As always, you are more articulate than I am. I don't think you've said a whole lot in however long I've been playing this deck that I truly disagree with.
As for the new spoilers, jace is sideboard playable, depending on the meta, where are the new X-augury is not playable. I will still test it, but as was mentioned, being unable to actually get our hands on the verdict when we need it blows. 4 color gifts (or esper gifts, or similar decks) will actually be able to make use of this.
Thorough examination of deck and matchups and whatnot
At first, I was like "where is Dismember?" But I never gave Runed Halo a ton of thought, and you explained your rationale quite well. It IS spot removal, just not the kind I'm used to.
@amalek0 That was a very well written post and I think it's helped me already to get a better feel for how I should be thinking about my build as well as how I should play. I already feel more prepared for the unknown FNM meta that I'll be facing soon.
Thanks
Also, I'm loving the new Jace, my first thought was, turn 4 verdict, turn 5 Jace and bounce their play, but this leaves Jace at 3 and within bolt range, may require decent testing to see whether it'l be a good fit. On paper its just pure CA.
Thorough examination of deck and matchups and whatnot
At first, I was like "where is Dismember?" But I never gave Runed Halo a ton of thought, and you explained your rationale quite well. It IS spot removal, just not the kind I'm used to.
Are the two "whatever" SB slots stuff like Kor Firewalker or more Leylines? Would "fixed" Vindicate warrant those slots?
...what do you mean by "Low to the ground?" As in, not-flying? As in grinding?
Do you stream or have a YouTube channel? I'd love to watch you play the deck.
Sadly, I don't have a youtube channel or a stream--I refuse to invest in MTGO because of the quality of the program and the cost of buying my cards twice, and furthermore the loss of face-to-face interaction. When I don't want to interact people, I just get back on the grind-to-diamond train in league of legends yolo queu. That being said, I have copiloted for people willing to grind MTGO and would be quite willing to do it upon request--I'm a grad student, so I have plenty of time outside of office hours/teaching/classes.
My "whatever" slots are for cards that are reasonable against whatever the metagame for the evening at my local shop seems to be, that are also reasonable against burn. This has ranged from "I really need burn hate" (pulse of the fields) to "dang, both BW tokens players are here AND the enchantment prison guy" (fracturing gust) to "dang... five or six storm/8 rack players in a room of 40" (extra leyline of sanctity mainboard, runed halo to the sideboard).
In general, when I refer to things as "low to the ground", I mean in terms of behaving like an agro deck--lots of cheap spells that can be cast quickly/early on in the game. When I say "efficient" I mean high velocity--casting lots of spells with our mana, maximizing its use. When I say "powerful" I generally mean strong card advantage--wraths, unbeatable bombs, giant sphinx's revelations. Against BGx, you pretty much want as much raw power as you can cram into your deck. Against burn and infect, you want to be very low to the ground because their individual power level is so low, and against midrange decks you want to be very efficient to avoid their gaining tons of minor incremental advantages all over the place.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
1. I use my life total as a resource. I will hold off on wrathing the board, even at 3 for 1 levels, just to buy myself more draw steps--Many players think of this as a "greedy noob control player" move, but the reality is that IF (and ONLY IF) you can take the next hit safely, holding off on the wrath is almost always correct because it delays their ability to re-assert pressure on the board by a turn; if they overextend, you win, if they hold back, you win on tempo. Note that deciding WHEN it is safe to do this is a major skill--it's not just "am I dead", but rather "am I dead if I go down this much based on the cards he has/could be representing/could draw?"
I like to think of myself as a very competent pilot of this deck, and part of that will be always learning new things. I use my life total as a resource absolutely, but I don't think I've looked at it in quite this way. I'm fairly certain I'm hit the wrath on 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 without thinking about the next wrath (if I don't have it in hand) and didn't even think about the exchange in this way. Now I definitely will, thank you for this nugget. This will definitely improve my play.
"He plays in a walk in humidor so keep his foils from bending. He once kept an all land hand just to know what it felt like to be mana flooded. He uses power nine for ante. He is the most interesting magic playing in the world." Old man, "I don't always tap basic lands for mana, but when i do, I tap Gurus."
As I wrote above. That's a totally different story.
I'm currently playing either 1 snap, 4 path, 1 condemn, or 4 path 2 snap, with no halos or other non-boardwipe removal mainboard.
You mentioned with the guide, that even if we counter everything, he can still deal us 12 damage. Ok. Great. Thats not 12 damage I care about. I hold onto boardwipes against burn, and he will eventually be dealt with. A single guide or swiftspear or whatever that isn't dealt with will almost never win the game by itself. You should nearly always be able to handle whatever burn has, unless they draw well and or you draw poorly, but even then you aren't completely out in the rain.
I wouldn't play jace anywhere but sideboard. He's good against control/slow decks, but otherwise, hes like ashiok, in that if we can wipe the board, and hold up a lot of removal/walls/whatever then hes strong, but we don't have bodies to put down.
Esper walkers could be a fine deck, with bitterblossom/lingering souls/etc to act as walls while we assemble the justice league, but I think thats basically just another deck.
2b. Runed Halo is flexible unlike condemn or go for the throat or other options--it can stop a creature, but it can also stop combo decks in their tracks. Name borborygmos whatever against grishoalcannon. Name lightning storm against Ad Nauseum. Name valakut, the molten pinnacle against scapeshift decks of all flavors (they have a hard time actually killing us with just titan beats). These are all matchups where the individual spot removal spells are more or less dead cards in the grand scheme of things. It's not as good RIGHT NOW in every matchup, but it's not dead in any matchups. Many people notice the "wrong half of deck" problem, and doing things like playing 6 or 7 spot removals + 2-3 wraths exacerbates that problem--creature decks don't have that problem, because dudes are threats so they're good all the time.
3. People depend waaay too much on sideboard bullets. I only see stony silence in maybe a third of my sideboarded games against affinity. I have like an 80% MATCH win percentage against that deck. The reason is that my overall STRATEGY is simply overwhelming for them. Too many decks try to jam some copies of stony silence to shore up a matchup that they're fundamentally weak to. For the most part, I try to avoid making that mistake with esper--I craft a sideboard built to shift my strategic positioning in matchups, not one built to answer opposing decks. People keep posting about "my metagame is <this>, it's very diverse, what should I play/change?" and without fail, it's a mix of fast agro, ramp, and linear combo. Very rarely do people come asking this question and post a local metagame that is TRULY diverse (containing combo-control, prison decks, and non bgx midrange in addition to the three categories above). The reality is, in the narrow metagame (in an archetype representation sense), you pretty much just need access to board wipes, an answer to the ramp deck inevitability or fast mana options, and generic disruption for the fast linear combo (note that countermagic is not often sufficient for this--grishoalcannon plays pact of negation for a reason!)
I also run 2 copies of Runed Halo. Condemn is played over the 2 extra copies of Spell Snare. I could only take so much abuse from those extra copies of Spell Snare; I have my dignity. -_-
Snare is about as close to a Thoughtseize as you can get without literally being a sorcery. With your opponent hellbent, a drawn Spell Snare in most non-Affinity matchups is likely dead. Yes, you can simply just hold onto it and keep moving (I wonder the probability of an opponent drawing an 8-of over the 6 or so turns it takes to win), but you can say that about any card in the deck, and it still constitutes the "deadest" midgame draw in the maindeck. I still think that the card was played in such high numbers because of Jund and Affinity in the 2014 metagame. The power in Modern is no longer all loaded in 2-drops. Dark Confidant became Siege Rhino, Infect came out of nowhere, and Snapcaster got benched.
And yet I've been able to handle him in a solid chunk of my burn matchups.
That turn 1 guide will not kill me before I kill it if nothing else deals me damage. While clearly, I will take atleast a couple hits, that guide is still a 7+ turn clock. I'm wrathing halfway through that at best. Sure, maybe I'm down at 7 life against burn, and tap out to verdict. Once that happens though, they are fairly unlikely to have a hand stock full of burn so they can just untap and blast me away. It can happen, but in those games, disfiguring the turn 1 guide is probably not saving you.
Now, I'm not saying its incorrect to not kill a guide if applicable, sometimes its the play you need to make, but running a smaller amount of a spot removal against burn doesn't equate to outright losing to a turn 1 play.
Seriously, if they only have one creature that's dealing you damage, it does not matter. You beat burn by running them out of cards, then doing something they can't beat. Its how most games are won. Its nothing new.
If a burn player has 6 damage in their hand, and you have 7 life, then none of their cards matter. If they have a hand of lands, none of their cards matter. If they have a handful of creatures, and you have three boardwipes, none of their cards matter.
If you cram a lot of spot removal into your deck, and sweat over every creature they drop, if the matchup feels difficult, vary your approach.
It's the little things like this that make the difference between a "good" control player and a really "great" control player. During RTR/THS standard (wohoo mono black devotion and UW control) I played in a GP and made day 2 but did really bad overall. I won the UW mirror match 9 times and lost on turn three to the red deck like four times before I dropped for a 7-2 day 1 record and a 2-2 day 2 record.
Perhaps at some point I'll get the chance to set up tabletop with a video camera and record a testing session in which I can talk through all of the steps and thought processes.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
You really have my interest, as I previously held the same opinions about T1 Guide/Swiftspear. I always wondered why you and a few others in the thread had "good" Burn matchups, and this may be why. Now I'm questioning my approach (always a good sign, means I might learn something), and it seems like amalek agrees with the don't-sweat-Burn's-creatures plan (I think, assuming the above comment was in rsp to yours).
Thinking back, there have been many times that I have Path'd a Guide T1/2 out of panic, only to ramp him straight into burning my face out a turn faster. I guess that you can tank a bunch of hits from a creature as long as they never resolve a Burn spell (or enough of them). Wrath on t6 with a Logic Knot/Snare/Remand/whatever to deal with the most impactful burn spell they have left before I stabilize sounds great. My main concern is them burning me in rsp to Think Twice or Esper Charm in mindrot mode.
Edit: I must be really bad at playing the Burn matchup... smh
Agreed on the new blue spells. Jace is gonna be awesome in standard, but WAY too slow for modern, I'll play narset before I run this one. The draw spell is sweet, but again only in standard. Personally I think it's only good when cast for X=4 so that's 5 mana and it doesn't gain life so it's fighting with revelation and the life gain is pretty important there. I know it's not an entirely fair comparison, but we're already heavy on expensive spells that I wouldn't want to add another. But if WE got the choice of which cards to add then it'd be worth considering.
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And on that day, Garfield said unto the world "Go ye forth and durdle!"
I'll be honest, I've been playing the deck for a good while here, and for one reason or another, I suspect I play incredibly similarly to how amalek0 explains it.
I think everyone is too worried with "But what about this 1 creature", be it goblin guide or anything else.
It doesn't matter. Goblin guide gives you lands for crying out loud.
I think it really boils down to how people perceive taking damage. I've had plenty of people say something along the lines of "Oh, already at 12 life? You've taken a lot." But the answer is that I probably haven't taken much at all. 12 is still more than half of what I started with. Yea, the goblin guide probably dealt a good amount of the 8 damage, but I have plenty of ways to deal with him. In the end, I'm eventually going to win a game by putting down a white sun's zenith, or just beating down with colonnades, or using whatever finisher I have, and every single one of those can beat goblin guide. Its not the guide that matters, its the other creatures + the burn that matters. We often times remember ourselves losing to goblin guide turn 1s simply because those tend to be the best hands from burn/zoo, where they have good turn 1/2 creatures and plenty of burn.
