I AM THE RUG! 1st place at the 10/15 Jupiter Games NELC tournament

This is my first tourney report that I’ve written in some time, so it might ramble on a bit, but I can guarantee some good value out of it. Going back to the summer, mental misstep was absolutely everywhere, and it created a metagame that was UWx stoneforge, NO RUG, and then everything else. Cards like aether vial and stifle, long term mainstays of the format, were virtually nonexistent, and in all honesty the format was pretty fucking shitty. There’s no need to sugar coat it, the format with mental misstep was balls awful. So the news that misstep got banned was a godsend for me, since my favorite card to cast in all of legacy is stifle. It’s probably the one card that sees the most play and people don’t use to anywhere close to its full potential. The flexibility on the card is absolutely incredible, and can really push a good player past a weaker opponent. As for the deck shell, I went ahead and created a RUG list that was pretty much my old Next Level Thresh list from back in April before misstep was released. I also got a fantastic gift for the deck in the form of snapcaster mage. That little 2/1 is actually the picture perfect card for NLT. It allows you to generate card advantage, something the deck can struggle to accomplish sometimes, as well as giving you a reasonable body to apply pressure with. He also pitches to force of will, which means my blue count was going to be sky high, and I wouldn’t have to worry about pitching to force ever. I decided to take out the trinket mage package, which is too clunky for the current format, and replaced it with snapcasters. I also added a few counterspell to the deck to give a good answer to some large threats such as KotR, Jace, Elspeth, and NO. There was one slot still up for grabs, and I decided to get real crazy and had a misers chaos warp in the deck. The card is actually way better then anyway gives it credit for. In the matchups you want it, you only care about opposing KotR, certain equipment, and sometimes planeswalkers. In those instances, there are only about 10ish real problem permanents that can get flipped over. In the case where they have to hit 10/40 to go back to parity, and often the number is even less, I’ll gladly take those chances. Even if a KotR were to turn into a goyf, I would be 100% happy with that trade. So now for the super spicy list.

Eric English, 1st Place
RUG

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Grim Lavamancer

Legendary Creatures:
3 Vendilion Clique

Instants/Sorceries:
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Preordain
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Fire//Ice
1 Chaos Warp

Planeswalkers:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Basic Land:
2 Island
1 Mountain

Non-Basic Land:
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Firespout
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Gilded Drake
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Mind Harness

This is the 75 I decided to take to the Jupiter games 3k this past weekend. At this point, the list is pretty much RUG control. It honestly plays quite differently from the old Canadian thresh lists that were all about tempo. This deck uses cards like stifle and wasteland to control the pace of the game, making the opponent conform to your game plan. The sideboard again any kind of control or combo deck is what really makes this deck tick. After sideboard, and UWx deck will have a nightmare trying to fight through a million REBs, spell pierces, stifles, spell snares, and ancient grudges on their equipment. Add in some snapcasters to flash back my stuff till the end of time, and you can see why I’m not scared to ever face off against UW. The firespout never was sided in, but only because I never played against any kind of aggressive deck. But enough about the list, let’s get to some match recaps.
(Apologies to any opponent’s with no name, my memory is only so good and I can’t remember everything. Feel free to mention if I played against you in any of the rounds in this tournament.)

Round 1 vs. Josh Cicio, NLT
FUCK. I have to play the actual 65-70/75 card mirror. Against someone who’s had success with the deck back in the spring when I first popularized the deck in the northeast to a small degree. This match really came down to a few key plays in both matches.
Game 1 he starts out with some land drops, as do I. Neither of us was willing to commit too much to the board, since whoever does will just get punished by the other player. I eventually set up a line of play where I waste a dual of his while having stifle in hand for his uncracked fetch. He tries to play snapcaster and rebuy his stifle, but he has to crack his fetch to do this. I punish him by keeping him off the mana needed to flashback his stifle, and just like that I’m way ahead on lands. He gets in some attacks, but lavamancer comes down and eats his snapcaster, followed by his life total. Over the next couple turns he doesn’t have the lands he needs to cast spells, while I go about my business and see all the stuff that’s going on in his hand with clique. Once he never draws another land, he scoops em up.
Game 2 was another really interesting game where we sit and wait for each other to do something. My memory is a little fuzzy on exactly what happens, but I do know that I manage to counter some relevant spells and then land a Jace which takes it down. At least I get a hard matchup out of the way to start the day.

