[Deck] UW Tempo

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Originally Posted by pi4meterftw

@Skeggi: I assume you read my whole post, otherwise it would be flawed of you to send in a rebuttal. Supposing you did, is it that you disagree with my claim that sphinx is virtual CA, or is it that you misunderstood? I felt like I was completely forthcoming on that aspect of sphinx, but I suppose I didn't type it in italicized bold all caps or anything.

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All I'm saying is, if Sphinx is so often virtual CA as you describe it, you may want to reconsider your deck. If the situations where you can just throw away three cards because they're crap are so common, you may have to start and wonder if it may be more efficient to run more cantrips for example. Just throwing these cards away, crap or not, seems like a waste.

Running Sphinx to ditch 3 worthless cards in your hands hardly seems like optimal play. However, I am intrigued by the quick dismissal of Sea Drake. The play Sea Drake, trigger on stack, unmorph Seer, only have 1 land on the battlefield, Sea Drake's trigger is countered, seems worth looking into. Doesn't it?

My experience with the deck is that the 'tempo' bit isn't as 'tempo' as the 'tempo' in Tempo Thresh. The reason: the creatures are weak. So I fully understand the search to a more powerful creature. It looks like you need more creatures with power of 4 or higher with a cmc of 3 or less. And no, I think Sphinx isn't up for this task. There's a reason we don't play him in Faerie Stompy, not even if he was :2::u:.

Went 3-1-1 today, finished 6th out of 21, the last standing in prizes.

It started with a 1-1 draw against UW Mystic Fish. Game I start with Vial, but get stuck on one land. I then get blown own by vialed mystics and equipments on my opponent's part. Game2 my opponent gets flooded, and after a few attrition wars I manage to flip a couple of Fathom Seers and overwhelm. Game3 I'm screwed again, though with Vial and the Wasteland from my opponent leaves me on one Wasteland of my own. He gets an active SOLaS, and I can't race that with 2 Avengers and Grunt. The game ends on turns. I would have lost the game if it wasn't for the turns.

Played against Dragon Stompy next round. I get flooded game one, no counters and jitte + solas destroy me. Game 2 I manage to lay out a bunch of creatures, counter some threats and promptly win. Game3 I keep a crappy hand that folds to Chalice at 1. My hand is literally all one-drops. He starts with Chalice at one. Nevertheless, all he has is a bunch of mana and we keep topdecking nothing (brainstorms, vials etc for me, lands for him). I need an Aura, but he gets creatures + jitte before I find one. Disappointing start.

Weird Living Death Sliver aggro in round3. Not much to say, jitte destroys him both games. 2-0

BG Train Wreck in the 4th. He gets flooded game 1, and I win on back up of card advantage. Game2 I just get blown out by 4 deeds or so. Game 3 is very long, and after going back and forth and eating tons of removal I manage to deal last points of damage. There was literally like 15 cards left in my library.

Last round I'm paired against RGW survival. I lose game 1 to overwhelming hand on his part, and it didn't help that I was flooded. Game 2 I manage to stick a Wayfarer, that gives me a mana to work with, some removal and Jotun Grunt + Serra Avenger finish the job. Game3 he goes for Jitte with Mystic, but I have a mom, and he can't attack me, despite laying a bunch of creatures. Two Aven Mindcensors then joined by Serra Avenger bring him to zero.

Out of sheer curiosity I've tried to run SOLaS in Sphinx slot today. Don't do this. SOLaS sucks for this deck, leave it for Mystic Fish (which runs more lands, full set of Vials, and generally is less mana hungry). I've never felt it was good. I often wished it was something else entirely. Back to Sphinx now. Wing Shards were once again awesome.

I've played UWT in 22-ppl tournament with no quite speactacular 2-1-1 finish. I don't have the optimal build, maybe. And I also lost to some crappy luck and/or not knowing the deck well. Not to mention that our metagame is just insane:

UWT
Elves
Landstill
Survival
Tress
Thrash
MBA
4cPainter/Humility/Thopter.dec
double Depths
double Merfolk
Reanimator
Zoo
New Horizons
and stuff

good luck with sideboarding... :rolleyes:

Spicy :)

I have to tell you that I'm dismissing Sea Drake because between him and seer (not necessarily having both of them at once) puts a lot of pressure on the deck's mana imo. Maybe I'm wrong. The deck already functions on pretty low amounts of mana and something else that returns lands may be overkill.

A side note: When Sea Drake's ability is on the stack, you've already targeted which two lands are to be removed. When it gets countered, it's not because on resolution it checked and you only had one land. This is only important because you could cast sea drake when you have 4 lands, his ability goes on the stack and you target which two lands are to be returned, you then face-up the seer using those two lands, then the ability is countered and you're still left with two lands instead of 0.

I would be interested in the level up guy too, but I think one of the main things we "want" is a CMC of 3 so we have a solid beater that can reliably get around spell snare, CB, Chalice @ 2. Maybe not.

Chalice @ one hurts. If you're consistently getting wtfpwned by chalice @ 1 maybe consider wipe away in the board.

Playing similar decks I too have been demoralized by Engineered Explosives repeatedly. Making me wonder if 2 Aura's are enough. EE @ 1 is teh easy to cast vs Aura's 3.
:eek:

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Originally Posted by Aleksandr

I've played UWT in 22-ppl tournament with no quite speactacular 2-1-1 finish. I don't have the optimal build, maybe. And I also lost to some crappy luck and/or not knowing the deck well. Not to mention that our metagame is just insane:

UWT
Elves
Landstill
Survival
Tress
Thrash
MBA
4cPainter/Humility/Thopter.dec
double Depths
double Merfolk
Reanimator
Zoo
New Horizons
and stuff

good luck with sideboarding... :rolleyes:

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Are you serious, your metagame has ZERO storm combo?

I might play lands or enchantress in that meta, but that's pretty wild. Storm Combo is usually 20% at least of any metagame.

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

Are you serious, your metagame has ZERO storm combo?

I might play lands or enchantress in that meta, but that's pretty wild. Storm Combo is usually 20% at least of any metagame.

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StormCombo.guys were missing yesterday. One of them played Elves, the other one I have not seen for weeks... :-)

And, no, I won't play lands or enchantress or any other non-blue deck; never ever, in any metagame possible, on earth, in the air, on sea and underwater.

What happens when they StP your vexing Sphinx? Autoloss?

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Originally Posted by Genericcactus

What happens when they StP your vexing Sphinx? Autoloss?

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Yes.

Some people just tend to produce ridiculous statements over and over. Like this deck loses to Merfolk and needs improvement in that area. Like 3cc equipments or Serendib Efreet is any good. This isn't your average fish deck, its different.

Never I had my Vexing Sphinx StPed, not once.

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Originally Posted by bleuisforwhimps

Stoneforge mystic's ability can't be countered and cost 2. Your vexing sphinx never got plowed? Good for you, because if he gets plowed you lose.
Also; merfolk is a bad matchup with the original list, they play almost no non-basic lands you can waste, you play islands, cursecather is one zillion times better against you than wayfarer is against them etc... .
About ridiculous statements:'Never I had my Vexing Sphinx StPed, not once.' nuff said.

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It sucks for a fellow troll to say this, but don't feed the trolls.

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Originally Posted by bleuisforwhimps

I see you guys playing 2 aether vial? I understand you dont want to see multiples but since this is supposed to be a tempo deck you want to maximize your chances of having one in your opening hand, really.Also, I played the deck with wayfarer and fathom seer and I think too much energy is spend there trying to do fancy things instead of beating the opponent to zero life, so I tested a list with 4 Aether vial, 4 mystics and 4 serendib efreets, 2 jitte and 1 Sofi, I also cut down mom to 3.There is alot of bant and merfolk in my meta and the sofi and 4 aether vials proved to be a major improvement against merfolk wich I found a terrible matchup. Against probant the mystics+jitte buy you a round against progenitus and if you get them online soon they don't stand a chance, you just ping the hierarch or dryad arbor that show up.The serendib efreet is just a jitte wielding flyer wich doesn't die to bolt and I've been happy with him.For 3 mana I'd rather have a 3/4 flyer than a 1/3 chumper really.

btw:never played vexing sphinx and prolly never will, rather have more grunt

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If you're playing this deck without fathom seer then yes, merfolk will be a bad matchup because they'll just islandwalk all over you. I personally would rather have the 2/2 for three that keeps merfolk from islandwalking past my creatures and draws me two cards than a 3/4 flier that makes their job easier. In a similar fashion, I'd rather have a 4/4 for three mana that either draws me cards/wins me the game/gains me 4 life(if it eats a StP). I could see where you might think that "too much energy" is spent "trying to do fancy things", but those fancy things win games if you know how to do them.

