Your wounded sarcasm is duly noted. However, if you want to innovate the deck, speeding it up and strengthening the tempo matchup would be the first things to do.Originally Posted by TheShaun
The RUG Tempo matchup is definitely tough. We have a shitload of Stifle and Spell Snare targets, and Daze sucks to play around if we don't land an early Diamond. That said, their manabase is super greedy, so opening on Wasteland(s) is good, and Extirpate can really mess with them post-board. On one hand White is really good here because StP can deal with all their creatures, but it's going to weaken the manabase and make you even more open to Stifle. Deed could wipe them out pretty handily if you can survive long enough to stick one.
I've only played against it once, and Stifle, Snapcaster-->Stifle kept me from seeing any Black for Extirpate until it was too late. REBs and Extirpates at least make it seem doable on paper postboard.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Using what list?
My janky 4c list, with Bolts and StP. Maybe it's not bad at all if you run Jund and know what you're doing, but it seems like having 2 fetches Stifled and a Goyf Snared is not a problem unique to my list.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
As a rule, four-color versions of the deck have shitty manabases.
Ideally (from the tempo deck's perspective), they'll land a turn one or two threat and use a combination of taxing counters like Daze and Pierce to deny you early mana (Diamond) and early Loams. The one thing that baffles me about tempo players - or at least, that baffled me back in early 2010 when I last tested the matchup - was that they weren't aggressively countering Loam. Their whole plan relies on using a bunch of cards with rapidly diminishing value to set you really far behind and then beat you to death before you can catch up. If you get Loam going you can just destroy their manabase, blank most of their counters, and blank the Stifle/Waste package, thereby leaving them with a ton of dead draws and creatures that will never get through while you roll them. Of course, this was pre-Delver: they're better at finishing games while you're behind now, but the general rule is the same, I think.
I actually don't like Snapcaster in tempo all that much. It's actually not very easy to flashback spells off of him with only 8 colored mana-producing lands (Wasteland is only sometimes a land). However, it does make your midgame a nightmare since it gives them a lot of extra gas and increases their clock, and it's also some good with Surgical Extraction.
I suspect the Russian lists, and Antonius's list, are much more resilient against Canadian Thresh because they have a real curve and solid mana. Knowing when and how to fetch, as well as optimizing your fetch configuration, helps a lot versus Stifle and Wasteland, and the rest of their deck is fine for you as long as they don't get ridiculous draws and put you on a double-flipped-Delver clock or something. The problems creep in when you're using old lists with few to no one-drops or four-color builds with infinite nonbasics that only function because of Mox Diamond and fetches.
Full Disclosure, here's what I ran:
2 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Plateau
1 Bayou
2 Badlands
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Wasteland
3 Life from the Loam
4 Dark Confidant
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Mox Diamond
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Seismic Assault
3 Burning Wish
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Arid Mesa
3 Lightning Bolt
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Tariff
SB: 2 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Perish
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 Firespout
It may have been slightly different, I usually end up making some last-minute change from the list I keep in Cockatrice. For what it's worth, he did counter Loam, Forced a Swords on Delver, and Snared a Goyf, so I was staring at 2x flipped Delver and a giant Goyf. Don't really remember the other game, think I ran out a Crusher without a way to pump him immediately and he got Bolted, which was dumb on my part I suppose. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good player, but dude also pulled some nutty hands that round.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Just look for hands with Lightning Bolt and Loam. As long as you stop them from sticking a threat in the first three or four turns, you'll probably win. If you start resolving loam when their board is empty or weak, you're definitely going to win. Besides being four color, your list also runs burning wish, which is a major liability. Spell Snare is the meta game.
Other stuff that's great--
Grim Lavamancer: RUG may have a lot of answers for him, but that doesn't change the fact that he kills all their dudes except goyf. Its hard for them to win through a lavamancer.
Scavenging Ooze: RUG wins by just barely getting there, so gaining two or three life off a late game ooze can just take the game away from them entirely. Also, a 7/7 ooze will never lose to tarmogoyf.
Yeah dropping Wish is on my to-do list, I've just been lazy, and a wishboard seemed nice given the amount of random shit that shows up in our local meta (Dredge, Enchantress, Goblins, ANT, NO-Hulk, Merfolk, Painter).
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Enchantress and Goblins can both be answered by Devastating Dreams. Not sure what the NO-Hulk deck entails, but you can probably stop both it and Dredge with Leyline of the Void. ANT is ANT. Merfolk and Painter can both be answered with red Blasts (since I'm assuming the Painter player names blue). You can also use Grips and/or Nature's Claims to hit Painter and Enchantress.
