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I was not thinking about playing omniscience. Just 3 burning wish for S&T, Pyroclasm, Overmaster and maybe Stone Rain in the SB. You could also be cute and get silent departure before going off with S&T against maverick.
...just ideas. Probably not good.
Anway by prepareing a lot against RUG, Esper, Maverick and Maybe Reanimator by playing hate, overmaster, defense grid and what not, you can just easily run into storm and loose. :)
I already ordered a playset of overmaster 2 month ago, but it was always too bad to play it. The positive aspects has already been discussed, so I will try to explain the drawbacks.
- First of all, overmaster is only good for Show and Tell obviously.
- Overmaster means that S&T now also cost 4 Mana like SneakAt.
- Overmaster is only good if you allready have all the combo pieces together. Misdirection can at least also be used against discard etc.
- Most of the time, an early Daze or Spell Pierce from your opponent for overmaster means, that you can't go of in that turn. 3Mana for S&T + 1 OverM. + Daze or Pierce Mana is too much most of the time. That means that you pay for the Overmaster to draw the card, and then try to go off the next turn. This is too slow most of the time. To support this tech you need a different Manabase like Kassis was playing. 20 Lands + 4 Pedal + 1 Spirit Guide. I play 19 lands + 4 Pedal like most other people wich means we have 2 more slots for other stuff. I don't thinck, that Overmaster + the different Manabase is all that trouble worth.
Just my 2cents :wink:
I just bought a playset of Overmaster online for $0.24. I'm not sure if it's the next big thing or not, but for $0.24, I view it as an insurance policy. if everyone logs on tomorrow and the price doubles to $0.12 per card, than I've just saved nearly a quarter.
Too bad Overmaster doesn't say "instant or enchantment."
Additionally, why isn't it an instant? Instant speed would certainly help with cycling if it comes to that.
Eli has been a steady Sneak and Show player, although his decks are usually a little 'rogue', although it seems he performs very well. The fact that Eli is speaking highly about an unknown card doesn't surprise me.
Speaking of the Burning Wish plan, it used to be much more popular. I ran it about a year ago. It's good and it gives you a 2 drop. Just make sure to run Eye of Nowhere as a sorcery speed bounce spell.
Here are a few Burning Wish bounce deck's I found:
http://decks.mtgoacademy.com/Decks.aspx?ID=7795
http://decks.mtgoacademy.com/Decks.aspx?ID=10444
http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/bus...ide=&strict=on
Burning Wish effectively increases the Show and Tell count, but it broadcasts it. Might be good with Overmaster. I guess it's a good thing Overmaster is a sorcery after all :smile:
Lord has also been piloting a 'big' Sneak and Show list to some finishes in MTGO dailies.
Here are his two most recent lists:
July 8: http://decks.mtgoacademy.com/Decks.aspx?ID=131134
July 15: http://decks.mtgoacademy.com/Decks.aspx?ID=132969
He forgoes all 1 CC cantrips and all counterspells for Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere, running Intuition, Thirst for Knowledge, and Compulsive Research.
The only change he made between the lists was adding 3 Blood Moon (for 3 Firespout) in the sideboard and swapping a Grim Monolith for a Island (to accommodate for Blood Moon) in the main. It's kind of like Dragon Stompy meets Sneak and Show.
Not sure about big sneak. Losing fixing hurts combo decks more than non-combo decks in general. You might get chalice and trini down, but just die to a Goyf that goes all the way because you can't assemble the combo fast enough. But worth a try.
I think the Kassis manabase is not too radical. It just means that your cantrips are not going for lands as often. With the 19 land manabase, I feel 13 blue was too light anyway. I always wanted the 14th blue. I'm not sure about cutting a tomb though, he's just running 4 sol lands.
I think 8 fetches, 4 volcs, 1 Mountain, 2 Island, 5 sol lands is alright. The extra guide could be tested, I think 1 is an ok number. Fact is, misdirection doesn't win you counter wars due to the card disadvantage, and Overmaster is not the perfect fit but I still think it's better than misdirection.
Thanks for the Input on overmaster StefN.
The drawbacks you mentioned are also the reason why I think it could easier replace spell pierce than Misdirection. Spell Pierce in the combo turn is also only good if you have 4 Mana. Overmaster can have a similar/better effect the turn before. Obviously cutting down Spell Pierces hurts your combo matchup.
