Im liking Canonist more and more, over thalia. The accumulation of tax effects, and waste-effects in your deck are good, but id probably cut at least one thalia for another canonist. against the bad matchups - it stops them Cold, even if we are not doing so great at the mana denial plan.
vs combo, I still think Sphere of Resistance is doing a better job than Thalia.Originally Posted by KntrellCL
You can Entomb/Intuition/Gamble and recur it with Academy Ruins, not Thalia.
Plus splashing W just for Thalia... Black give you Entomb, Raven's Crime and a strong clock, Creeping Tar Pit.
Smokestack is king against decks that run in looong/laaate game (UW Miracle and co).
Do you think against combo you will recur a sphere? Your critical turn is max on turn 3. Any card to attack is good... either thalia or tar pit. But cards like entomb or ravens crime are weak against drs. Also, if you think thalia is bad because you cant recur it... why our deck has always run 4 bobs on sb? Because our strategy changes on game 2... you cant dredge agressively to protect your gy and good pieces...
I think some of you needs to think more on what match up we need to sideboard really... you need creatures for game 2 or you wont going to win against combo... period...
Thank you for writing this post. Now I don't have to write it
^This.
Can I also quote your post KntrellCL? Because I fully agree with it.
Kntrell, imo Thalia is better than Sphere if your combo-player need they life points to combo-off. At first, I see Reanimator and TES, not that much.
I spoke about recurring Sphere because in certains situations, this might save you games (not in the early turns, of course...). No need to take a higher air...
Can you list the combo-deck you are facing, so we can speak about something more concret that just "combo" ?
On your others cards to consider,
Spirit of Laberynth : keep in mine it dosent work with Ad Nauseam and Dark Confidant as they reveal, not draw cards.
Mark, any good ant player will sideboard in abrupt decay and bouncing effects, so you need to disrupt at the same time of attacking their lives... this is the key against combo. Im playing two karakas main against reanimator and sneak attack. Thalia is just nuts against reanimator because all their reanimation spells are sorcery speed... cards like bojuka bog wont help against reanimator, where chalice does... you can tap their black mana all day long and beat them to death hopelly.
Karakas is one of my favorites cards on the deck... its turn off emrakul and griselbrand and revoker turns off sneak and griselbrand... if you have revoker maze and karakas... thats all for them..
I will start as if you dont want to go 5 colors, so playing Thalia dont allow you to run Creeping Tar Pit.
So, your main combo matchups are Storm (let say ANT and TES, because DDFT isnt that populare) and Sneak Show.
> Against ANT, life points dosent matter that much. they can combo off even at very low life.
Here, Thalia/Revoker arnt really better or worse than Sphere/Pithing Needle + Creeping.
In a lack of Abrupt Decay, a wired ANT play might be an first taxed Grap shot, then few setup and eventually a kill turn.
> TES is muuuch more life dependant. Thalia/Revoker are going to hurt very hard, much more than Creeping.
> Sneak Show isnt that much life dependant. Thalia/Sphere and Revoker/Needle are just doing the same job.
But it give you a blocker, just in case. Sphere/Needle dont.
In these three scenari, once you take the advantage with taxes-effect or Needle-effect, it dosent really matter if it come from Thalia/Revoker or Sphere/Pithing Needle. In both case, you will have the time to seek for your beater (in my case Creeping Tar Pit).
Now, does Thalia/Revoker worth the lose of a main Creeping Tar Pit, plus being weak to all creatures removal and direct damage... Even if combo-deck dont usually run these cards. On the other hand you dont have to invest time to find a beater...
Overall, your game 2 strategy dosent really change from mine, only your tools.
But at the time, I dont want to cut Creeping Tar Pit, so I wont play white.
Absolutly, in my local, there is only three decks that play DRS (2 Jund, 1 home-made Junk).[...] Cards like Entomb or Raven's Crime are weak against DRS.
So I still play Entomb, Raven's Crime and Creeping Tar Pit, who always shine.
Imo cutting main-black for sideboard-white turn the deck a bit weaker (because no Creeping Tar Pit) while adding some good answers with bodies to your worse matchups.Please, Let me know your opinion guys!
With more DRS than me, this could be the way to go as keeping black just for one man-land and no Dark Confidant might be wrong.
Last edited by kravkenov; 02-08-2014 at 04:47 AM.
I do love creeping tar pit and have won plenty of games smashing them 3 per turn, but creeping was put on the first place to get rid off planeswalker, which punishing fire also does. My manland now is dark depths.
The only reason I cut B from my list was to make a more consistent game 2 deck (the second karakas was my 16nd sb card).
One thing i cant agree with you is the fact that sphere isnt thalia and needle isnt revoker, the time investing to find creeping tar pit (which is almost a 4 drop since it came to play tapped) is just too slow comparing to landing beaters with hate... needle is good in aggro decks but with no pressure they will find answer on your eot and win on their turn. Not even ensnaring bridge is a good answer to sneak attack, they will bounce it and win at some point.
Do you replace the bayou with a savannah?
Yes... I cut 1 bayou... went back to 3 fetchs (I was using 4 as I was playing 5 colores) cut bog and tar pit (0.5 B sources)
KntrellCL, while you are going white for Thalia, isnt Meddling Mage just better than Revoker in your Game 2 plan ?
Ou it is too much colored-mana (UW).
I may do the same and add a riftstone because I am facing too many moon decks where I should otherwise take g1.
Meddling mage soubds really good, but i should tweak the manabase a little (going up to 4 fetchs) because i dont think i can hit uw consistently right now
Thats what you should do if there are too many moon effects in your meta...
Also, you may want 4 krosan grips in the sb and play 4 fetchs so you can get your forest out as quickly as possible.
Hello folks, I won my LGS tournament yesterday with the the following:
Spells:24
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire
Lands:36
2 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
Sideboard:15
2 Dark Depths
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Krosan Grip
We had 4 turns of Swiss and top 4, a quick overview of my match ups is:
1st turn TNN Bant: 2-0 - a very unfair match-up, he really didn't have a chance against denial, PF and the combo.
2nd turn Esper Blade with TNN: 2-0 - another very unfair match with my opponent never able to create any issue.
3rd turn Team America (the guy that won a huge tournament in December with the same deck): 2-1 - I didn't get in the match during game 1 with the deck refusing to provide any support. G2 was very close (he got a nut draw) and G3 was the typical slaughter against blue based aggro-control
4th turn Reanimator: ID
Semifinal UWR Delver with TNN: 2-1 - G1 and G3 were a total blow-out while he managed to win G2 with me a turn short to win.
I split the final prize against Reanimator and got the win.
I'm very happy with the list, it is extremely consistent and very we'll placed against the actual aggro-control meta. It is a "combo" version but it plays the control game very consistently and doesn't tax your stamina between matches (important for me...I'm too old for this game ;) )
@Raystar: why are you not playing 1 savannah if you are planning to sideboard spirit of the labitinth? why playing krosan grip over abrupt decay if you are playing black anyway?
I am very attracted by the more comboish version of lands that won the last starcity open (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=62811). There are few choices that I don't get though, so I hope that some of you land-lovers can give me some insights:
- 2 dark depths in the SB, for what MU? I guess that you board these in against combo decks that you want to race. But is it really a good idea? isn' t it better just to board extra hate? Drawing 2 dark depths is so akward.
- Tutor package. Kurt Speiss goes for 4 gamble, 3 crop rotation. I like both of those choices actually. However I wonder why nobody plays living wish/burning wish. Both wishes find the combo pieces (scapeshift is a card) and they offer a great versatility in answering all sort of threats.
- only one win condition. Isn' t too dangerous to play dark depths as the only wincon? punishing fire doesn t count :). Playing wishes can open to alternative win conditions in case dark depths is no viable anymore
Congratz on the finish!
Honestly I'm also a bit concerned about the lack of fetchable white sources to support spirit ;) I'm pretty set on playing Miracles at GP Paris, but I think I'll bring some version of Lands for fun on Friday Grinders (already got my 2 byes).
@Fimo:
-Krosan Grip/Abrupt Decay Tradeoff: I think this is a meta question. If you're playing Delver/TA decks all day I wouldn't mind having some extra removal in the SB, but on the other hand Decay doesn't hit Sneak Attack, Omniscience, Dream Halls. (Leyline of the Void, but this doesn't really see play=.
- The 2 Depths are not only for increasing your clock, but also for decks running massive GY-Hate, so that you have more options of naturally assembling your combo while completely ignoring the grave.
-Tutor Package: You also have to keep in mind that running Wishes decreases your SB Space, which is absolutely needed to adress akward MUs (mainly combo) and hate. Also, the number of potencial targets for wishes is limited by SB Space anyway, while Gamble and Crop Rotation are basically Demonic Tutor for most of your Deck. Also, Crop Rotation enables instant speed wins out of nowhere (and is another way to save Punishing Fire from a DRS activation, even thought that's a bit awkward if you have to handle it this way)
Anybody rocking Lands at Paris?
Grats on the finish, did any of those TNN decks playing white play rest in peace?
Of course and they all kept hands that were non-optimal containing RiP...in the meanwhile I would combo out with 4 Stages, 4 DD and 3 CR :)
Regarding the Savannah: you are totally right, but I was so scared of removing a Taiga or a Bayou that I decided to run the risk...my reasoning was that I would go for a tax effect and that would build me enough time to find W if needed.
Maybe (and it is a BIG maybe) I could exchange the 4th Entomb for a Savannah...
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