Along the lines of Choke, just want to point out that Raking Canopy is an efficient answer to most of Miracle's win conditions (Entreat obviously as well as random Vendilion Cliques). I'm not sure if it has further answers against the meta aside from Lingeringsouls.dec however.
With stuff like Pithing Needle, Choke, Canopy...is an Enlightened Tutor sideboard a viable option? I know DnT sometimes runs this option
I see you're a former Rector-Fit player after all.Originally Posted by Claymore
E Tutor has always been debatable in D&T circles, primarily because it eats up 3-4 slots to be useful, can cause counterspells to two-for-one, constrains your draws, etc. etc. That said, as GSZ shows, virtual copies are powerful.
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
Neat card - definitely wrecks most of their win conditions if they're not playing the SFM builds. I like Choke a little more just because it also has application for the BUG control decks and slower heavy blue combo decks like High Tide or Show & Tell decks (where we have so many bad cards against them).
I used to run an eTutor board but was finding that I was really only using the eTutors for the combo matchups since vs decks with countermagic, eTutor is rough due to the card disadvantage we generate. Normally against the fast aggro decks like Goblins, eTutor would be fine but I find that we have so much removal right now (especially if you're playing Jitte), eTutor isn't really needed. Since I was only bringing it in vs combo, I decided for now to have a more generalized sideboard that could be applicable vs more decks (but of course no haymaker silver bullets like what the eTutor board gets you).
True. Those decks don't change. They will continue to be the same 75-ish cards. It's the way they interact and the things they consider threats that changes from match to match. If we could considered everything deck the same as the others in it's type, we'd be able to adjust to everything with ease and never have to adapt when something new came out. We could just use the tech for it's type to solve the problem.
Anywho, that 'required adjustment' is why you don't test your theory cards in other decks. You test them in the deck(s) you're planning on playing them in and trying not to mixing the results as best you can. This becomes especially important when you're talking about sideboard cards. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't sideboard my against Bant the same way you sideboard against another Rock deck. Why do you expect the other decks to?
I'm going to ignore the quick jab at me for posting after going out. I'm assuming you're not old enough too, due to your comment so I'd just like to try and pass on some knowledge that usually takes people a while to learn, "Just because you go out drinking doesn't mean you have to get drunk." I'm just super lazy, so any excuse to get around editing works for me.So are you stating that Thrun has been great for you? Or are you just misreading and misinterpreting everything I said because you like to post while drunk. I found Thrun to be bad against the field, and definitely not worth a slot. That's the point I was trying to make.
I have read your comments. Summary? You got burned by Thrun in Bant and think that translates to Rock and every other mid-ranged deck that plays Knight and some form of accelerate. Also, Every Rock deck plays 4 Bird-like creatures and knight. - You've basically created your own stereotype for the idea of two decks.
Back on topic.
I'm stating that Thrun Looks better that Garruk to me. I haven't tried Thrun recently.
Even though he didn't work out for you, I'm going to be testing him shortly. Again, 1 main + 1 board. I already have the room as my test list from this last tournament had Garruk on those slots. I'll let anyone who want's to know. It'll probably be after Denver.
Tinkering with some crafting theory. Here
I've tried Grisly Salvage...it creates a situation where you'd rather be playing B/g Loam-Pox. Once you utilize the graveyard that much, getting to full consistency with 4x Loam becomes better. Then comes Bloodghast, Smallpox, Raven's Crime, maybe even Worm Harvest. I found it split the deck in too many directions. I've done Loam-Rock several times with multiple Raven's Crime/Loam, and it CAN work...but Delver and Show and Tell both outclass it, for the most part. It's a grind-control deck in a format where the control is much faster, and better (Miracles, tempo decks, BUG)
Grisly Salvage is good in modern because of two reasons:
1) General lack of graveyard-based decks, therefore most decks aren't playing hoser cards but rather targeted removal like Extirpate and Surgical Extraction. You can play through those just fine.
2) It's a fantastic cantrip in Modern where the better dig cards cost more than one mana (Thirst for Knowledge, Forbidden Alchemy, Compulsive Research, Gifts Ungiven.) The lack of Wasteland, good countermagic, and a general lack of grave hate all make it good.
For legacy? It's just not good enough. Library outshines it by about a million and a half. I also feel that whatever sort of graveyard synergy ends up into my yard will get killed by opposing Shamans. Shamans are everywhere these days, you can't just take into account your own Shamans. You need to view the metagame in light of EVERYBODY using Shaman. Most decks aren't using Shaman with Scryb Ranger (don't know why...) but it helps you outclass opposing once-a-turn shaman activations. Imagine if you had a creature that would let you activate Liliana or Garruk twice in a turn, but isn't bad like Rings of Brighthearth? Shaman is a one-mana planeswalker, and doubling up is good.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
It's Christmas, so I'll post the rough draft (as in, the FIRST draft) of my second article in here for all to view. Constructive comments are suggested since this was literally written in one go. I won't normally do this, but since it's Christmas and my editor is on vacation, it might mean we would not get a chance to discuss this before Denver. Enjoy...and Merry Christmas to all!
