Nice to have; not necessary. If you're not getting the value you want out of them, go ahead and swap 'em out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
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Nice to have; not necessary. If you're not getting the value you want out of them, go ahead and swap 'em out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dzra
Sometimes Mishra's doesn't actualy does anything but helps anyway.
Like, if you opponent atacks you with a 2/2, and you have a untaped mishra...obviously he has a removal, if you wanna trade it for one of your lands, is up to you.... you may also notice he doesn't has a removal by "no atacking choise".
Having a mishra there, means the opponent can't do things that he would do otherwise, like, tapping out or blow your tundra.
A A LOT of times you can use it just for pressure, hit 2 every turn, and the opponent knows he can't just sit there for so long.
In lategame I rather draw a mishra then a tundra. Gives you more options (doesn't matter if you will use it).
Mishra's is a very strong card, But I would run only 1. (It helps you more often than karacas or riptide lab)
I think Mishra is a fine card. If you are playing more than 2 colours, it's probably not a good Idea to run it. In UW, it's pretty useful. I run 5 colourless lands out of 24 and I haven't had much problems with my mana so far. 3 Factories and 2 Wastes seem like an ok number.
Mishra speeds up the deck's other wise slow clock. Getting in there with a Snapcaster + Factory can finish games fast sometimes. You don't want to draw out too many games. Also, it's useful when you can wear an equipment in a pinch or attack down a Planeswalker. Also Mishra trades 1 for 1 with a Nimble Mongoose which is hard to kill.
Overall Mishra+Wasteland are the most useful colourless lands. But don't compromise your manabase by running too many. It can be very useful in the control mirror where every "live" card counts. It can also screw you over against decks with wasteland when you draw too many colourless sources.
Edit: anyone tried punishing grove in Stoneblade? You'd have to cut all the colourless lands, but it seems powerful enough to warrant splashing. Thoughts?
The idea is proposed from time to time, but I think most of us believe it to not be a good match for Stoneblade. With no way to tutor for a Grove, you have to run too many of them if you want it to be more than cute, and now you're screwing up your mana base with off color lands that you can't even fetch when you need them. I'd bet that, on average its not any faster than it would be for us to assemble a ThopterSword combo (which would probably require fewer slots), and honestly, if I'm going to assemble a combo, I'd prefer ThopterSword.Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpei
That's just my theory, though. I haven't actually tried Punishing Grove.
hello, long time type1 player, new to Legacy blade control.
Just wondering if anybody has tried echoing truth MB to answer the tokens against lingering souls or dredge's bfb zombies?
If so, how effective is it in other MU as well?
Also, does Elbrus, the binding blade + Looter il-kor have a place in this deck?
thank you.
(my apollogies for not knowing how to autocard here)
If you were looking to force an equipped Elbrus through, I would think something like Invisible Stalker would be better, because he's also protected by hexproof. And since you're hoping for Withengar to be your wincon, the looter effect is less important than the hexproof.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ten-Ten
But the problem is that Elbrus itself doesn't confer much of a benefit, Invisible Stalker itself isn't much of a benefit, and Withengar has a big fat target on him, and likely can't close the game in one shot. So, it's a lot of work to gain 13 life (or to watch the combo fizzle due to artifact hate).
I've been playing this deck recently (the black-splash version) after playing mostly aggro decks recently, and I've been pretty unhappy with Umezawa's Jitte whenever I grab it. I'm probably making mistakes when I search for it, since I'm used to having a lot of creatures to equip to Jitte, but it's such a big tempo sink when you pay 4 mana to play/cheat and equip, then get your only creature blown out by removal.
For those of you who are more experienced, has this been the MD Jitte been good for you? I'm thinking of replacing it with a second Batterskull. I would consider one of the Swords, but they suffer from the same problem as Jitte.
I think the idea with Lingering Souls is that you can get multiple evasive creatures out quickly, so tutoring up the Jitte and getting it active is easier. When you're not generating tokens like that, it's more of a problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
The difference with the swords is they confer an immediate benefit with their +2/+2, which can bring the creature out of bolt range (depending on who it is), and also offer color protection, so for instance your opponent's Tarmogoyf can't block it.
With non-LS, I still like SoFF main, Jitte side. With the LS I think the Jitte is arguably better, but there's certainly room for personal judgement there.
The benefit of having a non-Batterskull option is that the swords and Jitte are easier to hardcast when your SFM is removed (which is often). It also leaves you less susceptible to things like Pithing Needle, I suppose.
I agree with most of what you said, but I would argue that while having an evasive creature improves the value of Umezawa's Jitte, it improves the value of Sword of Fire and Ice (or any other Sword, but primarily SoFI for its insane triggered abilities) even more. Jitte is pretty powerful when you can just kamikaze one of your guys into a blocker just to gain counters, but you don't necessarily need a flier to do that. The Swords actually need to connect, and the evasion is really awesome there.Quote:
Originally Posted by matunos
In fact, the original Belgian list ran SoFI instead of Jitte, which Martell switched to. Not sure what's better in a general metagame.
Fair enough. I think when you have a cheap supply of token creatures, they're more expendable, so running them into a blocker or chumping with them to power the Jitte is a smart move. When you don't, and you're running only 10-12 real creatures, I think you want to be more conservative for that reason too. And you're right, evasiveness helps in that regard.Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
But also, once you have the Jitte active, evasiveness is good whether it's on tokens or not, so you can do an extra 2+ to the face if you so choose, rather than running into chump blocks yourself.
BTW, I've gone back and forth on including SoFI or Jitte in the side (still playing SoFF main). Does anyone have specific experiences comparing the two? Jitte just seems so powerful and versatile if you can get it going.
Unfortunately, most of my experience with equipment comes from playing Zoo a long time ago, but occasionally Bant or Maverick. In general, I'm a lot less patient with equipment than other people are, and I tilt really hard when I sink a lot of mana into an equipped creature that gets removed (which is why I often don't run equipment in decks that usually do). :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by matunos
I haven't played Stoneblade long enough to form an opinion there, but I have only once been able to stick a Jitte onto a creature when it mattered (opponent was on Maverick), and that Jitte ended up getting K-Gripped with 5 counters on it (opponent's board was empty and my Batterskull had been previously destroyed). I ended up losing that game.
Batterskull, which I would never play in my aggro decks, has been amazing, even when I have to hardcast it. Granted, I probably made a lot of mistakes by fetching Jitte when I should have fetched Batterskull, out of inexperience.
Forgot about your first question. Personally, I think Engineered Explosives is more versatile. It can blow out tokens (and transformed creatures) for 2 mana, but can also take out lots of other things, and with the mana curves of most top legacy decks, it's almost always got some relevance. It's even occasionally effective against storm combo, if they play out their LEDs/Moxen/Petals before they're ready to go off; and can also wipe the board of goblin tokens after Empty the Warrens.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ten-Ten
My experience with Jitte in Stoneblade has been similar. So much potential, but difficult to get started *and* still have a creature to carry it. Although, maybe it'll be a little better with my Sprites. Usually, I'm happy enough with SoFF, but dropping a -1/-1 on a Mother of Runes is so tempting...Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
Batterskull is ridiculous (and its flavor makes no sense either). It's saved me from 1 live against burn (after swordsing my own Mishra's to stay alive). It's especially nice when you can hardcast him (even if you don't have to), because that usually means you can bounce and re-cast or equip as needed, except, obviously, against Krosan Grip. To be honest, I don't see a lot of K. Grip, because the decks that would run it (Bant, Maverick) have Qasali Pridemage, so they either don't board grips at all, or they only have 1. It's probably a smart move: Pridemage is hateful enough, and more versatile. I used to have grips in my sideboard with one Trop, Tony Chu style, but the only opportunity I ever had to cast it was as a last hurrah against Enchantress before conceding. Now I figure splashing red is more useful (I'm trying to resist Esperblade).
I'm still trying to figure out the best times to fetch one over the other. My theory has been if I'm going off early, fetch the sword/jitte, as they're easier to hardcast, but oftentimes, you just end up with your sword/jitte and no creatures (this is a case where SoFF shines, if you have a manland). This may not be as much of an issue for Esperblade with Lingering Souls. Watching the top8s, I see Stoneblade players fetching Batterskull early (e.g. turn 3, sometimes turn 2) a lot more often than I have been, so maybe it's worth just getting him in your hand.
On a similar note, I just ordered the cards to put Esperblade together. Afterwards, I found out it's the deck that won the GP. Go figure.Quote:
Originally Posted by matunos
As a whole, I love the Esper Stoneblade list and sideboard. Only one thing isn't clicking: what's the use of the singleton Intuition? Is it just expected to be a general tutor, or is it there more specifically as, say, a fifth Lingering Souls or a fourth Force of Will?
Intuition for 3 Lingering Souls. You can play one and flashback the others. If they don't get surgically extracted, that is. :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by delcameron
BTW, there's a dedicated thread for Esperblade here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...UWb-Esperblade
Great - thanks matunos!
Played the GP KL side event yesterday. 40 man cut to t8 after 6 rounds. However due to time constraints, it was 6 rounds with t8 split (1st seed drafts duals first etc). The prize pool was 10 revised duals and a box of boosters.
1st round vs rug tempo:
Absolutely blow him out g1. My manabase was rock solid and I just kept removing his threats. He plays the snapcaster version, which IMO is much slower than the mongoose version. Batterskull won it for me after he gang blocked skull but I had the plow.
G2 grudge gave me some trouble but he could not keep threats on the table because of my stream of removal. Eventually Snapcasters and factory won the game for me.
2nd round vs reanimator:
Met this guy before when I was playing in Singapore. However his play this round really pissed me off. G1 I pathed an angel after he used it to kill my jace. He then proceeded to Reanimate angel again without me noticing. Savage cheats. I still win the game but I noticed during Sideboarding and brought it up. He apologised so I was, ok fine.
G2 I had too much hate and he was losing. I cliqued him and pointed to Jin. He put it into his bloody graveyard and I was like no no not again you cheating ass. I asked him to shove that shit under his deck. I proceed to rape him with clique-karakas lock and got there comfortably.
I called a judge at this point after the game and put him on the watch list. Best I could do for the other guys he will be playing against.
Round 3 vs burn:
When I say this mu is bad, I mean really really bad. G1 I dealt with 2 hellsparks with path but still died horribly. Post board I only have pierces to bring in.
G2 I plowed 2 guides after some free land and I still died, wasn't even close. He flooded with land but my non existent clock let him draw a billion burn spells to finish me. This mu is abysmal. I'm gonna need cop red next time.
Round 4 esper blade:
Lingering souls spanked me g1, I just couldn't not deal with it. My jitte got legend ruled and token advantage won it for him.
G2 we fought over the key surgical extraction. Some timely responses with brainstorm against inquisition let me protect my snapcaster and I successfully surgicalled his lingering souls. We go back and forth but I pretty much counter everything and beat with weenies FTW.
There was only 4 mins left in the round for g3 so we drew after neither of us could get a fast enough start. Oh well, control mirrors are like that.
Round 5 vs dredge:
I know the guy who was the previous PTQ winner for modern. He was 2-2 and out of contention for t8 so he scooped to me. We play it out anyway for fun and I beat him g1 but his slow dredging couldn't beat a batterskull with a jitte on it. A flash snap trading with a. Zombie, removing bridges won it for me pretty much earlier in the game.
G2 double led faithless looting Cephalid Coliseum god hand rolled me. No chance. I manage to surgical both Ichorid and bridge but death my Narcomoeba totally embarrassed me lol.
G3 my surgicals make short work of his deck. The synergy with snapcaster is insanely. He hail maryed a dread returned grave troll but I chump till I draw the plow. Got there.
Round 6 bubble match vs rug tempo.
He was 5-1 and requested a draw but since he was paired down and I was paired up, I had to win out. We proceed to play and g1 his t1 Delver went all the way but it was really close. That's what rug does.
G2 was epic because by this time we were the last players left in the tournament as most have dropped or scooped to those in contention. The crouded piled the pressure on but man was this a legendary game. We went back and forth but I managed to stick an Elspeth for a few turns before a Delver and a bolt finished her. My sfm stuck so I had batterskull down. He eventually built and army of 3 goyfs, 1 goose and a Delver. I rip wrath. I try the wrath, gets forced. I now chump with everything to buy a turn. I have to rip another wrath of snapcaster to survive. I rip my korean fbb wrath.
Wont woot huge cheers from the crowd. Savage rips! I wipe the board but he draws the grudge for the batterskull and at thus point we are playing totally off the top of our library. I eventually stick a crucible and start waste locking him. I Hardcast force on a bunch of geese along the way and. Plow everything. He finally remembers he has a grudge in the yard and. Pops my crucible. However I've already wiped all his. Coloured sources. He sandbags fetches and when he draws his last Goyf, he fetched his last trop and played it. I have the plow. I draw a waste and waste his last trop. He now has no way of killing me but I have no. Clock. He plays it out. I was a little pissed that he didn't scoop. At this point but a draw is advantages for. Him. I go into turbo play mode and I eventually get a pair of Snapcasters down and. Beat him to death. Epic game.
G3 we only had 4 mins to play so we eventually draw despite turbo playing from me and him insisting to shuffle my deck after every time I fetch. He pile shuffled AFTER I presented my deck, wtf mulligan and pile shuffled again. But the head judge was watching the game so I guess it was nothing excessive. I was on turbo tilt at this point praying for him to hurry up. We draw in the end and as the final prize split was based on standings after 6 rounds, I scooped to him to place him. Higher in the standings. Though I was a little bit tilted by his slow play, he didn't do anything wrong rules wise and he played very well. All in all I was just on edge cause I needed to win out.
A game away from t8. Oh well, it happens. But it was a blast. Fun games!
Do you think CoP is better than Aegis of Honor here?Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpei