It can be great sometimes, but does the deck really need the card advantage? You could just play Sign in Blood.
Sign in BloodOriginally Posted by keys
Pros: Unconditional
Cons: Life-loss, black, sorcery
Predict
Pros: Blue (pitches to FoW), instant, synergy with stalker (bins two cards), good against Lim-Dûl's Vault and Doomsday
Cons: Conditional card advantage, but can always "cycle" itself
I'd rather play Night's Whisper over either of those.
Just an FYI, I went 4-0 last week with this:
// Lands
4 [REW] Wasteland
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [U] Tropical Island
1 [U] Bayou
1 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [FUT] Tombstalker
2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
// Spells
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [M10] Ponder
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NE] Daze
3 [MM] Snuff Out
2 [FNM] Smother
4 [SC] Stifle
3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
3 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FNM] Smother
SB: 1 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [PLC] Extirpate
Leading with a Verdant Catacombs is amazing for bluffing Stifle/Daze.
The only card I've been tapping out to cast is Hymn. If they Daze it, it's worth the tempo trade, plus they are down a counter.
I've tested it a million times, and come to the conclusion that Sinkhole just doesn't cut the mustard anymore.
Ponder is the MVP of the deck, IMO.
Spell Peirce is probably number two.
Sylvan Library has been underwhelming for me. I basically end up using it as an expensive Mirri's Guile. Should I be more aggressive with it? I'm thinking of replacing it with Preordain or a Smother.
Spell Pierce has been good to me as well.
Running 2 EE in the main has been okay.
Grats on 3rd place Dan.
Any comments on the match-ups?
Thanks, I actually lost to enchantress in the Swiss and should have beaten vengevine in the semis, but we prize split and my brain shut down. I beat both of those decks in different rounds as well and never really felt behind on the day. Ee should probably completely replace pulse, but I'm trying a 2/1 split of ee and pulse now. Hymn was very good but could be pierce or snare simply because of how many survival decks there seem to be now. This deck is very, very strong. I thought merfolk was way worse but with needle in the board it is very manageable. Anyway, thats all I got.
they haunt minds...
I think you should run at least 3 Extirpate, now that Vengevine and Loam are everywhere. I agree that Needle is probably the best card outside of red against Merfolk and Goblins.
In what matchups did you [plan to] board in BEB and Jace?
I like changing Hymn to Snare, especially now that Merfolk is running such a high percentage of two-drop creatures; it's a matchup that tends to give me trouble, in large part because of just how prevalent it's become.
What's your (or anyone else's, for that matter) stance on Pernicious Deed versus Engineered Explosives?
Extirpate is not really as good as you would think against vengevine survival, at least it's not as good as needle. Shutting down survival makes them a lot easier to beat, and needle also helps to stop the jitte/shitty aggro plan very well. Loam is not everywhere.
BEB is for faster zoo builds and sligh/burn decks, as well as giving you more options vs goblins (although I don't think it is necessary for this matchup). Jace is for control decks/counterbalance with tons of removal.
Hymn might still be correct, but Snare definitely will help vs the vengevine decks. Deed is much too slow and requires you to hit your 3rd land drop. Being able to split up the cost to wipe 1 drops is actually quite good, even though Deed can certainly blow certain archetypes out. I'm mainly concerned with speed vs Zoo decks and merfolk and EE fits the bill.
they haunt minds...
Needle on Survival is great, for sure, but they have multiple discard outlets, and some even play Intuition, so Needle can't be your only plan. Once you Extirpate 'Vine, they're just playing bad U/G Madness circa 2006. That really changes the matchup.
Maybe I exaggerated when I said Loam was everywhere, but it has had a resurgence. Aggro Loam is back at the top tables, people are experimenting with Loam control again, and Lands! is still a contender.
Not to mention Extirpate is also helpful if you run into Reanimator or Dredge. I would take out the BEB's for Extirpates unless Burn is really popular in your meta. It doesn't really hit any of Zoo's creatures except Lavamancer. Then fit another EE into the board to help with Goblins. FWIW, I've been playing 3 Snuff Out, 2 EE, 1 Pulse maindeck and it's worked pretty well for me.
Way to go Dan! Of course the first match report I read, you blind hit on a predict. No wonder you like that card so much :P
I actually hit another blind predict earlier in the tournament, also naming brainstorm :).
they haunt minds...
Seriously. The only downside is that Night's Whisper can't be used to kill someone who's at 2 life.
An idea I've been flirting with for a while is throwing like 3 Vamp Hexmages in the board.
Has anyone tried this?
I feel like Force of Will isn't always the best answer to Jace.
Plus, first strike! Eat it goblins/merfolk.
Pulse and Needle work pretty well as Jace killers.
You guys should also look into Darkblast.
I run 1 in the main now.
Removal recursion, food for stalker, and helps you win the goyf wars.
I really really like this list. I ran a very similar list when I played the deck a couple weeks ago, except I had 2 EE's in the main, no Smothers, 2 Spell Pierce, and a Sylvan Library. Spell Pierce was amazing. If I sleeve up the deck again I'll probably go with your list and put 2 EE's and a Maelstrom Pulse in the SB.
I think Pithing Needle is better than Extirpate right now.
Sa17dk,
Thanks. I've since cut the Misty Rainforest for a Sylvan Library.
It's better for card quality.
The board looks like this now:
SB: 1 Smother
SB: 3 Engineered Explosives
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Extirpate
I'm not into forgoing gy hate. Ichorid is too good otherwise.
Time to share my experience with the deck last week, where I bombed out ... bad. 30 man tournament, 5 rounds cut to top 8. I went 2-3-0, could have been 2-2-1 but I scooped in the 5th round since it was clear he would have won were it not for time running out.
My decklist, in case anybody cares:
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Tombstalker
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Daze
4x Stifle
3x Spell Pierce
4x Hymn to Tourach
2x Snuff Out
1x Smother
1x Darkblast
4x Wasteland
4x Polluted Delta
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Misty Rainforest
4x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Swamp
Sideboard:
3x Dispel
3x Krosan Grip
3x Pithing Needle
2x Ghastly Demise
2x Diabolic Edict
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Round 1 vs. a teammate playing Merfolk
Win 2-0
Basically spent all the karma/luck I had in Round 1, against somebody who I did not want to play.
Game 1: raced his LoA and 1 other merfolk with 2 Goyfs. Won with 2 life I think.
Game 2: nailed him with early Hymn, he drops 2 vials early but I counter with Needle and win the counter-war. Tombstalker beats down.
Round 2 vs. Zoo
Loss 0-2
Game 1: didn't find threats in time, made a critical misplay by letting Price resolve when I had FoW and allowing him to activate his fetch.
Game 2: mull to 5 on the play = lose.
Round 3 vs. Thopter Combo
Loss 0-2
Turns out he wasn't running counterbalance and I waited 2 games for the counterbalance that never came :-)
Game 1: he gets the combo online and wins.
Game 2: I side in about 10 pieces of hate and they don't show in time. 3rd Plowshares on Tombstalker finally exiles him - some lengthy counter-wars which was pretty good compared to the smackdown I got from Zoo.
Round 4 vs. NO Bant
Win 2-1
I finally get the deck to fire on all cylinders against a decent matchup.
Game 1: I don't disrupt him enough, he wins with Progenitus.
Game 2: I have everything for him this game. Snuff Out, Hymn, Darkblast 2 Hierarchs, Smother, Diabolic Edict...he had nothing on the board.
Game 3: I mention to him that this is my first Game 3 of the tournament. This one was close, he Natural Orders for Terrastadon (!) but I race him just in time with some timely evasive 'Stalker beats. I win with 3 life.
Round 5 vs. It's the Fear
Loss 1-2
Nothing too memorable, total grindfest. We go to time in Game 3, he's a nice guy so I scoop to him. It didn't matter at that point, he was going to win with inevitability if we didn't have time constraints.
So yeah, just a shitty performance. I should have listened to Nitewolf's advice and put in some draw, instead I played 4 Hymns which didn't turn out so hot. I did surprise the hell out of a lot of people with the deck though, one observer remarked "where else can you play Force and Hymn in the same deck". Got a chuckle out of me.
Other highlight was watching Mr. Cedric Philips sharp-shoot all of the opponent's merfolk. He won that game by dealing ONE point of combat damage total.
A book about the dark side of Legacy: "Magic: The Addiction" // Conversations with Magic players: "Humans of Magic"
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