Printable View
If you're going to 2 for 1 yourself and potentially get hugely blown out by a Counterspell, you need to win the game more thoroughly than Eldritch Evolution does. It's not impactful enough for the resources it costs us and the vulnerability it gives the deck.
So I've just had one of the best matches of Magic in a long time. This was a non-league match against Food Chain (a bad match up?), here I'm testing my latest BUG Fit value configuration.
http://i.imgur.com/8avD5mo.jpg
In game one my walkers answer everything and I win very quickly against a T2 Leovold. Buying back all the walkers (currently I have 2 Nissa 2 Lili 1 Jace 1 Ob Nixilis in the main; in the side 1 more Jace) with Nissa -3 is so insane.
In game two I keep a hand without discard and eventually lose to some random dude.
Game three was so awkward for the opponent: he got me to like 5 life but eventually I managed to stabilize thanks to 1 Strix. Then Murasa got the strix back and drew me another strix.
In this picture he conceded because he knew he was dead, but he had all his exile creature in exile with a food chain in play.
Notable cards in my yard: pulse of murasa (he couldn't attack into strix with his 1 3/3, before he drew food chain and manipulate fate, and I gained 6 life), Perilous research (I think the card is very strong in BUG and enhances the consistency, CA and mana wise, of the deck a lot).
His endgame: food chain with infinite mana and infinite 3/3, not bad.
My endgame: 2T combo with strix and tusk into play (aka every turn I make a 3/3 and I gain 5 life), Nissa (I could ult but I decided to bring back an ooze).
It's true that he could draw a ballista and win, but sometimes you lose to a random topdeck, it's the nature of the game. I think the grinding capabilities of this BUG version are underrated, strix and recursion are key against creatures, walkers are MVP against miracles.
I think the deck is kinda weak against storm (I don't have space in my side for counters, I only play 1 surgery and 1-2 lost legacy) but that deck is not very well positioned in the meta right now. I miss my hymns in this 3 color version, but I found out that hymn + strix + veteran explorer are hard to achieve consistently in the early game without 4 drs (I play 1).
I tested Eldritch evolution a while and go and it mostly sucked, but tbh now it has a very powerful target that it didn't before, Leovold. Do eldritching tracker make him trigger the two landfalls from veteran? I guess no sadly.
Lol yup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
I'm behind on my reading. I'll be posting again when I've caught up.
Yeah, that's an interesting thought. It protects Rector from both Deathrite Shaman and Surgical Extraction. But it also shuts off our own Starfield and Eternal Witness, cards that I only ever board out against fast combo. So it's not the most elegant solution. Still, it could be worth playing, just as Gaddock Teeg so often is in the GSZ/NO decks that run him.Quote:
Originally Posted by JackaBo
Ground Seal also has the problem of bring graveyard hate that doesn't do much to Dredge, which is a bit awkward sometimes.
It also doesn't stop Exhume.
All true. I'm mainly considering it as a way to protect Academy Rector when it enters the graveyard so that its trigger can resolve successfully. I'll soon be testing a build based on Cruel Reality and Sandwurm Convergence—both nearly impossible to hard cast, so the Rector trigger will be even more essential to the deck. Anything Ground Seal does to interfere with the opponent's graveyard is just icing on the cake, from that perspective.Quote:
Originally Posted by Navsi
Went 3-2 today, largely out of my own fault.
Lost to Shardless 0-2
Beat Turbo RIP/Helm 2-1
Lost to Food Chain (Eric English) 1-2
Beat Pox 2-0
Beat Dredge 2-0
Loss to shardless came on the back of him clutch swapping back to brainstorming from fatesealing and finding a Force literally in the nick of time. Game two, I kept an aggressive 6 but should have mulled for a controlling or broken 5. I got him to 7, but then petered out and quickly died. It would've been a hard hand to mull, but I think it would've been correct to do so.
Turbo Rip/helm guy was playing mono-white with a bunch of sol lands, serum powders, lotus petals, chalices, 3balls...sideboarded into Thought-Knots and Smashers. Pretty interesting deck, and anything with RIP/helm is automatically scary for nic fit.
Food Chain was going fine until I spaced out g3 and got super mega punished for it. I'll freely admit that I had a lot on my mind today (used my 2-hour solo drive to the venue to reflect on a lot of depression/life issues), and that played a factor. Eric tried to cheer me up afterwards, something which I appreciated and I think helped me crush my last two rounds.
Pox was a fisting. No other way to describe it.
Dredge guy didn't know what my deck did, which led him to going way too ham in g2 when he really shouldn't have. Game one I just flat raced him with Sneak; g2 he went all-in vs my field of bayou-tower-Vet. I ate my Vet in response to his (all 4) bridge triggers and then stonewalled his ichorids and GGT for long enough to find a Sneak via Tracker and end it.
Should've been a better day, but my mind will do what my mind will do, sadly. I ended up in 11th place.
Thoughts on the changes I made for the day:
-) 2nd Tower was pretty great. I definitely saw it a lot more on the day, and I only had a duplicate scenario once.
-) At the same time, I definitely felt light on red sources without the Groves.
-) I didn't miss PFire at all. I missed the Groves more than I missed the Fires. This doesn't surprise me given the nature of Mythic's room, which is currently a couple Miracles decks, a pile of BUG decks, a couple Eldrazi, and a bunch of random nonsense and 1-/2-of archetypes.
-) I actually don't feel like I drew Tracker as often as I thought I should with 3 copies, which might mean that cutting the Top was greedy. It could also mean that I drew like shit, which I think is frankly rather accurate -- I saw Deathrite Shaman more than I've ever seen the card in my life today, and while that's 'okay' I'd rather draw Vets, especially against something like Shardless. I also was oscillating between flooding and screwing a lot. I very rarely had "just the right amount" of lands. Note that when I did draw Tracker, he overperformed. I'm thinking that a 2-of might be correct, but 3 is too much.
-) Random shout-out to Nissa, who carried me vs RIP/Helm guy in two completely different ways -- in game 1, she pressured him quickly and killed him swiftly; in game 3, she ulted immediately and I buried him in cards with repeated fetchlands. I still don't think we can realistically get away with the 2nd copy, but holy jeebus is the first copy ridiculous.
-) Cutting the 4th Sneak is as incorrect as I thought it was. It's just too important and shores up too many bad matchups / bad gamestates. Vs shardless game 1 I had a duplicate in my hand -- I ran the first one into his (known) Force, then traded him resolving a Jace for me resolving the second Sneak the following turn. Sneak just allows the deck to do so much nonsense that I really think maximizing the chance to draw it is better.
-) Pulse was good in its versatility. Took out anything ranging from Baleful Strix to Food Chain to Rest in Peace on the day.
-) The sideboard changes felt much better than the maindeck ones. Ooze didn't do much but did feel good to have access to for vs dredge. Pyroblast was good to have access to, and the Needle was...fine. I'd rather have another answer to Merit Lage as opposed to the lands that create him, but again, there's just so few cards that can affect Merit Lage, combo decks, and Miracles. Needle might be the best I've got for now.
Going to parse my opinions for a few days before making any decisions. I'll likely have a new list at the end of that.
Oh, also, get used to Food Chain. It's fucking everywhere. There were I think 5 of them at Mythic, and other legacy-playing friends have said similar numbers from their events. Might behoove us to be aware not only of our matchup vs Food Chain, but also vs whatever is going to rise up to squash it. Not sure what that'll be -- Blood Moon is bad vs it (it plays around 4-5 basics), it eats Miracles alive, and it can stand up to DnT now with Ballista.
Food Chain had a pretty good showing at SCG last weekend. Something to keep in mind against them, is that if you take their namesake card, they can't do much. If you've got a start that enables a T2 Lost Legacy you should probably aim for extracting their Food Chains, especially if T1 involves a Therapy on FoW... though they only play 3 Force and a Therapy/Mana Dork/Lost Legacy hand is exceptionally good on our end.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
And never, ever extract their Griffins, for obvious reasons. It's just unusual because it's not something we typically think about much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brael
I didn't even think about that until you mentioned it. I just went with Food Chain because they often run a 3-1 or 3-2 split with the Eldrazi guy these days where as Food Chain is a 4 of. Either way, they run 3 FoW, and no other interaction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
I've only played against them a couple times, but this is a match where I take out some Vets and bring in more DRS and Carpet.
The best card we would have against them removal wise is Fatal Push, but I don't know where I would ever be able to work it in.
For now I'm going to assume it's just a fad and that it will level out again once people get it out of their systems.
Speaking of Food Chain....I know HoneyT and I had discussed a list before just G/B
// Deck: Nic Chain (60)
// Lands
4 Bayou
4 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
// Creatures
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Eternal Scourge
1 Eternal Witness
2 Fierce Empath
1 Gurmag Angler
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Woodland Bellower
// Spells
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Hymn to Tourach
4 Lost Legacy
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Sylvan Library
2 Thoughtseize
I think abrupt decay is really good against food chain. Usually it leads to them to sac'ing a guy and us blowing up chain in response to them casting the next creature. I'm trying a sneak list that goes in heavy on DRS and spot removal (3 bolt, 3 abrupt decay).
I feel like most of my losses come from stumbling in the early game not establishing my mana and conversley getting run down from other decks fast starts.
The higher number of ramp and removal is to try and further my decks consistency in being able to get to our end game mana and stave off any early opponents threats, allowing us to live long enough to swing things in our favor.
I'm still running woodland bellower, prime/inferno Titans and emrakul as the main bombs. These are supplemented by 2 trackers that if need be can become the big scary monster. DRS activations and bolts can also be the "final push" .
Where did you find room for the extra removal? Guessing Thragtusk and Nissa?Quote:
Originally Posted by Luthiereisfun
Yes. To be honest taking them out feels bad but I am curious if the other top end threats can carry me through.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Quote:
Originally Posted by rubblekill
Just curious as to what your current list is. I am also playing BUG and keep going back and forth on a Green Sun's Zenith build vs. a Traverse of the Ulvenwald/Emrakul the Promised End build.
One thing I've really loved about Stronghold is it's singlehanded ability to elevate the grindability of this deck. Vet and Therapy already use the grave, but not really so much that we despise grave hate. Stronghold can be your only other graveyard interaction and now your opponent feels real pressure to hate your grave or lose. Then while they're playing grave hate, just play a midrange/fatty and win.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganfar
Hilarious. It seems we have moved away from Recurring Nightmare towards less graveyard dependency.Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
I'll echo this.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadWills
I went 5-1 with Bobmans Jund list yesterday. I removed the Ugin in sideboard for one more Thoughtsezie and Expicate become a Feare Macbaber
The decks were 3-4 color or "punishes decks that don't have basics"
2-1 red stompy
1-2 UW Stoneblade with back to basic
2-1 Bug delver
2-1 Bug aluren
2-0 painter
2-1 4 color controll with truename
I had so much fun with this list, more then the junk version. Loved to play with AD and P.Fire again.
All five planeswalkers was amazing. Chandra ToD is really nice.
Tireless was really good in the last match. I got 8 Clues and draw cards for all of them. Couser really help him out.
I really like Damntaion and Toxic in the SB. Sideboard out Deed when meet creture only matchups.
Primevial Titan was okey. Getting lands is nice but I felt it was winmore. I would like to test with Broadmate Dragon.
10/10 would play it again