Fair enough. I'm still on the side of I'd rather the 3 slots for something else.Originally Posted by Mackan
They banned Top, so now I play Grixis Delver.
This is solid advice. BUG's scariest t2 plays are always Hymn and Liliana. It depends on what land BUG led with (ie could they still cast a Hymn without Deathrite?), if there's a land in the GY, how susceptible my hand is to Hymn or to Liliana (do I have Brainstorm, Terminus, Council's Judgment?), etc.
Recently I've seen a wave of in between BUG Delver and Shardless BUG decks. They run some combinations of Stifle/TNN/Jace MD. I suspect they cut Daze for them.
None of them seems to run the Shardless Vision package. Is this a LGS thing or is this a trend I didn't spot?
There have been some bug delver lists recently opting to run Stifle, and I've seen some running Shardless in the board, but I honestly think the two decks stand strongest if they stand apart. They're both trying to execute different strategies, even if they share the same colors.
They banned Top, so now I play Grixis Delver.
I've seen some hybrid lists as well. Mostly people trying to jam TNN or maybe a Jace or two into Delver.
Yeah, I could just be playing it wrong, but I hate drawing Swords in that matchup and am glad to dump it on a Deathrite.
Shardless is catching up to Miracles on MODO as the second most successful deck. I think a lot of it's got to do with it countering Miracles somewhat while having the low skill-floor of a Jund deck. Still, I've actually been feeling that Shardless and BUG Delver are positive matchups. Shardless has that slot machine effect, where they sometimes play 3 Agents and hit 3 Ancestrals, but I feel like it's mostly Lejay or other known grinders that get me with these blue midrange decks. And the games are always extremely close and often involve me misplaying.
With Shardless being so popular, I tried Blood Moon and cut it after never wanting to resolve it in multiple games where I drew it. In a game against Lejay on Shardless, he had one of his basics out and I was already ahead and rushing to catch up on clock for a game 3, so I never played it. The following game he perceptively fetched his 2 basics, and it appears that 90% of the daily cashing decks are running basic swamp and forest. Have they just recently started copying him? I'm not sure if he streams or not, but I'm assuming that the better Shardless players will actively play around Blood Moon. Especially when they board up to 4 Thoughtseize. It really seemed like a win-more card that's apt to get Thoughtseized more than anything else. The feeling I get playing this matchup is that we win when the game goes long, and boarding into a clunkier build seems wrong. I do wish I could run it in the board a little longer, but I'm not the patient.
Keranos is the next to go on the chopping block. As the most expensive card in the deck, he seems to like to hang out in your hand till he can get Thoughtseized. That or show up in the top 3 cards of your deck when you have no red, and Entreat quite obviously would be gg. The card seems so promising if it does work, though.
Ein played against Lejay and Lejay won more as well. Both Lejay and Bahra run BUG of some kinds and Bahra streams. Here's the problem with Entreat, you assume board is clean and Entreat will resolve. A lot of time that's not the case. Entreat doesn't save you from Tarpit, StP does. Even if you Entreat for Lethal, it's possible BUG just Abrupt Decay a token and kill you on the swing back. That's not to mention if the board has Lili and/or Jace from the BUG side.
Here's problem with Keranos, ideally you want to float it until you are ready to cast it. However, often I'm forced to shuffle it away because I'm looking for removal. When I do stabilize and have a clean board, Keranos is nowhere to be seen (yes, I have multiple Ponders and Snapcasters in my deck). Overall, I still believe Keranos is a solid win condition against any decks that don't have Blasts and Rishadan Ports.
So here's a random hypothetical...
It's game 2 and it's turn four (you're on the play) against Doomsday. You have Counterbalance and four land in play (one is an uncracked fetch) with Venser, Jace, and REB in hand. Your opponent Abrupt Decays your Counterbalance at the end of your turn (with six cards in hand).
Your first choice is:
Do you trigger the Counterbalance and see what's on top?
Or do you crack the fetch then trigger Counterbalance?
(assume that either way you see a Flusterstorm)
Your second choice is:
Do you let the Counterbalance die?
Do you Venser the Counterbalance to hand?
