Right i could see how all those Mystics tutoring and playing SoFI/LS would be problematic. I haven't tested these MUs and my thought was that Iona+Retainers is also bad and Brainstorm helps them find key parts faster than non blue counterparts.Originally Posted by kremenchugskiy
Went 2-1 today at Samurai Comics in Phoenix. I am still running the list with 3 Vials and one Vexing Sphinx. Today, my sideboard looked like this:
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Aura of Silence
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
2 Condemn
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Jotun Grunt
I only sideboarded 1 game, so I really didn't get to test it. Here are my results:
Crossfire u/w/r (Grim Monolith + Power Artifact + Banefire) 2-0
Game 2: - 4 Swords, - 1 Jitte, - 1 SFM, + 3 Aura of Silence, + 2 E Tutor, +1 Pithing Needle
Suicide Black (1-0-1)
Game 2: No board
Merfolk mono u (1-2)
Game 1: my seven are decent, but only land is Wasteland and no Vial. My six is Wayfare, 4 lands and Daze (on the draw). My five have no land. My 4 have no land, but I keep 2 Brainstorm, FoW, and Daze. I FoWed a T2 Vial and never drew a land. His draw was pretty fast, so I probably would have lost with the 6/7 I should have kept.
Game 2: No sideboard. I win!
Game 3: No sideboard. Very close game, but I lose to a Sovereign who made 2 creatures unblockable with help of Reejerey's trigger.
At lest I got 2nd place with halfway decent tie breakers (in a 3 round tournament).
Please comment on/critique my sideboarding and mulliganing. Thanks!
Why haven't you boarded in at least the Ghostly Prison and 2 ETutor against Merfolk?
If I would play your sideboard I would board smth like:
+ 1 Ghostly Prison
+ 2 ETutor
+ 2 Condemn
- 4 Wayfarer (they can act with only one Land + Vial so he's near to useless in this MU)
- 1 Grunt (he's big, yeah, but they play only few non-permanent cards)
And why no sideboarding against Suicide? Do you have a list of his Deck?
Ghostly Prison doesn't do enough vs. Merfolk. They have a bunch of mana sitting around anyway, assuming they start with Vial. The only time you might need it is against 16 Lord.
Here's the sideboard I'm currently running:
2 Aura of Silence
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Enlightened Tutor
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Submerge
The single Sword is to make Stoneforge a lot better in the UW Control matchup, basically making it a must-counter. With correct play, Submerge is extremely good vs. Zoo and Bant decks.
Been a while since I made a post, so hope this one is a good one!
Jeff and I have been doing work on the Zoo matchup. I've always said that it's ~50%, and people have reported pretty wild numbers from "It's extremely difficult matchup" to "It's an easy matchup."
After doing more research, turns out everyone's right. Zoo builds aren't always the same, and the differences between builds are night and day. There are Zoo builds out there that UWT cannot beat (like it's 80%+ in favor of Zoo), AND there are Zoo builds that UWT cannot lose to (it's 80%+ in favor of UWT). Good news for UWT players, Zoo decks shifting for the new metagame and generally the shifts are very good for us.
We played a number of games and made some pretty important discoveries. Here are the factors (roughly in order of importance), then I'll follow with example decks.
Sylvan Library is the single biggest factor (duh). We don't have an answer for it after it hits and it requires a very good string of luck to beat a resolved copy (like they don't see much removal and we happen to have an aggressive hand). Sylvanless Zoo is very easy to beat (like 70%+), and Zoo with 3 Sylvans is very uphill (like 30%-). Yes, it really makes that much of a difference. Of course, they have to play it correctly, and recognize that they should cast it when the only out is Force of Will. Also, no matter what, they should pay 8 life (obviously if this kills them, then don't). With good play they should win most every game that they even draw the Sylvan Library, though this doesn't always manifest itself in tournaments. Most Zoo players, especially early-round Zoo players are terrible at this game/on autopilot and don't understand how to use Sylvan.
Fewer Grim Lavamancer builds are easier to beat. Grim counters Mother of Runes well and does other cool tricks, he's pretty dangerous.
4 Path builds are much easier to beat than 3 and 2 path versions. We're actually faster than Zoo if they have to path early.
Builds with Kird Ape and/or Loam Lion are much easier to beat. These cards are terrible and are easily walled by every large creature in our deck and (critically) Fathom Seer. Steppe Lynx is not walled by anything that we have and it's actually faster/more damaging, and it has an amazing amount of staying power. It does more damage early game, doesn't get walled easily midgame, and does a disgusting amount of damage late game, no idea why people are cutting it, but they are.
Builds withOUT Chain Lightning are easier. Chain Lightning is actually their best removal spell (it's better than bolt, even) because it pumps Goyf up. It's the only possible sorcery either of us could have, so putting it in the bin is a strict +1/+1 for Goyf. If they don't have it, Goyf will never eat Sorcery.
Builds with more 3 drops are easier to beat, since they need to stretch for that 3-4 land and Wayfarer becomes quite good.
Builds with Price of Progress are easier to beat.
Builds with Gaddock Teeg are easier to beat.
It's pretty rare, so I'm mentioning it last: Figure of Destiny is a shit card.
Here are the three most recent typical Zoo decks just to highlight the massive variation.
This deck we beat (60%). It has no Sylvan Library, though it has most every other strong card in force, so it has a fighting chance.
This deck is a bye (80%+). It has no library, no chain, only 3 grims, 5 kird apes/steppe lynxes, 4 path to exile, and Price of Progress to boot. The sideboard has null rod subbing in for their two worst cards (not sure what those are), but I board out a Jitte and a Stoneforge Mystic anyway. This deck is is terrible.
This deck beats us hard (30%) It's a two-library/chain build without Kird Apes or Loam Lions. He's running FoD instead (which isn't good, though probably better than Kird Ape) and 4 paths, but four grims, no price of progress, and a very scary sideboard round this one off. Pithing Needle is typically not a very strong card, but it neatly replaces 3 of the 4 Path to Exiles as a way to handle early mother of runes/weathered wayfarer, except Peedle gives us a 1/1 instead of a land (and it will turn extra copies of the chosen creature into Eager Cadet the whole game), AND Pithing Needle is a strong trump card late-game.
The new sideboard suggestion (so far pretty much untested, but the theory works out very well) is to use Submerge in the sideboard. Submerge hits Zoo on its Tempo, which is strong against all Zoo builds, but particularly strong against Zoo decks trying to get free time to stick a Sylvan Library. A submerge surprise can really change the math on how they plan their Sylvan Library out to handle current and incoming threats.
Have you tried against Rubin Zoo, which is slower, doesn't pack Sylvan Library, but has Knight of the Reliquary together with Punishing Fire+Grove of the Burnwillows? It seems that UW tempo is not favored there even if it reachs the mid-late game. Burn recursion to bypass Mother of Runes is bad.
For reference: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36912
I don't know if all those builds are packing Teeg maindeck, here in Italy it's to beat the brainless Natural Order decks as well as improving against control matchups.
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Avatar of kicks_422's creation and property
I almost sideboarded exactly as you mentioned against Merfolk. I just didn't like the idea of cutting Wayfarer. He did end up being useful against opposing Mutavaults as well. Ghostly Prison doesn't seem too useful against Merfolk (as previously mentioned). If I could board again, I may try -1 Wayfarer and -1 Grunt for +2 Condemn. Condemn wouldn't have dealt with Soverign though...
Not much I had to side against Suicide. Maybe graveyard hate for Bloodghast and Tombstalker? I don't have a list, but other cards he played were Confidant, Hymn, Sinkhole, Thoughtseize, Smother, Nantuko Shade, Jitte, Bojuka Bog, and Vampire Nighthawk. The standard 60 seemed okay against this list anyway. Mom was a house!
I glossed over "Rubin Zoo" because I determined that it's awful. I have a number of points of how much shit it is:
1) 1RR for 2 damage, and your opponent gains ~2 life (and at least 1 life) isn't good in any metagame right now, even if you've got the combo going. The flagship combo is shit, and basically strictly worse than Grim Lavamancer (did I mention that he cut Grim Lavamancer for Grove combo?)
2) Grove of the Burnwillows is a weak choice. Giving your opponent life is bad, particularly in the control or combo matchups. I mean, this should be fucking obvious, but there are other problems: An important factor is that it doesn't pump Nacatl. Neither do two other extremely questionable decisions: Stirring Wildwood and Karakous. With only 8 fetchlands, 3 non-basic plains, and no basic plains it's a pretty tall order to build up Nacatl.
3) The deck has zero sorceries, enchantments, or artifacts, it's entirely relient on its opponent to pump Goyf. This is an extremely poor move, especially against Control and Combo who can generally avoid binning the more exotic card types until the game is decided.
4) This deck is slow as fuck and its only anti-combo board element is a 2-of Aven Mindcensor. Combo is weakener, but it's not about to lose to this slow piece of shit.
But yeah, this deck *DID* 1-2 punch a 30 person tournament, so I should give it some credit. Let's look at the rest of the "top" 8:
#1: Rubin Zoo
#2: Rubin Zoo
#3: Standard-Legal Control
#4: Standard-Legal Control
#5: Mono Black Dark Depths
#6: Doomsday FT
#7: Elfball ftw!
#8: Zoo with Sensei's Divining Top and Dark Confidant
Worst top 8 I've ever seen.
I think you should not consider a deck merely by its list, and see it in action piloted by a fairly good player,before. We also fell in this mistake of judging an entire archetype, and a card (say: Jace) just staring at it. You have to consider it in the context, and in the metagame features where it gets to roll.
That deck, despites being called Zoo, is indeed a red variant of Rock, and that was obvious also from the number of lands (23 against the usual 19-20-21). I think you should have seen how that deck performed against Control decks, with Punishing Fire always coming back, and against weenie decks, as well destroying fast Zoos. It doesn't want to power up the traditional Zoo early-game features (the ones you mentioned),it wants to control the gamestate to reach (very easily) the mid-game where their beats coupled with the "shitty" combo triumphs over pretty much any creature-based deck. I saw it with my eyes. Also,not wasting all your gas into really shitty cards like Lynx is very suited for these times when control is having a strong comeback.
About the life: seriously? You can still, in the dead cases, bring it back and shoot the opponent with a -1. Its purpose it to create virtual ard advantage (or board advantage) getting rid of all the weenies and the small-sized creatures in Goblins, Merfolks, and other crap like White-weenie-likes, and such. It can also be used after a combat step to kill the last toughness points of blockers,and in the late-game is a nice weapon that recurs constantly against Counterbalance to foil the cmcs (forcing them to keep a 2 on top) and can get tid of the Hierarchs which win the combat phase in Bant giving Exalted shit.
1 life is just an issue when you're smashing dudes and creating a stream of a weenie-killing machine which puts the opponent into difficult situations. Also, 1 life is a liability when you have such giant fatties like Knight and Thoctar: in fact, it packs Stp rather than ptE, too, becuase giving a land is bad if you're trying to act as the control role even if you play green dudes and burn.
Stirring Wildwood gives a better game against Landstill, allowing the Zoo deck to sit under Standstill, and it's surely not calculated by the blue-control player. It's also immune to the majority of mass removal (Firespout) regular Zoo seems to suffer lately. And that player smashed 2 "standard" controls with it, while he was laughing at their Wraths and their EEs. Karakas is a tech which obviously is being tutored up by Knight, either way the deck would not have solutions to Emrakul. I repeat, consider these choices related to a mid-late game approach, where the deck wants to arrive.
So, Canadian Threshold is bad-built because it doesn't have artifacts and enchantments, too. I recalled that also regular Zoo lists didn't run Art/ench., perhaps a couple of Sylvan Library which offer a great perentage of pumping Goyf (2/60 and being countered or destroyed) and, randomly, a Jitte and some Stoneforger toolbox.
Who gives a shit about Combo? One doesn't decide to play Goyf because of combo, it's because it's the better creature in Legacy in size proportions,and easily feeds on opponent's graveyards if you need the "exotic" types. Against control, Goyf is just another dork that will be bigger than nacatls due to the usual presence of EEs and Spouts in the graveyard, so it's better than them if it topdecked, and it's the one that gives the least turns to survive.
Also, Tarmogoyfs are the solution to enemy Tarmogoyfs.And these are exalted, too.
Worst top 8 I've ever seen.[/QUOTE]
Thanks. I was the one in the 6th place. I guess you consider that a top8 sucks if it doesn't contain any tier1. Sorry, I guess in your meta is all about Merfolks, regular Zoos and Bant, or New Horizons. To be honest, those decks were at the tournament, but they were smashed by these tier2s.
If you judge it the "worst top8" because you think that those are all decks with suboptimal choices, the guy coming second, the shitty Zoo player, has been putting up results since like 6 months with that list. The Baneslayer controls are also pouring in different occasions, and incredibly are also doing well. I will admit that I'm not the biggest fan of that either, but it seems to work, so I respect it. Oh, it has also made some top8s at the Bazar of Moxen in France last year, which had like 400 players, just to let you not think that it's because that tournament was full of weak players.
The MonoBlack, well..it sometimes happens.
The Doomsday player? Oh, that's a terrible deck, it doesn't do "Ritual, cabal ritual, LED, IT-->Ad Nauseam" as the american Pros seen in the SCG 5k used to do with their "complicated" Saito-copycat builds.
7th and 8th place,I won't judge them, didn't see them in action.
However, the objections I've made above came only after having seen the Rubin Zoo smash heads here in there with the very cards you criticized, and I explained my points after this, but honestly everyone could arrive to them just with a little more careful considerations and looking.
Again, do not judge a list just because it packs non-conventional cards or strange solutions, because in that case even UW tempo would be smashed hard. Fathom Seer is a terribly situational card, for example. It would not work anywhere else, but in there it seems to function well.
