I went 9-6, 74th at the SCG Open. Felt I played well all of D1 and most of D2 and most of my losses were due to poor draws vs non-blue decks, but there was at least one match I probably could have won if I played tighter. Last round opponent was unfortunately Elves which knocked me out of t64ing/cashing.
I've been trying to squeeze Ghost Quarters into the list to improve the Eldrazi matchup / consistently wreck greedy mana decks without committing to another color for Magus. There's a ton of Eldrazi at my local store and I've been having success with the infinite Wasteland infinite STP post-board strategy. They all play a basic Waste now since they're used to my Magus/Paths but it still doesn't help much, since they still lose a mana (or a TKS) and you're still cutting them off big plays and Eye of Ugin. I took out a Mom and a Port for 2 GQs main, going up to 24 land. I still lost to an Eldrazi opponent with a series of god hands, but that's gonna happen.
I expected a lot of DnT so the Relic Warder main was a meta-call, there was a decent amount d1 but played none. Everyone expected a lot of DnT and I think sideboards were stacked, which is one reason why it did poorly at the event. Decent amount of Elves D2 too.
Here's my list:
4 Thalia
4 SFM
3 Mom
3 Recruiter
2 Sanctum Prelate
3 Flickerwisp
1 Banisher Priest
1 Mangara
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Revoker
1 Relic Warder
4 Vial
4 STP
Bskull/Jitte/Sofi
4 Wasteland
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
3 Cavern
8 Plains
1 Flagstones of Trokair
SB
2 Cataclysm
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Mirran Crusader
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Leonin Relic Warder
1 Faerie Macabre
R1 UB Reanimator (2-0, 1-0)
G1 I'm on the play and have a Vial hand that's only okay vs combo but the creature he bins is Iona and I have a Karakas.
Board out SfM package and Moms, board in most of the SB that isn't Cataclysm
G2 He has t1 Needle for Karakas. I correctly guess that he has a Massacre in hand and Prelate for 4. Fetched Fairie Macabre early but didn't need to use it.
R2 Eldrazi (2-0, 2-0)
G1 I had played him at at event months ago and he had been on Infect then, so I was guessing he was still on Infect. But STP/Wasteland/SfM hands are good against slow Eldrazi hands too. He might have been able to take the game had he Dismembered my SfM earlier.
Board in Cataclysms, GQ, 3 Path, Crusader, Relic, take out Moms, Prelates, most Thalias, Cavern
G2 Vial Recruiter Flickerwisp chain. He didn't draw many of his bigger Eldrazi creatures in either game.
R3 Miracles (2-0, 3-0)
G1 Have a Mom, Thalia, Prelate opening, which should be good against Miracles, but he had STP for Mom, blind hits Thalia with Counterbalance, shuffle/hits to a 3 (Mentor) to counter my Prelate, at which point I start to get concerned. I managed to sneak in a Relic-Warder to eat the Counterbalance and draw into a Cavern finally. He starts going in on Mentor/Top, but I have another Prelate on 1. Eventually he's forced to Terminus away 2 Mentors to get my Prelate off the board, I still have a bunch of equipment in play and win.
Board into 2 Cataclysm, Needle, 2 Prelate, take out a GQ, Relic, Banisher Priest, Jitte, Flickerwisp. Keep all 4 STP since I saw double Mentor so quickly, he's probably playing 4.
G2 T1 Vial, Revoker on Top, Prelate on 1 he never gets a white source.
R4 Dark Maverick (1-2, 3-1)
G1 I have a Vial, he has an early Thalia and Revokered Ooze that can put a little pressure on my life but don't really matter. I SfM a Jitte and get it online + Prelate on 2. He GSZs a Pridemage and attempts to kill it, but I Flicker it. He gets a KotR and Sylvan Safekeeper and I make him Armageddeon himself to keep the Safekeeper alive. He scoops when he can't come back.
Board out Thalias, Mangara, Cavern board in 3 Path, Needle, Relic Warder, Crusader
G2 Had a decent hand, Path his first Bob but he has another and I just get super flooded.
G3 He mulls to 6 and I have double StP so I StP his t1 GSZ'd Dryad Arbor, hoping he's mana screwed. I think this was a mistake and it's generally wrong to go after Maverick's manadorks and not their stronger creatures. Probably wasn't what cost me ultimately since he drew into a Sword of Light and Shadow, multiple KotRs, Scrib Ranger and Double StP for my creatures, and I got super flooded again, after starting out with a 2 land hand.
R5 4c Delver (2-0, 4-1)
G1 His opening hand seemed awkward, Wasteland his first Volc, GQ his t2 Volc, now he has no red sources. He cast a Sylvan Libary and Goyf but I had answers and he said he had a bunch of Bolts in his hand and on top of his deck.
Board out a Recruiter, Revoker, Wisp, Priest, 4 Thalia, in 3 Path, 2 Prelate, 2 RiP, GQ
G2 He had an early Dread of Night but it did very little since I had removal for all his threats / Thalias were boarded out anyway, eventually won with equipment.
