[Primer] Elves!

[PendelSteven]

Perhaps we could come up with some sets of fifteen we might choose among and then make suggestions for what to side in and out for each of the lists vs. decks we might face.
If this has already been done and I missed it, no worries. But it seemed like an interesting project for the thread.

LoR

There was a "standard" sideboard posted, although there are mainly 2 thoughts (pun intented) on boards:
- you either have more than 4 discardspells (usually 4 Thoughtseize, 3 Cabal Therapy)
- or you go for the 2 Thorn of Amethyst, 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben plan + 4 Cabal Therapy (which is also cheaper and was very cheaper)

as for the rest of the sideboard we obviously include the 4th Natural Order and a Progenitus and at least 2 Abrupt Decay.

All in all these are mostly 11 of your 15 sideboard cards. Most sideboards include one or more Qasali Pridemage, Gaddock Teeg, Scavenging Ooze & Mindbreak Trap,

In case you're wondering I have compiled a Spreadsheet and these averages of sideboards come from decks of Matt Nass, Riley Curran, Cuneo, Ross Merriam, Reid Duke and several of lists of the people here (including Kayradis and Bonotto).

So yeah, average sideboard of this NO Junk version is, again summarised:
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy & 2 Thorn of Amethyst & 1 Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben / 3 Cabal Therapy & 4 Thoughtseize
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze


... Of course, you can put in some cards, usually 1 or 2 Meekstone or a 2nd Dryad Arbor. Most cut from the sideboard are Ooze and Teeg. Although some people would never take out either of course..

[PendelSteven]

I find this thought process (and your use of line breaks) irrational.

Fear is de facto irrational, captain Obvious. It's an emotion. But since this is not psychology-class...

You are afraid of a few 1/1s when instead you should be afraid of: Cabal Therapy+Gix Probe, Lightning Bolt, Grim Lavamancer, Etc.

So you're saying: bring in discard instead, right?

Deranged Hermit - why would I spend to "stall" Young Peezy when I can spend to win the game?

Because you can actually bounce it to get 8, 12, perhaps 16, maybe 20 2/2 tokens to have another way of winning. Hey, it's just a thought!

[Lemnear]

Hilarious to try setup a standard of SB which contains known crap like MBT, the questionable Pridemage (compared with Harmonic Sliver and Gaddock Teeg which is about to get cutted thanks to all the discard in recent lists.

[Dice_Box]

Fear is de facto irrational, captain Obvious. It's an emotion. But since this is not psychology-class...

Fear has its uses, but I do not fear cardboard. I also do not fear Young Pyro. He does cool things, but he is normally run in decks we are faster than. Also I have a sideboard full of discard so things like this tend to be less of an issue. If he is on the table then cards like Thar keep him in check. Have your 1/1, it cost you 6 life. I like that trade.

So you're saying: bring in discard instead, right?

Play control against control and stop them killing your combo? Sounds like a good idea.

Because you can actually bounce it to get 8, 12, perhaps 16, maybe 20 2/2 tokens to have another way of winning. Hey, it's just a thought!

It's cute mate, nothing more.

[Koby]

Hilarious to try setup a standard of SB which contains known crap like MBT, the questionable Pridemage (compared with Harmonic Sliver and Gaddock Teeg which is about to get cutted thanks to all the discard in recent lists.

All that discard is fantastic when OmniTell boards white Leyline against the known discard package; then drops Omniscience off S&T.

The discard is also fantastic against Chalice @ 1 from MUD decks.

But hey, let's play 7 discard spells and be like the cool kids playing the Reid list.

[Julian23]

Straming the Legacy Daily Event that started this very minute.

http://twitch.tv/itsJulian

Giving Ruric Thar a shot again. AND Choke.

[Dice_Box]

All that discard is fantastic when OmniTell boards white Leyline against the known discard package; then drops Omniscience off S&T.

The discard is also fantastic against Chalice @ 1 from MUD decks.

But hey, let's play 7 discard spells and be like the cool kids playing the Reid list.

Everything has a weakness, if you are not running maindeck hate for Art then that's your own foolish choice. Leylines are a pain, but if I am going to force you to mull to keep a hand with a Leyline in it, I am feeling better about the situation. Also why not run something that can kill an enchantment?

[Koby]

Everything has a weakness, if you are not running maindeck hate for Art then that's your own foolish choice. Leylines are a pain, but if I am going to force you to mull to keep a hand with a Leyline in it, I am feeling better about the situation. Also why not run something that can kill an enchantment?

I forgot the implied </sarcasm> tag.

My partial maindeck:
1 Viridian Shaman

My sideboard:
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Ruric Thar
1 Harmonic Sliver
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Thalia

[Dice_Box]

I forgot the implied </sarcasm> tag.

Ok, sorry I did not pick up on that. Sarcasm is not easy to pick up on over test, at lest not for me.

[Lemnear]

All that discard is fantastic when OmniTell boards white Leyline against the known discard package; then drops Omniscience off S&T.

The discard is also fantastic against Chalice @ 1 from MUD decks.

But hey, let's play 7 discard spells and be like the cool kids playing the Reid list.

I never said I' running the 7-discard-SB nor am I advocating for it. Aside the NO fatty we have the same SB

[Absolutflipz]

Right now I think the issue with Thorns/Thalia vs Additional discard (going up to 7) in the sideboard has a lot to do with the type of combo seeing relatively more play now.

Thorn/Thalia is better against the fast unfair combo like Storm, Dredge, and sometimes OmniTell (if they dont have the extra mana lying around to chain of vapor after their SnT).

The extra Thoughtseizes help stripping key cards earlier, but have the diminishing effect of still giving your opponent many turns to ponder, bstorm, preordain into redundant copies while we post a meager attack on their life total.

The fact that a lot of people are playing Sneak and Show and Painter decks (flavor of the month) at the moment lends me to want to play more Thoughtseizes as both of these decks only really need to resolve one/two cards and are running Sol Lands (Ancient Tomb, City) which can easiliy get around Thorn effects.

It's also significant to note that many of our key spells are non-creature spells.

Other thoughts?

I really want something proactive and then being able to apply pressure that doesn't allow them to get back into it (Thalia does fit in this category). All too often I have thoughtseized a key piece but am unable to really apply pressure to take advantage and ponder/bstorm/preordain undoes everything very quickly.

[Kayradis]

Unless they have all the pieces in their opening hand, G1 is a 50/50 in my humble opinion. We are still a really fast deck.

[PendelSteven]

Against any deck running Young Pyromancer, you should be more afraid of the cards supporting the Pyromancer than the Pyromancer itself.

Just watched Julian23's Daily Event from yesterday.

Turns out his second loss was agains Grixis Delver and of those 2 lost games, the first game was clearly lost because of Pyromancer.

Second lost game was due to Electricy. One for the Priest of Titania vs Elvish Archdruid debate.

Also, I have some tips for Julian though:

+1 Vidian Shaman mainboard gives you outs against all those nasty artifacts you faced.
+1 Qasali Pridemage sideboard gives you a better card vs artifacts and enchantments than the one you're playing

Also, having a Priest Of Titania (or Archdruid) maindeck could get you out of manaproblems while having a Green Sun Zenith. I have actually saw more than one game when I thought: just GSZ for Priest. Oh wait.

And who knows? Maybe you could've made 3-1 instead of 2-2 which these changes, however...

I'm still convinced Pyromancer is a good card vs Elves

[Koby]

It's similar to the argument that Delver was the reason old Standard was oppressive. Young Pyro is not the reason he's losing. It's the Stifle/Daze/FoW/Wasteland/Bolt backed by a threat. It could easily be a Goyf, or Mongoose, or Delver attacking. Sometimes these situations happen; one of the decks draws better and has the perfect sequencing. I don't think over compensating for those infrequent situations is worth the consistency of the deck.

To the point @PendelSteven:
How would you change the deck or sideboard to deal with the Young Pyromancer problem?

[PendelSteven]

7 discard spells like Reid.

Actually, Cuneo's idea. He has been running 7 discard spells since... half April and I also see a deck from February running 2 Therapy + 3 Thoughtseize

Actually, the deck Cuneo played half April is the Reid Duke list with 2 changes mainboard: -1 Llanowar Elves etc., +1 Scavenging Ooze
Or the other way around: the list Duke played was Cuneo's list without the preboarding of Scavenging Ooze.



So don't think everyone copying Duke's list... I thought it was a brilliant strategy when I saw Cuneo play it in April already. Incidently, I'm running 6 discard spells at the moment. Will run a Winston Draft Theros this week though and I get to keep the cards, so could get up to 7 :D

[Kayradis]

Still, I don't see YP as a MAJOR problem.
Too many discards can be counter productive as well.

[PendelSteven]

To the point @PendelSteven:
How would you change the deck or sideboard to deal with the Young Pyromancer problem?

I think first of all some of us need to learn to play a 2/2 to block. Yes, Julian, I'm looking at you. That game you could've blocked 1 token, next turn 2, and you might not have lost that game.


Secondly, I think we have to analyse the decks it's played in and see what they aren't playing any more. If it turns out we need to care less about cards X & Y because of Pyromancer, maybe we change something to better face that in general.

Honestly, the Archdruid doesn't seem unreasonable. It makes all our creatures at least 2/2, some even 2/3 and 3/3. Along with an Ooze that can become a 4/4 fairly easy, that gives us more staying power when we don't get to be the combodeck.


However, see point two, first I want to know if any of you have some insight in which card Pyromancer has replaced.

[PendelSteven]

Too many discards can be counter productive as well.

True. And this is why Cuneo also advises not to play Gaddog Teeg at all. Actually, the Cuneo-sideboard is fairly to the point: 4 Thoughtseize, 3 Therapy, 2 Decay, 2 MBT, 1 NO, 1 Prog, 1 Pridemage, 1 Ooze. Complety no Teegs which prevents you to cast Natural Order & Green Sun's Zenith, no Thalia's and Thorns which doesn't make it easier for you to cast Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy and Glimpse of Nature (in my deck even Crop Rotation). If you put it that way: at least having that much discard isn't counterproductive in that sense!

[Koby]

True. And this is why Cuneo also advises not to play Gaddog Teeg at all. Actually, the Cuneo-sideboard is fairly to the point: 4 Thoughtseize, 3 Therapy, 2 Decay, 2 MBT, 1 NO, 1 Prog, 1 Pridemage, 1 Ooze. Complety no Teegs which prevents you to cast Natural Order & Green Sun's Zenith, no Thalia's and Thorns which doesn't make it easier for you to cast Natural Order, Green Sun's Zenith, Thoughtseize, Cabal Therapy and Glimpse of Nature (in my deck even Crop Rotation). If you put it that way: at least having that much discard isn't counterproductive in that sense!

Let's for the sake of simplicity say that Cuneo developed the list and Reid just played it on his advice. I don't agree with Cuneo's SB strategy for this deck. NO/Hoof is a fine strategy, but this deck is capable of much more than that simple line. Hatebears + beatdown is enough to delay sometimes. Knowing when NO can be cut is another option.

The option of 6-7 discard already shows that it turns the deck into some odd Rockish deck with NO as a finisher. I propose making it closer to Maverick with a Glimpse push that can close the game out. The discard doesn't gel well with Resistors. Teeg doesn't gel well with Natural Order. Both strategies are effective against different strategies.

Teeg is better vs Miracles; much much better in fact than discard.

[Kayradis]

...and it's all coming back to : What is in your metagame?