I honestly don't understand Sword of War and Peace. I would definitely play Walking Ballista as it doubles as an early removal against Elves, is a threat that lives under Dread of Night and can also clode out a game in the mirror match or against Elves for instance. It's a good card in the opening hand and a good topdeck or target for Recruiter.
Sword of War and Peace doesn't really do anything relevant except turning one of your creatures into another Batterskull basically. And given this, I'd play either Walking Ballista or Manriki Gusari. Manriki Gusari is more lean and also helps to shut off Jitte and would also cleanly answer your beloved SoWaP. It also synergizes extremely well with Serra Avenger and turns some of out shitters into useful blockers against Eldrazi (and also helps to deal with their Jittes so you can dedicate your Revokers to Endbringer and Ballista).
Team SPOD
<Der_imaginäre_Freund> props:
Adan for being the NQG God (drawer)
Protection from red and white is extremely relevant in a lot of matchups.
"Another batterskull". It's good enough for the maindeck, 2 seem good. Life gain is relevant in some matchups as well.
I guess the thing about the Mirror is right, Ballista is a house and good early and late. What I dont like is calling out cards beeing good against Elves. This MU is just so freakin bad that it doesnt realy matter what youre playing in 75-80% or even more you will lose. Yeah ok maybe if you play 4 Chalice etc in your sideboard. Sword is always pretty good in clocking combo players like Storm/SaS and so on.Originally Posted by Adan
Quick article recapping some of the cool stuff people have put out in the last week: http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=1969
Marcio is obviously a significantly better player than me, but I disagree with so many of his sidebord choices. For example, against Lands he only boards out 1 Thalia and I board out all 4. I’d much rather have Revoker in the matchup for Mox Diamond and Molten Vortex. He doesn’t even bring in Path to Exile or leave in many STP for Tireless Tracker let alone Marit Lage. Just goes to show how deep the deck is with such different sideboarding philosophies.
No Death & Taxes in the top 16 in GP Richmond :/
I’ve spent some time considering the possibility of a Tutor-focused SB for DnT. Usually these fail to impress for many reasons: poor selection of artifacts/enchantments, going too little or too deep on the idea, or just that the mere possibility of card disadvantage is crushing. However, in a metagame such as this one, the right tutor target can simply end a large share of games.
I set about considering a 15-card SB that would suit most 60-card configurations. This began by listing out every high-impact artifact or white enchantment I could think of, narrowing the traditional SB to its mainstay components, adding 2-3 Tutors, and filling out the list with what I deemed the best choices in the current environment. This is what I came up with:
1 Path to Exile
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Containment Priest
2 Rest in Peace
2 Council’s Judgment
1 Sanctum Prelate
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Absolute Grace
1 Mark of Asylum
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Pithing Needle
1 Act of Authority
All the cards above Enlightened Tutor are almost a stock standard. However, the SB contains five subsequent “silver bullets:” Absolute Grace turns off all targeted black removal and makes their creatures much less intimidating. Mark of Asylum does the same for red and many colorless sources of removal, like Walking Ballista and Kozilek’s Return. Oblivion Ring is a catch-all answer to anything other than problematic lands, TNN, and Progenitus. Many other problems are answered by Pithing Needle. Act of Authority grinds out mirrors, Enchantress, Red Prison, and similar decks in combination with Flickerwisp, while also providing an answer to multiple Dread of Night in a single card. In addition, the tutor can find a Vial , equipment, or Revoker from the typical 60, plus the stock Canonist and RiP in the SB.
The tradeoff is that losing a PtE will make the deck a bit softer to tempo and reanimator, but DnT is fairly strong against those decks regardless, and may gain from the ability to effectively blank opposing removal without equipment or by running more virtual RiP. Additionally, the loss of 4-mana haymakers like Cataclysm and Gideon against control strategies may make those matchups a bit tougher where the SB doesn’t compensate; Grace and Act help beat Grixis and Moon strategies, but the best card against Miracles to tutor is Vial which is not necessarily game-ending. Finally, relying on singletons and Tutors makes the deck more vulnerable to countermagic, even though that is decreasing in popularity. Miracles would be especially challenging, with access to both JtMS and Predict.
Despite these disadvantages, I think the Tutor-board is worth another look. Many decks in the metagame fail to beat a single well-selected enchantment, and that fact is ripe for exploitation.
I really like this angle. I have been trying the Enlightened Tutor in my SB and though not as heavy with silver bullets are you pointed, I was satisfied with the array of options it gave me. My local meta is a little down in storm-based combos and I see many Lightning Bolts, thus instead of Absolute Grace, I have been using Absolute Law.
Going forward, with the meta going heavier on black, or even for more flexibility, I may try to use something like this:
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Absolute Grace
1 Absolute Law
1 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Rest in Peace
1 Surgical Extraction/Faerie Macabre
2 Council's Judgment
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
1 SoWP
1 Sanctum Prelate
1-2 PW/Cataclysm
1-2 PtE
I think doing so well the PT was pretty bad for the archetype. Everyone is coming to big events prepared to play and beat Thalia. And when people want to beat DnT, they beat DnT. The deck is fragile to hate and is less consistent at beating its hate when it can't reliably cantrip to answers or alternative threats like Gideon. DnT is a great deck when it's not a 'good deck', and when it's a 'great deck', it's a terrible deck.
While it is nice that fast combo appears basically dead in paper magic, a meta of t1-fetch-a-basic, TNN, Snapcaster+Kolaghan's Command, nu-Lili and 10,000 sideboard Dread of Nights is going to be an unfriendly world for vanilla DnT. I was considering playing rainbow-Humans at the GP (which is not there, but almost there as a deck, I'm sure a good 75 exists), but just skipped the event in the end. It's weird to be in this spot so soon after it won a PT and DRS was banned, and it's still a fine deck for beating random jank, but it feels like it went from being a deck that preyed on tier 1 decks to a deck that gets preyed on by tier 1 decks. IMO the archetype needs to evolve considerably to get to a place where it can win in a 'the most popular deck plays 3 Dread of Night' meta. (Or it just needs to keep doing poorly until people stop considering it tier 1.)
Regardless I wanted to thank iatee. I haven’t played legacy in two months and wanted to play the splash variant and got a list and advice from you. It helped a lot and I went 5-3 losing my win-and-in for day two. Overall if I had known how to play the shadow matchup better I could’ve easily gone 6-2 or 7-1. But live and learn. For anyone curious i beat:
BUG Delver (2-0)
Shardless BUG (2-1)
Infect (2-0)
Miracles (2-1)
Mono white DNT (2-0)
And lost to:
Deaths shadow (1-2)
Deaths shadow (1-2)
Humans (Cedric Phillips) (1-2)
I got 59th at the GP. Mono-white seems very well positioned against everything except for Grixis Control. That one is still a problem matchup, even with DRS gone. Longer post or a video debrief will come later, but here's the decklist for now. I would not change a single card if I played in an event tomorrow.
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Mirran Crusader
7 Snow-Covered Plains
7 Plains
2 Karakas
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Aether Vial
4 Flickerwisp
4 Mother of Runes
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Palace Jailer
4 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Walking Ballista
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Rest in Peace
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Path to Exile
1 Leonin Relic-Warder
2 Council's Judgment
chalice?? =/
I finished 129th at the GP. Day two may have taken a different trajectory if I didn't punt game one against Lands, but it was great to just play 15 rounds of magic against a varied field.
Here's an interesting play that I got wrong. Game two against SnT, I'm on the play and open with a hand of 2 Plains, Waste, Port, Thalia, Relic Warder, and Jailer. Play a plains and pass. Opponent goes Tomb, Petal, Show and Tell. What do you put in play? I chose Jailer reasoning that the hand loses to Griselbrand or Emrakul, and there's 8 of those against 2-3 Omniscience. And if it they play, Sneak Attack, I can still jam the Relic Warder on my turn. My opponent went Omniscience into Emrakul and Griselbrand. Oops.
R1 : 2-0 vs Grixis Delver
R2 : 0-2 vs Show and Tell
R3 : 2-1 vs Academy Rector Nic fit
R4 : 2-1 vs Eldrazi
R5 : 2-1 vs Grixis Control
R6 : 2-0 vs Aluren
R7 : 2-0 vs UB Death Shadow
R8 : 1-2 vs Grixis Control (BBD)
R9 : 2-1 vs DnT
R10 : 1-2 vs Lands
R11 : 2-0 vs DnT
R12 : 1-2 vs Humans (Cedric Phillops)
R13 : 1-2 vs RB Reanimator
R14 : 1-2 vs Punishing Maverick
R15 : 2-0 vs BW Deadguy Ale
Mainboard :
4 Mom
4 Thalia Guardian of Thraben
4 Flickerwisp
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Phryexian Revoker
2 Recruiter of the Guard
2 Mirran Crusader
1 Serra Avenger
1 Palace Jailer
1 Sanctum Prelate
4 Aether Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Batterskull
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Jitte
12 Plains
4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Karakas
Sideboard
2 Gideon Ally of Zendikar
2 Council's Judgment
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Path to Exile
2 Rest in Peace
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Containment Priest
1 Pithing Needle
1 Leonin Relic Warder
1 Walking Ballista
Hey guys,
Nice job anyways. I was following standings from time to time watching how you as D&T players were performing.
What Iatee says is completely true sadly. We are not so comfortable bringing tier 1 flag specially to big events cause our incapacity to dodge hate cards in natural way and in a large amount of rounds as a GP is. Besides the difficulty of Grixis Control performing fine day 2.
@AntiquatedNotion I think you made the more reasonable play. Before I ended up reading I was thinking that I'd have root for Palace Jailer there. Sometimes you've to go all in and that means taking risks. Maybe you go with Leonin Relic-Warder and he end up Pyroclasm'ing you and crushing anyways. Palace Jailer had more options to be "the card" and also let you in a better position for the rest of the game. He really drew the nuts there and would have crushed you in almost every scenario, nothing to reproach there.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except DEATH & TAXES
So finally Brightling is a flop? :)
He explains some of his reasoning here. I think it's a valid choice, depending on your deck configuration and expected meta.
Good showing in the event. Some of those late matchups were difficult. FWIW, I don't think your play versus SnS was an error, for precisely the reasons that Koke_MTG expressed.
I think that all of this is fair, though I also think that DnT is still finely positioned. The sign of a healthy meta is that no deck is the best deck for more than a week after its coronation. I'm already seeing a decline in the population of super-specific hate cards like Dread of Night.
Grixis Control is probably here to stay for a while, though. That is something we may have to adapt to.
Uh... no. Like all cards, it is situational. Brightling happens to be great versus red decks and Miracles, which is why it was great for the first month and a half post-ban. It just happens to be worse than Crusader against black decks (especially Strix), and those decks are currently ascendant. For all we know, in another month the meta may shift again and Brightling could be worth two MB slots.
A biblical verse comes to mind for all of these card-specific questions (hate cards, beater slots, and so on).
Ecclesiastes 3:1. To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Clearly, the message was about choosing the proper deck and flex slots for your metagame. If not intended, still applicable.
I'd make the play all over again if given a chance. Just a tough break. My friends were arguing for the Relic Warder play, but I wonder how much of that stance is influenced by the actual results.
I put in the Relic-Warder 100% of the time in that situation, I don't think it's even a close call. If they know they're playing against DnT, SnS players are rarely gonna go for a high risk line that straight up loses to Karakas like putting in Emrakul. And if it's Griselbrand, PJ is better, but you're not even certain to win if they draw a decent 14.
DnT's clock is slow enough that SnS can just durdle for a few turns until they set up the Snt->Omni or a Sneak, and that's their post-board game plan. We all can agree that SnS players are the lowest form of human life, but you still have to give them enough credit to assume they'll make somewhat rational decisions, and losing to Karakas for no reason isn't one.
Far more interesting: ZERO Ethersworn Canonist.
@everyone
Any feels on Cataclysm vs. Gideon in the Grixis Control match?
The risk is not that high. D&T plays only 3 karakas. And Karakas only really ruins the show and ape game if they drop Emrakul.
It depends on the amount of mana they start out with and how sustainable it is. If their hand is quite vulnerable to mana denial, they're much more likely to go off and hope the opponent does not have karakas. Karakas doesn't ruin the game that much for them if they can drop Griselbrand, too, as they still get to draw a bunch of cards and you're a turn behind.DnT's clock is slow enough that SnS can just durdle for a few turns until they set up the Snt->Omni or a Sneak, and that's their post-board game plan. We all can agree that SnS players are the lowest form of human life, but you still have to give them enough credit to assume they'll make somewhat rational decisions, and losing to Karakas for no reason isn't one.
But, most importantly, I think it's a very fair bet that a turn 1 Omniscience is very unlikely to be beatable by a LRW. Your clock is still quite slow and you've given them many more outs to still resolve that omniscience.
So I'd say Jailer is the best call overall. It ruins a fast Emrakul if you don't have Karakas and it's probably the best thing to drop against Griselbrand next to revoker, drawing you a minimum of two extra cards. Revoker stops their card advantage, but requires you to still deal with a 7/7 flying lifelinker.
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