A few things:R9 Infect (2-1) (7-2)
G1 He has a slow start, no Blighted Agents, just Glistener Elf, and I have a Mom. Cast a Kor Skyfisher to block his Inkmoth and cast a SfM for Jitte. He attacks with 2 Elves, I let one through because I forget that Dryad Arbor is a Forest and he Invigorates+Beserks. If I blocked with SfM he could take me to 9 poison and I would only have one creature. I didn't have enough mana to get Jitte in play and equip it unless I drew a land. Probably needed to block.
Board out Thalias, 2 Mom, Magus and something, board in Path, Crusaders, Canonists, Relic-Warder, Sparkmage, Fiend Hunter.
G2 Keep hand of Plateau, 3 STPS. STP his Noble Hiearch, then STP everything else, draw more land and win pretty handedly.
G3 He has a bunch of non-basics and I cast a Magus. I have been going back and forth on the value of Magus in this matchup, since you don't always have time to set up well, but I think it's probably just correct to play them all.
- I have a hard time siding against this deck in much the same way. In fact, the more I face Infect, the harder siding has become. Sometimes game 1 is totally rescued out of the blue by Mangara, but there is no way I am keeping a slow card like that in. It looks even harder for you splashers with the toolbox. I think it is because this is a fast combo deck that also plays aggro (like Elves). That is always a hard combination to control, I suppose. At least Infect has lots of instants so it feels somewhat less uncomfortable to face.
- Thanks for the report. I appreciate the style of including the tips and decisions. It makes for better reading.
- I like the cute things you are (I don't know the actual original source of the ideas) bringing into the deck. Karakas pulls extra weight with the Nalars, Kor Skyfisher finally found a home thanks to a heavy delver meta, etc. Really cool.
- I still think you are a bad person with a black heart and a corrupted soul due to our previous disagreements, whatever those were.
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Haha, thanks Finn. I've been the source of a few of these ideas but it's cool that so many people here have contributed ideas on this thread that ended up being great. I was talking with hill_giant about the Faerie Macabre in particular - someone here included that in their list a like a month ago and we all immediately realized that it was absolutely brilliant in this shell.
Vs. Infect, Mangara is super slow for sure, but I kinda think having as many answers to Blighted Agent as possible still has to be right. You can't keep a hand expecting him to do anything for you, but if you stabilize with some stronger cards (STP/Ethersworn) first then he can help seal the deal and prevent a top-decked Agent from beating you out of nowhere. E.g. if you're on the draw and can go t2 Ethersworn, t3 Mangara, that's actually fine - you're not losing next turn to one spell, and will have a removal spell on the board. As a turn 3 play I think that's as strong as Ethersworn into hard-casting any creature that's just a beater/blocker (e.g. Crusader/Avenger/Flickerwisp) even if it isn't as good as any play that is more threatening or immediately interacting with their board (SfM/equipment stuff/Wasteland/STPs.) It also might depend on how much you have to bring in.
Congrats on the finish and thanks for the great report!Originally Posted by iatee
So Batterskull is back in main? I was scared of dropping it completely so I put it in my SB, maybe it should stay maindeck?
Also regarding your manabase, just one Plateau? Sure you're playing 3 Cavern but they can't activate Pia/Kiran. I only own 2 Cavern and 1 Plateau, which would you recommend that I invested in first? I'm leaning towards the 2nd Plateau but I might be wrong.
It was the fact that I didn't have enough time to get a good RW list, just look at Mikael's list, it is so far from anything I've reached so far, and there was too many card choices too much to test, so what I decided to do was just go with a list I knew was good and then just play the best I could.
If I had a lot of time to test I would've played RW for sure.
I think the Batterskull question might be still up for debate or even meta-dependent. The list that almost t8d Prague (I'm guessing it was poster nmks, otherwise it was just someone who reallllly liked the SB he runs...) managed to do it with no Batterskull in the 75, but Batterskull was consistently a card I was happy to have in my 75 at Columbus. So I really don't know, maybe leaning towards 'put it in the SB'.
As far as Plateau vs Cavern - I have played with one-Plateau for some months after my friend who also plays Imperial suggested it, saying he just felt like he never found himself cut off red, and I'm pretty sure it's right at this point. At the very least, it's not so wrong that you're gonna be punished regularly for it, as long as you play carefully.
At least half the time you're Vialing your red creatures in + a good % of games you'll have an early Cavern on human. The thing to actually be worried about is not being cut off red, but rather having only a few non-basics in your opening hand vs a Wasteland deck and drawing poorly. e.g. my g3 m3 that I lost because I kept a Plateau/Port opening hand. You really want to set up with at least one Plains, ideally two. Duals are magnets for Wastelands, so it's better to just keep your Plateau tucked away in your deck for when you need it vs those decks. Having 2 Duals means you'll see one in your opening hand (and probably have to play it) 22% of the time instead of 11% of the time.
Having 3 Plains + 5 fetch means that you have 8 unwastelandable white sources, which is not enough to guarantee you'll never lose to a bad draw + Wasteland, but is actually not much more greedy than some Mono-W lists e.g. Enevoldsen's Mono-W list only ran 9 plains.
