mulls to 5. Goes T1 Cavern, T2 Savannah-> Thalia, T3 Knight. Pretty good 5. Thalia disrupts me just long enough for him to kill me the turn before I would've gone off.

-3 Pact of Negation
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+3 Massacre
+1 Swamp

Game 2: I Force his first GSZ @ 2, but his second one gets through. However, I have Show & Tell -> Omniscience -> Emrakul and the FSM gets there.

Game 3: He gets out Deathrite Shaman, Thalia, Fauna Shaman, and a 2/2 Knight. I play Massacre and he is sadfaced, especially because he draws Teeg the turn after (I Force). I take my time to sculpt my hand and kill him at my leisure.

2-1 (4-4)

Round 4 - vs Fast Zoo

Both games are fairly uneventful as we both know how this goes. He's on the play both games and has the T4 kill, but I have the T3 kill both games...

3-1 (6-4)

What I learned: Wow, that CounterTop matchup feels horrible. Tips would be greatly appreciated!

[Kirika]

Been testing the mono blue version of this deck and from my limited play testing the reanimator and miracles match ups are pretty terrible. It also seems less consistent then Reanimator or the Epic Storm which are my usual go to combo decks. Having to assemble 3+ cards Show and Tell + Omni/Dreamhalls + Enter the Infinite + some sort of protection is a tall order sometimes.

Reanimator's Iona on blue just shuts you down and it is very risky playing Show and Tell because they might just drop Iona on blue or a Griselbrand. After side they have Flusterstorms, Vendillion Clique and Spell Snare along with a fast lock you out combo. Defense Grid actually enables them to combo off if.

Miracles is just pretty miserable because of all the counters with Counter balance + Top and Vendilion Clique + Detention Sphere you have to be wary of when casting Show and Tell.

[Ragdoll]

Hi!. i'm new here :smile: Been playing this deck for a while. Here are my questions. First what about Teferi's Realm? Has anyone tested it? And if yes how was it? Another thing is playing Spiraling Embers instead of an Emrakul. I play it now and it's pretty good. Has anyone played it for a long time and can tell about advantages and disadvantages? Is it better than emmy after all? :wink:

Ps. How to tag? Thx :smile:

[Larzdk]

Hi!. i'm new here :smile: Been playing this deck for a while. Here are my questions. First what about Teferi's Realm? Has anyone tested it? And if yes how was it? Another thing is playing Spiraling Embers instead of an Emrakul. I play it now and it's pretty good. Has anyone played it for a long time and can tell about advantages and disadvantages? Is it better than emmy after all? :wink:

Ps. How to tag? Thx :smile:

Teferi's Realm looks like a sad Rushing River to me :( If I have to resolve something for 3 mana, I prefer it to be a solid bounce or a SnT. Re: Embers, I really prefer Emrakul, since its another SnT target in a pinch, and if I get to the point where Embers can kill the opponent, I could just Ant them out if I really wanted to. Looks like it's a wasted slot that could just be another Cunning Wish for either win-condition.

[Adan]

Been testing the mono blue version of this deck and from my limited play testing the reanimator and miracles match ups are pretty terrible. It also seems less consistent then Reanimator or the Epic Storm which are my usual go to combo decks. Having to assemble 3+ cards Show and Tell + Omni/Dreamhalls + Enter the Infinite + some sort of protection is a tall order sometimes.

Reanimator's Iona on blue just shuts you down and it is very risky playing Show and Tell because they might just drop Iona on blue or a Griselbrand. After side they have Flusterstorms, Vendillion Clique and Spell Snare along with a fast lock you out combo. Defense Grid actually enables them to combo off if.

Miracles is just pretty miserable because of all the counters with Counter balance + Top and Vendilion Clique + Detention Sphere you have to be wary of when casting Show and Tell.

Seriously? Reanimator can be a bitch, that's for sure, but you basically cannot lose against Miracles. Like ever. Miracles has no clock. Period. I usually usw Show and Tell to bait stuff (but make sure to have at least Omniscience or Dream Halls to put in). Furthermore, Dream Halls cannot be Flusterstorm'd and you don't have to be afraid of Venser or Detention Sphere blowing you out.

If you have SnT, Omniscience and a Cunning Wish, you don't even have to worry about these as you can Wish for Firemind's Foresight in response to the trigger and fetch Brainstorm/Flusterstorm, Trickbind and Intuition/Cunning Wish.

[Larzdk]

Seriously? Reanimator can be a bitch, that's for sure, but you basically cannot lose against Miracles. Like ever. Miracles has no clock. Period. I usually usw Show and Tell to bait stuff (but make sure to have at least Omniscience or Dream Halls to put in). Furthermore, Dream Halls cannot be Flusterstorm'd and you don't have to be afraid of Venser or Detention Sphere blowing you out.

If you have SnT, Omniscience and a Cunning Wish, you don't even have to worry about these as you can Wish for Firemind's Foresight in response to the trigger and fetch Brainstorm/Flusterstorm, Trickbind and Intuition/Cunning Wish.

"Like ever" is quite the understatement. If CB sticks, life can turn sour really quickly, depending on how many Lingering Souls/Sphere/Entreat/Force they can stack on top of their library. It can get really hard to resolve SnT/Cunning/DH ever.

[apple713]

"Like ever" is quite the understatement. If CB sticks, life can turn sour really quickly, depending on how many Lingering Souls/Sphere/Entreat/Force they can stack on top of their library. It can get really hard to resolve SnT/Cunning/DH ever.


Seriously? Reanimator can be a bitch, that's for sure, but you basically cannot lose against Miracles. Like ever. Miracles has no clock. Period. I usually usw Show and Tell to bait stuff (but make sure to have at least Omniscience or Dream Halls to put in). Furthermore, Dream Halls cannot be Flusterstorm'd and you don't have to be afraid of Venser or Detention Sphere blowing you out.

If you have SnT, Omniscience and a Cunning Wish, you don't even have to worry about these as you can Wish for Firemind's Foresight in response to the trigger and fetch Brainstorm/Flusterstorm, Trickbind and Intuition/Cunning Wish.

either the people that play miracles at your lgs are retarded monkeys or you've never played the matchup. Neither matchup is good. Having to play around dazes and spell pierces in reanimator slows your combo down so they are the faster combo in the matchup. Yes if you have the idea 3x card combo its winnable...

Against miracles if they land a cb and top GL. The deck doesnt really have anything against CB. If they get a cannonist its gonna be tough. I got venser locked with a cannonist out... GG.

[Lejay]

At the side event before the BoM I had a draw first round against a miracle control. Being in the draw bracket I faced Miracles 5 times after that on the event. I won all 5.
You just force cb or top or combo quickly. If you have the combo the only real problem with CB+sdt is it will shut down PoNs. The only reason you can be unfavourable to mracles is if they have a crazy sideboard against you.

[Kayradis]

I know for a fact that reanimator is quite a pain in the arse if they can resolve Iona T2.
A good friend of mine played the list this weenkend at a 20 people tournament. Ended up T8'ing it but got punted out of the final by Reanimator and Iona.
Is it a sign that Reanimator could be back as a Tier 1 deck in the near future?

I also know that he played a second Emrakul MD and he loved the option. If Release The Ants failed, he could play his second emrakul, get the extra turn, play another emrakul and infinite loop off that.

[Lejay]

There is no reason to clash with emrakul unless you're facing the mirror match and you have no way of attacking even with remaining wishes. Therefore a second Emrakul is stupid.

[catmint]

...If you have the combo the only real problem with CB+sdt is it will shut down PoNs...

What do you mean by that? I did face the problem of CB resolving and not being able to resolve a 3 or 5 mana spell due to them floating the according cmc on top.

In my experience if there is a competent miracles player who knows what we are doing he does not need to have a "crazy sideboard", but adjust his anti combo/control slots a bit to attack show & tell variants.

My judgement
Preboard against the average build with 3 CB main we are favored. Post-board their matchup gets a lot better whereas our options to improve are pretty limited. (not like against other decks where leyline or grid is a house). Therefore overall the matchup is even to slightly unfavorable.

Lejay, your heroic acts from the past before nobody knew the deck do not count. They simply don't compare to situations where people with similar skill and knowledge of each others decks face each other today.

[apple713]

"Like ever" is quite the understatement. If CB sticks, life can turn sour really quickly, depending on how many Lingering Souls/Sphere/Entreat/Force they can stack on top of their library. It can get really hard to resolve SnT/Cunning/DH ever.


