on a previous page i gave a decent SB strategy update. covers most of the decks. I asked people to add to it to make it complete but no one hasQuote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
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on a previous page i gave a decent SB strategy update. covers most of the decks. I asked people to add to it to make it complete but no one hasQuote:
Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee
I will start working on updating the primer soon.
Sneak & Show
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...5594&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...5697&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...3452&type=cardhttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers...9995&type=card
Overview
"Sneak Attack with Show and Tell," or "Sneak & Show," or whatever you want to call it, is a combo-control deck that primarily operates by trying to resolve one of the aforementioned spells as early as possible and cheating the best fatties in the format's history into play: Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Griselbrand
I consider the deck to be a strong choice because it has the speed to keep up with aggro strategies, the control to hold back other combo strategies, and the ability to consistently shape a hand and ram through one key spell against other control oriented strategies. It's other major advantage is that it's tremendously easy to pilot and, unlike other combo decks, it's much less susceptible to typical forms of combo hate. The simple goal is to resolve a Sneak Attack or a Show and Tell, turn monsters sideways and pray that you've won.
Introduction
Sneak Show is a U/R combo control deck. Its game-plan is to resolve either a Show and Tell or Sneak and attack as soon as possible while protecting this combo with a strong countersuit. With one of these spells it cheats in an unfair creature like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Griselbrand that usually ends the game by itself.
The deck exists since mid-2010, when the release of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn made cards like Show and Tell, Eureka and Sneak Attack rise drastically in price.
At GP Columbus, Korey Age piloted a list with 4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and 4 Woodfall Primus to a Top 8 finish which made the deck more popular.
The next half-year Sneak Show was a present contender in the Survival-metagame. At that time, lists with Black and White splashes for Extirpate vs. Survival of the fittest and Enlightened Tutor for consistency were the ones with the greatest success.
When Mental Misstep joined the Legacy metagame in May 2011, Sneak Show's position increased since its cards were unaffected by the little counterspell, while its addition to the deck helped it to fight against popular cards like Thoughtsieze and Stifle which can hinder the strategy.
Two very similar lists played by Rodrigo Togores and Johannes Gutbrod made Top 16 at the Bazaar of Moxen that year. While Mental Misstep continued to alter the format, after Grand Prix Providence, Hive Mind became extremely popular, arguably THE Deck to Beat in Legacy. For the next few months, Sneak Show hid behind the other popular Show and Tell strategy, since the Sneak Show/Hive Mind matchup was 40-60 for Sneaky Tell, mainly because Hive Mind + Pact wins on the spot, while an Emrakul or Progenitus needs 2 attack steps.
With Mental Misstep banned, the format sped up slightly to the advantage of Sneak Show.
While only 1 Hive Mind appeared in the Top 16 of Grand Prix Amsterdam, double the amount of Sneak Show decks did. They were piloted by Dutch natives Jan van der Vegt (15th) and Erwin "Sneak" Sneek (16th) who played the exact same maindeck and had worked on the deck together. Their creature configuration of 4 Emrakul 3 Progenitus was considered standard back then.
Since the misstep banning, Sneak & Show's position in the metagame has continued to improve the more popular decks like Maverick and Stoneblade variants have become, and the less popular Merfolk has become. In early 2012, there was almost always a Sneak Show deck in the Top 16 of the SCG Open or any other big tournament.
With the printing of Griselbrand, Sneak & Show became THE combo deck to beat. Whereas before you could only hope to have a counter in hand for an opponent's answer to one of your fatties, you could now draw into your counters after putting the flying Bargain into play. It also made the Sneak-plan a lot better, since it could be activated cheating Griselbrand into play, drawing enough cards to find another mana source and an Emrakul to end the game on the spot.
The success of the deck spiraled upwards drastically, winning two SCG Opens in 2012 in the hands of Jonathan Hickerson and Richard Centanni, as well as Chris Bergeson taking down the Legacy Champs at GenCon.
In 2013, Sneak & Show won 5 more SCG Opens (Jared Boettcher even stomped the whole SCG Providence Legacy Open without losing a single match), Top 8ed two Legacy GPs (Christopher Brunner in Strasbourg and Jared Boettcher in Washington, D.C.) and placed in numerous Top 8s.
Even pros like Hall of Famer William "Huey" Jensen started playing the deck, appreciating it's raw power.
After Brain Braun-Duin established the Gitaxian Probe version, Sneak & Show saw an incredible hype among pro players at the SCG Invitational Indianapolis, eventually putting four of them into the Top 8 with Brad Nelson taking it down in a finals mirror match against Huey Jensen.
Ways to build the deck
The deck consists of 5 different parts that comprise the maindeck:
1. Enablers
Sneak Attack: One half of the name-sake, no card in the history of magic more effectively cheats creatures into play for such value…again and again.
Show and Tell: The other half of the equation, Show and Tell enables all the broken spells at the cost of 2U. Note that you can use it to put in Sneak Attack, saving one red mana.
2. Fatties
Since the printing of Griselbrand, there is no room for discussion about the main deck fatty configuration. 4 Griselbrand/ 4 Emrakul are set.
3. The Search Engine
Brainstorm: In case you haven't heard, this card turns out to be quite strong in strategies with access to Blue mana and fetch lands.
Ponder: Next best after Brainstorm, Ponder is preferable to Preordain in this strategy because it digs a card deeper and the deck craves the pieces of its 2 card combo.
Intuition: Provides versatility within the maindeck and sideboard. Most often it grabs the most effective combo piece or creature for a given situation, though other times it grabs counter-magic or a specific sideboard piece. Intuition gets blown out by Surgical Extraction post-board, so it gets boarded out a lot.
Preordain: Offers more redundancy.
Sensei's Divining Top: Another effective card filtering option, Top is especially effective in the mid-game and against heavy-discard strategies.
Gitaxian Probe: This probably belongs more in the "Protection"-paragraph, but it does some minor cantripping as well. Probe is a nice card to support Sneak & Show's main game plan - resolving a Show and Tell or Sneak Attack as fast as possible. Against Tempo, it shows you how many counters your opponent has that you need to fight through. Against Death and Taxes, you can see what hate you need to play around. In the mirror and against Reanimator you might even catch your opponent at a point where you can just win via Show and Tell into creature.
More experienced Sneak & Show players might be able to read their opponent well enough to know how many counters / hate he has, but fact is that you can't ever be 100 % sure. Gitaxian Probe dispenses with the need to "guess" and makes everything easier by just showing you what's up.
Generally, you want to cast it in the turn you go off. If you don't know what you're playing against, casting it right away is the better choice, since it allows you to make decisions like whether or not playing around cards like Stifle and Wasteland, leaving mana open to cast your Spell Pierce, etc.
4. Protection
To be able to protect the combo against control decks and discard, and to counter opposing cards that would stop the creatures from attacking like Peacekeeper, Moat, Humility, Blazing Archon, and Ensnaring Bridge, as well as taking the control-role against other combo decks, Sneak & Show utilizes a strong counter-suite that consists of:
Force of Will: Nothing to argue about here; we play a blue deck that needs protection so we play a playset of Forces.
Misdirection: Really strong against UBx strategies, since it can act as another Force of Will in a counterwar while being excellent against discard.
Daze: Opinions differ a lot whether or not Daze fits into Sneak & Shows counter-suit. It is another free counterspell to protect your combo, but it does set you back a whole turn if it doesn't result in an immediate win or has to be used defensively. This is especially tough for this deck, because you want to get to 3/4/5 mana as fast as possible.
Spell Pierce: Ultra efficient and versatile. Counters everything that worries the Sneak & Show player, from an opposing Red Elemental Blast, over a Thoughtseize to a Liliana of the Veil.
Flusterstorm: Some prefer Flusterstorm over Spell Pierce because it's more effective against storm strategies and Reanimator. However, the fact that it doesn't hit Planeswalkers and other non-instants/sorceries like Aether Vial can be relevant.
Swan Song: The best counter you can have in the mirror match. Moreover, Swan Song is a Force of Will for U against counter-heavy blue decks, even though the Bird token can increase the clock significantly, especially against Tempo decks.
Other than that, it is similar to Flusterstorm; very strong against other combo decks).
5. Acceleration and lands
Recommended stock mana configuration:
4Scalding Tarn
3 other blue fetchlands
5 sol-lands (3-4 Ancient Tomb and 1-2 City of Traitors)
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Lotus Petal
This can be customized to fit one's own playstyle of course, but this is considered the stock manabase. Simian Spirit Guide is another playable accelerant, blanking an opponent's Daze and enabling a surprise Sneak Attack activation on your opponent's turn.
Ultimately, this is what the stock shell currently looks like:
16 combo pieces (4 Emmy, 4 Grisel + 8 Sneak & Show)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
9 Flex-slots (Gitaxian Probe, Spell Pierce, Misdirection, Daze, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, Sensei's Divining Top are possibilities)
6. The Sideboard
There is a huge amount of options in the deck's colors. I will try to list the ones most relevant in the current (December 2013) metagame.
Blood Moon: The best permanent answer to Karakas as well as an almost complete lock-out against many of the format's most popular decks (RUG Delver, UWR Delver, Team America, Shardless BUG, Basicless Deathblade, etc.).
Leyline of Sanctity: A clunky answer to Storm- and discard-strategies. If you don't have it in your opening hand, the already high number of dead cards increases by 3/4. If you have it, it's often very good and can win the game alone by buying a lot of time. However, most Storm players are prepared for it, boarding in some numbers of bounce along Xantid Swarm who doesn't care about Leyline.
Red Elemental Blast / Pyroblast: Very versatile and especially good against Delver decks, where it can act as both a counterspell and a removal for Delver of Secrets to buy some time. Also strong against cantrip-reliant combo-decks and Jace-decks like UWr Miracles and Shardless BUG.
Defense Grid: The best card we have against Tempo(Delver)-decks' huge amount of counters post-board. If you decide to play with Defense Grid, only board it in against Tempo; it's not worth it against decks with less than 8 post-board counters.
Swan Song and Flusterstorm: Both a main deck and sideboard card. See above for explanation.
Through the Breach: Functioning as a one-shot instant Sneak Attack, Through the Breach can work as a supplement providing further redundancy to the creature cheating strategy as well as replacing Show and Tell in the mirror match, against decks that can abuse S&T's symmetry (Reanimator/Belcher) or vs hatebear-decks like Death and Taxes that have a lot of answers to Show and Tell / Sneak Attack.
Pyroclasm: The best answer against Death and Taxes' huge amount of hatebears. Tribal-strategies, especially the nowadays very popular Elves!, also get hit pretty hard by it. Pyroclasm is also very good against UWR Delver, hitting all of their threats and Meddling Mage post-board.
Grafdigger's Cage: Reanimator and Dredge are some of the more difficult matchups. Cage is great against Reanimator and ok against Dredge, while also blanking both Natural Order and Green Sun's Zenith against Elves and Past in Flames vs Storm.
Surgical Extraction: Even better than Cage against Reanimator, since it can't be bounced. Great in the mirror against Intuition and at extracting a countered Sneak Attack.
Echoing Truth and Wipe Away: Bounce against permanent-hate like Ensnaring Bridge, Humility and Pithing Needle. Echoing Truth is also very good against Empty the Warrens decks like TES and Belcher or the Entreat the Angels tokens of UWr Miracles. Wipe Away can bounce a fatty against Reanimator and is generally better against UWr Miracles than Echoing Truth, because it can't be countered. Note that it should also be boarded against Storm; bouncing a land in response to a hellbent Infernal Tutor is really nice.
Progenitus: Even with bounce, Through the Breach and Pyroclasm, there are some post-board games you can't win against Death and Taxes. Show and Tell into Progenitus on the first few turns always beats them. UWr Miracles also has a tough time dealing with the Hydra. Downside is that he's terrible via Sneak Attack.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor: In the matchups you board him in (mirror, slow combo, creaturelight control) you will often be able to win the game with Jace alone. Especially in the mirror, it gives a huge edge and lets you play the control-role really easily.
Vendilion Clique: A very good card against other combo-decks, creating a clock while being disruptive as well. Obviously great in the mirror, but also good against control-decks that board out their spot-removal.
Matchup Analysis and how to play Sneak & Show
The way you want to play the deck differs from matchup to matchup, so the MU-analysis and the how-to fall together.
Even though Legacy is a very diverse format, I won't cover non-Tier strategies, since those are not as relevant. Questions about specific matchups against less popular decks are welcome to be asked in the thread.
The sideboarding advice only includes the cards I listed in the sideboard-section above.
RUG Delver 50:50
One of the classic matchups. Your only goal here is to resolve either Show and Tell or Sneak Attack, because they have no answer to your creatures (except maybe Stifle) and can't race them. The RUG Delver's tools to stop you from doing that are counterspells (Force of Will, Spell Pierce and Daze main deck, with Flusterstorm, Red Blasts and sometimes Envelop in the board) and mana-denial (Stifle and Wasteland).
You can render their mana-denial-plan almost useless by playing around Stifle and fetching basic lands as long as you can.
Pre-board you generally want two extra mana open and one hard-counter to protect your combo before you go off. Post-board you might even want to wait until you have two counters.
That changes if they make the mistake to tap out for a Tarmogoyf or something. Then you can go more aggressively for the combo, as long as you have mana to play around Daze.
Another possibility is that your hand is full of enablers, where you don't have to wait for / cantrip into a counter, but can fire off one after another.
Also note that you can wait to sculpt the "perfect" hand if they don't get down an early threat.
Important: You NEVER want to activate Griselbrand against them - if you don't have to - just because you might find another combo to seal the deal. They can't race a 7/7 flying lifelinker.
Defense Grid is your best card against them. Blood Moon can be devestating if it comes down early, but most of the time they put one threat down early and Blood Moon only negates more threats, Spell Pierce, Daze and Flusterstorm, while Defense Grid stops Force of Will and REB, too.
Cards you want to sideboard against RUG Delver: Blood Moon, Red Elemental Blast, Defense Grid, Swan Song
UWR Delver 50:50
This plays out pretty much like RUG, except that they are less likely to have Stifle in their list. Post-board they have access to hate-bears like Meddling Mage, even Ethersworn Canonist can be very annoying, because you can't counter their counters anymore. Defense Grid and Pyroclasm are very good against them.
Cards you want to sideboard against UWR Delver: Blood Moon, Red Elemental Blast, Defense Grid, Swan Song, Pyroclasm
Esper Blade 60:40
A rather positive matchup, especially pre-board where they have a lot of dead cards. Their advantage is a widespread hate-suit against us, ranging from countermagic in the form of Force of Will and Spell Pierce over discard to permanents like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Meddling Mage, Vendilion Clique, Karakas and sometimes even Humility. Thus, remember to have mana open to pay for Spell Pierce, don't just cast a blind Show and Tell Emrakul and keep discard-redundant openers.
Without Stoneforge Mystic, even with her, they usually have a very slow clock; take your time to sculpt the right hand to go off.
I don't think Leyline of Sanctity is worth to board in here, but I won't blame you if you decide it is.
Even though they usually play 4 basics, Blood Moon is still pretty good, turning off Karakas, forcing them to fetch basics and sometimes randomly blowing them out if they tapped out for a Stoneforge Mystic after fetching up Tundra and Underground Sea.
Cards you want to sideboard against Esper Blade: Through the Breach, Pyroclasm, Red Elemental Blast, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Blood Moon, Vendilion Clique, Echoing Truth, Wipe Away
Shardless BUG 65:35
One of the easiest matchups. They have no way of interaction in their main deck except 4 Force of Will, 3-6 discard spells, and about 6 planeswalkers (Liliana of the Veil and Jace, the Mind Sculptor). The rest of their deck is pretty much dead, Ancestral Vision can be Misdirected, which is even bigger than a misdirected Hymn!
Since they have a very slow clock, you have enough time to assemble Sneak Attack or Show and Tell Griselbrand; Show and Tell Emrakul is only safe if you have counter-backup for their Liliana/Jace.
If you know that you are up against Shardless BUG, always try to keep hands with cantrips to hedge against their discard.
Post-board they might have additional discard and Golgari Charm for your Sneak Attacks, some even play Sower of Temptation. So you should try to win via Sneak Attack with :r: open or a counter for their Charm.
Your sideboard cards against them are even better than theirs against you. Blood Moon often causes an instant concede if they didn't get their Deathrite Shaman down yet, Leyline of Sanctity does a lot of work against Liliana of the Veil's Sacrifice-ability, Jace's fateseal / ultimate and all of their discard.
Cards you want to sideboard against Shardless BUG: Leyline of Sanctity, Blood Moon, Through the Breach, Red Elemental Blast, Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, if you see Pithing Needle in game 2 you should board bounce in game 3.
Jund 65:35
Jund is very similar to Shardless BUG. They don't have Force of Will, but Red Elemental Blast post-board comes pretty close. Jund lists usually play slightly more discard than Shardless BUG, so your cantrips and Misdirections / Leyline of Sanctity post-board are what you should look out for when deciding over mulligans.
Just like Shardless BUG, the best card they have against us is Liliana of the Veil; be wary of and prepared for her!
You don't really want Blood Moon here, they play 2 basics at least and will have the opportunity to fetch them up in response to Moon or draw them naturally.
