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this used to be correct when Mentors were not common in Miracles SB, and the only creatures were Entreat & SFM/Batterskull.Quote:
Originally Posted by mort-
Nowadays i think you need at least 2 terminus postboard. Personally, i run 0 STP, 2-3 Terminus, depending on how many mentors/SFM he plays.
(SCM, Cliques & Venser's can be dealt by Red blasts & your own creatures.)
~2 Wasteland is really good in this deck. Wow, I am really posting on MTGTheSource.com.
Obviously. I'm boarding in Staticaster and EE which has to be enough removal for the mirror. There's only one white card I actually want to see and that's Council's Judgment.Quote:
Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual
Even Schonegger boards out all his Terminus in the mirror. Since most people here give him the final say on this deck, that should settle it.
I really think this is an underrated strategy in this deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by KevinTrudeau
I have not tested it personally but the GP Kyoto T8 deck from Yuta Takahashi ran 2 Wastelands main.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...sts-2015-04-19
Reasons why they are good:
- Inkmoth Nexus (Infect)
- Cavern & Karakas (in the "Mirror") - Ie: interrupting the unbeatable Venser/Cavern/Karakas loop
- Boseiju (Sneak & Show)
- Creeping Tarpit (Shardless)
- Mutavault (Merfolk)
- Ancient Tomb (S&S + Mud/Prison decks)
- Cloudpost & Eye of Ugin (12Post)
- Play lines that become available, ie: Opp has 2 blue up. Your own upkeep Wasteland one of their blue lands, main phase they can't cast Counterspell on your JTMS, etc.
Reasons why they are bad:
- Cannot cast turn 2 Counterbalance (Basic Plains suffers from this problem as well)
- Cannot cast Brainstorm (Basic Plains suffers from this problem as well)
- Cannot cast miracled Terminus (Basic Island suffers from this problem as well)
- Another land that is exposed to opposing Wastelands (Who cares?)
Anyone have actual tournament experience (besides Yuta) w/ the MD or SB Wasteland(s) in this deck?
The guy you replied to doesn't play the artifact in his 75. Good luck Staticaster'ing 4/4s.Quote:
Originally Posted by mort-
I maintain that boarding out all removal in the mirror is not ideal. You can't hope to race an opposing Mentor with your own, nor can you hope to match an opposing ETA with yours. You need ways to deal with these so that you don't die to them before you can cast your own.
Actually, the guy I replied to asked me if I board all removal spells that I cut the really bad ones for good cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual
With this kind of boarding, Mentor is a problem ONLY if cast early and with a Cavern. He can be handled if cast late and the probability that I land a better card if you tap out early is pretty high.
Entreat.. lol. Why would you even leave that card in for G2? I can understand the need to win fast in G3 if the first games took long, but other than that, the card is just bad. The only situation you want the card is when your opponent has locked you out completly. But as I tend to not play my games in a way that leaves me in a need for a hail mary ETA, there's no need to play it ;)
But I can't say I don't like it. I've won so many games where both players were empty handed and my opponents drew Terminus or StP while I drew something actually useful. So please, keep in the dead cards.
Similar to how Mentor is "a better answer" to another Mentor than Terminus, would you consider Entreat "better" than Council's Judgment or Wear/Tear for the mirror? Sometimes you can fuse it and get a Counterbalance off the table early, but I feel like most games where you fight over a resolved Counterbalance, it happens mid-lategame. Entreat is just stupid going late, and basically ignores everything except Force and Counterspell.
I personally just hate drawing dead answers and narrow cards, especially in a Control mirror. I've never felt like most post-board games are locked up by turn 4, and something like Council's Judgment or Wear/Tear is only live if and when your opponent resolves Counterbalance. I'd rather Entreat for a 2-turn clock than attempt to restore parity with a Wear/Tear or attempt to Council's Judgment a Jace after it drew cards. There's also that whole unintentional draw thing...
But maybe I'm just playing it wrong.
To be honest, i can't remember winning many games when an opponent resolved Mentor before i do, even when i do so immediately after. The games i did win, is when i happen to have double tops, and he didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by mort-
Wear/Tear can be an answer for CB-Lock, a 1 and a 2 with a Counterbalance (which is pretty important at times) and can also kill a Top in response to a shuffle. So I wouldn't want to miss it. They also have to hit a 3 with their CB if you fuse it, which won't happen too often (if the opponent is not anticipating this). Judgment ist the same in the regard that the chance of it resolving through a CB are pretty high, it also serves as removal for Mentor. So I don't think the cards are dead at all. Also, the first carddraw with Jace is just a Brainstorm. Unless he untaps with Jace, that's not too unfair for 4 mana.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cipher
The problem is that EtA is only really good if you can make at least 2 tokens. So, between people boarding Flusterstorm, having 2 Counterspells main and then also Snapcaster, I just don't see it resolving. Even more so if the opponent has locked you out and can save his Counterspells just for the Entreat.
Fair enough. It's too bad Joe and Schonegger don't post here anymore; I'd be interested in hearing their take on it.
Philip recently (after the banning of DIG) posted an article on MTGmintcard, I think, where he said the same thing - as well as drawing in the matchup. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Cipher
If there is a good / easy way to convert MTGO replays to video files that I could upload to youtube I'd do that. It's somehow really hard for me to explain it correct outside of "this is wrong and this is right". Point is, I had a bit of time on my hands the last months and played 1 - 2 dailies a day, going 2-2 in one and 3-1 or better in the rest, losing maybe 1 or 2 mirrors of the 20+ I played (I have the correct data at home, I'll update when I'm there next weekend). So my total matchwin is > 67% and the constructed rating sits at 1940something. Not to brag (well, a bit maybe), but either all my opponents were pretty bad or I've been doing something right - and that's what I wanted to share with you, as this site has helped me from time to time, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cipher
I'll also attend the Belgish Legacy Championship tomorrow, so expect a report around monday or tuesday.
Nah, he only spoke on Terminus being bad post-board. In a sense, I was trying to take that general notion a step further.Quote:
Originally Posted by Quasim0ff
Wear/Tear has fewer targets than Terminus, though Counterbalance may be the most important. All I'm saying is in my experience Wear/Tear is like 60% to be dead for the first half the game, just like a Terminus. They not only have to draw Counterbalance, you also have to let it resolve, knowing that they can blind-flip you. It's one of the cards that's most likely to be left in my hand after the dust settles from a counter war. I think it's the last card left over in the majority of matchups, which is why I only play 1 copy.Quote:
OUT: 4 Swords to Plowshares, 3 Terminus, 1 Council’s Judgement, 2 Plains, 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
IN: 3 Pyroblast, 2 Flusterstorm, 2 Wear // Tear, 1 Izzet Staticaster, 3 Vendilion Clique
Now there are several things that are going on here at once. The first one is the removal of most white cards. In the past it was correct to exclude all white cards from the maindeck but with the advent of Monastery Mentor things have changed. This card is still not reason enough to keep in Terminus but is the sole reason that Entreat the Angels is still in the deck. Things change if your opponent is playing a 4 Mentor + Daze Miracles but here we are talking about playing against regular Miracles, where you expect one or two Mentors. The way you deal with Mentors is by having your own and having Izzet Staticaster in addition to all the points we’ll talk about in a second.
...
In order to further capitalize on the low amount of bad cards and lands it is essential to be on the draw for the postboard games. Should you happen to win the first game then your opponent will be kind enough to grant you said advantage. If things didn’t go according to plan in the preboarded game you can choose your own fate and decide to be on the draw. This means that you will lose a small percentage of games where your opponent goes for T1 Top, T2 Balance and has a couple Force of Wills to back this up. However, every other game that will go longer, and an impressive amount of games do so, will see you being favored due to having less lands which means more business as well as having the extra card. This is also why we can afford to not have Terminus in the deck against Monastery Mentor, as the combination of card quality and card quantity is the key to victory. This approach is not feasible when playing against a Mentor/Daze build, which should be rather obvious.
I'll leave it alone, though; I was just throwing it out there. My views on this deck are pretty far from the pack and it's not like I play enough to tell anyone they're wrong.
The debate over SDT is now on CFB site.
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/ban-top
http://www.channelfireball.com/home/dont-ban-top
Those articles should not be validated with discussion.
As for terminus/mentor in the mirror. I've had a lot of success siding out all removal as shoenegger suggests. I believe my record in the mirror is 10-3 since then. A resolved mentor can be a massive problem if you board this way, however mentors don't hit the field as often as they do in almost any other matchup. A massive part of the mirror is finding a time to resolve your spells while being able to prevent your opponent from playing something meaninful on their turn. There are three major spells to resolve in the mirror, Jace, Mentor, and Counterbalance. I would argue that counterbalance is the most critical spell as well as the easiest to sneak through.
An early mentor is when he's scary, after a while he starts to play second fiddle to things like ETA and isn't worth fighting too hard to resolve. However, an early mentor is often an unrealistic play as resolving it will likely cost 2-3 additional cards leaving you nearly hellbent and tapped out so you won't be able to leverage the mentor very well in the coming turns. If your mentor doesn't resolve, as is often the case, then your opponent has just drained you of counters and can untap with 3-4 mana to play a free jace, mentor, or counterbalance.
Maybe you went for the bait mentor, and didn't really care about it resolving. In this situation a counterspell blows you out, and a force from your opponent still leaves you in a dubious position. They untap, make a counterplay and you force it. If that spell they tried to play was a mentor then good for you you're still at parity. If it was a counterbalance, they have the opprotunity to use a 1 cmc counter and blow you out of the game. This example shows how even a non-commital early mentor opens you up to getting blown out in a few ways.
These scenarios, and variations on them, happen relatively often and most of the time the player casting the mentor loses out. So, a skilled player will likely avoid slamming an early mentor leaving the card to fester away in their hand until it is outshined by other options.
That said, I HAVE lost postboard games to an early mentor, but I've won far more where my opponent has shown me a hand full of removal that could have been relevant cards.
Do you guys keep all Swords to Plowshares and Terminus in vs. MUD in G2/G3? How do you guys generally sideboard vs. MUD?
Yes and yes. Out goes Counterbalance, in comes (depending on what you have) 1 - 2 Wear / Tear, Mentor if in the board, Clique if in the board, Keranos if in the board, Venser if in the board. There is not that much that you can do here. Try to get Chalice / Trinisphere under control so you can use Snapcaster / StP to full effect and try to Jace them out. Or be aggressive and mentor them (I am going to use this for "make an assload of tokens and kill them dead" from now on).Quote:
Originally Posted by MGB
I don't agree with Keranos against MUD. Post board against MUD, you are the aggressor, and Keranos doesn't really help that game plan. Moreover, most MUD lists have several cards that deal with Keranos, all of which are strong against us post board (Spine, Ugin, Karn, and Ulamog).
My plan against them is to cut Counterbalance and a few Ponders. I max out on creatures, any way to destroy an artifact, and Blood Moon (if I have it). Mentor and the Legends are strong here. Use your Jaces for tempo. They often have at most one creature in play, and if you are presenting a clock, three unsummons can actually get there. Blood Moon is far from a hard lock against them, and only just slows them down. Chalice on one is awful if you don't have a Top in play, but if you do, I would consider holding your FoW for bigger threats. Same goes for 3-sphere. Ugin is very difficult for you to beat, so take note of when they have eight mana available.
I like Venser a lot post-board against MUD.