For those on the BUG varient, has anyone tried running a singleton Sidisi, Undead Vizier, and if so how have you found it?
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For those on the BUG varient, has anyone tried running a singleton Sidisi, Undead Vizier, and if so how have you found it?
I'm thinking of going to Columbus and playing BUG Pod again. It's been a little while since I've played the deck. Congrats on the finish Noctalor. I have some observations/questions.
Ophiomancer - this card looks sweet. I have played it in cube online and it was always great. I'll definitely be trying this out.
Red splash - How many times have you gotten color screwed by having this red splash? I tried out a white splash for Orzhov Pontiff a while ago (before they printed Minister of Pain) and the card was good but I also got stuck with it in my hand too much for my liking.
It is pretty cool that you can fetch Keranos out with Birthing Pod. Are the pyroblasts in the sideboard a good enough substitute for Force of Will against combo? I see you have duress as well.
It's also worth noting that they upgraded Envelop (Invasive Surgery) and we can turn on delirium quite easily with in this deck thanks to Baleful Strix.
What have you been playing against in these tournaments? What are your thoughts on the various matchups?
Thanks.
@Navsi, I tend to have additional sweeper effects like Toxic Deluge and Engineered explosives for elves (which is s really hard matchup in my experience) and other creatures decks in the sideboard that switch one for one with the two main deck Thoughtsiezes and that's generally all the sideboarding you do.
If I didn't run main deck Thoughtseize I probably wouldn't sideboard at all. What do you sideboard out/in against delver?
I play a 2/2 Main/Side split with my Abrupt Decays, so that's two slots which replace Thoughtseize against delver variants and most other aggressive decks. At the moment I'm running 1 Zealous Persecution which would probably come in against most Delver builds as well, particularly ones running YP.
If I'm having to cut all 4 life costing spells (2 Thoughtseize, 1 Unmaking, 1 Truths) I'd probably put in 2 Decay, 1 ZP, 1 Reclamation sage - just for a Zenithable removal effect for Sulfuric Vortex if they're in red, or any equipment if they're in white. It's also just a blocker which is fine a lot of the time, and kills a lot of their unexpected spicy sideboard tech like Sylvan Library or whatever.
Regarding those concerned with Post, MUD, and Land's match-ups. When I was playing junkfit I ran a single tagia in the main, and in the board had 3 blood moon's, and 3 slaughter games. It helps all those matches, unfortunately moon does nothing to help with miracles, though slaughter games certainly does. Someone posted a board similar to this sometime ago and I would definitely do it if I were to start playing junkfit again
The first thing I notice is that Miracles, ANT, D&T, S&T are all using our Vet's against us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
I wouldn't consider DnT to be a problem matchup, although that might just be for me. I've only ever lost to the deck a handful of times, and I've had to play vs it a -lot-. Admittedly, my sweeper-heavy approach was likely much better vs that deck as compared to spot removal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
Miracles is still the only deck among these where I consider Veteran to be a drawback. Vs ANT and S&T, you shouldn't be cracking a Vet "just cause." You need to have something impactful to do with that mana, or else be stripping their hand. While they do derive value, the trick is that you need to use the immediate effect of the mana to do something backbreaking. You get to use the lands first (for sorcery speed spells), take advantage of it.
I wasn't trying to say that it's necessarily a problem matchup, but rather that a big pattern in the mentioned decks is that several of them are able to get value off of our Vet's which would suggest a plan for SB games.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
I realize that we get the lands first but our curve tends to be higher so if they can use the lands it's a bigger tempo boost for the opponent even if we might get a more powerful card out of it.
How's this deck positioned these days? I'm looking for a deck to take to Columbus and debating a move off of Esper Stoneblade in large part because I feel like access to Abrupt Decay is going to be something I'll want. It has been a couple years since I've played Nic Fit though. How's it stacking up? How is it against Eldrazi?
I tend to play red cards opnly in non wasteland MUs, the worst you can get is the mono waste from infect or some wasteland UWR deck, you can fetch safely a red source instead of the second black one in those mu, you can even cast murderous this way.Quote:
Originally Posted by GtF
The worst of the slash is not being able to board pyros against shardless, the card is ofc good against both vision and jace, but we cant take the risk to get smashed by wasteland, red splash still nuts here since landing keranos is a free win.
Combo is pretty reasonable with 3 counters 3 duress 2/3 pyros 2 surgical 1 needle, i dont really like force here, we have few blue card and most of them are too valuable to be "wasted", people will play around force anyway most of the times giving us a turn to get our counter online, and our counter is fluster for this reason, people will go off protected expecting a force, so we will likely lose anyway having a single counter up, fluster should autowin couunter war early on and we can grind hard in the mid to late game in the combo MU so we should we good.
If you play invasive over fluster you will emprove the bad mu against scapeshift, miracle will improve but infect needs way more help than any fair MU, even not considering the problem with holding a single counter in the omnitell MU.
Surgery should probably be a go to if you dont go for the red splash.
In tournament my scores are 5/2, 6/3, 5/0/2, 4/1, nothing impressive but the deck is not so bad, you can easily stand a chance to top8 in a competitive enviroment.
Worst MUs are lands, eavy ramp strategy like post and combo decks, we can easily board against combo getting a pretty even MU, lands is a nightmare unless we get a lucky surgical asap, but i dont really feel like dedicating more than the solifuge to this mu, is important to note that the solifuge is here both to kill planeswalker and to ramp into keranos against active punishing fires.
We tend to win creature based MU, death and taxes is generally good unless the turn 1 mother into fast revoker on deed, eldrazi is pretty good unless we get rekt in the very early game.
So in the end, decent in fair MU with some really good ones like eldrazi and some disaster ones like lands, bad to decent against combo, decent against controls, way better than any other nic fit against miracle probably
Thinking about the Miracles matchup and the way we trade cards with them, I feel like the biggest problem we have is that we can't afford to trade 1 for 1 against them. They probably beat us in the card advantage department, with access to Counterbalance and Jace and Snapcaster. We also usually don't have enough threats to overwhelm them, since some percentage of our deck is going to be cards which don't generate a board presence, like Veteran Explorer. The thing I realised though is:
None of our actual threats force the deck to 2-for-1 itself.
There's Force, of course, but Force does get hardcast against us quite a lot. Otherwise, because of Terminus and Swords, the Miracles player very rarely has to 'trade down' which means they are highly unlikely to fall behind in card parity unless something goes wrong (Therapy crit, Meren survives for three turns, or whatever).
Is this something we can change? Obviously the big outlier here is Arianrhod's GBC Kozilek Nic Fit build, which has 5+ creatures which both demand an answer and generate Card Advantage immediately - Kozilek, Ulamog, and Thought-Knot, along with potential inclusions of Primeval Titan, Smasher, and Emrakul. Otherwise, there is Thragtusk, which does the job very effectively but also doesn't present a particularly scary clock (and costs 5) and finally Tireless Tracker, which I think might be our best bet here. Tracker threatens a lot of damage, but at the same time replaces himself at the very least, allowing us to potentially equalise or pull ahead in card advantage, even if the opponent has a Swords immediately. The other option I've been looking at is Sword of Fire And Ice, since it upgrades Veterans into actual threats and basically forces the deck to find Council's Judgment ASAP or have to deal with every creature we put on the board for the rest of the game.
Tracker replaces itself if played under the right circumstances.
You can approach this in 2 ways. Either we need to start 2-for-1'ing them a lot more or we need to play threats they can't answer, rendering their cards useless.
Let's assume for arguments sake that running a Taiga + SB Slaughter Games is no longer a valid strategy (nor is splashing any colour specifically for SB cards, for that matter). If it really was, I think we would have stopped looking for alternatives a long time ago (no offense).
I guess cards like Tsunami and Choke come to mind, letting us X-for-1 their manabase as do planeswalkers since neither StP or Terminus hit those.
