I didn't try their full list since I don't agree 100% with their inclusions/cuts from the "stock" list, but I did take some inspiration from them in some SB choices.
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I ran their list a few weeks ago at a small local tourney...
2-1 vs 12 Post
2-0 vs Grixis Delver
0-2 vs BR Spanish Inquisition.
The combo match up felt abysmal, the others ones I felt in the drivers seat.
I'd only played shardless one time before and it was a very midrange build (2 jace, 3 lili, 2 deluge, sylvan all in the main) and I liked this list much better. It felt much more streamlined.
I haven't tried their exact list, but I've made a lot of their decisions at different points. Some are good, some are metagame dependent, but the list looks fine overall. I do think they should have either a third MD discard spell or a Ponder over the fourth Vision to shore up Tarmogoyf's size. A lot of games against Grixis Delver and Eldrazi are decided by having a 5/6 Goyf early on, and I've found builds without enough non-Vision Sorceries can struggle to get to that point, especially against Grixis since they can Delve away all of their Sorceries to cast Angler.
Ran into a BUG Food Chain list last night at my weekly Legacy event, and don't play that matchup all that often. The guy was running some new tech, a 4x Eternal Scourge which was pretty difficult to deal with. I ended up losing 2-1 after going up 1-0. How would you sideboard for this matchup?
I went:
+1 Baleful Strix
+1 Pithing Needle
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Toxic Delulge
-3 Ancestral Vision
-2 Liliana
My reasoning being that Strix is still a good blocker for Griffin/Scourge if they decide to play the beatdown game, and Thoughtseize for some targeted discard replacing Lili. Visions doesn't seem all that great other than being pitchable to Force, and it's not really a card advantage matchup. It might've been right to try to bring in a Disfigure or two for his Deathrites, but it's dead against all their other creatures and doesn't seem that good. Thoughts?
I disagree with taking out Visions and Liliana, the matchup does revolve around card advantage, just that they have a combo finish too so it can be tough. Most Food Chain players I've talked to win with Griffin beatdown vs Shardless.
Food Chain is a mana ability too, so Needle doesn't stop it if you had it for that?
Yeah, forgot about the mana ability part. I haven't played enough with the matchup (maybe 2 pairings in the last 2 years) to really get the dynamic, but it's an interesting idea about the card advantage being more the focus. If you leave out the Needle and Thoughtseize, then, Strix and Deluge still seem great. Maybe cut like...the Jace and maybe the basic swamp? I hate to cut the Jace but when half of the threats are flying 3/3s, he seems like he could very well end up being a 4 mana brainstorm a lot of the time. Full list is in sig, but for the lazy: 2/1 Lili/Jace split, 2 Strix, 1/1 Deluge/Pulse, 4 Visions, 3 Hymn main deck setup.
Hello, I'm building BUG "Shardless" Control and have been reading through many of the pages of this thread.
I was thinking of adding one sylvan library to the MB and I wonder why others would not have thought of this. What am I missing?
Plenty of people have thought of this (and done it). But the reason Shardless loses is generally not because the deck can't get enough value, but because you get out-tempo'ed or you aren't able to assemble the correct answers to what your combo opponents are doing.
This deck has enough value built in already, and library does nothing to assist our bad matchups (it even makes them worse with life loss and how slow it is).
So with the spoiling of Recruiter of the Guard for DnT, what are people's initial thoughts on how that will affect Shardless lists? It seems like they might go very heavy on 1-of "silver bullet" type creatures like Ethersworn Canonist, Aven Mindcensor, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Mirran Crusader, etc. Obviously depends on your meta, just curious how people see tweaking their lists in the coming months.
well, more dread of night in the sideboard and call it a day :)
Uhh....and then they printed this: Sanctum Prelate
4x Dread of Night SB it is! All seriousness, this will drastically alter the current meta, it craps on so many decks so hard. It's going to be a serious problem.
Do you think the new legendary elf can work in this deck?
I think it's interesting but overall not enough to make the cut. The decks I'd say it shines against are Delver, Miracles, Storm and maybe the mirror. Delver just bolts it and the mana cost is not where you wanna be in that MU. Miracles can just plow or Terminus it, only with plow you end up at +1 CA but that is not really too exiting. A 3CMC card agaisnt storm is pretty slow. In the Mirror it seems fine.
I think that without a major rebuild you just won't want to be on Shardless in another month. I put the deck down beause Thalia, Heretic Cathar took D&T from a slightly unfavorable matchup to an almost-as-bad-as-burn disaster, even with MD Jitte. The new cards definitely don't help. I might put some effort into it once the dust settles, but I worry that Shardless doesn't have a meta niche anymore.
I somewhat agree....my meta is full of dredge, dnt, and infect.
To combat the issue of not having a mwta niche i removed the hand hate lili & jace for more removal.....i found that cssting hymn doesnt do anything great for me moat times, jace is to slow. And lili vack fires on me becaise we cast so many spells in a turn that i usually have less cards in hand than my opponent so lili hurta me more
I don't know if it's all that grim, the thing I really liked about Shardless is it was in colors that always had answers. We can add Dread of Night (or Night of Souls' Betrayal) to the sideboard, cut Jace and some number of Forces, add more Toxic Deluge/Maelstrom Pulse instead of discard, maybe toss in an Engineered Explosives or two. Baleful Strix is still a great stalling card, and black removal comes in all kinds of mana costs.
Miracles will be able to adapt by diversifying their sweeper suite (Pyroclasm, Supreme Verdict, Engineered Explosives) and probably cutting Jace. It might also try working in a Stoneforge package again to allow B-skull and Jitte to add some game against DnT. It might completely push out combo, as having Recruiter to tutor up bullets like Containment Priest and Ethersworn Canonist along with Prelate will completely shut off Storm, SnT, and Reanimator decks. Not necessarily a bad thing for us.
All in all, the meta is going to shift like crazy, for sure. I just think we have the tools to make the matchup around 50/50. We don't really expect DnT to snag a 20-25% meta share, do we? Wizards would certainly think about a ban in that case, I would have to believe.
If d+t starts running more tutor cards then Thoughtseize gets obviously better in the matchup. Not sure if y'all have room for ts in your sideboard plans for d+t but it's not terrible.
Reguarding Recruiter of the Guard pushing out combo from the format: the card costs 3 and then the fetched creature (containment, canonist, Prelate) must also be cast afterward.
In the ideal scenario where D&T plays a vial on the first turn and a land drop every turn it can resolve a 2 CC hate creature on turn 3: most of the combo decks of the format would have already comboed or find a solution by that point.