Escape Brain Freeze

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Originally Posted by Cire

I think I'll test my build from this post against a friend for about ten games vs. same list with E-Tutor replaced by 2 Tome Scour and 2 Thought Scour (and mana base edited since I don't need white) and report back how much I missed E-tutor if any.

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Interested to see your results.

I see ETutor as "Skip your next draw step. Get Underworld Breach." A cantrip without selection is "Replace this card plus get another draw step". Are 2 random draw steps better than getting Underworld Breach?

If you're playing a fair, grindy, 1-for-1 play style with counters and removal and don't mind waiting till turn 6-10 to go off after many trades, maybe the 2 cards are better. I pilot this as a combo deck, so I would think drawing the exact right card is better than drawing 2 random cards.

*ETutor can also find LED, mill (Grinding Station), protection (Grid), or Serenity, but for me at least 60% of the time it's just finding Underworld Breach. Breach is the only piece that needs to be in hand and the #1 thing they will counter or discard if they have any idea what you're up to, so I usually find myself wanting to be able to dig to another Breach.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Interested to see your results.

I see ETutor as "Skip your next draw step. Get Underworld Breach." A cantrip without selection is "Replace this card plus get another draw step". Are 2 random draw steps better than getting Underworld Breach?

If you're playing a fair, grindy, 1-for-1 play style with counters and removal and don't mind waiting till turn 6-10 to go off after many trades, maybe the 2 cards are better. I pilot this as a combo deck, so I would think drawing the exact right card is better than drawing 2 random cards.

*ETutor can also find LED, mill (Grinding Station), protection (Grid), or Serenity, but for me at least 60% of the time it's just finding Underworld Breach. Breach is the only piece that needs to be in hand and the #1 thing they will counter or discard if they have any idea what you're up to, so I usually find myself wanting to be able to dig to another Breach.

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I want to preface this by saying that my confidence level isn’t super high that I’m right, and I def see merits to enlightened tutor. My experience with though scour has been fantastic, however, and I’m trying to highlight all the little things it does that add up to a much more powerful card than it appears.

If you distill the two cards to their most basic forms, you’re right. One Is skip your draw step, find underworld breach. The other is replace this card get another draw step. The former *is* better. But every single subtlety that those distilled forms gloss over favor thought scour.

What land are you fetching to cast enlightened tutor? Plains? Tundra? Neither produce red. One takes you off double cantrip in the future. One exposes you to wasteland. So if we fetched island turn 1 to ponder or something, and we have an e tutor hand we need a third land or a petal, or a plateau in our deck (also wasteland exposure). The distillation glosses over the mana base, to enlightened tutors favor and thought scouts detriment.

Thought scour mills two cards. How often are you calculating whether a line is lethal and you’re a card or two in the graveyard short? Again, your distillation is to thought scours detriment.

How about when we ponder into a good card, a brain freeze we don’t have and something we don’t want, then mill brain freeze that we would otherwise need to draw (but is just as good in our graveyard)? Do you acknowledge that is a lot closer to drawing 2 cards than 1? If you didn’t have another shuffle effect it’s actually closer to a draw 3.

You have force of will, ponder, e tutor, led, lotus petal, 2 lands. Is that better than replacing e tutor with thought scour? I can tell you I’m very happy to see the above hand in my deck (replacing e tutor with scour) in an unknown matchup and wouldn’t feel great about the actual hand in question. You can guarantee breach with e tutor. You still need a brain freeze or milling mechanism. Thought scour replaces itself with a random chance to draw breach and 3 chances to “draw” brain freeze. But actually it does even better if you ponder first. Because now your mill isn’t random. you can thought scour away two cards, (hopefully a brain freeze) in your upkeep of turn 2 after a turn 1 ponder. If you ponder into brainstorm thought scour gets even better, since now you can also mill away lions eye diamond in many scenarios, stocking your hand to better fight over a breach. It also mills two cards which fuels another potential bottleneck and improves your chances of going off without ever needing brain freeze to begin with (as I showed in a comment above it digs much harder than ponder or brainstorm with breach in play). And if the opponent plays dark ritual, entomb? I think we wish we could keep our ponder, but we are certainly pitching it to force of will since e tutor isn’t a blue card.

Thought scour just does a lot of very little things really well, while replacing itself, and I’m always happy to see one in my hand in a pre-sideboarded game.

In the end the real question is which strategy wins more games, and I’ve been doing a lot of winning. But the sample size is minuscule and I’ve been fooled into thinking trash decks are good before! I’ll def give updates (17-4 currently, just opened with a loss to UG omnitell in my fifth league), and hopefully we can converge on the best ideas.

I played some games locally and went 5-0

UWR list with:
4 ETutor
3 Burning Wish
2 Preordain
4 Force
1 Pact
1 Flusterstorm
1 Teferi
2 Grid
1 Grinding Station
17 lands


Match 1: 2-1 vs Burn, lost die roll
G1 Burn won turn 3 OTP, through a Flusterstorm, the turn before I could go off. Those die rolls.
G2 I won on turn 3 OTP through Eidolon with Grapeshot to kill it at 4 life (and escaped Pact on the Fireblast he tried to catch me with)
G3 Burn could have won on turn 3 again, but I had a lucky hand and managed to ETutor into a turn 2 win playing around Faerie Macabre

SB: +2 Brazen Borrower, +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Serenity, -2 Defense Grid, -1 Teferi, -1 Wish


Match 2: 2-1 vs RUG Delver, won die roll
G1 Went off turn 3 through Daze after he Forced my turn 1 Grid
G2 T1 Delver OTP blind flipped. He gets 2nd Delver, Pierces my Grid, then Dazes Teferi. The turn before I would die I upkeep ETutor into Breach. He Dazes the Breach, I Pact, he FoWs and I lose to counter #4 + double Delver.
G3 T1 Delver again. Played around Wasteland. Almost got blown out by Stifle on EOT fetch, but I accidentally saved myself (put Tundra back on top with Brainstorm, meaning to hide it, but failing to fetch drew me the land anyway). Brainstormed into gas, going off with Breach + Petal + Grinding Station, Flusterstorming his counter, playing around Surgical and with FoW+blue card in hand.

SB: +1 REB, +1 Silent Gravestone, -1 FoW, -1 Wish


Match 3: 2-0 vs Dark Depths, lost die roll
G1 T1 OTP he Thoughtseizes my Breach, but I have Ponder + 2 ETutors. I cantrip into BF and ETutor for LED, waiting to Tutor Breach at the last minute to play around discard. When he taps out for Hexmage, I EOT ETutor Breach, untap and win. Ninja'd!
G2 He Thoughtseizes my FoW (not Breach!). I cantrip into a 2nd Breach & Needle his Reclaimer. He goes into aggro mode, so I EOT ETutor Grinding Station and try to go off turn 3 with Petal+Breach+Station. In response to escaping Petal he Force of Vigors my Breach + Needle!! I Grind the Needle but fail to find an answer and have to let Breach die. Then he holds up Reclaimer for Bog instead of attacking, so I cantrip a bit. Finally I cast the 2nd Breach. With Breach on the stack he Bogs me. I let him exile my grave, then Grind myself + BF from hand into enough GY to win. He revealed a 2nd Force of Vigor but no other green card.

SB: +1 Pithing Needle, +1 Silent Gravestone, -1 Teferi, -1 Preordain


Macth 4: 2-1 UR Delver, lost die roll
G1 - T1 Delver. My Grid eats Force. Between YP, Delver and Chain Lightning I untap turn 3 at 9 life and dead on board (he revealed Bolt to flip Delver). I can Burning Wish for Pyroclasm or cantrip, but it's all a turn too slow.
G2 - He mulls to 6. T1 Plains EOT ETutor into Breach (hand=BF+LED+Petal+FoW+Brainstorm). He Forces Breach but I Force back and win on turn 2.
G3 - He mulls to 6 into a slow start. He counters my Defense Grid, but he doesn't have an answer when I Sevinne Reclamation it back! The turn before I would die I go off with Breach + 2 LED, E Tutoring into Grinding Station and Escaping Ponder to draw and play it.

SB: +1 Silent Gravestone, +1 Sevinne Reclamation, +1 REB, -1 Wish, -1 Preordain, -1 Pact


Match 5: 2-0 RUG Delver, won die roll
G1 - T1 Delver. I ETutor Breach and play Grinding Station, which he lets resolve. T3 I Ponder into Force of Will, keeping Lotus Petal on top (hand=Breach, Pact, BF, FoW). I cast the Breach. He Spell Pierces. I Pact it. He has no 2nd counter. I Grind into Petal, double escape it, and win with the BF in hand.
G2 - He Stifles my first fetch into Goyf. I'm slow to recover with a few cantrips, but 3/4 Goyf is a slow clock. I ETutor into Grinding Station. He plays Oko and Elks it, so I sac it, milling into LED. Untap and play Breach with 1 mana open. He Forces. I Force back. He Surgicals the LED. I Force again! LED + Station gets there. Apparently he had Daze too but I had 1 land open.

SB: +1 Silent Gravestone, +1 REB, -1 Wish, -1 Pact


Thoughts:
- ETutor was amazing. It could come down to playstyles. I play better when I can surgically grab the best card for the situation. Others may play better when grinding out 1-for-1 at parity. My main and SB are also designed so ETutor can find any piece or answer.

- I do have to be careful with fetches, planning 1-3 turns ahead and considering what I might do if I cantrip into X card before deciding what lands to get on which turns. All the cantrips, tutor and fetch sequencing matters. Missequencing can cost a turn or be the difference between a W or L.

- We don't want to slow down so much that Burn can race us. That's a bad spot for combo to be in.

- I found Teferi really slow and might cut it for a 3rd Grid or another counter.

- Never needed pre-combo Burning Wish in any of these games, but I've relied on it a lot before in the past. Especially against Chalice/Leyline decks.

- Surgical and Faerie Macabre are easy to play around with proper sequencing and redundant combo pieces (Petal can replace LED, Tome Scour or Grinding Station can replace BF, and if they go after your Burning Wish most decks still die to BF).

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Originally Posted by Jblinder

In the end the real question is which strategy wins more games, and I’ve been doing a lot of winning. But the sample size is minuscule and I’ve been fooled into thinking trash decks are good before! I’ll def give updates (17-4 currently, just opened with a loss to UG omnitell in my fifth league), and hopefully we can converge on the best ideas.

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Sounds like your strategy is working for you. I'm not telling you to change it. Congrats on a strong 17-4!

Ultimately it's a minor difference, we're all playing with the same core. Players don't always agree on all 75 cards for an archetype. Individual playstyle is a factor behind results, with some cards performing better for some players than others.

Overall I think we've created a strong combo deck! Minor tweaks may be needed.

Earlier I tested games against Delver, Waterfalls, Miracles, Bomberman and some other decks and had a good winning record. I struggled the most against Chalice decks with graveyard hate and Karn (which shuts down LED and Petal). Too much hate to answer! But I didn't have 4 FoWs then.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Sounds like your strategy is working for you. I'm not telling you to change it. Congrats on a strong 17-4!

Ultimately it's a minor difference, we're all playing with the same core. Players don't always agree on all 75 cards for an archetype. Individual playstyle is a factor behind results, with some cards performing better for some players than others.

Overall I think we've created a strong combo deck! Minor tweaks may be needed.

Earlier I tested games against Delver, Waterfalls, Miracles, Bomberman and some other decks and had a good winning record. I struggled the most against Chalice decks with graveyard hate and Karn (which shuts down LED and Petal). Too much hate to answer! But I didn't have 4 FoWs then.

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AnziD and mentalmisstep played in the quarterfinals of the legacy challenge just now with the urw enlightened tutor build mirror. I’ll concede e tutor build looked pretty damn powerful all day, *and* I think silence effects are going to start trumping veil because it’s significantly better in the mirror.

You’re right FTW, that all the shells are centered around what is honestly just a broken magic card, and there are only subtle differences between the surrounding cast.

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Originally Posted by Jblinder

AnziD and mentalmisstep played in the quarterfinals of the legacy challenge just now with the urw enlightened tutor build mirror. I’ll concede e tutor build looked pretty damn powerful all day, *and* I think silence effects are going to start trumping veil because it’s significantly better in the mirror.

You’re right FTW, that all the shells are centered around what is honestly just a broken magic card, and there are only subtle differences between the surrounding cast.

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Was this recorded? I'd love to watch it.

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Originally Posted by Jblinder

AnziD and mentalmisstep played in the quarterfinals of the legacy challenge just now with the urw enlightened tutor build mirror. I’ll concede e tutor build looked pretty damn powerful all day, *and* I think silence effects are going to start trumping veil because it’s significantly better in the mirror.

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Interesting. So they're both on builds close to what we had a few pages back, with Silences. Would love to see the stream and their decklists.

Silence does have a lot of upsides, including beating stuff like Crop Rotation and Extirpate, or stalling combo mirrors.

And yeah, it looks like there are multiple viable variants. Underworld Breach is that good. There's a URB version with Infernal Tutor and Thoughtseize that seems strong too.

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Was this recorded? I'd love to watch it.

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Yes. That matchup starts at 06:03:41:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/542175406

Not sure how much audio will remain on the video now that there's this copyright claim pop-up. Anuraag should go with classical music next time. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by FTW

There's a URB version with Infernal Tutor and Thoughtseize that seems strong too.

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That's me.
actually i don't know why people use fow over discard and/or only 2 silence/orim.
discard and orim prevent you from losing to surgical

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Originally Posted by FTW

Interested to see your results.

I see ETutor as "Skip your next draw step. Get Underworld Breach." A cantrip without selection is "Replace this card plus get another draw step". Are 2 random draw steps better than getting Underworld Breach?

If you're playing a fair, grindy, 1-for-1 play style with counters and removal and don't mind waiting till turn 6-10 to go off after many trades, maybe the 2 cards are better. I pilot this as a combo deck, so I would think drawing the exact right card is better than drawing 2 random cards.

*ETutor can also find LED, mill (Grinding Station), protection (Grid), or Serenity, but for me at least 60% of the time it's just finding Underworld Breach. Breach is the only piece that needs to be in hand and the #1 thing they will counter or discard if they have any idea what you're up to, so I usually find myself wanting to be able to dig to another Breach.

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My results (Context: played against a friend with Delver for each game):

URW version with Tutor: started with or drew tutor in 6 out of ten games. Out of those 6 games started with Breach in Hand in 2 games. In one game used Tutor to search for LED and combo out turn 2. In the other used tutor turn 2 to search for Grid but had it countered. Comboed out without protection through daze turn 4. Out of the other 4 games where I had tutor but no breach I used it to search for breach each time. One of those four games I lost because tutor was countered.

UR version without Tutor: Drew into the scours in 7 out of ten games. Didn't cantrip into Breach by turn 4 in 3 of those 7 games. Each time I didn't cantrip into breach by that turn had me wishing they were tutors instead. The other 4 games, 3 of those games I would not have won without scours simply because I would not have had enough cards in grave to go off without them. EDIT - the mana base not needing white was significantly better, I can attribute at least one win during this stretch to not having to have fetched a white producing land.

EDIT 2:

My personal conclusion on this test run, out of 20 games (against delver):

Preferred Etutor Version: 9
Preferred Non-Etutor Version: 5
Didn't matter: 6

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Originally Posted by Jblinder

I think silence effects are going to start trumping veil because it’s significantly better in the mirror.

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Silence is hilarious in the storm mirrors.

So this deck takes 1st seed in the challenge and ends up in a mirror match in the quarterfinals. Good deck is good!
Watched the whole stream. This is the Even-More-EPIC storm.

Speaking of, in the 5-0 bracket he beats Bryant Cook (TES) with Silence into Brain Freeze stealing Cook's own storm count, then untapping into another Silence into Brain Freeze for lethal!! All 3 games of that match are hilarious. His only loss was losing the die roll to have another T1 win hand outrace his T1 win hand.

The deck is not easy to play. Anzid punts a few times, and few other times I think chooses suboptimal lines (must be hard while streaming), but overall plays the deck really well and got a great result. They're really putting this archetype on the map!

In the mirror I think he underrated the strength of Stefan's plays. In the counter war in G3, Stefan specifically fights to resolve FoN exiling Silence because that exile not only cut off the play of escaping Silence later but also left him short on cards overall. 6 cards in the yard is a little light to escape Grinding Station. 1 more card would have made a big difference later. The timing on Wear//Tear was brilliant too, exploiting Anzid's missed auto-yield on Grinding Station to cut off the ETutor salvage play. Luckily Anzid was good at topdecking exactly what the chat wants him to ETutor for (on many occasions), but that could have easily turned into drawing endless bricks and passing. But then, even after topdecking Breach, he fetched the wrong lands (getting Mountain with Vista would leave him a target for Flooded Strand) and yielded to Grinding Station to whiff again... Time pressures. That clock can really get in your head.

After that counter war, I would have just cast hardcast Grinding Station (instead of Breach) and passed (planning to go off next turn) to conserve graveyard fuel. Between not escaping the Station and the extra draw step, that's +4 cards in the GY, a huge difference. Anzid was not committed to going off yet. He burned so much of Stefan's hand (FoW, FoN, Brainstorm), what are the chances Stefan would have any more answers next turn than this turn? Especially after pitching Brainstorm. If he pitched Brainstorm, you know he's out of cantrips and in topdeck mode. Either he has another answer or he doesn't. Save the GY fuel and pass 1 turn. He would have been caught by Wear//Tear anyway, but then would have had mana and fuel to respond with something (eg ETutor), leaving him in a better position (without knowing he was going to lucksack into another Breach, which you can't count on). Breach for Mentor would have been a fine line too.

Grinding Station is not automatically a deterministic win. Did he or the chat realized that? Without blue mana floating, you need LED/Petal + FOUR other cards in graveyard. Then you don't care about the auto-yield. You keep exiling 3 to loop LED, letting you save one non-LED card in the yard. That means when you find a Brain Freeze you have a spare slot to save it. Then you exile the other 3 to escape LED again, untapping Station. Crack LED for UUU. Sac Station to itself to mill 3, then use those 3 cards to escape Brain Freeze.

With only THREE other cards in the graveyard, you can't save a spot for Brain Freeze. If you don't auto-yield to Grinding Station and sac LED in response to the untap trigger, then if you mill into Brain Freeze, you can first sacrifice the Grinding Station to itself, putting 4 more cards in the yard (GY size=7). Then you can escape LED (exiling 3 cards), crack it for UUU, and escape Brain Freeze (exiling last 3 cards) to just barely go off. If you auto-yield and miss the first untap, you can still win with 3 cards if your lands can produce 1U (you don't need to escape LED for BF mana). But if you punt on BOTH mana deployment and auto-yield, then you can't win with 3 cards... He punted on that both times. Rough. That 1 card Stefan exiled by Force of Negation was the difference between a W and a L!

Warning to everyone playing the version splashing Grinding Station! Don't try to go off unless you have enough cards/mana or remember to not yield.

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Round 7 - I think against decks like 4c Loam we need to play fast instead of slow roll. They are the control, we are the aggressor. Especially with a Dark Confidant on the board. You never try to outdraw Bob. Passing the turn is worse than going off unprotected against a nonblue deck, I think. They may or may not have an answer, but our odds are even worse if we let them outdraw us and hit another hate piece. Thalia + Chalice after already killing Leyline? G3SB?

I noticed his list struggles more against permanent-based hate. He was lucky to only face 1 of those rounds, the loss to 4C Loam. IMO that's where not running Burning Wish and boarding out ETutors hurts. Both are amazing at finding answers to permanents. Without them, what do we do? Cantrip 10 times hoping to lucksack into an answer before the opponent deploys a 2nd hatepiece or clocks us? I don't like those odds.

I get the hesitation about Burning Wish. I often board out extra Burning Wishes in combo mirrors and aggro matches (precombo Wish is too slow), but I wanted all 4 copies every time I saw a Chalice or Leyline, and it's decent in the slow control games too. Does cutting Burning Wish to run more cantrips and 1-mana answers help the fair blue matchups? Is that the rationale? His deck did very well against Island, so maybe there's something there. I think we already beat Island enough though. I keep thrashing Delver unless they get the nut draw. Maybe we don't need the help there. I'd rather not auto-lose to Chalice decks. Wish is big there. ETutor for Serenity is amazing too, I would never cut ETutors in those matches.

Edit:
His other stream is also good to watch.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/541861543

He crushes some turn 2 wins there and catches opponents offguard. 2-0, 2-0, 2-0 with authority.

There's a heartbreaking moment at 1:19:30, G2 vs Lands. He's comboing off through Sphere of Resistance (after killing Sphere #1 and about to lose to Ghost Quarter + Loam next turn). He did the math and correctly found the chain that 10 cards + 4 lands + Breach + LED + Grinding Station = win through Sphere if he hits a Brain Freeze early enough. He sequences the yields and sacrifices correctly, does hit the Brain Freeze... flawless math and sequencing... then with UUU floating he escapes LED instead of Brain Freeze FTL (running out of cards and can't escape Brain Freeze). So close to 8-0 streak in games!

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Originally Posted by Silvio83

That's me.
actually i don't know why people use fow over discard and/or only 2 silence/orim.
discard and orim prevent you from losing to surgical

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Great to see you doing well with the Grixis version!

I'm a recent convert to FoW. I originally started on a version with 4 Thoughtseize + 3 Inquisition. Then went URW with 4 Silence until just recently switching to Forces + counters. I think the main reason for FoW is to double as an answer to early permanent-based hate like Chalice, Thalia, Trinisphere, Cage, etc. or faster combo decks, things we may be too slow to stop with Spell Pierce or Thoughtseize on the draw.

Silence effects are strong. With 4 main, I had too many hands with 2 Silence (redundant) wishing one was a counter. It's dead in some matchups G1. 3 seems right. I think both of them are on 2 Chant + 1 Silence main plus FoWs.

When I played with discard, I liked these perks:
-perfect information to plan when and how to go off
-fills GY early
-doesn't have to take mana on the combo turn

But overall I didn't like being in black. How do you beat early permanent-based hate? Splash 4th color? RUB struggles to answer artifacts and enchantments without white or green.

Btw Surgical isn't that good against us once we go off. We can escape LED before they get priority so they can't target it, we can escape BF in response to Surgical (always have UUU floating), or we can just escape a cheap counterspell (Pierce or Pact). We can also win without LED (Petal + BF loop), without BF (Tome Scour or Grinding Station), or without Wish/Thassa (BF beats most decks). The deck has flexible ways to adapt. Extirpate demands Silence, but Surgical and Faerie Macabre are dodgeable.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2709799

MentalMisstep's winning list from the Challenge. He also won the Preliminary too. As far as I can tell, he didn't lose a match all weekend. (5-0, 6-0 and top 8 win.)

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Originally Posted by H

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2709799

MentalMisstep's winning list from the Challenge. He also won the Preliminary too. As far as I can tell, he didn't lose a match all weekend. (5-0, 6-0 and top 8 win.)

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Thanks for linking. I watched some of his games. He's a tight player and pilots the deck really well!

Edit: Here are all the decklists and top 8 pairings.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...1-27#decklists

In the top 4, he managed to get paired against BR Renaimator and UR Delver, both good matchups, and dodge the Lands player!
That Lands deck has TWELVE live sideboard cards for us, ouch. The URW version is also much better at fighting it than other colors, with both Serenity and Silence shutting down all its lines of attack (Spheres, Thorn, Abrupt Decay, Crop Rotation, Force of Vigor, Mindbreak Trap).

This decks already pretty insane. Underworld is a busted magic card

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Originally Posted by FTW

Great to see you doing well with the Grixis version!

I'm a recent convert to FoW. I originally started on a version with 4 Thoughtseize + 3 Inquisition. Then went URW with 4 Silence until just recently switching to Forces + counters. I think the main reason for FoW is to double as an answer to early permanent-based hate like Chalice, Thalia, Trinisphere, Cage, etc. or faster combo decks, things we may be too slow to stop with Spell Pierce or Thoughtseize on the draw.

Silence effects are strong. With 4 main, I had too many hands with 2 Silence (redundant) wishing one was a counter. It's dead in some matchups G1. 3 seems right. I think both of them are on 2 Chant + 1 Silence main plus FoWs.

When I played with discard, I liked these perks:
-perfect information to plan when and how to go off
-fills GY early
-doesn't have to take mana on the combo turn

But overall I didn't like being in black. How do you beat early permanent-based hate? Splash 4th color? RUB struggles to answer artifacts and enchantments without white or green.

Btw Surgical isn't that good against us once we go off. We can escape LED before they get priority so they can't target it, we can escape BF in response to Surgical (always have UUU floating), or we can just escape a cheap counterspell (Pierce or Pact). We can also win without LED (Petal + BF loop), without BF (Tome Scour or Grinding Station), or without Wish/Thassa (BF beats most decks). The deck has flexible ways to adapt. Extirpate demands Silence, but Surgical and Faerie Macabre are dodgeable.

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There is no particular hate in game 1; now i'm on 4c breach and i rarely lose g1. If i lose is because my oppo has nut hands, or i draw too many/few lands.
thalia is not a problem in g1
chalice usually played @1 don't hurt us, if they chalice @0 we could plan to maindeck a bounce or a seal like anzid
We can't win against everything, since we are a combodeck, i accept to lose to trini on turn 1, or some other busted hands

I took this list to FNM last night. I ended up going 2-2, though I think I probably could have won round 4 (just not sure how).


3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Plains
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island
2 Hall of Heliod's Generosity
3 Enlightened Tutor
2 Gamble
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Force of Will
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Flusterstorm
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Brain Freeze
1 Grinding Station
4 Underworld Breach
3 Burning Wish
2 Prismatic Vista
3 Orim's Chant

//Sideboard
3 Monastery Mentor
2 Brazen Borrower
1 Defense Grid
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Pithing Needle
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Serenity
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tome Scour
1 Sevinne's Reclamation
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Grapeshot


Round 1: BR Reanimator 2-1
Game 1 OTD: Pondered into the right cards, left Breach on top. Countered his Unmask with FoW. Went off the next turn.
Game 2 OTD: I keep a 6 with the turn 1 win without protection. However he gets a gristlebrand out and proceeds to draw 14 and remove every card from my hand except the basic land.
Game 3 OTP: I Silence his turn 1 and combo out turn 2.

Round 2: Burn 2-1
Game 1 OTD: I miscount the number of cards in my yard and try to go off turn 2, but chose to play a land instead of fetch and am short 1 card. He kills me as I try to reconstruct.
Game 2 OTP: I get the combo turn 4 after countering an Eidelon of the Great Revels.
Game 3 OTP: I get the turn 2 and he has no responses.

Round 3: Infect 0-2
Game 1 OTP: Mull to 5 and die having never seen more than 1 dig card.
Game 2 OTP: Mull to 6 and keep. Go off turn 3 with Silence and extra mana for daze, but the double FoW gets me and I die next turn to an Invigorate + Berzerk.

Round 4: Death and Taxes 1-2
Game 1: OTP: FoW a turn 2 Thalia, then try to go off turn 4 without a tutor or BF. Lucky ponder shuffle draws me BF and lets me win.
Game 2: OTD: Mull to 5 and keep a double land, petal, double ponder hand. The two ponders find me a grinding station, but a resolved Thalia and Sanctum Prelate @ 2 slowly beat me down. I draw into a tutor but am forced to search up an Ensnaring bridge to buy time. Flickerwisp bounced it and opens me up for the kill.
Game 3: OTP: Mull to 4, but never find a bounce spell for the Deafening Silence, Thalia, and Sanctum Prelate @ 2.

Few thoughts on the games:
DnT felt like a very hard matchup. Between their land denial package and the cheap taxing effects I had a lot of trouble. I think with a little tweeking of the defense package this matchup might become easier.
I think Infect isn't quite as bad as what my games suggest. I was playing scared most of the time trying to play around daze and find protection.
I hated grinding station. It felt exceptionally worse than BF, and the tutorability never came up.
I think a 1 of Silent Gravestone might be a decent idea for the SB.
I also think that the SB Mentor plan isn't worth as many slots.
Burning wish is very slow, and I think I'm going to go down on them and up on protection. I'm not sure we're fast enough to consistently compete with decks like Belcher or Reanimator, and am going to try shifting the deck to more of a control build with fast combo finish (Turn 4-5).






EDIT:
In other news, the storm discord has added a channel for our deck. I'll try and move the important things here and vise-versa when I see them.

I went 4-1 yesterday.

2-0 vs some Bant Maverick brew with Oko
2-1 vs Moon Stompy (expected to lose this, the matchup is abysmal)
2-0 vs UR Delver
2-0 vs UR Delver
1-2 vs Storm (got raced OTD both times)

Against Storm I wished I was playing as many postboard Silence effects as Anuraag and Stefan. I had FoW both times but it wasn't enough.

Against Stompy I realized a maindeck vulnerability. We have 0 answers to a resolved Karn, the Great Creator, since the static still shuts off our combo. Wish into Eye of Nowhere is the closest thing. Is there an ETutorable blanket answer we should run like 1-of Detention Sphere?

The Stompy match was the most memorable
G1 OTP - I was about to go off turn 3 OTP with EOT ETutor until he casts turn 2 Karn. Panicked. Cracked a Lotus Petal to Brainstorm failing to find a counter. He searched for ramp, telegraphing Lattice next turn, so I had a 1-turn clock. EOT ETutored for Breach anyway to reshuffle. Cantripped again finding Burning Wish. Burning Wish for Eye of Nowhere stalls Karn for a turn, but Lattice puts me on a clock, so I had to do it all this turn. I played out both LEDs and thought I saw a line where I played Breach -> cracked both LEDs for RRRUUU -> escape Burning Wish -> Eye the Karn -> escape Brain Freeze... until I remembered Karn shuts off LED too. I scoop to Lattice.

In retrospect, I should have scooped to Karn to conceal my deck. I gave him too much info.

G2 OTP - He mulls to 5 and opens with Leyline, Tomb and Chalice @ 0! Luckily my turn 1 Ponder was solid gold showing Serenity, Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond!! I played the turn 2 Serenity. He played a Magus. Serenity cleared the board and I went off with Breach + 2 LEDs + Wish into Tome Scour. He showed me a Trinisphere after but couldn't play it into Serenity. Apparently he kept a 5 with Leyline, Chalice, 3sphere, sol land and Magus and somehow I still went off on turn 3 through that. Serenity FTW.