On another note - this morning I came to the conclusion that mosts lists we do have problems with run basics (based off I believe Navsi's? observation) but also don't run Wasteland. This means one can safely fetch duals, which also means that in those MUs we might be able to board in Hymn to Tourach. Seems fine vs. ANT/TES and anyShow & Tell and at least lets us 2-for-1 Miracles a little bit. As long as you run enough fetches it's quite reasonable to get Bayou T1 and Scrubland T2 so you can cast anything from Hymn to Gaddock Teeg on just 2 lands.
I have been seeing a lot more nic fit decks online lately, it is very nice! And the pilots I have talked to were always very talkative and open to feedback :D
By the way, today I have seen a guy on nic fit, he was against Eldrazi. Apparently he won the game out of nowhere casting a surprise PoP. Like, what?
Has PoP ever been suggested here? But when you think about it, the card helps in certain match ups like Lands, BUG and Eldrazi. All decks that gets obliterated by PoP. And it can't be chaliced out of the game (unlike path or ts).
Just for the sake of it I am trying 1-2 PoP in the side now, let's see how it plays out. Thoughts?
Yes. That crazy person was me. I was deemed crazy at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
This was before Eldrazi was a thing, mind you.
It seems crazy, but I'm starting to think it is not that crazy. At least not Echelon-level crazy :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
Echelon-level crazy is running both PoP and Siege Rhino. Attacking is for pussies.Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
On a more serious note - seeing as we also run Eternal Witness and quite possibly Meren of Clan Nel Toth (and Diabolic Intent), a bit of PoP can go a long way.
I might be crazy but Veteran Explorer -> Diabolic Intent to Price of Progress -> (GSZ to) Eternal Witness into Price of Progress seems pretty sexy. Assembling Meren of Clan Nel Toth + Eternal Witness + Phyrexian Tower + Price of Progress (which can be done with a single Diabolic Intent!) is porn.
Echelon-level crazy means only to indulge in that trashy fetish that is Fierce Empath + Karador :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
PoP makes sense in theory, I'll test and report back my results here.
Karador + Phyrexian Tower + Eternal Witness + PoP is sexy too and can also be assembled with a single Diabolic Intent... EDH-porn..?Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
LoL this is hilarious
http://i.imgur.com/9J7jb2Y.jpg
It's beautiful and glorious!
How did you cast it though?
Also, this has given me some ideas. I'll work it out as a build tomorrow. Spoilers: Speed, PoPs, Diabolic Intents and recursion engines!
I won't hide the fact that this is a guy I was spectating. Infact he is the very same player that smashed the eldrazi deck I was referring to earlier. He kept up a fetch until the very last moment->crack the fetch->glory.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
I will replace deluge with PoP, since PoP does better against the very same decks (except lands of course) I would have boarded in deluge AND at instant speed.
Do any of you think that it's possible to put together a more aggressive build running faster clocks that could complement Price more effectively? I could see it dealing 10+ frequently, but not actually killing just because the rest of our deck doesn't threaten life totals particularly quickly. Maybe a Jund build? I guess the nonbo that is Bloodbraid + Zenith/Explorer means we're lacking for a good midrange beater unless we want to try and run Reality Smasher. There's also Giant Solifuge which is a beating.
Edit: Dualcaster Mage saw a bit of play back when DTT and Cruise were all over, but he'd be pretty hilarious with more burn in the list.
I currently view PoP like a trick out of our bag that helps us push these last points of damage against slow decks like lands and BUG and can punishes out of nowhere monstrosities like eldrazi's 16 sol lands (more or less) mana base.Quote:
Originally Posted by Navsi
Just thinking that it's a lot more of a powerful play if we're already pressuring their life total in other ways.
Just put together something like this:
3 Forest
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
8 Fetchland
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Giant Solifuge
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Dualcaster Mage
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Diabolic Intent
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Fireblast
Side:
2 Slaughter Games
2 Blood Moon
2 Price of Progress
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
1 Golgari Charm
A shell like this could be pretty good for Huntmaster, since having a large amount of instant speed burn / interaction makes passing turn and flipping Huntmaster significantly more attractive (as does Tireless Tracker).
@Navsi, Do you keep vets in against miracles? I usually side them all out, but recently have been wondering about it.
@Everyone, how many vets / therapied do you keep in G2/3 against miracles?
:eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Navsi
I try to keep 0/0 postboard vs Miracles. At April's Mythic, I ended up leaving in Therapy vs my 2nd Miracles opponent, and boarded in Surgicals, because I didn't have Slaughters in the sideboard and tried to have a desperate "build-a-slaughter," basically. Therapy was distinctly mediocre postboard -- I did get to take away his Top g2 on the play, but then I drew another one halfway through the game when he had RIP out and was hellbent with a Top in play, and I was like, well, this is miserable.
PoP seems like entertaining tech, at least. I feel like it's something Matt should be working on, since he's played around with a lot of 4-color shells, either white jund or red junk. Rhino + PoP seems like an interesting direction to toy with. It still doesn't answer Miracles, but it does lock down some other matchups very convincingly.
Related topic: for red builds, Xenagos PW is worth considering, at least as a sideboard option. Spitting out a 2/2 haste satyr every turn is likely hell for Miracles.
Xenagod might not be bad either. He turns anything with 2+ power into a threat (also hilarious with Wolf Run) and is just as hard to remove, but zenithable.
I'm very interested in trying the PoP sideboard tech but while we're talking about spicy tech, I wanted to give a shout out to abeyance/Orim's chant again. For a deck like ours that is trying to survive to the late game, I feel like I've gotten huge tempo out of these effects outside of the obviously deeply satisfying deprivation of a miracles trigger or blanking suspended rift bolts/ancestral visions. I've even thought about trying to MB 2 of but would like to keep a couple in the SB at least
blergh, misread, great 1000th post
Hi all,
This is the deck that I'm planning to play the next week:
Maindeck:
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Primeval Titan
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the last troll
1 Eternal witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
1 Huntmaster of the fells
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Abrupt decay
3 Perniciuos deed
4 Green sun's zenith
4 Punishing Fire
4 Cabal therapy
3 Sensei's divining top
3 Swamp
3 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Wastes
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded foothills
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Kessig wolf run
61 Cards Total
Side:
3 Slaughter Games
2 Krosan Grip
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Pyroblast
2 Price of progress
1 Volcanic fallout
2 Diabolic Edict
1 From the ashes
Some thoughts:
As a Eldrazi player I already thought in PoP against them(us), with all the ancient tomb and dismember their life goes down really fast.
I expect a some number of reanimate, and as I'm not in junk I put diabolic edict in SB (also for S&T and edrazi) 2 Ooze maindeck too.
3 Thought-Knot Seer maindeck are quite easy to cast with the number "colorless" of lands that I run (groves, wrun, tower and the extra wastes) and is surprisingly easy to cast turn 2 via veteran + tower. TKS also helps with combo and D&T (being colorless is a plus against Moms)
There are a couple of cards that I want to try in jund as mana sink such as:
Rakdos's Return (could be a finisher and helps against miracles)
Nylea, good of hunt ("only" 4 cmc that can be zenithed and lategame with Ptitan allow us to make 5/5 trample-veteran explorer. Usually againt white decks titan dies at first sight) Another aplication is that she remains in game against terminus.
Vigor (would replace titan and could help against Painters and also with only one Eldrazi that we could block is the game is ours - maybe 2 MD?)
The issue with Jund are long games and I try to find the way to close them faster, any advice will be appreciated.
Are any of the Modo-ers thinking of entering in the Legacy challenge tournament thing on Saturday? I want to but I hvnt played the deck in 2 weeks and hvnt been playing this week because of severe jet lag. Haven't even played with tracker yet. Then again, might as well right?
I think I won't be able toQuote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor
In my experience, 3 punishing fires is enough and then you are at 60 ^_^
EDIT: Legacy Challenge - I may try to but I am not sure where I stand. I will have to look into it.
Work on a requirements doc for SB matches too. I've been working on my own, but lots of travel and little computer time has left me coming up short.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
Plus, my default answer to almost every problem seems to be: "play more threats".
I was trying this with my (failed) Jund list a few pages back. Xenagod seemed interesting. I might try it in Junk and use it as an excuse for Taiga. Xenagod is very good against Terminus and Jace.Quote:
Originally Posted by Navsi
If you look for a threat in punishing fit, stormbreath dragon is the droid you are looking for.
hasty, pro removal, mana sink, fast clock , sadly non green.
I'll try. Your observation does mean there's some merit in the 4 PtE, 0 AD build and a lot of meat build I was (and still am) running.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
Anyways. For Echelon-level crazy Jund Fit (read: NOT Punishing).
Creatures (13):
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Deathrite Shaman
2 Eternal Witness
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
2 Stormbreath Dragon
Instants/Sorceries (19):
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Price of Progress
3 Diabolic Intent
Artifacts (3):
3 Sensei's Divining Top
Enchantments (3):
3 Pernicious Deed
Lands (22):
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
Little bit of meat, lots of boom. The main objective here is to cast/loop a couple of Price of Progresses with the option to fall back on Stormbreath Dragon. Added in Volrath's Stronghold as a StP-proof way to make the loop. Diabolic Intent allows you to find any (and with some work all) pieces. Lots of fetches (and shuffle effects in general) and 3 SDT to help filter your draws/assemble the loop. It probably demands a radically different playstyle from its pilot than we're used to as normally we disrupt, establish and destroy rather than look to assemble an engine. It probably plays a lot like my old Summoner's Egg list, having to manoeuvre carefully before you go for it. Maybe we'd want to put a Banefire in there somewhere to deal with stuff that runs a lot of non-basics, I don't know. It'd be instead of a Stormbreath Dragon. Again, Diabolic Intent + SDT'd help find it.
So despite my jet lag delirium I entered a league last night and my first match was against miracles, my brain was not up for that challenge.. BUT what happened taught me a lot because I was winning all 3 games until I wasn't.
Game 1 Ewit and tracker drew me a bunch of cards, I did pop a vet because I had tracker out and he hadn't removed it yet but he did have the StP despite letting me get two clues already.. I was burying him in card advantage and had a tusk out as a threat with a Drs and Gsun zenith as back up in my hand. He entreats and I find deed with top to answer the Angels. However after some turns of snap caster STP and blocking I'm still winning but then he entreats again, GG
Game 2 I use TS to see his hand is bare bones and take a wear / tear so my SFM can do work. After trading a bunch in my favour, and casting painful truths I end up with a Gaddock teeg equipped with a SoFaI and an Abeyance in hand. GG
Game 3 I mulligan a no lander but recoup cards via Ewit and truths. Again I'm ahead after trades but he lands a moat so I don't bother casting my Thragtusk spend a turn digging and Gsun for Sigarda next turn with karakas to protect her. I know he has nothing in relevant in hand from thoughtisiezes and I'm definitely "winning" again, except I haven't found a needle, a teeg, a deed or an abeyance yet and eot entreats and kills me
So I was winning every game on every conventional metric, cards in hand, board presence, damage, knowledge of opponents hand except he instant speed summons lots of angels in three times between the two games I lose.
Conclusion: Cannot race entreat, have to answer it.
Loved Thoughtsieze.
Need more Deed (I was testing with two for the first time, don't like it already),
need more teeg (more aggressively searching, maybe play 2 like Matt),
need ways to protect teeg (SoLaS and Safekeeper),
seems like Sorin wouldn't have been relevant or necessary any of the games (as much as I love him),
surgical extraction was okay.
Need more Abeyance? (I always had mana open when he entreat, I play 2 and it's been a great timewalk against combo, maybe I'll try 3)
Or maybe we do need to supplement the above with Slaughter games...
I think I am going to enter the tournament on Saturday, so I'll be posting some sideboard ideas and lists today if people would be kind enough to give some criticism/thoughts
Some wonderful thoughts! Concerning your SBs and lists: Bring it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Jain_Mor