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I don't know if red is the way to go. I mean you could load up on blasts, but then sneak attack comes down and you've been durdling. They also board in leylines against us. I guess the best case scenario would be an end of turn surgical/extirpate on their intuition griselbrand and then pray they don't get emrakul out in time. But honestly they have all the time in the world against our clock.
Not quite -- white versions that are running Rector can sideboard Humility. I've been doing it in my white list, and while it's strange and awkward, it does actually work. I've also been experimenting with Nevermore -- if you can lock down one of their enablers, and name the other with Therapy/hopefully Surgical it, you can put the deck in a real bind. It's like any other combo deck...it needs to be prisoned out for us to beat it.
I am splashing white in my build that includes 2 birthing Pod's. In my board I run both Teeg, and Peacekeeper, as well as 3 extripates. I actually all of them very useful vs sneak decks that pack no removal, or are unprepared for them. Peacekeeper should also be very good against reanimator.
Apologies for the double post, but I wanted to take advantage of my lunch break to actual get my decklists up, and nobody had replied yet this morning.
The White:
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Eternal Witness
1x Fierce Empath
1x Fleshbag Marauder
3x Academy Rector
1x Sigarda, Host of Herons
2x Baneslayer Angel
1x Sun Titan
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Moat
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Faith's Fetters
1x Recurring Nightmare
3x Garruk Relentless
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Vindicate
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Phyrexian Tower
3x Bayou
2x Savannah
1x Scrubland
3x Plains
3x Forest
2x Swamp
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Windswept Heath
//SB
1x Humility
1x Nevermore
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Tsunami
3x Carpet of Flowers
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Memoricide
The white list has continued to evolve more as a control/prison deck than anything else. Humility feels awful in this deck, but it seems to be the ticket to beating Sneak/Show....or at least having a chance vs them. At the end of the day, we have a lot more 1/1s than they do. God is it awkward, but it seems to be the only thing that is capable of truly stopping them. They do have some bounce, but with Griselbrand to draw them 7 cards, they have a hard time finding it. Surgicals are murder vs them, although Leyline of Sanctity is equally good vs us, turning off Therapy. Chains is a beating for them, additionally. We do have some tools to fight them with this style of list, but it's still really hard. I'd much rather be tuning my list to squash pretty much anything else, but Show/Tell is putting up dumb enough numbers that something has to be done. I don't really want to think about what's going to happen if Hypergenesis sticks around, since that seems (on paper) like it would be about the worst matchup that one could possibly have with this deck.
Maindeck is pretty much the same, although Fleshbag is back as a nod to Show and Tell, while still maintaining utility against Canadian (and general purpose as a sac outlet for Rector). This list still annihilates Canadian Thresh -- if that's what you want to beat, this is where you want to be. Tsunami and Carpet are still ridiculous out of the board. That said, Canadian might start to get a little harder now that they're beginning to drop Spell Snare...that'll be two-three fewer dead cards in their board.
The Red:
1x Dryad Arbor
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Eternal Witness
3x Huntmaster of the Fells
1x Primeval Titan
1x Broodmate Dragon
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Burning Wish
2x Scapeshift
3x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Pernicious Deed
2x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1x Phyrexian Tower
4x Taiga
2x Bayou
4x Badlands
1x Stomping Ground
3x Forest
2x Mountain
1x Swamp
2x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills
//SB:
3x Red Elemental Blast
1x Virtue's Ruin
1x Tsunami
1x Innocent Blood
1x Cranial Extraction
1x Thoughtseize
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Damnation
1x Scapeshift
1x Wandering Stream
1x Haunting Echoes
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Regrowth
This list has changed a little. It's a bit more focused now, and I have raced burn with it on multiple occasions. The fact that its primary wincondition is based in the mana base makes it surprisingly effective against Sneak/Show. They have to counter your discard, which is amplified by Burning Wish (my god do they hate Cranial Extraction). Then you Scapeshift to victory at 7 lands while they're gasping for breath. Or they can open up with the turn 1 Show and rape you, but that's the price you pay for playing any non-blue deck. However, this list so far has the best testing against Sneak/Show of all three. It actually has an efficient clock while maintaining a higher-than-normal amount of disruption. A lot of times the raw power of the Valakut kill will carry you through a match, but if that fails, you have something like four or five other paths to victory. Also, having access to Red Elemental Blast is absurdly good right now. This is probably my favorite list for the metagame IF it continues to evolve the way it has been. If Canadian makes a resurgence, the white list is still ahead -- the ability of it to demolish Canadian must not be understated.
The Blue
4x Veteran Explorer
2x Vampire Hexmage
3x Coiling Oracle
2x Eternal Witness
1x Grave Titan
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Duress
1x Life from the Loam
4x Living Wish
1x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Pernicious Deed
1x Recurring Nightmare
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2x Fact or Fiction
2x Gifts Ungiven
4x Brainstorm
1x Dark Depths
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Wasteland
2x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
3x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Island
3x Misty Rainforest
3x Verdant Catacombs
//SB
1x Ichneumon Druid
1x Gilded Drake
1x Karakas
1x Yixlid Jailer
1x Dark Depths
1x Vampire Hexmage
1x Simic Sky Swallower
2x Submerge
3x Flusterstorm
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Sylvok Replica
1x Phyrexian Revoker
The primary strength of the blue list is that it can quite literally bury you in card advantage. The 2/2 Gifts/Fact suite, alongside Brainstorms and Jaces, will help make sure you always have gas. The problem that the blue list is currently having is that it durdles a lot. It is definitely not streamlined, although it certainly possess an efficient kill condition in the form of Hex/Depths, which is aided and made more flexible by Living Wish. Additionally, this version plays a Loam/Wasteland engine, intended to be tutored in a Gifts pile. Although this seems odd in an Explorer deck, it's actually be working fairly well, since many decks currently are not running many basics, if any. As a late-game lock, it has been working well -- and the 1x Wasteland is forgivable outside of Loam/Gifts. Perhaps the strongest synergy that I've been abusing in the blue list thusfar is that of Brainstorm and Coiling Oracle, which provides an alternate ramp/card advantage machine. Oracle is also amazing with Recurring Nightmare, especially when you have another Oracle or an Eternal Witness in the graveyard. The biggest challenge that the blue list faces is being sufficiently streamlined, while still being able to fight the good fight. The sheer flexibility of the Wishboard offers a bit to make up for that, sporting extra copies of Hex and Depths, alongside Karakas, Gilded Drake, Ichneumon Druid, Yixlid Jailer, and other matchup allstars. I think that I'm finally close to a working blue list, but it definitely needs some serious refinement.
The Sneak and Tell matchup is unacceptably bad and the Meta is infested with that deck. Sucks.
Rector/Humility sounds like the best idea that I have heard of so far. As awkward as it might be, Rector versions probaby want it in the current Meta. It is the best card against Sneak and Tell and also great against Maverick.
In standard testing I was reminded of how good Lingering Souls was. I tried it with Stoneforge Mystic before in Nic Fit but Mystic completely sucks in this deck (you basically never ever get to equip anything) so I dismissed the idea. But Lingering Souls is already good on its own. It is also very good with Humility, blocks Delver and combats Jace. A bit random MWS testing was successful, Lingering Souls is cool. Also Curse of Death Hold is pretty nice atm vs. the non-Delver non-SnT decks.
Valakut version:
The mana base gets much worse. 12 lands that produce red mana that you don't need and two enter the battlefield tapped. Being forced to go up to 24 lands is unpleasant. With 4 Groves it already was a stretch. But most importantly winning is not the big problem in the current broken Meta. Not losing is the big problem and the Valakut doesn't improve that.
Try Ensnaring Bridge against Sneak Show.
Updated with the blue list.
Souls is an interesting idea, but I don't know where I would find room for them, and I don't like that they're awful with Deed. Also, that would encourage people to board in gy hate more than they already are, and I'd rather that didn't happen. That said, Curse of Death's Hold is something that was recently in my board (it got cut for one of the Cranial effects), and is definitely something that I have my eye on -- then I could board in Humility vs Maverick and not feel like a total derp.
I disagree that there isn't a need to win efficiently in the current meta. If you sit there and durdle for 5 years, Sneak/Show or whatever other combo deck that you happen to be fighting against is doing to dig out of the hole you have them in, and proceed to rip your face off. The pair of Valakuts haven't been a problem in testing, although sometimes the excess amount of mountains does get annoying. I'm not going to pretend that the mana base is perfect yet, but I do think that there's a way to make it work smoother still. I don't see it as a Valakut version per se, as much as a Burning Wish version. The strength of Burning Wish is absolutely absurd in this deck, and I think that Scapeshift is a legitimate engine to pair with it. I might try a version without Valakut at some point, but for now, I am greatly enjoying the explosive power that it grants the deck. There have been quite a few times where I've had the game completely locked down with the white version and was unable to find a wincon before they recovered and killed me. Sometimes, they just need to freaking die.
Played against SNT tonight against a very very bad player. Turn 2 snt emrakul with no library manipulation at all game 1
game 2 I got multiple duress/therapies, and even managed to surgical his show n tell after an intuition AND surgical his griselbrand after a cabal therapy. 2 turns later he sneaks an emrakul for lethal since i'd been -2 with the extractions..... Just.. wow. I got rid of half his win conditions and he still finds the other 2 pieces in 2 turns.
Won a small legacy tournament yesterday, with only nine players, instead of the usual twentyish.
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Eternal Witness
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Academy Rector
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Grave Titan
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Innocent Blood
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Recurring Nightmare
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Bayou
1 Plains
3 Swamp
4 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
SB
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Duplicant
2 Thoughtseize
1 Humility
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Curse of Death’s Hold
G1: U/W Blade 1-0
G2: Enchantress: 1-1
G3: Reanimator: 2-0
G4: U/R Delver: 2-1
...or Duplicant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Qweerios
Nelumbo --
Overall, I like your list. That said, I do see a few potential issues with it:
The biggest and most immediate is your mana base. You only have three white sources in the deck, and of them are both Wasteland-able and obvious Wasteland targets. Nobody's going to waste your Bayou when you have a pile of Forests and Swamps sitting next to them. This makes casting Sigarda should you draw her questionable, as well as Leyline of Sanctity and Humility out of the board. I know that ideally you don't want to be casting these things, but the situations will come up. Even the one-of basic Plains seems insufficient, in case of Vindicate, Sinkhole, Rishadan Port, and other similar fringe applications. At the very least I would trim out a Verdant for either a 2nd Plains or 2nd Savannah, depending on personal taste.
This is a minor quibble, but I don't like Inquisition right now. One of the major decks being Sneak/Show, and it being a matchup we have difficulty with in the first place, I think I would run Duress in that slot instead. Inquisition is better vs maverick, but Duress still hits GSZ, Swords, Sylvan Lib, and any equipment that they might fetch, while providing info for Cabal Therapy. If you felt ballsy/had more lifegain maindeck (ie Baneslayer), I think I'd just run Thoughtseize ideally, so you can take S/S's giant monster.
I also feel that Leyline of the Void would be better served as Surgical, since it lets you still have turn 0 interaction with dredge, while maintaining post-Spiral utility vs High Tide, and having application vs Sneak/Show.
Duplicant feels vastly too cute, I'm not gonna lie. Why not just run an O-Ring or a Fetters instead? That has more utility in other matchups. Duplicant is also only good vs the Show and Tell portion of the deck, and if their Show is Griselbrand, it's not going to resolve. Ever. And that's even assuming that you can cast it ... what if they Show on t2 and you don't have an Explorer + Tower?
@Starscream
I'm guessing that he Intuitioned EoT, so you didn't have a chance to use a discard spell on the Show and Tell? Show is usually the card I go for last vs Sneak/Show. Sneak Attack is vastly more dangerous, but if you can hit their dudes, then that's even better. I usually call Sneak Attack, then gauge my gameplan from there. Ideally, try to get Cranial Extraction/memoricide to resolve vs them, and take their Emrakuls. Griselbrand is significantly less frightening if he can't draw them into more business. Still frightening, I'll grant, but less so.
On a related note, Ensnaring Bridge is a horrible idea. They'll just draw 14 with GB and find a bounce spell. If you want to run something like Bridge, just run Humility so they can't draw into bounce. I mean, if you aren't running white, then I guess do what you have to....but it's pretty inferior IMO.
nelumbo: only 21 lands (including arbor)? How is that treating you?
Edit to respond to Arianrhod:
Yes, I surgical-off-top after he Intuition the SNT, saw he had 2 griselbrands in hand, so I therapied them next turn, and that's when I saw the sneak attack and emrakul.
In hindsight I guess I should've still gone with the sneak attack even though I didn't see it the first time.
Yeah -- I don't know if you're running Cranial/Mem in the board, but generally think of it this way:
Cabal Therapy is for enablers, because it's faster. Sneak is more dangerous than Show, so I call that first. Obviously adapt to their hand once you have information.
Cranial/mem is for their dudes. If they have a couple of Griselbrands in hand, then it's frightening, sure, because they can always sick rip, but that's less important than an enabler. Cranial will get rid of them for good -- although if you had something to flashback the Therapy, there's no harm in taking them on FB. Cranial order is Emrakul -> Griselbrand -> Progen (if you see them running any....some run him as a 2-of or so still).
Humility/Nevermore/whatever provides a tertiary layer of hate. I think that three levels of annoyance is about the best we're really going to be able to do, honestly.
