Yeah, I just had the idea as I was reading an old primer by caleb durward when he mtnioned playing the card and I thought it would be fun at least in todays context
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Yeah, I just had the idea as I was reading an old primer by caleb durward when he mtnioned playing the card and I thought it would be fun at least in todays context
Main Deck (60)
Creatures (12)
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Tarmogoyf
Spells (30)
2 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Ponder
4 Stifle
4 Daze
2 Dismember
4 Force of Will
Lands (18)
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Wasteland
Sideboard (15)
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Flusterstorm
1 Null Rod
1 Sylvan Library
1 Winter Orb
2 Eidolon of the Great Revel
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Submerge
I'm curious what do you guys think about this list? I tried to build the most versatile sideboard for the current meta. Some of the sideboard is obvious such as 2x reb/pyro, 2x rough, 2x submerge, sylvan library, clique now onto the fun cards lol.
Flusterstorm I think is worth playing as a two specifically in this board because of Eidolon. The idea with Eidolon is that it proactively attacks storm, Omnitell and miracles. Now against miracles I think eidolon + flusterstorm will help force their hand and make flusterstorm a bit better enough so that 2 seems good.
Null rod in this board deals with a lot of problematic cards. Running the 2 dismembers main + stifle should allow null Rod to mop up batterskull as artifact hate and it deals with jitte and swords (assuming we have stopped them from equipping). Null rod is also really good against storm and actually better than cage in terms of permanent based disruption against them. Cage cut off their PIF lines, but they would probably need petal/LED for red mana so Null Rod should be just as effective if not more so. Finally Null Rod hits miracles by making top useless.
Winter Orb I haven't tested a whole lot yet, but it seems really good right now. I've tried it against both miracles and omnitell and it was amazing. Miracles is a bit obvious (still not enough to make daze playable :frown:) Omnitell though was interesting. I dropped it on turn 3 he went for my pyroblast and force got there then he spent the next 3 - 4 turns untapping 1 land cantripping... then spent 2 turns untapping two lands and playing Young Pyromancer lol.
Surgical Extraction is the graveyard hate of choice because of how prominent omnitell, Storm and Miracles have become. I haven't tried it out against miracles, but some of my friends (who are probably better than me) say that it's also good against miracles. He said to save it for them flipping top and then trying to extract something from the bin since it effectively counters their miracle card and anything else you get after that is a bonus.
The board/maindeck is built to play against the more popular decks right now Omnitell, Storm, Miracles, Bug midrange / Stoneblade, Grixis delver and finally RUG Delver (based on http://mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE percentages). The more specific card choices ie dismember main + null rod in sb, eidolon, etc I think are really well positioned right now. This is by no means what I would normally play in my board, but with the current meta and dismember being more necessary I think this board is really good.
I really really like your list, but I think pyrostatic pillar is more effective than eidolon.Quote:
Originally Posted by Contract Killer
Firstly, miracles can deal with eidolon with wear tear, stp, and terminus. Pillar is only wear tear.
Secondly, R/1 is easier to pay for than RR.
Third, vs grixis delver/control they literally have no way of dealing with pillar, but bolt hits eidolon.
Just my .02
I think you need more gy hate. I play 2 Surgical and 1 Cage.
This is my current sb, which is tweaked through hundreds of games on trice:
SB: 1 Sulfur Elemental
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Rough // Tumble
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 1 Dismember
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
Main:
2 Spell Pierce
2 Forked Bolt
2 Spell Snare
Pyrostatic pillar is more resilient than eidolon against something like miracles. The main reason why I built this sideboard though is for diversification. Having cards that answer multiple decks are better than narrow answers that might hate on one deck, but blank on the rest of the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by ironclad8690
First off I would never board eidolon or pillar against Grixis Delver/control. It would only be good if they haven't done anything. If they have any board presence then playing it out will make our reactive and removal spells more painful. Their yp/angler can wait out eidolon since they can chump/eat him if he goes offensive and their late game is better. The rr cost of him is also bad here since they play wasteland, but that's why we only board eidolon in against non wasteland decks where he's actually good
As for comparing pillar/vortex/eidolon first what do we want to use each against:
Pillar: storm, elves
Eidolon: storm, elves, Omnitell, Miracles
Vortex: Miracles, Stoneblade variants
Now the reasoning behind those boarding is as follows: we need pressure. This is one of the fundamental parts of our deck.
