I think that is a decent idea, but if you are cutting chalice and 3ball for cabal therapy and removal, the sol lands and dark ritual lose some of their lustre. I think that build just becomes rector/curse fit, which may indeed be a better choice in this blue meta.Originally Posted by kinda
Cabal therapy and rector are going to be pretty bad without each other, whereas leyline and Karn have higher floors.
Also You are going to depend more on creature beats in this build and you have no leyline; uro could be an issue.
One could argue cutting chalice improves dark ritual in the deck. I still really like the fast mana, I'm viewing it as a deadguy ale curses hybrid.
Therapy I think will still be strong on its own but Rector if you don't find therapy or phyrexian tower isn't the best..
but it'll still stop uro from attacking all day. In a pinch you could blow it up with your own Bloodchief's Thirst too.
Yeah the plan vs uro G1 is to resolve Rector or Misfortunes before turn 6 which should be very doable I think. Then the SB will need some uro answers.
Hmm I think that deck is decent but without chalice, Karn, leyline and 3ball the matchups would be so different. It would probably be better to get input from dga/pox players.
Oh I'm not fussed on exploring the list more, just thinking how curses could help its snoreko mu. This is wut I could come up with.
Are you still of the opinion that drit plus grid is a better plan than oko removal plus discard. (In the context of my list)Oh I'm not fussed on exploring the list more, just thinking how curses could help its snoreko mu
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 01-04-2021 at 02:14 PM.
The last list you posted has 10 win cons: 4 ktgc 4 Misfortunes 2 Helm. 6 of these though need leyline in play, which when factoring in mulliganing is 50% ish. This is 10/60th of your deck so over the first 5 turns you will see 1.4 on average (4+(6*.5)/60) * (7 in opener plus 5 draws). 4c snow it looks like is running 4 fow plus 2 fon which stop these 10. But on top top of their natural draws will see something like 8-15 more cards over their first 5 turns to find these due to labe/library/ponder/bstorm/snow snek etc. So estimating here (6/60) * (7+5+~11) which is 2.3 or so. So we need to make up the difference here since they're winning currently 2.3 >= 1.4. Your old list has chalice to lower their '8-15' extra cards number and 3sphere/pelakka to try and lower their fon/fow count. However, when you begin using cmc 3 or less permanents (especially artifacts) to fight their counters you turn on more of their cards (decay/oko). Which unless you resolve chalice that they can't remove, they will again see more answers than you see 3 sphere/CotV. 4 pelakka gives you (4/60) * (12/60) over 5 turns or an extra .8 (assuming you never need the mana) but you're still losing here 2.3 >= 2.2. So, no I do not like the permanent based protection plan and yes I like using fast mana to try and improve your clock.
So you would rather run discard and dark ritual? Do you think the efficiency of Thoughtseize outweighs the chalice and ancient tomb problems?
Post SB they bring in veil, Opposition Agent, and meddling mage so you need to keep in your eliminates too g2/3. I prefer discard and fast mana md but overall I see the deck as a losing proposition vs. the 6+ force decks...as explained above. Which is why I pitched the Bw Cavern list before. Your deck math is pretty simple though due to 0 draw, filtering, or tutors. I would just keep fiddling with it till you get numbers you're OK with, but I don't ever see the 6+ force matchup being good unless you radically change things.
The meta is so inbred right now I don’t think those cards are being played. Look at the Sat challenge. The lists have 6 blasts/carpets, 0 veil, 0 mages, lots of Hullbreachers, no agents. The only thing they will bring imo is a few wilts and extra libraries/surgicals. That does lend credence to your discard over grid plan.
Oh ok, I used this list https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=28701&d=426612&f=LE
.
Ok I goldfished several hands with a 4CB Thoughtseize sideboard plan. Thoughtseize was quite good in low resources hands to get rid of forces without requiring additional resources, and vs ugxxx we care about their forces much more than their threats. However it’s not that much better than chalice so I think 4 is too many (since if you want ts and chalice you don’t have enough cuts). Chalice also protects agent better than discard. Using your theory I want a few more Thoughtseize as fow answers and a few agents as “wincons”.
Compared to Defense grid or chains they don’t turn on decays as mentioned and more quickly trade for forces, at the cost of being a poor top deck. Another thing I hadn’t considered was that a lot of my fastest hands leave me with 5 not 4 mana. This makes Thoughtseize effectively free. Boarding would be urborgs and eliminates for helm, 2 Thoughtseize, 3 agent
Redoing line up theory vs Sunday’s 3rd place Snowko list:
Cards that matter vs win cons: 9
Forces 6
Trophy 1
Veil (1 Sb)
Ouphe (1 Sb)
Cantrips 22
Anti hate: 5
3 oko
2 Decay
My wincons: 14
Curses 4
Karn 4
Helm 2 (+1)
Agent (+3 sb)
Protection 6
4 Pelakka
TS (+2)
Cantrip hate 8
Chalice 4
3 ball 4
Postboard those numbers seem quite favourable.
Vs rug I would probably cut Karn and a Pelakka for vault, helm, spyglass, and 2 Thoughtseize. Maybe OTD cut 3balls for PE
Went 4-1 in a league with 3 SB Thoughtseize.
The tempo was really great in some cases (had a t1 ts fow into t2 Karn win vs Snowko). It was a bad top deck late game or if I had chalice, my life total got sketchy sometimes, and ofc it was bad if they had library or uro.
Usually vs snow the only cards that matter are forces, and sometimes uro/oko. The ability to trade directly with forces without turning on their decays like grid or spyglass is great and a draw to Thoughtseize. A user in pox discord tried agonizing remorse and said it was decent. I am thinking about trying Memory Leak again. Paying 1 more mana for a life and cycling seems good, and would let me become more land light. It’s a decent top deck and smoothing, and I didn’t realize it but it actually answers uro relatively well. Obviously it’s horribly tempo negative vs rug which is why I stopped testing initially. But Pelakka has performed so well vs blue durdle, where they only that matters is how many forces they draw. It doesn’t conflict with chalice or 3 ball, and rugs metagame share has decreased.
Compared to spyglass it’s much worse vs oko and Marit Lage and somewhat worse vs wasteland. But it is way better vs uro, elves, post board unfair decks, & forces, is better at manafixing vs non-wasteland, and exiles to Chrome mox. Compared to pelakka it is a better spell and top deck for a worse land and in your opening hand.
Basically the meta rn is snow variants and rug, with a bit of random resilient combo to metagame vs them.
My matchups vs the unfair decks (gaak/elves/doomsday/12post) are really good, so all I need to do is make one of the two blue categories positive. I think wasteland and daze will always be good against me unless I splash for carpet. Perhaps I should forfeit that MU for md leaks to beat durdle?
Draft list of “best g1 vs snow”
4 ancient tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
7 Swamp
4 Pelakka Predation // Pelakka Caverns
2 Memory Leak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Eliminate
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Curse of Misfortunes
1 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Overwhelming Splendor
4 Plague Engineer
3 Opposition Agent
2 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Mycrosynth Lattice
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Liquimettal Coating
This deck looks quite clean, with 6 answers between leak and pelakka/leyline/eliminate for each of the problem cards (fow/uro/oko). Discard plus fast clock plus hate pieces should make all non-depths unfair mus even better. Rug and other wasteland decks probably gets worse but that doesn’t matter as much rn.
With extra discard I need less SB help vs snow. This leaves room for 2 screw delver cards. I was thinking either ssg, fatal push, bloodchiefs thirst or snuff out as a screw daze card.
Ssg is the best answer to daze but will probably make you eliminates overworked to deal with their threats. Snuff is great vs or with chalice but iffy vs bolt. Push is decent vs delver but I can’t enable revolt easily. Thirst gives additional oko and fast Karn answers but sorcery speed is annoying.
I went pretty far down the theorycrafting hole here so I’d be interested in people’s opinions on adding more draft chaff to the deck.
Remorse is cute, I prefer it to memory.
I did some testing. The idea of needing something else cheap that control cares about is good. All the games go really long so being more threat dense is important and drawing your targets is less of an issue since you can hard cast them. Tried putting curse of fools wisdom back in and 2 treacherous blessing.
In the past it was a bit iffy but in so many matchups right now your lifetotal is irrelevant (looking at the popularity of library). It won the game vs UR delver and Depths by powering into a fast helm combo.
Edit: I guess I didn’t explain what was iffy with remorse. It was great at clearing the way of forces or combo pieces, but I was losing many games to just not drawing a win on. That’s why I thought more card draw might be good.
Last edited by Reeplcheep; 01-11-2021 at 08:12 AM.
Updated the primer with new card choices and thoughts
________
Went 3-2 with a treacherous blessing list. It accelerated me into fast helm kills vs ur delver and depths and usually only cost around 4 life. Being immediate card advantage through removal is nice compared to phyrexian arena. Compared to read the bones after testing I think drawing 1 card is worth more than the addition life loss and seeing 1 deeper.
Treacherous blessing list going forward would be something like this:
4 ancient tomb
4 City of Traitors
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
7 Swamp
4 Pelakka Predation // Pelakka Caverns
4 Dark Ritual
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
3 Eliminate
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Treacherous Blessing
2 Helm of Obedience
4 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Curse of Misfortunes
1 Curse of Death’s Hold
1 Cruel Reality
1 Curse of Fools’ Wisdom
1 Overwhelming Splendor
3 Plague Engineer
3 Opposition Agent
2 Bloodchief’s Thirst
1 Torpor Orb
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Mycrosynth Lattice
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Liquimettal Coating
From a meta point of view this list should destroy all the current unfair decks (eves/oops/doomsday) and fair non blue decks like lands/12 post. Fools wisdom plus blessing over spyglass/eliminate should hopefully make snow positive. The deck is weaker vs delver but hopefully Bloodchief’s thirst compensates or I can dodge.
Treacherous blessing and curse of fools wisdom are definitely winning matches for me, but I am mulliganing a lot. I think only 13 untapped black sources is too few and I should trim one blessing for utility lands.
Adding the extra business spells (1 fools wisdom 2 blessing) to the deck has greatly improved my control matchups, and I think I will keep it that way for the showcase. In leagues at least everything seems to be combo or snow rn which is a good spot for the deck.
Added some of the new FOTM decks (mentor/pokepile/oops) to the matchup sections. I’ll do a more comprehensive update (mus and sideboard changes a lot with opposition agent) at a later date.
Updated primer with an opposition agent list and the matchups it most affects.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote