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Vedalken- glad the list is working out and I really like your board. Ive changed mine up to include 4 bolt/4 forked bolt main and ill be playing this list in the next day or two. I think 8 burn is probably optimal for unknown meta since I dont wanna become a lesser version of burn. Let us know how your tourney goes.
@Vedalken: your list is very similar to mine with 10 burn spells and it wrecks Maverick all day long!
Difference from our lists:
-1 mongoose
-1 ponder
-1 daze
+ 3 pierce
From when I started playing with 4 Nimble Mongoose I will never go back! Having 8 critters at 1cc is amazing and you need 4 ponder and 4 Daze. I see that Spell Pierce is a good card, but I would just leave it in the SB.
Anyways I'm glad to see more people starting to play more burn spells!
Has anyone actually tested 1 Ooze or 1 GSZ in 1 Goyf's slot?
Finished 21st at Baltimore, losing my win-and-in fake feature match to GW Maverick. There were some disagreements in the list I'm working on with a few others, so I just ran Drew Levin's list from the Invitational (with 1 Predict instead of the second Thought Scour), 74/75. I checked the Standings afterward, knowing what 18th and 19th played, and I'm pretty sure that I might have been the highest finishing RUG Delver player. Depressing news, but I'm not really surprised, since six of the Top 8 was Maverick.
Matchups were:
UR Painter Grindstone 2-1
UW Stoneblade 1-1-1
GW Maverick 2-1
Esper Stoneblade 2-1
UR Sneak Show 1-2 (Opponent made Top 8)
BUG Control 2-0
Enchantress 2-1
Combo Elves 2-0 (Fake feature match)
GW Maverick 1-2 (Fake feature match, Opponent made Top 8)
I still think that some changes would have to be made to consistently beat Maverick. But overall I was pretty happy with the list. I have a new respect for Sulfuric Vortex after the tournament as well. I got to use it once, and it plays right along with the tempo strategy.
Can you explain the SBing strategy? I'm not entirely sure what ends up getting cut and what gets brought in.
The main criticism I would have with that list is the lack/type of GY hate. 2 Ooze simply aren't going to do enough against competent Dredge/Reanimator opponents, though I suppose you can just hope to dodge those matchups.
Im including the Vortex into the mainboard once and maybe twice in the side. It wrecks Stoneblade and is good versus Maverick aswell.
What was your list again? Still without Stifles right?
Hi!
I play RUG for some time and I'm following this forum even longer but this is my first post here so please be tolerant :).
I've attended a Bazzar of Moxen trial with this deck:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 FOW
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
4 Lightning bolt
2 Fire Ice
4 Ponder
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Sideboard:
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
3 Submerge
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ancient Grunge
1 Krosan Grip
My matches were:
1st round:
0-2 with affinity (guy sided perishes in and killed my 2 mongees and 2 goyfs and i got flooded both games but it was winnable...)
2nd round
2-0 with BW tokens
3rd round
2-1 with Bant
4th round
2-0 with Burn
5th round
ID with RU Delver
Top 8:
0-2 with WGR Maverick (2nd game i had 3 big goyfs and couldn't do anything with his 2 moms and knight :()
Some conclusions:
- I used my counterbalance sideboard only once... maybe i would use it against RU Delver. I wonder what could be better
- I got raped by maverick (couldn't do anything with knights protected by moms ). Maybe Engineered Explosives would be good here? 3 submerges are not enough.
- I had really good time playing this deck. I didn't know this meta but there where all kinds of decks. Not much combo thou.
Sulfur Elemental is the 'new tech' to beat Mother of Runes as well as Lingering Souls. I would add 2-3 to your sideboard if those are problem strategies in your area.
It's no wonder why Counterbalance is bad since you have a maximum of 15 CC2 spells in these 75. Raising the maindeck CC2 spellcount to 15 requires you to board out good cards. So whatever you do, your deck will end up sucking.
And I still want to cut my eyes out when people do it and don't realize how bad it is.
