[Deck] Deathblade

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Originally Posted by whocansay

Had a question about the Storm matchup - say they're about to go off and you have one hard counter on hand, no Past in Flames in the yard yet, do you counter the very first Dark Ritual / LED or do you wait for them to chain several Rituals together and risk getting blown out by either Past / Tutor?

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If you counter the first ritual they just have to draw into another and go at it again. So that's not advisable unless you got lethal on the board.

It's risk versus reward but you usually wanna fow the tutor to make them commit cards in vein. But, if the last card isnt tutor - but tendrils - then you're fucked.

Always keep your drs up and keep the yard clean of tutors and discard. It makes the pif line much harder.

Combining counters, discard and permanent-based hate is the hardest for them to beat.

It really depends in witch state the boardstate is..
Goes the storm player off on his first turn with ritual?
Or is it in the mid or lategame and he had multiple lands in play?

-If he goes off first turn with a ritual you should always counter..it takes them out of tempo..specially when you have a discard in hand after the countered ritual..
Otherwhise if he had a discard after the ritual you lose anyway
Its really a gamble if he have a discard or not..otherwhise you can just let them go off and maybe your lucky and you can counter the tutor. Sometimes in a bigger tournament gamble works very well because i would probably go off with a first turn as a storm player if i not know what my oppenent plays;)
I mean he can just lose to fow without a discard..

But like i said as a deathblade player and with my list i postet 1 or 2 page's ago i would counter the first ritual just to slow them down..then i can cantrip into a daze or discard or t1 shaman and then he have to cantrip for the ritual and if i have
an active shaman i take him his pif route

2. If he have multiple lands already in play i would never or rarely counter a ritual i mean he can play his discard anyway.
But in the lategame it's important to ask what did he played already and what do i have..

Mixed things up a bit, biggest change is the addition of lingering souls, a card that on paper I was unimpressed with, but in practice its way better than I thought.
Lands-21

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
2 Wasteland
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp


Creatures-12

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 True-Name Nemesis
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest


Spells: 24

4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Lingering Souls
3 Collective Brutality
3 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
4 Swords to Plowshares


Artifacts: 2

1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa’s Jitte


Planeswalkers: 2

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Sideboard:

1 Disenchant
1 Containment Priest
2 Flusterstorm
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Fatal Push


Pretty good week, went 2-1 with a bit of luck.

Match 1: Dredge(2-1 Win)
Game 1: I FoW his opening careful study, then stick a DRS in play with a tropical island to eat his dredgers. I have another FoW with leovold to pitch. Game durdles for a few turns and I run out of sorceries to eat with DRS. Playing leovold is awkward since I don’t have another blue card to pitch to FoW, so I’d be soft to something like lion’s eye diamond. I decide that DRS isn’t a fast enough clock and slam the leovold. He scoops it up.

Game 2:
Sideboard:
-3 True Name Nemesis
-2 Lingering Souls
-1 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Containment Priest
+2 Flusterstorm

Game 2: I’m able to stop his initial discard spells, but I didn’t get a DRS. He manages to get a putrid imp in play. I don’t have removal in hand. He topdecks cabal therapy and sacrifices the imp turning his dredge engine on. I die not long after.

Game 3: I lead with thoughtseize and see a whole ton of draw/discard spells including wildfire, but no dredgers. I have some countermagic, but he definitely has more draw/discard than I can deal with. I bluff more countermagic than I actually have. Critical turn comes on T4 where I play a jace and thankfully brainstorm into some more countermagic. T5 I play double DRS and a collective brutality taking the wildfire. End up winning after that turn.

Match 2: UWR Stoneblade(1-2 Loss)
Game 1: My opening 7 had no lands, and my next 6 had 4 lands, STP, and jitte which I kept. Scry’d a land to the bottom and proceeded to draw 3 more lands. He stuck TNN and beat me death while I flooded out. Not much I could do here.
Game 2:
Sideboard:
-4 FoW
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Collective Brutality
+2 Fatal Push
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Disenchant
+1 Sword of Fire and Ice

Much better hand this time, including the two cards I wanted to test, collective brutality and lingering souls. T2 he plays his standard SFM. I play collective brutality to kill the SFM and duress him, lingering souls gets pitched. I end up taking countermagic to resolve a TNN next turn. The rest of the game is really grindy. I draw a second lingering souls and overwhelm his point removal by spamming tokens. Token gets suited up and eventually wins the game.

Game 3: Same opening play, I kill his SFM with brutality pithing lingering souls which ends up being a mistake. He’d brought in token hate like engineered explosives/izzet staticaster to deal with them. I could get around those cards, but I would have preferred to have lingering souls resolve twice rather than just flashing it back. Lesson learned the hard way.

Critical turn is T7 or T8, I have a TNN beating him down to 5 and he has a jace in play. I choose to resolve a second TNN to try and go for lethal next turn. I know he plays 1-2 supreme verdicts, but I decide the faster clock is worth walking into a potential 2-1. He brainstorm/ponders the next turn and finds it, of course. I get nuked, and he plays EE on 0 with lingering souls in my yard. This where pitching lingering souls bit me. Had I been able to resolve it twice, I could probably have won. Such is life, eventually he finds TNN, glues batterskull to it and wins the game.


Match 3: Demonic Cats?? (2-1 Win)
A really weird deck. It’s a grixis deck that revolves around Demonic Pact. He wants to go through the three useful modes, then either give it to me via Harmless Offering(the namesake of the deck), or return it to his hand via cards like Echoing Truth or Wipe Away. The rest of the deck is bolts, fatal pushes, snapcaster mages, DRS, burning wish, and baleful strix as far as I’m aware.

Game 1: I end up in a damage race with him. The game goes late and he’s able to pull away by resolving two Demonic Pacts. He gets cards and drain/gains for 4 life from both pacts. I’m unable to recover and lose.

Game 2:
-2 Lingering Souls
-2 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Invasive Surgery
+1 Disenchant
Not much to say here. He mulligans to 5, thoughseize and collective brutality take his relevant cards. It ends up being a bit closer than I’d like as he tries to race me with DRS and Snapcaster Mage, but TNN and SFM are just better creatures and they close out the game shortly thereafter.

Game 3:
We both kinda durdle for a while, I’m sitting on some counterspells/hand disruption and a surgical extraction. The goal being to either make him discard or counter a demonic pact, then surgically extract it. Early game he deploys some minor threats which I mostly ignore to keep countermagic up. Eventually he attempts to cast a demonic pact which I counter, then extract, turning his deck into a pile of value idiots. Next turn I resolve TNN, the following turn a leovold hits the board. He attempts to bolt the leovold, but the leovold trigger draws FoW, I cast it to protect leovold. Next turn he inadvertently throws a ponder into leovold, upon realizing his mistake he scoops.


In conclusion, I’m pretty happy with this build. I definitely underestimated the power of lingering souls. It’s awkward to counter, awkward to deal with the counters, and has some synergy with brutality. It’s probably fine to pitch souls to brutality G1 when they don’t have sweepers, otherwise I’m thinking in G2 and G3 I should probably just be casting it twice. Leovold continues to impress, his ability to shut down cantrips in the late game starves a lot of decks out. People also continue to accidently throw cantrips at him.

First, thanks @ First_Revenge for encouraging me to join the discussion on the Source (I'm the reddit guy) and start becoming a better Player instead of being a bye :laugh:

So hello fellow Legacy Enthusiasts,

long time lurker, first time poster. I’ve been playing the format for quite some time in the past, but just recently got back into it after a long break. I’ve been a combo-only guy, but finally decided I wanted to play a fair blue deck this time instead of “Belcher, u got Force“?
Deathblade was an easy choice, I just love the cards in this Deck. So, here’s my list (sorry, couldn't find a way to link the cards):

Lands - 21

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Tropical Island
1 Scrubland
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains or Karakas
2 Wasteland

Creatures - 17

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Snapcaster Mage
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Artifacts - 2

1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Batterskull

Spells - 20

4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
2 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fatal Push
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder


Sideboard - 15

2 Lingering Souls
2 Disenchant
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Invasive Surgery
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Painful Truths
1 Pithing Needle

I love the Strixes, they just feel like so much value. Only the small Stoneforge package, as three Equipments feel a bit clunky in the current fast Meta. Same for Jace, he just seems too slow. I don’t want to ruin my Manabase to support more Leovolds, but I like him as a 1-off. He’s just such a pain for so many Decks that I don’t want to leave the house completely without him. Not sure about Zombie-Fish, but he can steal a game if he comes down early and is left unanswered.

Playing a completely new archetype results in me having a LOT to learn. One of my main problems is sideboarding. I have some ideas what I want to board in against certain matchups (more counter/Canonist/Surgical against storm, Souls against Delver/grindy Decks, Disenchant against Vial etc.), but I never know what to take out. As an example, I guess the Stoneforge package is quite bad against Storm, but on the other hand I want a clock against them and feel light on threads without it.

Finally my question: Do you have some kind of guide/advice on what to board out (and eventually in) against certain Decks/archetypes? I know Deathblade is a very individual Deck and everyone tunes their Board differently, but I guess there is some kind of basic rules a complete newbe could follow to get some experience piloting the Deck?

Sideboard is still a bit of a work in progress, feel free to comment. I’d love those Surgerys to be Flusterstorms, but my savings account doesn’t want me to do that at the moment. At least they’re a hardcounter. Do you want RiP (or mybe Cage) in your 75 to stop Delve/Dredge/Snapcaster shenanigans? Would hurt my own Snapcasters and the Fish, but Snap KolaghansC really hurts.

Also feel free to fire any advice not covered in the Primer you'd like to give to a new Deathblade-Fan who has a lot to lean about this fine Deck.

So long, thanks in advance and best wishes from Germany

Hey, welcome to the thread! Take everything I say with a grain of salt, hopefully neo900 jumps in here since he has actual meaningful results with the deck.

Most of your list looks fine, I’ve only got 2 real problems with it. I don’t like the 3 baleful strix. I think the card made of lot of sense while the eldrazi were running amok, but since then it’s always struck me as a mediocre card. It does stonewall some creatures, but in practice I just find my strix gets bolted and they continue to attack anyway. In the combo matchup I’m not sure if the card is useful or not, drawing the card is nice, but you’re still paying 2 mana for a 1/1 that doesn’t impose much of a clock at all.

The second problem is I think you’re light on thoughtseize. I’d recommend 3-4. A T1 thoughtseize is very powerful since you take their best card and you can sculpt a game plan around the information you get.

Other than that I don’t have a problem with your maindeck.

Sideboarding with this deck is fairly difficult, but I’ll try to give some general rules. Against grindy matchups I usually side out my countermagic/thoughtseizes to insert sweepers or other useful cards. The games tend to go late to spell pierce probably isn’t too helpful, and 2-1’ing yourself with FoW isn’t ideal. If I still need more space I start taking out thoughtseizes next, but it’s worth noting that you should leave them in vs other stoneblade decks since taking their fetched equipment is important.

Against combo decks I generally end up cutting point removal/TNNs. TNNs get cut because most combo decks don’t have much creature interaction anyway. Second committing 3 mana to a 5-6 turn clock is risky. I much prefer stoneforge mystic/batterskull in this situation as I can play her for 2 mana on T4 or something, and have at least 2 mana open. This way I’m leaving mana open, and I can flash in batterskull at my discretion as a much faster clock. Against combo your deck will begin to feel threat light so it’s important to wait for the right moment.

RIP/Cage are probably overkill to deal with dredge/delve/snapcaster problems considering how much impact they have on your deathrite. Dredge is pretty rare, and maindeck DRS/Tropical island can often win G1 outright. After that your existing GY hate/counter suite in the SB should be enough. By delve I’m assuming you mean tombstalker/angler. I don’t get too stressed out by those cards since you’re already running 4 STP, the best answer to those cards. DRS can also help keep their yard under control. Snapcaster is also soft to your DRS, but I can be tricky to play around.

Regarding kholghan’s command, and I’m guessing a larger question about dealing with Czech pile as a whole. You really want to be attacking the manabase. Yes, snapcaster/kholghan’s command is brutal, but by the time they’re doing that you’ve probably already lost. Czech pile’s biggest weakness is its clunky manabase. If you’re really having problems against this deck consider adding a 3rd wasteland, otherwise, always remember to kill DRS on sight since it ramps them AND fixes their mana.


Probably a bit of a soapbox here and some unsolicited advice, but I think collective brutality is one of the best things to happen to this deck in a while. Going forward as you tune your deck I think you’ll stumble across the problem of G1’s. What I mean by that is, how do you build your maindeck to be good vs the aggro and combo matchups? The cards you need to deal with both matchups are completely different. STP is great in the aggro matchup, but terrible in the combo matchup. FoW is great in the combo matchup but mediocre to terrible in the aggro matchup. What that means is in G1 you end up having a lot dead draws.

Collective brutality is good maindeck because you get to have both a killspell and a discard spell in one card, so it’s live in both matchups. Maindeck you’ll have 6-7 killspells and 5-6 discard spells at the same time. Sideboard it gets even better, the # of killspells/combo hate will skyrocket as you bring in relevant cards.

Anyway that’s my $.02, let me know if you have questions.

Somebody called me ? ^^

The list is quite similiar to mine.
What First_Revenge said is quite right. Strix is and was always the first cards I cut or add again. At the moment I want Strix because Gurmag Angler,Tasigur and Tombstalker are coming. With the printing of Fatal Push the amount of Tarmogoyf dropped drastically. That's the reason why I cut the Fatal Push again for Murderous Cut. With Snapcaster, Tombstalker and Cut you could get trouble with casting everything. If I get big problems I will exchange Ponder for Thought Scour.
Another problem I had the last times are artifacts and planeswalker. Disenchant gets rid of enchantments and artifacts but often it's just clunky. So I kicked out a Clique in my board for Council's Judgment which is a catch all removal which is flexible with it targets but the mana costs are quite tough.
I'm not a fan of Leovold in Deathblade anymore espacially with only one green source. But you have to decide how risky and greedy you want to play.

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2 Lingering Souls - LS is a super good card against control match ups.
2 Disenchant - Just I mentioned before you want some artifact removal. But I have often situation where I have no targets and a dead card.
2 Surgical Extraction - Surgical has always a target and always slots in the sideboard.
2 Invasive Surgery - Surgery is a nice card but the restriction of sorcery targets makes it weaker. Soon or later you want Flusterstorm.
2 Ethersworn Canonist - Canonist is good in a combo heavy meta which we don't have -in my opinion-. One should be enough.
1 Containment Priest - One priest should be enough. It's good against many deck.
1 Toxic Deluge - Toxic Deluge kills everytime the own Nemesis but you need it at least once.
1 Zealous Persecution - This is one of my favorite cards. It allows you to sweep the board or do great combat tricks. You want it against so many decks that I would consider to play 2.
1 Painful Truths - Truths is nice but I think it just steals a slot here. You could cut a Ponder for Truths or Night's Whisper but otherwise it doen't feel necessary.
1 Pithing Needle - I guess this choice is clear, isn't it ?

I would recommend more Thoughtseize or discard in your sideboard since you are just play 2 main (like I do). Thoughtseize is great but I don't want it always so the 2-2 split happened. Vendilion Clique is also a great attack on the opponents hand. With Karakas you are able to lock them down. Vendilion Clique won so many games on their own.

Thanks guys, that really helped a lot!

Hey guys,

sorry for double posting, but I thought about your ideas and tried to come up with some boarding plans. Also made some small changes to my Maindeck:

-2 Wasteland
-1 Leovold
-1 Counterspell
+1 Island
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Gurmag Angler

I really like new Lili and want to try her out. Handels annoying stuff like Pyromancer or Strix, feeds DRS + Angler and brings back our own Strixes.

Board stayed nearly the same:

2 Lingering Souls
2 Disenchant
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Invasive Surgery
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Vindicate
1 Pithing Needle

Maybe Vindicate should be Council‘s Judgement, but I don’t have one at the moment. At least you can cast Vindicate under Blood Moon.

Without further ado, I’d love to get some feedback on my plans:

Delver
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Zealous Persecution
-3 Thoughtseize
-1 Force of Will

Guess key to this MU is surviving their early threads and then take over with Stoneforge and TNN.

Czech Pile
-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Vindicate

Doesn’t seem like the best MU. Stick TNN and hope to ride him to victory?

Lands
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Umezawas Jitte
-1 Baleful Strix
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Vindicate
+1 Pithing Needle

Seems like our only chance is fetching Basics, stick TNN and wait fort he right moment to Surgical one of their key Cards.

Death & Taxes
-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Disenchant
+1 Vindicate
+1 Pithing Needle

All about handling Vial. Persecution sweeps their Board while TNN+Jitte ride to victory.

Reanimator
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-1 Gurmag Angler
-3 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Vindicate

Maybe it's better to keep the Swords in and cut TNN?

Storm
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-1 True-Name Nemesis
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+2 Zealous Persecution

Best plan seems to be T1 Discard, T2 Hatebear, T3 Snap Discard and beat down. Persecution against Goblins.

Stoneblade
-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Baleful Strix
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Disenchant
+1 Vindicate

Souls is great in the grind-war, Persecution handels TNN, Disenchant catches equipments and Vindicate handels Jace.

Elves
-2 Spell Pierce
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Batterskull
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Pithing Needle

Seems like you really need the Hatebears to stick. Needle on Wirewood. TNN+Jitte is MVP in this MU. I gues it’s fine to keep Force to stop Reclamation Sage from killing Jitte?

Sneak & Show
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-1 Umezawas Jitte
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
-4 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Disenchant
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Vindicate
+1 Containment Priest

Not sure about Canonist, but it stops counterwars over a Show and Tell.

Miracles
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Swords to Plowshares
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-3 Baleful Strix
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Vindicate

Totally unsure about this. I guess against 4 Mentor you want Persecution?

That’s it for now. Any thoughts on my boarding plans and advice on the MU’s are more than welcome.

Best wishes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

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Elves
-2 Spell Pierce
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Batterskull
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Pithing Needle

Seems like you really need the Hatebears to stick. Needle on Wirewood. TNN+Jitte is MVP in this MU. I gues it’s fine to keep Force to stop Reclamation Sage from killing Jitte?

