[Deck] Zombardment

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

Hey there fellow zombie throwers!

Another weekly after a small break for work. The turnout was low but the quality was high. Since last time my meta was infested with Blade players, I decided to go up to 3 Abrade. There were still a couple Blade decks but some of them moved to Miracle along with a Chalice player. I also gave up on Bridge and Feeder and went back to Gurmag. Here's what I ended up with:

4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
2 Gurmag Angler
1 Scourge of Nel Toth

3 Abrade
4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lingering Souls

3 Goblin Bombardment

4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
3 Badlands
2 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Undiscovered Paradise
//SB
1 Duress
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Fatal Push
3 Wear // Tear
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Engineered Explosives


R1: 2-0 vs. Lands
G1 I flood and clog the board against Waste/Loam and 2 Maze
G2 I keep 2 Surgical opener with Wear and grind him out through Marrit Lage with Scourge and Souls.

R2: 2-0 vs. Miracles
G1 I shred his hand and beat him down through 2 Terminus.
G2 I shred his hand and ride Liliana to victory

R3: 0-2 vs. Maverick
G1 I get denied by Thalia on 3 mana holding 2 Souls with Bombardment in play and Ghast + Crawler in the yard. Ooze blows me out while I fail to draw a land or creature for 3 turns.
G2 I get stuck on 2 lands for 8+ turns when all I need is a land to shut the door. I eventually die to Noble with SoFaI and SoLaS while im holding Push, Bombardment, Ghast, Liliana, Souls, and EE on 2 Mana.

We played a 3rd game for fun and rolled him over.

R3: 2-0 vs. Grixis Control
G1 is a bye they can't do anything
G2 we play the grind but in the end he gets no Surgicals and gets grinded out.

Props:
-EE in every matchup
-Abrade always readily availlable and easily replaced. I am satisfied with that play pattern so 3 is a good number.
-Gurmag didn't particularly shine but was always superior to Feeder when I drew him
-Didn't miss Bridge from Below or Feeder at any point

Slops:
-Land screws
-Entomb missplay cost me the first game against Maverick

Overall I really appreciate how the deck rewards tight plays and forethought. The only thing I would like to is to include a 3rd Scrubland as a 21st land against land-denial strategies (DnT, Maverick, Delver, Lands) I am at a point where I am considering a 61st card even though this goes against all my instincts...

To those who were asking about Entomb and SB advice, I would never side out Entomb unless I expect massive Entomb hate like 4 Leylines + 4 Chalice AND I have a super SB plan to replace them. As for Supplier, she literally never gets sided out... ever. Supplier is the best GY rebuilder post-RiP/Surgical/Bog/you-name-it-GY-wipe.

@johncarvalho,

Discard is really bad post-board against tempo decks. I side out all 8 discard spells against Delver decks faster than you can say "Delver, go!".

Keep on bombardin'

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Cool list! I love the idea of main-decking some number of Abrades to save sideboard space. I will definitely try that out.

SB questions--

1) how has Liliana of the Veil been? What match ups does she come in for? How is it getting to the three mana in those games?

2) were the Fatal Pushes good? I generally think of the Zombardment deck as good against any fair deck, so I skimped on fair deck SB cards (like Liliana the Last Hope). How about 1 Darkblast (for small creatures/Entomb target) / Urborg Justice (or Diabolic Edict) split?

Main-deck questions--

Has Scourge of Nel Toth been worth it's slot over, say, another Gurmag? Obviously flying/Entomb-ability/recursiveness are good, but it's so resource intensive. Also, in terms of cutting the Bridges/Feeder... after cutting 4+ Zombies have you had issues getting a Zombie to consistently recast Gravecrawler?

Thanks!

Went 2-2 yesterday with the following list:

3 carrion feeder
4 stitcher's supplier
4 bloodghast
4 gravecrawler
1 scourge of nel toth

4 entomb
4 faithless looting
4 thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
2 faithless looting
2 abrade

3 goblin bombardment
1 bridge from below

3 badlands
2 scrubland
3 swamp
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
3 marsh flats
1 undiscovered paradise

sideboard

2 engineered explosives
1 pithing needle
3 surgical extraction
2 diabolic edict
1 ensnaring bridge
3 wear/tear
3 liliana of the veil

match1: 1-2 vs sneak n show
g1 emrakul t2
g2 I discarded and surgical emrakul and grisebrand
g3 I surgical her show and tell, cabal 2 sneak attacks and tear another, but she was able to topdeck the last sneak attack (i had liliana in play, it was the ONLY card that could potentially save her), and an emrakul right after (and I was at 15 after seizes/fetches) :frown: (its amazing how my games are vs sneak and show, it always comes to them topdecking the missing piece)

match 2: 2-0 vs burn
g1 bridge from below went crazy
g2 see game 1

match 3: 2-1 vs uw stoneblade
g1 I missplay discarding an abrade to a looting at some point and that costed me the game
g2 was able to lock my opponent with ensaring bridge until I drew a bombardment, before that was lingering souls beating (he actually had to plowshares both the spirits)
g3 opponent only saw 1 land in like 5 turns, was not a fair win

match 4: 0-2 vs uw spirits (what a cool deck btw, very very sinergistic)
g1 a resolved jitte took over the game, never saw abrade
g2 I discarded his jitte, but 2 spirit lords with hexproof and 2 m19 spirit lord were impossible to beat (scourge was boarded out because of plowshares)

This deck is a blast to pilot, but I never see to get a 4-0 finish (damn emrakuls :frown:)! I wanna try a version with some smallpox/8 rack package because our discard game is so strong that I think its worth a shot! maybe that could be an SB alternative plan!

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Originally Posted by shonenkakumei

Cool list! I love the idea of main-decking some number of Abrades to save sideboard space. I will definitely try that out.

SB questions--

1) how has Liliana of the Veil been? What match ups does she come in for? How is it getting to the three mana in those games?

2) were the Fatal Pushes good? I generally think of the Zombardment deck as good against any fair deck, so I skimped on fair deck SB cards (like Liliana the Last Hope). How about 1 Darkblast (for small creatures/Entomb target) / Urborg Justice (or Diabolic Edict) split?

Main-deck questions--

Has Scourge of Nel Toth been worth it's slot over, say, another Gurmag? Obviously flying/Entomb-ability/recursiveness are good, but it's so resource intensive. Also, in terms of cutting the Bridges/Feeder... after cutting 4+ Zombies have you had issues getting a Zombie to consistently recast Gravecrawler?

Thanks!

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1.) Liliana is good against the gambit of control decks, plus combo. I'm hesitant against Shadow because they have a billion counterspells, so she probably isn't resolving, ever. My biggest issue with her is lands can play around the edict and her ultimate doesn't "win" the game.

2.) I'm going to test Dreadbore in the slot. Planeswalkers, namely Liliana, the Last Hope can give this deck troubles. Likewise, murderous cut is the other card I'm going to start testing.

Scourge is a way to fly over a ground stall and close games quickly. The card is very good in the Mardu build and enables a un-fair-esk combo. The majority of the removal in the format doesn't kill it either, which is a huge plus. Just board it out in the matchups were you suspect they have RiP. It also has the built in pseudo graveyard anti-hate of being a cast, so your opponent doesn't receive priority until its already on the stack if you sequence correctly.

*~*~*~*~* ~*
Also, if you read Reid Dukes CFB article today it basically says that Back to Basics is the secret best card in legacy. I think one could easily argue that 2x undiscovered paradise is the magic number because, it will never stay in play tapped. It's a very subtle thing that could easily be overlooked.

@maCHOOga,

Yes we went through a similar thought process over the inclusion of the 3rd Abrade and 2 Gurmag and the exclusion of the Feeders/Bridge. For me it boils down to this:

-Feeder is the weakest link without Bridge
-Bridge is rarely the go-to play
-Bridge requires Feeder, given that Bridge is not essential to the deck's success, removing Bridge gives me little incentive to play Feeder
-Abrade #3 makes a difference against the common offenders (Chalice, Jitte, BSkull, Delver, Thalia, Ooze, Eidolon, Goblin Guide, Lackey)
-Gurmag has different synergy than Feeder (Supplier, Looting, Fetches)
-Gurmag is 5/5 right out of the gates and can block (super relevant)
-Gurmag is less GY dependant than Feeder (Yes, Delve is hard to hate and Feeder without a recursive creature isn't so hot)
-Overall Gurmag and Abrade help me overcome my worst matchups while Feeder and Bridge does not

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shonenkakumei

Cool list! I love the idea of main-decking some number of Abrades to save sideboard space. I will definitely try that out.

