I don't like basic Forest if you're not maindecking Abrupt Decay. I used to sideboard a Forest for the Blood Moon matchups until eventually conceding it wasn't worth the slot. It's essentially colorless mana in a land-light U/B-heavy deck.
In fighting Wasteland you should win 9/10 times by just not fetching a green source until you need one. You need at most three or four green mana in any given game (unless you're boarding in other spice besides Abrupts), and two sources will likely be enough in most games.
I play Rituals over Petals and have never had any issues with the splash (running 4 Delta/2 Misty/2 Verdant/1 Trop/1 Bayou).
I'm so used to midrange strategies that I always considered basics in my deck. How do rituals play differently for you instead of petals?Originally Posted by DoorDie
Also for people that run 3x Griselbrand in their list. Do you miss the 4th one at all? I thought about cutting one just to shove an animate dead in there.
Ratchet bomb seems like a really nice answer to containment priest. Since it works even if they flash it in, can't be stopped by MOM and has utility if they don't draw Priest. Better than EE because it doesn't take mana the turn you go off.
Only concern is that those decks play revoker. But can't have everything.
I also like that Ratchet gives us a random out to leylines/humility. Really clever!
I run 3, can't tell the difference and haven't looked back. We still have 7 Griselbrands, and shaving one physical copy makes space for an additional silver bullet, making both Entomb and Griselbrand's draw 7 stronger. I like Sphinx of the Steel Wind as a hedge against U/R Delver.
I prefer Dark Ritual over Lotus Petal because it's a stronger raw accelerant (2 mana over 1, basically halfway between Lotus Petal and Black Lotus). It powers out the Entomb combos, resulting in better nut draws because T1 Entomb -> Exhume is now feasible. Same goes for cantripping into the combo and going off the same turn; Dark Ritual moves the combo turn forward more often.
The difference in U/B Reanimator is straightforward to show mathematically. With 0 untapped lands only Lotus Petal can combo but only in multiples which is unlikely and therefore irrelevant. On 2+ untapped lands both can accelerate every combination (unless you have exactly only basic Island + Trop or basic Swamp + Bayou, which is unlikely, but then Ritual is worse). So assume 1 untapped land. Then Petal can cast every enabler (Entomb, Careful Study, Hapless Researcher, Thoughtseize) but only one reanimation spell (Reanimate). Additionally all of the enablers besides Entomb are 3-card combos since you must have a fatty in hand or lucksack into one. On one land (an untapped Swamp), Dark Ritual can cast two enablers (Entomb, Thoughtseize) and all the reanimation spells (Reanimate, Exhume, Animate Dead), and additionally they are all 2-card combos except for Thoughtseize. So Ritual overpowers Petal when you are on one untapped land, either turn 1 or Brainstorm into the combo on turn 2, etc.
The whole point of acceleration is to bust out your combo in the same turn, so accelerating Brainstorms and Ponders doesn't appeal to me. Petal plays better around soft countermagic, but I am generally happy trading off a Ritual for a Daze or Pierce. I cut accelerants when I bring in interaction like Abrupt Decay because the games will tend to drag out and invalidate fast mana.
If you run the full 4x Ritual then hardcasting Griselbrand becomes an out in long games, but I've cut down to 2x since it has a more diminished return in this deck than Petal in multiples.
Last edited by DoorDie; 11-04-2014 at 12:11 AM.
Ratchet Bomb is good if you anticipate X= 0 or 1
Engineered Explosives is good if you anticipate X = 2 or 3
I ran mine for tokens & flipped delvers and Deathrite Shaman mostly, so it made sense. If I expect to go up against 2s like RiP or Thalia then I's run EE.
Artifact (4)
4 Lotus Petal
Blue (19)
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Daze
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
2 Show and Tell
1 Tidespout Titan
Black (19)
4 Entomb
4 Exhume
1 Grave Titan
3 Griselbrand
4 Reanimate
3 Thoughtseize
Multicolor (1)
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
White (2)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Lands (15)
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
Sideboard (15)
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
2 City of Traitors
1 Echoing Truth
2 Massacre
3 Pithing Needle
2 Show and Tell
This is what I been testing having cut 1 Island and 1 Swamp for Bayou and Tropical Island and cutting 2 Engineered Explosives and a Flustersorm from the board for 3 Abrupt Decay.
Sphinx is for the RU Delver match up. They can sometimes race a griselbrand especially if you reanimated it. Not so with Sphinx of the Steel Wind.
Grave Titan has been my goto creature for Liliana decks for awhile although it is really embarassing vs Elephant Grass.
Considering the 4th Decay but not sure what to remove from the board maybe the 3rd needle but needle is important for Karakas and planeswalkers like Liliana and Jace. Not sure I like Decay better then explosives since Decay can not remove multiple threats but it being an instant is nice. Its nice to be able to kill things like Liliana without a Lotus Petal and 2 turns.
Also considering adding Engineered Explosives back since I did like it as a catch all and it got rid of multiple Rest in Peace or Deathrite Shaman.
I am not actually sure we are going to see that many Containment Priests. What exactly does Deathblade, Death and Taxes, Jeskai Delver cut from its board for Containment Priest? They typically have 2 Rest in Peace and 1 Grafdigger's Cage for anti graveyard hate. Death and Taxes is already a bad match up with 3 main deck Karakas and Swords to Plowshares.
@Pirateking
I always prefered Engineered Explosives to Rachet Bomb. Rachet Bomb took to long to Rachet up if you wanted to kill things that cost 2 or 3. like Rest in peace or Ensnaring Bridge.
Been thinking about it recently. With the amount of UR delver, Burn and Elves that i'm expecting at the GP, i think I'm going to move the iona to the main and sire to the board. Sire is still very important in a variety of matchups where iona doesn't do everything you want. Against storm, miracles, a bunch of midrange decks and omni tell, Sire is still very good. With that in mind, i think that i want a 5th discard spell in the main. Ive found that therapy is lackluster in a strategy where you can beat every piece of permission, just not in abundance. Thats why i want another targeted discard spell, and i think that duress is the best for the job. Discard spells are much more powerful against the delver decks than counterspells because they are better suited to fight you, have red blast, and have a variety of spells to play around. Knowing what to fight when is really crucial.
So, in order to piece another card in the main i have cut an underground sea
Mana base now looks like
4 polluted delta
2 verdant catacombs
1 misty rainforest
3 underground sea
1 tropical island
1 bayou
1 island
1 swamp
3 petal.
What do we think about running 17 sources in a field of dazes? Should i shave a daze of my own? It makes delver matchups better to shave a daze for a land, but with that we lose a little potency of grislebrand, and also some action with regards to deathrite. Any input on where we want to be mana-source wise?
Thanks
Jake
I really think you want 14 lands and 4 lotus petals, or 15 lands and 3 lotus petals, especially if you are running the green splash. I think that 14-3 will only work consistently in the UB list.
It's a hairline cut so we're not talking major percentage points here. You're a tad worse versus Wasteland which doesn't seem as prevalent right now.
Personally I'm a fan of shaving a Daze for the Duress and shaving a Petal for a land to convert it to a permanent mana source, so you'll have a 15-3 mana source division and a full 12x disruption package. Discard costs mana which slows us down, so anytime you have double or triple discard draw, you're likely headed to T3 and beyond before comboing where the acceleration becomes less relevant. A lot of builds run less than the full 12 disruption spells and just rely on extra combo pieces to push through countermagic.
I agree. I see it like this:
Lotus Petal and Daze are fast cards, and their relevancy is when turn 1 & 2 reanimations are your goal. If that's how you read your meta and wish to play the deck, 4 of each gets you that.
Ponder and Thoughtseize (or Duress for 5-8) are long cards, you want them when you're comfortable going off turn 3 & 4 because you know the coast is clear and you're under minimal pressure.
For both lists, I think 18 is the ideal number of mana producing permanents. You shouldn't need to go less than this unless you're attempting to double dip on the cards above.
For those with the high-speed low0drag Dark Ritual build, god only knows. You're braver than I.
I'm currently playing this list:
4 underground sea
1 swamp
1 island
4 polluted delta
2 misty rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
4 lotus petal
4 griselbrand
1 sphynx of the steel wind
1 elesh norn
1 ashen rider
4 brainstorm
3 ponder
4 careful study
4 fow
4 daze
4 entomb
4 reanimate
4 exhume
2 thoughtseize
2 show and tell
I already tried to run the "petalless" version, but lotus petal is so GREAT in this deck that I just can't leave home without 4 petals in my MD. It speeds up the clock kill in 1 turn, witch is all I need to include it. I'm not using the green splash version, because it plays less fetchlands and petals.
I'm not sure if reanimator is a good choice for the current meta, full of shamans, karakas (and the new priest..) and the sideboard plan is definately the key to get this archetype to the success
Kamus
Legacy Decks: Grixis Delver, Canadian Threshold, Patriot, UR Delver, Team America, Shardless BUG, Junk, Miracles, Jeskai Stoneblade, Esper Stoneblade, Deathblade, Bant, Grixis Control, ANT, Reanimator, Sneak & Show, Infect, Food Chain
Modern Decks: Infect, UR Delver, Grixis Delver, Jeskai Geist, Jund, Abzan, Blue Moon, Grixis Control, Esper Control, RUG Control, BUG Control, Jeskai Nahiri
I agree that sideboarding in this deck is key, but that also means not over-boarding. As far as being unable to deal with DRS, I easily won 3/4 of my games last week (actual fraction), on the draw, against a turn 1 resolved DRS. I also don't play petals, so it's not like I just went off on turn one, and I don't play SnT, so I had to use the yard. It's not that hard to play around, really. Karakas though is a bit tougher, but really if you draw 7 even if they drop karakas, you aren't in the worst shape.
http://mtgdecks.net/decks/view/96808
Couldn't help but notice and wonder about this list, what's the strategy for sideboarding in such a list?
I would suppose against white decks and anyone with Leyline of the Void you'd cut the Imps and Animate Dead's, and probably shave on Careful Study's and Exhumes or somesuch to bring in the Painter/Grindstone/City package. It's sort of like Show and Tell but with an instant win attached since Reanimator can have great difficulty in closing games out against Swords to Plowshares decks. Obviously you can also Entomb->Reanimate the Painter as one of the combo pieces, though I'm not sure you'd really want to do that over Griselbrand, possibly against Ensnaring Bridge.
I do like that it shows how flexible Reanimator can be besides just the stock U/B build.
It is pretty hard! Got to either have like Exhume and a way of dumping two fatties in one turn! Or two reanimates and two fatties! OR just hope they don't know what you are on! It can be done but it is a headache and you feel like you stole victory from the jaws of defeat when it happens!
I just was checking this page out to see if there is any hot anti containment priest deck. I am probably going to play this deck at the GP. Idk. Maybe Contagion?
Might just cut my radom massacre and random perish from the board for a couple of Contagions. I saw the suggestion of Rachet bomb. Waaay to slow in my opinion. Basically it cannot kill containment priest until turn 4. Idk maaaaybe slaughter Pact, although that one can be risky in a deck super tight on mana and in a combo deck that does not kill immediately.
@ Beebles :It's really not that hard though, unless they have additional pressure in the form of thoughtseize or counterspells, you get to sit and sculpt while their development is stunted from having to hold up extra mana every turn. That all said, having hapless researcher has been invalauble in my fight against the DRS, the instant speed of his ability and the ability to invest mana early makes the fight much easier.
As for hoping they don't know what I'm on, that's a real thing at a bigger event, but I've played the same deck at locals for ~6 years, almost everyone knows what I'm on now. I'm super excited to play at the GP where people won't know exactly what I'm on every round.
I think Thoughtseize is your best weapon full stop. Contagion seems too deep and narrow, Slaughter Pact too expensive. You'll be boarding in creature removal when the hate against us is mostly non-creature. Abrupt Decay is the all-purpose cleaner for hate, and Thoughtseize/Force should cover the rest outside of Leyline. Echoing Truth for Leyline if necessary.
Will we get blown out by Containment Priest? Yes, we will. It's a new card that looks sweet, so people will play it. Will this be any different than a blowout from Rest in Peace? In my opinion, no, not by a long shot. This cleric lets us continue investing in the graveyard until we are able to remove it while with RIP there is no more graveyard. Careful Study is infinitely worse under RIP while Entomb is uncastable (barring really sad deck thinning). We can play around the Priest by not going for the reanimation half of the combo until they tap out. Containment Priest does hose the Show and Tell plan, but I was never excited about Showing in random silver bullets anyway.
Best tech IMHO: 4x Thoughtseize and extra redundancy (add a fatty and play some number of Animate Dead) in the main. Abrupt Decay and Massacre in the sideboard. Could even maindeck some number of Abrupts. That will make non-D&T decks boarding in the Priest look almost foolish since any surprise they achieve (watch out for 1W mana open) will be vastly inferior to the tempo they can gain from a well-placed RIP. Granted, any and all hate is usually brought in against us, so 1-2 Priest might make sideboards alongside RIP if people find the slots for it.
Having tested a bunch against DT with Priest and without. Priest is a million times better than RiP. Because DT usually has 0 instant speed interaction you can comfortably go off with AD -> RiP, Combo. RIP also made it so that your exhumes had no downside.
The matchup is miserable with Containment priest (passable if they aren't playing it). I doubt there will be much D&T anyways, but anyone who has access to CP will be playing them if they have done any testing.
I found that massacre was not great, dread of night was better and ratchet bomb was decent. The real problem was lack of decent fatty. Sphinx of Steel Wind was swords too much (also beaten by flier + mom). Aetherling was too slow. Grave titan was occaisonally just raced by fliers or equipment. Most of my success was fast comboing with Needle = karakas.
so our answer to containment priest is speed?
Thoughtseize, Abrupt Decay, Force of Will.
To clarify my statements above, I wasn't referring to D&T but U/W/x builds like Miracles, Jeskai Delver, and Deathblade, which should be much more popular. I could see D&T wanting the Priest over RIP.
@toor
Have you tried Inkwell Leviathan? I heard that's likely our best target against them.
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