They had a leyline of the void, so goodbye to a lot of the deck's mechanisms (Rector, Nightmare, Explorer, Therapy). You probably got mixed up since I mentioned Sanctity as well.
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They had a leyline of the void, so goodbye to a lot of the deck's mechanisms (Rector, Nightmare, Explorer, Therapy). You probably got mixed up since I mentioned Sanctity as well.
Oh, yeah that makes a lot more sense. Few decks run Void anymore...was definitely thinking you meant Sanctity. And yeah, Void is a pain in the ass to play against...thankfully not many people run it, and most of those that do don't board it in vs us, since we can still just rocket-punch them with big dudes and planeswalkers while they have dead cards in their deck.
So here's a question: what do you all think of the SCG Detroit top 16, and how relevant do you think it's going to be for Atlanta, if at all?
-1 Witness
-1 Fleshbag Marauder
-1 Rector
-2 Baneslayer
-1 Sigarda
-1 Deed
-1 Vindicate
-1 Top
-2 Thoughtseize
-2 Elspeth
-2 Bayou
-1 Savannah
16
+1 Ooze
+1 Pridemage
+1 Finks
+1 Thrun
+1 Garruk Relentless
+1 GSZ
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+2 Innocent Blood
+2 Living Death
+1 Forest
+1 Swamp
+1 Phyrexian Tower
14
I can't remember what 2 cards I'm forgetting, I don't have my list handy at the moment. I had a list with 2 Witness but didn't feel comfortable with it since I had limited testing, so I went with a list I was more experienced with. Went with bloods over Marauder because I lack Marauders and needed the proxies elsewhere. Thrun over Sigarda because the meta often has a lot of countermagic. Finks for early GSZ against Burn and Pox, which show up a lot at these tournaments. Went with Living Death over 2x mainboard discard for fun and because I wanted to try it out; having the extra sacrifice effects helped overall.
If I was going to change it, I would throw in 1-2 Marauders in place of Bloods or 1 Pulse (esp since they play better with Death...sac marauder, later comes back and get another sac effect against their graveyard). I would keep Pridemage mainboard because Show and Tell largely killed with Sneak Attack in matches I watched, and it is effective for taking down SA when they're still waiting for a kill card. I also need to get another Bayou or two, but that will take some more planning than picking up $10 cards here and there :P
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Just around to seeing the Top 16 - WOW! That's odd. Quite the swing from heavy sneak and RUG to Elves, Lands, and U-based control decks...and Maverick, with a smattering of RUG. Obviously against Elves we are strong if we can get the Deeds out, Lands I think nescitates the inclusion of 1-2 Ooz mainboard for anti-Loam. Ooze can also help with lifegain against a heavy Elf graveyard. I would think increasing the Deeds to 3 main should be the way to go. Stoneblade didn't place well but it was mentioned as having heavy prescence.
I think people are certainly going to bring anti-Sneak/Griselbrand decks which should help our matchups in Atlanta. Definitely hearing a lot of whispers about Stoneblade, while possibly having UW Land Tax decks making an appearance - both winnable matchups for us.
I almost think people are playing Stoneblade just to spite Drew Levin -- he says Stoneblade is awful right now, and the next event there's like 80 Stoneblade decks, lol.
I'm very okay with Sneak/Show being hated right out of the format. I know that at least one whole group of players in my greater local area that are going down are all on Sneak, which is irritating, but I feel like they're going to be the exception now, as opposed to the rule that I thought they were going to be previously. While I'm still of the opinion that they should just ban Show and Tell and be done with it, people have proven that (for now) they have answers for Griselbrand.
The amount to which I'm not scared of 43 Lands is laughable. Deed is secretly the best card in our deck for that matchup, although obviously Ooze comes close. Also, Glacial Chasm can be added to the list of things that Kokusho gets around. I really, really love Kokusho, lol.
Elves comes down to their speed, and their hand. We really have to have discard followed by some light removal, followed by Deed. If we can achieve that sequence and they have a slowish hand, we dominate the matchup. If they go nutty on t2, there's really quite little we can actually do. Keeping their Symbiotes down is a key, although on Therapy I'll still call probably Green Sun every time, since it's their best tutor. Glimpse is a good name, but not on t1.
I don't really know how the Tax matchup would play out (nor does anyone, really...one of the strengths of playing it). I suspect that we'll be fine for the same reason that we were always good vs the old CounterTop decks....we have so many threats, and so many high-CMC threats in particular, that they just literally can't counter or remove everything. Sooner or later something will get through, and they'll die. Rectoring in Deed is probably an allstar in the matchup, to wrath away all of their lock pieces. With this resurgence of blue, I might switch out Choke and something else in my board for 2x Tsunami again...I had figured that they'd be sitting this GP out because there wasn't much Blade or U-control running around, but that seems to be shifting. Thoughts?