Seriously? Reanimator can be a bitch, that's for sure, but you basically cannot lose against Miracles. Like ever. Miracles has no clock. Period. I usually usw Show and Tell to bait stuff (but make sure to have at least Omniscience or Dream Halls to put in). Furthermore, Dream Halls cannot be Flusterstorm'd and you don't have to be afraid of Venser or Detention Sphere blowing you out.

If you have SnT, Omniscience and a Cunning Wish, you don't even have to worry about these as you can Wish for Firemind's Foresight in response to the trigger and fetch Brainstorm/Flusterstorm, Trickbind and Intuition/Cunning Wish.


What do you mean by that? I did face the problem of CB resolving and not being able to resolve a 3 or 5 mana spell due to them floating the according cmc on top.

In my experience if there is a competent miracles player who knows what we are doing he does not need to have a "crazy sideboard", but adjust his anti combo/control slots a bit to attack show & tell variants.

My judgement
Preboard against the average build with 3 CB main we are favored. Post-board their matchup gets a lot better whereas our options to improve are pretty limited. (not like against other decks where leyline or grid is a house). Therefore overall the matchup is even to slightly unfavorable.

Lejay, your heroic acts from the past before nobody knew the deck do not count. They simply don't compare to situations where people with similar skill and knowledge of each others decks face each other today.

Really the only way to deal with CB in this situation is to have the force for it or play the discard package and hope to discard it before they play it.

[Larzdk]

There is no reason to clash with emrakul unless you're facing the mirror match and you have no way of attacking even with remaining wishes. Therefore a second Emrakul is stupid.

Look, I respect your results with the deck and all, but "is stupid" is a bit out of line here. It's pretty good in the deck, as both another win-con, another SnT target and serves pretty well as "ANOTHER EMRAKUL?" if the usual one gets removed. It's an evolution, and you can like it or not. It's not like it changes the deck dramatically. A branch, if you like. You don't like the thought of another Emrakul? Just keep playing Probe/OpenSlot. There's hardly an "ultimate" decklist to be had, but we all play the same 55-60 cards, and add minor tweaks against local meta.

As for CB, I've only played against it once and handily plowed right through it, but a fellow LGS-goer got shut royally down with Top into CB into Meddling Mage the last time I played there. It wasn't pretty.

[Esper3k]

I'm also seconding the miserable Miracles matchup. The only way I've found to really beat them is to go aggressively for the combo and try and win before they establish CB/Top. This is a matchup where I really feel we can't sit around and sculpt the perfect hand before going off. While they don't have a super fast clock on us, you need to treat CB/Top as a clock since once they get that down, it becomes extremely tough for us to combo off.

Reanimator also seems horrible for us. Any UB deck packing both hand disruption and countermagic is rough on combo, much less a faster combo deck packing it.

[emidln]

Maybe it's because I'm still playing Trickbind and 4 Cunning Wish, but I find the Miracles matchup to be a cake walk. Active CB/top rarely matters. Venser hasn't been much of an issue, with Canonist being the thing that I lose to most often (and even then, Wipe Away is a card that I play). It even gets better when I side in my mix of Duress and Thoughtseize postboard. Discard also helps fight fast combo. Perhaps people having trouble should try not cutting the cards (2 Trickbind in the 75, 4 Wish) that let you have a chance against harder matchups. Just sayin'.

Adan, are you still on my list?

[Strikingone]

Hello, thought i'd give a little input on the deck after a local tournament this past weekend.
Not near as big as we thought it would be at all but none the less played a fair amount of different decks.
Yes this is my first post on the source, but i've been reading for quite some time now so stay the pitchforks a little bit lol, very bored at work so figured i'd give my input on the deck. Might be some typos and its a bit of a wall of txt.

First off i'll start by saying I love the deck and mad props to Lejay and Emiln for there work with it, and all the other brewers for there inputs such the black/blue version which I was very close to playing but I ended up going with this list.

Lands:
3 Polluted delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding tarn
1 Misty rainforest
3 City of Traitor's
9 Island

Spells:
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cunning Wish
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Show and Tell
4 ominisence
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
3 Pact of Negation
2 Emrakrul

S/B
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
1 Pact of Negation
1 Echoing Truth
1 Flusterstorm
1 Slaughter pact
1 trickbind
1 Release the Ants
1 Eladamri's call
1 Intuition

Round 1 Vs (Not sure) either Deathblade or shardless bug

He was on the draw, I mull to four and keep a no lander (not going to three and I rarely ever mull to 4) but I do have the combo in my hand.
He plays a land and passes turn, I top deck a poullted delta crack it and pass turn. He plays a land and says go, i remember thinking in my head "I hope this is a city because i'm going for it" long behold a city of traitors and looking at the combo in my hand. Being at a low hand and playing from behind already I say screw it and went for it with not counter back up, knowing full well it was a bad idea as he was playing blue. But the show and tell resolves he says "yup", I drop ominisence he drops wasteland. I cast Enter the infinite, he says "yup" i pick up my deck and he scoops. On to round two after not seeing anything.
I figure he must have discard so i'm more worried about that then counters I think I brougt in my leylines +4 Leyline, -1 Emrakrul, -1 Probe, -1 Dream Halls, -1 Force of Will.
Second Game didn't last long as I resolved my one of emrakrul early on and won, I asked him if he was running counters he said yes but just didn't see any as well as discard but didn't see any of that either which would have mattered because I didn't mull to a leyline as my hand was pretty stacked.

Round two Vs RUG Thresh

Playing a buddy of mine I know the match is iffy. Gameone I emrakrul him and he scoops.

Game two S/B - 1probe, -1 Dream Halls, -3 Force of Will, +3 Defense Grids, +1 FlusterStorm, +1 Pact of negation. I understand some people might think siding dream halls out is a bad idea I just find them clunky and a backup plain usually and agasint a fast clock much to slow, forces because my defense grids will win me the game if it resolves and not 2-1 myself, pact of negation over force because agasint a deck with so many counters i'd rather have a free counter if i'm going off then pitching cards and flusterstorm just for those counter wars. I liked keeping in the emrakuls during these matches because it tends to be a faster win con then with dream halls. (how i seen it anyways)

I try to go off once with the force backup but he has REB and a spell pierce and quickly beats me down with his turn one delver t2 flip and double gofy.

Game 3 im on the play
T1 Drop island, and cantrip, he has no t1 drop.
T2 drop a land, cantrip and pass turn
T3 drop City which i've been setting up for my defense grid, tap 3 for that with my one island backup for flusterstorm I force his Force and then flusterstorm his spell pierce hes tapped out.
T4 Cast S&T dropping Omni, cast cunning wish to get intiution to get 3 Enter the infinites and combo off. He wishs me luck and says didn't know defense grid was a thing or would have boarded in ancient grudge as being so low on lands (2 when he died) doesn't really let him do much.

Round 3 Vs UWR

Game one- Hes another buddy of mine and we played a bunch the night before, know its not my best match up as hes playing a home brew and running alot more counters in his main then most versions.
I keep a shaky hand with dream halls and 3 lands and know thats going to be my game plan from the start. Long story short I play like a donky while he has pressure on the next turn i'm supposed to combo off I crack a fetch getting rid of my known city of traitors on top and thus denying my ability to dream halls and cast enter the next turn and win as he showed me a hand with no counters.

Game two Same S/B as with RUG
We battle for a bit I end up having to pact a stifle so I could protect my fetch trigger allowing me to win two turns later, I thought i was dead because he revealed a wasteland earlier off a card and thought it was in his hand to allow him to destroy my city of traitors and deny my the ability to pay its upkeep. But, he brainstormed/fetched it away a turn earlier to my benefit and I combo off with less then 5 life left.

Game Three - he gets me low I know dead next turn unless I pick up a mana so I can intutition (wished for a turn earlier) for show and tell and then cast it the same turn. i pick up my 6th land and cast both to drop omni and enter. Go go top decking lol.


Round 4 U/R delver Burn

Yet another friend of mine (we were half the tournament lol)

Game 1 He gets me pretty good with t1 delver t2 flip into another delver and eot brainstorm to flip his second delver with burn on the following turns.

Game 2 Same SB plan as the past two matchs (loving the defense grid) I get a early Emrakrul and win.

Game 3 He mulls to 4 keeps a no lander and passes turn i start off slow he top decks a goblin guide and starts bashing, he ends up countering two show and tells before I finally land my thrid one and fight for it and I win off enter combo. His hand of double REB and double spell pierce was pretty good.

Round 5 -merfolk

I wanted to play this match up to see how it would be, some said it would be good others bad, we were both hungry and being top seed we just draw to get food.

Top8 Top seed going in, feels like the playoffs, worst spot to be top of your division almost like its bad luck lol.
I get paired agasint Reanimator I don't feel so warm and fuzzy inside. (couple days before friends were writing down the number of decks they thought to be represented there and I looked at the list and said what about reanimator, they laughed and said who still plays that?)

Game 1- I keep a subpar hand and eventually he show and tells before I do lol, i'm feeling great until he drops angel of despair to destroy my dream halls, I pick up no more relevent spells staring at double enter the infinite and pact of negation until i'm dead.

S/B I didn't really have much agasint him, -1 probe, -1 Dream Halls and bring in flusterstorm and trickbind, I wanted to bring in the slaughter pact for iona, but felt having 4 wishs for it to be better then a one of.

Game 2- he entombs EOT i counter and next turn Emrakrul and end it quickly.

Game 3- He EOT entombs for Iona and on his turn reanimates on blue while i have no force for it ( woudln't have mattered with hsi force and daze hand) I scoop and wish him luck (he ended up beating U/W Miracles and merfolk to win the whole thing).

So after a few weeks of playing this deck and the small tournament i'm very impressed with it. Seems very overpowered.

The only things I thought about changing with the leylines in the side, my friend on U/W miracles cut his before the tournament as he didn't see much discard I decided to keep mine in after seeing a dead guy ale guy sleeving up his hymns. but if I did cut them It would of been for a second flusterstorm, wipe away, noxious revival and surgical extraction which would have helped alot vs reanimator.

the only thing I can think to change vs that match up is to play the black version for the discard which is great agasint other combo decks and possibly doom blade or some other black removal to deal with iona I just dont know if shes or reanimator is worth the hate instead of playing leylines even if I hardly used them all weekend. Just seems like a deck you want to dodge as it isnt the most popular right now andthey tend to combo off faster then us.

Playing with two emrakruls main I liked alot as it gave me more access to show and tell win with it and or just drop him hit for 15 then drop the second and bash away again, almost effectivly infinite turns until you win maybe its win more but i liked it.

Card i've been thinking about cutting is Eldamri's call, I used it quite a bit leading up to the tournament but since changing to the two emrakrul version it seemed almost unessasry as I usually had one or the main combo anyways.

Sideboard cards of the day though were defense grid and flusterstorm loved how if i resolved a defense grid I won the game. I'm sure it wouldn't be the best idea agasint combo though.

Anyways my little update just from experiance, death and taxes is a horrible match up as well as reanimator, I may start testing the black version even if it opens myself up to wastelands for the deck stacking ability of lim's vault and some more answers to things outside of blue.... Anyways if anyone has any better ideas for sideboard cards and or ways to deal with reanimator and cannoist let me know. Enjoying the deck going to play again with in a tourney here in sept!

[Lejay]

Look, I respect your results with the deck and all, but "is stupid" is a bit out of line here. It's pretty good in the deck, as both another win-con, another SnT target and serves pretty well as "ANOTHER EMRAKUL?" if the usual one gets removed. It's an evolution, and you can like it or not. It's not like it changes the deck dramatically. A branch, if you like. You don't like the thought of another Emrakul? Just keep playing Probe/OpenSlot. There's hardly an "ultimate" decklist to be had, but we all play the same 55-60 cards, and add minor tweaks against local meta.

I told why it is stupid. Maybe I wasn't precise enough. First what is the situation where you need two or more emrakuls in the deck after resolving enter the infinte since I reminded you are supposed to clash with enter ?
As a clash card against Extirpate ? I said in the primer that against that possibility you should clash with omniscience. That will be enough against decks running that extirpate.
Lethal board post annihilator 6 with additionnally let's say sylvan safekeeper and enough lands post annihilator to beat multiple wishes ? And you couldn't win the clash ? Even if an elf guy didn't already kill you with this board and precisely plays the emrakul kill and reveals it clashing you can still noxious the rta, make him draw with vision charm and finish him in the next upkeep after he drew his emrakul. That would mean he needs to run several emrakul or have active shaman in addition, or an active fetchland and be lucky. And unless he has a blocker you only have about 5 damage to deal with RtA !

So if there is not a strategical option that warrants a second emrakul why is 2 the good number ? Why not 3 or 4 ? Like between 80 and 90% of the people I talked to about this deck on forums or irl wanted to remove the first Emrakul, so I find it quite amusing that now people want to run more of them. The new rules aren't an excuse, they don't change anything to that since with enter resolved you had enough cantrips to refind one of them if you played two. I even run eladamri's call so that makes it pretty simple.

[alphastryk]

Lejay - I think you've been quite clear, not sure why people want a second one. The second Emrakul is clearly a wasted slot in a deck that doesn't have enough room as it is.

[phazonmutant]

At the side event before the BoM I had a draw first round against a miracle control. Being in the draw bracket I faced Miracles 5 times after that on the event. I won all 5.
You just force cb or top or combo quickly. If you have the combo the only real problem with CB+sdt is it will shut down PoNs. The only reason you can be unfavourable to mracles is if they have a crazy sideboard against you.

As you constantly reiterate, it all comes down to lists. I can definitely believe the deck is favored against builds without hatebears postboard. However, the good builds of Miracles I've run into will be playing some combination of multiple Meddling Mage, Canonist, and Clique postboard in addition to Force and Counterbalance.
From playing this matchup, the first hate permanent isn't difficult to play through, it's the second or third. If they can use their counterspells to slow you down enough to resolve one or more hate permanents, it can be extremely difficult to win.

[Esper3k]

I think 2 Emrakul is overkill also. I think the benefit of being able to take infinite turns post EtI isn't worth the extra maindeck slot the second Emrakul takes up.

As I said in an earlier post (and as others have stated), how often are you really going to be in a situation where even if you lose an RtA clash somehow, you can't just cast Emrakul and attack them to death with it?

[IL_casual]

Once I have resolved eti but Ive run out of cunning wishes. Is there a way for me to recycle my graveyard using emrakul and trigger his shuffle graveyard. Thanks!

[Adan]

Really the only way to deal with CB in this situation is to have the force for it or play the discard package and hope to discard it before they play it.

I have played 5 or 6 tournaments until now with DreamHalls and have played Miracles at least once in every tournament. Only last week in Hassloch I lost my first game (I still won 2-1) because I kinda played like a retard and ran into a Venser.

Miracles usually won't protect their Counterbalance when your FoW it because they cannot afford to throw away a Force for a Counterbalance that isn't likely to counter the Show and Tell that might follow.
And even if they stick Counterbalance and Top after countering a SnT here and there, DreamHalls is lights out for Miracles.

[Larzdk]

I have played 5 or 6 tournaments until now with DreamHalls and have played Miracles at least once in every tournament. Only last week in Hassloch I lost my first game (I still won 2-1) because I kinda played like a retard and ran into a Venser.

Miracles usually won't protect their Counterbalance when your FoW it because they cannot afford to throw away a Force for a Counterbalance that isn't likely to counter the Show and Tell that might follow.
And even if they stick Counterbalance and Top after countering a SnT here and there, DreamHalls is lights out for Miracles.

Except when they float a FoW on top of their library.

[Adan]

Except when they float a FoW on top of their library.

Thank you, Captain Obvious, but that is very unlikely as they only have 4 CC5 cards in their deck with no library manipulation beyond SDT and BS.
Chances a higher for me to win a lottery than playing a Miracles player who has at least two counters in hand, CB+Top active and CC1, 3 and 5 floating on top ALL THE TIME.

I can only see Miracles becoming a bad matchup if they would play at least 3 Geist of Saint Thraft in their SB. He would be good as he's a 3-turn-clock that cannot be handled, he's blue so redundant copies can be pitched and he can be flipped to SnT/CWish with CBalance.

Without a clock, Miracles is a very good matchup. Period.

[catmint]

*sigh* ... usually if people argue in such a polarizing way they are wrong.

Sure, counter-top is no problem at all. They "only" have SD.top (+ fetchlands) and BS for library manipulation and with only 4 cmc5 cards there is no chance of countering dream-halls, which is a 3of in your deck and surely easy to find if you cannot resolve cantrips. /sarcasm . I am not saying that CB is end of game, but it is just ignorant to say that it is meaningless. There might also be a double standard if you claim that it is unlikely to float cmc5 on top while listing FoW as a viable answer to stop their CB from resolving.

Anyhow people should stop arguing in such a polarizing way. There are people complaining about a horror matchup (or at least talk about painful experiences) and others who "never lost a game". Both is bullshit. It is obviously favored G1 and probably unfavorable postboard (depending on opponent) because the miracles player has a lot more options to improve the deck than we have. What is important to understand that the matchup can be quite swingy depending on some high impact cards (hence also a lot of different experiences) and that there are limited options for us to improve that specific matchup.

[apple713]

Once I have resolved eti but Ive run out of cunning wishes. Is there a way for me to recycle my graveyard using emrakul and trigger his shuffle graveyard. Thanks!

i've been in this situation. you need emrakul in your main to do this. If you have emrakul in your hand after ETI, just cast it and win that way. If hes in your deck you need intuition. Pull it out with intuition and hope that your opponent dumps it in grave. If he doesnt then you have it in your hand and can cast it. Otherwise it gets shuffled back in with the trigger.

The issue i ran into was a RIP was in play. No dice for me.

[Esper3k]

i've been in this situation. you need emrakul in your main to do this. If you have emrakul in your hand after ETI, just cast it and win that way. If hes in your deck you need intuition. Pull it out with intuition and hope that your opponent dumps it in grave. If he doesnt then you have it in your hand and can cast it. Otherwise it gets shuffled back in with the trigger.

The issue i ran into was a RIP was in play. No dice for me.

I would think that in most cases though, RIP is a corner case we'd run into since it's a pretty terrible card against us.

[apple713]

I would think that in most cases though, RIP is a corner case we'd run into since it's a pretty terrible card against us.

Sorry, I probably should have stated that my opponent was miracles and its used for helm combo so it never comes out... but yea its not a great card against us. The situation was very very rare.

[Esper3k]

Sorry, I probably should have stated that my opponent was miracles and its used for helm combo so it never comes out... but yea its not a great card against us. The situation was very very rare.

Agreed. I think Miracles w/helm is the only major deck that would keep it in against us. I was just speaking that it should be generally very rare for us to see it (and usually we should be ecstatic if we do). Just some bad luck in that situation you had, I think.

[Adan]

*sigh* ... usually if people argue in such a polarizing way they are wrong.

Sure, counter-top is no problem at all. They "only" have SD.top (+ fetchlands) and BS for library manipulation and with only 4 cmc5 cards there is no chance of countering dream-halls, which is a 3of in your deck and surely easy to find if you cannot resolve cantrips. /sarcasm . I am not saying that CB is end of game, but it is just ignorant to say that it is meaningless. There might also be a double standard if you claim that it is unlikely to float cmc5 on top while listing FoW as a viable answer to stop their CB from resolving.

I am running 4 Dream Halls. And we are running 12 cantrips which makes it way more likely to have FoW against a Counterbalance. Miracles is also a terribly slow deck and this allows you to use Pact of Negation as a hardcounter from Turn 4 on. That turn you basically have to skip is usually not relevant.
And I am still certain that Miracles simply cannot deal with the threat density. DreamHalls are what I go for the most in this matchup as they cannot let SnT resolve under any circumstances. In most cases I cast Show and Tells which get countered. But then they are naked against the DreamHalls with double backup.

Furthermore Miracles itself is actually a pretty crappy Counterbalance deck because the mana curve is terrible, a Counterbalance without SDT doesn't really counter anything (and I have played Miracles myself for 3 tournaments, so I am qualified to say that).

[Titan2k13]

hello Lejay,

I am playing the following deck in legacy:

3 City of Traitors
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
3 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell

Sideboard:

1 Trickbind
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Sapphire Charm
1 Rushing River
1 Release the Ants
1 Noxious Revival
1 Intuition
1 Eladamri's Call
3 Defense Grid
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Pact of Negation

==>I got 4 questions:

1.)Whats your current list of this deck?
2.)what do you think about playing 1xquicken in the sideboard; I had a situation against death & taxes,where I played s&t.I put omniscience in and he put oblivion ring
onto the battlefield,I asked myself if it would be good to have 1xquicken in the sideboard because in that situation I had enter the infinite in my hand.
3.)what do you think about playing 1xflusterstorm in the sideboard,how would your list look like then and which card is curretnly played in this slot?
4.)what do you think about playing 1xmisdirection in the sideboard,how would your list look like then and which card is curretnly played in this slot?

please answer.

best regards.

Titan2k13

[Esper3k]

At least in regards to #2, if you have the Cunning Wish in hand, you can just wish for Trickbind to stop the O-Ring trigger and continue to go off.

[phazonmutant]

Hey guys. I played emidln's list at the Somerset to 4-0 in the Legacy challenge, then played it in Legacy Open to a miserable 4-4 drop. I loved the list relative to Lejay's, although I've decided I really don't like playing the archetype. Small changes: the 4th Force over the 3rd Pact, and I cut the sb Intuition for a German Teferi's Realm.

Sneak and Show 2-1 : I played the control and countered his Show and Tells. Dream Halls won both games.
Big Red 1-2 : Show and Tell won the first, his 3-ball into Inferno Titan won the second, and a lucky flip off Chaos Warp clinched the third. His report is here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24711-Big-Red-(Mono-R-Sneak-Attack)&p=740536&viewfull=1#post740536), except his hand had 2x REB, not REB + Chaos Warp as described at that point.
Manaless Dredge 2-1
BUG Agent 1-2 : G2 I could have won through Golgari Charm if I had considered it, but instead die. G3 I take an aggressive line running out an Omniscience with Enter as my only pitch to Force. He Forces into Pulse. He didn't play a single discard spell the entire match, but had plenty of Forces. This match actually had some interesting decision points if anyone wants me to elaborate.
Sneak and Show 2-0 : He was inexperienced and misplayed a 10-spell stack that caused me to resolve Enter the Infinite instead of die to a Pact trigger.
Reanimator 0-2 : I aggressively counter his ins, but he strips my hand. Iona finds her way into play. G2 goes super long, with me countering multiple ins. I brick with a Dream Halls and then also an Omniscience in play for like 8 turns, he gets there first.
Soldier Stompy 2-0 : Show and Tell derp herp g1, then g2 Chalice on 1 blanks half my hand. I S&T Omniscience and hope he forgets his trigger on my Ponder, he does, and I find Enter for the win.
BUG Agent 0-2 : I keep aggressive hands and go for t2-3 Show and Tell both games, but both games he curves Liliana into Force on my business.
drop.

In neither game against the black deck would Leyline have prevented a single spell. Defense Grid would have done stone nothing in all the matchups I played. Thoughtseize was a versatile, unexpected card that did work, and Flusterstorm was pretty good. Liliana and Sneak Attack are scary, so I'm tempted to play a Pierce or two.
Firemind's Foreskin did the exact same thing Intuition would have done and was better once. Teferi's Realm would have been good had I drawn it in a couple games. Trickbind in the main sucked. I didn't play any matches with O-Ring or Venser though. I lost a few games to pitching Trickbind or boarding it out so Foreskin couldn't find a 2, but could have mitigated that by more actively Brainstorming it in. I think I would prefer it to be an Impulse.

Overall, very happy with Emidln's list. Discard was relevant in the Challenge against thresh and the mirror. Just some thoughts - use them if you want, I won't be playing Show and Tell again at a big tournament. It was incredibly boring. Probably going back to storming it up.

[Lejay]

hello Lejay,

I am playing the following deck in legacy:

3 City of Traitors
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
3 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell

Sideboard:

1 Trickbind
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Sapphire Charm
1 Rushing River
1 Release the Ants
1 Noxious Revival
1 Intuition
1 Eladamri's Call
3 Defense Grid
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Pact of Negation

==>I got 4 questions:

1.)Whats your current list of this deck?
2.)what do you think about playing 1xquicken in the sideboard; I had a situation against death & taxes,where I played s&t.I put omniscience in and he put oblivion ring
onto the battlefield,I asked myself if it would be good to have 1xquicken in the sideboard because in that situation I had enter the infinite in my hand.
3.)what do you think about playing 1xflusterstorm in the sideboard,how would your list look like then and which card is curretnly played in this slot?
4.)what do you think about playing 1xmisdirection in the sideboard,how would your list look like then and which card is curretnly played in this slot?

please answer.

best regards.

Titan2k13
1) Didn't play the deck lately as I don't have the cards anymore on MTGO? If I would play a list tomorrow I would still play the one I posted in the opening. Possible testing I'd try are -1 island +1 GP, Drew Levin's list, and emidln's list. All seem good.
2) Esper3k answered
3)Least used card in the sb are eladamri's call and noxious revival so that's where I'd look. Some people cut 3rd grid but I think it's very important. I don't find flusterstorm that necessary in the board. I like the way my sideboarding goes this way and as I already explained several times with these more specialized disrupts (full pon, LLoS, grid) you always have the more suitable protection as long as you don't do the wrong sideboarding. I've thought about trying a flusterstorm instead of a pact of negation main deck like I think Drew Levin did. Never had time to try it, but you could test that.
4) Misdirection seems much too narrow. This deck has no room for it unless you play in a very special metagame.

[mulder]

Soldier Stompy 2-0 : Show and Tell derp herp g1, then g2 Chalice on 1 blanks half my hand. I S&T Omniscience and hope he forgets his trigger on my Ponder, he does, and I find Enter for the win.


Is this even legal?

[somethingdotdotdot]

Ofc it is. Whenever you cast a spell, chalice checks to see if the cc is the same as the number of counters on it. If it is then it puts a trigger on the stack countering the spell. If the owner of chalice forgets to put the trigger on the stack, and you choose to not remind him, the spell then resolves. It wasn't legal in the old rules though since it isn't a "may" ability.

[nevilshute]

Is this even legal?

Think so. The person who owns the trigger is responsible for not missing it. You can (some would probably find it a bit scummy) play a 1CMC spell with a Chalice on 1 and then ask your opponent if it resolves or even worse (biased) cast it and just await his/her reaction. If he/she neglects to point out that the Chalice triggers and counters the spell but instead go "sure" or even worse "sure, resolves", then the trigger has been missed. It's in the same genre as someone forgetting to mention their emrakul annihilator trigger.

In my book we're in a grey area. I could never in good conscience get myself to try and sneak by one of my opponent's triggers, but I'm fairly sure it's perfectly legal. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. The level of competition might affect this(?).

[Esper3k]

Think so. The person who owns the trigger is responsible for not missing it. You can (some would probably find it a bit scummy) play a 1CMC spell with a Chalice on 1 and then ask your opponent if it resolves or even worse (biased) cast it and just await his/her reaction. If he/she neglects to point out that the Chalice triggers and counters the spell but instead go "sure" or even worse "sure, resolves", then the trigger has been missed. It's in the same genre as someone forgetting to mention their emrakul annihilator trigger.

In my book we're in a grey area. I could never in good conscience get myself to try and sneak by one of my opponent's triggers, but I'm fairly sure it's perfectly legal. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. The level of competition might affect this(?).

This is true of Competitive+ REL events, so in your Regular REL events, you still have to remind your opponent.

The new trigger philosophy is that now each player is responsible for their own triggers, which makes me perfectly happy. No longer do you have to essentially play the game for your opponent and constantly remind them of their own triggers unless you want them to trigger. This gives more room for you to play and allow your opponent to make mistakes instead of them awkwardly autopiloting to victory.

We actually saw this on stream at the SCG Open last weekend where Reid Duke stole Game 1 from a MUD opponent when he resolved his Chain Lightning on a Lodestone Golem under Chalice @ 1 (thus, growing his Tarmogoyfs by +3/+3).

[apple713]

Is this even legal?

it is legal due to the new missed triggers rule as others have pointed out. However in my opinion it shuoldnt be as it seems to be borderline cheating since it was an intentional manipulation of the rules. The fact that you were aware of the trigger and tried to get away with it is what makes it wrong. You might as well have started using your fetchlands as vamp tutors and hoped your opponent didnt notice...

[phazonmutant]

it is legal due to the new missed triggers rule as others have pointed out. However in my opinion it shuoldnt be as it seems to be borderline cheating since it was an intentional manipulation of the rules. The fact that you were aware of the trigger and tried to get away with it is what makes it wrong. You might as well have started using your fetchlands as vamp tutors and hoped your opponent didnt notice...

I agree that it seems scummy and I felt scummy afterwards. I talked with a couple judges afterwards and everyone agreed that I shouldn't feel scummy, but at the very least I did feel bad for the guy.

The way it played out was that I saw my only out with lethal on board was him forgetting Chalice's trigger and then finding an Enter. I cast S&T, put in Omniscience, verbally announced "Ponder." He gave me a thumbs up, I immediately grabbed the top 3 of my library, then he pointed to Chalice. We called over a judge, he verified that was what happened in both players' views, then ruled that he had acknowledged the spell resolving and forgotten the trigger.

[nevilshute]

I agree that it seems scummy and I felt scummy afterwards. I talked with a couple judges afterwards and everyone agreed that I shouldn't feel scummy, but at the very least I did feel bad for the guy.

The way it played out was that I saw my only out with lethal on board was him forgetting Chalice's trigger and then finding an Enter. I cast S&T, put in Omniscience, verbally announced "Ponder." He gave me a thumbs up, I immediately grabbed the top 3 of my library, then he pointed to Chalice. We called over a judge, he verified that was what happened in both players' views, then ruled that he had acknowledged the spell resolving and forgotten the trigger.

Well, I find it admirable that you're so honest about what happened. And it's hard to argue with it when a judge is conferred and rules in your favor... but man... "He gave me thumbs up, I immediately grabbed the top 3 of my library, then he pointed to Chalice".

This to me is a clear indication that the rule does NOT work as intented atm. Based on your own description it doesn't sound like he forgot anything, but rather misunderstood how he was supposed to react. He gave you the thumbs up, perhaps, in recognition of you announcing the Ponder. If you had moved your hand more slowly towards your deck he likely would have reacted before you drew the cards and pointed out that the Ponder was going to get countered by the Chalice.

[apple713]

Well, I find it admirable that you're so honest about what happened. And it's hard to argue with it when a judge is conferred and rules in your favor... but man... "He gave me thumbs up, I immediately grabbed the top 3 of my library, then he pointed to Chalice".

This to me is a clear indication that the rule does NOT work as intented atm. Based on your own description it doesn't sound like he forgot anything, but rather misunderstood how he was supposed to react. He gave you the thumbs up, perhaps, in recognition of you announcing the Ponder. If you had moved your hand more slowly towards your deck he likely would have reacted before you drew the cards and pointed out that the Ponder was going to get countered by the Chalice.

this sounds like a miscommunication issue, not a missed trigger issue. He should definatly be more clear about what thumbs up means, cause I could totally see someone doing that and thinking like "ok whatever it gets countered ". Traditionally thumbs up would give you the green light on your action. I feel like you are less at fault now but you opponent needs to communicate better, as do most of the other players in the game.

They covered this in the most recent eternal central podcast with the guest judges. The phrase "OK" should be erased from your magic vocabulary, and you should instead adopt the word, "thinking", just in case you have a response.

[Esper3k]

Well, I find it admirable that you're so honest about what happened. And it's hard to argue with it when a judge is conferred and rules in your favor... but man... "He gave me thumbs up, I immediately grabbed the top 3 of my library, then he pointed to Chalice".

This to me is a clear indication that the rule does NOT work as intented atm. Based on your own description it doesn't sound like he forgot anything, but rather misunderstood how he was supposed to react. He gave you the thumbs up, perhaps, in recognition of you announcing the Ponder. If you had moved your hand more slowly towards your deck he likely would have reacted before you drew the cards and pointed out that the Ponder was going to get countered by the Chalice.

I don't find it shady at all. If you're playing at a Competitive+ REL, you should be responsible for your own triggers, imo.

Likewise in the example, I do agree with the judge ruling. When you're playing a Chalice deck and someone throws a spell into the Chalice, you don't give a thumbs up, you point to the Chalice and say "Chalice?" or just say "Counter it.". A thumbs up is a common response for allowing a spell to resolve, similar to that hand motion for passing the turn. If your opponent was intending something else, it sucks, but he should be aware of commonly used shortcuts in the game or at least be more clear about his intentions in the future.

[Esper3k]

this sounds like a miscommunication issue, not a missed trigger issue. He should definatly be more clear about what thumbs up means, cause I could totally see someone doing that and thinking like "ok whatever it gets countered ". Traditionally thumbs up would give you the green light on your action. I feel like you are less at fault now but you opponent needs to communicate better, as do most of the other players in the game.

They covered this in the most recent eternal central podcast with the guest judges. The phrase "OK" should be erased from your magic vocabulary, and you should instead adopt the word, "thinking", just in case you have a response.

Agreed, everyone just need to be more clear in communication. "OK" is such an ambiguous term that if my opponents use it, I always stop to clarify what they mean.

[Smea.gol.lum]

I've been searching for an alternative for the Eladamri's Call into Emrakul route in order to beat Gaddock Teeg for a while.

My goal was to find a package that is able to win through Gaddock Teeg, Emrakul in the opponents deck and Comes-into-play effects (O-ring, Venser etc) without having to run Emrakul in the maindeck.

Here's the best that I could find for now:

MD:
4 Omniscience
4 Dream Halls
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preoardain
4 Cunning Wish
3 Force of Will
3 Pact of Negation
4 Enter the Infinite
1 Flusterstorm
1 Intuition
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault

4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 City of Traitors
1 Underground Sea
6 Island

SB:
1 Firemind's Foresight
1 Intuition
2 Naya Charm
1 Brain Freeze
1 Force of Will
2 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Swamp
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Wipe Away
1 Rushing River
2 Virtue's Ruin

1.How to beat Emrakul in opposing decks: (with Omniscience in play)
Brain Freeze-->Emrakul triggers-->Surgical Extraction targetting Emrakul-->Graveyard shuffled into library-->mill the library with the rest of the Brain Freeze copies that are still on the stack

2.How to beat Gaddock Teeg:
Cunning Wish-->Intuition-->3 Cunning Wish-->Naya Charm grabbing Wish-->Naya Charm grabbing Naya Charm (loop)-->etc-->Naya Charm grabbing Wish-->Brain Freeze

3.How to beat Comes into play effects: s.o.

The downside of the package is the necessity of 4 Cunning Wishes.
The package is only prone to graveyard hate in Scenario 2, in Scenario1 you have your whole deck available and are able to counter graveyard hate or bounce it if it's permanent. In scenario 3 you can wish for FF(-->Cunning Wish,Vault, Flusterstorm or Wish,Vault, Brainstorm) whereas Vault and Brainstorm provide you with any card of your deck with enough life to play with.

And yes, the only thing it achieves is not having to run Emrakul in the MD to be able to beat Gaddock Teeg.
Is it worth it? I don't know.

[Lejay]

And uses three sideboard slots while not helping at all against thalia.
Brain freeze can function with 2x SDT main deck. Your kill will also be problematic if you use a wish pre combo.

[Smea.gol.lum]

Well, Emrakul+Eladamri's Call+Release the ants are also 3 slots in the 75 overall.
The aspects regarding Thalia and the use of Wish precomco are true, however.

[mondragon]

I cut the sb Intuition for a German Teferi's Realm.



Can somebody explain what Teferi's Realm does? Can't they just pick a permanent type they do not control to phase out making the Realm useless?

[somethingdotdotdot]

You mostly want to use the realm trigger during your own upkeep. Its usually set on creatures so that when you start your upkeep, you phase out all of their hatebears and then go off. You can also do it on artifacts (vs mud or decks w/ trini) and non-aura enchantments versus a counterbalance.

[KobeBryan]

You mostly want to use the realm trigger during your own upkeep. Its usually set on creatures so that when you start your upkeep, you phase out all of their hatebears and then go off. You can also do it on artifacts (vs mud or decks w/ trini) and non-aura enchantments versus a counterbalance.

Can probably take out a rushing river for it.

[somethingdotdotdot]

This is the black splash list that I've been brewing for the last couple of days. Some feedback would be good.

Filter (13)
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Preordain
2x Sensei's Divining Top

Tutor (3)
1x Intuition
2x Lim-Dul's Vault

Protection (6)
4x Force of Will
2x Pact of Negation

Win Con (18)
4x Omniscience
3x Dream Halls
4x Show and Tell
4x Enter the Infinite
3x Cunning Wish

Lands (20)
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
5x Island
1x Swamp
1x Underground Sea
2x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors

SB:
4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Teferi's Realm
2x Thoughtseize
1x Firemind's Insight
1x Research//Development
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Trickbind
1x Wipe Away
1x Laboratory Maniac

I've been liking the lim-dul's vault + sensei top. It usually means you dont run out of cantrips as well as having a double vampiric tutor for the missing piece+protection. I've been wondering if I should just cut the two thoughtseizes from the board for a pact of negation and bounce/intuition/lim-dul's vault. The main problem I've run into is facing down maverick decks. Teeg+canonist with mom protection, along with thalia or a thorn in play is just damn near impossible to fight through. I've been considering turning the 3 teferi's realms into 3x virtue's ruins for this matchup.

[phazonmutant]

On the face of it, your list doesn't seem unreasonable. I think that I'd play a 6th Island over the 9th fetch, but I understand wanting to optimize for Top. Your sideboard seems unrefined though. Cunning Wish doesn't find any protection, which is a big problem. I really don't like Leyline of Sanctity, but I'm very possibly wrong about that. Emidln is right that boarding Emrakul and Eladamri's Call is a valid plan for beating hate bears, you should try cutting Teferi's Realm to make room for that. Another option is cutting a Preordain, LDV, or land and adding Emrakul maindeck, cutting Research and Lab Man, adding Release the Ants, and possibly changing Wipe Away to Rushing River to deal with multiple Leyline of Sanctities.

Thanks for sharing!

[somethingdotdotdot]

I've tried the emmy main in one of the preordain's spots and often came to the conclusion that its just not a very good win condition outside of vs hatebears. It sometimes gets there, but the list is pretty slow, so when you go off you want a win condition that just wins on the spot. I'm usually comboing off the last possible turn, so emmy just doesn't cut it a lot of the time.

My sideboard is quite unrefined, but this is my first combo deck so I'm just trying out new things to see what works. I'm not sure that grabbing pact is completely necessary--I hadn't found myself wishing for it that often. However, there definitely have been times when I wish I had a pact/tutor in the board. As for the emmy postboard plan, I'm considering just dropping all of the hate and going 3-4 emmys postboard as the main win con vs hatebears; however, I feel like that matchup is one of this deck's worst and its quite difficult to turn it positive postboard.

From talking to one of my friends whose been playing omni variants for the last year or so, he says that leyline is the best sideboard card period. From playing g1 versus discard decks, I can see why: the combo is inherently clunky. I often need 3-5 cards to actually go off. A single discard spell can set me back about 2-3 turns and I'm not running pierces/dazes/flusterstorms like sneak to combat the discard spells.

The wipe away instead of rushing river is also a concession to deal with maverick/dnt type decks. Rushing river is uesless once they have a mom out (about 50-60% of the time I would say), while wipe away just shrugs and does its thing.

Edit: After some more testing, I decided to cut the teferi's realm since its been a bit too slow. My sb is currently:

1x Lab Man
1x Firemind's Foreskin
1x Intuition/Rushing River
1x Trickbind
1x Wipe Away
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Research//Development
1x Pact of Negation
4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Thoughtseize

Currently unsure if wishing for the intuition pre-combo is more useful than wishing for the rushing river. I'm leaning towards the intuition atm.

[KobeBryan]

Has anyone tried personal tutor in the deck to speed up the combo?

Sometiems the cantrips just don't get you there fast enough.

[lebarion]

Has anyone tried personal tutor in the deck to speed up the combo?

Sometiems the cantrips just don't get you there fast enough.

I don't like Personal Tutor. I don't like it being a sorcery, I don't like it being card-disadvantage, and I don't like it providing information for your opponent about what exactly he needs to counter.

I guess that it depends on which match you feel the deck is not quick enough. If it is against aggro decks - maybe Goblins-, Personal Tutor sounds fine, even though I haven't had issues in these matches.

If you really need to raise consistence, try running more Intuitions maindeck. You can always use it turn three to combo turn 4. Opens you to Surgical Extraction, though.

[barcode]

It looks like our sister Blue combo deck High Tide is looking to Sensei top to filter draws and I'm wondering if it can find a home here. Any ideas here?

[Lejay]

First idea that comes to mind would be to check the opening post or a few posts above. :)

[nodahero]

I have browsed through the thread and I think I can prolly guesstimate the answers to these questions but I think having these questions answerd by one or more of the noted palyers would be awesome.

First-- Pro and cons of running the Realse the Ants versus Maniac kill

Second-- Where is the value in running the maindeck Emrakul beyond the obvious oops I win. I recall people mentioning Teeg being a reason but I don't really understand that when the aforementioned kills don't care about Teeg one bit. I am assuming this goes beyond the obvious of Wish for Eladramis then cast to fetch Emrakul to then SnT him into play.

[spg]

Second-- Where is the value in running the maindeck Emrakul beyond the obvious oops I win. I recall people mentioning Teeg being a reason but I don't really understand that when the aforementioned kills don't care about Teeg one bit. I am assuming this goes beyond the obvious of Wish for Eladramis then cast to fetch Emrakul to then SnT him into play.

Ok, let's say you cast Show and Tell and put Omniscience into play, and your opponent puts Teeg into play. Your plan was to follow up with Enter the Infinite in your hand, but you can't because of Gaddock Teeg. This prevents you from applying the Enter the Ants kill plan. This plan very much cares about Teeg, it prevents you from resolving Enter the Infinite after Omniscience.

BUT if you have Cunning Wish in your hand and Emrakul in your deck then you have the option of: Cunning Wish for Eldarami's Call, Eldarami's Call for Emrakul, and then take a free turn and attack to annihilate their board. Remember with Omniscience that you are actually casting Emrakul so you get the extra turn. So when playing against a deck like Maverick, you have the option of planning to combo off with just Show and Tell, Omniscience, and Cunning Wish. Without Emrakul you would need Show and Tell, Omniscience, Cunning Wish, and Enter the Infinite so that you can Slaughter Pact Teeg before continuing with your plan.

Emrakul is also useful if you pull off the Release the Ants win, but your opponent has something on top of their library that prevents you from winning the clash. I've run into this situation before: Emrakul is plan B.

Emrakul adds a lot of flexibility in your gameplan and additional paths to victory at the cost of one maindeck card and one sideboard card (Eldamari's Call).

[nodahero]

Thanks for the quick response. I never really thought about the intervening parts (after the first spell but before the kill spell that is).

There is no real substitute for experience. Now to simply figure out the value of Maniac vs Release the Ants.

[Ashahura]

Ok, let's say you cast Show and Tell and put Omniscience into play, and your opponent puts Teeg into play. Your plan was to follow up with Enter the Infinite in your hand, but you can't because of Gaddock Teeg. This prevents you from applying the Enter the Ants kill plan. This plan very much cares about Teeg, it prevents you from resolving Enter the Infinite after Omniscience.

BUT if you have Cunning Wish in your hand and Emrakul in your deck then you have the option of: Cunning Wish for Eldarami's Call, Eldarami's Call for Emrakul, and then take a free turn and attack to annihilate their board. Remember with Omniscience that you are actually casting Emrakul so you get the extra turn. So when playing against a deck like Maverick, you have the option of planning to combo off with just Show and Tell, Omniscience, and Cunning Wish. Without Emrakul you would need Show and Tell, Omniscience, Cunning Wish, and Enter the Infinite so that you can Slaughter Pact Teeg before continuing with your plan.

Emrakul is also useful if you pull off the Release the Ants win, but your opponent has something on top of their library that prevents you from winning the clash. I've run into this situation before: Emrakul is plan B.

Emrakul adds a lot of flexibility in your gameplan and additional paths to victory at the cost of one maindeck card and one sideboard card (Eldamari's Call).

Maybe I'm missing something, but if your win-con is LabMan, in your scenario, couldn't you just wish for one of your bounce spells in your board, bounce the Teeg (still have Omniscience in play), then EtI and go off that way?

[nodahero]

Good point... although it doesn't matter which kill he would be using under your plan.

Both variant play at least one bounce in the board.

[spg]

Maybe I'm missing something, but if your win-con is LabMan, in your scenario, couldn't you just wish for one of your bounce spells in your board, bounce the Teeg (still have Omniscience in play), then EtI and go off that way?

If you have an extra Cunning Wish alongside Enter the Infinite and Omniscience, then it doesn't matter which win condition you have because you can use the extra Cunning Wish to get rid of the Teeg either way.

Emrakul allows you to win with only Omniscience and Gaddock Teeg in play and a single Cunning Wish in hand. As far as I know, the Labratory Maniac version doesn't have a way to win from this situation.

[Ashahura]

If you have an extra Cunning Wish alongside Enter the Infinite and Omniscience, then it doesn't matter which win condition you have because you can use the extra Cunning Wish to get rid of the Teeg either way.

Emrakul allows you to win with only Omniscience and Gaddock Teeg in play and a single Cunning Wish in hand. As far as I know, the Labratory Maniac version doesn't have a way to win from this situation.

I just thought from the way that you described the situation that the board had Omniscience for you, Teeg for them and your hand included 1 EtI and 1 Wish. In that situation, you can wish for the bounce, bounce Teeg, then EtI and when that resolves you have access to the rest of your wishes.

But, if you only have the wish and no EtI, then I believe you're correct. At least, there's no situation I can think of that will allow you to win in that spot.

[Esper3k]

Emrakul + Eladamri's Call is separate from Lab Maniac vs Release the Ants.

Essentially, Lab Maniac kill takes up 1 extra slot in the sideboard, but is harder to disrupt since it doesn't care what is in your opponent's deck.

[somethingdotdotdot]

I actually think that you need to run the Emmy main if you use the ants kill con because otherwise you might tie a clash and cannot kill them. This is where you use Emmy to swing in and kill them. This isn't necessary with the labman

[lithiux]

I just thought from the way that you described the situation that the board had Omniscience for you, Teeg for them and your hand included 1 EtI and 1 Wish. In that situation, you can wish for the bounce, bounce Teeg, then EtI and when that resolves you have access to the rest of your wishes.

But, if you only have the wish and no EtI, then I believe you're correct. At least, there's no situation I can think of that will allow you to win in that spot.

If you have bounce maindeck (some people have Echoing truth as their 2-slot) you can go Wish->Firemind's Foresight->Make your pile Cunning Wish, Echoing Truth, Whatever One Drop, and then go off with that second Wish.

[Ashahura]

If you have bounce maindeck (some people have Echoing truth as their 2-slot) you can go Wish->Firemind's Foresight->Make your pile Cunning Wish, Echoing Truth, Whatever One Drop, and then go off with that second Wish.

Firemind's Foresight won't be castable with a Gaddock Teeg on the table.

[nodahero]

So I finally got to test this deck and I was not impressed by it. The deck felt very clunky to me... Literally it seemed like all I did was cast cantrips and either rip SnT or DH or I would simoply die a brutal death.

Even if I riped SnT or DH I still needed something to big to do such as cast an Enter or cheat in an omniscience and then have something big.

Basically this deck just feels like a more clunky combo deck then Storm and its brother SnS.

Am I missing something?

[apple713]

So I finally got to test this deck and I was not impressed by it. The deck felt very clunky to me... Literally it seemed like all I did was cast cantrips and either rip SnT or DH or I would simoply die a brutal death.

Even if I riped SnT or DH I still needed something to big to do such as cast an Enter or cheat in an omniscience and then have something big.

Basically this deck just feels like a more clunky combo deck then Storm and its brother SnS.

Am I missing something?

nope, it is how it is. i stopped playing the deck for the same reason

[Esper3k]

Essentially, you're still trying to assemble a 3 card combo so you'll be more susceptible to hand disruption and will likely be slower than a lot of other combo decks.

The benefit we get from it is having generally more protection, being pretty Wasteland proof, and not needing our life total or graveyard to go off.

I feel this deck is more similar to High Tide in that we sit and cantrip until we're ready to go off and just immediately kill someone.

[Mackan]

Essentially, you're still trying to assemble a 3 card combo so you'll be more susceptible to hand disruption and will likely be slower than a lot of other combo decks.

The benefit we get from it is having generally more protection, being pretty Wasteland proof, and not needing our life total or graveyard to go off.

I feel this deck is more similar to High Tide in that we sit and cantrip until we're ready to go off and just immediately kill someone.

Except for the fact that Omniclash is atleast a full turn faster on average... which is a lot.

[n0mad]

so i have found that i have had a ridiculously difficult time with this deck vs. dredge and/or against Reanimator variants. notably dredge with it's ability to combine combo speed with hand disruption and the threat of dread returning Iona or putting it in via Show and Tell. Reanimator mostly with a resolved Griselbrand/Iona on blue. That being said, I have tooled an "8 leyline special" sideboard I am going to try out this coming Wednesday (we have a local legacy tournament in Northern Virginia with ~25+ people). The sideboard is as follows for those who are curious. It's just the bare minimum wish targets.

4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Trickbind
1 Intuition
1 Release the Ants
1 Pact of Negation
1 Rushing River
1 Sapphire Charm
1 Slaughter Pact

[Bahamuth]

I don't think it makes much sense to play Leyline of the Void in a deck with 16 cantrips while other free graveyard-hate is available that you can actually cantrip into.

[n0mad]

I don't think it makes much sense to play Leyline of the Void in a deck with 16 cantrips while other free graveyard-hate is available that you can actually cantrip into.

you are likely correct, but i've found that by the time you can-trip into your grave hate they have already stripped the relevant cards from your hand or have amassed a significant zombie army. so perhaps on paper and logically non-leyline grave hate might be superior, but in actual play it under performs. either way i will be testing it out on wednesday and we have a good amount of dredge players locally so i should be able to get some accurate testing in.

[Lejay]

nope, it is how it is. i stopped playing the deck for the same reason
:)


I don't think it makes much sense to play Leyline of the Void in a deck with 16 cantrips while other free graveyard-hate is available that you can actually cantrip into.

The reasoning is even simpler. If your metagame asks you to run 4 grave hate, you should probably play another deck.

I said the deck lost to grave decks right from the beginning. It should beat every other meta though.

[phazonmutant]

so i have found that i have had a ridiculously difficult time with this deck vs. dredge and/or against Reanimator variants. notably dredge with it's ability to combine combo speed with hand disruption and the threat of dread returning Iona or putting it in via Show and Tell. Reanimator mostly with a resolved Griselbrand/Iona on blue. That being said, I have tooled an "8 leyline special" sideboard I am going to try out this coming Wednesday (we have a local legacy tournament in Northern Virginia with ~25+ people). The sideboard is as follows for those who are curious. It's just the bare minimum wish targets.

I think that you shouldn't play this deck in a graveyard-centric meta. If you look on the opening post, Lejay specifically calls out graveyard combo as bad matchups. If you're dead-set on playing Omniderp, Leyline of Sanctity isn't useless against them and you can replace Defense Grid with some Surgicals, but you're still going to have a 50% or worse matchup. Remember that Reanimator has always preyed upon slower combo decks.

Edit: looks like Lejay got to it first :laugh:

[Patrunkenphat7]

So... What's the verdict on 3 or 4 Dream Halls? It's often too clunky, so having 2 can create some weird hands. On the other hand, the 2nd copy isn't exactly "dead" if Dream Halls is relevant in the game because you can just pitch it. Is it a card that you want to see so often in a 12+ cantrip deck that you want 4?

Also, what is the purpose of having Slaughter Pact, Sapphire Charm, and Rushing River in the SB? Slaughter Pact and Sapphire Charm seem a little redundant, but I'm probably missing something.

[Adan]

I went 4-1-1 with emidln's build today, the only changes I made to his list were 4th FoW instead of 2nd Flusterstorm and Echoing Truth instead of Rushing River.

4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
3 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
3 Pact of Negation
1 Trickbind
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
5 Island
2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Firemind's Foresight
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Research / Development
SB: 1 Laboratory Maniac

Matchups were:

Bye
Shardless Bant something 2-0
BUG Delver 1-2
Death & Taxes 2-0
Mirror 2-1
Canadian Threshold I.D.

BUG Delver basically ripped a Hymn when he shouldn't, any other card would have been perfectly fine. Overall I had the impression that this deck is still absolutely viable. I could imagine there are better deckchoices in a meta full of tempo-decks, but on the other hand, tempodecks really need nutdraws or 1st Turn Delvers, otherwise they are going down.

[combolover]

I went back a few posts and looked for what someone referred to as "OmniClash" can anyone provide me with more information? I wasn't able to find anything.

Thanks

[Tammit67]

I went back a few posts and looked for what someone referred to as "OmniClash" can anyone provide me with more information? I wasn't able to find anything.

Thanks

You kill with release the ants instead of lab maniac. Does that satisfy?

[KobeBryan]

I went back a few posts and looked for what someone referred to as "OmniClash" can anyone provide me with more information? I wasn't able to find anything.

Thanks

after you get omniscience in play, you cast enter the infinite, cunning wish release the ants. Enter the infinite should be the card in the library most of the time because if you by chance lose a clash (which is hardly ever unless that person happens to have emrukhal on top), you have emrukhal to play from you hand for the time walk.

[Titan2k13]

hello,

I got some questions according to your omni show deck with release the ants.

1.)how would you sideboard against dragonstompy with werwolves?
2.)how would you sideboard against the omni show deck with laboratory maniac with a black splash for 1xthoughtseize amd 2xduress?

4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
3 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
3 Pact of Negation
1 Trickbind
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
5 Island
2 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 1 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Firemind's Foresight
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Research / Development
SB: 1 Laboratory Maniac

3.)I had the situation that a flusterstorm in my sideboard would have won this match,which card would you recommend to replace for 1xflusterstorm in the sideboard?
4.)I played against a mono red sneak attack deck with pyromancy.how would you sideboard here? he did not play any pyroblast or red elemental blasts.

main:

9 Mountain
2 Crystal Vein
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Sandstone Needle

2 Lotus PEtal
4 Seething Song
4 Simian Spirit Guide

4 trinisphere
4 chalice of the void

3 Worldspne Wurm
3 Inferno Titan
3 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, the aeons Torn


2 Pyromancy
4 Through the Breach
4 Sneak Attack

Board:

4 Mindbreak trap
4 stronghold gambit
4 Defense Grid
3 Firespout

thx for your answer.

best regards.

Titan2k13

[combolover]

Thanks @ Tammit67 and KobeBryan for that.

[Barsoom]

Borborygmos Enraged in place of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

3th out of 23 players (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11519&iddeck=84252)

Genius or fool?

[apple713]

Borborygmos Enraged in place of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

3th out of 23 players (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11519&iddeck=84252)

Genius or fool?

fool.

just doesnt seem much better. its counterable

[Patrunkenphat7]

Borborygmos Enraged in place of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

3th out of 23 players (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=11519&iddeck=84252)

Genius or fool?

The uncounterability of Emrakul doesn't matter AT ALL because the creature is not what they are going to be countering...

My only problem with this is that it is worse than Emrakul when it is in your hand. It is mediocre/bad to S+T this guy if you have to do that, and casting him off Omniscience (without Enter) is not that great whereas Emrakul usually wins the game. He is also not good against Leyline of Sanctity when we are already relying on Release the Ants, although I am not really that worried about Leyline seeing as we have Rushing River to get rid of 2 after we Enter the Infinite...

Is this guy better than he is bad? I just don't know, but I am going to say that Emrakul is likely still better.

The real question is… Lab Maniac or Ants/Emrakul? Lab Maniac is better in the mirror for sure and shores up an extra maindeck slot… I think an argument can be made for it, although I am not fully convinced.

[Adan]

While it is true that it actually doesn't matter whether the creature can be countered or not, this guy is shit. SnT -> Boborygmos is not as broken as SnT into Emme. SnT into Borborygmos and then losing to StoP is also pretty bad. SnT -> Omniscience -> Borborygmos is also pretty irrelevant whereas Emrakul timewalks, deals 15 damage and completely ruins the board of your opp.

Long story short: Borborygmos is absolutely dependant on Enter the Infinite whereas Emrakul is fine by its own. Hence, Emme > that shit PERIOD.

And the second idiotic thing about that list are the 5 (!!!) Intuitions in the 75.

[spg]

Borborygmos seems terrible to me. What situation do you end up in where it's superior to the other (more common) options? Does anyone have any ideas, because I'm not seeing it.

Also, does anyone have any good tips for playing against Sneak and Show? It seems like reading through this thread that people consider it to be a somewhat favorable matchup, but I just can't win it. My plan has been to slow down and try to win with Dream Halls - but Sneak and Show has so many more counterspells and also Red Elemental Blast post-sideboarding. Maybe I've just had bad draws or whatever, but it's been extremely difficult. Any tips/advice would be appreciated.

[Esper3k]

The real question is… Lab Maniac or Ants/Emrakul? Lab Maniac is better in the mirror for sure and shores up an extra maindeck slot… I think an argument can be made for it, although I am not fully convinced.

Release the Ants kill does not require Emrakul. The Emrakul / Eladamri's Call package is separate from both the Lab Maniac vs Release the Ants win conditions. With Release the Ants, as Lejay has stated on multiple occasions, you should be leaving EtI on top, not Emrakul.