Against miracles having pillar out is useless unless we have another threat paired with it. They can ignore pillar if we don't have a threat. In turn the only decks you want a threat like Vortex are miracles due to it's resiliency and stoneblade to counteract life gain alongside it's resiliency.
With that being said we can now look at Eidolon as a middle ground between the two cards. It's a threat with the pillar effect. This fulfills the problem that pillar has against miracles. It's more susceptible to removal sure, but it forces them to remove it. Unlike pillar they're forced to either plow, snap + plow or better yet cantrip into something. All those situations result in at least 2dmg (without combat dmg), but only because it's a clock in addition to the pillar effect.
Vortex definitely has it's place against miracles/batterskull. Eidolon though is more versatile. Due to the clock it presents + the pillar effect it can be good against miracles. Unlike vortex though Eidolon is also good against combo decks because of just the pillar effect. The actual body is a bonus against storm/elves since the pillar effect is a road block for them anyways.
The differences are definitely noticeable between eidolon/vortex/pillar, but we only have so many slots. Eidolon is the most versatile which again is what this board + md is supposed to be. Vortex is much better than eidolon against miracles sure, but we also only want vortex in that one match up really. Eidolon is more so for versatility rather than raw hate like Vortex.
Special thanks to my friend Jordan for showing me the eidolon tech and explaining the reasoning behind it.
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=9971&d=257486&f=LE
The only time you really need graveyard hate is against dredge which is something there's not a lot of in my meta. Reanimator (which does show up in my meta every now and then) can be beat on the stack. Dredge is one of those things you put one card in your sideboard for incase it does come up, but just hope you dodge it. With that being said extraction is a more versatile piece of graveyard hate than cage. Cage is ok since it deals with elves and helps against storm, but surgical is much better since it's good against omnitell and ok against miracles.Quote:
Originally Posted by echofish
Quick tourney report:
Played the standard RUG list with 4 pierces and 2 dismembers last night in a 5 round tourney.
SB:
2 REB
2 Pyroblast
3 Submerge
3 Sulfur Elemental
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Graf Cage
2 rough
The SB was tuned to combat Miracles, Omni, and Thalia decks. I decided to just play 2 gy hate cause who plays dredge nowadays?
Rd1 vs Reanimator: 1-2 (lost to turn 2 show and tell with Daze back up)
Rd2 vs Pox: 2-1(barely survived game 3 after mulling to 5 and got hit on turn 1 by dark rit into inquisiton + hymn. Luckily he had no pressure)
Rd3 BUG Delver 2-1(lost game 1, but sb cards won both games 2 and 3)
Rd4 Miracles 2-1 (lost game 1 after he established countertop lock with jace on 2 life. Games 2 and 3 were won by sulfur elementals beats and pyroblast)
Rd5 Imperial Taxes 2-0 (he gave the win since he was out of top 8 contention)
After 5 rds I'm on 2nd.
Quarters: lejay style BUG 2-0 (the deck curved out with multiple mongeese and goyfs)
Semis: LED dredge 1-2 (I manage to steal game 1 on delver beats. Lost game 2 after he stabilizes on 3 life. Lost game 4 after mulling to 4)
Cheers
I got a feature match at my weekly tournament :D I got to play against TES and game 2 eidolon got some screen time. As for some of the commentating the Ponder over wasting turn 1 was because my hand was chalked full of disruption, but no threat. I'm also not sure if Ponder into shuffle immediately says he doesn't have a second land. There's a chance he could just be looking for fast mana if he has tutor + disruption or has the combo but needs ptotection. The fetch on trop was also because I didn't have a threat and I had 4 geese over 2 eidolon to try and find. There's an argument for eidolon being the better that so searching for volcanic could be right but that also commits me to finding another volcanic + eidolon which is less likely still.
http://www.twitch.tv/cardkingdom/b/679283279
As a new player of this archetype, just curious...how exactly is Surgical Extraction good against Omnitell?Quote:
Originally Posted by Contract Killer
Edit: I understand how it would be good if the Omnitell player happens to have a Show and Tell in the graveyard (such as if you happened to have countered one earlier in the game), but is this it's only use in the matchup?
vs any combo, i will and always board in surgicals. aside from hitting the jackpot (countered show then extract) i usually hit their brainstorms and other cantrips to slow them down. a surgical or two can also load up our GY for mongeese.. lots of use! just derail them from developing!Quote:
Originally Posted by Miscanthus
That's living the dream, but depending on the situation there's always something relevant to hit. It's not always obvious, though like in my match I just used it to essentially force all his black mana to either go for basic swamp, bayou or petal. At the time I thought he was on ANT which is way better, but it was still good even with him on TES.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miscanthus
Extraction against ANT is also really good since it deals with Past In Flames kills. There's also a good chance that ANT will use a excess Infernal Tutors to get more disruption/rituals so you might be able to extract one of those. Or if you pierce a dark ritual and they end up passing extracting that's worth while.
Aside from just boarding it in against combo one of the local players I play against says it's worthwhile against Miracles. They use snapcaster so it can be a pseudo counter against that plan. He also suggested to use it more defensively after getting a threat out and waiting for them to flip top since the shuffle effect translates into countering the Terminus they're most likely trying to flip. Overall it's just a very useful card since it applies to all the combo decks, graveyard hate and miracles to some extent.
Totally on board with this plan. SnT will also sometimes just jam a SnT out if they have excess to soak up counter magic. If they try to resolve DTT and you can counter it I would extract that card on the spot it's just so good in that deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by poxy14
I'm curious has anyone thought of trying to dust off the old Dead//Gone tech? I played against Grixis Delver last night for the first time and it might be worth it just to bounce the stupid angler. I lost it in 3, but my deck kind of lost to itself. Won game 1 with the perfect win of him having nothing in play. Game 2 was close but I got wastelanded out. Game 3 I was on a mull to 5 and just didn't get to do much. I think it might be at least on par with dismember since They probably can't recast the angler after it got bounced or at least they'll have to wait a turn or 2 to fill their graveyard some more.
@contract killer which match ups did you board in the winter orb?
Primarily it's for Miracles since that deck has been really popular lately. Ever since they started incorporating DTT I feel the match up has gotten a lot harder. That aside Orb really helps against them since they're constantly tapping for top, ponder/brainstorm, snapcaster, DTT, etc. I haven't had luck running daze in conjunction with it though they still ended up being able to play around daze despite having orb out.Quote:
Originally Posted by cheerios
Aside from miracles it's good against any deck that's wanting to tap out a lot. I tried it against Omnitell awhile ago and it was pretty good. I dropped it turn 3 pass to him he untapped one of his 2 islands having used both to cantrip, cantrip turn 2 (I was otp). He passed back delver continued to beat down. Turn 4 he goes for it I pyroblast he forces I force back with an extra daze in hand. He then proceeded to untap 1 land into cantrip the following 3 turns lols. Finally he dropped a YP, but I had already deployed some geese. I think it's really good here, but I haven't tested it very extensively. I mean it should be good against them every turn they tap out to play 2 or 3 cantrips it seems like.
Esper, UWR stoneblade, or mentor builds it should be good against. All those decks have an average cmc of something like 3 between sfm, mentor, snapcaster (lets face it he's 3 mana), TNN, lili etc. They really need their mana to run on all cylinders and orb will put a huge wrench in that plan.
Aluren I've tried it against and it's pretty good. It's not a common match up, but it slows them down a bunch. They can't constantly throw down stupid blocker/cantrip ie strix, coiling oracle, imperial Recruiter into ____.
I thought it would be good against Shardless BUG (one of the few decks I have tested it extensively), but I could never get it to work well against them. They just have so much disruption. Despite having orb out they had no trouble of playing their decays, goyfs or finding the extra land they need for lili/shardless. It might be worth testing again, but I think they just have too much removal for it to even slow them down enough since we can't apply enough pressure it seems like.
I've been becoming less and less impressed with spell pierce. What do you guys think about maindeck pyroblasts? I know they could make you a dog against decks like elves and DnT, but I feel like we are already unfavored against these decks game one. I've been wondering about a list like this:
Thresh 54
2 pyroblast
2 dismember
2 forked bolt
2 Destructive Revelry
2 Flusterstorm
2 Submerge
2 Rough//Tumble
1 Clique
1 Sylvan Library
1 Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Surgical
1 Sulfur Elemental
The extra removal is strong against the creature decks of the format, and the pyroblasts give us added game against big bads miracles and omni. What do you guys think? Am I crazy or is the format blue enough to start maindecking pyros again?
@plowshares it depends on your meta. Spell pierce is better than blast when you have MUD, Storm, and Reanimator in your meta.