Round 2 vs Chris, UW Landstill
I’ve seen Chris a few times before, and I’ve played against him once back in the day when I could still play with survival and vengevine. You can guess which deck won that time around. This iteration I had to play a little differently, since his list did not have many wastelandable targets at all. In fact, he had a ton of basics, meaning I had to play my spells a bit differently than usual.
Game 1 we start out slow, just hitting land drops. I eventually get down snapcaster to get some value and put some pressure on him. Over time his life total starts to dwindle, and I try to close the deal with lavamancer. He forces pitching something, which I am super happy with. I then go for clique, which he also forces. So after that barrage of spells, I’m up several cards on him, and ride the card advantage to victory.
Game 2 is more of the same, except that he has a sideboarded stoneforge mystics. Going into the game I was questioning if he had them in his SB, and I thought about ancient grudge, but I decided against it. Oops. Anyways, I manage to keep him off creatures for his jitte that he searches up, and we play draw go for a few turns. At one point I manage to fire off chaos warp on his jitte, which was awesome since he just revealed FOW on the top of his library. Eventually I stick a lavamancer, and start going to work. He tries for Jace, but really can’t get an advantage off of it before I kill it. He goes for a second one, but that also gets countered. In the end, my constant stream of one mana counters easily answer his expensive threats and I make it to the lunch break without a loss.

Round 3 vs Paul Lake, UW stoneforge
I almost forgot who I had played this round, but thankfully I recalled that I played against a friend this round, and I remembered that I had to battle against Paul Lake this round, who I knew was piloting UW because he had borrowed all the UW cards from my other friend James.
Game 1 he resolves a turn 2 stoneforge and gets sword of feast and famine. I assume this means he has batterskull in hand, which really sucks, but there wasn’t much I could do. I keep up mana for clique if he ever activates stoneforge, but Paul plays well and holds off until the right moment where he’s able to waste my fetch, I have to fetch in response, and he then puts in his batterskull. It doesn’t take too long for me to get battered to bits and we’re off to game 2.
Game 2 I get to use lots of 1 mana counters to good effect. He also has to mulligans, so when I stifle his fetch, he has to FOW since it’s his only land at that point. I’m fine with this trade and I allow it, which lets him brainstorm into more land. It doesn’t really help that much though, since I waste of bunch of his lands, land a few threats, and put him out of his misery.
Game 3 is pretty intense, and is quite the back and forth affair. I keep him off early threats, but he does manage to resolve a sword of feast and famine at some point. I try and keep him off creatures, but he keeps drawing more and we’re down to racing, with him having a sworded sprite to my snapcaster mage and goyf. We both have some creatures die, and it leaves him with a sprite and me with a snapcaster. The race will turn up in his favor with the board and life totals at their current state, but I get a little lucky and topdeck a timely ancient grudge to stop his sword. At this point all he has is a mutavault, sprite, and riptide lab which could be a problem if I give him too much time. We’re both low on life though, so any kind of action of either side will decide the match. I manage to topdeck a wasteland however, and force him to chump with a mutavault, otherwise any burn will kill him. I draw a goyf to finally get in the final points of damage, and I win the match with less than a minute left on the clock. A really intense match that was well played on both sides.

Round 4 vs UWr stoneblade
Another round where I can’t remember my opponent’s name. I can at least remember how the match went.
Game 1 he starts out with turn 1 ancestral visions, which I don’t mind seeing since I have stifle in my deck. Only problem is, I never draw a single stifle. And I have to force his turn 2 mystic since I don’t have a removal spell. His visions eventually resolves, and he’s way ahead on cards. It doesn’t take him long to push his advantage into a game win.
Game 2 goes the other way. I manage to stifle him out and waste what dual lands come out naturally. He does get down a very early relic of progenitus (to deal with goyf I imagine), but I grudge it when he’s tapped out so it’s no big deal. He uses another relic a few turns later to shrink a goyf of mine, but I regrow it quickly and it takes over the board. I finally manage to close the deal when he tries to have resolve an ancestral visions, but when stifle says no he packs it up.
Game 3 is more of the same. All my one mana counterspells really do a number on him when he can’t get anything to resolve. He goes down low to suspend two visions, but the red blasts that I have in hand make sure that they never resolve. A snapcaster also comes down to really push my advantage home, and I end up taking the match.

Round 5 vs Eli Kassis, UWB stifle stoneblade
This round I get paired vs Eli, and we weigh our options about drawing or playing. We decide to draw due to the fact that this way, we only have to win one of the next two rounds, and we are both confidant we can beat just about anyone else in the room. So, instead of playing against an insane opponent, we’d rather get the chance to play someone else, and probably top 8. At least in my opinion, out of the entire field, Eli was one of the two people I absolutely did not want to face, the other being Dan Jordan. So taking the draw here was pretty sweet.

Round 6 vs TheShaun, Aggro Loam
I don’t remember his actual name, but I know that he’s TheShaun on the Source (he also has a tourney report up for his account of the match).
Game 1 he get off a nice turn one loam for two lands with fetch and mox diamond. I can only go land, lavamancer, go. He then plays out some more lands, while I do the same. Only problem is, he plays an early Liliana of the Veil and uses the discard mode for several turns. Over time I manage to tick it down bit by bit with my lavamancer, but by the time Liliana is dead the damage has been done. He eventually finds a loam, followed by a seismic assault, which seals the game.
Game 2 is all about his lack of loam and my pressure that I manage to apply. I start with a lavamancer, and follow it up with clique. I see that he has a pulse, assault, and other cards that don’t matter, so I take the assault. He pulses my clique like I expected, so I play a second clique. He manages to rip another assault, but doesn’t have to lands to use it. I get him down to 3, and the last turn before he dies he rips a land to try and kill clique. Unluckily for him I was sandbagging stifle and force, so I had to answer to either land or loam off the top.
Game 3 was all about the subtle mistakes he made during the match. He started out with a fetch for tiaga, which I immediately waste. He then plays a mire and passes, allowing me to untap and draw stifle. He mentions how stupid waiting was, and is crushed when I stifle his fetch. He has to start playing forgotten cave and tranquil thicket to get mana, but I manage to waste his green source. I then keep a bunch of counter magic in hand, and get to clique him and see that he has nothing but spells. He REBs my clique, but I just cast another and see more spells and no lands. I eventually get another waste to destroy his only land, as well as playing tormod’s crypt in case of a loam getting back a bunch of lands. In the end my dorky creatures come through and put him out of his misery.

Round 7 vs John Kublis, merfolk
This is an ID, since we are both 5-0-1 and locks for top 8.
So I top 8 without too much trouble, which is pretty sweet. I haven’t done this well at Jupiter for a few months now, so it feels really good to have gotten this far again. The top 8 decides to chop the prizes, and since I have don’t know who I’m facing in the quarters, I decide to take the chop and enjoy my $230. Eventually the top 8 pairings get put up and I get ready to continue battling.

Quarterfinals vs Joey Manner, NO Bant
Ah, now I finally have to face against a deck with KotR. The good thing is that his deck is heavily based on creature mana sources, which fares very poorly against my lavamancers.
Game 1 he starts with a noble heirarch which is promptly bolted. I then proceed to waste him and waste his next fetch. He tries to keep going with just a dryad arbor for mana, but grim lavamancer shows up to keep him off mana. He also has wasteland that he drew naturally, which is terrible for him since he can’t get any colored mana going. Soon enough I get some pressure down which takes him down.
Game 2 is more of the same. He goes turn 1 GSZ for zero, and I promptly waste him his trop, leaving him with a dryad arbor. He then expresses some annoyance on a lack of colored mana, just playing wasteland and attacking. I run out good old grim lavamancer, and soon enough he only has wasteland in play. I eventually find some other creatures with which to attack with, all the while using stifle + snapcaster flashbacking stifle to really deny him his mana. Before long I put him out of his misery and move on to the semifinals.

Semifinals vs Eli Kassis, UWB stifle stoneblade
Now we can have an actual match this time around. All I know about his deck is that he is UWB with stifle, vindicate, stoneforge, and some other goodies. We’ve played each other in team drafts, but never in a constructed event. Now I can finally play against the usual Jupiter “end boss.”
Games 1 and 2 kind of blur together in my memory, and it’s difficult to describe exactly what happened in them. I know that the game I was on the play I got him with some stifles and wastelands, as well as putting on some pressure while he only had bitterblossom for defense. I had grim lavamancer in play though, so my clique keeps getting in for 3 and he eventually runs out of life. The other game I’m on the draw, and he puts on some pressure with discard and threats. Soon enough I’m the one running out of life, and he takes down the other game.
Game 3 is pretty epic, and I’ll try to give it as much justice as it deserves. We both start out with plenty of lands, and I eventually get down a lavamancer. I eventually reach a point where I can clique him and tap out to do, thinking I’m in good shape. He brainstorms in response and I don’t get to take anything too backbreaking. Sadly, he hid the real killer with the brainstorm, which is an engineered plague set on wizards. In case you didn’t check my list, every creature except goyf is a wizard, and all x/1’s to boot. So E plague is actually pretty awesome against my deck, leaving me with only a few goyfs and jace’s to deal with him. So, I switch gears, and really conserve my brainstorms, knowing that I’ll need to shuffle away things like clique and lavamancer since they have little to no value now. I eventually get down one jace, but that gets vindicated pretty quickly. I then land a second one, and it stays in play for a few turns. After I set up my hand with a couple of counters, I decide to start fatesealing him. I screw up a particular turn, however, where I let a stifle stop a jace brainstorm when I could have red blasted, and then not cliqueing him when he cracks a fetch for a 5th land while I have spell pierce in hand. At that point I was 99% positive he was sitting on vindicate but wanted to play around spell pierce. I was just tired and said yeah, and realized my mistake a few second after I confirmed his fetch. So he gets off the vindicate, and I’m back to finding the two goyfs I have left to win the game. While I’m draw going for several turns doing this, he is attacking with a single stoneforge mystic, which actually deals me about 15 damage all on its own. I find one eventually, but I wait until I have counterspell in hand to stop one of the removal spells that I’m sure he’s sandbagging. Sure enough, after I get my counterspell and play goyf, he has the double removal spell to get rid of goyf #3. The spell that kills it, however, is swords, so I gain a bunch of life. We continue to play draw go for a few more turns, and I eventually do find that sweet tarmogoyf I need to try and win. Once I find it, I run it out so that I will be able to finally deal enough damage to kill him. Thankfully, he doesn’t have another removal spell at the ready, and I attack for 6 through two different E plagues set on lurgoyf (thanks for being a tribal enchantment bitterblossom). After taking two hits and chumping one of them, Eli goes down to 3 and needs to topdeck a removal spell and doesn’t. If he had though, I still had one lightning bolt in my deck, which would have taken him down regardless. So after that crazy match and a long day, I find myself all the way in the finals.

Finals vs Brian Finlayson-Schuler, UWb esperblade
Same colors, but a pretty different list. Brian was playing a more faerie based version, with more bitterblossoms as well as spellstutter sprites.
Game 1 I use my sweet tempo cards to good use, keeping him off creatures and cliquing him at appropriate times. Eventually a lavamancer plus a clique deal him quite a bit of damage, and he can never really get any kind of offense going, so we’re off to game 2.
Game 2 is one of those games where I’m pretty sure I can’t possibly lose if I’m on the play, but are super hard if I’m on the draw. I have to go turn 1 preordain to find action, and he has the turn 2 stoneforge to really punish me. It’s especially unfortunate since preordain did find a spell snare, but it doesn’t help much once stoneforge is already in play. So with that I was on a plan to find ancient grudge otherwise I’d lose. I lose life in several 4 point chunks, eventually going down to 6 before I find a grudge to deal with his batterskull. At this point though, he has found a clique which threatens to kill me in two hits. After he send me to 3, my friend next to me says “Now is the time to draw lightning bolt.” And right on cue, bolt hops off the top of my deck and into my hand. So I get pretty lucky to not be just dead, but sadly Brian still has a clique in hand at the ready to try and finish me off. My topdecked land doesn’t answer that, so we’re off to game 3.
Game 3 is a showcase of why I love playing this deck versus UWx after sideboarding. The entire game I dictate the pace of play by stifling and wastelanding him at every turn, using my 1 mana counters to completely cripple his board development. Eventually I set up a game state where we both have nothing in play, but I have two snapcasters in hand, with more lands in play than him. He eventually concedes the game due to being far too tired to play well, and I show him my hand which was at the ready to demolish any kind of action he could muster.

So I have now won a freaking Jupiter Games tournament at long last! I’ve had about 8 or so top 8s at Jupiter tournaments in the past, but many of them had ended with me losing in the quarters. Getting the win for once really felt good, even though I was tired as fuck from playing from 10:30 in the morning and the last match ended at about 12 midnight. What I was most pleased about was just how good my deck played out for me after I put in almost no testing with the list. Instead I trusted my judgement in my maindeck and sideboard choices, and they all really paid off for me. The maindeck I would not change at all, unless chaos warp isn’t as good in the long run, in which case it could turn into something like another fire//ice or maybe a dismember. The counterspell suite for fantastic between main and side, and was always great. The two counterspell should be a mainstay now in my opinion, since it gave me a great spell for longer games, as well as giving me something to stop jace, equipment, and KotR which all conveniently come down after counterspell is online. It’s also fantastic to flashback with snapcaster, making the 2/1 and actual mystic snake, which is really amazing in several matchups. The sideboard was great for the cards I was able to bring in and play, with a couple cards never getting a chance to shine. The two control magic effects should stay in my opinion, and the one firespout is just a necessary evil for giving you better game vs the aggressive decks. The big change might be replacing the 4 REBs with 2 REBs and 2 pryoblasts, so as to give an opponent less targets in your deck for things like extripate and surgical extraction. Otherwise the list is fantastic and really has a lot of play to it. The only warning I have is that this list is unbelievably unforgiving to play. Any mistake made during a game can easily cost you the entire game, whereas deck with cards like stoneforge mystic are a bit more forgiving with misplays. For players who are confident in their play and can play control well, this list has a lot of subtle power. If you like playing control or some kind of tempo deck, this list could provide you with a good vehicle to achieve some success. I’m hoping to go play in SCG Baltimore this weekend, and I will be bringing something similar to battle with if I manage to go. If not, I’ll at least get to keep battling with the RUG machine at Jupiter Games for the foreseeable future. Thanks for reading, I hope you got some sweet value out of the read.

Props:
Ethan Heilicher for driving me down to Binghamton for the event, couldn’t have won it if I wasn’t there
Jupiter Games for running fantastic legacy tournaments. I say this time and again, but you guys really do run the best legacy events on the east coast, not even close. The lunch break was also super clutch as always.
All of my opponents from the event. Each of you were a pleasure to play against, I don’t think I had any unfriendly matches during the whole tournament.
Eli Kassis for trading me some super sweet old school foil bolts that promptly went in my deck. I’d like to think the extra bit of pimp in my deck helped me take the whole thing down.

Slops:
None. Since I won the whole thing, I don’t really have a right to complain about anything.

Eric English, chinEsE girl on the Source

Quote courtesy of my second round opponent Chris “I couldn’t pull the RUG out from under you, because you are the fucking RUG!”

Grats on the finish and good report. Esp. pointing out that it's an unforgiving deck is nice insight by you and follows my expirience with UR/x Snapcaster Control.

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Originally Posted by chinEsE girl

Eli Kassis for trading me some super sweet old school foil bolts that promptly went in my deck.

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Foil and old school? Something is wrong here..

greets

What I meant by the bolt segment was that he traded me some of the old judge foil bolts, the ones with the beta art on them. I had been playing with the player rewards full art ones, and I was really happy to finally get some actually pimp bolts to play with.

Fun match with you round 6, and very sincere congrats on your win. I'm never happy to finish 9th, but knowing that I lost due to you playing better than me is much better than losing to crappy draws. You deserved it. Hope to play you again sometime.

(btw my name is Shaun lol)

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and we are both confidant we can beat just about anyone else in the room.

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Please tell me this was intentional... also congrats on the finish!

Very nice and good report and again congratz for the finish !!!!

Short question : I think you thought about Surgical Extraction, why didn't you choose them ?

To answer the two questions:

Yes that draw with Eli was 100% intentional. Drawing there meant we only would have to win 1 of the next two rounds for both of us to top 8, instead of one person being guaranteed after round 5 and the other having the win round 6 or not get there. It work out really well in the end, since we both won our round 6's anyway and were locks by round 7.

As for the surgical extraction question, I just decided to go with different graveyard hate options. Most particularly I wanted to have better options against decks like dredge which rely entirely upon their graveyard. Stuff like extraction is ok against dredge, but I've heard plenty of stories where my friends have extracted both ichorid and bridge from a dredge player and still lost. I really didn't want that to happen, so I went with more sweeping hate that took out the whole graveyard. In addition, relic is actually really awesome in this deck, since it makes your lavamancers and burn insane against KotR and tarmogoyf. All you have to do is deal them damage, and then activate the ability removing all graveyards from the game. Once the abililty resolves, state based effects are checked, and their dudes will die from having lethal damage, with nothing they can do to stop it. There is still the question of the utility of extraction plus snapcaster is worth it, but I honestly think it doesn't make as much of a difference in the matchs where you actually want grave hate.

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Originally Posted by chinEsE girl

To answer the two questions:

Yes that draw with Eli was 100% intentional. Drawing there meant we only would have to win 1 of the next two rounds for both of us to top 8, instead of one person being guaranteed after round 5 and the other having the win round 6 or not get there. It work out really well in the end, since we both won our round 6's anyway and were locks by round 7.

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I think Allen was commenting on how said "Confidant" instead of "Confident" and whther that was intentional. He has a bad sense of humor, I apologize on his behalf.

Having tested decks in these colors before and seeing the value some of the cards from INN adds to RUG in particular, I find it strange there is no mention of Delver of Secrets. Was he ever a consideration for you? Are the lavamancers too valuable for what this deck wants to do that utilizing the 3/2 flyer doesn't make the cut? EDIT: I am also curious as to the switch from ponder to preordain, as I know the previous incarnation ran the former.

Congrats on the finish, and I am glad to see both this deck and you perform well.

Hey Eric,

Congrats man. Not surprising, but it sounds like you played really well per usg. Quality report.

P.S. I think Talon was asking if your spelling of "confidant" instead of "confident" was intentional.

Cheers,

Pat

AHA! I get it now. Nope, 100% unintentional, you know how spellcheck doesn't catch every fuckup the you write.

Also sorry for the real quick dp, but I might as well answer the questions about both delver and the switch to preordain over ponder.

So first, about the delver choice, I really do not think that this is the list for delver. I don't even think he should be considered for 1 sec in my particular version of RUG. This deck has slowly transformed into a control deck and has just the best vestigial parts of the older tempo RUG lists. The deck used to play daze, but after I realized that it sucked in terms of what I wanted to do, it got cut. Also, except for the occasional stifle you fetch, play goyf, waste your next land line of play, there really aren't a whole lot of ways to abuse tempo early in this deck. Delver is at it's best when your game plan is centered around an early threat, play a whole ton of super cheap disruption, and then ride that creature to victory. Mike Caffery had a sweet canadian thresh list that looked good (he started out 4-0 and then lost a bunch to miss prizes, sadly) and Dan Sig top 8'd with a sweet delver TA brew. The card is certainly good in the aggressive tempo decks, since it's way better than mongoose as it requires less work to make big, and by far more important of all has actual evasion. For anyone who wants to run something with a big tempo element, delver is pretty insane, but it my list he wouldn't fit in at all.

As for the preordain question, it's something that I've considered for a long time, since the two cards are very similar in what they do, but I'm a firm believer in the fact that for any given deck, one choice is for sure better than the other. The two might be close, but one of the two will always be better, given any particular deck. In this deck, I believe that preordain is the correct choice. The first reason is that it gives you the perfect turn 1 play in matchups where you can afford to not hold up a land on turn 1. With ponder, when you cast it turn 1, and you see 1 card you want and 2 cards you don't, what do you do? Keep so you get 1 good draw and 1 bad (if you have one of the 8 fetches, and if you don't it's even worse) or do you shuffle and go with whatever your deck turns up? Honestly I'd rather just get cards good in that particular situation rather then getting the opportunity to look one deeper. In combo deck, there is a preference for ponder due to its ability to dig a little bit better, but this deck is not combo. It is control. There were many times where I was able to preordain, bottom both, and be very satisfied since I got to dig plenty deep, and I would not see those cards in the near future. Also, after playing so much with this deck, I really hate using fetch lands unless it's for immediate need of mana, or I can use it with a brainstorm or a Jace. Otherwise I feel like I wasted my fetch use, when if I had waited I could have attained a much greater amount of value. And for me, getting maximum value out of all of my cards is what got me the win. I'll end the though by saying that in my opinion, you want 10 or more cheap shuffle effects in order to use ponder as your 5-8 cantrips. Anything less I believe that preordain is just a better option. The only disclaimer is when you are playing a combo deck that needs to see the maximum amount of cards possible to try and win, but that should be obvious enough.

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Originally Posted by chinEsE girl

Mike Caffery had a sweet canadian thresh list that looked good (he started out 4-0 and then lost a bunch to miss prizes, sadly) and Dan Sig top 8'd with a sweet delver TA brew.

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Mike misplayed and didn't prepare for KotR (so he says), although I agree it looks good.

Thanks for the responses, they make sense to me

DP

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Originally Posted by Tammit67

Mike misplayed and didn't prepare for KotR (so he says), although I agree it looks good.

Thanks for the responses, they make sense to me

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Yeah, I had a couple serious errors that cost me over the course of the tournament, so it's my fault. Not playing Gilded Drake was one of those.

Preordain is really nutty after playing it. Although you do need Ponder in some situations; namely when you agressively cut lands and need to support Delver flips.

Thanks for the name drop.