You could have just said "odd sentence structure." :p
Originally Posted by ktkenshinx
So I played at my weekly tournament yesterday and went 3/1 with a fairly unconventional list. A while back there was conversation about Caleb Durward suggesting something like a 62 card deck with 4 probes (in his banned series tolarian academy and gush). I tried a list with the following
62 cards
53 core - 1 goyf + 1 sylvan
4 chain lightning
4 probe
Round 1 Esper Life Loss Tempo 2/1 | 1/0
So for starters let me explain his deck a bit since it's very off the wall. There had been a UB life loss tempo build that made top 8 at an SCG a while back running death's shadow a few shocks and the other usual tempo package. He took that list splashed white and added deathrite. This allowed him to have access to stuff like swing 7 with shadow pass mid combat swords shadow gain life back. It also allowed him to have better sideboard options in RIP and Meddling Mage. It's a really cool deck with a lot of potential I think.
Game 1 he wins with me not being able to find an answer for his delver... with my 8 bolt list go figure. Key note he had presented trop into delver and swamps that game which led me to think he was on bug (I sided in submerges and immediately sided them out after game 2).
Game 2 Here he leads on deathrite off of scrubland. I get a solid goose hand and bolt all the necessary creatures while keeping him off lands with stifles and wastes.
Game 3 I probe and see Sea, Scrub, Delver, and BS (he mulled to 5). Now this is where probe had value it allowed me to know to immediately waste his sea and not worry about taking care of delver first. The rest of the game involved with me having a flipped delver and that was it.
Round 2 Enchantress 1/2 | 1/1
Game 1 Delver beats him down to 7 before he stabilizes.
Game 2 This one was weird I kept a single trop hand with 2 goose, goyf, probe, stifle, stifle. He's on a mull to 5 with Taiga, words of war, RIP, Miri's Guile, Elephant Grass. Goose 1 starts beating him down mean while I stifle back to back guile triggers while I don't draw any lands. Then I play out another goose continue to beat him down. Eventually I get some bolts going and that's that.
Game 3 I get a few geese going and a goyf then he plays out an elephant grass. I beat him over the head a few more times. He then plays out moat which gets forced followed by RIP and Solitary Confinement which is game with him at 5 so close.
Round 3 Affinity 2/0 | 2/1
Game 1 I get a probe off and see Etched champion Cranial and Vault. A few bolts mop up his early critters while his first cranial gets forced. I get a threat going while he plays out another cranial and ornithopter bashes in for 5. At this point I know to keep 2 dazes incase he draws a 4th land to play out champ around daze. Eventually my threat gets there.
Game 2 He takes a mulligan to 6 I think and this was made real easy with information from probe.
***So this is where the downside of running 62 cards / 4 probe hit me. You can't board out probe EVER. Even in matches where it's bad like affinity ***
Round 4 Nic Fit BUG 2/0 | 3/1
Game 1 I get 2 geese going while having perfect disruption with stifle daze and a wasteland.
Game 2 Here I have probe which reveals Finks, Therapy x 2, island, AD, forest, PDeed. This allowed me to know my delvers were dead which I brainstormed away while playing out a goose. I also knew I needed to dig as fast as I could for stifle because he had deed. My Goose got there with the addition of 4 bolts hahaha.
Overall it was a really good learning experience. The core rug build has answers to deal with just about anything if you have perfect information. Now if you add the consistency of 4 probes for information and an additional 4 bolts the deck becomes blazing fast and consistent. You can utilize your cantrips more effectively all the while bolting when you have free mana. The downside is your sideboard choices become really weird because siding out bolts seems always wrong unless you're playing against combo. In addition you can never side out probes even when you want too against decks like D&T, Affinity, Burn, etc.
I think this might be worth testing out more in a Young Pyromancer list, but overall it limits your sideboarding options too much I think for a list with Goyf.
I still don't understand why is it so important to not sb out the Probes. I thought that they are meant to give you info in the g1 when you don't know what you stand against, and then for the post-sb games you may cut (some numbers of) them to make some room for more necessary spells; the disadvantage of an info lost should be outweighted by the fact that you bring "live" cards instead of GPs. What am I missing? Is the info that much necessary so that you simply cannot cut the Probes?
Thanks.
It may be. Back when I played a ton of ANT I noticed my ability to evaluate a gamestate went down a lot because I used the crapton of free information as a crutch. Took a good while of playing Elves to get that skill back to where it used to be.
Normally yes it's an easy card to side out and just really helps you in the early turns or knowing what to dig for etc. The issue with what I was playing was I was jamming 4 probes and bumped the card count up to 62. This effectively doesn't make the deck any less consistent or if only by a very small margin. The problem is you can't side out any of them without just turning into a 62 card deck with 2 probes which is just bad. Then you're just paying 4 life for 2 extra cards in your deck and some information. You need to keep all 4 in to maintain any advantage of running the play set of them with a 62 card deck. Normally you would side out 2 or 3 and it turns back to a 60 card deck, but with 4 probes in the main at 62 cards siding any out turns it into a regular old 62 card deck which is just bad. Maybe I was incorrect and siding out 2 is ok even though it makes it less consistent and makes the whole plan worse. Needless to say the deck felt really weird when I was playing against affinity feeling like I needed them in even though they were bad.
You definitely want to leave in the Probes in against decks with blue, where it tells what kind of countermagic they have and what the follow up to Deathrite Shaman will be, that's usually where they are the best (I would board them out against U/R Delver though). Running 4 against Death and Taxes wouldn't be the end of the world, but Thalia and Spirit of the Labyrinth are things, I usually have 1 Probe left in the deck after sideboarding against D'n'T. The current Burn decks are definitely too good to be wasting life against.
Granted I haven't actually tried a 62 card, 4 Probe build. I think it is an interesting premise, Gitaxian Probe is at it's worst when you are on hand that is something like 2 Lands, Waste, Probe, Mongoose, Bolt, Spell Pierce and your Probe draws you a 4th Land. Minimizing the chances of that happening would certainly up the power level Gitaxian Probe. I think there may be some problems with this strategy, the amount of times I get mana screwed versus mana flooded seems to be in balance with things as they are and 62 card build obviously would mess with that. Also, seeing a bunch of Probes off of Ponder and Brainstorm isn't always great when you need action.
What do you guys usually board out against DNT where the list is 2 spell snare, 2 spell pierce and 2 forked bolt. The rest of the deck is conventional. Also under match-ups we need to add Elves and DNT to it. These decks do see a high amount of tournament play, also maybe burn since it's on the rise
-4 force, -2 spell pierce // +2 rough, +2 artifact hate, +1 sulfur elemental, +1 Vendilion clique. Most are obvious clique is really good here because it can be played in response to Vial and Stoneforge. OTD you might want to keep 2 force in and side 2 daze out to help dodge Swords and counter vial, but force is still really bad here. It's a bad match up to begin with.
+1
i have needles in the sb too..so itll be a lot use here together with what contractkiller has mentioned..with that..ill cut off number of fows..snares are auto include vs this matchup..
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Yeah needle is pretty good here too. It hits there vial, SFM, equipment, etc.
What do you guys think about running a list with something like 3 probe and 3 pithing needle in the flex spots? I haven't tried it yet, but Needle hits a lot of prime targets our deck has problems with. Having the added information of probe can also lead to using it offensively naming fetch lands as well. I was thinking about the virtual card advantage it provides and seems worth testing. Land it after the opponent has played out a deathrite and blank that one and another 3 cards in their deck. Pithing Needle can also conserve resources like naming Liliana and saving daze and stifle for other problem cards. Just a thought I haven't actually tested it, but seems worth trying at least. There's also the added bonus of Abrupt Decay bait if it's really problematic and I'm ok if they have to spend their prime removal spell to deal with one needle hahaha.
Six slots. Those are six slots and I'm not sure if it's powerful enough. Remeber you got only so much free space in your 60 and it's already pretty tight. After you throw in the usual 53-54 cards (and no, I don't think that except for maybe Goyf, there's a single card you may easily cut from the core), there's not much room for cute tricks.
But test that! I'd be really interested in how it will work. The ability to hit fetches seems like the most powerful, casue with Stifle and Waste, this may become ourto
cmc LD package that prevents the opponent to play the game of MtG.
I've tried the 1 or 2 needle in the sideboard plan before with probes main. After sideboard if I kept probes in there were some sweet interactions. I had one game where miracles mulligained to 6 I probed saw double flooded strand played out needle and that was more or less the start and end of that game. There are enough staples in legacy that it hits that we care about so I think it's worth at least exploring. Or you know just playing against something like lands and proceeding to name wasteland/maze/thespian stage and just win.Six slots. Those are six slots and I'm not sure if it's powerful enough. Remeber you got only so much free space in your 60 and it's already pretty tight. After you throw in the usual 53-54 cards (and no, I don't think that except for maybe Goyf, there's a single card you may easily cut from the core), there's not much room for cute tricks.
But test that! I'd be really interested in how it will work. The ability to hit fetches seems like the most powerful, casue with Stifle and Waste, this may become our
The other thing is it can act like a persistent counterspell against all their Liliana's, or a persistent lightning bolt against deathrite shaman. BG/x is a big part of any meta and having some main deck cards that hose them and hit 99% of the other meta seems pretty good.
im not a probe fan in rug...but i use them main in my uginfect...wherein i have 3 needles too in the sb slot..but probe and needle really goes well together...one time vs snt where i am on berserk stompy..i probed seeing 2mistys...just like u ck..it was game from there on..as i managed to needle his tarn also....unfortunately, the 75 we have are so tight...that i already cut 1 essential spell by the name of submerge to accomodate two needles in the side..do update us with ur test results..
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The main 60 is pretty tight I'll give you that, but the sideboard has really opened up if you ask me. That aside while our main 60 is really tight that almost makes needle more appealing because it's so versatile. People have had success with varying combinations of the last 6 cards ranging anything from 3x probe 2x extra removal 1x extra counterspell to something like 2x snare 2x extra removal 2x pierce and even 4x probe 2x pierce. Now what I take from that is so long as you play tight with the main 54 those extra 6 cards can literally be anything each with their own advantages and disadvantages. With that taken into consideration why not play something that has a bit of play against nearly every deck in the format.
The two main creatures we care about dealing with on the spot are deathrite shaman and stoneforge mystic. Now we can needle deathrite shaman and not care about a squire after that. Against stoneblade we can hold neelde and then name stoneforge mystic after they have gotten batterskull or name jitte/sofi which is even better. Another option would be to name batterskull after stifling the living weapon which then becomes a hard counter more or less.
After that what are some other non creature problem cards for rug? Liliana, sensei's diving top (not really a problem card, but it keeps miracles on their turn and cuts down the filter which seems worthwhile), Aether vial (makes our counters live), Mother (yes now stuff will actually die), Wirewood (cuts off best friend team again like top not critical that we stop, but is worth it), Jace, Sneak attack, EE etc. Like the only deck that I can actually think of that has few to no targets is storm and even they have fetchlands most of which will be scalding tarn and/or polluted delta. Everything is so cookie cutter that you even know a good chance of what fetches an opponent will be running. All in all needle can attack from varying angles and does everything RUG wants: tempos out the opponent by creating virtual card advantage after blanking 3 - 4 cards in their deck (same theory behind our land destruction).
