All B/R update speculation.

I don't disagree. The quick clock + disruption plan has always been good vs combo. This goes all the way back to the earliest days of this format, with the various Thresh builds. Merfolk is another strong example.

The reason Control decks had a bad combo matchup was not their lack of disruption per say, but their clock. Factory beats and Decree of Justice was far too slow for 4 Counterspell and 4 Force of Will alone.

Counterbalance is different. Most combo decks revolve around 0cc, 1cc, and 2cc spells. Its very easy to have those on top, or to crack a fetch and then have those on top, with Top itself acting as a 1cc in a pinch.

Show and Tell is a bit trickier with its combo spells costing 3cc and 4cc, but the deck still has a ton of 1cc cantrips and 1cc countermagic. They are also a lot more prone to stuff like Meddling Mage, and Humility affects them unlike it does vs Storm. Control decks have also picked up Jace since then, which gives the control player additional gas in the midgame. The decck also has access to new countermagic it didn't have back in the day, like Spell Pierce.

Overall, I've been happy with my combo matchup with my UW Control deck for quite a while. Goblins and Merfolk were always my worst matchups. Merfolk is all but gone, and Terminus + Entreat are fantastic vs them too. Its also nice that I can board into Humility for both the Goblins and SNT matchups.

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Originally Posted by Tacosnape

Kind of makes you wonder why Show and Tell decks don't sideboard Chalice of the Void.

I still say being by faaaar the best answer to S&T decks (and S&T wrecking everything that preys on RUG) and being extremely consistent are the two reasons this deck is out of control, but if you had to ban a card here, what would the right choice be? Delver of Secrets?

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If you want to curb the power of RUG Delver you'd still have to ban show and tell because show and tell easily and effectively pushes out any and all decks that could give RUG delver a hard time (i.e. Maverick, Nic Fit and slower control decks).

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Originally Posted by Reagens

If you want to curb the power of RUG Delver you'd still have to ban show and tell because show and tell easily and effectively pushes out any and all decks that could give RUG delver a hard time (i.e. Maverick, Nic Fit and slower control decks).

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This.

I have no idea why people can't see this.

The only thing that answers the deck is countermagic with a fast clock (RUG). And please stop saying discard. SNT can put down a Leyline and still win on turn 2 (I've watched it happen).

Or we can all play decks that have humility, elspeth, and manlands in them. Sounds fun!!!

Strongly agreed. My version of Nic Fit has something like an 70-80% win vs Canadian Thresh, but the various Show and Tell decks have been making my life miserable. I stick with it because it's my baby, but I wouldn't call the deck "good" right now, unless my sb changes actually work the way I hope that they will.

It's funny how Canadian Thresh is putting up dramatically more numbers than Sneak/Show, but everyone complains about S/S. There's that psychology thing again...

I really hope Wizards isn't stupid enough to ban something from Canadian because of "just the numbers" -- if they do that, there won't be anything left to stop S/S. Strange how the villain has actually become the hero.

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Originally Posted by Reagens

If you want to curb the power of RUG Delver you'd still have to ban show and tell because show and tell easily and effectively pushes out any and all decks that could give RUG delver a hard time (i.e. Maverick, Nic Fit and slower control decks).

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Thank you. I've been trying to make this point for ages.

I think banning Show and Tell will by itself curb the power of RUG Delver for exactly that reason.

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Originally Posted by Star|Scream

The only thing that answers the deck is countermagic with a fast clock (RUG).

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I disagree with that. I think even a better way to fight them is by decks like White Stax or Dutch Stax so that their spells are rapmed up from the beginning. By the time they can resolve a killer you have already negated the board with Humility or Ensnaring bridge and whatnot. So you don't give them breathing room from start to the end.

And again, for all those who think Show and Tell is a problem card.. Where were these decks before the printing of Griselbrand? I'm not saying Griselbrand pushed it over the edge and requires a ban. I'm just saying that without Griselbrand, beating Show and Tell was trivial.

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Originally Posted by bilb_o

And again, for all those who think Show and Tell is a problem card.. Where were these decks before the printing of Griselbrand? I'm not saying Griselbrand pushed it over the edge and requires a ban. I'm just saying that without Griselbrand, beating Show and Tell was trivial.

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The same argument was used for Survival & Vengevine. Survival was fun and interesting, but not dominating prior to Vengevine, and the latter broke it in half. Same scenario here with S&T and Griselbrand. Yes, Greazy is bonkers, as is putting him into play on turn 2 via Show & Tell.