I've won games without a single vial hitting the table, in fact, past turn one-four you don't really want to see it anymore as it is, and once you start seeing cards you don't want, sphinx is a great investment and lets you dump those less-than-useful cards. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there are often situations where I wish I could just trade in cards for advantage, but when I don't really need to play a vial or more land I love having a 4/4 flying beater where the only drawback isn't a drawback anymore because it lets me cycle through my deck a little faster while getting rid of those unimportant cards, besides why not discard cards when you have the option of just grunting them back into your deck?

I'm 8-0 for games against Merfolk. And everyone else has comparable records. At the last data compilation it was 9-0-2 on matches.

Even if you're not smart enough to notice how Merfolk is outclassed in every way in this matchup, you could just go by the data.

Today I played the deck for the first time in real,in a little 8 men tournament. Dunno if it may turn useful for Forbiddian, but I will post my results. I went 3-0, winning each match 2-0.
The list:

// Lands
1 [UG] Island
4 [B] Tundra
3 [TE] Wasteland
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [MI] Plains (3)
1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
2 [ZEN] Arid Mesa

// Creatures
2 [CS] Jotun Grunt
4 [TSP] Serra Avenger
4 [ON] Weathered Wayfarer
4 [UL] Mother of Runes
4 [TSP] Fathom Seer
2 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
1 [MOR] Vendilion Clique

// Spells
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [DS] AEther Vial
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
3 [NE] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [MI] Enlightened Tutor
SB: 2 [WL] Aura of Silence
SB: 1 [LRW] Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 [SHM] Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 [A] Meekstone
SB: 1 [FD] Trinket Mage
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
1 EE
1 Thorn (slots that had to be cut for 2 Shards which i didn't find b4 the tourney).

Round 1 - Pro Bant

He's a very good player, and top8s several times in most of the Milan tourneys.
Game 1-He starts out with 3 Hierarchs+ a Counterbalance and lots of lands, while I'm on the defeinsive taing 3 damage a turn from a triple exalted NH and I have 2 Wayfarers out to develop my manabase. I I also landed a Jitte, but I was waiting because I saw a stp from a CB flip.The decisive play comes when he taps for for a Natural order saccing a NH. I'm holding FoW, Piercex2, Daze, 2 lands, 1 vial. I try to Pierce it because he brainstormed the turn before and I suspected he had put a Fow on top knowing that I would have forced it, especally with so many cards in hand. He has 2 lands untapped, of which 1 is a fetchland. I try to Pierce it, he fetches, I cut, flips, rainforest. He pays, I daze. He's fully tapped, and this allows me to Jequip, swing, kill Hierarchs, and slowly overwhelm him both beginning to wasteland his white sources and jitteing like a champ.

Side: .1 Wayfarer, -1 Avenger, -1 Grunt; +1 Needle, +1 Meekstone, +1 Trinket Mage

Game 2-He again drops Counterbalance on turn 2, I put a Needle on SDT fearing it with no counters in hand. He goes Qasali instead, and again I'm taing damages waiting to balance his assault. I Wayfarer several turns the Wasteland I need, slowly grinding him off lands: a Tropical before, then a Wasteland I already had takes off his Tundra. I try to Avenger 2 times, but 1 gets countered off a blind flip, 1 gets stped. He goes on attacking with the QP but he's short on only island, and does not topdeck any land. I go on trying to board a threat, getting a FoW and some other blind flips, and finally while I'm at 6 a Vendilion in my turn (fearing a Brainstorm in response or a Fow drawn) shows his hand of Stp, Goyf, Order. I do not take anything. I pass. He braintorms in his turn, I daze, he flips a Stp. He beats, I go to 3. In my turn, i draw a Jitte, play it, resolves, feth, go to 2, equip, swing, kill Pridemage, he scoops just few moments before going to turns (I guess he would have lost anyways, he was at 13).

Round 2-GW Aggro

Game 1: I remember he was playing something like Death and Taxes, but when he goes t1 Mother, t2 Hierarch I change my ideas. Long story short, I land some Wayfarers, optimize my hand via WW+Fetch, in his turn i Vendilion in response to a fetchland seeing 4 lands and an Avenger. I take Avenger, in my turn Jequip, swing, kill Mother and Hierarch, and he's downward from there.

Side- -1 Wayfarer, -1 Jotun (he played them too almost surely and had lots of flying dudes), +1 needle, +1 Trinket

Game 2: This is quite interesting. T2 Sylvan Library, which gets Dazed. Meanwhile, I Brainstorm several times and vial my SFM (immediatelystp'ed), to optimize my hand, which holds double stp, a Fow, a Pierce, 2 Avengers, and 2 jittes.. He vials double Grunt, I take some beats, then Grunt dies. I land a Jitte, he goes Avenger, stp in response to Sword of fire and Ice equipping. I land my own Avenger, stp'ed. Meanwhile I've drawn a Mother, stp'ed. I beat with a Jitted Avenger, Grip on Jitte. I land another Jitte and equip it, beat, 2 counter, beat another time, 4 counter, topecks a Grip for Jitte again.
But on the long run, the deck shows his superiority in cantripping and optimization when I draw Grunt, Seer, Clique and Mother, which grind hm off, while he's holding 2 vials and 2 lands in hand. Oh,also a Needle on his SoFI.

Round 3 -Ichorid

G1: he Breakthroughs, I fow. He breakthroughs again, discarding hand. Meanwhile, I vialed a SfM and played the one o the 2 Jittes I was already holding (before SfM, too. Luck..). Since he's on a bad unluck streak and he does not hit any Ichorid or Moeba for like 4 turns, I decide to go beatdown mode taking him to 7. I also had a Mother on the field, ready to be saced to prevent Bridge shenanigans.
He begins to get some Moebas and Ichorid, and he tries to Dread Returna Iona, which I spell Pierce. He gets 2 tokens. He Therapies getting other tokens, I think whether to counter it or not so that he may stop things a bit and not to attempt to go off: I was at 17, holding triple fow+Jitte, and he had a FKZ. If he had reanimated FKZ, I think he would have lost because e had like 18 power striking and I had 4 counter on Jitte, but I would not have been able to kill him the turn after because of being forced to gain some Jitte lives, and I was sure that he would have crushed me recurring Ichorids and Bloodghast and reanimating fatties.
In the end, I decide to Fow it. He thinks and DRs for the second time, still on Iona. Resolves. He calls white.
I draw a Brainstorm, so I have another active Fow. Pass, hoping for him not to realize that, if he swings with Iona, I'll just have to give SFm pro black for his Zombie tokens and get through. He doesn't get it, and I swing for 9 ftw.

Side: -4 Wayfarer, -1 Vial, -1 Fathom Seer, -1 else, +3 ETutor, +1 Relic, +1 WoSaM, +1 Canonist, +1 Trinket

G2: I open with 2 lands, 2 stp, an Enlightened tutor, a Daze and other stuff. T1 Tutor for WoSaM, t2 play it. He didn't board in anything against enchantments as I guessed, so it's a mtter of time before my trinket mage fetching relic, my fathom seer, my Grunt (feeding from my yard) and an Enlightened Jitte gets rid of his Putrid Imp and the hardcast Narcomoeba.
I was also holding another Grunt, a stp, a Fow, a Daze and a Pierce in the end.

I had good times with the deck, and felt it's very strong. The only thing that preplexes me is that I absolutely sucked balls from some fun games against Merfolks, where 4 lords at a time was just too much and too fast for my lone Mother, despites having Seer, Vial and Jitte in hand. I'm beginning to think that this Matchups is way far from being 60-40 in our favour, or at least it depends on how fast they start and whether or not you draw an aggro hand that can sustain the board without islands in play. I don't know, but even on MWS, it seems I can't win that matchup that consistently.
I'm guessing if Wing shards could do a good work also in this MU: before doing the final, huge mass swing, they're used to drop some dudes to tap your blockers via Reejerey, or just go other Lords/beat. Making them sac at least 3 attackers should do the job. That's why I'm thinking of upping the Wing Shards count to 3, cutting a Meekstone (and not hoping to face Reanimator).

I'm also 6-0 against Merfolk in tournament games.

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G1: he Breakthroughs, I fow. He breakthroughs again, discarding hand. Meanwhile, I vialed a SfM and played the one o the 2 Jittes I was already holding (before SfM, too. Luck..). Since he's on a bad unluck streak and he does not hit any Ichorid or Moeba for like 4 turns, I decide to go beatdown mode taking him to 7. I also had a Mother on the field, ready to be saced to prevent Bridge shenanigans.
He begins to get some Moebas and Ichorid, and he tries to Dread Returna Iona, which I spell Pierce. He gets 2 tokens. He Therapies getting other tokens, I think if to counter it or not so that he may stop things a bit and not to attempt to go off: I was at 17, holding triple fow+Jitte, and he had a FKZ. If he had reanimated FKZ, I think he would have lost because e had like 18 power striking and I had 4 counter on Jitte, but I would not have been able to kill him the turn after because of being forced to gain some Jitte lives, and I was sure that he would have crushed me recurring Ichorids and Bloodghast and reanimating fatties.
In the end, I decide to Fow it. He thinks and DRs for the second time, still on Iona. Resolves. He calls white.
I draw a Brainstorm, so I have another active Fow. Pass, hoping for him not to realize that, if he swings with Iona, I'll just have to give SFm pro black for his Zombie tokens and get through. He doesn't get it, and I swing for 9 ftw.

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I guess I'm a bit confused what happened?

With 4 Jitte counters, why couldn't you have just sacced your mother of runes to prevent him from comboing out in response to the dread return? Then when you SP or Force the DR, he has nothing.

If they have more than one bridge, it's almost always worth saccing a guy to get rid of them, especially in response to a DR. Or maybe he had only one bridge but somehow built up 9 creature sacrifices? I guess it was a pretty long game of draw+go.

I think he finally hit a Narcomoeba , so if i would have sacced the Mother he would have been able to block SFM with it. If I had killed the Moeba with another counter, I would have been able to hit only for 5, leaving myself without blockers and him ready to strip my hand with Cabal therapy saccing Ichorid and comboing out reanimating FKZ.

Oh, rock on.

Worked out in the end, too! Nice job on the finish.

Guys, why there is no love for SoFaI and/or SoLaS, at least in the board? Am I missing something?

I am also kind of confused as to the interaction. Because I was told that when person playing ichorid flashes back dread return the ability of the bridges trigger, and even if I sacrifice my fanatic he will still get the tokens, but then when watching a match on mtgo the same situation came up and flashback dread return triggers bridges person kills his own creature with jitte counter and the bridge ability fizzles. But either way good finish.

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Originally Posted by Aleksandr

Guys, why there is no love for SoFaI and/or SoLaS, at least in the board? Am I missing something?

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I think I've tried to address this point before, but perhaps I wasn't clear in my explanations.

Basically, we assume that SOFI and SOLAS cost 2 because 2/3 of the time we draw them, we'll be able to SFM it into play, so just pretend it costs 2, and if we see that we wouldn't even run it then, then definitely at 3 we don't run it.

Well, at 2 its effect is still worse than jitte's. "But what about the legendary aspect" you ask? The thing about equipment is you only ever want one in play anyway, so whether or not jittes only interact via the legendary rule with themselves, you ought to regard all equipments as obeying a legendary rule with respect to each other. (This is also why we only run 2 equipment, 2 SFM.)

So it's just a comparison of effects then, since we assume for the benefit of SOFI, SOLAS that they cost 2, and we see that everything else is the same but their effects under this assumption.

SOFI is worse than SOLAS, so I'll just compare SOLAS with jitte. If it's worse than jitte, then SOFI will be also, obviously.

The main thing about SOLAS is it has to hit the opponent, and it doesn't grant protection from green. This means tarmogoyf actually disrupts it, whereas with jitte tarmogoyf becomes irrelevant after one charge-up. Also, it's nontrivial to get a creature in the graveyard in some cases, so you don't even always get the +1 off the SOLAS swing.

I mean SOLS isn't strictly worse than jitte, but in any reasonable metagame, it's evidently worse, so you should test for yourself if you're unconvinced to see which is better. One thing I'd like to drive home, though, is that SFM is not an opportunity to run a toolbox, because one equipment is best, and you only want one equipment, AND none of the equipments that aren't the best are particularly situational. (Except possibly for manriki gusari, which is pretty bad.)