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I spent some time working on Shardless this week, and I'm increasingly of the opinion that trying to get around Red Blasts by cutting blue cards (especially Jace, especially against Miracles) is probably not a good plan. They're bringing the blasts in to fight Vision, and having fewer targets makes it much more likely that those Blasts get their intended targets. I'm taking the Blohon route and boarding a Jace now, along with a Clique.
Is anyone trying out the SB Master of the Wild Hunt from last week's SCG winning list?
I haven't tried it since it's intuitively worse than Garruk (or at least has a significantly higher opportunity cost). It requires GG (not always possible against Blood Moon, which is one of the things Garruk comes in against) and makes the first Wolf the turn after you play him rather than immediately.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seraphix
I like this logic. Red Blasts also stop one of my favorite cards vs them, Creeping Tar Pit, which I have been on 2 of lately. Gotta spread those blasts, make em deal with Jace via combat damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
I was pretty happy with a singleton Mishra's Factory as my second creature land, though I think 4 Wastelands/1 Factory is too many colorless sources unless you go to 23 land, which is a lot, so 3 Waste, 2 Tar Pit, 22 Land, 0 Ponder is probably the best configuration with multiple creature lands, I think. The synergy with creature lands is also one of the things I love about Crucible out of the board.Quote:
Originally Posted by ironclad8690
More to your point, Andrea Mengucci posted an article last week about his recent run with Shardless, and his list features 2 Cliques in the board. I love Clique in the deck, especially if we're deliberately overloading Blasts against Miracles, but some of his meta reads don't jive with what happens here in the mid Atlantic (especially regarding Lands).
went 5-0 tonight in a league. many 4-1's but this is my first elusive 5-0.
i was trying some old cards again inspired by the scg baltimore list.
heres the list: https://manastack.com/deck/shardless-bug-4
match1: u/r delver 2-1 allstars-basic lands, jitte, goyf hymn
in: hymn, disfigure, murderous cut, golgari charm. i never saw true name nemesis but some lists dont run it but golgari charm could regenerate something if needed so why not.
out: 3 liliana, toxic deluge. liliana seems bad against all the hasters and fliers but she helps empty their hand and get rid of creatures... hymn disfigure and cut are probably better.
this is my least favorite flavor of delver to see, its definitely almost as deadly to shardless as burn is but id rather see this any day over that deck.
match 2: b/r reanimator 2-0 allstars-basic lands, surgical extraction, hymn, deathrite. he never goes off game 1 giving hymn and goyf a chance to run free and game 2 i win on my turn 1 at the eot he entombs i fetch, brainstorm, find surgical tarmogoyf and force with a blue card in hand. let entomb resolve and surgical griselbrand. he concedes. maybe a tad hasty but the tarmo wouldve probably got there anyways.
in: 2 surgical, grafdiggers cage, 2 duress, hymn, golgari charm, pithing needle
out: 2 strix, 4 abrupt decay, umezawas jitte, toxic deluge
matchup is weird, i want the abrupt decays for blood moon and maelstrom pulse for big guys and sneak attack but swamp and forest really tend to do the trick. maybe the charm should be a decay?
match 3: esper deathblade 2-0 allstars-ancestral vision, hymn, creeping jitte pit, life from the loam.
in: hymn, toxic deluge, golgari charm, night of souls betrayal, life from the loam, garruk relentless, maelstrom pulse, pithing needle
out: 3 liliana, 4 force of will, 1 strix
disfigure and murderous cut dont seem to have many targetable targets worth targeting. liliana seems bad cause of lingering souls and true name and im bringing in enough sweepers to take care of true name without her help. lately ive noticed how suprised people are when they see jitte in shardless, but just imagine peoples faces when you wasteland them and then loam back two wastelands and a tarpit. loam is cute but it actually helps grind on an extra axis. ill keep it around for a little bit to test more against lands and 3-4 color delvers etc.
match 4: 2-1 mono red sneak attack allstars-basic lands, force of will, hymn to tourach
in: hymn, 2 duress, pithing needle, 2 surgical extraction
out: ancestral vision, abrupt decay, toxic deluge, 2 baleful strix, umezawas jitte.
again worried about blood moon.. not alot of other targets for abrupt decay and not alot of blue for force after board.... terrible matchup, i most likely got very lucky winning games 2 and 3.
match 5: 2-1 dredge. allstars- deathrite shaman, grafdiggers cage, surgical extraction and unsurprisingly enough umezawas jitte.
in: 2 duress, 2 surgical, night of souls betrayal, grafdiggers cage
out: 3 liliana, 2 hymn, 1 ancestral
if you surgical(or eat with deathrite) all their ichorid and narcomebas they cant win, if you get a nosb out they cant stick narcos and ichorids for cabal therapy and dread return although it still triggers bridge. if you have a jitte with counters or any creature and some instant speed removal in hand you can exile their bridges after theyve returned ichorid (if you cant eat it) on their draw step after theyve dredged more bridges and narcomebas into the yard hopefully by killing a pointless creature you control but before giving them a chance to sac creatures to therapy. all in all a pretty fun matchup, can be pretty hard if they go off too fast though :(
still thinking about trying 2 thoughtseize over 2 duress but i feel like duress helps the burn match up slightly while not hurting the matchups where you really want targeted hand disruption like storm. also still not super excited about big jace, i would consider tossing a sylvan library in before jace number 1.
what do yall think? would love some feedback. :)
Congrats on the 5-0.
Just a few thoughts: Liliana isn't great against Lingering Souls, but she's great against the rest of Blade decks , so I'd leave her in and bring in at least the Disfigures for my MD discard to make sure I always have Deathrite supremacy. I think Thoughtseize gets the nod over Duress simply so you can take fatties from Sneak Attack and Show and Tell decks. You're seldom afraid of Reanimator hands where you're forced to take a fatty, and while Duress offers a minor benefit against Burn relative to Thoughtseize, I don't take Burn into consideration unless a card cauaes huge swings in the matchup.
Edit: I'd also leave Strixes in against Reanimator and Sneak Attack. They're very ok in the matchup, but they're blue in matchups where Force is very important.
Edit 2: Same as above regarding Ancestral Vision. It's not great in those matchups, but you need blue cards to make your Forces work, and they're quite nice if you get to turns 4 amd 5, enabling you to restock on disruption or find additional threats to shorten the clock. As for Decay vs. Charm, I think Charm is marginally better against BR Reanimator and Sneak Attack decks since it hits Sneak Attack and I don't think most Reanimator lists run Pithing Needle like the UBx ones do. I could be wrong though.
Can you be more specific about the reasons why you dislike big Jace ? Is there any game where you wish you had it in your 75' ?Quote:
Originally Posted by minyafriend
I clearly understand the attraction of Sylvan (I'm actually currently playing one MD), but I find jace to be overall more powerful and not as slow (compared to Sylvan Library) as it seems.
Anyway, nice record with the tournament : )
There's never a moment where I wish I had jace in my 75. Jace is definitely more powerful than sylvan ina card by card comparison but definitely a slower card. in my opinion the meta right now is just too unfriendly to a four drop that doesn't immediately win you the game or stop them from winning the game. I think jace does this more so in miracles but less so in shardless. Reb/pyro effects are every where and there are flying, hasting and/or unblockable creatures everywhere. If anything I think he's probably more comfortable as a sideboard card against the mirror or miracles and then I'd rather have garruk relentless. Now I do agree that because the reb effects are coming in against you you might want to force them to stretch the use they get out of that spell by having more more powerful blue spells eventually one is going to stick and win you the game I personally would just rather have a more powerful non blue spell/permanent that is more difficult to interact with and actively wins you the game by commanding the board with creatures or puts many magic cards into your hand turns before jace will.
Matchups where sylvan is better than jace
D+t
maverick
Matchups where jace is just bad most of the time
All delver decks
Elves
Matchups where jace is really good
Mirror, miracles
Matchups where garruk is really good
Mirror, miracles
How do you want to win? What are the weaknesses of your deck post sideboard? Garruk in my sideboard plays the way I want to play and win with shardless, but that's not to say there are many other ways to go about it!
Thank you for your explanations. I get a better a better understanding of your choice.
The list that I'm currently testing is more control oriented with 3 Liliana, 2 Toxic Deluge, 1 Sylvan Library, 1 Ponder and no Hymn or no Strix (I'm not sold on it, but I wanted to give it a try). In this particular configuration, slamming a Jace onto a fresh toxic-deluge cleared battlefield (a lot like Miracles with Terminus) is what you're looking for if the game isn't going your way. But indeed, it joins your fact that Jace is way better in Miracles than in "agressives" Shardless lists. I also faced several times Shardless and BUG Delver in the last event where the 4 CMC of Jace broke multiple games. But Garruk would have been just as efficient.
I'm still looking for the right 75' as I don't know if I want to play a more control deck (like the above) or an agressive midrange strategy. The list of SCG Baltimore is also attractive with the inclusion of Leovold and Master of the Wild Hunt.
just be careful if youre thinking about master of the wild hunt as its bad against swords to plowshares and lightning bolt. i think that johnathan orr himself says its mainly for the mirror, infect and elves.
The Planeswalker-heavy, no Hymn/no Strix-style lists are very good for some local metas (typically those with lots of midrange decks and Miracles), but I wouldn't try it in a large meta. You're giving up a lot game 1 against Delver and combo.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spaker
If you're looking for an aggressive midrange strategy in BUG colors, I'd probably just play BUG Delver. I also haven't been thrilled with Leovold in testing, for what it's worth. He's really powerful, but the deck already has a lot of 3 CMC creatures that generate value.Quote:
I'm still looking for the right 75' as I don't know if I want to play a more control deck (like the above) or an agressive midrange strategy. The list of SCG Baltimore is also attractive with the inclusion of Leovold and Master of the Wild Hunt.
I actually think that Jace is better than Sylvan Library against Maverick, but that's admittedly a corner case. Having been on both sides of the Red Blast vs. Jace debate, I think that Miracles is way too good at finding the blasts when they need them to not just play more blue bombs to overwhelm them. I have Jace and Garruk in my sideboard (and a Clique and a Crucible) in my sideboard right now for grindy matchups, but I'm very happy with the total package.Quote:
Originally Posted by minyafriend
Sorry if I expressed myself poorly : I'm looking for the right list of Shardless BUG (As far as I can tell, I don't like playing a deck with delver. It's just not my thing. But indeed, your suggestion is relevant) because I feel it is the right shell for me.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
I played a more standard version for a year with 2 Strix, 2 Hymn, 2 Liliana, only one Toxic maindeck and no Sylvan Library. I did some top 8 with it and I have to say that it's nice to have a chance against a large variety of decks. But I found myself struggling mostly against combo (especially Elves) and the others MU like D&T (before Sanctum Prelate, Thalia V2 etc.), MUD, Delver-based decks, Miracles etc. were better but still hard to win. Therefore, I wanted to look at other strategy, including the heavy planeswalker. You're right : this specific build fights the game 1 against combo with the minimum defense (DRS, FOW) and rely on massive sideboard options to win G2 and G3 with discard, Meddling mage etc.
Today I've tasted those two strategies and I'm not sure which way to go, but I'm definitely eager to read about the tastes and deck-choice of others players and share about it, like with the list of minyafriend without any Jaces.
I'm gonna test Leovold too. Even if he costs 3 and doesn't do much against some MU, the fact that he is blue means he can at least be pitched to FOW.
Definitely don't let my preferences stop you from trying things, I was just sharing my own experiences with the deck. My current maindeck is only 4 cards off from minyafriend's: -1Jitte, -1 Vision, -1 Liliana, -1 Delta, +1 Hymn, +1 Ponder, +1 Strix, +1 Tar Pit.
As for Elves and Death and Taxes, I think the best way to fight those decks is with two MD Deluges, Jitte in the 75 (the rest of your meta will have to dictate where) and Engineered Plague/Night of Souls' Betrayal in the board alongside 2-3 1-mana spot removal spells. Neither matchup is great, but my experience is that you can beat them if you want to, though generally you have to weaken yourself against Miracles or combo to accomplish that. I've found additional Planeswalkers to be pretty meh against both decks. They raise your curve and even Liliana, the Last Hope is just ok at managing their board if they successfully go wide, especially if D&T has Mother of Runes, Thalia, Crusader, or Flickerwisp. You really need the sweepers and Jitte to put those decks away.