The "too slow" argument is not that valid IMO, since in a match where the "stack war" will decide the game, you usually cast cantrips until you have enough backup. If you faster but loose the counterwar you gain nothing. Now instead (or in addition) to that you cast overmaster and draw out their counters. You can also bluff/confuse them by casting it without the mana to play show & tell (like if you want to cycle it) or as Eli mentioned just pay for their spell pierce and be a card up for next turn. In all other matches where counters are not relevant but you race, you just cylce it where it does not hurt you.
The biggest challenge I think is to get the mana right, because you do not want to use a temporary mana source for Overmaster. Therefore you have to go for Island, Mountain,... 20 land with 4 instead of 5 sol lands is a good start, but I would add more preordain and cut down 1 Sneak & 1 Emrakul. Maybe also a different fetch configuration and only 2 Volcanic Islands...Beeing a Turn 4-5 combo deck instead Turn 3-4 against a counter deck is not a big deal.
If you run burning wish the basic mountain is even more important. The posted lists with wish are all pretty bad I think.
No comments so far to my attempt of runnung 14 instead of 16 combo pieces...:cry: I think you often have to mulligan because of too much combo and very seldom have the problem not finding a combo piece. Especially if you add 3 Preordain and 3 Burning Wish.
Not a huge fan of Overmaster just because it's another mana (R at that as others have pointed out) that you need to go off. With Misdirection / Daze, you are effectively a turn faster. It's not like we're control and are going to need to grind people out with card advantage. If you're hoping to draw a combo piece off of the Overmaster then you're already in worse trouble.
I've been a proponent of Defense Grid, but I think 4 is a little much.
I don't really understand the "turn faster argument". Only if you have the "god hand" you go off turn 2-3 against RUG right? Going for it early (helps their dazes btw.) and loosing the counterwar is often loosing the game! Of course we are not grinding out, but they HAVE to use either a spell pierce or a FoW against Overmaster and then you might draw another enabler/counter/cantrip and he looses the card. This could be the tipping point to win the counter war 1-2 turns later.
Still not sure if stretching the manabse for basic mountain T2 is worth it, but the meta adapted to Sneak. Esper running more discard and RUG playing 4FoW, 4 Daze, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Stifle and 3-4 Red-Blast (+mabe Gilded Drake and Surgical) from the board is much tougher to beat than it used to be back those days Grisel just arrived. So we need to adapt as well imo. Of course you can just optimize the SB for these matchups(i.e.: Defense Grid), but it might need a bigger "paradigm shift (i.e.: loosing speed for resilience in certain matchups)". A Burning Wish and/or Overmaster build could be a way.
Overmaster is a turn slower because you have to have 1 extra mana more than you normally would to be able to use it (just like Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm). If you're not holding it up for Overmaster, that extra mana gets used to play around Daze. It's very unlikely that you'll get to use Overmaster + enough mana to play around Daze against RUG.Quote:
Originally Posted by catmint
Overmaster also obviously only works if you're going for Show & Tell. Say you're on the Sneak Attack plan - Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm are just better here.
Slowing down the combo when we already don't auto win if we resolve Show & Tell / Sneak Attack seems bad to me.
If you're on Sneak Attack plan they DONT KNOW. That's the whole point. Blue players are very unlikely to risk it. They will counter the Overmaster. I think they are many good points being brought up. Yes the deck is slower with Overmaster compared to Misdirection. However Overmaster allows more double/triple protection hands. Too often, It's force pitch Misdirection and Misdirection + Blue card for double protection or something similar. That's 4 card and already really late in the game. With Over Master, you can have Force + Overmaster + Overmaster/Pierce. The extra card really matters.
And as brought up above, you don't care about being a turn slower vs blue decks. RUG Delver may have a quick clock, but its not that quick. They still take 5-6 turns to kill you fastest and that's still plenty of time. Against aggro, you just cycle the overmaster. It's a win win. I think we can't play to many pierces with overmaster. Im not sure what the ideal numbers are but I think 9 pieces of protection should be ok. Ie: 4 Force, 2 Pierce, 3 Overmaster.
I think we don't need the SSG, if you need speed, Overmaster should just be cycled. G1 against Reanimator is Terrible anyway, so Overmaster over Misd shouldn't be such a big deal as it's almost unwinnable. Misd is also pretty bad against Reanimator so it's a pretty near side swap.
Against RUG or UW Miracle/Stoneblade is where Overmaster shines. Ok so you're a turn slower, it doesn't matter against these kind of decks. Like said earlier, you can run it out and if they pierce, it you pay, draw a card and try again next turn. That's pretty fantastic IMO. In these matchups, what matters is card advantage, you need every single card here.
Against aggro, Misdirection is a dead card (not counting discard). Against most Non-blue, it does nothing while overmaster cycles. Ever get those slow, protection heavy hands even after mulling? Yeah they suck, Overmaster makes it easier to keep these hands because you can cycle them away.
So to recap, Overmaster compared to Misdirection is better against Control and most non-discard aggro. It's equally bad against Reanimator, but at least cycles. It's only bad against decks that pack Hymm. Even against Thoughtseize, Misd-ing a Thoughtseize is card parity, even though it does protect the most important cards in your hand and strips your opponent's best card.
I say the pay off is much better than what you're losing.
Fixed that for you. Opponent is still choosing. It is still often correct to do it.Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpei
I like misdirection also just as more FoW in a counter war, so I would swap some number misd/pierce/fluster for Overmaster. Not exclusively Misdirection. A blue card is oftem more affordable (or less conditional) than U up and them not beeing able to pay 2.
Misdirection a diabolic edict, a surcigal extraction, orim's chant, discard of course or even burn on a creature in a race is also a lot of utility I don't want to give up completely. Maybe if you play Leyline of Sanctity in the board.
Misdirection isn't in the deck to try and have the FoW + Misdirection hand. It's there to complement Force of Will in getting at least 1 "free" counterspell ready. Without Misdirection, your odds of having your own Force to trump theirs gets significantly worse.
To me, Overmaster is like Spell Pierce / Flusterstorm, but worse because it's not blue and it's more limited in application.
Yes, if you replace Misdirection with Overmaster / Pierce / Flusterstorm, you'll have less card disadvantage countermagic. But, against decks like RUG, it's very unlikely you'll have the mana available to use it all. I also think you're underestimating the speed that RUG can potentially kill us. If they open with a T1 Delver on the play (because that deck always seems to do that), we can potentially be in a world of hurt, especially post board.
Again for me, if you like Overmaster, Pierce & Flusterstorm are just better because they can protect Sneak Attack and add to the blue card count for FoW / Misdirection.
Yes, they might not know you're on the Sneak Attack plan. Or, they might have Thoughtseize / Cliqued you earlier and are now laughing at your hand of Sneak Attack + Overmaster.
I agree that if you are using Overmaster to protect your combo piece or to bait out a counterspell you can use Flusterstorm instead to the same effect. In either case you'll nullify the opposing counterspell for 1 mana.
There are two cases, opp has counters for Overmaster: If your opponent is not holding double counters it's the same effect as Flusterstorming his singleton counter. If he's holding a second counterspell and you don't have protection for Overmaster he'll first counter Overmaster and than your combo piece, so he'll win. This is again the equivalent of having a Flusterstorm as he'll counter your combo piece twice and come on top.
The second case, opp doesn't have counters for Overmaster: You win. With Flusterstorm you win again.
The only advantage of Overmaster is you can tutor for it with Burning Wish and can't tutor for Flusterstorm.
This is also assuming you're going off with Show & Tell and not Sneak Attack. Overmaster is a protection piece that only works for 1/2 of our combo pieces.Quote:
Originally Posted by bilb_o
Some thoughts,Quote:
Originally Posted by ivanpei
1. Against RUG and UW Miracle Game 1, it's just a matter of resolving an enabler. They can't interact with either one outside of the stack. Flusterstorm shines here just as much as Overmaster, as well as Misdirection. Being reactive vs proactive is much better here since they aren't guarenteed to have a counterspell.
2. Granted, Overmaster cycling is nice, and Misdirection is a dead card. But we're winning this one 80% of the time without either of those two spells anyway. Show & Tell -> win game. or Sneak Attack -> win game. Having more cantrips (blue kind) help much more than simply cycling.
3. Control has never been a hard matchup for this deck because they don't represent a clock. So long as they don't, we have all the time in the world to setup. Overmaster is inconsequential in these matchups as protection.
In those matchups where we can't afford to pay :r: extra for proteciton is what makes/breaks the card selection for me. In those matchups having free counters 5-7 helps much more than Overmaster.
One other advantage Misdirection(or any counterspells that Overmaster will replace) has over Overmaster is after you get a Grisselbrand in play the Misdirections will be better to draw into than Overmaster.
Have any of you guys tried 4 Force of Will, 4 Misdirection and 4 Gitaxian Probe? For the purposes of resolving either Sneak Attack or Show and Tell, the pitch counters are the most effective. However, the problem with pitch counters is that they exhaust your ability to recover from a lost counter war by expending your resources at 2 to 1. By playing Gitaxian Probe, you can judiciously enter into counter wars with your opponent knowing whether or not you'll come out ahead or behind and play accordingly.