G3 - He mulls to 5 again with Leyline and Chalice @ 0 into a turn 2 Rabblemaster. I cantrip a lot. He drops a Trinisphere, but I respond with ETutor into Serenity. I cast Serenity for 2W, blowing up everything the upkeep before I die to the Rabble and going off with Breach + 2 Petal + Brain Freeze.

Lost to Karn, but beat Leyline + Chalice @ 0 + 3sphere + clock twice! Serenity is OP.



I have mixed feelings about Burning Wish. Sometimes it's too slow, but other times I Wish into Tome Scour/Infernal Tutor/Reclamation FTW. It's worst when I need to wish into 2cc answer and have to pass the turn. The wishboard answers should be 0-1cc so we can use them right away.

I think Eye of Nowhere should be Void Snare. Wish into 2cc is too slow. I've never had to face Glacial Chasm, let alone Chasm + Emrakul together. Crop Rotation decks will get Bog 95% of the time.

Shenanigans is too slow too. Fragmentize is easier to cast. I think we can't win games if we just go Wish (pass) -> Shenanigans (pass) -> Dredge Shenangians & cast (pass). It takes 3 turns to kill 2 hate pieces, way too slow.

Pyroclasm is too slow too. We don't have enough red cards to support Cave-In. I wish we had access to Massacre. Anyone playing Underground Sea for Infernal Tutor should have Massacre.


My wishboard has shrunk down to this (freeing up other slots):
1 Grapeshot
1 Tome Scour
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Void Snare
1 Fragmentize

The rest of my sideboard:
2 Brazen Borrower
2 Serenity
1 Pithing Needle
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Porphyry Nodes
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Abeyance

I don't play the Mentor plan. My beatdown plan is Brazen Borrower, which overlaps with bounce slots.

I haven't tested Porphyry Nodes yet. Might be too slow vs Seal of Removal, but it potentially answers multiple hatebears and encourages them to stop playing creatures while we set up. The big thing is it's easy to ETutor and cast through stuff like Thalia, Prelate @ 2, Revoker, Collector Ouphe...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Round 1: BR Reanimator 2-1
Game 2 OTD: I keep a 6 with the turn 1 win without protection. However he gets a gristlebrand out and proceeds to draw 14 and remove every card
from my hand except the basic land.

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I think OTD we can't afford to race Reanimator. They're the faster deck. I would rather mull into FoW. It's hard to ship back a 6 with a turn 1 win... but turn 1 Griselbrand/Sire or any hand with Chancellor wrecks us.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Round 2: Burn 2-1
Game 1 OTD: I miscount the number of cards in my yard and try to go off turn 2, but chose to play a land instead of fetch and am short 1 card. He kills me as I try to reconstruct.

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I saw Anuraag do it in his stream too. Especially if we're not facing lethal next turn, we need to be careful about graveyard count before pulling the trigger.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Round 3: Infect 0-2
Game 1 OTP: Mull to 5 and die having never seen more than 1 dig card.
Game 2 OTP: Mull to 6 and keep. Go off turn 3 with Silence and extra mana for daze, but the double FoW gets me and I die next turn to an Invigorate + Berzerk.

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Infect is the more explosive deck. I wonder if the correct line is to wait and play chicken. They have to commit a lot of resources going off so you can try to grind them out and cast Breach once their hand is depleted.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Round 4: Death and Taxes 1-2
Game 1: OTP: FoW a turn 2 Thalia, then try to go off turn 4 without a tutor or BF. Lucky ponder shuffle draws me BF and lets me win.
Game 2: OTD: Mull to 5 and keep a double land, petal, double ponder hand. The two ponders find me a grinding station, but a resolved Thalia and Sanctum Prelate @ 2 slowly beat me down. I draw into a tutor but am forced to search up an Ensnaring bridge to buy time. Flickerwisp bounced it and opens me up for the kill.
Game 3: OTP: Mull to 4, but never find a bounce spell for the Deafening Silence, Thalia, and Sanctum Prelate @ 2.

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Looks like a tough match. I think slow cards like Wish -> Pyroclasm and Ensnaring Bridge won't cut it, and I would board out Grinding Station here too. We need mana-efficient solutions. MentalMisstep and AnziD run the full 4 StPs in the 75. I'm trying out Porphyry Nodes. Chain of Vapor should be good too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Burning wish is very slow, and I think I'm going to go down on them and up on protection.

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Against faster decks I've been boarding out 1-2 Wishes. I only leave them all in against decks with a lot of permanent-based hate. Even then, ETutor has shined more.

Good work, guys

https://i.imgur.com/RnNSOl9.png