[Deck] Deathblade

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Originally Posted by whocansay

Do we really need Deluge? TNN is so important for us that I can't help but feel like I'm shooting myself in the foot running Deluge over an additional Persecution or something. - 1/-1 deals with unflipped Delver, most Elves, and the most annoying creatures in D&T such as Mom, Wisp and old Thalia.

Thoughts?

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Honestly, i haven't thought about this, although i probably should have. Toxic deluge was really included to sweep up eldrazi/other random fatties. But with top gone eldrazi isn’t really that big of a deck anymore, think I’ve only seen one instance of it post banning. That being said, there is a noticeable uptick in cards like gurmag angler/tombstalker. But we do have STPs for those, and TNN can hold off an angler indefinitely. And having done it in the past, it was always pretty painful to pay 5 to nuke a tombstalker anyway.

Persecution also doesn’t hit DRS, SFM, Flipped Delver, or other important X/2’s which could be a problem. This is less worrisome for me since I run main deck brutalities, but may vary for your deck.

Another potential problem is the BW casting cost. Could make me fetch a non-basic to have access to blue if I’m playing against dnt or some other tax style deck.

Maybe most importantly it breaks TNN deadlocks without murdering your own TNN.

Guess in my case transferring out of deluge makes sense since nuking your own TNN sucks and I have plenty of point removal.

I am, hence why I mentioned adding an additional one over the Deluge.

Some days you’re the dog, other days you’re the hydrant. Today I was the hydrant, got hammered 1-3 bringing an end to the relatively hot streak. Same list as before, I am planning some changes eventually.

Match 1: Turbo Depths(2-1 Win)
Game 1:
I punt. He does urborg/depths to deploy a vampire hexmage. I decide to try and STP the hexmage thinking the sacrifice ability was a tap ability. NOPE. He makes a 20/20 at instant speed and I get run over.

Game 2:
-3 Collective Brutality
-2 FoW
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Meddling Mage

I lead with a DRS, and he makes a lage somewhere in there which I STP. T3 or T4 he represents and EOT marit lage and passes it back to me. I cast JTMS and attempt a hail mary brainstorm to find STP. I do find it and cast it killing marit lage. The next turn I find surgical extraction and take out the dark depths. He concedes.

Game 3:
I get a pretty good hand, pierce, FoW, STP, brainstorm, ponder, surgical extraction, land. I end up keeping it. Lead off with a ponder to find some more land, and get thoughtseized. I FoW to protect my hand. He actually casts 4 disruption spells over the next few turns, but I’m able to counter them, and finally use my brainstorm to conceal STP/Extraction on top. When he decides to go off at end step I STP the lage and extract the depths. He concedes.


Match 2: RGB Lands???(1-2 Loss)
Game 1: I had no idea what my opponent was on. Thoughtseize off underground sea revealed Liliana, dark depths, punishing fire, and wasteland giving me some idea what was happening. I get wastelanded, and pretty much mana screw. I stick around to see if there’s anything spicy in the deck but he just keeps casting loam until he hits the depths/stage combo and I die to a 20/20.

Game 2:
-3 Collective Brutality
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Meddling Mage

Not much memory of this one. I think I just counter relevant spells, and STP a marit lage. Stick TNN+Batterskull on the board and they end up closing it out.

Game 3:
Game 3 is pretty miserable as well. Lead off hand is double underground sea which I pretty much have to walk into a double wasteland. Brainstorm off the last underground sea doesn’t reveal any land and I’m screwed for at least two turns. In the interim I surgical extraction his wastelands so I have a prayer of developing a manabase. I do find 2 lands eventually and snapcaster+surgical his stage. But at this point I’m just too far behind, his loam engine is churning through his deck, and his punishing fires keep me from getting any boardstate. TNN never shows up and eventually he gets dark depths to go off the hard way, or what he humorously calls the “hairdryer” method.

Match 3: RUG Delver (0-2 Loss)
Game 1:
I don’t really remember much of this game. I recall my manabase being a problem though, I think I got a dual wastelanded and stifles just generally slowed me down. He beats me down with TNN and I just can’t find a way to deal with it.

Game 2:
-3 Thoughtseize
-1 FoW
-1 Spell Pierce
-1 Collective Brutality
-1 Counterspell
-1 Leovold(Too hard to cast with all the mana denial)
-1 Jace, the Mindsculptor
-1 FoW
+2 Fatal Push
+1 Zealous Persecution
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Engineered Plague
+1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Fatal Push
+2 Flusterstorm

Game 2 I manage to develop a manabase but I simply can’t find threats or dig spells. The entire game I only find one stoneforge mystic which gets stifled. In the meantime he just sticks one mongoose and it goes to town. I can’t find anything to throw in front of it, and I think I end up taking at least 15 damage from it.

