Bug plays deathrites so as someone mentioned it affects on flusterstorms (they can sometimes generate the mana to pay) so I wonder if that was an issue here for you. I faced some situations against bugs that only fow helped me against discard and fluster was dead so I wonder if you had the same situations and if yes how often :)Originally Posted by emidln
Hey Ragdoll. I was the one who brought up "the deathrite problem". Fluster usually is a lot better against Shardless, mainly because they play hymns (I still haven't had a situation where Fluster was dead against hymn).
The Thoughtseize senario is a lot more manageable because they don't put down a fast clock like Bug Delver. You will usually have enough time to rebuild, and the deck is already pretty horrendous against combo as it is.
I side out all 4 Fow against shardless and I actually prefer Swan Song for the same reason I just mentioned (don't ever play it against Bug Delver though!).
-KjU
Well I'm not a big fan of swan song at all, they never convinced me to play them especially against bug decks. Plus I'm not a big fan of removing all fows against bug decks too but I got all your points ;)
I only side out Fow against Shardless, since they always play 4 hymn and they've got too many value plays. Against Bug Delver, if I'm on the play, I usually leave in 2, and sometimes 3 on the draw if they're leaning more towards counterspells.
I like playing this deck despite some fairly difficult matchups that are common in this meta. Gitaxian Probe has been very helpful in helping me identify vulnerable moments in opposing blue decks. Without it, I tend to imagine every card in hand as countermagic and stumble in an effort to play around that. It's alarming how often that isn't really necessary.
Nevertheless, it does sometimes reveal an opposing grip that is full of counters. It's not always possible to sculpt my own hand enough to fight through them all. I may be behind to begin with against a deck with similar search capabilities, or I might be saddled with the additional task of assembling a missing combo piece. The opposing countermagic might exceed my own in terms of quality, Spell Pierce and Force of Will against REB, Swan Song, and Flusterstorm. Miracles, WUR Delver, and RUG Delver are the typical culprits: decks that try to solve their problems primarily through an increased density of these very formidable 1 CMC counterspells.
The card I'm considering, outside of a black splash for Thoughtseize or Defense Grid, is a 1-of Gigadrowse as a Wish target. This is a page out of the old High Tide playbook. Most opponents seem to be content allowing Wishes to resolve, planning to counter whatever I've Wished for after I've invested mana casting it. Drowse thwarts this, and it also benefits from the cases where I've flooded out a little.
Has anyone already tried it?
I've never tried that though I do love defense grid since most of the counter spells that get boarded in are situational, like flusterstorm, swan song or REB, which defense grid bypasses. Also once I can play around daze I usually just jam and if they have 3 FOW and 3 blue cards and pierce daze force than they have it. Generally post board against delver, as long as there isn't a creature pressuring you, then you can generally push through a fist full of counter magic. Also cunning wishes are the perfect bait spells to eat counters.
Yeah, Defense Grid is very helpful and probably better than Gigadrowse. I've wished for Giga in about a dozen or so matchups so far, and it has done what it's supposed to do in a little more than half of them. The advantage over Defense Grid is that you don't need to devote multiple slots to it, and running both is definitely a nonbo.
The minor problem with Gigadrowse is that you need a land advantage for it to really shine and target any red-producing land twice. The more serious problem is fetch lands. Practically every blue deck runs fetch lands, and good players will leave these untapped until they need the mana, easily playing around the Gigadrowse effect. Cunning Wish --> Gigadrowse telegraphs the play loud and clear too, and even a single fetchland results in the entire play really just not being worthwhile at all.
...
My new experiment for the slot is Counterbalance, switching out the MD Preordains for Sensei's Divining Top a la the newest High Tide build. Although this does introduce an activated ability MD and lowers the blue spell count, it helps a lot against discard in game 1 and really shines in game 2 situations. Counterbalance dodges Flusterstorm though sadly not REB and Swan Song, is blue, and once resolved handily defeats all of those nasty 1 CMC counterspells in addition to helping out a ton in some pretty rough matchups, such as faster combo Reanimator, Elves, and Storm. Defense Grid has no utility there.
I don't know if it's actually any good. Generally speaking, my ideas are awful and make decks worse.
I had the same idea so if you're first to test let us know if it's worth. I've been running the black splash lately but now I think I'm going to return to red again but without the burning wishes. Pyroblast/ReB seems to be way better now that thoughtseize in this deck. The only downside it will create is d&t matchup again :)
Top is perfectly reasonable, I've been considering either cutting probe or shaving some preordains for the card. Counterbalance seems interesting, though I've never thought about it in this deck but it doesn't seem bad, though I have never tested it.