Edit: I guess one slight flaw in my argument here is while people have won with different cards in those flex spots all those cards did one thing. Needle on the other hand is like stifle that it does everything, but can range from meh to good to blow out gg move to sideboard hahaha. Will see I'm going to do some casual testing today and tomorrow I'll probably post some update Tuesday or Wednesday.
So I tried the 3 needle 3 probe build some and surprisingly not bad. Just some casual games with friends, but still worthwhile testing.
Jund
So this is already a bad match up, but needle did work.
Game 1 I run out a delver he follows with deathrite. Delver quickly dies to bolt. A turn later after I counter a hymn I find a goyf, but once again he meets an untimely death by abrupt decay. Finally I brainstorm find a needle and goose and go into the tank for 3mins or so. Eventually I decide that the only card he could still be holding right now after I wasteland/stifled him a bit is Liliana (which after the game we talked and I was spot on). I play out needle on lili and my goose... of course he top decks the single diabolic edict the only other card in his deck that can remove goose
. Despite me losing this match up what else would a forked bolt/pierce/whatever have done better there? Nothing the outcome would be the same. On top of that Needle acted like a hard counter against Lili where as a spell pierce he could have played around at that point.
BUG Delver
Game 1 This was actually really good for testing. He's on the play and leads fetch deathrite pass. I have bolt in hand, but also needle and lead needle out on deathrite pass. We both start to play out delvers, but I have 2 and he has one also mine flip sooner. He plays out some goyfs and deathrite is getting in on the squire beats. In the end I barely pull it out at 1 life with 2 flipped delvers and double bolt to the dome for the win.
Game 2 This game didn't involve probe or needle, but I had delver + goyf which got me there.
RUG Delver
This is probably the worst match up to test this build on because oh look needle does nothing lol.
Game 1 he wins with perfect info off of probe and me being on the draw... and having my threats quickly daze/bolted.
Game 2 Here needle actually did work I got wasteland and stifle followed by a needle naming misty the fetch he still had 3 of (3/4misty / 2/4tarn at that point) after that goyf landed and that was that.
These were all inbetween rounds of the tournament so they were all mainboard and only a few games, but worth while. Overall these preliminary games are showing promise the only match up where I would have preferred something over needle was rug and that's because needle kind of blanks there.
can u please share the maindeck list...
and of course the sideboard..2 weeks from now will be another major tourney here..so this will help me further tweak my 60/15..thanks CK!
and since there was a rise in burn lately, i think this is the very right time i include 2 snares already...
is it also right to cut the 3rd submerge already, since non are using that much goyfs, kotrs. scooze...elves..thanks for ur help!
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If you'll split your fetches you may easily avoid the needle just like the old "avoid the needle" argument was back in days
/tautology
That's when the proposed idea may work even in the RUG matchup, as people tend to play mostly U/G and U/R fetches, as they bought them for cheap when ZEN was new, and like how they fit to the duals. At least that!s my impression, becasue when I see the lists, I mostly never see the Strand/Foothills split, or 2/2/2/2 split or w/e, but in more than 2/3 of cases, its Tarns+Rainforests.
Just saying. It's not like this is the most important reason, the fact that one Needle may work as a hard counter against any number of Lilis/DRS/Jittes is the more important.
How do you guys board for shardless bug and what have your current boards have been looking like?
Yeah if this gets off the ground I would run 4 foot hills/ 1 of each U fetch. Blue decks would be more common and the decks that can run foot hills (elves, Jund, Imperial Painter, Goblins, Burn, etc) have more important targets than fetches. I did play test it a lot tonight so here's a bit of an update on RUG Needle:
Core 54 RUG
3x gitaxian probe
3x pithing needle
Sideboard:
3x pyroblast
2x submerge
2x rough
2x flusterstorm
2x grafdigger's cage
1x vendilion clique
1x sulfur elemental
1x destructive revelry
1x ancient grudge
Kind of an irrelevant sideboard since I've only boarded 5 total games against BUG with this build so far. Overall though it's a well rounded board and it's probably what I would run into any tournament.
Young Frankenstein 3/5 main deck
So for starters since this isn't a very common deck it's essentially a cross between reanimator and grixis tempo. It has a really good young pyro package with probe, cabal therapy, daze and force. After that it has reanimate, exhume, entomb, and dread return (singleton) for the reanimation package with Elesh Norn and Griselbrand as fatties. It also has a really cute singleton quiet speculation. This card alone won him at least one game against me Quiet Speculation with young pyromancer in play... dread return therapy therapy GG.
Introductions aside this was essentially what I thought the combo match up would be with this build. We already have a good match and I won 3/5 games (all main deck he had just finished building it so no sideboard). Needle is pretty lack luster here you can name fetches which does help more than extra burn would I think. By hitting fetches you can ruin their can trips (probably more noticeable against something like SnT we can also name sneak attack their). Needle can name Griselbrand, but unless they are with in bolt range or we have some stupid board state like goyf goyf delver goose it probably won't change anything.
BUG Delver 3/7 main deck | 2/3 sideboard
Their build: An actual tempo BUG build with deathrite, delver, goyf, tombstalker, TNN (not sure on the split something like 14 threats I think). All the good tempo toppings with daze, stifle, and hymn. I think he didn't have lili mainboard and opted for more fairly unbeatable threats for most decks because I only saw her after board.
Overall after playing something like a dozen games against BUG midrange/delver builds this main deck configuration has about the same win scenario with something like 55 - 60% in their favor. I will say this Needle is an all star here. Unless you have perfect info off of probe or from counting their fetches games 1/2 (I haven't done this but in a tournament I would) just name deathrite. We don't care about a squire and it significantly increases our mid to late game against them. When they don't have deathrite to tip the life scales in their favor it becomes a lot easier when it gets down to the top deck board situations.
Before if deathrite ever lived the chance of winning went down tremendously with them either shocking us or gaining life. When this is taken out of the equation and we deal with any subsequent deathrites with one card the game becomes a lot easier. With needle we can save bolts for the dome/goyf wars/other threats. I also haven't asked my opponents this, but there has to be some percentage of bricks gained by blanking an additional 3 or 4 cards in their deck. This is one of the prime advantages of needle that makes it slightly better in the creature removal department over forked bolt or compared to other counters. By blanking their utility creatures we gain virtual card advantage. Which whether you didn't know or think about is part of what RUG thrives on.
Our deck loves to wasteland / stifle and make those 3 mana or more cards harder to cast. Needle while it doesn't counter/ kill the card it names we now no longer consider it a threat including the other copies we haven't even seen yet. In addition naming deathrite makes our mana denial plan so much better. Now we can actually wasteland / stifle them off a color without deathrite coming to their rescue.
The other card needle effects in this match up is Liliana. Oddly enough I haven't gotten to name needle on her yet. To be perfectly honest after my current testing I almost think just naming deathrite is always right. People even more noticeably after playing this build lean on that card way too much
Now here's the really cool part about needle. If they do decide to decay needle think about what they've committed to do. At least for a few turns needle has tripped them up. Now a few turns later they're spending one of their best removal spells on our needle... and probably not getting the effect from whatever card it was naming on that turn anyways. If everything is going right at this point we've beaten them over the head 3 turns or so with a threat while they... well dealt with our needle. If that's not tempo I don't know what is
Miracles 2/0 | no sideboard games yet
So I played against miracles, but only twice so far and one of the games I actually didn't draw any of the probes/needles and just beat them the old fashion way: beat with threat, stifle miracle, counter counterbalance, keep threat alive lol. The other game though I did get to name top turn 2... it was awesome
I will probably be testing this match up more, but it was one of the favorite aspects of running needle main deck. Like Deathrite Miracles if you ask me lives and dies with top and leans on it + counterbalance a lot. Having an out to this main deck seems great and they won't see it come. Show me a miracles player who is prepared to play a game with the chance of all their tops becoming bricks
Deathblade 1/1 | no sideboard games
So let me just say this was one of the most brutal games I have played a while. That's probably why I took such good notes on it hahaha. I get turn one probe and see: ponder, force, scrubland, strand, delta, deathrite. I pass and bolt deathrite EOT. My turn I play out needle naming strand pass holding up stifle. He attempts to fetch I stifle he forces and I force back. On my turn I wasteland him... Oh hey it's turn 3 and he has zero permanents to my 3
The other game was a bit closer I probe see: force, brainstorm, wasteland x 2, stoneforge. He had played out deathrite turn one. I cantrip after I probed and passed. Stoneforge hits the ground running searching up jitte hmmm that's strange... Next turn he plays out TNN. I try to force it which he forces back (he had used the brainstorm so maybe I get lucky, but no). At this point I'm probably dead, but try to keep going. I play out two needles one on wasteland (still need mana if I want to win
) and one on jitte. I spend the next turn or so trying to find some way to race the TNN + deathrite, but can't.
This is one match up that I think naming fetches if you have perfect information might be better. Deathblade is such a greedy deck that they need their fetches so that they get perfect mana. Being able to make their mana base even more of a living hell for them seems like a good line to take.
Now that I've actually played with this build a lot I think it's worth looking into more. Needle is great hitting lynch pin cards like Deathrite and Top. I'm not 100% sure my split or selection is right. Three needles definitely feels like the right amount to have any consistency, but drawing 2 almost always seems bad. I guess this is where brainstorm is supposed to do it's work and fix our hand, but maybe something like 2 needle 3 probe 1 pierce/snare/forked bolt might be better. On the other hand I was always happy to have needle to name deathrite or fetches so maybe 3 is necessary and just shuffle the extras away.
Hopefully I will get some more testing done during the week. If I don't I will test some more next week during the tournament again, but I'm definitely seeing potential with this card. It's so versatile and hits the full play set of cards that just get annoying like deathrite, mother, wirewood, stoneforge where the one or two extra bolts wouldn't be nearly as good hahaha. Needle is also more flexible too which makes it more appealing.
It's a bad match up so if you're wondering about the secret sideboarding tech to beat it don't. Accept that it's a bad match up and move on hahaha. Here's what I do though:
-4 force (really bad against hymn), -2 daze (otd), // + artifact hate, + pyroblast, + rough, + submerge
As for what you bring in it can vary a lot.
If you see TNN main board all the pyroblast you have (probably 1 or 2 even if you don't see it to hit strix/creeping tar pit).
Artifact hate isn't horrible if you want extra removal to deal with strix particularly grudge since they have a lot of discard effects.
Submerge you will want to bring in if you see Goyf/tombstalker over TNN. We can't beat goyf/tombstalker, but despite it being free removal if they are on the TNN plan submerging strix and Shardless isn't worth it and after that they only have... deathrite.
Rough isn't horrible here it can snag deathrites (good enough to board in off that alone) and maybe a shardless or you could trade goose for goyf second main.
Vendilion clique is pretty good since the game will go long. Same goes for vortex and sylvan library.
Any other sideboard options are fairly fringe and may or may not be good. I will say that Price is king here hahaha.
Last edited by Contract Killer; 07-08-2014 at 08:03 PM.
thanks for the very informative inputs Ck! good read indeed..and im taking most of ur tips when i play 2wks from now..though my needles will be coming from the sides...well, on my part..based on experience vs deathblade..with them having variables in fetches..lotv,sfm,equipmnts and drs remains to be an awesome target compared to fetches..i had a game wherein i thought i completely tempoed him...when i ran out of gas vs a resolvd drs..and that was it..as he was able to get right colors back and crushed my board with lotv...sitting beside me are 2 needles labeled delta and flats..will be waiting still for ur test results.thanks man.
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