I would run Spell Snare before I even would consider running md pyroblast effects. It's good against 99.9% of the meta. Everything from elves to Stoneblade shells, Bug delver/shardless bug, Miracles, Storm, UR delver, Grixis delver, Rug Delver etc. Every deck right now with the exception of Omnitell has a back breaking 2 drop to hit with Snare. I do think 8 removal shells are overzealous and you'll be kicking yourself in the combo match ups lol. If your meta demands an 8 removal spell build then go for it. I would though be running snares in place of pyroblasts since if you need that much removal you'll probably be playing against a lot of fair decks running sfm, goyf, yp, strix etc. The only match up you really want pyroblasts against are Omnitell and anything running TNN. Even Miracles snare hits essentially similar threats that pyroblast does cb, snapcaster mage, counterspell.Quote:
Originally Posted by plowshares
I am with you on this one. Spell snare hits far too many targets in too many match-ups to cut from the deck. Pyroblast should be better but I actually get more use out of the Hydroblasts I have in my sideboard - there's a lot of red in my metagame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Contract Killer
BTW Contract Killer, I wanted to thank you for recommending Null Rod and Eidolon of the Great Revel, they've been pretty awesome for me since I started running them.
Pyroblast like might be worth it at a 10 person weekly... that you know 3 people are on Omnitell... and another 3 are on miracles lols. Outside of that though I think it's just too bad when you end up playing against something like Maverick, D&T or even ANT pyroblast is pretty bad against. Hydroblast I've never been a fan of. You really only want it against UR Delver and they've become much less prevalent than it was during Cruise era. The ability to kill/counter Swiftspear and yp is really good, but outside of that you don't really want it in any other match up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake0525
I'm glad you like the tech :D. Null Rod I actually came up with from Gerry Thompson's twitch stream a while ago he was playing RUG Delver and had it in his board. I can't find the video right now I'll try to dig it up though. Eidolon I've been really happy with I found out that Aluren just kind of scoops to it lol. That's not 100% true, but the way Aluren works is weird. They only have so many slots and he had boarded in 4 force, scooze, bone shredder to solidify the combo with some fair hay makers. That does mean he didn't have any decays to deal with a static threat that also debunks his combo.
Edit: Here's the link at the time where he starts building it and going over his deck construction and sb options http://www.twitch.tv/g3rryt/v/6891772?t=3h11m10s
If you ever play against Aluren just know that sb games are a next leveling coin flip contest. They can go heavy combo oriented and add in forces to protect it and fight off stifles (their combo is at 4 lol). The other option is they bring in more strixes, decays, scooze, bone shredder and just essentially turn into a body heavy shardless BUG that just grinds out. It's very confusing after he got me one time with scooze I thought I needed submerge then I realized I don't want to submerge any of his other creatures lols. It's just a really weird match up and hopefully you don't have to play it everytime I do (every other week or so there's 2 good aluren players in my meta) I look at my sideboard and think "alright what do I board in this time" lol.
There's a lot of red in my metagame, and I actually see Blood Moon quite a lot. I put the 2x Hydroblast, largely to deal with those, and of course, the occasional matchup with straight Burn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Contract Killer
At this moment, my Sideboard looks like this:
2x Submerge
2x Eidolon of the Great Revel
2x Hydroblast
1x Pyroblast
1x Null Rod
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Sulfuric Vortex
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Flusterstorm
I actually think I may be forced to cut Hydroblast out for Rough and Tumble. Rough and Tumble seems like a good answer to things like Elves, which my sideboard doesn't currently do anything against. Bloodmoon may just need to be countered in the PB games.
What do you mean by a lot of red? Like janky stompy decks, burn, ur delver and mono red painter? I guess if that's you're meta then hydroblast is worth it. The best answer for blood moon is to just counter it and hydroblast definitely helps with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drake0525
Rough is a must for elves, d&t, and maverick. The only other option is grim lavamancer which I'm not a huge fan of due to the mana it requires.
Yeah, I swapped out the Hydroblasts for Rough and Tumble. I feel like it will be relevant in more matchups. My local metagame is a lot of red, but Blood Moon can get countered, and Rough and Tumble will mop up most red creatures. So this is what I'll be running for my sideboard this week:Quote:
Originally Posted by Contract Killer
2x Submerge
2x Eidolon of the Great Revel
2x Rough // Tumble
1x Pyroblast
1x Null Rod
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Sulfuric Vortex
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Flusterstorm
Thanks a lot for the pointers! My last time out I took out Miracles with a Null Rod, and a really violent Nimble Mongoose. Canadian Threshold is a fun deck!