Boros top 8 at worlds featuring 2 koths. Lots of Boros are playing Koth believe it or not. I could feature more, but don't really feel like it.
And I'm calling bs on the 19 out of 30 matches thing. Why? Because I posted this deck originally late last night. I honestly have a hard time believing someone loaded this up and played 30 matches with it right after loading it just for the purpose of testing out a manabase. Second, I've yet to encounter similar problems.
In a sense. It's the Deathtouch effect. At a certain point, the good aggro player will make an obvious trade because it lets him resolve and swing with a bigger threat and win the game. TukTuk isn't good right now because virtually every titan doesn't even look twice at him. Persecutor doesn't bat a demonic eyelash. Avenger of Zendikar thinks he's cutesy. Wurmcoil Engine screams worm mating calls at him when it makes TukTuk it's... well, you get the picture. It's a 6 toughness meta.
What makes you think I'm using Tutktuk to block a titan? It's for aggro, which kind of is still around believe it or not. The benefit to Tuktuk, is that when he's not relevant anymore, he gets sacrificed turning into a 5/5.
that you can easily cut black from the list. I approve.
I've considered it, but Sarkhan is too valuable in here, and Memoricide + discard is too important out of the sideboard. There is a reason standard U/R control isn't a t1 deck, so there is no reason to play it. Sarkhan also plays too well in here to drop black completely.
You're definitely not considering anything I'm saying. If you were, you'd have seen SOME light by now. 5 people are on the same page and you're being stubborn.
No, you're actually just arbitrarily telling me to play a completely different deck that's more reactionary in nature, which is not the strategy of this deck. Your only argument for this deck being terrible is that I shouldn't play Koth since he needs 4+ mountains to be effective, which clearly just isn't the case.
Look if you think I'm a tard, just say it.
It's too easy!
I'm speechless. Okay, you got it. I'll play your decklist because you are god's gift to magic deck design. Thanks!
A resolved Koth. When they see it turn 1 with Inquisition of Kozilek, they'll have a Spell pierce waiting for it for the rest of the game. it's the reason U/B does well.
This is your argument for why Koth is bad? Seriously? By this logic, nothing could ever resolve vs. UB control since they see it turn 1 with inquisition then save a counterspell for it. This is why i'm saying your logic sucks. This = not an argument, this is just saying that spell pierce can counter a planeswalker. And you're forgetting the whole "I play mana leak" thing and have 4+ permission effects in the sideboard, and 4 discard effects solely for the purpose of landing a walker against he control matchup.
Okay, in any case i'm done arguing. This is really stupid.. i'm too old, and care too little to try to argue against you about a deck that's up for development anyway. For what it's worth I HAVE taken some of your so called constructive criticism. It's really pathetic however when you have to be so arrogant and elitist about this when i've been friendly all along.
In any case, I got some more testing in. I played another UB matchup and played vs. Valakut..
I'll recap the games.
Match 1 vs. UB control- Close 1-2 Loss.
G1 I mull to 6 after drawing 6 lands in the opening hand. I land a t3 Oracle then he taps out on turn 3 to my surprise to dig with preordains (presumably to dig for land) & plays a tar pit. I have a mana leak in hand, but choose to play a Koth while he's tapped out since I could simply kill a resolved Jace anyway by attacking into him. He taps out turn 4 while I'm tapped from Koth to play a Persecutor, the worst case scenario for me. I have a bolt and a doom blade in hand, but neither do anything and I couldn't seem to draw into a jace. I'm heavily considering into the roil for reasons such as this. He rides the persecutor to victory.
G2 I board in 4 inquisitions & additional permission boarding out doom blades. I discard then play a spell pierce on his little jace. I land a turn 4 Jace then land a turn 5 Koth. He scoops
G3 lasted really long and went back and forth all game. I played an Oracle, then he got out a little jace turn 3, and I keep mana open for permission. He keeps drawing. I attack into the jace and he draws to kill it t4 then plays another little jace with only 1 mana open. I risk playing Koth since I hadn't seen a spell pierce in either of the previous 2 games. Naturally, he pierces it, but I attack into the jace and it dies shortly thereafter. T5 he plays a 3rd little jace with 2 mana open. t5 I play a tuktuk trying to bait out permission keeping 2 mana open. He lets it resolve, and I kill the 3rd jace. Turn 7 comes along after some further jockeying and I drop Sarkhan the Mad with 2 open mana, saccing the tuktuk to it. He plays into the roil on one of my tokens in which I leak it. He then proceeds to use his remaining 2 open mana to doom blade the dragon token.
A ton of turns later jockeying for position, he lands a Grave Titan, in which I land my own Grave Titan. Naturally, the following turn he resolves Grave Titan #2. I double bolt his second grave titan killing it, then swing with my own grave titan. I then drop a Koth & a Sarkhan. I have 4 Mountains in play and he's at 12 hp with Koth out at 5. He topdecks Into the Roil the turn after I land an inquisition on him and then rides a grave titan to the victory after he drops his own jace and bounces my dragon.
Needless to say, the match could have gone either way and I wasn't too dissapointed in the deckbuild outside of having no viable answer to big black creatures outside of wasting multiple bolts on them. I definitely feel adding Mind control back into the board would help in this regard, especially since there are very few decks with enchantment hate right now in standard.
Match 2 vs. Valakut- Relatively close 2-1 win
G1 I get blown out. He has a Valakut Godhand with 2 explores, a summoning trap, titan & valakut. I counter the second explore and a later Cultivate, but he lands a Titan, then proceeds to summoning trap the turn after into a second primeval.
G2 I blow him out. I discard his ramp spells, land a memoricide then beat face with dragon tokens. He gets out a rampaging baloths, but they can't block the dragon tokens and he scoops.
G3 I dig for a Memoricide after countering his explore with a spell pierce. I lay an inquisition on him to see a summoning trap, but no titan (and once again, I realize that for a sideboard card... duress is 10x better than inquisition, and since I'm not using inquisition vs. aggro, I realize how it was stupid to take the advice to play 4x inquisition in the board). I land a Grave Titan after dropping a jace the previous turn. He lays his trap at the end of the turn while i'm tapped down. This may have been a play mistake, but he already was at 14 life from one of my tar pits and a sea gate oracle chipping away (since I saw he had no plays until summoning trap). He lands an avenger out of the trap, and then lays a fetch to pump his creatures to 2. The following turn I bounce a token, doom blade his avenger, then drop Sark to turn one of the 2/2's into a dragon. He lays back not attacking as I didn't attack with my Grave Titan. I slowly ride him to death, he gets to shoot me 1-2 times with Valakut since he's already got a lot of lands and drew into a cultivate, but I was able to race to victory.
Boros top 8 at worlds featuring 2 koths. Lots of Boros are playing Koth believe it or not. I could feature more, but don't really feel like it.
Uh ok so first of all look at that link again Boros did not top 8 and neither did the other 12 decks above it, it shows the top 8 boros is not in it. Anyway sarkhan really isnt doing much in here, and really isnt doing much in many places actually. Koth's ultimate is actually just 2 mana shock or 3 mana lightning bolt every turn at best in here, so maybe koth should be cut, other than that running 7 mountains seems to be a sever strain on that mana base, it doesnt look nearly as consistent as the few 3 color decks left out there.
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Circular Logic Example: You're splashing a color to fix your colors so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you.
Okay, picked the wrong link. Actually, most Boros decks play koth as a 1-2 of from looking through the top 8 database.
By the way, I KNOW this deck looks crazy and weird, and like there is no way in hell it could work. I would have said the same thing on first look, but it works somehow. I've made some refinements and did cut the planeswalker count down. I'll update the OP at some point with some of the refinements I've made.
The most constructive post came from the guy who actually sleeved this up and tested it.
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I know you aren't in the mood, but just give me one list that ACTUALLY placed.
And I'm calling bs on the 19 out of 30 matches thing. Why? Because I posted this deck originally late last night. I honestly have a hard time believing someone loaded this up and played 30 matches with it right after loading it just for the purpose of testing out a manabase. Second, I've yet to encounter similar problems.
He didn't play 30 matches, he just drew 4 cards worth of turns (11 cards) 30 times and saw what lands he had. He even mulliganed realistically, as he stated in his post, so it only counts keepable hands.
