...you're living in the fantasy world where you have dark rit AND those other cards (be it one or two) and a black source. What happens when you draw dark rit with an empty hand? Or open with a specter but only one black source and no DRS or rit?Originally Posted by Shawon
It's too unstable a plan. Sure sometimes they open with a leyline and a god hand... but usually they mull to a poor one "with protection". Play golgari charm if you're that worried about leyline; at least that card is versatile
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
Rather than hippie, an early phyrexian negator used to be pretty good against combo. Might be outdated now with power creep. If you're looking for something not responsive to leyline (not something to destroy it) , negator seems like a better option. Though I'd probably go with duress plus enchantment removal.
I love the Hippi, but I don t think he's ever going to be legacy playable. I have grips and extirpates for the leyline of sanc snt decks, grip is good if they rush a sneak attack out to protect it from discard. We're behind but not too far behind and legacy combo is consistent, but not that consistent, playtest and just battle that shit!
What sort of empty hand are you imagining I would have against combo, if I am removing all of the cards that would be dead anyway against combo for Dark Ritual + Hyppie? I'll be specific: against SnT, I would remove 1 BBE, 4 Lightning Bolt, and 3 Abrupt Decay for 4 Ritual + 4 Hyppie. I'm not sacrificing other live cards just to make Hyppie and Dark Ritual more active.
Just to be clear, I'm only endorsing the idea of SB (<- if that also wasn't clear) Hyppie + Dark Ritual in "normal" Jund, not Punishing Jund. Normal Jund has enough consistency to find black mana and runs a high enough density of black cards to make an opening hand Dark Ritual relevant. It's a no-brainer that Dark Ritual is useless if you have already hit your threshold of mana production, but that's what we have DRS have late-game.
It's a bad idea, to be blunt. You're eating up 8 (EIGHT) slots in the side for a combo that is difficult to set up and isn't all that good to begin with, imo. Even if you're casting hymn, you are not gaining card advantage (trading two for two).
And what sort of hand? Double ritual, fetch, drs, goyf, decay, waste. Or spectre, drs, forest, waste, fetch, lilly, bob.
Spectre needs to shave some pounds cmc-wise before I'd consider him--and never would I run rit.
This
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
I agree with the consensus so far on the Hippy Dark Rit suggestion. 1) it's a lot of spaces taken up that are highly sought after for various other troublesome MUs. 2) Dark Ritual opens you up to bad 2:1s. 3) Hippy isn't even that good against fast combo. 4) Dark Ritual makes a terrible top deck/Cascade. When it comes to combo it's much more reliable of a plan to board in Duress'/Red Elemental Blasts, and to max out on discard rather than adding unnecessary fast mana tricks like Rit into Specter.
@Pavlaugh: Dont say phyexian negator youll get me all misty eyed:) slamming one down in a major would be nothing short of awesome!!! But im sure your right that it wouldnt be good enough. Ahhh nostalgic sigh:)
At our last weekly event I went 4-0 against 4 rounds of combo. 2-1 HiveMind. 2-1 ANT. 2-0 OmniShow. 2-0 Reanimator.
I'm humblebragging a little bit, and I guess I'm also a bit of a lucksack. But I mostly mention this to give you all hope! Combo is beatable! Kinda! Sometimes!
I don't play the deck often enough to give play advice to you guys. But I boarded in 3 Duress, 3 Pyroblast, 2 Slaughter Games for each matchup. I also brought in a Nihil Spellbomb in the last round and it was relevant. I was on the Non-Punishing version.
On topic: I think Hypnotic Specter is too slow. And boarding Dark Rituals just smells of lamesauce.
Why is it a bad idea? This is a bad post, to be blunt, because you're just being vague and adding nothing specific (or at least concrete) to your argument on why you think Hyppie + Dark Ritual is bad. Also, emphasizing that I run EIGHT slots against combo to support your argument that what I run is ridiculous is.... ridiculous. Unless you're bringing in more than fifteen cards between post-board games, there is no status-quo on how many cards you should bring to address a bad matchup. I would take your argument more seriously if you were making the point that the SB has limited space for other pertinent matchups, but you didn't.
These are laughably bad examples, and it's making it difficult to take you seriously at this point.And what sort of hand? Double ritual, fetch, drs, goyf, decay, waste. Or spectre, drs, forest, waste, fetch, lilly, bob.
The first hand involves Abrupt Decay. I don't know about you, but Abrupt Decay is pretty irrelevant against most combo decks. That Decay would most likely be a Hyppie if you actually follow my board plans (or a 3rd Ritual, but unlikely), so that hand would actually be amazing against combo because you can go Fetch, Ritual, Ritual, Hppie + DRS, and follow up on turn 2 with a Goyf and Wasteland. I would kill to have that hand against combo.
And what are you trying to prove with that second hand? That second hand is a god hand to have, even without the Hyppie. This seriously leads me to believe that you are just talking out of your ass just to shut down the suggestion of trying a strategy (Dark Ritual + Hyppie) that could possibly address a matchup that people are repeatedly asking questions on how to address it. Even if I'm in the wrong (I'm not), you're adding nothing constructive by immediately shooting my idea down with poorly constructed theorycrafting.
This is actually an argument I can take seriously:
because this poster brings up a point I did not consider: the possibility of Cascading into Dark Ritual. However, I would argue against 1) by saying that Hypnotic Specter would also be relevant against control, 2) your combo opponent isn't going to 2:1 you since they either just win or lose, and 3) then what is good enough against fast combo (Mindbreak Trap)?I agree with the consensus so far on the Hippy Dark Rit suggestion. 1) it's a lot of spaces taken up that are highly sought after for various other troublesome MUs. 2) Dark Ritual opens you up to bad 2:1s. 3) Hippy isn't even that good against fast combo. 4) Dark Ritual makes a terrible top deck/Cascade. When it comes to combo it's much more reliable of a plan to board in Duress'/Red Elemental Blasts, and to max out on discard rather than adding unnecessary fast mana tricks like Rit into Specter.
It's delusional to run dark rit in Jund. This deck is DTB because it contains either:
2/X-for-1 effects (hymn, pulse, BBE, PFire)
Or
The best cards within it's spectrum and curve
Dark rit goes against both of these. It is card disadvantage a majority of the time, and is lesser in power than either Inquisition or Duress. Yes, it can enable powerful turn 1 plays... that sneakshow can simply daze/fow.
As for spectre... I mean, I could run delirium skeins or underworld dreams. That doesn't make it a good decision.
What is your side board anyway? What besides duress is cuttable for this spectre package?
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
I am trying out this SB aimed to fix the combo matchup while still being relatively useful in other matchups:
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Extirpate
For reference, I am running a normal Jund build with 3 MD Sinkhole.
The Extirpates are flex, but they are also just generally good as they complement discard or removal. Chalice is a good alternative to Mindbreak Trap that also addresses the Burn matchup. Since I'm not running P-Fires or running additional creature removal in the SB, the Chalices can come in as additional hate against Delver decks.
So, no real graveyard hate, no tribal hate, no pithing needle (which shuts out control decks swiftly) and no Red Blasts. I'm sure this SB is good for storm combo, but for dredge/reanimator/Tin Fins? less so. Yes, I see extirpate; that isn't enough to stop dredge at the very least and requires you to be reactionary, leaving mana up. Surgical is better for this reason.
Chalice does not belong in this deck, imo, in the main or side. Awful to cascade into and, even if you take BBE out, it's going to interfere with our game plan if set at anything but zero. And to say it "addresses the burn matchup" is folly; Price of Progress, Fireblast and Flame Rift are their best tool against us, and if you're trying to get to four mana to drop a Chalice @2, you're better off going stompy.
My opinions on Dark Rit and Spectre have already been posted.
And sinkhole main? Really? I play 4 in the side of my Team America list, but Tempo and Midrange Aggro have totally different needs. What could you be cutting to fit in sinkholes?
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
If my SB plan is to board 8+ cards against combo, then I probably wouldn't chalk up the Dredge matchup to rely on just 3 SB cards. This SB has no substantial game against Dredge, but as for Tin Fins, Extirpate is good hate on its own and that deck can't really combo off if you cast Chalice for 0 unless they bounce Chalice.
Chalice still stops a good portion of the deck.And to say it "addresses the burn matchup" is folly; Price of Progress, Fireblast and Flame Rift are their best tool against us, and if you're trying to get to four mana to drop a Chalice @2, you're better off going stompy.
Yes, opinions based on straw man logic ("what if you don't have black mana/cards?!") and cherry-picking ("SnT has Daze/FoW!").My opinions on Dark Rit and Spectre have already been posted.
...no, you bring in 4 cards against combo and 4 cards to enable your sideboard against combo. Dark Ritual does NOTHING on it's own. It's a dead draw if it has nothing to enable. Unless adding BBB to my mana pool suddenly and inexplicably makes my opponent discard his or her hand. If that's the case, I've obviously been playing Magic wrong.
Chalice is still much weaker than Pithing Needle or Engineered Plague, cards that are necessary for a large event like an Open or GP, especially the latter. Goblins is still a deck and, for those not running punishing fire, can still overpower Jund with the right sequencing. Even against Elves, Plague buys you precious time.
As for burn, here are all the cards that deck runs that give zero shits about Chalice @ 1:
Price of Progress
Flame Rift
Fireblast
Sulfuric Vortex
Keldon Maurauders
Rift Bolt
Hellspark Elemental
Searing Blaze
Barbarian Ring
From the Board: Smash to Smithereens, though you might hoodwink them enough to avoid it game two. Still unlikely you'll have a game three regardless.
My views are sound, whether you're willing to see that or not. Mulligans are all luck (save for something like Serum Powder I guess), and this dark ritual plan relies on luck in part to be effective. It leads to more explosive plays, yes, but causes any countermagic (or in the case of spectre, also removal) you run into to be that much more effective against you. Again, in Jund, you want to be 2-for-1-ing THEM, not you.
And what part of "using one card to combo into another may not always work" is straw man? It's PRECISELY the argument against Rit+Spectre; without Rit, Spectre is a summoning-sick Liliana that goes live on turn three at the very soonest. Yes, a turn one spectre can, hypothetically, lock a combo player out through a Leyline, but that player (esp. Show and Tell, as a 2-card combo) can also ignore it and go off anyway. Following rit+spectre up with discard helps, yes, but our deck has 4 wastes and X taiga/grove, meaning double black for Hymn can still get us in a pinch, especially since we sacrificed our T1 DRS to smack down Rit+Spectre. Thoughtseize can still be cast, obviously, but if there's a leyline out then we're solely relying on Spectre (and maybe a Liliana next turn) to get us there. I'd rather have the REB to just counter the S&T.
And it's not cherry-picking. Show and Tell decks typically run FoW and Daze. So does Reanimator. High Tide has FoW and even Pact of Negation in some lists. Each also has both Ponder and Brainstorm to ensure they have the countermagic they need to protect themselves. That's what they do.
You say you want to improve our combo matchup; this is not the path to that solution. Trying to go transformitive with our side sounds good (especially with this deck, as I'm sure every Jund player wants to wreck combo as hard as they do fair decks) but needs hard proof and testing before it can be found legitimate. Do you have any tournament results or Top 8's to reinforce your theory?
"Don't mess with me, lady. I've been drinking with skeletons."
I write articles about Legacy Death and Taxes. Check them out.
@Shawon
I saw the following as your board.
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hypnotic Specter
3 Extirpate
What combo players are you going against. Spector looks terrible. Chalice of the Void shuts down more than half your deck and sideboard. Not trying to be mean but this board looks like trash. Play what you want but I do not know how you are betting combo by 2 for 1 ing yourself to get a 2/2 flying discard source out while storm and sneak and show are going to be like ok...storm 10 or huge monster. Again do not take it as a personal attack and play what you want.
Here is why it is bad.
