[QUOTE=Koke_MTG;943841]...
...
R4 --> Sneak & Show (2-0). G1 was a hard lock with Karakas + Revoker to Sneak Attack. G2 he had a bit slow hand and I could play Vial + Needle + Revoker keeping Karakas in hand while I was Porting him. He hurted me a bit with a Blood Moon but could not find the pieces of the combo facing a clock with Thalia + Revoker + Crusader and Mother backup for a possible Pyroclasm.
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I don't think MoM helps against pyroclasm because pyroclasm does not target?
[QUOTE=Hyped;943876]Mom is pretty fantastic against pyroclasm and other sweepers that deal damage. The commonly used acronym to explain protection is DEBT. Protection allows you to give protection from damage, equipping/enchanting, blocking and targeting. Since pyroclasm is just dealing 2 damage to each creature it falls under the damage category.Originally Posted by Koke_MTG
Last edited by CptHaddock; 04-10-2016 at 02:01 PM.
Protection prevents all damage from that color. Won't save you from black -x/-x effects or a white wrath, but Mom is gonna be good against basically any red deck because their removal is always damage based.
Edit: Cpt beat me to it.
Yeah, maybe you're right, but I think a split between early answers for a Strix or a T3/T4 Mentor and our reset button as Cataclysm is, is an 'okey' way if you want to hold density of creatures post-board. Cataclysm provides you to grip the game when it gets ugly and the opponent assume a role similar to the Miracles player. I bring them in because I am not sure about the matchup, I see it a bit uncertain and I feel that I could need something like it as well. Other option could be to cut a Plains keeping in the 3rd StP, but as I said, there are many different versions of Esper Mentor decks so I think it depends on the build because if the version you're facing is based on CounterTop lock you should base your removal in other options than StP. The large number of versions and how each of them make our list change, and the little experience I have against Esper Mentor (no more than 8-10 rounds played against) do that I don't have very clear how to board against them.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except DEATH & TAXES
Looks like c2232 had another good day at SCG with Imperial: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=100735 - congrats! Hope we can get a tournament report.
Bold choices: 3 SfM, Bskull in the SB, 2 Revoker, 2 Karakas, only one Ethersworn in the SB.
Going down to 3 SfM has been something I have wanted to test - I actually played 3 SfM 2 Revoker the other day at a casual 3 round event this week when I was splashing green for Mayor. I was never punished for it, but it was a pretty casual affair and a small sample set.
I tried Bskull in the sideboard exactly once, got punished vs Merfolk immediately, and gave up on it. But I think it's definitely worth exploring further, since it's easily the worst card in the deck in your opening hand and vs quite a lot of the field. I think I'll try it again for a while at least. My biggest concern is actually that it makes things tougher vs burn g1, and I think this build is a little soft to burn - heavy on 3 drops, lots of non-basics for Price. Playing lots of copies of Vryn Wingmare helps though.
First of I will go over my bold choices
- 3 Stoneforge Mystic – I saw this idea here in the source and decided to try it out for about the past month, honestly I haven’t really regretted it. I only have two equipment in my main and I usually just need to search up one equipment…. If she dies, she dies.
- Batterskull in the Sideboard – I have been running this in the sideboard for over a year now and have literally never regretted it. It does make your burn matchup worse but burn is such a small part of the meta that it doesn’t matter to much. The reason I moved it to the side is because I rarely ever wanted to get it over sofi or jitte, when I did get skull my mystic would die and I would be stuck with it in my hand, if mom is out and active I can see wanting skull but im not sure it would be all that much better that sofi or jitte…… this idea has gone through a lot of discussion and testing throughout the past year but I am happy with it, though I don’t disagree with it in the main.
- 2 Karakas – yeah, I need all the basics I can get so I had to cut one so I could have 4 plains
- 1 Ethersworn – I figure its searchable, I do fluctuate with these but its usually one
- Surgical Extraction – This is an all star, I have been a huge fan of this for over a year….. loam and punishing fire really stick it to us and I don’t see consistently beating lands, aggro loam, or jund without it.
- Magus of the Moat – yeah, its cute but I doubt I will keep it.
Tourney report as best as I can remember.
