What is the best configuration post board for beating Death and Taxes?
Also any input on the various Delver configurations?
@nodahero
Blood Moon and Pyroclasm are really good against Death and Taxes. Through the Breach can also work, we don't need a lot of our counters for this matchup. For Delver decks I find Defense Grid to be the best card against them but if they catch on and board in the artifact hate then we are in trouble.
Cerberus Open 6
52 Players
Main Deck:
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Griselbrand
4 Lotus Petal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Intuition
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Daze
3 Spell Pierce
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
Sideboard: 15
3 Defense Grid
3 Pyroclasm
2 Blood Moon
2 Pyroblast
2 Through the Breach
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
1 Flusterstorm
Round 1: Patriot Delver (Win)
Game 1: I knew who I was paired against, it's Chinitoz here in the forums. He hasn't really played Legacy in a long time and he always plays a variation of the patriot colors, it can be control or tempo. After I win the die roll and go Island and pass the turn, he plays a turn one Volcanic Island and a Delver of Secrets. On my 2nd turn I Show and Tell an Emrakul with 2 Counter back ups and he scoops.
Board in: 3 Pyroclasm, 3 Defense Grid and 2 Pyroblast.
Game 2: He mulls to 5 and when I Show and Tell again he has little resistance due to having a mull to 5. Lucky!
Round 2: Death and Taxes (Win)
Game 1: Paired with a friend who I know plays Death and Taxes :(. My draw really really sucks. I don't get any enablers for a very long time. He is a bit mana screwed on 2 lands, a Karakas and a Rishadan Port. He only has Thalia as his beater and his turn 2 Revoker I chose to Force of Will. When I am nearly dead like 4 life or so, I finally top deck a Sneak Attack while having a shit load of Lands. He gets annihilated and the game is mine.
Board in: 2 Blood Moon, 3 Pyroclasm, 1 Wipe Away, 1 Echoing Truth
Game 2: Turn 3 Blood Moon and a Through the Breach into Griselbrand is what won me this game. I was able to hit him with a single Pyroclasm when my life was getting low killing Thalia. He didn't draw much hate this game except for a few Oblivion Rings that he tutored which I countered :) Blood Moon really helped in shutting down his Karakas game plan. A second Through the Breach into an Emrakul won me the game.
Round 3: UWR Miracles (Win)
Game 1: Paired against the former National Champ and one of the best players of magic across all formats. I had multiple enablers this game and when I finally resolve one, he Vendillion Cliques away my Griselbrand making my Show and Tell nullified. I get the beats from a Single Vendillion Clique until I'm nearly dead and I don't have a way to Put down a creature because his singleton Karakas came out.
Board in: 3 Defense Grid, 2 Pyroblast, 2 Through the Breach, 1 Blood Moon, 1 Wipe Away, 1 Echoing Truth.
Game 2: I was able to resolve an early Defense Grid this game making him tapped out every turn. I was also able to Spell Pierce away his turn 2 Counterbalance. Eventually I draw into a Sneak Attack and it resolves. I have a single Emrakul but no 2nd creature to finish the game. He gets annihilated but he has a lot of permanents already. I lucky top deck an Intuition after.
Game 3: I won the attrition was as he has expended 3 of his Force of Wills and his Sensei's Top not giving him the goods. He also gets a lot of lands this game although that normally happens to Miracles. His nearly lethal Entreat got Spell Pierced as well. Lucky me! On this game I just had so many enablers which helped me discard his entire hand of answers.
Round 4: Patriot Delver (Lose)
Game 1: I get 2 Islands and I casted 3 Ponders and 2 Brainstorms. My fetchlands evade me and I only get a City of Traitors which gets Wasted.
Board in: 3 Pyroclasm, 3 Defense Grid, 2 Pyroblast
Game 2: Turn 2 Defense Grid gets Dazed, should have played around Daze but I had a double City of Traitors draw so I tried anyway. He hits me with one Wasteland on the City of Traitors. I go Volcanic Island go. He gets another Wasteland and the only land I have is a City of Traitors. I die to his Delver with having a buttload of Red cards with no Red Sources!