Do you Venser the Abrupt Decay back to their hand?
I think you're pretty dead. To answer your question, I'll let CB die. Usually Doomsday would start the combo turn with either a Duress or Silence. Since you have a CB in play, he'll just fish for AD and luckily for him he had it from the start. Hence, your best bet is to hope he has a Duress not Silence, and upon seeing Venser, he cannot go for Doomsday because insufficient mana of correct color.
Yeah you're pretty boned here. I'd let it die, and then hope for duress. I'd just let the duress resolve and show I have venser up. If he does silence, I'm dead unless I do SOMETHING, so I'd likely (given 3 cards in hand that I'd assume my opponent doesn't know about) cast the venser into it, and make like I had force of will. It's a hard bluff, but as said, if he resolves silence and you do nothing, you're just dead. If you bounce the silence he can either a) cast it again, and perhaps not have the mana to go off or b) just 'go for it' or c) wait a turn and try again, at which point you'll have 2 power on the board and a reb + fluster in hand.
They banned Top, so now I play Grixis Delver.
Have any of you guys had trouble beating RG Lands? I lost to Kurt Spiess in a huge tournament last weekend and it was mostly because I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do preboard and postboard. Game 1 I kinda got there by floating a 2 on top with a t2 CounterTop, but G2 I got smashed by Main Phase 2 Rishadan Ports on all my white sources (Game 3 I just punted and lost when he jammed Marit Lage). Using Ein's 75, what should my game plan be? How should I board?
I like the following cards vs. RG Lands, but would not board ALL of them in:
2x Rest in Peace
2x Engineered Explosives
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Disenchant
1x Keranos, God of Storms
It would be wonderful to have Needle in this matchup, but it isn't in the current board.
Exactly what you bring in depends on what you see. You want to be able to shut things down like Life from the Loam, Crucible, Punishing Fire, and the like, and be able to deal with Marit Lage. These decks are very good at recurring Lage, so having a solid way to repeatably deal with him is important.
Rest in peace does an effective job of stopping all graveyard shenanigans. 2x is a definite.
EE can hit all of their rampers like exploration, and can get some value hitting mox diamonds and needles. I'd say 1 to 2.
Vendilion Clique can get the LFTL out of their hands post-draw, which can help slow them down, while presenting a real clock.
Disenchant hits all of their enablers.
Keranos serves as another wincon, and, while not necessarily at its best vs a recurring wasteland deck, can shine in the long game, as they really have no way of getting it off the board.
Coming out would be something of the following:
1x Entreat the Angels for 1x Keranos. They run a ton of EEs. One is fine, as a "gottcha!" but I think Keranos better suits how the matchup will play out.
2x Snapcaster Mage for 2x Vendilion Clique. VClique presents a more relevant threat, while providing great distruption vs. Life from the Loam. Plus snap loses value with 2x RIP main
1x Counterbalance for 1x Disenchant. We definitely WANT counterbalance in this matchup, as it can simply turn off the Loam Engine, but Disenchant allows us to deal with what slips through.
2x Counterspell for 2x Rest in Peace. Counterspell deals with Life/Punishing once, RIP stops it from ever recurring again.
1x CJ, 1x Force of Will for 2x EE. I think force is fine to leave in on the draw, but I'm not sure what I'd cut. CJ becomes too hard to cast with rishadan port running around.
Things I didn't touch:
Jace -- I call this wincon A. They have very few ways to get it off the table (save for a reb effect, but that's what counterbalance is for), and he can bounce Marit Lage if you somehow come to that situation.
The Cantrips -- We need to see as much of our deck as possible in order to get the full power out of it. Thus, none of these are removed.
Swords and Terminus -- These are both effective ways to deal with Marit Lage. Swords kind of sucks, because it makes the kill with keranos harder, but it's so much more efficient to cast than CJ, and you can do it in response to port. Same story for responsiveness with Terminus.
My only fear is diluting my deck with unnecessary cards... I'm interested in reading other people's approaches.
They banned Top, so now I play Grixis Delver.
