Well, after people figured out how to play vs Pox back in Extended the match up vs Tide became almost a bye -- for Tide.
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Right now my Meta is full of decks splashing white. SFM and swords make it hard to win. Sure, I could just hate them to hell with a deck containing gloom, bitterblossom and contamination, but meh.
Any ideas?
Did Liliana exist back then? If you decided to pack Oppression/Necrogen Mists/Bottomless Pit in the board, how does Tide expect to get anywhere with today's cards?
Pox's goal is to disrupt so ridiculously fast that unless you're Turn 1 Belcher, or draw no disruption at all after mulligan, then it shouldn't be impossible. I'd think combo is a better matchup since Pox has trouble killing creatures that board flood due to sacrifice effects.
Board Flood is why I still like Infest or Engineered Plague, though I still plan on taking your advice and running Perish for awhile. I like Spinning Darkness, but have been reluctant due to my fear of board flood and using those slots for that. I should still find room somehow.
Yes, I find dropping a Leyline of the Void in some matchups brings such a look of surprise and Despair, as they know Leyline is the worst for them, but rarely see it.
The issue was that Pox's clock is fairly slow as compared to the aggressive decks combo out paced, cards like Disrupt and Brainstorm was all Tide needed to have a great win ratio vs a deck originally designed to beat it. If Liliana and the more modern is enough to foil combo decks than cool, I was just interested in it's match up against the current combo decks. :)
Here is my current list. Any thoughts are appreciated.
4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Dark Ritual
4x Smallpox
4x Innocent Blood
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Sinkhole
3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Funeral Charm
2x Cursed Scroll
1x Duress
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Nether Spirit
1x Bloodghast
1x Mox Diamond
10x Swamp
4x Mishra's Factory
4x Wasteland
3x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Bojuka Bog
Side:
3x Oppression
3x Engineered Plague
2x Massacre
2x Ratchet Bomb
1x The Abyss
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Spinning Darkness
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Zuran Orb
You need some way to shuffle your deck if you want to play with Sensei's top.
Not sure if I agree with this in this deck. Before I added Top I found there would be times once the deck is in top deck mode that I would need a land or some gas to keep things moving but had no reach. Top gives you the reach. It can turn itself into a land drop after sacrifice effects or Wasteland to keep the opponent mana screwed or hits that next removal spell or Smallpox. In Pox decks Top isn't needed so much to shuffle cards away, rather it gives the deck pseudo card draw without the life loss of Confidant, Night's Whisper etc
I know what you mean, that's how it feels when I play Top also, and kind of the way I use it as well. I run 2 Top, 2 Crucible for what it's worth, but that is kind of splitting hairs. You can use 1-2 Dakmore Salvage to dredge away chaff for emergency situations when you are looking for something specific. If you have Crucible in play you can still play the land you may have dredged away (plus you know exactly what you are going to dredge). It is not common but happens sometimes.
Just some updates here.
12-3-1 overall, against very competitive legacy play
Beat: 2X Esper deathblade, 2X Sneak and Show, Hive Mind, Dredge, ANT, Shardless Bug, UWR Delver, Merfolk, Enchantress, UR control (most wins in 2)
Lost: Shardless bug, 4 color loam, ANT (all in 3 games)
Drew: Tezzeret/Jace UB control
The SB now looks more like this, but the main deck has never changed. I need an answer to Goyfs/bug and jund decks. Spectral Lynx has been a beast.
2 Thalia
2 Thorn of amethyst
3 Rest in Peace
1 Tabernacle
2 Duress
1 pithing needle
2 Spectral Lynx
2 Extirpate
What technically happens with SDT is that your draws are awesome for about 4 turns. At that point, garbage starts to clutter the top of your deck (late game, you don't want to see lands so you SDT them to the top of your deck until you have nothing but land for your next 3 draws. eww :eek:) Fetchlands that don't cause life loss could be great as a 2 of. (Terramorphic expanse anyone? lol) Shuffle effects with SDT are designed so that your garbage can be thrown away.
I've had SDT checks where my next 3 cards are garbage. Thankfully, this was in my threshold deck so I was able to simply fetchland or Ponder it away. Pox has no such 'out' unless it's a fetchland + Crucible setup. Your deck has Liliana and Cursed Scroll. Unless your foe is dumping 3 creatures a turn with toughness of 3 and higher, I don't see what the problem is. Perish + Engineered Plague and even your Massacre should be plenty alongside Liliana's sexy self. :cool:
That is a good arguement for fetch land with Top. With Crucibles out fetch is better than Salvage. Dont always have both Top and Crucible out at once, and like Giants I only need that total reshuffle filter maybe once a game. I can see that maybe one Salvage and one fetch may be the way to go with two Crucibles, I will goldfish it and see what I think. Without Crucibles and Top I like your logic of going 3 Scrolls and just using your chaff for that. But I am greedy and dislike being forced to discard a business card to Liliana/Scroll combo and would rather get to choose whiich card to lose to that and know what devastating play I have coming up. Plus I don't want to discard my shiny new Haunted Plate Mail ;) With a control build knowledge and foresight is certainly power, particularly when you are gunning to get them into topdeck mode asap. Also I find the Chalice decks that shut down Scroll and Top and Ritual tend to be susceptible to Crucible recursion, so it is one of the few outs to that.
Deck played well this past weekend going 3-1. I do want another main deck threat, so Duress is coming out for a Tombstalker. My loss was to Goblins. Although I did not see an E. Plague or other hate cards (save one Massacre) either game, the numerous creatures, especially through Krenko, are tough to deal with. For the board I am removing 3 Oppression, Spinning Darkness and one Massacre in favor of 1 Infest, 1 Damnation, 1 Contagion and 2 Extirpate.
I did not once need a shuffle effect with Top. Land clumps are normally bad, but I only play 22 and Top turned into very relevant land drops all day. Digging for a Wasteland or Factory was huge. However the points above are valid and I'll try a fetch or two this weekend.
What about playing Deathrite Pox, to hose any way the opponent intends to abuse the graveyard? This would mean you can't run Innocent Bloods and need to look at other ways to deal with creatures, but it could be potentially a beast in a Bgx shell... G also gives you a way to interact with annoying enchantments and artifacts once they hit the board.
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Bloodghast
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Disfigure
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Smallpox
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Cursed Scroll
2 Life from the Loam
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
3 Bayou
1 Barren Moor
4 Swamp
//SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Duress
3 Engineered Plague
2 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
While I see nothing wrong with the Green splash, Deathrite Shaman is obviously not good with Innocent Blood or Smallpox. Smallpox is a potential blowout card to the opponent and Shaman makes Smallpox much much worse.
Going back to an old love, and get some variation, I attended the local torueny with this deck:
4 Bloodghast
1 nether spirit
4 the rack
3 shrieking affliction
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 chain of smog
3 Pox
3 Liliana of the veil
3 Darkblast
3 innocent blood
1 haunted plate mail
2 sensei's divining top
20 Swamp
3 Dakmor Salvage
SB:
4 Gloom
1 liliana of the veil
1 pox
1 innocent blood
4 Perish
4 leyline of the void
My first opponent played Mongoose RUG. I won first duel but i don't remember how. I suspect I racked him to death.
From sideboard I brougth in three Perish since i figured he would also play Goyf.
Second duel ended when my opponent played lightning bold and attacked with Mongeese, that had ********, for lethal damage.
Third duel I drew Perish from the top in the right moment, killing Goyf and Mongoose, and won with a Rack/Shrieking Afflicition(?).
Next I fought a home brewed Mono Blue Delver (!). My opponent like to play decks that include Trinisphere, chalice, bloodmoon etc.
True to form he played back to basic and (one) Surgical Extraction in main deck.
I lost both duels, in part due to Surgicals. Also, think, my lack of aggressive dudes was a disadvantage.
The third round I faced a UWB deck with Stoneforge Mystic.
Normaly it is an auto-loose. This time I won by 2-0. He managed to get Batterskull into play first duel, but to no avail.
Two The Rack did short work of him. In the second I had haunted Plate mail and Liliana FTW.
Lastly there was this NO Elf deck. It is weird; when the deck is in the other configuration I loose to SFM, and win against elves. This time it was the other way round. Obviously do I need big dudes to put pressure on the opponent. Still, the rack did a good job.
I feel it could be worthwhile to include in the deck. Perhaps to replace the Tombstalkers?
The Plate mail was all right. Batterskull is better, ofc.
The rack is a great in conjunction with dudes. They may remove the creature, but then they die to rack because the first priority leave them with few cards in hand.
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I have always thought that the Rack/Discard build killed the fastest even if it misses the soft lock the LD lists have. I had some success with a similar build before too. Maybe when the mythical Revenge of Necromancy is finally printed if it doesnt have a sucky cmc, ha ha.