Maybe Burn was a bad example, but that deck's capacity to burn you out from 20 lowered drastically when they added Nacatl. Up to a threshold, it's hard to argue that adding an additional Condemn isn't strictly better than a Dispel in that matchup. Do you leave in Verdict? If your answer to the Goblin Guide is turn 4 Verdict then you're nuot going to win that game. A Dispel is a great sideboard card, but I'd go up to 8 spot removal spells before swapping them in the sideboard specifically for this matchup.
When Wafo built the original deck, Burn wasn't a Tier 1 (or 2) deck, and if Infect existed back in summer 2014, it wasn't huge. The Aggro deck was Affinity, and Spell Snares were better than anything else, there. Spot removal doesn't do much against that deck.
Curious if you have a specific card change you're supporting. Sometimes it seems like people go into platitudes without anything specific in mind. Is the point that you stack Negate/Dispel instead of Spot Removal in the board? Do you run smaller amounts of specific hate cards for particular matchups? Amalek actually had Celestial Purges in his list still; maybe that's a local metagame thing. If the difference between your sideboard and the next guy's is that you run 2 Timely Reinforcement over 2 Condemn, for example, the argument wouldn't have anything to do with worrying over creatures.
It is beyond me why they even add Nacatl at all. Makes the the worse against everything but the mirror. [
@ Cipher
Thanks for the tournament write up. It's very helpful to read real decisions made in real games rather than just learning based off of speculation.
In response to the comments from above discussing Pathing a turn 1 threat from whether it be Burn/swarm aggro etc., it matters what you have in your hand, and oftentimes, that turn 4 wrath isn't even possible. If we let them ping us with one dude in the hopes of: 1. Them overextending. 2. Us drawing a wrath. 3. Us assembling wrath mana. then we could've allowed 15 damage go through that didn't need to. Sure, you can still stabilize, but now your probably discarding to hand size. Sure, you can cast a huge Rev, but you have to draw it first. Most aggro opponents I play don't over extend, in which case a wrath becomes irrelevant. If opposition was dumb, then I would say to wait it out, but we don't know how smart they are until they've already lowered us from 20 - 5. When I first started playing this deck I was uber conservative, always waiting to get value out of wraths and still posting good winning percentages. But once I started playing guys who don't play into a wrath, of I started whiffing on wrath mana, or simply not drawing the wraths at all, I started removing threats earlier. A lot depends on drawing a Rev or Zenith to stabilize too, and we all know how often these cards are in the last 2 thirds of our deck. When you play super conservative, aren't you discarding to hand size? I find that if I don't burn extra removal in my hand they are up for the chopping block to be tossed in the yard a few turns later. If we don't play our cards, our Esper Charms and Think Twices aren't any good since we already have 7 cards in hand, and I hate playing one of those spells while hoping for a land drop just to draw another counter that can't affect the board. If we draw the wrong half of our deck, then we will have dead cards in hand, so we might as well use the active ones.
All I'm saying is that it's situational, and variance can be a *****.
You really have my interest, as I previously held the same opinions about T1 Guide/Swiftspear. I always wondered why you and a few others in the thread had "good" Burn matchups, and this may be why. Now I'm questioning my approach (always a good sign, means I might learn something), and it seems like amalek agrees with the don't-sweat-Burn's-creatures plan (I think, assuming the above comment was in rsp to yours).
Thinking back, there have been many times that I have Path'd a Guide T1/2 out of panic, only to ramp him straight into burning my face out a turn faster. I guess that you can tank a bunch of hits from a creature as long as they never resolve a Burn spell (or enough of them). Wrath on t6 with a Logic Knot/Snare/Remand/whatever to deal with the most impactful burn spell they have left before I stabilize sounds great. My main concern is them burning me in rsp to Think Twice or Esper Charm in mindrot mode.