IF you would play Snapcaster Mages I'd MAYBE understand it, but if your creature config is 4 Delver 4 Goyf and 3-4 Geese, Counterbalance has no place in the 75. These 7 slots should be 4 REB and 3 Spell Pierce.
Yeah, what does Caleb know. Maybe he just knew when to sideboard it in and when not to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adan
I didn't use it because that configuration was good in big tournament, but because i wanted to try something else. I use to have 3 reb and 3 spell pierces in these spots and i found those 3 rebs not so useful. I rarely sided them in. Spell pierces where great thou.
Sulfur Elemental looks fine. It's great that it's instant speed.
I also tested Disrupt and it was fine but it doesn't improve any of RUG's bad matchups. I've seen some people mentioned Disrupt it this tread. Any tournament experience?
When a proplayer Top8s something with a wierd SB tech, it doesn't mean it's good. True story. This has been tested a couple if years ago and abolished for the same reasons. Addionally, CB-Top & Stifle-Waste are 2 concepts that go into opposite directions. And anyway, what are you actually trying to express? All I can interpret is that you are not capable of reflecting about something like this.Quote:
Originally Posted by CorpT
@CB-Top: I might see trying it during a tournament, but so far there is no logical reason for me why I should play it. I'd prefer REBs and Pierces in the mirrormatch any day. Burn is the only matchup where CB-Top would absolutely kick ass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zirael
Disrupt was good until Spell Pierce got printed. Pierce hits stuff that Disrupt can't (obviously...). Enchantments for instance. It's crucial against Enchantress to counter these 1st Turn accel or nasty stuff like Choke or Moat. It's also better against burn (hits Sulfuric Vortex) and planeswalkers etc.
But you really should run REBs. They are crucial against anything that runs Delver, against Reanimator (Jin, Show and Tell, Careful Study, countermagic), Spiral Tide (obvious) and even against Affinity (hits Tezzeret Bolas AND Master of Etherium, 2 cards that kill you singlehandedly). And against Dredge it can snipe random Moebas and most important: Breakthrough and Careful Study.
It's way more versatile than people think and one of the main reasons to play a red splash in general.
I was thinking about Sulfur Elemental as well. It kills Mother and Mindcensor and trades with a bunch of different shit. Magma Spray should also get an honorable mentioning because I hate Veteran Explorer and Kitchen Finks with a passion.
I don't think you understand how/when he uses it. It is good against Burn and Storm. Anything that is playing a ridiculous number of similar casting cost spells that is otherwise a tough matchup. It isn't weird SB tech. It's pretty common actually. And it's in the board for a reason. It's very good against some matchups and very bad against other matchups.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adan
Hello, first time poster, long time reader. I wanted to share some new point of views with playing with countertop in this deck.
Here's some small report from a 52-person tournament where I piloted this deck a week back. Enjoy.
A Night before the tournament I was sure to be playing this deck but wasn't sure on the countertop package. During the nightly drin... ahem... testing, I decided to try it out and it played pretty well against my friend's Nic Fit, and also against Aggro Loam. (Not that much of accomplishment but still) I've always liked playing with countertop so I went with this list:
Lands (19)
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Island
Creatures (12)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Nimble Mongoose
1 Vendilion Clique
Spells (29)
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Stifle
1 Dismember
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Forked Bolt
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance
Sideboard (15)
3 Submerge
2 Pyroblast
2 Spell Pierce
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Sulfur Elemental
1 Krosan Grip
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Engineered explosives
So you can see, I moved the package to main, because I thought it would be easier to cut cards from main than from sideboard. I removed 3 Snare, 1 Mongoose, 2 Ponder, 1 Forked bolt, 1 Daze to fit the cbtop, Clique (more 3cc, not very useful that day, putting fourth daze next time maybe) and the miser Island (proved helpful at least in mirror and in case of wastelands/blood moon).
In the sideboard i would probably cut the EE for second cage, didnt need either much, but there's usually some graveyard based decks running around. Other than that I liked the list. I was expecting all kinds of deck but maybe more comboish and mirrorish, also maverick.
