[Deck] Ugwr Intuition CounterTop

[ivanpei]

@ Kingtk3, I have actually played goyf-less countertop before. I used to play counter-top thopthers and my first iterations of intuition-countertop was goyf-less. I ran fire/ice instead of goyf along with factories and Jace for the kill. However, Valtrix and some other posters managed to convince me to play goyf for the following reasons:

-Against aggro, goyf eats removal early but if you have the counter back up, he can be a massive wall that buys you a lot of time. He also forces opponents to play a removal spell instead of whatever threat he was going to play (like the turn 2 pridemage etc), slowing him down as well as netting you free life/land (from STP/path). He really isn't all that bad against aggro. The only MU I would say he is bad against is the bant countertop/landstill MU when they have insane amounts of removal/creatures bigger than goyf (KOTR).

-Goyf is the most efficient clock/win condition in the game. This is a control deck and outside of tournament settings, you don't really care much for winning quickly. However, in tournaments, you want to win, not draw. Countertop will have this problem of going to time because topping EOT every turn, figuring out brainstorm/jace piles, loam shenanigans etc etc all take a significant amount of time. Goyf eats face and wins, fast.

-The "win" window. This is something that many people have not grasped. You don't always "win" when you have the softlock assembled (countertop or Jace). They might draw a card beyond your countertop curve, or they might get a lucky topdeck even after a fateseal. If you have both countertop and Jace, then for sure 99% of the time you will win. However most of us have to squeeze wins out of just Jace or just countertop. After you've exhausted your opponent's hand and they are in top deck mode, you have a "win window" to kill your opponent before they draw an out. This may not be apparent vs decks without a lot of bombs like folk/zoo, but when you are playing against bomby decks like goblins, landstill and the bant countertop mirrors, this is a significant problem. I've lost games when I have an active soft lock to topdecked ringleaders, siege gang commanders, pernicious deeds, opposing Jace, kotr, vindicate, elspeth, EE, etc etc. Goyf helps you win very quickly within your "win window".

-In conclusion, please play goyf. He is the shitznutz best creature of all time.

[kingtk3]

@Valtrix and ivanpei:
Your observations make sense, but I have quoted the most important

...
Now think about all the games you've played. How often do you stare down that goyf or knight of the reliquary with no removal in hand and just shake your head as it kills you? This can happen to your opponent very easily. Everybody says decks are "running removal," but if you look at most decks that means swords, and usually little if anything else. While your opponent can answer your creature, it's also pretty likely that they can't. And if they can't answer your goyf? Well, you either have a fast clock, or the best wall that likely stops several creatures from killing you. Even if I trade a goyf for a swords sometimes, I'm fine with that, because if it's not dealt with it will be a huge board presence. And since you're only running 4 creatures it can even be likely that you don't get one, or that you get one after your in control of the game. In that case, you negated your opponent's removal anyway.
...

AND

...
-Goyf is the most efficient clock/win condition in the game. This is a control deck and outside of tournament settings, you don't really care much for winning quickly. However, in tournaments, you want to win, not draw. Countertop will have this problem of going to time because topping EOT every turn, figuring out brainstorm/jace piles, loam shenanigans etc etc all take a significant amount of time. Goyf eats face and wins, fast.

...

-In conclusion, please play goyf. He is the shitznutz best creature of all time.

I've always been a control player and the decks I've played over the years have often been control, aggro-control, control-combo: I think that reflects my personality.
I've stopped playing fo quite some years; now I play a tournament once in a while (I only play vintage and draft, not interested in anything else) and the deck I choose for my comeback was Merfolk (aggro-control), since I wanted consistency and speed because the longer the game the higher would be the chance I would do some mistake due to the "dust"on my deck. I have to say that this strategy has worked very well: I won 3 out of 2 little events (10-15 people, in one I conceded in Top4 for a Jace ^^) and made top4 in a 56 tournament (another jace here! ^^).
Moreover, I always hated when a match i was supposed to win finish in a draw due to time and, more generically, playing a tournament with 60 or more people and ending 2-3 matches at the turns is bad, since put much fatigue on you that'll affect your next matches.

I think your quote (feel free to correct me) can be summarized as: "Ok, playing no creatures and winning via planeswalker is doable and has its bonus, but mainly if you have a lot of time and are not stressed (=out of a tournament). If your going to run a deck in an event, however, you have to consider that you could not have THAT much time, and this makes the strategy sub-optimal."

Well, I'm practically sold to this reasoning.

In conclusion, I'm glad I've found this forum: high competence, good and argumented reasoning and no flames is what I was looking for.

Thanks for your advices.

[Valtrix]

In conclusion, I'm glad I've found this forum: high competence, good and argumented reasoning and no flames is what I was looking for.

Thanks for your advices.

Thank you. I love discussion about control decks (especially this one), so feel free to ask questions about anything and we'll (or at least I'll) do our best to answer them thoughtfully and thoroughly. I mean, while I like my current list, I still think there's a lot of room to more properly shape it for the metagame.

[Mana Drain]

On removing Tarmogoy: No. Don't do it. He fills too many roles in this deck to remove from the MD. I do find myself removing him against Landstill or other heavy-control decks, but only a few unless my board is randomly stocked with blue/control hate. Even that's probably incorrect. Play 4 MD.