Edit: I must be really bad at playing the Burn matchup... smh
I think you confused my post with another. The new version of burn in my mind revolves around free damage from 1 drops. I always aim to kill the turn 1 creature (though leaving Goblin Guide around for more land drops is tempting...). I board out all copied of Supreme Verdict and post board have 8 spot removal spells, 2 Snapcasters, 3 Cliques, and 2 Baneslayers. I'm not understanding how someone can consistently leave 1 drops, take half their life total from a single card, and then "get back in it" with a turn 4 Verdict. I'd expect to die before I untapped, since I'd be at 3-6 life. Not going to chase arguments, though.
Boggles I'd say is close to even overall if you have runed halo--they really can't do much about that card. Otherwise, esper charm the totem armors and wipe them. I'm 3-1 in matches against them in comp REL events.
Don't take what I say about burn to mean it's a super good matchup--It's probably the most coinflippy matchup we have--the only thing that really matters is who draws better. It's probably only about 1 in 10 burn games where these small things actually make a difference, but over the course of a GP, that can add up to a match win.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
You really have my interest, as I previously held the same opinions about T1 Guide/Swiftspear. I always wondered why you and a few others in the thread had "good" Burn matchups, and this may be why. Now I'm questioning my approach (always a good sign, means I might learn something), and it seems like amalek agrees with the don't-sweat-Burn's-creatures plan (I think, assuming the above comment was in rsp to yours).
Thinking back, there have been many times that I have Path'd a Guide T1/2 out of panic, only to ramp him straight into burning my face out a turn faster. I guess that you can tank a bunch of hits from a creature as long as they never resolve a Burn spell (or enough of them). Wrath on t6 with a Logic Knot/Snare/Remand/whatever to deal with the most impactful burn spell they have left before I stabilize sounds great. My main concern is them burning me in rsp to Think Twice or Esper Charm in mindrot mode.
Edit: I must be really bad at playing the Burn matchup... smh
I think you confused my post with another. The new version of burn in my mind revolves around free damage from 1 drops. I always aim to kill the turn 1 creature (though leaving Goblin Guide around for more land drops is tempting...). I board out all copied of Supreme Verdict and post board have 8 spot removal spells, 2 Snapcasters, 3 Cliques, and 2 Baneslayers. I'm not understanding how someone can consistently leave 1 drops, take half their life total from a single card, and then "get back in it" with a turn 4 Verdict. I'd expect to die before I untapped, since I'd be at 3-6 life. Not going to chase arguments, though.
Generally, I find that if I untap after wiping the board with 2-3 life, I'm OK, and with 4+ I almost always win. Burn is not very good at topdecking compared to us. Also, I hate to keep proclaiming it, but 2 leylines in the mainboard gives a HUGE % match win against burn. The fact that they're decent almost everywhere is a bonus. If drawing leyline is an 80% game win (accounting for opening vs drawing it too late, etc), then 2 leylines means I'm ~40% to have it by turn four in matchups where I want it, which is on its own basically an extra +5-7% edge in the match.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Sorry Cipher, I must have meant Cody_X. Do you play the mainboard Leylines, Cody?
So, amalek -- why wait so long on creatures, answering spells instead, when all of those spells will get blanked by your mainboard Leylines? How does that work out? Won't they just kill you in rsp to the Leyline (assuming you don't T0 it)? Plus, then you take a bunch of damage from the creatures, and it's more likely that future unanswered dudes can just attack you ftw.
Does Runed Halo play a big role in the Burn matchup? I was fenced on it, and looking to pick a few up in time, but now I'm quite interested to play it over my flex removal spots for a little while.
T: Add C to your mana pool 5, T, pay 1 life : put a 1/1 white and black Human Cleric creature token onto the battlefield. 5, T sacrifice five creatures : Transform Vale of (???)'s Abbey, then untap it.
Ormendahl, Prince of profanes
Legendary creature - Demon
(black)
Flying, lifelink, indestructible, haste
9/7
T: Add C to your mana pool 5, T, pay 1 life : put a 1/1 white and black Human Cleric creature token onto the battlefield. 5, T sacrifice five creatures : Transform Vale of (???)'s Abbey, then untap it.
Ormendahl, Prince of profanes
Legendary creature - Demon
(black)
Flying, lifelink, indestructible, haste
9/7
As for the new spoilers, jace is sideboard playable, depending on the meta, where are the new X-augury is not playable. I will still test it, but as was mentioned, being unable to actually get our hands on the verdict when we need it blows. 4 color gifts (or esper gifts, or similar decks) will actually be able to make use of this.
At first, I was like "where is Dismember?" But I never gave Runed Halo a ton of thought, and you explained your rationale quite well. It IS spot removal, just not the kind I'm used to.
Are the two "whatever" SB slots stuff like Kor Firewalker or more Leylines? Would "fixed" Vindicate warrant those slots?
...what do you mean by "Low to the ground?" As in, not-flying? As in grinding?
Do you stream or have a YouTube channel? I'd love to watch you play the deck.
Currently trying to discover the quickest way to get the opponent from 20 to 0.
Thanks
Also, I'm loving the new Jace, my first thought was, turn 4 verdict, turn 5 Jace and bounce their play, but this leaves Jace at 3 and within bolt range, may require decent testing to see whether it'l be a good fit. On paper its just pure CA.
Sadly, I don't have a youtube channel or a stream--I refuse to invest in MTGO because of the quality of the program and the cost of buying my cards twice, and furthermore the loss of face-to-face interaction. When I don't want to interact people, I just get back on the grind-to-diamond train in league of legends yolo queu. That being said, I have copiloted for people willing to grind MTGO and would be quite willing to do it upon request--I'm a grad student, so I have plenty of time outside of office hours/teaching/classes.
My "whatever" slots are for cards that are reasonable against whatever the metagame for the evening at my local shop seems to be, that are also reasonable against burn. This has ranged from "I really need burn hate" (pulse of the fields) to "dang, both BW tokens players are here AND the enchantment prison guy" (fracturing gust) to "dang... five or six storm/8 rack players in a room of 40" (extra leyline of sanctity mainboard, runed halo to the sideboard).
In general, when I refer to things as "low to the ground", I mean in terms of behaving like an agro deck--lots of cheap spells that can be cast quickly/early on in the game. When I say "efficient" I mean high velocity--casting lots of spells with our mana, maximizing its use. When I say "powerful" I generally mean strong card advantage--wraths, unbeatable bombs, giant sphinx's revelations. Against BGx, you pretty much want as much raw power as you can cram into your deck. Against burn and infect, you want to be very low to the ground because their individual power level is so low, and against midrange decks you want to be very efficient to avoid their gaining tons of minor incremental advantages all over the place.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I like to think of myself as a very competent pilot of this deck, and part of that will be always learning new things. I use my life total as a resource absolutely, but I don't think I've looked at it in quite this way. I'm fairly certain I'm hit the wrath on 2 for 1 or 3 for 1 without thinking about the next wrath (if I don't have it in hand) and didn't even think about the exchange in this way. Now I definitely will, thank you for this nugget. This will definitely improve my play.
I'm currently playing either 1 snap, 4 path, 1 condemn, or 4 path 2 snap, with no halos or other non-boardwipe removal mainboard.
You mentioned with the guide, that even if we counter everything, he can still deal us 12 damage. Ok. Great. Thats not 12 damage I care about. I hold onto boardwipes against burn, and he will eventually be dealt with. A single guide or swiftspear or whatever that isn't dealt with will almost never win the game by itself. You should nearly always be able to handle whatever burn has, unless they draw well and or you draw poorly, but even then you aren't completely out in the rain.