First, it is too slow. They have a LOT of cards they do not need. They need two cards to go off, sometimes even only one if you don't have Sneak Attack destruction, which you do not. This is why they still cast Ponder / Brainstorm through Chains of Mephistopheles if they have a Leyline. They can discard a lot before it affects their ability to win.
Secondly, one-shot acceleration is generally bad in a control deck or midrange deck. It obviously is necessary in some combo decks and can be good in aggro.
Bringing it in against Control is insane. It is actively bad. You sometimes take out one-shot discard because it is all about value. The games go long, and drawing a meaningless Ritual later is really bad. You bring in REBs to deal with MUST-DEAL stuff like Jace or CB that will get through your discard.
Finally, yes, cascading into it isn't great. BBB can only cast another Hippie or Liliana (who is better anyway).
Mana, dark Ritual, Dark Ritual, Hymn to Tourach, Hymn to Tourach. Oh no, I ran out of stuff do for the rest of the game : /
Also in another direction, did you see this list:
GPT Strasbourg - Raffa di puegnago (BS) Olympus#2
Number of Players : 43
Date: 17/03/2013
Deck Name: Jund Position: 1
Jund Matteo Brusaferri
Creatures [16]
4 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
Instants [10]
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Punishing Fire
Sorceries [7]
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Thoughtseize
Planeswalkers [3]
3 Liliana of the Veil
Artifacts [2]
2 Sensei's Divining Top
Lands [22]
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Taiga
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Bayou
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Krosan Grip
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Slaughter Games
2 Confusion in the Ranks
1 Pernicious Deed
I've seen Confusion in the Ranks work very well in a Goblins deck here in Brazil during last year's Nationals, specially well vs Sneak Show. Maybe an alternative?
I can understand why you and others would think Dark Ritual + Hypnotic Specter are counterintuitive to the deck's principles, but I don't buy the 'too slow' argument when the very reason I'm running the two cards is to make discard faster against combo. The only argument that I am willing to buy is that Dark Ritual and/or Hypnotic Specter aren't worth the slots dedicated to improving combo in exchange for weakening tribal/graveyard/etc.
Build it, test it, run it. The nice thing about this game is that its empirical. Smash combo decks with it and silence your critics.
There was more reasons why it is bad, but I think I explained the ones you are challenging already, and so have others.
You did bring this up. It kills your sideboard. Yes, I do advocate heavy sideboarding for Show and Tell, but the other cards should be useful in other match-ups. REBs for example, more Thoughtseizes, Enchantment destruction for Leyline and maybe Sneak Attack, Pithing Needle, stuff like that. Even dedicated anti-SnT cards like Ensnaring Bridge (that I maintain does not help), only takes up 3 slots, and *can* win outright if they do not have an out. Putting 8 cards, 4 of which are mana, is insane. You are dedicating over 50% of your sideboard to something that, even in the best case scenario, is not that effective. This is the problem.
A dedicated hate sideboard card should win the game when you play it, baring them digging out with few answers. Leyline of the Void against Dredge is a good example. Ensnaring Bridge against stuff that cannot answer it (Merfolk, Show and Tell, both without bounce). Hyppie doesn't do that. He will at most force them to discard 3 cards before they go off, at the cost of 2 to you. They will discard cards that do not matter such as extra creatures, extra counterspells, maybe extra land or extra filtering... because they know they do not need any of that against Jund.
Now, you say that it can be enough, and you are correct, there is situations where it is. Usually it is followed by a Hymn to Tourach and Liliana. So I will not fault you for trying, and if you do, I would love to hear of your results. You can also honestly just test this match-up with a friend (or 2-fist it) if you cannot get a reasonable sample space from a tournament (you cannot).
In fact, what you could do (which is what I sometimes do) is just pre-make your hand. Each of you starts with 1-7 cards of your choice (in this case I recommend 3), then draws up to 7 normally. This allows you to test edge scenarios that you want, and see how effective it is. In your case:
You: Fetchland, Ritual, Hippie
SnT: SnT, Land, ? (whatever, maybe a real Show and Tell player can chime in)
Stuff like that is interesting. You cannot base an entire analysis JUST on it, but it will reveal a lot of information.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote