[Deck] BUG "Shardless" Control

@LarsLeif
I do take out 1 Jace forgot to type that boarding out 5 and putting in 5. 4 Force is only 4.

Containment priest is a 2/2 body and serves as an ambush viper for their Revoker or Spirit of the Labrynth if they do not have a Mother of Runes out. Spirit of the Labrynth is pretty annoying because it turns off your Brainstorms and Ancestral Visions.

I like 2 containment priest in the board because my local environment has Elves, Dredge, Reanimator and Sneak Attack.

Thoughtseize is good if they have a card for you to take. Death and Taxes if they have a vial can empty their hand pretty quickly. Although this is playing into Toxic Deluge you have to draw the Toxic Deluge which also costs life so not so sure about Thoughtseize. Games against Death and Taxes are also a grind where the D+T player is top decking before too long and Thoughtseize really doesn't do much because they vial in their creature or Swords something in response to it if they even have a hand.

I find games I lose to Death and Taxes usually involve vial where they can develop their board while attacking your mana and you don't get that Toxic Deluge or Equipment I can't deal with.

@Dom
I don't like Strix because it is a nombo with Toxic Deluge. Main deck discard I am not a fan of because it is bad against the grindy decks. 4 Force of Will is great because you have so much card advantage and you can pitch Ancestral Visions you drew. Should be running 4 Ancestral Visions as well.

@Islandswamp
Congratulations on finishing Shardless on MTGO. I will be waiting for Tempest Remastered to pick up Wastelands for less money and then maybe looking at the Tarmogoyfs.

How has Dig Through time been for you? Not sure what to cut for it so have not tried it.

You have enough card advantage through Ancestral Visions, Cascade and Jace that you can keep the Force of Will count at 4. Your Ancestral Visions count should also be at 4 to maximize getting one turn 1 or cascading into it. Drawing 3 is always good. If you draw one you can pitch it to Force of Will or Brainstorm it back.

@Krimson Viper
2 Liliana is a good number, maybe 3 but I cut the 3rd one for Tasigur and really like Tasigur.

I kind of like the 3 discard main now that TC is not around. I would rather have hymn main and seize in the board. Also I love strix but can see cutting to 1 main 1 board.

Whats everyone feeling on creeping tarpit? I see a lot of list running 1 of or none. Also the Dig has been great, I will leave it in as a singleton. Ill test with The golden fang tonight.

Hooray, thread is live again!

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Originally Posted by LarsLeif

I like the white sideboard. I would as I've stated before like to see a 4-1 split (or 4-2) between MM and C-Priest as MM are live in all combo-MU's and fantastic in multiples. C-priest is a bit worse in multiples and useless against both storm and OmniTell.

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I have tried the white sideboard but only found myself boarding in a Scrubland against Death and Taxes. The combo matchups in my meta feature Elves, Dredge, Reanimator, Tin Fins, Rw Imperial Painter, Dark Depths something and that is more or less it, thus Meddling Mages do not seem that good. Containment Priest is okay, but she does nothing against Lands where I certainly need normal gy hate and I prefer casting a Surgical or Grafdigger's Cage against Tin Fins and Reanimator because Reanimator has multiple ways to reanimate and Tin Fins can just storm you to death, whereas Dredge is easy with either sideboard. MM and CP are decent versus elves but I tend to board a 2nd Deluge and it is not fun to blow up my mages... Also, Blood Moon is a thing in my metagame. In a nutshell, whichever split I would choose, white splash seems unnecessary in my metagame.

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Originally Posted by LarsLeif

I can definitely recommend cutting discard (at least hymns) and strixes from the main deck for another deluge. That way you can run a basic forest and cast all your 2-cmc spells with Swamp & Forest which is nice! :)

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As stated below, Strix has been great for me, though Hymn might get cut after a while. I am not so sure if I want a Forest, though.

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Originally Posted by Kirika

@Dom
I don't like Strix because it is a nombo with Toxic Deluge. Main deck discard I am not a fan of because it is bad against the grindy decks. 4 Force of Will is great because you have so much card advantage and you can pitch Ancestral Visions you drew. Should be running 4 Ancestral Visions as well.

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Losing Strix to Deluge after cantriping and having a wall/beater is not really that bad, in my opinion. In fact, I have boarded the third one in 75% of my games, usually accompanied with a 2nd Deluge. Strix can also be fed to FoW, which is nice.

I have enjoyed G1 discard as it improves my chances to win pre-board and also provides information of what my opponent has in hand and what is s/he playing. Although I have always sided it out, Hymn has won me some games. Hymn always left my MB because of Obstinate Baloth/Loxodon Smiter/Wilt-Leaf Liege that often appear in my playground, as well as grave-based strategies and Blood Moon seeing enough play.

FoW currently has a 55% rate in favour of being sided in (the fourth one) and 45% of being sided out completely, so far I have been pleased with 3/1 split.

I have tried running the fourth AV but was not entirely pleased with that, thus added a Sylvan Library instead, which is awesome as it helps to set Cascades or just filters my top decks. I also have a DTT for more digging.

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Originally Posted by Kirika

How has Dig Through time been for you? Not sure what to cut for it so have not tried it.

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Dig Through Time has helped me find answers in some situations by providing a FoW with fodder, AD, creatures, Jace, etc. Being a blue instant also makes it worth trying out.

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Originally Posted by SilkyPimP

I kind of like the 3 discard main now that TC is not around. I would rather have hymn main and seize in the board. Also I love strix but can see cutting to 1 main 1 board.

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I have been more pleased with TS. Despite Hymn has been good a few times, I am thinking about cutting it entirely. Also, I have had two Hymns in side but replaced with Duresses as I have never sided them in, whereas Duress has already proven itself after packing it in two tournaments. It costs B, gets rid of Blood Moon, Reanimator thingies, etc.

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Originally Posted by SilkyPimP

Whats everyone feeling on creeping tarpit? I see a lot of list running 1 of or none. Also the Dig has been great, I will leave it in as a singleton. Ill test with The golden fang tonight.

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It has been great as a 2-off for me so far and I am unwilling to go down to one.

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Originally Posted by Kirika

@LarsLeif
I do take out 1 Jace forgot to type that boarding out 5 and putting in 5. 4 Force is only 4.

Containment priest is a 2/2 body and serves as an ambush viper for their Revoker or Spirit of the Labrynth if they do not have a Mother of Runes out. Spirit of the Labrynth is pretty annoying because it turns off your Brainstorms and Ancestral Visions.

I like 2 containment priest in the board because my local environment has Elves, Dredge, Reanimator and Sneak Attack.

Thoughtseize is good if they have a card for you to take. Death and Taxes if they have a vial can empty their hand pretty quickly. Although this is playing into Toxic Deluge you have to draw the Toxic Deluge which also costs life so not so sure about Thoughtseize. Games against Death and Taxes are also a grind where the D+T player is top decking before too long and Thoughtseize really doesn't do much because they vial in their creature or Swords something in response to it if they even have a hand.

I find games I lose to Death and Taxes usually involve vial where they can develop their board while attacking your mana and you don't get that Toxic Deluge or Equipment I can't deal with.

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I would not board in a card because it's occasionally an Ambush Viper against a 1-2-off in their deck if they don't have Mom (of which they run 4). It is just diluting your decks game-plan.

Thoughtseize usually always have targets, especially against a stoneforge-deck. Sure, it's dead beyond turn seven or so but you run several sweepers, 4 visions and 4 brainstorm so you should just be able to either get rid of it or just win if the game goes that long. Before they run out of cards it's super good however. It lets you interact with their SfM, Vials and also deal with things such as Cataclysm and hard-to-deal with permanents like Mirran Crusader before they come down which is pretty huge. I definitely recommend it. And I've tested the matchup a lot.

There's too many things to start quoting everything but I have some general comments:

1. First of, nice to see the thread live again, we had a dark time during TC, but now we are back, lets aim to take the deck back to DTB! :)

2. Strix is a super nice card, but has some drawbacks: You have to fetch more nonbasics to cast it, it's worse with deluge and nowadays most tempo-decks are playing more removal for it such as Patriot with their 7 removal, rug with forked bolts or TA with disfigures. I feel it's worse in the meta than it was a couple of years ago. Strix is also quite slow I feel.

3. Creeping Tar Pit is good in our good matchups such as slow blade decks and miracles, but bad against faster decks or decks with wasteland. Both me and Lejay felt is was too slow and clunky because it enters the battlefield tapped.

4. I agree with Kirika here. 4 Visions is almost always the correct number, it's why we play Shardless Agent after all. It's a real cost for us not being able to play any reactive spells with CMC 2 or less so we better make up for that drawback by maximizing our cascades.

5. Again like Kirika says, 4 force is also the correct number.

6. Discard in the main deck is also something that is up for debate. I don't think they are necessary main as this is a deck meant to beat mainly other fair decks, and you can play better cards in those discard spells in the main deck and dedicate the board to combo instead and have access to the discard in the fair matchups they are relevant in. But if you expect a lot of blade and a lot of combo/control but not so many delver decks I guess some MD discard is ok.

But with all this said, the deck is pretty nice however you construct it as long as you can motivate your inclusions.

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Originally Posted by Kirika

@LarsLeif
I do take out 1 Jace forgot to type that boarding out 5 and putting in 5. 4 Force is only 4.

Containment priest is a 2/2 body and serves as an ambush viper for their Revoker or Spirit of the Labrynth if they do not have a Mother of Runes out. Spirit of the Labrynth is pretty annoying because it turns off your Brainstorms and Ancestral Visions.

I like 2 containment priest in the board because my local environment has Elves, Dredge, Reanimator and Sneak Attack.

Thoughtseize is good if they have a card for you to take. Death and Taxes if they have a vial can empty their hand pretty quickly. Although this is playing into Toxic Deluge you have to draw the Toxic Deluge which also costs life so not so sure about Thoughtseize. Games against Death and Taxes are also a grind where the D+T player is top decking before too long and Thoughtseize really doesn't do much because they vial in their creature or Swords something in response to it if they even have a hand.

I find games I lose to Death and Taxes usually involve vial where they can develop their board while attacking your mana and you don't get that Toxic Deluge or Equipment I can't deal with.

@Dom
I don't like Strix because it is a nombo with Toxic Deluge. Main deck discard I am not a fan of because it is bad against the grindy decks. 4 Force of Will is great because you have so much card advantage and you can pitch Ancestral Visions you drew. Should be running 4 Ancestral Visions as well.

@Islandswamp
Congratulations on finishing Shardless on MTGO. I will be waiting for Tempest Remastered to pick up Wastelands for less money and then maybe looking at the Tarmogoyfs.

How has Dig Through time been for you? Not sure what to cut for it so have not tried it.

You have enough card advantage through Ancestral Visions, Cascade and Jace that you can keep the Force of Will count at 4. Your Ancestral Visions count should also be at 4 to maximize getting one turn 1 or cascading into it. Drawing 3 is always good. If you draw one you can pitch it to Force of Will or Brainstorm it back.

@Krimson Viper
2 Liliana is a good number, maybe 3 but I cut the 3rd one for Tasigur and really like Tasigur.

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Dig Through Time is a card I end up sideboarding out a lot. I played four ancestral vision for quite a while, but most lists only run three nowadays, so I tried cutting it for more room for other cards.

I picked up a tasigur today, and I'm giving him another shot. I had one once, but I never had it when I would have wanted it, and like DTT, I always wanted to take it out games 2/3.

I don't know what everyone's opinion is on basics in the deck, but I'm going with a swamp and forest to hopefully be able to abrupt decay a blood moon some day.

I played a few games just now, went 2-0 against Miracles, lost 0-2 to bug delver (I think it was a couple of weak hands, I usually do well in that match up), then won against T.E.S. 2-1. I've done a lot better against combo that I expected lately.
I play Team America as well, both decks are fun for me. I feel like Sultai is the best wedge in Legacy.

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Originally Posted by LarsLeif

There's too many things to start quoting everything but I have some general comments:

1. First of, nice to see the thread live again, we had a dark time during TC, but now we are back, lets aim to take the deck back to DTB! :)

2. Strix is a super nice card, but has some drawbacks: You have to fetch more nonbasics to cast it, it's worse with deluge and nowadays most tempo-decks are playing more removal for it such as Patriot with their 7 removal, rug with forked bolts or TA with disfigures. I feel it's worse in the meta than it was a couple of years ago. Strix is also quite slow I feel.

3. Creeping Tar Pit is good in our good matchups such as slow blade decks and miracles, but bad against faster decks or decks with wasteland. Both me and Lejay felt is was too slow and clunky because it enters the battlefield tapped.

4. I agree with Kirika here. 4 Visions is almost always the correct number, it's why we play Shardless Agent after all. It's a real cost for us not being able to play any reactive spells with CMC 2 or less so we better make up for that drawback by maximizing our cascades.

5. Again like Kirika says, 4 force is also the correct number.

6. Discard in the main deck is also something that is up for debate. I don't think they are necessary main as this is a deck meant to beat mainly other fair decks, and you can play better cards in those discard spells in the main deck and dedicate the board to combo instead and have access to the discard in the fair matchups they are relevant in. But if you expect a lot of blade and a lot of combo/control but not so many delver decks I guess some MD discard is ok.

But with all this said, the deck is pretty nice however you construct it as long as you can motivate your inclusions.

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I just started playing legacy like a month ago, although I've read about it a lot in the past, and I played magic since before it was even called Legacy (t 1.5)

I write articles for puremtgo.com, I just did one on Shardless BUG. I mentioned in my article that it seemed like treasure cruise being so easy to cast seemed to overshadow this deck and ancestral vision. If anyone wants to read it, and critique it, please feel free. http://puremtgo.com/articles/legacy-...cascades-value

Also, I'm always looking for more players to test with on MTGO, Islandswamp is my user name.

I would not play 4 visions because they are dead in the mid/late game so adding a dig helps with that problem. And 4 forces is too many imo because the deck is already short on blue cards

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Originally Posted by James_Nguyen

I would not play 4 visions because they are dead in the mid/late game so adding a dig helps with that problem. And 4 forces is too many imo because the deck is already short on blue cards

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If built correctly the deck has a healthy blue-count, especially post board against combo. Force is also very important for us to be able to react to what our opponent is doing early-game, whether it's forcing a delver, entomb or goblin lackey.

Regarding the number of visions it's not dead later in the game at all, you can still cascade it, suspend it, pitch it to fow or shuffle it away with brainstorm. Playing fewer than 4 does not make it better in the late-game, you're only less likely to see it overall, including when you play a blind agent. Again, playing shardless is a drawback, and if we start cutting visions for DTT we should probably consider playing another deck that can play a more reactive game where DTT can be a key player. If you really don't want to be clunky you can board a few visions out.

You can of course play a DTT alongside the visions, but cutting our deck's most important card for DTT is not a good way to build the deck.

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Originally Posted by LarsLeif

If built correctly the deck has a healthy blue-count, especially post board against combo. Force is also very important for us to be able to react to what our opponent is doing early-game, whether it's forcing a delver, entomb or goblin lackey.

Regarding the number of visions it's not dead later in the game at all, you can still cascade it, suspend it, pitch it to fow or shuffle it away with brainstorm. Playing fewer than 4 does not make it better in the late-game, you're only less likely to see it overall, including when you play a blind agent. Again, playing shardless is a drawback, and if we start cutting visions for DTT we should probably consider playing another deck that can play a more reactive game where DTT can be a key player. If you really don't want to be clunky you can board a few visions out.

You can of course play a DTT alongside the visions, but cutting our deck's most important card for DTT is not a good way to build the deck.

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What do you mean by built correctly? I'm I misbuilding my deck? How many blue cards should one have in their deck if they choice to play with 4 force of wills?

I've seen a list or two with Snapcaster Mage, but no talk about it. How is it in this deck and should I keep my set?

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Originally Posted by Krimson Viper

I've seen a list or two with Snapcaster Mage, but no talk about it. How is it in this deck and should I keep my set?

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If I recall correctly, Snapcaster Mage had appeared in a few lists when Shardless BUG was a new archetype. He failed to become an auto-include because he is a terrible cascade and Shardless is lacking targets for Snapcaster. Nevertheless, you might consider keeping a few because he can be used in BUG Control, thus you would expand your deck assortment.

Hold onto em. They're outside the reprint range for MM2 and highly sought after. A year from now they'll be at Dark Confidant prices.

I just got around to building this deck over the weekend and I really enjoy it. Looking forward to reading back through this thread and getting a better understanding of how it all works. :)

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Originally Posted by DOM

If I recall correctly, Snapcaster Mage had appeared in a few lists when Shardless BUG was a new archetype. He failed to become an auto-include because he is a terrible cascade and Shardless is lacking targets for Snapcaster. Nevertheless, you might consider keeping a few because he can be used in BUG Control, thus you would expand your deck assortment.

