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I cut the TW and came back to it. Sure it's also a personal thing if you like it or not. And sure I have so much blue just for the TW. I still try to play (slower) control matches. Still using ports as well...Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I like to have some surprises including the TW.
Ports are fine. If your Meta has a lot of DnT, Fish, Nic Fit and Miracles I would not be against having 3 Ports and a QG. It's a good meta call. With the meta as it is right now I think GQ is strong, because of Pile and Grixis, still won't fault anyone for Port though.
And I personally like to play what I like, not only what's needed to win. There may be better builds, but I think if I just wanted to win,I wouldn't play Lands ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
I dunno, lands is fairly well positioned now with the meta being full of so many greedy mana bases (grixis, czech pile etc) and delver decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by OldSpellMaster
But even if it wasnt i'd play it for similar reasons to you! Its just fun!!
Yes, Lands is a good deck right now. But especially the RUG version is challenging to play. If I just want a deck to win,I take a 'stupid' deck (a deck where I play my stuff regardless what my opponent does...)Quote:
Originally Posted by patrickjdoyle
By the way: I think the DD-stage combo is the most important part which makes Lands good (RG even more than RUG), but for me it is also the most uninteresting part of the deck. Even worse: It only works because of a glitch in the rules (it wasn't meant to work like that).
I don't want to miss it, don't get me wrong. But maybe you know what I mean...
Won the first legacy trial at ew with burning wish, 5-0 over red stompy, hexdepthsanimator, grixis pyro, rb reanimator, and gwb blade
I'll do a mini report when I get back
What was your board?
Wondering the same!
From a previous postQuote:
Originally Posted by Skyl3lazer
Was playing at legacy Champs yesterday to a 6-3 drop of the 11 rounds.
// Deck: RUG lands (60)
// Lands
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Barbarian Ring
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Sheltered Thicket
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills
// Creatures
// Spells
4 Crop Rotation
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Exploration
3 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
3 Punishing Fire
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Oblivion Stone
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 3 Tireless Tracker
Round 1 Vs Czech Pile.
G1: keep an opener with loam exploration and two wastelands. Opponent never hit more than 2 lands and only resolved a strix and drs which are p.fire.
G2: Tireless tracker did work. Opponent attempted to kholagan command my tracker and mox Diamond while I had ancient tomb and mox untapped, crop rotation then sac clue to make tracker 3 toughness, continued to beat him into submission.
Record: 1-0
Round 2 Vs TES (Bryant Cook)
Prior to the round had some good banter with Bryant, I'm a big fan of his website so it was cool to be able to interact with him a lil :)
G1: I know he's on TES so I Mulligan to an EE. Wasn't enough, got killed via tendrils.
G2: early sphere into fast Maritt worked.
G3: I have natural Maritt in hand with academy ruins and exploration. He burning wishes for Telemin Performance and passes the turn. My board state is 2 exploration, stage, depth, ruin, ghost quarter, tropical island, I suspect he's has no gas which is why he went for Telemin the turn prior, but he knows it won't work in the face of academy ruins. I pass the turn, he top decked as nauseum and proceeded to go off... He admitted it was extreme luck se la vie.
Record: 1-1
Round 3 Vs Burn
G1: I lead with a strong opener, but multiple goblin guides and price of progress got there.
G2: I had glacial chasm, exploration, loam, two stages and a green source. He scooped when he realized he was locked out.
G3: I'm at 11 life he has an edilon, guide, and two mountains in play, I had depth stage and two non basics. If he has price and fire last I'm dead. He attacked I cloned depths he priced... But didn't have the fireblast so I squeezed out a win with 1 life remaining.
Record: 2-1
Round 4 Vs DnT
G1: he has the nut draw and is able to recover after two EE's. Rishadan ports for days, and a sanctum prelate on 2.
G2: he sticks a fast palace Jailer and proceeded to draw his whole deck.
Record: 2-2
Round 5 Vs Czech Pile
G1: He scoops early to wasteland lock
G2: he keeps a 1 lander which gets ghost quartered. He has no basics and never draws another land.
