[DTB] Sneak Attack

[Tenbin]

As you run 12 counters ( thats 2 more than I do ) I would love to see your list - did you cut the 2 intuitions for it?

My current list is as follows:

4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Griselbrand

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Intuition

4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection
3 Flusterstorm
2 Daze

2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

3 Lotus Petal
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest


18 Lands, 7 Cantrips, 2 'out'-spots and Flusterstorms maindeck are usually the points of criticism people have for my build.

18 Lands have served me very well so far, once in a blue moon will I find myself in need of a land, but as of yet, not often enough to warrant a 19th land.

As for the cantrips, I cut one of them and one creature for my two 'out'-spots, currently Jace 2.0. While I certainly appreciate the need for cantrips to assemble the combo, I also see a need for outs main and with Griselbrand our likelyhood of finding said outs increases greatly.

I am currently running 2 Jace as I went to a tournament where I did not think there were any reanimator or other show & tell decks, thus Ensnaring Bridge and Humility were not deemed to be very likely cards on the opponent's side of the board. In that tournament (which I won 6-0) Jace really proved himself to me; he was not only exellent counter-bait (which wouldn't really warrant a place in the deck) but in the cases where he was allowed to hit the board he also greatly improved my own board position. Against control he let me brainstorm and fateseal my way to an exellent hand while keeping the opponent's hand worse for wear and against aggro he bought a turn or two by bouncing and then taking a turn's worth of punishment. In another meta I would probably play Chaos Warp instead so that I'm able to draw 14 with Griselbrand to remove a bridge or similarly.

My input for Flusterstorms main:

I don't really find them too narrow, the spells I really care about are the opponent's counterspells (which it hits with great grace) and the opponent's discard spells (which is also hits quite well). While other spells CAN be dangerous - looking at you Knight - I still have 4 Force of Wills and 2 Daze for them, while having 6 more counters for the spells I really find threatening. I've very rarely come across a situation with this deck where I held a Flusterstorm and truly wished it was a Spell Pierce, maybe against a vial or a planeswalker when I Show'd a creature. However, in that scenario I'd most likely have either 1, exhausted my counters for the Show & Tell anyway or 2, been able to save a relevant counter for the opponent's hail mary pass (as I'd be more likely to try to save a FoW than a Flusterstorm if the Storm count was sufficient)

Chalice has a bit of an awkward relationship with this deck I think, a chalice on 2 would be lovely, sadly that usually drops a bit too late. Chalice at one slows us down to a crawl as we can no longer dig efficiently (it does make Flusterstorm better than Spell Pierce though). Chalice at 0 just feels pretty bad against most decks.. I'd rather just play Blood Moon really =)

Those are my 2 cents anyway.

[catmint]

Thanks for the insight Tenbin. Here my update from the tests from the last weeks

My input concerning the countersuite:
I did not give Philipps initial posts a lot of thought, but recent testing shows flusterstorm is a lot stronger than spell pierce in this deck. The main job is to win counter wars and I had a lot of situations were flusterstorm was the nuts and pierce was not good enough. The downside of not hitting some artifact/planeswalkers sometimes is much smaller than the upside in counterwars. I also think having 3 Flusterstorm MD justifies not running Red-Blast in the SB, which looks awkward in an UR combo deck, but makes a lot of sense if you look at the large MD-countersuite and the other more relevant SB slots.

Additionally Daze was really not amazing in the last couple of weeks. I went down to 2 and cut them completely now. Misdirection on the other hand is pretty good! If I want to keep the number of counters up how about: 4 FoW, 3 Misdirection, 4 Flusterstorm?

Alternatively there could be an argument for -1 Misdirection and/or -1 Flusterstorm and upping some flex slots like Jace/intuition/cantrips. Also running the 4th Petal makes a lot more sense if you run 4 Flusterstorm.

Concerning land count and cantrips
Congratulations winning 6-0 with 18 lands + 7 cantrips. The main reason I run a more conservative 20 land/8+ cantrip configuration is that I believe one of the key aspects to run this deck successful is to mulligan "a lot" and the deck mulligans better with 20 lands.

Experience with the RUG matchup
Played 5 games against a decent RUG player.
I won 4 out of 5; 2 of them 2:0.
The one match I did loose he had 2 red-blasts & 2 FoW in the deciding turn in G3.
SB plan: -2 Intuition, -1 Sneak Attack + 3 Blood Moon.

[Einherjer]

18 lands? 7 cantrips? Oh my gawd! That' even less than I play in my Thresh.dec...Wow you must be lucky :) Ill stay witih 20/8 here aswell! ! !

Counters:
You know my Counter-Suite:
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm

Yes Flusterstorm is great in many Situations, but Spell isn't bad aswell, that is why I still stay with the split. Spell Pierce's paying 2 is enough most of the time, because we do not give the opponent enough time to build up a decent land-count. I think that this counter-suite is pretty much the optimum as it covers all areas!

4 Hardcounter
2 Spellhardcounter/Discard-into-blowout-turner
2 Noncreature-Spellcounter
2 Counterwar-winner

I think it covers everything we need to. Misdirection can creature occasional blowouts, wheres Pierce is still a good card vs some things, Flusterstorm cannot handle. I havnt heard an argument that would make me change this suite - considering playing 10 counter.

I will probably stay with 2 Intuitions, which disallows me to have more open slots-mainboard. So no Chaos Warp for me! As my written exams stopped now I will put up alot of testing into this deck and will report it here, in all detail!

Greetings

[Tenbin]

Hmm, @Catmint, your point about more powerful mulligans is a valid one, when mulliganing I find that cantrips are more useful than just about any other card in the deck and a turn 1 ponder I often find is essential to smoothing out draws for a turn 2-3 combo.

I am really hesitant about dropping my utility spots, something I feel I would probably have to do to if I upped both my land and cantrip count...

Regarding Spell Pierce vs. Daze: I used to play Spell Pierce when I now have Daze but I switched them around so that I'd have more counters against creatures, I mainly think it's a meta choice though, as in some metas you really need counters for creatures I believe.

@Philipp802: I'm sure you could find room for 2 utility spots if you really wanted to, what's your current list?

[Einherjer]

@Philipp802: I'm sure you could find room for 2 utility spots if you really wanted to, what's your current list?

//Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Mountain

//Enabeler
4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack

//Fatties
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand


//Counterspells
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm

//Acceleration
4 Lotus Petal

//Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

//Tutor
2 Intuition

[jace247]

so i played sneak show at my LGS and took first! my list is always the on i play except i took out progenitus for griselbrand and he was freaking amazing he won me 2 rounds by himself. I played against NO RUG, esper blade, U/W stone blade, and then hive mind round 4. The hardest match up for the day had to be hive mind for me i have never had to play against it and neither had my opponent. i won game one with me casting sneak and throwing emrakul out, and then in game two i won on a technicality. so here is my list for the tourney and i know some of y'all are going to not like it but its what works for me and my meta. oh and btw i won a game just due to magus against blue white blade lol cause he fetched up all his tundras when we got in a counter war over magus and i won it lol !!!!

Creatures:
3 Emrakul
3 Griselbrand
2 Blighsteel colossus

Spells:
4 force
3 daze
3 spell snare
4 show and tell
4 intuition
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
4 sneak attack
3 lotus petal

Lands:
4 scalding tarn
3 polluted delta
2 island
1 mountain
2 city of traitors
2 ancient tomb
4 volcanic island
1 bosiju, who shelters all

side board:
3 spell pierce
2 hydroblats
2 red elemental blast
3 surgical extractions
1 elesh norn
2 magus of the moon
2 misdirection

[Michael Keller]

For anyone watching, Eli Kassis is now in the Finals after defeating Bryant Cook at the NELC in Binghamton, New York.

Eli is running Sneak and Show, and won a tightly contested Game Two on the heels of drawing fourteen (14) cards with a last-second Griselbrand to find a Force and counter a key spell, thus giving him the win.

[Tenbin]

//Lands
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
4 Island
1 Mountain

//Enabeler
4 Show and Tell
4 Sneak Attack

//Fatties
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand


//Counterspells
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce
2 Flusterstorm

//Acceleration
4 Lotus Petal

//Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

//Tutor
2 Intuition

As I personally find 3 Petals to be sufficient as well as 7 creatures - given that you even want to try utility spots - those would be the things I'd cut.

I think having a few utility spots is a good direction to take the deck now that we have Griselbrand and also gives the deck room for some growth.

[JPA]

Hey guys,

I made it to the finals of a local Legacy tournament yesterday, losing there to Storm (2-1, games 1 and 3 I had the Sneak Attack on the table and didn't draw a 2nd creature or a cantrip that hit something in 10 turns or something....

I went 3-0-2 in the Swiss Rounds, I.D.ing after winning the 3rd round to secure my Top 8 spot. I won all 3 rounds 2-0, vs Mono B Aggro, Deadguy Ale with Blue Splash and Hive Mind.
In the semifinals I beat The Rock 2-0, in the semifinals 2-1 vs Maverick, with Turn 1 Show and Tell in games 2 and 3 (in game 2 he had the Knight :P).

I didn't have Griselbrand OR Progenitus with me and played with Ulamog. :D I think I didn't use him once. xD Maybe I will write some more of my insights later.
I won a Revised Taiga, better than nothing.

[S1N1STER]

Didn't do so hot at my local event on Thursday, only going 2-2. First round I played against Doug McKay who was running 4x Dungeon Geists in his deck . I think it was game 2 I had a 1st turn lotus petal which I used for a brainstorm which left me with ancient tomb, 2 more petals, show and tell, Emrakul, spell pierce in my hand. Put down the 2 petals and the tomb, cast show and tell, he force'd, so I cast spell pierce and popped emrakul onto the table while he plopped down dungeon geists. Game 3 the dungeon geists reared its ugly head again locking down my show and tell'd Griselbrand, a few turns later, one revoker on sneak attack and one on lotus petal preventing me from being able to cast firespout to kill the geists and a glen elendra archmage preventing me from being able to try to cast a echoing truth was game over.

[bfeingersh]

Didn't do so hot at my local event on Thursday, only going 2-2. First round I played against Doug McKay who was running 4x Dungeon Geists in his deck . I think it was game 2 I had a 1st turn lotus petal which I used for a brainstorm which left me with ancient tomb, 2 more petals, show and tell, Emrakul, spell pierce in my hand. Put down the 2 petals and the tomb, cast show and tell, he force'd, so I cast spell pierce and popped emrakul onto the table while he plopped down dungeon geists. Game 3 the dungeon geists reared its ugly head again locking down my show and tell'd Griselbrand, a few turns later, one revoker on sneak attack and one on lotus petal preventing me from being able to cast firespout to kill the geists and a glen elendra archmage preventing me from being able to try to cast a echoing truth was game over.

What was he playing at the NELCQ yesterday? I saw some of his match and it looked like some kind of Sea Stompy-ish list.

[Jim Higginbottom]

eli and i split the finals @ jupiter games yesterday both on this deck.

[dameus]

Gratz on the finish.

Whew, no longer a Deck-to-Beat. Good.

Is anyone trying to put 1-2 Temporal Mastery in this deck?

[Norm]

Grats to Jaco on the Top 16 finish in SCG Madison

[bfeingersh]

eli and i split the finals @ jupiter games yesterday both on this deck.

Congrats. I was looking forward to the finals match :(

[Jim Higginbottom]

i played against mono red sneak attack rd 3...the mirror is miserable.

[catmint]

I played with 2 Temporal Mastery a couple of games and the extra turn (extra land drop/extra cantrip) can be the acceleartion to go off "1 turn earlier". Not sure if it is worth it to cut protection for it though.

btw: wher can I find the decklists from the jupiter games finals?

[JPA]

Congrats to Jason Jaco and Dresden Chung for their Top 16 finishs at SCG Open Madison!! Let's get back to Deck to beat

Edit: Wow, Blood Moon main. That's actually pretty nice, because 1. they won't have enchantment removal game 1, 2. they don't expect it, 3. it just autowins against so much that it might be worth it to take the risk of having a dead card game 1, when the reward is that you just win against the Top Tier decks like RUG. It's also nice against Maverick, because they will usually fetch for duals when they see we are on combo and the Moon shuts down their Karakas.
Very nice tech! I would love to hear Jason Jaco's insight, if he reads this. :-)

[Dresden]

I um...took just about no notes, sorry guys :) I do remember vividly how I lost though, 0-2 vs RUG and notably 1-2 to the T8 Junk deck against the very nice gentleman who offered a draw in G3. I declined since I was on the play vs a deck with no counterspells but I misboarded, misplayed, and mulliganed badly, sigh.

Congrats to Jason Jaco and Dresden Chung for their Top 16 finishs at SCG Open Madison!! Let's get back to Deck to beat

Edit: Wow, Blood Moon main. That's actually pretty nice, because 1. they won't have enchantment removal game 1, 2. they don't expect it, 3. it just autowins against so much that it might be worth it to take the risk of having a dead card game 1, when the reward is that you just win against the Top Tier decks like RUG. It's also nice against Maverick, because they will usually fetch for duals when they see we are on combo and the Moon shuts down their Karakas.
Very nice tech! I would love to hear Jason Jaco's insight, if he reads this. :-)

[JACO]

Congrats to Jason Jaco and Dresden Chung for their Top 16 finishs at SCG Open Madison!! Let's get back to Deck to beat

Edit: Wow, Blood Moon main. That's actually pretty nice, because 1. they won't have enchantment removal game 1, 2. they don't expect it, 3. it just autowins against so much that it might be worth it to take the risk of having a dead card game 1, when the reward is that you just win against the Top Tier decks like RUG. It's also nice against Maverick, because they will usually fetch for duals when they see we are on combo and the Moon shuts down their Karakas.
Very nice tech! I would love to hear Jason Jaco's insight, if he reads this. :-)

Ask and ye shall receive. I wrote a report on Eternal Central, which can be found here:
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2723

I talk about some of the thought process behind the deck, as well as quickly recount the matches throughout the day. Peep it!