Nice job Frid! I have to say I as well prefer UWr Blade especially with all the RUG currently and still play the same list you sent me a while ago to great success. I'll be going to a legacy tournament this weekend with it so I may post my results as well.
As for your above list, having you been enjoying riptide lab more? Would you want to find room for it in your UWr version? I know we've discussed this before but I always enjoy playing with the most up to date lists.
Other than that I find your lists solid and agree that Wrath has always been good for me as well. I like the added Firespouts in UWr to help against fast aggro but I'm thinking of switching them for some paths since I've been seeing more big creatures than like merfolk or zoo lately. I do love the option to play explosives for 3, it saved me against some Kotrs before when I couldn't find any swords.
I don't think riptide lab has place in UWr along with wastelands, karakas and all the basics. I don't want to weaken the manabase that much. But with UW there is no harm in playing it. It's an ok card, usually you just give it one use because it's wasteland target number one when you're playing 8 basics like me, and I have to keep it in hand until I have a snapcaster in play to at least use it once. But it takes the slot of one land, which is nice.
Explosives are solid even with just 2 colors. It's cheap removal against fast aggro and the only real way to kill a resolved troublesome artifact or enchantment like counterbalance.
I never liked path at all, but playing UW there's nothing better.
I'm thinking of dropping Wastelands entirely. This would let me drop to 23 lands and play more basics. In general, I feel very mana hungry as is and I'm rarely worried about keeping my opponents off their mana. Wastelands are pretty much only useful against things like Maze of Ith and manlands.
The reason to play wasteland is not to keep your opponents mana-off, is, as you said, destroy opposing Mazes, Burnwillows, Manlands, Magistrates,...Originally Posted by Dzra
Although, it gives you the chance to win several games against 18lands.deck if they keep a 1-land-hand.
But do you think Wasteland is worth the extra instability to our mana? I'm not very worried about Maze of Ith. The decks that run it are generally KotR decks and Lands. Lands will be able to keep a Maze up if they want, so I generally go the Jace route anyways. KotR decks can be tough, but I think my strategy there is to out-removal them, not try to race them through Maze. Tower of the Magistrate is pretty cool tech, but not much used anymore.
Grove of Burnwillows would be my main concern. I haven't played much against it, I'm supposing that Surgicals might be needed to fight it, but I'm not sure.
After doing quite a bit of testing against the RUG tempo deck, I've found that more basics helps a lot. We are very mana hungry, we likeand early
, there are a lot of decks running around that can actually utilize a coherent tempo/LD plan, but right now, in this deck, Wasteland seems to have fringe usage at best.
I could be wrong, I kind of wish I was, since I have a set of foils. :P ... but I'm beginning to feel like the optimal version of the deck doesn't want Wasteland.
1 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
1 [B] Plains
3 [B] Tundra
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [TE] Wasteland
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [ON] Riptide Laboratory
7 [B] Island
These are the lands I played last sunday. Do you find this manabase unstable?
Wasteland should be a must play in form of two or three copies because you need outs against some lands in the format that can cause many problems if they're unanswered. I played zero wastelands when I started to play the deck in august and was a firm defender of my no-wasteland version, but after my first two tournaments I realized I just needed them.
Congratulations will certainly be testing our your UW list. The amounth of basics are so nice to play with! You still prefer that sword over feast and famine/fire ice?
Definetly. After 4 months playing the deck I'm pretty sure SoBM is the best sword this deck can run, at least in the versions I've played with.
It's pretty stable. It's less stable than it would if it ran no Wastelands, but it's more stable than it would if it ran Mishra's Factory. And that's the thing, I'm not sure Wasteland is better more often than Factory.
You might be right, although I've been quite the opposite. I ran 4 when I first started playing and moved down to 3 then 2 because I've found that in most MUs in most games, I just don't have any really good targets and sometimes even when I have a good target, I'd rather have the mana.
It's tough to decide which swords to run. I was somewhat torn between SoFF and SoFI. SoBM is probably the best in terms of racing big Green creatures, but SoFF is better in control mirrors where the CA and tempo can really matter (not to mention pro-Black removal and pro-Batterskull). I've been thinking lately that with the rise of RUG, SoFI might be pushed to the top. Snapcaster Mage should allow us to out-removal most decks, which I think will make the pro-Green swords less relevant. I used to run 2 swords MD, but I'm going to be trying just SoFI for a bit so that I can run more counters and be a little more streamlined.
The thing is that 90% of the creatures that are bigger than yours equipped are green, so it seems optimal to run a pro green sword, and SoBM wins games that SoFF would never win.
SoFI has the best effects by far and is the right choice when you're playing a couple of flyers, but that's not my case.
