If that is all they are doing, I am fine with that.Originally Posted by matunos
Asylum EDH: Foil or go home.
Oh hai. Just noticed it was you. Long time no talk. lol Are you playing Stoneblade now? You should drop by Madness tomorrow, they're running Legacy at 6:30 nowadays.
But anyways... the reason I'd lean more towards Cursed Totem is because I could still run Mystics alongside it. This would let me mull more aggressively for Cursed Totem because I can always recover board position with a Batterskull (since now they can't cockblock it with Mom or Pridemage). Mulling for Damping Matrix seems risky because sure I shut down their activations, but I still need to have the removal/counters for all their dudes or else I'll just be overrun with 2/x's and stunted KotR's (which still happen to be relatively large). I can easily go down to 5 cards if it means landing Batterskull with Cursed Totem backup. All said and done, I'm not totally sold yet... but it really does seem promising.
Mid-game it's much worse (another possible/rare "better" play: drop a land, tap out to play something, attack into mother - they might see you're tapped and user her to block, and then you can zap her).
Early game it doesn't set you back mana, just life, which trades its situational effect for tempo. Like Misstep or Spell Pierce. If you're on the draw and Gut Shot their mother/hierarch then pass back with land up for Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, or Swords, that's quite valuable. Instead of spending your turn hoping to react to whatever they just played, you're waiting to kill whatever they're about to play, and can trade that later to actually develop your board. (Like playing t0 gutshot, t1 snare/swords, t2 mystic against an empty board)
That's valid. I can see it being important to be able to hit Mom at their EoT while being on the draw and then passing with Spell Snare mana open. It is also nice in that it let's you fetch basic Island T1 instead of some possible awkward mana situations that can occur from having to Swords their early Mom, not wanting to get Wastelanded, and still being able to cast Spell Snare or Counterspell. It just seems very limited overall though. It hits Mom, that one faerie, Dryad Arbor, and Noble. Mother of Runes is far from the only threat they have against us.
And Mindcensor and Thalia (though that one not very well). That's 15/25 in (e.g.) Todd Anderson's 2nd place deck at Baltimore. And significantly, obviously, all the t1 drops, which is when it works best (though it's not quite mid/late game when you still need to take out Mindcensor/Thalia/Mom).
Again, in analogy to Spell Pierce or Misstep, it's a better removal spell alongside other removal spells for dealing with stuff that you need to deal with somehow (like Mom), saving your "better" removal for the heavy stuff. PtE has real drawbacks of (a) gifting them acceleration and (b) costing a mana. Against an opening hierarch/arbor, Path would use your turn to do absolutely nothing by letting them keep their acceleration; Gut Shot would save your mana/turn and set them back.
I'm not actually arguing for Gut Shot so much as trying to brainstorm about getting ahead in this match-up. Having more, faster removal (even if conditional) seems possibly good.
(In one game I played, the burn vs. exile difference was quite nice, as I cleared out all the Mothers on turn 0 with Surgical Extractions, brought in for Punishing Fire. Might not be right, but was interesting at least.)
Back to the Sideboard, this is what I'm running:
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm
2 Wrath
2 Path
4 Surgical
1 Crucible
2 Disenchant
I board in Wrath, Path, Disenchant and Crucible against Maverick. That's already alot of cards. Against Storm Combo, I only have Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm. Surgical might help somewhat, but I'd like 3/4 dedicated cards against storm combo. If those cards happen to hit reanimator/dredge as well, than even better.
I'm aware that Engineered Explosives is the nuts against Maverick. I'm thinking of cutting a Disenchant and a Surgical for 2 EE. Thoughts?
How is Crucible for you? It always struck me as an odd card for this deck to mise, especially since everyone is boarding in Artifact hate against us as is.
Your SB seems fine. It seems your meta might have more Storm combo than mine. If I were to go to a large event tomorrow, I might grab a Flusterstorm for the inevitable Belcher douche that one always seems to encounter when they least expect it. Still though, Maverick is about the only MU that I really am unhappy to see at the moment. (thankfully there isn't much Death and Taxes around because Thalia coupled with Vials, Wastelands, and Ports makes that MU horrendous)
Certainly, the idea of being able to board into a combo seems interesting against some of these resilient midrange decks. Likely it is far too cute, but if anyone can think of a decent one, I'm all ears. The only decent combo I can think of might be boarding into Show and Tell -> Progenitus or some such silliness.
I actually recommend running one EE in the MD and 1 in the SB.
You seem to be a fan of that Crucible, for me that'd be my EE swap candidate.
You could also run one maindecked Path and a Shackles like I do, allowing you to go down to 1 PtE in the SB.
For reference, here's my list:
4 SFM
4 SCM
3 Clique
1 Bskull
1 Jitte
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder -----------------------> the 61st card
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile
1 EE
1 V. Shackles
3 Jace
1 Elspeth
4 FOW
3 Snare
2 CS
9 Fetches
4 Tundra
4 Island
1 Plains
2 Factory
2 Waste
1 Dustbowl
SB:
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm (inspired by you)
4 Surgical Ex.
2 Disenchant
2 Wrath of God
1 Path to Exile
1 Jace
1 EE
I'm doing a little better against Maverick and finding the following helpful:
1. Playing a very stable manabase and fetching lots of basics early. Most real solutions which can actually turn the game around (planeswalkers, wrath, EE, Shackles, etc.) are all very mana hungry, so wasteland (especially in multiples) can leave you stranded with ineffectual solutions while you're getting beat to death.
2. Boarding in Sulfur Elemental as another "big mana" solution is fairly helpful in many cases, wiping Mom, Thalia, Mindcensor (and Lingering Souls) at split second (sometimes getting an x+1 for 1 in a combat trade), and (cutely) turns SFM into a faster clock. He might be further clogging the expensive-removal-options slots, and looks pathetically costed next to Dread of Night, but has come through several times in testing (though the G/W list I'm running against is running 9 x/1 white guys, which is higher than some).
I've got, post-board, 4 StP, 2 PtE, 2 EE, 2 WoG, 1 Shackles, and 2 Sulfur Elemental.
3. I continue to split on boarding out the SFM package or cliques and a couple counterspells. Sulfur Elemental is nice in giving another dude to attack with (if sfm comes out), and since all your guys have flash then, your counters get better.
What else are people boarding out?
I like boarding out the SFM package against Maverick and I'm starting to really like Cursed Totem. Shackles really doesn't seem that reliable with 6-7 ways for Maverick to get a Pridemage.
Why does no one play Humility? Maverick plays zero outs in their 75.
Humility hurts us almost as much as it does them, perhaps more, since they have more creatures (and typically, more Elspeths). It negates all of our card advantage except for Jace (no Snapcaster-flashback, no fetching equipment, no Clique or Geist effects). It's something you'd never want to see unless you already had a Batterskull or a sworded dude out in play, and you're often already winning at that point. All that, and it's 4cc means you won't get it out early, and it competes with your planeswalkers.
As an aside, I predict Maverick will start including Krosans in the SB again to combat Cursed Totem, or for the blue splashes, Trygon Predator (which wouldn't help against Humility, but would against Cursed Totem).
For the most part Humility is just a slower Cursed Totem that hurts us nearly as much as anyone else. I'm not sure Cursed Totem is wide spread enough yet that Maverick is worrying about putting Krosans in the SB, but maybe.
From the Maverick perspective, running Krosan really clutters the deck up. It's untutorable, it costs a buttload with Thalia in play, and it can easily be a dead card (especially if the Stoneblade player sides out their equipment). I think it's more likely that Maverick will move to a Blue splash just for Spell Pierce (which also helps a lot vs combo) or else use Aura of Silence in their Enlightened Tutor package.
Ah yeah I forgot about the enchantments like Aura of Silence. Tutoring into that sure is a lot slower than zenithing into a Qasali Pridemage, though.
t2 EoT tutor into t3 Aura isn't much different than t3 GSZ into Pridemage (other than the color requirements being easier on GSZ). You can even use the Aura's destroy ability that turn. Pridemage has to wait until t4.
Has anyone given much thought to an Enlightened Tutor board for us? I've never much liked it, but lately my SB seems spread rather thin, so I've been thinking about it (especially in light of Cursed Totem). I'm still not sure it's worth it, but here's a rough draft.
3 Enlightened Tutor
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Disenchant
2 Wrath of God
1 Cursed Totem
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Oblivion Ring
Grafdigger's is redundancy against the GY decks. Ethersworn basically makes every non-dredge combo MU better. Wrath of God is pretty hard to replace. Likewise, Disenchant is useful over Aura of Silence for its ability to play around Choke better. Surgicals are still good for t0 against Dredge, additional hate for Reanimator, and still pretty decent for Storm.
The main thing I'm losing here is Path to Exile, which I might be able to make up for in that I can find both Cursed Totem and EE more reliably. I also lose Spell Pierce, but I feel that GY and Storm MUs have gotten better with Cage and Canonist, so that's perhaps a non-issue. Losing Pierce does make the mirror match that much trickier though.
It's possible that dropping an Enlightened Tutor and/or another Surgical in favor of 1-2 Pierce (or Path?) is better.
I'm running:
2 E Tutor
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Cursed Totem
1 COP: Red
1 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Pyroblast
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Wrath (1 MD)
1 EE (1 MD)
1 PtE (1 MD)
I run 4 FoW, 2 Snare, 2 Counterspell, 1 Spell Pierce maindeck, so when I don't want Pyroblast, I'm a bit light on counters (hoping that COP will make up for it against burn and ethersworn against storm).
I have no disenchant effects against Choke, only EE. I thought about Seal of Cleansing, with Tutor->Totem, SCM->Tutor->Seal available, but I don't think I have the space, and it's still pretty slow. If I tap out to cast something and get Choked without the Force, tutoring puts off untapping for another few turns, and I'm quite far behind at that point. Tutoring up EE isn't much worse if that's what it comes to, even though it's mana intensive. Spots are probably too tight for a couple of disenchants. I'm planning on leaving in Forces, so, that's the main out to Choke...
I should say that I was building this list for a tournament where I expected a fair amount of random, budget-friendlier decks - burn, combo, dredge. So I wanted to have strong answers for those things. This is not how I would board to be sure I could beat Maverick/Esper
How is Wheel of Sun & Moon for you, versus other GY hate you could tutor? I like that it's applicable against numerous GY decks (or even defensively against Painter-Stone to keep them from winning, I guess), but I don't like how it doesn't interact with cards already in the graveyard when it's cast, which seems like it could be a problem against Dredge if they've already started dredging or Reanimator, etc.
I'm not sure how this isn't broken. We definitely run some number of these... possibly 3-4.
The only downside is that after I pick up the foils, it'll probably get the ban hammer... :(
It's almost like they forgot the eternal formats exist.
I'm not sure how this isn't broken. We definitely run some number of these... possibly 3-4.
The only downside is that after I pick up the foils, it'll probably get the ban hammer... :(
So it's "Timewalk", unless it's in our initial 7 or we cantrip into it?
Nice.
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