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They can't deal with resolved threats, so we just need to go wider. Mentor is our best creature against them, Blood Moon is our best enchantment against them. Moat is also a beating. I personally am playing Moat + Meddling Mage for the cute "naming World Breaker" hard lock.
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Originally Posted by lordofthepit
Step 1, Snapcaster flashback for Brainstorm, fishing for Red Blast effect.
Step 2, Since our fishing drew blank, 3 lands, we FoW pitching Flusterstorm.
Now, doesn't this mean we just lose to opponent's CB? Well..., the top 2 cards on your deck are lands. Unless you have fetches to shuffle, you're dead to a lot of things. If your opponent has CB, he probably would have played it the turn you stopped Jace from resolving. If not, it's still somewhat close to parity.
Blood Moon is probably the best option, since it covers many MUs, not just Eldrazi. The issue with Eldrazi is not solely on the beaters, the Chalice/Stompy aspect of it is also a problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by itrytostorm
I did, but he Forced back with his last two cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by gdtpara
Quote:
Originally Posted by KZhang
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
I agree that option #3 is way better if my opponent doesn't have Force of Will plus blue card, since Flusterstorm would otherwise be nearly worthless and having a Snapcaster Mage to go with the Monastery Mentor would be terrific.Quote:
Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual
Option #3 is much worse if he does have Force of Will though:
- If I choose to cast Snapcaster + Brainstorm with Jace, my Force, and his Force on the stack after having pitched Flusterstorm, then my only outs are 3 REBs and 1 remaining Flusterstorm or double runner into random blue card + 2 remaining Forces, rather than 3 REBs or any blue card.
- If I choose to let Jace resolve, so that I can dig one card deeper after drawing my Arid Mesa, then he gets a Jace activation and I don't even have a Snapcaster available to attack immediately. I am unable to play Monastery Mentor and Snapcaster + Brainstorm on my next main phase, and only one of three remaining REBs effectively deals with Jace.
My uncertainty comes from not being able to determine what my equity is in each of these situations.
Edit: I just noticed that if I found a REB with Option #2, I would not be able to cast both that and Flusterstorm, so I would be priced into pitching Flusterstorm to Force if my opponent Forced back.
I think you still made the right play. It was actually quiet unlikely that the brainstorm blanked AND he has FoW+blue card.
Would the correct play change if you know he has FoW+blue card?
Based on how the game had been playing out, and the fact that he is tapping out for a Jace might make you think fairly strongly that he has FoW+blue card.
Basically, it comes down to: is getting a snapcaster into play and a free card worth a 20% chance that jace resolves? I think it probably is. Even if brainstorm blanks (like it did) the opponent has to brainstorm into perfect cards to deal with the snap+mentor (which in your case he did). However, its probably about a 10-20% chance the opponent draws 2 ways to protect jace THAT turn. Lets say its 25%, thats still only a 5% chance things go horribly wrong if you cast go with option to and snapcaster brainstrom.
So basically if you go with option 2:
80% of the time jace gets countered and you get to resolve a mentor and snapcasters on an opponent with an empty board and hand.
15% of the time you get a snapcaster and mentor and your opponent gets a brainstorm or 2 with Jace before he dies.
5% of the time your oppoenent gets a jace and you are stuck in top deck mode.
What was your opponent's yard? Also, they only had 2 cards in hand. The chances of them being exactly FoW + blue card are low, so option 3 is still better.
>In the event that he FoWs back, I'd let the thing resolve (without casting Snapcaster until you know what your opponent does with Jace). Either Jace goes to 5 and your opponent has zero cards in hand, or your opponent passes turn with 1 card in hand (or 0 if they find the 5th land for turn). Play a land and pass in the first scenario (so you can get value out of your Mentor by leaving 3 mana open for Snapcaster Brainstorm) or you play a Snapcaster EOT if he keeps Jace at 3 and see what your Brainstorm nets you. Then you pressure his Jace with Snapcaster.
>In the event that he has no FoW, well then you just stopped his Jace.