...

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Invasive Surgery is generally an upgrade over Force of Will in the Elves matchup. It counters several crucial cards (Natural Order, Glimpse of Nature, Green Sun's Zenith) and the tradeoff of costing mana instead of an extra card is acceptable since the Elves deck slows down post board and card quantity becomes relevant.

Also, against Miracles I think I'd want to keep Liliana around. She kills most of their creatures, can produce card advantage, and the emblem is quite threatening.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Maybe Vindicate should be Council‘s Judgement, but I don’t have one at the moment. At least you can cast Vindicate under Blood Moon.

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FWIW, I found both vindicate and council’s judgement to be too slow. Council’s judgement might be a better choice since it does deal with TNN and leovold. That being said you are correct in saying it can give you issues with blood moon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Delver
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Zealous Persecution
-3 Thoughtseize
-1 Force of Will

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Mostly agree with this. ZP may be an add in too considering decks like grixis delver may run pyromancers alongside delvers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Czech Pile
-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Thoughtseize
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Vindicate

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Some mistakes here, they don’t run TNNs usually so ZP is probably a mistake.

Here’s what I’d try:
-4 Force of Will
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Surgical Extraction

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Lands
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-2 Spell Pierce
-1 Umezawas Jitte
-1 Baleful Strix
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Vindicate
+1 Pithing Needle

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I’d try and keep the spell pierces in. Lands decks run tutors/accelerants early game that you want to stop. IMO, strix does next to nothing in this matchup, dump him first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Death & Taxes
-4 Force of Will
-2 Spell Pierce
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Disenchant
+1 Vindicate
+1 Pithing Needle

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This matchup is hard to SB for because DNT attacks us from so many angles. The problem I see with your plan is that you only deal with the vial once it hits the board. You have no one mana answers other than pithing needle. So how do you deal with the following scenario with your opponent on the play?
T1: Vial
T2: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

All your vial hate now costs one more and if you fetch only basics you aren’t deploying disenchant until your T3. If you fetch nonbasics it’ll take longer. I don’t like vindicate in this matchup for this reason, most time I’ll end up costing 4 and just rot in your hand.

Lingering Souls is great in this matchup as they have a lot of X/1s. Here’s what I’d do:
-2 FoW
-3 Baleful Strix
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Liliana the last hope
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Disenchant
+2 Lingering Souls
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Containment Priest

I really agonized of Liliana. Yes, her +1 is basically a machine gun, and yes you can accelerate her out T2. But what if your DRS gets plowed? Now we’re talking about fetching a non-basic, which means we play into wasteland. Also, if they have a thalia down, Liliana isn’t resolving until T4, and you’re still getting wastelanded. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s a really volatile card. You’ll have to experiment since I’m not sure if I’m right here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Reanimator
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-1 Gurmag Angler
-3 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Vindicate

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Don’t agree with these cuts, here’s what I’d do:
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-3 TNN
-1 Baleful Strix
-2 STP
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Etherswon Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Pithing Needle

The key to this matchup is keeping mana open at all times. You REALLY want to keep 1-2 lands open against this deck at all times.

I cut TNN because he costs 3 mana against a deck that doesn’t really have killspells anyway. It’s hard to safely deploy him.

Gurmag angler is great here, get into a counter war, deploy him for 1-2 mana and he’s a monstrous clock.

Baleful strix I cut one of because it’s a really marginal card. It feels mediocre in this matchup, but it pitches to FoW which is why I didn’t cut it entirely

STP I almost want 3 copies of, I’d cut another strix for one of these. A lot of reanimator decks will run weird threats like Grave titan where STP comes in handy. If you bump into this deck see what they’re playing and adjust accordingly.

Canonist is great here. If they don’t deal with it they have to put a threat in the yard/reanimate over two turns. With a DRS+Trop that plan gets really awkward for them. If they show and tell it’s the same story, if they don’t deal with canonist they’re gambling you don’t have a counterspell.

Why are you bringing in vindicate? Seems like a weird choice.

One important thing to note. Watch out for cards like Massacre. They’re free wrath effects if you have a plains in play. For this reason I really go out of my way not to fetch white mana unless I REALLY have to. Don’t get too secure on boards with SFM, Containment Priest, and Canonist as they’re one card away from dying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Elves
-2 Spell Pierce
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Batterskull
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Pithing Needle

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Don’t quite agree, here’s what I’d do.
-2 Spell Pierce
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 FoW
-1 DRS
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Invasive Surgery

I end up cutting a bit of everything to make this work. Invasive surgery is really good in this MU since elves revolves around a lot of sorceries(GSZ, Glimpse, Natural Order). If you can get the delirium trigger to go off, more power to you.

I don’t like cutting BSkull since jitte often eats a reclamation sage which makes your SFM useless.

Cutting DRS feels bad here, but I’m not sure what else to do. Most of your removal is 1-2 mana and you probably aren’t in too big of a rush to dump a T2 TNN into play.

Other than that I like to prioritize cards like heritage druid/symbiote for immediate removal.

Vindicate was something I wanted to include, but couldn’t find the space. It’s a killspell and can deal with cradles. But it costs 3 mana at sorcery speed, so I ended up not including it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Sneak & Show
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-1 Umezawas Jitte
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
-4 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Disenchant
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Vindicate
+1 Containment Priest

---

IMO, this MU ends up playing out a lot like reanimator. You always want to keep 1-2 mana open at all times. I’m guessing there’s some typos in your SB as well.

-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 TNN
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Disenchant
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Vindicate

Disenchant is a marginal card. Ideally you don’t want Sneak attack or omniscience hitting the board at all. I guess its fine though, maybe go up to 2 if you can find the space.

Surgical extraction is great here. Take a SNT off a thoughtseize or a counterspell, and extracting it is a big play. Snapcaster mages will also give you multiple goes at extraction.

I was on the fence about vindicate, but some builds run boseju now, which is a real problem for us.

Thanks guys, I love this Thread :laugh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by First_Revenge

Some mistakes here, they don’t run TNNs usually so ZP is probably a mistake.

Here’s what I’d try:
-4 Force of Will
+2 Lingering Souls
+2 Surgical Extraction

---

Right, will go that route against "traditional" Pile. Saw some Brews with TNN in it, guess in that case ZP is a nice tool to have.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_Revenge

I’d try and keep the spell pierces in. Lands decks run tutors/accelerants early game that you want to stop. IMO, strix does next to nothing in this matchup, dump him first.

---

Treated the Bird as a flying chumpblocker against Marit Lage. But you're right, doesn't do anything besides that. Better keep them off having the Token in the first place, will cut Strix for Spell Pierce.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_Revenge

This matchup is hard to SB for because DNT attacks us from so many angles. The problem I see with your plan is that you only deal with the vial once it hits the board. You have no one mana answers other than pithing needle. So how do you deal with the following scenario with your opponent on the play?
T1: Vial
T2: Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

All your vial hate now costs one more and if you fetch only basics you aren’t deploying disenchant until your T3. If you fetch nonbasics it’ll take longer. I don’t like vindicate in this matchup for this reason, most time I’ll end up costing 4 and just rot in your hand.

Lingering Souls is great in this matchup as they have a lot of X/1s. Here’s what I’d do:
-2 FoW
-3 Baleful Strix
-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Liliana the last hope
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Disenchant
+2 Lingering Souls
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Containment Priest

---

Makes total sense, was focusing too hard on getting Vial off the Battlefield. I'm quite afraid of Priest + Flickerwisp, is she worth that risk? Concerning Liliana, guess I'll have to try some Matches with and without her and see what works best. Maybe there are some other Deathbladers tinkering with her and tell their opinion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_Revenge

Don’t agree with these cuts, here’s what I’d do:
-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-3 TNN
-1 Baleful Strix
-2 STP
+2 Surgical Extraction
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Etherswon Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Pithing Needle

The key to this matchup is keeping mana open at all times. You REALLY want to keep 1-2 lands open against this deck at all times.

Why are you bringing in vindicate? Seems like a weird choice.

---

Thought of Vindicate as a "catch all" against weird stuff, but thinking again it really was an odd choice. Canonist seems great stopping stuff like Ritual, Entomb, Reanimate. Also stops the UB Version from countering back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_Revenge

Don’t quite agree, here’s what I’d do.
-2 Spell Pierce
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Thoughtseize
-1 FoW
-1 DRS
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Containment Priest
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Invasive Surgery

---

Yeah, really gave me a headache what to take out. Surgery indeed seems to shine against them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_Revenge

IMO, this MU ends up playing out a lot like reanimator. You always want to keep 1-2 mana open at all times. I’m guessing there’s some typos in your SB as well.

-1 Fatal Push
-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 TNN
+2 Invasive Surgery
+2 Ethersworn Canonist
+1 Disenchant
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Containment Priest
+1 Vindicate

Surgical extraction is great here. Take a SNT off a thoughtseize or a counterspell, and extracting it is a big play. Snapcaster mages will also give you multiple goes at extraction.

I was on the fence about vindicate, but some builds run boseju now, which is a real problem for us.

---

Was wondering how to include Extraction, thanks for helping me out! Like that approach a lot.

You’re right, I hadn’t considered that angle with flickerwisp. Priest is a pretty marginal card anyway since they can just opt not to put anything in play until they deal with her. TBH, I think that baleful strix is decent in this matchup, so you should probably look into sliding more of him back in. Ya this matchup is tough to SB against, you get pulled in a lot of different ways.

Other thing, I’d probably just yank vindicate altogether. If you look at my lists from way back when, I used to run it as a 1 of maindeck. Eventually I yanked it because it was just too slow. Generally speaking, in legacy 3 mana spells at sorcery speed are haymakers. Vindicate costs the same as SNT, TNN, LOtV, and Leovold to name a few. All of these cards can win games by themselves. Vindicate at its peak trades 1:1. See the problem? You’re probably better off trading in vindicate for something like fatal push, toxic deluge, engineered explosives etc... Or if you’re feeling spicy unearth. You could also do council’s judgement which is better than vindicate since it hits TNN and can bin a leovold without giving them a card.

An alternative to Vindicate could be Anguished Unmaking. It's an instant and exiles a nonland permanent. Since its targets you can't hit TNN but I thought always about this card instead removal like Council's Judgment and Vindicate.

Right now I play Murderous Cut over Fatal Push as 1-off. I have good experiences with this so far. The importance to hit a Gurmag Angler is more relevant as I could imagine.

---

Yesterday was a 6 round event and I went 6-0.
My list was quite the same with minor changes.

Creatures:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 True-Name Nemesis
2 Snapcaster Mage
2 Baleful Strix
1 Tombstalker
1 Vendilion Clique

I cut a Strix to move a Clique from my sideboard to the main. I wanted an extra sideboard slot but also 2 Vendilion Clique in my 75.
Vendilion Clique was great main. The ability, evasion, flash and attack power are never wrong.

Instant + Sorceries:
4 Brainstorm
1 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Murderous Cut
2 Ponder
2 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thoughtseize

I'm still afraid of Gurmag Angler, Tasigur and Tombstalker. As an answer I exchanged the Fatal Push with Murderous Cut. I couldn't hit any big creatures but it wasn't bad and I#m going to keep it for a while.

Sideboard:
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Lingering Souls
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Sword of Fire and Ice
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution

As I mentioned before 1 Clique moved to the main. I wanted a catch-all removal because I had some trouble with some artefacts and creatures in the past. My first thougth was Council's Judgment. So what are the pros and cons of this card ?
+ no targeting, can hit everything
+ flashback with snapcaster mage
- sorcery
- 1:w::w: hard to cast
Espacially the last point is problematic in´my eyes. My solution was Engineered Explosives.
+ no targeting, hits multiple permanents
+ no color requirements
+ activation is instant
- one time use
- hits own permanents
- costs often more mana
I guess Engineered Explosives is at the moment the better removal. With Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer we have many tokens and explosives is a good solution to deal with them. Besides that I can cast a Explosives for 3 with Blood Moon in play.

Minor change to last week, in the SB I yanked toxic deluge in favor of engineered plague. Otherwise, went “undefeated” today. In the past I’ve been a really vocal opponent of lingering souls, but the card continues to prove me wrong. The apology letter I have to write continues to grow longer.

Game 1: Aggro Loam (2-1) Win

Game 1:
We both mull down to 6. I keep something like TNN, DRS, 3 Lands, Thoughtseize. His keep turns out to awkward. He gets stuck on 1 wasteland for two turns. I thoughtseize him revealing DRS, 2x LoTV, Bob. At this point I have a lingering souls in hand and a TNN in play so LoTV isn’t a problem. The only thing that I’m missing is a white source. I end up taking DRS in an effort to keep him off mana. And then I never find a white source to cast souls to protect TNN. He eventually finds BB and casts LoTV forcing me to sacrifice TNN. The game spirals out of control from there and I lose.

Game 2:
-4 FoW
-1 Collective Brutality
-1 Leovold
-1 Spell Pierce
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Disenchant
+1 Pithing Needle
+2 Fatal Push
+2 Surgical Extraction

Not sure if I boarded correctly here, but feel free to let me know. G2 isn’t much of a game. I land an early stoneforge mystic and my opponent floods out badly. He really doesn’t do anything and loses. We go to G3.

Game 3:
I’m convinced I made some SB mistakes here. My keep is a TNN, disenchant, spell pierce, lands, and some removal. He leads off with mox diamond, DRS and a tapped tranquil thicket, which I fatal push. Next turn he dumps a chalice on 1 into play. I play a land and pass the turn with the intent to detonate the chalice on his end step. He tries to play another chalice on 1. In response, I disenchant the first chalice and pierce the 2nd one. From there the game goes my way. TNN resolves and eventually gets suited up with a batterskull.

In retrospect I probably would’ve kept more thoughtseizes/pierces to deal with chalices. I honestly forgot aggro loam ran those.

Game 2: Grixis Control(1-1 Draw)

Game 1: These games are so grindy it’s hard to remember exact details. I need to figure out how to play around cabal therapy. This player in particular seems to have my number with this card and always manages to strip out my equipments. He does essentially that here. He deals with an early SFM and takes the equipment away. I manage to deal with his smaller threats like pyromancer, but eventually I get run over by a gurmag angler in short order.

Game 2:
-4 FoW
-1 Spell Pierce
+2 Fatal Push
+2 Zealous Persecution
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 SoFI
+1 Engineered Plague

This game probably took a solid 40 minutes plus. It’s really back and forth. I keep a hand with 2x SFM and a SoFi, with the intent of just jamming SFMs until something sticks. Unfortunately he does his cabal therapy thing again and yanks jitte/SoFi from my deck. Ultimately I’m left with 2 SFMs, and no equipment vs a young pyromancer and an izzet staticaster. I find a third SFM and manage to put a batterskull into play. He continues to cantrip his next turn to build a board with pyromancer. My turn I draw a zealous persecution which he counters. I swing with 3 SFMS and batterskull. He trades all his tokens for the batterskull, and then I swords his pyromancer. He follows up with kholghans command getting his pyromancer back, but at this point he’s only got 1 or 2 cards in hand so he can’t really build a board again. At this point it’s worth nothing he’s at 2 life, and I’m at something like 12ish life. I’m praying to draw a brutality and end the game on the spot, but instead I find lingering souls which is awkward since he still has izzet staticaster on board. It ends up taking a while to clear the board of the staticaster, but once I do lingering souls takes over. He can’t deal with the token spam and they do the last bits of damage.

Game 3:
We essentially start this game in turns and it’s apparent to both of us that we won’t finish, but we try anyway. He probes me twice to start the game, seeing my opening hand of DRS, TNN, STP, thoughtseize, and some lands. He ponders as well in there, so it’s pretty apparent he’s going for a quick gurmag angler to try and steal a win out. My T1 I play swamp, DRS, and pass, he cantrips some more and does end up deploying a gurmag angler. I end up having to do some thinking here, he knows my hand so I can’t keep any secrets here, my choice is between an early TNN or a thoughtseize. I’m pretty convinced my opponent has the counter so I end up going the thoughtseize route, which he counters. I follow up with a brutality to see whats up, and I take a FoW as well. Next turn I deploy TNN and swords a gurmag. It becomes clear it’s a draw and we leave the game unresolved.


Match 3: Maverick (2-1 Win)

Game 1:
Really thought I had this one. I manage to resolve TNN and Leovold against him which normally is a win. Except he gets a tireless tracker on board and makes it huge. Leovold kind of holds him in check since he can’t draw the cards off tireless tracker, but still it gets big. He eventually finds a mom to break the TNN deadlock. I can’t find STP to save my life and I get put in my place by an 8/8 tracker.

Game 2:
-4 FoW
-2 Spell Pierce
+1 Disenchant
+1 Engineered Plague
+2 Fatal Push
+1 SoFI
+1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Zealous Persecution

Game 2 goes pretty textbook for me. We trade some removal spells in the early game, my T3 play is a TNN and my T4 play is JTMS. JTMS essentially brainstorms me to victory. My opponent tries to keep up, but JTMS is just too much. I eventually win this match up off a jace ultimate.

Game 3:
Probably the most interesting game I play all night. My opener is 3 fetchlands, lingering souls, jitte, zealous persecution, and something else. I can’t ask for much of a better hand, fetchlands will get me my basics, and I figure I’ll ride lingering souls+jitte to victory. His first two turns he deploys two Mom’s which eat my ZP. And then he plays choke. At this point I don’t have a way to remove it, but I do have swamp/plains operational, but any other fetchable lands in my deck are essentially one time use. I don’t feel like I have much of a choice, so I crack a fetchland to deploy souls and essentially wasteland myself. His next turn he deploys SFM fetching jitte and passes the turn.

This really puts me in a bind. Thanks to choke I only have two operational lands so I can’t play+equip jitte in the same turn. If I play jitte and just pass, he has the mana to play jitte and glue it to SFM which deals with my tokens and basically kills me. I opt to play SFM fetching SoFi so I force him to make a choice between SFM and the tokens. I also play a fetchland giving me 3 potential mana next turn, I have no other lands in hand. I think it’s here my opponent makes a critical mistake. Instead of swinging with SFM+Jitte he deploys a knight of the reliquary and passes. Best guess is that he assumed I left countermagic in so he was hesitant to cast jitte then equip it. Had he made this move he probably would have won the game on the spot.

