[DTB] Blade Control

[Dzra]

You can look through the thread because there's no point repeating the old Geist/Clique arguments. lol Point is, Geist is a great card. It just doesn't further our main game plan. Clique does.

Canonist might have a slight advantage over Meddling Mage when it comes to Storm, however I'd still argue for Meddling Mage's versatility. After Cliquing a Storm player, you get to see what is in their hand and what could be threatening. If they are holding a tutor, it's probably best to name the tutor so they don't have the option to search for their combo piece or their bounce. Against Canonist, they can search for the bounce and go off next turn (or maybe even that turn).

In addition, Mage is useful against Dredge. Canonist is definitely better than Mage against Elves though being able to Snap back removal is pretty relevant there also.

[matunos]

I've personally won more games thanks to Geist than Clique. *shrug* Both have made their appearances in top 8s enough that calling either strictly better in Stoneblade is foolhardy.

I'll probably play Clique more once AVR is out, at least until the dust settles over miracles, where his flash becomes much more relevant.

As for combo, if you play it right, Clique can prevent them from going off, for a turn at least, but you typically have to tap out to do it, so if you choose poorly or they can play around it, you're basically left with Force to save you (unless you're boarding Mindbreak Trap). I'd rather get a Canonist out and be able to protect her with countermagic/disruption, swinging with her in the meantime.

I see Meddling Mage as marginally more useful against Dredge, but only marginally. In that, Canonist is useless against Dredge and Mage is only slightly more useful. They have about two targets worth naming, Cabal Therapy and Dread Return. They can still go off without either.

[learntolove6]

i'm playing UWr and i seem to be having big issues with rug delver. how could i help the match-up?

[Dzra]

i'm playing UWr and i seem to be having big issues with rug delver. how could i help the match-up?

Run more basics and be sure to slow roll them. It's pretty much always the right call to take an extra 3 damage to make sure that your Swords doesn't eat a Daze. Engineered Explosives, Mishra's Factory, and Clique are your best bets to kill Mongoose. Don't board out FoW either, you need the tempo boost.

[klaus]

i'm playing UWr and i seem to be having big issues with rug delver. how could i help the match-up?

Board out some of your CMC 3/4 cards. Many games will be decided by the time you can cast a Jace with that extra Daze land.
Try to catch them with their tapped pants down so you can cast SCM and flashback your removal, circumventing Snares.

[AEnesidem]

Hello guys,

i've been playing stoneblade quite some time now, and finally my deck is almost finished.
I am looking to maybe splash a third color. Black would be the best i guess, but that is a bit too expensive for me. So i was brainstorming about red. A color splash that many players here seem to favor.
but i want to know if it's worth my investment. So far i know that having grim and bolts wll improve the mirror and the creature deck matchups. Apart from that red opens up new sideboarding possibilities like sulfur elemental and REB.
but now the question is, is it worth it to add the third color, or am i better off with just UW.

and sorry if this topic has been discussed to death.

[Einherjer]

If you ask me:

UWB is clearly the best Stoneblade.
UW is the most stable Stoneblade and second best.
UWr is a great choice in the real meta, but not good for every meta, so third.

[Dzra]

I think the UW version might the stronger right now, mainly due to the mana base. Esperblade is very strong, but the Sulfur Elemental tech has really put a damper on Lingering Souls. But to be fair, Inquisition, Perish, and Dark Blast are all really strong against Maverick.

[matunos]

I think the UW version might the stronger right now, mainly due to the mana base. Esperblade is very strong, but the Sulfur Elemental tech has really put a damper on Lingering Souls. But to be fair, Inquisition, Perish, and Dark Blast are all really strong against Maverick.

Intangible Virtue

[Blitzbold]

Esper Blade won a 130-player event in Berlin, Germany yesterday. More information to come.

[Dzra]

Frustrated. ;/ Just played a small tournament where i got cheated, although likely unintentionally. So I'm playing against Punishing Fire Maverick and the guy taps Grove and goes to return the PF, so I say in response to the trigger Surgical the PF. So in response he taps another Red and returns the PF to his hand. I tell him he can't do that, we call a judge and the judge rules in his favor. Weak... I was sure that I was correct, although I admit that I was fuzzy on exactly how I was correct. I just spoke with another judge friend of mine and basically you only have one chance to return the Punishing Fire unless there are multiple Groves to trigger the PF return to hand trigger multiple times. Long story short, don't let people screw you with PF shenanigans.

New subject... has anyone dropped additional spot removal from the board? For a while I ran with 4 Path to Exile, then I cut to 2, but I think I'm going to cut it all together. Generally the 4 Swords is enough and when it's not, I'd rather have more sweepers instead of more spot removal. This puts my board like so...

4 Surgical Extraction
2 Cursed Totem
2 Disenchant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
2 Wrath of God
1 Engineered Explosives

I think that Cursed Totem is just better against the MUs where I'd most want additional spot removal: Elves and Maverick. I would rather run Meddling Mage over Flusterstorm, but Flusterstorm is also pretty decent against Burn/UR Delver.

[AEnesidem]

Frustrated. ;/ Just played a small tournament where i got cheated, although likely unintentionally. So I'm playing against Punishing Fire Maverick and the guy taps Grove and goes to return the PF, so I say in response to the trigger Surgical the PF. So in response he taps another Red and returns the PF to his hand. I tell him he can't do that, we call a judge and the judge rules in his favor. Weak... I was sure that I was correct, although I admit that I was fuzzy on exactly how I was correct. I just spoke with another judge friend of mine and basically you only have one chance to return the Punishing Fire unless there are multiple Groves to trigger the PF return to hand trigger multiple times. Long story short, don't let people screw you with PF shenanigans.

New subject... has anyone dropped additional spot removal from the board? For a while I ran with 4 Path to Exile, then I cut to 2, but I think I'm going to cut it all together. Generally the 4 Swords is enough and when it's not, I'd rather have more sweepers instead of more spot removal. This puts my board like so...

4 Surgical Extraction
2 Cursed Totem
2 Disenchant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
2 Wrath of God
1 Engineered Explosives

I think that Cursed Totem is just better against the MUs where I'd most want additional spot removal: Elves and Maverick. I would rather run Meddling Mage over Flusterstorm, but Flusterstorm is also pretty decent against Burn/UR Delver.

I agree with the spot removal. I ran 3 in the board, never really felt like i needed them, went down to one and finally cut it for engineered explosives.
my sideboard is exactly the same as your actually except that the cursed totems are grafdigger's cages in mine. Since there is a lot of dredge here and grafdigger's cage shuts down zenith which has proven handy against maverick. (and i didn't have access to totem)

i've got to try out totem, it seems really strong against maverick. Although, cage worked surprisingly well and is better against dredge which i fear.

[Dzra]

I haven't had too much trouble against Dredge. I bring in the Spell Pierce, but I'm thinking of bringing in Flusterstorm also now that I'm missing the Paths.

[matunos]

Frustrated. ;/ Just played a small tournament where i got cheated, although likely unintentionally. So I'm playing against Punishing Fire Maverick and the guy taps Grove and goes to return the PF, so I say in response to the trigger Surgical the PF. So in response he taps another Red and returns the PF to his hand. I tell him he can't do that, we call a judge and the judge rules in his favor. Weak... I was sure that I was correct, although I admit that I was fuzzy on exactly how I was correct. I just spoke with another judge friend of mine and basically you only have one chance to return the Punishing Fire unless there are multiple Groves to trigger the PF return to hand trigger multiple times. Long story short, don't let people screw you with PF shenanigans.

You are correct. The ability to return PF is not a static ability, it's a triggered ability. He can't pay R to return it until the trigger resolves, so if you extract it while the trigger is on the stack, it's gone unless he has another way to make you gain life.

[Raggedjoe]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my recent thoughts on BW lists. I have a couple interesting pierces of tech to discuss:

4 Stoneforge Mystic

4 Cabal Therapy
3 IoK
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Vindicate
4 Lingering Souls

4 Bitterblossom
3 Intangible Virtue

4 Liliana of the Veil

2 Jitte
1 Batterskull

4 Scrubland
6 Swamp
4 Plains
4 Marsh Flats
2 Verdent Catacombs
2 Urborg

Sideboard:
3 Gerrard's Verdict
2 Perish
1 Darkblast
2 Cursed Totem
3 Tomord's Crypt
2 Disenchant
2 ???

Virtue is crazy. It completely destroys Delver and gives us much more versatility. Plus it and Jitte just own. Virtue really beats Zealous too. Better mana cost, multiple uses, and better effect IMO.

Verdict has amazing power vs Burn and UR Delver, buying you two more spells to kill you.

I really didn't miss Bob... He isn't that nessissary anymore. Plus my average CMC is ~2

[matunos]

Hey guys, I wanted to share my recent thoughts on BW lists. I have a couple interesting pierces of tech to discuss:
[...]

This doesn't belong under Blade Control. I think you want Deadguy Ale over here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...(B-w-Confidant)

[Dzra]

What do people think of Entreat the Angels?



I keep going back and forth on how good Temporal Mastery will be in this deck, but Entreat the Angels definitely seems interesting. On the surface, it looks like it has a lot of power as both a stabilizer and a finisher. It might be worth testing in place of Elspeth. Although... if Entreat ever becomes popular, a fairly accessible answer to it would be Echoing Truth (though it thankfully is 2 cmc).

Another card I'm looking really hard at is Terminus.



It definitely has a lot going for it compared to WoG. A board wipe for W is pretty compelling, not to mention being able to wipe the board at instant speed (although set-up would likely be required). It's perhaps not the best against Maverick since their GSZ go back into their deck also, so they would likely be able to keep up the pressure fairly well. At 1 cmc for the miracle, it might be boardable against Dredge also.

[matunos]

Entreat the Angels doesn't excite me too much. Sure, it can be a great finisher, but not if you topdeck it too early. The WW requirement could bite you. Engineered Explosives is also an answer to it, and a more likely one to run in Stoneblade.

Terminus seems like a good sweeper. The downside in Esper is that the benefit of Lingering Souls is dropping a bunch of tokens on the field. Terminus on tokens is pretty much a Wrath of God that doesn't actually kill creatures (e.g. you won't be exiling any Bridges from Below). If you have LS in hand or in the yard, then a Terminus for miracle is fantastic, because you can quickly recover. But since you have less control over when you can use the miracle, you might just be stuck with a brick for a while, even moreso than if it were Temporal Mastery. Mainly I'm just not sure there's space for it. Maybe instead of a Wrath or Explosives? I'm skeptical.

The downside of the miracles is, of course, the variance. With Brainstorm you can control that to some extent, but I think it's still a frustration.

The nice thing about Temporal Mastery is that it can be useful, or at worst, neutral, for not much investment at almost any time you see it after your initial 9. On the other hand, it's not as likely to turn a game completely around for you as a well-timed Entreat or Terminus would.

[SupREME-10]

Entreat the Angels doesn't excite me too much. Sure, it can be a great finisher, but not if you topdeck it too early. The WW requirement could bite you. Engineered Explosives is also an answer to it, and a more likely one to run in Stoneblade.

Terminus seems like a good sweeper. The downside in Esper is that the benefit of Lingering Souls is dropping a bunch of tokens on the field. Terminus on tokens is pretty much a Wrath of God that doesn't actually kill creatures (e.g. you won't be exiling any Bridges from Below). If you have LS in hand or in the yard, then a Terminus for miracle is fantastic, because you can quickly recover. But since you have less control over when you can use the miracle, you might just be stuck with a brick for a while, even moreso than if it were Temporal Mastery. Mainly I'm just not sure there's space for it. Maybe instead of a Wrath or Explosives? I'm skeptical.

The downside of the miracles is, of course, the variance. With Brainstorm you can control that to some extent, but I think it's still a frustration.

The nice thing about Temporal Mastery is that it can be useful, or at worst, neutral, for not much investment at almost any time you see it after your initial 9. On the other hand, it's not as likely to turn a game completely around for you as a well-timed Entreat or Terminus would.

Quoted for truth, well said too.

I am a fan Terminus though as I hate facing tokens and can make more with my Elpeth.

[civet five]

Decree of Justice doesn't cut it now, and I'm not sure that Entreat the Angels is better enough to make the cut either.