Originally Posted by emidln
how relevant are the snapcasters/ the AN in the rug match? wouldn't you just want the some number of trops here somewhere? I could see maybe cutting another probe or the AN.
I would play this but getting my hands on 3 karakas in a reasonable time frame would be a challenge. But definitely dig it. decays and ruins are easy enough to get
When casting Abrupt Decay, you always need green and black. I don't need my green land to also tap for black.
I already play a 2nd Tendrils in my sb, in addition to being able to flash back via PiF/2x Snapcaster Mage.
ETW is garbage. You don't need it vs RUG. You don't want it vs Miracles, Dredge, Reanimator, anything that can cast Show and Tell (hint: Griselbrand has lifelink), Maverick, or anything BG-based. That leaves...Goblins? You probably don't want to cast it vs Goblins either.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
Timo Schunemann on UBR ANT
http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3216
Sloshthedark- Good find,thanks for posting
One thing I wished he addressed was why he didn't play any bounce in his board. Me personally I don't feel safe without atleast two bounce spells. It would just be cool to know his thought process on it.
Article was good though,liked his casual style of writing.
Thanks again.
I was a bit disappointed with that article. His general thought process seems to be, "draw the exact cards you need and don't be stupid." Gee, why didn't I think of that?
I did like the detail he went into about his sideboarding plans.
@emidln
Thanks for posting your list and SB plan. Looking forward to testing with it in the coming weeks.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Went to a small legacy tournament at Friendly Troll last night to gain some experience with this deck. I played the GP winning list with some small changes. In the maindeck, I cut the chrome mox for an extra underground sea and changed the two scalding tarns into two bloodstained mires as I wanted to get as many chances to get a basic swamp. In the sideboard, I played diabolic tutor instead of grim tutor because well, i don't have a grim tutor but i wanted to be able to burning wish for a tutor effect. Sure, a 4cc tutor is a lot but I couldn't find of another "good" tutor.
tournament was only 3 rounds which was nice as we'd finish early on a weeknight.
Round 1 - Dredge (2-0)
He was a new dredge player and wasn't sure what kind of hand to keep and had to mull to 4 both games. I just waited and sculpted a hand in game 1 and game 2 I played a turn 1 grafdigger's cage and he gave up.
Round 2 - Esper Stoneblade (0-2)
Game 1 was rather unfortunate as I was able to get him down to no cards in hand while my entire hand was mana and a combination of ponder and brainstorm. I burned through 3 probes, 3 ponders and 3 brainstorms and couldn't find any of my tutors or wishes which was pretty depressing. Game 2 was kind of weird. We were both just trading discard spells and he was able to draw into brainstorms before I was and that was pretty much the game. This matchup seems kind of brutal as if i can't find the right combo pieces fast enough, he's got access to discard and counterspells and snapcaster gets to rebuy both of those spells which really hurts. Not sure if i just had lousy luck against him or it's a hard matchup?
Round 3 - Bant (2-0)
Game 1 was a joke as i probed him on turn 1 and saw 2 cliques, 1 plows and lands. I immediately therapied the cliques away and then kept digging for my missing piece and he just drew nothing when I went off. Game 2 was a bit scary as he was able to resolve a turn 2 knight and I couldn't draw any fetchlands so my lands were all wasteable. There was one turn where I was tapped out and he had nothing of note in hand and he was about to untap with his knight. He drew a wasteland and killed one of my lands and then decided to attack with the knight which I thought was incorrect. I would have thought he would waste my other land and then he would have been able to apply real pressure. Instead, I had another land to play with on my next turn. On my next turn, I decided to go for it as I felt like I wouldn't have another land for a while but I didn't have enough mana to get a past in flames. I ended up having Bx8 floating and cast a burning wish with a tendrils in my hand. I was pretty sure he had a force in hand and I was all tapped out and storm was at 5 so my only win was wish for tendrils and then tendrils him twice. He ended up not forcing my wish as he thought he could force whatever I wished for and well, can't force all copies of tendrils!