Running some wastelands can spare you hard times against an active grove, maze, academy ruins or volrath's stronghold, among many others. And also help against manlands, the other day in the tournament I defeated BUG landstill in the second match simply because he had standstill, I responded with snapcaster, he played factory and I had the wasteland. Nice game sir. Obviously this is exceptional, but you get the idea.
Sometimes Frid I think it is almost a lost cause to try and convince people that Sword of Feast and Famine is not always the best sword for Blade Control and its variants. There is somehow a stigma attached to Sword of Body and Mind that propels people to argue vehemently against its use since they see Sword of Feast and Famine as STRICTLY better and are probably dazzled by its prevalent usage in the Standard format. I don't bother trying to explain it anymore to people due to this. I guess you can keep up the good fight...but yes Sword of Body and Mind can win games where Sword of Feast and Famine would NEVER win.
Whatever, I have to fight for it with arguments. But I won't get back to it again and again.
It's logical that people are hard influenced by winner lists, with most of them running SoFF. If they just tested things a bit by themselves...
Well, I for my part tested SoFF, SoFI and SoBM. SoFI has the best effect but the worst protection. I believe we definitely need pro:green, since we have the most trouble with these kind of decks. The issue I have with SoBM is the following: Some decent amount of the time, I don't want to mill my opponent, but I have to. It makes Goyf bigger. It makes Terravore bigger. It gives them Life from the Loam or Punishing Fire in the yard. Even worse: In some imporant matchups where I need the body, it might put Ancient Grudge in the yard, which will kill you. You can't attack effectively against dredge or Reanimator. And: It's useless against storm. And that's where I like SoFF. The untap and discard effect is great. AnT will miss the one card they have to discard, plus I get to untap and am able to counter and/or play Snapcaster -> Counter. Against every other deck, I also don't want to tap out. With SoFF, I will always have mana free to untap. It goes well with manlands. The first equip effect is for free, which is especially important, becuase SoBM ties my mana for 3 (in words: three) turns, because I have to a) play SFM, b) vial the sword in and c) equip. Both Batterskull and SoFF only need two turns of mana. Pro:black is also relevant for protection from opposing Germ Tokens and black removal spells.
Maybe you could provide more relevant information than "SoBM wins games that SoFF would never win". Apart from the obvious "You attack, make a body, equip said body and can block a green creature while making damage". SoFF can provide the same for you. If you need more bodys, play more manlands. And if I only have one body, I simply don't attack if I can't survive a counter strike. It's not like I need to tempo my oppnent out...
I provided several times information and arguments on why SoBM is better than SoFF. You can take a look on previous pages, I won't copy paste it again and again.
It's obvious that the milling ability has disadvantages, it has sometimes also its advantages but usually it is a dead ability. But the discard ability from SoFF is also very weak, so there's no big difference there.
The thing is, and that's why I find SoBM strictly better, that SoFF is better in tied games against tied matchups and SoBM in hard matchups and in games you're losing. I prefer every day the second scenario, as in the first one I will be able to win simply by playing better than my opponent and in the second one I will have to draw my outs quickly or just lose, nothing very skill intensive. And SoBM highly increases my outs, as I have four tutors for it.
Anyway, I'm a bit tired of repeating the same things every time, so I won't get back to this again. This is just my experience, play whatever you feel comfortable with.
You should really be careful about statements involving the clause "strictly better". I looked up all the pages of this thread, guess what I found:
andMy decision was to play sword of body and mind first of all because 90% of the opposite creatures that were bigger than my equipped creatures were green, so I wanted SoBM or SoFF. And second, the SoBM gives you a body to equip every turn, which is essential to race big mosters like knight of the reliquary when you just have one creature on the board: Equip it, swing, make a token, equip token, block whatever, swing, make another token, equip it... with SoFF you can't win when you're behind or even tied because they can easily race you with their big guys. This was much more important for me than being able to untap lands or whatever. Obviously the milling ability is useless 95% of the time, but what I was interested in was the creating tokens ability because of what I explained.
Maybe you should read my post again, I said:I had to choose one, and it was SoBM because the token trigger lets you race opposite big creatures (which are green 90% of the time) by swinging and after combat equipping the token, and doing it again turn after turn. It's the only sword that is able to race an unfavourable field by itself.
But effectively, that's your only argument. You completely discount the fact that the milling ability is not only irrelevant, but can also hurt yourself quite some. Untapping is a lot better than you give it credit for. Especially since as a heavy control deck, we want to always have mana open when it's our opponents turn. Also, I think that the racing scenario you provide sounds quite illusionary. Sure, it will happen, but probably not as often as having mana up in our opponents turn closes the door for him. First of all, when you start racing him, you will probably be behind in life totals. We sword his stuff, he hits us with his creatures. I don't have any numbers, but you can't assume that you and your opponent will have the same amount of life once this scenario occurs. Now we also have to assume that our opponent will have two creatures out, because if he has only one creature, I just equip my guy with SoFF and just not attack. As a control deck, there's no need to rush some damage into my opponent. Or I attack, let him discard a card, untap and play Jace or whatnot. Things I probably can't do if I need my mana to equip creatures all day long. So if he has two big green guys (without trample btw, so Terravore doesn't count), then I'm probably better off with SoBM. Except if one of these guys is KoTR, because he'll just use it to tutor up Maze of Ith, which we can't beat without Wasteland. Or (although rarely played) Tower of the Magistrate. Or just Horizon Canopy and bury us in card advantage. So actually, we can narrow this scenario down to our opponent having two Goyfs or a Goyf and a Scavenging Ooze. What a likely situation. I'd much rather have a sword that gives a protection so BUG decks can't destroy the creature, ever. And that's better against combo because you can use your mana for free during your turns. A sword that makes your manlands better. A sword that generates card advantage by Raven's Criming your opponent.Apart from the obvious "You attack, make a body, equip said body and can block a green creature while making damage".
But I'm fine if your are not willing to talk about this topic. I think I provided some relevant arguments for SoFF and against SoBM. Still, if the only thing that matters to you is "but you can attack, make a guy, re-equip and block the goooyf", so be it. It just looks a little bit .... narrow ....
It is strictly better because the scenarios that really matter are the hard ones, not the favourable or the even ones. Unfavourable board positions can't be revoked with anything but drawing the right cards. If you get a SoFF while facing an unfavourable board you will end up losing unless you start drawing answers. If you get a SoBM there's a high chance you will get that game even if you draw blank for the rest of it. If you still don't understand it it's simply better to leave the discussion here, because you're proving to me that you have never played SoBM against GW and Zenith Bant, the two harder matchups of the deck together with 24-one-drop zoo and therefore the two matchups I mostly care about. I could go one by one discussing all the arguments you provided, but it would too much time for nothing really profitable for the though games, the ones I do care about. My "only argument" IS the actual argument, and is above any other argument you or me could provide because it's the way you can defeat the bad matchups of the deck without sb. I've won many games where SoBM shined because it created creatures, and then they got equipped to block, easily racing two and even three big monsters with just a lonely 1/2 on my side. No way any other sword could have won those games. But I don't pretend to create an army of adepts for SoBM, I try to explain my point of view given my experience with the deck, which I find considerable.
For my part I'll finish here with the discussion, and best luck with SoFF!
This is what I dislike the most about this forum in general: The reluctance of people to discuss strategy and provide useful information for everybody else. All that's ever going on here is everybody posting their own decklists, asking what cards to board out, resulting in people only posting more decklists which they happend to pilot to a good finish somewhere somewhen. When you try to get a real strategy or general card choice discussion going (without posting an actual decklist because I think this is the most irrelevant thing ever), if there is a response at all, its a response like yours: "I could go into detail, but I won't". Great for this forum.
You said people should netdeck less and test (and actually think) for themselves moreoften. I second this. Totally. But once somebody does and disagrees with your oppinion, you are unwilling to discuss. The result of this discussion should not be that, in the end, I believe that you are right or vice versa. It should provide arguments for both side so that everybody who reads this can come to their own conclusion. If you are not willing to do that, there is no reason to post in the first place. By just posting a decklist and declining every discussion with things like "My argument is the only real argument", you actually encourage people to just copy decklists without thinking. Maybe its different for you because this time it's your decklist though.
But as you said, discussion ended. Let's go back to stupidly posting decklists and asking questions like "I just copied your list and don't know how to sideboard, please state exactly what you do in every possible matchup so I can copy that too".
Interesting to see such a heated discussion about which is the best/right sword and I think both sides have valid arguments. Is the 2nd best sword so much worse than 1 SB slot?
My 2 cents:
The situations frid described are a very good argument for body and mind. The effects of Feast and Famine are more powerful in a vacuum. Versus BUG decks, Feast and Famine is very good. The most important effect of a sword is probably the protection, so the question is if it is more important in the maindeck to have protection from jace and blue chump blockers or from black removal (dismember,...)? I would play SoFF maindeck and SoBM in the sideboard.
well...to sum up we can say that the 2 swords shine in different match up:
SOBM is better when you need to race opponent (zoo, maverick and so on...)
SOFF is better when you need card/tempo advantage (control and combo)
...so a good idea would be to play one in the main and one in the side depending on which meta you expect!
Hey Frid,
are you sold on 4 being the right amount of Snapcasters?
I do lean towards 3 (--> don't want them in my starting 7), but haven't tested the full playset extensively.
thx
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