I've found myself favored against Delver strategies and Miracles, heavily favored against MUD, and even-to-(slightly) favored against other midrange decks. If you're interested in going after Storm or Show and Tell-style combo decks, I do like hateful permanents as an option in addition to some MD discard.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a nightmare to play against before you have 4 lands in play, but there's unfortunately very little you can do about her short of radically redesigning the manabase.
Since I tried the heavy planeswalker/Toxic build, my MU against Elves is indeed far better. I also have Nosb in SB and one STP (not sold on that either). I did not have the chance to compete against D&T 2.0 but as you mentionned, it should also be more balanced.Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
I don't know about the Jitte though. I do like the power of the equipment, but doesn't it seem contradictory to play the "sweeper role" (I mean in this specific build, but maybe you were suggesting another approach) while playing tools that require creatures ? Usually (especially regarding the Elves MU, but also in the others) I'm playing Toxic at 2pv to bury others DRS etc, cleaning my own board at the same time (shardless/DRS... it hurts every time). Therefore, beside Tarmogoyf, I can't see another creature that could carry a Jitte and I'm asking myself if it's enough to exploit the value of it. But maybe I'm wrong, I imagine that the sequencing becomes also entirely different. I would like to clarify that this is just an "out of experience" reflection, I did not properly tested the tech. Obviously it's far better in your build and minyafriend's with 2/3 Strix and 1/2 Creeping Tar Pit than in the one I'm trying.
The value of your creatures is almost always lower than the value of their board, even with Jitte. You're also never forced to use Deluge when it's to your disadvantage. D&T really struggles to beat Deluge followed up with a substantial threat, and Jitte is both a threat and a sweeper. Engineered Plague and Night of Souls' Betrayal are much narrower and harder to cast.
btm10, im curious how much you like running 3 ancestral and if you really think thats the right number then why? ive gone back to testing a one of ponder and really like it as another 1 drop but at the same time the list is really tight and im always looking for ways to cram more shit in here. i like the ponder a lot im gonna keep running it for a bit, i cut the 3rd liliana for it. i like it because it ups the blue count, adds more to do on turn 1, digs cheaply when you need to find something bad... not much negative stuff to say about it its a great card haha.
one thing ive been on the fence about this week is life from the loam. it saves me some games against delver lists and other greedy mana base wasteland decks, usually just casting it and getting 3 lands back is strong enough without need to dredge it til waaay later if you have stabilized and can waste them out, but this is not always what you want to spend your time doing! i dont think its assertive enough in the slot that i put it in which was nihil spellbomb. spellbomb feels better than loam against aggro loam and lands. the loam/spellbomb could also be a 3rd surgical extraction which could just be better against more decks that are bad matchups (ant sneak and show reanimator).... delver matchups dont necessarily need more help being an already ok matchup where lands is the real problem. how much sideboard space do we want to give to that deck? just hope to dodge it or respect it with specific sideboard cards? what do yall think?
as far as comparing deluge to engineered plague and night of souls betrayal while they look like similar effects the latter two are tools for different decks than deluge i think.
nosb and plague are somewhat better supplementally to delgue in the elves matchup being sticky and causing the game to stop on their side until they can deal with it and deluge is basically just buying you time to pressure til they reup. nosb stops infect in its tracks until they find a corruptor (2/2) if they have it and engineered plague only hits 1 type and deluge can only interact with them on your turn which is when you want to interact with them but it leaves their inkmoth a threat left on their turn. nosb stops alurens combo and engineered plague can too if you name human (hits both recruiters) or harpy, where deluge is again clearing the board so your threat (hopefully tarmogoyf) can pressure them. also nosb is relevant in miracles stopping clique snapcaster and monk tokens where engineered plague would stop wizards or monks (2vs1), dread of night would only stop one and you should probably take out toxic deluge anyways.
matchups where nosb doesnt really look better than deluge to me are ones that fight your mana production with wasteland stifle port, then try to keep your spells from resolving with daze and spell pierce i dont think those are the matchups where you want to fight over sticking an enchantment that doesnt shut off absolutely all their win cons.
I guess people will be more ready for my 2 maindeck leovold emissary of trest now.
He seems to be in almost all shardless decks at GP chiba thats performing good.
Had a nice time with many free wins thanks him since Conspiracy. I guess the brainstorming with him out will for the most part be a distant memory! Haha.
Time to find another card people will not be ready for!
He definitely made appearances, but I honestly wasn't very impressed by him in testing or on camera at the GP. I (and most other people in the States, it seems) have been moving towards leaner Shardless lists; I'm especially skeptical of adding more 3-drops since most people are already running 6-10. Maybe if you're cutting Liliana or running a BUG midrange or control list without Shardless Agent, but Leovold was just too slow for the effect in my testing.Quote:
Originally Posted by weiuweiu
I like Ponder a lot. It goes a long way toward making sure you draw the right half of your deck, and gives you another one mana play, I think of it as going in the 4th Vision slot. Whether you want the actual 4th copy of Vision is another question. I think it's only good if you expect a lot of Miracles or the mirror, and one of those is already favorable and the other is so high variance that any gain is going to be limited. Like I was saying above about Leovold, I like minimizing slow and clunky things in Shardless and flooding out on Vision is one of the clunkiest things that can happen to you. I think the risks of drawing it in the late game far exceed a slightly higher chance of having it in your opener or Cascading into it.Quote:
Originally Posted by minyafriend
As you sad, you either have to have a very clear plan for beating Lands or hope to dodge it. Between that and black red Reanimator I've simply gone to three copies of Leyline e of the Void. I think the opportunity cost of a reactive card like Surgical Extraction is too high given that we're not cutting Shardless Agent in the matchup. Reanimator only makes that choice easier because of Chancellor of the Annex. As for Loam, I think land recursion is only good enough to include in really protracted matchups like Miracles, the mirror, and 4c Loam, but I think that Crucible is better than Loam because it can't be Cascaded into and doesn't eat mana over and over again. I'd like it against D&T too if they didn't bring in Rest in Peace.Quote:
one thing ive been on the fence about this week is life from the loam. it saves me some games against delver lists and other greedy mana base wasteland decks, usually just casting it and getting 3 lands back is strong enough without need to dredge it til waaay later if you have stabilized and can waste them out, but this is not always what you want to spend your time doing! i dont think its assertive enough in the slot that i put it in which was nihil spellbomb. spellbomb feels better than loam against aggro loam and lands. the loam/spellbomb could also be a 3rd surgical extraction which could just be better against more decks that are bad matchups (ant sneak and show reanimator).... delver matchups dont necessarily need more help being an already ok matchup where lands is the real problem. how much sideboard space do we want to give to that deck? just hope to dodge it or respect it with specific sideboard cards? what do yall think?
There's a lot to respond to here, so I'm going to summarize why I just run Jitte rather than either Enchantment. In addition to being able to amortize the 4 mana to cast and equip it over 2 turns, but once you get counters it's basically Curse of Death's Hold. It's good against every creature deck in the format, and I bring it in against Miracles in lieu of NoSB or Engineered Plague.Quote:
as far as comparing deluge to engineered plague and night of souls betrayal while they look like similar effects the latter two are tools for different decks than deluge i think.
nosb and plague are somewhat better supplementally to delgue in the elves matchup being sticky and causing the game to stop on their side until they can deal with it and deluge is basically just buying you time to pressure til they reup. nosb stops infect in its tracks until they find a corruptor (2/2) if they have it and engineered plague only hits 1 type and deluge can only interact with them on your turn which is when you want to interact with them but it leaves their inkmoth a threat left on their turn. nosb stops alurens combo and engineered plague can too if you name human (hits both recruiters) or harpy, where deluge is again clearing the board so your threat (hopefully tarmogoyf) can pressure them. also nosb is relevant in miracles stopping clique snapcaster and monk tokens where engineered plague would stop wizards or monks (2vs1), dread of night would only stop one and you should probably take out toxic deluge anyways.
matchups where nosb doesnt really look better than deluge to me are ones that fight your mana production with wasteland stifle port, then try to keep your spells from resolving with daze and spell pierce i dont think those are the matchups where you want to fight over sticking an enchantment that doesnt shut off absolutely all their win cons.
Thoughts on the possible spoiled card:
Yahenni's Expertise
2BB
Sorcery
All creatures get -3/-3 until end of turn.
You may cast a card from your hand with converted mana cost 3 or less without paying its mana cost.
Thinking about removing Jace for it. Another wipe for D&T, and it doesn't kill your life. Can also be used against some aggro decks as well. Nice stabilizing card.