I don't think this card does what you think it does.Originally Posted by Hrothgar
Admittedly it was my first time facing the matchup and I was afraid to mull lower than 6 because of the mainboard discard. I'll have to try this methodology the next time I play against the deck. In game one, I had the opportunity on passing to cast the first Glistener Elf, and just Brainstorming in response to whatever reanimate spell he casts. In theory I could have hit a Daze, or a Force + blue card, but chances were probably pretty low. I will also keep the advice about the Gitaxian Probe in mind for future games as well. I agree with your comments about the white splash, it's probably not what we need to close out the game vs B/R reanimator. Thank you for taking the time to read and respond though. I do appreciate it.
@Hrothgar
Initially I was hoping to trade my Invigorate for this Chancellor of the Annex but he didn't block. Seeing how his life total mattered in the matchup due to Reanimate costing him life I didn't want to give him to more life to cast it. Additionally, I didn't want him to know how close he was to dying to poison. I did comment on not casting the Crop Rotation, I just forgot about Sire of Insanity and didn't respond to the trigger when he reminded me. If I played that game perfectly, (Casting the Crop Rotation for Inkmoth Nexus and casting the Invigorate) I believe my opponent would have been at 9 poison, not enough to close out the game. Of course, casing the Crop Rotation shuffles my deck, so we'll never know how that game actually would have played out. I ended up boarding everything that you mentioned in, except for the Viridian Corrupter. Thank you for taking the time to read and reply!
Last edited by Terrene; 03-16-2017 at 04:52 AM.
Congrats on the nice finish, Terrene!
I wanted to chime in with my 2-cents on the BR Reanimator match up, since it's my other Legacy deck. I agree with Jesture wholeheartedly about aggressively mulling to a Surgical or a Counterspell on the draw. You're totally right that the deck's got a decent chance of hitting a discard spell, but the chances of having discard, the combo pieces, and the acceleration to cast everything on turn 1 are relatively low. Plus, whether your at 5, 6, or 7 cards, if they've got all the pieces against your one answer, you're toast anyhow, so you might as well try to mull to an answer to give yourself the best shot.
I'd say stick with ug, but go for a more all-in build. Lotus petals, 3-4 berserk, maybe more ponders... Haven't gotten the exact numbers right but it seems like having easier access to those turn 2 'free' wins might be the way to go. I like the daze-less lists, too, as daze setting us back a mana often makes kicking vines or casting become immense untenable. Maybe extra spell pierce/fluster. That or keep force in the side for the old school 4 daze 4 pierce lists. The card disadvantage of FOW can be rough...
With the shift in the meta moving towards a broader range of BUG decks; combo decks still remain hated out from the largest events except for the fastest and lucky few (B/R Reanimator and TES). Overall, I think the meta has decidedly gotten slower with True-Name Nemesis becoming a mainboard threat that I've considered replacing singletons (blossoming/ponder) with a second sylvan library. Anybody with experience or thoughts on exploiting the new shift?
2 sylvan could be sweet, that card wins games for sure. I would probably run jace, vryn's prodigy over the second one though, as it can be pitched to force, fuel delve, flash back invigorate, and also interacts well with sylvan library, looting through unwanted cards to save a bit of life. 2 sylvans in play wouldn't be as cool; i always take occurence of multiples into consideration, though I finally switched to 2 become immense because it is just that good.
Hi Terrene!
Very happy to talk with you about the improvements!
Imho vs BR Reanimator have no sense to save our pump in hand.
He have A LOT of discard effects.
If my oppo block with the Chancellor ok, I kill it, if he don't block, well, I want to infect my oppo with no risk to discard one of the cards who can make me win the game.
Obv we talk about the right way to play, we can't know what you can draw after Rotation.
About the Viridian, this is my mistake, he destroy only Artifact, not enchantement and no work vs Animate Dead obliviously.
What have you side out?
I have also played a JVP in the 'second Sylvan Library' slot, and I have liked it. It does a lot of the same things while not being completely useless if you draw both. It being blue and a creature means it has pluses and minuses. It can be pitched to Force but also Pyroblasted, it can be killed with removal but also protected like any other creature. Sylvan Library is on the whole the stronger card (it can singlehandedly beat Miracles), but when I wan't two of this effect I usually go with 1:1.
Right now I am not playing Jace, but have been playing one maindeck Tezzeret's Gambit in that slot. The burst of cards is very good, and the fact that the spell itself has pseudo-infect is a nice bonus (randomly playing with people's Chalices and Vials is something to keep in mind but in practice doesn't come up a ton). I generally have a fun-of slot running around to try new new cards out, but this one does feel very strong in fair matchups.
Recent list for reference:
http://www.hareruyamtg.com/jp/k/kD06740W/
I'm glad you liked the list :)
FYI, I've been working on the SB a bit, mainly because I want to cut white completely to increase the stability of the list even further. Spellskite will definitely appear in the SB, so will the 4th Flusterstorm. I'm not 100% sure what the Tundra will become: I'd love a blue land but I also like Cartesian's second Pendelhaven. His list for reference:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/430252#online
It's actually not that far from mine:
- many FoW/Fluster,
- low number of Dazes/Pierce,
- more cantrips (Impulse/Ponder),
- more pumps (Wings or 3rd Berserk for evasion + 2nd Become),
- no crop/library MD.
So my SB will take elements from his, probably Skite/Stifle/Truth/4th Fluster at least.
Makes sense. I understand your reasoning there. I guess I wasn't thinking all that clearly at the end of the day. If I recall correctly, this is how I boarded
In:
+1 Bojuka Bog
+1 Crop Rotation
+1 Force of Will
+1 Karakas
+2 Surgical Extraction
+1 Krosan Grip
+1 Nature's Claim
Out:
-2 Inkmoth Nexus
-1 Stifle
-1 Sylvan Library
-1 Flusterstorm
-1 Wasteland
-1 Vines of Vastwood
-1 Gitaxian Probe
I thought the Inkmoth Nexus' were too slow for the matchup, as the game would end in 2 or 3 turns so I cut some number of those out.
Stifle is cute, and interacts with their fetchlands, and the Animate Dead ETB trigger, but probably too narrow to be useful.
The Sylvan Library would also have been too slow for the matchup.
I thought Flusterstorm would have been too slow as well, as I felt like I wouldn't have the luxury of holding up mana to interact with my opponent.
The Wasteland was cut because there isn't a single land that we need to deal with, and just to make room for more useful cards.
Vines and Gitaxian Probe followed the same line of logic. Just needed room for some more relevant spells, and ended up shaving some number of those.
I ran back the deck at Fire and Dice last weekend and ended up 4-2 and in 10th place. Just enough for last place prizing, but no top 8 feature. My list was almost the same, except I changed my Spellskite in the board for a Teferi's Response. My match-ups were:
R1 Win (2-1) - Sneak and Show - Vidianto Wijaya - http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15077&d=291275&f=LE
R2 Loss (0-2) - 4C Control - Mike Kravitz - http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15077&d=291274&f=LE
R3 Loss (0-2) - Elves - Alex Mukhar
R4 Win (2-0) - Miracles - ??
R5 Win (2-1) - Grixis Delver w/Stifle - ??
R6 Win (2-0) - Death and Taxes - Alex Ramirez
I wanted to ask about two matchups. In the Elves matchup, we are looking for hands with fast kills? Since they play no ways of disrupting us, we can race pretty easily. If our hand is slower, it can be supported by the fact that we have countermagic for the Natural Order or GSZ for 8. Is my thought process correct here?
The second matchup I wanted to ask about was the 4C Control list. That matchup looks pretty rough. G1 was pretty close, I think I could have played it a bit better and taken the match. G2 however, he boards into even more removal spells. G2 was not close. Is this, and any deck that is packing a bunch of removal spells/recurring removal spells (Punishing Jund, Lands) a nightmare matchup that we are hoping to avoid?
Thanks again for reading and taking the time to reply.
Congrats on finishing in the money. Some thoughts:
There's an old article I'd recommend called Who's The Beatdown that talks about how important it is to accurately assess your role in every match. It's particularly relevant to U/G Infect pilots, as our deck is one that very regularly has to switch back and forth between different roles, often times in the middle of a game. It gets very nuanced, but typically we're rotating between the 3 main roles of an aggressive combo deck, a Delver-esque tempo deck, and a blue counter magic based control deck.
I bring this up because it's important to recognize that our role against "glass cannon hard combo" type decks is a completely control oriented role. Our tempo shell of cheap threats, soft permission, and cantrips lets us recover far more quickly than the opponent who's trying to assemble A+B through our permission spells without the aid of cantrips. In other words, if both players go hellbent fighting over a combo on the first turn, our deck is favored to win that game.
With that in mind, here's how I'd board:
In:
+1 Bojuka Bog
+1 Crop Rotation
+1 Flusterstorm
+1 Force of Will
+1 Karakas
+2 Surgical Extraction
Out:
-3 Inkmoth (I'd cut down to 1 copy in the deck, as you functionally have 3 total with 2x Crop Rotation)
-2 Vines of Vastwood (You're right to board out slower pump spells, I'd even go down to 1)
-2 Noble Hierarch (Not great against fast combo, between this and t1 Spell Pierce you're almost always going to hold up Pierce)
Stifle stays in. The Animate Dead interaction is ideal, but most importantly hitting fetchlands makes all of your soft permission much stronger.
Flusterstorm stays in. The storm trigger isn't affected by Chancellor of the Annex, so only the first copy will be taxed when you're casting this.
Wasteland stays in for the same reason as Stifle. You're probably not going to choke them out of the game with mana denial, but any sort of interaction helps and having a Wasteland to deny them of one mana may come in handy.
Vines can go, they're too slow and you're rarely going to fast combo anyone out in this matchup.
Sylvan Library is also too slow.
I'd keep the Probes in because they're a free way to eat the Chancellor tax. If there's no Chancellor, they give you free information which is great against decks that run Dark Ritual. The two life isn't often relevant in this matchup, it's 99% hinged on whether they can get a fatty into play.
Krosan Grip costs too much mana to be relevant. Nature's Claim is too narrow, as it's only going to be used to hit Animate Dead which should only be a one of in their deck.
Elves is an interesting one, the games can go anywhere from highly interactive to two ships passing in the night (no interaction.) Not much to say on the matchup, I'd recommend that you talk to your Elves guy and see if he'd let you play a couple of practice rounds with the deck in order to get a better feel of what it's capable of. Once you get that down, you'll have a better understanding of what to counter and what to let through, which in turn should help your matchup. As far as specific advice, I'd say Daze anything you can as those tend to be pretty dead if you let anything resolve.
4c control isn't a deck I have a lot of experience with, but it does seem like a difficult one the times I've played against it. I wouldn't put it in the "nightmare matchup" category, as the one saving grace is their deck can be pretty mana intensive, and it might be difficult for them to hold up interaction while establishing a meaningful clock. Best advice is to just be patient, as getting 3 for 1'd by a removal spell is almost impossible to come back from.
Hey guys,
just a quick question - but one I've been struggling with for quite some time: What's your boarding plan against aggro loam/4c loam?
In my experience, the matchup is somewhat unfavorable (probably 40/60ish) and a pain to board against, since they are attacking from all kinds of angles (chalice, removal, kotr into maze/wastland).
I'd like to bring at least the anti-chalice suite (k grip, corrupter, seal), the 4th FOW (at least on the draw), and ideally skite, needle, 2nd crop rot. Candidates for boarding out are probes and dazes (on the draw) - but, then the blue count for FOW suffers ... argh!
Anyone got experience with the matchup?
Postboard you need to have a plan for Punishing Fire and Chalice. What exactly do you want to fow in the matchup? Generally you bring in 1-card answers to cards that you would need to fow in g1.
The matchup is very annoying as Aggro loam has lots of relevant cards against decks that win via 1/1 creatures and cheap spells.
Some of my friends sell records,
some of my friends sell drugs.
Don't you want to force the turn 1 chalice? If they resolve one, we are severely limited in the spells we can cast.
Um, Chalice? Knight of the Relinquary, Sylvan Library, Bob, Lili on the play ... the list goes on. All of those cards are pretty much gg if they go unchecked. And God have mercy on your soul if they board in Zealous Persecution, Golgari Charm, Ethersworn Canonist etc.
I've tried boarding out FOWs. Not recommended to say the least. The artifact/enchantment removal is ok, but not enough in my experience - kind of like vs eldrazi, where I wouldn't want to miss FOW either. But with Loam it's less clear what to board out.
In my book mulliganing in search of hymning yourself is not the way to beat their infinite card advantage. Apparently it doesn't work for batter-call-skull either since he/she is asking for help.
Artifact removal, library and Submerge are obviously good in the matchup. Absolute law is also golden against Punishing fire decks.
Some of my friends sell records,
some of my friends sell drugs.
Chris Allan end 8th place at SCG open Worcester with Infect.
Decklist in the link:
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=112703
Thoughts on this?
It looks like something we could play as a 1-of MD to answer Jitte/Chalice/Strix while bringing very little disruption to our MD in MUs where it's not useful.
Where is everyone at with Ponder these days?
At SCG Worcester, there were three infect decks that top 32'd. One had two Ponders, one had none, and one had four. The four Ponder list being particularly creative with a Tundra and some nice sideboard tech. I've gone up to three Ponders personally while cutting a Trop to go to down to 8 fetches, 3 Trops, 1 Forest, 4 Inkmoth, 1 Pendelhaven, 1 Wasteland. I'm liking the way it runs with the extra Ponders a lot.
The spicy sideboard tech was Mother of Runes in the White splash. I thought that was a pretty fantastic idea. Mom would be to removal heavy decks for us as Xantid Swarm is to counterspells for Storm while also giving us a way to get through Strix. The Tundra I'm assuming be for Turn 1 Mom > Daze. Has anyone tried this or have any thoughts?
I think you'd rather just play a main deck Viridian Corrupter. This has way too much potential to just be a completely dead card.
Thoughts on this?
It looks like something we could play as a 1-of MD to answer Jitte/Chalice/Strix while bringing very little disruption to our MD in MUs where it's not useful.
Ponders are an interesting choice. Pros are it helps smooth out draws while also providing more turn 1 plays and a higher blue count for Force of Will. Cons are it's sorcery speed (we're very reactive and like to leave mana open) and can make opening hands more difficult to evaluate. As it is, I personally feel 2-3 is the correct number, but it seems like there's no correct answer and it's largely predicated on personal preference/local meta.
For what it's worth, I don't recommend running 18 lands as you've posted, even though that's what I ran at SCG Worcester. 19 feels like the right number, up to 20 if you're playing Dryad Arbor.
So I'm the guy who played the unconventional Mother of Runes list at SCG Worcester, and Sean Brown of MTGGoldfish has a pretty well written summary of the tournament here. The recurring protection effect is strong against highly interactive decks, such as the new 4color Czech Pile control deck, but it's also a great way to give Glistener Elf some late game relevance in the form of evasion. I'm not 100% on if it's worth playing a more fragile mana base to include Tundra for t1 Mother of Runes with Daze backup, but it has been pretty great in testing so far.
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