R6
G1 Infect (1-2, 4-2)
SCG guy who streams a bit, I knew he plays Infect. Kept hand off Thalia/SfM/GQ being okay, assuming nothing funny I would have a Jitte online t4 and Thalia might clog him up.
G1 Elf on the play, Thalia blocks it but gets Invigorated, don't draw a 3rd land immediately and my SfM gets dazed, Crusader to block it gets FoW'd. Likely would have won that one on the play and/or with a Cavern.
Take out Thalias, Prelate, Bskull + forgot which land for Paths, Relic, Ghost Quarter
G2 Jitte gets Gripped but have Sofi on Flickerwisp to eat his Blighted Agent. He had a way to block with an Inkmoth (activate it force me to Port it) that would have allowed him to win with it next turn since I was at 9 poison, but he didn't see it.
G3 Mull a triple Vial no removal hand to a t1 Vial t2 Caverned Canonist no removal hand. He Claims my Vial t1 and plays two Blighted Agents. Become Immenses one after I tapped out for a Crusader and I'm at 9 Poison when I finally draw a STP a turn too late. I could have not tapped out for the Crusader to bluff STP for a turn, but then I have no clock vs 2 Blighted Agents.
R7 Shardless (2-1, 5-2)
G1 He left a sideboard card in main and had to call a judge and mull to 6. I have a great hand on the play, Vial Mom Thalia Crusader and 3x Wasteland so it probably didn't matter.
Bring in Cataclysms, Rips, Crusader, Needle take out Mom, Relic Warder, Flickerwisps, Cavern
G2 I have a RiP and Revoker + Needle for his Lili, he draws new Lili card which is pretty strong vs DnT, Shardlesses a bunch, just starts building a huge board while I'm doing very little. I still can draw into Cataclysm throughout this time and I could tell he had no Forces post-board, so I was live in the game pretty late, but only to that exact draw.
G3 Thalia, RiP for his t1 DRS, he has 2 Ancestrial Visions on suspend and the turn before they both hatch I play the Prelate I've been sandbagging for 0.
R8 Painter (0-2, 5-3)
G1 Friend of a friend so I knew he was on Painter. He had t1 Grindstone t2 Servant, I let him activate and have StP, but he finds another Servant almost immediately and I don't have any more interaction for the combo.
Board in Relic Warder, 2 Prelates, 3 Path, Needle, board out Sofi, 2 SfM, land, Crusader, forgot what else
G2 He has another fast combo hand, I have STP for the first Servant, Vial-Flickerwisp the Painter during the second activation but his 2 card fair Grindstone mill hits the Banisher Priest that I woulda drawn to actually get rid of that Servant.
Feel like this matchup is highly, highly favored with my build - Post-board I have 2 Revokers, 1 Needle, 2 Relic Warder, 7 Path to stop early kills, 4 Prelate to stop Grindstone from even hitting the board / Red Blasts / Fiery Confluence, Recruiters, etc. etc. Anyway I think I just got unlucky here, I'd take Painter as a matchup anytime.
R9 Miracles (2-0, 6-3)
G1 Triple Vial on the play with Thalia and Flickerwisp is pretty good against Miracles. Can tell he's setting up a Terminus and GQ a Plains after he does it, he chooses not to search. Suspicions confirmed about the Terminus, I use my last Flickerwisp + Port to ensure he can't cast the Terminus next turn anyway. Same Miracles SBing.
G2 He gets out a Mentor + Top, I have my own set of creatures including a Flickerwisp. I Cataclysm and have 2 mana floating - he thinks about it for a while and eventually chooses not to Force it because he thinks he can race me with Mentor + Top, Force whatever leftover play I'd have to get ahead. But post-Cataclysm with my floating mana I have STP for his Mentor (which he then Forces) and Pithing Needle for his Top. Play a Prelate on 1 and he scoops.
R10 BR Reanimator (2-0, 7-3)
This is the hot new deck that's been popular online, it's pretty scary since it has some draws that nobody can beat. I think DnT has okay game against it, probably better than most blue decks that are equipped to counter one big spell but don't have unconditional removal / Karakas / RiP.
G1 I'm on the play, have a Vial. He animate deads a t2 Sire, I Vial in a SfM and I actually outdraw + race him from there. I Recruiter for a Flickerwisp instead of a Banisher Priest because I wasn't thinking but it doesn't matter in the end and I draw a StP soon after.
SB similar to vs UB Reanimator but also bring in Canonist cause they play Rituals.
G2 He mulls to 5, plays Polluted Delta, I play t1 Vial, he plays another land, I play Pithing Needle - he assumes I'm naming Griselbrand and he doesn't crack his Delta and so I name it, which essentially ended the game on the spot. Recruiter for Faerie Macabre - at which point I start to feel safe. He's still mana-screwed, eventually Massacres me and Brutalities a Relic Warder. I have more creatures and he still can't do anything so I win with chip shots.
R11 UR Delver (2-0, 8-3)
G1 He Probe/Ponders and I assume he's on a combo deck, but it's really UR Swiftspear/Stormchaser. He doesn't have a fast enough clock g1 and I have a STP for his first Swiftspear. I can play SfM and Prelate eventually and the deck isn't beating Batterskull g1. He Forced something pitching Fire/Ice early, apparently his only blue card in hand, but painfully shut off his out to Prelate in doing so.
SB in Paths, Crusader, Prelates, out a GQ, Recruiter, Relic, Mangara, Revokers.
G2 I Banisher Priest a Swiftspear, he has a Null Rod for my Vial and Rough/Tumble to wipe my board and even casts a Bedlam Reveler but my Batterskull + Prelate on 1 + Mom eventually stabilizes.
R12 Eldrazi (0-2, 8-4)
G1 Mull a Vial+Sofi+5 land hand to a hand with a bunch of SfMs, he mulls to 6 also, t1 Eye, Endless One, I waste it, t2 plays another Eye, t3 TKS t4 Reality Smasher, I can't keep up.
G2 Mull to 6, one Land Sfm/Sfm/Path, scry Vial to top, sucks cause I miss a land drop, but at least I'll have Vial online. He has t1 Endless One x 2, t2 TKS, t3 Reality Smasher, t4 Reality Smasher. I had a Batterskull out by his last attack and it would have been a game if he had only 1 Reality Smasher.
R13 Infect (2-1, 9-4)
G1 I have a lot of manadenial, he has a Blighted Agent and is taking chip shots, I Recruiter for Banisher Priest but he has FoW for it. I get a Sfm/Jitte and am a turn away from getting it online if he doesn't have a pump spell as his last spell, but he has a Berserk for the extra 1 damage. Think I win that on the play.
G2 Get both equip out quickly and have my removal
G3 Vial STP Path Revoker hand, he t1 Hierarchs so I can safely cast Vial. T2 Spellskites, I STP it. Eventually have a ton of mana denial and can safely operate the whole game with Vial on 3 + Flickerwisp on top of the removal already in my hand.
R14 4c TNN/Snapcaster/Delver (1-2, 9-5)
G1 Mull to 5 on the draw, but it's SfM and lots of equipment so I actually pull ahead quickly and even have a Batterskull with Sofi attached, get to 30 life, but he casts a series of Abrupt Decays and Snapcasters. He can't kill the Skull itself, but gets a TNN out and kills everything that I'd have to get past it (Sofi, Moms, Flickerwisp) so there's a long board stall with his DRS Revokered. At one point I STP'd a Snapcaster to get some value out of my STP before casting Prelate, then cast Prelate into Daze. That play may have cost me the game, though he conceivably could have had another Decay, I don't remember. I thought he was probably out of Dazes when I did it, since he had burned a bunch earlier and was drawing into cards and cantripping. I didn't draw any of my Wasteland/GQs despite the game going something like 30 turns. Had I drawn any land disruption early he wouldn't have been able to Snap+Decay so freely.
Board similarly to previous Delver
G2 Wasteland x 3 + GQ him out of lands.
G3 We're both topdecking, I have Vial on 3 + unattached Batterskull on board don't draw into anything he draws into Delver Jitte TNN. My top card was a Recruiter after the game was over, had I drawn it a few turns earlier while we were both empty handed I probably win with an endless Recruiter+Flickerwisp chain.
R15 Elves (0-2, 9-6)
G1 Vial Cavern Thalia SfM Recruiter don't draw land. Had I drawn a land within the first 2-3 turns I probably win since he mulled to 6 and didn't have the fastest start. Prelate on 4 to hope that after his first mini-Glimpse he was going to Natural Order, but he just Glimpses again. He said he did have an Order in hand though.
Bring in Cataclysms, Needle, Canonist, some Paths, take out Thalias, Relic, Mangara
G2 Keep T1 Mom t2 SfM/Revoker. Not amazing but has some sort of game plan. Hope he plays a relevant Elf to Revoker t2, but he plays a Nettle Sentinel, so I'd have to blind name with Revoker and I decide against rolling the dice like that. The correct answer was Birchlore Rangers in this case, which is his t2 play and leads to a huge board, t3 Cradle GSZ.
Kinda unfortunate way to end the day.
Overall
- See no reason to not still play the GQs until Eldrazi goes away and they're randomly very strong in other matchups - Delver and Infect obviously, any Lands-based combo deck (12-Post/Lands/Depths) but even Miracles, where you can pressure their basic Plains and the top of their deck. Against decks with only 1-2 basics it's close to being another Wasteland, since they're generally fetching that basic to play around Wasteland. Playing a Flagstones lets you convert the GQs into a white source. Combines well with multiple Paths if they are a 1-basic deck. Maybe Lands shifting to 4 GQ will pressure people into more basics, but at the moment I am pretty cool with playing Strip Mine.