Match 4 Belcher(0-2 Loss)
Game 1: I knew what he was on so I keep a hand with FoW a blue card, and some other stuff. T1 or T2 he ends up going off, but he uses empty the warrens instead of belcher to make a bunch of goblins. Not much I can do so I scoop em up.

Game 2:
-3 Collective Brutality
-4 STP
-1 TNN
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Zealous Persecution
+1 Engineered Plague
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Meddling Mage

I punt super hard in this game. I don’t remember much of the early game, but he kinda halfway goes off one turn and I fend it off. Its T4 or so and I ponder revealing land, snapcaster, and counterspell. In my hand I’m sitting on an EE, so I have his goblin out covered, but I don’t have anything for the charbelcher. I end up taking the land, and leaving the snapcaster/counterspell on top. The next turn he topdecks charbelcher with counterspell sitting second from the top on my deck. I wish I could explain why I made such a phenomenally poor decision. In retrospect I clearly should have taken the counterspell, I had the mana to cast it. That way my hand could have both goblins/charbelcher outs covered. But I didn’t and for some reason decided making a land drop was more important than covering the charbelcher out. Probably the worst play I’ve made in a good long while.


Pretty frustrating night all in all. Didn’t enjoy playing 2 depths decks back to back, and the belcher misplay cemented a pretty terrible performance. But I guess my brief streak had to end at some point.

The matchup against combo decks can be very awkward and requires drastic measures in terms of sideboarding.
I'm happy to share a video that you might find interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaEv...e_gdata_player

The list is a Four-Color take on the deck that made top 8 at the MKM series in Frankfurt, Germany, (a fairly a big event here in Europe) and I had the chance to discuss it on the show with that very player who piloted it up to the top 8.

The show is heavily focused on the sideboard configuration and the plans vs 2 specific matchups, but we do cover a bit the main deck as well.

Let me know your thoughts
:wink:

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Originally Posted by First_Revenge

Some days you’re the dog, other days you’re the hydrant. Today I was the hydrant, got hammered 1-3 bringing an end to the relatively hot streak. Same list as before, I am planning some changes eventually.

Match 1: Turbo Depths(2-1 Win)
Game 1:
I punt. He does urborg/depths to deploy a vampire hexmage. I decide to try and STP the hexmage thinking the sacrifice ability was a tap ability. NOPE. He makes a 20/20 at instant speed and I get run over.

Game 2:
-3 Collective Brutality
-2 FoW
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Meddling Mage

I lead with a DRS, and he makes a lage somewhere in there which I STP. T3 or T4 he represents and EOT marit lage and passes it back to me. I cast JTMS and attempt a hail mary brainstorm to find STP. I do find it and cast it killing marit lage. The next turn I find surgical extraction and take out the dark depths. He concedes.

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Why did you attempt to find a STP instead of just bouncing the token?

Because Marit was summoned end of his turn I assume.

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Originally Posted by jwl3gg

Why did you attempt to find a STP instead of just bouncing the token?

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Maybe bit unclear, he was representing a marit lage at End of Turn(EOT). He had both the stage and the depths out so he can make a token at my end step when i can't unsummon with jace

(Redacted, wrong thread.)

This belongs in the UWx Stoneblade thread. This is the DeathBlade thread, where the requisite for a deck here is Deathrite Shaman.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by Secretly.A.Bee

This belongs in the UWx Stoneblade thread. This is the DeathBlade thread, where the requisite for a deck here is Deathrite Shaman.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

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Crap, you're right. Totally misread the title on accident.

3-0 tonight with a bye. List changed slightly, but not by much. I wanted to experiment with SOFI maindeck so I definitely overfetched for it. Still managed to get away with it somehow. I actually wound up hanging at the top table for most of the night so you can find the last game of Match 2 and all of Match 3 at the link below:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/159986371


The list is the same as last time, except the vendilion clique was removed for a sword of fire and ice.

Match 1: BYE

Spent the match watching the other players, got a lay of the land and enjoyed spectating.

Match 2: Loam(2-0 Win)
Game 1:
Game 1 ends up being a slog from what I remember. Early game DRS is able to keep his graveyard under control so his loams aren’t profitable and his knights of the reliquary never get out of hand. I swords one or two knights of the reliquary/Bob and i eat a few punishing fires in return. I don’t remember much of the early sequence of the game, but eventually a TNN gets suited up with a SOFI and gets it done. It should be noted that SOFI was not the right call in this situation, batterskull would have been more appropriate.

Game 2:
-3 Thoughtseize
-3 Collective Brutality(Most of his spells have recursion and his knights outgrow the removal)
+2 Fatal Push
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Invasive Surgery

It’s over really quickly. I keep an opener with leovold, drs, lands, stoneforge, and STP. He plays a grove and passes, I play a drs, and he plays another grove. At this point I’m very happy, to drop a leovold as it makes his punishing fires look really bad. I think he misses a land drop and I drop the SFM and he scoops them up. It turns out most of his hand needed black mana to work, and with only two grove of the burnwillows in hand he just couldn’t make it happen.

Match 3: Leovold Control (2-1 Win)
A carbon copy of randy buehler’s list from this event:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=16204&f=LE

Game 1:
I had the benefit of watching randy play it over the weekend and I’d seen my opponent pilot it as well. Game 1 we both slog into the late game. It’s a typical midrange grindfest. I end up winning because I draw all 3 of my TNNs in fairly short order. He deals with 2 of them, but the third sneaks in there for the kill.

Game 2:
-3 Thoughtseize
-3 Collective Brutality(Most of his spells have recursion and his knights outgrow the removal)
-1 FoW
-1 Spell Pierce
+2 Fatal Push
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Meddling Mage

We go into the late game and his ton of edict effects end up killing my TNNs. Kolaghan's Command adds to the beating in the mid-late game. I think there’s a turn where he kills my jitte and my drs with this card and I feel the wind go out of my sails. This card is way better than I thought it would be. If you haven’t played against this card, I’m strongly advising that you give it a lot of respect.

I also learned the hard way that Surgical Extraction is not good in this matchup so I had to reconsider my sideboard Game 3.

Game 3:
-2 Surgical Extraction
+1 FoW
+1 Spell Pierce
My opener is wasteland, DRS, Leovold, SFM, STP, and fetchlands. I know his 4C manabase is super wobbly so wasteland is always a good start. Lead off with DRS, and pass. His opener is the same as mine. I draw a second wasteland. At this point I’m stuck with two options. I can fully punish his mana by wastelanding/STP his DRS. Or I can STP his DRS and deploy a SFM for some early pressure. I opt to deploy the SFM and plow the DRS. In retrospect, punishing his mana would have been the better play. I pass it back and I get hymned. This would not have happened had I gone wasteland/STP. I get lucky on the hymn and it takes both wastelands leaving me with batterskull and leovold in hand. He passes the turn back and I pass it back representing an EOT batterskull. He drops a sylan library and passes it back, batterskull drops. On my turn I deploy the leovold with FOW backup and resolve it. It should be noted that leovold completely shuts off the library as library requires you to draw the cards to even look at/rearrange them. At this point my board state is more or less unbeatable and I think he has 1-2 cards in hand. Leovold draws me a bunch of cards as he tries to deal with it. He ends up formally losing the game by casting brainstorm into leovold.


Got through it with a good bit of luck this week. It helped that there was a really good player there explaining my misplays in excruciating detail. A good reminder that even though I won there was a good bit of luck involved. Next week I’m going to try and include some lingering souls in the list to add more threats and synergize with collective brutality.

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Game 2:
-3 Thoughtseize

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You seem to board out thought seize a lot. Why? You've boarded it out versus stone forge Mystic decks, while it's one of your best cards. They go sfm, you take their equipment and are crippled.

Information is extremely powerful with our deck as well.

Just curious your justification.

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Originally Posted by Molz7

You seem to board out thought seize a lot. Why? You've boarded it out versus stone forge Mystic decks, while it's one of your best cards. They go sfm, you take their equipment and are crippled.

Information is extremely powerful with our deck as well.

Just curious your justification.

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Hey, thanks for the question, feel free to ask away I post these in hopes someone will learn or better yet find something I’m doing wrong. Regarding thoughtseize vs SFM decks, you’re right about thoughtseize being a key card to keep in. I’ll keep it in in the future, the only exception I’ll make is against DnT. I’ll probably still end up yanking it since they can vial in SFM at end step.

Other than that, thoughtseize is really there for combo matchups. Whether by fluke or luck I haven’t faced a lot of combo decks so it’s typically the first thing to go. Speaking to last week, it didn’t seem that great against loam, but I could be wrong here. Maybe I should have boarded out forces instead. Against 4C leovold, I ditched thoughtseize for two reasons. First, it triggers opposing leovolds, and second I was really scared of late game kolaghan’s command. More counters seemed like a better option. Don’t know if that was correct or not though.

For an unknown metagame, can I get away with a Mindbreak Trap or Ethersworn Canonist in the SB, or do I have to shell out stupid money for a Flusterstorm?