NO-Hulk is also called ZeRo (no idea), but Leyline doesn't really bother them b/c they'll just NO into Progenitals, and we had Hive Mind running around as well, hence the Tariff.
The best thing against Enchantress IMO is Deed, because Dreams won't turn off Confinement lock or get rid of Presence, and Grip/Claim/etc. get pretty bad with double Grove in play, but Reverent Silence is a close second. Also Dreams just doesn't seem worth devoting spots to these days with so much Blue running around and Spell Snare getting popular again.
I think I just convinced myself to drop the wishboard and start running Deeds again. I'm still leaning more towards a board control direction for the deck, I just don't see the point of screwing around with Loam/Cyclers if you're hoping to race with beaters or burn.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
This is why I don't really like Life from the Loam in Legacy anymore. If you want your deck to go long, there's Jace TMS and potentially GSZ, both of which are less mana-intensive than Loam and both of which generate more card advantage.
I think Aggro Loam is better as more controlling deck than a more aggressive one. Once you start moving into aggro territory, you run into "[deck X] but worse" syndrome. I'm not sure about Deed because it kills your Mox Diamonds, but EE hasn't impressed me in years so Deed might be the only viable option for an all-purpose sweeper right now.
Agreed. I keep trying to come up with ways to get around the big issue with Loam of binning a bunch of stuff that's just dead once it hits the yard. Try to abuse the yard more? End up with crappy Dredge or Reanimator. Catch-alls for getting stuff back like Stronghold and Witness are slow as hell, Revival isn't but it eats a draw and is itself useless in the yard. I'd love to run Top or Guile to try and fix that consistency issue, but finding room for something like that is tough, and maybe that issue is better mitigated through redundancy?
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
Well, in theory, Bob and possibly Library are your redundant draw engines. In practice, Bob has an average battlefield life expectancy of like a turn in a lot of matchups, and Library is a distant second to Bob. Mirri's Guile is just not very good and should only be considered after Library has been added. Top is much better but is a distant second to Bob and suffers from needing you to keep spare mana up when you really want to be pouring mana into cycling or Punishing Fires (if you use that).
I liked Eternal Witness back in the day, but the problem with Witness is not just the speed (an issue the entire deck suffers from), but that it bogs the deck down. There's a temptation to load up on three-drop bombs to max out Witness's usefulness, but then your deck just gets very clunky and, yes, slow. In a quick, tempo-oriented format, you simply can't afford to be the deck full of grindy attrition cards, particularly ones that don't say "search your library," or "0: draw three cards, then put two cards from your hand on top of your library in any order."
One of the things I tried - and failed - to do was to reduce the deck's reliance on Loam (mostly out of a desire to boost performance vs. graveyard hate because dredge was popular at the time). I noticed the same issues with dredging and the same lack of good solutions. Loam wasn't really hot for your beatdown plan, except when you were using Assault to clear a path for Crushers and Goyfs. I mean, it made your Crushers bigger, sure, but that had diminishing returns against a lot of decks, particularly ones that could chump. It was also not very good at drawing cards because of how much mana it ate up and how many of your cards lose value once you get to the point where you are Loaming to draw every turn. However, if you pull Loam, a lot of the other cards in your deck lose their reason to exist: Assaults get worse, having a million lands becomes a liability, Diamond gets worse, etc. Loam really is the heart of the deck.
So I'm not really sure what to tell you other than, "You need to be mindful of how and when you are using Loam." Even if you have the option of using Loam every turn, you may not want to; I would recommend trying to dredge Loam only when you think it's absolutely necessary. If you are digging for a particular card, use Loam to draw. If you are trying to pump Crushers to end the game as quickly as possible, Loam away. But it may be best to exercise caution if the board state is close, especially if you have a Confidant. Bob and Crusher will dig you out of a lot of messes.
If you DD away their land, they can't play enchantments, which means they can't draw cards, which means Solitary Confinement goes away. The fact it hits the Enchantresses is a bonus. Groves on their own don't do anything.
Pernicious Deed is a quality card, but I don't like it in 4-color. Your Mox Diamonds are too important to sweep away. It might work with Sakura Tribe Elder, but that card is usually pretty underwhelming.
I would never want to run STE in this deck. It just does not do enough and isn't even good in four colors because you're often trying to hit at least RRGGWB, which leaves you little room for basics after adding cycling lands, fetches, Wastelands, duals, etc.
But yeah, as ESG said, Dreams wipes out Enchantress's mana, which is key. That deck actually needs a bunch of mana to get up to full power, but (last I checked, anyway) it runs a bunch of basics, making Wasteland not very good. Plus, most of them have access to Replenish, making Deed less attractive unless you're Deeding and then winning. It only takes a couple of enchantments to rip through their library when they have a couple Enchantress effects in play.
If Enchantress comes up often, you're best off with a combination of Dreams and Harmonic Convergence. The latter prevents you from getting owned by Karmic Justice and the former locks the deck out of mana.
I'll ask the Enchantress guys and see what they think, but to me, trying to wipe out the manabase of a deck with ~8 wild growth effects, a nutty draw engine, and Mirri's Guile isn't the greatest plan when the land destruction is symmetrical. I think probably 8 out of 10 times, they're going to recover faster than us, and it's not like Aggro Loam isn't a mana hungry deck itself. Honestly I've had better luck against it playing Junk and taking out their heavily enchanted basics with Vindicate.
@Zombies: I had no idea Harmonic Convergence existed, guess that's what I get for quitting the game for a decade. I may pick up a couple, I just hate adding really narrow cards to a standard sideboard. Then again, we usually only have 10-12 people, so maybe I should just be a dick like that.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
As an Enchantress player I hate having my lands blown up, enchanted or not (not to mention it potentially nullifies half my draw engine, or even more if I run Zeniths). Back when Aggro Loam was running more rampant and loved both Devastating Dreams and Burning Wish into Reverent Silence, I had to run Karmic Justice and Sacred Ground just for this kind of matchup. It was pretty even at the time and forgave pretty much no mistakes on either side.
I can't honestly say how things are today. Aggro Loam can't reliably run Devastating Dreams anymore (not MD, at least) and Burning Wish is too slow. Meanwhile, Enchantress feels compelled to run MD Ground Seal because the control matchup is rough and a tool to shut down the omnipresent Snapcaster Mage looks almost mandatory, which also happens to hit Loam. It also got Nevermore to work with. However, Karmic Justice still goes mostly to SB, Sacred Ground is pointless right now, and the high numbers of Vendilion Clique and Delver of Secrets are worsening Moat to the point of questioning its inclusion.
I play both decks and spend time in both threads. A lot of Enchantress players don't agree with me that Mirri's Guile is really good, so don't take it as a given that it will be in every list. You run Mox Diamonds; they might run Chrome Mox but might not. You run more lands than them. You can set it up so that you likely still have lands in hand. To me, there's no question who comes out ahead post-Dreams. Even if all you do is kill an Enchantress or two, along with some lands, that's basically game-winning. If you're an Enchantress player and your lands get blown up, it's even more of a beating if they're enchanted.
I can't make you play one card over another, but this topic has already been explored, and the conclusions were the same.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...?Article=18646
"As of this writing, Lou Christopher just won the StarCityGames.com Los Angeles Legacy Open event with Enchantress."
Stephen Menendian: ... You play a bunch of expensive spells, and you need to curve out quickly. The second main weakness, although this concerned us less, was that this deck had huge trouble with both Dredge and Aggro Loam. Interestingly, Lou, the main concern that Loam was going to be in force really didn’t matter, because those Loam decks didn’t run the one card that was so devastating our playtesting 10 months ago: Devastating Dreams.
There's only one Enchantress deck around here, and it definitely has Guile (and it is really good). That article, despite being almost a year old, had some pretty good insight. Would you say dreams is really most effective early in the game before there are a lot of enchantress effects or can it still be good late? I ask because blue.meta and the popularity of Spell Snare has made it fall out of favor in the main, but if I'm going to drop wish and go with a normal sideboard, it seems more flexible than narrow enchantment hate like Harmonic Convergence or Reverent Silence. The question then is how many spots I would have to devote to it for it to be effective.
I think the biggest thing is the deep seeded emotional understanding that the right play is the right play regardless of outcomes. The ability to make a decision 5 straight times, lose 5 times because of it, and still make it the 6th time if it's the right play. - Jon Finkel
"Notions of chance and fate are the preoccupation of men engaged in rash undertakings."
I believe ZeRO stands for Zenith Rebirth Order, as in (Green Suns)/(Pattern of)/(Natural). Not the most obvious deck name.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote