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of course, 4 color ant maybe it's a mess, but i was pointing that tnt is really playable, timo won that tournament and miracles was a deck. dont get me wrong, if i play ant, possibly i play with 15 cantrip list (3 preordain 1 grim tutor md) but i was saying that we cant say that tnt is bad
Has anybody tested engineered explosives? I had situations last night where it would of been insane.
Yeah I haven't thought of it either. I was duressing the Counter and would have been able to kill him the next turn. Saw the Leyline in his hands and thought of it as a dead card...until he ripped the SnT :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Asthereal
Can you elaborate a situation in which it is right for a combo deck to play a boardsweeper?Quote:
Originally Posted by bondfan
(Sans fixing previous misplays)
EE is stopped by Gaddock Teeg so not so useful.. on the other side it dodge mana tax by thalia ;]
My opponent was on Deathblade with a Meddling Mage on Abrupt decay, Bob and Canonist. EE is just an idea. It has a favorable interaction with Thalia, Canonist and Bob.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemnear
Massacre and bob's your uncle.Quote:
Originally Posted by bondfan
Which cards would you replace with the Engineered Explosives?
And would that be worth it in the majority of the matchups you expect to face?
I still think people are crazy for running massacre when teeg is showing up more and more again
This reminds me of a question on sideboarding.Quote:
Originally Posted by nevilshute
I currently use the following board:
3 Dread of Night
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Carpet of Flowers
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
1 Tropical Island
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tormod's Crypt
When fighting white hatebears I trust in DoN most of the time.
DoN is good against DnT too...and you see it alot here.
Problem is...I had to cut on GY hate to make room for the DoNs.
Dredge, Reanimator and TinFins are all tough matchups and appear more often then I like them to.
So my question is: Is one Massacre or Infest enough to adress hatebears? I don't like Massacre for not dealing with Teeg. Infest has the problem of double black mana (I play 2 basic Islands and 1 basic Swamp).
My idea was to play 3 Grafdigger's Cage and 1 Infest instead of 3 Dread of Night and 1 Tormod's Crypt.
What do you think and is there a good alternative ways?
Maindeck is 16 cantrips, no green dual main, 7 discard (4 therapy / 3 duress).
Greetings Mindlash
I understand Teeg will be an issue, but keep in mind EE will not be the only removal spell we board in. My board is currently:Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay_Gatz
4x Dark Confidant
4x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
3x Xantid Swarm
1x Tropical island
1x Tendrils of Agony
I would move the Tropical Island to the maindeck and perhaps drop 1 Bob or Swarm. Also, EE occasionally blows up Chalice.
The situation you listed above is not uncommon at all... So they have 2 cards in their opener that are difficult to deal with, and you can't Empty on turn 1... Unfortunately that is a common scenario if you play a lot against that deck. And I play the matchup a ton which is why I respect its difficulty if you're not running Swarms. It's actually why I added Swarms to my deck later. My list is tuned from tons of testing rather than theory.Quote:
Originally Posted by Asthereal
There are some easy solutions to the problems you bring up here. First of all, I play Empty the Warrens. I ALSO play Xantid Swarms. If they have Force for my Xantid Swarm and a Leyline in play, I will try to go off and make goblins (at which point I may be able to) OR try to combo and find the singleton bounce spell, which is, by the way, an Echoing Truth. In your scenario, you have no Swarm, so you try to combo with Goblins and they Force your tutor gg. If they have Leyline + Force + Flusterstorm, then you and I both lose.
In regards to your argument of their Force "buying us time," that is just crazy. We spend like 4-5 if not all of our cards attempting to go off with a tutor. The one card they pitch to Force of Will is not going to buy enough time to get back into the game against this resilient combo deck. I also don't see why you think you lose to Force if they Force your Swarm... If you have to go for it, you go for it, and now they don't have a Force in their hand. Swarm has basically become a discard spell with Leyline in play. What does your deck do in the situation where they have Leyline + Force? The only chance your deck has is to have the singleton Empty the Warrens in hand, and I play that too...
Your statistics just don't make sense. So you are willing to lose the 40% of the time that they have Leyline in their starter and then play a real game when they don't? The matchup isn't a cakewalk when they don't have Leyline in play; I mean they have tons of countermagic and are a combo deck that can kill you quickly. But let's say for the sake of the argument that you impressively have a 65% win rate when they don't have Leyline in play. With weighted averages, that means your matchup against this deck is 39% post-SB. Yikes. I don't think I need to compare my matchup, because it this point it looks like I am running a strictly better list to combat S+T.
*Again, I just want to note that you don't lose to double Leyline if your bounce spell is an Echoing Truth.
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To weigh in on the hatebear discussion, I really like my Disfigures since they can deal with Meddling Mage, Canonist, Teeg, Thalia, and Deathrite Shaman. You don't usually HAVE to kill a Deathrite, but it makes the Disfigures good even if they don't have a hatebear in play. I generally like to bring in 2 Disfigure against most Deathblade decks if I think they are on the Meddling Mage plan.
If you're only playing one, I don't think Massacre is the right one. I also don't like Infest for the reasons you described. Virtue's Ruin is the tits. I love that card to death. I'm currently trying out ANT again after a long engagement to TES (just to double check if I'm correct in preferring TES) and Virtue's Ruin has already saved my bacon a couple of times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mindlash
Virtue's Ruin is going to be at its worst against D&T because they play Port and Thalia, but it's in my opinion the best sweeper to have access to against Maverick, Miracles, and Deathblade now that they're trying to not roll over to combo. That said, it's still pretty damn good against the mono-W deck. Dread of Night is an excellent card for dealing with Mom and Thalia, but you have to draw multiples to beat Canonist which I don't like.
I don't know if it's correct to play multiples. I'm only playing one right now and using AD (and if necessary, Chain) to mop up, which allows me to fit in some Surgicals and Bobs. Multiple sweepers isn't right out though.
edit: saw post above
Why do you feel like you need more 1-for-1 removal than Chain of Vapor and Abrupt Decay? If you feel like you need more, why wouldn't you play Slaughter Pact?Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrunkenphat7
I'm playing with Burning Wish and I've therefore got two anti-hatebear sweepers in my sideboard. They used to be Massacre and Infest. I side in one against Maverick and Death & Taxes and the like and leave one in the sideboard.
A few nights ago I was playing Maverick and ran into a situation that has gotten me to switch Infest with Virtue's Ruin. Basically my opponent managed to get down a Aven Mindcensor during game one and also managed to get a Jitte down and equip and attack. From then on neither Massacre nor Infest would ever be able to kill it because of constantly keeping counters on the Jitte. For reference, this is my current board:
1x Massacre
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Diminishing Returns
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grim Tutor
1x Duress
1x Chain of Vapor
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Xantid Swarm
@Patrunkenphat7:
Looking at the chances of drawing a 4-of and a 3-of in your opener, or a 4-of and another 4-of, yes the chances are that low. If you test a hundred games, of course you will encounter it sometimes. In general you should only have to face the almost impossible to win scenario one out of five times. Chances enough to win. It's not like your chances of winning with Swarm increase more than 10% compared to without.
The discussion boils down to this: how much do you win by playing both Green (Swarms and Decays) and red for Empty the Warrens in the relevant matchups (Miracles, Show and Tell), and how much do you lose in the other matchups where a stable mana base is needed (Canadian Thresh, BUG Tempo, other blue Tempo, Jund, Junk, Maverick and whatever else tries to blow you out by targeting your lands. I'm not saying those matchups become unwinnable. Of course not. But you do lose some percentage of your winning chances against them if you play a crippled mana base that is supposed to be able to support four colours.
It's a trade off. A marginal one, but still a trade off. I chose for the TNT idea. Stable mana base, slightly more limited sideboard options. By the way I do play more than one Empty the Warrens. Right now I have three on side. Two to board in where needed, keeping one for the Wish board. Empty the Warrens is highly underrated my many ANT players. I come from TES and I have very good experiences with Empty, even in a deck that doesn't usually support it that well accelleration wise.
@Asthereal: I run no green mana main, therefore, my deck has an equally stable manabase as yours against decks where I don't need green. Again, I am trying to show that there is no downside to playing green cards in your SB for certain matchups. You can argue all day how MUCH worse your deck is against S+T, but I think we can agree that it has to be some amount worse with no access to Swarm. My argument is that you sacrifice nothing to have Swarms in your SB other than not having access to worse SB cards like red blasts.
@phazonmuant: I like the 2 Disfigure simply because I don't want to bring in the Decays unless I absolutely have to. Deathblade runs Wastelands, and I like being able to deal with their permanent hate off a single black. I think Chain is fine, but Disfigure is a more conservative option when you are going for the turn 4 kill. Against something like Deathblade that has a lot of discard early backed by countermagic and hatebears, it can be difficult to go off turns 2-3 unless you have a resilient hand and theirs is weak. Because of that, I will often preemptively answer a Deathrite Shaman on turn 1 before it has the chance to start eating away at my yard. I do have Decays in my SB as well, and they come in against decks that are 100% permanent hate or play hosing cards like Counterbalance, Rest in Peace, Thorn of Amethyst, or Chalice of the Void.