Round 1 – Death and Taxes (Eric Craighead)
Game 1 – Vial into SFM for Jitte, I also landed a Magus with him having only one basic
Game 2 – I got the early Jitte but he curved out mom, SFM for Jitte, Brimaz, Wilt-leaf liege
Game 3 – I got vial into SFM for Jitte, and he got Mom, SFM for Batterskull…. He ended up getting batterskull equipped with Jitte and attacked, I vialed in Mirran Crusader and he gave the Skull pro-white connected and jitted my Crusader. At the end of his turn I Mysticed in SOFI untapped and equipped Jitte and SOFI to my SFM and vialed in Flickerwisp for his Skull, the equipped SFM connected and cleared his board.
He said he was relatively new to the deck but he played pretty well, I have played the mirror far to many times though
Round 2 – Maverickish? (Jason Collins)
Game 1 – This dude played Gitrog Monster against me!!!! No shit, actual Gitrog Monster, it drew him like 7 cards. I ended up mangaraing the gitrog and running away with Mirran crusader
Game 2 – He played thalia and I played consecutive Wingmares with a wasteland which kept him down. I ended up playing Magus of the Moat and beating down with the wingmares until he killed them at which point I ended the game by swordsing my Moat and swinging for lethal with Mirran
Gitrog Monster!!!! I think this could end up becoming a legit tier 2/1.5ish deck. The synergy with loam and reliquary knight and gitrog was pretty amazing
Round 3 – Grixis Delver (Jonathon Mihu)
Game 1 – He had an early delver and 3 bolts which killed mom SFM mom, I ended up getting SOFI equipped to something and ended the game quickly
Game 2 – he got and early 2x pyromancer versus my vial and mom, SFM and thalia, I kept vial on two and beat him down with SOFI thalia and bouncing thalia with karakas vial in thalia and reequip. This was a pretty grindy game
Vial on two, thalia, and karakas is so amazing in so many ways
Round 4 – Elves (Danny Jessup)
Game 1 – He drew poorly and I got the early jitte
Game 2 – he mulled to 5 and actually went off pretty hard with glimpse on turn 2, I sudden demised his board away turn 3
I have been playing D&T for 3 years and this is my first match win against elves, his poor draws and my nut draws are exactly what I needed and it was still close….. I hate elves!
Round 5 – Miracles (Alix Hatfield)
Game 1 – this game was all about 3 drops, he got counter balance out but no top, two blind terminus flips helped him but I consistently followed up with a 3 drop equipped with sofi
Game 2 – This was pretty grindy but I ended up countering a terminus and a last ditch entreat with warping wail
Im very proud of this match, Alix is a legend of legacy and very skilled with any deck he picks up. I get to play against him at my local shop and it is always intense.
Round 6 – Aggro Loam (Kory Ponting)
Game 1 – Punishing fire is a bitch
Game 2 – He got garruck and Arlinn Kord out, I revokered Kord and had a plan to kill the garruk with revoker equipped with sofi, unfortunately he fetch for dryad arbor and blocked……… I had a port in play….. I almost threw a chair…… sad face
Kory and I have play tested against each other quite often, it is really a 50/50 match between us. also Kory runs a legacy stream on twitch called Snapcasters, check it out.
Round 7 – Aggro Loam (Nick Ditizio)
Draw into top 8
Quarters – Aggro Loam (Kory Ponting)
Game 1 – Punishing Fire is seriously a bitch
Game 2 – Super grindy game with magus of the moon and extraction on his punishing fire also I wastelanded his dryad arbor before he could block this time.
Game 3 – Vial, wasteland, wasteland, wasteland, magus of the moon…… it’s a combo!
Top 4
We split the tickets and scooped Bailey into 1st so he could have the points
Please hit me up with any questions, i always enjoy discussion concerning our baby.
Somebody should start a Source thread about this, you guys have been doing a great job!
Questions:
- How have you been boarding vs Miracles with your sideboard? D+T?
- I notice you don't have a Leonin Relic Warder or a similar disenchant effect. Did you ever feel like you wanted it as a tutor target? I know having a Mangara helps.