I wouldn't play jace anywhere but sideboard. He's good against control/slow decks, but otherwise, hes like ashiok, in that if we can wipe the board, and hold up a lot of removal/walls/whatever then hes strong, but we don't have bodies to put down.
Esper walkers could be a fine deck, with bitterblossom/lingering souls/etc to act as walls while we assemble the justice league, but I think thats basically just another deck.
I also run 2 copies of Runed Halo. Condemn is played over the 2 extra copies of Spell Snare. I could only take so much abuse from those extra copies of Spell Snare; I have my dignity. -_-
Snare is about as close to a Thoughtseize as you can get without literally being a sorcery. With your opponent hellbent, a drawn Spell Snare in most non-Affinity matchups is likely dead. Yes, you can simply just hold onto it and keep moving (I wonder the probability of an opponent drawing an 8-of over the 6 or so turns it takes to win), but you can say that about any card in the deck, and it still constitutes the "deadest" midgame draw in the maindeck. I still think that the card was played in such high numbers because of Jund and Affinity in the 2014 metagame. The power in Modern is no longer all loaded in 2-drops. Dark Confidant became Siege Rhino, Infect came out of nowhere, and Snapcaster got benched.
This is my sideboard:
2 Baneslayer
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Mana Leak
2 Thoughtseize
2 Go for the Throat
1 Wrath of God
2 Stony Silence
And I have the Wafo maindeck, +2 Condemn +2 Runed Halo, -2 Spell Snare, -2 Shadow of Doubt.
That turn 1 guide will not kill me before I kill it if nothing else deals me damage. While clearly, I will take atleast a couple hits, that guide is still a 7+ turn clock. I'm wrathing halfway through that at best. Sure, maybe I'm down at 7 life against burn, and tap out to verdict. Once that happens though, they are fairly unlikely to have a hand stock full of burn so they can just untap and blast me away. It can happen, but in those games, disfiguring the turn 1 guide is probably not saving you.
Now, I'm not saying its incorrect to not kill a guide if applicable, sometimes its the play you need to make, but running a smaller amount of a spot removal against burn doesn't equate to outright losing to a turn 1 play.
Seriously, if they only have one creature that's dealing you damage, it does not matter. You beat burn by running them out of cards, then doing something they can't beat. Its how most games are won. Its nothing new.
If a burn player has 6 damage in their hand, and you have 7 life, then none of their cards matter. If they have a hand of lands, none of their cards matter. If they have a handful of creatures, and you have three boardwipes, none of their cards matter.
If you cram a lot of spot removal into your deck, and sweat over every creature they drop, if the matchup feels difficult, vary your approach.
Perhaps at some point I'll get the chance to set up tabletop with a video camera and record a testing session in which I can talk through all of the steps and thought processes.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
You really have my interest, as I previously held the same opinions about T1 Guide/Swiftspear. I always wondered why you and a few others in the thread had "good" Burn matchups, and this may be why. Now I'm questioning my approach (always a good sign, means I might learn something), and it seems like amalek agrees with the don't-sweat-Burn's-creatures plan (I think, assuming the above comment was in rsp to yours).
Thinking back, there have been many times that I have Path'd a Guide T1/2 out of panic, only to ramp him straight into burning my face out a turn faster. I guess that you can tank a bunch of hits from a creature as long as they never resolve a Burn spell (or enough of them). Wrath on t6 with a Logic Knot/Snare/Remand/whatever to deal with the most impactful burn spell they have left before I stabilize sounds great. My main concern is them burning me in rsp to Think Twice or Esper Charm in mindrot mode.
Edit: I must be really bad at playing the Burn matchup... smh
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
It is beyond me why they even add Nacatl at all. Makes the the worse against everything but the mirror. [
Thanks for the tournament write up. It's very helpful to read real decisions made in real games rather than just learning based off of speculation.
