Greetings mtgs nation. So I have recently committed to building and playing an old favorite NO RUG, purely for my love of the deck. For those unfamiliar with it the deck does not run wasteland, although I suppose it could support a couple if absolutely necessary but I feel they would conflict with the decks strategy at times. Instead it utilizes GSZ and mana dudes for accel and acts as a mid range aggro deck that can also use natural order for progenitus.
Anyway I have found punishing fire very difficult to win through once online, although not impossible. This is new to me since I've never played a deck that really cared about PF combo like this deck does. Therefore I am looking for ideas that I may have missed for dealing with the combo, preferably main deck but also any side board ideas and hopefully some really out of the box thinking.
Currently all I have is scavenging ooze/deathrite main and surgical extraction side but neither are completely satisfying. Any ideas?
I'm using surgicals and ooze which is probably as good as it gets, was just hoping my searches might have missed something obscure and nasty.. kinda like compost vs black.
You should be running 2-3 wastelands. Dont use them for mana denial (unless your opponent kept one of those 1land+DRS hands. Just save them for utility lands like Grove of the Burn-willows. Also great for academy ruins, creeping tarpit, etc.
Surgicals can work pretty well and is probably the best bet in your colors.
Another less likely option is to have 5 land out. Play a 1 drop, or crack a fetch for dryad arbor and without passing priorety, use the creature to the pay the cost of natural order. Your opponent will never have a chance to use a pfire on your creature.
RUG isn't the greatest color combo to beat PFire. Typically you want either grave hate or something that gives pro-red, like Absolute Law or Mother of Runes. And Counterbalance isn't really an option, since the Punishing Grove decks usually also have Abrupt Decay.
Honestly, some sort of land destruction is probably your best best. Second-best bet would be GY hate.
If you need to go deeper, there are several red cards that turn off life gain, thus eliminating the possibility of PFire recursion. Sulfuric Vortex, Leyline of Punishment, etc. You could try some of those in the sideboard. Another option would be to run Syncopate as it would exile the PFire.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Thank you for the advice, I dont have an issue resolving NO when it's in hand and I have 4 mana but outside of that PF takes the deck over (Mav or jund). Right play can eak out wins in the face of it but it's difficult.
I may actually fit in 2 wastes after all. I'm avoiding it atm because the deck is pretty tight and wants it's land drops and double colors but PF has proven problematic enough to consider main deck answers. Clique has been the most reliable preemptive answer but the combo has proven unusually annoying. Maybe just because I'm more accustomed to tempo and combo strategies idk.
Whoa I missed both those posts.. and vortex and defiance are both great suggestions!
Vortex is stops recursion and it's me up by 2 although vulnerable to decay but still.
Defiance is similarly vulnerable but very intriguing since it puts my creatures out of burn range and let's forked bolt = double giant growth haha! At least a 1 of for testing.
Surgical Extraction has many uses, both against quick and utterly unfair combo decks and against durdly grindfest decks that use Punishing Fire and stuff like Life from the Loam.
When I play white mana, I prefer to have Rest In Peace and Wasteland available, but that's as a Dnt pilot. Were I piloting anything else, Surgical Extraction would get the nod as my graveyard hate (if my deck needed it). Assuming I wasn't Dredging. When I'm Dredging, I need my Leylines.
I forgot about Sulferic Vortex, that is a great SB card in traditional candian thresh, its not as great in NO RUG since your deck is less tempo oriented, but shutting off pfire and closing out games against UWx decks is still a great justification for its inclusion as a 1-2 of.
Surgical Extraction is about the only other thing you can respond with that they can't see coming (like Relic, Crypt, etc), but it is card disadvantage, which isn't a huge deal if you can't ever beat Punishing Fire, but it's still a "con".
I'd maybe add 1-2 deathrite shaman into the 75 and 1-2 scavenging ooze.
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Standard:
Bident Layers B Devotion RG Devotion UW Control Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod Legacy: DeathBlade RUG Delver BUG Control
It's good to note that effects like Surgical Extraction, Extirpate (split second doesn't stop mana abilities ala Grove, nor triggered abilities ala Punishing Fire), Relic, and other one use gravehate effects can be played around if they really want to keep their Punishing Fires around.
Static effects like RIP, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and Leyline as well as effects that can be used multiple times in a row like Scavenging Ooze are the best way to take out Punishing Fire because they can't just respond to the effect to save them. Or, if you are playing a Wasteland deck you can just target the source of recursion.
Of course there is always just the option of having guys that dodge Punishing Fire altogether.
And??? Decks that play punishing fire usually have plenty of needleable targets that function to lock you out w/ punishing fire to are used to beat you (liliana otv, KotR, equip, etc.). The point being - wihle [obv.] anti-GY strategies directly stop the punishing fire combo - needle shuts down a significant chunk of the rest of what makes those decks tick.
I mean heck, any targeted/instant speed removal doesn't technically stop PF recursion either, yet these still are viable options if you expand your scope beyond "what beats this card without knowing about the format/stack manipulation."
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Maverick -- Storm Click here for trade thread
Trade thread under reconstruction. Because you can't spell slaughter without laughter.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. I think my best options main are ooze and DRS main, maybe wasteland. Side is surgicals. I'm currently on all those but I'll test the two rogue suggestions and maybe even try to squeeze a couple wastes since I can always sandbag em with cantrips if not necessary.
It's true you can't respond to tapping grove but you can respond to the PF trigger.
It's good to note that effects like Surgical Extraction, Extirpate (split second doesn't stop mana abilities ala Grove, nor triggered abilities ala Punishing Fire), Relic, and other one use gravehate effects can be played around if they really want to keep their Punishing Fires around.
Static effects like RIP, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and Leyline as well as effects that can be used multiple times in a row like Scavenging Ooze are the best way to take out Punishing Fire because they can't just respond to the effect to save them. Or, if you are playing a Wasteland deck you can just target the source of recursion.
Of course there is always just the option of having guys that dodge Punishing Fire altogether.
It's true that a careful player will be able to avoid Surgical Extraction much of the time, it's equally true that the extractor can often apply enough pressure to the manabase to expose it.
Much of Surgical's value comes from the Gottcha! factor.
As noted, the trigger that would return PF to the player's hand is often an auspicious moment to Extract it.
You should be running 2-3 wastelands. Dont use them for mana denial (unless your opponent kept one of those 1land+DRS hands. Just save them for utility lands like Grove of the Burn-willows. Also great for academy ruins, creeping tarpit, etc.
Surgicals can work pretty well and is probably the best bet in your colors.
Another less likely option is to have 5 land out. Play a 1 drop, or crack a fetch for dryad arbor and without passing priorety, use the creature to the pay the cost of natural order. Your opponent will never have a chance to use a pfire on your creature.
I thought that they'd get a chance to respond after landing a creature or cracking a fetch for a land? How come priority is not passed?
Surgical Extraction has many uses, both against quick and utterly unfair combo decks and against durdly grindfest decks that use Punishing Fire and stuff like Life from the Loam.
When I play white mana, I prefer to have Rest In Peace and Wasteland available, but that's as a Dnt pilot. Were I piloting anything else, Surgical Extraction would get the nod as my graveyard hate (if my deck needed it). Assuming I wasn't Dredging. When I'm Dredging, I need my Leylines.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
They can respond to the activated ability of the fetch, if not it resolves and active player gets priority casting NO which sacking the arbor is a cost of. Interacting on the stack to remove the creature isn't ever really an issue, it's having one available with 4 mana with NO in hand. I'm actually thinking of testing 1 mongoose since its not easy to remove, GSZ finds it for 2 and occasionally it might be good as a beater.
They can respond to the activated ability of the fetch, if not it resolves and active player gets priority casting NO which sacking the arbor is a cost of. Interacting on the stack to remove the creature isn't ever really an issue, it's having one available with 4 mana with NO in hand. I'm actually thinking of testing 1 mongoose since its not easy to remove, GSZ finds it for 2 and occasionally it might be good as a beater.
they can respond to it but their spell resolves before yours thus they are unable to kill dryad arbor.And sacrificing something to NO is part of it's cost so they CAN NOT kill it after you played NO(before resolving it).
Leyline of the void.
Doesn't Void mess up your own deck (the Dredge player)?
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
Anyway I have found punishing fire very difficult to win through once online, although not impossible. This is new to me since I've never played a deck that really cared about PF combo like this deck does. Therefore I am looking for ideas that I may have missed for dealing with the combo, preferably main deck but also any side board ideas and hopefully some really out of the box thinking.
Currently all I have is scavenging ooze/deathrite main and surgical extraction side but neither are completely satisfying. Any ideas?
I would push lords if you need them too. Maybe Boartusk Liege?
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
I am not sure what else I can offer. There is always the idea of equipment that make your stuff unable to be targeted.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
Legacy
Control
Miracles
All flavors of Stoneblade
Aggro
Grixis Delver
UR Delver
Burn
Combo
Dredge
TES/ANT
UR & UB Reanimator
Belcher
Surgicals can work pretty well and is probably the best bet in your colors.
Another less likely option is to have 5 land out. Play a 1 drop, or crack a fetch for dryad arbor and without passing priorety, use the creature to the pay the cost of natural order. Your opponent will never have a chance to use a pfire on your creature.
Honestly, some sort of land destruction is probably your best best. Second-best bet would be GY hate.
If you need to go deeper, there are several red cards that turn off life gain, thus eliminating the possibility of PFire recursion. Sulfuric Vortex, Leyline of Punishment, etc. You could try some of those in the sideboard. Another option would be to run Syncopate as it would exile the PFire.
legacy: Doomsday, Dredge, BUG (shard less and still)
modern: storm, woo dredge, U-tron
EDH: maelstrom wanderer, Gisela, krenko, lazav, sharrum, sheoldred/xiahou dun, norin the wary, Thrax, Mimeoplasm, GW legends
I may actually fit in 2 wastes after all. I'm avoiding it atm because the deck is pretty tight and wants it's land drops and double colors but PF has proven problematic enough to consider main deck answers. Clique has been the most reliable preemptive answer but the combo has proven unusually annoying. Maybe just because I'm more accustomed to tempo and combo strategies idk.
Vortex is stops recursion and it's me up by 2 although vulnerable to decay but still.
Defiance is similarly vulnerable but very intriguing since it puts my creatures out of burn range and let's forked bolt = double giant growth haha! At least a 1 of for testing.
When I play white mana, I prefer to have Rest In Peace and Wasteland available, but that's as a Dnt pilot. Were I piloting anything else, Surgical Extraction would get the nod as my graveyard hate (if my deck needed it). Assuming I wasn't Dredging. When I'm Dredging, I need my Leylines.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
Maverick -- Storm
Click here for trade threadTrade thread under reconstruction.
Because you can't spell slaughter without laughter.
Surgical Extraction is about the only other thing you can respond with that they can't see coming (like Relic, Crypt, etc), but it is card disadvantage, which isn't a huge deal if you can't ever beat Punishing Fire, but it's still a "con".
I'd maybe add 1-2 deathrite shaman into the 75 and 1-2 scavenging ooze.
Bident Layers
B Devotion
RG Devotion
UW Control
Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod
Legacy:
DeathBlade
RUG Delver
BUG Control
Needle doesn't stop Punishing Fire or Grove of the Burnwillows, Fire has a triggered ability and Grove is a mana ability.
Bident Layers
B Devotion
RG Devotion
UW Control
Modern:
Jund
UW Control
Combo Pod
Legacy:
DeathBlade
RUG Delver
BUG Control
Static effects like RIP, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and Leyline as well as effects that can be used multiple times in a row like Scavenging Ooze are the best way to take out Punishing Fire because they can't just respond to the effect to save them. Or, if you are playing a Wasteland deck you can just target the source of recursion.
Of course there is always just the option of having guys that dodge Punishing Fire altogether.
Horde of Notions | Azami, Lady of Scrolls | Mirri the Cursed | Kaalia of the Vast | Ghave, Guru of Spores | Nin, the Pain Artist | Damia, Sage of Stone | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician | Vela the Night-Clad | Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain | Nahiri, the Lithomancer | Princess Twilight Sparkle
And??? Decks that play punishing fire usually have plenty of needleable targets that function to lock you out w/ punishing fire to are used to beat you (liliana otv, KotR, equip, etc.). The point being - wihle [obv.] anti-GY strategies directly stop the punishing fire combo - needle shuts down a significant chunk of the rest of what makes those decks tick.
I mean heck, any targeted/instant speed removal doesn't technically stop PF recursion either, yet these still are viable options if you expand your scope beyond "what beats this card without knowing about the format/stack manipulation."
Maverick -- Storm
Click here for trade threadTrade thread under reconstruction.
Because you can't spell slaughter without laughter.
It's true you can't respond to tapping grove but you can respond to the PF trigger.
It's true that a careful player will be able to avoid Surgical Extraction much of the time, it's equally true that the extractor can often apply enough pressure to the manabase to expose it.
Much of Surgical's value comes from the Gottcha! factor.
As noted, the trigger that would return PF to the player's hand is often an auspicious moment to Extract it.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
I thought that they'd get a chance to respond after landing a creature or cracking a fetch for a land? How come priority is not passed?
Which Leyline? Sanctity?
Oh, ok.
Doesn't Void mess up your own deck (the Dredge player)?