What is the best strategy for playing against Lands? Played in a small 20 man event a couple of weeks ago and got rumbled by Lands two rounds in a row. Managed to pull a game in each but ended 1-2 both rounds. Felt i was behind the whole time... Whether it was Waste-lock or continuous Punishing Fire
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Lands is just miserable. Punishing Fire kills all of our early threats, then Wasteland and Tabernacle kill everything else. The matchup is really poor, since not only is our maindeck removal spells are dead (~4 Decay and ~2 Push), but the 4 Hymn's that give us an edge in poorer matchups are terrible here as well.
Deathrite Shaman and Surgical Extraction are the best options. Both can take care of Punishing Fire and Life From the Loam, and if you time it right, Deathrite can exile these cards (as well as value lands) in G1. Aggressively use counter spells against P-Fire, so you can exile it in response to a Grove activation.
Also, it's important to play around cycling lands. The Lands player can cycle Tranquil Thicket or the new "dual land" cyclers from Amonket to dredge Loam back into their hands in the face of our own DRS.
This is one of the few matchups where I actually like True-Name Nemesis, since it attacks through Maze of Ith and survives P-Fire.
I'm not really comfortable with the matchup, but I've found that countering Gamble is a big tempo play in our favour. Other than that, try to next-level their recursion of their engine cards (Loam and P-Fire) with multiple Deathrites, and play Surgical Extraction.
EDIT: Grafdigger's Cage might seem okay, but it's completely useless. Loam and P-Fire aren't cast from the graveyard, so Lands players can still do their thing.
Last edited by Ixbpoqdxl; 06-28-2017 at 03:56 AM.
The only thing I'd add is that Decay isn't totally dead and I typically don't board it out. You can sometimes pinch them on mana by Decaying a Mox Diamond, and keeping Exploration and Manabond off of the table is essential buys a lot of time against an active Loam. You should also consider Lands-specific sideboard cards if you expect to see it a lot. The best options are graveyard hate (Surgical is probably best), Pithing Needle, Leovold, Clique, Crucible of Worlds, and Life from the Loam.
Last edited by btm10; 06-08-2017 at 09:12 AM.
If you can squeeze a winter orb in the board it helps. Leovold is pretty good if they're on the port version. I find the best plan is counter all their gambles and land an early goyf to clock them. If you decay a mox or exploration it helps grow goyf more than normal.
Well my self control failed me and I ordered 3 Goyfs for my deck. My one bit of restraint was that I didn't get the full playset, so there's that. Now I'm curious what people think the best creature is for that spot, here are my options:
- Tombstalker: I don't think playing 2 Tombstalker in the deck is that outrageous (I've resolved two in one game on multiple occasions), but I'm concerned that I'll be shrinking my Goyfs with it. I really like Tombstalker and he usually wins the game when he resolves, so maybe a slightly smaller Goyf is less of a problem. This is probably my top choice.
- TNN: More resistant to removal than anything else, pitches to force, and has great evasion. 3 CMC sucks. Probably my second pick.
- Leovold: Most powerful single creature in terms of abilities, but he is not relevant in every MU, 3 CMC still sucks. Feels like win-more to me.
- Clique: Good against combo and probably will be in the board no matter what. Dies to a stiff breeze, again 3 CMC sucks.
All four options are reasonable I think, play which one suits the meta you expect to face. Vs an unknown, Leovold is pretty great to mise.
Originally Posted by CutthroatCasual
My meta is combo heavy (Reanimator, Sneak/show, some Storm) and a lot of random Tier 2 jankiness. Funnily enough, someone 5-0'ed a daily with this creature base:
4x DRS
4x Delver
3x Goyf
1x Tombstalker
2x Leovold
So I suppose it isn't just win-more after all.
I definitely do not think leo is win more. He combines perfectly with hymn and is a valuable out to glimpse of nature.
Which sideboard cards are good against the new version of Miracles? And which cards are worth taking out?
Abrupt Decay still feels useful, since you'll often face Blood Moon, Back to Basics, mentors and SFMs.
Is it worth bringing in our own Jaces against them?
I'm looking for some ideas about sideboarding with this deck. I've got a few specific areas that I'd like advice on, I'm using the standard Lili/Hymn build. My meta is insanely combo heavy, more than 50% of the field is Sneak/Show, Reanimator variants, Elves, Dredge, Aluren, etc. There are also a fair number of Burn decks. Here is my board:
Sideboard
3x Surgical Extraction
2x Invasive Surgery
3x Thoughtseize
1x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1x Sylvan Library
1x Dead Weight
2x Fatal Push
2x Golgari Charm
Here are the things I am curious about:
- How many Abrupt Decay do you leave in against Storm or Sneak/Show to either hit artifacts that they put down or things like Moon/Defense Grid?
- For grindier creature combo decks like Elves or Aluren, how many Daze do you leave in? I'm imagining cutting Liliana, 2-3x Daze, and Tombstalker to bring in more hate.
- Against creature hatebear decks like Maverick or D&T, what is your Daze/Force mix that you remove? With RUG Delver I used to cut all of my Forces for matches like these, but I'm thinking a mix is probably more balanced.
- How many Dazes do you remove against control decks where the games are likely to go long? I'm trying to make space for Thoughtseize, Jace and Library.
- Very different decks. I'd keep 3 Decay for S&T as you may want to see 2, but seeing 3 is surely a game loss
- I normally trim dazes last, in sequence, from the deck. Start with the slowest/most ineffective stuff, work your way to daze, and start cutting. So cutting a couple daze sounds about right. I like stalker against Elves as a flyer. Consider trimming teh Spierce over Daze #4 against Elves. IME, if one's dead, so is the other, but getting a hardcasted Hoof will feel really bad if you have Spierce, and losing to a greedy 4-mana NO on T2 because you played Delver T1, that seems really lame. It's most important T1-3.
- Not sure, I'd let a more dedicated Delver tell you. Those are terrible MUs IME.
- If you're bringing in Jaces, Dazes get much much worse. A T3 Jace here can seal the match. A T5 Jace is pretty good, but is considerably worse as their ability to have an answer has grown; including a clique in hand with open mana. Depends on the control deck as Lands vs. Miracles vs. Shardless vs Czech are all quite different. Lands and Miracles don't require much removal, Shardless will probably beat up your Jace by going wide and bouncing dudes is typically bad, Czech will probably hit jace slower than he can tick up.
Also, I'm pretty big on Chill. If you're weak to Lands, want to seal the Sneakshow MU, and have loads of burn in the area? Totally add a chill, probably in place of Dead Weight. Great as a way to slow PFire to a halt, make Gamble a lot slower, etc.. makes SneakShow have (pretty much) just S&T as their out, and Burn slows down by 3 or so turns (and you don't have to respect Fireblast very much at that point.) Makes your Stifles *WAY* better too if they're fetchland versions. Now we're looking at game lock outs. Really a good card. I feel like I'd aim for a 1x Null Rod in your side, a 1x Cage, and a 1x Dread of Night.
The MUs you mentioned are affected by those things, and those things also affect combo MUs (minus Dread.) -1 Surgical, +1 Cage, -1 Surgery, +1 Rod, -1 Surgery, +1 DoN. I don't know, whatever works. This helps your Elves, Storm, D&T, and Mav MUs, but shouldn't negatively affect much else.
I'd cut 1 thoughtseize, library, and 1 invasive surgery and add 2 flusters and 1 leovold. Also if you're struggling against the miracles deck, I've found bringing in surgicals for stp and if you hit another hit their terminus. I also play 3 decay 2 push main so I only play 1 push in the board and play a snapcaster in place of your other push.
this is mine:
- 2/3 Decay maindeck
- 2/3 Daze maindeck otp, 0/1 Daze otd. 2 Force otp, 3/4 Force otd.
- 0/2 Daze main deck draw/play
I like keeping one copy of Daze against almost every deck on the draw---not including Vial decks or Maverick. When you're on the play against Delver decks you almost never play around Daze, so the upside is huge in the early turns. The impact falls off quick but it does pitch to Force or you can bin it with your own Lili.
But as everyone else has said, Daze goes back and forth from maindeck to sideboard a lot in games 2 and 3.
I'd like to see a Grafdigger's Cage in your sideboard, but I really value the card in the face of Elves//Storm//Reanimator.
