Asgar, thanks for the great writeup. Some questions/comments:Quote:
- Oring is decent. But a good Sneakshow player will run stifles or make awsome plays like my opponent. And its bad, if you need 2 more hate cards to deal with that play. Confusion in the ranks does nearly nothing against helm-combo, wich i think is a rough matchup. You cannot play around Terminus AND race the combo. Oblivion Ring gives you some chances there but: I found as i played agains miracle-helm the right plan is punch him down as fast as you can. If this is your plan Orings are not necessary (but still very good).
I think i would change them for confusion in the ranks. Maybe playing 3 REB and 2 Confusion to have 1 mor SB card against energy field. (btw, never counter enery field, always destroy it. If your opponent counters a card goes in his grave and the field is away)
1. vs High Tide in Round 2, do you think that Thalia and/or Rest in Peace could have helped you vs them?
2. vs SneakShow in the quarterfinals, do you think that Karakas could have helped you? Was it a card availability issue?
3. Regarding the Sneak Attack/Show and Tell matchup, I think there could be some more discussion. First of all, there are two lines of attack they have:
i. Show and Tell
ii. Sneak Attack
Then there are three cards than I think they are likely to put into play:
a. Omnipresence
b. Griselbrand
c. Emrakul
We have the following cards that can help us vs them:
Oblivion Ring: i, a, 1/2 b, c, 1/2 ii
Confusion in the Ranks: i, a, b, c
Karakas: i, ii, 1/2 b, answers c
Stingscourger: i, 1/2 b, answers c
Phantasmal Image: i, b, c, 1/2 ii
Swords to Plowshares: 1/2 b
Red Elemental Blast: i, 1/2 a
So I think it's reasonably clear that only Oblivion Ring and Confusion in the Ranks really qualify as good sideboard cards in this matchup (although Phantasmal Image looks surprisingly good vs the creature based versions), since the other options are only partial answers at best. REB and Swords seem like really marginal cards that you possibly don't even want to SB in, looking worse than cards that are already maindecked. Thoughts?
I have 10 white sources since I run Karakas as well. Maybe I was lucky on the day, but with aggressive mulligans I am happy with those odds (60% chance of having W and RIP in opener if prepared to mull to 5). I agree that Relic is the next best option if you aren't going for RIP.Quote:
- 3 Relic is just too good against Rug and BG as long as you dont expect a lot of dredge, its the best grave hate in my opinion. About RIP: 9 white sources is just not safe enaugh. You want the possibility of playing it always on t2 if you have it in hand and thats just not the case.
Chalice of the Void is also the best card you can have vs RUG too.... Maybe something that is awesome in multiple matchups?Quote:
- Storm is still evil, even with mindbreak trap. But i hate unwinnable matches, thats why i will keep running them. 2nd best are chalice and pyrostatic pillar in my opinion, but pillar is bad against belcher and ANT can win through chalice@1 as through a chalice@0