On Jace against Zoo: Of course when you drop Jace on an empty board you're way ahead against Zoo. It's like that against any deck. He'll randomly win games, because he's The Motherfucking Mindsculptor. He's also a 4-drop blue permanent that doesn't do much when staring down an already bad board position against a deck who's entire creature curve is 1-2 with a high power:cost ratio, plays about 8-12 burn spells, and postboard will generally be siding in ~3-4 REB/Pyroblasts (lol 1 mana hard-counters), ~2-3 Choke (try getting 4 mana here), and possibly X Pithing Needle, in addition to the obvious Grips, making the whole "I'll just get a CB online and ride Jace to victory!" plan a bit more difficult (read: unlikely). Having your 4-mana sorcery-speed bomb be countered by a 1-mana instant auto-include from a red deck is just fail and AIDS put together. Also, 4-mana - against a fast-aggro deck - that doesn't stop you from dying next turn (unlike Moat/Humility/Elspeth). You see what I'm getting at here? In all but the already favorable positions against Zoo, Jace is either a 4-mana sorcery-speed 1) Unsummon, 2) Brainstorm + Fog/Raven's Crime, or 3) "Fateseal 1, Prevent the next 5-6 damage that would be dealt to you, unless that damage would kill you".

I've been a Jace-whore since the dude cost $35 a piece (which is still outrageous), and he's by far my favorite card in Magic now (behind Drain of course), but I have stared at him in my hand against Zoo too many times while my opponent has two dudes on the board, or an REB makes me look like an idiot because I just got Timewalked and had no other play to make, or I just didn't get to 4 mana before dying. I'm not cool with this, especially because we're not Landstill. They play other 4-mana bombs that help them survive to cast Jace. They can reasonably expect to 1-for-1 the Zoo player until he's out of cards, or refuel using Standstill, and then drop Jace with counter-backup. They play way more counters and removal than we do (that don't get shut out by Grip), in addition to actual bombs that dramatically alter the gamestate immediately and create a safe-passage for Jace to start fatesealing the Zoo dude away. And Needle/REB still hurts like hell from Zoo with Landstill.

Maybe ya'll play the older Zoo variants or the big-Zoo variants (with Elspeths, 4 KotR, Hierarch, other high-curve dudes) in your metagames, but all I play is Zoo decks that are dropping shit-loads of fast dudes, cheap burn, and cheap bombs (Library, PoP, Choke). I'd much rather have a card that does stuff before T4, like helping me stay alive. The deck has plenty of ways to dig for another win-condition. On that note, I'm still a proponent of keeping Jace in against (almost) every other matchup in the format. I'm not hating on Jace against Legacy, just Zoo.

For anyone who's interested, the pair of Lavamancers I said I was going to try are indeed amazing. The testing has been against MWS opponents only so far, so take it with a grain of salt, but has thus far proven to be excellent. Most aggro opponents side out all or almost all of their removal, figuring Goyf as the only dude, or no dudes at all (if they didn't see a Goyf), leaving Mr. Grim almost immortal. Droping him on T1 puts the other guy in a shitty position, forcing them to decide which dudes to feed to the Lavamancer. With ~9 Fetches, BS, counters, and removal, I've been able to get at least 2 shots off with him in the early-game consistently, nailing Hierarchs, Pridemages, Confidants, Tribal dudes, and helping win Goyf-wars. I highly suggest trying 2 in your board if you are playing in an aggro-heavy metagame or one filled with problematic utility dudes. He's been very helpful/great against: Tribal, Rock, Bant, Affinity(lol), and that GW deck from the SCG Open, which is some good. Amazing against Zoo if he sticks, but Bolts/CLs are used first priority by them. Plus, if you have the Judge Foil versions (which I don't), it would be awesome just to have him in play.

[DragoFireheart]

Any thoughts on Green Sun's Zenith? Can we fit it into this deck to act as more Tarmogoyfs?

[Valtrix]

Not useful in my opinion. I'd probably rather just play Knight of the Reliquary over a 3cc goyf.

[Valtrix]

Sorry for two posts in a row, but I went to a tournament yesterday at Monster's Den in Minneapolis with the list. Anticipating lots of aggro (zoo/merfolk/goblins) I changed my sideboard up a bit, removing the things that felt least usfeul, and adding 4 pyroclasms. They make you destroy zoo and merfolk on top of your other removal, but I'm not sure of their effectiveness against goblins yet. (It's possible we still just lose to them. I'm not sure, since I haven't got to test things post sideboard yet). Furthermore, I added the 4th firespout in the main by cutting 1 intuition. As a result of switching to red so much, I also swapped my plains/fetches for a mountain and scalding tarns. Lastly, since I cut a little bit on my control hate I wanted to help a little bit there, so I cut a spell pierce for the second counterspell in the board, as in my opinion it's just better against combo and control. So, here was what I played:

// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
2 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [SHM] Firespout
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [DLM] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [OV] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell
SB: 4 [OV] Pyroclasm

Round 1: White Stax
Game 1: I'm on the play, not knowing what he's playing. I keep a reasonable hand of lands and spells (Good, right?). He leads with ancient tomb, mox diamond, mox diamond, magus of the tabernacle. My EE in hand just laughs at him, as I play it next turn and destroy both of his mana sources. He gets stuck tapping his ancient tomb to just pay for magus, which is fine by me since magus is only a 2/6. I develop my board for awhile and see an intuition to get life from the loam, so I'm getting lots of lands into play. Eventually he gets another land, but just plays a ghostly prison and I play a goyf to block his magus. He plays a crucible, which loam cares nothing about, then I land Jace, and the game is over from there. I have a force in hand and don't see anything I care about from fateseals. He did have an armageddon though, which I hardcast force for. Right before he's about to get fatesealed I let him have a chalice at one. At 10 life I activate Jace's ultimate, and he hands me his hand, mixes it a little bit and asks me if I want to cut. I say it's fine, and then he plays a baneslayer angel (Maybe I should have cut his three cards). It doesn't really matter since Jace can just bounce it, but I double firespout it away for fun.
SB: -4 firespout, -3 swords to plowshares, +2 Counterspell, +2 EE, +2 Spell pierce, +1 Ratchet bomb
Game 2: He leads with mox diamond, wasteland, chalice at one. Once again I look at the EE in my hand and laugh. I lead with trop, go. He wastes it, then complains about not drawing mana in both games (Excuse me, you played two mox diamonds your first game, how many do you expect to draw? This is why stax is awful). I play another dual and say go. He passes. I drop a land, play EE at zero, and he just quits. He was extremely upset.

(1-0 matches / 2-0 games)

Round 2: Show and tell/Hive mind combo
Game 1: I don't cheat, but this guy was shuffling his deck with the bottoms facing me, and I saw that he had a show and tell on the bottom of his library (I realize now that I should have told him about his shuffling...I will have to do so next time I see him). I draw my seven which includes counterbalance, top, Jace, and I think a counterspell. This seems pretty strong against show and tell, so I keep it. I'm on the play, so I lead with my top, he ponders. I play a land go. He plays ponder again his turn, looking for lands I think since he didn't play another one this turn. I top seeing land, another top, and vedalkan shackles. Awesome, now I get to counter his show and tell. I draw the land, leaving shackles on top, and play my balance. He goes for the show and tell next turn off an ancient tomb, and I flip the shackles on top like a champ. From there its downhill. He plays some mana sources, but just can't do anything because of countertop in play and eventually I get a goyf. Later he goes for hive mind, and this was surprising because I had no idea he was playing it to start. I knew I had enough lands to pay for any pacts except slaughter pact, but I use my force because otherwise hive mind negates my counterspells. He plays pact of negation, so I use a fetchalnd and find a mountain to counter that. At that point goyf gets there and we go to G2.
SB: -4 swords to plowshares, -1 Life from the loam, -1 EE, +2 Spell pierce, +2 Counterspell, +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast (I wanted to keep as many 2cc for balance as possible)
Game 2: Again while he's shuffling I see a wurmcoil engine. I think this is strange, but then realize that he's hoping to just hardcast these monsters, which is unfortunately reasonable against my deck and with all of his mana sources since I also saw him shuffle a grim monolith. I was feeling a little scared without my swords, but hopefully with my abundance of counterspells I'd be fine. He keep a hand with REB, counterspell, and some other stuff. This game was mostly us just playing mana sources, including two grim monoliths on his side. Eventually he goes for a steel hellkite, which I fortunately have force for (otherwise I would have lost to it...That would have been embarassing). He tries to force, but I red blast his force. Sometime later I get Jace into play, but he's not really trying to play threats, because he's scared of my counterspells or doesn't have any combos. I have a counterspell and spell pierce in hand, fetch away some junk, and see two force of wills. Awesome. So, I get both of those into my hand and then Jace gets to 13. My opponent tries to go for his combo: show and tell (Which I hardcast force for), then show and tell (I force, pitching spell snare, leaving two mana up for my counterspell), he forces that leaving only one card in hand, so I counterspell that and win the game. Was fun slinging counterspells.

(2-0 matches / 4-0 games)

Round 3: UR Painterstone
Round 1: I don't really know what he's playing, but I have a hand with top, intuition, and two forces so I keep. He plays a goblin welder first turn, which immediately worries me. With some artifact lands and a grindstone in play he goes for thirst for knowledge, which I force. He was really surprised at this, asking me what I was afraid of. Since I didn't deal with welder yet and having no idea if he might have other artifacts I thought it best to deny him an outlet to get something into his GY and dig so deep into his deck. He gets another grindstone in play, but I firespout his welder and then counter a painter's servant. I also go for intuition for loam/EE/ruins, which I realize was pretty worthless considering the two grindstones in play. But, I could still get the EE unless he keeps paying six mana every turn, since I can EOT put it on top, after he stones it, but it on top again unless he can pay six again...Unfortunately I think that the grindstones just shut it down (Dumb play mistakes). Fortunately the loam digs me into counterspells and gives me absurd advantage with top, and goyf just beats down.
SB: I didn't know how to board, but I think it might have been similar to: -4 Swords, -1 Shackles, -1 Firespout, -1 something else, +2 Counterspell, +2 EE, +1 Ratchet Bomb, +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast
Game 2: I keep forest, tundra, Jace, counterbalance, goyf, double brainstorm. Seems reasonable, right? He played a welder, then a vexing shusher (!), but I don't see a third land by turn three and my hand is worthless, so I brainstorm turn three into three (!) counterbalances. Rough. Next turn I brainstorm again into my other two Jaces. Life is awesome. I lose this game.
SB: The shusher caught me off-guard, so I try bringing some creature removal back
Game 3: This game he leads with ancient tomb into painters servant. His next turn he doesn't play a grindstone, but I swords he servant, which he forces. Figuring he must not have another servant I force the force. He plays some other things and I get a goyf and top in play. I counterspell an intuition. He plays a grindstone, and I have ratchet bomb on top. But for some reason I thought that I could let it sit there for a couple turns because I wanted to apply pressure (and I had counterspells). Eventually he brings himself to one and has a lot of land in play, I counter his intuition, and brainstorms with one card left in hand. He plays LED, painters servant and I lose. Sad day. I knew that's what he needed to win this game. I'm not sure why I didn't let intuition resolve at that point, because I'm pretty sure that anything he could have gotten I could have just counterspelled instead, and then he wouldn't have had enough mana with his brainstorm in hand. I misplayed this match a lot more than what I said, so it made me sad. Oh well, it happens. At least I realized what I did wrong.

(2-1 matches / 5-2 games)

Round 4: ANT
Game 1: I keep a hand with goyfs and double brainstorm, but no countermagic, not knowing what he's playing. He ponder off an island, then ponders again off an island, then thoughtseizes me, taking a brainstorm. Next turn he's able to ad nauseam, and my brainstorm sees me nothing useful.
SB: -4 firespout, -4 swords to plowshares, -1 vedalken shackles, -1 EE, + 2 Spell pierce, +2 Counterspell, +1 REB, +1 pyroblast, +4 pyroclasm (Clasms were to deal with possible confidants and to bolster my 2cc to counter his infernal tutors and cabal rituals.)
Game 2: I keep a hand of force, REB, brainstorm, goyf, lands. I play land, go, he plays land ponder, which I REB. I play land, go (This was a mistake. I shouldn't have been afraid of him going off, since I still had a force in hand. I can't remember why I didn't play goyf sooner. There may have been another reason that I can't remember). After drawing an intuition I play a land and pass, so that I can brainstorm into a counterspell. He plays a ponder, shuffling, wishing how he had discard for my coutnerspells in hand. He does get one, and I Just show him my hand because at this point if I brainstorm and hide my counterspells I think that he'd just combo off. I intuition EOT for three forces after he takes my first force. Perhaps I should have gone for counterbalance and played it, even blind? I figured that with goyf in play it was better to have a force and then a brainstorm with a chance to get another counterspell, that way I forced him to wait until he got protection (and I was hoping it wasn't so soon...Since if goyf would have got in there once more, his ad nauseam wouldn't have been good enough). Then I finally play goyf (So dumb. Should have been out way sooner). I smack him down to 14, but he duresses my other force away and combos off. I wait until the ad nauseam...But brainstorm doesn't get me a counterspell. He has to go to 4 before stopping, without seeing tendrils. Fortunately his brainstorm got it for him. Oh well. Yay for more misplays.

(2-2 games / 5-4 matches)

Round 5: Zoo
Game 1: It's a friend, and we can't top 8, but I think this is fine for me, since my pyroclasms give me even more creature hate than usual, and usually I beat zoo post-board. I have to mull to five though game one, and just don't get there.
SB: Usually I leave balances in, but I thought he might bring in grips so I take my balances out instead, opting to just lock him out of creatures from ruins/EE instead. So, I went -4 force of will, -4 counterbalance, +4 pyroclasm, +2 Path to exile, +2 EE
Game 2: He doesn't really apply any pressure, and I build my board. Even when he does I have an abundance of creature removal and get him with two for ones with firespout and pyroclasm (Ouch). Jace stops him from getting back into the game.
Game 3: Once again, a ridiculous amount of creature removal keeps him out of the game, and me having seen multiple goyfs gets there.

(3-2 games / 7-5 matches)

Moral of the story? Well, I still make misplays, and with this deck misplays cost you matches. It was unfortunate, since I really think I could have been playing in top 8 for prizes, and the top 8 was a lot of other counterbalance and some aggro decks, so I think I would have been okay. Maybe next month. I do have to say that having 4 counterspells between the main and side is very good, since counterspell is way better in the countertop matchup over spell pierce, and pretty much better in the combo matchup, in my opinion, since they can't negate it by just having mana. That said, I still think that I want 4 counterspells in the board to deal with combo, because even with them that matchup can sometimes still be rough. As for pyroclasms...Well, I might just keep this board for awhile, depending on my matchup with goblins. If the clasms actually turn the post-board matches into something pretty favorable, then this could be a huge boost for the deck. What I took out for them was 1x REB, 1x Tormod's Crypt, 1x Krosan Grip, and 1x firespout (since it was in the main). I didn't miss them all that much, Kgrip and REB I don't feel like really do much to improve any MUs all that much, and we have counterspells/EE for counterbalance already. Missing crypt is kind of sad, but I just don't think it's very relevant in the meta right now, and I'd rather have more cards to bring in in more frequent MUs and just be caught off guard so to say in another. I think the only way to have reliable GY hate is to dedicate a lot of slots to it, so I'd rather just not worry about it.

[ivanpei]

Thanks for the report! Some thoughts on the plays:

VS UR painter stone, I always force intuition only if he has a welder in play. Usually if there is no welder, I just let him fetch whatever, then counter it. They don't play loam so waiting is always better.

VS ANT, Blind countertop > counterspell/force. If you are blind with either 1cc, 2cc, 0cc or 5cc you will screw ANT over royally. Thats like 50/60 cards of your deck. Somewhere along their spell chain you will hit something and cause them to fizzle terribly. Force just eats chant.

And I noticed that none of your games revolved around resolving intuition into the pile of death. Intuition seems to be more of a demonic tutor. I've been having the same observations in my testing. Most of the time my intuitions search for firespout, counterbalance or top. Very rarely do I go for the pile of death. Having said that, I've been running snares instead of EE, Shackles and the 3rd intuition. I also swapped the ruins for cephalid Colosseum. I naturally draw into loam+ Colosseum very often and it is just rocking. Loam + fetchlands + countertop usually just wins me the game. The pile of death IMO is just overkill. The snares would have given you so much flexibility and immediate stopping power when you were playing against painter and ANT.

I also like your inclusion of the 4th firespout. I think firespout is just such an important card. When I'm playing vs tribal, I always wished I could intuition for the 2nd firespout, but with only 2 copies left in the deck, I couldn't.

[Valtrix]

Against UR painter stone I definitely realized that this was the right thing to do too pretty much instantly after countering it. It's just a deck that I have never played against, so I was caught a little off-guard and wasn't thinking through what he could do. It doesn't help that I haven't been to bigger tournaments as well lately.

Against ANT he plays a lot of diversified mana sources. Also, since game had gone on for several turns and he played a bunch of cantrips, so I figured that counterbalance wouldn't have mattered at that that point, since he could likely play around anything on top of my library, and I needed to be able to counter an ad naseaum if he had it in hand. Additionally, he was clearly waiting to go off until he had protection, so I thought my odds were best to put him on a 5 turn clock with goyf, in which he would have to find a second protection spell or lose. I really think he could just play around my balance, so I needed to go for a counterspell with my intuition. I wanted to wait, but I didn't have enough mana to intuition + counterspell + brainstorm in one turn.

Also, none of my games did revolve around intuition for ruins/EE/loam. Why? Because that combination is primarily for slower decks that it just destroys. If I had played against any counterbalance decks, then this would have been crucial against them. In fact, in my mind this is mostly what the combo is for, because it just wrecks balance decks. I don't think it's overkill, because EE and ruins don't hurt the deck at all on their own right, and it gives you huge possibilities for intuition. I think that cephalid coliseum is strictly worse, at least in this sense, because it doesn't win you the game as well as ruins/EE/loam does against counterbalance decks, since you need to be able to answer balance. I like coliseum a lot, but I'm not really sure where it's necessary, compared to when you'd want ruins/EE or to just use it as a tutor. Mind discussing it a little more?

I think I may stick with the 4th firespout in the main, because I really like the sideboard slots, and I agree that being able to intuition for a second copy is a very useful thing to do.

[ivanpei]

I like the Colosseum because its almost invisible. As in you don't notice it's presence in the game. It makes blue which is a major plus compared to academy ruins. It serves as the "mana open" for counterspell and spell snare (if you run it) or to spin top for balance. I agree that it is no where as powerful as loam/ruins/bomb artifact pile but it saves space. You can afford to run 3 spell snares in the main and not force yourself to play specific anti aggro cards like the 4th firespout, the shackles and EE which are amazing against aggro but lackluster vs combo. Spell snare IMO is one of my favorite all around cards that make it into almost all my control lists because it is great against aggro, control and combo.

However when the game drags on, the Colosseum serves the same purpose as the academy ruin piles by providing inevitability. You are right about not always having countertop in play. Loam + colosseum is literally a recurring compulsive research (in terms of manacost and CA). You dredge loam, costing a card (similar to drawing a compulsive research). You cast loam for 2 mana. Drop Colosseum and activate it for 1 mana. Draw 3, pitch the 2 lands you grabbed from loam + the worse card of the 3 cards you drew. Net investment= 3 mana, 1 land drop for digging 3 cards and discarding 1 bad card. Compulsive research is by no means great in legacy, but it is tolerable. This is similar to aggro loam's drawing machine without having to play the CIPT cycle lands.

The academy/EE/Shackles IMO should be relegated to the SB. I think the academy can be left in MD but you might have to be slightly greedier with the manabase (ie less basics). EE and shackles can be great out of the board as I can see them being pretty narrow in the MD specifically to fight board presence decks. Since you see quite a bit of combo, the MD spell snares may help alot. Cheers!

[Valtrix]

I usually don't have trouble getting blue, so I don't think the single coliseum will matter much in that regard. However, the one life to actually use it to produce mana is a pretty big deal in my opinion, between fetches (especially those returned from loam), getting attacked, and forces, your life total can really go down (This is most relevant against aggro). I think engineered explosives is a great card to run in its own right, so I feel like the only opportunity cost of running this combination is the colorless of academy ruins. However, once again, I think that in general this is not much of an issue. I don't think running coliseum really saves you any space in this regard. Shackles is not something you have to run, but is frankly something I would choose to run even without the combination with academy ruins.

I don't think that coliseum provides inevitability in the same way as ruins/EE, namely because coliseum can't deal with counterbalance, and to me this is the main draw of running the combination. It also gives you maindeck answers to a resolved planeswalker, which is relevant in more controlling matchups.

This is not to say that you shouldn't play spell snare necessarily. I think it is a strong card, and could warrant slots depending on your meta. It's also possible that having coliseum in the deck is worthwhile too, since it can sometimes be a much better option in the aggro matchup to build cards rather than recurring EE (Though usually I think that you just want to hope for removal, since both loam/coliseum are pretty slow). The only cost of running ruins/EE is that ruins can't produce colored mana, otherwise EE is a card that you're always happy to see unless you're against combo. I think its worth against counterbalance is just too much to pass on.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@ Valtrix: Thanks for the report, interesting read. The more you play, the fewer mistakes you will make, so just keep churning games. You're doing the most important thing right already, realizing what mistakes you make!

Some comments:

Why would you board out StP against Painter-combo? Gives you another cheap answer to his combo while killing Welders.

Against ANT: Especially with a Brainstorm in hand, Counterbalance seems much better than FoW. Counterbalance is harder for them to win through and is extremely like to turn that Brainstorm into a sweet Dismiss.

Against Zoo: I suppose he didn't have Price of Progress? Otherwise taking out so much of your countermagic AND the balances seems quite risky. I also suspect he was running Steppe Lynx/Goblin Guide, right? Otherwise Pyroclasm seems pretty weak against Zoo. Other than that I really like your plan here, when running CBThopters we realized that, once they have Grip, Counterbalance is actually pretty weak because you take enough damage early to just die to Grip into burn. If you kill everything that moves and finish on Jace on the other hand, they usually can't do much.

As to the decklist, you might consider running a single Cursed Scroll or one Grove of the Burnwillows and one Punishing Fire instead of some Pyroclasms in your sideboard. Both options allow you to set up repeated shooting of annoying Goblins with Intuition, which in my experience they have a really hard time beating. You could even move the fourth Firespout back to the board and have one Grove, one Fire MD. Fire usually finds a relevant target, making it ok to draw in most matchups and once you set up the combo most Tribal-decks just die (as Goblins seems to be a problem for you, having a way to make the MD-matchup better with such slight changes sounds good to me).

@ivanpei: As for removing the EE, why would you want to do that? If the "pile of doom" wasn't available, I'd be tempted to even run more of them. It's incredible against anything that isn't combo because it punishes fast aggro-starts, deals with Vial and Planeswalkers while also providing you with an out to Counterbalance game one where you otherwise are pretty much cold. Once you run EE, having the Ruins seems obvious.

[Valtrix]

Boarding out swords was a mistake. I think I wanted to be greedy and try and two-for one with firespout, but it was definitely the wrong choice. I forgot to write this, but I brought them back for G3 over some firespouts.

As for ANT...I only didn't go for balance because he had enough turns where he could fight through it, because of the different mana costs in his deck. Once again, I didn't play this right, but it would have been much stronger to go for tops to keep my countermagic just floating on top of my library, since I had a brainstorm to hide my force. Just wasn't in the game I guess.

I knew the zoo player, and I knew his decklist, so I knew that I didn't have to worry about price or progress. He wasn't running goblin guides, but clasm is still very relevant regardless. It hits lavamancer (3), lynxes (3-4), pridemages(4), and possibly sideboard cards like gaddock teeg (0-2). This means that it hits 10-13 of their cards, which seems very relevant since that's at least half their creatures. You can also kill wild nacatls on the play which is just extra nice. Then, it lets me save my swords and EEs for the other half of their deck. I can't see why you wouldn't want clasm in this matchup...

Punishing fire/grove might be worthwhile to test, as it really seems like it might have some serious applications for intuition game 1. My only concern is the R/G of the land and the fact that punishing fire is only 2 damage. But like you said, it's pretty relevant in most matchups to get something, and I do have some draw manipulation. It could be a good intuition supplement to whatever removal I'm already bringing in. I haven't really been able to figure out how to fix this matchup in the way I wanted to. From my testing it seems as though I need to deal with ringleaders resolving, and I seem to only win whenever I play Vedalkan Shackles...Granted, it's not a lot of testing, but it hasn't made me happy so far.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I've been playing quite a bit of ANT and winning through CB @ 2 is nearly impossible (you have to have drawn your Ad Nauseam, basically) and CB being in play produces so many random problems with acceleration and cantripping that I think it's better than getting another hardcounter. I don't see how you could have gone for Top safely as he took your FoW with his Duress (if you Brainstorm in response to hide it, you shuffle it away by Intuitioning, if you wait to draw it again, it doesn't float any more) so you'd be dependant on finding a counter in your top 3 to keep one floating.

Pyroclasm vs Zoo: As soon as they have either Lynx or Guide (which is what I meant), clasm is fine because it kills half their creatures. Not a great one for one, but it does what is needed and sometimes you can get lucky and hit multiple creatures. It's pretty bad against the builds that only have Pridemage and Lavamancer imo.

Regarding Punishing Fire, cutting a Fetch for the Grove leaves you with 18 blue sources, which should be fine. Once you do that, you could even bring in more Groves and Fires instead of Pyroclasms, which should make Goblins a walk in the park from my experience. It's very hard to keep Goblins from ever resolving a Ringleader, so something that allows you to just play through them is probably the best way to address the matchup. I've won a ton of games against multiple resolved Ringleaders with CAB Jace, simply because they can't cast their Goblins fast enough to actually deal much damage once Fire is recurring. In your deck this effect is even stronger because even if they have all the mana in the world, they could just get blown out by a sandbagged Firespout when they try to outpace Fire, putting them between a rock and a hard place. Fire also is an excellent way to profit from the time Wall of Goyf buys you against them.
Note that this also makes your plans against Zoo and Fish better because Punishing Fire can actually kill their three-toughness dudes (Nacatl, double-Lords) once you hit five mana and double-red (other than Grove), while Pyroclasm does straight up nothing at those points (and was coming in anyway). If you're having trouble with Tribal, you should definitely try out the MD 1 Fire 1 Grove and SB - Pyroclasms + 2 Grove 2 Fire, I'm pretty sure that will push your winpercentage if not through the roof at least right up to where you can touch it. At that point I would probably switch one of the Tropicals for a Volcanic, with the basic Forest and Grove producing G, you should still be able to keep Loam running just fine but you're more likely to get to the point where you can Fire twice in a row.
/edit: Having lands in the board also mean you can board in additional manasources should you feel the need, e.g. against Stax.
The combo also is a beating against Landstill-type decks, you get to board out the useless removal and suddenly have an endgame that kills every single way they have to win (if they're not rocking it old school with Decree). Keeping Elspeth or Jace under control by burning them again and again is quite sweet.

