[Deck] MonoU OmniTell

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Picture made by Brentane

This thread will gather discussions on the omniscience+cunning wish mono blue decks. The bases will be the Omniclash build I played at GP Strasbourg to a 9-0 record day one (would have finished 9th without a GL for a left out cunning wish target for a game 3 last round) and the Omnimaniac build that won BoMVII, piloted by Nicolas Goldberg.
GP Strasbourg Decklist
BoM Maniac Decklist
I have no doubt my list is better, especially since Nicolas had a few days of testing where I had months, and that during the tournament it was pretty easy to convince him about most of my choices. It’s far easier for me to justify cards from my perspective and since this primer is an updated version of what I posted on storm boards a month ago it will highly favour the omniclash perspective. But most of the things apply to the BoM winning list anyway and I’ll try to talk about all differences.

The Genesis.

Right after enter the infinite was spoiled (mid October I think) I started working on the best dream halls deck to exploit it with my friend Frédéric Pérez aka Jolalose, the guy with whom I designed the bridgewalkers deck for those who remember that. We knew we wanted pacts of negation so we dismissed the UB griselbrand (discard and dark rituals) version of the deck that was very powerful but couldn’t kill in one turn most of the time and lost on stifle+waste far too easily. Staying mono blue helps a lot in the secondary plan of hardcasting dream halls.
Enter allowed to run about just any kill so we elected to use the most versatile one with cunning wish that doubled as the perfect anti hate card. As soon as December 2012 we had a very close list to what I ran at the GP and decided we would not talk about it nor play it before GP Strasbourg and BoM.
One exception to that rule was talking about it to Brandon Adams aka emidln in January after he designed a list for someone in a scg event. He agreed our list was finely tuned and probably the best at that point. But he was really obsessed with the weakness of cunning wish + dream halls so I talked to him about firemind’s foresight (which Fred and I dismissed for reasons that I will stipulate later). He also seemed to like more the maniac kill he thought about. His latest decklist that I know of :
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post718270
Unfortunately Frédéric couldn’t make it for both GP and BoM.
Nicolas Goldberg started testing the decklist he ran at BoM VII 3 days before the event thanks to Nicolas Brun aka OrGy from his team who got interested in the concept after my run at GP Strasbourg. We talked a bit with OrGy but he was clearly more influenced by the English articles published about the deck. Nicolas has been running Tempo threshold for months in tournaments but recognized the raw power of the pack. I can only confirm that since as of today my testing only finds 3 bad match-ups for the deck. Reanimator, Tin Fins and UR Omniscience mirror with flusterstorm (Testing against dredge was 50/50 post sb but it’s probably negative overall too).

Links didn’t give you the decklist I consider the best as of now. This is what I ran at BoM VII :
3 City of Traitors
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
3 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Sapphire Charm
SB: 1 Rushing River
SB: 1 Release the Ants
SB: 1 Noxious Revival
SB: 1 Intuition
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Pact of Negation

I barely made day 2 after going 7-2 (first defeat round 6 against the undefeated ANT player that will get Dqed for stacking, and another very unlucky defeat to a friend playing Tempo thresh). Starting day 2 with a very very very close defeat versus counterbalance put me in a difficult bracket and I lose to team America and reanimator.
Christoph Alsheimer aka Nemavera also played the same 75 I ran and fell short of one win from the top8 after going 8-1 day 1.

Main game plan of the deck :

Casting enter the infinite either with show and tell/omniscience or with dream halls.
Yeah 1 line is enough

Justifyings the slots :

10 Island : No real reason to open yourself to mana denial with such a powerful deck. Frédéric plays the UB list on MTGO from time to time for fun but it just auto loses to stifle/wasteland. You want to be able to cast dream halls. Maybe the deck could play only 9 islands but we were on the 10 islands side before the GP and I am still today.

4 flooded strand, 3 polluted delta : 6 fetches to reshuffle are the necessary. We hesitated several times between 6 and 7. At BoM the 7th was played instead of the 4th city.
You don’t want to run too much fetchlands as you finish a lot of games very low on life, maybe 6 fetches is the best choice.

3 city of traitors : I was convinced cities would be better than tombs very early and testing proved me right even if I forced myself testing with splits for a very long time. 2 life matters very often if it can give you a turn. Since this deck is monoU, if you land a non basic it will almost never survive. Therefore there is very little drawback at only running cities. The only games where you will prefer some numbers of tombs are some post board games with defense grid. That’s not enough to overweight the rest of the games.
After the GP I allowed myself to start playtesting at a pretty high rate in 2-mens on MTGO. That allowed me to realize that 4th city was inferior to another blue source, in making land drops but moreover on mulligans since a hand with one blue land can be almost always kept whereas 0 blue lands can almost never be kept. I still think 17 blue sources is the way to go.

Omniscience : the number 1 thing to put with S&T.

Dream Halls : Yes it costs 5 mana but this is also show and tell + omniscience in one card if you have enter the infinite. With the deck’s manabase 5 mana isn’t a big deal. Of course you can also show and tell it.
Dream halls can combo with wish->intuition->EtI if you have 3 blue cards to spare.
If you want to run 4 of them then you have to play firemind’s foresight.

4 enter the infinite : At the beginning we had 3 enter and 4 cunning wish. But when we cut the gitaxian probes and added the 3rd dream halls, the dream halls/cunning wish weak interaction occurred a bit more. Since Maverick was disappearing, we reasoned we would less often need wishes for oblivion rings (there are also a bit less miracles lately) and that teeg would rarely be on our way. So we switched.
Don’t forget you can just cast a second EtI with an empty library to avoid decking.

3 cunning wish : generally the best card post sb, so don’t judge it only by making preboard tests. Wish trickbind is, with the monoU shell and the full free hard counters suite, one of the big advantages of the decklist. Noxious revival is also very helpful against discard among other things. But I’ll talk about the wish targets when talking about sideboard.

1 emrakul : Everyone on forums seems to think it’s there to win the clash. I generally put enter the infinite back with another EtI, that’s enough to win against most decks. If I fear extirpate I may put back an emrakul but omniscience would almost always do the same. Emrakul is essentially there because it’s an alternative uncounterable kill if something prevents you from killing with RtA. Main reason being if the opponent plays emrakul. You can just win by attacking then. I don’t consider Emrakul a dead card. It combos with the rest of the deck whether it is with omniscience or just a single show and tell on some rare occasions (only happended once to me at GP Strasbourg). Besides Omniscience-Emrakul is your main plan against Thalia decks and Teeg decks thanks to wish -> eladamri’s call. In these match-ups you side out the pacts of negation and therefore don’t need to kill right away. Also the creature dodges some of their hate. Just untapping through Thalia can also be good enough if you need to deal with a board with rushing riverx2 (kicked and maybe noxious revivaled) before annihilating.

1 gitaxian probe : what I wrote on storm boards a month ago : “Information is very important, and especially game one.. If there was one thing I’d like to put back, it’s some number of gitaxian probes. But we needed so much space for sideboard that it spread over the main deck by one slot.”
One gitaxian probe came back instead f the sensei’s divining top. I feel the gitaxian probe is slightly better, but if the metagame becomes as discard heavy as it was a few months ago the SDT will probably come back.
If you really don’t like playing maindeck leyline considering your metagame, play a 2nd probe instead. But the sb cut will be HARD.

4 Brainstorm : we all play legacy

4 ponders : > to preordain

4 preordain : I just never side out a preordain and wouldn’t cut a single one from this build. That’s absolutely necessary if you want to play a combo deck without tutors. And even if you really want to fit in some intuitions, please try cutting something else.

4 force of wills, 3 pacts of negation : We had 3 fows /4 PoN for a while. But the meta becoming a lot more comboish we decided to switch a few weeks before the GP. Against non combo decks with counters I side in the PoN and side out a fow.
The choice of PoN is of course to play a maximum of free hard counters to hardcast dream halls or play around taxing effects (sometimes both !). The most plausible replacement is flusterstorm, but we think PoN is better against tempo and control decks. There are the discard decks and the combo decks, but that’s when leylines comes into the equation. To summarize it even if you are a bit less good in game ones with pacts in the meta, your deck will always be optimized post board.

4 Show and tell : Makes the deck so dumb.

1 leyline of sanctity : this singleton has probably intrigued most of the readers. The first thing to know is that about two months before the GP, when the meta was even more filled with discard, we even considered playing the 4 leylines main deck to adapt to it completely.
At that time I was already thinking about playing a one-of from my previous experiment with DDFT (1 LLoS sb) since that gives an 11% chance of blanking a lot of the opponent spells without having the drawback of drawing several of them.
Since discard decreased and pact of negation has some value as a blue cards for fow and dream halls, we had this split. That helped us gaining a sb slot (the sapphire charm) very welcomed against hate bear decks.

Sideboard :

3 Defense Grid : the first tests against tempo were very simple. We crushed them preboard, and post board they destroyed us because they increase a lot the number of their hard counters. The defense grid idea came very quickly and proved to be all we need. Thanks to it we can claim a positive tempo thresh match-up all the way and it also helps in all match-ups sideboarding additional situational hard counters including flusterstorm (our worst enemy).
Nicolas (Goldberg) and Nicolas (Brun) (I will say N&N from now on) agree they are very necessary to the sideboard.

3 Leyline of Sanctity : probably the best sideboard card for any show and tell deck. Not only blanking discard, it also is of some help against many combo decks.

1 Trickbind : answers most post sb hate by cunning wishing it under omniscience. The only situation when you prefer stifle would be when you pact with 4 mana up once in the upkeep and the wish in hand. That almost never happens and doesn’t outweight all the situations where split second matters (griselbrand, counterbalance, etc…)

1 Slaughter Pact : answers hate bears for free. You can trickbind the trigger but generally combo when resolving it.

1 Sapphire Charm : With only 3 wishes the “cycle a redundant wish” clause is a bit less useful. That said it answers hate bears beautifully in the end of turn which can be quite useful against Thalia since it is possible every mana will count. It’s also a blue card for fow and dream halls and can cyle when sided in. I would not cut the slaughter pact, but if I wanted more hate bears slots I would increase the number of sapphire charms before the number of pacts.

1 Rushing River : non creatures permanents sometimes matter and this is the most efficient bounce against them. Of course if MUD is everywhere in your metagame you are free to adapt the sb to run hurkyl’s recall, or if there are a lot of empty the warrens run echoing truth. But as it is rushing river does what we need a bounce to do 99% of the time with only one slot.

1 Release the Ants : I talked about its use in the Emrakul explanation. We used to run searing wind in that slot (used in conjunction with noxious revival). After hours and hours of speleology on a yellow magic website I finally found a better kill. This one kills on the spot, bypassing teeg and possibly thalia. It complements very well with the main deck emrakul. Searing wind is only superior to it in the other show and tell match-ups (emrakul in their lib, or when they activate a grisebrand after we show and tell).

1 Noxious Revival : Very useful against discard. It also doubles as grave hate and I side it in against reanimator, dredge, tin fins or oops.

1 Intuition : so that your wishes can be enter the infinite. It is often sided in when emrakul is the main plan and pacts/leylines are unnecessary.

1 Eladamri's Call : Emrakul’s Call. One of the least wished slots but is an important part of the plan against thalia/teeg decks.

1 Pact of Negation : wishable and sideboard card. You often exchange it for a fow against non combo fow match-ups.


Cards we didn’t include or we cut :

Main deck sensei’s divining top : So we got a gitaxian probe back like which I already justified. Here is what I wrote about it when I had it : “I know it’s the same for all decks using SDT, but this is even more true in this one : you really don’t want to see a second SDT. You are a combo deck with essentially only fows to prevent them from killing you so you don’t have much time to exploit and get rid of a second one. You just lose too much time without a shuffler if you draw two. That said in a meta full of discard and as a deck that wants as much library manipulation as possible the first one is a good one. It also offers an instant draw effect post enter the infinite.”
The instant draw effect post EtI has never been useful so far unfortunately.

Main deck intuition : First I was tired of siding out intuitions because of surgical in a deck with so few space to fit everything in. In addition to that intuition kind of asks to play at the very least 5 sol land, and play them early to stay in the tempo. That generally results in them getting promptly wasted and sometimes you still get your intuition countered by a taxing effect. So I replaced the intuitions by 2-3 gitaxian probes to try and the deck ran much more smoothly. The probes are now [s]gone[/s] reduced to one but the deck still is dense enough in cantrips to find what it needs in time.
If you run firemind’s foresight you have to run a single intuition. If you go that way and adapt the manabase 1 copy is fine. Before cutting intuition my test conclusions were that the deck wanted either 0 or 1 intuition. I decided to run 0 because the sb intuition sometimes came in and because I wanted a more resilient manabase. Running 2 however seems not good enough to me.

Main deck Impulse : The other condition for running firemind’s foresight is running a 2cc. I was afraid running impulses would start getting a bit slow as it was for intuition but N&N assured me the impulse x1 was awesome. Maybe they are right (that happens sometimes), but I still don’t like the fact that with only 1 impulse the firemind’s foresight plan is screwed if you draw it.

Main deck Trickbind : only clever in decks running firemind’s foresight and no Emrakul main deck as a semi-insurance against CB for maniac. Having to run it seems horrible to me but if someone wants to write a paragraph advising it I’ll copy it here.

Main deck Grim monolith : The list only runs 3 dream halls and it clearly doesn’t accelerate as much as it does in hive mind. I don’t think it’s better than lands or business/protection. It also opens you to abrupt decay. That “I don’t care about decay and drs” was among one of the first things that got us work on the deck. It also opens you to spell snare and if you want to play around daze you’ll need 3 lands on the table already, that is slow.

Flusterstorm : Already talked a bit about it when justifying the counters. N&N agreed after BoM that 4th fow is better main deck than their 1-of flusterstorm.

Sideboard firemind’s foresight : useful to have dream halls + cunning wish + 2 blue cards + 0 mana function. I found that one quite early in my speleology sessions but we quickly dismissed with Frédéric. Ari Lax and Brandon Adams/Emidln and some other American posters seem fond about it so maybe we are wrong (but doubt so). The reason we don’t want to play it is that not only does it costs a sideboard slot, it also forces you to run a non optimal otherwise main deck with at least a 2cc and an intuition main deck. And even if you do make those sacrifices, if you draw one of those, FF becomes useless. The dream halls/wish kill with 2 blue cards isn’t necessary often enough for all these drawbacks in our opinion.
Update : Nicolas G. told me he had 4 games out of 15 rounds where he used it. 2 of them he could have gone off 1-2 turns later. In my opinion that’s less useful than defense grid #3, especially if it gives constraints on the main deck.

Sideboard surgical extraction : No space and noxious does some of the job. N&N agree it is far inferior to noxious.

Sideboard echoing truth : I personnally think echoing truth's only appeal is answering empty the warrens and rarely zombie tokens. But imo cunning wish -> echoing truth is too slow for that so I prefer the rushing river / sapphire charm split. I'm unsure about N&N's current opinion.

Sideboard Stormtide Leviathan : This was our slot against maverick. Definitely worth playing if the deck is popular in your metagame We cut it because maverick really declined and stormtide isn’t as good against other thalia decks.

Sideboard brain freeze : you can kill with brainfreeze with either firemind’s foresight sequences (with weird slots) or with just a second SDT main deck. This kill still doesn’t answers the emrakul’s decks and opens himself to some additional hate. Therefore we prefer Release the Ants which can also steal some games with an instant lucky kill when things go wrong.

Laboratory Maniac + research/development : this kill simply shuffles back maniac thanks to a wished research. Then you cantrip into it, play it, and play cantrips ftw. In case of removal either counter it or play a brainstorm in response. This kill is only vulnerable to very few random things (sudden shock/death/sudden spoiling, weaker against chains of Mephistopheles or counterbalance) so it’s perfectly good if you really don’t want the Emrakul main deck.

To people not used to playing cantrips in combo

I'm not going to write a complete guide on cantrips but my experience watching unexperienced people playing this deck showed me I had to write a minimum about it.
You are a combo deck. If you don't gather a combo you'll lose 100% of the time. That means that when for example you lack a show and tell and your preordain doesn't show it, you put every non cantrip card on the bottom. Even if you are against tempo thresh or miracles you can't afford to keep a counterspell for back-up. You'll find more of these later. There are 7 of them when you only have 4 show and tell.
Same with lands. Just put them on bottom or reshuffle them with ponder. I run 20 lands in my list, which is quite large, so that I don't have to worry about finding more of them. It would have to be an extreme corner case for me to keep a fetch on ponder or an island on preordain if I still didn't gather all the combo pieces. Only exceptions of course is the cantrips if they improve your digging power. That means you'll put them on bottom if you already have too many in hand compared to the opponent's clock.
Finally don't forget in your set up that dream halls and cunning wish is the least attracting combo, especially without firemind's foresight.

I said earlier that I wouldn't cut a single cantrip from the decklist because they are so important. So don't waste them.

Play or draw

People will probably have to play quite a lot the deck to believe me on this one.
At BoM Nemavera and I were letting our opponents play in all unknown game ones.

That started with some odd results I had in testing against TES and death and taxes before the GP, with the deck performing better on the draw than on the play. I was starting to wonder if those were statistical anomalies or a real thing. I could find justifications for both match-ups (your interaction with TES is free whether it is leyline or fow and both combo decks want to see a maximum number of cards. ; against death and taxes you can race thalia/canonist etc… but you’ll still have to face it when they play it off show and tell, and you’ll probably need more cards in your combo whether they are additional lands or cunning wish for trickbind + you don’t want the opponent to see too many hate cards) but I had insufficient stats before the GP to apply that strategy with confidence. After the GP I played 40 games against death and taxes and results were confirming the first series.both presb and post sb. In MTGO 2-mens I started to let my discard decks opponents play first post sb when I sided in leylines. And since it seemed to be working (either no difference or the additional card saved me) I chose to systematically let my opponent start to test out for the GP. I think the fact decks have so few ways to interact with you means you only want to start in pure race match-ups like elfball, dredge or show and tell decks. But even against storm I am now inclined to let my opponent play post sb.
The number of decks where I was satisfied of being the first to draw became so important that me, Frédéric and Nemavera are now convinced letting the opponent start is the right move if you don’t know what he plays.
I’m even considering letting a tempo thresh opponent start if he doesn’t run stifle (was unbelievable for me before the BoM, but now I’m not sure).
This should be funny for you at the beginning since people will either make strange faces or put you on manaless dredge and mulligan aggressively for deathrite shaman.

Last word

I’m not used stating obvious things so if people are lost on something about the combo/choices don’t hesitate asking and I’ll (painfully) edit the primer. You can also take a look at what NesretepNoj wrote before I finished updating this one here :
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...-Cunning-Halls

To finish I wrote down some sideboard tables for my latest list the day before leaving for BoM because Pierre Sommen wanted to play it in the trial (he went 7-3 playing the deck for the first time and I went 7-2-1, we should have more let our opponents play) and Nemavera was sold on the deck. Here they are :


Tempo Thresh

-1 Emrakul (they can’t attack your hand with discard so surgical is unlikely to hit cunning wish if they play it. No other reason to keep Emrakul when you rely more on nPoN).
-1 Dream Halls (classic sideout against daze decks).
-1 FoW (Because PoN is better)
-1 LloS

+3 Defense Grid
+1 PoN

Esper stoneblade.

-1 Emrakul (less worst and they run Jaces)
-1 Gitaxian Probe (Classic SB out when you go up to 4 LLoS)
-2 FoW

+3 LloS
+1 PoN (You don’t need to counter sorcery speed spells most of the time)

If your opponent is siding in a lot of hatebears (canonist, meddlin mage…) adapt by playing more fows and siding in at least the sapphire charm, maybe more.
If you’re opponent is really heavy on discard+ surgicals consider keeping the Emrakul (and therefore play less PoN).

Shardless BUG

-1 Emrakul
-1 Gitaxian probe
-2 FoW

+3 LLoS
+1 PoN

This has been tested against my shardless list with lots of planeswalker which has become popular in France. It doesn’t run surgical. If you see several surgicals with discard and less planeswalkers keeping the Emrakul is a good idea.

Elfball

I fully expect cabal therapies and often more discard. Hate bear is possible but uncertain. Therefore
-3 PoN
-1 GP
+3 LLoS
+1 Sapphire charm

is the default sideboarding. Adapt as always.

Tin Fins (considering most lists run discard now and no fows)

-3 PoN
-1 GP
-2 Wish
+3 LLoS
+1 Intuition
+1 Noxious
+1 Trickbind

I guess I would do the same against classic reanimator as you can dodge daze easily. Consider grid against a reanimator with several pierces/flusterstorms.

Sneak Show

You are very likely to kill with Emrakul. So :
-1 PoN
-1 LLoS
-1 Brainstorm
+3 defense grid

Combo quickly thanks to defense grid daze/pierce proof, or get into a long game and kill with dream halls (wishable brainstorm is nice for the long game).

Ichorid

-3 PoN
-1 GP
+3 LLoS
+1 Noxious

BUG Delver

-1 GP
-1 Dream Halls
-1 Emrakul
+3 LLoS

As always adapt to the disruption seen.

Burn

-3 PoN
-1 GP
+3 LLoS
+1 Intuition

Tendrils based decks

-3 PoN
-1 GP
+3 LloS
+1 Intuition
Possibly –1 island +1 trickbind

Maverick and Death and taxes

-3 PoN
-1 LLoS
+1 Sapphire charm
+1 Slaughter pact
+1 Rushing river
+1 Intuition

Remember the game plan against Thalia decks is Emrakul. It also bypasses Teeg. Intuition in means you have 4 spells to trickbind hate permanents on show and tell.

Imperial Painter

-1 LLoS
-1 fetch
-1 FoW
+3 Defense Grid

Jund

-3 PoN
+3 LLoS
If the opponent is heavy on reb blasts cut the probe instead of a PoN.

UW Miracles

-1 LLoS
-1 FoW
-1 Island
+3 Defense Grid

High Tide

Didn’t test. Probably
-1 LLoS
–1 Emrakul
–1 Island
+3 Defense Grid (be careful as it is symmetrical)

Aluren

-1 Emrakul
-1 GP
-1 PoN / FoW / Island ? (still untested)
+ 3 LLoS

Counter if they intuition in response to show and tell as they are very likely to get 3 alurens

Jesus, do we really need 3 threads on page 1 discussing the same deck?

No. But instead of posting this here you should have done so in the thread with less relevant information. You could have also posted in the oldest thread to ask it being renamed UR omniscience instead of just omniscience.

I'm sure in all 3 threads the Core of S&T, Halls, Omni, (Intuition, Cunning Wish) is the topic.

This reminds me a bit of the flood of Reanimator threads because of the exact selection of creatures and/or if they run S&T.

Excellent primer; thanks a lot for writing it!

Crushing canadian preboard? Beeing ok postboard because of defense grid?
It looks like you spend a lot of time developing and testing the deck, but this does not seem correct. Compared to sneak attack you are much less hurt by stifle wasteland, but it also takes you a bit longer to resolve all your cantrips and find your 3 card combos.

I assume that you want to believe that you beat aggro-control because you want show & tell banned, but to me that is a classic case of overestimating ones combo deck, but I am happy to be proven wrong by getting my ass kicked. :tongue:

Factors which you should also not underestimate is the surprise, mindfuck liking playing on the draw, people not knowing what's going on in general. Once a deck is established it automatically looses value by people preparing better and knowing how to play against it. Nice deck, but sorry - not breaking the format and getting show banned.

Don't want to turn this thread into a ban or not ban show thing. Enough said about that. I would be more interested in you commenting on my thoughts about the deck:

What I don't get. You mention against death&taxes and maverick:
Remember the game plan against Thalia decks is Emrakul. It also bypasses Teeg. Intuition in means you have 4 spells to trickbind hate permanents on show and tell.

What do you mean? That you cunning wish (or intuition for cunning wish) for trickbind first. Then either cast
show - omni - emrakul with trickbind in hand
show - emrakul with trickind in hand + mana to cast it
show - omni - cunning wish - eladramis find
All this to deal with karakas/oblivion ring while dodging teeg? Besides the difficulty of finding your 1of emrakul or another cunning wish for eladramis call it also looks like a tough plan with Thalia and Pridemage around. Or am I missing something obvious on how you play properly against a thalia with 2 mana cantrips and 4 mana tutors?

What also comes to mind is playing against sneak attack.
If anyone shows and the opponent puts Griselbrand into play you likely loose to them having more counters than you right?. Isn't that a big disadvantage since they have more and faster sneak attacks compared to 3 dream-halls. Not to mention the opponent can also do mean things with dream halls like free pierces/flusters/red-blasts, which he might not have been able to cast before.

Is the sneak attack Matchup really positive in your experience?

Talking about the combo. What about storm: You are not faster and with only 4 FoW you pack way less disruption than them. This matchup seems also bad. Sneak attack is faster than your deck has spell pierces and misdirections for combos discard and hence a way better matchup I think.

So summing up the sneak attack comparison:
You have better mana and probably more consistency due to less clunk, but are a bit slower.
You have an instant win, but rely on some versions of "3 card combo" and are more vulnerable to enchantment hate than sneak-attack..
You have less disruption to interact with the opponents Gameplan, but cheaper protection for your own combo. Pact is much better in protecting yourself whereas 3 Misdirection main are the tits against discard which as you outlined yourself is pretty common.

in matchups to me that looks like:
Delver/Esper/Shardless: Better than sneak
Maverick: Probably equal or slightly better. Less hurt by wasteland & knight into Karakas but more vulnerable to pridemage.
Jund: Probably equal or slightly worse: More consistent, but misdirection >>>> Pact.
Combo (sneak, storm, elves,...): Worse since you are slower and have less protection.

Lejay, thanks for writing this primer and congratulations on your results.
Also, interesting take on the "ban SnT!!!" debate.

As for some sour comments: haters gonna hate I guess.

Awesome - I really like your list/choices , great work !

Great stuff.

Excellent write up!

However, it's the same exact deck (+ Emrakul and Ants, - Maniac and Firemind), and unfortunately you're splitting discussion that would be better geared to discussing the nuances of each win condition to fight different metas.

I like the Rushing River tech, since at times you'll have to fight multiple hate permanents.

2 Scalding Tarn
7 Island
2 City of Traitors
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
4 Show and Tell
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
3 Force of Will
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Brainstorm
4 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
1 Impulse
1 Flusterstorm
1 Intuition
4 Omniscience
4 Dream Halls

Sideboard
1 Pact of Negation
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Intuition
1 Trickbind
1 Wipe Away
1 Research // Development
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Firemind's Foresight
1 Echoing Truth
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Force of Will

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3 City of Traitors
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Dream Halls
4 Omniscience
3 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Show and Tell
SB: 1 Trickbind
SB: 1 Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 Sapphire Charm
SB: 1 Rushing River
SB: 1 Release the Ants
SB: 1 Noxious Revival
SB: 1 Intuition
SB: 1 Eladamri's Call
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 1 Pact of Negation

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

Crushing canadian preboard? Beeing ok postboard because of defense grid?
It looks like you spend a lot of time developing and testing the deck, but this does not seem correct. Compared to sneak attack you are much less hurt by stifle wasteland, but it also takes you a bit longer to resolve all your cantrips and find your 3 card combos.

I assume that you want to believe that you beat aggro-control because you want show & tell banned, but to me that is a classic case of overestimating ones combo deck, but I am happy to be proven wrong by getting my ass kicked. :tongue:

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I have 6+ months of testing the deck behind me so I would have liked critics backed-up by some testing results, but I don't mind answering the first ones as it's inevitable and testing results didn't have much time to occur. I confirm you what I wrote. My playtesting was either against myself, or mostly against Tristan polzl who played tempo thresh a lot and top8ed both the GP Ghent and 2012 BoM. Yes the match-up is favourable as you run more hardcounters than them and can play around a ton of cards (taxing effects, wasteland, stifle, snare is dead if played). When not running intuition your opponent can only counter cantrips which is pretty weak considering the number you have.
Sure results againt TT will decrease with people knowing the deck better, but we already took that into account.
I don't know why you seem surprised by the defense grid influence in the match-up. Yes it saves you from the multitude of conditional hardcounters they will bring in and without them the match-up becomes pretty bad post sb.
About the time needed to find the 3 cards combo there are several things to consider. First Tempo thresh absolutely needs turn 1 delver to be faster than what I need to find the 3 card combo. Second even if they do I can still be faster than them. Third this isn't always a 3 cards combo. Show and tell + omniscience + cantrips very often gets there. There are different 3 cards combo in the deck, dream halls+enter while not the main plan is a 2 card+ blue card combo, and against tempo thresh Show Emrakul is valid without using pacts.
I am not overestimating the TT match-up. TT is always the first deck against which I playtest when building. For me it's the thermometer of legacy deckbuilding. If a deck doesn't pass the TT with at least 50% win I just stop working on it.
I didn't say the deck would always win against TT but I can assure you that if the omni player knows what he's doing he'll win about 2/3 of the time. And I realize it's pretty high for a match-up percentage, there are much closer match-ups. Only a TT player tuning his deck specifically to beat show and tell can change that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

Factors which you should also not underestimate is the surprise, mindfuck liking playing on the draw, people not knowing what's going on in general. Once a deck is established it automatically looses value by people preparing better and knowing how to play against it. Nice deck, but sorry - not breaking the format and getting show banned.

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I didn't say it will completely dominate the format. There are 2 things to consider :
1) As long as people are running sufficient grave hate, this deck is the best deck in the format (with not enough grave hate it's reanimator)
2) People can adapt to this deck as I said in the format discussion section, but that will still result in an unhealthy metagame with far less diversity because its predator have almost all the same weaknesses and the hate is very limited and manageable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

What I don't get. You mention against death&taxes and maverick:
Remember the game plan against Thalia decks is Emrakul. It also bypasses Teeg. Intuition in means you have 4 spells to trickbind hate permanents on show and tell.

What do you mean?

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There is no logical connexion between the 2 sentences.
Against Thalia decks Emrakul is the plan as you just need 1 mana to cast enter and then you can untap and play spells you want. Cunning wish on call also bypasses teeg. You can easily dodge the hate bears thanks to the emrakul main deck.
Siding intuition in against thalia decks means you'll have four ways to answer oblivion ring (3 cunning wish + 1 intuition to tutor them). I wasn't talking about trickbinding through thalia but yes that can happen and in that case you probably wanted to wish for trickbind preventively. 2 different hates put you in a tougher spot and 3 different hate can be really difficult. But that's having 3 different hates. When we tested against a maverick with tons of hate at the beginning we had a negative match-up post sb. But not only it's just post sb and maverick decks shouldn't do so, the deck is also almost not run anymore. So there is no reason to highlight that maverick with 10+ targeted hate will be a negative match-up post sb. Also there is stormtide leviathan as long they don't expect it and side out all stps and you can dodge the Oring hate without wish thanks to dream halls when it was their only hate or because you countered a hate bear(s).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

What also comes to mind is playing against sneak attack.
If anyone shows and the opponent puts Griselbrand into play you likely loose to them having more counters than you right?. Isn't that a big disadvantage since they have more and faster sneak attacks compared to 3 dream-halls. Not to mention the opponent can also do mean things with dream halls like free pierces/flusters/red-blasts, which he might not have been able to cast before.

Is the sneak attack Matchup really positive in your experience?

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No. We expected it to be negative for the reason you gave. Testing proved it to be 50/50 somehow though. The main reason it's different from the UR omniscience build is that you can side in defense grid and play them pretty safely in the early game or put it on opposing show and tell because sneak show is far less likely to kill you in only one turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

Talking about the combo. What about storm: You are not faster and with only 4 FoW you pack way less disruption than them. This matchup seems also bad. Sneak attack is faster than your deck has spell pierces and misdirections for combos discard and hence a way better matchup I think.

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I didn't claim a better match-up than sneak attack against storm. Although I guess in a storm heavy meta you could play flusterstorm maindeck to improve drastically. That said leyline is really good against non doomsday Tendrils based decks.


About the comparisions you made, I think I answered a bunch of them throughout this post. One last major thing to consider is this deck not only suffers from less hate (humility, ensnaring bridge etc...), but it also can answer the rest of the hate (Oring, Dsphere, angel of despair, venser, even confusion in the ranks with wish->rushing river) with just one sb slot : trickbind.

EdIt : a word on krosan grip which was quoted as hate in the other thread. If you have the card in mind it's very easy to put your opponent on it since he has to keep 3 mana open.In that case he is definitely slower which lets you time to find a second enchantment.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

Jesus, do we really need 3 threads on page 1 discussing the same deck?

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There is already a primer for this deck - no need for new ones or other showmanships .... just merge this one with the older and already existing ones, please.

The thread cunning halls and this one are getting merged, no need to post about it several times a day.
The omniscience thread should be renamed UR omniscience.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lemnear

I'm sure in all 3 threads the Core of S&T, Halls, Omni, (Intuition, Cunning Wish) is the topic.

This reminds me a bit of the flood of Reanimator threads because of the exact selection of creatures and/or if they run S&T.

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You forgot the Dream Halls thread. They've been discussing it too :tongue:

//

Lejay - thanks for sharing your thoughts. As always, your style is abrasive and dismissive, but you always seem to have lots of data and testing to back it up. I appreciate that you go through the thought process for rejecting the other builds like the Emrakul-less Firemind's Foreskin.

Leyline of Sanctity has always seemed like such an awful high-variance card especially when you have so many cantrips and redundant pieces. You really think it's required though?

Just bought the cards to put this together. Seems like the deck has staying power and it's pretty hard to imagine that both Lejay is wrong and winning BoM is a fluke.

I am a lot more precautionous when I don't have data about new cards. But I rarely post in these cases.

High variance doesn't mean bad. Yes I think it's necessary because versus discard, games with LLoS and games without it are uncomparable. With mulligans you are between 40% and 50% chances of having the protection, and it isn't only useful against discard.

Does Personal Tutor deserve MD consideration - even as a 1 of? S&T is still the card you want to find the most.

In addition to all the obvious disadvantages of the card that only limited it to a one-of in the UR omniscience builds (in which a simple show and tell+creature is much more likely), in this one you want to find show and tell about as much as an enabler (DH/omni). I know 2 people to which I talked about the deck before the GP who wanted to include it, but they ended up not running any.

Thanks for the comprehensive answers Lejay. Here my further comments to some topics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lejay

I have 6+ months of testing the deck behind me so I would have liked critics backed-up by some testing results, but I don't mind answering the first ones as it's inevitable and testing results didn't have much time to occur. I confirm you what I wrote. My playtesting was either against myself, or mostly against Tristan polzl who played tempo thresh a lot and top8ed both the GP Ghent and 2012 BoM. Yes the match-up is favourable as you run more hardcounters than them and can play around a ton of cards (taxing effects, wasteland, stifle, snare is dead if played). When not running intuition your opponent can only counter cantrips which is pretty weak considering the number you have.
...
I didn't say the deck would always win against TT but I can assure you that if the omni player knows what he's doing he'll win about 2/3 of the time. And I realize it's pretty high for a match-up percentage, there are much closer match-ups. Only a TT player tuning his deck specifically to beat show and tell can change that.

---

If you win preboard 66% of the matches against an experienced canadian player that is impressive. It still seems way too high to me but if you want we can make a session an play a couple of games in cockatrice so I can confirm that data. I am still a bit sceptic. Possible explanations might be that he was playing honestly against "unknown" while your playing/mulligan decisions were influenced by you knowledge. Maybe it is also a phenomenon that I can see with 2 very good austrian players and friends of mine. One is playing Storm - the other Canadian and canadian gets his ass kicked all the time like its the worst matchup. In tournments however the canadian player wins a lot against torm and the storm player has a tougher time against canadian. Our explanation is that the better you know each others playstyle the more it favours the combo player. Therefore I would recommend testing against different Canadian players and not only your buddy and yourself to get more reliable results.

On dodging taxing counters. my feeling from both sides (combo and delver) is that countering cantrips can have a very strong effect. Sure you run a lot of but let's say your ponder is dazed you miss with your preordain and than your brainstorm is pierced your hand might easily look very crappy. Academic discussion though - if you have solid test results it is safe to say that your pre-matchup is at least solid. I doubted the "crushing" though.

What I meant with my comments on postboard vs. candian is that surely defense gride has a high impact - I play it myself - but that it does not mean post-board games are not unfavourable. Of course with 66% g1 win a slight game 2 negative is still overall positive. Despite defense grid beeing the best option it also has an impact on your gameplan (a bit slower) and it is not unanswerable. My canadian lists pack 2 ancient grudge which I always bring in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lejay

I didn't say it will completely dominate the format. There are 2 things to consider :
1) As long as people are running sufficient grave hate, this deck is the best deck in the format (with not enough grave hate it's reanimator)
2) People can adapt to this deck as I said in the format discussion section, but that will still result in an unhealthy metagame with far less diversity because its predator have almost all the same weaknesses and the hate is very limited and manageable.

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I and I am sure others have different opinions about this and there is no data to support your claims as fact.

Besides beeing a worthless statement to say: "If the hole format would not rely on the GY as a resource and therefore making rest in peace, deathrite shaman, ooze and surgical extraction really good cards - then a certain deck would be the best". I am sure that even if Esper and Canadian would not play surgical/rip their reanimator matchup would be positive. So you evaluating reanimator as the best deck if there is no gravehard hate is a funny statement and in my opinion shows that you overevaluate combo in general. If your evaluation that this is the best deck is true we should soon see sneak attack going down and this deck taking it's place in the DTB top 4. At that state your claim might be worth discussing, but with a negative storm matchup and surely difficulties if hatebears/esper/canadian start to tune I highly doubt that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lejay

EdIt : a word on krosan grip which was quoted as hate in the other thread. If you have the card in mind it's very easy to put your opponent on it since he has to keep 3 mana open.In that case he is definitely slower which lets you time to find a second enchantment.

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This seems a bit optimistic to me. You would often "lose" a show as well so you need either show/omni again or have 5 mana and halls. Yes your opponent might be slower but you will have your fair share of not finding the combo twice.

Also your evaluation to deal with come into play effects. Preemtively wishing for trickind is not only turning your 2-3 card combo into a 3-4 card combo and is therefore slow and requires a lot of mana. Yes your mana is great, but people will also have time to find some other form of disruption.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

If you win preboard 66% of the matches against an experienced canadian player that is impressive. It still seems way too high to me but if you want we can make a session an play a couple of games in cockatrice so I can confirm that data. I am still a bit skeptic.

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What a great idea! I would love to hear that turns out if it could be arranged.

Quote:

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Besides beeing a worthless statement to say: "If the hole format would not rely on the GY as a resource and therefore making rest in peace, deathrite shaman, ooze and surgical extraction really good cards - then a certain deck would be the best". I am sure that even if Esper and Canadian would not play surgical/rip their reanimator matchup would be positive. So you evaluating reanimator as the best deck if there is no gravehard hate is a funny statement and in my opinion shows that you overevaluate combo in general. If your evaluation that this is the best deck is true we should soon see sneak attack going down and this deck taking it's place in the DTB top 4. At that state your claim might be worth discussing, but with a negative storm matchup and surely difficulties if hatebears/esper/canadian start to tune I highly doubt that.

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Canadian Threshold has no effective tuning options. Play with Thresh assuming they get 4 REB/Pyroblast and add that to 4 Force and 4 Spell Pierce main. Their clock isn't fast enough and Pact of Negation and Defense Grid hiding behind basics really are just that good. If you had to build a blueprint for a combo deck that beats Threshold, you would ask for all of the things that OmniHalls gives you.

A negative storm matchup is randomly something that can be addressed, although doing so tends to weaken the Thresh matchup enough to not really make it worthwhile until OmniHalls has significant penetration. The reason I was advocating a singleton Underground Sea and sideboard Thoughtseize is that these cards significantly increase your matchups against other combo decks (Storm, Reanimator/TinFins, Sneak Attack, and OmniHalls). Thoughtseize can also deal with cards like Krosan Grip if they begin to see play. Further, the line of play in the R&D->Lab Man build included stacking 2x Thoughtseize so you can always cast Thoughtseize (2x so you can cast off Dream Halls by pitching the other Thoughtseize) pre-Lab Man (so you can even beat the most random hate like Sudden Shock/Death/Spoiling).

Something that will become apparent is that those of us who have had access to these lists for months have done preparations for both the existing metagame and how we envision the metagame to shift once OmniHalls was public. Should an uptick of combo happen, cards like Thoughtseize, Vendilion Clique, and Notion Thief will make appearances in the OmniHalls sideboard.

Quote:

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This seems a bit optimistic to me. You would often "lose" a show as well so you need either show/omni again or have 5 mana and halls. Yes your opponent might be slower but you will have your fair share of not finding the combo twice.

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You misunderstand the sequence of events and the way priority works.

Player A resolves SnT, puts Omni/Dream Halls into play.
Player A now has first priority (assuming SnT wasn't cast with Quicken or something similar), and immediately casts another Omni/Dream Halls.
Player B now has priority for the first time and can Krosan Grip. This is...less than useful.

Alternate Scenario:

Player A resolves SnT, puts Omni/Halls into play.
Player A now has first priority (assuming SnT wasn't cast with Quicken or something similar), and immedately casts Enter the Infinite.
Player B now has priority and casts Krosan Grip on the Omni/Dream Halls. This, best case for Player B, yields this situation:

Enter the Infinite resolves. Player A draws their deck. They lack 3 mana for another SnT, so they sculpt a perfect 7 card hand and discard Emrakul reshuffling their deck. You better kill them on your turn with cards on board, since their hand is probably something like this:

Force of Will
Force of Will
Pact of Negation
Pact of Negation/Cunning Wish
Enter the Infinite
Show and Tell
Omniscience

Worst case is that Player A has another 3 mana and just wins that turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by catmint

Maybe it is also a phenomenon that I can see with 2 very good austrian players and friends of mine. One is playing Storm - the other Canadian and canadian gets his ass kicked all the time like its the worst matchup. In tournments however the canadian player wins a lot against torm and the storm player has a tougher time against canadian. Our explanation is that the better you know each others playstyle the more it favours the combo player. Therefore I would recommend testing against different Canadian players and not only your buddy and yourself to get more reliable results.

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Sorry, I hope I'm not hijacking the thread too much, but this was a really interesting statement to me. I've played against alphastryk piloting Miracles with a lot with a bunch of different combo decks and I'm very, very positive in tournament matches even if I'm not always so much in playtesting. But on the other hand, my percentages against Miracles played by other people is much worse. I wonder if that's part of what you're describing - I just know his playstyle and I get to make the decision to go for it or not.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emidln

A negative storm matchup is randomly something that can be addressed, although doing so tends to weaken the Thresh matchup enough to not really make it worthwhile until OmniHalls has significant penetration. The reason I was advocating a singleton Underground Sea and sideboard Thoughtseize is that these cards significantly increase your matchups against other combo decks (Storm, Reanimator/TinFins, Sneak Attack, and OmniHalls). Thoughtseize can also deal with cards like Krosan Grip if they begin to see play. Further, the line of play in the R&D->Lab Man build included stacking 2x Thoughtseize so you can always cast Thoughtseize (2x so you can cast off Dream Halls by pitching the other Thoughtseize) pre-Lab Man (so you can even beat the most random hate like Sudden Shock/Death/Spoiling).

---

It seemed like you were also advocating cutting Leylines. So you see them as less necessary than Lejay? Or alternatively do you just see the Thoughtseize package as specifically a way to tune the deck if you don't expect lots of discard decks and do expect lots of combo?

It was suggested in the Omniscience thread, but I could see playing a couple of Lim-Dul's Vaults would help tremendously with assembling a 3-card combo with different card types. It also has the nice benefit that you don't need Impulse or Trickbind in the maindeck for a Firemind's Foreskin pile.

I've done a little bit of testing with LDV, but so far it's been irrelevant - the opponent put up basically no resistance.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emidln

[..] Enter the Infinite resolves. Player A draws their deck. They lack 3 mana for another SnT, so they sculpt a perfect 7 card hand and discard Emrakul reshuffling their deck. You better kill them on your turn with cards on board [..]

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I assume this is just a minor brainfart since Enter the Infinite says that you have no maximum hand size (until your next turn). Hence you don't have to discard, which in turns, makes the situation even worse for player B.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NesretepNoj

I assume this is just a minor brainfart since Enter the Infinite says that you have no maximum hand size (until your next turn). Hence you don't have to discard, which in turns, makes the situation even worse for player B.

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Yes. I forgot that line on ETI. So no decisions about discarding, they just counter anything you attempt to play and then go off again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by phazonmuant

I've done a little bit of testing with LDV, but so far it's been irrelevant - the opponent put up basically no resistance.

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I tested them for a very brief time period and found that their benefit as a 1 or 2 off is marginal compared against the fact that you have to run 2 Underground Seas which makes you far more vulnerable against Wasteland-Decks. It is obvious when you play vs decks like Threshold or D&T that having enough mana is king in this deck. Usually you cannot - and that's what also Lejays explains in his primer - search for everything at the same time (lands, combo, protection). Even more true if you play against taxing, soft counter or denial strategies. Also consider that the BoM list just plays 19 lands. If you ever want to cast these Dream Halls you better run as much basics as possible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by emidln

Yes. I forgot that line on ETI. So no decisions about discarding, they just counter anything you attempt to play and then go off again.

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Shame on you. ;D It was your very elaborate post about this deck that made me play it today and it happened that I got my Dream Halls bounced in resp to Enter the Infinite. So I just passed the turn and then proceeded to smash him.

I went 4-2-0, my MUs were:

Miracles 2-0
High Tide 2-1
Dredge 1-2 (one mana short during g2, g3 was simply terrible)
Merfolk 2-0
GWR Humans/Werewolves 2-1 (I really had no idea what the hell I was playing against, g2 he had a massive overextend and I was one turn short of winning)
MonoB Pox 1-2 (I did a terrible mistake g2, I let a Smallpox resolve and discarded a redundant SnT, then got hit by Extirpate. If I'd have discarded FoW instead, I could have simply gone off)

So, if I were a more intelligent person, I'd have finished 2nd instead of 6th.

However, this deck is ridiculously powerful. I am just not convinced about the Leylines in the SB. I played Leylines instead of Thoughtseize because I saw like 3 Jund, 3 Pox decks and a mono red burn. On the other hand there was a Springtide, 2 SneakShows, 2 ANTs.
I had no idea, but I have yet to figure out whether it is a good idea to let the opponent play ALWAYS. I should have done it against Pox in order to smoothly mulligan into Leyline. But with Sinkhole and Smallpox being the worst spells... I dunno.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nekrataal

I tested them for a very brief time period and found that their benefit as a 1 or 2 off is marginal compared against the fact that you have to run 2 Underground Seas which makes you far more vulnerable against Wasteland-Decks. It is obvious when you play vs decks like Threshold or D&T that having enough mana is king in this deck. Usually you cannot - and that's what also Lejays explains in his primer - search for everything at the same time (lands, combo, protection). Even more true if you play against taxing, soft counter or denial strategies. Also consider that the BoM list just plays 19 lands. If you ever want to cast these Dream Halls you better run as much basics as possible.

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You have an interesting definition of "far more vulnerable."

I don't think adding two wasteable lands is enough of a downside not to run a card that essentially says "stack your deck." If you're playing against a deck like Death and Taxes, you can side out the Lim-Dul's Vaults and not fetch the Underground Seas. I usually fetch the Underground Sea and cast Lim-Dul's Vault the turn before I'm going to win in their end step. The only way I'm going to get Wastelanded is if they had an untapped one that turn. As for casting Dream Halls, if you resolve a Lim-Dul's Vault you likely won't need to win by casting Dream Halls as you can search a Show and Tell plus whatever other piece you need for about 4-6 life.

I'm really puzzled by The Source's continual rejection of Lim-Dul's Vault. Vampiric Tutor is rightfully banned. Lim-Dul's Vault is effectively double Vampiric Tutor (BB, Search your library for two cards and put them on top, you lose 4 life) only it pitches to Force of Will and is easier to splash.

First of all, props to Lejay and Jo_la_Loose that elaborated the vast majority of design choices of the list. Props also to emidln for sharing his take on Omnihalls.

While acknowledging to the GP build raw power and stability, I was unconfortable with the 3 DH and CW MD:
- DH acted in the list as a plan B for Omniscience as well as a S&T in disguise, thus limiting its effectiveness.
Firemind's Foresight is indeed a valuable addition to the SB. DH becomes much more of a valid Omniscience backup avoiding unfavorable hand setups effectively.
- CW is what bring the deck its versatility and protection before or after going off. 3 seemed too little in that regard. Given we wanted to run the full DH set and F'sF backup plan, 4 was a obvious adjustment.

During testings before and after GP Strasbourg, we tried to trim the manabase to 19 lands to gain a slot for the Firemind's Foresight plan => While I was quite fond of emidln version, I was strongly unfavorable to a black splash. As seen above, even a lone U.sea can become a nuisance when it comes to ramping to 5 mana dodging Wastelands.
I don't feel the net gain of 4 of all-around disruption SB + LDV MD is a incentive strong enough to open yourself even slightly to land disruption.
My teamate Nicolas encountered plenty of situations during the BOM when a grip containing U.Sea instead of a basic Island would have been a clear mulligan.

The adjustments I'd propose to the BOM list are listed bellow :

19 LANDS
2 Scalding Tarn
7 Island
3 City of Traitors (+1)
1 Ancient Tomb (-1)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta

33 INSTANTS and SORCERIES
4 Show and Tell
4 Preordain
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will (+1)
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Brainstorm
4 Cunning Wish
3 Pact of Negation
1 Impulse
0 Flusterstorm (-1)
1 Intuition

8 OTHER SPELLS
4 Omniscience
4 Dream Halls

SIDEBOARD
1 Pact of Negation
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Intuition
1 Trickbind
1 Wipe Away
1 Search//Development
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Firemind’s Foresight
0 Echoing Truth (-1)
1 Sapphire Charm (+1)
0 Surgical Extraction (-1)
0 Force Of Will (-1)
1 Noxious Revival (+1)
1 Defense Grid (+1)

I can't find the room for a second and third Defense Grid in the SB and strongly believing the 3 MD Pacts are a necessary evil.
God, I would love to swap one of those for a MD Defense Grid as they often act on a similar level against countermagic, but Pacts not costing a single mana is enough to convince me to do otherwise.
A Gitaxian Probe or two would be stellar in the MD as well but I don't want to lose any of the cantrips already in the main as they are crucial to the deck consistancy.

A side note to conclude: Nicolas Goldberg's run in this year BOM could have been a whole lot different if people were prepared for the list and knew its vulnerabilities as opposed to Jean-Mary's one. This is the most elegant point: Both lists operate quite the same till they kill you. Never scoop to a resolved EtI because you'd get useful intels on the version you are playing against (MD Emrakul or not ? Maniac kill ?) as the two lists and their variants don't fold to the same situations.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OrGy

I can't find the room for a second and third Defense Grid in the SB and strongly believing the 3 MD Pacts are a necessary evil.
.

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Eh does the deck really need both Slaughter Pact and Sapphire Charm? Both slots seem like they are their for the same thing. I have never played this flavor of show and tell deck but in regular ol sneak and show 3 defense grid are the best sb cards imo. Beating REB/Pyroblast is miserable otherwise.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kuma

I don't think adding two wasteable lands is enough of a downside not to run a card that essentially says "stack your deck."

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The problem is that there are a few aggressive decks against which you can't afford that amount of lifeloss, especially when you play Ancient Tomb at the same time.

Quote:

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If you're playing against a deck like Death and Taxes, you can side out the Lim-Dul's Vaults and not fetch the Underground Seas. I usually fetch the Underground Sea and cast Lim-Dul's Vault the turn before I'm going to win in their end step.

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Nevertheless there is a statistical chance that you will eventually draw them and have to play them. And at that point they will be hit instantly by Wasteland (because the opp finally has a target for his Wasteland he has been sitting on). This also makes mulligan decisions tougher when you draw your initial 7 and U-Sea being your only land. If your 1st Turn cantrips misses a land, you die instantly to Wasteland. However, with a basic Island, I'd still keep it and keep digging for lands and don't have to worry about Wasteland.

LDV is a powerful card, but at the same time it's clunky and thus I don't find it to be splash-worthy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OrGy

First of all, props to Lejay and Jo_la_Loose that elaborated the vast majority of design choices of the list. Props also to emidln for sharing his take on Omnihalls.

While acknowledging to the GP build raw power and stability, I was unconfortable with the 3 DH and CW MD:
- DH acted in the list as a plan B for Omniscience as well as a S&T in disguise, thus limiting its effectiveness.
Firemind's Foresight is indeed a valuable addition to the SB. DH becomes much more of a valid Omniscience backup avoiding unfavorable hand setups effectively.
- CW is what bring the deck its versatility and protection before or after going off. 3 seemed too little in that regard. Given we wanted to run the full DH set and F'sF backup plan, 4 was a obvious adjustment.

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I was of the same opinion at first, even thinking that the split should be 4/3 in favor of DH because it is the better enabler. But after playing the deck intensifly over the last 2 weeks I see DH really just as a backup plan. There are enough decks that make it hard to reach 5 mana at all and in time, so the backup plan often is not the most attractive. Also DH is symmetrical and sometimes allows the opponent some extra plays. As a result the FF plan is an even rarer necessity. If I would have to give a number I would say it is less than 5% of all games. The FF plan comes with a cost to SB slots and maindeck slots so as much as I like it I currently think it is not needed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OrGy

During testings before and after GP Strasbourg, we tried to trim the manabase to 19 lands to gain a slot for the Firemind's Foresight plan => While I was quite fond of emidln version, I was strongly unfavorable to a black splash. As seen above, even a lone U.sea can become a nuisance when it comes to ramping to 5 mana dodging Wastelands.
I don't feel the net gain of 4 of all-around disruption SB + LDV MD is a incentive strong enough to open yourself even slightly to land disruption.
My teamate Nicolas encountered plenty of situations during the BOM when a grip containing U.Sea instead of a basic Island would have been a clear mulligan.

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I totally agree with you on the U.Sea matter. However I had several situation on the last tournament I played with finding one land to go off in time, so I will up the landcount to 20 again. I also tried out Flusterstorm main and cannot even remember I played it once.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OrGy

I can't find the room for a second and third Defense Grid in the SB and strongly believing the 3 MD Pacts are a necessary evil.
God, I would love to swap one of those for a MD Defense Grid as they often act on a similar level against countermagic, but Pacts not costing a single mana is enough to convince me to do otherwise.
A Gitaxian Probe or two would be stellar in the MD as well but I don't want to lose any of the cantrips already in the main as they are crucial to the deck consistancy.

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Fitting all this in would be lovely. For sure I haven't had a flash of genius just yet.

@Nekrataal:

About DH:
DH gives your opponent the opportunity to play for free as well : I do not contest this point but I feel that the effect is not that symetrical as written on the card.
For sure both player can now pitch to cast but, as far as the regular matchups are involved, only one of them can cast ETI or similar monstrosities with it.

For sure, your opponent can now pitch his ponder to Flusterstorm you out, but those are corner case scenario.
Most of the time, the cards you wouldn't want your opponent to play for free will be used in response to your casting of DH, not after.

About the land count:
After long testing sessions, lejay and jo_la_loose concluded 20 lands were mandatory.
Our testing concluded otherwise.

That being said, I think this particuliar perception is entirely linked to the DH matter :
In the 4 DH version, DH being a solid option for taking off, you can devote at least one of your numerous cantrips effect in ensuring you'll be able to land drop every turn till turn 4.
In the 3 DH version, you plan is to get your hand on S&T/DH + Omniscience as soon as possible, thus limiting your ability to cantrip into lands as well as combo components.

In the latest, I firmly believe it is correct to play 20 lands (with 3 Sol Land), as I do believe it is quite reasonable to trim down to 19 (4 Sol Lands mandatory for DH hard cast) in the first one.

About Defense Grid:
Be sure you'll share your stroke of genius as soon as it strikes you. I'd pay for the idea. For real :)

@beebles:
I'll just recycle some of the thoughts of JM Accart in his primer last page and apply them to the Omnimaniac version:

1 Slaughter Pact : answers hate bears for free. You can trickbind the trigger but generally combo when resolving it.
Nothing more to say, officer.


1 Sapphire Charm : With only 3 wishes the “cycle a redundant wish” clause is a bit less useful. That said it answers hate bears beautifully in the end of turn which can be quite useful against Thalia since it is possible every mana will count. It’s also a blue card for fow and dream halls and can cyle when sided in. I would not cut the slaughter pact, but if I wanted more hate bears slots I would increase the number of sapphire charms before the number of pacts.
With 4 wishes, being able to recycle one of them eot can prove really useful. Being able to dodge a Mother protection on blue or black with the opposite answer is quite interesting as the game goes long.

It's a good thing I couldn't answer for a few days since almost all the things I could say have been brought up by other people.

To Catmint: I don't understand why you have so much trouble understanding the arguments and the logic that makes TT a very good match-up game one. If you still insist on me finding time for a 10 games session on cockatrice I can try for that, but I would rather have you do the testing alone or even just understand the logic of the arguments I gave, or even that I didn't give and are obvious.

To OrGy : we didn't conclude 20 lands are mandatory. We concluded 20 lands was optimum and superior to 19 which is different. Of course the deck can function with 19 lands. However drawing supplementary lands when you have to hardcast dream halls or play around spell pierce isn't a bad thing, and having 17 blue sources (instead of 15 in yours) is very helpful avoiding mulligans.
For the stroke of genius, watch how I arranged my decklist. You can send the check to JM Accart.

One last thing, Frédéric/JoLaLose asked me to make an additional answer to that :

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NesretepNoj

Also claiming to be the creator of the deck seems kinda misplaced. The Dream Halls archetype which this deck is an evolution from stems from Jonas Harbili and in later years James Hesslip/Ari Lax. Not much has changed from that list if you swap Progenitus/Conflux for Omniscience/Enter the Infinite.

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The first week-end after the dream Halls unban, Frédéric Pérez played a deck based on it with both cunning wish and pact of negation. He placed 2nd/40-50 despite the limited testing. So I think we can safely consider that the deck is an evolution from that list, and that he is indeed the creator of this deck.

No need to swing the banhammer. The deck doesn't break the format :smile:

******** UGr

"the first tests against tempo were very simple. We crushed them preboard" ; "positive tempo thresh match-up all the way" ; "win about 2/3 of the time" --> ??!!

- not a fast clock?! Double Delver, or Delver+Goyf or similar are not that slow considering all the Lightning Bolts and Chain Lightnings going straight to your face...
- Wasteland doesn't hurt you as much, but Stifle to a fetchland is still a timewalk at least. If you wanted to use the Fetchland to shuffle away two bad cards from a brainstorm for example, it's even worse. Wasteland can be used to force you to fetch, if they have Stifle in hand.
- They just have more counterspells than you (pre- and postboard). Even if Daze and Spell Pierce are no hard counters, playing around 1 Daze can set you back a turn and playing around Spell Pierce is probably way too slow. Postboard there are even REBs/Pyroblasts and Flusterstorms. Sure, Defense Grid is strong here, but they also have Ancient Grudges against it usually or just counter your Defense Grid. "defense grid idea ... proved to be all we need." I wouldn't be too sure about this.
- The Krosan Grips in their sideboard can kill your plans, especially before EtI.
- A boarded in Vendillion Clique can also be a pain with the right timing. Even, if they just put it into play via your Show and Tell, it can ruin your plan.
- Surgical Extraction see below. (Even Thought Scour could be effective against you to extract something you really need like Omniscience for example)
- Hardcasting a Dream Halls against Daze and Spell Pierce is very hard without enough counter backup.


Maverick

"When we tested against a maverick with tons of hate at the beginning we had a negative match-up post sb. But not only it's just post sb ... the deck is also almost not run anymore."

Doesn't Maverick's maindeck consist of "hate" against you?

- Gaddock Teeg: Your plan is Emrakul, but they run Knight of the Reliquary, so they have Karakas which you have to get rid of as well. So you need a Wish and Rushing River to bounce it, which is not always as easy as it sounds. Also, you have to get Emrakul first.
- Knight of the Reliquary
- Karakas
- Thalia: "Emrakul is your main plan against Thalia decks"
Show and Tell -> Emrakul = 4 mana, but hard to find a singelton Emrakul with your 2 mana cantrips. No extra turn here.
Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Cunning Wish -> Eladamri's Call -> Emrakul = 7 mana!
Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Cunning Wish -> Slaughter Pact = 6 mana, but you better have the other cards needed to win that turn also.
Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Emrakul = 5 mana but you still have to get your singelton Emrakul first.
Cunning Wish -> Slaughter Pact/ Sapphire Charm = 5/6 mana same turn ... okay Wish in one turn and removal next turn are not that expensive, but then it better works, if it get's disrupted in any way...
... there are also some ways that are even more expensive, maybe I'm missing something here?? "Against Thalia decks Emrakul is the plan as you just need 1 mana to cast enter and then you can untap and play spells you want"
- Mother of Runes: protects their Hatebears, so it's not that easy to get rid of them. Same thing with Sylvan Safekeeper and the like
- Surgical Extraction: see below
- Oblivion Ring: see below
- Qasali Pridemage: can be effective if you only have Dream Halls in play
- Choke!
- Ethersworn Canonist: you need a wish and time/mana to get rid of it and combo

Even if GW Maverick is played a bit less, there are also Punishing/Dark Maverick... with heavy Discard, Extirpate, Lilianas, Slaughter Games, Pyroblasts, Krosan Grips and whatever...

Blade Control

- Discard AND Counterspells (and Snapcaster)
- Surgical/Extirpate (and Snapcaster :smile:)
- O-ring/D-sphere
- Meddling Mage
- V.clique
- Venser
- Counterbalance/SDT
everything effective. no need to explain every detail, I think.


I don't want to write about every possible matchup here, just some others that seem questionable to be crushed all the time off the top of my head:

BUG
Sneak Attack
Storm
Dredge
...
and you said yourself:
"3 bad match-ups for the deck. Reanimator, Tin Fins and UR Omniscience mirror with flusterstorm (Testing against dredge was 50/50 post sb but it’s probably negative overall too)"
so this doesn't seem to be true: " the deck has positive match-ups against almost the entire field." "the best deck" "As long as people are running sufficient grave hate, this deck is the best deck in the format (with not enough grave hate it's reanimator)"
Seems like there are quite a few decks, that can beat this one.
"People can adapt to this deck as I said in the format discussion section, but that will still result in an unhealthy metagame" Like we just saw, many decks don't even need to adapt that much. The metagame seems just fine at the moment.

Some other cards, which are good against the deck:

- "flusterstorm (our worst enemy)" as you said
- Chalice @ 1 very hard to find a 3 card (or more) combo without any of the 12 cantrips. Getting rid of it?! Okay, 3 mana Cunning wish + 3 mana rushing river = 6 mana to bounce it until next turn.
- Slaughter Games: on Omniscience kills the deck, right? No casting Emrakul, no infinite Release the Ants... just Show and Tell -> Emrakul directly, okay that would be possible, but even on other targets, Slaughter Games is very strong here, for example on Cunning Wish.
- Surgical Extraction/Extirpate: on Show and Tell it makes the deck a lot slower. On Omniscience see above. On a milled or discarded Cunning wish also very usefull.
- Oblivion Ring/Detention Sphere/Angel of Despair: can be answered with the instant speed RtA kill or Wish -> Trickbind. But EtI is sorcery speed and Wish -> trickbind means another card, that you need in your hand.
- Liliana of the Veil: not answered by Leyline
- Nevermore/Meddling Mage
- Venser
- Confusion in the Ranks
- Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere
- Counterbalance, SDT
- Discard and Counterspells in general
- probably quite a few I just forgot right now

Sure, there are answeres to a lot of these things mentioned here in theory, but you don't allways have the right answer in hand. :rolleyes:
"counter cantrips which is pretty weak" -> not true, a well timed countered cantrip hurts a lot!

"1 Trickbind : answers most post sb hate by cunning wishing it under omniscience." but then you need for example: Show and Tell, Omniscience, Enter the Infinite and Cunning Wish (like a 4 card "combo"?) not mentioning counterspells to backup.


some other things:

"This kill still doesn’t answers the emrakul’s decks" meant is Brain Freeze with 2 SDT. But Emrakul could still be extracted (Wish -> Surgical) when it hits the graveyard.
"Dream Halls : Yes it costs 5 mana but this is also show and tell + omniscience in one card if you have enter the infinite" ...and a blue card, and if the opponent doesn't do anything (means you should have some counterspells also)
"deal with a board with rushing riverx2 (kicked and maybe noxious revivaled)" why not, if have a Cunning Wish, 6 mana, 2 life and 2 lands in excess :wink:
" if you draw one of those, FF becomes useless" meant is 2 cc spell or Intuition with Firemind's Foresight. If you draw the maindeck Intuition, there is still 3 cc Cunning Wish -> Intuition.


Show and Tell doesn't need to be banned:
Sure, it's a good card, but it doesn't dominate the format. Show and Tell decks are an important part of the format, that define Legacy and make this format (and it's metagame at the moment) as cool as it is. If it would be banned, Sneak and Show and UR Omniscience would also leave the format (less diversity, crying collectors and players :smile:) and other decks would rise of course. Then, what would be the next thing to ban? LED? Or some staples that every deck plays and which define the format even more (ban brainstorm discussion and the like :rolleyes:). Or ban some storm things? Ban all the nice combos and play Modern2? Seriously, people need to stop crying because they don't like a specific card or decktype. And I think that's the real reason for some of your statements as you give a hint here: "Like many players I don't like show and tell decks because I see very dumb players winning far more than their fair share with it, and the deck is of no interest for someone wanting to play a game of thoughts. At the GP I told most of my opponents that the main reason I worked on it and played it was to get S&T banned." Seems like you want to depict yourself as the great savior of the format, but really only have a personal dislike against S&T. Just play the game. It is fun as it is right now. And fun is in the eye of the beholder.

Some things that people allways forget when hating on Show and Tell is, that even if the S&T-decks are build around it, it's still ´symmetrical´ (opponent can just put answers or bombs into play theirselves - so it just can't be compared to a giant ritual), it is card disadvantage and vulnerable to every kind of hate and it requires a deck totally build around it with tutors and cantrips to find everything needed.
Even if I don't play S&T myself and can understand your hate to some point, it would just be wrong to ban anything right now. Maybe Show and Tell is "dumb" for you; for others it's dumb to just turn creatures sideways or to wait 10min until opponent finally managed his storm count or to reanimate a giant creature in the first turns or to just throw burn spells to your face or whatever. As long as things don't get out of hand and we have top8s full of a specific deck over a specific time period, we should just let people enjoy their game and do it ourselves as well.

To intensify it a little more :tongue: If your deck crushes the format, why couldn't I find you in top 16 decklists? :tongue: ah, I forgot: "I barely made day 2 after going 7-2 (first defeat round 6 against the undefeated ANT player that will get Dqed for stacking, and another very unlucky defeat to a friend playing Tempo thresh). Starting day 2 with a very very very close defeat versus counterbalance put me in a difficult bracket and I lose to team America and reanimator.
Christoph Alsheimer aka Nemavera also played the same 75 I ran and fell short of one win from the top8 after going 8-1 day 1."

I hope you don't feel offended and I don't just feed the trolls :laugh:

Carlos

Is that another Steve Menendian account ?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by U-S-ho

- Thalia: "Emrakul is your main plan against Thalia decks"
Show and Tell -> Emrakul = 4 mana, but hard to find a singelton Emrakul with your 2 mana cantrips. No extra turn here.
Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Cunning Wish -> Eladamri's Call -> Emrakul = 7 mana!
Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Cunning Wish -> Slaughter Pact = 6 mana, but you better have the other cards needed to win that turn also.
Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Emrakul = 5 mana

Carlos

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i'm sure you're good at math but

Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Cunning Wish -> Eladamri's Call -> Emrakul = 7 mana! 6 mana emrakul is a creature

Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Emrakul = 5 mana 4 mana

also omniscience emrakul doesn't care about karakas ^^

I've been playing sneak attack for a while now and I've recently turned to this thread cause it also plays show and tell and wanted some fresh ideas. My issue is the simple math of the it all. Sneak attack/SaT has more counterspells/backup than omni***, it doenst give the opponent advantage by playing dream halls, and it can secure a game just as easily.

I've wanted to test with omni**** but logically i can't see how it could possibly be better. My sideboard for SA/SaT is very simple, and solves all of my problems, diverts for discard (combined with spell pierces and misdirections, and brainstorms main deck) makes discard a joke. Boseiju and through the breach for anything with counter spells. echoing truth for everything else.

so, in short it just seems like omni**** is a slower less effective version of SA/SaT, and that if you were arguing for SaT to be banned it would be because of SA/SaT and not Omni****. Also, Omni*** decks have been around since before your version but have not been making top 8 near as consistently as SA/Sat.

Please convince me to play Omni*** as it seems interesting to test and the artwork is cool. I've also been wanting a reason to pick up a set of foil cunning wish's

I think all information was available, but I'll summarize for Sneak and Show players since that can be a lot to read :

If you want to play a more brutal deck play Sneak&Show with petals and more sol lands.
If your metagame isn't prepared for show and tell decks, play Sneak&Show.
If you need to beat discard decks game one you'd better play sneak attack with spell pierces than omniscience with pacts.
If you are bad and need a high variance deck to win play Sneak&Show.

If you like consistency play Omniclash.
If you want to reduce the level of possible interaction from the opponent to the maximum play Omniclash (wasteland, karakas, humility etc...)
If you want to fight in a metagame expecting you (SB Oring, venser, confusion in the ranks, revoker etc...) play Omniclash.
If you want to beat tempo threshold play Omniclash.
If you like planifying things and ponder the odds, play Omniclash.
If you want to ruin people's hope by trickbinding their hate before drawing your deck and killing with ants, play Omniclash.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lejay

To catmint: I don't understand why you have so much trouble understanding the arguments and the logic that makes TT a very good match-up game one. If you still insist on me finding time for a 10 games session on cockatrice I can try for that, but I would rather have you do the testing alone or even just understand the logic of the arguments I gave, or even that I didn't give and are obvious.

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There is a difference of understanding your arguments and coming to the same conclusion. As you said most of them are obvious anyway and there is nothing new or mind blowing. E.g. we have different opinions on some stuff like the value of countering cantrips and how fast canadians clock is. I am also not claiming that I need to be right and with your results it would be just plain stupid to doubt that you have a solid canadian matchup. However I doubt the "crushing". Specifically I have reasonable doubts that:
a) The avg. Omnisclash having 66% MU win vs. avg. Canadian preboard. I even doubt that you have 66% win preoboard versus avg. canadian and I gave you my thoughts on why you might have come to those results (again this is an open question for me - I am not saying it can't be this way).
b) That the post-board result is positive enough (despite defense grid) for an overall positive matchup.

Anyway the preboard candian matchup is not worth discussing anymore. People will test and time will tell.

The other point where also many others have very reasonable doubt is that this is "the best deck" that will get "show banned" and bla bla. To me you did not follow-up on the issue that the negative Sneak and Combo matchup as well as the ability of decks to play discard AND countermagic (can't play leyline and defense grid right?) will stop this deck from taking over the format aka turning it to an unhealthy metagame as you claim.

We agree on the comparison to sneak, but I seem to see the tradeoff of more consistency over raw power "fair" in the sense of it is not strictly better.

As I said before, your conclusions and predictions seem to overestimate combo in general and I think you would become an overall better player if you would try to understand the logic of people contradicting with you in this area. :wink: I suppose you don't have a problem with people disagreeing with you right? If you were just fishing for compliments like provided by some fools in this thread instead of a real discussion on the issue, you would have been better of writing an article.

Quote:

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Boseiju and through the breach for anything with counter spells. echoing truth for everything else.

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Ughh Boesiju is really iffy against tempo decks, CIPT is really rough. Roll them dice and hope you don't get wastelanded!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by beebles

Ughh Boesiju is really iffy against tempo decks, CIPT is really rough. Roll them dice and hope you don't get wastelanded!

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canadian thresh is the only thing that might even have wastelands and counterspells. if you are smart you can bait them with an ancient tomb or volcanic island if you really need a boseiju to stick. They wont anticipate you having a boseiju....and if they do then GL cause they are probably a good player. This isnt the worst situation tho.

also, im certain that sneak attack is more consistent.

SA and SaT = 8 enablers or 13.3% of deck
Enabler targets (emrakul & griselbrand) = 8 or 13.3%

SaT and Dream halls = 7 enablers or 11.6%
Enabler targets (Omniscience & emrakul) = 5 or 8.3%

not only do the cards needed for the combo make up a less % of the deck and would be harder to find you also have to find an Enter the infinite... Im not sure why you think omni*** is more consistent. You will find the combo pieces less of the time and since it runs fewer counterspells you will also successfully resolve the combo a smaller % of the time cause you lose more counterwars.