Leyline usually beats them alone post-board, mulliganing for it is reasonable (if you don't have the perfect cantrip-filled hand).
Cards you want to sideboard against Jund: Leyline of Sanctity, Through the Breach, Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, Vendilion Clique
Death and Taxes 35:65
This is probably the toughest matchup and alongside Reanimator the only negative one of the tier decks. Pre-board they need nothing more than Karakas + Revoker to completely lock us out of the game. Post-board they have additional Revoker-effects in Pithing Needle.
I played against D&T in the magiccardmarket.eu tournament some weeks ago. After losing game 1 to Karakas+Revoker, I opened G2 on the play with a Gitaxian Probe; it showed me:
Karakas
Plains
Oblivion Ring
Mangara of Corondor
Pithing Needle
Phyrexian Revoker
Stoneforge Mystic
My frantic cantripping couldn't find me one of the 2 Progenitus I had boarded in. Most lists would just instant-scoop to a hand like this, which shows how ridiculously bad the matchup is.
Pyroclasm, Through the Breach and Bounce are still good weapons to fight their hate; Progenitus, Massacre Wurm and Sulfur Elemental are more dedicated anti-D&T sideboard options. Blood Moon helps against the Karakas and mana-denial plan with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Rishadan Port and Wasteland.
Cards you want to sideboard against Death & Taxes : Progenitus, Blood Moon, Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, Through the Breach
Show and Tell mirror 50:50 :wink:
The mirror (or pseudo-mirror against Mono U Omniclash) is really topdeck-dependant and often feels kind of stupid. However, there are some guidelines you can follow to improve your chances.
Your best role here is the hard control-role. Doing nothing proactively for as long as possible should be your goal until you draw the 8th card for your turn. You should only go off when you have at least two hard-counters to protect your combo or when your opponent has resolved a Sneak Attack with no mana open and you will likely die on the following turn.
Gitaxian Probe is obviously really good in the mirror and allows you to leave 1-2 Show and Tell in after boarding. If you are very eager to never lose the mirror, Vendilion Clique, Swan Song Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Through the Breach should all be in your sideboard.
Cards you want to sideboard in the mirror/pseudomirror: Through the Breach, Vendilion Clique, Red Elemental Blast, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Wipe Away, Flusterstorm, Swan Song
Reanimator 40:60
A very tough matchup. Their combo is faster, they have disruption in the form of Thoughtseize, Force of Will and Daze alongside sideboard cards like Pithing Needle, Ashen Rider, Blazing Archon and Swan Song.
We also can't ever cast Show and Tell into creature against them without information from Probe.
Try to keep hands with a lot of countermagic to survive the explosive first turns Reanimator usually has and wait until you have at least one hard-counter until you go off yourself.
Cards you want to sideboard against Reanimator: Grafdigger's Cage, Surgical Extraction, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Vendilion Clique, Wipe Away, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, Red Elemental Blast. Boarding in Leyline of Sanctity is only necessary against the Tin Fins version.
Ad Nauseam Tendrils 55:45
A very even matchup. Pre-board your goal should be to get Griselbrand into play as fast as possible. As long as you are at a healthy life total you can't really lose from there. Show and Tell Emrakul after Turn 2 often just results in dying on your opponent's turn, so you should only go for it if it's the only thing you can do.
Spell Piercing or even using Force of Will on a Ritual can be necessary, so keep an eye on the amount of cards in their hand and think how much mana they could still generate. Letting a Dark Ritual resolve might just blank your Force of Will because of a Duress or Cabal Therapy cast after the resolved Ritual.
They will never go off without at least one form of protective disruption against you, so if they cast a Duress on Turn 2 and start Ritualing on Turn 3 while you drew a Force of Will after their Duress, you can definitely save that counter for their Infernal Tutor.
If they didn't cast a discard spell yet and only have one :b: - producing land in play countering the Ritual they cast with that land is often the right way.
This matchup needs a lot of practice and you definitely need to know how ANT operates.
Post-board the matchup gets a lot better for you if you have Leyline of Sanctity and a lot better for them if they have Xantid Swarm. The insect is the reason that Show and Tell Griselbrand is no definite win anymore, so boarding in Pyroclasm can be a good choice even against the non-Burning-Wish/Empty the Warrens version.
Use Red Elemental Blast to counter their cantrips aggressively.
Cards you want to sideboard against Ad Nauseam Tendrils: Leyline of Sanctity, Flusterstorm, Swan Song, Wipe Away, Vendilion Clique, Surgical Extraction, Grafdigger's Cage, (Pyroclasm)
The same applies for TES, just remember they are a lot faster and you definitely need to board in Pyroclasm and Echoing Truth to deal with Empty the Warrens.
UWr Miracles 55:45
An annoying, but overall positive matchup. They have a lot of hate and games get really grindy once they have their countertop engine online. The big upside however is that they present absolutely no clock, which gives you all the time you need to sculpt the perfect hand. Still, the best-case scenario is an explosive
start with an early Sneak Attack, because later it can get difficult if they have a 3- and a 4-drop on top of their deck alongside Countertop.
Like against the other Karakas / Jace - decks you don't want to blindly go for Show and Tell into Emrakul if you can avoid it.
Bounce-spells are very important against Miracles, in anticipation of Pithing Needle, Ensnaring Bridge, Humility and sometimes even against Counterbalance or Entreat the Angels tokens.
Cards you want to sideboard against UWr Miracles: Through the Breach, Red Elemental Blast, Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, Vendilion Clique, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Progenitus
Elves! 60:40
Elves! is a fine matchup, getting a lot harder post-board where they board in Cabal Therapy and sometimes Pithing Needle, Oblivion Ring or Harmonic Sliver.
Similarly to Storm, they can kill you easily on the back-turn after you put Emrakul into play via Show and Tell. It's less likely though.
Save your Force of Wills for their Glimpse of Nature, Natural Order and Green Sun's Zenith for 9.
Post-board, Grafdigger's Cage and Pyroclasm are really huge against them.
Cards you want to sideboard against Elves!: Grafdigger's Cage, Pyroclasm, Wipe Away, Echoing Truth, Through the Breach and Flusterstorm/Swan Song are fine as well
Note that even the 50:50 or negative matchups can be won easily thanks to the raw power of Sneak & Show. With a little bit of luck and tight play, it destroys everything; most of the times it loses to itself and bad/dead topdecks.
That's how far I got so far, how do you guys like it? I will add things like a sample sideboarding guide and links to articles about the deck in the next days.
I was perusing some older lists and saw a few that had Volcanic Fallout. I can understand why its not that great vs DnT, but is Fallout anywhere near useful in the Tempo matchups? I can see it being useful vs UWR and UR but not vs RUG (similar to Pyroclasm)
EDIT: Awesome write-up! When you have time, is it possible to also list out the cards you think could be taken out in each matchup? Since so many of the cards seem like staples, its not always intuitive to understand what can be boarded out.
@JPA
I have a good start on SB notes at the link below.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post765619
it's very similar to pyroclasm. For the extra red mana it's uncountable and instant speed but its not really good vs RUG / merfolk cause everything has better than 2 toughness.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnziD
I Have come to the conclusion that the deck needs something in its flex spots to combat creatures / increase consistency. I lose to aggro decks much more than i'd like because of bad luck. I know how to brainstorm and get the most out of my fetch lands but sometimes its not enough. It's times like these that I want to run intuition to improve the aggro matchup but it doesn't really do anything against tempo cause 3 mana is a lot vs merfolk / RUG.
Cards I'm considering
meekstone
stasis
personal tutor
intuition
preordain
meekstone stops most goyfs, delver, other miscellaneous 3 power dudes and after 1 lord, most merfolk.
stasis is probably the weakest but it'll maybe buy your 3 turns. preordain is probably better if I just want to see 3 cards.
intuition is weaker after the board but great pre board especially against aggro that can't really do anything against it.
preordain is just another cantrip.
But are we even boarding in Pyroclasm vs those decks? In my 75, Pyroclasm is definitely in the top 60 cards post board vs RUG, but it just feels awkward because I know its not the most optimal option. Similarly for Merfolk, there's a very short window to successfully play Pyroclasm and, after that window, the card has significantly less power. That kind of crapshoot/lack of consistency is something I want to avoid in general. What I'm trying to ask is - is being uncounterable worth it in the matchups where the 2 damage shines? What about a mix of Fallout and Pyroclasm?Quote:
Originally Posted by apple713
The main reason I'm so interested in this is due to the recent rise of Meddling Mage as a 4-of in sideboards. I definitely think that this deck (or at least its sideboard) needs to evolve to address this - upping the count on Pyroclasm (minimum 3) seems like a valid option.
If you're looking for an answer to aggro, maybe something like propaganda. It makes them use their mana on their turn which makes it more likely for you to resolve your combo if they tap out or have your own soft counters.
Gj updating.
U forgot to mention the boseiju in the side board and also the card that was played last year: overmaster.
For the volcanic fallout thing. I played it before when merfolk, goblins and pacekeeper was more popular 2 years ago or so.
2 years is quite a while, do you remember any details of the cards performance?Quote:
Originally Posted by Togores
Also, I've got some spare time so I made this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...zdDAwZ1E#gid=0
It's basically a look at some of the 2013 Top 8 lists from TCGplayer. I have no idea what I'm trying to do with the numbers, so it'd be awesome if anyone here could add to it or determine if there's anything valuable to be discovered. I think looking at historical numbers is a pretty good thing to do as there are probably subtle things we can learn if we do the correct type of analysis. Ideally each list should be tailored to a specific metagame, but, with how diverse Legacy is, there's only so much that can be done to increase the favor of a certain matchup.
EDIT: To clarify, the numbers represent what each player ran in their 9 "flex" slots. This is in reference to the earlier post that said the staple 51 cards were:
4 Emrakul
4 Griselbrand
4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Lotus Petal
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Blue Fetch
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Volcanics
3 Island
1 Mountain
Also I played 3 in my side when I top 8 at the BoM in 2011.
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=44559
And the guy who I beat in top 16 played also 3 (He mostly copiedy travel friend list who won a trial the day before).
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/dec...7&iddeck=44564
Boseiju is still being played (at least by me :P)
And the red spell was played last year at the second half of the year but I cant remember big tournaments with it apart from me playing it and it being very discussed here.
As I wrote in the primer, Pyroclasm is very good against UWR Delver, because it hits Meddling Mage and every threat they deploy. RUG has threshold-Mongeese, post-board still some number of Tarmogoyfs and no Meddling Mages, so Pyroclasm is pretty bad against them.
Volcanic Fallout is a worse Pyroclasm; especially against Tempo "uncounterable" is much worse than 1 less :r:. They won't ever counter your Pyroclasm and if they do, you should be happy that they wasted their counter and your combo is more likely to resolve.
As a UWR Delver player I can contribute to this thread that I see the matchup in favour of UWR. Especially UWR's post bard cards are very strong (Mage, Sword, Blasts). During some testing against a Sneak Show player I went 2-3 preboard and 6-1 (or 5-2, I don't remember) postboard.Quote:
Originally Posted by JPA
Of course you can have a positive record in 10 games against it, especially if you split it into post- and pre-board. Play 1000 full matches against a competent pilot and you will get a better testing result closer to 50:50.Quote:
Originally Posted by CabalTherapy
@ Rodrigo about Boseiju: For me it's too narrow and in the end not present enough in succesful decklists. It might be good in the mirror and against Miracles, but against Tempo it's just another Wasteland-target and much too slow.
Seems odd not to mention Gitaxian Probe in the updated primer, a lot of people have put up results with that card.
It's in there:Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
"
Ultimately, this is what the stock shell currently looks like:
*cut*
9 Flex-slots (Gitaxian Probe, Spell Pierce, Misdirection, Daze, Swan Song, Flusterstorm, Sensei's Divining Top are possibilities)
"
I was skeptical of Probe at first, but now I think it belongs. It's really nice to know what's in your opponent's hand before you cast Show and Tell. Sometimes you'll get information that will push you towards going the Sneak Attack route, instead. And this can be the difference between winning and losing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
I forgot it in the deck-building part, just added it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
It is mentioned in the other parts, though.
I went 6-2 (19th place) at the SCG Oakland Legacy Open yesterday. Pretty standard list:
3 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Lotus Petal
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Brainstorm
4 Preordain
2 Ponder
4 Force of Will
2 Intuition
2 Swan Song
2 Spell Pierce
2 Daze
Sideboard:
3 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Blood Moon
2 Flusterstorm
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Firespout
2 Echoing Truth
Losses were to UWG Maverick and WG Maverick. UWG Maverick was due to losing an epic counter war over Show and Tell game 2, WG Maverick was due to him being pretty damn lucky game 1 and me making a huge misplay game 2. Overall not bad, though.
May I ask why you chose Firespout? I don't recall many problematic creatures where Pyroclasm/Fallout isn't a better option?
Spout can take out threshe'd Mongese and and also 2 Lords in play from Merfolk?
Other then that I got nothing off the top.