In response to the comments from above discussing Pathing a turn 1 threat from whether it be Burn/swarm aggro etc., it matters what you have in your hand, and oftentimes, that turn 4 wrath isn't even possible. If we let them ping us with one dude in the hopes of: 1. Them overextending. 2. Us drawing a wrath. 3. Us assembling wrath mana. then we could've allowed 15 damage go through that didn't need to. Sure, you can still stabilize, but now your probably discarding to hand size. Sure, you can cast a huge Rev, but you have to draw it first. Most aggro opponents I play don't over extend, in which case a wrath becomes irrelevant. If opposition was dumb, then I would say to wait it out, but we don't know how smart they are until they've already lowered us from 20 - 5. When I first started playing this deck I was uber conservative, always waiting to get value out of wraths and still posting good winning percentages. But once I started playing guys who don't play into a wrath, of I started whiffing on wrath mana, or simply not drawing the wraths at all, I started removing threats earlier. A lot depends on drawing a Rev or Zenith to stabilize too, and we all know how often these cards are in the last 2 thirds of our deck. When you play super conservative, aren't you discarding to hand size? I find that if I don't burn extra removal in my hand they are up for the chopping block to be tossed in the yard a few turns later. If we don't play our cards, our Esper Charms and Think Twices aren't any good since we already have 7 cards in hand, and I hate playing one of those spells while hoping for a land drop just to draw another counter that can't affect the board. If we draw the wrong half of our deck, then we will have dead cards in hand, so we might as well use the active ones.
All I'm saying is that it's situational, and variance can be a *****.
Hopefully this pertains to the discussion above.
I think you confused my post with another. The new version of burn in my mind revolves around free damage from 1 drops. I always aim to kill the turn 1 creature (though leaving Goblin Guide around for more land drops is tempting...). I board out all copied of Supreme Verdict and post board have 8 spot removal spells, 2 Snapcasters, 3 Cliques, and 2 Baneslayers. I'm not understanding how someone can consistently leave 1 drops, take half their life total from a single card, and then "get back in it" with a turn 4 Verdict. I'd expect to die before I untapped, since I'd be at 3-6 life. Not going to chase arguments, though.
Don't take what I say about burn to mean it's a super good matchup--It's probably the most coinflippy matchup we have--the only thing that really matters is who draws better. It's probably only about 1 in 10 burn games where these small things actually make a difference, but over the course of a GP, that can add up to a match win.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Generally, I find that if I untap after wiping the board with 2-3 life, I'm OK, and with 4+ I almost always win. Burn is not very good at topdecking compared to us. Also, I hate to keep proclaiming it, but 2 leylines in the mainboard gives a HUGE % match win against burn. The fact that they're decent almost everywhere is a bonus. If drawing leyline is an 80% game win (accounting for opening vs drawing it too late, etc), then 2 leylines means I'm ~40% to have it by turn four in matchups where I want it, which is on its own basically an extra +5-7% edge in the match.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
So, amalek -- why wait so long on creatures, answering spells instead, when all of those spells will get blanked by your mainboard Leylines? How does that work out? Won't they just kill you in rsp to the Leyline (assuming you don't T0 it)? Plus, then you take a bunch of damage from the creatures, and it's more likely that future unanswered dudes can just attack you ftw.
Does Runed Halo play a big role in the Burn matchup? I was fenced on it, and looking to pick a few up in time, but now I'm quite interested to play it over my flex removal spots for a little while.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
RBUGrixis ControlUBR
GUSimic MerfolkUG
WUUW ControlUW
RBUGrixis ControlUBR
BUUB MillUB
Colorless Eldrazi Tron
WRBurnRW
GUSimic MerfolkUG
UMono U TurnsU
WGGenesis Wave EnchantressGW
it would be more like "Abbey of the Oriental Vale"
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/shadows-over-innistrad/26767-westvale-abbey
Their translation makes no sense. "orient" means east lol
looks interesting but a bit expensive
Elspeth is probably better if we are in the market for a 6 mana walker