Quote:
Originally Posted by Delvis
Play Bitterblossom. They simlpy can't beat that card.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Delvis
Play Bitterblossom. They simlpy can't beat that card.
Miracles board 2 wear//Tear against you, as well as Izzet staticaster. Both are pretty good against Bitterblossom.Quote:
Originally Posted by blablub
Cmon mate, so they have 2-3 cards which matters? Its not that hard to hold up Coutermagic for those. Also they need the Wear/Tear asap. If you have 2-3 Tokens before they can handle the blossom, its fine.
Nimble Mongoose is the best creature against them in RUG because they just have a few outs only.
Give it a try ;)
And you play 4 Bitterblossom...?Quote:
Originally Posted by blablub
Terminus is a thing, so is Izzet Staticaster. 2/3 tokens is not enough pressure.
RUG is hard because it's resistent to all these things, besides terminus.
To be fair, you did say they can't beat it. Bit of hyperbole. However, that's an angle I'd forgotten about. I've considered both Bitterblossom and, as terrible as it might sound, Goblin Assault for them. Assault being 2R makes it more attractive when playing from behind on board, as it gets through Counterbalance locks easier and can be played under a Blood Moon without Deathrite assistance. It giving the tokens haste is also better against Terminus as you can immediately start attacking again.Quote:
Originally Posted by blablub
Thanks for the idea, I'll take it into consideration.
Nice Delvis, didn't know the card, just ordered a few. Its the Bitterblossom-Type Card for RUG, nice.
I have very good results in my 4 color delver deck with Bitterblossom against Miracle, because it simply shuts down their terminusses and Swords and they just have only a few answers. Maybe its just 1 Wear/Tear and the 1 Judgment. You don't care about much of their cards if you have a blossom online ;)
Here's what I'm sleeving up tonight:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Young Pyromancer
1 True-Name Nemesis
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Stifle
2 Spell Pierce
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Murderous Cut
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Badlands
//SIDEBOARD
2 Pithing Needle
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Thoughtseize
2 Gurmag Angler
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Sudden Demise
1 Darkblast
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Flusterstorm
Trying out some new tech + main deck Decays. Uptick in Death and Taxes in my local metagame, so I'm trying Virtue's Ruin on for size alongside other effective sweepers. Other new ideas include: sideboard creatures to increase the threat count in Delver matchups; multiple Ancient Grudges to combat new proliferation of artifact strategies (including newfangled Eldrazi Stompy); Thoughtseize as the discard spell of choice.
New tech I wanted to try but ultimately didn't: Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in the sideboard as a way of extracting additional value out of my spells in grindy matchups.
Miracles isn't so hard for Grixis that the deck needs to bend over backwards to beat it. Between a reasonably efficient main deck and a few choice sideboard cards, the games should be able to be conducted quite plausibly.
The first hoop to jump through is keeping Counterbalance off the table. Abrupt Decay is the ideal card for this. My own opponents haven't started boarding out their Counterbalances in the face of 2-3 Decays out of the board. They are tempted by the low curve of the tempo deck, as opposed to the mixed curve of Shardless, and continue to throw away their virtual CA engine into the 1-for-1 circus. You can run fewer than 3 ADs if you're willing to get into counter wars over this card, but be mindful of the Blast numbers reserved for this purpose.
The second hoop that one needs to get through is Jace. Pyroblasts work well here to efficiently answer this card, and note that every blast that gets pointed at a Counterbalance, even if it resolves to keep the enchantment away, is one fewer available for the eventual Jace. Running too few Decays makes one lean on blasts too much, and results in vulnerability to JTMS.
The third hoop is having some sort of card that results in Miracles losing the game. For a list of potential cards, one can consult the Miracles thread, but generally it has included Liliana of the Veil, Sylvan Library, Null Rod, Winter Orb, Bitterblossom, various other walkers, and a handful of lesser cards like TNN. My personal fave here is Sylvan Library, which not only keeps me with a threat on the table, but keeps my hand flush with the needed Abrupt Decay and/or Pyroblast needed to deal with either of the serious threats.
Although it does take up a lot of slots, if you show up to the Miracles matchup fielding 3 Pyroblast, 3 Abrupt Decay, and 2 Sylvan Library, I'm pretty sure you'll walk away with the point. I find it helpful to think about the other sideboard cards using this metric also. Sulfuric Vortex, for example, does double duty as a condition 3 card and a Pyroblast (as it keeps Jace off the table once it gets working).
EDIT: Instead of Virtue's Ruin, what about Dread of Night and Sulfur Elemental? I get a lot of mileage out of these.
Dread of Night might be fine, but they're all playing Serra Avenger now so it's not the lock piece it used to be. Sulfur Elemental is right out. All the D&T lists are playing Mirran Crusaders maindeck. I may play Dread over Darkblast though, as they tend to get RiP quite frequently after board and Dread just won't care. And yes, D&T is that prolific in my meta, that I need two dedicated sideboard cards.
Yeah just check out the tournament report on TMD. http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=48366.0Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy
because of Kurt owning me in the mirror with Darkblast I ended up cutting k-command in the board for Darkblast in the Sunday Legacy Classic. I didn't due very well in that due to a couple of punts.
I remember hearing that Kurt was playing 4 anglers in the main but his decklist up there says 2. I'm going to assume that the 2 on TMD is correct.
Maybe he made it look like he was playing 4 anglers? :D And yes, darkblast is a good card in the mirror. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by h2o
Anyway, I have some questions on your list:
1.) Did the 1 spell pierce matter?
2.) Were there times that you wished that spell pierce was a forked bolt or another probe instead?
3.) No dread of night nor sulfur elemental? How did you plan on playing against death and taxes?
Have people tried 3 cabal therapy main, and 1 painful truth instead of the 4 stifle people tend to play these days.
It seems at least a lot better against death and taxes, which is the topic of matter. Regardless of this matchup nor others I find this version better against the field. Also because you get 3 "free" freshly new sideboard slots.
Regards m0ller
I will say that while Miracles in my area have avoided me or died, I did get to test BBlossom against them and it owns. I haven't gotten to do it enough to know how reliable it is, but my few rounds have been good.
The best game?
I have a mediocre hand with blossom, hope he doesn't cast Blood moon.
I cast blossom T2. He casts Moon.
He cantrips a bunch, and terminus's once. He dies.
We each basically played one real card. Fantastic.
As i said :)Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
I'm still not sure about my creature suits, Goyfs, Mongoose, Pyromancer, Nemesis, Angler :(
Having played a list where I swapped a Probe for a single Pierce, I'll tell you, I now play 2 copies main. I was almost always happy to see it. It did a lot more work than a Forked Bolt would have. I can also say that, having played a list lacking Probes recently, I don't really miss them much. I do sometimes miss Therapies, though. I still have some work cut out for me, trying to determine an optimal non-Therapy list, so I wouldn't advise following my path. I might just wind up switching back if there were a big event on the horizon (although right now I'm trying on Eldrazi for size). Probe is my least favorite card in the deck - but it's sort of necessary with Therapies.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy
yes I like the 1 spell pierce. I don't wish it was a probe, maybe a forked bolt sometimes.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheRandomGuy
darkblast is ok against d&t. although I don't think it's a very common deck nowadays.
I still think this is a stifle metagame.Quote:
Originally Posted by m0ller
Regarding Therapies over Stifles: I've done this before, when I was playing Abbot of Keral Keep. It works out fine. It's strictly a metagame call. I think you'll find plenty of success by swapping out 4 Stifle for 3 Therapy 1 Truths, the only question I have is, is it going to be more success than you would have had with Stifle? If you're doing it to beat Death and Taxes, you might pick up some percentage points, but Stifle is plenty good against them as is (it hits Stoneforge, Flickerwisp, Batterskull, Jitte, and even Mom and Vial depending on the situation). Sure, it's not a game-breaking play, and boarding it out might be correct, but it's not like it's a dead card. Therapy has its weaknesses in the matchup, too.
I don't think I provided an update on my Friday match results. I wound up going 3-1, my only loss was my friend Paul Lynch's Eldrazi Stompy, which only lost a single game all night, and met a carbon copy in the last round as the only undefeateds in the room (and that deck didn't drop a game through the first three rounds). I finished third out of 12. Abrupt Decay felt fine in the main deck, but it made the mana very awkward. I might move it to the sideboard unless I was expecting heavy Miracles. I'm on Eldrazi Stompy for now so this deck will be collecting dust for a few weeks, but given the new prevalence of that deck specifically, I would probably play Cut over Decay.
Paul actually had a good suggestion for the mana base for my 4-color list. Here's his idea:
4 Wasteland
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
You have to play Tarn and Misty since they're the only fetches capable of getting all 4 duals you'd be playing here.
His theory behind this is Sea + Taiga is a better/easier configuration to manage than Trop + Badlands to get all 4 colors. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make - I remember his logic was sound when he suggested it, I just can't remember what it was. I'd test this out moving forward, if he hadn't recruited me to help break Eldrazi Stompy.
I fully agree with this and been on 3 probe 1 pierce for a while and heavily considering the 2 pierce 2 probe config. I often find myself cutting probes post board vs decks that I'm not bringing in therapy against. Also been playing 3 bobs in the SB which have done a ton of work lately.Quote:
Originally Posted by Delvis
Hi, I played essentially this deck the other night:
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11464&d=265125&f=LE
Differences were Fire/Ice over Forked Bolt, Murderous Cut over Painful Truths, and 3 Usea/3 Stifle instead of 2/4.
I lost to imperial taxes and miracles, and beat burn and a RG chalice/moon brew.
I also think I prefer Therapy to Stifle -- I felt that against Miracles, where it was most relevant, you're damned if you don't develop your board and damned if you do and let them get basics online.
Is the general consensus that Stifle is what makes Delver worth playing for the busted starts? And if I want to play Therapy main, I should go for a more control/midrange Pyromancer deck like this?
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11421&d=264839&f=LE