[DTB] Sneak Attack

I actually ran two Tops in my recent top 16 at SCG Milwaukee (insert shameless plug to my report http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...810#post718810 and this is my list from the event http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=55038)

Every time I played a Top in my match I felt in a much better place for very much the same reasons as you stated. I however, am not a fan of Intuition or Jace in this deck. I can see the merits of it and alot of my friends tried convincing me to but I disliked increasing the curve to fit them over more cost efficent spells.

What was your overall deckc compposition? Mine was 20 lands, 8 creatures, 10 cantrips (top included), 10 counters, 8 cheats, and 4 Petals. That composition worked well for me

@nodahero After reading some of your report, I should of sideboard-ed Clique in against my esper-blade match. :/ Control matches are no fun. There is always a counter war of some sort. Often times for me, I feel like my opponents always have double back up counter but never does. I guess that's my mentality of what to expect? : )

I play 18 lands because I feel that 20 lands is too much for this deck. In theory, I think we only need a blue land and an ancient tomb to combo off though Show and Tell. If we combo-off through Sneak Attack, we may need 4-6 lands depending on the angle of attack. This is my opinion of the deck's operational algorithm. I run 4 sol lands, 7 blue fetches, and 7 lands that include 3 Volcanic Island and 3/1 Island:Mountain split. It's pretty basic.

At the time of the tournament, I played 14 cantrips including Jace and top. I played 8 creatures, 8 counters, and 4 petals. It's basic list, but I run 2 less counters. Instead, I put 2 can trips because in my mind, I rather have more can-trips than counters i because not all the time are you playing against a control deck. Sometimes, you can be playing a non-control deck, which should mean that you should win more. In any case, having can-trips can make you win easier and faster. If you're playing against a control deck, having more can-trips is good too because it allows you to dig for spells that you need.

I like Intuition because it fulfills the instant speed tutor policy to dig for a certain card of choice to progress your board state from nothing to winning! LOL. I even talked to Chris Cornwell-Shiel who's list is on the beginning of the forum since he's local.

The fact that you lost your match to Merfolk lords has me thinking that I should better put Energy Field in my side instead of Pyroclasm to save me some turns to find a way to win.

@dcosiem
The counters are not just for control but also combo. Our "combo" seldom outright kills the opponent so I prefer to have as much backup as I can in the form of counters. Cantrips help to set the combo off but do little against opposing decks. My mentality is that since we have a smaller critical mass of cards to assemble we can sit back and snipe off the relevant ones more efficently that to cantrip into our missing ones.

Cantrips work well in Storm variants because there is about 100 times the redundancy for each cards as there is in our deck. We need two specific different types of cards---one threat and one cheat (basically 1 of 8 and 1 of 8). Storm on the other hand can have any number of acceleration and any kill card. The kill card count is generally about 5 versus our 8 but since we need a 1 in 8 twice there level of redundancy since they run a million acceleration is actually alot better then ours.

I really do see the value of intuition but I hate the danger of running our target into an extirpate/extraction. I also dislike my opponent knowing what I am trying to set up. Example---If you intuition for a sneak attack with 4 mana up and you play Show and Tell they know damn well you prolly have an emrakul in hand so they won't throw out there Venser right away if they can generate the 4 mana later in the turn. I would rather have been spending 1 mana a turn for 3 turns (same mana spent) but have had less guarantee but infinitely more surprise power. I think the biggest thing going for Intuition over Top is that it is blue. However, if we want to up the blue count I would lean more towards clique because it is an offensive disruption option and provides a clock if need be. Not to mention in the mirror if your opponent casts show and tell and then you clique them they can be about to have a terrible class presentation TROLOLOLOL

@nodahero: Congrats on your top 16! I went 2-7 and had a terrible day. I like the general config. We are having a 1K 4/21 in Madison and I think I am going to try the 19 lands that the first place player in Milwaukee had and see if 4 Sol Lands is workable. I've played 19/20 a lot and I think both are fine. Top is one of those cards I've never had the balls to play. I am on 9 cantrips in my current build with preordain rounding it out. I run one more counter main I think. We'll see how it performs:) Anyway, nice report and well done!