At this point I too have an interesting decision to make. My draw for the turn is a fetchland. I have a JTMS in hand and another fetchland in play. So I can deploy JTMS, and I feel I can defend him well with 2x souls and a SFM. I take a chance and deploy jace and +2 him. My alternate plan was cracking those fetches and getting my souls suited up. It turns out I am able to defend him. A lot of my creatures eat it as a consequence since knight ends up carrying jitte on the attack. I untap, draw, brainstorm, and find wasteland, STP and something else. Wasteland is a godsend as it actually untaps under a choke. STP kills his equipped knight on attack step. From there my win is inevitable. JTMS brainstorms at will and lingering souls gets flashed back, eventually someone carries equipment in and wins it.



For the future, gurmag angler is beginning to give me trouble under certain circumstances. I’ll have to look into stuff like murderous cut or diabolic edict to deal with it. Edict has the bonus of being an out to lands.

Congratulations you two!

Did you miss a tool to handle resolved Planeswalker in your 75? It's my main reason for that Sideboard Vindicate.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by namewithoutname

Congratulations you two!

Did you miss a tool to handle resolved Planeswalker in your 75? It's my main reason for that Sideboard Vindicate.

---

Starting 76, thank you very much. :P

Now that you mention it, yes, my deck does not necessarily have a card to kill a resolved planeswalker outright. Thinking about it now, I don’t value it too much since the most popular walkers such as Jace or Liliana get so much value from just one activation. A resolved Liliana is probably killing your TNN regardless of vindicate. Similarly, a resolved jace brainstorming puts your opponent very far ahead. Even dealing with it a turn later may not be enough.

Primarily, my goal is to see a planeswalker via thoughseize/brutality and play around it by keeping countermagic up. Or if that fails, I generally hope to beat the walker with TNNs.

If I were to include something to hose walkers it probably wouldn’t be vindicate. As I’ve said in the past I consider the card far too slow and it’s bad against TNN/Leovold which are very popular now. Also since the banning of top legacy has sped up in general. IMO there’s fewer walkers running around than before. Hell, there’s even some stoneblade lists that have cut their jaces altogether. If I had to pick a 3 mana removal spell it’d probably end up being council’s judgement since it hits just about everything. Council’s WW casting cost however can be problematic.

That being said, if walkers really are a problem I’d probably start bringing in more pithing needles before I started reaching for the more expensive answers.

Killing it neo. Do you stream anywhere? Would love to see you play some time!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by whocansay

Killing it neo. Do you stream anywhere? Would love to see you play some time!

---

Thanks. I keep performing well at my lgs on tuesdays. This week with another 2-0-1.
unfortunately I'm not streaming or anything like this. Maybe I will do something like this in the future but by now I have just Instagram where I try to show off as much as I can about my performing, playing and mtg lifestyle. I try to play as much as I can on xmage. I'll start working next week again so I don't have much time anyway. When I can move my computer out of the living room I'm going to try something like youtube or streaming or some real life videos.

This week tried a new card shop, but only 4 people showed, so we played some casual round robin instead. We didn’t really play that seriously and sometimes we played multiple G1’s, so this won’t be a normal tournament report, more of a lessons learned sort of deal.

Match 1: Burn
Burn matches tend to go quickly so I played a lot against this guy. The generic line of play for us is simple, we want killspells, countermagic, and most importantly basics. G1s can be really rough, as generically good hands can suddenly turn really bad. For example, in my first game if I had thoughtseized fetching underground sea, I’m out 3 life to get the land and deploy the thoughtseize, and I’ve also turned on price of progress.

Sideboarding should be fairly simple, but if you really want help feel free to ask since it’ll depend on what your exact list. Generically, you probably want to get rid of high costed spells like jace or cards that cost you life like thoughtseize.

I lost most of these matches partly because I didn’t draw well, and one time I way overextended. I deployed a batterskull with 2 non basics in play and 17 life. I half read him wrong, half should’ve known better. He hadn’t been doing much and had 6 cards in had on T5, which for a burn deck should’ve put me on red alert. I go for the greedy play and try to resolve a batterskull to put the game away. He plays 3 price of progress, fire blast, and a bolt at my endstep and during his turn to kill me. Those two non basics ended up kill me. You really don’t want more than one non basic in this matchup if you can help it. Hell, even wastelanding your own non basic in this matchup in response to price of progress is a valid play.

Other than that, the games that I did win it felt like I won off the back of goblin guide. Brainstorming in response to his draw trigger or leaving a land on top with ponder nets you some serious card advantage. I turn these lands into collective brutality escalated twice, which is absolutely brutal in this matchup since all modes of the card are extremely relevant. If you can engineer a way to draw cards off him considering leaving the guide alone for a bit.


Match 2: Czech Pile
Our games really swing back and forth. His manabase gets him in trouble G1 and he ends up losing. My manabase gets me in trouble G2 and I end up losing. At this point I make an experimental SB.

-4 FoW
-3 SFM
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Fatal Push
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Invasive Surgery

I think I ended up winning this one, but my memory is fuzzy. I essentially side out the entire SFM package because kholghans command is so rough. I leave in batterskull because you can return him making it a difficult card to deal with. I have no idea whether this is correct or not and welcome feedback. ZP ended up being a mistake as he didn’t run TNN. If you get this matchup prepare for a long game. If you have lingering souls, it’s probably the best card you have in this matchup.


Match 3: Elves
I lose G1, but G2 and G3 I win off the back of Jitte which is backbreaking in this matchup. If you can connect even once you’re odds of winning skyrocket. That being said, elves is a tricky deck to play against and I definitely fell into quite a few traps playing against him. Thankfully jitte is so powerful that those mistakes didn’t end up mattering, but still my play was pretty sloppy.

For Reference here is my SB plan:
-2 Jace
-2 Lingering Souls
-2 Spell Pierce
-4 DRS
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Invasive Surgery
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Fatal Push
+1 Engineered Plague
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Containment Priest

There’s an argument for pithing needle to be included as it shuts down quite a few of they’re shenanigans. I just can’t find space for it, and generally I want to kill their stuff and not just turn it off. Gaea’s cradle/heritage druid can still make use of critters stuck under the needle. Most notably, DRS get cut because I don’t feel like I need to go fast in this matchup. As long as I can keep their board under control I’m okay. For me, the magic number is 3 elves in play. From general experience, once an opponent gets 3 elves in play I find things spiral out of control really quickly. So here’s a non-exhaustive list of the weird combat tricks elves can do.

Before we go any further, wirewood symbiote is public enemy #1. Kill it on sight every time, don’t try to be cute and play around it, it needed to be dead yesterday. Symbiote turns off killspells and makes your life stupidly difficult.

Also, while getting jitte with counters is normally a win, you need to be careful how you treat the counters. Yes jitte acts like a machine gun, but you still have to use it correctly or you’ll throw away bullets. Be careful and use the counters one at a time.

Dryad Arbor+Quirion Ranger:
Quirion Ranger bounces dryad arbor. Don’t try to wasteland dryad arbor with ranger in play(I did this), they’ll just bounce arbor in response and leave you holding the bag. If you want to kill the arbor, you need to kill the ranger first. If you burn a removal spell like STP on arbor only to see it get bounced in response you will feel extremely foolish.
Jitte play around this card also needs to be tight. With two jitte counters you need to target the ranger first, then the arbor if they decide to bounce it. If you try to shortcut it and deploy both jitte counters at once like I did, you’ll only kill the ranger since they’ll bouncer arbor in response. Dryad Arbor can also infinitely block, they’ll declare arbor as a blocker, then bounce it before damage. If you’re jitte isn’t glued to a TNN this means you aren’t getting jitte counters.

Pendelhaven:
This card is annoying. +1/+2 ability means that if you want to kill a 1/1, you’ll have to use both jitte counters. An initial one to target the creature, then another counter in response to the +1/+2 ability to actually kill it. It also turns off cards like collective brutality entirely. My mistake against this card was shortcutting jitte counters by removing two jitte counters to kill a symbiote and something else at the same time. His pendelhaven activation saved the symbiote. Had I been more careful and deployed the jitte counters one at a time I could have killed the symbiote.

So against elves, the big lesson is, always think through your jitte counters clearly, and never shortcut the process by removing both counters simultaneously. Remove them one at time. Perhaps even more importantly, before you commit a removal spell, make sure there aren’t any shenanigans on the table. Losing a jitte counter is inefficient, wasting a removal spell is gamebreaking.

More of a general note, this game revolves around jitte. Before you even deploy it, clear the way with cards like thoughtseize/brutality and primarily target down abrupt decay. Their other method of getting jitte off the table is reclamation sage. If that gets played, obviously counter it. But you’ll also be locked into countering Green Sun’s Zenith for 3, which would put the sage into play.

And finally, this came up, whenever you attack with batterskull, always clearly declare it and make sure your opponent acknowledges it. It has vigilance so tapping as a clear indicator doesn’t work. These games were casual, so we just retroactively corrected the problem the next turn. Had this been under comp REL, a judge would have gotten involved and I don’t know what the ruling would have been.

After a several month hiatus from the Deathblade I played it in some weeklies recently with good results, going 4-1, 3-1, and 3-0-1.

List:

4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Stoneforge Mystic
3x Snapcaster Mage
3x True-Name Nemesis

4x Brainstorm
1x Ponder
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Thoughtseize
1x Spell Pierce
1x Collective Brutality
4x Force of Will
1x Vindicate
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Batterskull

4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
2x Marsh Flats
3x Underground Sea
2x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Tropical Island
1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Plains
2x Wasteland

SB: 2x Surgical Extraction
SB: 2x Meddling Mage
SB: 1x Pithing Needle
SB: 1x Disenchant
SB: 1x Toxic Deluge
SB: 1x Zealous Persecution
SB: 1x Disfigure (I don't have a Fatal Push...)
SB: 1x Engineered Explosives
SB: 1x Flusterstorm
SB: 1x Containment Priest
SB: 1x Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1x Bitterblossom
SB: 1x Vendilion Clique

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by First_Revenge

...

Match 2: Czech Pile
Our games really swing back and forth. His manabase gets him in trouble G1 and he ends up losing. My manabase gets me in trouble G2 and I end up losing. At this point I make an experimental SB.

-4 FoW
-3 SFM
-1 Umezawa’s Jitte
+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Zealous Persecution
+2 Fatal Push
+1 Engineered Explosives
+1 Invasive Surgery

I think I ended up winning this one, but my memory is fuzzy. I essentially side out the entire SFM package because kholghans command is so rough. I leave in batterskull because you can return him making it a difficult card to deal with. I have no idea whether this is correct or not and welcome feedback. ZP ended up being a mistake as he didn’t run TNN. If you get this matchup prepare for a long game. If you have lingering souls, it’s probably the best card you have in this matchup.

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Appalling as the Czech Pile matchup is, I don't think taking out SFM/Equips is correct. As bad as the Equips are vs K-Command, they are good in the matchup if you can keep them in play for a few turns. Without Equips we have fewer threats and fewer sources of card advantage, which isn't helpful in a grind, unless you have something like 3x Lingering Souls in the sideboard to replace them with - but if you have to SB out your grindiest cards against a grindy deck, it brings the merits of playing the SFM package at all into serious question. For now, I'm going to stick to Equips in the matchup and just try to slog through it the best I can. You just have to engineer situations like "surprise" casting and equipping Sword/Jitte while they don't have K-Command mana up, putting in Batterskull off SFM with 3 mana available to bounce it, or trying to leverage a tempo loss by leaving SFM activation up while bullying them with other things. There's an argument to keeping FoW in to protect them from K-Command, but I haven't tried this yet. Hydroblast is another decent SB card that can fill a similar role in this matchup. Even Nahiri, the Lithomancer is worth considering since she can resurrect your Equips.

About ZP in the matchup, I actually like it since it counters their -x/-x effects and cleans up whatever random Snapcasters/Strixes they have in play.