I like the cards you recommend bring in, but you definitely don't need 8 W removal spells. Unless you see factories or suspect stage/depths is a 4of, 2-3 stp should be more than enough to deal with a surprise mirage lage. If they get to the point where they can recur lage, the game is basically over. You need to try to not let them get to that point, not run cards to try to prolong the inevitable. The fight is over loam and pfire mostly, so rip and CB are very important. I also like maxing out entreat. It dodges port and can block page if needed. Jace is great, but pfire or EE (for 4) are a threat to him too and he will often be harder to cast than entreat because of ports.
With that in mind, perhaps my board plan should cut 1STP, keep in Entreat, and maybe cut 4x Terminus to keep Counterbalance, force and Counterspells around (up the blue count).
With "recur lage" in mind, I will say that an important part of this matchup is to realize when you've won and when you've lost, because you will go to time and you will draw. No one wants that.
They banned Top, so now I play Grixis Delver.
@ twndomn and exallium; thanks for replying. Yeah, I felt like I was probably pretty dead there. What I ended up doing was cracking the fetch before triggering Balance. The idea there was that if I found something useful on top then I could bounce the Abrupt Decay and be fairly assured that I'd get to survive at least one more turn. If I found nothing helpful then I'd bounce the Counterbalance and hope he didn't have it. I ended up seeing Flusterstorm, so I bounced the Decay. He Decayed again on his turn, Pondered, then passed. I untapped and decided to play Jace and Brainstorm (finding a new CB, a second REB, and a land). I play a land to leave Flusterstorm or REB up. He silences, I Flusterstorm, he chooses not to pay, and then I die anyways.
I ended up making the most "afraid" play, and it probably ended up being one of the worse lines. Thinking back, I thought that it might have been correct to bounce the Balance and just make him have it since a single Flusterstorm is unlikely to get there. It's also possible that I should have not cast the Jace and instead held up both Flusterstorm and REB (in the hopes that I'd get to counter a Probe or draw spell that he'd need in order to combo). It's interesting that both of you said to hold up the Venser though. I suppose that's a decent line as well, especially if I make it to the point when I have Flusterstorm and/or REB up too.
@RG Lands; I usually board out all my Terminus and REBs (if you don't have REB, I could see taking out Pierces or Counterspells). I prefer Plows since they rarely have many guys and racing with Angels is totally valid. I really like RIP, FoW, Venser, Entreat, and CBalance here. Jace is alright, but Crop Rotation EoT can make tapping out threatening.
Quick question for those who play on MTGO.
When you are blind flipping counterbalance, how do you see what card you revealed?
Under the revealed tab, I am only able to see what cards the opponent revealed. The prompt on what card is revealed is also very periodical.
Let me know if you are also facing this issue.
A text pop up will appear on the right of your screen with the name of the card.
"Attack with Order of the Ebon Hand."
"K, block with Jotun Grunt?"
"It has pro white."
"Swords?"
"It still has pro white."
Team OMRIAIGTWYFEWARTCAE Team RTD
Twitter: @shawnldewey
On the right hand side, the top half shows your opponent's exiled/revealed cards while the bottom half shows your own. You have to expand the revealed dropdown, but it will show you the card that counterbalance flips.
I though entreat was bad vs lands? They waste you and port you and have tabernacle and maze of ith, so it's really hard to get a mass of angels, let alone to have angels actually deal damage to them. Isn't Jace ult the easiest way to win?
Jace was much better against the old Lands decks because they couldn't really do anything scary at instant speed. Since Dark Depths is a thing now, you have to be more careful about tapping out. Port isn't really a problem for Entreat because you can always just draw it in response to the Port activation. Tapping out for Entreat is less scary because in the worst case scenario if they Crop Rotation and make a Marit Lage then you still have at least some number of blockers ready. I'm not saying Jace is bad, he's just not as reliable as he once was against Lands.
I'd stick with boarding out non-FoW countermagic and Terminus. FoW is still useful for Manabond/Exploration or if they bring in Chalice or even for blowing out a Crop Rotation. Spell Pierce can be good on the play, but it loses value quickly. EE might be alright, but it's slow at hitting Manabond/Exploration and it can't touch Marit Lage. Shutting down Loam should be a big priority.
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