The annoying thing about the Top 16 from Detroit is that I have no idea if that's a fluke or not. It could very well be that I'll get to Atlanta and it'll be a sea of RUG and Sneak/Show....one event makes it hard to say if there's been that much of a meta shift. I'm inclined to say that the reality is somewhere in the middle, and we're going to see something resembling a balanced, open meta at Atlanta, personally. I don't think Canadian and Sneak are gone from the meta as Detroit would suggest.
Your changes seem mostly to fit your local meta, which is fine. Also, proxying Fleshie? Really, lol? IMO the reason to run Fleshie over Blood is twofold: you can Show him to get rid of their dude, and you can recur him with Sun Titan. For your list, the Living Deaths obviously help things too. I personally don't approve of cutting a Top or the Witness, but as you said, there were extenuating circumstances.
Haha, yeah, they allow 8 proxies to try and boost attendance. I had to proxy out Humility, Kokusho, Chains, a fetch, Fierce Empath, and some other stuff. I had Bloods and figured they would work just as well. Its mostly me being lazy and not ordering cards online and the shop not having my random cards that I need on game day.
There's a local player who brings Elves sometimes and I never have trouble with that match if I can drop Deed quickly, otherwise its definitely a crapshoot. The last time he brought it though, I ended up with Sun Titan + Deed and made him sad. Anyway, the need for T1 or T2 removal might push towards more StP or Bloods in either the main or sideboard.
Why Tsunami over Choke? The casting cost on Tsunami is somewhat better I think, but a single Choke can be Rectored or Titaned in (if countered), whereas Tsunami is a one shot attempt unless you can land Witness and requires more sideboard spaces. Granted, I don't have a lot of experience with UW Miracle Top and can't say if they actually tap out a lot aside from Entreat the Angels, where you're going to die soon anyway. The other question becomes which is more useful in more matchups, and I'm guessing you need to know which is better against the likes of UWx Stoneblade or High Tide.
Oh, I know which one's better, and the answer is Tsunami by a mile. Blue players are very aware of Choke, since Maverick's been pushing their ass in with it for the better part of a year now, and while it does hurt them, they can usually find ways to squirrel their way out of it (ie, Sword of Feast and Famine untapping all of their shit). Tsunami is so much better vs High Tide it's not even funny, and it is actually functionally a win condition vs a lot of blue decks....especially late in the game when they've got most of their mana-producing lands out of their deck already. Decks that run the 8x fetch 4x Waste 8x mana-producing lands type of mana base are especially weak to Tsunami, because they literally have no ability to do -anything- after a Tsunami lands, whereas if you have Choke out, they can usually find a way to Disenchant it or some other bs. Sword is an aforementioned problem, especially since that card is already good vs us. I'll be honest -- I also really like the psychological warfare effect that Tsunami has on an opponent. If Choke is out, it can actually make your opponent more alert as they frantically try to find a way out of it. Tsunami just makes them feel defeated as they sit there with maybe one or two permanents in play compared to your board state. It can often actually win games just from the demoralization factor alone. Additionally, Tsunami is very hard to counterbalance, which is sometimes relevant. Sure, Rector's hard to as well, but I don't like leaning on Rector too heavily because I'm always worried that my opponent will know her achilles heel....which like maybe 15% of legacy players ACTUALLY know, but I still worry about it. Tsunami's done a whole lot of work for me when the meta's right for it (which, being legacy, it frequently is). I'd definitely recommend trying it out before dismissing it out of hand.
That said, I'm still not sure if the meta at Atlanta is going to be a Tsunami-meta or a Choke-meta. My gut is telling me that it's going to be a Tsunami meta.
Wait. what is her achilles heel? Lol I've never played with the card, but I'm thinking of switching to a rector build, although I won't have moat (chains isn't terribly out of my price range, though) You can pm it to me so it doesn't go over 15%Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
PM'd.Quote:
Originally Posted by Star|Scream
Also, not having Moat isn't THAT huge of a deal, although be warned that if Merfolk comes back the way it looks like it's going to (esp. with another new 2-mana lord), you're really, really going to want that. It isn't too bad to get a Moat, though, really -- you just have to be willing to trade off some stuff that maybe you want to keep but that you don't usually use....maybe combined with some cash. Like 200 trade and 50 cash should get you a decent shape Moat. If you want to run Rectors, it's something I recommend you look into eventually....few cards in the game can invalidate entire strategies quite like Moat.
I played Nic Fit this week after a month break and took a first place.
2-0 against a BG EDH deck (the guy forgot his deck or something). I nearly shit my pants there because it felt like a terrible matchup. I eventually sided out 4 Explorers and 4 Therapy and played the tempo/denial game so that he couldnt get any of his ugly creatures out.
2-0 DnT
2-1 Miracle Whip
2-0 UBw Tez Control
I will definitely add a couple of Tsunamis to my SB for Miracle Whip and High Tide, two matchups we are weak against.
And again, here was my classic BG list:
Creatures (11)
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Eternal Witness
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Kodama of the North Tree
1 Primeval Titan
Spells (27)
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Innocent Blood
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Lands (22)
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Treetop Village
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Windswept Heath
3 Forest
3 Swamp
Sideboard (15)
4 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Extirpate
2 Darkblast
2 Diabolic Edict
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Obstinate Baloth
Also, any thoughts on the new Liliana of the Dark Realms and how we could abuse her? Perhaps with Explore.
I think that for LotDR, we would need to start completely from the ground up. I don't think there's any question that Kokusho + Nightmare would be (one of) the primary win condition(s)....with the kind of mana that LotDR would generate, that would likely be able to one-shot somebody rather than spreading it out over a couple turns like it usually does. Why not Exploration instead of Explore? Obviously it's a worse topdeck later on, but it's a much more powerful effect and can provide an alternate acceleration source in lieu of a Veteran Explorer. It does die to Deed, but IMO by the time you're Deeding, you'll have gotten whatever use out of an Exploration that you're going to.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with Urborg in play, LotDR can't tutor for any land in your deck, because the Urborg effect doesn't work like Painter's Servant, right? If I'm wrong there, that's something interesting.
Would you maybe want a 1-of Corrupt for lategame Eternal Witness abuse? Need to have something else to do with all of those Swamps that Lily's fetching.
Note that I don't know if it's actually viable or not...I'm exhausted and it's interesting to think about =P
As soon as I get my hands on some M13 Lilianas I will test out a build like that on the next tourney and tell you how it fares.
I think any build with Dark Liliana would have to be BG, as most BGW builds I've seen only have 4-6 Swamp cards (1-2 Bayou, 1 Scrubland, 2-3 Swamps) and if you're fetching 2 out to play Liliana to begin with then you don't start with many swamps at all. I guess you could just have 1-2 token White sources to get Rector out.
And you're right, Urborg only affects lands in play
Figured, but it's still depressing. Could've built in some kind of crazy Coffers/Urborg shenanigans.
Oona might be a viable wincon for this deck, which would be Zenithable via Empath. I agree that you're going to want it to be straight GB...and you're probably going to want things like Nighthawk and Bloodghast that work well with Dark Lily's -3. Bloodghast suggests Diabolic Intent.
Note that this is all a thought experiment for now -- and I haven't been able to come up with any reason whatsoever why this version would be better than classic GB, let alone GBW/GBR/GBU.
One area I could see is through obnoxious hand hate. T1 Therapy, T2 Explorer->Therapy + Hymn, and then Liliana + Raven's Crime abuse every single turn without having to kill your own draws as with Life from the Loam dredging, or you have Liliana continuing to develop your land base to drop bombs. Past that you can keep the Explorer Control core with GSZ toolkillbox (Oona looks great) and Deeds as the all purpose cleaner.
It could have a better chance against unfair decks.
That Loam/Crime idea sounds nice. I would also put in Wastelands & Terravore(GSZ Target) then. Looks like a fun Nic Fit/AggroLoam Hybrid
Reading in the Lands thread, it was a basis of how well that one guy did in SCG Detroit. The benefit they have is to put business cards into and out of their yard very easily, where we don't really have much outside of Witness, Nightmare, and Sun Titan (but damn that'd be hilarious with Sun Titan). Loam Fit would have to focus on the likes of Eternal Dragon or something, or go through Volrath's Stronghold. In that case, you can abuse Shriekmaw and take the deck in a similar direction to Death Cloud Rock of old.
Dark Liliana gets around the graveyard issues by letting you either abuse Raven's Crime or continue land base development. Either way, if you get her ultimate you don't have to worry about all those Swamps in the yard, although a Terravore would certainly be quite happy.
But, overall quite a different deck, haha.
You know, Claymore, while we're thought experimenting down that road, what ABOUT Death Cloud? She'd be a hell of a way to rebuild after a Cloud, esp. with Loam going -- two activations and you can start dredging all of your lands back while they sit there and rage. I know the old Death Cloud decks used to use Garruk 1.0 to accelerate / provide a post-cloud wincon, but I think Dark Lily might suit that role better. Plus, in a shell built to abuse lifegain (Finks, Thragtusk + Nightmare -> lololololol), Dark Lily ult + Cloud = a viable wincon....kind of like in Pauper how Tortured Existence primarily wins by gaining 80 million life by looping Golgari Brownscales and then Crypt Rats the opponent for 20 while they sit comfortably higher. It's something worth considering at the very least.