SB questions--

1) how has Liliana of the Veil been? What match ups does she come in for? How is it getting to the three mana in those games?

Liliana comes in against:
-Aggro: Delver, Eldrazi, Maverick. NOT Infect, Burn, Steel Stompy, DnT (too slow and edict is insignificant)
-Control: All of them.
-Combo: SnT, Storm, Reanimator, Depths/Lands

Against aggro decks, Liliana wins the game on an empty board or puts them on a timer. Its a great card to catch up and seal a game because it grants you a card every turn (+1 is usually one-sided). Against combo it makes our early discard devastating because they never get to recuperate their losses while they try to deal with our recurring little shits. Given that we already attack from different angles (hand, board, graveyard), throwing a PW in the mix makes it nearly impossible for a control player to control everything. Combo decks nowadays tend to rely on a fat creature to win. Recurring edicts and discard puts them in a situation where it becomes difficult to combo and difficult to keep their combo online. Yes Lily is slow against combo decks but we already have the fastest discard suite available and lack Liliana's snowball effect pre-board.

2) were the Fatal Pushes good? I generally think of the Zombardment deck as good against any fair deck, so I skimped on fair deck SB cards (like Liliana the Last Hope). How about 1 Darkblast (for small creatures/Entomb target) / Urborg Justice (or Diabolic Edict) split?

Zombardment's strengths are:

-First, its innate ability to grind using the GY (free roam G1) which makes it good against control decks.

-Second, its fast and efficient discard suite and quick beats which makes it good against traditional combo decks (NOT Reanimator and T1 combos).

The most difficult matchups for us in my experience are the following:

-1st Reanimator and Dredge strategies that have better GY abuse and typically don't care about our primary form of interaction (Discard). This is why we need adequate GY-hate to overcome these matchups (4-5 pieces)

-2nd Delver decks, Stompy decks and Burn. We do not possess many tempo tools to fight back tempo strategies. If they have the tools to deny us, we do not have the tools to fight back. Discard is tempo-negative and most of our creatures can't block. Quick threats coupled with mana denial, soft counters (or Chalice), and/or reach has the potential to end us before we take over. This is why I value cheap efficient removal (Push, Abrade, EE being the best by a mile), a strong manabase, and effective road blocks (Souls and Angler) as they are some of our only tools.

-3rd Midrange deck WITH tools are a real challenge because they counter-attack from multiple angles and have more efficient creatures. Just like us, they can leverage multiple angles of attack which makes for very intricate plays. DnT, Maverick, and 4c Loam are all examples of midrange decks with tools (SFM Package, Surgical, RiP, Leyline, Ooze, Qasali, Remorseful Spirit, Mom, Thalia, Wasteland, PFire, Chalice, KotR for Waste/Bog/Depths, Exile removal... the list goes on).

-4th T1 Combo decks... Without FoW there isn't much more that can be done. Packing some answers to EtW helps (EE, ZP). If they ever become super popular we can always just pack a SB Volcanic Spray and have 5 SB board wipes for goblin tokens.

To answer your question:

-Push is strong against the 2nd and 3rd category of decks.
-Darkblast is too narrow (play more Push instead!)
-LtLH is extremely narrow and win-more. I've already explained in this thread why LtLH is a complete waste.
-Edict is better than Urborg and they are both unnecessary. Liliana already covers all the necessary Edict effects. Be proactive with Souls and Scourge against Depths decks and you won't need Instant speed from Edict. We can't protect our hand from discard with Brainstorm and counters anyway so it's sort of a waste to rely on Edict against turbo depths.

Main-deck questions--

Has Scourge of Nel Toth been worth it's slot over, say, another Gurmag? Obviously flying/Entomb-ability/recursiveness are good, but it's so resource intensive. Also, in terms of cutting the Bridges/Feeder... after cutting 4+ Zombies have you had issues getting a Zombie to consistently recast Gravecrawler?

Scourge is better than Gurmag in the first place because it is bigger, flies, can be fetched with Entomb, and generates value off Looting. Multiple Scourges are superfluous and clunky. Gurmag is Scourge #2-3. Now if you could fetch Gurmag with Entomb, this would be a completely different story.

I cut 3 Feeders and 1 Bridge for of 2 Gurmags, 1 Abrade, and 1 Souls. Cutting 1 zombie did not affect my ability to cast Crawler much.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

@maCHOOga,

Yes we went through a similar thought process over the inclusion of the 3rd Abrade and 2 Gurmag and the exclusion of the Feeders/Bridge. For me it boils down to this:

-Feeder is the weakest link without Bridge
-Bridge is rarely the go-to play
-Bridge requires Feeder, given that Bridge is not essential to the deck's success, removing Bridge gives me little incentive to play Feeder
-Abrade #3 makes a difference against the common offenders (Chalice, Jitte, BSkull, Delver, Thalia, Ooze, Eidolon, Goblin Guide, Lackey)
-Gurmag has different synergy than Feeder (Supplier, Looting, Fetches)
-Gurmag is 5/5 right out of the gates and can block (super relevant)
-Gurmag is less GY dependant than Feeder (Yes, Delve is hard to hate and Feeder without a recursive creature isn't so hot)
-Overall Gurmag and Abrade help me overcome my worst matchups while Feeder and Bridge does not

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How about a kolaghans command instead of the 3rd abrade as a way to recover a gurmag milled over by a stitcher?
I will try the bridgeless/feederless build tomorrow!

Played in a quest for power (Mox Ruby) today {39 people} and managed to top 8, but lost to what feels like a 10/90 matchup in top 8 quarterfinals. These events usually draw 50+ people but I believe the crappy weather + Ravens game caused the low turnout. Not sure who won, just that there were 4,096 zombies and an ensnaring bridge in game three of the finals. Anyway, here are my notes...
Went with 2x Abrade in the removal slots, w. 3 Carrion Feeders + Bridge that has been floating around.

Round 1 - L 1-2 Aggro loam
Game 1, They play GSZ for X=0 and a land, so I'm like 90% sure they are on aggro loam. I blind therapy knight of the reliquary, miss and he draws a knight and deploys it.
Game 2 I abrade their chalice and go wide to defeat them.
Game 3 I abrade a chalice, then Wear a sylvan library. They draw a 2nd chalice and a leyline of the void and manage to turn the corner. It's possible that I should have waited on the wear/tear but with 4x wastelands + loams in the deck, I figured it was best to kill library.

Round 2 - W 2-0
Turns out that I got the bye, ran to get food. My round 2 bye top8 conversion is now 3 for 3. LOL.

Round 3 - W 2-1 RUG Delver
Game 1 I kept a weak muligan to 6 and kept a decent 1 lander and got punished. I thoughtsezied them and didn't play magic for the rest of that game.
Game 2-3: I board out thoughtseizes and get there. I kept in Cabal therapies and was able manuever a goblin bombardment kill game 3 around a stifle.

Round 4 - W 2-0 Grixis Control
Game 1: I summon a zombie dragon and they fail to find a strix
Game 2: I go wide with the bridges + bombardment and make lots of dudes. They all get deluged away, which I should have therapyed away. Bloodghast beats was good enough.

Round 5 - W 2-1 UW Miracles
Game 1: I thoughtseize and take the back to basics. They savagely draw the 2nd and slow me down to 2 swamps. Which slowly wins them the game.
Game 2: Don't remember, just I won quickly with lingering souls tokens plus other things.
Game 3: It was super grindy, I got swords 5 times and terminused twice but was able to pull out a win. Sorin, make a vampire was able to win me the game. Yay fun-ofs!

Round 6 - ID v Dredge
We didn't even want to try to out graveyard each other.

