What are your thoughts on Thoughtseize vs Duress vs Stain? Seems like most matchups we don't care about taking a creature out of their hands and duress hits most of the problem cards in most of our matchups, namely Tron. Stain would allow us to take out huge pieces of decks (Tron again) as well as be extremely good vs decks such as Ad Nauseum.
It seems to me that Stain is our best option because creatures aren't really the problem, and the decks we would use duress for, we actually need to take out all the pieces of that card. For example, Tron has so much recursion with cantrips, stirrings, etc., that taking out all the pieces is what we really need to be doing.
Thoughts? This is based off pure theory and little to no actual testing but I wanted to get some opinions on the matter
Hey guys! I just Top 8'd a GPT for GP Vancouver. I'm a bit tired so I'll leave the decklist here first.
Rd1: 2-1 vs Boros Burn
Rd2: 1-2 vs Elves
Rd 3: 2-1 vs Infect (all games took 3 turns)
Rd 4: 2-0 vs TitanBreach (he has 3 Clasms and 3 Anger, none appeared lol)
Rd 5: 2-0 vs Abzan Midrange
We split the prizes and gave the dude who will be able to go to GP Vancouver the byes. I was top 2 after the swiss.
Stain the Mind was a metagame call because I thought Ad Naus will be huge (I was wrong). I definitely won't run Heroic Intervention anymore, planning to replace it with another Selfless Spirit. I like my main deck spells. Never really saw Elves of Deep Shadow except for exactly 1 game.
I've been looking into Prowess of the Fair lately in my GB Build, and it's a pretty neat card. It goes a bit against the aggro/combo nature of the deck, however it put such a nice warranty on our creature and help keep the board presence high for Shaman of the pack. I still need to test it at an event though, so maybe it's just me being too hyped by my card sequencing.
I'm already aware of the fact that this card is useless against Anger of the Gods and that you can tap it for the effect of Heritage druid, but outside of that, any of you have pros/cons to share on this card?
I've been playing with Prowess for a while now. I like the card quite a bit.
Pros:
Leaves you with some board presence after most sweepers/general removal
Adds an extra mana with Elvish Archdruid
Can be tapped with Heritage Druid's ability
Adds an extra loss of life with SOTP
Can be regenerated with Ezuri
Can be revealed for Gilt-Leaf Palace
Cons:
Can be hard to cast with land if not running a decent amount of fetches/shocks
Can't cast from Heritage Druid's or Elvish Archdruid's ability
Doesn't work against exile effects
How many copies do you run? I want to try two since I can tutor it with elvish Harbinger and with some luck Sylvan Messenger, but I want some stats. I hardly ever see the card in decklists and it's actually nice hearing some positives about it from someone else.
Also, nice Shaman of the Pack interaction there. Somehow I completely overlooked that Shaman doesn't require creatures, but only elves. It's just like with Heritage druid, it totally counts!
Hi all, I've been playing Elves on/off a bit over a year now. Seems that GB core suits for my playstyle better than GW or Abzan and I've had some nice results with it in FNMs. I'm currently playing a 4 SOTP, 4 Sentinels, 4 Leads, 4 Coco and 1 Chord main. Also landbase is fastland oriented with Caverns and 2 Canopies for the card draw.
I'd really need some help with finetuning my sideboarding:
In which matchups and approximately how many would you side out Mana Elves and Nettle Sentinels to make room for better cards?
When playing 3 Dwynen's Elites, I presume people often take out 1-2 when playing against removal-heavy decks. Do you ever take out single Heritage Druid against anything? I have so far never taken out any Heritages but has anyone been succesful siding out 1-2 also against removal.dec?
How about you GB players, what other matchups you consider siding in 2 Thoughtseizes other than Ad Nauseam and Tron.
Do any of you have any personal sideboard guides for reference?
I never side out mana dorks nor Dwynen's - they're too integral to our best starts.
Nettle Sentinel on the other hand is almost always the first card to go when sideboard cards come in. In the matchups where you want Thoughtseize (Ad Nauseam, Tron, Valakut, Infect on the play, Jeskai Nahiri*, Assorted other combo) Nettle Sentinel is a clean swap. This is because Nettle Sentinel is a great game 1/goldfish card but Thoughtseize is generally more impactful in combo races.
In the grindier matchups (GBx, Grixis, Jeskai Nahiri*, Jeskai variants, Delver variants, assorted midrange and combo decks), Nettle Sentinel generally comes out for Kitchen Finks/Thraggy T/Thrun/Chameleon Colossus in order to stretch removal while retaining density. Once again, Nettle Sentinel doesn't quite shine in these matchups where you're looking to put 3-4 power on board and bait boardwipes as it incentivizes you to constantly play dudes.
A special case where you also board out Nettles are against the artifact based decks, notably Affinity and Lantern. Against both of those decks you'd rather have access to Creeping Corrosion, Fracturing Gust and Reclamation Sage. Affinity usually also warrants bringing in any Dismembers, Spellskites and Revokers, while Lantern usually demands Thoughtseizes alongside the artifact wipes.
While I won't give you a full sideboard guide as I usually run things on the fly (and I'm on a train to a Sealed PPTQ - so I'd like to review the tricks a couple more times!) I hope these tips help.
*Jeskai Nahiri usually falls into both a grindy deck and a combo based deck, so I've found that the best solution to Nahiri is Thoughtseize while grinding down their removal spells with Finks and co (c). This is the only control deck where this is the case because there is sufficent sorcery speed cards you can take to punish them for trying to hold countermagic. With that being said, do not bring in Seizes against other control decks as they're usually full of 1 for 1's and praying to hit an Anger with seize is very risky.
Thank you Syreal! I diluted the game plan too much with siding out essential parts. There is really not much combo in my meta so I might go down to one TS. BGx and Grixis/jeskai are quite dominant here. A few more things I was wondering: when you side out Nettles, do you sometimes side out them all?
Does it sound too much to side in against jund Thrun, Thrag, Elvish Champ, 2 Finks and Colossus while taking out 4 sentinels, reclamation sage and perhaps one chord. The thought was that siding in something better to topdeck would be a way to go with BGxs.
Just ordered a single Glissa to be tested against probably BGx also. I have Prowess of the Fairs ready in my binder also but haven't really figured out in which grindy matchups they would really shine. It is risky against Abrupt decks and quite easy to counter against jeskai and grixis. But I'd love to hear how this works for you.
Almost every game 2+3 there are no Nettles in the deck, in every matchup outside of Affinity/the Mirror.
Uh it does seem like a lot to board in, but you can realistically board in 7 cards for the matchup because Nettle Sentinel and Chord are bad.
Glissa isn't for BGx if you do get one - its exclusively for a heavy Eldrazi meta. People who play Prowess claim it shines against GBx in particular. If they Abrupt Decay it, that's okay its still a 1 for 1. If they counter it, they're not countering a Company.
Also, what do you guys think about this mana base for an Abzan build...
4 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Pendelhaven
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
I play an Abzan Build. That is nearly identical to my manabase except -2 forest, -Pendelhaven, +3 Razorverge Thicket. You'd have a hard time casting any white with only Canopies, but I know you don't typically plan to cast them from hand.
Private Mod Note
():
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"We have been patient. We have planned our attack. We are ready... now."
-Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
Also, what do you guys think about this mana base for an Abzan build...
4 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Pendelhaven
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
I play an Abzan Build. That is nearly identical to my manabase except -2 forest, -Pendelhaven, +3 Razorverge Thicket. You'd have a hard time casting any white with only Canopies, but I know you don't typically plan to cast them from hand.
Was your build the same from Page one? Any side deck changes? Would you change anything? my build is very similar to yours on page 1. What do you think of Heroic Intervention? I like to side 2.
Was your build the same from Page one? Any side deck changes? Would you change anything? my build is very similar to yours on page 1. What do you think of Heroic Intervention? I like to side 2.
This was the most aggressive list I'd played in a while with very little mainboard answers, but I wasn't really sure what to prepare for. Usually I play Spellskite and Scavenging Ooze in the main. I boarded in Spellskite in almost every game and didn't even see a deck where I really wanted ScOoze.
Narnam Renegade was not impressive and I'll probably replace it with Spellskite in the main again. Shaman also didn't do much for me this tournament and I used her to win probably 2 games in the entire tournament. This was my first time running four Shamans and I'll have to keep testing it, but I may cut back to my normal three-of.
