http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...82#post1028082
Report is up.
Going to do a postmortem on my decklist and cover some brief sideboarding things quickly.
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 Tireless Tracker
1 Regisaur Alpha
1 Thragtusk
1 Primeval Titan
1 Carnage Tyrant
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Burning Wish
2 Scapeshift
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Sylvan Library
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Badlands
4 Taiga
2 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
sb::
1 Scapeshift
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Pyroclasm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Innocent Blood
1 Lost Legacy
2 Slaughter Games
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pulse of Murasa
2 Steve: This deck is a bit top-heavy in both fair and combo plans, so you really want some extra acceleration alongside the Vets. Steve plays very nicely with Tracker, as well -- he puts you into Tracker + clue quicker, or represents a block and a clue if drawn later.
Nissa, VWS: Your goal is to get to 7 lands quickly anyway, so her condition for flipping is already met. She's super easy to flip -- basically any time you want to Zenith for her, you're probably flipping her. She also flips in response to removal by way of fetchlands, which a cool trick. Once she flips, her card draw and her token protector are both relevant, as well. She has continued to be very good for me.
2 Tracker: Tracker is fine here due to the large land count (24) and amount of ramp spells -- again, turning a lategame Steve into a cantrip is perfectly fine. He also lets you draw a bunch of cards off a Scapeshift if you can't kill them with it for some reason (leyline of sanctity or whatever). He also grows to tangle with Gurmags quickly, and pressures combo while drawing into more disruption.
Regis: Regis & Kelly successfully killed a couple planeswalkers on the day, although I never played against something like Czech pile, which is where the card shines in particular. Good value guy, good aggression, and threatens a nasty turn with Carnage Tyrant if Regis sticks around.
Carnage: He's the biggest, dumbest idiot and sometimes you need a big, dumb idiot. He beats everything except the largest Goyfs (and Goyf is super out of favor atm). Like I said in my interview (
https://go.twitch.tv/videos/183919079 at 3:31), the best thing most decks currently can hope to do to him is throw a Strix in the way, in which they're still taking 6 on the block. Hexproof is important, as is trample. Uncounterable matters less, but does come up sometimes.
Primeval Titan: A plan unto himself, plays well with both Valakut and also with the "lands as cards" theme of Tracker and Vital Force. He's not always relevant, and he does get boarded out a lot, but he's an insane bomb when you need him.
Discard suite: This became industry standard towards the end of Scape's previous life cycle, and seemed fine on the weekend as well. Sometimes I boarded out the Thoughtseizes to improve my topdeck quality, but they were nice to have in the maindeck to get more information or have slightly more protection against combo or control.
2 Decay: I do kind of still wish I had room for another removal spell or two maindeck, but the deck honestly feels pretty tight at this point. Decay was definitely the right call -- Chalice of the Void is on the upswing, and while we don't typically need to kill Chalice all the time, sometimes it does matter if our hand is choked on 1s vs Eldrazi or some such. I also blew up a random Trinisphere from the Cloudpost deck, and being uncounterable is great vs Delver, as we all know.
2 Vital Force: This card is bananas in the metagame right now in general and Scape, in particular, uses it very well. Every mode on this card is important, and knowing when to off her for her emblem is challenging but rewarding when you get it right. Don't forget that if you have her Emblem and you play a Fetchland, you can hold priority in response to the Emblem trigger and fetch, which will result in you drawing 2 cards after your fetch resolves.
Manabase: felt about as stable as it ever does in this deck. Sometimes you run into awkward draws, especially against an opponent who is determined to screw with your manabase, but in general it's pretty robust and holds up to even a pair of Wastelands pretty well. Again, don't forget to priority fetching for basics unless you know the coast is clear. The deck runs off a basic Forest pretty well -- that basic Forest is your first goal, and then from there you can spread outward.
Wishboard: Everything felt pretty solid. I still hate the Innocent Blood, but I know that as soon as I take it out, I'm going to have to deal with a bunch of Show and Tell nonsense. I still wish there was a 1B -2/-2 pyroclasm variant :(
Sideboard: Everything was good here, too. The Pulse of Murasa could potentially be a 3rd Surgical, but I liked having the Pulse -- it performed well for me a couple times on the day when I needed it to.
Brief sideboarding notes:
Vs Grixis/RUG Delver:
-2 Nissa Vital
-1 Primeval Titan
-1 Regisaur
+1 Pyroclasm
+1 Pulse of Murasa
+2 Lightning Bolt
Pretty standard. You kinda want both Pyroclasms in postboard against Grixis if they're high on Pyromancers, but that means you need to cut an additional card, which is tough. Vastwood Seer is /probably/ the 5th cut if need be, but you're going to definitely have times where you miss it.
Vs Czech:
-1 Pernicious Deed
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Green Sun's Zenith
-1 Veteran Explorer
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Lightning Bolt
+1 Pulse of Murasa
This matchup is mostly about making your draws better because this game is going to go long. Surgical comes in to "counter" Snapcasters at important junctions, and you take out a Zenith in order to Wish for one. Czech frequently has some amount of Invasive Surgery, so being able to protect a Zenith from that is also important -- aside from just increasing your bomb density (4 Zeniths to functionally 7). If you don't want to cut a Vet, you can cut a Steve or a Bayou or a Forest or something instead. You just need to cut /a/ mana source, it doesn't matter too much which one it is.
Vs Storm:
-1 Carnage
-1 Primeval
-1 Regis
-2 Nissa Vital
+2 Slaughter Games
+1 Cabal Therapy
+2 Surgical Extraction
You're trying to lean down your deck. Vital Force is actually decent against storm, but you need cheaper cards. Discard and Surgicals go after their support cards -- either mana or gas -- while Slaughter Games or BW->Lost Legacy goes after their actual win conditions; tendrils first, since forcing them on to Empty is actively good for us, and then Empty for the final blow.
Decay stays in because storm pilots will frequently try to park an LED or a Petal in play in order to protect it from our discard, and then we can nuke it from orbit. Deed has the same role, but also protects us from Empty to some degree.
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Hopefully that gives you some idea or insight into what I do -- should be able to extrapolate from that. Generally speaking you're looking to bring in like 3-5 cards and adjust your maindeck to the speed you need it to be as well as adjusting the plans that you have available to you.
