agree with that, lets all focus on the game instead of age of players. nice report btw congrats.
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agree with that, lets all focus on the game instead of age of players. nice report btw congrats.
You got some spunk, kid.Quote:
Originally Posted by brenden2000
Bosh N Roll you consider Shaman of The Pack in your MD or Side?
Thanks
I meant no disrespect. I would be equally frustrated to have been burnt out of that tournament by anyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by brenden2000
I have considered it. One problem is that I have about 65 cards I want in my maindeck and 30 I want in my sideboard. When it comes time to start shaving the cuttable cards, he's one of the first to go. The other problem is that he was printed during the Dig Through Time era when I wasn't playing Elves at all, so he's not as thoroughly tested as I'd like a card to be in a tournament like EE.Quote:
Originally Posted by kuroko16
It's possible that some day we'll find ourselves in some super hostile Ensnaring Bridge/Glacial Chasm/Blazing Archon/Whatever meta in which the ability to dome your opponent for 3-5 damage over and over again is something we need access to. Right now that's not the world we live in, and there are just better cards to put in the deck.
This is exactly what I was talking about in my introduction about how to build and how to play the deck. I think it is completely viable to sideboard out NO in the matchup and focus on controling the ground and Decaying Delvers. Symbiote + Elves should hold the ground against anything else. The problem is that Tarmogoyf is pretty good at holding the ground against you as well, especially in multiples. They have Delver and burn spells to crack the board stall, I like having Progenitus to break it open. I actually think Glimpse is the likely dead card and easy cut here (I'll elaborate later).Quote:
Originally Posted by dte
Leaving in Natural Order also makes their deck worse. In the fair matchups (Delver mirrors, stoneblade, shardless, etc) RUG Delver boards out Force of Will because it can't afford the 1-for-2 unless it's literally keeping them alive. Keeping in NO forces them to leave in a card that's terrible during the grindy situations. Elves is so good because of all the plans it can execute and most decks can't address them all. Boarding out NO removes one of the variables RUG has to control.
On Glimpse of Nature: RUG Delver's plan is to control your resources and restrict how many things you can do on any given turn. Glimpse of Nature asks you to do many things on a single turn. If your plan is to Glimpse them, you're playing into their game. I leave 1 or 2 in as a chance to Divination/Ancestral Recall, but it is not my plan and there shouldn't still be 4 in the deck. It's my experience that the matchup is much more successful if you sculpt your plan around resolving one key spell. Hold the ground, keep the air pressure off, stay out of burn range, and keep moving towards resolving Natural Order.
My sideboard plan, on the play and the draw, looks something like this:
+Prog, 2 Thoughtseize, 3 Decay, 2 Choke, Ooze
-2 Glimpse, 1 Hoof, 1 Reclamation Sage, 2 Heritage Druid (worst elf in the deck when you're not combo-ing), 3 Nettle Sentinel (also way worse when you're not combo-ing)
That may change slightly based on build/cards seen/sideboard considerations for current meta. But that will be pretty close to what I'm doing most of the time.
TL:DR I like NO better than Glimpse because resolving 1 spell is a better plan than resolving many spells against RUG.
I'm surprised you're sticking with Thoughtseize over Cabal Therapy in the Canadian Threshold matchup when your plan is focussed on forcing through a Natural Order.
I like the utility and safety of Thoughtseize. If it's in my opener I'm not afraid to lead with it and try to clip a Delver or catch a sideboard card, but I wouldn't T1 Cabal Therapy naming Delver/Rough/Cage/anything, I would hold that until it's time to NO.Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
You're certainly right that if Thoughtseize is only in the deck to get rid of FOW then Therapy is better, like in a Storm deck. But I like using it as a removal spell/counterspell split card if the situation calls for it.
I think they can afford the 1 for 2 in this MU, since they can 1 for X you with Forked Bolt and/or Rough (maybe Cage comes in this category too). Plus their cards are inherently stronger than ours, so they are fine letting you resolve 2 random Elves & FoW the key spell.Quote:
In the fair matchups (Delver mirrors, stoneblade, shardless, etc) RUG Delver boards out Force of Will because it can't afford the 1-for-2 unless it's literally keeping them alive.
I doesn't seems easier to resolve a NO vs Daze/Pierce/FoW/Rough than a Glimpse. I'll try and playtest it though
I also disagree that it is easier to resolve NO than to get a good Glimpse against them. But I also think the NO approach is overall very much viable and used to be something I did a lot in the past.
It's easy to play around Daze and Pierce. Resolving NO takes Rough out of the equation. Rough seems like an argument against Glimpse rather than NO. Force is the only concerning card on that list.Quote:
Originally Posted by B4L4
I like leaving in the Glimpses that I do as counter bait. They have to respect it, but they're still dead to NO. It doesn't make sense to cut Glimpse completely, but I like having 5 must-counters against the deck with 4 hard counterspells.
Are your Glimpses usually lethal or "Draw X"? Drawing 2-4 extra cards in this matchup is great and I'm always happy to do it, but I've found that actually "going off" is hard. What does your sideboard plan look like for the matchup?Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian23
And of course to both of you I'm not saying that the NO plan, my board plan, or my build are completely correct. I'm just saying what I did and why. I'm very interested in this conversation because there are so many things a person can do in every matchup with the same 75.
Thanks for the detailed answer!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosh N Roll
For me, I really love Glimpse in the MU. They have to respect it, pretty much as much as NO. Even if it "only" draw 3-4 cards, it's usually enough to pull ahead.
My reasoning in this MU is that I deside some NOs (2 or 3, depending on play/draw - I play 4 MD), and I keep in Ruric, which is often able to close out the game as easily as progenitus (with the ability to block delvers), but mostly because I can cast it or GSZ for it.
I do not board in the seize too, but before I was doing so OTP (to grab delver if possible). But because I've often been in a situation with only one fetch in the opener and a seize, and I hated having to fetch a bayou as first land in this MU, I stopped doing so. Additionally, with less NOs (1/2), you do not want to grab FoW all the time. If they're making CdA to themselves, it's OK. Another trouble I had with the discard is that after T3 it is not that good.
So I guess my way of SBing in this MU started with something not so far from your plan (except I kept the 4 glimpse, always. I wasn't playing choke then too), then remove the discard, then maybe NO was less good without discard and I started to play less of those. Maybe the printing of WRP made NO less important in the MU, as GSZ can be an excellent pseudo-NO.
And I removed progenitus not long after from my SB, after realizing that in most MUs he s good, either I do not like the NO plan in this MU, either I found enough utility with hoof, regal (I'm one of the last one still playing the card), WRP or Ruric.
I tried to follow your "what I did and why".
You need a board presence for NO (not a huge one if your plan is Progenitus), but you still need a board presence which let you play around Daze & Pierce for the NO, so Rough is not out of the equation regarding NO.Quote:
It's easy to play around Daze and Pierce. Resolving NO takes Rough out of the equation. Rough seems like an argument against Glimpse rather than NO. Force is the only concerning card on that list.
Same is usually true for Glimpse, you need a board with decent mana possibilities to let the chain begin, but at least you break even in CA (or better) at the end of the Glimpse chain. The difference is that a countered NO is more painful than a countered Glimpse.
So i do agree that NO take Rough out of the equation IF it resolves, but that's still a big if to me
I just played this matchup at a local tonight and had 2 great interactive games that I came away with, and 1 game 2 where I was flattened by a turn 3 Hoof. It sounds like he didn't have much experience with the matchup (or familiarity with Elves in general), but the way this played out I think he could have pulled away with the win here if he played differently. Lava Spike should probably have been sided out for something (Cage and Pillar would have been great here), and later on the Quirion play was not well-informed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bosh N Roll
Yeah the burn matchup isn't positive for Elves. We're both combo decks, you have the more consistent goldfish, and you have more interaction with my plan that I do with yours.Quote:
Originally Posted by jrsthethird
It seemed like his hand was all-in on Eidolon, and being on the play I was able to clear it out pain-free which crippled his whole plan.
And yeah the Quirion Ranger thing was a mistake. A huge part of the Elves strategy is all the on-board tricks that your opponents have to keep track of. I got him with one there, I got my MUD opponent when he attacked with Wurmcoil, I didn't put this in the report but I got my top 4 opponent when he tried to Daze me while I was "tapped out" and had an active Ranger. My top 8 opponent also asked me to flip my Symbiotes and Rangers upside-down when I had used them for the turn which I refused to do because of the strategic value of making him keep track of it himself. A big difference between someone who picks up Elves and a good Elves player is how well they keep track of exactly how every card on the board interacts. Being on top of those interactions will be good for a couple of game wins over the course of any long tournament.