I'm 7th seed going into top8 against turbo depths. This matchup feels unwinnable in the current configuration.
Game 1: They mulligan 6 turn 1 a dark confidant. I stitcher hitting 3x dual lands. I thoughtseize away an abrupt decay leaving them with a mox diamond. I could have easily cabal therapy the lone mox diamond, but elect not to. They flip a maze of ith, make a 20/20. I get lingering souls into play to block and they crop rotation into sejiri steppe. If I would have taken the diamond, it would have bought me maybe a turn or two?
Game 2: I thoughtseize them and see a turn 1 lilana, the last hope or Dark confidant. I took liliana over Dark Confidant. I didn't have any way to apply pressure to liliana in my opening 7, so I took her. I have an ensnaring bridges vs. their marit legit. We raced to bombardment v. abrupt decay and they found theirs first, thanks to Dark Confidant living.

The top8 was: Storm, DNT, Dredge, Turbodepths, Men of Steel, Rug Delver, Zombardment, 8th unknown

I could have walked away with another scrubland, but I chose the credit option.

4 Bloodghast
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scrubland
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
4 Entomb
1 Scourge of Nel Toth
1 Bridge from Below
2 Abrade

3 Wear/Tear
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Pithing Needle
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Ensnaring Bridge

Closing thoughts: Carrion feeder sucks, but is necessary to play the 3 additional sacrfiice outlets. Also on talking with the dredge player, what do people think about serenity? It's a way to clear a lot of hate cards and we can easily play around deploying a bombardment.

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Originally Posted by johncarvalho

How about a kolaghans command instead of the 3rd abrade as a way to recover a gurmag milled over by a stitcher?
I will try the bridgeless/feederless build tomorrow!

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No. KCommand is worst against the mentionned cards.

I played a bridge vine version at FNM, i did super horribly, however i did learn one super important thing.

Silent Gravestone is absolutely nuts.

It does so much for us. 90% of the hate in the format right now is surgical, and a lot of those decks run Snaps. It also shuts down reanimator effects and Loam.

I ran 3 and wished i had run 4. It was really really good, and i encourage you all to test it out, i think it does more for us both offensively and defensively than surgical could.

I'd like to bring up the topic again of possibly splashing green instead of white in Zombardment. This morning Assassin's Trophy http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoi...assins-trophy/ was spoiled. It's by no mean's a no brainer, but I think it warrants discussion as a possible sideboard (or even mainboard).

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Originally Posted by coff33bit

I'd like to bring up the topic again of possibly splashing green instead of white in Zombardment. This morning Assassin's Trophy http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoi...assins-trophy/ was spoiled. It's by no mean's a no brainer, but I think it warrants discussion as a possible sideboard (or even mainboard).

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No brainers are just fine too, we are a zombie deck...

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Originally Posted by ReAnimator

No brainers are just fine too, we are a zombie deck...

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Wait I thought the goal was to get the brains?

If Trophy is to be played anywhere it would be as a mainboard 3-4 of in the Abrade slot. A "Path to Vindicate" seems to me like it would have been better as a BW card but whatever wizards...

Compared to Abrade main:
Pros
-Destroys creatures with 4+ toughness (KotR, Gurmag, Goyf, Shadow)
-Destroys Planeswalkers (mostly Jace)
-Destroys Lands (Turbo Depths and Lands matchups get a boost but also suffer greatly from the loss of Souls)
-Destroys Enchantments? (Mostly SB stuff...)
Cons
-Green instead of Red makes it harder to cast and unable to destroy Chalice/Magus past a Moon effect. Also can't target Crusader.
-Gives a basic Land (Huge drawback!)

Compared to Wear // Tear side:
Pros
-Universal answer to non-Artifact/Enchantment GY hate
Cons
-2 mana to destroy enchantments (Leylines!)
-Green instead of Red
-No 2-for-1 potential (RiP + equipment or Leyline + Mox/Jitte for example)
-Gives a basic

The matchups that appear to benefit from Trophy at first glance include:
-Delver decks because they don't pack basics
-Eldrazi Stompy if they don't pack a basic as it could be desvastating to accelerate them into a T2 Smasher by assassinating a Chalice
-Lands and Depths (but not by much if we lose Souls)
-All control decks actually get worse from losing Souls even though we can snipe PW
-All the SFM decks now get a free land when we destroy an early Thalia/Equipment

I think the card frees up a lot of design space for the deck but doesn't necessarily makes it better. Abrade does a fine job for what it's intended to do, Wear is better against the common hate cards, and Lingering Souls are part of the core. Trophy would have been more interresting if it were BW...

@maCHOOga

What do you mean by needing the additional sac outlets?

4th Wear is better than Serenity. I've been contemplating a 4th copy since my current setup is great against all Artifacts and RiP but can really suffer against Leylines which Stompy decls carry and are already a rough matchup.

@ReAnimator

I too experienced with Gravestone and opted against for a few reasons:
-It conflicts with Surgical and Purge against GY decks
-It is a dedicated GY hate slot that doesn't interact with all GY decks (4 mana to pop is too much)
-It's defensive characteristics are time sensitive as you pretty much have to have it in your opener to blank Surgicals efficiently
-Snapcaster matchups tend to be really favorable already so the boon has little impact

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

@maCHOOga

What do you mean by needing the additional sac outlets?

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When playing a bridge from below in the 75 you want carrion feeders to enable the go-wide soft combo in addition to the goblin bombardments. I saw the price of Serenity on MTGO and did a hard-pass. I do agree, wear and tear is better for now.

~*~*~*~*~
Fast forward to Assassin's Trophy. I definitely want to try a Jund version of the Mardu deck. Lingering souls is really good at attacking the metagame, but there are certain metagames where Jund is better. Assassin's trophy is an answer to Chalice, Tabernacle, Marit liege and pesky planeswalkers. All we need now is another golgari zombie. Sorry Lotleth troll, you were all hype back in the day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

If Trophy is to be played anywhere it would be as a mainboard 3-4 of in the Abrade slot. A "Path to Vindicate" seems to me like it would have been better as a BW card but whatever wizards...

Compared to Abrade main:
Pros
-Destroys creatures with 4+ toughness (KotR, Gurmag, Goyf, Shadow)
-Destroys Planeswalkers (mostly Jace)
-Destroys Lands (Turbo Depths and Lands matchups get a boost but also suffer greatly from the loss of Souls)
-Destroys Enchantments? (Mostly SB stuff...)
Cons
-Green instead of Red makes it harder to cast and unable to destroy Chalice/Magus past a Moon effect. Also can't target Crusader.
-Gives a basic Land (Huge drawback!)

Compared to Wear // Tear side:
Pros
-Universal answer to non-Artifact/Enchantment GY hate
Cons
-2 mana to destroy enchantments (Leylines!)
-Green instead of Red
-No 2-for-1 potential (RiP + equipment or Leyline + Mox/Jitte for example)
-Gives a basic

The matchups that appear to benefit from Trophy at first glance include:
-Delver decks because they don't pack basics
-Eldrazi Stompy if they don't pack a basic as it could be desvastating to accelerate them into a T2 Smasher by assassinating a Chalice
-Lands and Depths (but not by much if we lose Souls)
-All control decks actually get worse from losing Souls even though we can snipe PW
-All the SFM decks now get a free land when we destroy an early Thalia/Equipment

I think the card frees up a lot of design space for the deck but doesn't necessarily makes it better. Abrade does a fine job for what it's intended to do, Wear is better against the common hate cards, and Lingering Souls are part of the core. Trophy would have been more interresting if it were BW...

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Definitely hit the nail on the head IMO for the pros/cons. All your points are very valid, I definitely think testing Trophy is worth it, at the end of the day it may honestly be a meta call based on what your local play group plays and if its more vulnerable to Abrade or Trophy. I'm definitely excited to have a 2 mana answer to anything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by coff33bit

Definitely hit the nail on the head IMO for the pros/cons. All your points are very valid, I definitely think testing Trophy is worth it, at the end of the day it may honestly be a meta call based on what your local play group plays and if its more vulnerable to Abrade or Trophy. I'm definitely excited to have a 2 mana answer to anything.

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Honestly if I were to play a Jund version I would still favor Decay over Trophy mainboard and pack the Trophies in my SB. Giving a land is too much of a drawback for my taste and Decay is still uncounterable and answers all of the G1 permanents that Trophy would answer beside BSkull. Regardless, I think Jund is missing another piece of synergy that is better than Souls (Feeder + Bridge doesn't cut it IMO) for it to be a competitor to Mardu. Also, there is no equal to Wear // Tear as a postboard hate answer in Jund. To me, that is a big deal.

Another often overlooked strength of the "Mardu" configuration is that it is hardly 3 colors but a Rakdos deck that can use white mana to get more value out of Souls and answer T0 Leylines. There is a big difference between a deck that needs 2 colors to play all of its cards and 3 colors to do the same, especially without a Brainstorm/Ponder suite.

@maCHOOga

Right, you do need Feeders to abuse Bridge. I thought you meant that we needed the 3 sac outlets of Feeder regardless of Bridge. This is why I ditched Bridge altogether and went back to Gurmag. We have 8 cards that can turbo a Gurmag on T2 and the card is a godsend against some of our worst matchups (Delver and Stompy).

Small report incoming!
This weekly was a little short on attendance with under 25 players. I wanted to squeeze a 4th Wear // Tear in my Abrade/Gurmag list so I did the following changes:

Main: -1 Abrade +1 Explosives
Side: -1 Explosives -1 Duress +1 Wear +1 Coffin Purge

This leaves me with the same mainboard setup against chalice (3 answers) and gives me a 4th Wear over a 3rd Abrade in postboard games.

R1 2-1 vs. Rector Fit

G1 I get him to 3 life with a huge board but he stabilizes with Curse of Death's Hold and Overwhelming Splendor
G2 is a grindy one where I Wear Leyline of the Void and Extract it along with Rector. I eventually get there with beats
G3 he blanks my discard with his Leyline of Sanctity but I get 8 power on board by T3 and he can't deal with it.

R2 2-0 vs. Stoneblade

G1 I get that crazy 3 Therapy Bloodghast hand and shred his entire hand by T3. T1 1st Therapy him naming Brainstorm (whiff), T2 2nd Therapy me naming Ghast, play fetch, flashback 1st Therapy on him, fetch, flashback 2nd Therapy on him, cast 3rd Therapy on him. T3 play fetch, flashback 3rd Therapy on him, etc...I then race his active Jitte with 2 Ghasts 2 Crawler and Souls.
G2 Abrade gets BSK and the beats get there.

R3 2-0 vs. Stoneblade

G1 I get the same crazy 3 Therapy with an Entomb for Bloodghast opener (even better!) and he never recovers
G2 I get double Ghast and Zombardment to grind him out while I am holding 3 Wear 1 Abrade and 1 EE for anything that comes down.

R4 Draw vs. BR Reanimator (but he crushes me 3-1 in friendlies)

That matchup is horrendous. Definitely one of our worst if not the worst. Coffin Purge is a great angle of attack albeit slow. It allows us to have accessible GY hate that can't be discarded and that can be "Supplied". I will definitely have to re-evaluate my GY hate suite and consider a healthy Crypt/Purge/Surgical split.

I'll keep you posted! (As usual...)

FNM report from last week. 3-1 again.
I wanted to change around my list, but I was so late getting there that I just ran it as is (list and card choices at the end of the post).

R1: 2-0 vs. Grixis Control

Game 1 Supplier+Therapy provides early insane (virtual) card advantage, and Bloodghasts close the gap. Game 2 is similar, and although he Surgicals one threat Bridge from Below rebuilds fast.

R2: 2-1 vs. Bizarro Stormy

Game 1 I Thoughtseize, he Brainstorms, I take a crappy Burning Wish (thankfully not Griselbrand), and after a slow-ish start on both sides I get a huge board of Zombies in one turn off of Bridge. He end of my turn Entombs for Griselbrand and I'm dead before I can crack-back. I mix up my sideboarding a bit, in case of a Mentor post-board plan on his end--I leave in one Bombardment, bring in Abrade, all graveyard hate, 1 or 2 Wear, and an EE (maybe I hit a petal or LED, or Monk tokens). I decide to bring in Chains even though it gives him a discard outlet. Game 2 discard followed by Gurmag gets there. Game 3 he Thougtseizes a Surgical, but which leaves me with a pretty strong Zombie-engine clock. I loot into another a Surgical and cast a Chains once his hand size and life are low enough.

R3: 2-1 vs. Turbo Depths

Game one my opponent mulligans to 6 and snap-keeps. I find out why after I Thoughtseize him--Dark Depths and 2 different land tutors. I hope to draw into my one main deck Bitterblossom, which I do, but he top decks the Stage to get the Token a turn earlier than I can handle, so I scoop before he sees the card. Game 2 I draw a Bridge and a Bitterblossom. He Thoughtseizes one and Decays the other. My discard slows him down and Vampire Hexmage's first strike looks kinda bad against Bridge from Below. I cast my second Ensnaring Bridge, he Surgicals my Bitterblossom only to find it's my only copy and I get there with Lingering Souls. Game three we trade discard again, and my Lingering Souls fly over while Magus of the Moon slows him down.

R4: (Prize Split) 1-2 in the friendly games vs. Grixis Control

Game 1 my turn one Supplier mills over a Therapy and I flash it back and hit. Best feeling. After shredding my opponents hand (mainly taking cantrips) in the early turns, he floods out a bit and Bloodghasts get there. As usual, when I take the ID I end up playing way faster and looser... game 2 I keep a sketchy 1-land hand with a Faithless Looting and Chains. I should have put it back for something more proactive, on the draw. He cantrips, I Faithless Looting and see no lands but two more lootings, which I keep. He hymns me and hits both lootings and turn 3 hymns me again (hits chains) and I never see another land. He plays a Needle on Bombardment, for good measure, and we go to game three. (I was surprised he kept in the Hymns against recursive threats, but they did the job). Game three I have a fine hand, but misplay my blind therapy (I name Needle, since I had a turn two Bombardment) but I should have gone for a more probable or lock-out hit. After I see two Hymns, Liliana the Last Hope, and Jace I have to take Lili with another discard and the resolved Jace slows the game down a lot. He Surgicals my mill-over Gurmag and Bloodghasts, and I narrowly loose to a chain of Strix's defending his Jace.

LIST:

4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Entomb
2 Lingering Souls
2 Bridge from Below
2 Goblin Bombardment
1 Bitterblossom
3 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Plateau (I don't have the second Scrubland...)
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Black fetches (mix of Marsh Flats and Polluted Deltas)
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Undiscovered Paradise

SB:
2 Wear // Tear
1 Abrade
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Urborg Justice
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Coffin Purge
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Engineered Explosives

About the some card choices--

for the mana base: I wanted to try out Tower, which I have found to be pretty amazing. A sac outlet AND ramp is a huge upside. However, playing the Tower made me want to include Urborg. I'm not sure... it's definitely powerful for us to be able to leave up fetches for Bloodghast, but fixing Grixis mana for opponents and letting their Brainstorms be that much easier seems potentially punishing. I cut the second copy of Undiscovered Paradise for another basic, since I want to play 3-mana sideboard cards like Ensnaring Bridge and I want to cast them on time.

3 Entomb: I love the toolbox nature of it here, and it feels like saving sideboard space with Coffin Purge for narrow haymakers like Zealous Persecution or Chains. However, compared the raw power level of the Entomb targets in B/R it's so much lower, which, to my mind, means one should remember that it is card disadvantage. I see Stitcher's Supplier and recursive threats like Ghasts/Crawlers as card advantage, which is the point of the deck.

0 Scourge of Nel Toth: I want to try going up to one, maybe cutting a Bridge and turning the 4th Feeder into a maindeck Abrade. Basically, Gurmag seems so good I felt...why go with a less consistent option? That said, since I think of Entomb as a toolbox, Scourge seems like a great silver bullet and it's a nice thing to mill over will Supplier too.

1 Urborg Justice: This is for fun. Diabolic Edict seems more consistent, but I have to cast this once :)

@Qweerios
I agree re: Gravestone. It doesn't shore up a bad match up, and Surgical isn't unbeatable anyhow.

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Grim haruspex but zombie? Better then dark confidant?


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Originally Posted by Nocioni88

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Grim haruspex but zombie? Better then dark confidant?


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Falls in the "unnecessary" category and Bob is strictly better. At 2 mana it would have been different...

I think he's too dangerous in a grindy deck. Unplayable without a sac outlet, and I don't mean having one in the deck I mean having one available at all times.

Last night, played in my community league and it was a rough one. I believe Marit Leige is the bane of my existence in the multiverse.

Round 1 was against burn. They win the die roll and double fireblast me the turn before I can end the game. The opposite happens in game 2 and game 3 is a literal repeat of game 1. This feels like a very 50/50 matchup that is play draw dependant. I'm playing hymns in the sideboard discard spot over collective brutality. I think hymn is a better sideboard card overall. Besides who plays burn in the real world anyway?

Round 3 I played against Turbo Depths again. Game 1 I'm dealing with a 20/20 before I can even cast lingering souls. Game 2, I board in 11 cards, they take my edict, make a 20/20. I play bridge and they abrupt decay it. Feels like groundhog day from my paper event. That being said, I ended up talking to my opponent for a bit about the theory of the matchup. He said that if I faked an edict, he wouldn't have gone for it. That being said, I don't can't just pretend to have it for multiple turns without playing to the board.

At this point, I'm going to start playing Path to Exile over Abrade. The manabase can easily support it and there is a very bizarre corner case where you can path your token to get the land to trigger bloodghasts. Normally STP would be the go-to card, but it goes exactly against all the synergies of this deck. I haven't really been that impressed with abrade overall, as a maindeck card, fine as a sideboard card though.

Has anyone ever pondered the value of Undiscovered Paradise compared to another Fetch? Paradise is like the coolest land and THIS is the deck to play it in, but, how good (or bad) is it? I've been thinking about it in my frequent obsessions over the deck and here's what I've come to:

It starts with what role you give the card in your deck. Paradise is either part of your manabase, or part of your spells. As a part of your manabase, here's what it has going for it:

Pros:
-Adds 3 colors

Cons:
-Returns to your hand every turn preventing you from making tempo gains with additional land drops
-Nonbasic (vulnerable to x, y, z)

The fact that it returns to your hand every turn makes it unfit for an opening land. It is certainly too much of a drawback as your Land drop #1-2 and can even incur important losses as a 3rd Land drop. You basically can't keep a 1 lander with Looting and Paradise and a 2 Lander can be severely slowed down by a Paradise in the mix. This means Paradise leads to more mulligans and more sub-par hands when it is part of your manabase.

Verdict: Paradise can't be calculated as a part of your manabase. If you need 20 or 21 lands to optimize your curve, you will need 20 or 21 real lands. If you need half a land (like 20.5 lands), that is the grey area where a Paradise is acceptable as a 21st Land but not necessarily optimal. Another fetch is likely to be superior as I will further explain below.

Now, if you view Paradise as a spell in your deck, it might come to no surprise that triggering Landfall every turn at the cost of a land drop and adding any color of mana is quite underwhelming. Compared to all the other cards you could be playing instead, that small bit of synergy is extremely narrow. When is the last time you've thought: "Man, if I draw Paradise in this matchup they are in deep sh..." ? Even a fetch as a "spell" has more value in most matchups because it reads as:

-Pay 1 life, reduce the cost of Delve spells by 2 (Gurmag synergy)
-Pay 1 life, search your library for a Basic Land (Against Wasteland, Moons, and PoP)
-Trigger Landfall once, you may pay 1 life and trigger landfall again at any time (Additional immediate synergy with sac effects and good against Surgical and sorcery speed sweepers)
-Significantly decreases the odds of drawing a Land over the course of a long game which translates to more live draws with a developed manabase.

If Paradise is not a good Land and not a good Spell, and there are plenty of superior alternatives out there, why are we still playing it? Perhaps I am missing something here and someone could enlighten me. I think we play it because it looks nice and it tickles our fancy when players have to read our cards... Paradise makes us feel special.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maCHOOga

Last night, played in my community league and it was a rough one. I believe Marit Leige is the bane of my existence in the multiverse.

Round 1 was against burn. They win the die roll and double fireblast me the turn before I can end the game. The opposite happens in game 2 and game 3 is a literal repeat of game 1. This feels like a very 50/50 matchup that is play draw dependant. I'm playing hymns in the sideboard discard spot over collective brutality. I think hymn is a better sideboard card overall. Besides who plays burn in the real world anyway?

Round 3 I played against Turbo Depths again. Game 1 I'm dealing with a 20/20 before I can even cast lingering souls. Game 2, I board in 11 cards, they take my edict, make a 20/20. I play bridge and they abrupt decay it. Feels like groundhog day from my paper event. That being said, I ended up talking to my opponent for a bit about the theory of the matchup. He said that if I faked an edict, he wouldn't have gone for it. That being said, I don't can't just pretend to have it for multiple turns without playing to the board.

At this point, I'm going to start playing Path to Exile over Abrade. The manabase can easily support it and there is a very bizarre corner case where you can path your token to get the land to trigger bloodghasts. Normally STP would be the go-to card, but it goes exactly against all the synergies of this deck. I haven't really been that impressed with abrade overall, as a maindeck card, fine as a sideboard card though.

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I feel you, Burn is a cutthroat matchup that is probably around 55/45 in their favor. The fact that most Burn players are not expert Legacy players brings the matchup closer to 50/50, especially when they make dubious SB choices. I would argue that Brutality is better than Hymn as a SB card because it offers hand information if you are going for a discard play, synergy with the discard ability, and it is extremely versatile. I would only bring Hymn against non-GY Combo decks and some Control decks and that's not where I want to be postboard in those matchups anyway.

I play against Marrit Lage on average once a week. However there are twice as many Lands players as Turbo Depths players in my meta and the Depths matchup is a bit worst. My track record for these matchups is positive but BG is often too fast and has all the right tools to take us down before we can take over.

After realizing that 3 Surgical and 1 Purge wasn't nearly enough to take out Reanimator and that BG Depths was too unfavorable for my taste, I looked into StP and Path as a replacement for Push in my SB. This meant I had to squeeze in the 3rd Scrub in the main and make a choice between what the best exile removal was. For what removal is intended to in your SB, StP is far superior to Path. Here's why:

Reanimator, Turbo Depths, and Lands (All Tier1)
-You don't want to give them heaps of life. Path is better here. Note that exiling a reanimated threat is usually a 2-for-1 to begin with and they may have already paid the 8-9 life you are giving them back. Giving 20 life to Depths and Lands is still a 2-for-1 exchange but 20 life is a considerable chunk.

RUG Delver (Tier1)
-Path is better than StP but giving life is negligible. This is not a race matchup but one we take control.

Death Shadow (arguably Tier1)
-Giving them life by exiling any of their creature can clear the board of all Shadows. StP is a clear favorite.

DnT (Tier1) and Maverick
-Giving them a basic land is a big no-no on a any early Mom/Thalia. Giving them 1-3 life points is marginal.

Eldrazi (Tier1)
-If they pack a single Waste, Pathing can be devastating. If they don't, Pathing is better. I have a feeling we might see more basics when Trophy comes out...

Infect (Tier 1.5)
-Don't give them lands...

Elves (Tier 1.5)
-Path is a death sentence. StP is better.

Dredge (Tier1.5)
-Path is better here because they have no basics.

Goblins (Tier2)
-Pathing a Lackey is bad... Doesn't matter if you give them 1-2 life.

Burn (Tier2)
-Don't give them cards at any cost. This is a race matchup so you don't want to give them life either. However you can gain life with StP.

Even though Path is clearly superior to Plowshares against the two Marrit Lage decks, StP is clearly superior to Path against the plethora of Tier1-2 aggro/tempo decks that we can struggle against. It is only fair to give Depths players 20 life after they have expended 2-6 cards into their combo and it is usually not enough for them to claw back into the game.

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

Verdict: Paradise can't be calculated as a part of your manabase. If you need 20 or 21 lands to optimize your curve, you will need 20 or 21 real lands. If you need half a land (like 20.5 lands), that is the grey area where a Paradise is acceptable as a 21st Land but not necessarily optimal. Another fetch is likely to be superior as I will further explain below.

Now, if you view Paradise as a spell in your deck, it might come to no surprise that triggering Landfall every turn at the cost of a land drop and adding any color of mana is quite underwhelming. Compared to all the other cards you could be playing instead, that small bit of synergy is extremely narrow. When is the last time you've thought: "Man, if I draw Paradise in this matchup they are in deep sh..." ? Even a fetch as a "spell" has more value in most matchups because it reads as:

-Pay 1 life, reduce the cost of Delve spells by 2 (Gurmag synergy)
-Pay 1 life, search your library for a Basic Land (Against Wasteland, Moons, and PoP)
-Trigger Landfall once, you may pay 1 life and trigger landfall again at any time (Additional immediate synergy with sac effects and good against Surgical and sorcery speed sweepers)
-Significantly decreases the odds of drawing a Land over the course of a long game which translates to more live draws with a developed manabase.