Second, perhaps the reason you haven't encountered similar issues is because of 1 of 2 reasons I've already stated:
1. You haven't tested enough.
2. Testing against bad decks means you won't notice when you can't cast your Jace until turn 5-6.
What makes you think I'm using Tutktuk to block a titan? It's for aggro, which kind of is still around believe it or not. The benefit to Tuktuk, is that when he's not relevant anymore, he gets sacrificed turning into a 5/5.
The things he might block make him irrelevant.
What are you blocking? Elves has so many creatures it doesn't care. it can choose not to swing for 3 turns and then pop Ezuri's overrun ability twice or three times with Copperhorn Scout and then swing in for 25+. Nice blocker.
Vampires is happy to trade with anything. it sacks two Bloodghasts and it's Bloodthrone Vampire is big enough to kill TukTuk the Redeemed.
Titans don't care. Almost all 6-drops don't care. Flyers don't care. Creeping Tar Pits don't care. Boros cracks a fetch land and swings for 5-8 and doesn't care about a 5/5.
No deck cares about a 5/5!
There is a reason standard
Grixis
control isn't a t1 deck, so there is no reason to play it.
HO HO HO! You really REALLY can't use that argument. U/R is a better version of this, and even that is bad.
No, you're actually just arbitrarily telling me to play a completely different deck that's more reactionary in nature, which is not the strategy of this deck. Your only argument for this deck being terrible is that I shouldn't play Koth since he needs 4+ mountains to be effective, which clearly just isn't the case.
Ok, firstly, control by definition is reactionary, because that is how you play successfully. If you want to run more creatures, I can drum up a midrange list with bigger creature threats. One grave titan doesn't make a deck midrange- Idk why you think your list is anything but reactionary already.
Secondly, my argument for why this deck is bad also cites TukTuk, Sarkhan, your Manabase, your Doom Blade count, the types of counters you run, and almost every choice in your sideboard. Please give me credit where credit is due.
I never said you needed 4 mountains for Koth to be good. I said your mountain count does not constitute winning with Koth because you're screwing your UU for jace and your B and BB for Grave Titan, Doom Blade, and Tar Pit by trying to get enough mountains for Koth. You also open yourself wide to color screw by relying on one non-basic to color fix for every card in your deck that isn't Koth, which is relevant when there are lists with 4 spreading seas and 4 tectonic edges. Even if you manage the god-land scenario of one mountain, two islands, and four mountains, Koth is still too slow for his final to be anything but an annoyance for the Eldrazi player that's one or two turns away from an Emrakul when you hit seven lands.
I'm speechless. Okay, you got it. I'll play your decklist because you are god's gift to magic deck design. Thanks!
Relax. i don't want you touching a Grixis list at all. My list was supposed to help a dying man, that's all.
This is your argument for why Koth is bad? Seriously?
No, it's the argument that counters your idiotic statement of "When I table a Koth against U/B I have a win condition"
By this logic, nothing could ever resolve vs. UB control since they see it turn 1 with inquisition then save a counterspell for it. This is why i'm saying your logic sucks. This = not an argument, this is just saying that spell pierce can counter a planeswalker. And you're forgetting the whole "I play mana leak" thing and have 4+ permission effects in the sideboard, and 4 discard effects solely for the purpose of landing a walker against he control matchup.
So you're going to play Koth on turn 6, win the counter war even though the ONLY THING U/B has to counter is one grave titan and planeswalkers, and then get him to his final unmolested versus U/B when they play a turn 6 Grave Titan that you literally cannot kill other than using Sarkhan's ability, in which they kill you with 9 power of damage on the field.
You haven't got a CHANCE against a real U/B list.
U/B realistically counters almost everything. That is the idea of the deck. it answers every spell cast. The entire deck is answers and 2-3 grave titans and THAT'S ALL. You either overpower them by playing 5 threats to their 4 counters/answers, or you out-play them with jace so you have more answers than they do and they can't win.
Your understanding of my argument that every card is bad against U/B because they can just answer it is the correct argument unless your deck out-matches U/B in planeswalker control, or relevant threats. You overwhelm them or you lose. it's 5/8 of the Worlds decks for a reason- good players outmatched other decks by removing and countering everything they needed to to win.
Your deck has 10 cards in the entire deck that would need to be countered or removed by U/B. Sarkhan, Koth, Jace, and Grave Titan. If messing up your land with 8 land-hate spells (Seas, Tec) doesn't work, U/B still has 5-7 counters, 3-4 Discard spells, 1-2 boardsweeps, 2-3 deathtouchers, 4 unblockable manlands, and 3-4 kill spells to beat you with, and I don't like those odds for you. Your answers are 4 mana leaks and you can Bolt their tar pits...
We shouldn't even be having this conversation. How do you not get it? Just look at a U/B Decklist!
Okay, in any case i'm done arguing.
Yeah, right.
This is really stupid.. i'm too old, and care too little to try to argue against you about a deck that's up for development anyway. For what it's worth I HAVE taken some of your so called constructive criticism. It's really pathetic however when you have to be so arrogant and elitist about this when i've probably been playing this game for twice as long as you have.
You just called me elitist, then said you were older and have been playing for twice as long. Besides, you're not accepting any criticism! How many people need tot ell you Koth doesn't work in how many ways before you cut it?
In any case, I got some more testing in. I played another UB matchup and played vs. Valakut..
Decklists please, I don't want to hear about wins Vs. Valakut with no wurmcoils or avengers.
I'll recap the games.
And i'll add in pithy commentary!
Match 1 vs. UB control- Close 1-2 Loss.
G1 I mull to 6 after drawing 6 lands in the opening hand. I land a t3 Oracle then he taps out on turn 3 to my surprise to dig with preordains (presumably to dig for land) & plays a tar pit. I have a mana leak in hand, but choose to play a Koth while he's tapped out since I could simply kill a resolved Jace anyway by attacking into him. He taps out turn 4 while I'm tapped from Koth to play a Persecutor, the worst case scenario for me. I have a bolt and a doom blade in hand, but neither do anything and I couldn't seem to draw into a jace. I'm heavily considering into the roil for reasons such as this. He rides the persecutor to victory.
You can really subjugate "Persecutor" with "Grave Titan, Frost Titan, Valakut's second 6-drop" and the loss is still indicative of a problem with your removal choices. Consuming Vapors and Gatekeeper are the tools for U/B, but you really can't use half the options because of color dependency, which is the reason Grixis is only competitive with a red splash for Bolts.
G2 I board in 4 inquisitions & additional permission boarding out doom blades. I discard then play a spell pierce on his little jace. I land a turn 4 Jace then land a turn 5 Koth. He scoops
Seems fine.
G3 lasted really long and went back and forth all game. I played an Oracle, then he got out a little jace turn 3, and I keep mana open for permission. He keeps drawing. I attack into the jace and he draws to kill it t4 then plays another little jace with only 1 mana open. I risk playing Koth since I hadn't seen a spell pierce in either of the previous 2 games. Naturally, he pierces it, but I attack into the jace and it dies shortly thereafter. T5 he plays a 3rd little jace with 2 mana open. t5 I play a tuktuk trying to bait out permission keeping 2 mana open. He lets it resolve, and I kill the 3rd jace. Turn 7 comes along after some further jockeying and I drop Sarkhan the Mad with 2 open mana, saccing the tuktuk to it. He plays into the roil on one of my tokens in which I leak it. He then proceeds to use his remaining 2 open mana to doom blade the dragon token.
Tuktuk and Sarkhan get answered like this all the time, especially because it's the only thing in your deck he really needs to use those cards for. They are in his hand the entire game.
A ton of turns later jockeying for position, he lands a Grave Titan, in which I land my own Grave Titan. Naturally, the following turn he resolves Grave Titan #2. I double bolt his second grave titan killing it, then swing with my own grave titan. I then drop a Koth & a Sarkhan. I have 4 Mountains in play and he's at 12 hp with Koth out at 5. He topdecks Into the Roil the turn after I land an inquisition on him and then rides a grave titan to the victory after he drops his own jace and bounces my dragon.
I thought nobody ran Into The Roil?
Grave Titan is a good card. it wins games. All titans do. Run more of these and less of Koth and you'll be great.
Your opponent scooped to a Jace with Koth up, which is unreasonable for him to defeat. That doesn't mean Koth won the game. In both other matchups, your Koth didn't really do anything. All it did was land when he was down on answers. On the other hand, Jace and Grave Titan acted specifically towards wins. You should just stick to strengths.
In my opinion, he probably scooped to the resolved Jace more than the Koth because nobody can win a mirror where they're down on CA the entire game.
I can completely understand this being an outlier where Koth happened to not be relevant, but I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where Koth does win the game, other than when it's turn 9 and you could win with virtually anything because they're out of answers.
Needless to say, the match could have gone either way and I wasn't too dissapointed in the deckbuild outside of having no viable answer to big black creatures outside of wasting multiple bolts on them. I definitely feel adding Mind control back into the board would help in this regard, especially since there are very few decks with enchantment hate right now in standard.
Good man, think about what you need. My buddy runs Brittle Effigy in the SB of his U/B Deck for other grave titans and persecutors.
Match 2 vs. Valakut- Relatively close 2-1 win
G1 I get blown out. He has a Valakut Godhand with 2 explores, a summoning trap, titan & valakut. I counter the second explore and a later Cultivate, but he lands a Titan, then proceeds to summoning trap the turn after into a second primeval.
You misplayed by not having a counter available for his primeval titan when he had 6 mana. It's much more relevant than trying to keep him off 6 mana. Don't counter the ramp unless you know you can keep him from getting to some point that he needs to get to.
Secondly, I've played a lot of Valakut. Seeing 2 creatures and a summoning trap isn't a god hand when they have like 8 big creatures and 4 traps. it's the way they win.
[quote]
G2 I blow him out. I discard his ramp spells, land a memoricide then beat face with dragon tokens. He gets out a rampaging baloths, but they can't block the dragon tokens and he scoops.
I'm advocating main board inquisition strongly. Secondly, i'd be interested to know what you named with memoricide, I assume Primeval Titan. Thirdly, what valakut deck runs Rampaging Baloths before a Wurmcoil Engine, Avenger of Zendikar, or Inferno Titan?
G3 I dig for a Memoricide after countering his explore with a spell pierce. I lay an inquisition on him to see a summoning trap, but no titan (and once again, I realize that for a sideboard card... duress is 10x better than inquisition, and since I'm not using inquisition vs. aggro, I realize how it was stupid to take the advice to play 4x inquisition in the board). I land a Grave Titan after dropping a jace the previous turn. He lays his trap at the end of the turn while i'm tapped down. This may have been a play mistake, but he already was at 14 life from one of my tar pits and a sea gate oracle chipping away (since I saw he had no plays until summoning trap). He lands an avenger out of the trap, and then lays a fetch to pump his creatures to 2. The following turn I bounce a token, doom blade his avenger, then drop Sark to turn one of the 2/2's into a dragon. He lays back not attacking as I didn't attack with my Grave Titan. I slowly ride him to death, he gets to shoot me 1-2 times with Valakut since he's already got a lot of lands and drew into a cultivate, but I was able to race to victory.
Again, rely more on titans. They're obviously the strongest card in the deck.
You misplayed by not having a counter available for his primeval titan when he had 6 mana. It's much more relevant than trying to keep him off 6 mana. Don't counter the ramp unless you know you can keep him from getting to some point that he needs to get to.
I've been following the rather entertaining debate in this thread, and I've been with you for most of it, MDilthey, but you're just dead wrong here. Countering the ramp spells is the easiest way to win this match-up, game one.
In replace of Koth as a win condition, you have Abyssal Persecutor. With Sarkhan, Jace, and Consuming Vapors you have a lot of ways to get rid of him. You might want to trade out a Doom Blade and a Bolt for two into the Roils if removing him so you can win becomes a problem.
Tabling a turn 4 6/6 that is also Black is a much better wall against aggro than a turn 3 1/1 with a second life.
I cut Sarkhan to 2 because your curve goes up with the addition of an Inferno Titan, which is very effective against a lot of decks and will probably win a lot of games. We'll be putting one in the sideboard.
Inquisition was moved into the main because it's That Good against a number of decks. Another option is to run 3 Inquisition and 1 Duress, but almost always- 80% of the time -Inquisition handles what you need it to better than Duress does. It's pre-emptive removal against Aggro that doesn't crowd out slots for your control matchup. That flexibility makes it an all-star.
Instead of:
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Doom Blade
We now have:
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Doom Blade
1 Consuming Vapors
which gives you more answers. We also have an Inferno Titan and 4 Inquisitions, which often act as removal.
the 2 Duress are essentially Inquisition # 5 and 6. Against something like U/B, they are a house, and seeing two in the first 5 turns means you probably win.
Consuming Vapors is for Valakut and Eldrazi. You need an answer to a 6 toughness creature. With 3 Consuming Vapors, 1 Comet Storm, and 3 Lightning Bolts, you should be able to remove them from the board consistently enough to swing to victory with a Titan.
Even then, Valakut still has the inevitability in the matchup, so you'll need to play well.
I wanted to cut memoricide, but the Valakut matchup is too rough without it.
Pyroclasm is key, because you aren't testing against Vampires and WW Quest, and they are fast enough to wreck you.
Go ahead, tell me how and why i'm wrong. I'm spending like 45 minutes of my day trying to help your decklist and all I get are accusations of grief.
I've been following the rather entertaining debate in this thread, and I've been with you for most of it, MDilthey, but you're just dead wrong here. Countering the ramp spells is the easiest way to win this match-up, game one.
Not if you have no counter in hand for Primeval Titan
I appreciate the constructive criticism, and thank you for providing good input. The advice you gave in that post was actually constructive. I meant to change the sideboard but forget to edit that, hence why there are some problems there.
The big thing about not playing Doom blade is because everybody and their mom plays Black finishers these days for this very reason. I get it when I need it for the most part anyway.
I agree with the play error vs. Valakut, but in my playtesting vs. Valakut for any control deck, it's almost always better to counter the ramp than the titan itself.
As for Consuming Vapors, I've never been sold on it. It doesn't ever kill anything I want it to kill. It kills 2 bears sorcery speed when an opponent lands a Grave Titan, kills a 0/4 Wall vs. UW, and kills 2 weenies vs. aggro way too late in the match.
In regards to having Koth as a finisher in a titan meta, he gives the deck a big tempo boost. I understand Persecutor, I play him in Esper for Extended quite a lot. But I didn't want to force bad removal (I hate vapors whether you agree with me or not), and didn't want to be dependent on having a Jace or Sark on the board to get rid of him. I do agree that playing a finisher on turn 4 is > playing a finisher on turn 6. Also, playing a finisher that doesn't eat a condemn, or journey, or other form of removal helps. The FINAL reason why koth is actually pretty strong is that he wins the jace matchup in the event an opponent lands one, and untaps a land to keep it open for a leak. This sounds petty and small, but i've found it useful tons of times.
I lowered the koth count to 3 and upped jace to 4. I added 2x spell pierce also. I'm trying not to depend on black, which is why I don't want the inquisition maindeck. Despite this, I think you have a valid point here, and I'm probably going to maindeck 2 of these.
As for Into the roil, it's my answer to cards like Gideon, Persecutor, and other cards that simply don't die to normal removal like doom blade and bolt. It's not perfect, but it does dirty work and works well in planeswalker/control battles.
As for the valakut matchup, he boarded in baloths as a 1-of and had Avenger as a 3-of post board. I did snag primeval game 2 with memoricide. Wurmcoils were boarded out.
Not if you have no counter in hand for Primeval Titan
Let's deal with reality. There is a threshold beyond which you do not counter the opponent's ramp spells, but before that threshold it is just so obviously correct to counter them. Am I going to counter that turn two Explore? Every time. Turn three Cultivate? Every time. Turn three Harrow? Every time. Turn four Titan? No, because I'll have already countered his ramp spells and he won't yet have six lands. At this point I cast a Jace and he's dead.
I would appreciate a real response and not something sarcastic followed by a smug smiley face.
I counter ramp spells post-board when I have four Spell Pierces. otherwise, it's futility.
Valakut runs 16 ramp spells. I run 6 counters. They WILL ramp.
However, mountains and forests don't kill me if I spreading Seas their Valakut. Primeval Titan does.
Get all the basics you want game one, I will counter Primeval Titan when you hit 6 lands and then I'll play Jace.
You're telling me the correct play for our Grixis player was to counter Cultivate, then Explore, then let Primeval Titan table? Even he recognizes that there was a better play. YOU are wrong, doughey.
The only reason he would counter both those spells is if he had a third mana leak for Primeval Titan. Valakut runs 4 Primeval Titan; there is no reason to not assume he has one in his opening hand.
@cbus:
I can be placated on 2 Koths if you cut TukTuk from the main forever, and instead run abyssal persecutor or some other strong creature, even Goblin Guide.
Your arguments for Tuktuk were:
The Aggro matchup
Sarkhan Synergy
And Abyssal persecutor does both of those things better. The cost, I guess, of playing him is the necessity of dropping 5 mountains and adding 5 dual-lands to fix for black. You might be able to force it with 2 koths, but I think a kothless list with perseCUTEr is stronger.
I counter ramp spells post-board when I have four Spell Pierces. otherwise, it's futility.
Valakut runs 16 ramp spells. I run 6 counters. They WILL ramp.
However, mountains and forests don't kill me if I spreading Seas their Valakut. Primeval Titan does.
Get all the basics you want game one, I will counter Primeval Titan when you hit 6 lands and then I'll play Jace.
You're telling me the correct play for our Grixis player was to counter Cultivate, then Explore, then let Primeval Titan table? Even he recognizes that there was a better play. YOU are wrong, doughey.
The only reason he would counter both those spells is if he had a third mana leak for Primeval Titan. Valakut runs 4 Primeval Titan; there is no reason to not assume he has one in his opening hand.
@cbus:
I can be placated on 2 Koths if you cut TukTuk from the main forever, and instead run abyssal persecutor or some other strong creature, even Goblin Guide.
Your arguments for Tuktuk were:
The Aggro matchup
Sarkhan Synergy
And Abyssal persecutor does both of those things better. The cost, I guess, of playing him is the necessity of dropping 5 mountains and adding 5 dual-lands to fix for black. You might be able to force it with 2 koths, but I think a kothless list with perseCUTEr is stronger.
As you mentioned with Percy, he would be too hard. I don't want to rely on double black almost ever before turn 5. Further, he clogs the 4 drop slot a bit more than i'd like. I've thought a lot about Ruinblaster, and want to give him some testing in place of TukTuk.
I think 2 Koths may work real well.
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Not countering ramp against valakut game one is actually just taking the fastest route to a loss, their turn 6 titan doesnt kill you, it doesnt even deal you 3 damage, you run removal spells such as doom blade to kill it, if you table jace you end up much better of than their turn 6 titan which needs 2 green mana sources so guess what land number 7 and 8 dont even burn you then you use your removal on the only thing to remove.. THE TITAN and seal them out with jace
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Circular Logic Example: You're splashing a color to fix your colors so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you.
Do I really have to explain what just happened? [/rhetoric]
Countering "A later Cultivate" as OP said, is likely incorrect, but I do not know when "later" is. From the sounds of it, "later" is when Valakut already has five lands in play because his opponent untapped and just cast Titan anyway.
Again, let us not assume one another to be dullards here.
Quote from Phyrexian Doughnought »
There is a threshold beyond which you do not counter the opponent's ramp spells, but before that threshold it is just so obviously correct to counter them.
What is so dramatically incorrect about this statement?
You counter ramp spells and DON'T counter Primeval Titan?
You can't just remove Primeval Titan against Valakut. I don't care if it's instant speed.
Valakut has such a high land density, it will guaranteed cast a Primeval Titan by turn 6 even if you counter every ramp spell. If the Primeval Titan tables, it gets:
TWO VALAKUTS.
For the rest of the game, they need to resolve one cultivate, one khalni heart expedition, or one harrow to deal you 12 points of damage. They win.
And I'm calling bs on the 19 out of 30 matches thing. Why? Because I posted this deck originally late last night. I honestly have a hard time believing someone loaded this up and played 30 matches with it right after loading it just for the purpose of testing out a manabase. Second, I've yet to encounter similar problems.
I played thirty games to turn four against a non existing other deck, it was just me dropping lands and casting spells for four turns. I does not take that long to do 30 games to turn four. I must admit that MWS does not shuffle well, but I threw out bad starting hands and games that I did not draw lands at all. Maybe getting only 19 games was just really bad luck on my part, but it did happen to me and I didn't have the greatest time with the mana base. The amount of times that I had the fourth land come into play tapped was great enough anyways so that a turn four Koth/Jace was still difficult to pull off.
You counter ramp spells and DON'T counter Primeval Titan?
You can't just remove Primeval Titan against Valakut. I don't care if it's instant speed.
Valakut has such a high land density, it will guaranteed cast a Primeval Titan by turn 6 even if you counter every ramp spell. If the Primeval Titan tables, it gets:
TWO VALAKUTS.
For the rest of the game, they need to resolve one cultivate, one khalni heart expedition, or one harrow to deal you 12 points of damage. They win.
Always counter Primeval Titan, or scoop.
You never play against valakut do you? If you save counters for titan A. they summoning trap B. they already have so many lands that your mana leak is probably irrelevant C. they already have so many lands that if they have valakut out its probably already online, and if they dont all they need to do is drop valakut and laugh at you for holding counters.
Your matchup against valakut isnt good obviously but if you counter ramp and table an early jace it forces them to either deal with jace or lose to it. It makes it so you can seal them out of the game oh right and it makes it so that titan comes out 2 turns later, so they arent just a million turns ahead of you.
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Circular Logic Example: You're splashing a color to fix your colors so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you can cast a "tutor" that finds lands that you cut so you could make room for the color that you splashed so you.
In the example given, he didn't tabl a jace. He countered two ramp spells and then lost to one primeval titan. All the reasons you gave for why it's good to counter ramp also apply to why it's good to counter primeval titan. If they table titan, they probably win. If they don't, they win slower, upping the chances you have to win.
Besides, unless you plan to win with Jace Beleren, you counter their Primeval Titan on their fourth turn, when you are on 3 lands, and then you take your turn 4 and play a Jace anyways. Goyf, you are categorically wrong. Maybe you're just young, but if you're planning to hold two doom blades in every opening hand so you can counter Cultivate and let Primeval Titan table, you're so far out of this game already, it's a joke.
Mdilthey: I just caught that you sigged me. I don't mind my name being tacked on there
Honestly, I'm wondering if this was ever a serious post at all. Seems like a troll to me, and if so, a darn good one.
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You counter ramp spells and DON'T counter Primeval Titan?
You can't just remove Primeval Titan against Valakut. I don't care if it's instant speed.
Valakut has such a high land density, it will guaranteed cast a Primeval Titan by turn 6 even if you counter every ramp spell. If the Primeval Titan tables, it gets:
TWO VALAKUTS.
For the rest of the game, they need to resolve one cultivate, one khalni heart expedition, or one harrow to deal you 12 points of damage. They win.
Always counter Primeval Titan, or scoop.
Whether or not you think we're all idiotic, retarded monkeys, throwing around a pouty attitude and acting offended doesn't prove your correctness.
At this point, I'm doubting as to whether you've ever played against Valakut, and no, I don't count testing-it-in-your-mind as real testing.
Let me get this straight: Your plan is to do nothing against a ramp deck, let it ramp, and then hope they're dumb enough to cast Primeval Titan without being able to pay for Mana Leak and without having a Summoning Trap in their hand. Seems solid.
Using the decklist that you, yourself, proposed to the OP as an improved list, I decided to go hang out on MWS for a little while with the game title, "Looking to test new archetype against Valakut. SBs please."
For others' ease of reference, I'll copy+paste the decklist now.
Round X, Game 1:
I was on the play. I kept a hand with Preordain, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce, and some lands. Keepable. On turn two, I Pierced his Spell. On my third turn I cast Preordain. He cast a Cultivte and I Leaked it. On turn four, I went for the throat with an Abyssal Persecutor. He played another land and passed. I only had IOK at this point for real gas, but didn't bother casting it, as he obviously didn't have anything 3cmc or lower he could cast. Swing in for six. Next turn I played SGO into SGO which dug me into either Jace or Preordain. I don't remember which, and it really doesn't matter. By the time my opponent was at zero, he had an active Titan, but couldn't even attack me profitably with it, because he would just lose the game. My life total wasn't 20, sure, but he was locked out. It only took a turn from there to draw Jace or Consume or the second Bolt or Sarkhan or whatever I used to sacrifice the Persecutor.
Game one is the only tough part about this match-up, but even then you get some hands that play out as well as the one above.
Round X, Game 2:
I bring in 2 Duress, 2 Consuming Vapors, 4 Spreading Seas, 3 Memoricide, and take out 3 Lightning Bolt, 2 Sarkhan, and 3 Doom Blade, 2 Sea Gate Oracle, and 1 Persecutor.
