On Leovold: I've got 2 slots of my 75 locked, but right now they're in the sideboard. They come in in nearly every matchup, but I want to keep more broad interaction maindeck and then bring Leo in once I know what I want from him.
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On Leovold: I've got 2 slots of my 75 locked, but right now they're in the sideboard. They come in in nearly every matchup, but I want to keep more broad interaction maindeck and then bring Leo in once I know what I want from him.
Can you share your list?Quote:
Originally Posted by btm10
What do you board out for leo?
Land (21)
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Forest
1 Swamp
Creatures (15)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Baleful Strix
Draw/Manipulation (8)
4 Brainstorm
3 Ancestral Vision
1 Ponder
Interaction (14)
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
Planeswalker (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil
Sideboard:
3 Thoughtseize
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Fatal Push
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Sylvan Library
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Diabolic Edict
I think Leovold is relevant in like 90%+ of matchups. I was previously running him in the sideboard but it became obvious that he was being brought in basically every game. Worst case, he's a vanilla 3/3 for 3 that pitches to Force... but generally his ability can really swing games in a major way.
I agree, but the most likely place for him to end up (main) is in the Hymn slots, meaning that you're taking either (an admittedly less extreme version of) the Lejay route of conceding game 1 to combo or cutting something like Baleful Strix and reducing our ways of stalling/grinding out crearure decks and the size of our Tarmogoyfs. Both of the leading candidates for removal are two-drops, and replacing them with a 3-drop either exacerbates Shardless' clunkiness or pushes you toward running additional mana accelerants like Noble Hierarch. I'm not disputing Leovold's utility in a variety of matchups, I just think that his marginal utility/WAR (if you're as excited about baseball season as I am) is lower than either Hymn's or Strix's, even though he's both extremely powerful and tends to make you stabilize a lot more firmly than the other cards in their respective matchups. He's great, he comes in a lot, I just want to limit clunk as much as possible, give myself the best chance game 1 against combo while maintaining my strong 'fair' matchups, and make sure Leovold is surrounded by the best possible supporting cast so that resolving him is more likely to be game-ending.Quote:
Originally Posted by wcm8
The alternative to the above problems is to play a better game 1 Leovold deck. I've been working pretty hard on non-Shardless BUG midrange in preparation for SCG Baltimore, and I'm maindecking Leovold there. I actually think that 'stock' Shardless lists (my own included) need substantial metagame adjustments rather than simple trimming of numbers to accomodate Leovold the way most people have done, but that making those adjustments requires more work than simply starting from scratch without the Cascade engine; I also suspect that non-Cascade lists are just better-positioned against the field right now, though they're slightly worse in the BUG pseudo-mirror.
I would actually have to argue that Leo can take the slots of any four mana planeswalkers and an Ancestral, or in your case Jitte, and not Hymn. If you wanted to keep a play set of Ancestral, you could take out a Lili for him as well. Those are the slots I'm looking at while thinking about Leo in my build.
I just can't see cutting JTMS for Leovold. I'm also trying to find room for him MB. I only play 1 Lili so it would be hard cutting her.Quote:
Originally Posted by Krimson Viper
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I've been messing around with a deck that kind of falls between Shardless and Team America Midrange. I'm posting it to this thread instead of the other one because I feel it is slightly closer to Classic Shardless than Team America. I call it Shardless Nemesis, anyway here is the list(Yes it is 61 cards, I always play 61 card lists):
Shardless Nemesis
Creatures (16):
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
2 True-Name Nemsis
1 Baleful Strix
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
Spells(24):
Instants(13):
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Fatal Push
Sorcery(8):
3 Ancestral Vision
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Ponder
Planeswalker(3):
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Lands:(21)
4 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
Sideboard(15):
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Force of Will
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dread of Night
1 Sylvan Library
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Umezawa's Jitte
If you want to know the side boarding plan I can elaborate but I'm sure most people can guess. Anyway It's something a little different that I thought I would share. So far I have been having pretty good results (Primarily play MTGO) but I would say it is weak and strong against the following:
Strong against:
Most Delver Variants
BUG midrange variants
Miracles
Eldrazi
Reanimator
Dredge
Junk
Jund
Weak against:
Storm Variants
Burn
R/U Delver
Lands
50/50 Against:
Nic Fit variants
LandStill Variants
Not enough games:
Elves
Death & Taxes
Omnitell
Show and Tell
Bant/Deathblade
This have no sense imho.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grizzlybeer
I can talk about BR Reanimator obv, because this is the most explosive archetype of Reanimator, one of the deck to beat of the last months and one of the most played combo deck in this actual meta.
I have play a lot of games vs BR Reanimator and the G1 is near to impossible.
My list have less dead cards by your list vs this archetype (your 2x Fatal Push and your 2x Nemesis are totally dead).
In add to this my mana base have no basic island and this reduce the trouble for mana green -> shaman ability of remove creature.
IMHO my list is more stronger than yours (2 Baleful Strix who can block vs 1 --- 2 Leovold who can stop Griselbrand vs 1 --- 1 Maelstrom Pulse vs 1 Fatal Push --- 60 cards vs 61) vs this specifically archetype and >IMHO< the matchup is very difficult.
Maybe I have just been lucky? Do you mind sharing the list so I can see the difference?(I scrolled back a few pages and don't see it's posted but may have missed it) I haven't had a problem using deathrite at all I mean there are some Shardless decks that run 3 to 4 wastes so I have the Island instead of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hrothgar
G1 I have 2x Lili, 4 deathrite, 1 jace, 3 hymn and 3 force, 1 Leo. (Definitely weak to it G1 but I'm weaker to most "combo"-esque decks G1)
G2 and 3, I have Needle, null rod, 2x surgical, 4th force, 2 thoughtseize, 1 cage, 1 clique that I bring in.
-3 Vision, -2 True-name, -2 Fatal, -2 Decay
With those changes I've had good success. I end up attacking it in a bunch of different ways but as I said maybe I've just been lucky?
Honestly curious what everyone's plan is for opposing Leo decks not Shardless. I have a feeling that I want to keep Forces in and side out Hymns, both Strix as well as Pulse and bring in two Push, Loam, G. Charm, Plague, and Expertise. What is everyone's experience? What roles do you find yourself playing with success?
My list I am running:
4 DRS
2 Strix
4 Goyf
4 Shardless
2 Leovold
1 Lili
4 Visions
4 BS
3 Hymn
4 Decay
1 Deluge
1 Pulse
4 FoW
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Sea
2 Bayou
2 Trop
1 Tar Pit
2 Wasteland
4 Delta
4 Catacombs
2 Misty
1 Spellbomb
1 Needle
3 Thoughtseize
2 Push
1 ScOoze
1 Rod
1 Jitte
1 Life from the Loam (not enthused about this)
1 G. Charm
1 Clique
1 Plague
1 Y. Expertise
I'm rolling over eliminating a single TS and I thought about LftL because I've noticed that getting Wasted is troublesome in BUG MUs not Shardless.
I haven't played Shardless in a while, but in theory Lejay's approach should be the best one if your meta is BUG TNN happy.
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Toxic Deluge
Is a great place to start. I really like Night of Souls' Betrayal currently as well with D&T being somewhat common. I am also very high on Toxic Deluge at the moment.
I think the sideboard could use some updating, I don't like Swords to Plowshares for instance. Also, we need more than 1 Leyline of the Void. Meddling Mage still pulls his weight vs many combo decks, but I think going down to 3 is good. Gives us room for Leyline 2, and cutting Grafdigger's lets us play Leyline 3. This gives us:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Ponder (Possibly should be Leo instead)
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Sylvan Library (Possibly should be Leo instead)
4 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
Sideboard
3 Meddling Mage
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Savannah
1 Dismember
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Pithing Needle
1 Null Rod
1 Duress
3 Thoughtseize (or 4 and 0 Duress)
That's definitely an interesting maindeck. 2 Toxic + 1 Pulse is a lot of extra removal though, and with 5 walkers MB I don't think the Sylvan Library is necessary. Your list seems kind of weak to combo right now; I get that you want to hedge against TNN builds, but I think you should do something like -1 Library, -1 Jace, -1 Pulse for +3 Hymns. If your meta is super light on combo, disregard, but otherwise I would suggest you seriously consider this. Anyway, nice list!Quote:
Originally Posted by ironclad8690
More generally, I'm confused as to why many people are playing Ponder in this list. Ponder is of course a great card, but shouldn't we be trying to maximize our chances of cascading into a 2-drop or Visions with Agents? Hitting Ponder isn't terrible but not nearly as good as hitting Visions/Hymn/Strix/Goyf/Decay. I think this deck should be playing as few 1-drops as possible, for this reason and also to make Chalice worse against us. Deathrite and Brainstorm are the exceptions since they are just THAT good.
You can go back in the thread to read about the different inclusions in this list (Lejay here on the source a.k.a Jean-Mary Accart of Legacy GP top 8 fame used to play it a lot, and I did as well) but to add a quick TL;DR:Quote:
Originally Posted by FZA
1. It has a lot of removal because it it tuned to beat fair decks game 1 (the number one reason to pick up shardless in the first place since the shell is fundamentally flawed if you want to beat combo consistently game 1 anyway). You can adapt vs combo and play a heavy amount of discard, but that hurts you in other ways.
2. For that reason (and because of the carefully tuned manabase that isn't hurt by fetching forest early) no hymns where played maindeck (very bad cascade and top-deck in grindy games).
3. Ponder was played instead of an additional land as the deck is somewhat prone to flood out if you play many lands, but Ponder can still find lands if needed. It's also a blue spell and a good top-deck.
4. The deck is actually better against combo than you realize from the maindeck. Sure, game 1 you are a dog, but post-board you bring in about 13 cards and become a huge favorite as you have counters, discard and hatebears.
The list was suuuper good when I played it and would probably still be fine (as Lejay said earlier it's very versatile) but I haven't played shardless in a long time now so maybe it is less good nowadays.
Played a few casual games tonight and I left a Jace on the table and didn't attack into him with Leo on the table. That felt disgustingly good.
Agree, and peoplehave to keep in mind that list make good shardless card post board.... always impact vs combo tooQuote:
Originally Posted by LarsLeif
Quote.Quote:
Originally Posted by LarsLeif
The G2 / G3 are good VS combo imho.
So I just listened to the Brainstorm Show's Shardless deck tech - it's nearly a year old, but still worth a listen if you enjoy this archetype.
One thing that I found interesting was that they advocate sideboarding out 2 copies of Abrupt Decay in the mirror. They didn't go into too much detail about this but said something about it being "clunky". I had never considered boarding out Decays in the mirror, because they're answers to Deathrite/Goyf/Strix as well as to an unchecked Lili or Sylvan Library, both of which we can lose to easily with no answer.
My sideboard plan for the mirror is usually to remove Force of Wills and some discard (Hymn is a 2-for-1 but also a bad topdeck/cascade late game) and bring in Disfigures (well, Fatal Pushes now) along with "grindy" cards like Library and Jace. I usually side in a V-Clique as well if I'm playing one.
Another topic: do you guys every side out Goyfs? The only time I do so is if I see my opponent bringing in Rest in Peace or Leyline for game 2, depending on what they're playing. Some people advocate removing them against Miracles because of StP, but it's not like we can make StP a dead card against us anyway.
Boarding out decay in the mirror seems loose to me. Answering their permanents is a must. I'd have to hear what else they leave in and board out though.
I trim 2 goyfs vs combo decks like storm infect elves show and tell etc. You often only need 1 or 0 to win. If you have a meddling mage board you can cut all 4. I do not trim vs miracles, I'd rather cut DRS or the strixes if I need to board out some creatures.
From the miracles side: I'm much, much less afraid of Tarmogoyf than Drs, if facing shardless. Goyf is just a dumb beater; Drs enables broken lines of play and completly neuters snapcaster if I don't draw removal for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by ironclad8690