See my most recent match reports. I've won one match and lost two, and have lost quite a few more in testing.
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See my most recent match reports. I've won one match and lost two, and have lost quite a few more in testing.
Post board they have 4 Thalia, 3 Canonist, 3 Spirit, 2 Mindcensor, and one or two ETutor. They get quite consistent at getting lock pieces down against you.
I'll keep practising, though. I would love to get it to 90/10.
I personally have no issues with DnT. Thalia is hardly an issue, at least for me, and Cannonist is more of a nuisance than a threat. One thing that does help I think is having access to the extra Wish. One important thing is not being afraid to just put the Omniscience into play. Against DnT, they don't put a terribly fast clock on you without Crusader, so you have time to pass the turm and either just pay the mana to win through Thalia, or play the one spell per turn through cannonist, etc. Another huge advantage in that matchup is Jace. Having a mb way to bounce creatures helps a lot
Jace would hedge the matchup in your favour. I have four Cunning Wish in my list so that's not a problem. I agree, I need to concentrate on getting Omniscience into play earlier. I'll test more and let you know.
Against DnT I don't tend to lose to specific cards, it's really a combination of a several "soft lock" pieces. The more regular losses come from Thalia + Port and then a flickerwisp keeping you off the mana to cast Show and Tell. But I do also get stuck by a Spirit of the Lab coming down with a cantrip heavy hand.
I might have to try a Jace or 2...
One alternative idea that I haven't tested is to play 1-2 Leyline of Anticipation. When you open with it, you reduce the impact of Oring effects, port, spirit and canonist. It might give me the edge I need, but more practice wouldn't hurt either.
If you play Jace at all you need to play at least 2. That way you have the capability to go infinite with Emrakul as well. As far as Leyline of anticipation goes, I personally don't like wasting a slot on a card that does effectively nothing. If you want that effect, you should play Quicken, as it at least cantrips.
Yeah, I think JTMS is really nice in this deck. with sol lands, we are always able to cast Jace turn 3. Besides, it helps us in the Miracle match up. If we cast Jace and it resolves, we just enjoy the card advantage since then and win.Quote:
Originally Posted by 4thHorsemanOfSleaze
is lim duls vault good enough to splash black in the deck?
every vampiric tutor is welcome in this deck i guess although they weaken the manabase which could be a problem against delver decks.
There's no need for it when Personal Tutor exists. And most people don't play thatQuote:
Originally Posted by sawatarix
@Horseman: I have to ask you again about those 3 leylines. You said you don't know what would you want to play in those slots. I've been thinking lately about adding one volcanic island main and playing with 3 SB Blood Moons for discard decks. Have you considered this option?
When I was testing red splash it was mainly for d&t/miracles (pyroblasts/red elemental blasts/overmasters/sulfuric elementals) but I missed this one.
Any thoughts about this?
Wouldn't Leyline just be better in that matchup? Plus, what matchups is blood moon hedging against?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ragdoll
One minor point on the number of Jace. Infinite Emrakul is undeniably good but with 1 Jace you get 4 Emrakul swings in a row (just cast ETI 3 more times with a zero card library to put one card back), the difference between 4 and infinite is pretty low in my opinion.
So I can understand more, why do you like Jace so much? It has great flexibility but it doesn't appear to complement the rest of the deck's strategy...that is, being able to ignore large portions of the opponents deck.
It can be good against decks with discard like BUG (both delver/shardless) and storms plus it hurts d&t, 12-post variants and mud (terrible matchup:frown:). I also see that one against grixis delver variants too. And it's castable unlike the leylines. Drawing them dead is a nightmare. I simply don't like them, they're too random that's why I'm looking for some substitutes. Right now I'm considering some envelop/divert mix or blood moons. When I'll have more time I'm going to test both options.Quote:
Originally Posted by 4thHorsemanOfSleaze
Edit: about the jace I still think it's not the thing we want here but to be honest I didn't test him :)
Ok. Against BUG and MUD, Blood Moon doesn't come down fast enough to be relevant (or it just eats a Daze and you are still having issues). They're doing their important things on the first 2 turns of the game. 12 post is already a nearly unloseable matchup, so there's no point in trying to hedge against it. Storm plays basics, which they should be fetching whenever possible anyways. And how does it hurt DnT? It basically only shuts off Port, which is admittedly annoying, but that's it. If you really want to shut down Port, play Tsabo's Web. If I were to cut Leyline (which I'm not), I'd be playing RnD/Lab Maniac and probably a 2nd Boseiju. I just feel like Leyline is the best card available to solve the problem that it does, which is large amounts of discard. If you really want the effect to be castable, either play Tundra or play Witchbane Orb.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ragdoll
As far as Jace goes. I've been a HUGE fan of him in my time with the deck. He does everything you could possibly want in this deck: draw cards, fog, eat counterspells, bounce problem creatures (mainly against DnT, but also relevant against burn and elves), and in a pinch, he can just win you the game too. I have been incredibly impressed by Jace, and am honestly probably going to go up to a third before it's all said and done. I HIGHLY recommend that you try him.
EDIT
The only way Jace could be better in the deck is if he still killed other Jaces
I think I'm not going to return to leylines especially 3 copies but I think I'm going to test Jace as you're suggesting. Last question what are you going to cut for the 3rd copy of him? And in which matchups are you boarding him out?Quote:
Originally Posted by 4thHorsemanOfSleaze
I'm thinking a Preordain, but I'm not 100% sure. To be honest, I haven't really found a matchup where I would board him out. You can definitely make an argument for storm, but it's not like he's bad there. My go-to cut when I'm boarding is Personal Tutor. Then depending on the matchup I'll cut either a wish, a copy of dream halls, or Jace if both of those cards are needed. But I don't think there is any matchup where he is inherently badQuote:
Originally Posted by Ragdoll
I don't know, I've played with Jace a bit by now and I have soured on the idea. Against anything with creatures, he's a 4 mana fog plus brainstorm, or a 4 mana sorcery-speed boomerang. He is not a credible defense against discard. Playing him turn 3 is asking to get Wasted off of Dream Halls mana to boot.Quote:
Originally Posted by 4thHorsemanOfSleaze
The build I'd been evolving with Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, and Jace wound up clunky and slow, and I really started losing an unusually large number of games after a high point of being 1 match away from an SCG top 8. Taking a step back to reevaluate, I found that the old-school tried-and-true Lejay list on page 1 is much better than the speculative pile I'd been pushing.
Played in two 4 round, 10-12 player tournaments over the past two weeks with 1 Jace in the deck. Here is what happened when I drew him.
vs Elves: Had Jace in hand when I cast SnT to put Omni in play. I didn't have EtI or Wish, so played Jace for the brainstorm, found Wish and won. So effectively a brainstorm.
vs DnT: Cast SnT with Omni, Wish and Jace in hand. He puts in Mindscensor, so Jace allows me to kill immediately by bouncing.
vs Miracles: Eats a counter on Turn 4 or so.
vs BUG: Game 2 and I believe he sided out some goyfs, because it was about turn 6-7 and he only had a deathrite out. I had Omni, EtI, D Grid x2 in hand and he hymns me leaving 2 Grids. I draw brainstorm, which finds Jace and I play it immediately as he has no counters. I then play the 2 Grids in the following turn and Jace takes 2-3 turns to find me Halls + EtI on my last turn (he played a delver after my 2 x grid turn). I don't think any other card would have got me there in this game.
It sat dead in my hand at least twice. One time it didn't matter as I had the kill, but there was definitely another case (maybe 2) where I wished it was the pact that I replaced for it. It was also a bit awkward on at least one occasion where I had dream halls in hand with a sol land and playing Jace turn 3 exposes me to wasteland.
Conclusion: I'm honestly still not sure. Jace is very flexible, and can get you out of awkward situations but he is clunky at times and feels terrible in match ups like RUG where you need to be as streamlined as possible. I'm going to keep 1 in for a bit longer.
I'm not sure if the Elves one counts. I suppose it does although I don't think Jace would be worth it as a 4 mana Brainstorm.
The DnT win is a nice one, and I can't think of another card outside of a Cunning Wish that would have helped as much as the Jace did in that game. BUG also seems legit.
I don't know, maybe I'm convinced. As an aside, are you sure that we should bring in Defense Grid instead of Leyline of Sanctity against BUG? They have Hymn to Tourach... I always bring in my Leylines against Hymn decks.