Not owning a 4th Jace is a pretty good reason.:)
The only thing that scares me about Vesuva is this. You don't ever want to see it in your opening hand. Unlike the other CIPT lands, you can't lead with it very effectively.
Originally Posted by majikal
Yeah, that makes sense, for now the list I'm messing with is a lot like yours but with some changes for cards I do/don't own:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Marsh Flats
3 Tundra
1 Watery Grave
1 Scrubland
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Dust Bowl
1 Celestial Colonnade
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
3 Jace, The Mind Sculptor
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Mental Misstep
3 Spell Snare
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Path to Exile
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Wrath of God
Though apparently I don't know where I put my dust bowl and upon further inspection I've ended up cutting a land for the 4th misstep. I'll try it out a bit and see how it does.
Split top 4 in a 39 person tourney today.
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Decree of Justice
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Wrath of God
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Mental Misstep
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Snare
4 Force of Will
4 Standstill
4 Brainstorm
1 Academy Ruins
3 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
3 Tundra
2 Plains
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
SB:
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Extirpate
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Humility
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Planar Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Energy Flux
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
I beat Hive Mind, Junk Depths, a Deadguy Ale variant, Pattern/NO Hulk, and Soul Sisters. I lost to Aggro Loam, and drew with Enchantress.
Actually I intended to write an elaborated tournament report, but as I was about to finish it I accidently pressed the "back-button" and the whole text was gone...so here's a short summary of the tournament on saturday in Nürnberg ( 37 participants ). I attempted with the following list :
// Lands
3 [ON] Island (1)
4 [B] Tundra
3 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [OD] Plains (1)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [JGC] Mishra's Factory
3 [REW] Wasteland
// Spells
2 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [OD] Standstill
4 [FNM] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [10E] Wrath of God
2 [IA] Counterspell
3 [JU] Cunning Wish
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [IA] Counterspell
SB: 1 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 1 [SC] Wing Shards
SB: 3 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 1 [IN] Fact or Fiction
SB: 1 [IA] Disenchant
SB: 1 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 [SHM] Fracturing Gust
SB: 1 [DS] Pulse of the Fields
3 Cunning Wish because I like it to have an proper answer to rather specific and uncommonly seen decks even in game 1. Loam-based decks, Affinity and Dredge are good examples for this. In addition to that, the Wish also serves you a reliable way to deal with Progenitus ( wing shards ) and particualry thrun the last troll ( note that gw maverick is fairly popular in nürnberg ). In fact I won 2-3 matchs at this day due to Cunning Wish.
2 Wrath of God in my maindeck because as I've already mentioned, G/W Maverick is quite often seen in Nürnberg and wrath does a great job against them as the don't pack any cards which prohibit me from casting it ( like Daze and cursecatcher ). Besides it's another good solution to Thrun, the Last Troll.
No EE, because I think the manacurves of today's aggro piles are too diverse so you won't get a reliable sweeper with EE in these days. for example, if you get paired up with merfolk, they'll have CC1, CC2, CC3 creatures and EE is not a good card to get done with these. Besides, cunning wish can handle Vial too...( like EE does, but I've often seen that people who argued FOR Engineered Explosives due to it's ability to deal with Aether Vial.
round 1 vs Affinity: I win both games due to cunning Wish as Fracturing gust wipes his whole board in each of the 2 games -> 1-0-0
round 2 vs Aluren: ID as I see no chance to win this in G3 and obviously he was a bit concerned about losing too...->1-0-1
round 3 vs Lands: As I noticed what he was playing I got quite unmotivated ;). I lose G1 because he cuts off my mana income beats me steadily down with Factories. G2 and G3: I win both games due to Meddling Mages which targeted Loam and EE and cunning Wish, which enabled me to remove Crucible with Surgical Extraction from the game. If I hadn't had cunning wish, Crucible would have been returned with Ruins, so thanks to cunning wish at this point ;).
2-0-1
round4 vs. Team america: I lose both games to hymn to tourach as my opponent managed it to hymn away my swords and counterspells for his threats. additionally, his wastelands disrupted my ( at this point fragile ) manabase.
2-1-1
roound 5 vs Dredge G1 is decided quickly as he has 3 ichorids and some bridges in this grave. I don't get the chance to cunning wish for Extraction, but I don't think that would have mattered though. G2 and 3 are decided for my favor as I manage it to counter each of his discard outlets with MMS and Force which gives me enough time to find some crypts and Cunning wish :D .
3-1-1
round 6 vs UBG landstill. I lose g1 to Life from the loam :( even tough I had a jace out ( recurrsive Manlands>Jace ). I win g2 because I've got more Elspeth and Jace than him xD. G3.... -.- My comrades who were watching the game and my opponent had already accepted my win, but I don't fucking manage it to kill him as the 5. extra turn began. Note that Jace had already 13 counters and my elspeth was steadily producing threats so it would have taken about 2 turns to finish the game...that pissed me off quite a bit :D
end result
3-1-2
I became 12th and got a Stoneforge Mystic. im quite satisfied with the performance of my deck and i can highly recommend it to run cunning wish and meddling mages in your sideboard.
thanks for reading
Nice list, resembles mine a lot. I'd definitely go: -1 WoG +1 Shackles though - with all that removal WoG will more often than not be a 1-1. I'd personally go -1 CS + 1 Island. 23 land is the perfect amount for this list.
I might actually cut an explosives for shackles instead considering that I am running Academy Ruins in my list.
Hi @ all! I'm new here and want to introduce myself into the thread.
I now practiced a lot and can say that 2x C.Wish is better than the 2 Counterspell many players are running atm. I remember many times when I had Counterspell and wanted something else, like a Wish e.g.
The thing is, on the one hand you need 2xU, even if its not of a problem most of the time, but on the other I found it often getting Spell Snared. I think the 3cc slot is a pretty safe mana cost slot in terms of resolving these days. 1cc + 2cc seem rather unsolid since times of MM and Snare..especially 1cc, since even non-blue decks run them :/
Thats why I think you should run a counter package of:
4x FoW
4x Mental Misstep
3x Spell Snare
I'm didn't miss counters somehow, eventhough Im looking for space all the time to add some..But actually you dont need more than these above in my build. (see list below)
The only alternative to C.Wish for me is E.Tutor with a Tool Box in main and another in your SB. Didnt test this yet.. Any experiences here?
And I think, that the current meta definately has gotten slower! Me and probably you too, faced a lot of situations where it ended up to a Mental Misstep Counterwar and the one who had more MMs won.. So many of the early gamespells (1cc = catched by MM, 2cc= catched by Spell Snare)
won't hit the battlefield, thus leading to a slower Meta, opening chances for :
- Decree of Justice, which is epic (I run it as a 1of)
- C. Wish
- Wrath of God
Few more decisions I arrived at:
- 1of Crucible is definately good and sometimes gamebreaking!
- 1-2x Elspeth, imo: you really underestimate this girl, its so useful in many situations, where jace isnt (e.g.: I rather place her then another jace to handle the one of the opponent!, thus likely ending up with a destroyed Jace on his side, and a Ultimated Else on mine!)
- Wing Shards as a Wish target in the SB is totally nuts! (keep in mind, playing the whole in a row, ends up letting sacrifice at least 2 creas!)
- 2x Wrath is really good, AND definately better than Firespout, no way for discussions here, really^^)
Things Im still not sure about atm:
- whether to run SDT !?
- 2x or 3x EE !?
- 4 or 5 Killoptions !? (meaning adding the 2nd Else)
- adding a 2nd Humility !?
- keep C.Wish or replace by E.Tutor with Toolbox (MB+SB)
=> Maybe you guys can help me here and give comments, thx!
Here is my current list btw:
4x Tundra
1x Scrubland
1x Volcanic Island
4x Flooded Strand
4x Mishra's Factory
3x Wasteland
1x Academy Ruins
3x Island
3x Plain
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1x Decree of Justice
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
3x Spell Snare
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Wrath of God
2x Engineered Explosives
1x Humility
4x Standstill
4x Brainstorm
2x Cunning Wish
1x SDT
SB:
1x E.Tutor
1x Wing Shards
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Pulse of the Fields
4x Meddling Mage
3x Vendilion Clique
3x Relic of Progenitus
Thoughts !?!? Feel free to comment please. Thx!
greetz MO
Sensei's Divining Top's power and usefulness completely depends on the speed of your metagame and what kind of manabase you're trying to get away with. In general, the slower your metagame, the better Top is, and the more you're erring on the side of excess land, the better Top is. The fastest aggro decks don't give you time to dig, and against quick combo Top has the same problem that Street Wraith/Gitaxian Probe always had in Belcher - You don't know what it's going to find you, and if you need a specific thing and don't find it, you may be screwed.
So if you're expecting a bunch of Landstill mirrors, Deadguy Ale, NO Rug, etc, Top's decent. If you're dealing with Zoo or Hive Mind, you want that Top to instead be some kind of immediate interaction. Against some decks, like Merfolk, it can go either way. It won't help you against a blindingly fast Merfolk hand, but it can help you maintain stabilization and goes a long way to winning a "Who can draw more lands that make a difference" Standstill fight.
I personally don't run it, because I feel like anything I want Top to do, the rest of blue can do better. Brainstorm and Jace outclass it. But in a nonblue based control deck? Absolutely. I want Top all day long.
If you run 4 BS, 4 Jace, 4 Standstill, Top is unnecessary, because you already have packed sufficient card-quality.
But since you're only running 4 BS, 2 Jace, 4 Standstill, that single Top is very strong - you can even add another one.
I think it's all about the overall count of card-quality cards.
In my opinion Top (in place of Jace) is excellent for faster metagames, simply because Top is actually usable in the early game (it costs 2, cost is splitted - shouldn't be so hard to find the mana for it) whereas Jace is a 4cc card, that is obviously dead in the early-game and is thus boarded out / not stellar against Zoo and Merfolk.
The advantage of Jace over Top is that Jace is an actual win-con.
You're pretending that Top lowers card-quality ("if you need a specific thing and don't find it"), there must be something wrong here. Street Wraith / Gitaxian Probe only draws a single card, whereas Top digs three cards deep into your library and even more if you have a fetchland and the mana to use it.Top has the same problem that Street Wraith/Gitaxian Probe always had in Belcher - You don't know what it's going to find you, and if you need a specific thing and don't find it, you may be screwed.
That's not quite the point I was making. The point I'm making is, that in the case of all three cards, if you see it in your opening hand, you don't know what card it's going to turn into. While granted, SDT is waaaaay better at filtering card quality, it's also much slower at it. You won't always have time to get the card you need with it. So for different reasons, it still suffers from the same problem.
Say you're playing against Hive Mind, going second. You get an opening hand of 3 land, Standstill, Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Sensei's Divining Top.
That's an okay hand for the situation. That's not a great hand. It'll lose if they've got a turn two Show and Tell, regardless of which half of the combo they go with. It'll also lose if they can fight through your one Counterspell if your Top/Standstill can't dig for another counter fast enough. Deciding whether to mulligan this is tough. I believe most players would roll with it.
However, if this Sensei's Divining Top is actually a business spell, you're much more likely to know what to do with the hand. If it's a Force of Will, you're going to keep it obviously. If it's a second Swords or a fourth land, you probably aren't.
The longer this sample game goes, the better that top's going to be, but in the immediate hand you'll wish it was a Brainstorm to see cards faster, a Force to just stop things outright, or some garbage card so you know to mulligan it in hopes of an amazing six.
Top's still an absolutely amazingly great card, but it does have its drawbacks. Top in your opening hand is a question you have to answer: Are my other six enough to keep me in this game until I get time to find what I need with Top? And the more questions you have to answer, the more likely you are to make a mistake.
Okay enough to SDT^^ lets conclude, SDT is a meta-thing and its also up your total amount of Draw-Engines you have in your deck (so to say: Jace,BS,SS,etc)
But what about the other points ???
- 2x or 3x EE !?
- 4 or 5 Killoptions !? (meaning adding the 2nd Else)
- adding a 2nd Humility !?
- keep C.Wish or replace by E.Tutor with Toolbox (MB+SB)
Thx guys!
-It really depends on the rest of your removal suite. Two EE is probably enough with the inclusion of academy ruins.
-Rather than a second Elspeth, I would suggest a third Jace.
-Humility can be good, but it really isn't strong enough as Taco has convinced me.
-As for wish vs. tutor, I would probably stick with wish, but even if the meta has slowed down I don't like wish very much. Aggro decks may have slowed down, but wish isn't great against combo in fact it is quite the opposite in my opinion. It also doesn't answer an early Progenitus/Emrakul very well. I really like the wish package but even more I like having a full board for what I expect to play against. The final call is yours, but having played with wish before, I always found myself wanting to just be able to have a sideboard that could push unfavorable matchups in my favor.
The thing about Humility is this. While it's invaluable against some dudes, 1/1's with no abilities are still a problem you have to answer at some point if your kill isn't fast. So I don't find it necessary for the most part.
I run 3 Engineered Explosives and wouldn't consider changing it without a black splash. UW alone has way too few means of dealing with random problematic permanents. EE's versatile. It's how you get rid of artifacts and enchantments, and it does so in a card that's also useful for getting rid of dudes.
As for Elspeth, as I don't run Humility, I have no real use for Elspeth. And I think any list not packing four copies of Jace, the Mind Sculptor while running any other planeswalker is making a mistake.
I played a 12 man tournament today as a warm up for a 50 players one that I'll attend tomorrow.
I tried an UWr build (I always liked UWb but I'm reconsidering Pyroblasts as I'm seeing too much Snt these days, too much Ancestral Visions and fish is always a problem)
My list:
// NAME: Landstill
// Lands
3 [M12] Island (1)
2 [M12] Plains (1)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [DDF] Mishra's Factory
3 [R] Tundra
1 [B] Plateau
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [U] Volcanic Island
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [WWK] Celestial Colonnade
1 [10E] Faerie Conclave
// Spells
4 [OD] Standstill
4 [COM] Brainstorm
3 [DD2] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
3 [DIS] Spell Snare
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 [10E] Wrath of God
2 [ALA] Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
// Sideboard
SB: 2 [HOP] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 3 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
SB: 2 [B] Blue Elemental Blast
I played against Stax (2-0) UB suboptimal Rogue Mill (2-0), Aggroloam RGB (1-1, he was very slow so I didn't have enough time to finish him, I needed 6-7 turns more), ID with the Gate for top4 (but we play it and I win 2-0), then first round of top4 vs the Gate (2-0).
Final against Merfolk. He steamrolls me drawing more counters, more fish, 2 Wastelands, 2 Mutavaults, 4 lords etc...in g1. I race him g2 with Elspeth tokens and Celestial Colonnade + Faerie Conclave and triple Jace bounce.
G3 he shows me that 4 Swords to Plowshares, 3 Pyroblasts, 3 EE and 2 Wrath of God are not enough to stop fish. I finish 2nd.
Thoughts on the list: I don't own 4 Jace so I cant play the set, but I have to say that in various situations Elspeth has been invaluable today(chumpblocking 6/7 Goyfs, 7/7 flying Colonnade etc...).
I don't have Peacekeepers but I think that a couple of Firespout should be enough in the board to fight Fish (sb plan would be:-4 Standstill -1 Brainstorm, +3 Pyroblast +2 Firespout). I'm probably cutting 2 Beb for the Firespouts (also they're pretty good in various Mu, while Beb seems a more narrow sb choice.)
I loved EE's all day. 3 is the perfect number. They blow up Chalice and Mox Diamonds with little effort in one of our worst MU preboard ( AggroLoam) and are very good vs a wide range of decks.
I'm ok with 6 Manlands and no Wastelands. There's actually nothing we really want to waste anyway.
@Rayaj: While I tried Tops and E. Tutors in the past ( and I thought that they were invaluable) now I think that they suck and they should be real cards.
Wishboard sucks even worse. Too slow and situational unless you play 3 Wishes,but they clog the maindeck in an incredible way.
Are you into Jazz? Have a look at the Lp's I have for sale on Discogs!
Elspeth sucks, no seriously...
Elspeth is good against decks that play dumb creatures: Team America, Maverick, Bant, Zoo, but very weak against combo-engines: NO Progenitus, SnT Emrakul, Reaniminator, Dredge, Goblins (Matron + Ringleader + Siege-Gang, Piledriver), Merfolk (Islandwalk + Mutavault + Silvergil Adept).
What do you think is the right number of Mental Missteps? 3 or 4?
I disagree. You could say the same about Wrath or other cards that they are weak against a deck type.
Elspeth and a Factory means you are hitting for 5 flying a turn; that is a fast clock. She may be better in an aggro build (10 a turn with Crusader is wonderful) but she is no slough in Landstill.
Elspeth is absolutely amazing, as she has always been. Jace has blinded people to this. I've been running a 2/2 split in my U/W Control decks for the last year+, and I'd never consider cutting Elspeth.
It's funny when I hear people advocate for running 4 Jaces to win the Jace war, when Elspeth assassinates Jace like a pro and then sticks around to keep being awesome. The only time she's lackluster is against a board of multiple creatures, or evasive creatures. Jace still sucks in the former, and is only good against the latter if it can find an answer in time.
I'm not trying to compare Elspeth to Jace directly, since they have very different functions. What I am saying is, I think a U/W Control deck (whether it be Landstill or something else) should be running both.
But don't you agree that Elspeth is very weak against NO Progenitus, Emrakul, Reaniminator, Dredge (and to a lesser extent Merfolk and Goblin)?
That's not just a deck type, but a big part of the metagame.
As for the Jace war, it probably doesn't really matter whether you run 2 Jace / 2 Elspeth or 4 Jace. Whoever sticks the PW first, wins.
When you say very weak, are you implying that the card itself is weak, or that it's weaker than Jace would be in the same situation? Against NO Progenitus, neither Jace nor Elspeth is actually stopping a 10/10 from coming down. While Jace may be able to try and draw you cards to answer it, if they have a guy on the board, you're going to be in bounce-mode till you find an answer anyway. If they are on the Goyf beatdown plan, Elspeth is alot stronger than Jace. Both Elspeth and Jace are bad against Clique.
Against Emrakul, sure, Jace is better.
Against Reanimator, both Jace and Elspeth are extremely slow, since the opponent is likely casting their key spells in the first few turns. This means both Jace and Elspeth are fairly bad here. Sure, Jace can bounce a fatty, but if they dropped say a Jin-Gitaxias and you didn't have a Swords for it, casting a Jace is going to be just as irrelevant as casting an Elspeth.
Against Dredge, Elspeth is better. Making 1/1 tokens is alot stronger than whatever Jace can do against them.
Against Merfolk and Goblins, Jace is awful unless the board is clear. On the flip side, Elspeth is good against Merfolk if they don't have a Lord of Atlantis or flying Coralhelm, and Elspeth is an absolute bomb against Goblins.
The 4 Jace vs 4 Jace control battles usually involve someone casting a Jace, and the other person countering it or nuking it with their own Jace. This goes back and forth until one or both players run out of answers, finally someone sticks a Jace on the table, and then that player jumps far ahead of the other.As for the Jace war, it probably doesn't really matter whether you run 2 Jace / 2 Elspeth or 4 Jace. Whoever sticks the PW first, wins.
In the case of Elspeth, especially against situational counters like Misstep and Spell Snare, she can come down against an already-on board Jace and make a 1/1 token. Jace player can bounce it, in which case the Elspeth player will make another. This may go on for however long, but each bounce is neutralizing Jace (opponent is not drawing cards), Jace is going down in counters, and Elspeth is going up. Eventually, a 1/1 will stick, Elspeth will make it 4/4 flying, and it will kill the opposing Jace. Elsepth sticks around, and now the opponent is on a clock. Opponent resolving another Jace won't turn the situation around.
EDIT: The Jace vs Elspeth comparisons are very loose anyway, since they are both dependant on what other spells you have, the board state, what other spells the opponent has, etc. My point is, if you playtest with both Elspeth and Jace as much as I have, you will realize that there are many situations in which Elspeth is better than Jace.
EDIT 2: Also, "Superfriends mode," i.e having both Jace and Elspeth in play at the same time, is deliciously good.
Actually I'm rather thinking of comparing Elspeth to Humility, WoG, and Cunning Wish.
My suggestion is 3-4 Jace TMS, 3-4 WoG/Humility, and possibly Cunning Wish, 0 Elspeth. (I personally like Decree of Justice too.)
I think that Elspeth is a good card, but considering the current metagame (with a lot of different combo decks) she's lacking comparing to Humility, Wrath of God, and Cunning Wish.
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