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Lists published!Quote:
Originally Posted by godryk
Winner's list is a very popular build in the spanish blogosphere and boards, since it comes from a well known and respected Eternal player, who knows what he talks about, but maybe so much respected to be criticized for other players. It may seem weird with Angel's Grace+Pacts, but the deck still does its things in an unprepared meta. The Top 4 one is much more similar to what has been discussed here.
Thoughts?
Not playing the full 4 lion's eye diamonds seem like a big mistake. I would certainly replace the 2 graces and 1 orim's chant with 3 led, and then the deck looks quite strong...
Anyway I don't think angel's grace is worth it. Has anyone in here tested it thouroughly? The point is that by playing angel's grace you make a 1-card combo into a 2-card combo. I am aware of the fact that you can tutor for both the cards with mystical, and I can see the point in being able to kill decks with a fast kill, because you stop caring about your life totals when you play grace before your nauseam...
But still. Grace has to slow the deck down - does it make up for this slowing down of things??
- meanee
I see Grace as SB material at best. It's technically only a win-more card in most matchups, but it could make burn-matchups, which are considered somewhat tough, better. It has it's merits, as it makes fizzling 100% impossible, but against blue decks you need the Orim's Chant, and most likely you can only afford one white pre-nauseam spell without slowing yourself too much. Against non-blue/non-chant/non-fast-damage decks you need nothing extra. You just do your thing and win. Ad Nauseam constantly nets me 10+ cards and it's pretty much enough to go deadly after that.
Well it does not look stupid to play 1 AG main deck if you expect to cross a lot of aggro. According to me 2/3 AG in SB is absolutely necessary.
Of course it's partially a meta call, but I would suggest keeping only one in SB as a boardable tutor target in builds which play 4 Mystical Tutors. As it's not mana source, disruption, setup card or a storm enabler but a win-more card, I find it lacking in terms of efficiency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
If you're really concerned about your meta packing burn and fast aggro, go ahead and maindeck a copy. Otherwise you should be doing fine. Chant also deals nicely with burn, as you can go low on life from Ad Nauseam without the fear of being bolted to death right after. Even without Grace, you still have a less suicidal way to combo: IGG.
The side in is simple. You only need a little bit of experience to understand what to side in.Quote:
Well I need to know which is the definitive and stablished manabase for the deck , as well the sideboard in order to face a meta with :
a) 3hold,
b) landstill,
c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,
e) U/W confidant
f) Ichorid
g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice
- which cards will you put in ?
- which cards will you take out ?
Thanks
This was my side at last tournament:
3x Serenity
1x Rebuild
1x Hurkyl's Recall
2x Duress
2x Spell Snare
2x Wipe Away
1x Plains
1x Divert
1x Brain Freeze
1x Slaughter Pact
a) threshold: what thresh? tempo or control? W or B or R splash?
Too many variables to consider. I can give you some variables guide lines.
If they use CB in the deck the side in/out is very similar to Dreadstill matchup.
In the UGW matchup you can expect to see Mage so you need to side in Pact and/or Wipe Away and/or Freeze (but I never use all 3 solutions for mages, they are too much and the deck become inconsistent). In all other thresh matchups you can cut easily the bouncer.
If I have Extirpate in SB I don't side in it. My opponent plays only 4 hard counters and usually we haven't the time to plan a EOT Extirpate on FoW and then combo like perhaps against MUC or Landstill.
Generally I side out these cards: -1 Ponder, -1 Rushing River, -1 AN, -1 IT, -1 mox (petal in these matchups is more useful).
Then I speak of side in Brain Freeze against thresh UGB with Extirpate.
b) landstill: +2 Duress, +1 Wipe Away, +1 Plains, +1 Freeze/Pact (mage in sb? you need scouting...)
Side out: -1 Ponder/-1 acceleration, -1 Rushing River, -1 IT, -1 AN, -1 Scrubland
-Scrubland: you need a consistent white mana source to play Orim.
- Rushing River: obviusly.
- AN: you have only 1 possibility to play it.
- IT: often is a dead card in hand and you have all the time to search AN or IGG.
- Ponder/acceleration. I'm not sure about cut Ponder or a piece of acceleration. Ponder is bad against Standstill, but it is useful to decrease the possibility of mulligan in the first turn. Acceleration: you have all the time to search it. It's a question open.
c) decks with c.b,
d) Dreadstill,
I consider c) & d) like the same deck. (ok there is the fear, but in my meta nobody plays that deck). At my last tournament this was the side in/out plan at 5° turn:
sb: +2 snare +2 duress, +2 wipe away, +1 freeze, +1 plains; -1 pact, -1 cabal, -1 infernal, -1 cromo, -1 scrubland, -1 ponder, -1 river, -1 AN.
This is the worst matchup. You can see that usually against blue based decks the sb out is very similar. I decrease the quantity of many cards instead of cut entirely all a playset.
I'm not sure about the utility of side in Freeze against Extirpate decks. There is a very low probability they play seize on your mono ToA that is in hand and then they play Extirpate. Also for this reason I don't like playlists with 2 ToA: Horrible. So perhaps I don't side in anymore Freeze in these matchups.
I cut Scrubland for the same reason I cut it in Landstill.
River and AN are an obvius choice.
I cut Pact beacuse the main problem here is not hard counter, but CB, so I prefer one more Duress or Snare instead of Pact. For counters there are Orim and Duress.
The others 4 cuts are a necessary evil.
e) U/W confidant
what is it? fish? the same board plan against UGW thresh. The 2 decks have the same hate against us.
f) Ichorid:
With Sb I used, nothing was really useful for this matchup. Like I wrote in the last post, simply we are more fast and we can take time with Orim. Anyway, if in your side you use Extirpate or E.truth, you can side in them. Obviusly we can cut: Rushing River and Blue Pact. If we need more space we can cut Sensei, like in all fast matchups.
g) Loam with chalices
h) archetypes with magus, trinisphere, chalice
I consider g) & h) like the same board plan: +1 Rebuild, +1 Hurkyl, +3 Serenity, +1 Plains.
The side out here is simple: -4 Orim, -1 Pact, -1 Ponder. Here Sensei is better. It permits to search in continuous manner lands and bouncers and you can play it with mountain if into play there is a moon effect.
Against Loam deck if I have grave hate in Sb, I don't use it. If my opponent starts Loam loop, we don't really need Extirpate, but instead Rebuild or Serenity to exit from mud.
I use Divert because I want a card against discard and I have only a slot open. I use it only to see the face of my opponent when I play it against Hymn, Sinkhole or Vindicate, but this never happen. At its place I can play Squire.
These SB in/out are general.
You need to be flexible.
If your friend plays landstill with a SB with 4 halo and 4 mage you must to change your side in / out. If your friend understands that K.Grip can be useful to destroy your Serenity, perhaps you need to change your SB.
Anyway, I'm reading in this thread some comments based on intuition instead of serious testing.
@ jericohs@cottage: sorry for my bad english.
I don't know for sure if this is adressed allready but could some rule guru post the exact ruling of the play -> M tutor upkeep into AD. sac led and play AD in your draw phase. I'm having trouble explaining this to my opponents
There is no ruling because there is no draw phase. There is only a beginning phase with untap, upkeep, and draw steps. Mana empties at end of phases, not end of steps. Point opponents to the order of a turn in the comp. rules specifically rules 300-304.1.Quote:
Originally Posted by Waikiki
This deck made 2 top8s in 41 and 40 people tournaments in Brazil. They were held in 400km away from each other locations, in 10/12 and 10/19. In fact, the deck made 2 top4s.
Unfortunately, TOs here have no habit of publishing decklists in international sites. I played in both tournaments, top8ing one with Aggro Loam and the other with UGr Threshold, so I am witness to the strengh of the deck, even though the pilots made some questionable choices.
The ANT list used here was UB, with just 4 duress and 1 Wipe Away as protection. I dont have the exact decklist, but it seemed very straighforward, with 4 AN, 1 IGG and 1 Tendrils. Sideboard sucked, IIRC, but was just enough to tear through the fields.
Can't say I tested it extensively, but it was part of my sideboard package in a small tournament two weeks ago. I have been very unimpressed with it, even if it did win me a game. It's only very situationally good against anything other than pure aggro and combo, and even there it often only buys a turn that you wouldn't need if your hadn't boarded it in - and you proceed to draw a random land instead of a spell. I can certainly see it in aggressive metagames, especially ones with burn, or as a one-of.Quote:
Originally Posted by meanee
Where I'm playing, there are very few creature decks that don't also run disruption, which means I can't just board out whatever maindeck disruption I'm playing out for AG, which makes the deck slower, which is okay if I can assemble a two-part combo in time but very contraproductive if I can't. Needless to say, there's have no guarantee aggro doesn't win t3 or board disruption that's unaffected by AG.
I suppose you could technically AdN into AdN+AG (if you have the Chants for the Moxen). The combo already requires drawing into enough mana for Bstorm/Mystical/Tendrils (2BBUU) or LED/IT (3B) or less likely but still relevant combinations of IT/IGG. Oh, or Tendrils. Adding another two-part combination to win you the game post AdN for 3BBW might not be the worst idea, you would possibly fizzle less often and thus reduce the number of average draws needed to win.
Unfortunately, all those uses would have to mitigate the fact that Angel's Grace is bloody useless a good deal of the time and simultaneously less versatile than other options. As opposed to, say, all cards mentioned above, which help you win in way more situations (as evidenced by the fact everyone plays them main :P ). Also, the deck is not built to sustain a two-card combo.
I still think the best weapon against aggro/burn/combo is a fast clock (and for combo, disruption), so you can just board an IGG or two and maybe even additional tutors or Tendrils - that would make the clock a tad slower (because IGG needs more things to go right than AdN) but less reliant on your life total.
Oh, and whatever anti-Mage/Teeg tech or bounce you have in the side you think is better than Duress/Chant.
How is it good against combo? It doesn't save you from Tendrils or Freeze, only from Belcher and ETW. It's not terrible only when you play Pact of Negation to force the opponent to fizzle and use Angel's Grace as a Stifle in your upkeep.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noman Peopled
EDIT - Had do correct myself.
True, my bad. I should rtfc and not post when I'm tired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Another strike against the card then, though.
Orim's Chant > Angel's Grace
IGG > Angel's Grace
The card (Angel's Grace) has been concluded as bad for the deck many pages ago so I won't go through a lengthy breakdown of why this was concluded as the case.
Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.
I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?
Cc is one thing. You need to generate W in both cases before casting Ad Nauseam in order for the cards to have any kind of effect on game. You would want to cast Grace, when facing burn. You would want to cast Chant against majority of decks, including burn. So, why waste space with Angel's Grace, as Chant does the same job anyway and you should be playing four of them already? Why would you want to win more? That is all Angel's Grace does. Also, Angel's Grace is a completely dead card (okay, 1 storm for 1 mana) when comboing with any card other than Ad Nauseam.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
I think you misread. The conclusion was made by me and several other people who tested the card some pages back on the thread. Since I do not feel like digging through the thread for what was already written, I simply made it much easier for you by telling you it's bad.Quote:
The card (Angel's Grace) has been concluded as bad for the deck many pages ago so I won't go through a lengthy breakdown of why this was concluded as the case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Your conclusions concern only you Hanni. And don't think you hold the universal truth.
I don't get how you can compare Orim's Chant with Angel's Grace. Only because it has the same CC?
If you want to run shitty cards, go ahead and run shitty cards. Trying to convince other readers to do the same is not helping the deck as a whole, though.
I have 3 questions for the wise readers of this thread:
1) How many lands do you run? In the last few pages, the consensus seems to be 13-15 lands total, including 6-8 Fetch, 1-3 Basics, and 4-6 Duals.
2) Do you think one or more bounce spells in the maindeck are important? If so, which bounce spell do you prefer? Chain of Vapor? Wipe Away? Other?
3) What do you think of Sensei's Divining Top in this deck? I've been playing with 1-2 for a while now, and I think it's really good. I've gone to 3 Infernal Tutors to make room. Thoughts?
Less than 8 Fetchlands is just unacceptable, a Fetchland is the difference between Cabal Ritual for BBB and BBBBB, and being able to cast Ad Nauseam off a single accelerant is game breaking.Quote:
Originally Posted by B.C.
The faster you list is, the less you need answers, but whether or not you run 0,1, 2 and which ones you run is largely preference.
Top is good but it's also slow, I think it sort of pushes the deck towards more of a middle game apporach it doesn't necessarily want to see.
It really doesn't. The slots that SDT tends to get put in take the place of additional disruption or extra copies of Infernal Tutor. This does a couple things:Quote:
Originally Posted by BreathWeapon
(a) makes you mulligan less and makes mulligans hurt less otherwise average hands are made better by sensei's top.
(b) allows you to slow down, although it doesn't force you to (you can just as easily not play and spin top as you could not cast Duress if you have other stuff to do)
(c) the combination with Mystical Tutor provides another game-ending combination requiring fewer initial mana sources after comboing with Ad Nauseam
(d) effectively denies an opponent Standstill (important vs Landstill and Dreadstill)
SDT vastly increases the deck's ability to win on turn 2 without actually taking away from turn 1 kills. The other cards to put in its slot (Ponder or additional protection) don't increase the ability to kill turn 1. Ponder does increase the ability to kill turn 2 along the lines of Top, but is also signifcantly worse after Ad Nauseam. Further Ponder provides no benefits in the control matchup where often you are forced to slow down at least a turn.
emidln, what's the deal with SDT being so good against Standstill? I'm not familiar with FT or D-day combos so I don't know the reasoning behind this.