Now, the problem is pitch counters concede ground vs Storm and Reanimator, especially against TES playing Silence over Orim's Chant. But regardless the Storm and Reanimator match ups aren't really great game 1 anyway, but we can make up ground vs both of them, especially Reanimator, post-board.
What I'm recommending is something along the lines,
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Griselbrand
4 Emakrul, the Aeons Torn
4 Lotus Petal
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarns
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Volcanic island
2 Island
1 Mountain
Overmaster has some significant advantages over Pierce or Misdirection:
1) Most importantly:
It can bait out a hard counter for 1 red mana and a card ... or bait a spell pierce/daze for 1 red mana and 1-2 mana saving the card WITHOUT risking to loose your enabler in a counterwar. Assume you have 3 overmaster and they have 3 counterspells. If you live for 3 turns they will loose their counterspells and you free to go. Assume you have 3 pierce/flustestorm/misdirection, you will very likely not be able to use them to the same effect in one turn. Please don't tell me "but they can draw new counters"... we also have a draw step...
2) It will bait out a counter even if you do not have the mana to cast show and tell or show and tell itself in your hand. To play spell pierce you need to have the extra mana to do something and with with Misdirection the extra blue card.
3) If overmaster is not needed it cylces and does not sit dead in your hand.
The disadvantages are also very significant though:
Upfront. I don't think you are slower in the goldfish, so that does not matter. Slower against RUG or Esper is not that relevant imo (and apparently ivanpei agrees). Yes, RUG can have a superfast goldfish, but then they have less counters. A turn 1 delver needs 6 turns to make 18 damage.
1) Manabase: .
Basic Mountain becomes way more important. -> More lands, less sol lands, different fetch lands,... I cannot say without testing how much you need to change and of course how much it hurts mulligan and/or goldfish, but you surely need to do something about it, if you dont want a wasteland to fuck you. As I write this fetching for this mountain will hurt spell pierce/flusterstorm to protect your combo much more than Misdirection...hmmmm.....
2) You loose your ability to counter what hurts you compared to Spell Pierce: Other combo decks, counterbalance and sometimes a Jace, GSZ, Humility, Ensnaring Bridge or whatever.
Therefore my conclusion so far is that it is a meta call.
If you face a lot of faster combo or counterbalance go for the traditional build.
If you face a lot of Esper, RUG,... I think overmaster is the right call.
Last comment @ Koby:
You mentioned that control is not a hard matchup. I do not agree for the following reasons:
- they are more consistent and have an edge on the long term. Playing Sneak you feel sometimes undefeatable, but then other games you mull to 5 and draw monsters loosing to yourself.
- Esper does not kill that fast, but attacks you also with discard. Clique and SFM are not the worst win-conditions.
- The clock of Miracle control is the counterbalance lock or other hate like Canonist, Meddling Mage, Needle, Ensnaring Bridge,...
I went 6-2 (18th in standings after the Swiss rounds) at yesterdays SCG Buffalo with a pretty standard sneak and show list except I had two maindeck karakas which came in pretty handy in the two mirror matches. My 1st lost was to high tide, and my second loss was to Kenny Castor playing RUG. Both losses were because I could not win any counter wars. After briefly talking to Eli in the line to get our prize $ I was convinced enough to order a playset of foil overmaster's and at least try them out.
I think another thing I'd like to point out is to test Overmaster over postboard games. Misdirection becomes really bad in postboard games when counter mass is more important that speed. It's the worst card in the protection suit after board because rug or esper will be armed to the teeth and every card counts. I'd rather have a suit of Force, reb, Overmaster and pierce because it's a varied protection approach which does not have too much card disadvantage. Also when the game draws out, pierce becomes less effective while Overmaster is still a chant.
Catmint pointed out the pros and cons pretty well. The main point is that you can run it out earlier and actually require less lands. Say you have 2 pierces to protect snt, you need 5 mana to make it work. With Overmaster you just need 4 if you have double protection because you can lead off 1 turn and if countered, try again next turn. If it gets forced, profit, if pierced you net 1 card as well.
Overmaster fucks over spell pierce and that's nothing to scoff at. The whole format has adjusted and most blue decks are playing a ton of pierces and flusterstorms. I'm primarily a uw miracle/blade player and I play 5-6 tax counters in my blue decks between main and board. I would not want to be in a position against an Overmaster, it is a serious threat.