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BUG Control? I thought there was only one BUG colored control deck: Shardless BUG?

Man Lejay's deck is great. I don't know how people can play only 2 wasteland and baleful stinks. I've been very content with zero discard main deck. Currently 6-1 in DEs with the deck (I got dropped playing for 4-0 since modo is a piece of garbage), and I’ve had no prior experience with this archetype. My only loss was to the mirror. So I’m really impressed. But I've beaten a lot of combo, so I’m probably lucky (tin fins, 3x storm, 1x omnitell)

I updated it a little bit with the new cards.

-1 goyf || +1 tasigur
-1 force || +1 dig through time

I keep the blue count the same, weakening myself to combo by losing a force. And I replaced goyf with another goyf like card. This changes the numbers a bit on shardless agent's cascade, I’m not sure if it's a good or bad change.

I also didn't like the plow in the sideboard. You want to bring it in vs wasteland decks and having a wastable white source is a liability, so I just cut it for a containment priest for sneak and show/reanimator hate. I also cut a duress, to put the 4th force in the board, that hurts the burn % but I think I'm fine with that.

I know Lejay has a tuned sideboard where he has the right amount of bad cards in his main deck to replace with his good sideboard cards. These changes could be wrong, but they haven't been completely terrible yet.


http://i.imgur.com/TzIJCPT.jpg

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Originally Posted by rickster

-1 goyf || +1 tasigur

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Please don't do that, I would rather cut a toxic deluge. Goyf is too important to be cut, and it is the best cascade target behind av.

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Originally Posted by James_Nguyen

What do you mean by built correctly? I'm I misbuilding my deck? How many blue cards should one have in their deck if they choice to play with 4 force of wills?

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If you start with:

4 Vision
4 Shardless Agent
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
2 Jace

Then your blue-count is already at a pretty healthy 18. That is not counting things like a possible DTT or Ponder (Lejay's list runs 1 Ponder instead of the 23:rd land, and I do that as well). In this deck with 4 visions you are also very likely to have a few extra blue-cards to pitch if necessary.

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-1 goyf || +1 tasigur
-1 force || +1 dig through time

I also didn't like the plow in the sideboard. You want to bring it in vs wasteland decks and having a wastable white source is a liability, so I just cut it for a containment priest for sneak and show/reanimator hate. I also cut a duress, to put the 4th force in the board, that hurts the burn % but I think I'm fine with that.

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Don't cut goyf. Other than for budget-reasons you don't cut that card.

Replacing force with dig is interesting but I don't like it, if you really want to play DTT you can replace a Jace or the sylvan with it, not our combo-protection.

Replacing the Plow with something else is interesting but you should at least consider the following:

1. You can cast plow without fetching the Savannah with DRS, or cascade it. Even if they waste your Savannah it is usually fine as you don't have any other white spells and they're basically wasting a forest.

2. The plow is for Delver and other fair creature-based decks, so keep in mind that replacing it with priest that doesn't do anything against those decks weakens your fair matchups a bit. Not by a lot but it is important to keep in mind why the plow is there in the first place.

Local IQ next week where Delver/S&T/Jund are heavily played. (Possibly infect, Tom Ross plays here so a lot of our locals play infect last 2 events.)
I have not played since the invitational so I am tweaking to play some Legacy :cool:

I am running 2 thoughtseize main this time. with 2 hymn/1 duress/1 thoughtseize in the board. I know a lot of us have been playing 0 discard main, which I have had a lot of good results with myself. I just want to be "pre boarded" a little when I play the combo decks this time.
Its either going to be 2 hymn or 2 seize main, a few people are going to be running S&T and storm because of my deck/elves doing well last few events. Maybe I should just jump on the meddling mage board tech? I have yet to try it.


Dropping to 1 strix/1 deluge (hard to cut them because we have such a heavy delver meta)

4 Shardless Agent
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Baleful Strix
3 Ancestral Vision
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
1 Dig Through Time
2 Thoughtseize
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Wasteland
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Bayou
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Toxic Deluge
4 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest

I really like the Sylvan Library/DTT but I can see cutting them. The Library/Strix make the goyfs massive in all my games.

I will have to playtest this week with our group and see what the board should be. I have even run chill last IQ because they had so much UR Delver/Jund/Burn going around, I really enjoyed chill against Jund, lol watching them squirm under it when they have a handful of punishing fires/bloodbraid/bolts it nice. its probably not needed :tongue:

Went 2-2 this past weekend at my local legacy event.

Beat Elves and High Tide, and lost to Infect and Storm.

Main deck toxic deluge is just so good against elves winning me game 1. Game 2 he was never in it since I had containment priest, meddling mage followed by a Night of Souls Betrayal.

vs Elves board
+2 Containment Priest, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +4 Meddling Mage +1 Night of Souls Betrayal, +1 Savannah, +1 Swords to Plowshares, +2 Thoughtseize
-4 Ancestral Visions, -1 Forest, -2 Jace, -1 Sylvan Library, -4 Tarmogoyf

high tide he got me game 1 though 1 force and I drew a force off the spiral but he had a counter for that too. Games 2 and 3 Meddling Mage on High Tide takes it with some help from Discard to take wipe away that he wished or merchant scrolled for.

vs High Tide board
+2 Duress, +4 Meddling Mage, +1 Savannah, +2 Thoughtseize
-4 Ancestral Visions, -1 Wasteland, -2 Tarmogoyf, -2 Toxic Deludge

Game 1 Infect had the nuts turn 2 kill and I did not have the force or decay. Won game 2. Game 3 he had an inkmoth kill while I was holding Decay and Liliana :(

Infect I board
+1 Night of Soul's Betrayl, +1 Savannah, +1 Swords to Plowshares, +2 Thoughtseize
-4 Ancestral Visions, -1 Underground Sea

Storm got me game 1 didn't draw any forces. Game 2 I had the force for his turn 1 ad nausuem and had a turn 2 mage on Infernal Tutor. Game 3 I duressed him took his ad nasuem but he braintormed into gas and made 16 goblins turn 2 and I could not find my one of Maelstrom Pulse. I boarded out both Toxic Deluge maybe should keep those in.

Board plan versus storm is
+2 Duress, +1 Grafdigger's Cage, +4 Meddling Mage, +1 Null Rod, +2 Thoughtseize
-4 Abrupt Decay, -2 Toxic Deluge, -4 Ancestral Visions
Maybe I should keep a Deluge or two and take out Shardless Agent since its pretty slow. Shardless can cascade into discard or Meddling Mage, or Null Rod though.


@Lars Leif
I find that active vial is pretty bad news because they can swarm you or attack your mana while still developing their board. Didn't play against Death and Taxes this week so did not get to try the Thoughtseize plan.

I've had using Containment Priest to nerf vial be game winning where they had a handful of creatures that were able to be dealt with one at a time or they didn't have double white or had even no colored lands. The Ambush viper on Spirit of the Labrynth came up at least twice so it does work.

@Island Swamp
Not sure how I would fit in a Dig through Time but Tasigur is awesome.

I think you need Forest and Swamp so you can abrupt decay bloodmoon. I typically fetch for forest and then just get Underground Seas after that unless I know I am playing Bloodmoon and then I get the Swamp.

I been playing since 94 myself. I would play MTGO but its so expensive. Wastelands cost alot although Tempest Remaster helps that. Dunno if I want to buy Goyfs again either.

@James_Nguyen
4 Visions is necessary so you have max chance to cascade into them or draw them turn 1. Late game you can Brainstorm them back or pitch them to Force.

@Krimson Viper
Snapcaster is not very good in Shardless because it is bad to cascade into since you might not have mana to use the flashback ability.

@rickster
Cutting force just seems bad. You have enough card advantage that pitching a card to force is not a huge deal and you really need the full 4 versus combo.

I cut the 3rd Liliana for Tasigur and have not missed it.

I like the Plowshares since it kills things that disfigure and abrupt decay do not. Would not cut Plowshares for Containment Priest. You should cut the Leyline or Cage for Priest depending if you face things like Loam or Punishing Fire. I ended up cutting Needle for a second Priest since Elves and Show and Tell are popular in my meta. There are match ups like Delver, Stoneblade decks, Infect that you want extra removal.