The Shaman doesn't have to exile cards from your GY. Its from any GY.
Printable View
The Shaman doesn't have to exile cards from your GY. Its from any GY.
Deathrite Shaman looks easily better than Odious Trow and Slitherhead, provided we're not gonna just win on T1.
Opponents' fetches will help, but what I like most is how a land we lose to Wasteland, (or sac Dryad Arbor to Culling the Weak) we essentially get to use our dead land and their Wasteland for mana.
This little Shaman looks pretty good!
Shaman does indeed look very playable. If you have a fast hand, he does exactly what Trow already does, but if you have a slower hand, he's a mana producer.
What's not to like?
The fact that we only have Pact to get him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Silent Requiem
If we look at this guy as a replacement for Odious Trow, we wonīt have more than one copy available. Therefore we just canīt pact him to get value out of his tap-abilities the turn after. Donīt get me wrong, he does everything Trow does and yes, he has some more abilities. However, I donīt think you would ever activate those abilities in a useful way.
On a sidenote, the look on our opponents faces is awesome, when you slam Trow onto the board. And hell yeah, he can regenerate!
It's extremely relevant in post-board blue match-ups. He is a perpetual mana source, basically, and those win the game vs blue.
Even if I had 4 mana to pay the :2::g::g: for Pact, I'd still be afraid of any removal just killing me. Having an LED out could save you potentially, but then you're topdecking.....Quote:
Originally Posted by DerFern
Shaman can also reduce your own GY, making Cabal Rit a little harder to get threshold.
Honestly, I don't see this being a huge issue as we're primarily going to be targetting our opponents' fetches/Snapcaster''s etc., if the game goes long.
All good points, but let's face it: the bar is set really, really, low. If we use the Shaman's abilities just once in a hundred games, that's still 10x more useful than Odious Trow's abilities.
For me, the question comes down to Slitherhead v Shaman. Is the Shaman so much more useful than the Slitherhead that I want to pay Rare (as opposed to Uncommon) prices? The answer is "probably" when I see my B/G creature in hands that look likely to go off on turn 2.
The shaman is without a doubt better than bother slitherhead and trow. Don't get me wrong, I love foil trow and the look on peoples face when they ask why he's in a combo deck. Trow has regenerate but when is that useful over scavenge? When is either of those more useful than shaman and all of its potential glory.
The simple fact is shaman is over 9000 times better. Play that and you won't be sad panda.
So to anyone with experience(Vacrix, looking at you), how do you usually play against RUG Delver? Everything they have is relevant to us, especially lists with stifle. I was thinking go off as fast as possible G1 hopefully going first so you can dodge all their 1 CMC spells by going off turn 1 and if that isn't successful hopefully they will tap out and only have daze/force be active, board into the grindy plan game 2(I assume they will keep mostly counters instead of heavy creatures in hand) and then board into speed again game 3 if you lose.
Edit: I went back and dug though previous posts and saw a good explanation of the delver match that I missed before.
You just do your normal blue sideboarding plan. (My personal plan is +4 Carpet, +4 Duress, +1 Taiga, +2 EtW, +1 PiF -4 Culling, -4 Summoner's Pact, -1 Arbor, -1 Cantor, -1 Tinder Wall, -1 Skyshroud Cutter) Unfortunately you can't lean as hard on Carpet of Flowers as you do in other blue match-ups because RUG operates on so few lands.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanma
It's definitely your worst match-up, as they have a lot of disruption with a fast clock. Carpet can only really beat a lot of disruption backed by a slow clock. Your best bet is to catch them by surprise game 1 (hoping and praying they tapped out to jam creatures and don't have FoW) and then beat them in the post board with Carpet + extra win conditions. Because you can potentially combo off with just one D4 if Carpet is producing enough mana, I've found that games you win tend to boil down to you jamming business until they finally run out of permission.
IIRC I think Vacrix considers the RUG match-up approximately even, but I don't agree, I think it's pretty much uphill unless you just get the T1 nuts and they don't have Force.
Edit: your idea to "board into speed again" (I assume you mean the Culling/Pact package) is admirable for its fearless all-in approach, but I personally would not risk losing to my own Pact trigger if they have Force. Besides: the Culling package gives us additional speed T1 obviously, but still doesn't guarantee a T1 victory (i.e. "forcing" the opponent to have FoW). It's certainly risk vs. reward but is not worth it IMO.
Shaman is definitely miles better than Trow when you actually have to play out the creature while you are setting up. It would actually be worthing keeping him in a few matchups as well, like RUG where you want to do stuff like shrink Goyf, Goose, etc. Obviously if you are sitting around using his ability forever you've either run out of business and are in topdeck mode.. which happens. In that case, he's far more relevant than Trow ever could be because activations for B/G is much easier than 1G/B. Even so its rare that you even have the chance to use Trow for anything other than Culling food or Chrome Mox imprint but thats because its a 1'of. Perhaps if we moved to a build with fetchlands and Tendrils as the win condition, we could run this guy as a 2'of instead. I'm thinking something like Kusumoto's PSI build or perhaps just straight SITES. Likely it won't be worth more than 1 slot though because it slows down the deck too much if you have to waste a turn playing him.
Speaking of SITES.....
Merfolk might have fallen out of DTB recently but it has a far more relevant metagame presence than when Xantid Swarm was initially replaced by Duress and EtW. I'm thinking that its probably worth exploring a tallman list that runs Catacombs/Foothills for Dryad Arbor and Badlands, 4 maindeck EtW and post-board Xantid Swarms. Classic Belcher is doing reasonably well right now at place 15 as seen in the DTB thread.. ANT at 8 and TES at 18. So I'd say Belcher is doing quite well right now for a glass house combo deck, placing better than decks like Nic Fit, Reanimator, Lands, Hivemind, TES, etc. I'd attribute that success mostly to EtW and otherwise, pure speed. In general, we have a much better game plan vs. Blade and Miracle control because they have to play a lot of lands to function efficiently, meaning Carpet becomes extremely valuable. Also, yes RUG should be about 50/50 though you have a slight advantage against an opponent who isn't familiar with how to play against the grind plan. UR Burn/Tempo/Delver/etc. is a bit harder since they have way more reach spells.
Also, most of the control matchups are about 50/50 except for BUG control which I've concluded against a good player who has CB in the board and 4 FoW's maindeck is about 40-60 to as bad as 30-70 against a familiar opponent. Deed is way too brutal at stuffing the grind plan. Also, watch out for good players who board in Disenchant against your grind plan in UW variations.. especially with access to Snapcaster you can't let them fuck around for too long or else they'll Disenchant Carpet, and then a Chrome Mox upon SCM flashback, and then just sit on countermagic til they win.
I'm looking at 2x Thoughtseize as a potential board variation right now. The life loss can hurt but having x6 Duress effects is pretty awesome and we need to take FoW so we can't play IoK. Veil was awesome for what it does but I needing a green source to play protection spells. Black protection is more consistent in general since we can also imprint it if we don't need it or use floating mana post D4 to rape their hand before going for the kill or out-resourcing them.
Played a local for the first time in a while. Went 3-1 barely lost the last match to the guy who won.
R1: Sean w/ UW Stoneblade
I've played against Sean a bunch. He's a damn good control player and he knows my decks quite well.
G1 - I go for early IT --> EtW hoping he doesn't have FoW, he has it and then shuts me down before I can rebuild after investing the entire hand.
G2 - I get a beast hand of Carpet x2, Bayou, Drit, Crit, D4, ESG. I go for Bayou, Carpet, resolves, then Petal, Drit, D4, he Forces. He Thoughtseizes away the second Carpet. I draw another D4 which he counters. He counters a few spells before I land Belcher, I Belch, it misfires which I expected since I run so many post-board lands but I have a lot of time. He topdecks Disenchant for Belcher. I then draw a second one and it resolves. He draws an EE and blows up Carpet so no activation for Belcher. Then I draw another land and Belcher gets there.
G3 - I have a decent hand, he mulls to 5 or 6 for an answer. Taiga, Wild Cantor go, Belcher next turn unless he has something. He plays Meddling Mage on Belcher not knowing I have Belcher in hand. Good choice. I have to work around it with EtW now. I play a bunch of lands and eventually sneak through a D4 which leads to lethal tokens and play an ESG to compliment it just in case he can attack back with Snapcaster or something to kill me.
2-1
R2: RJ w/ Pox
Dude finally reworked his deck of bad cards and it was actually a pretty good build of Pox. Also knows my deck quite well.
G1 - Ghost him turn 1. Skyshroud Cutter was key to going off here with Double Culling, Double Pact, LG, Belcher, D4, which gets me IT, LED and some other good stuff which leads to lethal Tendrils for 26 though I had enough mana to do it for more to get above 25 post-Cutter if I needed to.
G2 - I go for early tokens like a dumbass, 8 tokens. I could have instead went for a D4 or even play Belcher activate. I had a beast hand. But I went for tokens thinking he didn't know I play EtW now. But he guessed right and raped my tokens with Engineered Plague after I got them down, Extirpated EtW, and got Needle on Belcher. I had imprinted Tendrils earlier so I had no way to kill him, and we went to next game.
G3 - I have a D4 into some good stuff but don't want to risk continuing yet considering I drew a bunch of lands and land grants. Seems good against discard. He gets down Needle on Belcher and then on turn 3 he gets a engineered Plague. I then just go for IT into IGG into IT--> IT --> ToA for the kill with a threshed Cabal Ritual and kill him. Stoked I could play through the hate and the discard. Note that PIF or Slithermuse over IGG would have been terrible for me here. Definitely going to stick to IGG in my metagame.
2-1
R3: Zack w/ Merfolk
G1: Ghost him turn 1, he doesn't have Force.
G2: I board and everything but he has to mull to 5 to find force, and still doesn't find it. He knows I play a beast post-board so he keeps his 5 hoping to get there cause the grind plan is relatively slow. I play turn 1 Belcher with enough to activate next turn and it gets there.
2-0
R4: Wes w/ UW Miracles
G1: He forces the first D4 and I have to rebuild. I manage to sneak in a LG through Spell Pierce with 2x ESG and I think I got it but he topdecks another Force and seals the game after Entreat the Angels. I expected to lose this one though. UW Miracles has a pretty good game 1 here.
G2: I keep a hand with Duress, Bayou, Taiga, Bayou, Chrome Mox, Cabal Ritual, Dark Ritual. I Duress and see Force Brainstorm x2 Clique, Karakas and 2 lands. I take Force. I eventually draw a D4 and he Spell Pierces. He plays Meddling Mage naming Tendrils, so there goes that plan. Then I have enough to play Belcher and he responds to my Drit with Clique taking Belcher, I grab another one off the top of my library though and cast it, which he Forces. THEN he bounces his god damn Clique and gets ANOTHER Belcher in my draw step the turn after. Then when I try to go off with D4s I manage to play a bunch of tokens but I lose to a flying Clique... because 2 Belchers were on the bottom and I didn't manage to find an IT with in 12 cards of drawing. So kinda unlucky and god damn Karakas and Clique in the opening hand is pretty beast. I think I could have had this game though if he didn't have Karakas or Clique.. or if I had drawn a LG to shuffle and have a better chance of hitting one of 7 outs.
0-2
Sideboard was:
4 Carpet
4 Duress
3 Etw
3 Bayou
1 Taiga
Worked like a Charm. I think I'll keep playing this board.
Maindeck was
IGG
Cutter
EtW
as the flex slots. This is the most comfortable build I've played with by far, especially post-board.
Thanks for the report Vacrix, hope you won some goodies for your efforts.
I am still testing with my build; but a few more months of gauntlet tests and I think that I will be ready to go. What are you typically pulling out for your side to go in ?
Oh and I have put IGG in for PiF as well, PiF seams like a "now I winning more" card where IGG feels more like a "I Win" card.
Cheers
Boarding against Ux control. I'll break it down conceptually to compare what I'm taking out to what I'm putting in.
-4 Culling the Weak
-4 Pact
+4 Carpet
+4 Land
In this case we board out the fast accelerants (8) for the perpetual resources (8).
-1 Dryad Arbor
-1 Skyshroud Cutter
-1 Odious Trow
-1 Wild Cantor
+4 Duress
In this case, we don't need the creatures without Culling so they come out as well. Conveiently, most of these cards are floating around the 0 or 1 mana cost (half and half) so your curve doesn't change much.
-1 Tendrils
-1 IGG
+3 Empty the Warrens
In this case you substitute 2 business for 3 business, meaning you'll be playing with an extra card in the the 60, but if EtW isn't the best business spell for this matchup you can leave the extra one out, or only substitute IGG for EtW. Either way its business for business but EtW is actually good against control while IGG/ToA are geared toward speed.
If you think of boarding like that, then you'll never forget instead of trying to remember everything to take out on a list.
Against other decks, though, its less formulaic. I'll go over that in a bit, gotta run to class.
It sounds like you are suggesting that you board in 15 and board out 14, which is, of course, against the rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
Indeed. In that case board out an IT against control, and dodge Spell Snare.
That seems pretty bad to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
I don't know what your regional meta game looks like, but--although Spell Snare is certainly on the rise (being more playable now than it has been since it jumped to $12)--as far as I have seen Spell Snare is not played nearly enough to start thinking like this. At the 350-person SCG Atlanta, for example, there were only 4x Spell Snare in the entire top 8. Not a lot.
But the other thing is that IT is one of our best cards. It's fun to cast D4s and it feels great when they chain together, but they don't get there by themselves. You have to find a Belcher (which is absolutely abysmal if running 4 lands), a Tendrils, EtW, or an IT to find any of the cards I just mentioned. I get that you're bringing in a bunch of EtW which should theoretically make up for the -1 business spell, but ultimately it's reducing our options when chaining spells for a card that is our worst-quality win (i.e. leaving us the most vulnerable). Most people I play storm decks against know to have an answer to EtW post-board--Pyroclasm, Terminus, Maelstrom Pulse, etc. T1 or T2 EtW is absolutely awesome, but once you start getting into the mid/late game they lose a lot. I 100% agree that more EtW post-board is correct (I personally bring in EtW numbers 2 and 3 in the post-board) but I would never board out an IT for them.
Edit: also IT is bonkers with Past in Flames (or IGG if you're into that), which is itself bonkers against our blue opponents.
I would just not put Bayou #3 in my sideboard FWIW.
D4's might not always get there by themselves but keep in mind the sideboard I'm playing. 4 lands means I have 4 LG, 5 Land, 4 Chrome Mox, 4 Carpet of Flowers. Thats a total of 17 perpetual resources (virtual counting the LGs). Quite often with this board I've been able to hit BBB and then the D4 actual does something on its own.. and I get to BBB far more often than when I'm only boarding in one Bayou. IT does as well but its a different condition. Either you're finding something already in your hand or you have to hit 6 mana total to find and play Belcher. That means you need a ritual or a LED, or a huge Carpet. The thing is often it boils down to having a single business spell in hand. That makes EtW better than IT, D4 better than IT, and Belcher better than D4. However, I do like having the EtW because you don't have to go as deep into the deck with the D4s. Against UW Miracles or Stoneblade I certainly agree with you though because you want IT > EtW when they have Terminus or Batterskull so you can grab Belcher. However, EtW should definitely be coming in for the Tempo matchup because if you can get one off early like within the first 3 turns (if you have Duress, Carpet or something), you pretty much have the game. Against Tempo I'd take out a D4 because the life loss hurts and IT is just better.
Also, D4s early usually just build up your resources so that you can continue grinding with IMS, or acquire some LEDs in the case that you draw Belcher, D4, IT as the business. Rarely do I go deep with the D4s unless Belcher falls into my lap or EtW. Otherwise, its just straight resources or protection.
As far as 5 lands and Belcher in the post-board, I haven't lost a match to a misfire yet. They've happened but once it comes down it pretty much seals the game, and often the control player is in topdeck mode anyway if they let it go through. We know well how good this deck is in topdeck mode, especially with the amount of perpetuals. Granted, I still need to see how it goes against RUG/UR/BUG Tempo. I'll probably do a gauntlet sometime this or next weekend to test. I dodged RUG Tempo last night due to a repair and I was looking forward to the match.. especially since it was a guy I hadn't played yet. My friend Danny Batterman is going to UCSD now and he's pretty fucking good, and has a huge ass collection. I'm hoping to do a lot of testing with him and finally find a solid sideboard plan for PSI. So far though, I'd recommend this one. The lands are just too good. Opening with hands like 2 lands, 1 LG, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, Duress is just nuts. You secure the grind position and then savage topdeck mode commences. Against UW Miracles and Stoneblade I feel particularly confident playing them, even more so than decks with discard like the Pox deck I encountered. They are just too slow and Spell Pierce is practically dead once you get your IMS going. Without Wastelands, they aren't going to dislodge your grind plan at all. RUG has way too many ways to hate it though. Wasteland on the lands, Daze for Carpet, etc. but the extra lands even when playing against BUG Tempo was enough to dodge a Wasteland every so often and still have enough to hardcast Belcher without additional acceleration, or D4s. The Taiga has occassionally be relevant that it wasn't a Bayou but its been more relevant as EtW red source as well as the last land I find when I'm just straight grinding without EtW, so that Belcher gets there the first time.
I'm definitely considering PIF in the sideboard but I think it applies more so to the slower control decks where Carpet and the grind plan are already good. With the exception of BUG control, which isn't that heavily played compared to Blade control and Miracles. I think its best we leave PIF out unless you want to run in maindeck over IGG. Then again, IGG is just way too good. When I played with the PIF/Slithermuse business variation I missed out on a lot of games because I wasn't running IGG. IGG/EtW is safer, more consistent, and it gives you pretty good options. If they happen to have a Force in the yard, just grab EtW with your IT instead of IGG. Its often just as effective unless you went deep with the D4s against a deck like RUG/UR and fall into reach range. What we really need to find side space for is the Tempo matchups. I'm thinking what will happen is we ought to specialize in a specific kind of control deck since the grind plan still works against RUG but its way better against the slow control decks. Then, people can just play a manplan if they are in a Tempo heavy metagame. Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings aren't removing Tomb of Urami or Tombstalker. And it dodges Spell Pierce and often because Tombdaddy is BB when you actually want to cast it, it dodges Daze, Spell Pierce, and Spell Snare. Is anyone playing the man plan currently? Again, seems good in a tempo metagame.
I haven't tested your configuration but I have to assume that additional lands means your D4s are actually weaker, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
Let's say you have a game state where you've drawn your opening hand and have cast Land Grant into Bayou, then you D4 (via d.rit, whatever). So you have 3x Land Grant and 4x green duals left in the 53 card deck and have already made your land drop for the turn. Your D4 resolves.
You now have a ~44% chance of drawing at least one Land Grant/land in your four cards. That means a 44% chance that at least one of your cards is totally irrelevant if you have any interest in continuing to accelerate through a D4 spell chain. I saw that you mentioned you rarely do this, which surprised me quite a bit. I usually go for Belcher, of course, but in both goldfishing and actual games I win through a D4 chain (typically at about ~15 storm) about maybe one out of every ten games.
Anyway, assume you're playing my deck and you have 3x Land Grant and 1x green dual left in the 53 card deck. Your D4 resolves and you have a ~27.5% chance of drawing at least one of these.
OK but you can always fail to find if you rip a Land Grant, right? Well with 4x land in the 53 card deck vs 1x it's 27.5% of the time you draw at least one vs 7.5%. More than one out of every four times you will rip at least one card that screws up IT plays unless you have an LED and does nothing for your spell chain, while this will only happen to me less than one in ten times.
You will be able to recover from Wasteland much easier, of course. And you'll have a much easier time grinding against our blue opponents. But it just screws up a big part of what this deck is about IMO, and that includes Goblin Charbelcher. You also suggested cutting a D4, which I think is wrong. I've tried running 7x D4s at various points (both maindeck and in sideboard plans) and it always just screwed up my ability to chain D4s, which sometimes is what I need to do in order to win the game.
As far as Belcher goes,
Misfiring is horrendous, and I do it all the time when I have only a single land left in the deck. When the game is down to the wire and you have burned your life with D4s I don't think you want to be counting on being able to activate Charbelcher for three turns in a row before your opponent can win.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
Since you have a lot more permanent mana sources I can see how you'd be able to activate a resolved Belcher pretty much as many times as you wanted after it's on the board, which seems pretty good. It sucks when you belch with 1x land in the deck and miss. But I also feel that this deck wants to WIN once it gets everything together, which is why it affords itself the liability of losing all your life to D4s.
Also:
Yeah I've seen a lot of "win more" talk recently. It's all false. PiF is the grind plan dream card, you rip it and all of a sudden your graveyard full of acceleration and business is live. It's everything you want in the late game. I don't really know what you mean by CoF being "already good", it works like a charm in tandem with PiF to win the game when you rip it. I only really want it vs. blue, hence it's inclusion in the board, but it is a house. I used to play with two but that was way too greedy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
As far as IGG goes I've had times when I've said "I could have a better quality win here with IGG" (usually it's a case where I can cast EtW instead but IGG->Tendrils would be much nicer) but too rarely have I found that IGG is actually *needed* to win. I mean, it does happen--but seriously, I find myself sometimes saying "OH SHIT if only I had ODIOUS TROW in my deck I could win this game, instead I have NOTHING". But I've found recently that Skyshroud Cutter has just been better so I cut Odious Trow. I don't mean to go off on too much of a tangent, but the point is that there are always these corner cases where if you had this one card or that other card you could win or win faster, but what it all comes down to is figuring out what cards give you the best chance of winning. IGG has not been that card for me, but maybe variance has kept me from seeing the same lines as you.
And I agree that we need a better SB plan. I think my current blue plan of 4x Duress 4x Carpet 2x EtW 1x PiF and 1x Taiga has been 100% perfect [edit: in the Tundra match-up--vs. RUG I could use a slight leg up although obv. my plan does help], I don't need more cards and I don't want to take more than 12 cards out. The question for me has been what to do with those other three slots. Right now I'm running 3x Slaughter Pact which is basically garbage but gives me outs to Thalia and is rarely salvageable post-fizzle thanks to LED (much like Summoner's Pact, heh). However, Thalia isn't being played as much recently so maybe those slots are better used for something else. I actually do like Tombstalker ("Tombdaddy", lulz) although I don't know if it's good enough. Tomb of Urami has always been completely terrible in my testing. Honestly those three slots might as well just be Basic Island for me, in all my testing I've never figured out anything I actually liked although recently I have been flirting a bit with Bayou #2 for the non-blue Wasteland match-ups.
wow, that is a lot to think through.
Thanks guys.