He can set up Shardless, he bounces things, he's not terrible, just not my style, maybe. It just seems like Jace hasn't been excellent against Miracles, and they use it better, it's good to be able to needle it without giving yourself dead draws. In other matchups it's a liability when you need to be a bg list instead of a blue one. I dunno, I can see how he is useful, I've just so far been underwhelmed I suppose.
This is half of the reason. The other half is that I was boarding Jace out against everything that wasn't Miracles or Shardless anyway.Originally Posted by Dissection
If Jace hasn't been good for you against Miracles you are probably playing it wrong. It has won me many games against them.
I agree with you that what Jace is capable of doing is great against Miracles in the abstract, but I can see where Secretly.A.Bee is coming from. Game 1 he's a stone cold killer against them, but if the trend in Miracles is to load up post-board with REB effects and Snapcasters, Jace doesn't end up doing much in those games, which has kinda been my experience as well.
From nothing came teeth.
Right, and I do play one in my main, it's just only good for me if I've already assumed the control role in a matchup. I'm certain that most of my decisions with Jace are correct, he's just not where I want to be against most tier 1 lists atm.
Jace isn't as good as Liliana in this deck, but it's still the best Planeswalker ever printed. No reason not to run at least 1 maindeck. If it can stick for a while, the card advantage it generates is game winning and he's also a win-condition on his own (this is Liliana's only flaw).
I'm taking Shardless BUG to a local tomorrow, I guess this is the list I'm using:
Lands [22]
4 Wasteland
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
Creatures [15]
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Shardless Agent
3 Baleful Strix
Spells [23]
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Sideboard [15]
2 Disfigure
1 Murderous Cut
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Null Rod
1 Krosan Grip
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Chill
Chill and Engineered Explosives have been working REALLY well. They have so many applications! My only flex slots in the sideboard are the Murderous Cut and Hymn to Tourach. Maybe I can swap them for Life from the Loam and another Maelstrom Pulse. I guess my list is a little soft against Sneak and Show, but I guess that's fine, I'm prepared to see more midrange decks, Eldrazi and Miracles. What do you guys think?
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
That's not a good enough reason to run a Jace. I'm not saying playing Jace is wrong, clearly it's still very powerful and insane in the deck, but running it just because of that is flawed. As others have mentioned, Legacy has become hostile to him. There are Pyroblasts everywhere that people are bringing in vs us, as well as army-in-a-can creatures like Mentor and Young Pyromancer that get around his -1, tough to answer threats like TNN and with Grixis being played a huge amount more than BUG when it comes to Delver you'll be facing lots of Lightning Bolts too.
It's worked for some people, but reactive cards like Flusterstorm and Invasive Surgery aren't good in Shardless IMO. You should be building to maximise your cascades. Tapping out for Agent vs combo (this is a tapout deck after all) and hitting one of these will feel terrible and probably lose you the game. EE is also a huge nonbo with Agent.
Chill seems very narrow. It's probably an annoyance for some bolts decks, but outside of Burn I don't see it doing much.
If you're really set on a non-Force counter in Shardless, I think Dimir Charm is where you want to be . It's not a dead Cascade against decks where you aren't interested in the counter (even against Eldrazi it gets Mimics, small Endless Ones, and counters All is Dust) and it hits most the the stuff you'd typically want to counter with Invasive Surgery or Flusterstorm.
I also think that Crucible of Worlds is just better in Shardless than Life from the Loam. It doesn't suck your mana or your draw step every turn, it's much more powerful with Sylvan Library and Jace, and it's only marginally less good with Liliana.
Hey, new to the site and somewhat new to shardless. I haven't read the backpages of the thread, so I apologize if this has been answered (and it's very likely been answered), but what is the game plan vs. Grixis / RUG Delver? I took Shardless to SCG Worcester as my first big tournament with the deck and took 18th last weekend, which I am very happy with, but my 4 losses in the tournament were to two Grixis Delver decks, and two RUG Delver decks... and only one of those matches felt even remotely close. My last match against RUG, I did fine (had to mulligan to 3 game 3... obviously lost), but I felt like I had learned *something*, as it was actually a match the first two games, but if there are any general tips / strategies when playing against delver decks, I would really love to learn them.
Become a BG deck and board out Forces, first and foremost. Race them sooner rather than later if you can't stop their pressure, but otherwise try and make the game go long, as yhats this deck's playground when its the control list. Always do your best to play around Daze, pierce and Stifle. Save Brainstorms to make their discard worse. This is how I play against it.
I couldn't disagree with this more, do not side board out Forces vs RUG Delver at least, same for Grixis if they're running Stifle and even then I still keep them in if they're not.
We lose to Delver decks by getting behind on tempo, not card advantage. Force is vital to beating Stifle decks, just play smart and don't play them into a Daze.
i agree with Dissection here. You need more outs to Young Pyro and Angler in your deck, and Delvers often cut countermagic vs us. Also answering a delver turn 1 otd is huge if you have no removal/a slower hand.
In fact, i think this deck is the best equipped to keep FOW in a lot of matchups. Because of our card advantage, it doesnt really hurt us as much as say stoneblade.
Well, go with what he says, but I get to test against grixis and 4c Delver often, and I don't lose very much. Try both in testing and see what works best for you.
Alright, thanks for the replies! I'll get some testing in keeping in the forces. I tried going basically BG with brainstorm in the tournament post sideboard and ended up going 1/5 against delver so I guess trying something else couldn't possibly hurt.
Assuming you're Charles Prugh, I think that part of your problem is that your 75 is just not set up well against Delver in general. Thoughtseize is pretty bad in those matchups, you only have three Forces, Jace is very difficult to cast against Wasteland, Stifle, Daze, and Pierce, and the Meddling Mage sideboard plan leaves you light on removal against aggressive decks, especially aggressive decks that attack your mana, since Plow is your only piece of SB spot removal.
Tactically, you want to focus on clogging up the ground while cutting them off of flying attackers and Deathrite activations (in that order).
I'm looking into shardless and I have a question, why do people run singletons Dismember, Maelstrom Pulse, Toxic Deluge and some others? Like the chance to get it is abysmal, yet they still run them. Whats the point?
A typical Shardless deck runs four Brainstorms (along with 9 fetches), four Ancestral Visions, 2-3 Baleful Strix and 1-2 Jace. The chances of drawing into a singleton are not abysmal. This is also why the deck is so dangerous post-board.
Aside from cantrips, Vision, Sylvan Library, and Jace, Maelstrom Pulse is a pseudo-second copy of Dismember and Toxic Deluge; it's got some subtle differences and is sometimes better and sometimes worse than those cards, but don't think of them as 2-3 one-ofs, think of them as slots dedicated to catch-all removal that you tailor to your metagame.
Hey guys,
Influenced by The Brainstorm Show podcast I've been running a Jitte in the maindeck for a little while now and it's been overperforming so I bumped the number up to two. The deck was struggling with Grixis Delver and Monastery Mentor a bit and Jitte is phenomenal vs both. It's been working almost as a proactive replacement for Toxic Deluge, I'd be interested to hear if anybody else has been trying it? The list below has been running pretty smoothly.
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
4 Ancestral Vision
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Dismember
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Wasteland
SB:
2 Hymn to Tourach
3 Duress
1 Disfigure
1 Murderous Cut
1 Garruk Relentless
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Pithing Needle
It's definitely worth a shot. I haven't tried it in the main, but the comparison to Deluge is apt. I'm concerned no maindeck answers to Jace, though.
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