It's time for long post number one. I'm going to start by looking at the match ups. There are 25 of the most prominent decks from the Pro Tour that I have listed. I am going to post them in order from highest percent of the field to lowest (at least as best as I can tell). I tried to find the highest placed deck for each archtype from the Pro Tour to use as a basis for my analysis.
Zoo comes out fast with small critters. Their removal mostly burn based, which they can also use to finish off opponents. 15 removal spells + 3x Ghor-Clan Rampagers can be a real pain for most of our critters. The plus side is that a lot of our bears are good against them as well. They search a lot, making Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor useful. Anything with 4+ toughness and life gain is generally good. They also are dependent on a fragile mana base, giving our land destruction package a lot of targets. Flyers are also a real problem for them, since they have no way to block them. Post board, we want more removal, more recursion, and more life gain. Expect them to bring in more removal as well. I run into Combust a lot post board, which I suspect is primarily for the Twin match up. All in all, both decks have cards that interact well with each other, making this a fairly even match up both pre and post board.
Twin has a lot of ways to interact with us in the early game and can easily tempo into the midgame. Their threat to combo is very real for our deck, but we do have main deck playable cards that they have to fight through before they can go off. Qasali Pridemage can blow up Splinter Twin in response to it's activation. Spellskite can redirect Splinter Twin to itself. Junk builds can run Abrupt Decay in addition to Path to Exile. Linvala, Keeper of Silence also prevents them from being able to combo. Aether Vial and creatures with Flash are effective in this match up. They have a lot of stuff in the sideboard that is also really good against us. Anything we can bring in to turn off their combo is good for us. Torpor Orb is preferred over Damping Matrix, which shuts off our own Pridemage and Scavenging Ooze. Landing a Worship can also lead to situations where they can't win. I find it's best to load up as many layers of hate for them to fight through. The biggest issue is that they can bounce all of our answers up with Cryptic before they combo out. Due to this, the match up is somewhat unfavorable.
You should plan to have several ways to deal with this in your 75.
Melira Pod has a lot of versatility and utility. They get a lot of recursion out of their creatures, such as Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcap, Voice of Resurgence, Eternal Witness and Reveillark. Fortunately, we have a lot of ways to disrupt their game plan. We hate on searching effects. We hate on their mana base. We hate on their grave. We have main deck playable answers to their combo in form of Scavenging Ooze and Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Creatures with Flash are effective too since you can hold mana open until their EoT. Aether Vial also proves effective against combo decks. They would likely bring in removal post board, and if they suspect Torpor Orb coming in from the sideboard they might bring in the extra artifact hate. We should also bring in additional removal, grave hate and any other ways to stop their combo. Pre and post board, this match up is slightly in our favor.
RUW Midrange has a lot of removal and other cards to slow down our game plan. Most of their creatures aren't huge threats to us. We also have a lot of cards that are hard for them to manage. Loxodon Smiter and Thrun, the Last Troll can't be countered and survive Anger of the Gods. Scavenging Ooze combats Snapcaster Mage effectively. Voice of ResurgenceThalia, Guardian of Thraben, Aether Vial and creatures with Flash are good choices in this match as well. I would expect more removal and Anger of the Gods coming out of the board. Torpor Orb is a good option for us to board in. This match is favorable pre-board, and fairly even post board.
Jund has arguably one of the best removal suites in the format. They are very resilient and good at grinding out matches. We also have effective tools at disrupting their game plan. They have a fragile mana base which is susceptible to our land destruction. They also have no way to block creatures with flying. We have main deck creatures that are generally good against them as well. Voice of Resurgence, Loxodon Smiter, Mirran Crusader, Thrun, the Last Troll, Wilt-Leaf Liege, and Sigarda, Host of Herons are all particularly effective against Jund, but in general pretty much all of our finishers are good against them. Post board they will be bringing in more removal against us, making the match up more difficult. Bringing in grave hate can help keep Tarmogoyfs from being a threat and shut off opposing Scavenging Ooze. The match up is slightly favorable preboard, and gets slightly unfavorable post board.
Bogle has been a deck that has traditionally been a problematic match up for Hatebears. They don't fetch. We can't target their creatures with removal, and if they draw into Rancor, Ethereal Armor or Spirit Mantle, there is very little we can do to stop them. Creatures with First Strike can be good against Bogle. Qasali Pridemage is one of our best creatures. Mirran Crusader and Sword of Feast and Famine provide protection from green, which can sometimes stall long enough to get there with fliers. Elspeth, Knight-Errant can provide unlimited chump blockers while ticking toward indestructible permanents. Restoration Angel can blink a creatures after declaring blocks to buy time too. Junk builds can also get value out of Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse. Post board they will likely bring in more removal. We should bring in other ways to remove enchantments. Back to Nature and Engineered Explosives can go a long way in this match. It's also important to know that EE will not remove the creature if it has a 1 cmc totem armor on it such as Spider Umbra, but it will destroy all other 1 cmc permanents, which is most of their deck. The Totem Armor trigger still happens even if both the Umbra and the creature are destroyed by the same effect. Pre board the match up is typically unfavorable (although, some builds have started running EE main deck), and post board it becomes slightly unfavorable.
You should plan to have some way to deal with this in your 75.
Affinity is a deck that can potentially be explosive. It comes out quick by dropping lots of dudes and extra mana producing artifacts. The longer it takes them to drop their hand, the better it is for us. They usually seal the deal with evasive creatures equipped with Cranial Plating. Beware the Cranial equipped Inkmoth Nexus, as it can kill surprisingly fast. The better plan for us is to have fliers to block and trade with their guys. Our land destruction is also good against their numerous man lands. Linvala, Keeper of Silence shuts off Ravager and Overseer. Removal is really good against them too. Qasali Pridemage is good here, and Junk builds can run Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse and Orzhov Pontiff. Post board they will bring in more removal. Whipflare is good against us and I have seen it on several occasions. Obviously Artifact hate is good for us to bring in. Kataki, War's Wage, Stony Silence and Creeping Corrosion are very strong cards to board in. Chalice of the Void can be effective against them too. Pre board the match is unfavorable, and gets more even post board.
You should plan to have some way to deal with this in your 75.
Burn decks want to kill you as quickly as possible. They basically just throw everything they got at your face and hope it's enough to kill you before they run out of cards. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben can slow them down with her taxing effect and can hold off Goblin Guide. Lifegain is great against them as well, provided we can avoid walking it into Skullcrack. Spellskite can provide an alternative target for you to redirect burn spells to. Post board they are more likely to bring in removal and sweepers. Ensnaring Bridge seems good against us as well, so it might not be a bad idea to have a Qasali Pridemage on hand going into game 2. We can bring in Chalice of the Void, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Worship and any life gain effects to improve our chances. Pre-board the match up is slightly unfavorable. Post board it gets better and becomes slightly favorable.
Why are we so concerned about combo decks that hardly existed before this ptq? Do you guys realize how hard it is to play amulet and storm? That Ad Naseum deck, Twin and UWR should be our focus. Not decks that will never commonly make it to a top 8 aside from being piloted by the best. Prepare for what is practical. Realistically if you could play Twin or Amulet you know what you would pick.
Private Mod Note
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
Nice work on the 5k finish, Patrick! Sounds like this cat is now out of the bag
Maybe now the Pros will stop calling this deck "Tier 2" in SCG Premium articles...
Why are we so concerned about combo decks that hardly existed before this ptq? Do you guys realize how hard it is to play amulet and storm? That Ad Naseum deck, Twin and UWR should be our focus. Not decks that will never commonly make it to a top 8 aside from being piloted by the best. Prepare for what is practical. Realistically if you could play Twin or Amulet you know what you would pick.
I'm not worried about those matches at all. In fact, I want those matches all weekend long. This deck eats these unfair decks up, and as long as Merfolk, Rock, and other bigger "fair" decks stay away then this deck will be amazing!
I was initially concerned about Blue Moon and UWR decks being so popular, and I will test against Blue Moon again before Saturday, but overall I'm thinking that this weekend is going to be the perfect time to play this deck.
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Speaking of the meta, has anyone else noticed just how often we board in Worship (assuming you play them?) I started writing my sideboard guide & notes for the GP, and Worship went in for EVERY major match except for UWR Control. I'm cutting Linvala for Worship in nearly every match... so what about just running the Worships in the main and Linvala in the side?
I'm always worried that I'm not playing a "strong" enough game in these formats. I tend to play "fair" decks. This deck has no infinite combos or insane draws. We don't play terribly large creatures. We don't even have a fast clock! However, since I tried moving Worship in this deck I stopped worrying about these things.
We are an UN-fair deck, and its because of Worship. It reads "GW can't lose this game" so often against so much of the format that its disgusting. We may not have any combos or the super smooth efficiency of a Snapcaster Mage deck, but not being able to die ranks in that level IMO.
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I did some testing tonight, this time against Living End. This match was even before boarding, with GW winning 4 out of 8 games. After boarding, GW got access to Chalice and Rest In Peace, and won 75% of its games, going 9-3 vs. the combo deck. In this match I did try running Worships in the main.
Living End can win this match by chaining Fulminator Mages to kill all of GW's non basic lands. GW can also get there by using Beast Within on our Worships.
The most effective cards against this match are not Worship, but Thalia and Chalice. Thalia makes Living End cost "5", since the Cascade spell costs an additional mana, and the cascaded-into Living End will also require a 1 mana payment. Chalice for 0 makes Living End completely un-castable. Just remember that Shriekmaw and Beast Within can kill these cards, and play accordingly. Compared to the Ad Nauseum deck, this deck actually has a few outs to our cards, so its wise to be aggressive and try to push through damage.
Don't run the Chalice out until after a couple of turns have passed. That way Living End will have pitched a few creatures before knowing Living End will never resolve.
If just Rest In Peace is out, then Living End may still play its namesake card to "Wrath" your board.
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I'm down to the last 100 test games before the GP. Next up, re-test vs. Blue Moon, then a test against Bogle. On Tuesday I'll see how we do vs. Storm, and UWR Twin after boarding, and then its down to mock tournaments and locking in the list before the event. I also have a local IRL tournament on Tuesday night for a few misc. matches.
Private Mod Note
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
Worship in the main is an interesting idea. I know it's come up before, but I never played it main deck myself. It might just be the good one of I'm looking for. Especially with Thrun becoming one of the better finishers for our deck in the new meta. I've bumped Linvala down to a 1 of main deck for the time being. Maybe that would be better as Worship.
I've worked enough of the numbers to figure out what I think would be the best list going into the post Pro Tour meta. Here is what I am going to be testing for the next little while:
If I were going into a tournament tomorrow, Rancor and Yeva would both be Baneslayer Angel due to it's past track record. Yeva and Rancor both look good on paper, so I might as well give them some play time. The next big tourney for me is the Grand Prix in Minneapolis coming up in May, so I got some time to play around with some tech. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is also on my list of stuff to try, and Restoration Angel might show up in my list again at some point down the road too.
Speaking of the meta, has anyone else noticed just how often we board in Worship (assuming you play them?) I started writing my sideboard guide & notes for the GP, and Worship went in for EVERY major match except for UWR Control. I'm cutting Linvala for Worship in nearly every match... so what about just running the Worships in the main and Linvala in the side?
I've been running 1 Worship MD for weeks and this (moving all Linvala to SB) is basically where I'm heading. Worship seems to win more than Linvala does, or at least is applicable across more matches than Linvala is. Also considering somehow fitting in Troll Ascetic or Dauntless Escort, but unsure if its worthwhile as one Thrun typically is all you need on board with Worship.