Here's a small match report of what I remember:
R1 Sneak And Show:
G1: He mulliganed to 4 or 5 and didnt put a single permanent onto battlefield. 1-0
G2: He had Emrakul. 1-1
G3: I got early Delver, I think and more counter than he. 2-1
1-0
R2 Bant:
G1: I got early Delver which didn't want to flip for couple of turns, until I got it transformed and protected by cbtop. 1-0
G2: I think i got early Delver again, which also didn't want to flip and then got slowed by maze of ith. After killing some dudes and destroying jitte and batterskull and wasteing the mazes, I was able to win. 2-0
2-0
R3 UR Delver:
G1: Both mulliganed, bolted dudes but I had delver and mongoose for the win. 1-0
G2: Resolved countertop, gg. 2-0
3-0
R4 GW Maverick:
G1: Lost to knight and co. 0-1
G2: Had a chance but made some ugly misplay, don't even want to remember. 0-2
3-1
R5 High tide:
G1: I have hand with no counter or draw, and know what he's playing but decide to go. I got mongoose and delver on the beatdown, he searches and draws but cant find the combo in time. 1-0
G2: He mulligans to 5 or 6, I resolve fast cbtop and a dude, he doesnt resolve a spell. 2-0
4-1
After looking standings I realize that I might have to play, but got paired up so we ID'd and top8 place was certain.
4-1-1
Top8:
R6 RUG ***** (the person i ID'd with, we played 1 game for fun before and I won):
G1: Fetched the Island and wasted/stifled him out, countering his counters. Finished with some beatstick. 1-0
G2: Opening hand 3 Wastelands and some other lands too. I fetched non-basics first to bait him and then wasted him out. Basic Island was crucial also here. 2-0
5-1-1
Semifinal R7 EsperBlade:
G1: Dont remember much, but i should've mulligan my hand. Lost to tokens with jitte.
0-1
G2: Didnt sideboard or played that well here, lost to batterskull. 0-2
5-2-1
At this point I was pretty tired and still had to wait for my opponent who was still playing first match of top8. After hour or two I got to my final game for 3rd place and Volcanic Island.
R8 Hivemind:
G1: I was pretty comfortable on this matchup, because usually he must go the Emrakul plan. Which I was crushed by in this first game. 0-1
G2: I Resolve early Delver or Geese and start beating. Exiled his show and tell's with surgical after intuition and countered the key spells. 1-1
G3: This was pretty long match overrall, don't remember much of this game but I got beating and countered his key spells. At his last turn alive he went for show and tell but luckily i had Force with blue card to remove, fortunately he didn't have the blue card for his own Force so, victory :) 2-1
6-1-1 Overrall record and Volcanic Island.
Feels like I threw the Esper match away, but I'm still happy for the deck and my finish, atleast after waiting five or-so hours for pizza delivery and ~3 hours of sleep :)
So in conclusion, I think in this meta the countertop was a good choice, and I think its easier to side out than in. I think I sided it out only against Bant and Maverick. Sry I don't remember the sideboarding in each matchups, but it was pretty basic I think. Hope this was worth reading. Good Night!
-arbiter
First of all, I will comment that the context of the list was made for the Invitational. Most of the grinders were going to be playing Maverick, Esper, or the mirror so the list was designed with this in mind. Standard was also first, so I assume that Drew felt the best performing pilots in Standard would either be a grinder or unfamiliar enough with Legacy to play something like Dredge or Reanimator. Unlike my previous theory and boarding strategy, this is a situation where you pretty much have to keep all of your creatures in (I was consistently cutting Nimble Mongoose in the 4/3/3/4 split).Quote:
Originally Posted by wcm8
SB:
3 Sulfur Elemental
2 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Life from the Loam
1 Ancient Grudge
2 REB
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Submerge
Sideboarding strategies are pretty basic, most of the flex slots are just your countermagic. No Counterbalance and I agree with it, as it opened up so much space to expand the sideboard almost. With Lingering Souls, the Stoneblade matchup is no longer about resolving the Counterbalance package, and of course it' still miserable against Maverick. I'll provide some examples of what I did (although they may not be fully correct):
Mirror: -3 Daze on the draw, -3 Force of Will on the play, -4 Spell Pierce, +4 Submerge, +2 Scavenging Ooze, 1 Life from the Loam
Esper (Lingering Souls): -3 Daze on the draw, -3 Force of Will on the play, -4 Tarmogoyf, +3 Sulfur Elemental, +2 Sulfuric Vortex, +1 Life from the Loam, +1 Ancient Grudge
Maverick: -3 Daze on the draw, -3 Force of Will on the play, -4 Spell Pierce, +4 Submerge, +3 Sulfur Elemental
Against Esper in the tournament I lost Game 1, and I wanted to try out REB, so I boarded out the Thought Scout/Predict so I could fit them in on the play. They were pretty narrow and I cut them on the draw for Game 3, especially since they are unable to answer the Stoneforge anyways.
Yes. Just Drew Levin's 74/75 from the Invitational. I was already cutting Snapcaster Mage and wanted to go to 4 Spell Pierce, so this list fit me perfectly. I wouldn't play a maindeck Sulfuric Vortex but it is quite useful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipp802
Any changes you would make after playing that 75?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Sun
Since 2 liters Coke light slapped my sleeping-rythm, I decided to do something useful.
Enjoy.
The only thing that I wanted in retrospect is something else I could have boarded in for combo. Without Snapcaster Mage, the list felt pretty weak against Sneak Show (obviously lost), as I didn't have much of a way to reload after stopping their initial attempt to go off. With access to Intuition and a ton of redundancy, the deck is actually quite hard to fight through.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tammit67
Mark great showing man I thought there were some pretty insane plays on both sides during your 'fake feature match'! Congrats.
Now on another note, ive been playing and playtesting my ass off on my list and everything is starting to blur so I decided to see what you guys thought. I need to cut a couple cards but I cant make up my mind. Help a brotha out please.
18 lands
Creatures
4 nimble mongoose
4 delver of secrets
4 tarmogoyf
Instants
3 force of will
4 daze
4 stifle
3 spell snare
3 spell pierce
4 brainstorm
4 lightning bolt
1 dismember
Sorceries
2 forked bolt
4 ponder
Side Board
2 pyroblast
3 surgical extraction
2 submerge
2 mind harness
1 ancient grudge
1 krosan grip
2 pyroclasm
2 sulfur elemental
So im 2 cards over in the main and I need to drop 2 one-ofs, with bolded cards the main ones im considering but testing hasnt been conclusive enough, the rest im very pleased with. Ive moved pierces main to make room for more specific hate in the board. Help me make up my mind and include reasons if you dont mind since im kinda wishy washy at times and my brains fried.
I'm trying to tune this for my meta, which should be almost exclusively Maverick + esperblade and the however many people without tier 1 decks. It's with this in mind I was looking to cut the pyroblasts for something like GY hate in expectation of dredge/aggro loam which are surprisingly prevalent at my locals, and the chain lightnings for forked bolts. What are the specific advantages of chain over forked (without the obvious '+1' damage to the face)? Without nacatl in the format, I think I'd rather have the added utility of forked at least in theoryQuote:
Originally Posted by Mark Sun
I just 4-0ed a daily event on MTGO with this list:
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Forked Bolt
2 Chain Lightning
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Thought Scour
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
SB
3 Counterbalance
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Sulfur Elemental
2 Sulfuric Vortex
3 Submerge
3 Tormod's Crypt
This was my first time trying out Countertop in the sideboard, which proved to be the right call as I played against Storm twice. I used to be against the idea of Countertop in the SB, but I think it lets you cut Spell Snare/Pierce from the MD, but still give you a solid win percentage against Burn, High Tide, Storm, the Mirror and to lesser extent slower control decks (Pierce and REB probably would be better against the slower control decks).