[Deck] Zombardment

[shonenkakumei]

Hey there fellow zombie throwers!

Another weekly after a small break for work. The turnout was low but the quality was high. Since last time my meta was infested with Blade players, I decided to go up to 3 Abrade. There were still a couple Blade decks but some of them moved to Miracle along with a Chalice player. I also gave up on Bridge and Feeder and went back to Gurmag. Here's what I ended up with:

4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
2 Gurmag Angler
1 Scourge of Nel Toth

3 Abrade
4 Entomb
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lingering Souls

3 Goblin Bombardment

4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
1 Arid Mesa
3 Badlands
2 Scrubland
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Undiscovered Paradise
//SB
1 Duress
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Fatal Push
3 Wear // Tear
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Engineered Explosives


R1: 2-0 vs. Lands
G1 I flood and clog the board against Waste/Loam and 2 Maze
G2 I keep 2 Surgical opener with Wear and grind him out through Marrit Lage with Scourge and Souls.

R2: 2-0 vs. Miracles
G1 I shred his hand and beat him down through 2 Terminus.
G2 I shred his hand and ride Liliana to victory

R3: 0-2 vs. Maverick
G1 I get denied by Thalia on 3 mana holding 2 Souls with Bombardment in play and Ghast + Crawler in the yard. Ooze blows me out while I fail to draw a land or creature for 3 turns.
G2 I get stuck on 2 lands for 8+ turns when all I need is a land to shut the door. I eventually die to Noble with SoFaI and SoLaS while im holding Push, Bombardment, Ghast, Liliana, Souls, and EE on 2 Mana.

We played a 3rd game for fun and rolled him over.

R3: 2-0 vs. Grixis Control
G1 is a bye they can't do anything
G2 we play the grind but in the end he gets no Surgicals and gets grinded out.

Props:
-EE in every matchup
-Abrade always readily availlable and easily replaced. I am satisfied with that play pattern so 3 is a good number.
-Gurmag didn't particularly shine but was always superior to Feeder when I drew him
-Didn't miss Bridge from Below or Feeder at any point

Slops:
-Land screws
-Entomb missplay cost me the first game against Maverick

Overall I really appreciate how the deck rewards tight plays and forethought. The only thing I would like to is to include a 3rd Scrubland as a 21st land against land-denial strategies (DnT, Maverick, Delver, Lands) I am at a point where I am considering a 61st card even though this goes against all my instincts...

To those who were asking about Entomb and SB advice, I would never side out Entomb unless I expect massive Entomb hate like 4 Leylines + 4 Chalice AND I have a super SB plan to replace them. As for Supplier, she literally never gets sided out... ever. Supplier is the best GY rebuilder post-RiP/Surgical/Bog/you-name-it-GY-wipe.

@johncarvalho,

Discard is really bad post-board against tempo decks. I side out all 8 discard spells against Delver decks faster than you can say "Delver, go!".

Keep on bombardin'

Cool list! I love the idea of main-decking some number of Abrades to save sideboard space. I will definitely try that out.

SB questions--

1) how has Liliana of the Veil been? What match ups does she come in for? How is it getting to the three mana in those games?

2) were the Fatal Pushes good? I generally think of the Zombardment deck as good against any fair deck, so I skimped on fair deck SB cards (like Liliana the Last Hope). How about 1 Darkblast (for small creatures/Entomb target) / Urborg Justice (or Diabolic Edict) split?

Main-deck questions--

Has Scourge of Nel Toth been worth it's slot over, say, another Gurmag? Obviously flying/Entomb-ability/recursiveness are good, but it's so resource intensive. Also, in terms of cutting the Bridges/Feeder... after cutting 4+ Zombies have you had issues getting a Zombie to consistently recast Gravecrawler?

Thanks!

