[DTB] Sneak Attack

[rxavage]

The thread has taken a turn for the stupid.

REB and Pyroblast already answer Gilded Drake and Sower of Temptation right now. We bring them in against Blue decks (that, OMG!) play blue cards. Stifle has some merit against Karakas no doubt, but Blood Moon and Sneak Attack already beat that strategy.

Let's NOT discuss Brand please. As much as I love packing the deck with Saga rares and calling this Mono-Saga.dec, we shouldn't be boarding into Crater Hellion. At least not to beat Gilded Drake

Co-signed.

[Esper3k]

I don't think the Reanimator matchup is highly unfavorable, but definitely in their favor.

G1 is pretty rough, but we should have plenty of yard hate to bring in (since Dredge wrecks our shit) for G2 & 3. Their Show & Tell plan is pretty rough against us since most of our guys trump most of their guys.

Regarding Gilded Drake: If you want a card that's really dedicated for fighting stuff like that, try Not Of This World. I don't think there is enough hate like that yet in the meta, but notw stops much of the triggered ability stuff that people have been bringing in and it's faster than Stifle. Otherwise, the simple Show & Tell into Sneak Attack plan is pretty hilarious against Gilded Drakes as well - it's even funnier because when people have one in their hand, they'll tend to let your Show & Tell resolve to try and get a blowout.

Also, is anyone else really happy Lands won the last SCG? Looking at that list, I think we'd have an amazing matchup against it.

[Koby]

Also, is anyone else really happy Lands won the last SCG? Looking at that list, I think we'd have an amazing matchup against it.

Yes, the entire Top 8 too. I especially like that the Elf decks don't pack Emrakul anymore, since they don't like free wins apparently.

[Esper3k]

Yes, the entire Top 8 too. I especially like that the Elf decks don't pack Emrakul anymore, since they don't like free wins apparently.

The Elf decks actually made me sad because that matchup was really bad for us in my testing.

However, I am packing 2-3 Pyroclasms these days to burn small green & white creatures away, so I'm hoping that'll be enough for the pointy-eared bastards.

[Water_Wizard]

EDIT: oh, and this deck can't actually beat a first turn Liliana of the Veil. (Pox... LOL)

Can?

Our deck also has a much better counter-suite than Reanimator. After playing Reanimator this weekend, having Dazes and FOW as your only counters gets old. If you don't go off turn 2, Daze is about dead. Likewise, trying to protect Grisel is tough, since Reanimator only has 4 'hard' counters. Sneak and Shows Flusterstorms and Spell Pierces give the deck some additional utility vs. the field.

EDIT #2: According to TC Decks, Sneak Show is still #4 deck for June.*Subject to change*

Good point. As you mention, subject to change. S&S didn't place in yesterday's SCG. And it placed 10th and 12th in the Invitational last weekend and 11th and 14th in the Open last weekend. Not that SCG determines the world meta.

As tournament results from last weekend trickle into TC Decks over the next few days, it will be interesting to see how S&S did in other parts of the world.

Presently, it's looking like S&S came onto the scene in early May, peaked in mid/late May and early June, and is starting to wane. However, this is a small sample size. It could pick back up in July. Atlanta will be telling.

[Koby]

Nope, S&S cannot beat Liliana of the Veil. Discard is another reason why we have such a hard time against Reanimator too. We need practically every single card in our hand to be able to combo off. Take away one card and we're at least one turn slower.

[Water_Wizard]

Okay, I thought you were drawing a comparison between Reanimator and Sneak Attack - haste can escape a Liliana -2.

Going with your approximations from earlier, if Reanimator is 10% of the field, and Sneak and Show and 8%, Pox is 1%?

I'll take my chances...

[Lans89]

There are quite some sideboard choices for the deck... Which cards do you guys prefer the most? I currently run:

2x Through the Breach
2x Pyroclasm
1x Pyroblast
1x Red Elemental Blast
3x Surgical Extraction
3x Blood Moon
3x Echoing Truth

But I see a lot of 4x Leyline of Sanctity, 2x Vendilion Clique and/or 4x Leyline of the Void/Grafdigger's Cage/Relic of Progenitus in other people's sideboards. I can think of cutting 3x Surgical and 1x Echoing Truth (but I might need 3 as long as this deck is popular and hated) for different graveyard hate. But for Leyline of Sancity I could only cut the Blood Moons + something, while I really like Blood Moon. It's nice vs RUG, Maverick (fast Karakas) and I know quite some players who don't run basics at all!

[Water_Wizard]

The general consensus is against LoS because there isn't much discard or sac effects (like Liliana or Diabolic Edict) around these days, so the slots are better used on more frequent match-ups.

Your sideboard looks solid. I'm running much the same.

EDIT: I run 4 GY hate - 4 Relics, which I'm not sold on. I switched from Grafdigger's to Relic because I had a 'bad experience' with LftL (although Aggro Loam is that not common). However, Relic requires 2 mana and can be Pithing Needled. I may switch back to Cage, because we often need to use the graveyard hate before our next turn, which can be tough unless we have a Lotus Petal.

[Esper3k]

I run 5x graveyard hate cards, but that's mainly because I absolutely hate losing to graveyard based decks for some reason (probably because they're even cheatier than we are!).

[Koby]

I run 5x graveyard hate cards, but that's mainly because I absolutely hate losing to graveyard based decks for some reason (probably because they're even cheatier than we are!).

I would run 3 Crypt 2 Surgical in that case. They're all good against Reanimator and Dredge, while still having game against Loam and combo (Surgical).

[Esper3k]

I would run 3 Crypt 2 Surgical in that case. They're all good against Reanimator and Dredge, while still having game against Loam and combo (Surgical).

I've been doing a 3x Cage / 2x Relic split so far, which has seemed ok to me so far.

I haven't been horribly worried about Loam mainly because I feel like we should have the game won by the time they start durdling with Loam, imo.

[Deez_Naughts]

Here is my current board:

4x Grafdiggers Cage
3x Blood Moon
3x Echoing Truth
3x Red Elemental Blast
2x Through The Breach

I belive this to be the most optimal configuration against the current meta.

I'm playing in a large event this weekend, and will probably include one MD Wipe Away, so as to not insta-scoop to a game 1 Ensaring Bridge/Humility, which are seeing more and more play.

I'm also a strong proponent of 4x Spell Pierce main, as this card is bonkers right now. My counter suite consists of 4x Pierce, 4x FoW, 3x Misdirection. I'm also running the 9x cantrip package.

[Esper3k]

Here's what I've been running:

3x Vendilion Clique (there's almost no hate they can bring in that this card doesn't deal with)
2x Wipe Away
3x Pyroclasm (Testing this for the Maverick matchup. Doubles as Elves hate if that deck sees an uptick)
2x Through the Breach
3x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Relic of Progenitus

[Norm]

Here's what I've been running:

3x Vendilion Clique (there's almost no hate they can bring in that this card doesn't deal with)
2x Wipe Away
3x Pyroclasm (Testing this for the Maverick matchup. Doubles as Elves hate if that deck sees an uptick)
2x Through the Breach
3x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Relic of Progenitus

I've run Firespout and Volcanic Fallout over the last year and a half but haven't tried Pyroclasm, how do you like it? I would imagine that Thalia makes it a much better choice in our current meta.

[Esper3k]

I've run Firespout and Volcanic Fallout over the last year and a half but haven't tried Pyroclasm, how do you like it? I would imagine that Thalia makes it a much better choice in our current meta.

It's been alright, we're going to do heavier testing tonight with it vs Maverick.

You hit it on the head on why it should be better against Maverick in theory. From our testing, a lot of games to Maverick are lost when they have T2 Thalia out while holding a Knight in their hand (to protect from Show & Tell). That T2 Thalia just seems to buy them just enough time to get there against you. Much of the time, Maverick will also preemptively GSZ for a Pridemage or Teeg to back up Thalia, so you can oftentimes really get them with Pyroclasm.

In our sideboarding, Mother of Runes actually came out a lot over StP since you still have to have an answer to Grisselbrand (and the cards + 7 life may not do S&S enough to recover if you've been putting damage on them).

Playing against Maverick, I found that even a T2-3 Grisselbrand isn't enough against them. You can pretty much count on them having Knight and while you can still draw cards in response to Karakas, you're down a bunch of life and a Wasteland just destroys your chances of recovering since you don't have enough of a manabase to make use of all the cards you have.

[Norm]

It's been alright, we're going to do heavier testing tonight with it vs Maverick.

You hit it on the head on why it should be better against Maverick in theory. From our testing, a lot of games to Maverick are lost when they have T2 Thalia out while holding a Knight in their hand (to protect from Show & Tell). That T2 Thalia just seems to buy them just enough time to get there against you. Much of the time, Maverick will also preemptively GSZ for a Pridemage or Teeg to back up Thalia, so you can oftentimes really get them with Pyroclasm.

In our sideboarding, Mother of Runes actually came out a lot over StP since you still have to have an answer to Grisselbrand (and the cards + 7 life may not do S&S enough to recover if you've been putting damage on them).

Playing against Maverick, I found that even a T2-3 Grisselbrand isn't enough against them. You can pretty much count on them having Knight and while you can still draw cards in response to Karakas, you're down a bunch of life and a Wasteland just destroys your chances of recovering since you don't have enough of a manabase to make use of all the cards you have.

As someone who plays against Maverick frequently, I agree with the majority of your points. I also feel as though Blood Moon is a fantastic card to bring in against Maverick. Perhaps the appropriate boarding approach would be 3 Blood Moon and 2 Pyroclasm. This takes care of early Pridemages, and alternate sources of producing colored mana.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results of your testing, please share them when you have a chance. Thanks!

[Esper3k]

As someone who plays against Maverick frequently, I agree with the majority of your points. I also feel as though Blood Moon is a fantastic card to bring in against Maverick. Perhaps the appropriate boarding approach would be 3 Blood Moon and 2 Pyroclasm. This takes care of early Pridemages, and alternate sources of producing colored mana.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results of your testing, please share them when you have a chance. Thanks!

I'm already playing Blood Moon main (I really wanted to hedge my G1 chances against RUG & Maverick), which is why I wasn't mentioning boarding it in.

Blood Moon alone has been great against both RUG and Maverick. We just wanted to make the Maverick matchup even better, thus the Pyroclasm testing. If it pans out well, it'll also be a good card to have if there's an uptick in the number of Elf decks running around.

We're running very light on extra countermagic with this build (no Spell Pierces and we finally cut the Flusterstorms from the board). The idea is that in matchups where we'd want extra countermagic, Vendilion Clique works just fine (you EOT Clique them). Most blue decks will be bringing in countermagic that doesn't stop it (Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm) and of course, it gives you valuable information on what your opponent has.

Again, I'm really digging Clique right now because of people packing permanent based hate to drop off of your Show & Tell. When they're holding it in their hand giggling to themselves, your EOT Clique is pretty dream crushing.

[Koby]

Tested against Maverick last nite:

On the play:
3-2, losing every game I played Show & Tell

On the draw:
1-4, losing to Thalia and Teeg, not necessarily in the same games

Sideboard:
1-2 before the shop closed down

Like Esper mentioned, an early Griselbrand doesn't even matter most of the time. I'm starting to think that even with Blood Moon, it's not enough since Maverick can ignore it half the time with basics/Hierarch. In that regard, I'd rather play Pithing Needle which does two things:

1. Shuts down Karakas until they deal with it.
2. Costs . This is the most important point, since we ultimately don't have that much time to durdle when we have a great Show & Tell hand.

The idea is that we want to make Show & Tell a threat rather than a liability. It also allows us to do it on the same turn.

I still like the Pyroclasm idea too, as it kills Revoker, Thalia, Teeg, and Pridemage in anticipation of the Sneak Attack plan. I'm going to test new sideboard tonite.

4 Pithing Needle
4 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Through the Breach
2 REB/pyroblast
2 E-truth
1 Wipe away

[rxavage]

@Koby

Do you side in the cages against Mav?