I don't know why you guys think Elderscale should replace Ruric, as the later is clearly for combo Elderscale does nothing against. Even in the mirror, Elderscale cannot prevent the DRS lifedrain. Delver can simply submerge it unlike Progenitus.
Fellas, I honestly have a problem with top-end solutions suggested for Delver which require a resolved NO or 6+ mana against a deck with a strong Tempo focus and a million Bolts for our manadorks and Cradle fodder.
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That's the challenge we currently face. Between Miracles and UR Delver, the current meta is a rather hostile environment for us. I agree with your oppinion on the top-end solutions though. At this moment, I'm tempted to look for a way to make sure NO->Progenitus happens as much as possible as especially the tempo decks give us a hard time winning on a Hoof alpha-swing.
Even though I'd want to, at this moment I'm not really sure how I'd fit a number of Crop Rotations and a Boseiju, Who Shelters All in the current list.
I read two ways to play therapy, and I think there is wisdom in both, and they help you avoid wiffing.
First way is if you know their deck lists well enough to know what the could use to beat you.....if you wiff, that's great! that means they don't have the card they need to win. If you are only afaid of force of will, then name it, even if they already have 3 in the bin.
the other way is ot think of what cards would have made them keep their opening hand. Brainstorm, green sun zenith, etc.
I am not the best person to explain it or give examples, but you get the idea. I think therapy is supirior even without the probes. Just my opinion though.
EDIT: Good luck to you all. I have to skip the GP, as I couldn't justify the travel time. On the one hand it looks awesome and I am sad. On the other, if I only went o one GP, this is not the meta I would pick (yeah, I know, that shouldn't matter, but let me have my silver lining).
Also, while I haven't tested with it, I can't see how elder scale is the right choice. I echo the comments above.
http://www.channelfireball.com/home/...erapy-session/
A helpful article for Cabal Therapy apprentices.
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The answer to problem 3 in that article seems slimy as hell. So you throw down cabal therapy and quickly say lightning bolt, then they cast it in response, and after it resolves you go "I was just saying lightning bolt for fun to try and trick ya, I actually name force of will."
On the other hand it is brilliant though...
Has anyone dropped Progenitus/Worldspine Wurm completely from their sideboard? I'm one of those people that seem to draw it constantly and am greatly considering not having them available. Anyone have experience with this?
Im in a similar state of mind atm. It might just be confirmation bias, but I end up with progenitus in my hand a lot more than with progenitus on the board.
With that said, progenitus I generally bring in against matchups where getting 2-3 guys on the board is a struggle, and in those matchups even if I drew a craterhoof instead I still wouldnt be able to cast it.
Have you tested Elderscale Wurm at all? It seems good against burn and UR Delver, both of which should be out in full force at GPNJ. Also, at 7 green mana it's totally castable against those decks considering no wasteland/stifle to worry about. I'm going to be testing it Friday hopefully.
I put in the side 2 weeks ago, but haven't faced any Burn or UR delver at the past two weekly local events. Against U/R delver its tough because they have forked bolt and lightning bolt to keep us off our guys, and if you have enough guys to cast it then chances are a craterhoof would have killed anyways.
Except you also have to take into account that you're facing at least 8 counters. So good luck resolving that.
Also, it doesn't do shit vs. one of our worst MU's - Storm-variants, so why bother? Ruric also messes with UR and burn to no end whilst also winning you the Storm-MU's if you manage to get it on the board in time.
And concerning UR Delver - Submerge still is a card. So the Wurm isn't quite the end-all you think it to be.
Jesus! A few post above I just explained why this isn't the case. How the fuck do you plan to accumulate 7 mana to hardcast it or 8 to GSZ for against 8 counterspells (+ more from the board) and burn repeatingly wiping your board so Cradle is barely able to produce more than 3 mana on average
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MadRhetoric,
I think so far the Elderscale has been working well in testing. I took agree with the consensus about running Progenitus, and Worldspine Wurm. I have decided to try a different technique against Miracles. I am testing the new green planeswalker in the SB with Wren's Run Packmaster. I think both cards will prove very valuable against them.
One thing I am considering also is adding a 2nd ooze, whether or not to run null rod or needle, and determining if Ruric makes the cut in the SB.
Jim,
I have since changed my SB to the following:
2 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Wren's Run Packmaster (this might go back to the main, but I love elderscale wurm)
1 Progenitus (this I'm debating)
1 Golgari Charm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Natural Order
1 Pithing Needle/Null Rod (not sure which is best, on one hand Needle shuts off walkers)
1 Freylise, Llanowar's Fury (this is against grindy matchups like BUG delver, Jund, Junk, Miracles, Stoneblade) I think its got a lot of potential against non blue decks in general.
1 Surgical Extraction
I also wanted to know what the consensus is regarding running 4x nettle, 4x heritage druid? I decided to up back to 4 Nettle because he's a beater in the early game against Delver, and puts pressure. I also am not sure I should run ooze in the maindeck, I might want something more proactive like another pressure card like Elvish Champion, or another mana dork. Let me know people's thoughts as the event is soon.
So you decide to run a 5 mana planeswalker which you can't GSZ/NO that makes Llanowar Elves and can mimic Reclamation Sage (which you can GSZ).
You do know that Miracles can respond to Freyalise's ultimate by insta-Terminus-ing with the ultimate on the stack right..? That means you draw exactly no cards when it resolves.
Why bother with a planeswalker for the Miracles MU when you run a virtual 5 Reclamation Sage and have acces to Abrupt Decay..? I'm baffled.
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Just throwing my 2c in there...
@Cards for miracles
This topic is the most commonly discussed in this thread, at least since I started lurking around this year. The planeswalkers are not very good because they are so expensive but what you generate doesn't matter, all of miracle's cards still function with a planeswalker in play. They produce tokens that get wiped away and you end up playing a glorified bitterblossom for 4 or 5 mana. The fight against miracles postboard is entirely about cards, we can grind them out but we need to limit their card selection with needles/rod and ensure we can deploy post wrath by destroying counterbalance with sage or decay.
Sweepers are only good when we go all in but with symbiote and quirion ranger, so much of our clock is protected that unless we overextend, the sweepers are 1-1 or 2-1 at best. The problem is when we can not deploy all the cards we have been sandbagging while we are taking our normal draw step or visionary. The enemy here is counterbalance and top during the early and mid game.
@Elderscale Wurm
All of the disadvantages of ruric thar without any extra upside. Submerge, CoV, swords are all still live yet our opponent can still develop their game plan with the wurm in play. There is a small criticism that karakas is relevant, but ruric is never necessary (i.e. playing hard combo) when our opponent has karakas in their deck and neither is wurm.
@UR Delver in general
They are so low on interaction that it is very easy just to aggressively jam. This matchup hinges on how well we defend against forked bolt and red sweepers. I found the matchup is very high variance because sometimes they have multiple swiftspears and probes and the world seems awful but sometimes they brick a bit and keep low interaction hands you have to sniff out.
With Elves!, you have 4 plans: NO, Glimpse, symbiot-visio and beatdown.
Chains of Mephistopheles demolish 2 of these plans. I believe if I were playing it in the SB of another deck (Junk/Rock for example), it would be mainly against elves, as it isn't good versus other combos decks (there is a reason this card is not played even in decks which are not harmed by it, and it's not its price).
Well unless you're going down on NO and targets for it, the number of counters doesn't matter. If I'm replacing Craterhoof for Elderscale, they're both high mana, must counter cards. Now if you're arguing to drop the number of NO and maybe a target altogether after sideboarding, then that's a different story.
I'm not worried about Storm because I play it so little here (East Coast US). And yes, submerge is still a card. Now show me the UR Delver lists running it. I don't think I've seen it in a SB yet.
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