[johncarvalho]

Went 2-2 yesterday with the following list:

3 carrion feeder
4 stitcher's supplier
4 bloodghast
4 gravecrawler
1 scourge of nel toth

4 entomb
4 faithless looting
4 thoughtseize
4 cabal therapy
2 faithless looting
2 abrade

3 goblin bombardment
1 bridge from below

3 badlands
2 scrubland
3 swamp
4 bloodstained mire
4 polluted delta
3 marsh flats
1 undiscovered paradise

sideboard

2 engineered explosives
1 pithing needle
3 surgical extraction
2 diabolic edict
1 ensnaring bridge
3 wear/tear
3 liliana of the veil

match1: 1-2 vs sneak n show
g1 emrakul t2
g2 I discarded and surgical emrakul and grisebrand
g3 I surgical her show and tell, cabal 2 sneak attacks and tear another, but she was able to topdeck the last sneak attack (i had liliana in play, it was the ONLY card that could potentially save her), and an emrakul right after (and I was at 15 after seizes/fetches) (its amazing how my games are vs sneak and show, it always comes to them topdecking the missing piece)

match 2: 2-0 vs burn
g1 bridge from below went crazy
g2 see game 1

match 3: 2-1 vs uw stoneblade
g1 I missplay discarding an abrade to a looting at some point and that costed me the game
g2 was able to lock my opponent with ensaring bridge until I drew a bombardment, before that was lingering souls beating (he actually had to plowshares both the spirits)
g3 opponent only saw 1 land in like 5 turns, was not a fair win

match 4: 0-2 vs uw spirits (what a cool deck btw, very very sinergistic)
g1 a resolved jitte took over the game, never saw abrade
g2 I discarded his jitte, but 2 spirit lords with hexproof and 2 m19 spirit lord were impossible to beat (scourge was boarded out because of plowshares)

This deck is a blast to pilot, but I never see to get a 4-0 finish (damn emrakuls )! I wanna try a version with some smallpox/8 rack package because our discard game is so strong that I think its worth a shot! maybe that could be an SB alternative plan!

[maCHOOga]

Cool list! I love the idea of main-decking some number of Abrades to save sideboard space. I will definitely try that out.

SB questions--

1) how has Liliana of the Veil been? What match ups does she come in for? How is it getting to the three mana in those games?

2) were the Fatal Pushes good? I generally think of the Zombardment deck as good against any fair deck, so I skimped on fair deck SB cards (like Liliana the Last Hope). How about 1 Darkblast (for small creatures/Entomb target) / Urborg Justice (or Diabolic Edict) split?

Main-deck questions--

Has Scourge of Nel Toth been worth it's slot over, say, another Gurmag? Obviously flying/Entomb-ability/recursiveness are good, but it's so resource intensive. Also, in terms of cutting the Bridges/Feeder... after cutting 4+ Zombies have you had issues getting a Zombie to consistently recast Gravecrawler?

Thanks!

1.) Liliana is good against the gambit of control decks, plus combo. I'm hesitant against Shadow because they have a billion counterspells, so she probably isn't resolving, ever. My biggest issue with her is lands can play around the edict and her ultimate doesn't "win" the game.

2.) I'm going to test Dreadbore in the slot. Planeswalkers, namely Liliana, the Last Hope can give this deck troubles. Likewise, murderous cut is the other card I'm going to start testing.

Scourge is a way to fly over a ground stall and close games quickly. The card is very good in the Mardu build and enables a un-fair-esk combo. The majority of the removal in the format doesn't kill it either, which is a huge plus. Just board it out in the matchups were you suspect they have RiP. It also has the built in pseudo graveyard anti-hate of being a cast, so your opponent doesn't receive priority until its already on the stack if you sequence correctly.

*~*~*~*~* ~*
Also, if you read Reid Dukes CFB article today it basically says that Back to Basics is the secret best card in legacy. I think one could easily argue that 2x undiscovered paradise is the magic number because, it will never stay in play tapped. It's a very subtle thing that could easily be overlooked.

[Qweerios]

@maCHOOga,

Yes we went through a similar thought process over the inclusion of the 3rd Abrade and 2 Gurmag and the exclusion of the Feeders/Bridge. For me it boils down to this:

-Feeder is the weakest link without Bridge
-Bridge is rarely the go-to play
-Bridge requires Feeder, given that Bridge is not essential to the deck's success, removing Bridge gives me little incentive to play Feeder
-Abrade #3 makes a difference against the common offenders (Chalice, Jitte, BSkull, Delver, Thalia, Ooze, Eidolon, Goblin Guide, Lackey)
-Gurmag has different synergy than Feeder (Supplier, Looting, Fetches)
-Gurmag is 5/5 right out of the gates and can block (super relevant)
-Gurmag is less GY dependant than Feeder (Yes, Delve is hard to hate and Feeder without a recursive creature isn't so hot)
-Overall Gurmag and Abrade help me overcome my worst matchups while Feeder and Bridge does not

Cool list! I love the idea of main-decking some number of Abrades to save sideboard space. I will definitely try that out.

SB questions--

1) how has Liliana of the Veil been? What match ups does she come in for? How is it getting to the three mana in those games?

Liliana comes in against:
-Aggro: Delver, Eldrazi, Maverick. NOT Infect, Burn, Steel Stompy, DnT (too slow and edict is insignificant)
-Control: All of them.
-Combo: SnT, Storm, Reanimator, Depths/Lands

Against aggro decks, Liliana wins the game on an empty board or puts them on a timer. Its a great card to catch up and seal a game because it grants you a card every turn (+1 is usually one-sided). Against combo it makes our early discard devastating because they never get to recuperate their losses while they try to deal with our recurring little shits. Given that we already attack from different angles (hand, board, graveyard), throwing a PW in the mix makes it nearly impossible for a control player to control everything. Combo decks nowadays tend to rely on a fat creature to win. Recurring edicts and discard puts them in a situation where it becomes difficult to combo and difficult to keep their combo online. Yes Lily is slow against combo decks but we already have the fastest discard suite available and lack Liliana's snowball effect pre-board.

2) were the Fatal Pushes good? I generally think of the Zombardment deck as good against any fair deck, so I skimped on fair deck SB cards (like Liliana the Last Hope). How about 1 Darkblast (for small creatures/Entomb target) / Urborg Justice (or Diabolic Edict) split?

Zombardment's strengths are:

-First, its innate ability to grind using the GY (free roam G1) which makes it good against control decks.

-Second, its fast and efficient discard suite and quick beats which makes it good against traditional combo decks (NOT Reanimator and T1 combos).

The most difficult matchups for us in my experience are the following:

-1st Reanimator and Dredge strategies that have better GY abuse and typically don't care about our primary form of interaction (Discard). This is why we need adequate GY-hate to overcome these matchups (4-5 pieces)

-2nd Delver decks, Stompy decks and Burn. We do not possess many tempo tools to fight back tempo strategies. If they have the tools to deny us, we do not have the tools to fight back. Discard is tempo-negative and most of our creatures can't block. Quick threats coupled with mana denial, soft counters (or Chalice), and/or reach has the potential to end us before we take over. This is why I value cheap efficient removal (Push, Abrade, EE being the best by a mile), a strong manabase, and effective road blocks (Souls and Angler) as they are some of our only tools.

-3rd Midrange deck WITH tools are a real challenge because they counter-attack from multiple angles and have more efficient creatures. Just like us, they can leverage multiple angles of attack which makes for very intricate plays. DnT, Maverick, and 4c Loam are all examples of midrange decks with tools (SFM Package, Surgical, RiP, Leyline, Ooze, Qasali, Remorseful Spirit, Mom, Thalia, Wasteland, PFire, Chalice, KotR for Waste/Bog/Depths, Exile removal... the list goes on).

-4th T1 Combo decks... Without FoW there isn't much more that can be done. Packing some answers to EtW helps (EE, ZP). If they ever become super popular we can always just pack a SB Volcanic Spray and have 5 SB board wipes for goblin tokens.

To answer your question:

-Push is strong against the 2nd and 3rd category of decks.
-Darkblast is too narrow (play more Push instead!)
-LtLH is extremely narrow and win-more. I've already explained in this thread why LtLH is a complete waste.
-Edict is better than Urborg and they are both unnecessary. Liliana already covers all the necessary Edict effects. Be proactive with Souls and Scourge against Depths decks and you won't need Instant speed from Edict. We can't protect our hand from discard with Brainstorm and counters anyway so it's sort of a waste to rely on Edict against turbo depths.

Main-deck questions--

Has Scourge of Nel Toth been worth it's slot over, say, another Gurmag? Obviously flying/Entomb-ability/recursiveness are good, but it's so resource intensive. Also, in terms of cutting the Bridges/Feeder... after cutting 4+ Zombies have you had issues getting a Zombie to consistently recast Gravecrawler?

Scourge is better than Gurmag in the first place because it is bigger, flies, can be fetched with Entomb, and generates value off Looting. Multiple Scourges are superfluous and clunky. Gurmag is Scourge #2-3. Now if you could fetch Gurmag with Entomb, this would be a completely different story.

I cut 3 Feeders and 1 Bridge for of 2 Gurmags, 1 Abrade, and 1 Souls. Cutting 1 zombie did not affect my ability to cast Crawler much.

Thanks!

[johncarvalho]

@maCHOOga,

Yes we went through a similar thought process over the inclusion of the 3rd Abrade and 2 Gurmag and the exclusion of the Feeders/Bridge. For me it boils down to this:

-Feeder is the weakest link without Bridge
-Bridge is rarely the go-to play
-Bridge requires Feeder, given that Bridge is not essential to the deck's success, removing Bridge gives me little incentive to play Feeder
-Abrade #3 makes a difference against the common offenders (Chalice, Jitte, BSkull, Delver, Thalia, Ooze, Eidolon, Goblin Guide, Lackey)
-Gurmag has different synergy than Feeder (Supplier, Looting, Fetches)
-Gurmag is 5/5 right out of the gates and can block (super relevant)
-Gurmag is less GY dependant than Feeder (Yes, Delve is hard to hate and Feeder without a recursive creature isn't so hot)
-Overall Gurmag and Abrade help me overcome my worst matchups while Feeder and Bridge does not

How about a kolaghans command instead of the 3rd abrade as a way to recover a gurmag milled over by a stitcher?
I will try the bridgeless/feederless build tomorrow!

[maCHOOga]

Played in a quest for power (Mox Ruby) today {39 people} and managed to top 8, but lost to what feels like a 10/90 matchup in top 8 quarterfinals. These events usually draw 50+ people but I believe the crappy weather + Ravens game caused the low turnout. Not sure who won, just that there were 4,096 zombies and an ensnaring bridge in game three of the finals. Anyway, here are my notes...
Went with 2x Abrade in the removal slots, w. 3 Carrion Feeders + Bridge that has been floating around.

Round 1 - L 1-2 Aggro loam
Game 1, They play GSZ for X=0 and a land, so I'm like 90% sure they are on aggro loam. I blind therapy knight of the reliquary, miss and he draws a knight and deploys it.
Game 2 I abrade their chalice and go wide to defeat them.
Game 3 I abrade a chalice, then Wear a sylvan library. They draw a 2nd chalice and a leyline of the void and manage to turn the corner. It's possible that I should have waited on the wear/tear but with 4x wastelands + loams in the deck, I figured it was best to kill library.

Round 2 - W 2-0
Turns out that I got the bye, ran to get food. My round 2 bye top8 conversion is now 3 for 3. LOL.

Round 3 - W 2-1 RUG Delver
Game 1 I kept a weak muligan to 6 and kept a decent 1 lander and got punished. I thoughtsezied them and didn't play magic for the rest of that game.
Game 2-3: I board out thoughtseizes and get there. I kept in Cabal therapies and was able manuever a goblin bombardment kill game 3 around a stifle.

Round 4 - W 2-0 Grixis Control
Game 1: I summon a zombie dragon and they fail to find a strix
Game 2: I go wide with the bridges + bombardment and make lots of dudes. They all get deluged away, which I should have therapyed away. Bloodghast beats was good enough.

Round 5 - W 2-1 UW Miracles
Game 1: I thoughtseize and take the back to basics. They savagely draw the 2nd and slow me down to 2 swamps. Which slowly wins them the game.
Game 2: Don't remember, just I won quickly with lingering souls tokens plus other things.
Game 3: It was super grindy, I got swords 5 times and terminused twice but was able to pull out a win. Sorin, make a vampire was able to win me the game. Yay fun-ofs!

Round 6 - ID v Dredge
We didn't even want to try to out graveyard each other.