[Valtrix]

For ANT I was trying to represent counterspells too much. I think he duressed me when I had 4 lands in play, so I would have been able to intuition T3, then get top and protect my force. Or I might have drawn it turn 4, I can't quite remember. Regardless, I didn't have any 2cc after goyf, and I still misplayed that. Will not do so in the future.

I think that pyroclasm is still very relevant against zoo, because even if you're playing removal that deals with 7 creatures they run, I think it's still worthwhile to do so, because there's a very good chance that you'll have a target to hit. Most zoo builds are running lynxes anyway, so the 7 creatures is less of an issue. And once again, on the draw it hits even . Another interesting thing is that having more sorceries allows you to get a goyf into play sooner without worrying about it dying to bolt right away, though this is a little more minor.

I think I am going to test the punishing fire/grove and bumping my intuition count up to 3, and even adding the 4th intuition in the board. I am unsure about using SB slots for a lot of grove/fires, but it might also be worth running 1/1 in there. Will have to see what I have room for. I lack the redundancy of the combo, but I have a good chance to set it up with so many intuitions I think, and even having one active still provides nightmares for these decks, in addition to other removal of course.

[Link Ramirez]

Hi Mana Drain, awesome deck and well written primer. Thanks.
I've played some 2-Man-Queue on MTGO with it and played against Canadian Thresh among others.
I have a question about your sideboarding strategy abainst thresh.

The Sideboard, and possible choices for YOUR metagame

Tempo Thresh (UGR with Goose+Goyf): Uhrg, I hate this matchup. We’ll win if we survive to the lategame, but Spell Snare, Daze, Mongoose, and heavy Waste draws end it quickly. If you manage to land a CB/Top, they’re in deep shit, but it’s harder than it looks against a deck that is pretty much land+cantrips+counters+8-10 beaters. Be extremely careful with your fetches, cracking in response to theirs, their cantrips, or if they tap out (extremely rare). Only Force the kill-cons, unless you’re defending a fetch from Stifle and don’t have the land to lose it. Good luck on this one, you’ll need it. Trying to reduce the cost of your spells in important here. EE lock is too good in this matchup to reduce Intuitions, and getting Loam by any means possible ensures mana. They will have Blasts of their own and burn, so Jace’s survivability is low, but if you untap with him in play, you’ll probably win. I still suggest removing at least 1-2 in addition to the obvious Shackles and FS. Play the same as preboard, just be aware of REBs and Spell Pierces. Needle on EE is common, don’t depend on them. Throw in all Relics you have here; they buy time against beaters without costing a card.

Why do you want to take out Firespout? It takes care about Mongoose and the possible Trygon Predator after Boarding. That leaves Thresh with 4 Goyfs and they can meet Swords and EE. Plus Firespout has protection from Spell Snare, Stifle, Needle and Red Elemental Blast. I play your main deck from the primer (-1Delta + 1Forest) and I'm boarding -3 Jace +2 EE +1REB. I'm thinking about also boarding out Shakles for a second REB.

What do you think?

[Valtrix]

I think that seems like a good plan. Jace is nice, but ultimately you probably don't need him in this MU, since they have so few creatures and can't deal with a resolved goyf. Plus, fateseal seems particularly weak against them, and you probably won't care about a whole lot once you're in a position to actually start using him. The key is not losing to their mana-denial and not letting their counters stop your answers. REB is definitely good in this MU to protect against stifles and force of will, so bringing in them seems like a strong plan. I agree that taking out 3 Jace for 2 EE and 1 REB is a good plan. I agree cutting shackles for REB, but it should probably be for the ratchet bomb that you should be playing in your sideboard. Having tutorable outs to a resolved needle is huge in my opinion. I wouldn't take firespouts out either, because it's just so easy to kill mongoose with it. 4 swords/3 EE/1 ratchet bomb/3 firespout/2 counterspell should be ample removal for their creatures, in my opinion just don't run goyf into dumb things and you're good.

Also, I'm changing up testing a little bit, because I'm determined to figure out how to deal with the goblins matchup. Merfolk and zoo is pretty easy with the abundance of removal, but goblins is continuing to be a problem. I'm going to be testing punishing fire and grove of the burnwillows combo as a means to try and deal with this matchup. To fit this in I'm playing with 3 firespouts/3 intuition, cut the 2nd counterspell for punishing fire and am playing grove as the 61st card. Many people don't like this, but I'm more doing this until I can figure out what I like, but I also want the 23 land/61 card mana ratio, since I always find myself just wanting a bit more mana. I also found that vedalken shackles is one of the few cards that swing that matchup in my favor, so I'm trying the following board:

SB: 1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
SB: 1 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [OV] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell

[Mana Drain]

After my break from MTG and other hobbies, I'm back. I haven't played in a tournament since my last report, but I'm still playing this deck as my primary and lovin' every minute of it.

Also, none of my games did revolve around intuition for ruins/EE/loam. Why? Because that combination is primarily for slower decks that it just destroys.

I think this quote is important enough to highlight in the primer. The emphasis of the deck is to play a control-heavy CB build metagame'd against creature decks, while utilizing Intuition as either a Demonic Tutor or an "I win the game soon" play against any deck that can't kill us fast i.e. Control-ish decks. If you don't need to fetch the doom-package, don't. Fetch Jace or Goyf to end the game faster. Or the missing CB piece. Or just FS to sweep. You play the deck like many other CB decks, just with more options and more answers, rather than a more focused creature-based strategy that goes aggro half the time. If you can Intuition for inevitability, cool beans. If not, no big deal. Intuition for a threat, an answer, or pitch it to FoW.

@Link Ramirez: You're SB plan is perfectly fine there. I don't like FS against TT mainly because it's underwhelming. The only thing it effectively stops that other cards can't is Goose, and that's why it's suggested to run an additional 1-2 EE/1 Ratchet in the board, and I run Clique to suprise block. Trygon/Clique just happen to be blue, making them nice targets for REB. Goyf is removed/matched by our own or half of the decks removal. Also, FS puts more dependance on R, when R is our Tertiary splash color, opposed to W and G.

My SB plan against TT is -3 Jace, -3 FS, -1 CS for +3 Blasts, +2 EE, +2 Clique, and I've found that to be sufficient. My biggest fear against TT is not the creatures, but my own bad hands against their denial-heavy ones. Sometimes you just draw into hands with only 2 fetches, and they end up manafucking you. It happens. Playing a solid basic lineup will do wonders for the matchup. I'm just too stubborn and greedy to do so. Mana-denial and bad keeps will lose you far more games than a Goyf or Goose will against TT. Don't get greedy with your mulls here.

@Valtrix: I think the 4th FS MD is a meta-call type audible, but a good one. If you're expecting a sea of aggro instead of CB/Control/Combo/Random, it makes good sense. I can't say that my meta warrents the 4th MD, but if it did I'm thinking it would be excellent.

On Groves/Fires, I'll try to recreate a August-era list I had that was amazing against aggro, with 1 Grove/2 Fires. It just rolfstomps any tribal and makes Zoo and mid-range much better. I just wonder if it's worth it to play more GY dependent cards post-board in the face of possible GY hate. Regardless, I'll rebuild the list and post it for anyone that's interested.

Also: I'll state again that Grim Lavamancer is off-the-hook good. Dead serious here. T1 Lavamancer against any creature deck has won me more games than I can count. It is the MVP of the board in any creature matchup. Early game, he forces the opponent to either remove him (preventing them from doing something more useful during their turn) or sacrifice smaller dudes to burn you out of fuel. He's always got at least one shot of fuel in him whenever you drop him due to the number of fetchs and cheap spells we play. So many decks SB out their STPs and other cheap removal for more expensive and slower removal to stop CB that Mr. Grim's survivability until T3 is high. During this time, the other guy is either losing dudes, or not playing small dudes, and both results are extremely beneficial. I highly suggest trying out a pair in the SB and putting them in against all Tribal, Zoo, and midrange. Thank you again Jeremy.

[Valtrix]

As for the 4th firespout, I think that the 2nd vedalken shackles is probably much better. Shackles works best in conjunction with firespouts and in general vedalken shackles is what can win you the game in the long run, whereas firespout just helps you not lose. I love firespout, but I think shackles steals (pun intended) way more games than firespout, and is much more useful in other matchups.

As for fire/groves, I think it's fine to increase the reliance on the GY. Why? Because it's an incredibly potent tool that can dominate the game. Sure, they can bring in their graveyard hate, but in general if they're bringing GY hate in and other spells out I'm happy. I can always kill at least one creature with a punishing fire, and if they're using crypt as the hate of choice then this effectively makes them lose a card. Additionally, there are several ways to play around the graveyard hate:

1) If they preemptively play GY hate to stop you from setting up an intuition package, then EE can remove the hate before you need to go for the pile.
2) Counterspell.
3) Multiple groves/swords shuts down a single piece of graveyard hate. The scariest thing is for them to waste a grove and then play the hate to get rid of grove.
4) Intuition for the pile again, since you should be playing at least two copies of each card post board.

All of these seem like very effective strategies to me, and in any of these cases even if they deal with the punishing fire/groves, you're still making a profit. And if they don't? Well then you probably just win.

Now, lavamancer is very good. He's awesome against Merfolk, but I'm not really worried about merfolk all that much. Perhaps my testing has been off, but I almost never beat goblins without some miraculous draw including multiple goyfs and/or shackles. As such, I am worried about lavamancer not being very stable against goblins, since they have incinerators or warren weirdings to use. Additionally if I want to reliably beat them I want to have a lot of ways to setup something that can dominate the game for me, which is why I favor having access to all 4 intuitions.

[hyc8028]

The problem I see with Lavamancer is that he has to be in play early to be most effective IMO. I know you mention Peacekeeper as one of the option against aggro, so wouldn't it be better against the aggro? (Peacekeeper also stop Dredge, Show and Tell and Random Junk.)