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Originally Posted by bilb_o

I disagree with that. I think even a better way to fight them is by decks like White Stax or Dutch Stax so that their spells are rapmed up from the beginning. By the time they can resolve a killer you have already negated the board with Humility or Ensnaring bridge and whatnot. So you don't give them breathing room from start to the end.

And again, for all those who think Show and Tell is a problem card.. Where were these decks before the printing of Griselbrand? I'm not saying Griselbrand pushed it over the edge and requires a ban. I'm just saying that without Griselbrand, beating Show and Tell was trivial.

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The problem is WOTC has decided to push the boundaries of large creatures. Therefore each new printing gives show and tell the potential to become more and more problematic.

Is this card broken?

2U
Sorcery

Add 4BBBB to your mana pool. Spend this mana only on one creature spell. That creature spell is uncounterable. Also draw 14 cards

or

Add 15 to your mana pool

or

Add WWUUBBRRGG to your mana pool



If you think about SNT in terms of acceleration instead of "putting a creature into play" you start to see how broken it can be.

SnT is the culprit here. Following the DCI's logic, it, if anything, should get the axe.

I think that we're not far from a statement a long the lines of...

"SnT was banned, frankly, because it was everywhere."

Wouldn't surprise me in the least, an can't say I would be disappointed.

There's two factors are work here, at least:

1) Griselbrand. Just like Koby noted, this is not a new circumstance, and it cost us one of legacy players' favorite engines last time it happened. You say that Griselbrand didn't push S/T over the edge? I'm not sure that I would say 100% that it did either (any more than I would have said the same of Emrakul, which has proven to be very powerful but ultimately containable). However, when fused with reason #2, I think it definitely pushed S/T past the breaking point.

2) The legacy metagame. The printing of Griselbrand coincided with a perfect metagame for S/T to prey upon: the triangular menace of Maverick/Canadian Thresh/Stoneblade. This was before the Spell Pierce era emerged, so Canadian Thresh was weaker to S/T than it currently is. Canadian's focus was on not dying to Maverick, which enabled them to be a good bit weaker to S/T than they are currently. A lot of Maverick players were still on the Punishing plan as a mirror breaker, and Thalia hadn't been widely adopted in common use yet. Most still ran slower Stoneforge packages as a way of keeping up with Stoneblade's attrition. Linvala hadn't been invented as technology yet, so Maverick also didn't have a way to stop Griselbrand's bargain. Stoneblade was vastly too clunky and played far too few counterspells to effectively combat S/T. Lingering Souls doesn't do a hell of a lot to pretty much anything that S/T wants to do...and neither does their removal suite. Stoneblade was pretty much cold to S/T, and ended up being unable to keep up with the leaner builds of Canadian Thresh that have adopted Spell Pierce, as well -- I would argue that this is why Stoneblade has fallen to tier 2.

tl;dr -- the combination of Griselbrand and a perfect storm legacy meta has lead to the rapidly increasing popularity of S/T, which had in turn created a stifling dichotomous metagame consisting primarily of S/T and Canadian Thresh, with everything else in between scrambling to pick up points wherever they can.

The question is of course whether or not the meta can adapt....I don't think this is pretty much anyone in here's first rodeo. We've been here before. The meta could have adapted to Survival, but it was killed prematurely...probably, I would argue, because WotC didn't want to chance what could happen with the card knowing that they were going to keep printing more and more absurd creatures. S/T certainly falls under the same jurisdiction.

IF, then, WotC doesn't jump the gun and bans S/T on sight, how do we save the card? We'll have a few months to do it. The issue that I see is there is very little common ground to attack between S/T and Canadian Thresh. And I sincerely doubt that Stax is the answer...yes, Chalice on 1 rapes Thresh. And if you can somehow get it to resolve at the point at which it matters, then hat's off to you. Stax has 0 CA or CQ, and it seems to me should be extraordinarily susceptible to both Thresh's tempo style and S/T's counters backed with hasty Emrakuls. If you tune Stax to beat one or the other effectively, then we're right back to square one. There's lots of decks that beat Canadian Thresh, and there's at least some decks that beat S/T other than Thresh -- but there isn't anything that trumps both of them. Although, of course, if we do find something that trumps them both, there's the chance that we might create a greater monster than either.

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Originally Posted by Reagens

If you want to curb the power of RUG Delver you'd still have to ban show and tell because show and tell easily and effectively pushes out any and all decks that could give RUG delver a hard time (i.e. Maverick, Nic Fit and slower control decks).

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Maverick absolutely has a fair shot against Show and Tell :( The two players of Sneak and show from TOGIT in NJ, Jim Higgenbottom and Joey Manner (Who have recently top 2'd at Jupiter Games and top 8'd SCG Columbus) have been telling me how mush they'd rather play against RUG than maverick, since knight/thalia is rough a lot of the time.

This has only been confirmed through my own testing. Sneak and show can play around a slower clock and conditional counters very well, but when you disrupt their cantrips with thalia and effectively shut off show and tell as the primary win condition thanks to KotR/karakas (while also having maindeck answers to sneak attack), Maverick does not simply bend over.

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Originally Posted by Arianrhod

Strongly agreed. My version of Nic Fit has something like an 70-80% win vs Canadian Thresh, but the various Show and Tell decks have been making my life miserable.

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And there isn't any problem with this. It's a rock-scisor-paper metagame. The problem begins when RUG is not able to win against SnT (which I think is not the case).

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Originally Posted by Zinch

And there isn't any problem with this. It's a rock-scisor-paper metagame. The problem begins when RUG is not able to win against SnT (which I think is not the case).

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This just isn't true. That's not how rock, paper, scissors works. In this case Rock and Paper are both seemingly equal and scissors can beat one of the two, but not both.

oh and paper gets to draw 14 cards on turn 2 with counter backup

The fact of matter is Show & Tell based archetypes have not put up any significant, nor consistent results to warrant a ban.

The argument; "it's broken, therefore it should be banned" is complelty assinine. The DCI implaments a ban on cards based on a card(s) warping of a meta game; we simply don't have that here. Until Show makes numbers like RUG & Mav, the whiners need to proverbially STFU.

I for one praise cards like Show, Doomsday, etc; that give this boring Maverick/RUG dominant meta a well deserved kick in the ass. Hopefully, as a result of cards like Griselbrand that push the envelope, the meta will shift, and new ideas and technology emerge.

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Originally Posted by Star|Scream

oh and paper gets to draw 14 cards on turn 2 with counter backup

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You complain a lot without ever really saying anything...

That's the problem with these sort of threads, there is good discussion to be had, but you have to wade through pages of whining to find actual argument.

That's the big "when" we're all waiting on. The Sneak Attack deck is powerful, no doubt about it. What limits it right now are not one playset (Survival) but three playsets of cards needed to build it (City of Traitors, Sneak Attack, & Show and Tell), each of which are >$20 at minimum. That's going to limit the number of people who have access to play the deck, as well as requiring a large investment into the deck. With the speculation that Show & Tell will be banned, I don't think many will be rushing to buy up these cards. All of these factors could be limiting the amount of Sneak Show decks that are showing up.

There is also the notion of momentum. Vengevine Survival didn't explode onto the scene after one tournament, but was gradually played more and more across 2-3 month span. I believe it finally hit critical mass around Sept/October time frame, even though the deck was introduce in June from Grand Prix Columbus.

Anyone remember when High Tide was touted as the best deck in the format with the unbanning of Time Sprial?

Yet, it hasn't put the numbers up to prove it.

To me, this is just the complaint flavor of the month and only time will show if it's too dominant or not.

The Hatfields just put up a SCG article showing how the SCG meta is infested by RUG right now but there is no clamor to ban Delver?

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Originally Posted by Snap_Keep

You complain a lot without ever really saying anything...

That's the problem with these sort of threads, there is good discussion to be had, but you have to wade through pages of whining to find actual argument.

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No, instead let's just attack people for voicing their opinions and call them whiners. That's much better discussion.

I draw the line at SNT into Griselbrand and I have a right to voice that if I feel like it.

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Originally Posted by Star|Scream

This just isn't true. That's not how rock, paper, scissors works. In this case Rock and Paper are both seemingly equal and scissors can beat one of the two, but not both.

oh and paper gets to draw 14 cards on turn 2 with counter backup

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You should revise your concepts here...

Rock = Show and tell

Paper = RUG

Scisor = Nic Fit/ Maverick

Rock > Scisor > Paper > Rock...

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Originally Posted by Zinch

You should revise your concepts here...

Rock = Show and tell

Paper = RUG

Scisor = Nic Fit/ Maverick

Rock > Scisor > Paper > Rock...

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The point is, this doesn't reflect reality nor the actual matchups. Hence, RPS is a bad way to demonstrate what's going on.

The metagame right now is like two wolves and a lamb deciding what's going to be for lunch. You figure out which decks are wolves and which decks are lambs.