Pia/Kiran does require either having drawn a Cavern or having a Magus in play - which should be fine by late-game - or knocking Vial to 4, which isn't ideal, but is worth it if it means you just win the game.
I just got back from Columbus, here's what I played:
Main:
4 Mother of Runes
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia
3 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Flickerwisp
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Vryn Wingmare
3 Imperial Recruiter
2 Magus of the Moon
4 Aether Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Karakas
3 Plains
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Plateau
Side:
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Sudden Demise
1 Cunning Sparkmage
1 Containment Priest
1 Meekstone
1 Cataclysm
2 Council's Judgment
1 Sword of War and Peace
Round 1: bye
Round 2: Merfolk. He shuffled with his cards facing me, showing me master of the pearl trident and dismember. I may just have lost my second bye a couple of weeks ago, but this is the next best thing. I won the roll, kept a 7 with vial and sfm, and the t1 vial resolved, so he lost hard to sofi. Game 2, he countered the first stoneforge, but he stumbled a bit on finding lords. I plowed his lord in response to an image and eventually recruitered for sfm to close out.
2-0
Round 3: Clay Spicklemore on infect. Game 1, he won the roll and led off with noble and then found a nexus and a blighted agent. When I tapped out on turn 2 to revoke the noble to prep for a surprise magus, he pondered and decided to use the window to cash in an invigorate for 4 damage. Because he did that, my magus on 3 was not great, even though he had no basics. I considered not showing it, but he'd already seen a fetch, so I just hoped that I could find an answer on top of my deck. The plow was one card too deep and I died. If only I'd been on the play, I wouldn't have been hit by the invigorate and probably would have won, but oh well.
Game 2, I played an early sfm for jitte, and he held off on playing dudes for a while. I waited to deploy the jitte until I didn't have anything else to use the mana on because I wanted to be sure to get to kill something, but after he cantripped a bit, I figured he'd probably have found something for it and ran it out to force the issue. He viridian corruptored it and used vines to keep it alive after I shot it with the counters. While he was tapped out and unable to force because of thalia, I plowed the corruptor and flickered SFM for sofi to have an answer for his next threat. The miscellaneous beats were starting to put him under pressure, and he just had glistener for a threat on his next turn. With only 2 cards left in his hand, I felt pretty strong. On my turn, I realized that I was likely to kill him on my next turn, so to win, he'd need to save his elf from sofi, then kill me with only 2 cards, so I left thalia back to beat vines/invig/berserk. He had the vines, but he avoided the temptation to use it to counter the equip to flickerwisp (I would have dropped a 6th land and then moved it over to thalia and killed the elf). With only one card left, he cracked a fetch to shuffle, knocked the top of his deck, and found a berserk to pair with the last card in his hand, which was unfortunately a Become Immense. It's annoying to lose to such an unlikely sequence, but he navigated through all of my hate perfectly with a suboptimal draw on his side and left himself the opportunity to get lucky, so it's hard to be too annoyed. He actually ended up winning the whole tournament, so obviously he's pretty good even though I hadn't heard of him before. When I was de-sideboarding, he saw the sparkmage and mentioned that he didn't think that his deck could ever beat it.
2-1
Round 4: elves. After picking up my first loss much earlier than I would've hoped, playing against elves was really not what I wanted to see. I lost the roll and got crushed g1 (he killed me with NO, so it was good to at least know that he wasn't on Julian Knab's list). Game 2, my draw was phenomenal. By turn 4, I'd seen sparkmage, demise, natural jitte, and 2 plows. I cleared his board constantly, ran him out of cards, and he just scooped when the jitte came down. I had hoped to get to do the value play of flickering sparkmage to take down a DRS when he played it out as a creature to untap with, but it wasn't correct at any point before he just died.
Game 3 was one of my most intense games of the tournament. He mulled to 6, and I went all the way to 5 and kept a 1-lander with sudden demise. I had a vial, but the second land didn't turn up for a long time. I still had lots of decisions to make, as his hand wasn't too explosive. I ended up revoking his heritage druids and getting a magus down to shut off cradle just in the nick of time before his glimpse turn. He then zenithed for wren's run packmaster, since he could still make a decent amount of mana from birchlores. I drew land #2 to cast a revoker, and he fortunately forgot to wolf in response, so the packmaster was his only reasonable attacker. The 5/5 was still a huge issue, so I was happy to draw a plow for it on the following turn, which also allowed me to vial out a wisp and reset revoker to birchlore to keep him off of too much green (just a forest and a couple of deathrites without much food). Demise for 1 wasn't great against his board, so I decided to wait and find a third land. I faded NO from him for a couple of turns while poking him with the wisp until I found a third land and he scooped to the demise. Matches like these are why it's really hard for me to even consider dropping red.
3-1
Round 5: grixis delver. Game 1, he mulled to 5 and ran out of gas. Game 2, he had a great pyromancer draw, and I didn't see red cards or a plow. Game 3 got a bit grindy with a few wastelands and removal spells back and forth, and he dropped a pyromancer onto a stalled board. I peeled a third land and cast cunning sparkmage, expecting it to get dazed or bolted in response to the activation for a token. Neither happened, and the pyro just died after he picked up my sparkmage, read it, and informed me that I was stupid to have such a bad card in my deck. He didn't kill it on his turn, and he didn't have a good threat to deploy in the face of sparkmage. I wasted his volcanic because he had 2 seas, and he proceeded to find an uncastable bolt on the following turn. He eventually ran out a strix to just cycle it, but couldn't find red mana before I killed him. After the match, he showed me a hand full of red cards and berated me for playing a non-meta deck with bad cards in it. "I built my deck to beat real, meta decks and then just lose to cunning sparkmage, a card that's never been constructed playable? I'm sooooo unlucky!"
4-1
Round 6: burn. Game 1, I don't see basics or fetches and get wrecked by double pop. Game 2, I vial out SFM for SoWaP on end step, leading him to ask if everyone on DnT was doing that now. I told him that it was known, but still uncommon, and had a hit you for 9, gain 4 turn, and his smash to smithereens after he untapped was too little too late. Game 3 was also decided by a single hit with SoWaP, with the SFM grabbing it and sneaking under a bridge before it got smashed again. His life total was then low enough that I was able to get there with a wisp trigger on bridge. He commented that he was now 4-2, with both losses coming at the hands of D&T players packing war and peace.
5-1
Round 7: Harlan Firer on colorless Eldrazi. Game 1, I land an early magus against an easily beatable board, and he responded with BASIC WASTES into a TKS. The wastes allowed him to continue playing magic and his larger creatures overpowered me. When I expressed my shock at the basic, he defended the choice, saying that the utility of basics was higher than that of factory in his testing because of all of the blood moons running around since the rise of the eldrazi. Game 2, he drew 2 wastes, which meant that my preferred recruiter->magus line was no good, but I still got to fetch an SFM. He took the batterskull with TKS, but I was able to find another SFM and grind him out with jitte. Game 3, he finally didn't have basics and succumbed to magus because of some mis-sequencing. He had 2 dismembers and a wail in his hand, but didn't wail the mom in response to magus, so when he went to clear magus, he had to waste a dismember tapping my mom, so I was able to just race him after he punched himself in the face for so much damage.
6-1
Round 8: Dylan Donegan on grixis delver. I lost the roll and just got tempoed out game 1. Game 2, he played an early therapy and saw sparkmage and demise. He had to read demise and made a comment about how he should probably have one of those in his own sideboard. The red cards stopped him from trying to pyro me out, and I killed him with sofi. Game 3, I played a turn 1 mom and he EOT darkblasted it. With no gravehate boarded in and a pile of x/1s in hand, I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. My turn 2 thalia met a darkblast, as did my turn 3 thalia after I wasted his third land. Drawing the darkblast meant that he didn't draw any more lands, so he decided not to dredge the blast after wingmare showed up (since he was stuck on 2 lands, thalias/wingmares were effectively just time walks, and even other guys were OK). He spent a couple of turns cantripping while wingmare beat down and I dumped the rest of my hand. He just stopped dredging and I was sufficiently ahead on board that he never managed to catch up. Playing against a turn 1 darkblast without gravehate is never easy, but it was very interesting to navigate with him a little choked on mana.
7-1
Round 9: burn. I won the roll and had the dream game 1 start of mom into sfm to make a batterskull on 3, but he had the maindeck vortex to keep me under control. He found exactly lethal the turn before I killed him. Game 2 was pretty much the same, with him topdecking the fourth land he needed to double fireblast me from 11 with swiftspear triggers the turn before his death, and I fell to 7-2 to end day one.
After a nice evening with my friends at the house we'd rented, I was ready to come in and 6-0 day 2.
Round 10: As I was walking to the table, I did a quick SCG search on my opponent (I feel like it's annoying that we can do this, but there's no way to stop it, so not doing it is just giving up percentage points at big events). I saw a grixis control result from a year ago and 2 recentish super IQ wins with TES. I lost the roll, and he led off with bloodstained mire, pass. I had a thalia in hand, so I had to decide between plains vial or just flooded strand pass. I decided that he was almost certainly on storm, and I really didn't want him to fire on turn two or know to therapy the thalia (with no SFM, I couldn't beat even just 10 goblins), and I thought that both plays were unlikely against flooded strand, so I went for that, and he couldn't beat my thalia (he said after the game that it didn't affect his play and he just didn't have it). Game 2, he fired off an empty on turn 1, and I didn't find a demise. Game 3, I was on the play and again landed a turn 2 thalia. I managed to avoid playing lands that could turn on massacre because it's always a burning wish target. I dropped a revoker as well, and he couldn't find an answer to thalia in time.
8-2
Round 11: lands. Game 1, his t1 gamble discarded the manabond that he'd searched for. He was stuck on one land per turn, with a karakas-protected thalia making the rest of his life hard, but he was able to aggressively wasteland me and crop rotate for tabernacle. I kept the thalia, which slowed him down, but I didn't have much of a clock, and he was dredging loam. I didn't want to show him my fetchlands given how bad things were looking, but then I decided to do so and vial out a revoker when he didn't seem to be moving too fast. I got him down to 4 before he had to drop a chasm. He paid for it once, then had to sacrifice it and try to power through. His gamble finally let him keep a manabond (he was running 4), and his loam found a maze, so he had the line of loam->manabond->put grove and maze in along with 4 other lands, rebuy fire and survive against 2 attackers. Unfortunately for him, he didn't have any more red mana after the grove and he just died. Game 2, I used a rip to clear a loam. I had the macabre in hand, but I figured I'd force him to have a k grip, which he did. We durdled for a bit as I poked away at his life total, an active mom keeping him from killing any of my guys. He found a depths to pair with his stage, but I had 6 power worth of attackers. He wasted my karakas and made marit lage to block, holding the token in his hand to easily toss it away to the wisp that he assumed that I had, but I didn't have it. On his turn, he swung in for the kill, and I vialed in the faerie to block, keeping it alive with mom, and then I just killed him. That's not really what the faerie is intended for, but I will certainly take it.
9-2
Round 12: Tom Ross on infect. He wins the roll, but only has a ponder on turn 1. On turn 2, he just doesn't do anything and I cavern down a thalia. He fetches on EOT and gets dryad arbor (I asked him after the match, and he said that he just didn't want to draw it and "maybe it'll block something"). He regretted that decision the following turn when I trumped his play of nexus and agent with an uncounterable magus. The magus cut me off of white, so it took me a while to piece together lethal with a revoker and second magus, but he didn't find the forest, so I easily won the race. Game 2, I mulled to 6 and kept a hand that was not great, and hierarch plus blighted agent plus pendelhaven went the distance. Game 3, he mulled to 5 and stumbled a bit on mana when I wasted him, and I did not give him a chance to catch up.
10-2
Round 13: RUG Delver. I lost the roll and he just did what RUG does on the play. Turn 1 delver->daze vial, turn 2 blind flip, goose, force your plow, daze your second vial, turn 3 waste you off white. Game 2 was the most fun game of my tournament. I plowed his delver, which he followed up with a couple of tarmogoyfs. I was able to land my meekstone, and he didn't have an answer for it, so he left a goyf tapped and didn't attack with the other. He cantripped some more and played a third goyf. Meanwhile, I was not drawing anything useful at all. I then cast a rip, to which he responded "well, at least I get to untap my goyf now." I got a mom-protected thalia ready to grab jitte and rumble, but they got eaten by a sulfur elemental. The elemental also gets wrecked by meekstone, so he just sat there for a while anyways. He stifled a stoneforge trigger and then bolted it when I tried to flicker it. After a while, I had just a wisp and a jitte staring down his 0/1 goyfs, unable to profitably attack. I drew another wisp, so it was tempting to let the beats commence, but I decided that I'd rather hold up vial and counter his first anti-hate card, especially since rip would eat the back half of a grudge on my meekstone, and I was certain that he could not win without killing the stone. He then cast a needle, so I vialed out the second wisp before the needle named vial. I was then able to use the flickerwisp dance to attack through the meekstone (the new one flickered the old immediately, then #1 came back on his end step and hit #2, then on my turn #1 picks up the jitte, attacks, and gets flickered by #2, only to come back untapped on his end step and flicker out #2 again, allowing me to untap them through meekstone as much as I want). When I was about to equip for a second attack, he recognized what was happening and broke it up with a bolt. After I found mirran, he was forced to Rough//Tumble away all 3 of his goyfs. I SFMed a batterskull into play, and he found grudge just in time to hit it before I untapped. However, with grudge exiled and both lock pieces still in play, he only had one answer left (a destructive revelrly, I would later find out), and he didn't find it, so mediocre beats got there when I finally got a creature to stick. We didn't have a ton of time for game 3, but I didn't need it. I dropped rip early on, which annihilated his board, and this time I actually had the creatures to back it up with some pressure.
11-2
Round 14: grixis delver. Game 1, he had an early pyromancer and forced my STP on it, and I never got it off the board. Game 2, I mulled to 5, kept a 1-lander on the play, and got triple wasted into oblivion. An anticlimactic end to my top 8 dream, which had felt so close.
11-3
Round 15: miracles. After 5 high-intensity rounds at increasingly higher tables, it felt like the tournament was already over and this match didn't even matter, since I was already dead. Game 1, I didn't know what I was up against and kept a hand without vial or cavern. He landed early countertop and got a 2 and a 3 floating immediately. Mentor then made short work of my life total. I kept in all 4 plows after the game 1 mentor, but it didn't help game 2, and I just got run over by mentor tokens again. We both made a serious mistake in the same turn game 2, when he flipped his top on upkeep with just plains island mountain in play. Obviously that meant that he was going to drop mentor, but he didn't leave himself a 4th land to actually recast the top, so he just passed without a top in play. When he acted on his upkeep, I forgot that I was supposed to also act on his upkeep and port him, which would have kept him off of mentor for that turn (and possibly a couple more, since he only had one onboard white source, had telegraphed mentor, and I had a wasteland). Missing that port activation was a serious problem, as I was forced to cataclysm earlier than I wanted to just to clear up mentor tokens (and then I found a plow for the mentor, but he triggered it again). If the mentor hadn't come down for a couple of turns, I could have just plowed it and cataclysmed a bit later, which would have been a very different game, which I definitely could have won.
I finished at 11-4. While that's a totally respectable finish, I was hoping for better. After the tournament, I met iatee, and we had an interesting talk about our respective builds.
Thoughts:
Sparkmage was excellent. The only game where I drew it and then lost was the triple wasteland game in round 14, and it was key in several wins. It was never worse than sudden demise would have been, and it was better than sharpshooter or fireslinger would have been more than once. I think that one's definitely staying in. Faerie macabre didn't come up much during this tournament, but in my testing, I haven't yet wished that it was still a rip, and being recruitable is huge (also, it blocks marit lage).
My current sideboard has 2 Surgical Extractions in it, and unfortunately I wasn't able to go to the GP this past weekend after being excited about it since I knew it was happening... Sometimes things in life take precedence.
But in a match I played against Infect I sided them both in along with a few other things including my Cunnin Sparkmage. I was on the play and my first turn was Wasteland in game 2 followed by something else, he hand Tropical and Pendlehaven, he's also tapped out from playing a Blighted Agent, I Waste his Trop at the end of his turn, and Extract the Tropicals with a white floating for the Blighted Agent, I keep him off of Blue mana for the rest of the game since I was able to Recruiter for my Sparkmage very early on to ping off the Nobles, at the end of the game he showed me his hand of 5 cards consisting of 2 Blighted Agent, 2 Brainstorm and a Daze. It was a very grindy game, but I had all the time in the world I needed because I ended up getting Magus a couple turns later to shut down everything he could do. I'm not saying that Extraction is a card that you can count on to do that with all the time, I honestly brought them in to take out all the Invigorates, or Vines, or Glisteners, just happened to work of Tropicals that game.
I mainly have the Extractions and a 1 of Faerie Macbre (with a sideboard SoLaS for recursion shenanigans) for grave heavy decks (Or sometimes combo decks for the remaining pump spells in Infect, Rituals or sometimes cantrips against Storm, I even removed Emrakuls from a Sneak and Show player in response to the shuffle trigger, barely won that game later on, but cutting threats in half is pretty good there)
Cockatrice: EMFry
Where can I find a complete sideboarding guide to Death & Taxes?
My 9-6 Report for GP Columbus
4 Æther Vial
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Flickerwisp
2 Mangara of Corondor
4 Mother of Runes
3 Serra Avenger
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
3 Karakas
1 Mishra's Factory
9 Plains
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
Sideboard
1 Cataclysm
2 Containment Priest
2 Council's Judgment
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rest in Peace
1 Wilt-Leaf Liege
Round 1: Bye from Planeswalker Points
Round 2: David Mattle on Death and Taxes (2-0 games, 2-0 overall record)
David was a pretty friendly guy that suffered from some pretty tough draws in the mirror. My game 1 draw was very aggressive and his Mom couldn't help against Eldrazi Displacer, while mine was protected against his StP. Game 2 I brought in Cataclysm and both copies of Council's Judgment and took out SoFaI and two copes of Thalia. He had several StP for my creatures but SfM'd for Manriki-Gusari with just a Mystic in play, I hit it with StP and then SfM'd for my Jitte and steamrolled the game from there after an attack with Jitte-wisp and others for 11.
Round 3: Ross on Shardless (2-1 games, 3-0 overall record)
A slog of three games that went to 48 minutes of the round. Game 1 he eventually ends up grinding me out. I board in a slew of cards including both RiP, Gideon, WLL, Pithing Needle, and both Paths. I go on serious mana denial in game two and grind out a win after Revoker on Deathrite, Needle on Liliana, and RiP keeping his Goyf's as 0/1's. Game three is much the same but included far less resistance from him with me only getting hit by a single Goyf and getting Gideon in play, which is basically impossible for them to deal with outside of the normal 1-of Maelstrom Pulse. Path and Ghost Quarter are basically "Better StP" and "Strip Mine" in this match, with him only running 2 basics and fetching them early to avoid my Wastelands.
Round 4: Peter on Aggro Loam (0-2 games, 3-1 overall record)
Another three game grind where I take the first one after getting Displacer/Wisp on line to shut off his Red mana while killing Groves with Mangara/Karakas. I board in both RiP, Cataclysm, and WLL. I board out Jitte (which comes back in game 3), Magaras, and a fourth card I can't read the name of. Sadly, in both games he stabalizes at 12 life and ends up with control of the board, leading to my first loss of the day.
Round 5: Seth Mansfield on Infect (2-0 games, 4-1 overall record)
One of my friends lets me know he's on Infect and I go in dreading the match, more-so when he wins the die roll. Trop-Glistiner Elf pass. I open on Plains-Mom, he then goes Noble, Pendelhaven, attack and I chump with Mom. Turn 2 I drop Thalia and let the Elf through, taking 3 infect and sweating bullets. He doesn't pump and I get another turn to go SfM and fetch Jitte, chump his attack with Thalia then go to my turn 4. I don't draw a land to drop Jitte and equip, so I drop a second Mom and pass. He attacks and I SfM in a Batterskull that I'd been holding to chump, gaining 4 and he hardcasts Invigorate to keep his Elf alive. I top my land, play and equip Jitte, then attack. He scoops after I kill his board. I board in Paths and Canonists, then take out Mangara's and two Revokers, even though that can stop Nobles, just to have stall in place, turns out it wasn't needed.
Game 2 he mulls to 6 and scrys to the bottom, then doesn't play anything past Forest. He discards Daze, Daze, and Brainstorm at end of turn and I take him to 0 in short order.
Round 6: Edgar on Sneak and Show (2-1 games, 5-1 overall record)
Game 1 he does that thing where he drops a turn 3 Sneak Attack and hits with Emerakul, and then a second Emerakil on turn 4. I put in Containment Priests, Cage, Needle, and one RiP, I take out Moms and one Mystic. Game 2 he ended up going on an odd Monastery Mentor cantrip plan, but I eventually grind him out with Wisps and take the game back at 3 life. Game 3 he goes back to Sneak Attack and I end up killing him over 9 turns with a Containment Priest that was Vial'd in after he paid for Sneak Attack and let Vial respond, instead of reactivating Sneak Attack in response.
Round 7: Saitao on Mentor Miracles (0-2 games, 5-2 overall record)
This set of games brings my record against Miracles to something around 1-Two thousand and ninety, I can just never seem to end up on the upside. I don't start with Vial in either game, and am not running Cavern, then he eventually stabilized at 12 life in game one, and 6 life in game two. I boarded in Gideon, Judgment's, Cataclysm, and Needle, then took out one each of Jitte, StP, Mystic, and two Serra Avenger. Any other advice on this match would be appreciated.
Round 8: Steve on Four Color True-Name Deathblade Something (2-1 games, 6-2 overall)
After the match he tells me he's not running Knights, which just seems odd. He takes game one off of triple True Name Nemesis after hitting a few of my early drops with StP. I board in a slew of cards, Needle, Cataclysm, both Council's Judgment, and both RiP for Goyf, and take out 4 Thalia and both Mangara. Game two he miscounts damage and leaves me at five, I outrace double True-Name with Serra Avenger equipped with SoFaI. Game three I end up able to go on full mana-denial Revoker on Deathrite, and Wastes/Ghost Quarter/Porting him out then seizing control with Displacer/Wisp.
Round 9: Kegan ??? (1-2 games, 6-3 overall)
My notes say this went to three games, and I won game two, but I can honestly not recall what he was playing at all. It was the end of a long day, but I'm sure it was something with Goyf as my life totals go down in chunks of 4 and 5 in game one.
Day Two, Round 10: James on Elves (0-2 games, 6-4 overall)
This is where I start to feel the wheels come off, after dodging elves all of day one. I board in both Canonoist, both Priest, Cataclysm, and Cage, and board out Thalias and Mangaras. I chip away at him in game two and slow him down, but he still eventually picks up Hoof at 10 life and stomps me.
Round 11: Matthew on 4c Delver (2-1 games, 7-4 overall)
Game one I slowly prevent myself from being run over on a Mana-denial plan and Jitte takes care of most of his creatures, eventually I win on the back of little white guys and a Displacer with SoFaI. I board in Paths, RiPs, and WLL. Game two I have a hand that's really good if I'm on the play, and try it anyway with triple Wasteland, Plains, Swords, Ghost Quarter, and other stuff. He plays Delver on 1, Spell Pierces my Swords (I should have changed phases when he floated blue, that could have been prevented), and overwhelms me with Pyromancer. Game three is very much the opposite with me on the play. t1 Vial, t2 RiP, t3 StP + Thalia + Vial'd Mytic for Jitte, and he concedes at 15 life when I destroy his last land with Ghost Quarter.
Round 12: Matthew on Elves (1-2 games, 7-5 overall)
I manage to win game one, somehow. I believe it was off an early Jitte and then SoFaI on Avenger picking off all of his creatures. I board as I did previously, but he Hoofs me very early in games 2 and 3.
Round 13: Jon Finkle on Storm (1-2 games, 7-6 overall)
Game one I win with t2 Thalia backed with Ports on basic lands and eventually whittle him down. I board in Canonists, RiPs, Cage, and Needle and board out Moms and a Mystic. This game I accidentally pull 7 on a mulligan and opt for the reveal and let choose method of resolution thinking that he doesn't have two pieces of discard for the variety of hate I have in my hand. He does, but it takes up most of his early turns and he eventually Empties for 10. I fend them off for enough rounds to stabilize the board, but he Tendrils for 6 to finish me off. Game three wasn't technically a turn one kill, but the game was effectively over on one as he empties for 18, and I play a Thalia and extend the hand.
Next to me was a nice guy playing a fully foiled/promo Death and Taxes, running Spirit and Crusaders. I didn't end up getting his name, but suggested he check out the boards here.
