[DTB] Sneak Attack

@ PAT
Nice work with the deck, especially against Team America. Anything America is a very tough match-up for us. Some luck is ussually needed.

@JP
hmmm... counters. MD I run 4 FOW, thats a given. I also run 3 Missdirection and 4 Spell Pierce. I run 4 Spell Pierce because it's good against the two things we have the most dificulty against: counters and discard. An opening Duress or Thoughtsieze can be game over for us. Just leave your one island open if you were on the play. If you were on the draw and you only have one out then you need to FOW it or Missdirection it. I know, it sucks, but lossing a FOW and a blue card is better than them taking the one S&T in your hand. With counters you just have to wait an extra turn to S&T. Give yourself that extra Island so you can cast Spell Pierce on their FOW. Waiting an extra turn could save you from having to top deck another out. In my experiance, Spell Pierce is pretty much a hard counter 95% of the time. When you're planning to put Emmy into play, you can afford to wait 1 more turn. People will play around Daze, but not Pierce. Daze is just awful in this deck, half the time it is dead and it ALWAYS sets you 2 turns behind if you bounce and island turn 1. I don't like REB. I used to run them but dropped them. They were good against Fish in the long game but this deck doesn't want to take 20 minutes to win a single game. And red mana is a pemium in this deck. You almost always want to fetch out an island. I'm guessing 7 times out of 10 you never have more than 1 red producing source on the table? Good call on lotus petal though. That will help the deck be more consistant. I personally run 3. The only counter on my bored is Stifle, like I said it works against almost all decks. REB does not. Daze sucks. Spell Snare? ummm... other than Hymn, I don't ussually run into cards that cost 2 that mess with the deck. That leaves Spell Pierce. And I would main deck it if I were you. My total counter package is 11 MD, 14 with the board. Remeber: ONLY counter card that mess with us going off. Keep and eye out for KotR though.

@Philipp
This deck is very strong in the current Meta. After MM got banned everyone started back into aggro and Combo has made a big come back. Game 1 against aggro you need a quick show and tell; which is fairly easy to do with this deck. And the very fast aggro decks (Gobs, G/W) don't run counters so you should feel safe resolving your business spells. You can build your sideboard to help against aggro games 2 and 3, i.e., Firespout, Form of the Dragon, Propaganda, Massacre Wurm. I devote 6 sideboard slots to deal with aggro. And the other fast deck? storm? well we play blue, just need to counter the right spells.

We are definitly stronger than reanimator. I've beat them 8 out of 9 times. Sure, they can put a fatty into play off our S&T but it won't be as good as Proggy or Emmy. Just counter their entomb, or their reanimate or their opening dark ritual or their self-targeting discard spell. Reanimator is a glass house, throw one FOW shaped rock and it comes crashing down. Reanimtor wants to have the game locked up by turn 3, we can stop that very easily. Plus we have hate post-board. Team America is the one deck you really need to watch out for.

@Philipp:

This deck is a fine choice in the current meta.

Reanimator is a very similar strategy with a bit more versatility in terms of the specialized creature package. Both decks are combo/control in which the critical turns are 2-4. Reanimator tends to be a bit more resilient because of the redundancy it runs in terms of reanimation effects, but also a lot easier to hate out right now (most everyone is packing grave-hate with Dredge, Reanimator, and Snapcaster based decks running rampant). Sneak Show is most easily hated out by edict effects and stuff like meddling mage, which is less common on the whole, but still a presence. As a general statement, Sneak Show's creatures are more devastating in a vacuum.

One of the few advantages is the access to red mana, opening up the possibility of Blood Moon, Firespout, and REB/Pyroblast. Red provides some sideboard choices that can really shore up close to subpar matchups.

Other than that, I think it comes down to play-style and the perceived hate in a particular environment. Oh, and flavor. The real question you need to ask yourself is this: are you a brilliant necromancer raising specialized monsters from the earth in order to dominate a particular Planeswalker? Or are you a mage overwhelmed with internal conflict, between the urge to know and the urge to act, between careful scheming and reckless destruction, and who lives for the moment he can create a dimensional breach in the Blind Eternities and call forth gods to consume his enemy?