Record: 3-2
Round 6 Vs Colorless Eldrazi
G1: He had chalice on 1 followed by double thorn into reality smasher.
G2: I had natural Maritt and exploration opening hand.
G3: Another natural Maritt and two maze of its for backup.
Record: 4-2
Round 7
Vs Czech Pile
G1: a combination of wasteland, ghost quarter and Tabernacle prevented him from doing much. (He has two basics)
G2: he had a T1 drs and plenty of counter magic to stop any important plays I made.
G3: Best game I played all day. There was a ton of back and forth trading resources but eventually I stabilized at 2 life and removed all his lands with a Tabernacle in play.
Record: 5-2
Round 8 Vs BUG Delver
G1: he hid all his Delvers and gitaxian probes so I thought he was on Czech which prompted me to an out my maze of iths and barbarian ring.
G2: he leads with delver and a shadow brewed over me. I proceeded to get Tabernacle and all 4 ghost quarters online with a tireless tracker out. (I did miss my own Tabernacle trigger one turn and didn't realize it til the next turn, so a judge call happened and they gave me a warning and put the trigger on the stack. I choose not to pay for it because I felt super bad for the whole thing, my opponent was really cool with it all, but it feels really bad, I don't think I'll ever make that mistake again). I did end up winning with Maritt lage two turns later.
Record 6-2
Round 9 Vs Omnishow
First off, my opponent this round was one of the nicest guys ever, very charismatic and made the whole experience of getting steamrolled fun on a bun! I hope he did well the rest of the tournament because he was probably the most fun opponent I've ever had the pleasure to play against.
G1: I assemble Maritt lage and am ready to win next turn. He top decks a ponder and shows me his hand. All counterspells, show and tell and omnicience. He gets omnicience in play and hopes his ponder hits, which it hit cunning wish and I proceed to get laboratory maniac'd out.
G2: I keep a questionable grip surgical surgical hand and he dream halls, I grip it in response to enter the infinite. He passes with whole deck in hand. I ghost quarter one land, wasteland another, In my haste I forgot to dredge loam and was unable to rebut my GQ to hit his last land. I proceed to get maniac'd on the following turn.
Record 6-3 (drop)
Realising my play was getting sloppy on round 8/9 and there were still two more rounds, I decided to drop and go get steaks with my friend.
The only change I would make to the list is the O.stone in the board make it a grip again.
Highlights for me at Champs was milling out a Czech pile deck. He had Leovold and Snapcaster on the attack in the face of Maze + Stage copying Maze. He kept drawing cards and I kept looping wastelands and taxing him with Tabernacle.
He had already extracted my Depths and Trackers and later tagged my wastelands, too. All I had left was Punishing Fire and the unlikely Barbarian Ring...and decking.
When he played Jace he had 6 cards left. I counted my hand of 7 cards (including punishing fire) and said "Ok," knowing he would deck before Jace would do anything.
He got me down to 6 and lamented removing bolts for this second game because he could have killed me. On turn 1 or 2 of extra turns he tried to draw from an empty library and lost the game.
Oops.
Second highlight is round 2 against Deadguy Ale. I play in Toronto and so have a lot of practice against Wilkin (see the Deadguy thread) so know the matchup.
We had a 14 minute extension and used it plus all five turns (sorry y'all had to wait). I used all 3 depths in game 2 and scooped at 30+ life, unable to live long enough for the clock to 0 out. We began game 3 with 4 minutes left. It would be close.
My opening hand was double tracker. I can do this.
He did some stuff that didn't matter (needle, rip, etc) and tracker got out of hand. He was at 5 or 6 life on his last turn (turn 4 of extras) and cast batterskull, hoping for the bye. I flashed him a Krosan Grip and he was dead to the tracker. Not bad.
My first loss was to RB reanimator and it felt awful, he had the nuts. How do we beat it!? Makes me want to play REB again to deal with tidespout. I dropped after awful play, at 4-3 or 5-3.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
I typed up the report for the 5-0 Trial. Ended up going 7-3-1 in the main event, 65th, with all of my loses in rounds 9-11 going to people in T16 (2 in T8!). Didn't get on camera, but oh well. I'll post the main event report when I'm done typing it. Here's the gdocs link with the list, etc
Legacy Trial 2pm Thursday - 5-0
Round 1: Red Stompy (Chandra Tribal), 2-1 (1-0 overall)
Game 1 (L) - I build up lands in a long game against a fast moon. Mox diamond provides green to be able to wish for Hull Breach and kill it + make lage, but opponent has an Ensnaring Bridge the turn after off the top.