@dcosiem: I don't think energy field is good enough vs Merfolk. With us on 8 fetches and them on a wasteland, its going to be tough to keep cards out of the gy. We need an answer here just not sure that's it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by defector

@nodahero: Congrats on your top 16! I went 2-7 and had a terrible day. I like the general config. We are having a 1K 4/21 in Madison and I think I am going to try the 19 lands that the first place player in Milwaukee had and see if 4 Sol Lands is workable. I've played 19/20 a lot and I think both are fine. Top is one of those cards I've never had the balls to play. I am on 9 cantrips in my current build with preordain rounding it out. I run one more counter main I think. We'll see how it performs:) Anyway, nice report and well done!

@dcosiem: I don't think energy field is good enough vs Merfolk. With us on 8 fetches and them on a wasteland, its going to be tough to keep cards out of the gy. We need an answer here just not sure that's it.

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How do we deal with merfolk then? I'm at odds between the following solutions to deal with aggro in control decks. I either use Pyroclasm, Propaganda, or Engery Field. I feel like Propaganda is ok but insufficient.

Pyroclasm is usually insufficent.

Energy field is too weak.

Propaganda is a decent option. I would rather take 3-6 a turn and make them spend mana then have my removal not do anything.

Alternative option is the 3 drop clasm from Lorywn block that is a hybrid to either/and hit flyers/non-flyers for 3. This option forces your opponent to have at least 3 lords in play.

All Propaganda is going to do is make them waste a red blast on it if they are playing goblins, or grind out the game 1 to 2 creatures swinging a turn with multiple lords. I don't think even stuff like zoo or junk will have much of a problem due to A. Decay. Thats just my opinion. If you want something for merfolk, why not go back to ol' faithful, Llawan, Cephalid Empress? Crawlspace is good at making Piledrivers into Suck-Sauce.

-ABC

Hmm, Llawan, Cephalid Empress seems good in theory. But I have yet to play against Fish that didn't run Aether Vial. You may slow them down a bit, but they'll just Vial them back out.

I just took first at the Mox mani 1K in Madison with Sneak Show. I just wrote a report that can be found here:http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...e-Mox-Mania-1K.

I played Merfolk twice and beat it 2-0 and 2-1 and just got lucky in one series and kind of lucky in the other. Going first was really a benefit. You can't SnT vs them as they just kill you on the back swing, you really want Sneak Attack+Emrakul to get there. They really limit your line of play, but Sneak attack goes right through Cursecatcher. I used E Truth to bounce multiple lords and otherwise lived off the top. I've been told we're ahead in this MU, but I don't feel it. I think you just have to focus on the Sneak play line and hope you get there. Defense grid was goood for me though as it allowed me to force through a sneakk attack and win twice.

cheers,
defector

@defector

There has been some times where I've won because I "echoing truth" a creature to save me a turn to win. Perhaps, Propaganda is the way to deal with tempo/aggro deck after all. I still don't know if I like Vendilion Clique in the maindeck. I rather have Sensei's top there instead because top is just too good to not play in this type of deck where when shit has hit the wall, you can clean it up with Sensei's top. LOL. I've also learned that if you're playing against tempo/control decks, it's very important to add Vendilion Clique to block damage which will save you a turn or 2 before you can combo. With this idea in mind, I'm testing Snapcaster Mage in the side at 2. Why not Snapcaster Mage into Flusterstorm or a brainstorm in response to what you're opponent might be doing as well save you a turn or 2 by blocking Goyf or dark confidant, etc.

@everyone

Has anyone testing Snapcaster Mage in the side to use deal with tempo/control decks to have additional recur of instant and sorcery spells and as an additional blocker?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Koby

I have been using the following:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
3 Grafdigger's cage
2 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away
1 Through the Breach

Playing more TtB would be nice, but I like being able to destroy Elf decks as they pose the largest threat. There are also enough cards to board out (Misdirection & Spell Pierce) so having upto 5 cards to board in is nice.

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Hey Koby,

Is this still your sideboard? How do you deal with Karakas?

Thanks,

Jimmy

Quick little ditty - Went 5-1-1 in a local Legacy event and lost in Top 8.

Round 1 - Esper (2-0)
Round 2 - Maverick (1-0) - Opp got a game loss for decklist
Round 3 - BUG Delver (1-2) Lost G3 to a sequencing play error. Played out Ancient Tomb on turn 2, got wasted; was one turn away from winning at the end of the game. I could have played Scalding Tarn, then Ancient Tomb on turn 3 to resolve Show & Tell vs a known Daze.
Round 4 - Jund (2-0)
Round 5 - BUG Walker (2-0)
Round 6 - Nic Fit (GB/r) (2-0)
Round 7 - ID
Top 8 - BUG Delver (different player) (1-2) lost G3 after having resolved Sneak Attack when I failed to find a creature to put into play

I am only running 18 land and 4 Petals. I don't think the deck needs much more than that, and in place of those extra lands increase the cantrip count. I ran 1 Top and 2 Preordain, 2 Misdirection, 2 Spell Pierce, 1 Flusterstorm, 2 Intuition, along with the usual suspects.

SB:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Defense Grid
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroclasm
1 Echoing Truth
2 Through the Breach

Never boarded in Defense Grid as I never faced RUG or UW control; Through the Breach came in against Esper as addition enablers.
Defense Grid is needed vs non-Black, Blue decks. I didn't face one of those.
Leyline + Pyroclasm deal with DRS decks quite easily.

VS BUG Delver I boarded:
-2 Misdirection
-2 Lotus Petal
-2 Intuition/Preordain (mix depending on the draw/play - Preordain in the deck is better on the play)
+4 Leyline
+2 Pyroclasm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JimmyC27

Hey Koby,

Is this still your sideboard? How do you deal with Karakas?

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Don't rely heavily on Show & Tell to get there. Read your opponent. Find a 2nd red-source. Use Griselbrand defensively to draw into Emrakul. Find Emrakul.

In the past I've used Pithing Needle, but I don't think it's needed unless a lot of Karakas starts to show up.

Sneak Attack beats Karakas. Its a little tough because it does force you to take one line of play, but its a core 4 and does work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by defector

Sneak Attack beats Karakas. Its a little tough because it does force you to take one line of play, but its a core 4 and does work.

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It requires them to have 2 creatures for every attack and if you bounce the emrakul and Griselbrand getting removed Post Combat they need to find at least 3 griselbrands to kill you with Karakas in play. That's tough

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

It requires them to have 2 creatures for every attack and if you bounce the emrakul and Griselbrand getting removed Post Combat they need to find at least 3 griselbrands to kill you with Karakas in play. That's tough

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All you need is Emrakul + two red sources and you wreck Karakas. You don't need to find tons of creatures, you just put them back into play before attackers.

Or 1 Emrakul + 1 red source + 1 more turn. (Activate Sneak at the opponent's end step.)

I've been playing sneak attack since January and it's quite possibly one of the most consistent decks I've ever played. It wins games it shouldn't and wins games fast. It punishes poorly built decks and doesn't really have a weak matchup game 1 (ie less than 50/50).

That being said, I find that sideboarding this deck is terrible. I hate the sideboard I have now and it really doesn't help improve my match ups.


2x island
1x mountain
4x scalding tarn
4x misty rainforest
3x ancient tomb
2x city of traitors
3x volcanic island

4x lotus petal

4x griselbrand
4x emrakul, aeons torn

4x force of will
4x spell pierce
4x sneak attack
4x show and tell
4x brainstorm
4x ponder

2x misdirection
2x intuition
1x preordain


Sideboard

4x echoing truth
2x shattering spree (it gets around counterbalance)
3x blood moon
2x divert (wish i added more)
4x red elemental blast (maybe i'll add pyroblast too)



Things I'm not happy about the deck:

Lotus Petals: because the games where you are going to win with a show and tell on t1 you are also probably going to win with show and tell on turn 2. It seems like a win more card that doesn't add value to the deck, especially since the deck runs so few lands. If you are hoping to drop a lotus petal off a griselbrand and be protected you need to play more conservative cause i've gotten burned many times on this. Also I sideboard these out almost every match.

Intuition: I feel like I would rather have a cantrip in this spot. It is also usually the first card I sideboard out EVERY match. Granted, it has saved me a few times but not enough for me to really be satisfied with it.

Preordain: maybe I'm just ocd but having just 1 is kinda annoying, feel like i should have Sensei's diving top instead.

In their place

Sensei's divining top: Helps in the longer grindy matches against control decks. Allows you to stack your deck against discard. Provides a more than 1 time use and especially useful with all the fetches and shuffle effects in the deck.

Extra land or two: in place of the lotus petals. 19 lands without lotus petals is usually enough. I typically sideboard them out every matchup and do just fine.

Vendilion Clique: I was never really a fan until I read this post and saw how much it could help against the control matchups. If you really need to you can clique yourself, or make sure the coast is clear for an unprotected show and tell or sneak attack on your upcoming turn.

Through the Breach: this card should have made the original 60 because its a 1 time sneak attack. Thats typically good enough to go the distance or buy you time so you can get there. Maybe 2-3 of them since they are on the high side of the curve




Matchup problems I run into are against miracles/stoneblade (mainly just control). They have lots of things they can add in to make it hard for you (humility, ensnaring bridge, jace, vendilion clique, vensur, counterbalance, karakas). If they land a counterbalance its hard to win a counterspell war or cast echoing truth for humility or bridge. Vendilion / vensur both suck to have to deal with cause they are clocks and are cast eot.

I think that's the only matchup I lose to...but i also beat it about 50% of the time. I really need something to just hose their deck. Some variations play helm combo so Show and tell is much weaker in this match


I made a excel doc with a bunch of sideboard cards and how they fair against other decks in the format and problem cards. you can find the link here https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3Wx...it?usp=sharing

I assigned numbers 0 = no effect on matchup or card, 1 = little interaction or situational interaction, and 2 = strong interaction
The weighted totals are sum's of tier 1 decks and 1/2 of the sum of the tier 2 decks. The problem cards were not added to the weighted totals.

Do not rip this doc apart its a work in progress and I understand that it does not take many factors into consideration.

I would however appreciate constructive feedback and any corrections to the ratings I gave. Also if you have other sideboard possibilities I should consider post em.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pavlaugh

Or 1 Emrakul + 1 red source + 1 more turn. (Activate Sneak at the opponent's end step.)

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Missed the obvious. No more midnight postings for me. ;)

Nice work on the sideboard-exel apple. Don't agree with some of the numbers of the evaluation, but the idea to evaluated sidebaord cards this way is not bad. However to build a sideobard you need to also start with what do you want to board out against the specific matchups, so you have exactly the slots you want to board in. For example with 4 Pierce main and 4 red-blast/3 blood moon in the sideboard I am curious how you play versus RUG postboard.

More important than that you need to get a realistic idea of the strenghts and weaknesses of sneak-attack. It seems that you overvalue it, which is strange if you really play it since January.

Don't know which decks you played before that sneak is the most consistant one you've ever played, but there are certain consistency issues in sneak attack. Usually high power has a tradeoff with consistency and Sneak attack is a good compromise on that spectrum, but there are certain draws (mull with little/no cantripping) where you lose to "yourself" or very little disruption.

Also your matchup evaluation that there are no real negative matchups preboard seems a little optimistic to me. Especially RUG Delver but also Miracle control, Reanimator, Dredge, Merfolk and Death and Taxes are negative pre-board imo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

Nice work on the sideboard-exel apple. Don't agree with some of the numbers of the evaluation, but the idea to evaluated sidebaord cards this way is not bad. However to build a sideobard you need to also start with what do you want to board out against the specific matchups, so you have exactly the slots you want to board in. For example with 4 Pierce main and 4 red-blast/3 blood moon in the sideboard I am curious how you play versus RUG postboard.

More important than that you need to get a realistic idea of the strenghts and weaknesses of sneak-attack. It seems that you overvalue it, which is strange if you really play it since January.

Don't know which decks you played before that sneak is the most consistant one you've ever played, but there are certain consistency issues in sneak attack. Usually high power has a tradeoff with consistency and Sneak attack is a good compromise on that spectrum, but there are certain draws (mull with little/no cantripping) where you lose to "yourself" or very little disruption.

Also your matchup evaluation that there are no real negative matchups preboard seems a little optimistic to me. Especially RUG Delver but also Miracle control, Reanimator, Dredge, Merfolk and Death and Taxes are negative pre-board imo.

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The sideboard evaluation is still a work in progress. I was hoping to get a little help/ideas from the forums.

I sideboard probably differntly than anyone in the sense that I always take the same cards out every match. Depending on how many cards I need to put in I take out Lotus petals, then preordain, then intuition, and if i need to ponders, but very very rarly ponders if ever at all. I take these cards out because I feel they are the weakest every match. Also the other cards in the deck are really essential to the deck functioning correctly.

Maybe I should be taking out other cards for the cards I put it? If I could get some feedback on what to take out and what to put in i could add it to the excel doc.

I have not played against rug too many times, but other than counterspells they dont have anything threatening. In game one their best card is daze for tempo, but we have lotus petal and sol lands so daze loses its potency fast. You should be able to play around stifles and I always get basics when possible so i dont have to worry about wastelands. Postboard you just blow them out cause they only have nonbasics (you have blood moon but this is unnecessary) so now instead of the SnT and Sneak Attack 8 threats, you have an additional 3 to bait out counterspells with or just push your main cards through with REB. This match is not nearly as difficult as miracles because once you land SnT or SA your win rate is much higher. Dont get me wrong, you can still get tempo'd out if you draw nothing but you have to be smart about your mulligans. Also i typically add diverts cause they run low on mana and its basically another spell pierce.

In my opinion the weakness to the deck is Show and Tell, which is maybe why I would want to run through the breach main (at least a couple).

I dont think I overvalue it because I think it is very undervalued in the meta right now. Very rarely if ever does Blue ever get to play combo. Thats like a match made in heaven because now the only real thing stopping you is counterspells. However, since you run more counterspells than the typical competition with 2 misdirections and more in the board, you can take them head on and usually come out on top.

The wheel of magic is (for the most part)
Combo > Aggro
Aggro > Control
Control > Combo

When the combo deck can now play control too until it just win's outright in 1 turn id say thats a winning combination.

High power does trade off with consistency but take a look at Belcher / Dredge. Both can win as fast is not faster than Sneak attack but they cant really effectivly defend themselves while doing it. I would hardly call cabal therapy a real disruptive card. Yeah i Mean you are going to get draws where you mana flood in a 19 land deck but shit happens with any deck. Proportionally SA/SnT has the right proportoions. Statistically speaking you should get a SA or SnT in your first 8 cards, and you should also get one of your 8 creatures. If you didnt get one or the other you probably got a cantrip to get you to the missing piece or a counterpell or two to buy time till you find the missing piece.

Against disruption you play slow and hide cards with brainstorm. Sneak attack has a lot of power in the sense that it can win fast but its real advantage is being able to play defense as well as offense. You are gonna get weak draws just like every other deck but you recover faster (because you just win). A bad hand for aggro is not curving out and being able to put pressure on us, or not having disrption. So they mulligan till they have one of the two strategys. Even if they put us on a clock, their clock is typically slower than it takes us to assemble our combo. Lets say jund is playing a heavy hand disruption packaage with 4 thoughtseize, 2 inquisition and 4 hymn to tourach's, thats 10 cards. if you look at what our deck has to combat those cards we have more, 4 Spell Pierce, 4 Force of will, 2 Misdirection, 4 Brainstorm, we have 14 ways to deal with disruption....Thats why i dont even bother with leyline of sanctity in my board. I do however like divert because its so much better than just countering when you get a card from them and in the optimal situation 2 cards with hymn. If they play around spell pierce and diver thats fine, we get 3-4 turns to assemble our combo, thats a lot...

Matchups:

Miracle control: IMO is our hardest matchup (i havent played against Death and taxes) I asked someone who has been playing the counter top variants since thopter foundry....so for years. He admits that the game one is worse for them than us. It's hard for us because after board they have just as many counterspells but more disruption (humility, ensnaring bridge, Karakas, Vensur). I think the key here is to play with through the breach because 1 swing with emrakul and they are done.

Dredge: we are just as fast except we have more counterspells than they have disruption. Play correctly and you shouldnt lose...

Merfolk: should be about the same as RUG matchup even thought I havent played this one. I talked about RUG up top. BUG should also fall into this category however I worry more about this because they have hand disruption along with a counterspell package which may out number our counterspells.


The list of decks I've piloted in my time is extensive (16 years of exp under my belt): Stax, survival, bant, Team America, Jund, Miracles, Pox, Maverick, Dredge, MBC, Goblins, Merfolk, Landstill, Belcher, Stoneblade, Burn, ANT, , Dream halls, Pitch World, Combo Elves, RUG, counter thopter, NO Bant, Food chain elves, Vampires, counterslivers, dragon stompy, MUD, enchantress, ....so on and so forth.

Decks I havent piloted are Death and Taxes, Nic Fit, High Tide, 43 lands, tin fins (this is close to the modern version of our deck), painter stone, aluren, deadguy ale, hive mind


Sorry for the long posts guys but I really want to perfect this deck, as i feel very passionate about it being the best deck in the format. I like it so much I ported it to modern and play it there too.