If Paradise is not a good Land and not a good Spell, and there are plenty of superior alternatives out there, why are we still playing it? Perhaps I am missing something here and someone could enlighten me. I think we play it because it looks nice and it tickles our fancy when players have to read our cards... Paradise makes us feel special.

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I like mulling over this card choice, which, as you mentioned, may be default-included in lists because it is oddball.

My play style/decklist with Zombardment makes me think of Undiscovered Paradise as an over-the-top value engine that can be a trump card in grindy fair match ups, particularly against Miracles. That value assumes enough sac outlets in the deck (I play Feeders in addition to Bombardments). The endless recursion of Bloodghasts is pretty brutal for them, especially since it's a "may trigger" so you can hedge against Terminus/StP if your sac-outlet is M.I.A.

That said, I found that in multiples Undiscovered Paradise is a real detriment to hitting three mana, so I've moved to only playing one (along with 4 basics, 5 duals, 1 Urborg, 1 Phyrexian Tower, and 8 fetches for 20 land total). I like playing 3-mana sideboard cards and I want to keep 2 lands hands that have a Faithless Looting.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maCHOOga

Last night, played in my community league and it was a rough one. I believe Marit Leige is the bane of my existence in the multiverse.

Round 1 was against burn. They win the die roll and double fireblast me the turn before I can end the game. The opposite happens in game 2 and game 3 is a literal repeat of game 1. This feels like a very 50/50 matchup that is play draw dependant. I'm playing hymns in the sideboard discard spot over collective brutality. I think hymn is a better sideboard card overall. Besides who plays burn in the real world anyway?

Round 3 I played against Turbo Depths again. Game 1 I'm dealing with a 20/20 before I can even cast lingering souls. Game 2, I board in 11 cards, they take my edict, make a 20/20. I play bridge and they abrupt decay it. Feels like groundhog day from my paper event. That being said, I ended up talking to my opponent for a bit about the theory of the matchup. He said that if I faked an edict, he wouldn't have gone for it. That being said, I don't can't just pretend to have it for multiple turns without playing to the board.

At this point, I'm going to start playing Path to Exile over Abrade. The manabase can easily support it and there is a very bizarre corner case where you can path your token to get the land to trigger bloodghasts. Normally STP would be the go-to card, but it goes exactly against all the synergies of this deck. I haven't really been that impressed with abrade overall, as a maindeck card, fine as a sideboard card though.

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Curious as to how Path (or Swords, whatever you choose) plays out for you.

It does suck when you bring in most of the board against something like Turbo Depths and they disard/Decay/needle away all the hate pieces. I play two Magus of the Moon in the board as one more potential haymaker... obviously it can also be hit by all those cards, but since they sometimes "go for it" and tap out to tutor a key land combo piece (Sylvan Scrying or the like) the Magus can really gum of their works.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shonenkakumei

I like mulling over this card choice, which, as you mentioned, may be default-included in lists because it is oddball.

My play style/decklist with Zombardment makes me think of Undiscovered Paradise as an over-the-top value engine that can be a trump card in grindy fair match ups, particularly against Miracles. That value assumes enough sac outlets in the deck (I play Feeders in addition to Bombardments). The endless recursion of Bloodghasts is pretty brutal for them, especially since it's a "may trigger" so you can hedge against Terminus/StP if your sac-outlet is M.I.A.

That said, I found that in multiples Undiscovered Paradise is a real detriment to hitting three mana, so I've moved to only playing one (along with 4 basics, 5 duals, 1 Urborg, 1 Phyrexian Tower, and 8 fetches for 20 land total). I like playing 3-mana sideboard cards and I want to keep 2 lands hands that have a Faithless Looting.

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It's interresting to me that you see Paradise as a value engine against Miracles where I see it as a liability. The reason why I think so is because Miracles GY hate is mostly a combination of Surgical and Priest. When I grind Miracle out with Ghast and Bombardment I want to make sure I have 1-2 fetches in play in order to be able to keep up the pressure against any incomming GY hate (Surgical + Priest, Snap + Surgical). At this point we are talking about a 2-3 land board + 1-2 fetches + Bombardment + Ghast(s). To me that's a fairly advanced lategame stage and Paradise over any of those cards isn't necessarily pushing it over the top. By the time they start throwing removal spells and snap bodies under the bus, you know they have their back against the wall and you should very likely have fetches in play and/or spare lands in hand by that point. To me the bottom line to this play pattern is that if I have this kind of board already, Paradise might as well be anything else and I would likely still win the game.

I used to think "there's no harm in playing 1 copy" until I really tried to figure out where this card belongs. Granted there will be times when Paradise does provide that grind, I would argue they are few and far between. However, the losses incurred by having Paradise as a part of your manabase or as a lackluster spell are much more common.

I play 11 fetch, 6 duals, and 3 basics for a total of 20 Lands. I want to get 2-3 Land hands in my openers every game and I want to be able to keep 1 landers with Looting. In order to accomplish this you need 20-21 Lands in your deck that can be your first 1-3 land drops. Paradise and Tower fall in the 21st+ category where they start competing with flex slots like removal spells.

How do you like Urborg? I really like how it allows us to preserve fetch activations but there are a few things I am really not OK with. The big one is that I don't want to give Lands and Depths players the ability to tap Depths for mana. The next reason is that I don't want to allow any deck playing Tomb to tap it without losing 2 life. I don't mind potentially fixing my opponent's mana, or being slightly more vulnerable to nonbasic hate if it means I get more freedom over my fetch activations.

@ Qweerios
I'm glad we have the same train of thought regarding the removal. Obviously STP > Path but I wasn't sure if there was enough time to grind lands/depths down by an additional 20 points without playing the matchup.

Celestial purge, that seems like a reasonable 1-of.

The thing you forgot to mention is undiscovered paradise is terrible in multiples. It's happened to me one, but I just looted the 2nd copy away.

Regarding the list of tier decks, this deck is Tier Z. :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

It's interresting to me that you see Paradise as a value engine against Miracles where I see it as a liability. The reason why I think so is because Miracles GY hate is mostly a combination of Surgical and Priest. When I grind Miracle out with Ghast and Bombardment I want to make sure I have 1-2 fetches in play in order to be able to keep up the pressure against any incomming GY hate (Surgical + Priest, Snap + Surgical). At this point we are talking about a 2-3 land board + 1-2 fetches + Bombardment + Ghast(s). To me that's a fairly advanced lategame stage and Paradise over any of those cards isn't necessarily pushing it over the top. By the time they start throwing removal spells and snap bodies under the bus, you know they have their back against the wall and you should very likely have fetches in play and/or spare lands in hand by that point. To me the bottom line to this play pattern is that if I have this kind of board already, Paradise might as well be anything else and I would likely still win the game.

I used to think "there's no harm in playing 1 copy" until I really tried to figure out where this card belongs. Granted there will be times when Paradise does provide that grind, I would argue they are few and far between. However, the losses incurred by having Paradise as a part of your manabase or as a lackluster spell are much more common.

I play 11 fetch, 6 duals, and 3 basics for a total of 20 Lands. I want to get 2-3 Land hands in my openers every game and I want to be able to keep 1 landers with Looting. In order to accomplish this you need 20-21 Lands in your deck that can be your first 1-3 land drops. Paradise and Tower fall in the 21st+ category where they start competing with flex slots like removal spells.

How do you like Urborg? I really like how it allows us to preserve fetch activations but there are a few things I am really not OK with. The big one is that I don't want to give Lands and Depths players the ability to tap Depths for mana. The next reason is that I don't want to allow any deck playing Tomb to tap it without losing 2 life. I don't mind potentially fixing my opponent's mana, or being slightly more vulnerable to nonbasic hate if it means I get more freedom over my fetch activations.