+ Grips, -Karakas, Tabernacle
Game 2 (W) - Turn 1 Molten Vortex, Forest, Loam in hand. He T1 moons me, which is great because it lets me easily get 3 red sources + 2 mana for loam. I end up killing him at 1 life.
Game 3 (W) - He immediately Moons me, but I have a diamond in hand. I play a Depths turn 3, then EoT grip his moon, untap, land, grip bridge and swing. New Blood Moon rules own.
Round 2: MonoB Hexdepths/Reanimator, 2-0 (2-0 overall)
Game 1 (W) - I wasteland opponent 3 times in as many turns, and they never have the chance to go off.
+ Drops, - 1 Depths, 1 Loam
Game 2 (W) - Opponent tries to make Lage t2, but I have the rotation+wasteland and they dont get the chance to do anything.
Round 3: Grixis Pyromancer, 2-0 (3-0 overall)
Game 1 (W) - Turn 1 I Pfire his delver, turn 2 I resolve Exploration and play grove+waste them. Opponent can’t ever get out of the pfire+wasteland lock.
+ Trackers, 1 Grip, - Karakas, 1 Loam, 1 Rotation
Game 2 (W) - Opponent had a TON of disruption (stifles, dazes, forces) but can’t ever find a threat before they die.
Round 4: BR Reanimator, 2-1 (4-0 overall)
Game 1 (W) - Stole a win off of a t1 Wasteland t2 Lage, if opp drew a land t2 I died.
+ Spheres, Tomb, 1 Drop, - 1 Fire, 1 Loam, Sheltered Thicket, Barbarian Ring, 1 Maze
Game 2 (L) - T1 Griselbrand ends the game right quick.
Game 3 (W) - Turn 3 Lage with 2 wastelands along the way, and he doesn’t have a petal.
Round 5: Junk Blade, 2-0 (5-0 overall)
Game 1 (W) - T1 molten vortex, pass. T2 waste you, shoot a guy, T3 waste you, shoot a guy, T4 GQ and he conceded.
+ Trackers, Drops, Grips, - 1 Loam, Karakas, Bog, Sheltered Thicket, 1 Burning Wish
Game 2 (W) - I went with 61 cards because I wasnt sure what I wanted. I think 2 grips weren’t needed here to be honest. Either way I wastelanded him and made a Lage on T3.
Congrats for the result against hard matchups!
Could you please tell me, how vital was single sideboard Tomb against reaniamtion decks and / or Show? Were you aiming for super fast combo afterboard to outrun them, or would you like more to have some disruption, yet you simply get fast Marit in opening and you kept the first 7?
Kind of a mixture. The Tomb both helps you get Lage a turn earlier sometimes, and lets you have many more ways to play a T1 sphere. Honestly I think Tomb is one of the most important sideboard cards at the moment, just because in the matchups you want Spheres, you really want them T1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiktul
This is my main takeaway from this weekend. I'm also excited by the thought of a turn 1 Tireless Tracker.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skyl3lazer
How much does the two life matter to you? Is City of Traitors better, even though it dies on the next land play?
I often find I want it around. Not only for the option to tap it for mana later, but as a Rotation target.
Also Chasm + Tomb is funny.
A question: do you side spheres in against 4c control?
Personally no.
Out
2 Wasteland
1 Karakas
1 Loam
In
2 Drop
2 Tracker
My view is that Quater is better than a Wasteland here. They don't have any basics and we can use it to fetch our own. Also I don't need all 8 Wastelands against such a weak mana base. Loam is going to be a target for Extraction, so I cut one and add in more ways to protect it. An open clue is effectively a Counterspell for Extraction. I don't use Chalice because Rotation is too powerful here to lose.