Also, the double Invasive Surgery is a bit excessive. One copy was pretty stock when you could counter and extract Terminus, but playing more than one when Miracles isn't on top of the ladder is suspect. It's a good replacement for Flusterstorm if you don't want to drop $100, but Fluster is better at what sideboard counterspells are there for.
Hi everyone!
I'm writing 'cause I've been testing team america for a while, an almost "standard" list with 3-4 hymns MD.
Yes, Hymns MD on early game are brutal, but just for testing a different taste of Team America I get them out and gave Stifle an opportunity.
I found some list on tcdecks:
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=23713&iddeck=184895
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=23627&iddeck=184028
http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=23559&iddeck=183419
And tried the last one.
I like a lot the change for the next reasons:
1) Instant Speed.
2) Disruption is very important for this deck. A big reason for hymn been good here is because it can hit 1 or 2 lands, but randomly. Stifle can hit this way by countering a fetch, losing the random variability: targeting what really hurts us.
3) Hymn on T2-3 hurts a lot, so against a U deck it will probably countered. So if I'm on T2, a countered hymn lets you with nothing else to do, not the case of stifle.
4) Personally I see stifle as a very versatile card at low cost. It cat hit fetches, wastelands, stoneforge, batterskull (that hurts us a lot I think), sneak, aether vial, any triggered ability from creatures entering the battlefield, Craterhoof Behemoth combo, and so on...
5) Blue count for FOW.
Opinions?
I don't think Team America is a very good Stifle deck. If you want to play Stifle, both Grixis and Canadian Thresh are better shells for the card. With Stifle, you are trying to end the game quickly so having access to Bolt is absolutely critical to getting the most value out of the card. The advantage of Team America is that you are a little slower, but you have bigger threats and can actually generate CA with Hymn and Lili. You play more lands so you can go more control/mid-range after Game 1. I don't think Stifle is a bad card, and maybe you can make it work in the BUG shell, but I think the best fit is elsewhere. This has also been beaten to death in the thread. I think the most instructive place to look is tournament results: the vast majority of the BUG Delver decks that get anywhere are running Hymn, not Stifle.
Went 3-0 at my local weekly last night with the standard list, my only change was swapping the Tombstalker for a Leovold. I played Elves (2-0), Dredge (2-1), and UR Burn (2-1). Umezawa's Jitte out of the board was a total house all night, that is definitely worth jamming against creature decks. If you can connect once, that ends the game.
One question I had: do you board out Liliana against burn decks? On the one hand, she feels a bit slow but on the other both of her abilities are relevant. Thoughts?
Leovold was only so-so all night. Tombstalker is not great in my meta because there is very little aggro it is like >50% combo and the rest is control. Vendilion Clique was the other thing I thought about, but the 1 toughness doesn't play nicely with Golgari Charm out of the board.
Stifle works best in a reactive delver deck, where your entire list is built around playing a 1 mana threat and holding up a 1 mana disruptive spell. RUG is the perfect example of this synergy. Grixis has moved to Stifle over Therapy for slightly similar reasons, but the main one is that Stifle helps them go under the manabase of bigger Leovold decks, instead of having a mid-range (ish) gameplan of Pyro + Probe + Therapy and strip away your hand.
Stifle does see play in BUG, but the lists are very different. RUG ideally operates on 2 or 3 lands, but if you play Deathrite Shaman you're "forced" to allocate one of your lands (probably a black source) each turn to take advantage of the card as a threat. If we are holding up DRS activations as well as holding up Stifle for fetchlands or other things, casting Tarmogoyf is not going to be reliable without "turning off" DRS or Stifle for a turn.
BUG Delver is a proactive delver deck. Slam Tarmogoyf on turn 2, and make your opponent deal with it. Play Hymn, make them have an answer. If we have Daze backup, we are so massively ahead on tempo that games are "won" on turn 2. Imagine: T1 Sea + DRS. Opponent fetches a dual and Ponders. We untap, Waste their dual, exile it for B and cast Hymn. If they Force (as a way to choose which 2 they lose) and we Daze back, they're on 3 cards and no lands in play facing and active DRS.
This play happens a lot, and the upside of high-rolling on Hymn works best with the rest of the traditional BUG shell.
I've played a Stifle // Dark Confidant list, and really missed the (often unlikely but still possible) "I-win" factor of Hymning away their two best cards on a mull to 6.
- - -
On another note, after a brief hiatus from playing in paper, I 3-1'd the local LGS legacy night after a really rough start with the following list:
19 LANDS
4 Delta
4 Misty
4 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
13 Creatures
4 DRS
4 Delver
4 Goyf
1 Tombstalker
26 Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Fatal Push
4 Decay
4 Hymn
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 "Flex"
1 Spell Pierce
1 Liliana of the Veil
Sideboard
2 Thoughtseize
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Fatal Push
2 Golgari Charm
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Clique
1 Sylvan Library
1 Pithing Needle
- - -
R1: Maverick 0-2
I got rolled game one by keeping an okay 6, but my opponent plowed my DRS, played a Knight, and rotated for a Wasteland (over 3 turns) and I conceded. I cut a lot of countermagic and brought in the bottom 5 cards listed above, plus the third Push, just treating the matchup like a midrange mirror.
G2 is a bit closer, and I stabalize with an Ooze after decaying a Knight and a Zenith'd Leovold. He Zeniths for a Tireless Tracker that gets too big too fast, and I can't find removal or the means to out-race, and lose over a few turns of exalted beats and DRS staring at each other from across the board.
I kept a few copies of Daze on the play: if we got to G3, I would replace them with Thoughtseize on the draw.
Overall I'm inexperienced in this matchup I'd like to know if I should be treating this like a Modern GBx midrange grindfest or if this was off the mark.
R2: 4 Horseman 2-0
My opponent was goofing with a silly deck and didn't really have the intention of winning, but instead to make one of the Judges (his good friend) come over repeatedly with slow-play calls.
He never got too close to assembling anything relevant, and the DRS + Waste + Hymn play I outlined earlier happened in both our games. Honestly, I sideboarded incorrectly, assuming he was on some sort of Big Tezz deck (I saw a load of islands and u seas and grim monolith, and not much else) but I don't expect to play against this list ever again.
After our 2 games, we talked a bit about his list and why he wanted to play it, and we goldfished a win (after about 10 mins) waiting for the next round to start.
R3: Lands 2-0
I got the first game (which surprised me) by playing around Tranquil Thicket for about 4 turns, and not activating my DRS to remove the Loam from his yard. We both assembled a bunch of stuff slowly, and the turning point was finding 2 Wastelands to deal with his 2 Maze of Iths. The Goyf I had in play was about a 2 turn clock alongside the chip damage from DRS.
I don't like this game 1. Hymn, Push + Decay, and Daze are all pretty bad. Decay and Daze have some uses, but they're not at their best. I boarded out 8 cards: -4 Hymn, -2 Daze, -2 Push for Needle, Library, Ooze, Clique, Edict, 2 Surgical and Invasive. I should have also gotten rid of Pierce for a G Charm. Probably.
G2 I manage to Surgical a T2 Loam, and later Ponder into 3 lands which I kept on top. In the face of Wasteland and Port, additional lands are real good. A few turns later we're in a similar standoff to G1, except he has double Grove and Fire, Port, Tabernacle, Taiga, and 2 Mazes. My DRS and flipped Delver are effectively dead, and Mazes blank my 3/4 Goyf, and between Port and Tab I don't have mana on my turn. I play a Wasteland of my own and pass, and during his priority we have a complex stack that I should have written down:
It was something along the line of P Fire my DRS, activate Grove to return it, and then I Wasted his Maze. He Crop Rotates off of his dual saccing the Maze I targeted, and I Daze the rotate. He has 2 untapped lands (Tab and 2nd Maze) but no Riftstone Portal in the graveyard to actually make mana, and Daze gets there. The following few turns are me punching in with 2 creatures, one getting Mazed, and then P Fired on his next turn, and the solo Goyf eventually gets there when I play the 2nd Wastland in hand.
I felt pretty lucky in those 2 games, and my opponent is a very good Lands player. But I'll take it. Fun matchup.
R4: Moon Stompy 2-1
Game 1 I get chaliced off of 2 basic mountains T2, then a Moon T3. I purposely only show u seas and concede when a Chandra hits the board. I was really just looking for more info from his deck.
I cut my non-Decay removal for some more interaction, specifically Clique and a couple Thoughtseizes, and I think a Library for a Daze or Brainstorm.
Game 2 is a slow start from my opponent, landing a chalice on 1 when I have a DRS and Delver already in play. Delver flips, he takes 5 over the full turn phase, and wraths me with Fiery Confluence. I EOT Decay his Chalice, and play 2 more DRS on my main phase. He lands a Moon, and I cast a Goyf, which is conveniently a 4/5, off of one of my dorks. Pyrokenesis takes care of the shamans, but can't kill the Goyf and he does the damages.
G3 I keep a 6 of: 2 Fetch, DRS, Goyf, Spell Pierce, and Brainstorm. There's no Force and I'm pretty nervous, but keep it anyways. On the draw I would be ecstatic to keep this. He mulls to 3 and plays Tomb + Chalice T1. I play a Misty, and pass, he bricks on land, I draw a Force and crack both fetches for a 1/2 Goyf. His turn 3 is Land Blood Moon, but I have the answer and Goyf is now a respectable clock. Not much of a game when you mull to oblivion.
- - -
Anyways, we're getting a lot more Legacy players locally and that's great news. Of the ~15 people there tonight, there were two Maverick Players, and it looks like something I should prepare more for. Anyone have any insight into the matchup (in general)?
Also I think that Submerge looks decent here, maybe more so than Edict. My R1 opponent commented on how mediocre edict is against a deck that has a plethora of dorks to "protect" a payoff threat. I'll probably sleeve up a copy over the edict next week, and I'm still debating on double Flusterstorm over the Invasive Surgery.
Sorry for the essay: the post seemed shorter in my head until I typed everything out.
My knowledge of playing Maverick comes primarily from jamming lots of RUG Delver against it. I played mostly against the straight G/W versions and much less against the newer three-color variants, so YMMV with my advice.
- Golgari Charm should always be brought in against them. It kills Mom (which shuts off your removal), Thalia, Scryb ranger (stops Delver), Dryad Arbor and kills off their mana dorks. It can also be used for a potential blow-out with the regenerate mode, as they tend to clog up the board forcing complicated blocking. Still the right thing most of the time will be to wipe out all of their X/1s.
- In addition to Edict, Needle and Clique are pretty bad against them. They have lots of activated abilities, but shutting off any one of them doesn't really save you. For example, Knight is still a huge beater even if it can't tutor lands, they don't always run Batterskull so it isn't as strong against SFM, etc.. Clique gets chumped by Scryb Ranger all day and taking a single card from them is not likely to make a huge impact given their threat density. I'm on the fence about Scavenging Ooze: I think they are better able to utilize that against you, so I'd rather have more removal here instead of another threat.
- Grafdigger's Cage might be worth bringing in to shut off their GSZ toolbox.
- Expect Choke post-board and use your Abrupt Decays/Fatal Pushes accordingly.
- They are pretty light on removal as they rely on out-classing your creatures in combat. You can get a surprising amount of mileage/damage out of an early Delver. Tombstalker is also an MVP in this MU. You are usually the beatdown in the MU since they have inevitability on their side given the size and utility of their creatures.
- I've had really good luck with Jitte against creature decks. It avoids Mom protection and generates an insane amount of value if you can connect with it multiple times.
- If enough Maverick is running around your format, you can dip into specialized powerful hate cards like Dread of Night or Virtue's Ruin. One-sided Wrath effects are pretty good.
I don't really get how you play around Thiket for 4 turns. Shouldn't the opp just dredge in his draw step?
I don't know the board state -- it's been too long. But he was purposely not dredging to play around something. From my perspective, I didn't exile the Loam because of Thicket, but I'm not sure why he didn't dredge in his draw like you said, since there's no point I can interact with it there.
There must have been a reason though.
- - -
As for the Maverick feedback, thanks, and Jitte has done work for me in the past. I've stopped playing it (mostly) because I'm not playing TNN right now, but the two of these trivialize a lot of creature matchups. I'll certainly make some changes before next week.
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