It's all about the context (metagame, synergies) and the philosophy of the build.
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Avatar of kicks_422's creation and property
Oh, so you lost to a deck, and now it's worth testing against? Whatever, I CBFd testing every tier 3 deck in Italy.
Combo definitely should have gotten there against this deck. Sucks to your luck that he drew his 3-of and you couldn't get there against it, even though it's just a Gaddock Teeg, which like barely affects Doomsday Tendrils at all. I don't know what to tell you, the deck changes Zoo's passable/salvageable combo matchup into total garbage in exchange for the ability to beat midrange tier 2 decks. Players shouldn't be able to do that.
Enough mature to answer some reasonable points I made to your first, untested critics, I see.
Landstil and the mirrol is a tier2 deck, they told me. UW tempo at best is a tier2 deck.
Well, I'll just let go and keep on ignoring this topic, I bet I'm not the first and there's a reason for that.
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Avatar of kicks_422's creation and property
In another 27 person tournament rubin zoo placed 8th two places behind vial zombies. With that I've said all I have to say about the subject.
Now back to what this thread is about:
What do you think about oust? I know its slow(sorcery speed blahblahblah) but I like that it can be played on a creature without it having to attack like condemn does, and the life gain isn't really an issue for us.
Went 2-1-1 today today at Gamer's Inn, in Mesa AZ. Same board as my previous post.
u/w/g Counter Top (2-0)
-4 Swords, + 3 Aura, and +1 E Tutor
Pro Bant (2-1)
no board
u/r Control (1-2)
game 2 (play) -4 Mom, + 3 E Tutor and +1 Thorn of Amethyst.
game 3 (draw) no board. I should have probably went - 2 E Tutor and - 1 Thorn for +3 Aura of Silence because he showed me EE game 2. Game 3 he locked me out with Shackles, to which I had no answer. I think the initial siding out of Mom was correct because I don't think he has spot removal (just EE and Firespout), and he is light on creatures (Magus of the Moon, V-Clique, and Trinket Mage). I didn't want to side out Swords because Magus + Jace TMS beat me game 1.
Cut to top 2. ID with the u/r Control deck I just played. We each get 5 booster packs. Not bad for an 8 man tourney.
It doesn't look like I'll get a fourth tundra for the GP next weekend, should I run another plains, island or utility land instead?
Ahahahaah, yeah, exactly.
Maybe another fetch land? I thought about running Hallowed Fountain when I was in your same boat. It is really bad with Fathom Seer and Daze though. I just threw in another Windswept Heath instead. It worked fine, but I only tested it for a short while before picking up Tundra #4.
Somehow all your Zoo testing was against builds with mostly sub-optimal choices (no Chain, no Library which are both staples in the deck) and you chose random Zoo builds off DeckCheck instead of, you know, decks that are placing in 200+ person SCGs. I don't think you should throw stones.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Try reading, that's not at all what I said or what was done. We tested a variety of builds including SCGs list, and I came up with some models to help determine whether or not we'd beat a particular Zoo build. The recent builds were chosen to highlight the large variation in Zoo builds that currently see play.
And that's why all your initial data says you were going 50% against Zoo instead of 30% right? Like sure, the majority don't run Sylvan Library (although it's rather prevalent in lists overall), but the majority DO run Chain Lightning.
Regarding Punishing Fire, it's actually awesome against control decks because they can only beat it with Wasteland and Counterbalance going long; it'll be 8 or more damage over a long game instead of just 3. And if a deck wins a tournament, you can't really judge it by the rest of the Top 8. There's no way to know if it won because the tournament was scrubby or on its own merits. If Mystical Tutor Reanimator was easily winning these scrubby tournaments, you wouldn't turn around and say, "Oh Reanimator sucks."
In other words, this recent discovery that the Zoo decks you initially tested with were not like the rest of the format should make you less confident to leap to conclusions, not more. Challenge your assumptions. It makes you a better deckbuilder.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Perhaps you should take your own advice here. You're assuming that the data is so flawed that it must have no bearing on real results whatsoever? You must be right, zoo must beat us 200% of the time.
Or, perhaps you should take the initiative, and put your own time into testing, and give us your results. Either way, please do not waste the time of people who have put far more work into this deck than you.
However, the fact remains that, with the direction zoo is shifting, it is becoming more of a positive matchup. They are beginning to maindeck Price of Progress more. As stated previously by Forbiddian, we can play around this easily. Also, more and more Teegs are getting maindecked. Please, in the future, try and back up your posts with a bit more substance, rather than attempt to preach about how to tell if a deck is bad or not.
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