Here is a simple Death & Taxes primer for the uninitiated!
http://www.moxboardinghouse.com/medi...y-death-taxes/
Only one Cavern of Souls because it is awesome, but it is too taxing on the already questionable mana base to add more.Originally Posted by echofish
If they have a hard time countering anything, it means you're winning. They have to counter Vial and Pithing Needle. If they don't counter any of the other stuff, then there's usually too much to deal with so either you win, or you resolve your Cataclysm and then you probably win too.
Usually it is not that simple though, you have to really play to your Cataclysm once you have it. Make them tap out for Jace, wait till they've played a ton of lands, tapped out for entreat or something similar, and then fire it off. Jamming it on turn 4 is usually wrong.
So if you pick your spots right, then your Cataclysm will resolve and be effective in most cases.
They will usually still have top+cb+land and play from the top of library, though.
Still worth it if it gets rid of a planeswalker or an army of angels + all of their lands but 1. If they already used entreat, they'll be practically forced to win through jace, and that's a difficult proposition with only 1 land in play. They'll have a hard time rebuilding their mana base once you have wiped out 5 or 6 of their mana sources.
Are you talking game 1? No one in their right mind plays Cataclysm main deck, and no decent miracles player has CB after board against D&T.
So I don't know if you guys heard but I won Eternal Clash 2015 on Saturday and my report is under "Tournament Reports".
I made a few changes to the list I posted earlier, namely I cut the Mindbreak Trap and the 3rd Rest in Peace in the board, in favor of 1 more Council's Judgement and a Containment Priest.
What are your thoughts on Enlightened Tutor with less different targets? It almost feels like they can just become another RIP/Relic and Canonist/Ratchet Bomb due to the lack of different targets you have. For example against Shardless BUG when you board in RIP, is it worth still boarding in the Tutor?
Well Ratchet Bomb, Pithing Needle, Rest in Peace and Ethersworn Canonist does vastly different things. So I like having the Enlightened Tutor. It COULD be just another piece of graveyard hate and another piece of storm hate, but I think that having access to 3 copies of Ratchet Bomb vs. TES and Belcher is great. And I like having so many cards vs. graveyard decks and storm decks altogether. I think the fair match up is good enough that you want the enlightened tutor (that I am never bringing in against any fair decks).
Congrats on the victory, Bahra!
Reading the report, I see you didn't side out the SFM package against Lands: that is usually the first thing I cut (except maybe SoFI) since the other equipments don't seem very good and require too much mana investment to be undone by a simple Maze of Ith activation. What do you take out then, and what is your reasoning?
I cut Swords to Plowshares and Phyrexian Revoker (since it can only name Mox Diamond and it's very fragile) depending on their build. Stoneforge is fine because it is 2 threats in one (with Batterskull) and it fetches Sword of Fire and Ice that gives your creatures protection from Punishing Fire and makes them into very potent threats. All the equipment is fine since it lets you hit harder, and Maze of Ith can be dealt with, with Rishadan Port, Wasteland and Pithing Needle (although you mostly want to name Thespian's Stage with Pithing Needle). And playing Maze of Ith also slows them down, which gives you more time to draw Rest in Peace and Cataclysm. I think the mana investment argument is fundamentally flawed, since you will often have many turns and a lot of mana during the game. So unless you keep a hand that lets you get Wastelanded out of the game, you will get to play all your cards.
At the event I boarded like this versus RG Combo Lands: -2 Swords to Plowshares -4 Phyrexian Revoker -1 Mirran Crusader +2x Rest in Peace +2x Council's Judgement +2x Cataclysm +1x Pithing Needle.
I kept in 2x Swords to Plowshares because sometimes they just make a 20/20 on turn 2 and then you have to have more than just 3x Karakas to deal with it, but mostly Swords to Plowshares is not good in the match up. Mirran Crusader is very weak against them so I cut one, but it hits through Marit Lage and carries equipment well so one copy stayed in. It might be incorrect to cut all the Phyrexian Revokers since mana screwing lands is actually a very viable strategy with D&T, but it only hits 4 cards in their deck and so I think I value dedicated beaters higher.
I have never lost to Lands even though there's 3 lands (both RG Combo Lands and Intuition Lands) players at my LGS, so I think my sideboard plan and game plan against Lands is very solid.
Thanks for the reply, that's definitely a different perspective on sideboarding for Lands and it's always interesting to compare strategies. I am a little surprised that you don't side in your Tutors, since Pithing Needle and especially Rest in Peace are so powerful against them. Sure, they run Krosan Grips and can Gamble for them, but RiP can do a lot of work by just nuking their graveyard even if it's destroyed immediately after. SoFI and Batterskull are probably pretty good cards against them in much the same way they are against Miracles, and SFM can be activated at instant speed so Ports will have a hard time stopping you. I would still probably cut Jitte though.
I agree with you that Swords to Plowshares is not a very good answer to Marit Lage, the lifegain will usually undo all your work and allow them to re-assemble at their leisure. However, the Lands guy I usually test against has started playing Titania, Protector of Argoth in his maindeck, and if the trend catches on I definitely want all the StPs I can get...
Finally, while Revoker can only hit Mox Diamond, I remember quite a few games where it actually locked my opponent out of casting Loam early on cause he was relying on the Mox for his colored mana, so it's definitely not a worthless card in the match-up. At the end of the day, you've got to pick your battles and there is probably no "perfect" sideboarding strategy...
I didn't sideboard in the Enlightened Tutors because RG Lands can easily be beaten without Rest in Peace and since they side in 4x Krosan Grips the 2 card investment and tempo loss is too much. If they have played Loam 3-4 times already then they have probably made Marit Lage several times by then and that is not undone by Rest in Peace. I also find that all my cards are so good in the match up that I don't want a tutor that denies me my next draw step. And if you just have cards that are troublesome for the opponent to deal with instead of Enlightened Tutors, then you will get to the late game (or kill your opponent before you get there) and eventually you'll draw one of your devastating sideboard cards. It is 2 different ways to approach the match up, but I think the Enlightened Tutor approach is better suited for dealing with Intuition Lands, because they use their graveyard much better and have a harder time playing without it.
I never said that Phyrexian Revoker is a worthless card in the match up, it's just that all your cards are so good that I think Revoker is the weakest card.
@Bahra I'm curious about the matchups you like bringing in Ratchet Bomb for. Off the top of my head: TES, Belcher, Elves, and the mirror. I'm curious if I'm missing any that are less intuitive though. I've stayed away from this card in the past because of my lack of confidence of when it's worth it, and I think that's possibly a mistake.
Another question I've been mulling over recently is whether or not Cataclysm would possibly be worth bringing in against Elves. My knee-jerk reaction is to say its just too slow, but perhaps we are able to consistently slow them down just enough to have the time to fire this off? I might be totally off-base on this. Just wanted to get some feedback.
PS @Bahra: I think I will be playing your 75 from your tournament report within a card or two at the SCG in Indy this weekend. It looks very solid for where things seem to be moving. I felt weird removing the Grafdigger's Cage, but with the second RIP going back in and Containment Priest existing now, it seems like Cage is probably too overlapping now.
I've also long snubbed Ratchet Bomb but I'm starting to feel like it might have been a mistake. Other than the situations you mentioned, the card is also pretty good against decks running Delvers/Young Pyromancers (flipped delvers have a CMC of 0), so definately a side-in against UR Delver, possibly even RUG. I guess there is some merit to the idea of siding it in against Miracles to nuke their Entreat the Angels, since you could theoretically still use it to get rid of some annoying post-board permanents if you need to be more proactive, but I that would probably end up destroying some of your stuff as well...
Ratchet Bomb is great against Miracles, TES, Belcher, Elves, D&T and it's ok against ANT. I also board it in against RUG and UR delver because it deals with all their threats relatively quickly as well. It deals with the first Entreat out of Miracles, it deals with Empty the Warrens out of TES and Belcher and it deals with Empty the Warrens and Dread of Night out of ANT. Then it's another tool against Elves.
I've been discussing Cataclysm vs. Elves with Julian Knab and we agreed that Elves simply rebuilt quicker than D&T after a Cataclysm and that's if you're not dead before you even get to cast it.
I'm inclined to agree with this thinking about Cataclysm in the Elves matchup. Though I see you have 4 Flagstones in your recent version, presumably to maximize the effectiveness of Cataclysm, so this might slightly improve your ability to rebuild quickly.
I found that amount of Flagstones to be quite intriguing in its own right as well. I thought it might be a metagame decision because of the popularity of Miracles in your area (hence Cataclysm coming in often) or scarcity of decks with maindeck Blood Moon effects that could randomly punish you (like Painter). I've never played the deck with more than one flagstones, so I'm definitely curious if I should try more in Indy.
Fair enough, so when you playing against a fair deck like RUG Delver you bring in the 2 RIP but not the Tutor? How would you SB with your list against decks like RUG Delver and Shardless BUG?
I second this question. With the possibility of blood moon and wasteland returning to the format, it seems maxing out on flagstones could possibly be problematic if they time things out correctly.
If you're not able to fetch a Plains from a Flagstones they just Wasteland'd, you should have enough Plains already :P
I think he's concerned that you're running this land, someone wastes it in response to Cataclysm and you gain nothing, but have a shakier manabase in as moons come back in to the meta.
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