Brightling itself is really not a big deal for us at all. Serra Avenger is still the most scary of their options for the "straight beater" slot because of the flying. It's not really all that different than batterskull to us, and that is the worst of the 3 options they have to fetch up when a stoneforge resolves. Like, the main reason I'm scared when a DnT player fetches batterskull is not the batterskull itself, but the implication that they already have the sofai and jitte (but especially sofai, since there are some reasons to fetch batterskull second over jitte).
Mistcaller is a trap card. It's too low impact for a sideboard card, particularly when compared directly with Grafdigger's Cage. It also doesn't solve any of the issues the deck faces.
* It's effective against Reanimator, but that matchup is already excellent, probably even too excellent.
* It's bad against Sneak&Show. If they're casting Show into it, they're jamming omniscience and you're still dead. If they're activating sneak, they can just activate sneak against in response to the sac.
* It's bad against DnT. Sac to stuff a single vial activation is not a good trade, generally.
* It doesn't do enough against Elves. Yeah, it counters an NO or a GSZ, but that doesn't go that far. They'll gladly trade a non-committal GSZ for it to set up murdering you with an NO, and it doesn't help at all with getting buried by symbiote+visionary.
Overall, the best secondary one-drop is still Tidal Warrior, as that ability can actually turn the problematic nonblue matchups around in a big way. Even against the blue decks where it's not so good, it still has utility denying certain colors (like R for pyroblast) and can colorfix us in a pinch.
Just play a balanced stock list while you wait for the meta to settle. It's pretty much business as usual for a meta deck like ours. Observe, then adapt.
Yes, you absolutely should side it in, naming sneak attack. Shutting off half of their "A" in the A+B combo makes things very much harder. It's generally not worth naming griselbrand, using that ability is often a death sentence for the opponent because of how aggressive we are.
I think vial and copter are still too good to cut even with fewer creatures. However, I am still concerned the low creature count is hurting our aggression and also making sideboarding more difficult. It's something to keep an eye on, at least.
Vial's not worth returning with Ruins ever, but our other high-impact artifacts like Chalice are real options. The fundamental issue is that you're still spending 3 extra mana and a draw step on that artifact, but there's definitely times that is totally worth it. I still tend to think that our other utility land options are better but there's always value in trying any card out and seeing how it actually performs in practice.
I've slowly been working on this. It's still quite incomplete, but it should still be more useful than the utterly outdated old primers.
lazygenius22: Your mana is very fragile. With only 9 basic islands, you now have to care about wasteland and especially blood moon.. as well as *your own* back to basics. I personally consider 11 the bare minimum. Oboro is really cool in modern, but in legacy it's too much of a liability.
Against Elves you also want Cage to stuff GSZ and NO. Phantasmal Images get popped way too easily when they're not TNNs so side them out. I have won a couple of times by copying a craterhoof(muahahaha), but that is not exactly what you would call a reasonable game plan.
Bring in Venser against Lands if you have him. You want all the ways to bounce marit lage you can get your hands on.
Against Delver you also want Jitte and Echoing Truth. Jitte can be a little slow but it's still really good.
Don't bring in needle against UW control. There's nothing in UW control we really need to needle so badly that it's worth the risk of it getting stuffed by our own chalices (Jace is not really an issue unless you're already very losing). Bring in dismember for mentor, you can't let them untap with that if you can so help it. Jitte is also good for making every dude into a major threat and thus not have to overcommit to the board.
Do bring in needle against Reanimator (always name griselbrand). Flusterstorm is also good.
D&T is rough. Dismember is the best card in the matchup and Truth is really good too. 99% of the time, name sword of fire and ice with needle. It's tempting to name Mom or Jitte or whatever else is on board, but that's usually actually wrong. Null rod used to be great since it took out all their equipment and vial at the same time, but nowadays with no tops floating around it's not as good.
Bring in back to basics against Eldrazi. It's a little slow for handling the initial onslaught, but it still does a lot of good work by hampering their follow-ups. Eldrazi players tend to take it with TKS over pretty much anything else, so it can help kind of protect your actually more critical TNN or phantasmal image.
The problem with Crypt is that you still need to actually get to a main phase in order to deploy it. Might as well deploy the card with more raw power instead. For turn0 the best option is Surgical.
In addition, the need to babysit relic with 1 open mana is an issue. BR reanimator forces gravehate nowadays to be active ASAP. We're in a world where the giant sledgehammer that is RIP is too slow.
Mistcaller is a trap card. It's too low impact for a sideboard card, particularly when compared directly with Grafdigger's Cage. It also doesn't solve any of the issues the deck faces.
* It's effective against Reanimator, but that matchup is already excellent, probably even too excellent.
* It's bad against Sneak&Show. If they're casting Show into it, they're jamming omniscience and you're still dead. If they're activating sneak, they can just activate sneak against in response to the sac.
* It's bad against DnT. Sac to stuff a single vial activation is not a good trade, generally.
* It doesn't do enough against Elves. Yeah, it counters an NO or a GSZ, but that doesn't go that far. They'll gladly trade a non-committal GSZ for it to set up murdering you with an NO, and it doesn't help at all with getting buried by symbiote+visionary.
Overall, the best secondary one-drop is still Tidal Warrior, as that ability can actually turn the problematic nonblue matchups around in a big way. Even against the blue decks where it's not so good, it still has utility denying certain colors (like R for pyroblast) and can colorfix us in a pinch.
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Copter is sooooo good. Winning the matchup lottery doesn't hurt either.
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
I'm liking the 2x Chart. 4x was too many and was clogging my early game with too much durdle.
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
lazygenius22: Your mana is very fragile. With only 9 basic islands, you now have to care about wasteland and especially blood moon.. as well as *your own* back to basics. I personally consider 11 the bare minimum. Oboro is really cool in modern, but in legacy it's too much of a liability.
Twitch channel
Bring in Venser against Lands if you have him. You want all the ways to bounce marit lage you can get your hands on.
Against Delver you also want Jitte and Echoing Truth. Jitte can be a little slow but it's still really good.
Don't bring in needle against UW control. There's nothing in UW control we really need to needle so badly that it's worth the risk of it getting stuffed by our own chalices (Jace is not really an issue unless you're already very losing). Bring in dismember for mentor, you can't let them untap with that if you can so help it. Jitte is also good for making every dude into a major threat and thus not have to overcommit to the board.
Do bring in needle against Reanimator (always name griselbrand). Flusterstorm is also good.
D&T is rough. Dismember is the best card in the matchup and Truth is really good too. 99% of the time, name sword of fire and ice with needle. It's tempting to name Mom or Jitte or whatever else is on board, but that's usually actually wrong. Null rod used to be great since it took out all their equipment and vial at the same time, but nowadays with no tops floating around it's not as good.
Bring in back to basics against Eldrazi. It's a little slow for handling the initial onslaught, but it still does a lot of good work by hampering their follow-ups. Eldrazi players tend to take it with TKS over pretty much anything else, so it can help kind of protect your actually more critical TNN or phantasmal image.
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Twitch channel
Twitch channel