Though the more I think about it, I personally would have probably FoWed pitching Snapcaster. If he FoWs back, cast Flusterstorm. Untap, resolve Mentor, and hopefully don't brick on the next few draws (you would have, though I'd imagine you would have fetched with Mesa to thin). My reasoning is that Jace is so strong in the MU that he cannot be allowed to resolve, and if you have the ability to guarantee that he won't hit the board, take it.
i think in summary,Quote:
Originally Posted by lordofthepit
Option 1 = Low Risk
Option 2 = Mid Risk (you needed to hit a blue card, or REB)
Option 3 = High Risk
Which option to take would play also depend if it's G1,G2 or G3. how much time there is left on the clock.
Another angle to consider is this: Your pilot is a competent Miracles player, so there must be a reason he made the play he did. If it was you instead casting the JTMS, under what circumstances would you be willing to cast the JTMS in that board state?
If you read that he has a FOW, would you still have picked option 2, or gone with Option 1?
Does anyone have any idea what the reasoning is behind the submerges that are consistently showing up in people's sideboards? Joes winning deck from the classic today has 2: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=98922
I guess that's nice against lands and Gxx delver decks, but wouldn't path just be better? What am I missing?
Infect is a less than 50/50 MU.
And I guess it slows Shardless down.
Joe has been running submerge ever since PC from last year.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
Submerge is free, and you cannot do better than free. Of all the MUs, you get to do it for free against:
RUG, BUG, Lands, Infect, Elves, Food Chain, Maverick
It's not just to slow them down, it's also to shuffle back in when you play it in respond to opponent's fetch.
His Legend list has given him 2 trophies, one from Louisville and one from Columbus.
There was no clock since it was a Top 8 matchup. I thought there was a moderate chance he would have a Force of Will.Quote:
Originally Posted by KZhang
Here's my recollection of how the game played out.
- We both kept 7 cards. I had two fetches, Tundra, Island, Counterbalance, Clique, Force of Will.
- My turn 1: Tundra, go
- His turn 1: Ponder, go. Since he's not holding up Spell Snare or REB? I guess this a good chance to slam Counterbalance, especially since I'm soft for one.
- My turn 2: Draw a Brainstorm. Island, Counterbalance. I expect a Force since he was pretty aggressive about cantripping, but it resolves. I put him on not having Force of Will.
- His turn 2: Counterbalance. My copy reveals a Force of Will, so I Force back, pitching the Vendilion Clique sinc ethe . Note that if he had a Force of Will by this turn, he would not have cast it into the Counterbalance.
- My turn 3: Draw the Brainstorm.
- His turn 3: I think this was land, go.
- My turn 4: I think I drew Snapcaster Mage here. He plays a Vendilion Clique on my end step, so I Brainstorm looking for a 3-drop or a REB. I miss, but I find a second Brainstorm, and that finds the Monastery Mentor and the Arid Mesa, the former of which I revealed to the Counterbalance trigger. Something about my recollection is off because I definitely know I don't have an uncracked fetchland available at this point.
- His turn 4: Pyroblast my Counterbalance. I choose not to Force. This could have bene a mistake.
- My turn 5: Draw the Mentor, miss land drop, pass.
- His turn 5: Slam the Jace, as described above. I think based on the game state I described, he was unlikely to have Force of Will by turn 1, but could have found it over his next 4 draw steps. The end step Vendilion Clique was probably intended to clear the way for a turn 4 Jace, but because I answered the Clique with Counterbalance, he likely took that as an opportunity to Pyroblast the Counterbalance while he could do so safely.
I think if I were 100% sure he had Force of Will, I would have chose option #1 at the time since that appears to more safely counter Jace without the possibility of whiffing. However, after doing this retrospective analysis (which I could not possibly have determined during the match), I think option #2 was still most appropriate.Quote:
Originally Posted by KZhang
- 85.6% of the time, I draw either a blue card or a REB to win the counter battle, but in addition, I get to put a Snapcaster Mage on the battlefield and resolve a Brainstorm, so in a substantial fraction of these cases, I'm likely to also pick up a good card.
- 0.64% of the time, I fail to counter the Jace, but I have a Snapcaster Mage on the battlefield, followed by land, Mentor, and two Sensei's Divining Tops. This ensures that I have excellent selection on my turn 7, plus a Mentor and two Monks that will get out of control. He is not likely to have many answers postboard.
- 0.43% of the time, I fail to counter the Jace, but I get Mentor plus Top to add to my Snapcaster, with a backup Mentor in case he finds a sweeper.
- 5.08% of the time, I fail to counter the Jace, but I have Snapcaster, Mentor, and one Top which produces at the minimum one Monk plus likely finds more velocity, plus two fetchlands to give me some better control over my next few draws.
- The 8.25% remaining cases involve me pulling three lands or two lands and a Mentor. This is definitely what I am worried about and the reason I would have chose option #1 in real time (if I knew he had Force of Will backup), but I only get punished if my second and third cards of the library (which are unknown) are in fact land + land or land + Mentor. Because I have no incentive to crack my fetchlands until I hit Brainstorm, Ponder, Top, Snapcaster Mage, or Jace, this means I end up playing draw-go for three turns with a vanilla 2/2. I don't think I'm winning from that situation anyway, although it may be better than trying to beat a Jace with a 2/1 and a 2/2.
Wouldn't you typically slam Jace on an empty board in the Mirror, regardless of FoW in hand? Opposing Clique or follow-up with CB are basically the only blowout risks in that scenario. Ok, maybe a strong suspicion that the opponent has REB would make me hold it back, but otherwise I think I would slam it in most situations. If Jace resolves and nets you a Brainstorm, you are in a pretty good position to protect him. (Barring the aforementioned opposing Clique, because it would deal with Jace on the following turn if you passed with him at 3 loyalty).Quote:
Originally Posted by KZhang
Maybe I'm underestimating the REB risk? OTOH if the opponent burn a REB on Jace, you are more likely to resolve a CB later on.
Just slamming a Jace on an open board is a huge risk. Imagine the other player has REB and untaps into his own Jace?
@AMlordofthepit, I have another question.
On your previous turn he had 2 cards in hand and you could mentor with force and fluster back up no?
Yes, but I did not want to do that because I didn't really have enough velocity in hand to make the Mentor threatening, especially since my next draw would be a land.Quote:
Originally Posted by gdtpara
Regarding the scenario, I have one question :
Why didn't you do anything in your main phase ?
Your opponent had 2 cards in hand to your 4. You were pretty far ahead either by going Mentor -> go or Snap, BS, go. Mentor is pretty tough to interact with as he likely has all his plows taken out post-SB. He might have CS but you can fluster it. If you're really scared, going Snap -> BS ensures you a shuffle (you know Arid Mesa is on top, so it's a very good BS). His only good interaction is REB there.
Not tapping out also doesn't make much sense, as your hand is pretty bad outside of the number of cards present in it. You don't have any good answer to CB/top so just waiting around isn't going to do anything good for you. You have to press the advantage.
From the outside, it just looks like you put yourself into a bad situation and had to take a sub-optimal line because of that. I might be missing some critical pieces to it though.
EDIT : I didn't see the last 2 posts before answering, sorry. You say you didn't play Mentor because you "didn't really have enough velocity". I just don't get this. Who cares ? If he answers it 1-for-1, great, he's on one card and you're on FoW, Fluster, Snap. You're very likely to win the game. If he doesn't, you have quite a few cards to protect it. If he forces it, that's great for you, he's on 0 cards and you have a snap for pressure and a FoW + blue card (and please just main phase the snap so you can land and shuffle). It really looks like you just make a huge blunder by letting your opponent untap, and you lost because of it.
Joe crushed me with a submerge in the quarters of this event. being free is huge.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
I respect Joe and his choices, but.. when is submerge better than Swords to Plowshares?
When you're tapped out?Quote:
Originally Posted by Poron
Joe's deck typically plays more copies of higher costed cards (Clique/Venser vs Ponder/Counterspells). Submerge probably plays better in conjunction to the higher mana costs of the cards in his deck. With Submerge, its easier to (cast all his stuff, Submerge, and pay for taxing counterspells) than it is to (cast all his stuff, Plow, and pay for taxing counterspells). And in the matchups where he's worried about his mana while also wanting another STP, the opponent usually has a forest (RUG delver, BUG delver, Infect, etc).Quote:
Originally Posted by Poron
all (main) G decks play taxing counters, you don't really want to play any spells when you're tapped out.
I can obly see it being better against tokens, so... Marit Lage and Lands..