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Definitely a good point about the fetches vs. Containment priest. Although in game 1s vs. Miracles' frequent main deck Back to Basics, the Paradise feels great. In terms of Urborg, yes, it is terrible to fix the mana of Turbo Depths (although if they play their own copy, then no prob) or give Tomb-decks the choice to avoid losing life. And letting Brainstorm decks have more flexibility over their fetches is no joke. But the upside with Ghasts can be insane, and I tend to sandbag it if I don't need it. It is the same problem you mentioned with Paradise--it's more like a spell than a land many times. The utility land that I have found the best, surprisingly, is Phyrexian Tower. The sac outlet is quite good, but the fact that is a double-black sol land at times can be very swing-y and powerful... Feeder+Crawler can be a real clock, but it's slow and mana intensive, and the tower has been great there. Since Tower is quite powerful but doesn't yield colored mana right away, I like pairing it with Urborg.

I only play in paper, so my number of reps is pretty low, sadly... my ideas come more from theory-crafting than extensive gameplay.

All that said, I think you're arguments for a clean (fetches/duals/basics) manabase make sense--it probably is optimal. I'll give it a shot in the coming weeks. Spicy stuff is fun, but so is consistency and winning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shonenkakumei

Definitely a good point about the fetches vs. Containment priest. Although in game 1s vs. Miracles' frequent main deck Back to Basics, the Paradise feels great. In terms of Urborg, yes, it is terrible to fix the mana of Turbo Depths (although if they play their own copy, then no prob) or give Tomb-decks the choice to avoid losing life. And letting Brainstorm decks have more flexibility over their fetches is no joke. But the upside with Ghasts can be insane, and I tend to sandbag it if I don't need it. It is the same problem you mentioned with Paradise--it's more like a spell than a land many times. The utility land that I have found the best, surprisingly, is Phyrexian Tower. The sac outlet is quite good, but the fact that is a double-black sol land at times can be very swing-y and powerful... Feeder+Crawler can be a real clock, but it's slow and mana intensive, and the tower has been great there. Since Tower is quite powerful but doesn't yield colored mana right away, I like pairing it with Urborg.

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I play 2 Swamp and a Mountain already so one of the only things that Paradise brings to the table against B2b is the ability to hardcast Souls when all my Scrubs have been fetched/tapped. It also acts as a 4th Land which is more relevant in this narrow scenario. Paradise is not bad here but isn't a trump card by any stretch.

If Depths play their own Tomb then no prob? No, the problem is still there and you've increased their odds of going off earlier by playing Tomb yourself... Say they have 2 Tombs in their deck and on average they see 2-3 cards before going off, this gives them roughly 1/3 odds of going off with Tomb. If we add 1 Tomb from our side to the mix they now have 1/2 odds of going off with Tomb. Accelerating Marrit Lage by a turn is a huge drawback for our deck. If it wasn't for this one drawback I would consider Tomb as a boon. As of now, Uborg seems more like a solution in search of a problem (Tower).

In general Tower will grant you one extra mana per turn at the cost of a body, and will give you worthless colorless mana without any spare bodies. Feeder + Crawler + Tower doesn't give you any mana advantage without another spare body to sacrifice. In fact, without a spare body, Tower doesn't even provide a single colored mana... The only good body to sacrifice here would be a Bloodghast and it requires a Land to recur. At that point dropping a fetch instead of a Tower in the mix gives you +3 to Feeder (2x Landfall + mana) while Tower gives +2 (landfall trigger gets used for 2 mana). If you have multiple Ghasts, Tower > Fetch becomes a drawback. Note that in the absence of Crawler altogether, Feeder + Ghast benefits less from a Tower than a Fetch too. The best use for Tower in my list would be to slam a T2 Liliana with proper T1 setup. Again, I don't play Feeder anymore because I don't like sinking resources in a more vulnerable version of Gurmag that can't block. Sadly, I don't think colorless nonbasics have a home in this deck...

Bottom line is: Fetches are better than all the utility Lands you could play. More fetches makes a better deck!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

Bottom line is: Fetches are better than all the utility Lands you could play. More fetches makes a better deck!

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Sound reasoning. I'll give it a shot.

I went 3-0 (id the last match, it was maverick, thank god :tongue:) on our weekly 4 rounds tournament last monday with the list very similar to qweerios (1 explosive 2 abrades maindeck, changed fatal pushes to swords to plowshares on the board);

Matches were vs miracles, sneak n show and punishing naya zoo(something like that)!

Some notes:

- back to basics could have ended the game for me (3 swamps, 3 badlands, 3 scrubs, 11 fetches), basic mountain and arid mesa is something i wanna try next tournament;
- abrade and explosives maindeck were very good, i was able to take ooze vs naya before things get bad... also got some jitte and monastery mentor;
- cabal therapy is definately my favourite card of the deck, its very hard to play another deck after using cabal therapy to its maximum effect :laugh:
- never got the chance to use swords to plowshares;
- 3 bombardment was a little weird, vs naya i was stuck with 2 on my hand and 1 on the play;
- i found myself boarding out suppliers on every matchup, and that worked pretty well... grave hate is very high and being able to not mill my lilianas/gurmags worked out great! Its also better for playing around surgicals;
- gurmag won me some games alone;
- lingering souls is too strong in some matchups, the pressure is very high;

Some thoughts:

Sometimes the deck looses his gas pretty quickly when we dont draw lootings (happened vs sneak and show and miracles),
I thought about using a light enlightement tutor package, so we can get the piece we need for, and makes the deck less reliant on graveyard. Some targets:

- goblin bombardment
- ensnaring bridge
- bitterblossom
- hidden stockpile
- phyrexian arena
- explosives
- tidehollow sculler
- maybe seal of cleansing instead of wear/tear

There is probably a lot more!

We already have the best tutor (entomb), and adding a second one contributes greatly to our game plan!

Any thoughts on this?

Nice going johncarvalho! I am glad it's working out for you.

I played ETutor both before and after DRS and it doesn't work with Supplier. You end up playing too many narrow 1ofs in your SB that can get milled away. In many matchups you don't want to lose a draw step for a specific card. The silver bullets are also slow and narrow and tend to waste SB slots. Furthermore, the grindy bullets like Blossom and Arena are terrible to Etutor for when you think about it... The best ETutor targets I played were Tormod's Crypt, Pithing Needle, Alpine Moon, Bombardment and EE because they are quick and/or crippling. The worst ones were Ensnaring Bridge, Blood Moon, Jitte, Seal of Cleansing, Grave Pact, and Bitterblossom because they were all excruciatingly slow or just worst versions of availlable cards for the sake of being tutorable.

Basic Mountain is a great silver bullet. I don't hesitate to side it out either when my land count is too high for the matchup. Mountain makes a big difference against Delver, DnT, PoP, B2B, Lands (Purge that single GQ and you're good to go!).

I started playing even more lately and hit a monthly and 2 weeklies this week after being sick. My deck is very fine-tuned to my eyes so I am really grinding out details at this point. I ended up playing against the following decks:

Lands (7-4) pre and post-StP SB
Grixis Control (4-1)
Stoneblade (4-0)
Maverick (3-2)
BR Reanimator (1-4) pre and post-StP SB - probably our single worst matchup!
Sneak n Show (2-1)
Death's Shadow (2-1)
Eldrazi (2-1)
Nyx Fit (2-1)
Turbo Depths (1-2) pre-StP SB
UW Delver (1-2)

Here's my latest list and some card explanations:

Core (35)
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
1 Scourge of Nel Toth

4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lingering Souls
3 Goblin Bombardment

Flex (4)
2 Abrade
2 Engineered Explosives

Manabase (21)
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
3 Badlands
3 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Mountain

Sideboard
1 Coffin Purge
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Wear // Tear
3 Liliana of the Veil


All the cards in the "core" section should be no surprise. I've tried and tested various configurations with Feeder, Bridge and Gurmag and those cards are not core but take up flex slots. I've devised a metagame map with the 10 tier 1 decks and 10 tier 2 decks and used this list to determine the flex slots. As long as DnT and Stoneblade decks will be at the top tables and that Chalice remains a common contender, a couple of Abrades are required. The biggest change I've come to realise lately is that the 2nd EE and the 21st Land are better than 2 Gurmag against more decks in the meta (DnT, Death Shadow, Blade, Stompy, Maverick, Storm, Lands). Furthermore, the decks against which Gurmag shines the most (Delver and Eldrazi) benefit even more from another Land against mana denial and EE has a similar impact than Gurmag on the board (Delver/Shadow/Mongoose Wrath and destroys Chalice). Besides, Scourge already plays Gurmag's part quite well in those matchups. By switching out Gurmag for EE I lose some percentage points against Grixis Control but this matchup is already extremely favorable (I Won my last match with a bad mull to 5). Another big reason to play EE>Gurmag is how it frees up SB space for a 4th StP. Between Plow and Gurmag, Plow is arguably the card I want the most... I could see a 1/1 Gurmag/EE split main with the second EE in the SB being valid because EE/Gurmag are both clunky in multiples so reducing them both to 1 copy avoids tension.

After all this talk about Lands I ended up playing a 2nd Mesa over Paradise as my 21st Land. I reverted to Paradise for as long I play 2 copies of EE mainboard. Paradise allows me to jam those stranded EE's at 4 against Miracles and Grixis (Jace, Kess, Gideon) while providing white mana against B2B to hardcast grindy Souls. I play no less than 21 Lands because it gives me aproximately an additional 6% chances of having 3+ lands by T3 (therefore decreasing my odds of having less than 3 lands by T3 by 6% in the process) and brings up my odds of having 2+ lands in my opener by about 4% IIRC. These are relevant percentage points against mana denial strategies.

On to SB cards:

3 Surgical and 1 Purge is still the best GY hate package I could figure out. Leyline is narrower and easier to deal with. The best way to beat BR Reanimator is to extract all copies of Griselbrand and grind it out with StP/Liliana. Surgical is more potent against Lands than other GY hate cards and offers needed disruption against SnT and Storm.

3-4 StP do everything we need from 1 mana removal against Lackey, Swiftspear, Guide, Delver, Mom, Thalia, to fatty removal against Gurmag, Shadow, Goyf, Ooze, KotR, Eldrazi, to combo hate against Elesh Norn, Chancelor, Iona, Tyrant, and Marrit Lage. I will play the 4th copy as long as the 2nd EE remains in the main.

4 Wear // Tear are simply a must if you want to win again Chalice + Leyline decks (Eldrazi, Loam, Steel Stompy, Red Stompy). Our deck cannot play against pressure + Leyline and Wear is the only card that can destroy a Leyline in time while simultaneously be able to destroy Chalice. They also work wonders against any SFM + RiP deck (Blade and DnT).

3 Liliana as usual is my prefferred weapon against Control and Combo decks of all kinds. Symetrical discard leverages discard spells, GY synergy, and recurring sac effects quickly take over a fair board. Liliana may cost 3 mana but she does it all with a cherry on top.

These cards are simply the most widely applicable, timely, and impactful cards I found through theory-crafting and testing. It's time to start tearing down major events now!

Very nice man, thanks for all the text and card explanations! I will try the 2 EE no Gurmags list today!

Your sideboard plan is just fight through the hate instead of a second approach, and i kinda like that very much! Staying true to the main deck concept!

I will post a report tomorrow!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Qweerios

Here's my latest list and some card explanations...

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General question, with the removal of gurmags/carrion feeders. How often do you run into the situation when you end up with a gravecrawler in the graveyard and no zombie in hand/play to recur them?

I agree that there are at most 5 flex slots in the mardu build if you entertain shaving a thoughtseize or entomb.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Looks like my list just posted to MTG Top8.
Hopefully I get an opportunity to do some more tuning in the next 72 hours. Next step SCG Baltimore! :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by maCHOOga

General question, with the removal of gurmags/carrion feeders. How often do you run into the situation when you end up with a gravecrawler in the graveyard and no zombie in hand/play to recur them?

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I will often dump the first Crawler to Looting and enable Crawler through Supplier or the next Crawler. The first Crawler can idle in the GY for a while. Nel Toth and Supplier are the main enablers. So far I haven't had issues with the zombie count but I also haven't played many games without Gurmag. I tend to go big on Ghasts and Souls for most of my games. I find that Crawler shines the most as a lategame machine gun enabler or early beats when going wide.

What I dislike about Crawler + Feeder as an early play is that you are putting all your eggs in the same basket. Sinking mana into pumping Feeder is a poor use of my early mana. At the point when I want to start pumping Feeder, Gurmag is what I want to be casting.

Went 2-2 yesterday , losing vs miracles(0-2) and infect(1-2), and winning vs pox(2-0, he is also a zombardment player) and merfolk(2-1).

I found myself diluting the deck so much when sideboarding (im not good at sideboarding, still needs lots of practice), but every g2 i felt the deck was a lot more inconsistent. i never knew what to take out, so i need to craft a sideboard map vs every matchup and study it a little.

some notes:
- vs miracles g1 was pretty winnable, but I played only 2 lands (a scrub and a swamp), and died with looting and abrade in hand... an early game mountain/badlands woud have drastically changed the game; I chained like 3 suppliers in a row, with cabal therapys, got like 3 ghats on the grave, some looting, but never saw the red mana :frown:
- I made some mistake vs infect players, doing a looting or something instead of putting up a blocker, that costed me the game on turn 2; I also boarded in 3 Lilianas, and the infect player told me after that they're not good, because they cant kill Inkmoth (lost the 2 games to it); it was my second time playing vs infect, so I was a bit lost;
- 2 explosives maindeck felt like much... I think I prefer the previous list, with 2 gurmags instead of explosives and undiscovered paradise;
- 2 abrades maindeck is very nice;
- for some reason I found 4 Swords to Plowshares to be much, not really sure why!

I have a big tournament on Sunday, still not sure which list to play!

@machooga

Saw your decklist on mtgtop8, pretty nice man! How is that Sorin working for you, and what is your take o post sideboard matches, what do you usually board out? I assume bridge from below is a g1 winner only.

That's it, keep zombarding! :laugh:

Here's my map:

Tier 1:

●Delver (Grixis, RUG, Shadow)
-4 TS -3 Therapy
+4 StP +3 Liliana

●Eldrazi
-4 TS -4 Therapy -3 Bomb
+4 StP +4 Wear +3 Liliana

Death n Taxes
-1 Scourge -4 TS -3 Therapy
+4 StP +4 Wear

Stoneblade
-4 TS -3 Therapy
+4 Wear +3 Liliana

Grixis Control
-2 Abrade -1 Mountain
+3 Liliana

Miracles
-1 Scourge -2 Abrade
+3 Liliana

Lands
-4 TS -4 Therapy -2 Abrade
+1 Purge +3 Surgical +4 StP +2 Wear

●Sneak n Show
-1 Scourge -2 Abrade -2 EE -2 Souls -2 Bomb -1 Mountain
+3 Surgical +4 Wear +3 Liliana

Storm
-1 Scourge -2 Abrade -2 Souls -1 Mountain
+3 Surgical +3 Liliana

●Reanimator
-2 Abrade -2 EE -3 Souls -3 Bomb -1 Mountain
+1 Purge +3 Surgical +4 StP +3 Liliana

Tier 2:

Burn / Goblins
-4 TS
+4 StP

Maverick
-4 TS -3 Therapy
+4 StP +3 Liliana

Steel Stompy
-4 TS -4 Therapy
+4 StP +4 Wear

Dragon Stompy
-1 Scourge -3 Therapy
+4 Wear

Aggro Loam
-4 TS -4 Therapy -3 Bomb
+4 StP +4 Wear +3 Liliana

Infect / Elves
-1 Scourge -3 Therapy
+4 StP

Turbo Depths
-2 Abrade -2 EE -3 Bomb
+4 StP +3 Liliana

Dredge
-4 TS -2 Abrade -2 EE
+1 Purge +3 Surgical +4 StP

@qweerios very nice man! I will study that a bit!

Thanks for the time you put into building this deck man! :smile:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by johncarvalho

Saw your decklist on mtgtop8, pretty nice man! How is that Sorin working for you, and what is your take o post sideboard matches, what do you usually board out? I assume bridge from below is a g1 winner only.

That's it, keep zombarding! :laugh:

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Sorin was a fun-of. He helped me rick-roll miracles. I wanted a way to make flyers and also be able to push through damage faster. Turns out that he is really weak to K-command, as if you make a token they will kill him and make you discard.

It depends on the matchup and what time of removal they are running. I left it in against miracles because game 1 they played 2 supreme verdicts against me. Any deck with spot removal is fine. If they want to 2 for 1 themselves to clear a bridge that is fine by me. I also feel like I board in hymn in nearly every matchup.