- GQ obviously worse than a 4th Port vs Miracles, but if you can't consistently beat Miracles with the above list then you need to practice more.
- All this talk about 61 card decks above misses the fact that the deck already wants 23.5 lands and playing 61 cards / 23 lands to squeeze in all your favorite 3 drops effectively lowers the land count for the deck. 24 lands but 2 of them being GQs was nice, since they're only half lands anyway and I had room to more freely side out a land.
- Had considered playing an Aven Mindcensor over Mangara to combo with the GQs / mana denial + have another flyer - kinda regret not having gone through with it. Would have been pretty good, Mangara didn't do much.
- I regretted not playing 4 Path in the board, 4/6 losses were decks where I woulda brought in 4 and one more removal spell would have maybe won the game (Painter, Infect, Eldrazi, Delver). I spoke with Michael Derczo, who incidentally beat my friend on Delver to t64 and cash the last round, and he was also running 3 Path and really liking them.
- 4 Prelate / 3 GQ / Faerie Macabre / 2 Relic-Warder / Paths means I was super super stacked vs Lands and I was disappointed I didn't get to beat up on any Lands players. I also find stock Grixis Delver close to unloseable at 7 Wasteland/7 STP, but unfortunately played the TNN Delver build instead, which still has and found the one card I can't deal with. Maybe I should just play Council's Judgment, but I hate having to have to expect to draw into exactly that card.
- When you have 4 Prelates in the 75, it's hard to know how many to keep vs non-blue decks with a handful of powerful spells with a mix of casting cost like Elves and Maverick. Or barely blue decks like Infect. I think I kept 1 vs Infect and 2 vs the others? I don't hate the idea of having a fetchable one vs Infect to help seal certain games up, but you definitely don't want a hand full of them.
- Board not great vs Elves, didn't play Containment Priest in my board, maybe got a little punished for not having one my last match, not that it would have affected the specific games I played. Similarly went down to 1 Canonist since Storm is weak right now and 4 Prelates is also pretty oppressive for them. My logic for no Priest is that Faerie Macabre is a better recruiter target vs Reanimator anyway since it's faster and harder to interact with, doesn't shut off Vials. Macabre is also a t0 play to deal with super fast combo with a lot of other application. Priest better against Elves, is great against SnS but who cares about that + okay vs Omni and kinda whatever in Vial mirrors. So you're playing a card that's only a better tutor target in one terrible matchup - and that matchup still remains a bad matchup no matter how much SB space or THCs you have in your deck.
I haven't had a chance to post my report (at work), but I had an experience not unlike iatee's where my losses were not so much to Blue decks as non-blue decks where it was largely variance (though I made some mistakes, as well.) I only played 3 blue decks, and one was Dredge, so not a "real" blue deck. I beat Miracles handily and lost miserably to 4C Grixis Delver.
I am not despondent about DnT as a deck and in fact it seems there are more viable non-Blue decks right now than before, and we don't have bad matches against many of them (I wonder if anyone has a good match against BR Reanimator's nut draws.)
I like the idea of Ghost Quarter as a 61st card actually. The mana denial is real.
EDIT: Report below.
I went 4-4 drop at the Baltimore Open, but I was 4-2 going into round 7, so I felt like I had a chance for day two all the way through the last game.
Round 1 vs Alex on BR Goblins
This was an odd version of Goblins. He was playing Grenzo, Dungeon Warden and Wort, Boggart Auntie. I got game 1 in part because I used Revoker on Grenzo. I also played a Mom and just traded with his Lackey, since those get way out of control way quick. Game 2, I just had an awkward set of draws and he got going with Grenzo and Lackey and had artifact removal for all three of my equipment. Game 3, I a down to 3 life, he has 3 creatures on the board (1/1, 2/1, and a 1/2), I have 7 land thanks to a flood, and Vial on 3. I draw Recruiter, Vial it in, get SfM, hard cast it, get Batterskull, hardcast Batterskull. Now I have 3 creatures, with a 4/4 lifelink, vigilance token. All I have to do is hold one one turn. He has 8 lands (thanks to my 3 Path to Exiles), topdecks Goblin Ringleader, gets two Gempalm Incinerators in his four cards, cycles Gempalm to destroy my germ token, plays a land and casts Chieftan for the win.
0-1
Round 2 vs. Josh on Burn
Not all that exciting. I get Batterskull and Jitte both games before he can kill me, stabilize and end with more than 20 life game 1 and 8 life game 2.
1-1
Round 3 vs. Mark on DnT
Phyrexian Revoker on Mom both games was huge. He flooded Game 1 and only drew Mom's, while my 3 Serra Avenger and a drawn and hard cast SoFi were the breaking point. Game 2, Serra Avenger with a Manriki-Gusari and Leonin-Relic Warder. Nuff said.
2-1
Round 4 vs. Kurt on Eldrazi
Game 1, Turn 1 Chalice on 1, turn 2 Thought-Knot Seer, turn 3, Jitte and equip. GG. Game 2, He got slightly ahead of me. I think i made a mistake, as I had 3 Wasteland and I used all three on Ancient Tomb and I left his Eye of Ugin alone, but I feel like I should have used the third one on Eye. I had a Flickerwisp with SoFi that I got two swings in with (1 for 5, since I had to use 2 to kill a creature of his, and 1 for 7, so I had him at 3 life.) He had had to play out some cards and if I had killed the Eye two turns earlier, I think he would have been dead to his own need to cast spells.
2-2
Round 5 vs. Miracles (don't remember his name)
Sanctum Prelate on 1 or with vial on 3 is soooo good. We played 3 games, but after Game 1, when he was just able to dismantle my board (including maindeck artifact hate to destroy my vial turn 2), he landed Jace and I couldn't get two spells out. Games 2 and 3, it was un-countered Vials with Prelate and various bits of hate. I played carefully, did not overextend, and held Prelate back until it was a game-finisher.
3-2
Round 6 vs. Eldrazi Thalia Stompy (don't remember his name)
3 very complicated games. Revoker was a star on Eldrazi Displacer and Manriki-Gusari once more did good work, along with Relic-Warder. Those three cards were very good to me today. Game 3 was very close up to the last moment, when I hit Path, into Plains, into Council's Judgment to seal the deal.
4-2
I felt good at this point, like I had not made too many mistakes and most of my losses had been variance, with the exception of the 2nd Eldrazi game Round 4. Of course, this is where the wheels come off.
Round 7 vs. Eric on Dredge
Big shock, I lost game 1. I did get a Jitte out and threatened to maybe come back (if I had had Mirran Crusader with it rather than a first striker, I think I might have pulled it out.) I made 1 big mistake: I played Thalia first instead of SfM. I should have played that and blocked and eaten all his Bridges, then played Thalia, then played Jitte. Instead, I allowed him to make a few extra zombie tokens and do some extra damage, which hurt. Game 2, I mulliganed to 6, but only had one land. I guess I should have mulliganed to 2 lands and a RiP? Even worse, he was able to Cabal therapy 6 times in 3 turns. He hit all 4, 2 in hand and 2 went into the grave, had great dredges, at which point he hard cast the 2 and then sac cast all 4. He literally ate my hand by turn 3, including my Rest in Peace. I should have mulliganed harder, I guess.
4-3
Still a small chance of Day 2.
Round 8 vs. James on 4C Grixis Delver
This felt really not close. Game 1, DRS, FoW my removal, turn 2 True-Name Nemesis, seemingly infinite removal. Game 2, I am completely not sure how to sideboard because I don't want to take anything out and I want to bring 7 spells in: 3 Path, 1 Prelate, 1 Council's Judgment, 2 Rest in peace. Maybe the Path are too much? He just kills everything after I mulligan to a mediocre 5. He had so much removal, and 4 DRS, 4 Delver, 2 Zombie fish, 2 TNN. Ugh.
4-4
Dreams crushed, very tired, but also more or less happy. Except for a couple blunders and some weird matches (I literally played only 3 blue decks all day, and one of those was Reanimator, which isn't that kind of blue deck), I felt like I played well and was in range of Day 2 and able to play into it.
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Mother of runes
3 Flickerwisp
3 Revoker
3 Serra Avenger
2 Recruiter of the guard
2 Prelate
1 Mirran Crusader
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
4 Wasteland
12 Plains
3 Path to Exile
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Mindbreak Trap
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Containment Priest
1 Manriki-Gusari
I was not thrilled with the 3 Path to Exile plan. I am probably going to 1. Mindbreak Trap was a meta call, but the only combo I saw made me want more Containment Priest or Rest in Peace. I don't know if Gideon feels as necessary against Miracles, but I didn't play against Shardless and that might make it worth it to still run it. Opinions? Maybe that is where I fit Palace Jailer in.
I'll be taking out the 3rd Serra Avenger for the 4th Flickerwisp, but the maindeck overall felt really solid. The jury is still out on Cavern of Souls. It would have been good in a couple of games for sure, but my problem with creatures wasn't counterspells so much as removal.
Last edited by redtwister; 11-08-2016 at 04:48 PM.
I like cavern against eldrazi because it allows for mom to be cast through chalice. Using mom as a blocker game 1 can be huge.
I've been meaning to write something but have been busy. I played eternal weekend and went 6-1 before the wheels fell off.
4 Mother of runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Flickerwisp
3 Revoker
2 Recruiter of the guard
2 Prelate
1 Leonin Relic Warder
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Serra Avenger
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Karakas
2 flagstones of Trokair
2 cavern
8 Plains
2 Path to Exile
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Containment Priest
1 Manriki-Gusari
1 Sword of war and Peace
1 leonin relic warder
1 Cataclysm
mainboard relic warder was a nod to all the grinders I saw the night before while playing vintage and it served me very well. SoWP same.
Match 1 Merfolk (1-0, 2-0) on the draw
game 1:Vial into port into SFM-> SoFI
Game 2: ports very important as he only had 2 island at any given point. turn 4 vial let me add threats while porting/waste
Match 2 R/G combo lands (2-0, 4-0) on the draw
Game 1: Vial-> SFM/Batterskull-> prelate on 2 after he had dredged 1 loam. He drew well, and I had to play through a Tabernacle, plow 2x ML tokens but I got there notable in this game was that MD relic warder took an explore limiting him to 1 per turn and significantly limiting him.
Game 2: spend turn 1-3 wasting green sources, cast vial and go to work. Opener had a rest in peace which was important, did some fancy flickerwisping in this game. path to exile>STP made this a much faster game.
Match 3: Omni-tell (3-0, 6-0) on the play
Game 1: play mom, he mulled to 5 shows me ancient tomb, so i think eldrazi and start wastlanding and swing with mom, shows another tomb-> waste. plays fetch, pass. cast jitte. Mom+jitte does 13 damage plus mirran for the win.
he had nothing going on
Game 2: turn 1 vial, sitting on relic warder from the opener. Ports+waste+vial lets me play. He eventually cunning wishes for intuition for show and tell. omni comes down to meet relicwarder, he brainstorms for free and wiffs. vial sitting on 2, I play on, mom hits the board goes active. We get to the point he thinks he has options, intuitions for 2x echoing truth, 1x repeal. holding another echoing. untaps and casts, respond with vial ethersworn-> pro blue from mom.
Match 4: Grixis Delver (4-0, 8-0) draw
Game 1: turn 1 vial, turn 2 vial+wasteland, turn three plow pyro and start with the hit parade
Game 2: was pretty standard, with plows/paths on delvers, trading creatures and some taxing. When he hit zombie fish I had the flickerwisp sequencing to blank him long enough for the dudes to get there.
Match 5: Tin Fins (4-1, 8-2) play
Game 1: turn 1 vial. opponent mull to 5, turn 1 land ritual entomb, shallow grave -> reoccur deck w/emrakrul until able to hard cast emrakrul off the recycled rituals. I called a judge to ask about the similarities between this and 4 horsemen ( i had a plow and karakas in hand and would liked to have a turn) turns out the fact that it's netting mana allows it to avoid the slow play rule.
Game 2: turn 1 land pass holding plow and RIP + land, opponent-> turn 1 land, ritual, duress, entomb, reanimate-> draw, petal, children, I made him go until his recycled chidlren were netting enough life to draw his whole deck at a time....
These decks are the reason I've been considering surgical and/or cage over RIP. Now that I'm on the Path plan, I don't fear tarmogoyf or zombie fish etc. and I'd like the potential for turn 1 interaction....
Match 6: White eldrazi (5-1, 10-2) play
Game 1: ports and wastes + relevant threats gets this going, recruiter gets relic warder to eat the turn 1 chalice and turn on 2x STP for smasher and TKS
Game 2: back and forth, my extra removal adds up after flickewisp resets the Chalice I get to clean up his board. palace jailer makes an appearance and ends up drawing me a lot of cards after a chip shot from vialed recuiter-> flickerwisp to blank his defenders and make me the monarch
Match 7: The Mirror (6-1, 12-3) draw
Game 1: She has 2x moms + vials and ports, I scoop very quickly.
Game 2: turn 1 mom eats a plow, turn 2 SFM gets SoWP which she reads a few times and sighs. Mirran crusader gets a sword connects 1x, then 3 consecutive flickerwisps black the sword for a bit. her eventual revoker gets relic wardered-> reeuquip and GO!
Game 3: back and forth. Search up SoWP again, she goes for Manriki, I revoker, blinking, plows jitte and batterskull all come into play, I saw 2 STP 1 Path which was the decider. then I vialed a recruiter-> wisp chain for the win.
Match 8: Colorless eldrazi (6-2, 13-5) draw I knew what he was on and kept a 2x waste vial plains hand
Game 1: eye into endless meets a waste, so does temple. then vial and luck into a port. he never reaches 4+ mana in the main phase and I seal it.
Game 2: I draw all the feel-bads. ports and wastes keep him off stuff, relic warder eats a jitte, we go back and forth, but eventually smasher ->end bringer-> endbringer and I'm out of relevant answers.
Game 3: I'll start by saying I ended this game with 15 land in play/hand/graveyard. There was a turn where I hardcast batterskull and ported 2 lands..... Here's my big punt of the day: I'm on the losing end, hoping to turn the courner with Bskull. I know he's holding all big stuff and waiting for me to let him get to 5+ mana. he dismembers my germ. I cast relic warder targeting my bskull. then double block his TKS with thalia and relic warder. I did not know that he could assign all the damage to thalia. I call judge and learn my error. this was the blowout. I had to tap down to cast a threat opening up for endbringer, which ate a plow, but a top decked land let him cast another endbringer. then he hit jitte. and that was that. If I had not misplayed I would have had batterskull on Mirran crusader:(
I honestly mentally check out after this one.
Match 9: Grixis delver (6-3, 14-7) on the draw
Game 1: involved turn 1 delver into probe see 3x flickerwisp, thalia, lands to cast them, turn 2 blind flip cabal therapy, take all 3 flickerwisp, I drew nothing relevant and bolt bolt at the end got me.
Game 2: involved prelate off of cavern on 1 and 2x moms. needless to say I won
Game 3: opener is awesome. plains waste, port, Path, thalia, serra. Here's where I know I'm mentally done. I path his turn 1 delver and run into daze. now, we all know that delaying a turn here is fine. and is the right play. I just forgot. ok, well delver flips, replay the island, delver #2, lets get thalia out there->daze #2. fuck. Turn 3 I've drawn another land and wisp. lets reset a delver and block? -> daze #3....OK then. turn 4 serra eats a bolt. turns out it was a 1 lander and if i'd played the way every single one of us knows how. He would have had an empty board to my awesomeness...
Match 10: Colorless elzdrazi (6-4, 14-9) draw
Game 1: eye, mimic mimic. Vial. TKS swing 8. take my SFM-> turn 3 smasher
Game 2: chalice 1, 4/4 endless, TKS, TKS, Smasher, smasher......
I had fun. I think the deck is well positioned even with the hate coming. I think I'd like to cut a Gideon and try 1 palace jailer. I will definitely be looking to try faster interaction over RIP.
@iatee:
really like your current list. i've been playing with a similar list online ever since i saw yours, including Aven Mindcensor maindeck which seems quite reasonable, given your playing ghost quarters and path to exiles in your board. However, I'm not sure whether going down to 2 revokers is a good idea. I've been struggling with cutting down to 3 earlier, so going down to 2 is something I dont really want to do... Any experience worth sharing regarding this? does playing recruiter make up for only playing 2?
apart from that, do you think cataclysm is necessary in your board? miracles should be a pretty good matchup already, and lands/ 12 post get easier with ghost quarters ( and prelates for lands)
i´m testing a similar list too with 2 surgicals 1 RIP sideboard, against lands with 4 prelates (2 main + 2 side ) and surgical for early interaction i feel RIP can be replaced, and i had the exact same though, i had cataclysm against miracles but ended up beeing cliqued way, and against lands (2 different matches ) i won with both cataclysm in hand. i think its safe to replace the cataclsysm for the time beeing.Originally Posted by deucegg
Cataclysm might be overkill and is definitely not necessary to beat Miracles if you have 4 Prelate in the 75 + something like a Pithing Needle, though I do think we have more of a target on our back than we used to so it's not terrible to put a little more in our board. I wanted something that was good against Eldrazi/Miracles/Shardless the overlap is 'wreck their manabase' and Cataclysm also conveniently mostly-wraths Eldrazi. I don't think there's any good tutorable creature to play this role and the best alternative big-mana-play seems like it's Gideon. I think he's worse against almost all of those decks, I've only really tested it a lot vs Miracles, where a resolved Gideon is 'I probably win?' and a resolved Cataclysm is 'I definitely win'. The other I-Cataclysm-U decks (12-Post/Lands/MUD) aren't really worth worrying about once you're playing infinite Wastelands / Chalice-your-deck, but it's not really there for them.
I don't find myself tutoring for Revoker *that* often, kinda feel like when I do I'm playing from behind e.g. uh oh they got a Jitte/Jace. Replacing the Relic Warder in my list with Revoker gets you back up to 3 and is totally fine, Revoker is definitely more 'generally good' and Relic-Warder more of a Dnt/Eldrazi meta-call. But I think if you go hard on the PTE sb you also want extra ways to eat Chalices vs the people who happened to keep them in.
Obviously it's a "dead" card in the mirror and most importantly vs. Eldrazi but after reading through numerous tourney reports I kept seeing a trend emerge over numerous games both game 1 and post-boards...
"I played Prelate on X and the game was basically over"
I have continued to be impressed by the power of Prelate to shut down games and feel like it's impact is high enough that even casting it on turn 4 or 5 (say after a turn 3 recruiter or to vial it in) can be enough to seal up the game (as opposed to say THC).
I am still concerned about the ability of our deck to deal with the spat of super-quick combo and non-blue decks but I think that with Eldrazi already being such a questionable match-up I don't mind having more bad cards if it just shuts off other decks. Including naming "2" on lands.
Additionally I'm in love with the idea of us play 61 cards via a 24th land; last week I played in two local tourneys with 61 cards via 22 lands + 2 Chrome Mox and was beyond impressed. Given dead cards in tons of match-ups (usually the anti-creature cards or the anti-spell cards) I had plenty of use for the cards to accelerate out pieces of hate.
In some ways I felt like having chrome mox was like a poor man's aether vial. It let me play mana denial strats with my land while still advancing my board state. Like a game with a T1 Thalia into a 2nd turn port activation. Or the poor game where I played Aether vial on t1 and wasted my opponents land.
I was actually thinking about this the other week and spoke to Finn about it. I was thinking 2 chrome moxes which basically act as pseudo vials 5-6 in place of 2 lands. I haven't played d&t in a long time but the games that I usually lost were the ones where I was forced to play "fairly" and not cheat via aether vial. I have not gotten the chance to test it out though, too busy grindstoning people.
That's the exact mentality I took with the diamonds, but spells rather than lands because land drops are too important in the first turns, and unlike Miracles, we lack cantrips and Top to help us find our next lands. This is the primary reason I did it this way, rather than drop lands.
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Given the rate of dead D&T cards in the form of bad options (Mom vs. Eldrazi; Thalia vs. Elves; SFM vs. Storm; etc.) and the number of duplicate legends we run (at least 4 Thalia) and cards that just lose their impact on the game (the 2nd or def. the 3rd SFM).. I find I always have cards that I want to pitch away.
To your point about wanting to hit land drops; I agree.. that's why I wouldn't want to use diamonds because they make me sacrifice land drops. Mox diamonds essnetially eat up a later land drop; ergo if i have 2 lands and a mox diamond.. I really only have 2 lands in my hand.. but if I have 2 lands and a chrome mox... I have access to 3.
Also it's definitely a dead draw later in the game; but so is (most often) the unneeded 4th or 5th land.
Here's the list I think I'm going to try at this weekend's Legacy classic in Columbus..
3 Mother of Runes
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Sanctum Prelate
3 Thalia, Heretical Cathar
4 Flickerwisp
2 Chrome Mox
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Karakas
2 Cavern of Souls
9 Plains
I'm still working on a sideboard. The uptick in Reanimator makes me want to make sure I have enough interactions; but I don't want to over-do it.
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Rest in Peace
2 Path to Exile
1 Pithing Needle
1 Manriki-Gusari (?????)
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
1 Banisher Priest
1 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Vryn's Wingmare
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
Against Shardless what's the best number to call with Prelate?
0: For visions (if you know they are coming off suspend)
1: Only really shuts off 4x brainstorm; but gets difigures out of board
2: shuts of ADecay; Hymn; golgari charm out of board
3: Lili; pulse; toxic deluge
I feel like 2 is probably the right number; but I know we all live in fear of that Toxic Deluge for 2 or 3 wiping us out completely.
Unless I am all in on crusader/jitte or SoFI I always name 3. Sometimes you have mom and wisp tricks for decay , but lili and deluge are both 1 for X's. D&T has better individual pieces, Sharldless is about value, so I err on the side of being ok with 1 for 1's
Speaking of BUG.....
How do you / are you supposed to beat BUG Aluren??? When is the best time to interact with them; what are the pieces of hate to use (other than Prelate on 4) and how.
If they have Aluren in play; when should I be looking to interact; what do I need in my hand to hope to have a chance??
The best time to try to disrupt their combo is when Cavern Harpy is on the stack. Any other time they can just bounce Harpy and recast it in response. You can disrupt it in a number of ways, Swords to Plowshares, Jitte counters, Phyrexian Revoker naming Cavern Harpy, Ethersworn Canonist. Note that if they play Aluren and then cast another spell that's crucial to their combo you can respond with a Canonist to shut the combo off for that turn. Since a significant amount of our disruption is creature based we can use Recruiter of the Guard to search it out and then play it if Aluren is on the field. In general I think the best strategy is to hold your combo interaction until they're attempting to go off, while still building your board. For example, I would prioritize playing Thalia, GOT over Canonist, even though Canonist stops their combo because Thalia stalls them and you can just cast Canonist for free if they're trying to go off.
Versus Aluren, also don't forget the power of Banisher Priest.
Aluren can combo through one removal spell if they know how to time the combo correctly, so don't think you're safe because you're sandbagging one. I guess you might want to leave yourself a chance that your opponent is bad and doesn't know how to combo through one removal spell. Basically they ensure that Strix is *not in play* when Cavern Harpy is on the stack through some fancy trigger stacking. If it happens to be because they've poorly sequenced, Banisher Priest / STP are online.
Leonin Relic-Warder (+ any other Disenchant, but this one is tutorable and 0 mana), Revoker, Ethersworn Canonist do stop the combo. But they play Abrupt Decay and Rec Sage main, plus discard for anything you're sandbagging. Plus tons of creatures to gum up the board. It's not a fantastic matchup.
Mirran Crusader is one of your best cards, cause you kinda just need to race them.
The way they work around removal is by casting cavern Harpy first. When the return trigger goes on the stack they cast the strix. If you try to remove strix they then pay the life to return harpy and then recast in response to get a new return trigger on the stack to save the strix. If they screw it up and cast strix first, then you have to answer it when they recast harpy and before it resolves.
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