Round 14: Jason on Loam Pox (2-0 games, 8-6 overall)
Both of these games are absolute grinds, but having played Pox in the past I know he's running minimal threats and just kill off his Mishra's and Swords his Nether Spirit. Eventually he gets Bridge in play, but I Vial in Wisp with Displacer in play to flicker it and attack for lethal over two turns. In comes Gideon, Council's Judgments, RiPs (he's running Drownyard Temple, Crucible, and Dust Bowl), and WLL and cut Thalias, Displacer, and one Mystic He ends up landing Dread of Night, but then Hymn's me and I get to put WLL into play, which means my Wisp survives and I can keep his Liliana's off the board by using Vial during his upkeep.
Round 15: Zane on Shardless (2-0 in games, 9-6 overall)
My notes are somewhat short in this one, but I know I boarded exactly the same as I did in my previous Shardless game, and he never really got going. His early start in game 1 of Double-Goyf was met with stall tactics and land destruction until I got Displacer going and StP to get rid of them. Game two my life total notes indicate very much Batterskull and his steadily goes downward with the exception of a single StP gaining him two midway through.
Notes:
Paths were 95% of the time better then Swords, and Ghost Quarter was almost always just Strip Mine. Displacer + Wisp/Mangara is insanity, especially if you still have Karakas open to keep Mangara safe as a backup plan. Gideon is just game over against Shardless, and the only really horrible matches I played where I didn't feel like I had a chance to win were the ones against Elves and Miracles. I've beaten Aggro Loam here locally, and just feel like my draws in games 2 and 3 were not strong enough to pull it off. Also, even though the games went long, I still never felt disadvantaged against Shardless, even when they started drawing cards off of Visions.
In games where I had Displacer and Crusader would have won it more quickly, I didn't feel bad. It's great at ticking up Jitte counters and getting additional triggers from SoFaI, but I felt the slow grind of Displacer was a suitable swap given the utility it brings to the table.
That is a pretty funny question considering we are discussing the merits of sideboarding so much on this page.
It does not work quite like that Alex. Sideboards are not set, and nobody has all the answers. There is no end-all, be-all sideboarding strategy. We are discussing two different versions of the deck here in fact.
@Fry, Surgical Extraction makes sense because Infect has a combo soul.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often and for the same reason."
"Governing is too important to be left to people as silly as politicians."
"Politicians were mostly people who'd had too little morals and ethics to stay lawyers."
zeb with your deck for the mirror I would have boarded a lot more aggressively.
I would go:
- 4 Thalia, -2 Mangara, -1 something else
+1 Needle, +2 Path, +2 Priest, +2 Council's Judgment
I am totally convinced that going to 0 Thalias is correct, you can't afford to have a creature that is totally blanked by a land they play 3 copies of. I usually take out Mangara too for the same reason, but that's a little closer because the upside of you having Mangara-lock is a lot higher than the upside of 'I have a 2/1 first strike'. In theory you can also do things like Port their Karakas, then Vial in Mangara, then eat their Karakas, but that's still a lot of work.
Priest is already fine in a Vial mirror on the draw, where they might out-Vial-tempo you, but you're also playing Displacer and the Displacer/Priest interaction is insane in a fair creature game. Path is best against Delver-style decks w/ no basic land, but is good against all creature-based decks - while you would prefer not to ramp them, just killing every relevant creature they play is a pretty solid game plan, you basically get to be the Jund deck.
Cataclysm is not very good in the mirror because you can't count on having a favorable board state for it and it's not even much of a comeback card since if they're ahead the things that put them ahead will probably still be on board. Sofi is still good even with the protections being mostly useless (occasionally matters vs Imperial chump blocking with a Recruiter) because Jitte gets shut-off and Sofi becomes the next best way to pull ahead.
Look at Thomas Enevoldsen's decklist. There are a lot of good cards against Shadless BUG, but the side-out is difficult. I mean, it may be good to write a guide about what are the best cards to side-in and what cards can be sided-out. What do you think about Flickerwisp against Shardless BUG? It seems weak.
Didn't get to play in the main event because PES screwed up my Reg. Instead played in the GP rebound and SSS event (a total of 5+8 rounds) and went 10-3.
I'll try to do a tournament report later but here was the list I played:
4 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Imperial Recruiter
2 Flickerwisp
2 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Vryn Wingmare
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Mangara of Corondor
1 Pia and Kiran Naalar
2 Magus of the Moon
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Cavern of Souls
3 Karakas
4 Flooded Strand
1 Arid Mesa
2 Plateau
2 Plains
S/B:
1 Eldrazi Displacer
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Path to Exile
1 Batterskull
1 Pithing Needle
1 Leonin Relic Warder
3 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
2 Containment Priest
2 Sudden Demise
Quick report:
- Miracles: 2-2
- Shardless Bug: 3-0
- Storm: 1-0
- 12-Post: 1-0
- S&T: 2-0
- 4c Delver: 1-0
- White D&T: 0-1
Probably the best you can do is compile a list of sideboard cards, figure out what cards are good for which matches, determine which cards overlap and then look at your meta and figure out what the best combination of cards are. I did something like that on the mtgslavation DnT list and it may help you think about things, though one of the most helpful parts of compiling the list for me was having discussions over where I was wrong in my recommendations. Knowing what to sideboard means knowing the meta and not just what you expect to see, but what you expect to see the most of and where your matches are the most in need of help.