What are your suggestions against other combo like high tide and storm?
Regarding the Sneak and Tell matchup, in a white splash build with rector, how about Nevermore. Perhaps Englithened Tutor board with Pithing Needle/O-Ring/Phyrexian Metamorph.
High Tide is actually pretty easy for my white list. G1 can be a crapshoot...it basically depends on their Spirals and how much discard you see. If you rip them apart hard early and then somehow get a fast enough clock on them, it'll go well. if they try to go off and their Spiral bricks into 4 lands and 3 counters, you're fine. I have a High Tide player locally who practically refuses to play against what my deck turns into postboard. My entire sideboard comes in except for the Elesh and the Humility, giving me angles of attack on every level except GSZ:
-Therapy names Brainstorm first, then depends on what information you get from their hand.
-Cranial/mem go for Time Spiral first, followed by Cunning Wish. Note that most High Tide players side out at least one High Tide card because they're scared of Surgical/Extirpate.
-Surgicals strip away cantrips and tutors. Hit their Brainstorms, Ponders, Preordains, and Merchant Scrolls....crapshoot. Whatever they use first, nuke.
-Tsunamis attack their mana base ferociously, while Carpets ramp you into more hate stupidly effectively.
-Permanent based hate in the form of Chains, Leyline, and Nevermore turn Rector into a potent weapon. High Tide literally cannot win with Chains of Mephistopheles in play. Nevermore names High Tide. Leyline stops Intuition and Blue Sun.
Storm is pretty similar, although it's a lot scarier to play against IMO due to the sheer speed they can kill you with. I don't bring in the Tsunamis, but most of the other lines of attack remain the same.
-Therapy always names LED first, without exception. LED is their most powerful card...it provides mana and empties their hand to take advantage of Infernal Tutor. as always, adjust to their hand afterward.
-Cranial/Mem depends on the kind of storm. If ANT, you can probably just name Tendrils and win. If TES, try to shut down their tutors, starting with Burning Wish.
-Surgicals are the same strategy, although if you can hit their Rituals, by all means do so. They tend to be hard to get, though....if you call LED and see Rite of Flame vs TES, and you have a Surgical in hand, then FB for it and Surgical it...same for Dark Rit vs ANT. Your goal is to make their life as awkward as possible. Usually hitting their cantrips is sufficient if you can't nuke their Rituals.
-Permanent based hate is the same. Nevermore names Ad Nauseum.
Thanks. I haven't played the rector version, mainly because I don't have any, but I'm thinking of taking a white splash to a tournament specifically for sigarda, pridemage, and teeg in the board.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Pridemage isn't good anymore...it used to be, when Stoneblade was big and Maverick was running Stoneforge...now it's only good vs Sneak Attack, and if there's a Sneak Attack in play, you're probably dead already.
I really don't like Teeg in this deck. Cranial/Memoricide is a much more powerful effect IMO, against more decks, and they're less susceptible to ... well, everything. He also shuts off our planeswalkers, Tsunami, and some of our enchantments. If I was going to run a GSZ target for anti-combo, I would run [cards]Ichneumon Druid[/card]. He's one more mana, but he's a much better hoser in general. Do you actively realize how much of a combo deck is made up of instants? Dark Ritual, High Tide, cantrips, Turnabout, Cunning Wish, Ad nauseum, Cabal Ritual, etc.
Sigarda, on the other hand, is every bit as awesome as she looks.
Also, Rectors aren't that expensive :P They're what, like 7 bucks? I guess you could run Enlightened Tutor as a kind of substitute, but that's really subpar IMO.
Well I don't have chain or moat, or nightmare, either. I would have to test it a lot online before trying to buy/trade that many different cards, so I'm working with what I have.
That's fair, then. Nightmare isn't too bad, I think...obv. Moat and Chains are a different story. IMO you can run the deck without them. Chains is stupidly good right now, but at the end of the day it's still just a sb card. You could probably substitute it with something like Curse of Exhaustion if you so desired, as another solid combo hate card. Moat isn't always good -- especially lately. However, I like it because it is an incredibly strong bullet against some decks. Additionally, reducing Canadian to 4 effective win conditions is pretty awesome. Depending on the type of Maverick list, it can be backbreaking for them ... as long as they don't find Elspeth. IMO the list becomes optimal, or closer to it, once you add the Moat....but frankly, there are definitely times when it just isn't that good, so you can probably get by without.
Also: has anyone had any thoughts or input on the blue list? I know it's rough, but I still feel like it could use some good critiquing.