Was Narnam not good because you didn't face a lot of creature based decks or?
Played Narnam for a week (GB, 4 Fetches) - card was sorta awful. If I needed 2 power, then Nettle Sentinel let me cheat in more damage by attacking, then being able to be tapped for mana later on.
Considering Nettle Sentinel is my most boarded card, if Narnam is the replacement, then it is a much worse card considering its applications game 1. Narnam in Stompy though, that seems more promising.
Was Narnam not good because you didn't face a lot of creature based decks or?
Played Narnam for a week (GB, 4 Fetches) - card was sorta awful. If I needed 2 power, then Nettle Sentinel let me cheat in more damage by attacking, then being able to be tapped for mana later on.
Considering Nettle Sentinel is my most boarded card, if Narnam is the replacement, then it is a much worse card considering its applications game 1. Narnam in Stompy though, that seems more promising.
People may have alternative views, however.
In my testing I found that I very seldom used the revolt mechanic. I more so used it for the death touch in creature matchups, like to get rid of Goyfs etc. I only run two Narnam though.
Was Narnam not good because you didn't face a lot of creature based decks or?
Most of the time I can take a few creature beats before stabilizing or just use Ezuri to Regen blockers (or kill them). It never felt like a great play, and it pretty much never gets a Revolt trigger without playing fetches. I missed Spellskite a lot more and had lost game 1 to infect when Spellskite could have been Chorded in and saved me.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"We have been patient. We have planned our attack. We are ready... now."
-Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
Modern: GW Elves; Living End
Pauper: Stompy; RW Tokens
Beer: Miller High Life
It seems to me that Stain is our best option because creatures aren't really the problem, and the decks we would use duress for, we actually need to take out all the pieces of that card. For example, Tron has so much recursion with cantrips, stirrings, etc., that taking out all the pieces is what we really need to be doing.
Thoughts? This is based off pure theory and little to no actual testing but I wanted to get some opinions on the matter
Rd1: 2-1 vs Boros Burn
Rd2: 1-2 vs Elves
Rd 3: 2-1 vs Infect (all games took 3 turns)
Rd 4: 2-0 vs TitanBreach (he has 3 Clasms and 3 Anger, none appeared lol)
Rd 5: 2-0 vs Abzan Midrange
We split the prizes and gave the dude who will be able to go to GP Vancouver the byes. I was top 2 after the swiss.
Stain the Mind was a metagame call because I thought Ad Naus will be huge (I was wrong). I definitely won't run Heroic Intervention anymore, planning to replace it with another Selfless Spirit. I like my main deck spells. Never really saw Elves of Deep Shadow except for exactly 1 game.
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Shaman of the Pack
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Nettle Sentinel
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
2 Chord of Calling
1 Lead the Stampede
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Razorverge Thicket
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
3 Forest
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Spellskite
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Elvish Champion
2 Reclamation Sage
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Chord of Calling
1 Fracturing Gust
2 Stain the Mind
I'm already aware of the fact that this card is useless against Anger of the Gods and that you can tap it for the effect of Heritage druid, but outside of that, any of you have pros/cons to share on this card?
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
Pros:
Leaves you with some board presence after most sweepers/general removal
Adds an extra mana with Elvish Archdruid
Can be tapped with Heritage Druid's ability
Adds an extra loss of life with SOTP
Can be regenerated with Ezuri
Can be revealed for Gilt-Leaf Palace
Cons:
Can be hard to cast with land if not running a decent amount of fetches/shocks
Can't cast from Heritage Druid's or Elvish Archdruid's ability
Doesn't work against exile effects
Also, nice Shaman of the Pack interaction there. Somehow I completely overlooked that Shaman doesn't require creatures, but only elves. It's just like with Heritage druid, it totally counts!
(W/B)BW Tokens(W/B) | (B/R)Rakdos Burn(B/R) | (U/R)Gift Storm(U/R)
I never side out mana dorks nor Dwynen's - they're too integral to our best starts.
Nettle Sentinel on the other hand is almost always the first card to go when sideboard cards come in. In the matchups where you want Thoughtseize (Ad Nauseam, Tron, Valakut, Infect on the play, Jeskai Nahiri*, Assorted other combo) Nettle Sentinel is a clean swap. This is because Nettle Sentinel is a great game 1/goldfish card but Thoughtseize is generally more impactful in combo races.