I'm 7th seed going into top8 against turbo depths. This matchup feels unwinnable in the current configuration.
Game 1: They mulligan 6 turn 1 a dark confidant. I stitcher hitting 3x dual lands. I thoughtseize away an abrupt decay leaving them with a mox diamond. I could have easily cabal therapy the lone mox diamond, but elect not to. They flip a maze of ith, make a 20/20. I get lingering souls into play to block and they crop rotation into sejiri steppe. If I would have taken the diamond, it would have bought me maybe a turn or two?
Game 2: I thoughtseize them and see a turn 1 lilana, the last hope or Dark confidant. I took liliana over Dark Confidant. I didn't have any way to apply pressure to liliana in my opening 7, so I took her. I have an ensnaring bridges vs. their marit legit. We raced to bombardment v. abrupt decay and they found theirs first, thanks to Dark Confidant living.

The top8 was: Storm, DNT, Dredge, Turbodepths, Men of Steel, Rug Delver, Zombardment, 8th unknown

I could have walked away with another scrubland, but I chose the credit option.

4 Bloodghast
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
3 Goblin Bombardment
3 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scrubland
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Swamp
4 Entomb
1 Scourge of Nel Toth
1 Bridge from Below
2 Abrade

3 Wear/Tear
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Pithing Needle
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Ensnaring Bridge

Closing thoughts: Carrion feeder sucks, but is necessary to play the 3 additional sacrfiice outlets. Also on talking with the dredge player, what do people think about serenity? It's a way to clear a lot of hate cards and we can easily play around deploying a bombardment.

[Qweerios]

How about a kolaghans command instead of the 3rd abrade as a way to recover a gurmag milled over by a stitcher?
I will try the bridgeless/feederless build tomorrow!

No. KCommand is worst against the mentionned cards.

[ReAnimator]

I played a bridge vine version at FNM, i did super horribly, however i did learn one super important thing.

Silent Gravestone is absolutely nuts.

It does so much for us. 90% of the hate in the format right now is surgical, and a lot of those decks run Snaps. It also shuts down reanimator effects and Loam.

I ran 3 and wished i had run 4. It was really really good, and i encourage you all to test it out, i think it does more for us both offensively and defensively than surgical could.

[coff33bit]

I'd like to bring up the topic again of possibly splashing green instead of white in Zombardment. This morning Assassin's Trophy http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoi...assins-trophy/ was spoiled. It's by no mean's a no brainer, but I think it warrants discussion as a possible sideboard (or even mainboard).

[ReAnimator]

I'd like to bring up the topic again of possibly splashing green instead of white in Zombardment. This morning Assassin's Trophy http://www.magicspoiler.com/mtg-spoi...assins-trophy/ was spoiled. It's by no mean's a no brainer, but I think it warrants discussion as a possible sideboard (or even mainboard).

No brainers are just fine too, we are a zombie deck...

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

No brainers are just fine too, we are a zombie deck...

Wait I thought the goal was to get the brains?

[Qweerios]

If Trophy is to be played anywhere it would be as a mainboard 3-4 of in the Abrade slot. A "Path to Vindicate" seems to me like it would have been better as a BW card but whatever wizards...

Compared to Abrade main:
Pros
-Destroys creatures with 4+ toughness (KotR, Gurmag, Goyf, Shadow)
-Destroys Planeswalkers (mostly Jace)
-Destroys Lands (Turbo Depths and Lands matchups get a boost but also suffer greatly from the loss of Souls)
-Destroys Enchantments? (Mostly SB stuff...)
Cons
-Green instead of Red makes it harder to cast and unable to destroy Chalice/Magus past a Moon effect. Also can't target Crusader.
-Gives a basic Land (Huge drawback!)

Compared to Wear // Tear side:
Pros
-Universal answer to non-Artifact/Enchantment GY hate
Cons
-2 mana to destroy enchantments (Leylines!)
-Green instead of Red
-No 2-for-1 potential (RiP + equipment or Leyline + Mox/Jitte for example)
-Gives a basic

The matchups that appear to benefit from Trophy at first glance include:
-Delver decks because they don't pack basics
-Eldrazi Stompy if they don't pack a basic as it could be desvastating to accelerate them into a T2 Smasher by assassinating a Chalice
-Lands and Depths (but not by much if we lose Souls)
-All control decks actually get worse from losing Souls even though we can snipe PW
-All the SFM decks now get a free land when we destroy an early Thalia/Equipment

I think the card frees up a lot of design space for the deck but doesn't necessarily makes it better. Abrade does a fine job for what it's intended to do, Wear is better against the common hate cards, and Lingering Souls are part of the core. Trophy would have been more interresting if it were BW...

[Qweerios]

@maCHOOga

What do you mean by needing the additional sac outlets?

4th Wear is better than Serenity. I've been contemplating a 4th copy since my current setup is great against all Artifacts and RiP but can really suffer against Leylines which Stompy decls carry and are already a rough matchup.

@ReAnimator

I too experienced with Gravestone and opted against for a few reasons:
-It conflicts with Surgical and Purge against GY decks
-It is a dedicated GY hate slot that doesn't interact with all GY decks (4 mana to pop is too much)
-It's defensive characteristics are time sensitive as you pretty much have to have it in your opener to blank Surgicals efficiently
-Snapcaster matchups tend to be really favorable already so the boon has little impact

[maCHOOga]

@maCHOOga

What do you mean by needing the additional sac outlets?

When playing a bridge from below in the 75 you want carrion feeders to enable the go-wide soft combo in addition to the goblin bombardments. I saw the price of Serenity on MTGO and did a hard-pass. I do agree, wear and tear is better for now.

~*~*~*~*~
Fast forward to Assassin's Trophy. I definitely want to try a Jund version of the Mardu deck. Lingering souls is really good at attacking the metagame, but there are certain metagames where Jund is better. Assassin's trophy is an answer to Chalice, Tabernacle, Marit liege and pesky planeswalkers. All we need now is another golgari zombie. Sorry Lotleth troll, you were all hype back in the day.

[coff33bit]

If Trophy is to be played anywhere it would be as a mainboard 3-4 of in the Abrade slot. A "Path to Vindicate" seems to me like it would have been better as a BW card but whatever wizards...

Compared to Abrade main:
Pros
-Destroys creatures with 4+ toughness (KotR, Gurmag, Goyf, Shadow)
-Destroys Planeswalkers (mostly Jace)
-Destroys Lands (Turbo Depths and Lands matchups get a boost but also suffer greatly from the loss of Souls)
-Destroys Enchantments? (Mostly SB stuff...)
Cons
-Green instead of Red makes it harder to cast and unable to destroy Chalice/Magus past a Moon effect. Also can't target Crusader.
-Gives a basic Land (Huge drawback!)

Compared to Wear // Tear side:
Pros
-Universal answer to non-Artifact/Enchantment GY hate
Cons
-2 mana to destroy enchantments (Leylines!)
-Green instead of Red
-No 2-for-1 potential (RiP + equipment or Leyline + Mox/Jitte for example)
-Gives a basic

The matchups that appear to benefit from Trophy at first glance include:
-Delver decks because they don't pack basics
-Eldrazi Stompy if they don't pack a basic as it could be desvastating to accelerate them into a T2 Smasher by assassinating a Chalice
-Lands and Depths (but not by much if we lose Souls)
-All control decks actually get worse from losing Souls even though we can snipe PW
-All the SFM decks now get a free land when we destroy an early Thalia/Equipment

I think the card frees up a lot of design space for the deck but doesn't necessarily makes it better. Abrade does a fine job for what it's intended to do, Wear is better against the common hate cards, and Lingering Souls are part of the core. Trophy would have been more interresting if it were BW...

Definitely hit the nail on the head IMO for the pros/cons. All your points are very valid, I definitely think testing Trophy is worth it, at the end of the day it may honestly be a meta call based on what your local play group plays and if its more vulnerable to Abrade or Trophy. I'm definitely excited to have a 2 mana answer to anything.

[Qweerios]

Definitely hit the nail on the head IMO for the pros/cons. All your points are very valid, I definitely think testing Trophy is worth it, at the end of the day it may honestly be a meta call based on what your local play group plays and if its more vulnerable to Abrade or Trophy. I'm definitely excited to have a 2 mana answer to anything.

Honestly if I were to play a Jund version I would still favor Decay over Trophy mainboard and pack the Trophies in my SB. Giving a land is too much of a drawback for my taste and Decay is still uncounterable and answers all of the G1 permanents that Trophy would answer beside BSkull. Regardless, I think Jund is missing another piece of synergy that is better than Souls (Feeder + Bridge doesn't cut it IMO) for it to be a competitor to Mardu. Also, there is no equal to Wear // Tear as a postboard hate answer in Jund. To me, that is a big deal.

Another often overlooked strength of the "Mardu" configuration is that it is hardly 3 colors but a Rakdos deck that can use white mana to get more value out of Souls and answer T0 Leylines. There is a big difference between a deck that needs 2 colors to play all of its cards and 3 colors to do the same, especially without a Brainstorm/Ponder suite.

@maCHOOga

Right, you do need Feeders to abuse Bridge. I thought you meant that we needed the 3 sac outlets of Feeder regardless of Bridge. This is why I ditched Bridge altogether and went back to Gurmag. We have 8 cards that can turbo a Gurmag on T2 and the card is a godsend against some of our worst matchups (Delver and Stompy).

[Qweerios]

Small report incoming!
This weekly was a little short on attendance with under 25 players. I wanted to squeeze a 4th Wear // Tear in my Abrade/Gurmag list so I did the following changes:

Main: -1 Abrade +1 Explosives
Side: -1 Explosives -1 Duress +1 Wear +1 Coffin Purge

This leaves me with the same mainboard setup against chalice (3 answers) and gives me a 4th Wear over a 3rd Abrade in postboard games.

R1 2-1 vs. Rector Fit

G1 I get him to 3 life with a huge board but he stabilizes with Curse of Death's Hold and Overwhelming Splendor
G2 is a grindy one where I Wear Leyline of the Void and Extract it along with Rector. I eventually get there with beats
G3 he blanks my discard with his Leyline of Sanctity but I get 8 power on board by T3 and he can't deal with it.

R2 2-0 vs. Stoneblade

G1 I get that crazy 3 Therapy Bloodghast hand and shred his entire hand by T3. T1 1st Therapy him naming Brainstorm (whiff), T2 2nd Therapy me naming Ghast, play fetch, flashback 1st Therapy on him, fetch, flashback 2nd Therapy on him, cast 3rd Therapy on him. T3 play fetch, flashback 3rd Therapy on him, etc...I then race his active Jitte with 2 Ghasts 2 Crawler and Souls.
G2 Abrade gets BSK and the beats get there.

R3 2-0 vs. Stoneblade

G1 I get the same crazy 3 Therapy with an Entomb for Bloodghast opener (even better!) and he never recovers
G2 I get double Ghast and Zombardment to grind him out while I am holding 3 Wear 1 Abrade and 1 EE for anything that comes down.

R4 Draw vs. BR Reanimator (but he crushes me 3-1 in friendlies)

That matchup is horrendous. Definitely one of our worst if not the worst. Coffin Purge is a great angle of attack albeit slow. It allows us to have accessible GY hate that can't be discarded and that can be "Supplied". I will definitely have to re-evaluate my GY hate suite and consider a healthy Crypt/Purge/Surgical split.

I'll keep you posted! (As usual...)

[shonenkakumei]

FNM report from last week. 3-1 again.
I wanted to change around my list, but I was so late getting there that I just ran it as is (list and card choices at the end of the post).

R1: 2-0 vs. Grixis Control

Game 1 Supplier+Therapy provides early insane (virtual) card advantage, and Bloodghasts close the gap. Game 2 is similar, and although he Surgicals one threat Bridge from Below rebuilds fast.

R2: 2-1 vs. Bizarro Stormy

Game 1 I Thoughtseize, he Brainstorms, I take a crappy Burning Wish (thankfully not Griselbrand), and after a slow-ish start on both sides I get a huge board of Zombies in one turn off of Bridge. He end of my turn Entombs for Griselbrand and I'm dead before I can crack-back. I mix up my sideboarding a bit, in case of a Mentor post-board plan on his end--I leave in one Bombardment, bring in Abrade, all graveyard hate, 1 or 2 Wear, and an EE (maybe I hit a petal or LED, or Monk tokens). I decide to bring in Chains even though it gives him a discard outlet. Game 2 discard followed by Gurmag gets there. Game 3 he Thougtseizes a Surgical, but which leaves me with a pretty strong Zombie-engine clock. I loot into another a Surgical and cast a Chains once his hand size and life are low enough.

R3: 2-1 vs. Turbo Depths

Game one my opponent mulligans to 6 and snap-keeps. I find out why after I Thoughtseize him--Dark Depths and 2 different land tutors. I hope to draw into my one main deck Bitterblossom, which I do, but he top decks the Stage to get the Token a turn earlier than I can handle, so I scoop before he sees the card. Game 2 I draw a Bridge and a Bitterblossom. He Thoughtseizes one and Decays the other. My discard slows him down and Vampire Hexmage's first strike looks kinda bad against Bridge from Below. I cast my second Ensnaring Bridge, he Surgicals my Bitterblossom only to find it's my only copy and I get there with Lingering Souls. Game three we trade discard again, and my Lingering Souls fly over while Magus of the Moon slows him down.

R4: (Prize Split) 1-2 in the friendly games vs. Grixis Control

Game 1 my turn one Supplier mills over a Therapy and I flash it back and hit. Best feeling. After shredding my opponents hand (mainly taking cantrips) in the early turns, he floods out a bit and Bloodghasts get there. As usual, when I take the ID I end up playing way faster and looser... game 2 I keep a sketchy 1-land hand with a Faithless Looting and Chains. I should have put it back for something more proactive, on the draw. He cantrips, I Faithless Looting and see no lands but two more lootings, which I keep. He hymns me and hits both lootings and turn 3 hymns me again (hits chains) and I never see another land. He plays a Needle on Bombardment, for good measure, and we go to game three. (I was surprised he kept in the Hymns against recursive threats, but they did the job). Game three I have a fine hand, but misplay my blind therapy (I name Needle, since I had a turn two Bombardment) but I should have gone for a more probable or lock-out hit. After I see two Hymns, Liliana the Last Hope, and Jace I have to take Lili with another discard and the resolved Jace slows the game down a lot. He Surgicals my mill-over Gurmag and Bloodghasts, and I narrowly loose to a chain of Strix's defending his Jace.

LIST:

4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Entomb
2 Lingering Souls
2 Bridge from Below
2 Goblin Bombardment
1 Bitterblossom
3 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Plateau (I don't have the second Scrubland...)
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Black fetches (mix of Marsh Flats and Polluted Deltas)
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Undiscovered Paradise

SB:
2 Wear // Tear
1 Abrade
1 Zealous Persecution
1 Urborg Justice
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Coffin Purge
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Magus of the Moon
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Engineered Explosives

About the some card choices--

for the mana base: I wanted to try out Tower, which I have found to be pretty amazing. A sac outlet AND ramp is a huge upside. However, playing the Tower made me want to include Urborg. I'm not sure... it's definitely powerful for us to be able to leave up fetches for Bloodghast, but fixing Grixis mana for opponents and letting their Brainstorms be that much easier seems potentially punishing. I cut the second copy of Undiscovered Paradise for another basic, since I want to play 3-mana sideboard cards like Ensnaring Bridge and I want to cast them on time.

3 Entomb: I love the toolbox nature of it here, and it feels like saving sideboard space with Coffin Purge for narrow haymakers like Zealous Persecution or Chains. However, compared the raw power level of the Entomb targets in B/R it's so much lower, which, to my mind, means one should remember that it is card disadvantage. I see Stitcher's Supplier and recursive threats like Ghasts/Crawlers as card advantage, which is the point of the deck.

0 Scourge of Nel Toth: I want to try going up to one, maybe cutting a Bridge and turning the 4th Feeder into a maindeck Abrade. Basically, Gurmag seems so good I felt...why go with a less consistent option? That said, since I think of Entomb as a toolbox, Scourge seems like a great silver bullet and it's a nice thing to mill over will Supplier too.

1 Urborg Justice: This is for fun. Diabolic Edict seems more consistent, but I have to cast this once :)

@Qweerios
I agree re: Gravestone. It doesn't shore up a bad match up, and Surgical isn't unbeatable anyhow.

[Nocioni88]

Grim haruspex but zombie? Better then dark confidant?


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

[Qweerios]

Grim haruspex but zombie? Better then dark confidant?


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

Falls in the "unnecessary" category and Bob is strictly better. At 2 mana it would have been different...