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Originally Posted by whocansay

For an unknown metagame, can I get away with a Mindbreak Trap or Ethersworn Canonist in the SB, or do I have to shell out stupid money for a Flusterstorm?

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Mindbreak Trap-Really only for storm, maybe topless miracles since they love to cantrip. Remember, it requires the opponent to cast 3 or more spells. Its a much more narrow card than flusterstorm and unless your meta is overrun with storm you are probably looking at a dead SB card.

Ethersworn Canonist-Really good against show and tell decks since they typically don't have critter removal. My longstanding problem with this card is that its a creature which can die, and that it requires you to telegraph your protection. This card lets your opponent play around it and kill it when its convenient.

Flusterstorm-Wins counter wars and there isn't a whole lot your opponent can do barring a stifle or a flusterstorm of their own. Has good synergy with snapcaster mages if you run them. This card really suffers in the late game against cheap cards like reanimate because your opponent will have access to a lot of mana and because they won't really have a lot of cards to cast.

Regarding the price tag, while i think flusterstorm is the best choice, i also think its pretty prime for a reprint. Canonist isn't by any means a bad card and would probably serve you just fine until wizards decides to knock flusterstorm's price down a few pegs.


No idea if this is good or not, but against storm/sneak and show(assuming they don't get emrakul)/lands i've been meaning to try the card selfless squire. Might be a fun SB option to try.

Last weekend I was in prague and played one of the biggest tournaments we have in europe.
I managed to reach the top 8 undefeated but lost in the quartefinale against lands.
Here is my list:

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//Lands
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Karakas
3 Marsh Flats
1 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Wasteland

//Spells
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Fatal Push
1 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
2 Ponder

//Creatures
3 Baleful Strix
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 True-Name Nemesis
1 Notion Thief
1 Tombstalker
2 Snapcaster Mage

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 2 Disenchant
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Lingering Souls
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Thoughtseize

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I don't have detailed information about my match ups but I played against the following:
2-1 Miracles
2-1 Goblins
2-1 Jund
2-1 BUG Delver
2-0 Miracles
2-0 Death and Taxes
2-1 Elves
i. D. Lands
i. D. Grixis Delver

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Changes I want to make are:
Cutting Marsh Flats for Flooded Strand. Flooded Strand searches everything except the swamp.
Cutting Notion Thief and moving Sword of Fire and Ice to the sideboard for 2 Thouhtseize.
SB: Cutting 2 Disenchant for Toxic Deluge and Sword of Fire and Ice.

The change to Flooded Strand is quite obvious. Flooded Strand targets better.
Notion Thief was not that good and the 3rd equipment was often unnecessary. Postboard it's good to have extra equipment because our opponent will have hate against it.
Thoughtseize is just strong. It's often needed to get a handle something before it makes trouble. And as always: information is so important for further game plans.
I missed some bigger board wipe like Deluge. Disenchant was okay but to specific to be good.

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The evening before I cut 2 Collective Brutality for the Counterspell and Fatal Push. Counterspell won games and Push is like the 5th Swords to Plowshares.

I've been having a bit of trouble with Merfolk and Omnishow. Tested those match ups a bunch yesterday with friends, and they seem very unfavorable. What are some of the general strategies that you would try to employ in those matchups?

I've been testing a list almost identical to Neo, except I did have the extra flooded strand and went down on the marsh flats, and went down on a notion thief for an additional snapcaster mage, and in the sideboard took out the pithing needle for a duress.

Congratulations on the finish, neo. I've been following your list closely and had some success with it myself.

I noticed you cut Bayou entirely - do you miss Leovold / Decay sometimes?

No. Leovold is a great card but you can only play it as one off. And it's not worth it to have a mana base like this. With Fatal Push and no counterbalance there is no need for Decay. I tried to replace Leovold with Notion Thief but it didn't pay out. The 2 Thoughtseize again are stronger and more flexible.

Omnitell is a hard match up. Stoneforge and Equipment is too slow. Vendilion Clique is very good and Ethersworn Canonist is great too. Besides that you should have Thoughtseize, Flusterstorm, Surgical Extraction and maybe some other cards.

Merfolk is okay. You have to handle the Vial. Sword of Fire and Ice is quite good against them. Lords have a cmc of 2 so engineered explosives hits them hard. Zealous Persecution can kill TNN without a lord and otherwise Toxic Deluge should clear the board.

Gotcha, good point. Are you satisfied with the 3 Baleful Strix? I always saw it as an anti-Eldrazi card but that deck seems to be gone lately. It just feels so dead against combo / control.