"Welcome back to this edition of Talking Shop. Today’s article will continue where the previous article left off regarding the sideboarding in Junk and the reasoning behind my choices used in the StarCityGames Seattle tournament. Since the first Grand Prix of 2013 is a Legacy Grand Prix in Denver, Colorado, USA, I will explore some of the possible sideboard choices not only for Junk, but also as a general metagame analysis.
Sideboard Materials
After the mainboard choices explained in the previous article (a link here: ) comes the sideboard. This again looks like another mish-mash of three copies here, two copies there. Remember, Junk is trying to fight a game against Combo of some kind, Graveyard-based strategies, Miracles, Maverick, RUG, and some BUG at the time of this tournament in mid-November 2012. Junk has the advantage of having a very even game against many decks in the format postboard due to the varying types and amounts of disruption, removal, and pressure, meaning the sideboard has to just shore up certain matchups to a greater extent. Few matchups are very lopsided when playing Junk.
First, we need to hate out graveyard based strategies if they are a concern in your metagame. In a large tournament, a player can always expect to run into a few graveyard based decks such as Reanimator, Dredge, or some other graveyard-based deck. Not everyone thinks Dredge is a problem, but I knew the Seattle metagame is always ripe with graveyard based strategies and combo due to having played in the area several times previous to this tournament. Since Junk is in Black, White, and Green, we have some answers to graveyard strategies. Junk is already running Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze in the main at this point in time, so we have three to five mainboard semi-graveyard hate slots, since at the very minimum, instants, sorceries, and creatures can be removed. I usually like to run at least three more in the board, since I think it is a matchup that Junk can easily win by running a few additional pieces of hate in the sideboard. My favourite here was Surgical Extraction since it also has applications in the Combo matchups which I will talk about later. If one expected a ton of 43 Lands or a counter heavy strategy, I would suggest Extirpate just to avoid awkwardness with cycling lands allow Dredge triggers (which will fizzle your Surgical Extrations) or Counterspells. Junk is so heavy in black that the two life compared to. A single black mana isn’t too much of a concern, especially with the addition of Deathrite Shaman. I opted for Surgical Extraction because against Combo you do not have time to get the correct or appropriate amounts of mana due to the speed of some combo decks, like TES.
The second major archetype you can expect in a major tournament is Combo. You cannot ignore this pivotal archetype, whether it’s Elves Combo, OmniTell, Sneak and Show, or even High Tide. Again, I wanted cards to overlap in usefulness so I could cover as many bases as possible. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is very good against any combo requiring many pieces to go off, like ANT, TES, Sneak Attack to some extent, OmniTell, and others. Thalia doesn’t shine as much against High Tide, Elves, and other esoteric combo decks. Many of these decks either run bounce or have excessive amounts of mana, or bounce effects. Thalia is also decent against everything else due to its taxing effects, but is also good against Junk in this current iteration. Yes, it is true. Junk is a deck of approximately fifteen creatures and the answer cards are mostly spells. Thalia hinders Junk to some extent, but in the matchups where Junk cares the most, it should hinder the opponent more than you. Plus, it does not do a ton of work against Miracles since they can pay the Thalia tax effect and still force through a Terminus. To cover this, I have dusted off my old friends: Hymn to Tourach and Gaddock Teeg. Gaddock Teeg nicely shuts down Omni Tell, Miracles, TES to some extent, and does work against High Tide. Hymn hits Miracles hard and nicely paves the way for Surgical Extraction if need be, as well as being good against Combo and random decks running high converted mana cost bombs. Hymn hasn’t been good for the past little bit since fetching double duals into Turn-2 Hymn was dangerous because of Daze and Wasteland, as well as the redundancy Maverick had meant Hymn hit two cards, but they didn’t care as much as you hoped. Hymn against Miracles is pretty good, hitting either lands or removal or bombs. Gaddock Teeg absolutely ruins Miracles. They MUST dig for Swords to Plowshares or Karakas to remove him. In the meantime, you can attempt to apply pressure with large creatures. I would run a playset if I could, but if you are a Maverick player, consider at least two or three in your 75 so you can start beating Miracles. It’s a simple addition that goes a long way.
Next, we must hate out aggro decks in some fashion. RUG Delver is not our best matchup, but luckily, RUG is losing popularity due to the riding of the Aggro BUG archetype. In fact, out of the big three, I’d rather face Miracles and Maverick than RUG. RUG just has so many counters and mana denial, it is just frustrating. In this matchup, with Deathrite being a nice fixer, you can run Hymn to help batter them, as well as Timely Reinforcements. If Timely resolves, you negate about three or four cards, which is huge since they have a lot of reach in the burn spells that they play. The main problem is getting your answers cards and even just your threats to resolve. If you expect a bunch of Burn or UR Delver, I’d say run Timely Reinforcements as a good counter to their strategy. However, the RUG strategy in Legacy is waning, and I do not want to board cards but a matchup that I am very doubtful to see, especially in Denver. I felt like Timely Reinforcements this was the weakest card in the board all day at SCG Seattle since I never used it but it is one of the best at what it is doing. I think running another piece of removal or something else would be fine, but I also wanted an out to straight Mono Red Burn. Pernicious Deed is our other out to aggro decks. Elves, Merfolk, and Goblins hate to see Deed, as does Affinity, Dredge, and Enchantress, to name a few. It does a ton of work against a ton of decks, and it’s one of the reasons to run a BWG deck. Engineered Explosives is also an option as of late with the resurrection of Esper Stoneblade to combat Miracles via Lingering Souls and Equipment.
My cards to board for Maverick used to be Dread of Night, but I didn’t need it anymore since Lingering Souls went by the wayside at the time of the tournament. Virtue’s Ruin, aside from Pernicious Deed, is the best answer I’ve found to Maverick. It kills all the cards you card about: Knight, Qasali, Linvala, Thalia, Mom, Aven Mindcensor (if it was necessary...), Stoneforge Mystic, etc. while leaving the creatures that you can deal with easily, like Noble, Ooze, Scryb Ranger, etc. Virtue’s Ruin only kills your Knight, whereas Perish kills most of your guys while killing few of Maverick’s relevant threats. Perish is nice to have against Elves, but Virtue’s Ruin does my work against Maverick, doesn’t kill you, and has game against Death and Taxes should you encounter it (more on this later). Ulvenwald Tracker is also here for the creature matchups along with the Garruk Relentless. Tracker tilts creature combat in your favour, and with Deathtouch Wolf tokens, can get very interesting. If you do not believe he is that good, you are exactly the way I was until I saw him in combat. When he is good, he is very good, even if you do not have a Garruk, Veil-Cursed online. Having “two” Knights in combat is pretty great, especially when you can use it as an opening to use instant speed removal against Mother of Runes. The Garruk Relentless is not only there for Maverick, but is also there for the other control matchups, such as Esperblade and Miracles where you want tokens or just a bit of extra control in the mid and long game.
The main point I wanted to get across was that a good sideboard can only be built after much testing is done against relevant matchups you expect to face. Many people pre-emptively build a sideboard without much testing only to discover weaknesses in this strategy. A player must anticipate matchups that can be expected in the tournament they are playing in and should ideally tune between two different tournaments. My sideboard for my local weekly Legacy tournaments cannot be the same as the sideboard I take to a large 250-man event just due to statistics. In a large tournament, one can assess if it is worth running two cards in the sideboard for a matchups. The questions that must be asked are: 1) Do I expect to see this matchup enough to warrant the inclusion of answers in the sideboard, and 2) Are the cards that I have in the sideboard for that matchup relevant enough to the matchup to make a significant impact?
One may fear Mono-Red Burn as a Junk deck, and this is perfectly normal as it is one of the few hard matchups for the Junk player since there is very little creature based interaction. If two cards are used in the sideboard, they may not be enough to actually sway the matchup. Maybe seven cards are needed to actually turn the matchup around, but at that point, is the benefit worth the cost? In a local Legacy weekly, this might be true. You may know that you always face Burn in the finals and lose due to your under preparation. But, in a large tournament, you must weigh the likelihood of facing the matchup with the limited sideboard space you have available to you. If you know you are likely to encounter TES in a large 200-man tournament, but the three sideboard slots you have left will not be adequate, it may be wise to shore up other matchups instead of wasting your precious space on a matchup that may be dreadful for you. This is not to say we should throw away matchups, but try to find cards that overlap in multiple matchups to maximize the usability of the cards in your sideboard, unless you need specific hate for a specific deck which you plan to face often. In my case, Timely Reinforcements should have been more Combo or Miracles hate, since the two Timely Reinforcements tend not to sway the Burn matchups as much as I had hoped, since the likelihood of seeing a copy in a game isn’t as much as I would like.
Now that we are all a bit more aware of how to make sure our sideboard is constructed specifically for the event in which we enter, the current state of Legacy should be discussed regarding large tournaments in preparation for Denver.
The Boogeymen of Denver and (Christmas) Miracles
As of December 2012, Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay have attracted the attention of BUG players throughout the Legacy scenes across the globe. Combining card draw and manipulation with a very solid creature and uncounterable removal has led to the creation of a very consistent Black, Green, Blue deck. Miracles is still fighting back to counter this threat to its Counterbalance-based dominance, Esperblade is seeing a resurrection to combat Terminus with Lingering Souls, while Maverick lies dormant in a shallow grave of Termini and Abrupt Decays. To be blunt, the expected boogeymen of GP Denver in January 2013 should be BUG Midrange and Aggro, different Miracles brews, Esperblade, Goblins, and Combo in some form.
BUG
The new kid on the block is BUG midrange and Aggro (previously known as Team America). These decks are coupling hand disruption, Abrupt Decay, Deathrite Shaman, and Brainstorm to achieve great consistency with cards of excellent value. This has been a very good combination so far. In fact, BUG has pretty much pushed RUG out of the format at this point in time due to the uncounterable removal and life gain. RUG has a hard time keeping up unless it runs at least eight burn spells to combat Deathrite Shamans. So, BUG must be explored to see where its weaknesses lie in order to properly attack those weaknesses. Reid Duke’s BUG midrange deck is what I feel is the best iteration of BUG at this point in time. It’s got some nice early pressure with discard along with many threats that must be answered. It runs Dark Confidant, Jace, Brainstorm, AND Ponder to find cards. This is more than most decks in the format. This deck is going to find its Abrupt Decays and Deathrite Shamans while disrupting your hand and beating your deck down with Tarmogoyfs. However, this deck does have weaknesses.
First, it only has four Abrupt Decays and no other removal spells. Which threats does a BUG deck answer with Abrupt Decay compared to leaving in play? BUG cannot remove a four-CMC permanent and up but does break up Counterbalances well. If you can overload BUG on must-answer permanents, you break up their plan. Their long game consists of Jace and Deathrite Shaman, so if a Junk deck can deal with Jace, then we can conquer them with superiour threats. Their Deathrite Shamans can get tied up in webs of Deathrite Shaman wars (where Shaman targets are removed by other Shamans in response to activations of abilities). A good way to answer Jace in the long game is a way to disable Jace. Pithing Needle is an answer, as is Maelstrom Pulse or Vindicate. Lingering Souls can get around their few creatures, of which most do not fly to ping away at their Planeswalkers to prevent long term leverage.
Second, the deck has an atrocious manabase. The manabase has gotten better over the past weeks especially in midrange builds such as Reid Duke’s, but the aggro versions running Delver of Secrets play zero basic lands, which means explosive, but not consistent, development. To fight against this greedy manabase, this is the perfect time for Blood Moon to make a splash on the Legacy scene. Remember what I said in the last article: never lose to Blood Moon. You do not need to, nor should you ever lose to that card if you prepare your deck’s manabase correctly. Blood Moon is not a good card in itself, but is only good by virtue of the fact it punishes greedy manabases. An astute Miracles player should be running Blood Moons in their sideboard for Denver. The fact is not that it is unexpected, but most people do not care to prepare even if the card is a possibility in the format. Blood Moon crushes BUG’s manabase while not affecting Miracles’ at all. The red splash is already common and powerful due to the inclusion of Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast, as well as using Engineered Explosives on three. Whether or not you are a Junk player, BUG player, or a Miracles player, you should be running this card and/or preparing for it. BUG can play around Blood Moon by always floating Abrupt Decay mana, or having multiple Deathrite Shamans up to create mana. This is a legitimate option, but when I was testing Blood Moon against BUG, BUG had to play very carefully and slowly to avoid getting Blood Mooned out of the game. While I was on BUG trying to pressure and keep Blood Moon off the table, the Miracles player gained advantage by my playing around Blood Moon, much like a RUG player could gain advantage against an opponent playing around Daze.
Prepare for Blood Moon by running basics lands and fetching them in matchups where it is relevant. Basic lands also help against Wasteland, which I recall being a relevant card in format.
ESPERBLADE
The resurgence in Esperblade rests solely on the phantasmal shoulders of Lingering Souls and Equipment. Esperblade hasn’t been a real deck in a long time due to the fact Miracles just pummeled certain decks so much harder than Esperblade did, and Lingering Souls became hated out. Dread of Night shut down both Maverick and Lingering Souls tokens, and the rest of the deck became very subpar because of this. Now that Miracles is top tier, Souls tokens can be used to fight Terminus and so far, the deck been doing an alright job at doing just that.
To the prospective BUG and Junk players, we should not be terribly worried about this matchup. The Souls tokens can be dealt with via Golgari Charm, Pernicious Deed, Engineered Explosives, Engineered Plague, Maelstrom Pulse, etc. The Miracles players may have a tougher time hating them out, which could lead to a divide between a UWb and UWr Miracles split. Black Miracles could run Dread of Night or Engineered Plague (which also hates out another bad matchup, Goblins) to combat Souls while running some discard to take care of the more awkward Combo matchups. The Black Splash is definitely better against Souls and Goblins due to the inclusion of Plague, but the Red Splash also has access to Sulfur Elemental. Sulfur Elemental is much more limited in its hate to Souls tokens and Maverick, but the side benefits of Red, including Pyroblast and Blood Moon, making Red Miracles a more likely choice for GP Denver, and honestly, the one players should be fearing most.
GOBLINS
As much as it seems like a misnomer, a creature deck can be a good matchup if one expects to see Miracles in the room. Goblins, the premiere aggro deck in the format in my opinion due to its speed and consistency has a good matchup against Miracles due to this simple fact: it plays tons of creatures and constantly spits them out. Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls ensure some Goblins cannot be countered, and many of those Goblins create advantages for subsequent Goblins that hit the field. The most important of these are Goblin Warchief, Goblin Ringleader, and Goblin Matron. Warchief makes other Goblins cost less, and along with Haste effects, means opponents can face down many more attacking Goblins than they expect in a given turn. Goblin Ringleader clears out chaff at the top of the deck, ensuring more Goblins are drawn later, or draws one to four Goblins immediately, allowing a hand refill after a sweeper effect. Most decks struggle to recover from a Terminus or Supreme Verdict, but a Goblin Matron searching for Ringleader or a naturally casted Goblin Ringleader can Ancestral Recall the Goblins player into a very advantageous position and possibly negate the sweeper effect that just happened. Miracles only plays three Terminus and possibly a Supreme Verdict and/or an Engineered Explosives. Goblins can run headlong into these spells and recover, putting Miracles into an awkward position. This is why Miracles’ sideboard includes more sweepers, as well as a Moat if cost isn’t as much of an issue.
Goblins does suffer from hate, though. Engineered Plague really hurts Goblins since they have few permanent pump effects and the fact that Plague may become common as people start to run hate against Lingering Souls tokens. Goblins will be a better deck is the Red Splash Miracles deck stays popular in the GP. BUG should not have much of an issue with Goblins since most decks are running three Engineered Plague, along with the maindeck Abrupt Decays. Junk can also run Plague if deemed necessary, but Deed, Golgari Charm, and Engineered Explosives can also work. In my opinion, I feel like most decks are going to be running Engineered Plague to combat Lingering Souls, and the number of Goblins will be adversely affected by this splash hate, further making Miracles a good choice in the tournament.
COMBO
I will only talk about this briefly because this archetype is both favoured and hated at the same time in the current metagame. Most BUG decks at the moment are running few, if any, counterspells mainboard, and are instead relying on sideboard Force of Wills to save them. Dusting off old Combo decks might be an attractive proposition, since it is possible to win many game one’s and then sideboard well to win game two.
In contrast to this format openness, Miracles is still running Counterbalance and Top, which is one of the worst things a Storm-Combo player can run in to. This combo is not unbeatable, especially since Abrupt Decay is making an appearance in many sideboards and Miracles is a glacially slow Control deck, but it should be noted that Combo is not totally free to do its bidding upon the format. Goblin Charbelcher decks, in my opinion, seem very well positioned due to the current adage of three maindeck Force of Will in Control decks and zero Force of Wills in some BUG lists. Charbelcher combo allows you to combo off prior to Counterbalance lock being achieved (ideally) while simultaneously running into the lowest amount of Force of Wills in the format in a long time. If you are running a blue deck, make sure your sideboard has some Spell Pierces or Flusterstorms handy in case. If you are not blue, make sure you can either deal with tokens or the Charbelcher itself.
(CHRISTMAS) MIRACLES
Finally we come to the greatest boogeyman of Legacy for the past several months, Miracle Control. Miracles is a great deck for several reasons. One: it is a blue deck with a ton of card manipulation and card draw, meaning it can see a ton of cards and find the answers it needs to for certain problems during a given game. Two: it kicks Legacy right where it has been primarily focused for the last several years, the combat step. By beating up on creature based decks, you pretty much have a stranglehold on a large portion of the format. Few decks forego creatures to win the game. Coupled with beating up on creature decks using a one-mana Wrath of God, Miracles runs the Counterbalance-Top soft-lock to extrude long term advantage over the course of the game by controlling the stack. As I talked about in the previous article, Miracles has changed its decklist over the past few months and now has a Counterbalance curve with more threes and fours. This less one and two-CMC centric Counterbalance curve gives the Miracles deck more game against more decks in the format over a large portion of the game. Counterbalance in previous days may have been negated when people started dropped their Knight of the Reliquary and Vindicates, but this is no longer the case. Three: the deck runs many basic lands to avoid the effects of Wasteland. Wasteland significantly impacts deck construction due to restricting how your deck develops, especially in the early game. Miracles can fetch basics easily and often to ensure Wasteland is never a problem to properly contructing a zone of protection by whatever means the Miracles player is doing (either Counterbalance and/or Rest in Peace Combo).
Miracles seems to be at the right place and at the right time in the metagame by having access to the right tools for the jobs that many Legacy decks are trying to do. Rest in Peace is a great answer to graveyard strategies, Deathrite Shaman, and Tarmogoyf, while also enabling the Helm of Obedience kill condition. Consistent mana allows access to Blood Moon, and in the right colours to easily find it and protect it. Counterbalance and Terminus protect this slow deck while it builds up to an Entreat the Angels or Jace, the Mind Sculptor kill. With a deck so well positioned within what we know as the core values of Legacy, how does one fight the enemy with the perfect armour? If Miracles is a knight with chainmail armour, players must expand our pool of knowledge and cards to find the longbow that will pierce that armour.
Attacking the Miracles player’s manabase seems to be an exercise in futility by most attempts. Even six basics can have a Wasteland player in a tizzy, since Wasteland is for the most part negated. Against Miracles, you want to make sure to hold Wastelands to do a few things. Keep the Miracles player off white (if they have not fetched a Plains yet). No white mana means the inability to cast Swords to Plowshares and Terminus. Keeping Miracles off two white mana prevents the miracle cost of Entreat the Angels. If the deck is running Karakas, I would suggest a pre-emptive Wasteland to prevent repeated use of Venser, Shape Savant and Vendilion Clique. If Academy Ruins is being used to repeatedly Engineered Explosives, make sure that is also gotten rid of. If you do not currently have suitable targets for Wasteland, hold them. Do not waste your Wasteland on extra Tundras when they have multiple stable white sources.
Next, attack Terminus. Vendilion Clique is very useful against Miracle triggers, as is Stifle. If you do not have access to blue, either shut Terminus off by prevents a high value X-for-1. Play few creatures that each require an answer, forcing them to waste Terminus (like a large Knight of the Reliquary or a Shroud creature), or use recurring sources of damage like Lingering Souls. Gaddock Teeg prevents the Miracles player from using Terminus and makes them dig for Swords to Plowshares. If you can couple your Gaddock Teeg with an open Karakas to dodge Swords to Plowshares, you may be on to something against that matchup. Token generation is also another possibility to run out the Miracle player’s Termini. Tokens can be removed, but again recurring advantage against this deck. Garruk Relentless; Elspeth, Knight-Errant; and Garruk, Primal Hunter all provide creature tokens while mostly dodging the common Counterbalance numbers. Bigger tokens close the games more quickly which is ideal, since as the game drags on longer and longer, the more likely a high valued Entreat the Angels becomes, negating your gameplan entirely.
Attacking Counterbalance to clear the way for threats is also a legitimate strategy against Miracles. Miracles relies heavily on the Counterbalance lock to protect its threats. Counterbalance will be left in even against Abrupt Decay, even if this seems counterintuitive. If an opponent has the Abrupt Decay, they have 1-for-1’d the Miracle player and they sit at parity. If the opponent does not have Abrupt Decay, the Miracles player can attempt to use Counterbalance to counter other spells and becomes an increasing source of card advantage as time wears on and more spells are countered, leading to an X-for-1 situation until the Counterbalance is destroyed. Many players think about dealing with the Counterbalance and the Counterbalance only. The card that is actually leaving opponents in the dust is Sensei’s Divining Top. If you’ve played Miracles without a Top in play, the game is usually very miserable and usually results in a loss. This is why many times turn zero Thoughtseizes against Miracles are met with Force of Wills to fight over the Top. Top allows the facilitation of miracle cards as well as the Counterbalance lock. The lynchpin of the deck is Sensei’s Divining Top. Disable the Top and you are met with a deck that can’t find its X-for-1’s at the proper time. To disable Sensei’s Divining Top, use cards like Pithing Needle, Chalice of the Void, Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek,Phyrexian Revoker, Stony Silence, or even Abrupt Decay in response to Top’s draw trigger.
The late game of Miracles is ruled by Jace in some fashion. Jace either draws more answers until Entreat the Angels or the Helm Combo can be found or is used directly to fateseal an opponent and lead to victory. These paths to victory can each be separately addressed, but leads back to Sensei’s Divining Top. Top finds their Jaces, combo pieces, or Entreat the Angels. To deal with Jace, you can have many attackers, Needle effects, Gaddock Teeg, Thoughtseize, Spell Pierce, Vindicate effects, or other Planeswalkers. Combo pieces for the Helm Combo can be dealt with via Abrupt Decay, hand disruption, or once again, Counterspells. Entreat the Angels can be dealt with using an Engineered Explosives set to zero prior to any angels, Maelstrom Pulse, Gaddock Teeg, Raking Canopy, or dealt with like any other Miracle trigger with Stifle or Vendilion Clique. If you know the decks you expect to see in the tournament you plan to play in, pick a win condition you plan to deal with.
Miracles has to be attacked from many angles to be beaten in a decisive fashion. It has access to many different answers while simultaneously being good against the typical Legacy strategy. Some mix of Pithing Needles, Planeswalkers, tokens, hand disruption, Vendilion Cliques and Stifles, while backed with a clock and a solid manabase can lead you to victory against your Miracles opponents. The question really is which of these strategies can you feasibly run with given your deck design, how many slots can you dedicate, are those slots worth the investment, and do you expect the matchup? No deck in the format right now does all of these things, nor would they want to. You could make a deck that was super great against Miracles (this deck is called BUG Control) but will have a very bad time against the rest of the format. The real decider comes down to have answers to the matchups your deck fears and testing those answers to determine the value of your investment."
I enjoyed reading that and Happy Holidays back at you.
Now attempting to make constructive comments ...
Being prepared for Blood Moon with extra Basics is a good suggestion. You seemed to be trying to build the article up to finishing on Miracles (which was nice); however half your EsperBlade review really seemed to about the Miracle deck. You also talked about not spending too many sideboard slots for Burn unless you play in a meta with a lot of it and then do not list any suggestions for what to play other than Timely Reinforcements.
Article also seemed to lack a summary/conclusion. Something like a suggested sideboard of
3-4 Hymns (vs Combo, Miracles)
3-4 Engineered Plagues (Vs Tribal, Lingering Souls)
1-2 Golgari Charm (Goblins, Souls, Supreme Verdict)
and so on...
My Legacy Decks of choice: Pox, Miracles, D&T or Lands.
Online Trading Reference Checker
Yeah, the article isn't done. This was literally the alpha of the thing. Or, I guess, pre-alpha. There will be a summary and review of what you should be running as a board.
-Matt
Definitely a great read, and Happy Holidays (belated or no) to all!
My only point of criticism is on the part of the RUG Delver not being our best matchup. I disagree; I believe it to be a very positive matchup, because of (as pretty much everyone has been saying) Abrupt Decay and Deathrite Shaman. Shaman's obviously crazy good against that deck, and Decay ensures you survive Delvers or win Goyf fights. The only element of that deck that concerns me is Stifle and maybe Submerge from the board.
In my boarding, I usually subtract 4 thoughtseize for 3 extirpate and a scavenging ooze.
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
For me, I'm actually a fan of keeping in our 1 mana hand disruption spells against RUG simply because they preemptively deal with things like Submerge or even Force of Will, which allow them to keep our bombs (read Knight) off the board long enough to tempo us out.
i had quite good expieriences with hymn against RUG.
the manadenial plan works quite good against RUG (surprisingly but true), hymn and wasteland go a long way in this matchup even if a bit of luck is needed, plus hymn is card-advantage which RUG lags.
But i have to agree with Esper3k that 1cmc discard is quite good against RUG because on the play it either forces the opponent to use force of will, or they will lose maybe their delver or stifle, which helps our play quite a bit.
I am actually most affraid of double stifle + wasteland hands on their side as it will get hard to even land a single bomb of ours. If there were just a single stifle you can manage with 1cmc targeted discard, hymn instead will just slow their gameplan but its not assured you will even land a hymn in that scenario.
Therefore i would suggest using 1cmc discard instead of hymn against RUG.
If my conclusions are wrong in any way please enlighten me :P
Happy holydays from me as well even if it comes delated.
The only reasons I don't like Hymn against RUG is because:
1) Their best plan against us is to mana denial / tempo us out. If the game goes long and we stabilize, we're usually going to win. When we're trying to play around Stifle/Wasteland and are getting our basics out, a spell that costs double mana of the same color automatically means we're going to be susceptible to Wasteland.
2) Along the lines of them being on the mana denial plan, their Spell Pierces and Dazes are very effective against us early because of that. Hymn is powerful, but makes us more vulnerable to their mana taxing countermagic as opposed to the 1 drop discard spells.
3) Finally, I don't like bringing Hymn in because I don't think we need to overload on discard against the tempo decks. They have the ability to dump their hands quickly so Hymn getting drawn mid-late game can be really rough on us.
I would also board out Thoughtseize since it just gets you closer to burn range, and is kind of a waste of time when you end up grabbing burn spells to protect stuff anyways. The other reason I dislike discard against RUG (hymn) is because you really turn on spell pierce.
Plus the double black from Hymn is suicide on the mana base. Basically I second what the guy above me said.
Rock, Bant, Jund: http://tappedout.net/users/godofallu/mtg-deck-folders/
Fair enough, but I've just had one too many times where I'm about to close the game and get double Bolted in Game 1. Just so annoying
If they hit their draws really well and consistently, burning us out does happen. I will agree that Abrupt Decay has made this matchup far better, though. Maybe it's just the player I test against regularly (who is very good and knows my playstyle well) as well as statistical variance.
-Matt
I've tried sideboarding out Thoughtseize as well against RUG, but ultimately in the long run, I think it'll hurt you more to do so than to help you (of course, if you're bringing in something like 3x PtE that's fine).
The reason is because we still need to have a good density of 1 drops to play on T1. Thoughtseize on T1 is still one of those great cards against them because if they Daze / Counter, we've drawn out countermagic and don't have to lose life. If it resolves, we get valuable information on what's coming up / what to play around as well as get to nab something like a Tarmogoyf or Submerge out of their hand. We don't always want to lead off with a T1 StP because if it gets Dazed, we can be in big trouble but if we wait until T2 to play around Daze, they can start building too much presence on board for us to effectively deal with (ie, T1 Delver/Goose, T2 Tarmogoyf). Thoughtseize fills a nice hole in that it's an early 1 drop that we don't really care if they counter, but if they don't it's amazing.
Secondly, 1 mana discard is often cut for spells that cost more (O-Rings, Choke, Pernicious Deed, Hymn), which again screws up our curve especially if we're on the draw.
This is all very true, actually. Maybe... we shouldn't bother boarding against RUG? At least considering this (my current) list:
x4 Deathrite Shaman
x4 Tarmogoyf
x4 Dark Confidant
x4 Knight of the Reliquary
x4 Thoughtseize
x2 Inquisition of Kozilek
x4 Swords to Plowshares
x4 Abrupt Decay
x1 Vindicate
x2 Sensei's Diving Top
x1 Sylvan Library
x3 Liliana of the Veil
x4 Wasteland
x4 Verdant Catacomb
x2 Windswept Heath
x2 Marsh Flats
x2 Bayou
x2 Scrubland
x1 Savannah
x1 Forest
x1 Swamp
x1 Plains
x1 Bojuka Bog
x1 Maze of Ith
x1 Karakas
Sideboard:
x3 Hymn to Tourach
x3 Extirpate
x2 Gaddock Teeg
x2 Engineered Plague
x2 Pithing Needle
x1 Virtue's Ruin
x1 Scavenging Ooze
x1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
-----
Haters be damned, Vindicate's been awesome for me. I know, I know. Maelstrom Pulse is Spike's favorite x-for-1. As a Timmy, the coolness factor of Vindicate makes it better (and destroying a basic and wasting a dual in the same turn has proven pretty good).
I'm trying out a single Library and so far it's been powerful against Miracles. Who would have thought a free brainstorm would be so good?
I also cut down on the bayou count for the basic plains. I hate to, but Matt's talk of Blood Moon has me paranoid (despite Abrupt Decay). I also ran into Burn, and PoP was not friendly. Beat him to four life in game three while I was at 3 for two turns, then double deathrite sealed the deal.
My biggest problem right now is sideboarding. I have a long list of cards I want to fit into it, but can't fit it all in. Not included are:
Maelstrom Pulse
Golgari Charm
Choke
Pernicious Deed
Timely Reinforcements/Rest for the Weary
Bojuka Bog
Garruk Relentless
More Teegs
More Oozes
I realize Matt discussed this in his draft, but I'm also looking for advice for decks in my local meta, such as Nic Fit (Rector and Scapewish), Stax, Deadguy and the Mirror. Nic Fit especially, since I'm concerned that I'm bringing too much in--extirpates, virtue's ruin (rector only), pithing needles, Elspeth. It's not common, know, but I'm usually guaranteed to play against it. Liliana's usually enough to win most matches on her own, but they bring in Abrupt Decays on top of Pulse/Vindicates main to deal with her.
Hopefully when the completed article is published I'll have a better bearing on the deck.
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
3 Needles has been really stellar for me, in all honesty. Was testing them all of tonight against BUG and Miracles, and it's really the difference between eeking out games in the long run and falling short. Taking the opponents off of Jace or Liliana is just brutal, since we can muster better board presence with superiour creatures, and without the Planeswalker portion, we're doomed.
Against BUG, Garruk was an absolute house. BUG can't remove him and doesn't have counters in some versions, so he's just THAT good. As of right now, I've upped him to two in the main (replacing 1 STP) just as a trial.
-Matt
Hi guys, i have been struggeling with the goblin matchup, i would need some advice in this case how to best them more often, and i would also need some card suggestions for the sideboard that do not suck against the other decks around
my sidrboard right now is (hymn is a 4-off in the maindeck)
3 extirpate
2 path to exile
2 deed
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 gaddock teeg
2 timely reinforcements
2 zealos persecution
right now i am not that satisfied with persecution and reinforcements
thanks in advance for your input / help
@Barbed Lightning: With your sideboard, I'd probably do something like -1 Thoughtseize, +1 Scavenging Ooze just because it's so good against them. Really at the end, I didn't end up changing the list at all in my matches against RUG. The only thing I'd bring out 1 mana discard for is for 1 mana removal like PtE (if I ran it) or something that's just a brutal bomb against them like Scavenging Ooze.
For your mana base though, I think 12 fetches is a little much. Sure it's great with Knight and Shaman, but really increases your vulnerability to both Stifle (obvs since you have more fetches) and Wasteland (since you have less actual nonbasics). For example, if you are playing against RUG and fetch out your basic Swamp and only have 1 other land, you're forced to fetch your Savannah next to balance out your colors. Getting Wastelanded there means you have no more Savannahs to fetch. Personally, I like to have 3 Scrubland, 2 Bayou, 2 Savannah. This is because off of a basic Forest, we can fetch Scrubland and have access to every single one of our multicolor spells since G(B/W) gives us the colored mana requirement we need for everything. This is also why I like Maelstrom Pulse over Vindicate since you can cast Pulse with Forest+Scrubland, but can't do it with Vindicate.
Also to help with the Stifle/Wasteland decks, I eventually cut down to 2 Wastelands since getting colored mana is so important for us. 2 Wastelands was fine for me to fetch up with Knight to deal with pesky utility lands. Sure, you tend to get less of the auto-win of T1 Wasteland color screw your opponent, but I felt having a more resilient mana base was more important over a large number of matches.
I don't like Hymn main because I think it's more important for us to pinpoint target problematic spells preemptively so our bombs can get through. Also as in my earlier post, I think the presence of 1 mana discard is very important for our mana curve (since our bombs start to drop on T2/3).
Do you run Jitte in your main? The SFM package is hellish for Goblin players to deal with. Lingering Souls is also pretty good at gumming up the board against them.
Path to Exile has always been my go-to sideboard card if all you want to do is crush the aggro matchup. Although honestly, if you're already playing 3-4 StP + 3-4 Abrupt Decay + SFM package, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with Goblins. I actually like to keep Thoughtseize in against them since you can grab Ringleaders and SGC with it.
============================================
Regarding Grisly Salvage - I actually tested the idea out in Junk as the next step in evolution of an Eva Green list I had been playing. Essentially, I was using it to Grisly Salvage into Lingering Souls, Cabal Therapy, and... Tombstalker! An EoT Grisly Salvage nets you 5 cards into your yard. That means if you already have 1 card in your yard (or have a fetch), you can immediately cast Tombstalker when you untap. T3 Tombstalkers are pretty brutal, especially with all the Abrupt Decays running around! I also have a love affair with Cabal Therapy, so Salvaging into Therapy or into Lingering Souls (or both!) was always great. Oftentimes, I would also grab a land if my hand was mana light, so it does have utility in that respect as well.
In the end, I cut the package for one that was better against the control decks (Lingering Souls + SFM package), but it was a fun experiment and I figured I'd put up my experiences for other people to play around with.
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