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If I feel the need for speed I run Double Skull + Sol Lands + timely reinvorcents (SB) atm in UW (turn 2 reinforcements vs. Lackeys, guides, delver and moongooses is nice as Turn 3 hardcasted skulls). Don't think mana dorks and going deep into black is good for the manabase especially now that many decks Start to adjust 4 DRS with punishing grove and shitQuote:
Originally Posted by Teluin
I have to admit, i'm very worried for my Punishing Jund match-up at Edison tomorrow. I know that adding wastelands to esper will help the battle but hurt my mana. My post-board game is presumably good, but I worry for my pre-board game. I'm essentially running Vidi's build. Is Wasteland the way to go? Suggestions?
i solved my own problem. Dust Bowl is perfect for what I want to be doing.Quote:
Originally Posted by learntolove6
From my experience Extirpate or a a well timed Surgical Extraction is the best tool against Punishing fireQuote:
Originally Posted by learntolove6
So your running two needles in the sideboard correct? Perhaps enlighted tutor to find those pieces more easily (needle + humility)? I am not going to lie, I am running a uwr version nowadays, so leyline is not really a problem for me. Meddling mage could also be a solution for you (in bonus, I found them to be good to bring in against abrupt decay based decks). Then, there is blue elemental blast.Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsummon
Oops, just 1 needle, the second is sword of feast and famine.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThediscoPower
What are you running red for main and sb?
Nothing in the maindeck, 2-3 red blasts and a blood moon in the sideboard (not sold on that card yet, hopefully I get to test it better this week)Quote:
Originally Posted by Unsummon
Is the deck prevalent enough to worry about playing against it often? If so it would be better to discard Blade temporarily. Otherwise you should just ignore it or play more Surgical / Extirpate in your sideboard.Quote:
Originally Posted by learntolove6
After playing - and losing - some more I agree with the guys who want to play Wasteland in this deck. Not having Wasteland often feels so underpowered. I hate not being able to screw my opponent or interact with his Sol Lands. Sadly the problem is twofold as the deck is pretty colored mana hungry and already as low on lands as it can get. Cutting colored mana is no option for me, but cutting spells isn't either. So yeah, adding Wastelands would be sweet but as of now I don't see how to make it work. Most likely to cut are Academy Ruins and some of the 1 of spells, for example Supreme Verdict could be a candidate if the meta is not that animal infested. Cutting a Jace might also be an option... but then it's Jace, a card that I can never justify to cut.
@WastelandQuote:
Originally Posted by dunkle_stille
I've been playing with Wastelands for some time and been really happy about it, upping the land count to 24 to be able to support a 4pack. Beeing colorless is not a big problem for the deck as most spells require single mana (except the lategame jace and a single counterspell). Just plan ahead to avoid beeing colorscrewed. If you fight wasteland then your white is probably twice as important as your black (discard and flashback of souls vs mystic and stp). I would only lead with discard against an unknown opponent if I have 2-3 lands in hand for example. Sometimes you operate on black/white, sometimes blue/white. The important thing is to realize which TWO colors will be your gameplan against wasteland.
Esperblade is two decks in one package... and wasteland bridges between the two very well. Sometimes you get discard+mystic+wasteland and just win right there, with a low curve. Other times you grind 1for1 against bug/jund and then your high land count let you navigate with ease into the topdeck war that the power of jace, brainstorm, souls and batterskull let you win. Each require a lot of colorless mana, the "other side" of wasteland.
I also like the subtle things wasteland do for the deck. Beeing a jace-deck you can easily dismantle a tarmogoyf, but two is a problem. wasteland limit your opponents resources and put him on one-spell-per-turn, which is a very favored position to be in with jace in play. This force your opponent to overextend, and naturally walk right into EE/perish instead.
I've played two dailies on MODO and 3-1ed both. Loosing to sneak attack (tight) and dredge (also tight). Even though a lot of the wins were tight too, the deck let me play magic and my losses was within reach to be wins :)
This is the current list;
CREATURES (8)
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Stoneforge Mystic
SORCERIES (8)
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
INSTANTS (14)
4 Brainstorm
2 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Counterspell
3 Force of Will
PLANESWALKERS (4)
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
ARTIFACTS (2)
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Batterskull
LANDS (24)
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
SIDEBOARD
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Meddling Mage
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Perish
2 Spell Pierce
1 Hydroblast
1 Disenchant
I basicly either remove all my counterspells in the grind, or remove all stp+souls against combo.
As far as Esper is concerned, the match up is significantly easier when you're playing with Wasteland and Daze vs Jund, because Jund is the kind of deck who only casts one spell per turn and needs that spell to be better than yours. I think you guys are probably having problems with your higher mana curve variants, all of those 4th Jaces, 1xSupreme Verdicts, 1xVendilion Cliques, XxCounterspells really leave you wanting for interaction on your first few turnsQuote:
Originally Posted by learntolove6
Out of curiousity, how do you guys feel about Cabal Therapy?
I Always have 2 Therapy in my sideboard :D! Against some matchups you want to board in extra discard and since you know what you're facing (Sneaky Show or Storm for example) and often have useless creatures in play, you really want and also CAN play the flashback =)!Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
despite an unimpressive showing at edison yesterday (which is okay, because sometimes you just lose), I learne that although preboar against punishing jun is not great, post board feels awesome, especially with rest in peace. i will be playing 4 rest in peaces from now on.
Wasteland is likely the best non-color land you can play. Academy Ruins is garbage; how often do you really get to activate it? If you're already running colorless lands, you should consider whether or not wastelands would just be better in those slots.
Does anybody actually like the 1x Scrubland? How does the number of times you fetch it compare to the number of times you draw it but don't want it?
So it seems the sneak attack discussion is relevant on the bigger playing field as with 3 sneak show in the top 4 of scg Edison.
Ruins is a good SB card, or even MD over the 1 Scrubland (that's what I do). I only run 3 Wasteland though, and am thinking about going to 23 land for the 4th, just not sure what to cut.Quote:
Originally Posted by Malakai
The deck list is so tight already.
Beating sneak attack is pretty easy. Run a lot spell pierces, and run Humility.
I see people running Gerrard's Verdict in the board. Obviously this card is great against mono-red, but what other application does it really have? What is it for?
Here's my plan against all of the grindy decks that seem to be in vogue right now:
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Lingering Souls
3 Jace, the Mind-Sculptor
2 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Ancestral Vision
23 lands (heavy on basics, 4 non-blue lands total)
The idea stems from jamming UW with visions against jund, renegade, etc. Basically all of my losses came from losing to either Lingering Souls, or a planeswalker that I would've been able to kill if I had Lingering Souls. That said I've seen people stall out without a source of card advantage, as effectively all of the Deathrite Shaman decks are high on card advantage.
The SoFF makes it to the maindeck because (1) it's actually worth getting against combo, and (2) it helps to crack open the Batterskull wars. It's probably the first card I would cut if I wanted to cut something. I would move it to the board.
No Thoughtseize. I'm not sure about this, but Inquisition hits nearly everything I want to hit anyway. The only exceptions are Show and Tell, Jace, Batterskull, Charbelcher, and Bloodbraid Elf. While this can be a problem, against a lot of these decks simply taking some other card goes goes just as far to prevent the "one we really wanted" from resolving. Not hitting jace is probably the biggest concern, but Lingering Souls is already good at fighting it, and many times taking some sort of protection piece is going to ensure that their Jace isnt' safe. Mainly, however, I felt that the life loss of Thoughseize was more significant against many decks than missing these cards, especially if I want to flash it back.
Cabal Therapy: If you're an expert at using this card, it is simply insane. Combined with bodies that I don't mind sacrificing, it seemed foolish to not include one. I plan to bring another in the board.
Spell Pierce; I chose these over Snare and/or the second Counterspell because they shore up the weaknesses of my discard package very well. Against combo I generally want the full set anyway, so having them here makes building an effective sideboard easier.
No Vendilion Clique: Something had to go to make room for the Ancestral Visions. It remains to be seen whether the first Clique is better than the third Snapcaster in this build. I suspect that when the Clique is better, it is way better, and a similar story for when it is worse.
3 Force of Will: I am a fan of the full playset, but with what I consider to be a low blue card count and the already generous disruption package, going to four felt okay. Plus, it's better for grinding. Having FoW against Hymn decks is one of the most awkward things in Magic. The fourth will of course be in the board, because losing to combo is for suckers.
Hey, is there any thread for Esperblade Tempo variants? Or this is the thread of reference for any UWx Blade deck?
There was a UW Tempo thread somewhere (on my mobile so can't find it) for decks with a combination of Delver, Geist and SFM. That could be relevant.
About Humility, there was recently a discussion about the card. Last night an unanswered Humility literally brought the game to me against Scapewish by stopping all his creature shenanigans and putting him into topdeck mode for more Deeds or combo pieces.
However I had a very hard time against GBw Nic Fit with Eternal Witness recurring Deeds and Thrun coming in from the sideboard. Any tips for this matchup? What are our outs against a Thrun? That friggin' blue hating troll.