The ANT deck was a lot more resilent than I expected. I was initially afraid of playing against decks that have around 10+ counterspells but with all the discard, it doesn't seem that bad. Esper stoneblade though seems like a tough matchup as the deck is proactive and reactive at the same time. Never got to use the diabolic tutor so i'm not sure how relevant it will be.
I have found Esperblade to be not hard at all. Sometimes, sure, they have t1 discard, t2 stoneforge w/ force... but they don't have that much of a clock and only a few of counters. I've been laying out the LEDs against them and just waiting patiently. Postboard, bring in a couple more discard spells and either hit counters or whatever equipment they tutored for, and they can only hit for a couple a turn.
Matt Bevenour in real life
I took emidln's list to GPSJ side events to terrorize the countryside. I went 4-1, and 3-3 in the two events. Matches in which I won, about half were no contest. Against RUG, Reanimator, it came down to heavy discard clearing the way to PIF winning.
My losses:
* Reanimator in Game 3 after both grinding each other out. Karakas was very very strong. I played against two Reanimator lists in the first event, and was able to crush the second match easily with Karakas.
* RUG in Game 3, when I was on the ropes against a quick Mongoose with Daze/Pierce/FOW backup. Turns out PIF isn't very good when you only have 1 CRit to flashback. (punts)
* Maverick in two games. Probe G1 seeing Thalia, Teeg, and GSZ, along with Hierarch and Wasteland. Ya, nice hand. G2 was more shenanigans. 1-of CotV @ 0 and Surgical Extraction on Brainstorm followed by Scavenging Ooze made my hand with 4 artifacts rather hopeless.
* Miracles, in Game 3 in which my opponent kept a no-land hand and proceeded to draw into both lands and Counterlock. I didn't have a 2nd land in play after 15 turns and lost to Jace lock.
Overall, the deck is very powerful. Along the way I was able to consistently win on Turn 2; beat Belcher with a lucky turn 1 Ad Nauseam (whiffed on combo, but drew enough Duress to lock him out from winning); and sideboard into the land plan to give a big WTF moment to alot of opponents. Aside from some of my bad keeps/math I think I did pretty well.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
Have definitely had that happen to me before. I guess since you probed it is kind of hard to scoop without info (he might put you on belcher?). but that is pretty rough.
how were the snapcasters? that is my only real question with the whole deck.
land plan seems great vs rug.
Against Belcher -
Game 1 on the play, Probe/Therapy on Belcher, turn 2, Snapcaster flashing back Probe, therapy again. Bought enough time to get a combo off.
Game 2 - lost on turn 1.
Game 3 - on the play, saw a turn 1 Ad Nauseam, went for it, stopped at 1 life trying to look for a 2nd I.M.S. to fire off CRits, and decided to just use the 1 remaining Petal to cast Duress and pass. Got there the next turn.
Snaps were fine, but a little slow and redundant. I think BWish is still better, as I felt many times my losses were caused by a lack of tutors. I am going for the following changes:
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Swamp
-1 Island
+2 Burning Wish
+1 Chrome Mox
+1 Badlands
Sideboard can stay the same, but I'm thinking that Dread of Night might just be better than Virtue's Ruin. Abrupt Decay can handle all their green threats, but can't handle against an active Mother of Runes. Thalia/wasteland/mana denial will be a real thing against them, so going with a cheaper solution seems more appropriate than trying to sweep on the big side. Abrupt Decay was very good too, and would have won my match against Miracles if I ever saw a 2nd land.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
On my limited testing BW -> Past in Flames, while I was casting Infernal Tutor to double up on LED/Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual was very good.
BW is worse than it is on TES, because the all-in on the DR is not a viable plan. And goblins is just not a thing now there's too much Batterkull/Terminus/random crap going on, and we don't even have Chant. But grabbing Tendrils/discard/Past in Flames is still very valuable.
I once suggested Augur of Bolas as Cabal Therapy fodder while giving you a pseudo-Ponder. The 1/3 body is also relevant and might save you some valuable life. On my testing it proved ok. It's kinda slow, but we've commited to the slower plan already. It could be a option if you need more disruption while keeping the threath density up. Wouldn't play more than 2 tough...
Snapcaster Mage casts what you want, not random stuff off the top. I win a lot of games by playing mini tendrils and following that up with Snapcaster on Tendrils (either that turn or the following turn).
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
This is why I like the UBr list. Having 8 threats (IT, BW, Ad Naus) vs. 6 threats (IT, Grim, Ad Naus) can really make a difference. Granted, you get two tutor hands more often but that means that you can burn the extra tutor to get protection/business or bait out a counter. Plus EtW allows you to get there with hands that might not make it otherwise. I find that this is especially important in tough MUs because winning quickly is sometimes superior to trying to out-discard all of their counters.
Speaking of sideboards, I currently have ~4 slots dedicated to killing white hatebears and I am using 2 Slaughter Pact and 2 Deathmark. Dread of Night has seemed a little lackluster to me because it doesn't kill 2 of the three main hatebears people bring in against us. Having a 1 mana Wish-able kill spell is pretty nice as well. Is there a reason people moved away from Slaughter Pact? It doesn't kill through Mom, but it does only cost 1 under Thalia which is pretty awesome.
Also, what are other people using for their Wish-able sweeper? I am still on Pyroclasm, mainly because it is the most mana efficient answer. Infest kills through Mom, is flexible like Pyro against creature decks, and is black which is much easier for the deck to generate. Virtue's Ruin kills through mom and equipment, but is dead against non-White creature decks where you may need a sweeper. Both Infest and Virtue's Ruin cost seven underneath a Thalia which is a ton of mana to generate. Pyroclasm is red which strains the manabase if you want to cast BW and Pyro in the same turn. I guess every solution gives up something somewhere.
I noticed that some lists were rocking a singleton Reverent Silence out of the board for Miracles in addition to some Xantid Swarms. Many lists were supporting this with a single Bayou/Tropical Island main. Having a Wishable answer to Counterbalance seems pretty good, but I don't know if it is worth the damage to the manabase for UBr lists. Maybe Abrupt Decay makes that plan obsolete but I still don't know if 3 color lists can really support another splash. Has anyone done any testing with this?
Tendrils of Agony is a business spell in lists with Snapcaster Mages, Gitaxian Probes, and Cabal Therapies. I win pretty much every game where I naturally draw Tendrils because casting it for lethal is so easy, even vs aggro.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
This is the 60 iv been playing for a wile now. Plan on playing it this weekend but I don't know I want the board to be. I haven't played competitively In 6 weeks.
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Gitaxion Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstaind Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of.
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grim Tutor(now a owner :) )
1 Empty of the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 I'll-Gotten Gains
2 Karakis
2 Grafediggers Cage
2 Echoing Thruth
3 Dread of Night
Not so sure on the Dread of Nights though.
I could work in Abrupt Decays but I haven't had time to test with them though.
Last edited by MTG Junkie; 10-18-2012 at 08:36 PM.
I too am going to a tournament this weekend. Maybe see you there if you are heading towards the PA area.
Not a fan of only 3 dread of nights (would like to see four) and running cage as the GY hate seems less optimal than simply surgical or extirpate. If it has been working for you though, more power to you.
In regards to ANT, I've been using this for sideboard:
1 Tendrils of agony
1 Grim tutor
1 Cabal therapy
1 Virtue's ruin
1 Inquisition of Kozelik
4 Dread of Night
1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the warrens
1 Tropical island
3 Abrupt Decay
I want to cut the Past for IGG and the empty for either another discard or an out to Leyline of Sanctity(like wipe away), but most of this board I haven't personally tinkered with in a while. Sound reasonable?
Last edited by Tammit67; 10-19-2012 at 03:14 AM.
Matt Bevenour in real life
I forgot to mention that Chain of Vapor is still insane for this deck. I almost want to run a second in the board or a maindeck copy.
West side
Find me on MTGO as Koby or rukcus -- @MTGKoby on Twitter
* Maverick is dead. Long live Maverick!
My Legacy stream
My MTG Blog - Work in progress
What, if anything, would you change from my above sideboard to fit it in? I had cut it since I'll expect more stoneblade and rug than most other archtypes, although a good bounce spell would be the 16th card.
Matt Bevenour in real life
Went to a small local tournament on Wed to test the deck out again. Went 0-3 and that was something I haven't experienced for quite a while. Lost to U/R Delver, Bant Enchantress and Deadguy. Game 3 against U/R Delver was pretty depressing, he only had a lavamancer for pressure and I had made him discard snapcaster, daze and spell pierce only to have him topdeck his miser's mindbreak trap while my hand was tutor, petal, ritual and LED. Was never able to find another discard spell and at the end, he found force + blue card to go along with the trap so I wasn't able to do anything. Perhaps I shouldn't have forced him to discard the daze as that could be played around with more ease and help up the discard spell until the combo turn.
Game 1 against enchantress was equally depressing. I stripped his hand in the first three turns and then he manages to topdeck Enchantress's Presence, Solitary Confinement, Mirri's Guile and Rest in Peace in that order and was able to cast them in each turn. I had a hand where I could kill after the turn he played confinement but oh well. Game 3 was even worse. I kept a hand of a couple of discard spells and actually had a combination of rituals and tutor only to have him play turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity to blank all of my discard and tendrils. So I think to myself, I'll have to kill eith Empty the Warrens, no problem. Then he plays turn 2 Rest in Peace and I'm like ugh, ok this EtW will be kind of small. Then he goes turn 3 Energy Field and I no longer have a way of winning. I
guess I could have a copy of Reverent Silence in the board for these weird matchups.
Game 1 against Deadguy, he took my tutor and cabal ritual with Tidehollow Scullers and made me discard another ritual. On my last turn I needed to peel a Burning Wish to win, I manage to topdeck a Probe into Burning Wish and then manage to play all my rituals, wish for Pyroclasm, cast Pyroclasm to get back my ritual and tutor, then tutor for Past in Flames, cast rituals again and tutor for tendrils. First time I ever used the Pyroclasm from the sideboard and it felt great. Game 2 he played an early Tormod's Crypt which I thought I could play around fairly easily but it seemed way harder than it should have? Anyways, I was thinking about playing EtW on my next turn when he topdecks an Ethersworn Canonist and I just die to lethal damage next turn. Game 3, I make him discard a Runed Halo(!!!), leaving him a Inquistion, two Tidehollows, a Hymn, a Wasteland and a Swamp. I then make him discard a Hymn the next turn and then his following turns he goes, Tidehollow, Hymn, Tidehollow, Stoneforge, Bob, Batterskull. I guess that's his god hand and there's really nothing much I can do there? I think I also sideboarded wrong in this matchup since I brought in two inquisitions and a duress and kept my two maindeck duresses as well where I should have boarded out my two duresses and replaced it with the two inquisitions as the majority of his hate are either hate bears or cards <= 3cc.
I then played some practice matches against U/W Miracles with countertop in the main. I thought counterbalance without top would be relatively easy to play against but man, the miracles deck has a lot of zeros, ones and twos and he just kept owning me with blind flips. Post board it got a bit better with the three extra discard spells as it got easier to take Counterbalance or Top from his
hand on turns one and two. I think we played around 8 games overall and we went around 50/50 split? It's definately not crazy bad as I expected unless they get turn 2 countertop assembled.
About sideboarding, has anyone else been displeased with siding out Gitaxian Probes? I'm not playing the singleton Chrome Mox in the main so all night long I was boarding out three Probes and that just felt really wrong. In my sideboard games, I just felt like I had a hard time filtering through the deck even though I still had 4 Ponders, 4 Brainstorm and a Probe left. Plus when I draw multiple Burning Wishes in post board games, it seems like there's nothing to get if you need to develop your hand. I feel like I might want to side out a Probe, a Cabal Ritual and an Infernal Tutor instead.
I'm also feeling underwhelmed with Empty the Warrens. It seems like every deck has some sort of hate against tokens and giving them 2-3 turns to find an answer is just bad. Sometimes I wish that I had more answer cards in the sideboard like a Deathmark or a Massacre so the Wishes get more useful.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