I make him discard his only two-mana ramp spell, and follow that up with Preordain and with Spell Pierce open for his three-mana option. Countered. On my fourth turn I brainstorm with Jace, then do it again on turn five. I pass. He plays a Titan and I attempt a Mana Leak. I knew he had the Trap form the earlier discard spell, but am forced to pull the trigger anyway. He obviously traps into another Titan, and gets two Valakut. I Consume his Meek Titan, gain six, and start using a combination of Brainstorms and +2s (targeting me) to fix my draws and slowly inch Jace up to ultimate status. Eventually I just draw an Inferno Titan and kill him. (I forgot to mention there was a Spreading Seas in there somewhere on his Valakut)
---
Basically every sideboarded match went similar to this, with results varying somewhat based on how I chose to sideboard. A combination of discard + counters on Ramp's early spells followed up by Jace, Memoricide, a Consumed Titan, or my own big fatty equaled a game win almost every single time. My first sideboarded game loss came to a triple Summoning Trap draw.
The point of a control deck is to disallow the opponent's deck from operating on its own terms, from doing what it wants, from getting to its end game. Allowing a ramp deck to ramp --doing nothing-- unsurprisingly does nothing to prevent them from achieving their goals. You have to disrupt them.
Overall, I'm not impressed with the Red spells in this deck. UB alone has the tools to fight basically everything, and Red doesn't really add much. Cutting Red lets you play Tectonic Edge, too, which is not something to really be shrugged off.
The thing about adding red in UB control is that it's not going to do much in the ramp matchup, but will win you the game in the Aggro matchup, and be a big help when playing vs. Mirror as well.
Regardless of Koth or not, it's not that hard to splash red for bolt, and that alone makes it worthwhile.
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You counter ramp spells and DON'T counter Primeval Titan?
You can't just remove Primeval Titan against Valakut. I don't care if it's instant speed.
Valakut has such a high land density, it will guaranteed cast a Primeval Titan by turn 6 even if you counter every ramp spell. If the Primeval Titan tables, it gets:
TWO VALAKUTS.
For the rest of the game, they need to resolve one cultivate, one khalni heart expedition, or one harrow to deal you 12 points of damage. They win.
Always counter Primeval Titan, or scoop.
Before I get into the Valakut match-up, I must say that Koth is probably one of the worst cards for this deck; Pyroclasm would make the aggro match-ups better too.
All you have to do is make sure they don't ramp into dealing 3 damage to you with each land that resolves.
I'm not sure about the Titan resolving, IMO, it usually fetches out there Valakuts. In this deck, where Leyline of Sanctity is not present, I think countering the titan is probably the best choice, I've seen someone get an Overgrown Battlement off of 2 Summoning Traps in a row.
The Titan is just one-of-many cards in Valakut that need to get countered, but then again it depends on the turn; I can't let a T4 Titan resolve. Sadistic Sacrament may be the best option here. Memoricide is really the best thing to keep them off their Titans, but even then, Spreading Seas is MVP of the day. You need the 4split MD/SB.
@Cbus: Splashing red is fine. Splashing 7 mountains, 4 Koths, and 3 TukTuk's isn't a splash. It's a bad RDW with an U/B Splash for Jace and Grave Titan.
Rethink!
Drop the mountain infatuation, and run all the duals (4 catacombs, 4 summits) and you have so many black lands you can run persecutor with ease because every land taps for black.
@Goyfme, True_Insult;
Slowing down Valakut by countering ramp is the only way to win. Letting them get to turn 6 when you're out of answers is a misplay. He lasts categorically longer versus 1 missed Cultivate than he does missing the Primeval Titan in that specific game. Stop quoting me as a ramp-allowing radical that doesn't understand the basics.
@Cbus: Splashing red is fine. Splashing 7 mountains, 4 Koths, and 3 TukTuk's isn't a splash. It's a bad RDW with an U/B Splash for Jace and Grave Titan.
Rethink!
Drop the mountain infatuation, and run all the duals (4 catacombs, 4 summits) and you have so many black lands you can run persecutor with ease because every land taps for black.
@Goyfme, True_Insult;
Slowing down Valakut by countering ramp is the only way to win. Letting them get to turn 6 when you're out of answers is a misplay. He lasts categorically longer versus 1 missed Cultivate than he does missing the Primeval Titan in that specific game. Stop quoting me as a ramp-allowing radical that doesn't understand the basics.
you counter all the ramp you can. using your last counter on ramp before turn 6 isnt a misplay, its the correct play, and if youre being quoted as a ramp allowing radical that doesnt understand the basics its probably because you are and you dont, as youre being quoted... its things youve said. You literally cannot stop them from getting to turn 6 because your deck cant win before turn 6. You can however be at turn 6 at the same time as them by countering their ramp and causing theyre deck to run out of gas. Dont hold counters for titans, just play the counters out on their cultivate
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Boros top 8 at worlds featuring 2 koths. Lots of Boros are playing Koth believe it or not. I could feature more, but don't really feel like it.
And I'm calling bs on the 19 out of 30 matches thing. Why? Because I posted this deck originally late last night. I honestly have a hard time believing someone loaded this up and played 30 matches with it right after loading it just for the purpose of testing out a manabase. Second, I've yet to encounter similar problems.
What makes you think I'm using Tutktuk to block a titan? It's for aggro, which kind of is still around believe it or not. The benefit to Tuktuk, is that when he's not relevant anymore, he gets sacrificed turning into a 5/5.
I've considered it, but Sarkhan is too valuable in here, and Memoricide + discard is too important out of the sideboard. There is a reason standard U/R control isn't a t1 deck, so there is no reason to play it. Sarkhan also plays too well in here to drop black completely.
No, you're actually just arbitrarily telling me to play a completely different deck that's more reactionary in nature, which is not the strategy of this deck. Your only argument for this deck being terrible is that I shouldn't play Koth since he needs 4+ mountains to be effective, which clearly just isn't the case.
I'm speechless. Okay, you got it. I'll play your decklist because you are god's gift to magic deck design. Thanks!
This is your argument for why Koth is bad? Seriously? By this logic, nothing could ever resolve vs. UB control since they see it turn 1 with inquisition then save a counterspell for it. This is why i'm saying your logic sucks. This = not an argument, this is just saying that spell pierce can counter a planeswalker. And you're forgetting the whole "I play mana leak" thing and have 4+ permission effects in the sideboard, and 4 discard effects solely for the purpose of landing a walker against he control matchup.
Okay, in any case i'm done arguing. This is really stupid.. i'm too old, and care too little to try to argue against you about a deck that's up for development anyway. For what it's worth I HAVE taken some of your so called constructive criticism. It's really pathetic however when you have to be so arrogant and elitist about this when i've been friendly all along.
In any case, I got some more testing in. I played another UB matchup and played vs. Valakut..
I'll recap the games.
Match 1 vs. UB control- Close 1-2 Loss.
G1 I mull to 6 after drawing 6 lands in the opening hand. I land a t3 Oracle then he taps out on turn 3 to my surprise to dig with preordains (presumably to dig for land) & plays a tar pit. I have a mana leak in hand, but choose to play a Koth while he's tapped out since I could simply kill a resolved Jace anyway by attacking into him. He taps out turn 4 while I'm tapped from Koth to play a Persecutor, the worst case scenario for me. I have a bolt and a doom blade in hand, but neither do anything and I couldn't seem to draw into a jace. I'm heavily considering into the roil for reasons such as this. He rides the persecutor to victory.
G2 I board in 4 inquisitions & additional permission boarding out doom blades. I discard then play a spell pierce on his little jace. I land a turn 4 Jace then land a turn 5 Koth. He scoops
G3 lasted really long and went back and forth all game. I played an Oracle, then he got out a little jace turn 3, and I keep mana open for permission. He keeps drawing. I attack into the jace and he draws to kill it t4 then plays another little jace with only 1 mana open. I risk playing Koth since I hadn't seen a spell pierce in either of the previous 2 games. Naturally, he pierces it, but I attack into the jace and it dies shortly thereafter. T5 he plays a 3rd little jace with 2 mana open. t5 I play a tuktuk trying to bait out permission keeping 2 mana open. He lets it resolve, and I kill the 3rd jace. Turn 7 comes along after some further jockeying and I drop Sarkhan the Mad with 2 open mana, saccing the tuktuk to it. He plays into the roil on one of my tokens in which I leak it. He then proceeds to use his remaining 2 open mana to doom blade the dragon token.
