Does nothing against ANT in game 2/3 because of Chain of Vapor and other goodies and plain scoops to Burning Wish Storm (EtW, Grapeshot the initial elves, Pyroclasm, Bribery).Originally Posted by venice
Don't consider a 6cc creature which you may only cast with a god-hand earliest turn 2 a threat to storm.
Edit: Forgot to mention Silence, Duress, Probe and Cabal Therapy to prevent that NO-play.
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hahaha! Lemnear i'm not trying to take this thread to a Shockland-Lifegain Threshold discucion
not express myself well because I'm Argentinian haha...
What I mean basically Is that without "tap = mana elves", Sylvan is not very useful, either Quirion Ranger..
thus, in this recent version of deck I would go for other options as well.
edit: agree about ruric vs storm, but, against threshold? it seems an unsurpassable resp against a fast delver pressure
If ANT has Chain in hand, than well thats bad, in all other cases it deals at least 12 dmg. I dont understand what you mean by scooping to Burning Wish Storm.
You would have to Clasm/Grapeshot on turn 1/2 before NO happens which takes at least 2 cards for the Storm player (mana + wish), if they chose to go that route I guess your in good shape anyway because they ve wasted two cards just to prevent your hate. If Storm goes EtW / AdN before you assemble any hate it doesnt matter anyway, so i dont see your point here.
Concerning "the god draws", I did not do the math calculating the odds of having the needed cards in combination on turn 2, but that has nothing to do with the underlying question if Ruric is good against Combo or not. The thing is you want to assemble some sort of hate by turn 2 (if you havent lost till then) and the addition of ruric thar gives the deck more ways to do so.
And in my opinion that totally justifies playing him.
Duress, Silence and Probe are there anyway, and if they play it in this case it doesn't matter if you have Ruric or not. But if they dont it does make a hell of a difference.
Lemnear: Your arguments are faulty. If opponent has Chain in opening hand it doesn't matter for us if we played Teeg of Ruric. Ruric at least do some damage. And if opponent casts Duress or Silence so it doesn't matter either. He can disrupt your plan GSZ into Teeg as well as the plan NO into Ruric. And being able to cast NO in second turn doesn't involve any god hand. Morover Ruric has potencial against decks other than storm combo, eg. Delver decks.
@venice
Storm decks featuring Burning Wish can simply drop a large EtW turn 1-2 which make Ruric-Thar completely useless for those common scenarios. For the turn 2 NO you need a 3-card-combo like mana-elf, NO and Quirion Ranger in hand while Storm decks like TES need either Burning Wish, Infernal Tutor, Silence, Cabal Therapy (wishable) or Duress in hand to completely ruin the scetchy plan. Comparing the odds for both cases the Ruric-Thar is no way justifyable to have a spot in the maindeck. To meanfully interact with storm you need Mindbreak traps/Flusterstorm/Cabal Therapy while beating with 1/1 elves. You are the Control deck in that matchup.
@Tangente
It makes a hell of a difference if you can hardcast your hate in general or after being bounced with chain. You are aware that Delver runs FoW, Spell Pierce, Daze and Submerge to prevent/get rid of Ruric-Thar turn 2?
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Ok first of, I am not arguing about making him a Mainboard card, he is solely for SB. Furthermore, like I said if ANT / TES goes off turn 1, well then there s not much you can do about it (other than comboing by yourself if they go EtW, which is most likely on turn 1) Other than that you could apply the same argumentation to any other form of storm hate. And I would guess it is far easier for storm to play around MBT (which does literally nothing til the point where the Storm player goes off), compared to a permanent hate which causes you a lot of pain to get rid off.
I have been talking about Ruric when he was spoiled and I hope the common sense is already that he deserves a sideboard slot. For what it's worth now I played a lot versus my very experienced storm player with Ruric and the result is pretty obvious:
1) NO is usually only relevant if you can disrupt first or have a god hand so the overall MU% impact is not that high.
2) The vast majority of cases where you do resolve Natural Order Ruric is by far the best target, since you usually have to pass the turn once if you would go for behemoth.
So Lemnear you are correct that NO alone is not a threat to storm. However your evaluation "does nothing" for the times NO does resolve is of course non-sense, but I am sure you exaggerated
The correct post-board plan versus storm is simple: Reduce/side out glimpse since the combo is weakened a lot and a good hand has a lot of non-creature spells (GSZ/NO,Cabal).
The plan is simple
Beat down with little man.
Disrupt with Deathrite shaman.
(Disrupt with crop rotation - bojuka bog)
Disrupt with Cabal Therapy
Disrupt with GSZ for Teeg and NO for Ruric
Currently playing: Elves
We've already gone over this before and there's no reason to take out glimpse. What's so important that we need to board out arguably the best card in our deck? As far as I'm concerned, 4 visionaries, 1 regal force or 2nd craterhoof, priest of titania/viridian shaman, and 1 wirewood symbiote can be taken out for 4 therapies, 2 traps, and 1 teeg. Those main deck cards are for the grindy games while most of the sb cards should already be in many decks. If you have bog, you can take out a forest. Similarly if you're running ruric thar, you can take out craterhoof. Regardless, glimpse stays.
For those who criticize therapy because of its flashback option, remember it's an option. You don't have to flashback right away or even at all depending what's in their hand.
Regarding priest vs. archdruid, remember that priest generates mana for ALL elves and is the major trump in the mirror matchup. It also can be easily gsz'ed for on t2. Furthermore, opposing DRS and bloodbraids give it extra fuel as well.
What do you think about Envelope in sideboard instead of Spell Pierce/Flusterstorm in that blue splash version? It can counter most of the card we care about like Infernal Tutor, Burning Wish, Show and Tell, Enter the Infinite, Perish, Rough/Tumble or Terminus.
Could you please elaborate in which situations Envelope is better than Flusterstorm or Mindbreak Trap?
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Terminus
Show and Tell (debatable vs. Flusterstorm, depends on situation)
I also think , that we can cut Regal force Vs ruric. Sure craterhoof win games if you have the right setup , but ruric is also devastating against most legacy decks. Regal is a nice backup, but it need some creatures (in this case ,you can also play a deadly hoof ) i remembered a situation Vs miracle, were i simple get a Terminus after Regal force or hoof i trigger on the right stack ... or enough disrupted games were i cant race a delver or tombstalker.
Ruric is very good against most combos game one.
another thing is, has anyone considered to play the 4th natural order in the Main ? Most players use the 4.NO progenitus Plan, so it need can free one sideboard slot .
TEAM MtG Berlin
I don't say it's better than Mindbreak Trap. Trap is great. Sure, Flusterstorm is more effective versus storm combo. Envelope is more efective versus Show and Tell, Terminus or Pyroclasm. But I think Envelope is better than Spell Pierce. I don't need counter instants but cheap sorceries. So for example: 2 Mindbreak Trap, 1 Flusterstorm, 2 Envelop in sideboard?
I'd rather play a maindeck Terastodon than Ruric.
I think we can all agree in all but the rarest circumstances, if we have a few Elves, Craterhoof is the best target since it's almost certainly lethal. So when we are unable to stick more than one Elf on the table, what's the best option? My answer is Terastodon since it can put 18 power on the table (while having built in Edict protection), or put a huge clock on your opponent while disrupting his ability to interact. It also gets you out of awkward situations game one against shenanigans like Ensnaring Bridge or Energy Field/Rest in Peace. It's one of the few cards that will give you value if your opponent floats Terminus.
It's also mono-colored unlike Progenitus or Ruric, which makes it much more easily castable (despite the lower CMC for Ruric).
Specific applications of Terastodon vs. Ruric against combo decks:
- Storm combo: Ruric is better here since it forces interaction, but Terastodon blowing up their mana isn't too shabby either.
- High Tide: Ruric forces them to find a bounce spell. Terastodon sets them back three land drops. Both are absolutely crippling, but Terastodon even more so, since Elves has a very fast clock too and High Tide is unlikely to go off without at least 3 lands.
- Sneak and Show: Terastodon is better here since they only really need to cast one spell to go off. If you had enough permanents to recover from Emrakul annihilator, you probably could have killed them with Craterhoof.
- Omniscience: Too close to call. Ruric is much better if they're on the Cunning Wish plan, but if they just go Show and Tell->Omniscience->Emrakul, Terastodon is superior.
- Reanimator: Terrible matchup anyway, but if you somehow managed to stick a creature before they get a fattie out, Terastodon is better unless 6 damage from Ruric happens to be lethal. Otherwise, they just Exhume out their Elesh Norn and wait for your Ruric to idiotically slam into it (and die). Or play a Blazing Archon and simply laugh. Or stick an Iona and once again block when Ruric Thar is forced to attack.
- Dredge: Both cards suck. They don't need mana to go off, nor do they need to play any spells.
Even if we do concede that Ruric were better against combo, Terastodon is much better against other strategies, including control decks and anything with creatures who can block profitably (or trade with a double block).
Terastodon is amazing if the opponent is helpless. You just blow up your own lands and he's facing a lot of pressure.
Terastodon is less amazing if you need to blow up three things. You set them back, sure, but you expend resources for little other gain - you just gave them three Fogs for your elephant.
If you blow up two things, Terastodon presents an almighty clock of three damage a turn for the next two turns and pressure apart from what happened during it's resolution. That damage can be crippling.
That's the thing about Ruric, and why I like him: He disrupts the opponent's ability to recover, yet forces him to do so or die to the beats. All the while, he protects you from counterstrikes. This is all theory, of course, so I'm off to FLGS and see if I can get some games in and see if Ruric & the Thalias is as awesome an act as I expect them to be. If not, I think I'll be needing some Therapy.
I think this depends on how many crop rotations you're running and whether you want to increase the risk of getting 2 for 1 against a blue deck. I've thought about doing this in the past but decided to play it safe since I'm running 2-2 rotation/cradle split. I also like priest of titania in the 60th slot for the mirror matchup and because it's a gsz-tutorable, must-answer card on t2.
I'm willing to bet you'll miss your therapy session. There's a big difference between being able to interact on t0 (MbT) and t1 as opposed to t2. The decks that run thalia do so because they don't have access to blue/black mana.
No TES/Dredge @ FLGS : /
Apparently I also play the Esperblade matchup wrong, because my score is negative. G1 is clearly favourable, but I guess I board wrong or something, because postboard is negative.
Does
-1 Heritage
-1 Quirion
-2 Crop Rotation
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Oblivion Ring
+1 Qasali Pridemage
sound remotely correct with Teeg and Shaman main? More NO, perhaps Progenitus?
The cards you boarded out are fine but I wouldn't bring in decay and o-ring. The reason for this is because most of the time they board in perish, which neither card hits. Though I like priest more (which I board out), the archdruid you have already grants protection from plague. Personally, I just bring in play set of therapies (naming sfm or jitte if he's already fetched it) and pridemage. Furthermore, Daniel and I had a discussion about harmonic sliver on his recent tourney thread and I'm switching to harmonic sliver since it gives more value when used in conjunction with therapy.
The problem with glimpse is: it is best in a hand that is bad against storm and pretty bad in a hand that is good against storm. Glimpse is best if you set it up with elves turn 1 and 2 and still have creatures in hand. But all you want to do turn 1 and 2 is disrupt right? Glimpse is also affected negatively by mulligans (more common for hate) and especially by your opponent discarding your stuff, so you will often find yourself in situations where glimpse is dead or at least not doing a lot.
e.g: Lets say you have a super-good hand versus storm and play deathrite into cabal/flashback with something and then follow-up with GSZ for teeg. Your opponent discards also something and you are left with 1 card in hand. Would you rather have a visionary or a glimpse?
The best case for Glimpse is if you are in the situation that you disrupted already. THEN you might be able to glimpse for value and create a faster clock.
Not saying Glimpse is an unplayable card, but at least reducing is correct imo. The religous attitude of not siding out glimpse against certain matchups is wrong. Deathrite and Behemoth changed elves compared to the former much more glimpse-combo oriented archetypes.
Currently playing: Elves
For all intents and purposes, let's say post-sb you have a typical opening hand of 2 lands, 1 mana elf (deathrite/llanowar/gsz->arbor), 2 other cmc-1 creatures, 1 hate card, and 1 glimpse. If that hate card is mindbreak trap and depending what disruption they have, you are still able to play aggressively and can potentially combo out on turn 2 if your top deck is strong. If their disruption can't hit glimpse, at worst you draw 2-3 cards while still having trap in your hand. If they discard glimpse, it did its job anyways by fishing out their disruption.
If that hate card is cabal therapy, I usually lead with it on t1 (naming LED or infernal tutor). There are multiple lines of play on t2 depending on the situation. However, I think it will typically be correct to play and pitch deathrite/llanowar to flashback therapy. If my top deck t2 was another cmc-1 elf or wirewood symbiote, I'll typically play llanowar/deathrite, quirion ranger, or heritage druid (in that order) with my 2nd land so I can make 3 mana on turn 3 without having to worry about top decking a land. Please note that gaea's cradle also changes the sequencing a bit and increases even more lines of play too. This potentially sets up the glimpse combo/ancestral recall on t3. Once again, their disruption and your t3 top deck will affect your lines of play. A gsz->teeg or NO->ruric thar are possible as well as drawing into more therapies/traps. In any event, I don't really see a shortage of cmc-1 creatures to power glimpse since everything boarded out aside from maybe 1 symbiote cost 2 or more mana.
In your example, visionary would be a better top deck for just 1 turn but glimpse will be better each subsequent turn since you can chain all your cmc-1 drops together for ancestral recall. If we've already stripped his hand apart like you said with a great hand, 1 turn isn't going to cost us the game.
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