[Deck] Nogoyf.dec (UW)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Forbiddian

Children of Korlis (I was mistaken in thinking it'd be great earlier) does about a fat zero against combo. I playtested multiple goldfish orders and it only marginally increased the fizzle rate. If TES resolves Ad Nauseum and then Tendrils of Agony, they can almost always continue playing and resolve either IGG, another AdN, or another Tendrils of Agony. Also, they can Chain of Vapor or suicide banish the CoK after AdN but before Tendrils. They see like half their deck after AdN and usually dig a solution.

The situation that it stops are ones where the combo player gets a bad AdNauseum, and the ones where the combo player tries to go for a non AdN kill (like with Hurkyl's midgame).

---

I'm actually surprised that you're having such a hard time with TES to begin with. You run daze, force, and wastelands, which all screw the crap out of TES. Adding in Cursecatcher, while seemingly bad on paper, has playtested very well for me. Usually 2 well timed dazes are enough to stop the TES player from going off, and thus wastes their set up spells and storm count if they played their 0 cost artifacts. It is not easy for a TES player to play around a lot of annoyances and still go off, so if you are holding any sort of daze/counter in your had you probably should be able to stop them with a Cursecatcher on the board. I can see how CoK would crap out against AdN, but Cursecatcher completely stops them from getting it out.

Quote:

---

That leaves Burrenton Forge-Tender and Cursecatcher. To solve that problem, you have to look at what we're taking out:

4x Blast
2x Mind Harness
2x Aura of Silence
2x Oblivion Ring
4x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Jotun Grunt

Ok, so, I think just cutting four blasts for Cursecatcher would weaken the Goblin MU significantly. Cutting Thorn for Cursecatcher is ridiculous, because Cursecatcher is shitty next to Thorn and that would weaken our TES matchup a lot. It's like a sinkhole for 1, which is decent, but nowhere near the serious lock element that Thorn is.

Cutting anything else weakens fringe matchups that would not benefit from Cursecatcher.

---

I'm going to first argue that cutting Thorn for Cursecatcher is not shitty against TES. Maybe it was just my playtesting (which was over 10 games when I played Triton's Minions against TES... a similar deck in terms of control), but in a deck with wastelands vs TES, daze and Cursecatcher are going to be nuts. Your initial mana denial from wasteland is going to hurt them enough that the daze/CC are going to stall them much longer than they can handle. A 1 turn clock is good against them because going off with AdN starting at 10 life is usually not game over for you as long as you've been doing your job controlling their mana. Thorn is just overkill when you get it, but turn 2 is much worse than turn 1 since TES averages turn 2-3. It's also much more easily destroyed (multiples don't even help you) by shattering spree, which they all run. Many of the new TES don't run Grapeshot in the sideboard, but having a 1/1 swinging at them will damage them enough that AdN will go on to suck.

Quote:

---

Burrenton Forge-Tender, on the other hand, is solid against Goblins as an answer to turn 1 lackey and it trades with Piledriver (as well as often walling out smaller critters). It also is a target for Umezawa's Jitte, unlike BEB. These situations are common enough to the point that I actually think BFT is BETTER than Blue Elemental Blast. I hope you understand that the sacrifice ability is rarely used. He's mainly a 1/1 Pro Red with a sometimes useful ability. He's like a Mother of Runes (which is just garbage, but at least one person kept thinking she'd be good) that has no summoning sickness. I don't understand why you think BEB would be so much better against Goblins.

---

Any 1/1 creature is generally solid against a turn 1 lackey, but if you're talking about BFT vs BEB then either would work. 1/1 pro red is so much worse than BEB against gobbos that it shouldn't even be a contest. We all know that a wall vs gobbos doesn't beat them. It's obviously way better to counter their Ringleader, Warchief, Kikki Jikki, Siege Gang, and Matron rather than chump block it. And if you top deck the BEB it auto kills their warchief, which slows them down way more than them having to get around a 1/1. But goblins aren't your top competition with this deck, so it isn't as big of a point as how good BEB is against dragon stompy and aggro loam. Obviously you'd rather run BEB against them.

Quote:

---

The TES matchup is slightly weakened, but Blue Elemental Blast was rarely part of the main strategy. Often we'd tap out because it's better to drop threats on the board and put TES on an actual clock than hope this is the turn that they cast a red spell. Against the other forms of Ad Nauseum Tendrils (FT, AdN), Blue Elemental Blast is basically dead and doesn't get boarded in.

---

I don't think tapping out is necessary against combo. You need to stop them from going off, not out-tempo them with creatures. You'll always lose that battle. I don't think that "tapping out" is a strategy that this deck has to follow against everything you come up against, especially if you want to BS for the FoW to beat them. If you kept your BEB for one of their accels or a burning wish, then you probably have a much greater chance of winning than if you played a Jitte or something. Remember that AdN does require a lot of starting life or it starts to suck. Even at 10 it's just barely enough to win usually.

I'm not saying this in a mean way at all, but you should really try playing TES against a deck like this if you haven't. Finding mana starters is hard as hell in TES if you keep getting wastelanded. TES usually needs a black and a red mana to go off, and if you can stop either of these then it is usually going to be game.

Quote:

---

AG, which I tested, although not in the Epochrasite slot, is horrible all the time. Apart from gimmicky tricks like vialing in to counter a Deed activation, it's really weak. It will never individually form a clock worth speaking of, so even if it trades 3 land for their Tarmogoyf, we're left in a bad situation where they can easily dig out more Goyfs. 2/2 is the anemic clock everyone's complaining about. 4/4 will kill someone with tempo. Oh, and Epochrasite sorta-counters Deed, so it seems silly to run such a gimmick card for a situation where Epoch isn't that bad.

This deck really doesn't have that much trouble with Goyfs or single-creature strategies anyway -- Swords, Jitte, and Jotun Grunt are typically enough.

---

Yeah, epoch is okay but I'm sure we can find a better creature out there. I wouldn't say that it counters deed either, just because it takes so long to recur and generally the deed player is going to Volrath's Stronghold their recurring creature faster than you are.

Thanks for all your input, Phoenix Ignition. I know you spend lots of time typing up those posts and your critical analysis is fun to debate against.

If you have any free time like later or after this week, if you'd like to play either against this deck or with this deck against Jeff or me on Magic Workstation, I think it would help you understand how the deck works so that you can better channel your analysis or at least understand where we're coming from.

This deck is very much different from UW Fish, and it's unbelievably different from Triton's Minions after Morningtide.

Just a random idea here. Ever consider going from equal parts aggro control to more aggro than control? Drop the dazes and wastelands, add in Factories and the last AV and Jitte. Ta-daa, insta-aggro, with a built in long game and some protection!

Just playtested this on MWS and I'm actually a little disappointed. Epoch is definitely not the best it could be in here, and Chalice did get off on me 3 times at 1, before I had a vial out (usually on their first turn) and without me having force. One time I did have a FoW but no blue cards to back it up. Which got me to thinking that Epoch in my hand should damn well better be blue or it isn't worth playing him (residual anger from the stupid chalice he played).

So after losing to back to basics + 2 propaganda (got him to 2 before getting morphlinged), I also think you should take out a fetch for one more island. I actually got my one basic island Annex'd in one game... who would have thought.

So lack of blue cards, lack of punch late game, and lack of basics were my main critiques about this deck. But oh my god Wayfarer is broken, I just really wished I could find a land in there that he could turn the game around with though. Tabernacle probably isn't the best option, but what about something like Maze of Ith. I'd like a functional land like barbarian ring, but that's probably not happening with white blue. I just got tired of having such card advantage and no way to use it. I wish there was some card like seismic assault that I could have pumped those into, because after that chalice for one I had virtually no removal effects and not enough control to make my Jitte resolve.

I ended up replacing Epoch with Cursecatcher, and I like this change because daze effects are great in this deck.

One drastic change that I would enjoy seeing is making it more like D&T, with Karakas and Isamaru, and hopefully other combat tricks. At least there would be an interesting land to search for, and if you threw in mangara there would be some type of removal other than StoP. I don't think putting Mangara in will kill vial since he's so damn good with vial, and spreading this deck's mana curve out a little more would not be a bad thing. Chalice just completely rocked me.

Wayfarer should make its way into Death&Taxes in general, it's perfect for that deck.

The two decks definitly seem to have a lot in common for general playstyle.. Blue gives counterspells and CA, I like the deck but I would go more in the direction of D&T as well.

What about Knight of Meadowgrain or Samurai of the Pale Curtain in the Epochrasite spot? Samurai helps against ichy and is a solid beater, and Knight eats goblins and lifelink is pretty sweet. Or even Deft Dualist? Can't be targeted, eats goblins, and can be pitched to Force.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Genericcactus

What about Knight of Meadowgrain or Samurai of the Pale Curtain in the Epochrasite spot? Samurai helps against ichy and is a solid beater, and Knight eats goblins and lifelink is pretty sweet. Or even Deft Dualist? Can't be targeted, eats goblins, and can be pitched to Force.

---

This deck already has about as many 2/2's for 2 as it can handle. I think it also really wants more blue cards, but deft duelist just sucks in every deck ever so that's not the route I would take. I also think it needs to spread out the mana curve more since, as I mentioned chalice @ 1 is lose if you have no vial already out. I really think mangara + karakas would help the deck out, as the synergy with wayfarer is amazing.

And I forgot to mention, in most games vs control I've managed to drain my entire deck of lands with wayfarer, and having an o-ring in there or something for the chance occurrence that you need to remove something from the table is probably quite worth it.

See the sideboard for orings, auras, which are answers to chalice. I have a tough time believing that chalice resolved twice in a match where you had no FOW or enchantment removal game 2, and they played it game 1 both games. Cause anything short of that is not a problem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition

Epoch is definitely not the best it could be in here, and Chalice did get off on me 3 times at 1, before I had a vial out (usually on their first turn) and without me having force. One time I did have a FoW but no blue cards to back it up. Which got me to thinking that Epoch in my hand should damn well better be blue or it isn't worth playing him (residual anger from the stupid chalice he played).

So after losing to back to basics + 2 propaganda (got him to 2 before getting morphlinged), I also think you should take out a fetch for one more island. I actually got my one basic island Annex'd in one game... who would have thought.

So lack of blue cards, lack of punch late game, and lack of basics were my main critiques about this deck.

---

Thanks for testing the deck. I thought your input would be more useful after testing. Send me an AIM tell and I'll give you some pointers against specific matches.

In the meantime, what deck were you playing against? MUC with Turn 1 Chalice @ 1?


Chalice is not scary. Like I said earlier, we're similar to Thresh in that Turn 1 Chalice @ 1 on the play sucks, but unlike Thresh, Turn 1 Chalice @ 1 from the draw (or Turn 2 Chalice @ 1) is such a nonfactor. Vial is just a hardcounter, and if we get Wayfarer down, that's all we wanted anyway. Keep in mind that AV resolves through Chalice.

Also, how were you boarding? We have numerous answers to Enchantment/Artifacts and Swords should come out against blue, leaving us with like Aether Vial, Wayfarer, and Brainstorm as the only Chalice targets. And each basically counters Chalice if they get out the door first. So we have like 24 answers if we're on the play and 12 targets.

I guess you got exceedingly unlucky. Mono Blue Control isn't a great matchup because of their immunity to Wayfarer lock, but it sucks that you lost to the total nonfactor cards that they normally board out, like Back to Basics and Chalice. Hope you understand that testing is really useful for getting a feeling of a deck, but that it takes a number of games before you can actually make value judgments. Many games, and even in some matchups, cards just bad, but it requires an alternative card that is superior in more situations before we'll actually decide to cut a card.

Thanks for your help in evaluating Epochrasite, but due to the fact that it's totally awesome and has been in dozens of matchups and hundreds of games, it's not getting the axe for Cursecatcher, which is generally terrible (too many 1-drops already, it's horrible if we have daze since we have to trade 2:1 to get a card, it's a total blank against Goblins, trash against Thresh, etc.).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

See the sideboard for orings, auras, which are answers to chalice. I have a tough time believing that chalice resolved twice in a match where you had no FOW or enchantment removal game 2, and they played it game 1 both games. Cause anything short of that is not a problem.

---

Was using your original post's sideboard:

Quote:

---

sideboard:
1 jotun grunt
2 blue elemental blast
2 hydroblast
4 thorn of amethyst
2 aura of silence
2 mind harness

---

Aura of silence was the only thing that I got to board in, and the 2 of them did not show up before he killed me.

Feel free to update your original post to the new corrections, no one is going to look through pages of stuff to find a card or 2 change to the sideboard.

My sideboard was originally 13 cards, not correctly typed into the original post. But how is it that you didn't notice this and brought a 13 card sideboard (illegally) into a game?

The two missing cards are oblivion rings.

Chalice of the void is not a problem. I would not get behind this deck if there was a 1 card combo that killed it on turn 1.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

My sideboard was originally 13 cards, not correctly typed into the original post. But how is it that you didn't notice this and brought a 13 card sideboard (illegally) into a game?

The two missing cards are oblivion rings.

Chalice of the void is not a problem. I would not get behind this deck if there was a 1 card combo that killed it on turn 1.

---

Good question. I threw in some Relic of Progenitus because I figured you'd have goyf problems. I didn't run into a goyf, but obviously you have artifact problems so I should probably put in some onion rings.

Why is Knight of the White Orchid not part of deck ?

Did some playtesting last night with Forbiddian. This deck really doesn't have much room for changing spots in and out. I'd like to urge people to playtest this before they suggest things (especially if you don't even say what to take out). Because trust me, no one wants to hear a Forbiddian rant on the subject:wink: .


Anyway, to get to the deck, the creatures are where he wants them and do what he wants them to do. I can't think of any 1-of lands that will actually improve any of this deck's MUs any. The hardest decks for this one to beat are pretty much any mono-colored deck that doesn't rely on staying on color to win. Usually the 4 turn wastelock was good enough to slow me down enough for him to win with the creatures, or at least get the jitte going which is quite hard to stop. What this deck needs are specific sideboard card suggestions that are backed up with logic on how to beat blue or white mono-colored control (including MUC, geddon stacks, Quinn, probably more), Faerie stompy, and possibly help against combo while we're at it.

Now that I've got what I think is good out, I'm going to just critique it a bit because I don't like how some interactions work. Keep in mind I have no actual suggestions on cards that would fix these, I'm just throwing them out there to see if anyone has a good idea (swing and miss so far with the suggestions on this deck though). First of all the blue card count seems low for FoW. Most of the blue cards in here that you would pitch to FoW aren't worth the card disadvantage. It seems to me like they're in here for just a little "haha combo, I still have a chance" action. Daze in 2s is also not a great way to have a consistent deck, just more of a way to try to make someone play a bit slower once they see a daze. The point can be made that daze sucks later on, but with more of them the FoW lack of pitchable blue cards problem would be fixed.

Secondly I really think it needs some sort of other removal card in here than StoP. I've been screwed quite a few times against a few decks that run a random artifact or enchantment main deck that completely shuts me down. I'm biased because I played a way higher percentage of these control decks online, but that has just helped me to see the problem.

I know the creators hate the idea, but I'm going to try out some karakas and mangara and maybe isamaru action in here, since I would really like to abuse vial and/or wayfarer more. I'll post results later.

FOW tends to usually either be the best card in the deck or the worst. But it's the best against quite a few things:

Any storm combo (TES, fetchland tendrils, goblin charbelcher, solidarity, and other random stuff.)

Any deck that is based around a few cards (Survival of the fittest, decks that run intuition effects like ITF, life from the loam (Sure they can recur a bunch of lands but they need a seismic assault or devastating dreams, or at least a big fatty which we can also swords to matter at all), etc. etc.)

Also, faerie stompy. Chalice when we're on the play is nothing, but chalice on the draw can suck if we get unlucky and draw a hand of all 1 castings. (We only run 16, and we have to draw 3-4 for it to be truly devastating whereas the expected amount in our hand is 1-2, and chalice against that doesn't matter.)

Also, obviously anything that runs dreadnought it's nice to have FOW against.

In short, I could make a blanket statement and say any deck that has a combo in it that consists of or are based around a few cards is crippled by FOW. Having said that, I always board it out vs. straight aggro.

An alternative I've considered that Forbiddian would probably ridicule me for is a black alternative instead of blue. One would lose brainstorm, which was the primary reason continuing with blue, but cabal therapy would have some extra synergy with our grunts and epochrasites, and disruption would be 1 for 1 as opposed to 2 for 1 and a conditional 1 for 1. The mage slot would have to be the slightly worse WB 2/2 that steals a card from the opponent's hand temporarily, and ancestral visions would turn into dark confidant.

Also, we would get a huge boost against ichorid, and a mild boost against anything we were running FOW against. We'd get engineered plague also, as well as tombstalker.

I am going to try to make a list and see how it turns out, but I still note that brainstorm is a huge loss. We win significantly many games just because we don't mulligan when our opponents do. Between vial as a color stabilizer and "mana source," wayfarer to dig out extra lands if we need it, wasteland to trade down our lands if we don't need them, and on top of it all brainstorm as a fixer, we rarely mulligan. Once, Forbiddian noted a period during which we had played roughly 100 games and I had mulliganned once. That's probably not representative of the true statistic, but it's certainly not going to be far from that.

I mean changing to black would make this deck pretty different. The underlying combos would still be the same but I could see myself playing the deck a lot more aggressively. One might suggest we run black AND blue but that's a bad idea because as it stands, both decks are packed full. There's no reason to introduce nonbasics and inconsistency just so I can mix and match.

EDIT: Here is the list, it looks promising.
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [U] Scrubland
2 [4E] Plains (1)
1 [7E] Swamp (3)
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Polluted Delta

// Creatures
2 [FUT] Epochrasite
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
3 [CS] Jotun Grunt
4 [ALA] Tidehollow Sculler
4 [CHP] Serra Avenger
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant

// Spells
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
3 [AP] Vindicate
4 [OV] Swords to Plowshares
3 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AP] Vindicate
SB: 2 [PLC] Extirpate
SB: 3 [FNM] Engineered Plague
SB: 4 [ARE] Duress
SB: 4 [LRW] Burrenton Forge-Tender
SB: 1 [CS] Jotun Grunt

I'm only going to explain the changes since the explanations of the base ideas are already in the main post. The changes are basically ancestral visions--> dark confidant countermagic->hand disruption. Notice that instead of waiting around now this deck is supposed to be slightly more proactive. We still benefit from "timewalks" because we still run epochrasite, wayfarer, and vial, so stalling the opponent out still shines. The maindeck hasn't changed all that much except the above, and two noticeable things: now we have a little bit of chalice vulnerability since I increased the 1 casting cost count by 3. Also, we now have a way to remove chalice, and things like shackles quite consistently g1. As mentioned above, brainstorm is lacking, and the other thing that may have caught eyes is no tombstalker. While in theory, taking a life loss of 8 is unlikely and won't result in game over, that's not the reason I haven't included it in my initial list. Well it's not all the reason. It just doesn't seem very good when it requires BB (If I don't run it, I can run my deck off B, and 1/3 of my lands don't produce black so this factor may be significant.) Also, it's about as late as serra avenger but the only thing is you can't play with multiples. For the same reason it's late, it's also antisynergetic with grunt. However, I do not claim this list is tested at all and tombstalker is definitely on the waitlist.

The sideboard is where some interesting things happen.

the old 1x grunt is still there, and 4 thorns were replaced by the more versatile 4 duress, to be tested. the forgetenders survived, and the old disenchant effects were cut in favor of the 4th vindicate. The big changes are the anticipated better matchup versus ichorid because of E plague and extirpate, which also doubles as hate vs. combo given all the hand disruption I run. (Another reason I chose to run duress over thorn.) Additionally, there is the obvious anticipated superior matchup against goblins. I am considering, just to solidify the matchup against one of the most common decks out there, -1 extirpate +1 engineering plague. As a side note, competing for the graveyard hate slots (now that I play black) were leyline of the void, yixlid jailer, withered wretch. First off, one could argue the two creatures could be run maindeck over the grunt, and thus allow me, for instance, to run tombstalker somewhat more efficiently. Well, tarmogoyf is a common card, so this rules out yixlid jailer, and the deck needs mana, ruling out the wretch. (Running this many 3 mana spells does look a little scary, but I was occasionally able to hard cast the replaced FOWs before, so it shouldn't be too bad, and that was when I was able to brainstorm away extra land... 5 is certainly extra.)

However, in the sideboard, extirpate has beaten the alternatives because leyline does nothing but hate graveyard, whereas extirpate is not removable by chain of vapor, and it also hates other decks. The two creatures were deemed inferior because extirpate costs 1 and I already have 2 mana hate. I need to be able to get in the way of ichorid if they start going crazy with a breakthrough LED draw, or an average draw if they're on the play.

I like the new version a lot better on paper. Taking out the 6 counterspells for 7 hand hate and 4 creature hand hate is almost definitely going to improve your first game against combo. I'm wondering why you wouldn't just run orim's chant over duress in the sideboard though, since all AdN combos use brainstorm in response to your thoughtseize/cabal therapy. If you backed it up with chant you might have a better time against them than just running dense hand hate since them having LED on the field is a great way for them to top deck a win.

I'll try to test this version later this week, but I like the removal of FoW and daze since this deck could not really support FoW, and 2 daze just seems too inconsistant.

Vindicate is the exact effect I was looking for as well, but I'm still going to mess around with mangara a bit before giving up on him.

It looks good on paper but it's actually pretty clunky. I think the blue build is better.

Lol.

Quote:

---

An alternative I've considered that Forbiddian would probably ridicule me for is a black alternative instead of blue.

---

Lunch was pretty fun today, although I didn't even consider that we'd lose Brainstorm (and that's like a biggie, it's almost an Ancestral Recall when we have Wayfarer going, and it fixes colors, gets rid of dead cards and stops mana floods).

Basically everything in the deck costs more (AV --> Bob, Daze/Force --> Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy, something I dunno what --> Vindicate) and we move reactive counters that require opponent investment (that buys us time) into proactive removal that instead costs us time.

E.g. opponent playing first, plays fetchland, gets a tropical, says go.

We have Vial and Thoughtseize and 2-drops. We cast Thoughtseize. Our opponent shows us two goyfs (any two two-drops, but I used Goyf to simplify), so we pick one.

Next turn opponent drops a Goyf. We don't even have Vial on the board.

Compared to:

Turn 1 Land
Turn 1 Vial
Turn 2 Goyf --> Dazed.
Turn 2 replay land.
Turn 3 Other Goyf
Turn 3 --> Able to vial in 2 drops to eat 3/4 Goyf. Yummy.

The daze not only traded with Goyf like Thoughtseize, but bought us (relatively) two turns to charge Vial. Also, Wayfarer is much shittier without Storm and Daze.

I don't get it, the deck lost pretty much all its synergies and then you took out Pikulas and made crappy Pikula.

I agree with the above. I really wish there were better FOWs though. But then I also don't want to throw away that many matchups where they just lose if they try X and you show FOW. (Any combo, any deck based around a card, see previous post.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

I really wish there were better FOWs though.

---

What are you, high on crack? If they print a counterspell that's strictly better than Force of Will or Mana Drain, so help me, I'll quit playing Magic. There's not going to be a better FoW dude, I'd bet on it.

FOW's pretty weak sometimes in this deck, but duh they won't print a better FOW. They're too busy printing
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU10
instant
counter target spell unless it's controller pays 1. You lose the game.

I was quite suprised to find that our idea got adopted into deckcheck
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=22035
and also into the D&T builds partially.

Speaking of D&T, the question has been posed: What makes this deck better than D&T at least in some ways? There had better be more than nothing, for if "nothing" is the answer, then D&T is a strict improvement on our deck and nobody should ever, ever play nogoyf.

Well, Matt (Forbiddian) brought up the most obvious point. Now D&T is including wayfarer, so at least a priori, the argument shouldn't be that we have that advantage. However, really we do because D&T functions on 3-4, probably 4 if they want to be using karakas too. (Yes they have vial, but if one was guaranteed to also draw vial, then epochrasite would be an autoinclude in both decks instead of still a question mark.)

However, I'd like to point out another thing. D&T and us have some cards in common, but we get blue, at the cost of virtually no consistency. This means we can actually run the manipulation that D&T players lack. (See the D&T thread to see that this is something D&T players actually notice is missing, and have, in the past, tried to fix.) We get daze. Actually, even if they had a white daze, they'd have trouble using it as well as us because they need 4 lands.

Okay, well then why isn't our deck a strict improvement on their deck? Well they are supposed to have an awesome ichorid matchup (See their thread) and we only have ~40%, which is <awesome. They are supposed to stomp all over goblins, but we only have ~50%, which is not stomping on Goblins. For instance, however, we don't autolose to TES (And solidarity), as they claim to do. I did not do thorough research for this last claim, but I feel like their dependence on more mana might lead them to lose a few more games than we do to decks that specialize in mana denial like team america. We run thorn in the sideboard for combo, which is unchantable. Well, you could argue they could run thorn too, and they could but they would lack the ability to protect it from th countermagic of solidarity or the chain of vapor of TES. (If they try to wipe it away, that's going to take almost forever, and you should be able to do something quite amazing by then like dropping another thorn, a meddling mage or two, an aura of silence, or at least brainstorm and draw into two counters.)

Anyway, I actually am mainly bringing this topic back for more sideboard and land ideas. I think the 1x island maindeck is a liability because I'm always unhappy to see it in the opening hand. If the hand is like island+X colorless sources like vial, wasteland, then I'd rather it be a plains or a dual land. If it's island plains, I'd rather have a dual land. But it's also convenient to be able to have nonwastelandable blue, at least in theory. (In practice, though, it might not be that necessary)

Also, I don't know if Forbiddian would agree with this, but I'm definitely thinking BEB/hydroblast are superior to forge tender because I am thinking about switching all the mind harnesses to oblivion rings to deal with creatures and vials better, and stopping the goblin aether vial with BEB and daze backup seems like it should be good. Also, peripherally speaking, BEB and hydroblast should put the help for TES, making unnecessary the kind of plays like meddling mage naming burning wish, and stopping their rite of flames. I mean it's not just peripheral for that matchup, it's probably quite significant, but if that were the only difference, we might still run forgetender. Forgetender is better against ichorid, but seemingly worse against everything else. We thought it might be better for goblins cause it can carry a jitte, but it actually it sucks to let ringleader resolve.

two more points:
I'm a fairly openminded guy. I tried out the mangara and karakas. (Cutting epochrasite x2 maindeck and switching a plains for a karakas.) Here are my observations: It turns wombat from nearly unwinnable game 1 to essentially unlosable, because before we were getting beaten by moat, whereas now we care very little about it. However, it screws with our consistency and speed. Perhaps further testing is warranted.

Does anybody have sideboard suggestions?

I don't think that Death and Taxes is playing Weathered Wayfarer. I suggested it, but it had been discussed and rejected apparently earlier.

It's harder to abuse in D&T since they require more land to play out creatures (even sitting at 1 land, we're always 1 land away from being able to cast anything in the deck, whereas they can't react as quickly to the opponent playing out more land), we have Daze, and we have Brainstorm (shuffle away the land we tutored up). These three factors make Wayfarer tons better in our deck.


Without running Wayfarer, there really isn't a 1:1 comparison between NoGoyf and D&T as the cards and playstyles are wildly different.

Prices are similar, though.