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Not if your opponent is on five lives thanks to Ad Nauseam and they burn for 2/3 damage due to a Chant in response to a mana-spell. 1 or 2 Merfolks will seal the deal, probably the next turnQuote:
Originally Posted by Shawon
BB
EDIT: Also for the post above
I'm sorry, what does that have to do with playing Stifle? Also, isn't your scenario suggesting that you're running Chant and Stifle? Again, why not just run something better than Stifle against combo, alongside Chant, such as Chalice?
I'm not trying to get into a pointless argument, basically, I'm saying that Stifle is not new innovation, it's the oldest tech ever, there are better cards to use against combo. Especially against Ad Nauseum. Fin.
I'm not suggesting merfolk is an easy MU for storm. I'm merely stating that as disruption versus storm, Chalice is way more of an annoyance than stifle can ever hope to be. CotV isn't a catch-all answer, but I never said it was.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
There's also no need to get personal. I've played storm combo in legacy for the past few years.
You know, we can just squash this whole dilemma by PMing some known Storm combo players or posting in the Storm threads. Nose goes. (touches nose)
Because Chant and Chalice@1 seem like a bad plan. That's why.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawon
True, but at least you can run it alongside Chant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawon
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawon
There's also no need to take anything personally. Have you ever been able to Tendrils twice off of one ad nauseum in response to a stifle through daze/cursecatcher/wasteland/FoW and most likely standstill?Quote:
Originally Posted by Zir
These aren't attacks, just think about how ridiculous that sounds, especially because IGG needs to not be in your graveyard, as well as tendrils itself needing to be cast before it. Yes, AdN sometimes does rack up 20 mana and is able to do all of this, but I know it isn't common.
Yeah I was a little too fast on that ... I didn'tz realize at first that the damage comes in packets of two.:really:Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
However I am wondering about the relevance of this matchup. We have some disruption pre-board depending on the build of course but in whose meta Storm is played frequently enough to consider including SB solutions anyway? Am I missing a point or do you just want to discuss that specific matchup on purpose? Duke brought it up so did you had to play against it a lot lately?
You seem to think they'll just happily run into your stifles. Post-AdN they'll be holding duresses, as well as Pact of Negation in some builds. Most builds also have 2 copies of ToA rather than one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phoenix Ignition
Stifle becomes less and less sexy the more protection and cards are in your opponent's hand...
More countermagic would be a stronger solution... like spell snare or something like that.
Yeah, Stifle has not been nearly as effective against Storm combo since the introduction of Ad Nauseum. Before that it was Meddling Mage who was really good until we had Empty the Warrens. For a brief time, Stifle was about the best card you could ask for. It was at that very time that I began investigating what Merfolk could look like, and the ability to run Stifle was a key component.
You know, there are plenty of decks that do not have a killer card for storm, and yet they do pretty well. If you are putting pressure on the opponent with a Wasteland here and a Cursecatcher there while dealing a few points of damage along the way, you can count on Ad Nauseum coming up short a lot of the time simply because you are rushing him. In a deck like this Stifle is far from useless. If the opponent has a limited number of cards coming in off an Ad Nauseum, Stifle is one more item to take care of before he can go off.
For me, Storm has not been a simple matchup. But I win enough to not be worrying about if Stifle is good enough. After all, it is still very good against so many other things that are critical for this deck. Is anyone really thinking about something narrower in its place? If so, I would love to see the ideas.
As a quick FYI... Stifle dosn't stop GOOD AdNos players... Most versions kill turn 3 and typicallly the Folk have not applied nearly the pressure needed to stop an AdNos player from doing their thing.
If an AdNos player waits until turn 4 or 5 to combo off they typically do not even need to use AdNos and can instead kill with IGG or some builds can kill with DDay (I am not very versed with the DDay versions, that is Emidlins area).
As another note I think Chant is actually the most abusive against storm. If a skilled storm player is hesitant of needing more mana they will simply cast AdNos at your EOT and then combo off with "protection" in the form of multiple tutors/cantrips to actually hit disruption. At least in this scenario you can Chant the storm player at the post AdNos turn players upkeep if you wana drop their hand to 7 or wait till the main phase and aim to have them take a few mana burn points. Typically though they would duress first off which in that scenario gives them info into your hand.
Just thought I would give you guys a little food for thought on the storm argument from a player who learned to play legacy with Iggy-Pop and has constantly followed its evolution.
Nodahero: Thank you for helping out, that is much appreciated advice.
But then again... So, honestly, I'm not all that concerned about Storm compared to what else is out there... Don't get me wrong, Storm, whatever its form, is a good deck and it will win sometimes against us for sure... But I don't think it's as much of a problem for us as Goblins, Rock Decks, and to a lesser extent, Burn... Or another well-designed deck exploiting Aether Vial, such as Meathooks, and some janky homebrew style decks which are honestly pretty hard (I'm thinking of a mish-mash I played against that used Bob, Meddling Mage, 'Goyf, and other random beaters... it was pretty ugly but it stomped me)... Or a Stompy deck on a good draw. In my experience, these are the things that hose us the worst... And I think Goblins and Rock are usually the worst.
Much has been written about this deck's match-up versus Goblins in this thread, and it's been getting somewhat better for us (or at least for me and my white-splash list ;P), but what the fuck can we bring in against The Rock? I just played a miserable matchup against that deck with my Blue/white list, and every time it seemed like I would win, he pulled it out of his ass with a Diabolic Edict, or a Thoughtseize, or top-decking into his Deeds... For the record, I brought in Swords, Pithing Needle, and Orim's Chant (for some reason I thought I could stall into the win, don't know, never drew it... seems bad in retrospect.)
It seems to me that Rock decks have gotten a little stronger recently, and might become more prevalent, and that is a match where our attempts to gain tempo are sooooo hard to execute in a lasting or meaningful way. It suxxorz. I would really appreciate some advice... Do y'all think that Threads/ Sower/ Shackles would make a meaningful difference on the match-up? At best, it's pretty much a two-for-one against them most of the time, and it's pretty futile to try to one up Rock on its two-for-one game... But I think that a well-timed creature theft might be able to put the last bit of pressure on them and force the winning damage through. Anyone think that might work? Is there anything better anyone can think of?
I play 3 Divert in my sideboard. These you can side in against the Rock.
Things that worked for me against The Rock:Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
1) Be fast (mulligan if necessary) and use Rejeerey to untap bigger blockers (I say this explicitely because we tend to play a lot via Vial)
2) Disrupt their mana base which is quite frail (depends on the build in how far you can do that)
3) Play Kira SB because she rocks against The Rock. Their best removal usually are Swords and Vindicate. They have no flyers themselfs except Birds.
4) Expect a lot of anti-blue hate to be boarded like e.g. Choke and be prepared for it (depends on the build again)
5) have a solution for an early Goyf that can stall the game long enough for them to reach the late game (see 1)
if your playing white why not play Runed Halo for a.n.t.Quote:
Originally Posted by DukeDemonKn1ght
I wouldn't bet on this deck consistently having double white on turn 2, since it often has problems with double blue for LoA ;\
Exactly. The white splash supports single-white mana requirements fairly easily, but I'm not going to lie, occasionally, very seldom in my experience, you get screwed and are left holding a Swords when you need it without any way to make white mana. It allows a lot more board control, but the white splash does come with the extra vulnerability that trying to support a second color in a deck with relatively few lands entails.
Trying to support double-white mana as part of the deck's plan is kind of crazy though. I've already gone with 4 Strand, 4 Tundra, and I'm not going to drop Mutavault or Wasteland to below three copies of each. I sort of already miss having four-of each of them.
So Runed Halo wouldn't really work too well...
@Duke if you are playing a version of this deck similar to the OP, The Rock is not going to be all that difficult. Mana denial is really effective in that matchup. Of course, if you are one of the guys trimming Stifles, Cursecatchers, Dazes, or Wastelands, well good luck to you. You're gonna need it.
@nodahero: ANT is welcome to try to go off turn 3 against a deck with as much disruption as this one has. I'm sure it happens every now and then. But it is an unnecessary gamble because as you said, the deck does not apply all that much pressure by turn 3. I am thinking that the best ANT players will NOT be going off turn 3 against this deck. They will try to slow roll you.
To be honest Finn it is typically easier to go off sooner than later. Primarily because your number of reactive solutions out weighs our proactive solutions. You run 12 "counters" and we run typically 5 or so discard. The more time we give you the better your odds get.
I personally have 5 main deck discard with one more as a B-Wish target and 4 of that 2/2 G/R dude that can "counter" counters.
To this day I have not typically lost to this deck. There have been the days where I draw like ass or your deck has to much early game control but even in those matches if I would have waited I would have lost.
I playd merfolk in a 26-man-tourney yesterday. 4-0-1 record so I got first and 2 Tropical Islands.
1st round: BG Pox (2-0)
2nd round: BGW Rock (1-1-1)
3rd round: Berserk Stompy (2-0)
4th round: Enduring Ideal Combo (or something like that) (2-0)
5th round: Ugr Dread Still (2-0)
few problematic matchups but I managed to pull it out. I didn't play against all of those blue decks around there but also dodged all the red ones so that was pretty nice.
Top 4
1. Merfolk
2. Rg Goyf Sligh
3. Ugr Dread Still
4. Rg Goyf Sligh
Deck
4 Wasteland
3 Mutavault
12 Island
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergil Adept
2 Wake Thrasher
4 AEther Vial
4 Standstill
4 Force of will
4 Daze
4 Spell Snare
3 Echoing Truth
SB:
4 Stifle
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Divert
3 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Umezawa's Jitte
IMO the deck couldn't have been any better. If someone have any questions, I'll try to answer... :)