MTG Salvation

I've been running into a lot of issues with Strip Mine. What's good against that, Stifle / Trickbind / Disallow ?

There's always Teferi's Response hahahaha

If you're running Stifle, Trickbind and Disallow you may as well make room for Parallax Tide too. I don't think they deserve the slots though. Is Strip Mine really an issue? The deck has such a low curve...

The only real way to deal with it is waiting for the reasonable banlist.

Had my ass served yesterday while playing paper french duel commander versus Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Aluren variant. The deck is a pain especially if they have Windfall effects on T3-T4 with Leovold out. Leovold on T2 helped by a dork or a Deathrite Shaman can shut down cantrips as well. sigh..

Our deck is heavily reliant on playing High Tide to win consistently. Without HT, we're left cantripping / tutoring with less mana to interact with our opponent which is a cause for concern. I'm thinking of adding more bounce spells with Windfall-like cards to fight through early aggro and dig for HT / Extraplanar Lens.

Thoughts?

Leovold matchup is about saving a critical mass of counters until you can safely bounce Leo at EOT with counter backup and then combo. Currently I run 6 bounce spells: Snap, Into the Roil, Cryptic, Unsubstantiate, Mystic Confluence, Cyclonic Rift. They're probably not enough if you're seeing alot of Leovold because he disables our cantrips like you said so your chances of seeing any of those six bounce spells becomes much lower. In that case I would run 2 more bounce/removal spells. Some noteworthy bounce/removal spells are Commit // Memory, Repulse, Submerge, Engulf the Shore, Mind Harness, Psionic Blast, Vapor Snag.
I think in general if they play Leo on turn 2 on the play you should just play Jace anyway and pray they don't have Aluren or Timetwister. The odds of them having that straight after a turn 2 Leo are low, plus they're tapped out and won't get another chance to resolve him until it's too late. From there you stall and cycle dead cantrips with Jace until turn 5 or 6, which is when you should try and High Tide combo or Reweave into Ugin.

Played paper commander tournament yesterday in a mini tournament and took out Griselbrand and Jori En, Ruin Diver, unscathed. Draw with Geist to split the pot. I'm still using the turns build atm. I've been tinkering a lot with bounce + windfall build but it seems unlikely that I will be switching to it anytime soon since Geist is prevalent.

Played in a tournament today and placed third. Recap below:

5 rounds of swiss: 4-1
2-0,W: Horde of notions
0-2,L: Zurgo
2-0,W: Titania
2-0,W: Wanderer
2-1,W: Geist

Cut to top8:
2-1,W: Jace
1-2,L: Titania

- played with Emrakul v1. won a couple of games from the annihilator trigger. will.never.look.back.
- double high tide with peregrine drake and capsize is love.lol
- auto loss to zurgo. the deck is absurd in taking out jace and hosing life totals

Hi,
So you use Emrakul v1. Can you share your list?.

Quote from cnoriega79 »

Hi,
So you use Emrakul v1. Can you share your list?.

Hi cnoriega79, here's my decklist.

Very interesting list. No counters at all and lot of extra turns.

How well performs it in your meta?

Quote from cnoriega79 »

Very interesting list. No counters at all and lot of extra turns.

How well performs it in your meta?

The list is quite good in a control / midrange meta where Titania, Baral and variations of partner decks are prevalent. Not good vs Zurgo. The aim is to stall via Exchaustion, Gigadrowse, creatures, bounce spells until we can cast extra turns and tutor for High Tide and co. to combo off.

Tournament Report: 20hp Duel Commander

5 rounds, cut to top 8:

R1: vs Sliver Hivelord (planeswalker control version): 2-0 Win
G1: 3-4 walkers on board. Jace did not see action due to too many spot removals. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver almost ulti'd. Bounce spells helped a little in keeping the game within reach. Exhaustion to High Tide next turn casting Emrakul, the Promised End sealed it
G2: unli mana to unli Capsize

R2: vs Geist of Saint Traft: 2-0 Win
G1: Jace on T2 answered by Geist on T3 (on the play). Path to Exile on Jace next turn met Reality Shift as a response. I got a 2/2 manifest off of my library holding Geist for several turns. Won via As Foretold with 5 counters to extra turns eventually playing 5 storm counts off of Temporal Fissure
G2: Thing in the Ice held the line for an eventual Emrakul, the Promised End!

R3: vs Thrasios, Triton Hero / Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa: 1-1-1 Draw
G1: Death via unblockable swarm from Sidar
G2: Win via 8 storm count off of Mind's Desire getting Temporal Fissure along with some spells
G3: Last 5 turns with Hokori, Dust Drinker and Glen Elendra Archmage in play. Opponent attacked with all creatures. Flashed Vendilion Clique blocking Hokori!! Down to 10 life staring at creatures with 7 total power. Opponent got 1 unknown card in hand + a draw step on his next turn. Untaps mana for extra turns without drawing any relevant spell. Into the Roil targeting Glen Elendra Archmage got countered. Persist trigger on stack casting Capsize targeting Devoted Druid and passed the turn. Opponent drew Eladamri's Call to supposedly tutor Vizier of Remedies to end the game! Good thing Devoted Druid got Capsized for the draw! In hindsight, I have Jace flipped and Treachery on board with High Tide and Capsize in hand before Hokori but with Glen Elendra on the play. 2x High Tide and Capsize with Treachery for 5 mana is unli mana to unli Capsize. Didn't happen, Glen Elendra is a *****. Good times..

R4: vs Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: 2-0 Win
G1: Bitterblossom and Contamination soft lock in play. I got As Foretold on 5 counters playing cantrips and Exhaustion to avoid lethal. Opponent forgot to sacrifice a creature to Contamination! High Tide to Crush of Tentacles' 8/8 token + extra turns sealed the deal
G2: 10 storm count on Mind's Desire

R5: vs Geist of Saint Traft: Intentional Draw for Top 8

Cut to Top 8:

Quarterfinals vs Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kraum, Ludevic's Opus: 2-0 Win
R1: Opponent played Thrasios. Extraplanar Lens on my turn is good! Mana and card advantage for the win
R2: Opponent taps out to cast a spell (forgot). 3rd turn Extraplanar Lens! Thing in the Ice's Awoken Horror with extra turns won the game

Semifinals vs Geist of Saint Traft: 1-2 Loss
R1: Mind's Desire 8+ storm count
R2: Lost to Gesit tempo
R3: Mulligan to 6 with 2 lands in hand and an Impulse. Impulse eot T2 got countered and Jace on T3 missing a land drop was killed. Only had 3 lands the entire game. Died quickly to Geist

Think tank:
- As Foretold is a beast!
- Added Ancestral Vision just prior to tournament start to interact well with As Foretold. Too slow! I either won or lost the game even before drawing 3 off of Ancestral Vision when drawn T2+. Hindsight might be different if I have drawn this with As Foretold in play getting 3 cards instantly without the need to suspend.
- Thing in the Ice is positioned well in 20hp. 4 toughness works like a charm in preserving life totals and a 7/8 horror that bounces all other creatures is no joke with extra turns.
- Myriad Landscape and Gemstone Caverns is a hit or miss often costing a turn. Will replace with basic lands
- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn was borrowed. Replaced it with Emrakul v2. V2 did pretty good in finishing games
- Too many Geist of Saint Trafts (around 5-ish). Hmmmm..

PS: I also attended an event using MTGO banlist last week. Was able to top8 but was unable to do a report. MTGO banlist event was clogged with blue commanders at the top including Jace and Barals. Not liking the meta at the moment. Will stay with 20hp events for now.

Hi superduper, thanks for the report! Were you playing the list you posted earlier?

I've been playing the deck a lot on mtgo, and though the lack of palinchron is a bit sad, it's quite strong (though lately it's been hard posting strong results due to the presence of Vial-Kraum and hard hate from green and red decks -boil, choke, carpet of flowers ). In paper, I switched to Baral for some time due to the strong presence of Zurgo and Geist in my local metagame, making it hard to succeed with Jace.
There is rumor of a Geist and Bruse ban with the next update (nothing confirmed). While we shouldnt benefit a lot by a Bruse ban (it was a pretty good MU in general), if Geist ends up going, I think Jace can be in a very good position.

After playing Baral for a time, I also think Jace will be the better mono U deck in this hypothetical metagame. I felt the baral polymorph deck was a bit over-estimated. It's very strong against slow decks and generates a lot of card advantage, it's also better than Jace against Geist and Baral, but it folds too easily to cavern of souls (especially coming from Geist or Narset), fast elfball or aggro starts or random hosers like a Sperpopard coming from titania or a green deck when you don't have time to set up a creature steal.
Moreover, the polymorph combo is more and more expected and easily disturbed, so you have to set it up with a lot of backup, making it the deck more of a hard control deck than a control-combo one.

What do you think of As Foretold in the deck after playing with it?

As Foretold worked well for me. It was a late inclusion in the deck thinking of clogging my 3cc slot curving with Jace on T2 especially when on the play. On 3 or less counters, it generates a lot of card advantage through draw spells and helps stabilize the board through bounce with open mana to spare to cast extra shenanigans. On 5 counters is where it truly shine, casting time warps off of it with mana on board presence. It also does wonders on a combo turn. I have played Jace from command zone on 2 counters from As Foretold + commander tax on succeeding deaths with ease as well. All in all, a good card to have. PS: 3+ counters on it is real since Reclamation Sage and co. is rare nowadays.

Edit: As Foretold might be sweeter with Windfall and Timetwister!

I think that it is important to note that I have benefited from other Jace players in my area with builds that include 10+ counter-spells where opponents are on tilt in casting high impact cards staring at 2 or more open islands from Jace. This is also true when they see untapped islands in general regardless of who the commander is.

Baral decks are not placing well in my meta. Not sure if this is due to pilots being relatively new or just bad matchups with Zurgo, Geist and partner decks (2 commanders = virtual card advantage). Decks now pack a lot of kill cards messing up with Baral and manlands especially when Polymorph is on stack.

I agree that not having Geist in DC is huge for Jace but not having Bruse will present another problem in the form of Zurgo.

I have used the list provided earlier but made some minor tweaks:

-1 Snow-Covered Island | +1 Myriad Landscape
-1 Curious Homunculus | +1 Thing in the Ice
-1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn | +1 Emrakul, the Promised End
-1 Compulsive Research | +1 As Foretold
-1 Engulf the Shore | +1 Reality Shift
-1 Glimmer of Genius | +1 Monastery Siege
-1 Long-Term Plans | +1 Dictate of Kruphix
-1 Opt | +1 Whir of Invention

If asked on changes I'll make if I'll play a tournament now:

- Myriad Landscape to an Island again. I happened to have Emrakul v2 in hand in a game where I can cast it if Myriad Landscape were an Island. Cracking it to fetch 2 basics needs planning too as we are always busy on our first 3-5 turns. Bad card in Jace
- Emrakul, the Promised End stays although V1 is still pretty good. It all comes down to who we can cast earlier as the meta is fast. Waiting for a turn usually means game.
- Now that I think of the list, I forgot to mention on my tournament report how good Dictate of Kruphix was. It drew me multiple cards on turns and generally a flash bait for Geist. When it stays, opponent drawing multiples does not matter since we can usually (soft) lock them out of the game via Exhaustion effects and warps. Them drawing dorks and creature kills off Dictate and us drawing 4-5cc spells that matter is a huge difference. Contemplating on Howling Mine too
- Reality Shift is also good atm killing threats and avoiding lethal. Blocks Geist too off of Jace / creatures (and a virtual card draw when we manifest a spell and bounce it later on). I play this in response to a Jace kill netting 1:1 and a token. Also kills Devoted Druid efficiently avoiding lethal from Vizier combo and co. Considering Pongify and Rapid Hybridization now. Hits all decks ie: Titania, Yisan, Devoted Druid, Bruse, Reyhan and a blocker for Zurgo and Geist* buying us critical time to setup something.
*(Note: cast Jace on T3 from a T3 Geist turn avoiding Daze in the process. Geist usually kills Jace with a spell and we respond with a 3/3 token!)
- I might add more 1-3cc instant card draw spells ie: Opt, Peek, Thirst for Knowledge, etc. together with Pogify and co. to better utilize As Foretold.

Thanks for your reply!

I'll get back to testing with a similar list.

I like cantrips a lot in this deck as it helps smooth out your draws when you're playing such a high curve. Peek and opt are really good, Thirst is always nice but hard to generate CA from.

I like thing in the ice a lot in your list, but never tested it. How does it perform?

Thing in the Ice helped a ton when it mattered most! Was able to utilize it well when drawn during the tournament ie: bounce all creatures from Kalitas' horde and killed Thrasios / Kraum via Awoken Horror + turns. Psy-war on go wide strategies and a blocker on GST and Zurgo giving us that extra 1-2 turn/s before lethal

I found some sweet toys that we can mess with, namely:
Sleep
Embargo
Dream Tides
Misstep

Might include Misstep. On the verge of including Sleep. Not sure with the other 2 atm. Thoughts?

Dream Tides is the best one, actually. You realize it holds green creatures forever, right? It also stops elfball and makes Geist pay 2 every turn which gives you an edge and helps the Exhaustion plan.

Quote from fsecco »

Dream Tides is the best one, actually. You realize it holds green creatures forever, right? It also stops elfball and makes Geist pay 2 every turn which gives you an edge and helps the Exhaustion plan.

Good point fsecco! Hoser for Titania and decks with dorks (I'm looking at you, Reyhan). Dream Tides it is!

Life could've been better had I known Drain Power before...

- powers extra turns earlier than usual + jace / shenanigans
- enables emrakul tpe faster
- helps ramp mana on combo turns with lots of cantrips

No, man. Drain Power is super duper bad

You're counting on your opponents leaving mana open in order for it to work. How do you supposedly make this happen against aggro?

good point! and there's those Thrasios and co. where they can just use the mana on abilities / instants. i'll playtest the card and see what happens.

So... Teferi PW now?

"Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy definitely has too many elements in its favor to remain eligible to the Command zone. In order to open the diversity of the format, Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy is now banned as a commander."

Pardon my ignorance, but since when did Jace dominate the 20hp meta? To me he's always been the outlier, with low metagame presence but high conversion rate to top 8. Unless the opposite has happened recently and he now has less top 8's but a greater metagame presence I don't understand how banning Jace improves diversity, since he was never much of an influencing factor in the format. Wouldn't giving Baral the axe be better for diversity?

Well... I feel we had this discussion before somewhere but if you have several different decks in a meta but none of them makes Top 8s, is it really diversity?

Diversity isn't having a bunch of decks present in tournaments: it's having a bunch of decks doing well in different tournaments.

Had a great run with Jace, VP. The nut draws to epic comebacks were real. I guess Teferi PW can replace Jace moving forward.

I agree that this ban is a bit absurd as it's hard to justify Jace was even a Tier 1 deck. At this point, I consider that any tier 1 or 2 deck is susceptible to a ban, while expecting a mana vault unban in a few month

To come back on the deck now JVP is banned I imagine 3 ways going forward:

A close swich with Teferi:
http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?ref=528166
Here's a first draft. Maybe the extra turns deserve to be included? I'm not so sure without Jace, though it can help ramping up to Teferi and gaining advantage once he's on the board

A more staxy teferi list, with artifacts and maybe the grindstone combo as well (I don't have a list yet)

Or staying high tide, maybe incorporating a splash, with partners, or maybe Oona?
http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?ref=491753

The deck is still live on MTGO though, and it's cool I've played a few leagues, going 5-0 once ( here's the list: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/commander-constructed-league-2017-07-14 ). If you can dodge extreme hate cards like choke, the deck is pretty good vs mono G, seems great vs sidisi combo though I've not tested a whole lot, and is not bad against Breya as they have few counterspells