[Deck] Czech Pile

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Originally Posted by Misersoneof

Thanks for the input. I am always glad to get details on testing and I'd like to learn more about how wasteland can be used against a lands player. I can't be sure but I don't think I've played against Lands with Wasteland in my deck.

Could either of you go into more detail about which lands should be targeted with wasteland or how it can be used to protect our lands in the matchup? Also, how often did being on the play effect your games?

In my experience, having a T1 Deathrite against lands is pretty powerful but when he came down T2 he would usually end up PFired or Molten Vortex'd before I got any activations in. Then the burden was on me to find another Deathrite. I mention this because drawing a wasteland seems to be not very helpful in this situation. Does Wasteland lose value if you are on the draw?

To add on to the above, Wiktul, you mention how you have to choose between either killing DRS or destroying lands. Often, my opponent would kill my DRS and then go after my lands. It was a gradual process to be sure but it locked me out quick enough and I wasn't able to cast anything bigger than a 1/1 Strix. How often is this strategy of destroying each of the opponent's lands just too slow?

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Well, that depends much of your game strategy at the very beginning of the match - do you like to keep and to search for more lands in first turns, or would you rather rely on the power of DRS and keep one lander. The former requires time to shut you down, the time I usually don't have as long as you're able to defend Shaman and / or counter my key spells in right time.

As for your previous question - wasteland is most dangerous turn 1-2, when destroying my Taiga or Grove, very often the only coloured mana sources to begin with. Even with Exploration or Manabond colorless hand will be slow grind of mana denial without graveyard interaction (no G for Loam), partial combo without acceleration (no G for Cropp, no R for Gamble) and most importantly no removal available. You can pay for my Tabernacle t1 with no lands in play, feeding DRS the very wasteland I used to kill your single land. I can't do that. That is why 85% of the time first fetchable Lands land will be basic forest.

Another situation when waste is an advantage for you is its disruption of my combo. Even without active DRS that's simply time and mana literally wasted to play around it. In those turns I need to port it, to force it with my own waste or quarter or to Loam back the combo pieces and put them into play again, you can have Strixes flying around, edict waiting in hand and Jace ready to go. Over the course of 2 turns I usually need to reasemble the combo you can dig into how many cards for the answer? 6? 8?

Another card that is very good against you is Barbarian Ring - that's another reason to regullary eat lands from my graveyard (Loam is pointless without options) and to have acces to wasteland without any other answers to the Ring killing your stuff. Karakas is quite "meh" for me here, yet I still preffer to bounce your Leo for days, making it 3 mana sorcery "draw a card" each turn instead of "draw 3 cards for all lands and mobs I'm trying to kill". Not much you can do about it, unless you have wasteland.

As for shaman wars it's mostly as you described it. T1 drs backed up with fow is much of an issue. T2 shaman without fow (usually used against my Exploration, Manabond or Gamble) is not so good and that's another reason to play t2 (your t1) wasteland into my single land (assuming you've countered acceleration previously) and see how that goes for me.

Hello, just want to share my current list with Kess wich won me a 20-man local tournament recently

1 Badlands
1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
2 Kess, Dissident Mage

1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize

No spicy singletons MD, only universal high-impact cards.

2 Flusterstorm
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Counterspell
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Pyroblast
1 Hydroblast
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Sylvan Library
1 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Tornament recap:
R1 BUG Shardless Aluren 2-0 (TS/Hymns/Leovold killing Ancestrals)
R2 BUG TNN 2-1 (No way they can outgrind Kess)
R3 UR Sneak and Show (2-0) (just got too lucky with lots of discard and counters)
R4 Death and Taxes 2-1 (could split but decided to play, as we are greatly favored. Still got punished for keeping 1-lander)
R5 ID, I'm 1st at swiss, always play first in top8 rounds

Top8 UR Sneak and Show (2-0) discard + Jace to finish
Top4 BR Reanimator (2-1) lead with trop-drs all 3 games. Opponent reanimated Sire of Insanity games 1 and game 3. Game 1 I manage to topdeck Strix before dying, game 3 I topdeck Edict. So swingy.
Top2 Elves (2-0) don't let them combo off and shoot all dudes

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Originally Posted by maxim.krisevich

Hello, just want to share my current list with Kess wich won me a 20-man local tournament recently

1 Badlands
1 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Volcanic Island

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
2 Kess, Dissident Mage

1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Thoughtseize

No spicy singletons MD, only universal high-impact cards.

2 Flusterstorm
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Counterspell
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Pyroblast
1 Hydroblast
1 Marsh Casualties
1 Sylvan Library
1 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Umezawa's Jitte

Tornament recap:
R1 BUG Shardless Aluren 2-0 (TS/Hymns/Leovold killing Ancestrals)
R2 BUG TNN 2-1 (No way they can outgrind Kess)
R3 UR Sneak and Show (2-0) (just got too lucky with lots of discard and counters)
R4 Death and Taxes 2-1 (could split but decided to play, as we are greatly favored. Still got punished for keeping 1-lander)
R5 ID, I'm 1st at swiss, always play first in top8 rounds

Top8 UR Sneak and Show (2-0) discard + Jace to finish
Top4 BR Reanimator (2-1) lead with trop-drs all 3 games. Opponent reanimated Sire of Insanity games 1 and game 3. Game 1 I manage to topdeck Strix before dying, game 3 I topdeck Edict. So swingy.
Top2 Elves (2-0) don't let them combo off and shoot all dudes

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Sick finish. Congratulations!

I have a friend who runs Kess but he has had trouble in the past dealing with decks that run Red Blasts or Swords to Plowshares. Against BUG decks she is a house though. How do you think your build is against Delver (Grixis or UR), Miracles and the mirror?

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Originally Posted by Misersoneof

How do you think your build is against Delver (Grixis or UR), Miracles and the mirror?

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Delver can be very fast (UR being the worst for us), so we should prioritize removal and Strixes to stall to late game. Kess can work as fast clock if we survive the early agression.
Against Miracles - discard-snap-discard hepls greatly, and we should make them use swords on DRS/Snaps/Leo and play Kess as our last game-ending threat.

Kess is a SB card against Sultai and Eldrazi. Against Miracle and Grixis doesn't sound great

Miracles player here, just looking around at current decklists of opposing decks for my upcoming weekly legacy tournament. Can confirm that Kess is basically a dead card against us, so many easy ways to remove it. And we're cutting STP to a 2-3 of in sb matches anyway since we're bringing in 4 red blast effects. It's not sticking around for more than 1 free spell, so you might as well just run an extra snapcaster. Baleful strix is one of your best clocks against us actually. Don't want to waste a blast/stp on it, don't want to bounce it with jace, and using a terminus on it and a snapcaster, or just two strix feels bad, especially as you guys draw so many cards and are just going to find em again.

Hi all,

Been thinking of getting back to czech pile after taking a short hiatus from magic. Wanna try to incorporate inquisition of kosilek after Tomas's latest MKM win and see how it pans out.

Below is my current decklist which i will take for a spin at this friday LGS:

4 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Badlands

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Snapcardster Mage

2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughseize
2 Hymn to tourach
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Kologhan's Command
2 Fatal push
1 Diabolic Edict
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Lightning bolt

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB:
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Flusterstorm
1 Slyvan Library
2 Marsh Casualties
1 Liliana, the last hope
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Hymn to Tourach


Appreciate some feedback on this list. Reason why I played 2 Decays main is due to the resurgence of miracles. My meta is quite varied, Delvers (RUG, Grixis mainly), reanimator, Eldrazi, Nic Fit, Miracles, Burn, Stompy decks

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Originally Posted by beta

SB:
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Hydroblast
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Flusterstorm
1 Slyvan Library
2 Marsh Casualties
1 Liliana, the last hope
2 Flusterstorm
1 Diabolic Edict

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You're running 4 Flusterstorm? That must be a typo, since it's mentioned twice as 2 Flusterstorm.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionColorScheme

You're running 4 Flusterstorm? That must be a typo, since it's mentioned twice as 2 Flusterstorm.

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yup, you are right. thanks for spotting the typo.

How do we feel about Tomas Mar's exact list @ MKM Frankfurt?

[19 LANDS]
1 Badlands
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island

[13 CREATURES]
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Snapcaster Mage

[26 INSTANTS and SORCERIES]
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Night's Whisper
4 Ponder
1 Thoughtseize

[2 PLANESWALKERS]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[SIDEBOARD]
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Flusterstorm
2 Forked Bolt
2 Marsh Casualties
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sylvan Library
1 Tarmogoyf

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- 4C Czech Pile - Tomas Mar @ MKM Series Frankfurt

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19 Lands, zero basics, slightly more leaning on G and more pro-active with the additional discard. Night's Whisper is cute. Tarmogoyf in the SB, probably for clocking combo matchups. It's really interesting and there's a reason he's 1st place, but running no basics seems extremely greedy to me. Did he just get lucky dodging Wasteland? :confused:

Hi all,

A quick question. The current duals I have are 2 U seas, 2 Volcs, 2 Bayous, 4 Trops, 1 Badlands. Would it be possible to run the deck with 2 U Seas, possibly using either an extra Trop or Bayou to replace it?

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Originally Posted by zhandro

Hi all,

A quick question. The current duals I have are 2 U seas, 2 Volcs, 2 Bayous, 4 Trops, 1 Badlands. Would it be possible to run the deck with 2 U Seas, possibly using either an extra Trop or Bayou to replace it?

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Depends on the list, but going with anything less than 3 USea does seem kinda dangerous. I'd say: Give it a shot. Try to replace 1 with a Trop.

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Originally Posted by DemolitionColorScheme

How do we feel about Tomas Mar's exact list @ MKM Frankfurt?

[19 LANDS]
1 Badlands
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volcanic Island

[13 CREATURES]
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
3 Snapcaster Mage

[26 INSTANTS and SORCERIES]
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Night's Whisper
4 Ponder
1 Thoughtseize

[2 PLANESWALKERS]
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[SIDEBOARD]
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Flusterstorm
2 Forked Bolt
2 Marsh Casualties
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Sylvan Library
1 Tarmogoyf

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- 4C Czech Pile - Tomas Mar @ MKM Series Frankfurt

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19 Lands, zero basics, slightly more leaning on G and more pro-active with the additional discard. Night's Whisper is cute. Tarmogoyf in the SB, probably for clocking combo matchups. It's really interesting and there's a reason he's 1st place, but running no basics seems extremely greedy to me. Did he just get lucky dodging Wasteland? :confused:

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I think playing IOK over thoughtseize is good against tempo and even burn as the life loss matters. Being more proactive matters in a metagame with more miracles i feel. In a 300 plus man tournament, i am sure he will run into some delver decks. But then again he is Tomas Mar, the creator of this deck so he will know what to do :tongue:

I myself find it hard to go down to 19 lands though and its also interesting to note that he didnt play any edict main, i.e. inability to remove a TNN or marit lage, unless jace bounce the latter

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Originally Posted by mike1987

I think playing IOK over thoughtseize is good against tempo and even burn as the life loss matters. Being more proactive matters in a metagame with more miracles i feel. In a 300 plus man tournament, i am sure he will run into some delver decks. But then again he is Tomas Mar, the creator of this deck so he will know what to do :tongue:

I myself find it hard to go down to 19 lands though and its also interesting to note that he didnt play any edict main, i.e. inability to remove a TNN or marit lage, unless jace bounce the latter

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I think this list was tuned for the metagame he expected. With few edicts, no basics and going up to 3 Snapcasters it seems he was planning to fight grindy control matchups. Had he faced a lot of Eldrazi, Turbo Depths and Lands players then he would've had a miserable time. The metagame breakdown of the tournament shows that he was not far off. The most represented deck was Grixis Delver/4 Color Control and the second most was "BUG Leovold" which I believe is a midrange deck.

I wouldn't want to play this deck in my meta which has an abundance of Eldrazi, Sneak and Show, Delver and D&T players.

3 Czech Pile made top 8 in a 100+ tournament in Germany

http://www.eternal-clash.com/event/2...p-8-decklists/

Interesting thing to note is that all of them either play a singleton search in mainboard or in the sideboard

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Originally Posted by mike1987

3 Czech Pile made top 8 in a 100+ tournament in Germany

http://www.eternal-clash.com/event/2...p-8-decklists/

Interesting thing to note is that all of them either play a singleton search in mainboard or in the sideboard

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It seems that the deck is shifting to be even 'grindier' with more ways to get CA. I assume it still has a decent Delver matchup but I bet you have to be very careful/lucky with your cantrips.

If we compare the 3 lists:

1st Place list
-13 creatures with the flex slot going to a Liliana of the last hope main
- 2 main Hymns + 1 in SB
- 1 SB Search for Azcanta
- 1 SB Sylvan Library
(Also 1 watery grave and 2 U Seas but lets assume that isn't relevent)

2nd Place list
-14 creatures with 4 Snapcaster
- 3 main hymns
- 1 main Search for Azcanta
- 3 SB REB effects
- 2 SB Blue Blasts
- No deluge in the 75

4th Place list
-14 creatures with 3 Snap and 1 Kess
- 3 main Hymns
- 1 main Murderous Cut
- 1 SB Search
- 1 SB Liliana the last hope
- 1 SB Maelstrom Pulse

What can we draw from this?

It was me in 2nd place. Some random observations:

Search was insane all day. Singlehandedly won me at least three games. Of course, a sylvan library or painful truths or similar might also have gotten the job done.

Facing maindeck Lily TLH in the finals was rough.

I was a bit disappointed with the blue blasts. They always seemed to be in my hand at the wrong time. Against burn I didn't draw them a single time, but that's just variance. They obviously would have been great if drawn.

Hymns are super critical in the mirror, and it seems to be decided by whomever resolves one first.

In testing, the life loss from Toxic Deluge was pretty bad, so I figured that with Edicts vs beefy creatures, and Lily + Staticaster is machine guns vs swarms l was reasonably covered. Lily returning a Strix is also pretty useful vs Anglers and Goyfs.

I would have liked to have access to another abrupt decay.

I played against the Kess list. Think it was the semis. Kess didn't seem great due to blast vulnerability.

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Originally Posted by ozimek

It was me in 2nd place. Some random observations:

Search was insane all day. Singlehandedly won me at least three games. Of course, a sylvan library or painful truths or similar might also have gotten the job done.

Facing maindeck Lily TLH in the finals was rough.

I was a bit disappointed with the blue blasts. They always seemed to be in my hand at the wrong time. Against burn I didn't draw them a single time, but that's just variance. They obviously would have been great if drawn.

Hymns are super critical in the mirror, and it seems to be decided by whomever resolves one first.

In testing, the life loss from Toxic Deluge was pretty bad, so I figured that with Edicts vs beefy creatures, and Lily + Staticaster is machine guns vs swarms l was reasonably covered. Lily returning a Strix is also pretty useful vs Anglers and Goyfs.

I would have liked to have access to another abrupt decay.

I played against the Kess list. Think it was the semis. Kess didn't seem great due to blast vulnerability.

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Congrats on the awesome results! Did you play against any miracles? how will you board against them? Not sure if single discards are effective. I would think hymns , reb, search and library are good against them. Post board seems even harder to win as they board in their rebs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ozimek

It was me in 2nd place. Some random observations:

Search was insane all day. Singlehandedly won me at least three games. Of course, a sylvan library or painful truths or similar might also have gotten the job done.

Facing maindeck Lily TLH in the finals was rough.

I was a bit disappointed with the blue blasts. They always seemed to be in my hand at the wrong time. Against burn I didn't draw them a single time, but that's just variance. They obviously would have been great if drawn.

Hymns are super critical in the mirror, and it seems to be decided by whomever resolves one first.

In testing, the life loss from Toxic Deluge was pretty bad, so I figured that with Edicts vs beefy creatures, and Lily + Staticaster is machine guns vs swarms l was reasonably covered. Lily returning a Strix is also pretty useful vs Anglers and Goyfs.

I would have liked to have access to another abrupt decay.

I played against the Kess list. Think it was the semis. Kess didn't seem great due to blast vulnerability.

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Congratulations on your finish and thanks for your insight. I don't suppose there is a video of this tournament somewhere? I would like to watch the replays.

Regarding your notes, I have some questions.

What was the meta at the tournament like? Did you write down which decks you faced?

You said facing mainboard liliana was rough. Can you elaborate? Did you bring yours in against the mirror? Do you think having her main is a good idea for the field?

Why did you want an extra abrupt decay?

friend sent me this its a 81 player turny Dutch open series I think with a few Piles games during coverage and finals.
Think it was few days ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/MTGLegacy/c..._commentators/