If you mean Czech pile, yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoblinZ
I sided in:
4 Tracker
2 Sphere of Resistance
-1 Loam
-1 Bog
-3 Ghost Quarter
-1 Glacial Chasm
My theory was that I wanted to slow them down. Unlike Dice Box, I didn't play Drop of Honey (this might change in the future, but $$). I viewed Wasteland as good as Ghost Quarter because they play so few basics. My plan is to attack their mana and tax them with Tabernacle and spheres. They're greedy on their manabase and are very spell-dependent so I wanted to take this plan. I kept Chalice in the board because Crop Rotation and Gamble are very important.
Thanks a lot for sharing your list!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
1) Question: you play the EE package AND Drop of Honey. How would you replace the Drop in your list?
I went for:
-2 Drop
+1 EE
+1 Tracker
2) I tested your list (modified as mentionned above) yesterday against a friend of mine who was playing DnT (with black splash for Bob/Orzhov), and I went 0-2, 0-2, 0-2, 0-1 into friendly rage quit.
I didn't play the deck for month, and I certainly were a bit rusty, but still, it didn't expect the matchup to be that hard. Does it feel the same to you these days? i.e. that the matchup became significantly harder that it use to be? Or was it just a mixture between poor plays from me and bad luck?
I sided as followed: +3 Trackers, +1 EE, +4 KGrip // -1 Bojuka, -1 Karakas, -2 Maze, -1 Glacial Chasm, -2 Gamble, -1 Ghost Quarter. Maybe the problem was also my boarding choice (should I have kept the 2 Gamble?), please feel free to write what you think about that too. Thanks!
Before Drop I was running board wipes in that slot. Kozilek's Return before Leo and Heaven//Earth after.
I feel like you went for all the things you wanted but not all the things you could afford. 4 Grip I like, more removal I like too, but Trackers I think while they have their place you might have been better off leaving them in the side to keep Gamble and Maze. Gamble against DnT is really important. Forget about it getting Loam in this match, your often going for Grip. To either take out an RIP, an Equipment or an early Vial. Target the Vials with your grips too if you can. Make them spend their mana casting things and that takes away a lot of their early interaction. If they need 3 mana, they often can't be as liberal with their Wastelands. Maze is great here, because you can stop whatever overly equipped thing they want to beat you with.
The other thing is cut Quarters more. Against a deck with more than 6 Basics, its just fine to go down 2 GQ. They are not Wastelands here, they are tempo negative and only help if you are locking them down hard. Note that with hard control this is not as true, in the case of Miracles its best to try and run them out of White and GQ help with that.
I'm busy with preparing for MKM Barcelona at the moment and after some poor showings at my weekly with Storm I decided to run RGu lands instead. I've been very content with my list so far, but could use some tips and tricks with respect to sideboarding. Here's the list I'm currently testing:
4 Life from the Loam
4 Gamble
4 Crop Rotation
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
3 Punishing Fire
1 Molten Vortex
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Wasteland
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Glacial Chasm
Sideboard:
4 Sphere of Resistance
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Ancient Tomb
2 Heaven // Earth
1 Crucible of Worlds
My main question about the mainboard is whether I have enough colored mana sources. So far it hasn't been a problem, but maybe people with more experience have some ideas about this. I used to run 61 cards with 4 fetch, but I often saw too many fetchlands without targets and I wanted to play 60 cards, so I cut a fetch. Now I've got 16 green sources and 14 red sources in the list. In general I'm very happy with how the maindeck feels. I'm more of a control player than fast combo player, so this suits my style better than straight R/G combo (then I prefer Turbo Depths actually). I've previously played a RGb version with 4x Molten Vortex and no Punishing Fire and after some games now with this build I really feel that the P-Fire suite is superior to Molten Vortex only, especially in G1 when there's little graveyard hate to worry about.
The sideboard is decent. I added an ancient tomb instead of Grip nr. 4, but I haven't gotten to test much again combo decks sadly (limited to cockatrice and my playgroup at the moment). Heaven/Earth has been tech I took from Dice_Box and they've been overperforming a lot. Really happy with those. I'm considering changing one Chalice for a Thorn of Amethyst if I can get my hands on one at the tournament. I'll still be making a sideboard guide for myself, but for this input is welcome. Basically I got the standard issue of what to take out. Typically against blue decks with many counterspells I take out 2-4 of a combination of Gamble and Crop Rotation because it's so horrible to those countered. Ghost Quarter is also often boarded out by 1-3 in almost every matchup and then Bojuka Bog, Karakas, Barbarian Ring, Maze of Ith and Academy Ruins/EE for those matchups that they are not relevant for. What I'd like to know is if people ever take out Explorations, Life from the Loams or Mox Diamonds? I sometimes take out a single Loam when I expect a lot of extraction effects.
Speaking of extraction effects, how do people play against these? Ideally, you want a cycle land or other instant draw effect to protect your loam, but with only 2 of those effects often in the deck, I experience that this is more of a luxury than a regular situation. Do you sandbag your loams? I used to play rather aggressively with my loams and P-Fires and that opened me up to some severe punishments a couple of times. Since then I'm more careful, but it is a difficult balance between waiting too long and dying before the engine works and slamming the engine too early so that you get disrupted all over the place. Getting my loams so regularly extracted is one of the reasons for me to run a Crucible in the board now.
In short, if anyone has a sideboard guide or other tips, all are welcome. I know Dice_Box is too busy to update the primer, but it would be really nice if we could get an up-to-date version of it. I have the time to write it, but not the experience yet with the deck. If it is of interest, I could write a draft based on info that is submitted through this topic.
Makes sense, I will try this. Thank you!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Split CFB’s $4k with my usual RGu list.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Sheltered Thicket
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
4 Crop Rotation
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Exploration
4 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam
1 Molten Vortex
4 Mox Diamond
3 Punishing Fire
Sideboard:
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Karakas
3 Krosan Grip
3 Sphere of Resistance
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Tireless Tracker
Matchups:
R1: Elves 2-1
R2: Junk 2-0
R3: Nic Fit 2-0
R4: ANT 0-2
R5: BUG Delver 2-0
R6: BUG Delver 2-1
R7: BG pox 1-1-1 -> friend conceded to me
Quarters: Eldrazi and Taxes 2-0
Will probably write a small report later. I last minute switched my Needle to the chalice but wasn’t insanely impressed. Not sure what it’ll be. Karakas in the board was fine, I like having an additional cycle land Main.
I still like your list (but have some differences in mine).Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkii
How did the EE perform and how was molten vortex performing?
The 3 DD, did you miss one or was it even one too much?
The ANT match, was it bad luck or what could have helped in that situation?
Did anyone really tried Solemnity as a sideboard option for specific matchups and abuse of Glacial? Or was it left unchecked since the last time we've mentioned it here (so right after spoiler, if I am no wrong) and that was it? I'm curious if it's even worth testing in competitive meta, or is is just a wasted slot and effort.
EE has always been good. If they weren’t good I would play RG.
Molten vortex is a beast. Czech can’t usually beat it as they play one decay in the 75 and it’s nice insurance against decks packing blood moon. I would highly recommend a 3-1 split on fires and vortex.
The ANT MU was sort of expected, G1 he found the right mix of cards to play around an EE0 stopping double LED before I stripped him of basics. G2 I had a sphere of resistance + Chalice @0, but he found the Singleton By Force and killed me shortly after. I think the MU is still find postboard, I just kind of durdled with lock pieces in play without finding action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=301uAATjvPg?t=22m26s
"I hope someone clipped that, so I can watch myself getting punched in the dick. Repeatedly."
"I think my opponent is taking so long to reserve here cause they are smoking a cigarette after they just railed us in the anus."
Still not sure if I should include the vortex. I'm still on two tropical for my loving TW and still don't like those non-4-ofs which are dead when dead. How do you play it? Do you draw instead of loaming or just hope for it in your first hand or do you gamble for it...?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkii
I'm thinking about a third EE right now... How can you bring me to the right path? :wink:
when do you side in surgical extraction? Would you still play 2 in your next tournament?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparkii
I’ve been on two for quite some time now. I bring it in against the snapcaster decks and anything with obvious graveyard interaction, as well as combo.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoblinZ
I’ve also been known to like it against Greedy manabase decks like Delver, to cut them off a color.
Question for those of you playing the 4x ghost quarter build: when playing against a deck with 3 or fewer basics (ANT, czech pile, reanimator... Etc), do you prioritize destroying basics with ghost quarter to minimize the number of times you need to use it before it becomes "stripmine", or do you prioritize destroying duals first to choke someone on colors, then start destroying their basics after?
That's deck dependent. Against Combo I don't aim for their Lands with Quarter as I want to give them less access to shuffle effects, that is unless I can Choke them. Against a midrange deck with low basic counts I aim to run them out asap.
This is actually dependent on if I have Exploration as well. If I have an active Exploration I am more likely to aggressively Quarter. If I don't I will judge if I can take the Tempo loss.
I don't understand the question.Quote:
Originally Posted by Djehuti
If a deck with 3 basics has 1 dual and 1 basic in play, GQ becomes a Strip Mine on the 3rd activation regardless of which land you target 1st. Might as well hit the dual (unless the basic provides a colour that the dual does not).
Edit - The only other reason to hit the basic is if you think you might see a Wasteland before you get your GQ back (eg, no Loam). In this case you might hit the basic with GQ so you'll still have a Wasteland target later.
Question about dealing with Leovold.
Yestereday I was facing it in 3rd game, with DRS at his side. I destroyed DRS, then made some quick gimmicks to shut his mana down. Combining Quarter with Wastelands, in single turn I destroyed all his basic and 2 of 3 lands. Unfortunately, he had something like 90 cards in hand by then, that quickly became 4 lands, another DRS and Blood Moon one turn before my Choke.
Is Karakas the only realtively profitable option for us against Leo? Dice mentioned using Heaven // Earth in sideboard against him, yet I find it hard to use it properly with so much threat from DRS's and countermagic, unless you have Boseju in board.
Leovold doesn't effect us too badly because we don't take extra draws very often (we usually replace them). Ways to deal with Leovold:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiktul
That's all I've got off the top of my head. Maybe a pumped up Tracker?
- Don't let them get 3 coloured mana in the 1st place (easier in a Port build).
- Engineered Explosives (or SB tech like Drop of Honey or Song of the Dryads).
- Destroy all their Lands and kill it with Tabernacle.
- Glacial Chasm.
- Fly over it with a 20/20.
- Hit it with Karakas, double Vortex, double BRing. or double Punishing fire (gives them cards).
What Dice said about giving someone the shuffle/can you afford the tempo loss and what you say here about expecting a wasteland later is what i was interested in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Here's my strategy:Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiktul
Tax their mana while destroying their resources! It's the SAME game plan as every other deck. Just because Leovold denies us a draw with Tranquil Thicket doesn't mean we need to lose our shit. We still need to stay alive, we still need to prevent Jace and Blood Moon from happening. Nothing has changed.
Maze their attackers, Tabernacle their creatures, Wasteland/Ghost Quarter lock them out of the game. Use Punishing Fire to kill stragglers.
What good is a million cards if they don't have any mana to use them?
I followed this strategy against a Pile deck (granted, he didn't have Blood Moon) and ended up decking him at Legacy Champs. He took my Trackers, Depths and Wastelands by the time the game was over, but he couldn't stop me from decking him. All of his threats were dealt with by Maze and Tabernacle upkeeps and later Punishing Fire/Barbarian Ring. DRS never lived to untap.
I played one of my worst tournaments ever last Sunday at the MKM Series Barcelona. I’m not sure if the meta was really this hostile towards lands or that it was bad luck, but my matchups were absolutely terrible. Without further ado:
R1: UW Miracles (0-2)
R2: Mono Red Stompy (1-2)
R3: Show and Tell (0-2)
R4: BReanimator (2-1)
R5: Elves! (1-1-1)
R6: BW Smallpox (2-0)
R7: ANT (0-2)
R8: Mono Red Painter (1-2)
Total record: 2-5-1.
So yes, 6 out of 8 matches had Blood Moon effects either mainboard or sideboard (the Elves! player had a small red splash). The SnT player never needed them out of the board as he had a turn two SnT into Griselbrand in our game 2 after he won game 1 as well, but I have no doubt he boarded them in.
I played the same list as I posted a few posts up. The list performed really well and I was happy with all my slots. I’m not sure if I would change anything. Maybe a second EE mainboard like Sparkii does, but that might just be because of all the Blood Moons that I faced, where it was my only out for a mainboard Blood Moon. I had expected to see a lot of D&T, Czech and Grixis Delver but I saw none of it across me… That just happens sometimes I suppose. I’ll give a summary of each match with some of the ‘highlights’ of my tournament.
Round 1 I started with a mulligan to six which was mediocre, but sadly pretty bad against miracles. I’ve played this match a couple of times now and I feel quite favoured in game 1 if I can get the loam or grove/Pfire engine running, but neither worked out for me. In game 2 he tapped out on turn 3 for a mentor. In my turn I Punishing Fire with Grove as backup against Surgical. He had FoW to keep the mentor alive, which I kind of expected. In his upkeep, I use Grove to get punishing fire back, to which he responds with a surgical on my P-Fire. I have a crop rotation in my hand that I use to respond to the mentor triggers and the surgical to get another Grove that gets my Punishing Fire back into my hand, which I then get to cast on the mentor. He has a Swords to plowshares on his token that he got from the FoW a turn earlier, so his mentor stays alive. In his mainphase he follows with a Snapcaster Mage on the Surgical to get rid of my Punishing Fires and basically wins the game from there on with a hoard of mentor tokens. I feel I played everything correctly here, but that he just had it all in game 2.
Round 2 I knew what I was up against as I saw this guy play next to me in round 1. In game 1, he started with a Chalice on 1, followed by a Blood Moon, a Trinisphere, an Ensnaring Bridge and another Blood Moon, but no pressure. I got a lucky topdeck for my EE, which removed most of the lock pieces. He let me resolve a gamble for Academy Ruins, so that I could get stuff going. I made a mistake to remove his chalice as this also removed my two Mox Diamonds that ensured I could make three colors under a future moon effect. I realized this error and tried to play around it, but I was also very busy establishing a Glacial Chasm lock as my life total was rather low by now. After shipping the turn a couple of turns later I suddenly realized I had to play EE on 3 pre-emptively because another Blood Moon would lock me out, which he found and we were on to game 2. Here I made happily use of the new rules interaction between Blood Moon and Dark Depths, playing it under a moon with a grip in my hand for a turn 4 kill. Game 3 he had turn two Blood Moon, followed by a Chalice on 1, Ensnaring Bridge and Lookout Spyglass on EE. There was nothing I could do here anymore…
Round three my opponent was stuck on a single island, while I was flooding in lands, drawing more and more lands. When he found his second land, a show and telled Omniscience closed the game quickly. Game 2 he had a turn two Show and Tell into Griselbrand to which I had no answer at that moment.
Round four my opponent reanimates a Sire of Insanity on turn 1 on the play of two lotus petals, but no actual lands. I luck out by drawing a land and then a crop rotation for a Tabernacle, which kills his creature as he hadn’t managed to find a land. He then makes a mistake by reanimating Griselbrand, going to 7 life, but not having a land still. Griselbrand dies in his next upkeep without ever drawing any cards and I take the game from there. Game two I get destroyed by an early Griselbrand and Tidespout Tyrant. In game three I keep a god-like hand of the following six cards: Exploration, Mox Diamond, Dark Depths, Thespian’s Stage, Bojuka Bog and Chalice of the Void. I play Diamond (discarding Bog), play chalice on 0 and dump the rest of my hand on the table. He had kept a turn 1 Blood Moon with an Ancient Tomb and either Lotus Petal or Chrome Mox, but couldn’t play this because of the Chalice. I draw a land for my next turn and as he casts the Blood Moon on his second turn, I make a 20/20 flying tentacle lady and kill him.
Round five I play against a local guy from the shop where I play my weeklies, who always plays Elves! I had a decent hand with an exploration and some other gas. He plays turn 1 land, Nettle Sentinel. I waste his land, play a Maze of Ith and prepare for a board position from which I can soon take full control over his board. On his second turn he attacks (untap with Maze) and then he plays Birchlore Ranger off a Gaea’s Cradle. Tap both elves to cast another Nettle Sentinel. Tap both Sentinels for a Glimpse of Nature. Tap both Sentinels for a new elf, draw a card. About twenty minutes later, he could have literally drawn his whole deck, but left a few cards in his library as the next creature he played would be lethal (he had played four Glimpses by this time). Because he already attacked, he couldn’t kill me with the Cradlehoof Behemoth. I top-decked a glacial chasm, but he got a complex loop going with Tasigur, Four Glimpse of Nature, Four Nettle Sentinels, Four Green Sun’s Zenith and a Collective Brutality, to essentially get to play (near) infinite copies of the Collective Brutality, draining all my life. This game took about 30-35 minutes, with me mostly watching as my opponent navigated through some rather complex loops. Game two I got another god hand and killed him the turn before he could Blood Moon me. Game three could have been interesting, but time was called too early and neither of us could win. He was in a better position, but I had a Heaven/Earth to clear his board, so the game was still alive. I scooped because I wanted to give him the chance of at least going 5-3 rather than 4-3-1 (he didn’t want to scoop).
Round six was against a rather strange BW deck with vindicates, smallpox, Liliana of the Veil and [CARDS]Myth Realized[\CARDS] as win condition. I killed him easily in game 1. In game two he put up more of a fight, which ended with him forcing me to make a 20/20 token in his main phase, so he could cast the innocent blood from his hand. As he looked through his deck after fetching for the required mana source, he realized there were no more targets available (the game had been dragging on quite long with a lot of silly draws) and inevitably got killed by my 20/20 in my turn.
Round seven I had the pleasure of getting destroyed by ANT. I didn’t have much pressure on game one as I couldn’t find a Stage to go with my Depths. I gave him too much time to sculpt his hand and kill me once I found the combo. Game two I had an early Sphere of Resistance, followed by another Sphere, hoping that it would prevent him from casting much. Sadly I was chocked a bit on lands and couldn’t cast much myself either (I did have Crop Rotation for Bog open though). He drew a lot of lands, which allowed him to keep casting cantrips and sculpt his hand for his combo turn. He found his Hurkyl’s Recall just by the time I had found gotten my Depths/Stage combo online. The Crop Rotation could not prevent him from going off as his hand was nearly perfect from all the sculpting that he had done. The game effectively revolved about him having to find his Recall before I could kill him, which he did.
Round eight I was paired against a young boy from Poland, who was there with his sister and dad who also played in the tournament. I had seen him play next to me in the previous round and when I saw him, I just laughed out loud. Mono Red Painter, just the perfect way to end my day filled with awkward/bad match ups and tons of Blood Moons. I punted several times in game one, as I was tired and annoyed with another terrible matchup. I have no clue if I could’ve won the game, but my mistakes didn’t help. Game two I opened with a forest, he had a turn 1 Blood Moon. Turn two I played Dark Depths, he played Painter’s Servant. Turn three I played a land and he played Grindstone. In his End Step I play Krosan Grip and kill him before he would mill me out. Game three he had another turn 1 Blood Moon of a SSG and an Ancient Tomb. I kept a hand with a Mox Diamond so I could at least play stuff. His turn two he plays Painter’s Servant on blue. I follow with an EE on 2, so even if he plays Grindstone next turn, he couldn’t activate it before I could blow up his Servant. Not only did he have the Grindstone though, he also had a Red Elemental Blast for my EE. I looked at my hand with a Gamble and Crop Rotation, facing the combo in his turn. I was a bit short on mana (missed a land drop) and there was literally nothing I could do to stop him. He had taken a mulligan into that hand… I’m not sure there was anything I could’ve done about his hand. This slaughter fest experience like the most typical ending of my day, which I felt consisted of an unusual amount of such bad luck moments.
I’ll hopefully be playing another tournament tomorrow with the same list (unless I get some suggestions here) to see if I can turn my luck around!