A ton of turns later jockeying for position, he lands a Grave Titan, in which I land my own Grave Titan. Naturally, the following turn he resolves Grave Titan #2. I double bolt his second grave titan killing it, then swing with my own grave titan. I then drop a Koth & a Sarkhan. I have 4 Mountains in play and he's at 12 hp with Koth out at 5. He topdecks Into the Roil the turn after I land an inquisition on him and then rides a grave titan to the victory after he drops his own jace and bounces my dragon.
Needless to say, the match could have gone either way and I wasn't too dissapointed in the deckbuild outside of having no viable answer to big black creatures outside of wasting multiple bolts on them. I definitely feel adding Mind control back into the board would help in this regard, especially since there are very few decks with enchantment hate right now in standard.
Match 2 vs. Valakut- Relatively close 2-1 win
G1 I get blown out. He has a Valakut Godhand with 2 explores, a summoning trap, titan & valakut. I counter the second explore and a later Cultivate, but he lands a Titan, then proceeds to summoning trap the turn after into a second primeval.
G2 I blow him out. I discard his ramp spells, land a memoricide then beat face with dragon tokens. He gets out a rampaging baloths, but they can't block the dragon tokens and he scoops.
G3 I dig for a Memoricide after countering his explore with a spell pierce. I lay an inquisition on him to see a summoning trap, but no titan (and once again, I realize that for a sideboard card... duress is 10x better than inquisition, and since I'm not using inquisition vs. aggro, I realize how it was stupid to take the advice to play 4x inquisition in the board). I land a Grave Titan after dropping a jace the previous turn. He lays his trap at the end of the turn while i'm tapped down. This may have been a play mistake, but he already was at 14 life from one of my tar pits and a sea gate oracle chipping away (since I saw he had no plays until summoning trap). He lands an avenger out of the trap, and then lays a fetch to pump his creatures to 2. The following turn I bounce a token, doom blade his avenger, then drop Sark to turn one of the 2/2's into a dragon. He lays back not attacking as I didn't attack with my Grave Titan. I slowly ride him to death, he gets to shoot me 1-2 times with Valakut since he's already got a lot of lands and drew into a cultivate, but I was able to race to victory.
Boros top 8 at worlds featuring 2 koths. Lots of Boros are playing Koth believe it or not. I could feature more, but don't really feel like it.
Uh ok so first of all look at that link again Boros did not top 8 and neither did the other 12 decks above it, it shows the top 8 boros is not in it. Anyway sarkhan really isnt doing much in here, and really isnt doing much in many places actually. Koth's ultimate is actually just 2 mana shock or 3 mana lightning bolt every turn at best in here, so maybe koth should be cut, other than that running 7 mountains seems to be a sever strain on that mana base, it doesnt look nearly as consistent as the few 3 color decks left out there.
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=783&d=208036
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=741&d=207831
Okay, picked the wrong link. Actually, most Boros decks play koth as a 1-2 of from looking through the top 8 database.
By the way, I KNOW this deck looks crazy and weird, and like there is no way in hell it could work. I would have said the same thing on first look, but it works somehow. I've made some refinements and did cut the planeswalker count down. I'll update the OP at some point with some of the refinements I've made.
The most constructive post came from the guy who actually sleeved this up and tested it.
Boros wasn't in the Worlds top 8. The World's Top 8 was this:
1. U/B
2. Eldrazi Green
3. U/B
4. U/B
5. Vampires
6. U/B
7. U/B
8. U/W
I know you aren't in the mood, but just give me one list that ACTUALLY placed.
He didn't play 30 matches, he just drew 4 cards worth of turns (11 cards) 30 times and saw what lands he had. He even mulliganed realistically, as he stated in his post, so it only counts keepable hands.
Second, perhaps the reason you haven't encountered similar issues is because of 1 of 2 reasons I've already stated:
1. You haven't tested enough.
2. Testing against bad decks means you won't notice when you can't cast your Jace until turn 5-6.
The things he might block make him irrelevant.
What are you blocking? Elves has so many creatures it doesn't care. it can choose not to swing for 3 turns and then pop Ezuri's overrun ability twice or three times with Copperhorn Scout and then swing in for 25+. Nice blocker.
Vampires is happy to trade with anything. it sacks two Bloodghasts and it's Bloodthrone Vampire is big enough to kill TukTuk the Redeemed.
Titans don't care. Almost all 6-drops don't care. Flyers don't care. Creeping Tar Pits don't care. Boros cracks a fetch land and swings for 5-8 and doesn't care about a 5/5.
No deck cares about a 5/5!
HO HO HO! You really REALLY can't use that argument. U/R is a better version of this, and even that is bad.
Ok, firstly, control by definition is reactionary, because that is how you play successfully. If you want to run more creatures, I can drum up a midrange list with bigger creature threats. One grave titan doesn't make a deck midrange- Idk why you think your list is anything but reactionary already.
Secondly, my argument for why this deck is bad also cites TukTuk, Sarkhan, your Manabase, your Doom Blade count, the types of counters you run, and almost every choice in your sideboard. Please give me credit where credit is due.
I never said you needed 4 mountains for Koth to be good. I said your mountain count does not constitute winning with Koth because you're screwing your UU for jace and your B and BB for Grave Titan, Doom Blade, and Tar Pit by trying to get enough mountains for Koth. You also open yourself wide to color screw by relying on one non-basic to color fix for every card in your deck that isn't Koth, which is relevant when there are lists with 4 spreading seas and 4 tectonic edges. Even if you manage the god-land scenario of one mountain, two islands, and four mountains, Koth is still too slow for his final to be anything but an annoyance for the Eldrazi player that's one or two turns away from an Emrakul when you hit seven lands.
Relax. i don't want you touching a Grixis list at all. My list was supposed to help a dying man, that's all.
No, it's the argument that counters your idiotic statement of "When I table a Koth against U/B I have a win condition"
So you're going to play Koth on turn 6, win the counter war even though the ONLY THING U/B has to counter is one grave titan and planeswalkers, and then get him to his final unmolested versus U/B when they play a turn 6 Grave Titan that you literally cannot kill other than using Sarkhan's ability, in which they kill you with 9 power of damage on the field.
You haven't got a CHANCE against a real U/B list.
U/B realistically counters almost everything. That is the idea of the deck. it answers every spell cast. The entire deck is answers and 2-3 grave titans and THAT'S ALL. You either overpower them by playing 5 threats to their 4 counters/answers, or you out-play them with jace so you have more answers than they do and they can't win.
Your understanding of my argument that every card is bad against U/B because they can just answer it is the correct argument unless your deck out-matches U/B in planeswalker control, or relevant threats. You overwhelm them or you lose. it's 5/8 of the Worlds decks for a reason- good players outmatched other decks by removing and countering everything they needed to to win.
Your deck has 10 cards in the entire deck that would need to be countered or removed by U/B. Sarkhan, Koth, Jace, and Grave Titan. If messing up your land with 8 land-hate spells (Seas, Tec) doesn't work, U/B still has 5-7 counters, 3-4 Discard spells, 1-2 boardsweeps, 2-3 deathtouchers, 4 unblockable manlands, and 3-4 kill spells to beat you with, and I don't like those odds for you. Your answers are 4 mana leaks and you can Bolt their tar pits...
We shouldn't even be having this conversation. How do you not get it? Just look at a U/B Decklist!
Yeah, right.
You just called me elitist, then said you were older and have been playing for twice as long. Besides, you're not accepting any criticism! How many people need tot ell you Koth doesn't work in how many ways before you cut it?
Decklists please, I don't want to hear about wins Vs. Valakut with no wurmcoils or avengers.
And i'll add in pithy commentary!
You can really subjugate "Persecutor" with "Grave Titan, Frost Titan, Valakut's second 6-drop" and the loss is still indicative of a problem with your removal choices. Consuming Vapors and Gatekeeper are the tools for U/B, but you really can't use half the options because of color dependency, which is the reason Grixis is only competitive with a red splash for Bolts.
Seems fine.
Tuktuk and Sarkhan get answered like this all the time, especially because it's the only thing in your deck he really needs to use those cards for. They are in his hand the entire game.
I thought nobody ran Into The Roil?
Grave Titan is a good card. it wins games. All titans do. Run more of these and less of Koth and you'll be great.
Your opponent scooped to a Jace with Koth up, which is unreasonable for him to defeat. That doesn't mean Koth won the game. In both other matchups, your Koth didn't really do anything. All it did was land when he was down on answers. On the other hand, Jace and Grave Titan acted specifically towards wins. You should just stick to strengths.
In my opinion, he probably scooped to the resolved Jace more than the Koth because nobody can win a mirror where they're down on CA the entire game.