In the grindier matchups (GBx, Grixis, Jeskai Nahiri*, Jeskai variants, Delver variants, assorted midrange and combo decks), Nettle Sentinel generally comes out for Kitchen Finks/Thraggy T/Thrun/Chameleon Colossus in order to stretch removal while retaining density. Once again, Nettle Sentinel doesn't quite shine in these matchups where you're looking to put 3-4 power on board and bait boardwipes as it incentivizes you to constantly play dudes.
A special case where you also board out Nettles are against the artifact based decks, notably Affinity and Lantern. Against both of those decks you'd rather have access to Creeping Corrosion, Fracturing Gust and Reclamation Sage. Affinity usually also warrants bringing in any Dismembers, Spellskites and Revokers, while Lantern usually demands Thoughtseizes alongside the artifact wipes.
While I won't give you a full sideboard guide as I usually run things on the fly (and I'm on a train to a Sealed PPTQ - so I'd like to review the tricks a couple more times!) I hope these tips help.
*Jeskai Nahiri usually falls into both a grindy deck and a combo based deck, so I've found that the best solution to Nahiri is Thoughtseize while grinding down their removal spells with Finks and co (c). This is the only control deck where this is the case because there is sufficent sorcery speed cards you can take to punish them for trying to hold countermagic. With that being said, do not bring in Seizes against other control decks as they're usually full of 1 for 1's and praying to hit an Anger with seize is very risky.
Almost every game 2+3 there are no Nettles in the deck, in every matchup outside of Affinity/the Mirror.
Uh it does seem like a lot to board in, but you can realistically board in 7 cards for the matchup because Nettle Sentinel and Chord are bad.
Glissa isn't for BGx if you do get one - its exclusively for a heavy Eldrazi meta. People who play Prowess claim it shines against GBx in particular. If they Abrupt Decay it, that's okay its still a 1 for 1. If they counter it, they're not countering a Company.
Round 1
Affinity
Round 2
Infect
Round 3
Jund
Round 4
Ad Nauseum
Round 5
Sun and Moon (Loss)
Round 6
Skred Red
Round 7
Ponza
Round 8
Bushwhacker Zoo
Top-8 Quarter-Finals
Affinity (Loss)
-Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
Which build did you use?
Also, what do you guys think about this mana base for an Abzan build...
4 Forest
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Pendelhaven
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
I play an Abzan Build. That is nearly identical to my manabase except -2 forest, -Pendelhaven, +3 Razorverge Thicket. You'd have a hard time casting any white with only Canopies, but I know you don't typically plan to cast them from hand.
-Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Gilt leaf
4 Fastland GW
2 Fastland BG
4 Forest
1 Nykthos (flex spot)
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/1005-wtb-and-maybe-trade-for-my-wants-i-need-dredgevine
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Heritage Druid
4 Essence Warden
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Narnam Renegade
4 Dwynen's Elite
1 Selfless Spirit
4 Elvish Archdruid
4 Shaman of the Pack
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Collected Company
4 Chord of Calling
Lands (18)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Forest
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Elvish Champion
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Spellskite
1 Loaming Shaman
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Kataki, War's Wage
3 Lead the Stampede
2 Dismember
Narnam Renegade was not impressive and I'll probably replace it with Spellskite in the main again. Shaman also didn't do much for me this tournament and I used her to win probably 2 games in the entire tournament. This was my first time running four Shamans and I'll have to keep testing it, but I may cut back to my normal three-of.
As far as Heroic Intervention, I like it when Selfess Spirit isn't available such as in a GB variant. Otherwise, Spirit is just better in my opinion.
-Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
Played Narnam for a week (GB, 4 Fetches) - card was sorta awful. If I needed 2 power, then Nettle Sentinel let me cheat in more damage by attacking, then being able to be tapped for mana later on.
Considering Nettle Sentinel is my most boarded card, if Narnam is the replacement, then it is a much worse card considering its applications game 1. Narnam in Stompy though, that seems more promising.
People may have alternative views, however.
In my testing I found that I very seldom used the revolt mechanic. I more so used it for the death touch in creature matchups, like to get rid of Goyfs etc. I only run two Narnam though.
-Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon