sammiel
01-04-2007, 01:54 PM
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Since I insist on putting my own spin on decks, and I really liked Hanni's fish deck, so I cut the white for red. From there, I had to figure out what white brought for which matchups, and try to patch holes as best I could with red.
My actual list:
3x Volcanic Island
3x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
4x Polluted Delta
3x Bloodstained Mire
1x Mountain
1x Island
1x Swamp
as you can see, the lands are basically the same, just swapped for color. I did change around to a 3/3 split on the blue duals instead of a 4/2, but I may switch back to 4/2 since the deck needs black more than it needs red.
3x Serendib Efreet
4x Rotting Giant
4x Dark Confidant
3x Shadowmage Infiltrator/Flesh Reaver/Wretched Anurid/Please Hrealp me
Creatures are what I've had the biggest amount of trouble with. Hanni's build ran exclusively white creatures except for confidant, so I've had to fill in all my own. Losing grunt hurts against the thresh matchup, as well as being bigger than giant, but giant sticks around for quite a bit longer, and is safer as a very early drop. Efreet I'm pretty happy with, since he pitches to force like meddling mage does, and 3/4 is a fairly fat body to also help make up for the loss of grunt, and I need fatter bodies than white fish to make up for the loss of grunt. Confidant doesn't need to be discussed.
Shadowmage Infiltrator is janky as hell, and I was dubious at first, but he was another creature that can be pitched to force, more creature based draw was nice, especially when chalice put the hurt on your cantrips, and when equipped with Jitte it was usually GG. The problem is, that UBr needs to be a bit more aggressive than UWb, and a 3 mana creature with 1 power seems sub-optimal for that. The problem is, white is typically the king of undercosted creatures. All that I can really find in my colors is stuff like Raving Oni Slave, Wretched Anurid, and Flesh Reaver. Oni Slave is terrible against anything packing DD, Anurid is ok, but sub-par against goblins and anything with decree of justice, and Flesh Reaver might just be too suicide. Originally I had Negator's in the SB for when I needed more juice, and I would SB out the Infiltrators for them. Since they got cut when I tightened up my SB, I find myself lacking any opportunity to take them out.
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Magma Jet
4x Serum Visions
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Stifle
3x Umezawa's Jitte
This is where we are practically identical. Same Force/Daze/Stifle package, same cantrip package, 3 jittes. Lightning Bolts for forces, Magma Jets for the lose hopes (2x lose hope slots and 2x creature slots become 4x magma jet). Lightning Bolt takes out 90% of the same early drops that STP takes out, without the drawback of gaining your opponent life. Against something like reanimator, losing STP sucks, but thats what free countermagic is for. Magma Jet costs two, which means its a bad answer to lackey on the draw, but it's never dead in any other matchup and sets up card quality too.
SB
4x Engineered Plague
2x Pyroblast
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Rack and Ruin
3x Duress
2x Engineered Explosives
Hanni's SB is alot more diverse than mine, whereas mine is primarily against goblins, combo, and stax. I'm still not certain on this SB, and I'm thinking about dropping duress for Negator so I can keep Infiltrator as one of my creatures. Im also thinking about another engineered explosives to shore up my much weaker threshold matchup.
Cards that I've considered:
Lava Dart: this is the main contender to replace some of my magma jets, they answer lackey, confidant, and pre-thresh werebears, and if you've got solidarity down low enough, they can flashback in response to solidarity. Also, if someone wastes a red dual, you can cast and then flash the dart back. Not exactly game-breaking, but its better than nothing, and can save your ass against gobs.
Phyrexian Negator: Obviously not maindeck material, but it's capable of putting some serious pressure on some of the creature-light decks in the format. Very strong contender to sneak back into my sideboard.
Lose Hope: Almost completely ruled out since I prefer lava dart, this card is still a maybe because of scry. Will require alot of testing, but I think I prefer darkblast or lava dart.
Withered Wretch: I hate not having some sort of answer to graveyards, but double black early on really opens this deck up to wasteland. I don't think Crypt, Furnace, or Claws are suitable answers though, so this guy remains an outside chance.
Fire Covenant: Fun and super secret card, but it doesn't help my bad thresh matchup, and I don't think I want to clutter my SB with even more anti gob cards.
Big 3 matchups:
Goblins: More removal, less creatures than UWb fish. As the matchup stands now, I think it's maybe slightly more favorable than UWb, but not significantly. If UWb was 50/50, I'd say UBr is 55/45.
Threshold: Definitely worse. Lightning Bolt doesn't answer thresholded enforcer or werebear, no maindeck or SB graveyard hate. This makes me overly reliant on Jitte to have my creatures get any damage through. If I get lucky and stifle an early fetch, I can hopefully ride enough tempo to get him into burn range, but this is definitely not a favorable matchup for me. Testing will reveal more definite info, but right now i'm predicting anywhere from 40/60 to as bad as 25/75 against me.
Solidarity: Another one that's going to require testing, but I think my matchup is better than UWb. Although I have no meddling mages, I do have instant speed burn, which I can use to put lethal damage back on the stack if he waits too long to combo off. I've also got stifle for brain freeze, and post board I've got 4 blasts and 3 duress. Maybe I'm being overconfident, and I do understand that Solidarity is an incredibly resilient deck to hate, but I put this one anywhere from 60-70% in my favor.
My biggest concern is that I've sacrificed too much of my thresh matchup to gain too little against goblins and solidarity, but I think that my matchups against all the random decks are slightly better too, with burn giving me some much needed extra reach.
My second biggest concern is that I've overly committed my SB to anti-combo, and that I would do better to pull something to make room for infest or dystopia to improve my thresh matchup.
Anyway, I'm open for suggestions, and definitely looking for advice on how to fix my creature dilemma.
*edit*
Im experimenting with Izzet Guildmages, they are a little clunky, but seem potentially better than infiltrators so far. Dimir Guildmages i considered briefly, but sorcery speed seems too clunky.
Since I insist on putting my own spin on decks, and I really liked Hanni's fish deck, so I cut the white for red. From there, I had to figure out what white brought for which matchups, and try to patch holes as best I could with red.
My actual list:
3x Volcanic Island
3x Underground Sea
1x Badlands
4x Polluted Delta
3x Bloodstained Mire
1x Mountain
1x Island
1x Swamp
as you can see, the lands are basically the same, just swapped for color. I did change around to a 3/3 split on the blue duals instead of a 4/2, but I may switch back to 4/2 since the deck needs black more than it needs red.
3x Serendib Efreet
4x Rotting Giant
4x Dark Confidant
3x Shadowmage Infiltrator/Flesh Reaver/Wretched Anurid/Please Hrealp me
Creatures are what I've had the biggest amount of trouble with. Hanni's build ran exclusively white creatures except for confidant, so I've had to fill in all my own. Losing grunt hurts against the thresh matchup, as well as being bigger than giant, but giant sticks around for quite a bit longer, and is safer as a very early drop. Efreet I'm pretty happy with, since he pitches to force like meddling mage does, and 3/4 is a fairly fat body to also help make up for the loss of grunt, and I need fatter bodies than white fish to make up for the loss of grunt. Confidant doesn't need to be discussed.
Shadowmage Infiltrator is janky as hell, and I was dubious at first, but he was another creature that can be pitched to force, more creature based draw was nice, especially when chalice put the hurt on your cantrips, and when equipped with Jitte it was usually GG. The problem is, that UBr needs to be a bit more aggressive than UWb, and a 3 mana creature with 1 power seems sub-optimal for that. The problem is, white is typically the king of undercosted creatures. All that I can really find in my colors is stuff like Raving Oni Slave, Wretched Anurid, and Flesh Reaver. Oni Slave is terrible against anything packing DD, Anurid is ok, but sub-par against goblins and anything with decree of justice, and Flesh Reaver might just be too suicide. Originally I had Negator's in the SB for when I needed more juice, and I would SB out the Infiltrators for them. Since they got cut when I tightened up my SB, I find myself lacking any opportunity to take them out.
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Magma Jet
4x Serum Visions
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
3x Stifle
3x Umezawa's Jitte
This is where we are practically identical. Same Force/Daze/Stifle package, same cantrip package, 3 jittes. Lightning Bolts for forces, Magma Jets for the lose hopes (2x lose hope slots and 2x creature slots become 4x magma jet). Lightning Bolt takes out 90% of the same early drops that STP takes out, without the drawback of gaining your opponent life. Against something like reanimator, losing STP sucks, but thats what free countermagic is for. Magma Jet costs two, which means its a bad answer to lackey on the draw, but it's never dead in any other matchup and sets up card quality too.
SB
4x Engineered Plague
2x Pyroblast
2x Red Elemental Blast
2x Rack and Ruin
3x Duress
2x Engineered Explosives
Hanni's SB is alot more diverse than mine, whereas mine is primarily against goblins, combo, and stax. I'm still not certain on this SB, and I'm thinking about dropping duress for Negator so I can keep Infiltrator as one of my creatures. Im also thinking about another engineered explosives to shore up my much weaker threshold matchup.
Cards that I've considered:
Lava Dart: this is the main contender to replace some of my magma jets, they answer lackey, confidant, and pre-thresh werebears, and if you've got solidarity down low enough, they can flashback in response to solidarity. Also, if someone wastes a red dual, you can cast and then flash the dart back. Not exactly game-breaking, but its better than nothing, and can save your ass against gobs.
Phyrexian Negator: Obviously not maindeck material, but it's capable of putting some serious pressure on some of the creature-light decks in the format. Very strong contender to sneak back into my sideboard.
Lose Hope: Almost completely ruled out since I prefer lava dart, this card is still a maybe because of scry. Will require alot of testing, but I think I prefer darkblast or lava dart.
Withered Wretch: I hate not having some sort of answer to graveyards, but double black early on really opens this deck up to wasteland. I don't think Crypt, Furnace, or Claws are suitable answers though, so this guy remains an outside chance.
Fire Covenant: Fun and super secret card, but it doesn't help my bad thresh matchup, and I don't think I want to clutter my SB with even more anti gob cards.
Big 3 matchups:
Goblins: More removal, less creatures than UWb fish. As the matchup stands now, I think it's maybe slightly more favorable than UWb, but not significantly. If UWb was 50/50, I'd say UBr is 55/45.
Threshold: Definitely worse. Lightning Bolt doesn't answer thresholded enforcer or werebear, no maindeck or SB graveyard hate. This makes me overly reliant on Jitte to have my creatures get any damage through. If I get lucky and stifle an early fetch, I can hopefully ride enough tempo to get him into burn range, but this is definitely not a favorable matchup for me. Testing will reveal more definite info, but right now i'm predicting anywhere from 40/60 to as bad as 25/75 against me.
Solidarity: Another one that's going to require testing, but I think my matchup is better than UWb. Although I have no meddling mages, I do have instant speed burn, which I can use to put lethal damage back on the stack if he waits too long to combo off. I've also got stifle for brain freeze, and post board I've got 4 blasts and 3 duress. Maybe I'm being overconfident, and I do understand that Solidarity is an incredibly resilient deck to hate, but I put this one anywhere from 60-70% in my favor.
My biggest concern is that I've sacrificed too much of my thresh matchup to gain too little against goblins and solidarity, but I think that my matchups against all the random decks are slightly better too, with burn giving me some much needed extra reach.
My second biggest concern is that I've overly committed my SB to anti-combo, and that I would do better to pull something to make room for infest or dystopia to improve my thresh matchup.
Anyway, I'm open for suggestions, and definitely looking for advice on how to fix my creature dilemma.
*edit*
Im experimenting with Izzet Guildmages, they are a little clunky, but seem potentially better than infiltrators so far. Dimir Guildmages i considered briefly, but sorcery speed seems too clunky.