Round 5: RUG Delver (Lose)
Game 1: I get a turn 2 Show and Tell with a lot of Mana Back up and a Counter Back up. He only has a Force of Will and Emrakul goes to town.
Board in: 3 Defense Grid, 2 Pyroblast
Game 2: I get an Island and an Ancient Tomb draw and I Ponder into 2 more Ancient Tombs. Since I have a Show and Tell in hand I figure I can just ramp the cast my Show and Tells. He gets 2 Wastelands which is fine and has no early clock. When I attempt a tapped out Sneak Attack he already has a Nimble Mongoose in play. He Dazes my Sneak Attack, no worries all according to plan. Since my life total is still over 10 I draw a Defense Grid and attempt that. He lets it resolve and he casts an Ancient Grudge! OMG! I was shocked! I attempt a Sneak Attack and he Forces. I have another Show and Tell for the win and he has no cards in hand but I was down to 2 life and needed to tap my Ancient Tomb...
Game 3: We play draw go and a lot of lands in play. I was able to resolve a Defense Grid and Sneak Attack but I don't draw a single monster.... No choice but to extend the hand. I get knocked out of Top 8!!!
Round 6: Waterfalls Cascade (Win)
Game 1: After a double backbreaking losing streak, I get so hyped to win my next round that I nearly had a God draw. Turn 2 Show and Tell on an Emrakul and a Daze for his Liliana was enough to finish game 1.
Board in: 2 Blood Moon.
Game 2: I Force of Will his turn 2 Dark Confidant and then drop a turn 2 Blood Moon with him not having a single basic land. He scoops, the match lasted like 10 minutes lol
Props: My team mate winning the entire event with Maverick as our metagame is filled to the brim right now with Delver Decks. 3 of my friends who I play with every week made it to the top 8 including a new friend that never got into a top 8. Having the pleasure of playing against very good players and very friendly players.
Slops: Mana Screwed!!! and some Ponder misplays :( Finishing 10th! lol Almost made it.
Last edited by blindspotxxx; 10-14-2013 at 09:44 AM. Reason: Updating Tournament Report
Congrats to Jaco for winning with the deck last night.
Evidently my list from the last SCG MKE was better then the one I piloted yesterday. My old list was MUCH closer to what Jaco played... I was disapointed in the finals though. Very anticlimatic although with Oops all Spells that was to be expected.
Congrats Jaco! Hope to see a report from you, I still remember the one from Madison last year.
nodahero is jaco? wow grats!
No, he is not. Jaco is Jaco. Read nodahero's post again.Originally Posted by blindspotxxx
So we had a little SCG IQ event at our LGS yesterday. I used it to try and tune my deck for the upcoming SCG Open next weekend. Most of this will be from memory, so bare with me.
I sleeved up the following:
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Intuition
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
3 Daze
2 Misdirection
4 Lotus Petal
3 Volcanic Island
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
2 Mountain
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
Sideboard:
2 Echoing Truth
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Blood Moon
4 Not of This World
2 Flusterstorm
Now, some notes on a few choices:
- I made a last minute swap taking out 2 Pyroclasms from the board and going with 2 Blood Moons because there was a lot of talk about how great Blood Moon is at blowing out greedy decks. Plus, I wasn't sure I needed 2 Pyroclasms and 2 Echoing Truths because ultimately you would use them against the same thing, zombie tokens or goblin tokens. So I changed them to 2 Blood Moons. In hind sight, horrible decision. Those 2 Blood Moons were pretty much useless all night.
- I use to side 2 Stifle and main 2 more. I decided to swap the 2 main for an extra spell Pierce and an extra Daze and then made some sideboard changes to fit in 4 Not of This World at the urging of this forum regarding "how much infinitely better it is than Stifle". Again, in hind sight, probably the most useless card in the 75. I was NOT impressed.
Now, to the report:
Round 1 vs B/U/G Control -
Game 1:
Never seen this dude before, so no idea what he's playing. He rips my hand apart with heavy discard, eventually beating me down with a Goyf and Bob. Seems good.
Game 2:
Pretty much the same here. I went early Show and Tell into Emrakul, The Aeons Torn. On his turn he dropped Lilliana and my Spaghetti Monster vanished rather quickly. I wasn't really able to recover from there and Bob went the distance.
Yay me! Starting off in the 0-1 column!At this point I told myself if I lost one more I'd just go home and spend time with my wife since she wasn't thrilled about me taking her only day off to go do something without her. And it was clear that X-2 would not make the top-8 cut.
Round 2 vs Omni-Tell -
Game 1:
No clue what I'm playing against here, never seen this dude before. He leads with fetch into basic Island and does nothing, so I'm thinking "maybe High Tide?" So I go turn 1 Ancient Tomb, Lotus Petal, Show and Tell and he says "OK!!!!" That's when I knew I had made a mistake. Confirmation was when he put in Omniscience, then untapped and won the game.
Note to self - NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!!!!
Game 2:
So I side out the Show and Tells for those Flusterstorms and a couple Surgical Extractions thinking those might be nice if I can nab something of importance. I spend some time sculpting my hand, as does he. At one point we played "draw-go" for quite some time. Eventually he tries to go in for the Show and Tell and I Force of Will. He Force of Wills back, I Force of Will that, he Pact of Negations that, so I Misdirection that. Everything resolves from that point and it's now my turn. I run out a Sneak Attack into Griselbrand into "draw lots" into Lotus petal into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and we're off to game 3!
Yay me! I finally won a counter war!
Game 3:
Possibly the most ridiculous game ever! We both spend a huge amount of time sculpting hands. I seem to be having better luck sculpting than him judging from his comments. I seem to have all the Brainstorms and Ponders while he has none. At some point he goes for the Show and Tell and I let it resolve. He puts in the Omniscience while I put in Sneak Attack. He then proceeds to cast Enter the Infinite. I force of Will, he Force of Wills back, I Spell Pierce, he taps 2, I Spell Pierce again, he taps his last 2, I Flusterstorm and him and everybody watching is suddenly going "What the hell just happened here???" He now passes turn and I untap and topdeck Griselbrand with a live Sneak Attack and it's all over but the crying.
1-1
Round 3 vs Grixxis-Pyromancer -
Game 1:
Again, never seen this dude before so no idea what he's playing. I had a strong hand and eventually he can't stop the Sneak Attack/Griselbrand/Emrakul, The Aeons Torn action. I didn't see much from him outside counters, so I'm still a bit confused as to what his gameplan is over there.
Game 2:
Out go the Show and Tells again for some more discard and those Blood Moons since they seem like they might help this matchup. I never see the Blood Moons and he goes early Young Pyromancer and eventually overwhelms me with counters and 1/1 dudes that go the distance.
Game 3:
Ok, new plan. the Blood Moons clearly hate me, so let's try Echoing Truth for those tokens. This time he leads off with an early Delver of Secrets and I'm toataly confused. I've now played 3 games in this match that seem to be against totally different decks each game. WTF??? But it doesn't matter much as I get a Sneak Attack online and a giant black demon and a spaghetti monster are too much for his insect to handle. Moving on!
2-1
Round 4 vs Death And Taxes -
Game 1:
Hmm....yet another guy I've never seen before, so no idea what he was playing. My matches had seemed to run longer than normal, so my scouting wasn't going so well between rounds. Mostly I just had a few minutes each round to step outside and enjoy some sunlight, something we don't get a lot of around these parts. So he leads off with a fetch into basic Plains and I'm thinking Maverick. Then I see Aether Vial and it becomes blatantly obvious at that point. I get an early Sneak Attack online before he can do much and run him over with my big ugly demon and an ode to Pastafarianism.
Game 2:
He gets a good early start with Aether Vial/Karakas into Mangara of Corondor and handles this game pretty easily.
Game 3:
I spend time sculpting and controlling his stuff until I can get Sneak Attack online and blow him out from there. Never once did I see a Not of This World outside of the opening hand of 3 of them that I mulled. Why do my sideboard cards hate me? Still, I'll take the win.
3-1 Guess the wife will have to wait.
Round 5 vs Maverick -
Game 1:
Another guy I've never seen before, so I'm going in blind. But I'm pretty jazzed up when he leads with fetch into basic Plains and drops a Mother of Runes. I starts sculpting, he gets a couple Noble Hierarchs online and then a Goyf gets out of control and this one slips away from me. Hmm.....
Game 2:
I've had fair luck against Maverick, so no idea what went wrong. But I opt for a more control plan and out go the Show and Tells again for some more control and those Not of This Worlds since I expect Karakas. But alas, my sideboard cards hate me, I never see them, and this one slips away as a Goyf goes nuts on me while Qasali Pridemages seem to be all rage. Not sure what just happened, but I know I lost.
3-2 And now there's a slim chance to top-8 at X-2 so I gotta stick around. Sorry wife.
Round 6 vs MUD -
Game 1:
Hey look! Another guy I've never seen before! I have no clue how I made it all day without seeing anyone I actually know sitting across from me. But here we go! So he leads off with a Chalice of the Void at 1 and I have no Force of Will. This didn't take long to get away from me.
Game 2:
I side out the Show and Tells yet again since he has big dudes too and I start to wonder why I don't just play without them in the first place.I go early Sneak Attack while having what I need to stop him from getting Metalworker online. This one went much better as I cruise to victory.
Game 3:
Cavern of Souls on Construct sucks! So does turn 1 Chalice of the Void on 1. Eventually I was able to bounce it with Echoing Truth, but I had to do that twice since I had no counters to stop him from playing it again. But bouncing it on his end step did let me Brainstorm and Ponder like a madman before it came down again. Eventually he dropped it on 3 and I was happy since I had sided those Show and Tells out anyway. But in the end, uncounterable Metalworkers make a lot of mana and he took this one.
3-3 Damn, not the last round I was hoping for.
So I missed top-8 by a lot. My thoughts on the 75 -
- NOT happy with my sideboard at all!!!!
- Not of This World kind of sucked. It was never relevant in any of my matches. Even where it would have been I have no idea how I didn't see at least one.
Blood Moon was horribad. Terrible decision to put that in there. Even when it would have mattered, I don't think it would have mattered enough to justify the slots.- My gave hate package that has served me so well in the past was irrelevant as I didn't play a single graveyard deck all day. That was a bummer. Not that I'm changing those slots, but still a bummer.
- Several times I wished I had boarded Through the Breach. I find I side out the Show and Tells so much that they would have been good to have, more so vs the other Show and Tell decks and things like MUD where they have good stuff to put in off of it.
Feel free to suggest a better board or some tweaks I can make before SCG-Tacoma this coming weekend.
Currently Playing:
Dredge / Hive Mind / Belcher / Sneak-Show
HayWire Motorsports - Tacoma, Washington
GoFundMe
I kiked the bllod mons in april already and from there on I have won more event tan ever. Usualy I top in 80 ppl events but after taking blood moons for better cards I win more.
Pyrclasm is needed. I play 4 cause patriot, death and taxes, maveric, elves, goblins u destroy them and u want to draw them in multiples.
Congrats to Jaco and Sneak and Show! This is probably my favourite deck in the format now.
I'm honestly surprised that it beat Reanimator, though. The winning list didn't have any graveyard hate at all and in my experience I almost always need it in that matchup because Reanimator is basically a faster version of our deck. It's the reason why I never get rid of my 2-of Grafdigger's Cage in my SB (and change it up to 3 if I know for a fact that I'll face Reanimator).
The 3 Sensei's Divining Tops are interesting, too. My Tops are currently gathering dust in my binder and I should give them a go in this deck.
Blood Moon is great against 3 color decks and Maverick type decks. Otherwise it's not needed, it really shines on the Maverick and Death and Taxes matchup as it makes Wasteland and Karakas blank enabling your Through the Breach and Show and Tell to be relevant. I agree though that Pyroclasm is also as crucial, why not use both? Not of this World shuts down Karakas and so does Blood Moon and many more. Also the free wins against BG Variants when it resolves but really up to you.
Against MUD you can keep your Show and Tells when you plop down a Huge Emrakul. Even if they Blightsteel you can still beat them as Emrakul will be 4/4 and you swing with Annihilator.
Lol I hope Jaco makes a report here. Terrible of me to misread the post lol
You were saying? ;)
I will be writing up a tournament report on Eternal Central later this week with thoughts on the decklist, sideboard, and semi-detailed game/match notes. I'll probably toss a link on here when it's up as well.
Find me on Twitter at @JMJACO and @EternalCentral. If you have an interest in Vintage Eldrazi, check out my book Eldrazi Meditations.
Hopefully it isn't too much later this week. I'd like to read it before the Open this weekend. Seems I need to tune a bit before I go. Thanks Jaco, looking forward to the report.
Thanks to the others who suggested stuff as well. I'm taking everything into consideration.
Currently Playing:
Dredge / Hive Mind / Belcher / Sneak-Show
HayWire Motorsports - Tacoma, Washington
GoFundMe
Just test my list on the last page. Its too good!
My tournament report is now live here:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/scg-mi...k-and-bargain/
Any feedback always welcome. Thanks!
Find me on Twitter at @JMJACO and @EternalCentral. If you have an interest in Vintage Eldrazi, check out my book Eldrazi Meditations.
Here are the missing side board plans, enjoy:
Deathblade (this side is not 100% sure, depends on the kind of opponents deck)
- 4 petals 1 misdi 2 ponder
+3 reb +4 clasm
Canadian
- 4 petals (-2 City x +2boseiju?) 2 swansong
+3 rejilla 3 pyroblast
Patriot
4 petals (2 City x 2boseiju?) 2 ponder 2 swan song
-3 rejilla 3 pyroblast 2 pyroclasm
Sneak and show
-1 show and tell 2 city 2 petalo
+1 breach 2 boseiju 2 reb
Reanimator
-1 show and tell 2 sensei 2 city
+1 breach 2 echoing 2 boseiju
Dredge
Aun no tengo plan claro de si renta quitar counters por clasm y echoing o no, por ahora esto.
-1 misdi -2 swansong
+1 breach +2 echoing
Shardless bug / jund
-4 petals
+2 pyroclams +2 echoing truth (if no permanent hate like pithing, or bridge +2 pyroclasm)
Countertop/ hard control decks
-4 petals 2 ponder 2 city 1 fluster 1 misdirection
+3 grid 3 pyroblast 2 echoing 2 boseiju
Lands
- 1 misdi 1 fluster
+2 echoing
Tes/ant
- 1 misdi 1 petal
+ 2 pyroclasm-> xantid
Gw/death and taxes/ goblins
-1 misdi 2 swan song 3 fluster
+ 4 pyroclasm 2 echoing
Elves
- 1 misdi 3 fluster
+ 4 pyroclasm
Omnitell
- 4 Show and Tell
+ 1 breach 3 reb
Hight tide
-1 petal -2 ponder
+ 3 pyroblast
Thanks a lot for the report! Was a good read.
Awesome alters btw! Are there any photos of your deck to get a closer look?
Haven't read it yet (saving that for while I'm at work! :P ) but I second the request for pics. A bunch of people on /r/MagicTCG were asking for pics as well.
Ok, I've settled on the following for the upcoming Open -
4 Griselbrand
4 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
4 Sneak Attack
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Daze
2 Misdirection
4 Lotus Petal
3 Volcanic Island
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
3 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
Sideboard:
1 Echoing Truth
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Pyroclasm
2 Through The Breach
2 Flusterstorm
2 Stifle
The main was heavily influenced by Jaco. The side is what I felt coming out of last weekend's SCG IQ. Any last minute suggestions?
Last edited by TerribleTim68; 10-21-2013 at 01:12 PM.
Currently Playing:
Dredge / Hive Mind / Belcher / Sneak-Show
HayWire Motorsports - Tacoma, Washington
GoFundMe
Congrats Jaco on a great win. I played to a 6-3 finish at 49th with Sneak Show as well. Absolutely love the deck, you knocked out one of my playtest partners in the semis, well done:) I run one top main and after reading yoru report and thinking of the meta, you may be right, three may be the correct configuration right now. Not convinced, but food for thought. Anyway, great finish and congrats:))
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