Quote Originally Posted by Stryfo View Post
I have tried delvers and part of a transformational board before, the problem is that we are a combo deck and have too many cards that are just bad outside of our deck. That said, there are certainly cards in my board that make my deck seem transformational, but are powerful within the existing framework of the deck. To be a bit more clear, my solution to beating graveyard hate has always been bounce, but against some decks I like having backup plans. For example, against miracles I bring in cards like V Clique, and Venser because they are beaters that serve another purpose.

Any time I can find a creature that is fairly cheap (matchup dependent) and really good in a matchup I like to try it out in my sideboard because it plays so well with the entire idea of the deck. For example, against RUG delver, I like to bring in a pair of baleful strix because of how powerful he is against their deck and because he can't be spell pierced or flusterstormed (In addition, he can be reanimated for sweet value) I think that a full blown transformational sideboard is too hard for the traditional build of the deck, but a partial transformation to support the initial strategy is perfectly fine and doable.


For reference, creatures I have worked with so far as well as how many I play/played:

Baleful Strix (All-Star when I bring it in) 2

Venser (Awesome) 1

V Clique (Great) 1

Pack Rat (Limited testing, but has been pretty sweet when I do bring him in) 1

Delver (This one I liked less since he took up too many slots, I didn't feel he was strong enough as a one of) 4

Notion Thief (Didn't play with this for long, because I liked my board against decks I'd bring it in for well enough already) 1

Judge's Familiar (This guy wasn't bad, but took up too many slots) 3

Deathrite Shaman (Only tried this in one weekly, didn't really like it, though the mana ability was pretty sweet) 2


Thanks for the reply.

I have found that it's really hard to morph the deck. I did have some decent results with a stiflenaught combo in the sideboard but don't thinki it's the right way to go. Although it gets around graveyard hate, it wasn't much better than the reanimator combo itself.

I agree that delver isn't the way to go, it takes up too many spots and doesn't provide that much impact. Has anyone tried Tombstalker or TNN? I'm curious to know how they would do.

What do you usually use a venser for? I do see clique as being useful though. I will have to try strix, it seems really good as a stall in certain matchups. I'm also curious about the utility of snapcasters mage in the sideboard. Does stifle have any place in this deck? Seems like it could be used to stifle a relic or a tormod's crypt or things like that (not sure if you can stifle the coming into play trigger for rest in peace).


Has anybody tried a green splash for abrupt decay, seems like it could really take out a huge amount of problem cards for us. Or would it be better just to use engineered explosives?

Sorry for the rambling nature of my post.