Quote Originally Posted by mistercakes View Post
bummer. 4 preordain?
Not to be a contrarian (well, maybe a bit), but why would you want more than two Preordains? I almost always 'board out at least one, and always, always, always both against fast combo and prison/taxing decks. Feels like the worst card in the orthodox list to me, and I'll go out on a limb and say I prefer having a Chrome Mox and a Rain of Filth to having more of them.

Apropos of very little, I know it's a well-trodden subject, but I'm still getting owned by D&T even after trying all kinds of different approaches to the matchup. I'm about ready to junk Fatal Push and Echoing Truth (or maybe Petition) for 3x Dread of Night just because I don't see any reason not to bulk up on dedicated hate. I'll concede that it might be rotten luck (I've pulled out some wins against decks that are terrible for us lately, namely Eldrazi, BReanimator, and Goblin Charbelcher), so I know that I'm not a total incompetent. But I hate writing off losses to bad luck. If other people are winning the matchup easily, there must be something I'm doing wrong. Lately I've been trying a 'board plan of -3 Duress, -2 Preordain, -1 Past in Flames, -1 Rain of Filth; +2 Chain of Vapor, +2 Fatal Push, +1 Empty the Warrens, +1 Dark Petition, +1 Chrome Mox (to make 2 total). Starting to feel like +3 Dread would be better than the Pushes and the Petition. Still feel like I'm getting a lot of terrible openers and mulligans, and surprisingly, my land-base doesn't feel like it's weak there, even with only 14. In case it matters, I'm on a purely Grixis plan now with 14 lands. Might want to bring back a fifteenth in the 'board, but so far that hasn't really been a problem.

I'd appreciate PMs if people don't want to take the thread back to this topic. Thanks in advance!