I can completely understand this being an outlier where Koth happened to not be relevant, but I'm having trouble imagining a scenario where Koth does win the game, other than when it's turn 9 and you could win with virtually anything because they're out of answers.
Good man, think about what you need. My buddy runs Brittle Effigy in the SB of his U/B Deck for other grave titans and persecutors.
I'm advocating main board inquisition strongly. Secondly, i'd be interested to know what you named with memoricide, I assume Primeval Titan. Thirdly, what valakut deck runs Rampaging Baloths before a Wurmcoil Engine, Avenger of Zendikar, or Inferno Titan?
Again, rely more on titans. They're obviously the strongest card in the deck.
I've been following the rather entertaining debate in this thread, and I've been with you for most of it, MDilthey, but you're just dead wrong here. Countering the ramp spells is the easiest way to win this match-up, game one.
Edit: Oh, hey, Modern is a format.
here's your deck:
4x Sea Gate Oracle
2x Tuktuk the Explorer
2x Grave Titan
Planeswalkers
4x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
3x Koth of the Hammer
3x Sarkhan the Mad
Instants/Sorceries
4x Mana Leak
2x Spell Pierce
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Doom Blade
3x Preordain
2x Into the Roil
4x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Darkslick Shores
2x Drowned Catacomb
4x Scalding Tarn
2x Terramorphic Expanse
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Mind Control
3x Memoricide
4x Duress
3x Spell Pierce
4x Spreading Seas
I think the cards that don't work are:
MAIN:
Koth
Sarkhan
TukTuk
Into the Roil
SIDE:
Spell Pierce- apparently you're running 5 between board in main. DQ!
Mind Control
Here is your main board edited to reduce or remove cards that are less than optimal. Cards that work better in my opinion have been added:
2x Sea Gate Oracle
3x Abyssal Persecutor
2x Grave Titan
1x Inferno Titan
Planeswalkers:
4x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2x Sarkhan the Mad
Spells:
4x Spell Pierce
2x Mana Leak
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Doom Blade
1x Consuming Vapors
3x Lightning Bolt
4x Preordain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Drowned Catacombs
4x Dragonskull Summit
2x Darkslick Shores
1x Evolving Wilds
2x Mountain
1x Swamp
3x Island
In replace of Koth as a win condition, you have Abyssal Persecutor. With Sarkhan, Jace, and Consuming Vapors you have a lot of ways to get rid of him. You might want to trade out a Doom Blade and a Bolt for two into the Roils if removing him so you can win becomes a problem.
Tabling a turn 4 6/6 that is also Black is a much better wall against aggro than a turn 3 1/1 with a second life.
I cut Sarkhan to 2 because your curve goes up with the addition of an Inferno Titan, which is very effective against a lot of decks and will probably win a lot of games. We'll be putting one in the sideboard.
Inquisition was moved into the main because it's That Good against a number of decks. Another option is to run 3 Inquisition and 1 Duress, but almost always- 80% of the time -Inquisition handles what you need it to better than Duress does. It's pre-emptive removal against Aggro that doesn't crowd out slots for your control matchup. That flexibility makes it an all-star.
Instead of:
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Doom Blade
We now have:
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Doom Blade
1 Consuming Vapors
which gives you more answers. We also have an Inferno Titan and 4 Inquisitions, which often act as removal.
Now, for the Sideboard:
2 Duress
4 Spreading Seas
2 Consuming Vapors
1 Comet Storm
3 Memoricide
3 Pyroclasm
the 2 Duress are essentially Inquisition # 5 and 6. Against something like U/B, they are a house, and seeing two in the first 5 turns means you probably win.
Consuming Vapors is for Valakut and Eldrazi. You need an answer to a 6 toughness creature. With 3 Consuming Vapors, 1 Comet Storm, and 3 Lightning Bolts, you should be able to remove them from the board consistently enough to swing to victory with a Titan.
Even then, Valakut still has the inevitability in the matchup, so you'll need to play well.
I wanted to cut memoricide, but the Valakut matchup is too rough without it.
Pyroclasm is key, because you aren't testing against Vampires and WW Quest, and they are fast enough to wreck you.
Go ahead, tell me how and why i'm wrong. I'm spending like 45 minutes of my day trying to help your decklist and all I get are accusations of grief.
Not if you have no counter in hand for Primeval Titan
The big thing about not playing Doom blade is because everybody and their mom plays Black finishers these days for this very reason. I get it when I need it for the most part anyway.
I agree with the play error vs. Valakut, but in my playtesting vs. Valakut for any control deck, it's almost always better to counter the ramp than the titan itself.
As for Consuming Vapors, I've never been sold on it. It doesn't ever kill anything I want it to kill. It kills 2 bears sorcery speed when an opponent lands a Grave Titan, kills a 0/4 Wall vs. UW, and kills 2 weenies vs. aggro way too late in the match.
In regards to having Koth as a finisher in a titan meta, he gives the deck a big tempo boost. I understand Persecutor, I play him in Esper for Extended quite a lot. But I didn't want to force bad removal (I hate vapors whether you agree with me or not), and didn't want to be dependent on having a Jace or Sark on the board to get rid of him. I do agree that playing a finisher on turn 4 is > playing a finisher on turn 6. Also, playing a finisher that doesn't eat a condemn, or journey, or other form of removal helps. The FINAL reason why koth is actually pretty strong is that he wins the jace matchup in the event an opponent lands one, and untaps a land to keep it open for a leak. This sounds petty and small, but i've found it useful tons of times.
I lowered the koth count to 3 and upped jace to 4. I added 2x spell pierce also. I'm trying not to depend on black, which is why I don't want the inquisition maindeck. Despite this, I think you have a valid point here, and I'm probably going to maindeck 2 of these.
As for Into the roil, it's my answer to cards like Gideon, Persecutor, and other cards that simply don't die to normal removal like doom blade and bolt. It's not perfect, but it does dirty work and works well in planeswalker/control battles.
As for the valakut matchup, he boarded in baloths as a 1-of and had Avenger as a 3-of post board. I did snag primeval game 2 with memoricide. Wurmcoils were boarded out.
Let's deal with reality. There is a threshold beyond which you do not counter the opponent's ramp spells, but before that threshold it is just so obviously correct to counter them. Am I going to counter that turn two Explore? Every time. Turn three Cultivate? Every time. Turn three Harrow? Every time. Turn four Titan? No, because I'll have already countered his ramp spells and he won't yet have six lands. At this point I cast a Jace and he's dead.
I would appreciate a real response and not something sarcastic followed by a smug smiley face.
Edit: Oh, hey, Modern is a format.
I counter ramp spells post-board when I have four Spell Pierces. otherwise, it's futility.
Valakut runs 16 ramp spells. I run 6 counters. They WILL ramp.
However, mountains and forests don't kill me if I spreading Seas their Valakut. Primeval Titan does.
Get all the basics you want game one, I will counter Primeval Titan when you hit 6 lands and then I'll play Jace.
You're telling me the correct play for our Grixis player was to counter Cultivate, then Explore, then let Primeval Titan table? Even he recognizes that there was a better play. YOU are wrong, doughey.
The only reason he would counter both those spells is if he had a third mana leak for Primeval Titan. Valakut runs 4 Primeval Titan; there is no reason to not assume he has one in his opening hand.
@cbus:
I can be placated on 2 Koths if you cut TukTuk from the main forever, and instead run abyssal persecutor or some other strong creature, even Goblin Guide.
Your arguments for Tuktuk were:
The Aggro matchup
Sarkhan Synergy
And Abyssal persecutor does both of those things better. The cost, I guess, of playing him is the necessity of dropping 5 mountains and adding 5 dual-lands to fix for black. You might be able to force it with 2 koths, but I think a kothless list with perseCUTEr is stronger.
As you mentioned with Percy, he would be too hard. I don't want to rely on double black almost ever before turn 5. Further, he clogs the 4 drop slot a bit more than i'd like. I've thought a lot about Ruinblaster, and want to give him some testing in place of TukTuk.
I think 2 Koths may work real well.
Do I really have to explain what just happened? [/rhetoric]
Countering "A later Cultivate" as OP said, is likely incorrect, but I do not know when "later" is. From the sounds of it, "later" is when Valakut already has five lands in play because his opponent untapped and just cast Titan anyway.
Again, let us not assume one another to be dullards here.
What is so dramatically incorrect about this statement?
Edit: Oh, hey, Modern is a format.
You counter ramp spells and DON'T counter Primeval Titan?
You can't just remove Primeval Titan against Valakut. I don't care if it's instant speed.
Valakut has such a high land density, it will guaranteed cast a Primeval Titan by turn 6 even if you counter every ramp spell. If the Primeval Titan tables, it gets:
TWO VALAKUTS.
For the rest of the game, they need to resolve one cultivate, one khalni heart expedition, or one harrow to deal you 12 points of damage. They win.
Always counter Primeval Titan, or scoop.
I played thirty games to turn four against a non existing other deck, it was just me dropping lands and casting spells for four turns. I does not take that long to do 30 games to turn four. I must admit that MWS does not shuffle well, but I threw out bad starting hands and games that I did not draw lands at all. Maybe getting only 19 games was just really bad luck on my part, but it did happen to me and I didn't have the greatest time with the mana base. The amount of times that I had the fourth land come into play tapped was great enough anyways so that a turn four Koth/Jace was still difficult to pull off.
You never play against valakut do you? If you save counters for titan A. they summoning trap B. they already have so many lands that your mana leak is probably irrelevant C. they already have so many lands that if they have valakut out its probably already online, and if they dont all they need to do is drop valakut and laugh at you for holding counters.
Your matchup against valakut isnt good obviously but if you counter ramp and table an early jace it forces them to either deal with jace or lose to it. It makes it so you can seal them out of the game oh right and it makes it so that titan comes out 2 turns later, so they arent just a million turns ahead of you.
Besides, unless you plan to win with Jace Beleren, you counter their Primeval Titan on their fourth turn, when you are on 3 lands, and then you take your turn 4 and play a Jace anyways. Goyf, you are categorically wrong. Maybe you're just young, but if you're planning to hold two doom blades in every opening hand so you can counter Cultivate and let Primeval Titan table, you're so far out of this game already, it's a joke.
Honestly, I'm wondering if this was ever a serious post at all. Seems like a troll to me, and if so, a darn good one.
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Whether or not you think we're all idiotic, retarded monkeys, throwing around a pouty attitude and acting offended doesn't prove your correctness.
At this point, I'm doubting as to whether you've ever played against Valakut, and no, I don't count testing-it-in-your-mind as real testing.
Let me get this straight: Your plan is to do nothing against a ramp deck, let it ramp, and then hope they're dumb enough to cast Primeval Titan without being able to pay for Mana Leak and without having a Summoning Trap in their hand. Seems solid.
Using the decklist that you, yourself, proposed to the OP as an improved list, I decided to go hang out on MWS for a little while with the game title, "Looking to test new archetype against Valakut. SBs please."
For others' ease of reference, I'll copy+paste the decklist now.
2x Sea Gate Oracle
3x Abyssal Persecutor
2x Grave Titan
1x Inferno Titan
Planeswalkers:
4x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
2x Sarkhan the Mad
Spells:
4x Spell Pierce
2x Mana Leak
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
3x Doom Blade
1x Consuming Vapors
3x Lightning Bolt
4x Preordain
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Creeping Tar Pit
4x Drowned Catacombs
4x Dragonskull Summit
2x Darkslick Shores
1x Evolving Wilds
2x Mountain
1x Swamp
3x Island
2 Duress
4 Spreading Seas
2 Consuming Vapors
1 Comet Storm
3 Memoricide
3 Pyroclasm
---
Round X, Game 1:
I was on the play. I kept a hand with Preordain, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce, and some lands. Keepable. On turn two, I Pierced his Spell. On my third turn I cast Preordain. He cast a Cultivte and I Leaked it. On turn four, I went for the throat with an Abyssal Persecutor. He played another land and passed. I only had IOK at this point for real gas, but didn't bother casting it, as he obviously didn't have anything 3cmc or lower he could cast. Swing in for six. Next turn I played SGO into SGO which dug me into either Jace or Preordain. I don't remember which, and it really doesn't matter. By the time my opponent was at zero, he had an active Titan, but couldn't even attack me profitably with it, because he would just lose the game. My life total wasn't 20, sure, but he was locked out. It only took a turn from there to draw Jace or Consume or the second Bolt or Sarkhan or whatever I used to sacrifice the Persecutor.
Game one is the only tough part about this match-up, but even then you get some hands that play out as well as the one above.
Round X, Game 2:
I bring in 2 Duress, 2 Consuming Vapors, 4 Spreading Seas, 3 Memoricide, and take out 3 Lightning Bolt, 2 Sarkhan, and 3 Doom Blade, 2 Sea Gate Oracle, and 1 Persecutor.
I make him discard his only two-mana ramp spell, and follow that up with Preordain and with Spell Pierce open for his three-mana option. Countered. On my fourth turn I brainstorm with Jace, then do it again on turn five. I pass. He plays a Titan and I attempt a Mana Leak. I knew he had the Trap form the earlier discard spell, but am forced to pull the trigger anyway. He obviously traps into another Titan, and gets two Valakut. I Consume his Meek Titan, gain six, and start using a combination of Brainstorms and +2s (targeting me) to fix my draws and slowly inch Jace up to ultimate status. Eventually I just draw an Inferno Titan and kill him. (I forgot to mention there was a Spreading Seas in there somewhere on his Valakut)
---
Basically every sideboarded match went similar to this, with results varying somewhat based on how I chose to sideboard. A combination of discard + counters on Ramp's early spells followed up by Jace, Memoricide, a Consumed Titan, or my own big fatty equaled a game win almost every single time. My first sideboarded game loss came to a triple Summoning Trap draw.
The point of a control deck is to disallow the opponent's deck from operating on its own terms, from doing what it wants, from getting to its end game. Allowing a ramp deck to ramp --doing nothing-- unsurprisingly does nothing to prevent them from achieving their goals. You have to disrupt them.
Overall, I'm not impressed with the Red spells in this deck. UB alone has the tools to fight basically everything, and Red doesn't really add much. Cutting Red lets you play Tectonic Edge, too, which is not something to really be shrugged off.
Edit: Oh, hey, Modern is a format.
3x Sea Gate Oracle
2x Grave Titan
1x Hellkite Charger
1x Steel Hellkite
Planeswalkers:
3x Jace, The Mind Sculptor
3x Sarkhan the Mad
1x Lilliana Vess
Spells:
3x Spell Pierce
4x Mana Leak
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Doom Blade
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Preordain
2x Spreading Seas
4x Scalding Tarn
4x Creeping Tar Pit
3x Darkslick Shores
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Mountain
1x Swamp
3x Island
2 Duress
2 Spreading Seas
3 Flashfreeze
1 Doom Blade
2 Arc Trail
3 Memoricide
2 Pyroclasm
Regardless of Koth or not, it's not that hard to splash red for bolt, and that alone makes it worthwhile.
Before I get into the Valakut match-up, I must say that Koth is probably one of the worst cards for this deck; Pyroclasm would make the aggro match-ups better too.
All you have to do is make sure they don't ramp into dealing 3 damage to you with each land that resolves.
I'm not sure about the Titan resolving, IMO, it usually fetches out there Valakuts. In this deck, where Leyline of Sanctity is not present, I think countering the titan is probably the best choice, I've seen someone get an Overgrown Battlement off of 2 Summoning Traps in a row.
The Titan is just one-of-many cards in Valakut that need to get countered, but then again it depends on the turn; I can't let a T4 Titan resolve.
Sadistic Sacrament may be the best option here. Memoricide is really the best thing to keep them off their Titans, but even then, Spreading Seas is MVP of the day. You need the 4split MD/SB.
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Rethink!
Drop the mountain infatuation, and run all the duals (4 catacombs, 4 summits) and you have so many black lands you can run persecutor with ease because every land taps for black.
@Goyfme, True_Insult;
Slowing down Valakut by countering ramp is the only way to win. Letting them get to turn 6 when you're out of answers is a misplay. He lasts categorically longer versus 1 missed Cultivate than he does missing the Primeval Titan in that specific game. Stop quoting me as a ramp-allowing radical that doesn't understand the basics.
you counter all the ramp you can. using your last counter on ramp before turn 6 isnt a misplay, its the correct play, and if youre being quoted as a ramp allowing radical that doesnt understand the basics its probably because you are and you dont, as youre being quoted... its things youve said. You literally cannot stop them from getting to turn 6 because your deck cant win before turn 6. You can however be at turn 6 at the same time as them by countering their ramp and causing theyre deck to run out of gas. Dont hold counters for titans, just play the counters out on their cultivate