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Hey Ben,
How was Horizon Canopy for you? It seemed to helped in the finals and semifinals as cantrips, as you never used them for mana iirc, but how were they overall? Did the life-loss mattered in the other match-ups?
What do you think of Batterskull? What match-ups did you search him out for?
Congrats! It was the most exciting SCG semifinals and finals I had watched in a while!
Maybe as a third O-Ring that can be Vialed in against Emrakul/Griselbrand? Seems like it could be alright.Quote:
@Cairo: How was Fiend Hunter? In which matches did you bring him in?
PS: I've been wanting to get this deck together for awhile...if I could just win my Karakas auctions. Have all 57 cards sitting in my cabinet waiting on 3 more Karakas.
I didn't get the opportunity to play him in the event, but he proved solid in testing. I boarded him in against Maverick, RUG, and Merfolk. He's a great 1-2 of because he's synergistic with Vial and Flickerwisp and can be applied to a lot of matches. He can come in versus Show and Tell and is good against MUD decks as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbed Blightning
Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by L10
I've been a big fan of Horizon Canopy. The lifeloss is pretty marginal. I took a few points in a handful of games yesterday, but comparably my opponents were taking more off their fetches. The ability to cantrip midgame off what otherwise would be a dead land draw was valuable on several occasions. I've tested configurations with 1-3 Canopy and found 2 to be the best compromise in terms of having a reasonable Plains count, not drawing double Canopy, but also eking out as much free value as possible. The deck has so many non-basics that Canopy rarely is the best target for Wasteland and one can usually play out Plains first anyway to have the double White available the turn it's needed.
Batterskull was phenomenal all day. With 4 Mother of Runes and 4 Vial (EOT pseudo-haste), Death and Taxes protects Stoneforge Mystic as well or better than any deck in the format. And when SFM sticks on the table Batterskull usually blows the game open. It was my go to against control matches, and depending on the hand/board state it can be the stronger pull against Merfolk or RUG - I gambled game 1 against Merfolk fetching Jitte and Nic's swarm of Lords was way to unmanageable for it, Batterskull would have been the better pull there.
I also noticed your extra Jitte in the sideboard. Seems smart, since I played two matches against Stoneblade yesterday and more than once had a Jitte blown up by another Jitte.Quote:
Originally Posted by from Cairo
I actually had a hard time with Stoneblade yesterday: losing 0-2 to UW Stoneblade and going to time and drawing with Esper Stoneblade. Each of them seemed to have answers for everything I did, and a resolved Jitte puts Death and Taxes in a pretty bad place.
How did your Stoneblade match-ups go?
I found my way to the archive coverage tonight thanks to someone kindly posting the link. That was fun to watch.
http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/331618557
Ya gotta love Cedric, Glenn, and Patrick all giving Miracles the nod and barely even considering that Ben had any game against it. That attitude is literally all you get from the big whigs. How many games have we all won against opponents who can not believe it just happened?
I have found Miracles a hard matchup. Maybe I need lessons from Cairo. I did not see much of anything to complain about watching you play. Job well done.
Also, Horizon Canopy is kinda cool. It may just be time to give it a closer look.
I started to test Batterskull and Canopy today. Both excelled from what I found.
I still want to run SoLaS in my side since it auto-win the maverick matchup, but damn didn't Batterskull turn three feel good. Especially with Mom backup. Feel kinda blockheaded for not adding it earlier.
Horizon Canopy was just as clutch. It gave me just the right amount gas in the mid/late game to draw more power. In this deck, I feel like late topdecks are almost always bombs, and having a way to get the last pound of pressure in was very nice. 2 feels right, as 1 and 3 feel like they could get detrimental. Batterskull also makes the loss negligible.
Congratulations to From Cairo! Very proud to see D and T finish #1. Coming back from mulls to five multiple times shows this deck's consistency.
1. Batterskull: Its needed maindeck. Recently played in a tournament and I boarded Batterskull in nearly every match. Viligence and lifelink help so much vs. aggro decks. I'm placing the Sword of Light and Shadow in the board for relevant matchups.
2. I noticed the lack of E - tutor in From Cairo's list. Is this recommended?
To be fair, Cedric Phillips doesn't think any deck other than Belcher or Kithkin is playable :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn
He does think decks like Maverick/D&T/decks with dorks are doing well because they are strong. His opinion is that why would you play such decks when you could instead play Combo and wreck everyone instead? He is lamenting the fact that with access to some of the most broken cards to Legacy, people are still playing Mother of Runes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Esper3k
Agree with 1 totally. Solas is excellent againt deadguy and mav, but skull kills Canadian and Gobs outright.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wynk
2 is debated. Personally I'm finding tutors weaker with thalia. I'd rather port my opponent than use it on a spell that potentially could be countered. Or use a waste and keep karakas up. Or draw off canopy. Even if we resolve our tutor, there are no guarantees our hate will stick.
I like Nash's list. I did some theorycrafting with a friend to create a creature based side once rtr hits. It might be here, and is somewhere on the salvo.
I like the idea of a creature SB. With vial and Thalia the synergy would be amazing. However, do we then prepare to board 3 Honor of the Pure? All our utility dorks have tiny butts. A hasted goblin sharpshooter did me in during my last tournament killing Thalia and 2 flickerwisp. Zealous Persecution, Sulfur Elemental and Dread of Night make me shudder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbed Blightning
The more popular this deck and Maverick become, the more we'll have to redesign the board to fight hate as opposed to using the board to hate other decks.
I suppose the question, however, is why Sharpshooter wasn't revoked or exiled in response to his first activation. Goblins is an eternally easy matchup for us; the key is counter his aggression with aggressive control--Jitte-Thalia, for example.
Two of those hate cards can be stalled by Thalia and waste/port. The third is almost exclusively RUG tech, and three mana is a HUGE commitment for that deck, esp. since wasting red sources and porting green ones is often the right call. I wouldn't worry about them too much, personally.
That said, Serra Avenger doesn't give a good goddamn about any of those cards. If there's anything we can learn from Mr. Nash's top 8 matches, it's the raw power of Serra Avenger.
Preaching to the choir :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbed Blightning
Giving just my 2 cents. Atm I'm testing 4x Veteran Armorer in sb. It's viable, and protects vs Sulfur elemental. It's great in multiples and denies forked bolt. Also takes serra avenger out of bolt. It's also something to keep the pressure up. All the times I'm boarding him in a lot of people with red(even gobs) gets in trouble.
That's pretty neat. With all the Honor of the Pure talk, I started wondering what other options there are. I remembered Castle, but that doesn't help tapped guys, costs too much, can't hold Jitte, etc..
We shouldn't forget that Plated Sliver was always one of Countersliver's best options, or that Goyf's +1 toughness always made it harder to deal with. Veteran Armorer might not work out in the end, but I'm glad there are better options out there than Castle!
Honestly, Armorer sounds like decent tech as a 2-3 of in the side. definitely would be awesome to respond to a forked bolt by vialing him into play. :laugh:
I'd need to see more Sulfurs and Forked effects in the meta before I'd say that, however.
Thoughts on new enchantment Rest in Peace for Sideboard?
1W
When Rest in Peace enters the battlefield, exile all cards from all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
Seems like an auto-include for E-Tutor package sideboards... ridiculous against ANT, TES, High Tide, and especially DREDGE. Shuts off Grunts, but does the job a Grunt would do against such a deck, except better.
For a Tutor/Bullet build of the side, I see RIP as essential tech. Grunts could be removed for two of these and a Relic (Canadian), though I'd keep a Crypt in as my 0-cost hate.
RIP also kills Academy Rector decks (Know&Tell, NicFit), and if it hits in time, absolutely stomps the good-jolly-fuck out of Dredge.
For the tutorless build, I advocate Dryad Militant/Jotun Grunt as yard hate, 3 of each.
Yeah, thinking about what this card does to Dredge makes me happy. I've played it each of the last three weeks at my weekly tournament against different players, and its like Tormod's Crypt and Wheel of Sun and Moon smashed into a card that's easier to cast than Wheel.Quote:
Originally Posted by Barbed Blightning
I agree, that card is going to be replacing Wheel of Sun and Moon in my sideboard. I've been meaning to re-tool my sideboard anyways (largely to remove some of the more pointless silver bullets to make space for Judge's Familiar) so now seems to be as good a time as any.