There is no way to tell you how many of each card to run, what number of each, when a card is good and when it is bad, etc., outside of knowing the meta. Path to Exile was considered the worst of the 1cmc removal spells until Eldrazi. Do you run the Enlightened Tutor package or not? Heck, what is "The Enlightened Tutor Package"?
What are valid sideboard cards is also a constantly developing target. For example, no one considered Faerie Macabre until recently AFAIK, but if you run 2-4 Imperial Tutor, it is suddenly a great choice against Reanimator. Containment Priest almost singlehandedly bumped Grafidgger's Cage off the #1 spot for Elves hate overall and it improved the Sneak and Show match quite a bit.
EDIT:
When sideboarding, ALWAYS ask yourself, "What is coming out?" If you have 5 cards in your sideboard for a match, but you can only think of 3 card to take out when you go to Game 2, your sideboard plan is wrong.
@Fry, iatee
Actually, aside from Reanimator, what are you using FM for?
Just got back from Prague where I played well, not D&T.
I did however play a version with Leonin Arbiter, Mindcensor and 4x Ghost Quarter (similar to the list that top-8'd the 2014 BoM) in a 250 player sideevent on Sunday and 6-0'd but that's a story for another day.
I just came to pay tribute to Enevoldsen who absolutely demolished the GP except for dying in the semifinals to the eventual winner on storm. Enevoldsen 9-0'd day one going 14-0 in games with 2x byes. Think about that for a sec.
The man is a monster with this deck. Anyways, regarding 3x mom, I have also adopted this in my own build and I'm feeling it's correct with all the eldrazi decks running around.
Lands, Dredge, Jund, 4c Loam, ANT.
I normally play Shardless BUG. Played BUG Delver in the GP and never flipped a delver. So I borrowed my friend's DNT deck for the Sunday Super Series. He's the guy who won the ATL open last week, so it was the same list but with a Gideon main over vryn wingmare and a kor firewalker over the gideon in the board (he hates losing to burn).
I lost in the finals of the series to RUG delver. My other loss was to BUG delver. Since I've played both matchups from the other side a million times (played RUG delver for a year), I was a bit unlucky to lose. I was also exhausted by the end of the tournament and that plus my inexperience with the deck really started to show (missed a vial tick that almost cost me the semis, ported terribly vs miracles in the quarters, scooped instead of giving my opponent a chance to misplay in g2 of the finals). Went 9-2 on the day beating deathblade, jeskai delver, miracles x3, jund lands, the mirror, merfolk, and maverick.
I don't have a detailed report, but I will say that Displacer saved my butt a bunch of times. When my maverick opponent had 3 moms and a 12/12+ knight plus assorted other dudes vs my mom and lands, I drew displacer and handily won. When my merfolk opponent had a master of waves, 4ish waves, and several other dudes and I was flooding on ports and wastes, I drew displacer and handily won. The biggest problem for the card is that it doesn't shine vs the top tier decks like miracles and delver, but it sure does crush the mirror and other creature decks (like eldrazi). So maybe not a 4 of but I think it definitely has a home. And I've never been impressed by mirran crusader playing from the BUG side of the matchup unless it get's equipped, at which point it's overkill (usually just race it or deluge/lilly it with shardless or chump it with delver).
Now I just need to find 3 more ports so I can field the deck myself.
Are there other matches where it is good? Seems like it would be good against Oops, All Spells!, if I remember their wincon correctly, especially as it makes it possible to stop the turn 1 win. Not good against Belcher.
Tweaking my sideboard notes for match-ups, where are you all getting value out of
Gideon: Miracles, Jund, Lands, ...?
Pia and Kirran Nalaar: Miracles, Eldrazi, Lands, Jund, mirror, ...?
Fiend Hunter/Banisher Priest: Eldrazi, Infect, Jund, Mirror, Lands ...?
Also, if I have missed anything, completely made the wrong call, etc., let me know. I am always happy to improve this.
As iatee said, I use the Macabre there as well, I like it with my SoLaS in the board as it is then both parts tutorable and the Macabre is recurable. I also put in the Extractions there, I like the Faerie because it is a temporary stop for things like Life From the Loam or Punishing Fire until I can get an Extraction to hopefully use on an integral part of the deck.
iatee said ANT, I would move that to include all storm variants including High Tide, Also good against Welder/Daretti MUD, Surprisingly good against RUG Delver, shrinks Goyf and Mongoose.
Cockatrice: EMFry
That's a really reasonable and solid line of thinking, and likely how I'll be boarding for the mirror when I'm on the draw from here on out, at the very least bringing in Priest to stress all of their removal will allow for the bombs like Displacer to have a higher chance to stick around in the mid/late game so they can completely take over. Thanks!
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