- Your creature curve is *really* high even for an Imperial Taxes list, 9 2 drops, 14 3 drops. What might not be apparent to people before they play with a curve like that - it has a lot of upside. You can tick Vial to 3 very quickly and you're cheating on a *lot* of mana throughout the game. You also mentioned Counterbalance and how 3s are pretty easy to sneak through. And with Caverns, you're less likely to be blown out by a Daze. Still, there can be downside too - have you ever felt like your hand gets clumped with 3 drops in a non-Vial game?
- Any other interesting Warping Wail plays outside of the Miracles game?
Other thoughts:
- I really like how wide open your creature base is - with the Sfm/Revoker/Bskull cuts you have room to play the full Thalia/Wingmare prison game and also play all of the flex creatures (Crusader, Fiend Hunter, Mangara.) Of those 3 cuts, I am most hesitant about the Revoker, because shutting off DRS is so key to both the Magus and the Thalia/Wingmare plans.
- Overall, I think we need to try these heretical things more often. Imperial Taxes is still a deck that hasn't been solved and a lot of the numbers that are probably optimal for Mono-W should be questioned. Having tutors in your deck means that you can skimp a little bit on some numbers in order to get a wider toolbox to work with.
- vs Miracles I have been taking out Magus of the Moon and two sword for Pithing Needle, Warping Wail, Batterskull
- I have commonly been a huge fan of relic warder….. so much so that I have usually put him main deck. I did miss the little guy and will probably move him back to at least the sideboard
- I kinda liked the high curve, our two drop are really repetitive and can be a pain in the ass so I appreciated the fact that I could just go to 3
- I killed a grim lavamancer with but that’s about it
- I agree that 2x revoker may be a little short, it has so many uses that it should be a 3-of
- imperial taxes is far from refined, unfortunately I don’t get much time to playtest so I usually have to “test” it during tournaments. I read that source everyday and have gotten some really innovative ideas (3 SFM) and some really shitty ones (someone said they played 21 lands and never had a problem….. I tried cutting to 22 and was screwed all night long…… do not cut lands, 23 is perfect)
Haha I will take credit for that 3 SfM suggestion. I think 3 SfM, 2 Revoker or 2 Flickerwisp are all viable, I have done quite well with 2 Flickerwisps, though I think I'm going back to 3. (I mean why play D+T if you can't wreck people with Flickerwisp tricks?)
Relic-Warder has been consistently good for me to the point where he's usually an auto-include on the RiP/Ethersworn level. Just wish he were a human. He is also one of the few outs to Dread of Night, which this build is pretty soft to.
And yeah, if anything I would go to 24 lands before 22, especially with your curve.
@c2232
Great job! Really like the build!
Questions:
What do you take out to get to a 3rd Phyrexian Revoker? The main looks really tight, the only thing I can really see is dropping a Vryn Wingmare, but it is one of those cards that is so much better at 3 than 2.
What would you change in the sideboard, aside from what seems like a clear choice of -1 Magus of the Moat, +1 Leonin Relic-Warder? How would, for example, get in another Ethersworn Canonist? Maybe -1 Sudden Demise or Cunning Sparkmage?
Aside from it being 1R, Haste, and Human, which are obviously all very good, has Cunning Sparkmage performed better for you than Goblin Sharpshooter, with its capacity to machine-gun x/1 creatures, which is most valuable against DnT, Elves, Goblins, and anything trying to drum out a bunch of tokens to kills us (though most of those are probably too fast for us to get to turn 4, i have seen them stumble on getting enough tokens out to kill us if they don't go off before we land Thalia/Canonist)?
Have you had issues with combo decks like Sneak and Show, Reanimator, and Dredge since you have dropped Containment Priest or are they just not present enough to worry you? Or does Warping Wail provide enough assistance in those matches? How are you boarding for them? EDIT: Oh yeah, against Dredge and Reanimator, you also have 2 Surgical Extraction... Is that helpful against any of the FTK decks, like Char Blecher or Oops, All Spells? Oops like to throw its wincon in the grave, but what about Char?
I have to say, with 2 Warping Wail, 3 Sudden Demise and Cunning Sparkmage, I would think Elves would be much better, even with only 1 Ethersworn Canonist.
Cheers!
Thank you.
For the 3rd revoker im thinking about wingmare, mirran crusader, or fiend hunter
cutting 1 sudden demise is possible, also im not really a huge fan of warping wail long term, I think its good now but I can see it not being worth the slot
I have not gotten a chance to try sharp shooter yet and I have only limited testing with sparkmage.
I have never played containment priest, I have never really liked it much. Most of the matchups you mention aren’t problems for us. Obviously with my list sneak and show and reanimator are a lot worse but they aren’t really that prevalent right now.
I have never ever played against belcher or oops, my theory against those matchups is that sometimes life sucks…. Its like 1% of the meta. The surgicals are primarily for loam and punishing fire but they are tits against the graveyard decks too.
My impression of Goblin Sharpshooter was that when it was wreck-the-board-good, it was generally win more. The biggest issue vs Elves and Infect is their speed, so sideboard cards that are good against them starting on t4 aren't gonna do it. However, I don't think the differences between the various pinger effects is that large overall.
Hello, all, I was also at SCG Baltimore, I piloted Imperial Taxes to a 4-3 finish at 33rd(daggers).
I wanted to share some of my experiences and input.
My list was somewhat more "traditional" than Travis's and I've been playing it for a while, I think there are a bunch of changes I would make at this point to it.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1253839
Round 1 vs Jeskai Stoneblade http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=100767
Game 1: He showed me a ton of basics, I had mom and recruited for Stoneforge into Sword of Fire and Ice and took over the game.
Sided out Maguses, boarded into Pia and Kiran, but wasn't sure what the second slot should be. I boarded into Warping Wail, but I don't think that was correct. Maybe a random Fireslinger for Cliques/Snapcasters would've been ok, but it was kind of painful. I think some of my sideboard decisions were poor.
Game 2: I punted, racing TNN's with Sword, I locked myself under Thalia on accident and was not able to cast my 3 Swords to Plowshares sitting in my hand to get out of range of his exactsies lethal. I'm still kicking myself.
Game 3: He wiped my board with Kozilek's Return out of nowhere and I couldn't draw a 5th land to cast Batterskull to stay in it.
A painful round 1, but he played well and had a good finish.
Round 2 vs Infect
I have a lot of experience in this matchup as there are three pilots in my local meta, and I also own and play the deck from time to time.
Game 1: Invigorate, Berserk, kill you? Yes. Yes you do.
Sided out Batterskull, Revokers, Crusader, boarded in Magus, 2 Fireslingers, 2 Canonists
Game 2: Jitte + Mangara, holding up a Flickerwisp and Swords for his Stalker for the win. For people who haven't played this matchup a ton, always wait until they activate Inkmoth and then respond to the activation by Porting. If they have Vines and want to use it, they have to activate again in response and use the Vines, which taxes them a mana, often makes a big difference.
Game 3: Fireslinger + Magus of the Moon.
Round 3 vs Entreat Miracles
I double mulled to 6 and kept Vial dependent hands. He dealt with my turn 1 Vial in both games before I could get value off of them, in game 1 he used Council's Judgment and in game 2 he Pithing Needled it. Rough. I play Miracles again later on, so I'll go over the board plan later.
Round 4 vs Eldrazi Stompy
I've jammed this matchup with one of my friends to experiment with my own Eldrazi brew, and I personally like this matchup.
Game 1: I open with 3 lands, and he opens with Tomb into Chalice. I waste his Tomb, he plays another and passes. I draw Wasteland, and Waste his Tomb. He plays Temple, passes. I waste his Temple. He plays Temple. I waste his Temple. He plays Temple. Jeezus. He kept a 5 lander and drew two lander... so there goes my plan. Displacer ends up destroying me. Without a Swords to kill it, he amassed a mimic and Thought Knot to just lock me out. It's like a super Eldrazi mom.
I boarded out 4 mom, and boarded into 2 Fireslingers, a Magus of the Moon, and... again I was unsure of the last side in. It's around this point where I think there are some very real problems with the board. I end up bringing in a Warping Wail because I can't decide.
Game 2: Magus is really good. Shuts down his displacer and lands, I lock him out and go to town.