For reference, here is the current iteration of my deck (a couple cards change every now and then...):
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
SB
1 Tropical Island
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Dread of Night
2 Disfigure
2 Pithing Needle
No Ad Nauseam AND no Wish? Awkward choice.
Not saying it's plain wrong, I just never tried it.
If I were to cut Ad Nauseam, I'd probably first try 3x Infernal + 3x Wish with both fourth on side.
That gives tutor chains from every angle, and Wishes can get an Infernal for a Past in Flames loop.
Having four colours does mean a worse mana base.
You need your fetches to all be blue, otherwise you cannot consistently find either the one-of Volcanic or the Tropical.
I have more black fetch so I have more chance to find the basic Swamp when I need it.
It's marginal, but I need my basic Swamp way more often than I need Xantid Swarm instead of other protection.
For reference my latest ANT list:
4 Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Infernal
2 Wish
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils
1 Ad Nauseam /21
4 LED
4 Petal
1 Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual /17
4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy /7
2 Sea
2 Volcanic
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Tarn
2 Mire /15
Sideboard:
1 Tendrils
3 Empty
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Shattering Spree
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Chain of Vapor /15
In a lot of matchups, I need both basic Islands before I ever get black to go off. The basic swamp is less important, but it depends on what you are playing against. Comparing our manabases, I don't think you can say one is more "stable" than the other. I actually used to have a Mire but took it out because I wanted the consistency of the basic Island, and it didn't have anything to do with the SB Trop. Also you only run 2 basic lands and an additional dual main. I don't like the Burning Wish loop for PiF because a 4 mana tutor to find PiF is tough in addition to keeping some amount open. I find the Grims to be much better and more consistent with PiF.
I am more dependent on red, so I need the second Volcanic.
So far I haven't needed the second Island.
A PiF loop with Grim Tutor costs six mana and six life. Wish into Infernal for a PiF loop costs six mana as well, though it requires one more starting mana, but it doesn't cost life. Additionally, you can Wish for Infernal and go off the next turn using up less mana. I feel Wish plus Infernal has some serious upsides.
Don't you miss Ad Nauseam by the way?
Ahh I totally forgot about Virtue's Ruin. I think I will test it a bit. Only downside coming to my mind right now is Turn 1 Mother of Runes into Turn 2 Ethersworn Cannonist.Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmuant
Another possibility might be to play both...the 3 Dread of Night and the 3 Cages and cut the 8th discard and the Ill-Gotten Gains.
I used Ill-Gotten Gains mostly against decks without Silence, Counterspells and Mindbreak Traps for the extra speed. But from time to time I ran into Maverick or Goblin decks with Mindbreak Traps so it became more and more unpredictable :-/
What do you guys think about discard? I have 7 discard spells maindeck. Is the 4th Duress in the board mandatory?
Or will 7 spells do the job?
Otherwise I could run something like this:
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Carpet of Flowers / Xantid Swarm
3 Dread of Night
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Tropical Island
Not sure about Xantid Swarm...it's really good against SnT with leylines...but Carpet of Flowers is just too strong in most other cases...like RUG and BUG and so on...
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On the TNT / ANT discussion. I played TNT first and switched to ANT (with 16 cantrips) later. I felt that ANT is alot more stable. Burning Wish just creates situations that just don't felt right or smooth. The fast and easy kills came with Infernal Tutor anyway.
From my point of view it is like this:
Postive:
I like the option to play some "Belcher Games" with Empty on Turn 1 or 2 though.
You can interact with hatebears in Game 1.
You canwish for Grim Tutor Turn 2 and go off Turn 3.
Burning Wishes that are not needed can be turned into additional Discard (coming from Timos TNT).
Negative:
You need more red mana or earlier red mana to support the wishes which can be a problem against Wasteland.
Needing more red mana can create awkward situations in your combo turn.
Burning Wish needs another tutor to make stormengines from the board useful.
Burning Wish does not synergize with Cabal Ritual.
Burning Wish fucks up your Sideboardspace.
Manabase gets more unstable in Matchups where green cards from the board would benefit you.
I think it is up to ones personal choice. TNT needs more planning in mana and threshold management while giving you more flexibiltiy especially game 1. ANT on the other side can give you a more stable manabase, easier access to threshold due to the high amount of cantrips and an easier time to implement some green cards to your board (mana- and spacewise).
I am alot more comfortable with the latter. I sold my TNT duals and the Grim Tutor anyways ;)
When playing with wishes a take TES but as of now ANT is my first choice.
Greetings Mindlash