Yeah, some Preordains or Probes are what to cut for Top I suspect.
CB has been treating me well so far. It doesn't necessarily have as high an impact as I usually expect from a SB card, it doesn't dodge as many counters as the Grid. Theoretically it makes up for this by being applicable in two cases, against fast combo and decks with high counter density.
Some folks have tried to Fluster my CB, which made me smile.
...EDIT... took it out for a test tournament and CB is ok. I kind of doubt it's the best thing to run in the abstract, but it did ok.
Tournament Result: 4-1, split top 4 instead of playing it out
Round 1: vs. Elves. A timely Spell Pierce on a turn 2 Natural Order got me through game 1. I boarded out two Spell Pierces for game 2 in favor of Counterbalance, and actually drew it in my opening grip in game 2. Turn one Ponder set up a turn 2 Counterbalance nicely, with a CMC 1 on top. My opponent had only (by that point) DRS, Visionary, and Dryad Arbor out, and that was game.
Round 2: Enchantress. CB played no role in this matchup, though I did have to do the Cunning Wish trick with an O-ring trigger on the stack.
Round 3: RUG. Game 2 I boarded out two Dream Halls in favor of the CB plan. Game 2, once again, I drew managed to get one of them into my hand on turn 2. It met with a Daze. I had an extra Force of Will in hand, my opponent had no mana and I decided to fight over it using Force of Will. The CB stuck, though I had no idea what was on top of the library. It turned out to be something silly like Enter the Infinite, but a short time later I was able to engineer my critical turn with a 1 comfortably on top of the library. I had to fight one Force, and even a Vendillion Clique that threatened the Cunning Wish in my hand once I pushed through the Show, but Firemind's Foresight was there to save my bacon.
Round 4: Tin Fins.
Ugh, now this was a tough one. I'd do some things differently in the future. Game 1 I lost due to getting greedy on my turn 2 with my SDT. I had 2 mana up, in need of only a land to go off + with the knowledge that a land was on top of my library, with an extra Enter the Infinite under it, unknown below that. In hand was the full combo, SDT, and a Brainstorm. I'd already played a Force on turn 1 to protect this full combo from a Thoughtseize.
My opponent went for it, and when I Brainstormed in response to Shallow Grave (0 floating) I saw the 3rd card down: Spell Pierce. Had I not been greedy with deploying the unnecessary Top, I could have cast it. Shallow Grave had been my opponent's last card in hand. Hey, I never said I was a great player.
Round 2 I got my Counterbalance down and literally punted. T2 Ponder gave me knowledge of the top 3: land, Preordain, Enter the Infinite. CB was already in hand. I thought I'd drawn Enter, left land on top, and Preordain under it. Unfortunately I'd left the Enter under the land and drawn the Preordain. Turn 2 when I Counterbalance, Enter is on top of my library instead of the Preordain which had somehow migrated to my hand. I confidently flipped on my opponent's Brainstorm, realizing with horror that the spell wouldn't be countered. I Brainstormed to try in response, and my opponent went off in response. I lost.
Round 5: Burn. G2 my opponent Pyroblasted my CB (to counter it), and when I went off 2 turns later he hadn't any left.
...
I'm not sure I'm really pleased with CB. There are two other things to consider in that slot, Defense Grid and Flusterstorm. Defense Grid wouldn't have helped at all against Tin Fins, Burn, or Elves, whereas CB won (or could have won) me the game. Against RUG the Grid would have been better. It's unusual playing CB. Much of its value is surprise, and because people tend to play against this CB the way they play against the Miracles CB.
I'm coming around to the opinion that Flusterstorm might just be better. It's the only option that really works against opposing Flusterstorms.
Last edited by Lormador; 06-23-2014 at 04:55 PM.
Hi,
Does anyone know what Ian Brown's mono blue OmniTell list from SCG Portland may have looked like, numbers-wise? I know he was running some number of Jace but don't know how many specifically and the other numbers of cards, was hoping they would top 16 so we could see the deck list but doesn't look like it unfortuately. Been running this deck for a while and wanting to fit Jace in somewhere but not really sure where to trim/change so was looking to see that list to get a better idea. Anyone have any ideas on what it may have looked like, both main and side?
Is Jace in the deck a good idea in the first place? Lots of these Show and Tell decks seem to be moving toward a Jace side-plan nowadays, as it does basically give you something to distract your opponent with I guess while your busy brainstorming or winning via your combo.
Thanks
Hi. The things my list was doing different were the 2 Jaces, which were fantastic for me all weekend, a singleton Boseiju main, and Quicken in the board. I ended up 6-3 on the day, losing to elves, sneak and show (which I probably punted), and RUG delver. I beat affinity, u r delver, death and taxes, burn, ant, and fish. Against elves, I mainly lost to variance, seeing 9 of my 18 lands all 3 games. Interesting note here was Jace being a fantastic answer to Ruric Thar. Opponent natural ordered it into play, I untapped and unsummoned it while he had no red sources in play. Sneak and show was possibly the weirdest match I've played, hard casting omniscience, my opponent hard casting all 4 forces with Boseiju, and me not forcing Jace when I should have. Against RUG, both games, I attempt to go off the turn before I die with counter backup and my opponent has exactly 4 cards in hand, and both games those 4 cards were 2 force 2 blue card. I ended up 35th, but I'd say I had a decent day overall.
The other thing I learned the night before in the trial was that the deck should never play less than 3 city of traitors. Against burn, my opponent attacks me down to 4 with Eidolon and Grim Lavamancer. I have 3 islands in play and leyline in play, my hand is dream halls enter intuition blue card. I end step the intuition for 3 cities, untapped, cast dream halls enter, omniscience, jace to bounce the Eidolon so I can combo without taking the second shock from Eidolon.
I'll post a deck list later when I have the time/computer.
Signed,
Ian Brown
I did feel like you conceded a little hastily against sneak and show but 6-3 is nothing to laugh at. Also if your opponent has 4 cards in hand and double force double blue card they just have it and there isn't much you can do about that.
Against Sneak, I conceded games 2 and 3 with Jace at 13, no action in hand, and no way to combo. Game 2 I had the Force for the Jace, but I decided against it with the reasoning that I would need that Force to force through my combo. It also doesn't help when your opponent boards correctly and takes out Show and Tell.
As far as a deck list goes, I registered
4 Omniscience
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
4 Enter the Infinite
4 Show and Tell
4 Cunning Wish
1 Intuition
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Personal Tutor
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 City of Traitors
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
9 Island
Sideboard
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Defense Grid
1 Snap
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Quicken
1 Release the Ants
1 Wipe Away
1 Intuition
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Pact of Negation
did you feel weak to counters because you don't have that many
I must've missed something in game 2 but I don't believe you looked at the 3rd card from preordain game 3. If you had a dream halls or show and tell/omniscience/enter (2 of those 3) you could've found a way to get the third piece by chaining cantrips, but I couldn't see your hand, also depends on how much mana you had. Even if you only had 1 piece and an extra card in hand you could've theoretically found a brainstorm and found the 2 remain pieces if you had the perfect brainstorm, I realize it's a long shot but at least it's something (obviously not accounting for opponents counterspells).
I actually didn't. A lot of beating countermagic was forcing your opponent's hand and flat out being patient. In my experience, the deck that you are most worried about countermagic is Miracles, and you A) have Defense Grids, and B) have Boseiju. Boseiju is an incredibly important card in those kinds of matchups, but you can only afford to run 1. Also, don't underestimate Mindbreak Trap in those situations. The card puts in work
My hand at the time was City of Traitors, Show and Tell, and I pushed 2 lands. In order for me to win at that point, I would have needed either Cunning Wish, Omniscience, or Enter instead of the Show and Tell. And even then, that line would have involved hope/praying my opponent didn't have counterspells
EDIT:
BTW, the cards my opponent put on bottom were 2 Enter, 2 Dream Halls, and an Omniscience (I think). Don't know if you guys actually got to see what he put down there. I haven't watched the coverage yet
Thanks for posting the deck list and your thoughts on the deck and how it peformed throughout the tournament.
I came up with this list earlier on running the two Jace main deck (though changed the manabase a bit after I just saw your list), I guess this list may be more of a 'standard' OmniTell list with Jace jammed, not sure if it would work as well:
Main:
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3x Dream Halls
4x Omniscience
4x Brainstorm
3x Cunning Wish
4x Force of Will
2x Pact of Negation
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4x Enter the Infinite
2x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Show and Tell
3x Ancient Tomb
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x City of Traitors
9x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
3x Scalding Tarn
Side:
3x Defense Grid
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Intuition
1x Pact of Negation
1x Release the Ants
1x Rushing River
1x Sapphire Charm
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Trickbind
Well crazier things have happened, like that oops all spells game before it cut to your match. Anyway how was quicken in the sideboard, why was it there and how was it for you through out the tournament?
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