Game 3: He gets a bit stuck on lands, and I punish hard with a port into vialed Magus. I end up slowly dealing with his Mimics with Fireslinger and manage to get Jitte going. The game goes downhill for him and I manage to grab it. I am again disliking my choices in constructing my sideboard.
Round 5 vs Shardless
Game 1: Recruit Crusader, suit up Crusader with Jitte, crush.
I don't think I sided out anything, I wasn't sure what to take out for the third Magus and he showed me a basic Swamp so I wasn't sure how good the third Magus would be. In hindsight, I should've boarded into two Rest in Peace and the Magus, but I'm still not sure what I cut.
Game 2: A long, grindy match, I stick a Magus and am dealing with Goyf town, but eventually he manages to Toxic Deluge out with his basic Swamp and then Golgari Charms away my attempt to stabilize.
Game 3: We went to time, with clear boards and top deck wars. On turn 5 he brainstorms and we reveal hands and I scoop to him because he was a nice guy and I honestly believe he would've won with his upcoming draws.
Round 6 vs Deathblade
There's a testing group around the MD/VA area made up of Paul Lynch and a couple of other Legacy players who love this Deathblade list.
I know it runs no basics, and is BWUG. It's Magus time.
Game 1: I don't draw a third land for like 6 turns and die to an unending stream of removal. He's seen Cavern, Port, and White cards.
I side out a Swords to Plowshares for a Magus of the Moon.
Game 2: I have a vial, he goes for Stoneforge on turn 3 while I'm porting him, and fetches Batterskull. This lets me slam Magus. I beat his Batterskull while getting Crusader with my own Batterskull.
Game 3: He Stoneforges on turn 2... and gets Batterskull again. I don't understand his line of thinking, since Jitte is a way better choice against us and is totally castable under Magus and if I don't remove the Stoneforge, it's game over. I play a Plateau and slam Magus on my turn 3 and spend the rest of the game dealing with Batterskull before killing him with Crusader with Batterskull.
Some sketchy choices from my opponent, I'm not sure if I could've won those games otherwise.
Round 7 vs Predict Miracles
Game 1: I died to Terminus into Entreat.
Sided out 1 Swords to Plowshares, 2 Magus of the Moon, brought in Pia and Kiran Nalaar, 2 Warping Wail.
Game 2: He got brainstorm locked and I recruited Stoneforge, it was too much.
Game 3: I opened with 3 Vials, and just prayed he didn't have Pithing Needle. I ticked them up to 4 and 3 and 3, and eventually Recruited for Pia and Kiran, and went to town with two Flickerwisps in hand. His Clique was pretty embarrassed, Terminus did nothing as I just Flickerwisped Recruiter, and eot tutored Pia and slammed it again, and he dug for another swords before I slammed Flickerwisp again to prompt a concession.
My local meta is Infect, Elves, Reanimator, Belcher, Storm, Delver, a bit of the mirror, a bit of Miracles, and whatever this boss feels like playing.
I didn't play very much of that, and I probably should've changed my board to be more flexible.
Thoughts:
Maindeck:
I need more Plains. I think I'll shave to 5 fetches to run the 3rd plains. I want to get the fourth somehow, but I don't want to cut Karakas with both Mangara and Pia. Not quite sure what to do, I'll have to think on it. Maybe shave another fetch?
Shaving a Stoneforge and a Batterskull seems pretty good actually. I thought about it a lot all weekend and we rarely fetch it first. I think it would be rough vs Eldrazi Stompy, but that's the only matchup I can think of where I absolutely need Jitte. It's often stranded in our hands, too. I've been wanting to try Wingmare and I'll probably make this change.
Sideboard:
I guess 3 Canonist is really too much. The last big event I played in, I had to play storm several times, but I think the meta here in Baltimore is very different from that of the Bay Area, and I should've really reflected that. I would probably only play a single Canonist now.
Warping Wail hasn't really been that amazing for me, it's been great to have against the Entreats and Terminuses every now and then, but it's often hard to hold up because we usually use our colorless for Port and Wasteland, so I've found it quite hard to support. Necessary evil? Not sure.
I guess Sneak and Show is not seeing much play, so these Containment Priests are just for Elves. I guess my sideboard devotes a lot of slots to Elves because of how awful the matchup is.
For Travis, how good is Fiend Hunter? It seems like a strange choice to me. If you think Magus of the Moat is too cute, I've been really enjoying Pia and Kiran lately, I basically board it in against any grindy matchup where my opponent is not running Wasteland, and it's been quite a house. You recommend Surgical over RIP? Do you also bring it in against like, Snapcaster Mage, or just like, exclusively the Dredge, Loam, Reanimator type deal?
I play with a small legacy group in the DC area. Do you play near DC? PM me if you want to get our groups together sometime.
It'd be about an hour. I primarily play at Dugout Zone in Ellicott City and Amazing Spiral in Baltimore. If you'd like to attend our monthly events, I can let you know about them
I have enjoyed Fiend Hunter, the access to a tutorable removal spell has been pretty solid.
I run both RiP and Surgical. I run RiP against decks like shardless that have both Goyf and Deathrite or RUG Delver to shut off Goyf and Mongoose. Surgical comes in with RiP against heavy graveyard decks like Dredge or Reanimator and against Loam/Punishing Fire Decks like Lands or Aggro Loam. I have honestly loved Extraction, i could not recommend it enough.
Congrats Violence, it's a shame we were so close to getting 2 Imperial lists in the top 32.
I was skeptical of Fiend Hunter for a while, but after playing with one myself for a while it's been reliably good for me.
As for your SB, I think running multiple copies of cards like Containment Priest and Fireslinger is not necessary with 3 Recruiters, especially as they are SB cards that only come in for a small subset of matches.
I think your last side in vs Eldrazi should have been Pia and Kiran. Some games you might get Wasted out and it's stuck in your hand, but other games it can actually stabilize on its own vs a huge board.
Vs Shardless, and any other grindy black deck, your first thought should be to side out some x/1s - because they are sure to have at least some sort of Golgari Charm effect. Also, even Shardless decks that play a basic or two are very taxed vs Magus because their deck requires so many colored sources (Hymn, Jace, Baleful Strix) - playing around Magus seriously impacts their gameplan and sometimes they just can't afford to go basic Swamp into basic Forest. If post-board you have 3 Magus + Crusader + 3 Recruiters + 2 RIP you have a ridiculous number of cards that just wreck them.
A single Canonist seems really risky to me, it paid off for c2232 and can be a meta choice, but Canonist is one of the best cards against *most* of our rough matchups (Infect, Elves, Storm) and you generally want it ASAP. I mean if my local meta was "Infect, Elves, Reanimator, Belcher, Storm..." I think I would be playing one in the main.
Thanks for the input, guys, that makes a lot of sense.
7-1-2 across two days at GP ABQ. Seems like white still has legs.
Friday:
BUG Delver 2-0
4C Delver 2-0
Infect 2-1
Enchantress 1-1-1
Punishing Jund 2-1
Saturday:
Sneak and Show 2-0
Zombardment 1-2
Reanimator 2-1
Punishing Lands 1-1
RUG Lands 2-0
Most people blindly suggest new cards for decks. True contributors also suggest what to remove. It's not about what's good, but rather what's better than the current selections.
This week I've kept winning the friday Legacy event at my LGS with the list that is giving me great results lately. I've won 3 of the last 4 events there with it.
This time I didn't have a great variety of matchups:
BUG Food Chain (2-1)
Death & Taxes (2-0)
BUG Delver (2-0)
Shardless BUG (2-0)
Wg Death & Taxes (2-0)
The hardest matchup was Food Chain because I had very little experience against that and it's a bit hard matchup because we have a short number of cards to break their combo (Revokers and Canonists) and they have -X/-X sweepers as the rest of BGx decks to keep us where they want. Other thing is that we haven't good answers against a T2 Manipulate Fate and then 3 Misthollow Griffin attacking because our removal only provides us to gain a turn so they can kill us easily without the combo way. So my best threat against them is an early race with Crusaders through DRS and Baleful Strixes as always.
Opposite to this, I didn't have the same luck yesterday at a GPT for GP Prague and I finished with a mediocre result:
Junk Depths (1-0)
UWR Miracles (0-2)
Goblin Stompy (2-1)
BUG Delver (1-1)
Junk Depths (0-2)
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except DEATH & TAXES
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