Nice report!
Last night I played in a small local tournrey for 2nd out of 9.
R1: Beat Reanimator
R2: Beat Lands
R3: Lose to Big Red
R4: Beat MUD
I almost had big red but in g3 he leads with sandstone needle, I play swamp duress and take sneak attack leaving him with several fatties and 2 blood moons. He goes t2 bloodmoon and I can't draw my forest to play anything in my hand besides a deathrite shaman some turns later, and there were no lands in the GY for the entire game. I could have gone turn 1 crack fetch for a forest, but I was playing to stop him from going off rather than playing around a turn 2 blood moon; and I figured duress was the better play.
what's the reason behind playing 24lands? I've been running 23 for some time without any issues at all. I actually still find myself getting flooded more often than not
The mana curve is a higher than a lot of other legacy decks. You've got a lot of stuff that costs 3 (Lili, a full cycle of Punishing Fire + Grove) and a key spell that costs 4. DRS is public enemy number one the moment he hits the table so you cant always rely on him to get you though the curve plus everyone has wasteland and you're gonna want to use your wasteland on your opponent. 24 land seems like a safe number to ensure you can reliably get to 4 mana even though disruption
In other hand I don't think there is THAT much difference between 23 or 24, though I do believe you're counting the Punishing Grove engine for the extra lands. I've seen and tested lists with 3 Grove of Burnwillows and it works jsut fine. In fact right now I prefer running 3 groves and 4 wastelands instead of the opposite, even though my deck land count is still 24.
That said, Wastelands are not lands in my hand, but LD spells ;) So in fact you run 20 lands actually.
The new set has been spoiled. Does anyone see anything that we should consider playing or be concerned about playing against?
For Death and Taxes they gain Aegis of the Gods and some people are talking about Tethmos High Priest being viable. In any case, have creature removal and we should be fine. Just note that they can Vial in Aegis of the Gods similar to the way they vial in SotL.
Didn't see anything else that can be added to Jund. However, I would expect Enchantress decks to start picking up a bit with some of the enchantment creatures that are being printed.
I don't see anything that really scares me. With the high number of removal spells we play I am not worried about the you get hexproof guy, and the red guy is just another card that our worst matchup can play; but burn was already a lost cause IMO.
Nothing else really stands out, but with all the brewing that happens in legacy who knows. I have a funny feeling we might see something new, or at least an updated older deck.
I wonder if is there any potential in this: maybe together with PFire:
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It is too expensive. I like the effect a lot, but this would have been playable possibly at 2 mana. At 3 it is way too much.
It would also be nice if it could kill a flipped Delver and possibly had flash. If it was 2/4, maybe there would be a chance of it being playable in Legacy.
Life from the Loam is still the best way to get PFire into the gy.
"Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference."
Is burning wish usable in this deck? Being able to fetch a hymn/duress, pulse or something else is nice and we often have the mana for immediately casting it. Cascading into BW also could be good as you can choose the outcome yourself, so to speak.maybe a one off?
No. This deck needs its mana too much. You lose when you have too little mana available. Adding Burning Wish is the opposite of what we need to do, I think.
What do you all think about 1-2 copies of Prophetic Flamespeaker in the maindeck (in place of the same number of Tarmogoyfs)? My meta is filled with Miracles and Swords to Plowshares decks and Tarmogoyf has been pretty underwhelming as such. The Flamespeaker is intriguing since it is another form of card advantage which can help against the control decks.
It dies to bolt and it is fairly expensive. That being said, the effect could be incredible. Turn 1 Shaman, Turn 2 that, Turn 3 removal and attack? Even if all you get is a land, it's still pretty damn nice. And if you get 2 cards you can play... hello!
Not great in a meta filled with Delver decks, but it's a powerful enough effect that it could definitely see play.
I top-8'd a local tournament for a Mox Emerald (33 players) with my maindeck from the previous page (no Hymns, 25 lands). I played this different sideboard though:
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Destructive Revelry
2 Golgari Charm
3 Hymn to Tourach
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pernicious Deed
The Swiss went like this (6 rounds):
MUD (2-1)
RUG Delver (2-1)
Affinity (2-0)
RUG Delver (1-2)
BUG Delver (2-0)
BUG Delver (ID)
In top 8 I was paired against Miracles. I proceeded to lose game one to my own God-awful play (Don't forget that Punishing Fire triggers off of lifegain triggers that aren't named Grove of the Burnwillows lol), win game 2, and then get slowly grinded and hated out of game 3. I think incorrect sideboarding contributed to my game 3 loss as well. I got my entry fee back for my trouble, and re-learned some lessons about how to play against Counterbalance (Abrupt Decay is a crutch, the times you don't draw it require actual thought). The deck was good, I mulliganned for lands a surprising amount considering that I play 25, but drawing lots of lands helps a lot in tempo matchups. A mullligan and/or better play on my part might have won me the Swiss RUG loss, although double-Stifle hands are rough.
The sideboard changes were motivated by fear of Dredge (extra Cage) and the 'revelation' that Hymn is better than Duress against combo (but I still don't want it maindeck) so it sneaked back into the sideboard. I will likely replace the Revelry with a Krosan Grip (forgot that card existed, don't make sideboards in the early morning when you are half asleep gents) and I would like to sneak a Pithing Needle in there somewhere, although I'm not sure what card gets cut for that. I may not play this deck again for a while as I am going to work on learning how to play tempo decks, but I recommend my current maindeck to anyone who wants good game against tempo and control decks.
EDIT: That Nyx Weaver card is beyond awful, I would rather play Kitchen Finks or Sprouting Thrinax in a three slot (and we all know those cards aren't playable over anything in our current 75, this is far worse than they are).
I was helping my friend playtest his new deck BURG Tempo and I was thinking to myself: "How do I exactly win against this deck?". He is a lot better than me in the game so I lost pretty bad, most of the time he would daze/spell pierce me and beat me down with delver/elemental tokens from young pyromancer. The color lockout strategy I use against RUG Delver doesn't help in this case since he packs DRS in the deck. Should I be trying to stall the game with punishing fires and not trying to race?
Always consider your role in the games you have.
You say it's tempo, so trying to battle with him on exactly that would not get you far. Play the control role instead, and answer his threats and secure a mana base stabil enough for playing a liliana or bloodbraid/goyf.
You should crush this deck unless you get Stifle/Wasted out of the game (which does happen rather often I will admit). Play around Stifle, fetch basics whenever possible and play around Daze whenever possible. You have huge amounts of removal, leverage that to stay alive. Keeping hands with a lot of lands and removal spells is generally where it's at. Sweepers out of the board help with Pyromancer nonsense. Remember, YOU are the control in every Delver matchup. Your creatures (with the exception of Goyf) are a shitty clock so you will rarely be able to race them. Dismantle their board and you will eventually win through card advantage and superior lategame. If you can't make it to the lategame you are dead.
EDIT: While Wasting greedy decks like RUG and BURG may be a nearly irresistible temptation, doing it into untapped blue mana (or DRS) is just asking to get Stifled. Also, I have found that the extra land is often more important than any effect you get from Wasteland - there are lots of cards in our deck that feature colorless mana, and paying for Daze is a thing. Remember, you aren't trying to disrupt them out of the game early (that's their gameplan against you), you're just trying to kill/block their guys until you have enough lands and resources to take over the game.
How do you guys board against lands?
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