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Cheers,

Pat

Yeah thank you guys - I think ill take SneakShow as my next deck - thats the decklist I came up with:

4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce

3 Intuition
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Emrakul
3 Jin
2 Progenitus

3 Lotus Petal

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Arid Mesa
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Volcanic Island
4 Island
2 Mountain


Remember, this is my first approach to this deck - but I realized - during a few tests - that one dual is enough - and why help our oponents get their wastelands better?

Greetings

Philipp: List looks fine to me. I'd probably bump up to 2 volcs, though. It won't be relevant often, but it does come up that you need 1 and 1 got wasted. -1 mountain, +1 Volc is my suggestion. Mountains are kinda, "meh." I always side my mountain out if my opponent isn't running wasteland.

Also, as you come up with a board you might consider 1 more Proggy. In some matchups he becomes the ideal intuition target. I'm looking at you Karakas (aka I've got lots of eyes these days)!

I'm day 2 at GP Amsterdam, report will follow later! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trentemoller

I'm day 2 at GP Amsterdam, report will follow later! :D

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GREAT - I really hoped some would do that with my new petdeck(not taking it negative) - I friggen love this deck - even though Ive just been playing it since a few days but its so cool :)
GOOOD LUCK

I went from 5-2 to 13-2 and lost the win and in for top 8, got 15th, 500 dollar and qualified for PT Honolulu. Not bad. My buddy Erwin played almost the exact same list and he got 16th :D

Small report will follow later, way too tired now. I hardly made any notes though :(

List:

4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Emrakul
3 Progenitus
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Daze

Sideboard:

3 Trinisphere
2 Spell Pierce
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Echoing Truth
2 Firespout
3 Tormod's Crypt

Congrats on Qing for Honolulu. It was a field of nearly 1,900? 15th seems awfully respectable.

I'll look forward to what you can remember.

Cheers,

Pat

Gratz, another great finish :) I think I decided right to take this deck as my 3rd deck:P
Im looking forward to your report aswell :)

3 fast questions:

No Volcanic?
Are 7 creatures enough?
Hows Daze going?

Edit: What I was wondering:Hows our Spiraltide MU?

Yeah there were 1878 players, so 15th is pretty good :) I forgot to add the volcanics on my list here. Unfortunately I don't know every round but I will tell about the ones I do remember.

R1-R3 bye (won a trial with this deck)

R4 Merfolk

My opponent won the die roll and I had a slow hand, I show and telled Emrakul out around turn 4 and he could outrace it. Game 2 I had a sick opener of something like:

Fetch
Ancient Tomb
Show and Tell
Force of Will
Daze
Spell Pierce
Ponder

And I felt very good. I did however not find ANY creatures in like the 10! turns my opponent gave me. This was probably my most unlucky game of the tournament.

So I started 0-1, feeling terrible already.

R5 UW Stoneblade

Don't know what happened exactly but it's a bye matchup.

R6 UW Stoneblade

Same.

R7 BUG (with Snapcasters, Hymns etc)

In my eyes there are 3 popular decks that are quite bad matchups. BUG Control, Dredge and Reanimator. Round 7 showcases that pretty well, game 1 was pretty close but his goyfs got there after some counterwars which I won but he had his 1-off diabolic edict. Game 2 was a sick blowout and I still lost. My opponent mulled to 5 on the draw, went for turn 2 hymn and I misdirected, and I still lost... he just got there with the 2 goyfs his hymn missed.

R8 Maverick

Finally a near bye matchup, you just have to watch out for Knight into Karakas. Game 1 I ride an early progenitus into victory. Game 2 I show and tell a Progenitus into play pretty early, he drops Knight (with mother and dryad arbor in play) with 2 lands in his GY. I have Fow backup and I'm at 16 life. He GSZ for x=1. I had to think about that one for a long time but next to Spore Frog (which I'm sure he didn't play) there wasn't anything I could imagine losing to, so I let it resolve. He found Quirion Ranger which allowed the Knight to use it's ability for a fetch, untap it and give it protection and attack for 6. Next turn he could do it again and swing with the team and attack for lethal but I wasn't winning without attacking with the Mother of Runes in play, so I smashed him for 10. He took nearly 5 minutes to figure his turn out and he could hit me for 11 which he did, but that was a mistake, he shouldn't have attacked with his Mother in case I had echoing truth. Unfortunately I didn't so he won. Game 3 I can't remember but I won pretty easily.

R9 No clue

I can't remember anything.

So I barely made day 2 with a pretty mediocre 4-2. Glad I did make it, I was just praying to make some money the following day.

R10 Dredge

I win the roll and I go turn 1 Ponder or something into turn 2 SnT into Emradaddy. I smash him for 15 the following turn and I have Intuition, Daze, Progenitus in hand. He has some zombies from Bridges and 1 Narcomoeba and quite a big GY (from Coliseum activation turn 2) but he didn't dredge a lot of good things. He therapies and I think for a while (he doesn't have lands) and decide to let it resolve, he names FoW and whiffs. He thinks for a bit and flashbacks a second therapy. I ask him if he has any other flashback cards in his graveyard and I heard him say NO but he was french so I could be wrong. I daze the therapy and he immediately flashbacks dread return. I call a judge and explain the situation and the judge says he did nothing wrong which is just not true (if he indeed said no) but I decide to let it slip because I was winning anyway (very terrible of me). I intuition for fows and pitch progenitus to counter his Dread Return and win.

Game 2 he keeps a hand with Unmask and Therapy, an imp but no Dredger. My hand is kinda slow (I mulled to 6 I think) and he takes my enabler. We both durdle around a bit, he therapies me a couple of times but my brainstorms keep owning him, he knew my hand when he therapied (outside of another land I drew) and I had fetch in play. I brainstormed into 3 more lands and shuffled my hand and put two lands back. He whiffed and I fetched away my lands. He found a dredger and I lost two turns later.

Game 3 he keeps a very similar hand but I'm on the play and pierce his Unmask. His therapy whiffs and all his other therapies whiff because of my brainstorms. Emrakul gets there.

I will do the other rounds tomorrow, my English is getting very poor because I am very tired and need to sleep.

Alright man get some sleep. Congrats again. :laugh:

Hopefully in the next few days you'll share the rest of the story and some of your impressions about the deck and how certain card choices worked out at the GP.

@Philipp: Sneak Show has a slightly positive Spiral Tide matchup in my experience. It's definitely a matchup a Spiral Tide player would avoid given the option. They must go the Blue Sun's Zenith route because of Emrakul (not that big a deal for them). We often pack nearly 10 pieces of countermagic and we get REB/Pyroblasts and/or Trinisphere's from the board.

Congrats on your finish! Unfortunately, I forgot my Sneak Show deck at home in all the chaos :(((, and had no time to borrow anything so I had to play FoW-less Reanimator (don't ask me how it went...). Really, really bad weekend for me, but nice event anyway.
Looking forward to the rest of your report, Trentemoller, congratulations again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Philipp802

No Volcanic?
Are 7 creatures enough?
Hows Daze going?

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In my opinion you should at least play 2 Volcanics, at least 8 creatures (7 worked obv fine for Trentemoller though :P).

About Daze... I like it, you need as much free counters as possible, that's why I like Trentemoller's 4/3/3 split of Force/Misdirection/Daze.

Im struggling abit with Merfolk G1... Is this normal or just me being a new pilot of this deck?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Philipp802

Im struggling abit with Merfolk G1... Is this normal or just me being a new pilot of this deck?

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Normal. Lots of posts all the way through the thread address it (including OP). It's the reason Firespouts/Volcanic Fallouts are mainstays in the board. REBs rock here too.

@Phil

I figured I'd post my deck see if will help you at all.


3 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
20

3 Lotus Petal

4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell

3 Intuition
3 Ancestral Knowledge
4 Brainstorm

4 Progenitus
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
40


Sideboard


3 Relic of Progentius
3 Firespout
3 Massacre Wurm
3 Stifle
3 Blood Moon


Things I would change about your deck:

+1 Spell Pierce--I liked that you took my suggestion on this card. Trust me, Daze will make you pull your hair out of your head

-4 Ponder,+3 Ancestral Knowledge
This needs more explaining. Trent posted that he sat there looking for a creature for 10 turns, AK fixes that. One of the major weeknesses of this deck is that you need an enabler, a monster, land, and counter back up preferably. Very often you'll find yourself in the situation where you need 1 thing and since you don;t have that one thing the deck stalls out. AK digs 10 deep, yes, I said 10 deep! Sure, it costs 2 and takes a turn to work, but it digs 10 deep! You will find what ever you need from AK. Ponder as let me down so many times. I hate ponder. Now lets examine the synergy between Ancestral Knowledge and Brainstorm: Turn 2, play AK. You see a Brainstorm 2 counters and a show and tell along with 6, thats right 6, other cards. So you put the brainstorm back on top and under it you put 2 counters and a show and tell. pass turn. turn 3. You pay the 1 pittly mana to keep AK on the board and draw brainstorm. then you cast brainstorm that turn or on your opponents turn. you get the 2 counters, the s&t and you dump 2 dead card out of your hand. turn 4. don;t pay for AK, you just shuffled away the two dead cards and have everything you need to explode on your opponent. For as long as I've play AK i've never once had it countered. The opponent sees the upkeep and figures it will take care of its self and lets it resolve. Little do they know that they just lost.

Forget Jin dude. just play 4 Prog and 4 Emmy. They are no nonsence win the game creatures. Jin is a flavor of the month thing

I would also think about going up to at least 2 Volcanic. 4 Tomb gets very painful and we're already going to be taking enough damage from our opponents before we beat their face in. I like 2 mountain though

Fish is tough for almost every deck, your best bet is to play S&t fast with counter back up. You can always put Llawan, Cephalid Empress on your board if your meta is fish heavy.


@Trent congrats with the tourny man

I like Ancestral Knowledge (I even tested it) but it really sucks that it turns your opponents Spell Snares on, which matters a lot more than it seems on the surface. Usually Stoneblade plays like 8 dead cards maindeck (4 Spell Snare and 4 Swords to Plowshares) and that allows game 1 to be very good. That's a big reason why I don't like Jin-Gitaxias as well, it turns on more of your opponents cards, one of the reasons why I played this combo deck over TES, ANT and High Tide is blanking as much of your opponents cards and hate. Most combo hate is not that good against you (Cannonist, Teeg is decent but not extremely good, Trap is bad, Chalice is not that good, Flusterstorm is still pretty good).

I will type the rest of my report on friday, I have another test I have to study for.

Okay thank you very much for all this inputs :)
Now im standing with this list

5 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Arid Mesa
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Volcanic Island
2 Mountain
/21

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Spell Pierce
/10

4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul
4 Progenitus
/16

4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
/7


Makes 6 more cards to go...
At the moment Im playing Ponder and Preordain at this spot... But I dont know....
Maybe:
a) 3 Áncestral Knowledge 3 Lotus Petal
or b) 4 Ponder 2 Preordain
or c) 3 Lotus Petal 3 Ponder

I just dont know... Thank you again for all your inputs - in all the others threads I was never that welcome as a newcomer :) :)

Hey Trentemoller, I never knew you as the type of person who studies for exams...
Congratulations on your finish in Amsterdam!

I still hope to be able to put Timesifter into play when my opponent Show and Tells. (although Progenitus and Emrakul do beat the average Krosan Tusker-ish cycler in mana cost)

And now for my contribution to the thread (having skipped most of the earlier pages I hope this hasn't been mentioned yet):

Don't you ever face an Emrakul on the other side? When you Show and Tell on turn 2 and put a Progenitus into play only to have them build an Emrakul?

Maybe Seal of Removal or something like that could help out in such cases? It should also help against most reanimator targets. (And they'll have to counter it early if they think it'll cause too much trouble, giving up options later on)

It might be just a silly idea but I can't just use this board-space to congratulate Trentemoller.

Yes, having your opponent stick Emrakul into play via Show and Tell sucks. I fortunately haven't played a single mirror yet but the best plan in the mirror is just drawing as much Emrakuls as possible and winning via Sneak Attack (drawing as much Emrakuls as possible again). The only other decks that play Emrakuls either play one (like Elves sometimes), are Hive Mind (which you never want to S&T against anyway, unless it's to get Sneak Attack into play with R to haste Emrakul, not a bad matchup with Dazes and Petals in the deck) and TurboEldrazi (which is Unfortunately not a real deck). There are worse problems with SnT, mainly Ensnaring Bridge, Humility and Peacekeeper.

@Nameless Two: Gerben? :p

@The Colonel: I would play bounce somewhere in your 75. I don't like it either but this way you are cold to Ensnaring Bridge and Humility, your only out against Peacekeeper is Firespout and that's not really the card you want to bring in against Peacekeeper decks.

@ Trentemoller, who else ?

And Echoing Truth over Wipe Away? (Oh well I guess they boarded out their Spell Snares already)
It's worse against a bunch of goblins, agreed. But it gains on decks with access to Karakas (to some extent anyways).

And what do you bring the clique in against?