I actually play modern Death Cloud since its one of my favorite cards and use Loam (sometimes unsuccessfully) so Dark Lili is something I'm going to investigate no matter what. Few decks in legacy can survive a large Cloud even with Explorer fueling their lands, although reading the DC thread on here its funny that the author immediately discounted not only Explorer but Therapy as well, one right after the other.
I should mention though that I checked the lands thread after I posted and found that the player himself said that Ravens Crime actually did not do a lot all day, though it was crucial in some match ups. I couldn't correct myself because this website went down or something though, haha.
Just to go back to an earlier topic..
I think the match up with combo elves is like the any other combo deck...They usually go off turn 2 or 3...I have always had a hard time vs combo elves, even with Junk or any rock list, even if I run EE maindeck I usually don't even get to play dEed most of the time....Unless your lucky enough to get your 4 maindeck discard and targeted removal in your hand... it could buy you some time..
They usually side in 4 leylines to fight discard game 2. Match up is quite difficult, Unless you get to buy a few turns early on.
Merfolk match is quite hard as well, just because of their sheer speed and disruption...as long as they don't get to counter your first mass removal spell, I think your in good hands...specially with the new lord...
@Claymore --
That doesn't surprise me RE DC thread author. He's building a Death Cloud deck, doubtlessly inspired by the Death Cloud decks that used to run around and do well. We're talking about a Nic Fit (I give up, it's entered popular parlance now, goddamnit) deck with Death Cloud as its endgame -- two very different decks.
I actually played 43lands for a while myself, and I had a 1-of Raven's Crime as an Intuition package along with Loam + Urborg. The package wasn't always that great, but it wasn't ever something I was unhappy to see. And it did make combo decks lives a living hell, so that's something I suppose. One game I forced a High Tide player to Time Spiral just to get rid of Raven's Crime, lol. I actually dismantled the deck after beating that player, because frankly, after beating High Tide 2-0 with 43lands, there isn't really anything else I could hope to achieve with that deck =D
We should start sketching out a preliminary list, since this actually does sound interesting. I clearly need a fourth version to have built concurrently. #AllOfTheBayous
@Flip --
Combo elves is highly, highly obnoxious. That said, they do share most of the same weaknesses of other combo decks. What version are you running, Flip? I think that has a lot to do with it. The white version gains a lot vs them, because of things like Humility and Moat. Especially out of the board -- I've noticed that a lot of elf decks have Viridian whatever in their deck to act as Qasali Pridemage g1. Since I moved Moat into the board, most of the time they board it out vs me, and then I nail them with it g2. It's obviously less effective vs the versions that still run Emrakul, but most of the current lists I've seen have gone for Mirror Entity instead, which is just kold to a Moat. Humility is obviously the nuts vs them, but it does involve you having to deal with a SWARM of 1/1s. It pretty much comes down to what you said it does -- you hope to discard/spot removal them just long enough to land a crippling Deed. Then it's just a matter of trying to lock them down/kill them before they re-establish.
Also, Chains of Mephistopheles. Seriously, people. It is the nut high. Glimpse of Nature that, fucker. Also shits all over Enchantress and Glimpse Affinity while we're talking about fringe matchups. And come on, who doesn't want to improve their Kobold Storm matchup?
Fish....I dunno. I never used to be scared of Fish, and we do still gain like 10% on the matchup just by not playing islands. Phantasmal Image is a bit frightening, though. We play the best non-Eldrazi creatures in the format (arguably in the game). Note that I don't mean like Tarmogoyf and Bob, who are "the best" in most situations. Goyf and Bob lose to Baneslayer and Sun Titan, which only our deck has the curve to support. Deed, Humility, and Moat are obviously ridiculous in the matchup. Additionally, all of those things are enchantments (or come from a creature), so they dodge things like Cursecatcher. We usually should have the mana to dance around Daze, so it just becomes a matter of their Forces. In my experience, Merfolk has 3 kinds of hands:
-All counters with little business
-All business with no counters
-Half business, half counters, and you're going to die.
It just becomes a matter of knowing which kind of hand they have. It's worth remembering that our ramp is not even a question at all in this matchup. We don't need a sac outlet -- they're going to be attacking, because they have to be. Smart players might like sit there and durdle until they hit a leveled Coralhelm or just enough to push through in one shot, but most merfolk players aren't that smart. Additionally, that means giving us time, which, assuming that we haven't kept like a 1-lander + double Explorer, we should be perfectly fine with. Time means we win, against almost any deck in the format....especially an aggro deck like Merfolk.