Hey guys,
I been reading this forum for ages, but never really posted. I have been playing hate bears for about 2 years or so. It’s pretty much my favorite deck to play in modern currently. A local store ran an event yesterday. We had about a 32 person turn out. Enough for a 5 rounds cut to top 8. I ran a similar list to Horseshoe and took his sideboard list.
Round 1 UR Young Pyromancer/delver deck
Game 1 I lost to a ton of tokens, and dead draws. Drawing 5-6 land in a row hurt.
Game 2
Boarded in 3 Chalice, 2 EEs, 2 Worship
I didn’t draw and of the sideboard cards, but opening hand was a Noble, Thrun, 2x smiter, and 3 land. I was pretty confident in this. Turn 1 noble, turn two smiter, Drew another second noble. Turn three smiter number 2 and noble, swing for 6. He didn’t draw anything relavent and tried to counter both thrun and smiter.
Game 3 same board.
Had to mull to 6 here and kept a decent opener with a noble and a smiter. Turn 3 he had 2x young pyromancer out and a ***** ton of tokens. I was getting low on life. My turn four I top decked a EE and had a chalice in hand. I dropped EE for 0. Blew up the EE and chaliced for 1 to buy me some time. Top decked a worship next turn. After my opponent swung I Was at 6-7. I had 0 critters and I top decked a wildwood. That led me to victory. He swung and got me to one which was fine since he couldn’t vapor snag anything to kill me. Then I top decked threat after threat ended up with a board state of Thrun, 2xVoice, Aven Mindcesor and a few other dudes.
Match 2 Played infect
Game 1 he misplayed and dropped his second land too early with groundswell in hand for the kill on T3. Ended up pathing his critter and stabilizing and just went into beatdown mode.
Game 2. Had a hand with chalice, noble, path and a few land. Snap keep. He played his critter. I pathed it. Didn’t play a second land, and I knew I was golden to drop Chalice on 1 and ride it out. Turn 3 I dropped a Arbitor and ghost quartered his land and he didn’t get another one for ever.
Match 3 Robots
Got to play a good friend of mine in this match. Game 1 started out like any normal match against robots, vomit hand down on the board and pray for something useful. I ended up having an early path for his 3 drop guy that adds +1/+1 counters. Then dropped a Pridemage T2, T3 Smiter. Did some blocking was able to get rid of two of his creatures with path + pride mage which then shut down his edge champions metal craft so I could block it with smiter and kill it.
Game 2 pretty much ended quickly. Turn 1 EE for 0, path his flyer. Pop EE to wipe most of his board. Dropped chalice for 0 and dropped a pridemage with another path in hand. He couldn’t stabilize and lost.
Math 4 and 5 I drew in with the highest win percentages.
Top 8 Consisted of 2x GW Auras, 1 Tron, 1 Pod, 1 Twin, 1 GB Rock, 1 HateBears, 1 Robots
Played Tron
Game 1.
I had all the hate. Arbitors, Mindcensors and ghostquarters for all the things and went to game 2 quickly.
Boarded in 3 Chalice, 2 Worship, 1 Seal, 1 Suppression field
Game 2
I mulled to 5 kept a decent hand. Had a turn 2 smiter to his turn 3 Karn, Which I ended up killing on my turn 3 which then he dropped karn number 2 off a lucky strings.
Game 3
Turn one dork, followed by a chalice on 1. Turn Suppression field with a Seal. Then I just drew threat after threat. I locked him out of the game early on. He had a hand of more spheres and strings after I dropped chalice on 1.
Match 2. My friend again with Robots
Game 1 I pulled out of my ass with lucky top decks to a board full of crap.
Game 2. He played a turn 1 vault skirge and passed. I was like OK?? I dropped a turn 1 chalice on 0 and a dork. Played a pridemage, pathed a vault skirge. He started to stabilize with his two drops, spellskite and vault skirge again. I dropped a chalice on 2 after I had a decent board presence. Game didn’t end well for him with smiter, pridemage, seal, thrun, linvala, and before the chalice I forgot I dropped a surpression field.
Ended up splitting in the final round.
What I took from this event. I sided out baneslayer/sigarda every game almost. I never casted the card once, and when I had it in my hand I rather have been ghost quartering or dropping bears/sideboard cards. I also haven’t missed tech edge. Dropping my colorless land count to 5 helped a lot. I was mulling less all day for having the wrong mana sources. Overall I feel that hate bears is pretty well suited for the environment. I was also testing against twin and GW auras and with the recent changes I was winning more games then losing. Sidenote I was kinda iffy on using Seal of primordium in the board, but I will have to say that card was an all star all day. Just dropping and and having an answer to anything was great. It took my opponents back and had to think about what they wanted to play.
Also at least in my local meta outside of my friends who know I have been playing this deck for ages. I got the respond all day "HATE BEARS???!?! Who plays that." and proceeded to remind them why this deck is A) Annoying to deal with B) Had a decent match up against everything.
What I took from this event. I sided out baneslayer/sigarda every game almost. I never casted the card once, and when I had it in my hand I rather have been ghost quartering or dropping bears/sideboard cards. I also haven’t missed tech edge. Dropping my colorless land count to 5 helped a lot. I was mulling less all day for having the wrong mana sources. Overall I feel that hate bears is pretty well suited for the environment. I was also testing against twin and GW auras and with the recent changes I was winning more games then losing. Sidenote I was kinda iffy on using Seal of primordium in the board, but I will have to say that card was an all star all day. Just dropping and and having an answer to anything was great. It took my opponents back and had to think about what they wanted to play.
Also at least in my local meta outside of my friends who know I have been playing this deck for ages. I got the respond all day "HATE BEARS???!?! Who plays that." and proceeded to remind them why this deck is A) Annoying to deal with B) Had a decent match up against everything.
What I'm taking from your report and seemingly every other report lately is almost every game siding in Chalice of the Void. Similar to some other cards that typically get seen more as sideboard only I'm starting to think more and more about trying this main deck. As I'm reading reports, it seems that in many situations its a 0 or 1 drop and while that can certainly impact our dorks and paths, sometimes shutting the other guy out more is the better route to take.
I feel the same way, dco. I've been thinking about going 1 worship 1 chalice main, cutting dismember and a baneslayer. Pros of main chalice is having access to it g1, obviously. The backside is that it is not as powerful without knowing what our opponent plays. With this in mind, how fair/legal is it setting a turn one chalice for 0 if we know our opponent is playing, say, affinity because they sat at the table next to us? I would imagine it is not how the game is supposed to be played, but still...
I have also been thinking about replacing one or both of the tec edges. Still need to think this over more. Does anyone know if there is a way to mark single cards in cockatrice? When I'm debating switching out a single card in paper I put a piece of paper in the sleeve, and whenever I draw that card contemplate whether or not I would want this card or the one I'm thinking about switching with it. It would be great if there was a way to do this in cockatrice as it would greatly improve playtesting.
@Behlial: I'm fairly certain you felt the way you do about your baneslayers because the decks you've faced are all slightly more aggressive than ours. The point at which you stabilize and are able to push through for the win you often don't need baneslayer for that anymore. At least that is my view on it.
The list I'm currently going to try with some proxies for the more expensive part of the deck (Hierarch spike, why are you so unforgiving...):
Baneslayer should have been boarded out of every match except Affinity (where flying, first strike and life link all matter). Sigarda would stay in against Tron so you don't get annihilated into oblivion. Other than that, you didn't really see any midrange decks, which is where these cards really shine.
I feel the same way, dco. I've been thinking about going 1 worship 1 chalice main, cutting dismember and a baneslayer. Pros of main chalice is having access to it g1, obviously. The backside is that it is not as powerful without knowing what our opponent plays. With this in mind, how fair/legal is it setting a turn one chalice for 0 if we know our opponent is playing, say, affinity because they sat at the table next to us? I would imagine it is not how the game is supposed to be played, but still...
by the time you see their first land drop you can probably make a pretty solid educated guess as to what to drop the Chalice for, imo. My internal debate is the value of just 1, maybe 2 in the main deck. Worship works as a 1-2 of because its value isn't so front-loaded. If I draw it later in the game, that's probably fine by me. On the other hand, top decking your single chalice on turn 7 probably isn't going to help as much as having it in the opening hand, so this almost forces you to play 3 of them to make it worthwhile in g1.
re: gathering intelligence on people's decks - seems like that has always been part of the game. Aside from putting each match in a sealed room I don't know how anyone would be expected to not take advantage of being able to scout around after a quick match.
I'd rather play EE over Chalice g1. Just my though.
I've been on the Worship pre-board train for a week now and I think it's won me 2-3 games straight up (dying only to twin where their only out was essentially flameslash/double bolt+cryptic). Rot in my hand another 2-3 games where I thought, maybe I play it, force them to play around it, force them to maybe board harder to beat it if it's a deck that they just simply have zero outs to most of the time (blue decks mostly, green decks sometimes). It's really not been as awful as I thought it was going to be pre-board...
I've also made a realization. Having 3-4 Crusaders MB pretty much means I'll see more than one. They'll have to have more than one bolt, and Crusaders off the top are pretty sweet. I got my first 2 bolted in a G1 vs Grixis Fae, that third one stuck and I rode it until the end. It's something that you can bring out pretty easily that gives your SB more flexibility to bring in more effective cards (read: creatures).
I've put in a fracturing gust as a wincon vs affinity. Worship won't lose you the game, but there's more than a few times where you can't actually win the game with worship out. This allows you to do both. Plays as worship #4 vs affinity, and considerably more efficient vs baneslayer. I've just completely eliminated Stony Silence though. I figure between EE's, Swords, Vials, it just hoses my gameplan too much.
Board is sitting:
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1 Fracturing Gust
2 Worship (3 Total)
1 Qasali Pridemage (3 Total)
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Torpor Orb
2 Burrington Forge-Tender
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Engineered Explosives
How I board?
Affinity
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Draw/Play - IN: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +1 Fracturing Gust, + 1 Qasali Pridemage, OUT: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -3 Mirran Crusader
G/R Tron
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Qasali Pridemage, Out: -3 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Worship, -1 Path to Exile.
-- Notes: Aether Vials are really important here in this matchup, I believe because often you're ghost quartering without the best of value (aka NORMAL GQing). Fixes mana problems and allows you to respond aggressively to those red sweepers (although you're hosed significantly vs o-stone, but o-stone is still bad vs voices).
U/x Tron
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Worship, -1 Path to Exile, -2 Mirran Crusader.
Blue Moon
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Worship, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Mirran Crusaders, -1 Aven Mindcensor.
-- Notes: More anti-shackles targets. Sword gives you blue protection and puts most of your bears out of bolt range. Worship because the first one won't resolve, You could bring in 2 worships if you feel their diving into more countermagic (which they usually don't, postboard). Thrun's a beating. I mean, you could also contemplate bringing in an EE or Two as you'll often have access to RED mana to get to 2 (or 3). Did I mention Blue Moon hates it when you play T1 Vial? Pretty much requires them to have a Vandalblast to actually attempt to punish you.
Living End
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Draw: In: +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Worship, +1 Thrun the Last Troll, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Aether Vial, -1 Leonin Arbiter, -1 Loxodon Smiter.
Play: +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, +1 Worship, +1 Thrun the Last Troll, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Aether Vial.
-- Notes: I think Thalia's a good, not great card, and significantly better on the draw than the play because on the play, you can be very aggressive with your arbiters/ghost quarters and push them off of a shakey landbase. On the draw, it's way harder to accomplish that, so what better way to do that than to tax their spells (aka Violent Outburst/Living End) and force them to pay 5 mana. Forge-Tenders block for days. Mirran Crusaders just straight up beat the deck often enough if they're in the yard, or if you play them post-living end.
UWR Control/Geist
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Storm
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thrabin, +2 Worship, + 2 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Voice of Resurgence, -1 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: EE @ 2 is pretty much ideal. Turns off both Pyromancer & Electromancer. If you show Worship G1, don't be surprised to see Negate/Swan Song from the board, otherwise, they might just go with Echoing Truth EoT. Voice is pretty bad vs most combo decks, because most of the time the token's irrelevant.
Mindcensor's too slow. You could take out Sword of War and Peace on the draw, because on the play you can go t1 dork (pray it doesn't get bolted), t2 sword (pray that dork doesn't get bolted), t3 (still praying) equip, gain 5 life and get out of grapeshot range by a fair chunk. Life gain is totally relevant if they have to go the grapeshot route, if they go pyromancer? It's not otherwise. Scooze also gets solid work done. Don't be afraid to constantly rip up their GY every turn if you have to. It works with both Past in Flames & Pyromancer routes (and nabs Faithless Looting).
Ad Nauseum
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, Out: -1 Worship, -1 Aether Vial, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -4 Path to Exile
-- Notes: They can beat worship with one card in their 60. Patrician Scorn does a fine job of it. They don't need it while going off. It just needs to be in the deck. Burrington-Forge Tender on the other hand requires them to play slaughter pact in order to win. EE, Thalia, and Pridemage do 80% of the work vs this deck while Arbiter and Mindcensor do the rest. Just remember to destroy their Lotus Blooms in upkeep. EE @ 0 is key/clutch/everything good. Thalia + Forge-Tender usually means they can't win. Forge-Tender, if you're unaware, beats lightning storm. The other thing you can do is: hold 2,3,4,5 lands in hand. If you don't have to play it, don't play it. Attempt to gain any life you can too. If you're at 25, 27, 30 life, it's pretty tough for them to beat you if you have a land or two in hand because they'll have to discard 10+12+14 lands. Sword of Body and Mind is also pretty hilarious too. I've connected once with it and that pretty much wins you the game one way or another because you either take out multiple win-cons or 10 lands. And 10 lands = 20 damage.
Merfolk
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -3 Mirran Crusaders
-- Notes: You're the control deck. Don't bother to get value on their lands early. If they play Coralheim Commander, you can probably take out in the SoWaP because they're generally better vs if they're not playing with as many flyers (because there aren't a bunch of flying merfolk, obv.) and you can suit it up on a bird and break parity a bit... EE is super strong. Paths are not, but are still a necessary evil vs Kira as you don't want them to just dominate you by t3, t4. Vials aren't that useful because they're not likely to counter your creatures. Scoozes are because the life gain vs Vapor Snag is important with Worship.
NinjaBear
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Play/Draw - In: +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, + 1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Worship, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aether Vials
-- Notes: Really similar to Blue Moon. More likely to have Hibernation. Pretty much all of your creatures if you take out Mindcensor and Crusader are... Green. Don't need all of the Aether Vials, but having 1 for value is fine (you can remove it on the draw if you think they're bringing in Spell Snares).
Melira Pod
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -2 Aether Vial, -2 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Qasali Pridemage.
-- Notes: Feel free to sub an Aether Vial for a Worship if you feel their manabase is shakey (to allow you to Ghost Quarter aggressively). Pridemages are good, but never great. Resolving Birthing Pod isn't nearly as good with a Arbiter or Mindcensor. I've found that more often than not I side in only 2 worships.
Kiki Pod
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Play - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -1 Aether Vial, -2 Qasali Pridemages, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Scavenging Ooze
Draw - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -1 Birds of Paradise, -2 Qasali Pridemages, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Scavenging Ooze
-- Notes: You really want the 3 Worships vs Kiki, moreso than against Melira. They're pretty likely to board out of some Birthing Pods and just focus on trying to be more of a creature deck (Melira Pod is set up more like that MB). Izzet Staticaster is verrrry common, and sucks verrrry much vs dorks. If they don't see Vial, they'll be more likely to keep it in, where it's not nearly as good vs the rest of the x/1 creatures we have. Ooze isn't very good, but not being fully pulled because there's still value, but not essential in the way that it is vs Melira.
UR Twin, URg Twin
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Play/Draw - ???, only certainty is in: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb
-- Notes: They're not playing nearly as many Kiki-Jiki's as before which makes Spellskite top-notch. But this is one of those decks you really have to feel out how to sideboard against because the configurations can be so radically different. If you see Snapcasters and Grim Lavamancers, prioritize your Oozes. If you see Flame Slash or zero Pestermites, contimplate bringing in Burrington Forge-Tenders (because they might bring anger of the gods). Totally possible that they have Batterskull, or not. They may not actually have hard-counters or have flame slash, and they'd have to double bolt something to kill it. Thrun has uses, but not all the time. They may just try to play the tempo deck and win that way (which you obviously have the advantage against). They might play Blood Moons, they might not. Pay attention to their landbase... The Green Variants try to beat you with Tarmogoyf post board most often, Crusaders could still be very good. Aether Vials have some usage. This is probably the single most skill dependent sideboarding matchup for any configuration of GW Hatebears.
URw Twin
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Play/Draw: In: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aether Vial, -1 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: Much more consistant configurations make it an easier deck to prepare for. Usually 8-10 spells that can kill a Mirran Crusader. They tend to play more proactive than reactive UR/URg. They can use EE against you. Still not a great matchup. Burrington Forge-Tender gets a lot of work though, because they can/will bring in sweepers because they don't have Pestermites. Wall of Omens will bite you usually. But they run very few pieces of enchantment hate usually, Wear//Tear or two, and not many actual hard counters. They're likely to bring in Stoney Silence if you show Vial's/Swords game 1...
Zoo
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Worship, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +2 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Mirran Crusader, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Qasali Pridemage
-- Notes: EE is to taste. You want them to burn your dorks. But don't keep hands reliant on them. They'll beat you if you keep bad hands. Faster Zoo decks require more EE's, Slower ones, more Worships. The slower they are, generally the more consistent they are. They won't fizzle and explode if they're a bit slower/bigger as often. Worship wins games. I like SoWaP, but too often I feel like it's a dead draw because you don't get those explosive hands where you get to keep your birds when you untap. Pretty much most decks are playing Ghor-Clan Rampager. Those are gross. Save your Paths for them.
Gifts
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Worship, Out: -1 Qasali Pridemage, -1 Path to Exile, -1 Loxodon Smiter
-- Notes: They'll bring in sweepers usually in the form of 3 differently named wrath effects (usually, wrath of god, damnation, supreme verdict), Timely Reinforcements as well. Aether Vial though, gets around Iona. They may bring in Stony Silence, but that's not something to really care about. Most of their creatures are Green/Blue (except for the default Iona + Elesh Norn), which makes Mirran excellent for getting in with early damage. If you keep hands with GY hate, you better have cards that'd make them pay otherwise. They get little value from Liliana. Swords + Mirran > Iona, Swords + Smiter < Iona. Worship may never resolve, don't bring in too many. They're slowwwwww as hell. You might contemplate bringing in an EE or two if you're getting smacked with timelys.
Mirror
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Aether Vials, -1 Voice of Resurgence, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: This one changes up from time to time but Mirran Crusader is literally _the house_ vs the mirror. Leonin Arbiter is one that you pull in/out to taste, because your opponent's likely to keep in a few as well, you don't need to get stacking symmetry, and it's by far the worst of the Bears from a purely offensive standpoint. EE's are good if you feel that there's a fair opportunity you can take a part of the board's CMC that you don't control. Sword of Body and Mind makes you pretty much unable to be blocked by 60% of the creatures. Pridemage is because everyone knows you play Worship, because they do too. It becomes a Pridemage war. Thrun is a big blocker in a deck that doesn't have a ton of evasion, that's a plus. That's how these games come down to nowadays is: Who can keep a Worship on the board the longest (or who can resolve and connect with a Sword of Body and Mind
Boggles
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, + 2 Worship, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Fracturing Gust, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -2 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Leonin Arbiter, -3 Scaveging Ooze,
-- Notes: Yep. Bring in 10 sideboard cards. EE @ 1 pretty much resets the board, but SoBaM gives you protection (and a 5 turn clock vs lifelink). Gust is like EE, but wins you games straight up. Worship gives you enough time to cast real cards. Thalia slows them down considerably. This is one of three matchups where I feel that Ethersworn Cannonist is better than Thalia (but if cannonist was just a white creature, it'd be an auto-include, the other two are storm & living end). Vials are too slow, along with Mindcensor, Smiters don't have protection, and that requires them to have either Daybreak Coronets, Unflinching Courage, or Rancor. Always target Daybreak Coronet first, Ethereal Armor second. They usually only have 1 basic land.
Burn
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Burrington Forge Tender, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -3 Aether Vial
-- Notes: Basically all your creatures could/should trade with their creatures. Thalia stops everything but Vexing Devil (and 90% of the time, just take the 4 damage). Skullcrack stops Forge-Tender's protection, but not Worship. Vs. RBw, you're dead to Bump in the Night usually. Keep them off black mana. Straight Boros, Worships considerably more impressive. Thrun is basically another Forge-Tender, aka a card they can't kill which completes the Worship lock.
BG
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Loxodon Smiter
-- Notes: G1 on the draw, it's really important to "appear" to be Birthing Pod so they're more likely to +1 Liliana you into a Loxodon Smiter. They're not going to want to keep a lot of discard spells either, so, that improves the value of Mirran Crusader, Swords, and Worship. You're also not likely to screw with their tight manabases. Thrun's serious business vs their mediocre, but value creatures, and SoBaM pretty much rocks all the green creatures. Pro-Green is relevant vs the field still. Very likely to have a Maelstrom Pulse or two in the 75, so don't play multiple Worships.
BGx
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Aether Vial, -1 Loxodon Smiter, -2 Qasali Pridemage.
-- Notes: Like BG in many ways, except you're likely to get less value from Mirran Crusader as they're not as focused on discard as BG. Vs Jund, your Smiters are better than Crusaders, and vs Junk, Crusaders better than Smiters. Some jund variants (like the PT list), are playing sweepers, and Forge-Tender becomes useful (especially vs Anger of the Gods). You also want more Vials because your more likely to take lands with creaturelands in their decks (stirring wildwoods & raging ravine)
Bitterblossom Fae (not U/R Fae)
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Path to Exile, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -2 Scavenging Ooze
-- Notes: More often than not, the game comes down to: they resolve bitterblossom. Bitterblossom kills them because they can't deal with Worship(s). Engineered Explosives is very good. Path isn't, just like in the BW Tokens matchup (sometimes). Thrun is negligible, depending on the build vs Fae. They like to bring in Batterskulls often, and cards like Marsh Casualaties (GROSS). Damnation is actually a fair card vs both decks, just remember to play around it if you're living off of Worship. They won't take out their discard. Hold back your Smiters, keep one, two, three in hand if you can, and pretend as if they're land or removal in your hand (like EE), especially if the board was swept. Torpor Orb might be OK if they're playing a lot of Cliques (Mistbind/Vendillion) or Snapcasters.
8 Rack
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Play/Draw: In - +1 Worship, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Fracturing Gust, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Path to Exile, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: Arbiter's just aren't that great. They don't search, they're 2/2 bears, and they don't play creatures. So... Same with Aven Mindcensor. Coming in though, Gust, EE, Pridemage, Thalia are all trying to disrupt their gameplan and force them to rebuild. The Rack usually is what does the most damage, but Shrieking Affliction is usually what kills you. Your deck does not play symmetrically with their deck. Play your creatures, but never more land then what's necessary. Don't bother playing Ghost Quarter's on them unless you get the T2 magic (t1 dork, t2 arbiter quarter). The lifegain from Scooze isn't negligible. It will happpen. Your yard will be filled with cards. This deck is absolutely a great reason to find a Horizon Canopy. Play your artifacts even if you don't use them. Force them to reconsider playing Wretch Mind.
BW Tokens
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Out: -3 Voice of Resurgence, -3 Aether Vial, -1 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: Worship is the big-heavy vs them, but often times they can gain a ridiculous amount of life with Auriok Champion. It's why you can't take out paths, you'd just auto-lose to that or Hero of Bladehold. Arbiter & Mindcensor aren't super effective in the matchup either, but Thalia slows them down considerably, and Pridemage gives you yet another ability to beat on their anthem effects. Sword of War and Peace gives you reach through their white creatures, while Mirran Crusader through Bitterblossom tokens.
Amulet Combo
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, Out: -1 Spellskite, -3 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Worship.
-- Notes: Stop the from searching. You're less likely to die from Titans than you are Hive Mind. They'll probably go on that plan in G2/G3. You can pay for pretty much ALL of the pay spells (via Dorks or Lands. Path every Titan. Forge Tender's are because they'll bring in some quantity of sweepers. CAN YOU SAY HOW SWEET GHOST QUARTERING THEIR KAROO LAND IS? They're unlikely to get into Tech Edge range, but if they do... Pull the trigger with vengence. Sunhome, Fortress of Legion is the utility land you want to crush first, as that's the one that will straight up roll over any defense you have.
Scapeshift
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +1 Worship, Out:
-- Notes: If they play Prismatic Omen, you still want your Pridemages. But, the idea is to either: A) Destroy their 5 mountains down to at least 4 (Ignore the Valakuts mostly), B) Aggressively rock them, C) Play Worship, and load the board with creatures they can't kill or get enough lands on the board to kill all. This matchup has gotten significantly easier in my mind once I figured out the mental blocks to beating this deck.
Infect
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vials, -3 Scaveging Ooze.
-- Notes: Just kill their creatures, I know. Easier said than done, but EE/Thalia/Pridemage allows you to slow them down enough. Oozes are probably the least friendly card vs them because they don't play a ton of creatures to start with. I'm probably wrong though. But Thalia and Pridemage are better.
Mono-Green Devotion
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: This deck has a few variations, but all of them don't like SoBam, Worship, and Torpor Orb. None of them like Mirran Crusader either. It basically is two routes, either A) Play Genesis Wave (we don't care if Torpor Orb is in play, because LOL NICE JOB Craterhoof, or Worship: LOL DON'T CARE), or B) Play really aggressive creatures over mana dorks and use density & planeswalkers to do. EE is also a totally viable option to play with the mana-dork variety. They will play some quantity of the following: Nature's Claim, Acidic Slime, Fracturing Gusts. Kessig Wolf-Run should never kill you. If you see it, blow it up.
Goryo's Vengence
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: They have some spicy things in their SB's, but most/all are sweepers. We don't want to attack that way usually, we want to go more against their landbase. Thalia makes it really tough for them to "do" their business, but, this is another one of those decks where I would prefer Ethersworn Cannonist to Thalia, by a lot. Stops multiple Fury of the Horde, Instant Reanimation, blah blah blah.
Soul Sisters
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Play/Draw: In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Thrun, The Last Troll, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -2 Loxodon Smiter, -3 Aether Vial, -4 Leonin Arbiter, -1 Mirran Crusader
-- Notes: Your goal is to stop them from gaining a billion life, and then slowly whittle their life total down while not being able to die. Engineered Explosives for 1 is what you want to be at. Vs the versions with the Immortal Servitiude shenanigans, Scavenging Ooze is solid. EE for 2 is also good if you're stuck with Genesis Chamber/Norin shenanigans.
Mono-White Control/Enchantress
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Play/Draw: In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Fracturing Gust, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: 0% win rate. This deck is nigh impossible to beat for us. Fracturing Gust is literally our only out. They'll bring in creature removal, stuff for Worship, Heliod, all sorts of gross stuff that you can't really deal with. If you're lucky ad have a super aggressive hand, you can pull off a win, but to do it out of 3 is super tough to accomplish. Hope that Thalia can slow them down enough for you to push through.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Un autre con brandit le drapeau de la nouvelle économie. Agitant sa criminelle thérapie, l'abruti prophá¨te s'en va guerrir le monde de ses maux ! Mais la misá¨re n'a que faire de cette médecine á dose homeopathétique, Il n'y a d'autre cure que l'ablation du liberal-fascisme qui nous ronge. - Amanda Woodward, Un Autre Con
I'd rather play EE over Chalice g1. Just my though.
I've been on the Worship pre-board train for a week now and I think it's won me 2-3 games straight up (dying only to twin where their only out was essentially flameslash/double bolt+cryptic). Rot in my hand another 2-3 games where I thought, maybe I play it, force them to play around it, force them to maybe board harder to beat it if it's a deck that they just simply have zero outs to most of the time (blue decks mostly, green decks sometimes). It's really not been as awful as I thought it was going to be pre-board...
I've also made a realization. Having 3-4 Crusaders MB pretty much means I'll see more than one. They'll have to have more than one bolt, and Crusaders off the top are pretty sweet. I got my first 2 bolted in a G1 vs Grixis Fae, that third one stuck and I rode it until the end. It's something that you can bring out pretty easily that gives your SB more flexibility to bring in more effective cards (read: creatures).
I've put in a fracturing gust as a wincon vs affinity. Worship won't lose you the game, but there's more than a few times where you can't actually win the game with worship out. This allows you to do both. Plays as worship #4 vs affinity, and considerably more efficient vs baneslayer. I've just completely eliminated Stony Silence though. I figure between EE's, Swords, Vials, it just hoses my gameplan too much.
Board is sitting:
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1 Fracturing Gust
2 Worship (3 Total)
1 Qasali Pridemage (3 Total)
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Torpor Orb
2 Burrington Forge-Tender
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Engineered Explosives
How I board?
Affinity
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Draw/Play - IN: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +1 Fracturing Gust, + 1 Qasali Pridemage, OUT: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -3 Mirran Crusader
G/R Tron
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Qasali Pridemage, Out: -3 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Worship, -1 Path to Exile.
-- Notes: Aether Vials are really important here in this matchup, I believe because often you're ghost quartering without the best of value (aka NORMAL GQing). Fixes mana problems and allows you to respond aggressively to those red sweepers (although you're hosed significantly vs o-stone, but o-stone is still bad vs voices).
U/x Tron
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Worship, -1 Path to Exile, -2 Mirran Crusader.
Blue Moon
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Worship, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Mirran Crusaders, -1 Aven Mindcensor.
-- Notes: More anti-shackles targets. Sword gives you blue protection and puts most of your bears out of bolt range. Worship because the first one won't resolve, You could bring in 2 worships if you feel their diving into more countermagic (which they usually don't, postboard). Thrun's a beating. I mean, you could also contemplate bringing in an EE or Two as you'll often have access to RED mana to get to 2 (or 3). Did I mention Blue Moon hates it when you play T1 Vial? Pretty much requires them to have a Vandalblast to actually attempt to punish you.
Living End
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Draw: In: +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Worship, +1 Thrun the Last Troll, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Aether Vial, -1 Leonin Arbiter, -1 Loxodon Smiter.
Play: +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, +1 Worship, +1 Thrun the Last Troll, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Aether Vial.
-- Notes: I think Thalia's a good, not great card, and significantly better on the draw than the play because on the play, you can be very aggressive with your arbiters/ghost quarters and push them off of a shakey landbase. On the draw, it's way harder to accomplish that, so what better way to do that than to tax their spells (aka Violent Outburst/Living End) and force them to pay 5 mana. Forge-Tenders block for days. Mirran Crusaders just straight up beat the deck often enough if they're in the yard, or if you play them post-living end.
UWR Control/Geist
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Storm
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thrabin, +2 Worship, + 2 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Voice of Resurgence, -1 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: EE @ 2 is pretty much ideal. Turns off both Pyromancer & Electromancer. If you show Worship G1, don't be surprised to see Negate/Swan Song from the board, otherwise, they might just go with Echoing Truth EoT. Voice is pretty bad vs most combo decks, because most of the time the token's irrelevant.
Mindcensor's too slow. You could take out Sword of War and Peace on the draw, because on the play you can go t1 dork (pray it doesn't get bolted), t2 sword (pray that dork doesn't get bolted), t3 (still praying) equip, gain 5 life and get out of grapeshot range by a fair chunk. Life gain is totally relevant if they have to go the grapeshot route, if they go pyromancer? It's not otherwise. Scooze also gets solid work done. Don't be afraid to constantly rip up their GY every turn if you have to. It works with both Past in Flames & Pyromancer routes (and nabs Faithless Looting).
Ad Nauseum
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, Out: -1 Worship, -1 Aether Vial, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -4 Path to Exile
-- Notes: They can beat worship with one card in their 60. Patrician Scorn does a fine job of it. They don't need it while going off. It just needs to be in the deck. Burrington-Forge Tender on the other hand requires them to play slaughter pact in order to win. EE, Thalia, and Pridemage do 80% of the work vs this deck while Arbiter and Mindcensor do the rest. Just remember to destroy their Lotus Blooms in upkeep. EE @ 0 is key/clutch/everything good. Thalia + Forge-Tender usually means they can't win. Forge-Tender, if you're unaware, beats lightning storm. The other thing you can do is: hold 2,3,4,5 lands in hand. If you don't have to play it, don't play it. Attempt to gain any life you can too. If you're at 25, 27, 30 life, it's pretty tough for them to beat you if you have a land or two in hand because they'll have to discard 10+12+14 lands. Sword of Body and Mind is also pretty hilarious too. I've connected once with it and that pretty much wins you the game one way or another because you either take out multiple win-cons or 10 lands. And 10 lands = 20 damage.
Merfolk
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -3 Mirran Crusaders
-- Notes: You're the control deck. Don't bother to get value on their lands early. If they play Coralheim Commander, you can probably take out in the SoWaP because they're generally better vs if they're not playing with as many flyers (because there aren't a bunch of flying merfolk, obv.) and you can suit it up on a bird and break parity a bit... EE is super strong. Paths are not, but are still a necessary evil vs Kira as you don't want them to just dominate you by t3, t4. Vials aren't that useful because they're not likely to counter your creatures. Scoozes are because the life gain vs Vapor Snag is important with Worship.
NinjaBear
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Play/Draw - In: +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, + 1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Worship, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aether Vials
-- Notes: Really similar to Blue Moon. More likely to have Hibernation. Pretty much all of your creatures if you take out Mindcensor and Crusader are... Green. Don't need all of the Aether Vials, but having 1 for value is fine (you can remove it on the draw if you think they're bringing in Spell Snares).
Melira Pod
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -2 Aether Vial, -2 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Qasali Pridemage.
-- Notes: Feel free to sub an Aether Vial for a Worship if you feel their manabase is shakey (to allow you to Ghost Quarter aggressively). Pridemages are good, but never great. Resolving Birthing Pod isn't nearly as good with a Arbiter or Mindcensor. I've found that more often than not I side in only 2 worships.
Kiki Pod
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Play - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -1 Aether Vial, -2 Qasali Pridemages, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Scavenging Ooze
Draw - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -1 Birds of Paradise, -2 Qasali Pridemages, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Scavenging Ooze
-- Notes: You really want the 3 Worships vs Kiki, moreso than against Melira. They're pretty likely to board out of some Birthing Pods and just focus on trying to be more of a creature deck (Melira Pod is set up more like that MB). Izzet Staticaster is verrrry common, and sucks verrrry much vs dorks. If they don't see Vial, they'll be more likely to keep it in, where it's not nearly as good vs the rest of the x/1 creatures we have. Ooze isn't very good, but not being fully pulled because there's still value, but not essential in the way that it is vs Melira.
UR Twin, URg Twin
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Play/Draw - ???, only certainty is in: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb
-- Notes: They're not playing nearly as many Kiki-Jiki's as before which makes Spellskite top-notch. But this is one of those decks you really have to feel out how to sideboard against because the configurations can be so radically different. If you see Snapcasters and Grim Lavamancers, prioritize your Oozes. If you see Flame Slash or zero Pestermites, contimplate bringing in Burrington Forge-Tenders (because they might bring anger of the gods). Totally possible that they have Batterskull, or not. They may not actually have hard-counters or have flame slash, and they'd have to double bolt something to kill it. Thrun has uses, but not all the time. They may just try to play the tempo deck and win that way (which you obviously have the advantage against). They might play Blood Moons, they might not. Pay attention to their landbase... The Green Variants try to beat you with Tarmogoyf post board most often, Crusaders could still be very good. Aether Vials have some usage. This is probably the single most skill dependent sideboarding matchup for any configuration of GW Hatebears.
URw Twin
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Play/Draw: In: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aether Vial, -1 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: Much more consistant configurations make it an easier deck to prepare for. Usually 8-10 spells that can kill a Mirran Crusader. They tend to play more proactive than reactive UR/URg. They can use EE against you. Still not a great matchup. Burrington Forge-Tender gets a lot of work though, because they can/will bring in sweepers because they don't have Pestermites. Wall of Omens will bite you usually. But they run very few pieces of enchantment hate usually, Wear//Tear or two, and not many actual hard counters. They're likely to bring in Stoney Silence if you show Vial's/Swords game 1...
Zoo
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Worship, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +2 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Mirran Crusader, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Qasali Pridemage
-- Notes: EE is to taste. You want them to burn your dorks. But don't keep hands reliant on them. They'll beat you if you keep bad hands. Faster Zoo decks require more EE's, Slower ones, more Worships. The slower they are, generally the more consistent they are. They won't fizzle and explode if they're a bit slower/bigger as often. Worship wins games. I like SoWaP, but too often I feel like it's a dead draw because you don't get those explosive hands where you get to keep your birds when you untap. Pretty much most decks are playing Ghor-Clan Rampager. Those are gross. Save your Paths for them.
Gifts
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Worship, Out: -1 Qasali Pridemage, -1 Path to Exile, -1 Loxodon Smiter
-- Notes: They'll bring in sweepers usually in the form of 3 differently named wrath effects (usually, wrath of god, damnation, supreme verdict), Timely Reinforcements as well. Aether Vial though, gets around Iona. They may bring in Stony Silence, but that's not something to really care about. Most of their creatures are Green/Blue (except for the default Iona + Elesh Norn), which makes Mirran excellent for getting in with early damage. If you keep hands with GY hate, you better have cards that'd make them pay otherwise. They get little value from Liliana. Swords + Mirran > Iona, Swords + Smiter < Iona. Worship may never resolve, don't bring in too many. They're slowwwwww as hell. You might contemplate bringing in an EE or two if you're getting smacked with timelys.
Mirror
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Aether Vials, -1 Voice of Resurgence, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: This one changes up from time to time but Mirran Crusader is literally _the house_ vs the mirror. Leonin Arbiter is one that you pull in/out to taste, because your opponent's likely to keep in a few as well, you don't need to get stacking symmetry, and it's by far the worst of the Bears from a purely offensive standpoint. EE's are good if you feel that there's a fair opportunity you can take a part of the board's CMC that you don't control. Sword of Body and Mind makes you pretty much unable to be blocked by 60% of the creatures. Pridemage is because everyone knows you play Worship, because they do too. It becomes a Pridemage war. Thrun is a big blocker in a deck that doesn't have a ton of evasion, that's a plus. That's how these games come down to nowadays is: Who can keep a Worship on the board the longest (or who can resolve and connect with a Sword of Body and Mind
Boggles
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, + 2 Worship, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Fracturing Gust, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -2 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Leonin Arbiter, -3 Scaveging Ooze,
-- Notes: Yep. Bring in 10 sideboard cards. EE @ 1 pretty much resets the board, but SoBaM gives you protection (and a 5 turn clock vs lifelink). Gust is like EE, but wins you games straight up. Worship gives you enough time to cast real cards. Thalia slows them down considerably. This is one of three matchups where I feel that Ethersworn Cannonist is better than Thalia (but if cannonist was just a white creature, it'd be an auto-include, the other two are storm & living end). Vials are too slow, along with Mindcensor, Smiters don't have protection, and that requires them to have either Daybreak Coronets, Unflinching Courage, or Rancor. Always target Daybreak Coronet first, Ethereal Armor second. They usually only have 1 basic land.
Burn
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Burrington Forge Tender, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -3 Aether Vial
-- Notes: Basically all your creatures could/should trade with their creatures. Thalia stops everything but Vexing Devil (and 90% of the time, just take the 4 damage). Skullcrack stops Forge-Tender's protection, but not Worship. Vs. RBw, you're dead to Bump in the Night usually. Keep them off black mana. Straight Boros, Worships considerably more impressive. Thrun is basically another Forge-Tender, aka a card they can't kill which completes the Worship lock.
BG
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Loxodon Smiter
-- Notes: G1 on the draw, it's really important to "appear" to be Birthing Pod so they're more likely to +1 Liliana you into a Loxodon Smiter. They're not going to want to keep a lot of discard spells either, so, that improves the value of Mirran Crusader, Swords, and Worship. You're also not likely to screw with their tight manabases. Thrun's serious business vs their mediocre, but value creatures, and SoBaM pretty much rocks all the green creatures. Pro-Green is relevant vs the field still. Very likely to have a Maelstrom Pulse or two in the 75, so don't play multiple Worships.
BGx
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Aether Vial, -1 Loxodon Smiter, -2 Qasali Pridemage.
-- Notes: Like BG in many ways, except you're likely to get less value from Mirran Crusader as they're not as focused on discard as BG. Vs Jund, your Smiters are better than Crusaders, and vs Junk, Crusaders better than Smiters. Some jund variants (like the PT list), are playing sweepers, and Forge-Tender becomes useful (especially vs Anger of the Gods). You also want more Vials because your more likely to take lands with creaturelands in their decks (stirring wildwoods & raging ravine)
Bitterblossom Fae (not U/R Fae)
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Path to Exile, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -2 Scavenging Ooze
-- Notes: More often than not, the game comes down to: they resolve bitterblossom. Bitterblossom kills them because they can't deal with Worship(s). Engineered Explosives is very good. Path isn't, just like in the BW Tokens matchup (sometimes). Thrun is negligible, depending on the build vs Fae. They like to bring in Batterskulls often, and cards like Marsh Casualaties (GROSS). Damnation is actually a fair card vs both decks, just remember to play around it if you're living off of Worship. They won't take out their discard. Hold back your Smiters, keep one, two, three in hand if you can, and pretend as if they're land or removal in your hand (like EE), especially if the board was swept. Torpor Orb might be OK if they're playing a lot of Cliques (Mistbind/Vendillion) or Snapcasters.
8 Rack
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Play/Draw: In - +1 Worship, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Fracturing Gust, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Path to Exile, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: Arbiter's just aren't that great. They don't search, they're 2/2 bears, and they don't play creatures. So... Same with Aven Mindcensor. Coming in though, Gust, EE, Pridemage, Thalia are all trying to disrupt their gameplan and force them to rebuild. The Rack usually is what does the most damage, but Shrieking Affliction is usually what kills you. Your deck does not play symmetrically with their deck. Play your creatures, but never more land then what's necessary. Don't bother playing Ghost Quarter's on them unless you get the T2 magic (t1 dork, t2 arbiter quarter). The lifegain from Scooze isn't negligible. It will happpen. Your yard will be filled with cards. This deck is absolutely a great reason to find a Horizon Canopy. Play your artifacts even if you don't use them. Force them to reconsider playing Wretch Mind.
BW Tokens
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Out: -3 Voice of Resurgence, -3 Aether Vial, -1 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: Worship is the big-heavy vs them, but often times they can gain a ridiculous amount of life with Auriok Champion. It's why you can't take out paths, you'd just auto-lose to that or Hero of Bladehold. Arbiter & Mindcensor aren't super effective in the matchup either, but Thalia slows them down considerably, and Pridemage gives you yet another ability to beat on their anthem effects. Sword of War and Peace gives you reach through their white creatures, while Mirran Crusader through Bitterblossom tokens.
Amulet Combo
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, Out: -1 Spellskite, -3 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Worship.
-- Notes: Stop the from searching. You're less likely to die from Titans than you are Hive Mind. They'll probably go on that plan in G2/G3. You can pay for pretty much ALL of the pay spells (via Dorks or Lands. Path every Titan. Forge Tender's are because they'll bring in some quantity of sweepers. CAN YOU SAY HOW SWEET GHOST QUARTERING THEIR KAROO LAND IS? They're unlikely to get into Tech Edge range, but if they do... Pull the trigger with vengence. Sunhome, Fortress of Legion is the utility land you want to crush first, as that's the one that will straight up roll over any defense you have.
Scapeshift
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +1 Worship, Out:
-- Notes: If they play Prismatic Omen, you still want your Pridemages. But, the idea is to either: A) Destroy their 5 mountains down to at least 4 (Ignore the Valakuts mostly), B) Aggressively rock them, C) Play Worship, and load the board with creatures they can't kill or get enough lands on the board to kill all. This matchup has gotten significantly easier in my mind once I figured out the mental blocks to beating this deck.
Infect
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vials, -3 Scaveging Ooze.
-- Notes: Just kill their creatures, I know. Easier said than done, but EE/Thalia/Pridemage allows you to slow them down enough. Oozes are probably the least friendly card vs them because they don't play a ton of creatures to start with. I'm probably wrong though. But Thalia and Pridemage are better.
Mono-Green Devotion
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: This deck has a few variations, but all of them don't like SoBam, Worship, and Torpor Orb. None of them like Mirran Crusader either. It basically is two routes, either A) Play Genesis Wave (we don't care if Torpor Orb is in play, because LOL NICE JOB Craterhoof, or Worship: LOL DON'T CARE), or B) Play really aggressive creatures over mana dorks and use density & planeswalkers to do. EE is also a totally viable option to play with the mana-dork variety. They will play some quantity of the following: Nature's Claim, Acidic Slime, Fracturing Gusts. Kessig Wolf-Run should never kill you. If you see it, blow it up.
Goryo's Vengence
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: They have some spicy things in their SB's, but most/all are sweepers. We don't want to attack that way usually, we want to go more against their landbase. Thalia makes it really tough for them to "do" their business, but, this is another one of those decks where I would prefer Ethersworn Cannonist to Thalia, by a lot. Stops multiple Fury of the Horde, Instant Reanimation, blah blah blah.
Soul Sisters
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Play/Draw: In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Thrun, The Last Troll, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -2 Loxodon Smiter, -3 Aether Vial, -4 Leonin Arbiter, -1 Mirran Crusader
-- Notes: Your goal is to stop them from gaining a billion life, and then slowly whittle their life total down while not being able to die. Engineered Explosives for 1 is what you want to be at. Vs the versions with the Immortal Servitiude shenanigans, Scavenging Ooze is solid. EE for 2 is also good if you're stuck with Genesis Chamber/Norin shenanigans.
Mono-White Control/Enchantress
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Play/Draw: In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Fracturing Gust, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: 0% win rate. This deck is nigh impossible to beat for us. Fracturing Gust is literally our only out. They'll bring in creature removal, stuff for Worship, Heliod, all sorts of gross stuff that you can't really deal with. If you're lucky ad have a super aggressive hand, you can pull off a win, but to do it out of 3 is super tough to accomplish. Hope that Thalia can slow them down enough for you to push through.
So as I was looking at your board in / outs I figured I'd see if I could make sense of any patterns.
I tallied your data in a Google Doc and I'm hoping some folks here might be better at analyzing the data than I do, so its open for anyone to edit. Damnit Jim, I'm a programmer - not a statistician!
Some things that I've noticed right off:
Engineered Explosives top the board-in at 39 times, with Worship in second place with 38
Aether Vial top the board-out with 44 times, with Mirran Crusader second at 26
On average, you board in 2.6 explosives and 1.46 Worship
On average, you board out 2.32 Vials and 2.36 Cursader
What does this tell us? Damned if I really know. Just looking at that info above in a vacuum I would probably consider making some of those changes be permanent. Seems to be common things that you're always swapping around. I'm sure theres a lot better analysis that can be done by people here who have more experience in good ways to view data. Your totals on +/- vs each matchup didn't always zero out, so this data may be a bit off.
Another thought that occurred to me - initially I sort of shrugged off your Sword of Body and Mind, but it seems that you not only tend to bring it in more than I would have thought, its probably really solid in those match-ups either due to the protections, alternate win condition, or both. I will have to play around with that one myself, the more I think about it.
Scapeshift wants to ramp the early game, control the mid-game, and win via Scapeshift, getting Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle + several mountains, around turn 6-7. They tend to run sweepers such as Firespout as seen here, or Anger of the Gods. Bolt is in there for spot removal and extra damage. Remand and Cryptic Command can help them dig for answers while disrupting our game plan. You may notice that they need 6 mountains for this ability to occur after it's triggered, and they only run around 10 mountains in the entire deck. This gives them essentially one shot to win, so they will play carefully to ensure they go off at the most opportune moment. There are a couple of ways to interact with this deck. I think the preferred route is to target their mana base. Generally I will kill off a Valakut if I ever see one hit play. Otherwise I try to save my land destruction for when they go off. Cutting them down to 5 with the trigger on the stack will stop the effect from going off. Since we have uncounterable land destruction, there is really very little they can do to stop it. Additionally, Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor do a good job of hating on their ramping. Loxodon Smiter and Thrun, the Last Troll get around their counter magic and survive their sweepers. Aether Vial and creatures with Flash are good here too. You can also help push yourself out of lethal range via lifegain. Some builds can be geared to hate this deck effectively, but it's usually an even match up in game 1. Post board expect more removal. Inferno Titan looks solid against us. We can bring in more lifegain. Spellskite and Guardian Seraph can reduce the damage on those Valakut triggers by one. Worship can also make things more difficult for them, but it's still pretty even post board.
The plan for the Living End player is to cycle through their deck with their creatures and use Shriekmaw and Fulminator Mage to disrupt us. Then once they feel it's going to bad advantageous to them, they will cascade into Living End with either Violent Outburst or Demonic Dread. Beware the Combat/EoT Violent Outburst. Fortunately, they do search a little bit. Pale Recluse fetches for lands, and they do run fetch lands. We can also hate on them effectively with graveyard effects, such as Scavenging Ooze. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben also does a good job of slowing down their game plan, effectively pushing them back two turns since they would need 5 mana to go off. Path to Exile and Condemn are particularly useful here, as are Batterskull and Sigarda, Host of Herons. Flash creatures and Aether Vial are also good. They would probably board in Gnaw to the Bone and possibly Kitchen Finks against us. Whatever grave yard hate we can bring in is good against them. Relic of Progenitus and Rest in Peace are probably the most effective ones. I find the match up in game one tends to be slightly unfavorable, and post board becomes slightly favorable.
Storm wants to spend their first 2-3 turns setting up to combo out by turn 3-4. They spend their first couple turns digging for the perfect set of cards to setup for one explosive turn. Untapping with Goblin Electromancer or an active Pyromancer Ascension usually means game. They then cast every ritual and draw spell they can before casting Past in Flames and doing it all over again. Then they cast Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens and hope to ride it to victory. We want to slow them down, gain life and hate on their grave yard. Search hate for their fetch lands (almost half the mana base), Thalia, Guardian of Thraben taxing their spells are good things to have. We want Scavenging Ooze to eat away their grave. We want Qasali Pridemage to keep Ascension off the field, and we want Path to Exile to do the same with Electromancer. Gaddock Teeg can prevent PiF and Warrens from being cast. Guardian Seraph is also very good in this match up. After game 1, I would expect more removal to come in. No worries though, because we've got a few cards that shut this deck down though. Ethersworn Cannonist and Rule of Law are probably the strongest cards for this match up. Rest in Peace is effective at shutting them down as well. Even Burrenton Forge-Tender and Worship are extremely effective against them. Because of this, our game 1 is slightly unfavorable, but post board the match up becomes favorable.
You should plan to have some way to interact with this deck in your 75.
RUW Control is pretty much THE control deck of the Modern format. They play a lot of instants and the only creatures in their deck have Flash. They plan to out tempo decks in the early game with a suite of the most efficient counter magic and removal in the format. Once in the mid-late game they go full on control with Cryptic Command, Snapcaster Mage and Sphinx's Revelation to keep them ahead. Eventually they start wearing you down with Celestial Colonnade, Vendilion Clique, Ajani Vengeant and Snapcaster, and then burn you out with a flurry of back to back Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix and Snappy. Fortunately for us, they have a costly 3 color mana base which includes fetch lands. We also don't have to fear a combo, so tapping out for Loxodon Smiter or Thrun, the Last Troll isn't something we have to worry about. Aether Vial and Flash creatures are good here as well. Scavenging Ooze is also effective at shutting off Snapcaster. Voice of Resurgence is really good here too. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben taxes most of their deck as well. Post board I would expect more removal, and quite possibly Anger of the Gods. I don't see a lot of players running Crucible of Worlds, which is in this list. It seems particularly good against us. There really isn't too much that we would want to bring in. Thrun if you don't run them main deck. This match up is pretty even both pre and post board.
Kiki Pod is a resilient deck that has the capability to chain into a combo during a single turn, through a variety of ways utilizing Birthing Pod. In addition to the threat of a combo, they can also tutor up any number of utility creatures from their variable toolbox of cards. Typically, they want Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker in combination with Deceiver Exarch, Restoration Angel or Zealous Conscripts, and they will often use Exarch and Conscripts to untap Pod for multiple uses during a single turn. They are capable of winning games through attrition rather than combo, although this is less common than you typically see with the Melira Pod decks. Our plan is to stop them from searching their deck, and close out the game before they can overcome our hate. You rarely want to tap out past turn 1-2, as it can open up an opportunity for them to combo. Even without Pod, they are still quite capable of drawing Kiki-Jiki and any one of the cards that can combo with him. Linvala, Keeper of Silence shuts off their combo, and they have very few ways of dealing with her main deck. I don't see them bringing in much for us post board outside of removal. Possibly Harmonic Sliver or Ancient Grudge to answer Torpor Orb if they suspect we are bringing it in (and we absolutely should if we have it in our 75). Extra copies of Linvala and layering up on extra hate with Worship isn't a bad plan either. Ghostly Prison is another card that is excellent in this match up. Even though we have a lot of hate for their deck, this match up is slightly unfavorable pre board, and becomes slightly favorable post board.
You should have ways to interact with this in your 75.
Merfolk has one of the most straight forward plans in Modern. Drop a bunch of dudes who pump each other in the first 3+ turns, and then swing for a bunch of damage via Master of the Pearl Trident and Spreading Seas. Against us specifically, they want to pump their guys up so they are bigger than our bears, or make clear a path for them with Snag or Islandwalk. Secret tech for us is to use Ghost Quarter on our land that has been enchanted with Seas. Removal, First Strike, Fliers and just having bigger guys in general is a good thing for us in this match up. Most of their mana base is basic lands. They don't search, or really care about stuff like Scavenging Ooze or Linvala, Keeper of Silence, which turns a lot of our deck into mediocre cards. Worship can be negated by Vapor Snag as well. I'm not sure what I would expect them to bring in after game 1 other than more removal if they have it. Engineered Explosives, Ghostly Prison and more removal are the best cards we can bring in against them. This match is typically unfavorable, and only gets slightly better (although still somewhat unfavorable) post board.
It is very difficult to beat this deck without some way to interact with them.
This deck basically wants to counter and burn all of our early plays, land a Blood Moon or Vedalken Shackles and call it a day. They can also stall out until they can get Master of Waves or Batterskull going. Our best bet are guys that can't be countered. Taxing effects. Aether Vial, creatures with Flash and anything with Hexproof of Shroud that can avoid being a target of Shackles. Qasali Pridemage can answer a majority of their biggest threats to us, making him one of the strongest cards for us in this match up. They are likely to bring in more removal after game 1. We should bring in anything to hate on their enchantments or artifacts. Stony Silence can turn off the activated abilities of Batterskull, as well as shut down Shackles. Damping Matrix can avoid being shut down by Blood Moon, although it also shuts down our own Pridemages. Batterskull is also pretty good for us here since it also doesn't care about Moon. Seal of Primordium has been popping up in lists lately as well, and would be a fine card to bring in for this match up. Unfortunately, this match is unfavorable pre board, and it doesn't get much better after game 1.
You should have some way to deal with artifacts and enchantments in your 75, and you're going to need them for this deck.
The game plan for Tron is simply to fetch up Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Tower their first 1-2 turns, and then cast crazy big spells like Wurmcoil Engine and Karn Liberated as early as turn 3. They use Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying, which we can disrupt with our search hate. Ancient Stirrings on the other hand does not care about search effects. The rest of the deck is mostly cantrips to help them draw into whatever they might need. Tron players like to run sweepers as well. Here we see Oblivion Stone and All is Dust, both of which are devastating against us. I've seen lots of Tron decks running Pyroclasm and Firespout as well, so be on the look out for those. Naturally, we want to keep them off of having the full set of Tron lands, and we should be using our Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge to do so. A good rule of thumb is to target the last one they fetched for. Good cards for us in this match are Qasali Pridemage, Path to Exile, Condemn, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thrun, the Last Troll and Sigarda, Host of Herons (to prevent sac effect of Annihilation triggers). Post board they will likely bring in more sweepers and removal to combat against us. Stony Silence, Pithing Needle and Damping Matrix are among some of the best cards we can bring in against them. Pre board and post board are both slightly unfavorable for us.
I recommend having cards that are particularly effective against Tron somewhere in your 75.
I came to the same conclusion with SoBaM. Like I joked it off at first, and then I was like. Oh, it's actually pretty good in the meta in a lot of ways.
What I came to the conclusion about with the EE is: #1. I actually don't bring them in as much as I indicate. They're sometimes "to taste" sort of sideboarding. But, they're useful. and #2, I turned around my notion on them before because, while it's a PITA to blow it up for 2, more often than not, hatebears is playing the long game. We will rebuild, but we have stability and hate that makes it really different to just get flat out beat. Blowing it up for 1 is way more common though. It's a card that makes sense with the core idea of the deck. Effects may be symmetrical, but they're significantly stacked in your favor when you're controlling how and when they're being used. It's probably my least thought of card, and the card I've used the least, but, conceptually, in a lot of these matchups, it's because it's better than cards that'd still be in the 60. EE has a lot of ranging effects that turn off a lot of decks in modern. It's one of two ways we can kill a Geist of St. Traft (the other being kill their Eijano, and then block with a bear), and Etched Champion (although, slowing them down and playing worship is usually better than eating an etched champion).
Mirran Crusader being brought out is because decks like to bring in more hate vs Crusader. The most common applications are when they use Threads of Disloyalty or Vedalkan Shackles to turn what arguably the best card against us... against us. There's one card that a lot of our decks run that can just stare at a Crusader, and that's a Baneslayer... but that's it (and Qasali Pridemage, ish). But I feel that 3 Mirran Crusaders MB provide enough firepower vs the decks that I need it against, and enough distraction vs decks that I don't. UR Twin can bolt Crusader, but if they bolt crusader, with a leonin arbiter on the board, are they actually getting ahead? Are they just trading life for a still difficult board state?
The fun part of this deck, and the frustrating part of this deck, is that often times you give a lot of control to your opponent to make the right assessment of the boardstate, and their deck, and work against your position. I sit back sometimes and think after making a play, this is a very tough decision for my opponent. I know what I have, I think I know what they have, and I think if they choose wrong, it's going to be very good for me, and very bad for them, or it's going to go the other way, and I don't know if my opponent sees that. You have to know what your opponent plays, their outs, and read the boardstate and the game as it's gone in order to magnify the weakspots of your opponents deck. You're forcing your opponents deck to play against itself. Decks that want to search, can't search. Decks that want to play value cards don't get as much value, or decks that want symmetrical effects that they can take advantage of, don't get symmetry. Philosophical tangent aside is over...
Worship doesn't surprise me, because G1, we don't usually want to see more than one, most decks won't have the answer for more than one anyway (assuming you're smart on when and how you resolve it). When it's bad in a matchup (and there are more than a few), it's a really bad card. I had one stuck in my hand G1 vs G/R tron today, and that wasn't exciting (still won, by the seat of my pants). But it's more about being able to find the card when you need it and have it as an out as opposed to a staple. I'm that type of person who picks up a lot of singletons, and I think it's important in modern moreso than in legacy or standard because of the range and coverage of decks and vectors that you have to cover in your 75. It's a tuning paradise. Boarding out Vial is mostly just a quantity and consistency thing. I think it's really important for this deck to win G1. You want to win G1. And I don't like losing G1 because I have poor colored draws. I've tried playing the 23 land 6 bird no vial version. Can't do it without cutting it down to just ghost quarters.
77% of the time, with 23 lands, (10 dual, 8 colorless, 5 basic), you'll get at least one green source that comes into play untapped (assuming you play 2 Stirring Wildwoods). 83% of the time you'll get at least 1 green source. But 12% of the time, you won't. Vial ends up around in your hand (at 3 copies) around 33% of the time. So, 33% of the time, 12% of your mulligans aren't auto-mulligans. In practice, I'd say vial actually saves around 1 in 12 hands from the mulligan, and on mulligans the value goes up on vials. On decks that aren't as stringent on consistency in draws, or don't need the same value operations, you can mulligan better and more effectively because you know what you're mulliganing for, as opposed to blind G1's.
I'll probably thing more tonight about it.
Also, i too, am a code jockey. I think it's a pretty common profession amongst competitive players... but, if you code in Ruby and live close enough to Boston (and not like Lancaster), and are looking for a new job, you should hmu.
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Un autre con brandit le drapeau de la nouvelle économie. Agitant sa criminelle thérapie, l'abruti prophá¨te s'en va guerrir le monde de ses maux ! Mais la misá¨re n'a que faire de cette médecine á dose homeopathétique, Il n'y a d'autre cure que l'ablation du liberal-fascisme qui nous ronge. - Amanda Woodward, Un Autre Con
DOL, thanks for the write ups on the match ups. I take it these will end up in the Primer soon? The primer is going to be a real tomb of knowledge for this deck with all of this analysis added!
Let's take a look at the Hatebears list that just made the finals of a ChannelFireball 5k (!)
First off, that sideboard and most of the main deck #s look VERY familiar. Give yourselves a pat on the back for coming to a consensus with this list. Many of these cards are proving their worth in real tournament situations and at high levels of play. This is a HUGE deal for us! This means we're on the right track with things like Chalice, Seal of Primordium, Choke, etc.
I'd like to know how the Brimaz worked out for this player. I wanted to test it out, but I can only test so much in the time that I have. It seems like a solid creature, and its one that we have discussed on here before. Its not technically a "hate" card, but I imagine it is a powerful creature that will slow down Zoo and our midrange opposition.
Did anyone watch the coverage of this finals match? I know Affinity won, and I'd like to know what happened. This list does NOT run Worship or Engineered Explosives, and I'm wondering if that was an issue or if it was something else. I do like how this runs Stony Silence since it does not have Explosives.
I'm leaning towards cutting the last couple of Explosives. They're great against Fast Zoo, but if its true that Big Zoo is going to be more common, then I'm going to want something like Baneslayer Angel back in my 75. Explosives was slow and hard to use effectively in my testing against Big Zoo, especially due to the fact that I couldn't get 3 counters on EE to kill Knight of The Reliquary or even Domri Rade.
I'm also looking at a Sword or Batterskull in that Baneslayer slot. I just want some sort of "trump" card back in my 75 for when the games go long against BG, Melira Pod, or Big Zoo. I want something that I can draw, slam on the table, and force an answer. "Pulse/kill this or lose" is what I'm looking for here, with a life gain component if possible.
Has anyone tested against Bogle? I'm going to have 10 games in against it this week, and I'm trying to figure out if I need that Back To Nature or if sticking with 2x Seal Of Primordium will work. Back To Nature also hits stuff like Blood Moon, but is one less card I can bring in for Affinity.
dcovino: If you did an analysis of my boarding you'd come to the same conclusion with my Worships as well. I'm really liking the idea of just running them in game 1. Sure, my opponents may have answers for it in game 2, but if it makes bad pre board matches shift in my favor then its worth it, especially since I bet we always have more answers than they have answers-for-our-answers. BTW I will share my testing spreadsheet, probably Sunday night.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
Thanks! Yeah, I am going to be adding all of this to the Primer. Just posting up here first for feedback. I am not as familiar with some of the match ups as I would like to be. This is sort of a rough draft. I'm thinking of breaking each deck into three sections: the deck's game plan, how we interact with it, and sideboard advice. I'm already kind of doing that, but it's all just a big paragraph and not very well organized. I will probably add what % of the meta they are in there somewhere as well. I've got another 9 decks I will be posting up soon (Infect, Faeries, Gifts, BG, Amulet, WU Control, Ad Nauseum, Tokens and UR Delver).
I've still got analysis of our card pool coming down the pipeline too. It's going to take time to get everything typed out, as for a while now I have just been gathering and organizing data from the Pro Tour. I'm looking to use all of this to give the Primer a good overhaul. Then I will probably just give it regular maintenance every time a new set and b/r announcement comes around.
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edit: nice win. gl against affinity in the finals.
2 Experiment One
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
1 Goblin Guide
4 Kird Ape
4 Loam Lion
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Nacatl
Other Spells: 15
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
4 Tribal Flames
4 Arid Mesa
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Marsh Flats
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
1 Sacred Foundry
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Combust
2 Delay
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Lightning Helix
1 Refraction Trap
3 Spell Pierce
2 Stony Silence
2 Wear // Tear
Zoo comes out fast with small critters. Their removal mostly burn based, which they can also use to finish off opponents. 15 removal spells + 3x Ghor-Clan Rampagers can be a real pain for most of our critters. The plus side is that a lot of our bears are good against them as well. They search a lot, making Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor useful. Anything with 4+ toughness and life gain is generally good. They also are dependent on a fragile mana base, giving our land destruction package a lot of targets. Flyers are also a real problem for them, since they have no way to block them. Post board, we want more removal, more recursion, and more life gain. Expect them to bring in more removal as well. I run into Combust a lot post board, which I suspect is primarily for the Twin match up. All in all, both decks have cards that interact well with each other, making this a fairly even match up both pre and post board.
4 Deceiver Exarch
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
2 Pestermite
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Spellskite
2 Vendilion Clique
Other Spells: 23
2 Cryptic Command
1 Dispel
2 Electrolyze
1 Izzet Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Peek
3 Remand
4 Serum Visions
1 Spell Snare
4 Splinter Twin
1 Desolate Lighthouse
5 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Tectonic Edge
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Batterskull
2 Blood Moon
1 Dispel
2 Flame Slash
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Threads of Disloyalty
Twin has a lot of ways to interact with us in the early game and can easily tempo into the midgame. Their threat to combo is very real for our deck, but we do have main deck playable cards that they have to fight through before they can go off. Qasali Pridemage can blow up Splinter Twin in response to it's activation. Spellskite can redirect Splinter Twin to itself. Junk builds can run Abrupt Decay in addition to Path to Exile. Linvala, Keeper of Silence also prevents them from being able to combo. Aether Vial and creatures with Flash are effective in this match up. They have a lot of stuff in the sideboard that is also really good against us. Anything we can bring in to turn off their combo is good for us. Torpor Orb is preferred over Damping Matrix, which shuts off our own Pridemage and Scavenging Ooze. Landing a Worship can also lead to situations where they can't win. I find it's best to load up as many layers of hate for them to fight through. The biggest issue is that they can bounce all of our answers up with Cryptic before they combo out. Due to this, the match up is somewhat unfavorable.
You should plan to have several ways to deal with this in your 75.
1 Archangel of Thune
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Cartel Aristocrat
1 Eternal Witness
4 Kitchen Finks
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Murderous Redcap
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Ranger of Eos
1 Reveillark
1 Spellskite
1 Spike Feeder
1 Viscera Seer
2 Voice of Resurgence
1 Wall of Roots
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Birthing Pod
3 Chord of Calling
Land: 23
3 Forest
2 Gavony Township
1 Godless Shrine
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Aven Mindcensor
2 Dismember
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Shriekmaw
1 Sin Collector
4 Thoughtseize
2 Voice of Resurgence
Melira Pod has a lot of versatility and utility. They get a lot of recursion out of their creatures, such as Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcap, Voice of Resurgence, Eternal Witness and Reveillark. Fortunately, we have a lot of ways to disrupt their game plan. We hate on searching effects. We hate on their mana base. We hate on their grave. We have main deck playable answers to their combo in form of Scavenging Ooze and Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Creatures with Flash are effective too since you can hold mana open until their EoT. Aether Vial also proves effective against combo decks. They would likely bring in removal post board, and if they suspect Torpor Orb coming in from the sideboard they might bring in the extra artifact hate. We should also bring in additional removal, grave hate and any other ways to stop their combo. Pre and post board, this match up is slightly in our favor.
4 Blade Splicer
2 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
Other Spells: 21
4 Cryptic Command
1 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
4 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
2 Spell Snare
4 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Glacial Fortress
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
3 Tectonic Edge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Counterflux
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Negate
2 Rest in Peace
1 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
2 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Wear // Tear
RUW Midrange has a lot of removal and other cards to slow down our game plan. Most of their creatures aren't huge threats to us. We also have a lot of cards that are hard for them to manage. Loxodon Smiter and Thrun, the Last Troll can't be countered and survive Anger of the Gods. Scavenging Ooze combats Snapcaster Mage effectively. Voice of Resurgence Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Aether Vial and creatures with Flash are good choices in this match as well. I would expect more removal and Anger of the Gods coming out of the board. Torpor Orb is a good option for us to board in. This match is favorable pre-board, and fairly even post board.
3 Courser of Kruphix
4 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
Other Spells: 22
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Chandra, Pyromaster
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Terminate
2 Thoughtseize
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Forest
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Batterskull
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Rakdos Charm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
Jund has arguably one of the best removal suites in the format. They are very resilient and good at grinding out matches. We also have effective tools at disrupting their game plan. They have a fragile mana base which is susceptible to our land destruction. They also have no way to block creatures with flying. We have main deck creatures that are generally good against them as well. Voice of Resurgence, Loxodon Smiter, Mirran Crusader, Thrun, the Last Troll, Wilt-Leaf Liege, and Sigarda, Host of Herons are all particularly effective against Jund, but in general pretty much all of our finishers are good against them. Post board they will be bringing in more removal against us, making the match up more difficult. Bringing in grave hate can help keep Tarmogoyfs from being a threat and shut off opposing Scavenging Ooze. The match up is slightly favorable preboard, and gets slightly unfavorable post board.
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
4 Gladecover Scout
4 Slippery Bogle
Other Spells: 30
4 Daybreak Coronet
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Hyena Umbra
2 Path to Exile
4 Rancor
3 Spider Umbra
1 Spirit Link
4 Spirit Mantle
3 Suppression Field
1 Unflinching Courage
4 Brushland
4 City of Brass
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Temple Garden
2 Dismember
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Nature's Claim
2 Path to Exile
1 Spirit Link
2 Stony Silence
1 Suppression Field
Bogle has been a deck that has traditionally been a problematic match up for Hatebears. They don't fetch. We can't target their creatures with removal, and if they draw into Rancor, Ethereal Armor or Spirit Mantle, there is very little we can do to stop them. Creatures with First Strike can be good against Bogle. Qasali Pridemage is one of our best creatures. Mirran Crusader and Sword of Feast and Famine provide protection from green, which can sometimes stall long enough to get there with fliers. Elspeth, Knight-Errant can provide unlimited chump blockers while ticking toward indestructible permanents. Restoration Angel can blink a creatures after declaring blocks to buy time too. Junk builds can also get value out of Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse. Post board they will likely bring in more removal. We should bring in other ways to remove enchantments. Back to Nature and Engineered Explosives can go a long way in this match. It's also important to know that EE will not remove the creature if it has a 1 cmc totem armor on it such as Spider Umbra, but it will destroy all other 1 cmc permanents, which is most of their deck. The Totem Armor trigger still happens even if both the Umbra and the creature are destroyed by the same effect. Pre board the match up is typically unfavorable (although, some builds have started running EE main deck), and post board it becomes slightly unfavorable.
You should plan to have some way to deal with this in your 75.
4 Arcbound Ravager
3 Etched Champion
1 Master of Etherium
3 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
4 Signal Pest
3 Steel Overseer
4 Vault Skirge
Other Spells: 18
4 Cranial Plating
1 Galvanic Blast
4 Mox Opal
4 Springleaf Drum
4 Thoughtcast
1 Welding Jar
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Darksteel Citadel
3 Glimmervoid
4 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Island
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Blood Moon
1 Etched Champion
1 Galvanic Blast
1 Master of Etherium
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spellskite
2 Thoughtseize
1 Torpor Orb
1 Whipflare
Affinity is a deck that can potentially be explosive. It comes out quick by dropping lots of dudes and extra mana producing artifacts. The longer it takes them to drop their hand, the better it is for us. They usually seal the deal with evasive creatures equipped with Cranial Plating. Beware the Cranial equipped Inkmoth Nexus, as it can kill surprisingly fast. The better plan for us is to have fliers to block and trade with their guys. Our land destruction is also good against their numerous man lands. Linvala, Keeper of Silence shuts off Ravager and Overseer. Removal is really good against them too. Qasali Pridemage is good here, and Junk builds can run Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse and Orzhov Pontiff. Post board they will bring in more removal. Whipflare is good against us and I have seen it on several occasions. Obviously Artifact hate is good for us to bring in. Kataki, War's Wage, Stony Silence and Creeping Corrosion are very strong cards to board in. Chalice of the Void can be effective against them too. Pre board the match is unfavorable, and gets more even post board.
You should plan to have some way to deal with this in your 75.
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil
Other Spells: 32
4 Boros Charm
4 Bump in the Night
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
4 Shard Volley
4 Skullcrack
4 Arid Mesa
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Marsh Flats
4 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Flamebreak
2 Satyr Firedancer
3 Searing Blood
4 Smash to Smithereens
2 Torpor Orb
Burn decks want to kill you as quickly as possible. They basically just throw everything they got at your face and hope it's enough to kill you before they run out of cards. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben can slow them down with her taxing effect and can hold off Goblin Guide. Lifegain is great against them as well, provided we can avoid walking it into Skullcrack. Spellskite can provide an alternative target for you to redirect burn spells to. Post board they are more likely to bring in removal and sweepers. Ensnaring Bridge seems good against us as well, so it might not be a bad idea to have a Qasali Pridemage on hand going into game 2. We can bring in Chalice of the Void, Burrenton Forge-Tender, Worship and any life gain effects to improve our chances. Pre-board the match up is slightly unfavorable. Post board it gets better and becomes slightly favorable.
Many more to come.
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By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
2nd place finish is great man! Affinity is a tough match up too. I hope to see what your deck list looks like.
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
http://www.twitch.tv/channelfireball/b/507842862?t=1h44m30s
Maybe now the Pros will stop calling this deck "Tier 2" in SCG Premium articles...
I'm not worried about those matches at all. In fact, I want those matches all weekend long. This deck eats these unfair decks up, and as long as Merfolk, Rock, and other bigger "fair" decks stay away then this deck will be amazing!
I was initially concerned about Blue Moon and UWR decks being so popular, and I will test against Blue Moon again before Saturday, but overall I'm thinking that this weekend is going to be the perfect time to play this deck.
***
Speaking of the meta, has anyone else noticed just how often we board in Worship (assuming you play them?) I started writing my sideboard guide & notes for the GP, and Worship went in for EVERY major match except for UWR Control. I'm cutting Linvala for Worship in nearly every match... so what about just running the Worships in the main and Linvala in the side?
I'm always worried that I'm not playing a "strong" enough game in these formats. I tend to play "fair" decks. This deck has no infinite combos or insane draws. We don't play terribly large creatures. We don't even have a fast clock! However, since I tried moving Worship in this deck I stopped worrying about these things.
We are an UN-fair deck, and its because of Worship. It reads "GW can't lose this game" so often against so much of the format that its disgusting. We may not have any combos or the super smooth efficiency of a Snapcaster Mage deck, but not being able to die ranks in that level IMO.
***
I did some testing tonight, this time against Living End. This match was even before boarding, with GW winning 4 out of 8 games. After boarding, GW got access to Chalice and Rest In Peace, and won 75% of its games, going 9-3 vs. the combo deck. In this match I did try running Worships in the main.
Living End can win this match by chaining Fulminator Mages to kill all of GW's non basic lands. GW can also get there by using Beast Within on our Worships.
The most effective cards against this match are not Worship, but Thalia and Chalice. Thalia makes Living End cost "5", since the Cascade spell costs an additional mana, and the cascaded-into Living End will also require a 1 mana payment. Chalice for 0 makes Living End completely un-castable. Just remember that Shriekmaw and Beast Within can kill these cards, and play accordingly. Compared to the Ad Nauseum deck, this deck actually has a few outs to our cards, so its wise to be aggressive and try to push through damage.
Don't run the Chalice out until after a couple of turns have passed. That way Living End will have pitched a few creatures before knowing Living End will never resolve.
If just Rest In Peace is out, then Living End may still play its namesake card to "Wrath" your board.
***
I'm down to the last 100 test games before the GP. Next up, re-test vs. Blue Moon, then a test against Bogle. On Tuesday I'll see how we do vs. Storm, and UWR Twin after boarding, and then its down to mock tournaments and locking in the list before the event. I also have a local IRL tournament on Tuesday night for a few misc. matches.
~ Brian DeMars
I've worked enough of the numbers to figure out what I think would be the best list going into the post Pro Tour meta. Here is what I am going to be testing for the next little while:
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Yeva, Nature's Herald
4 Path to Exile
1 Rancor
Land: 23
4 Temple Garden
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Tectonic Edge
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Plains
3 Forest
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Spellskite
3 Torpor Orb
2 Stony Silence
1 Worship
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Rest in Peace
2 Kitchen Finks
If I were going into a tournament tomorrow, Rancor and Yeva would both be Baneslayer Angel due to it's past track record. Yeva and Rancor both look good on paper, so I might as well give them some play time. The next big tourney for me is the Grand Prix in Minneapolis coming up in May, so I got some time to play around with some tech. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is also on my list of stuff to try, and Restoration Angel might show up in my list again at some point down the road too.
I also think Batterskull, Aether Vial and Mana Tithe look strong right now.
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I've been running 1 Worship MD for weeks and this (moving all Linvala to SB) is basically where I'm heading. Worship seems to win more than Linvala does, or at least is applicable across more matches than Linvala is. Also considering somehow fitting in Troll Ascetic or Dauntless Escort, but unsure if its worthwhile as one Thrun typically is all you need on board with Worship.
I been reading this forum for ages, but never really posted. I have been playing hate bears for about 2 years or so. It’s pretty much my favorite deck to play in modern currently. A local store ran an event yesterday. We had about a 32 person turn out. Enough for a 5 rounds cut to top 8. I ran a similar list to Horseshoe and took his sideboard list.
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
1 Gavony Township
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path To Exile
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Suppression Field
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosvies
2 Torpor Orb
2 Choke
1 Rest in peace
Round 1 UR Young Pyromancer/delver deck
Game 1 I lost to a ton of tokens, and dead draws. Drawing 5-6 land in a row hurt.
Game 2
Boarded in 3 Chalice, 2 EEs, 2 Worship
I didn’t draw and of the sideboard cards, but opening hand was a Noble, Thrun, 2x smiter, and 3 land. I was pretty confident in this. Turn 1 noble, turn two smiter, Drew another second noble. Turn three smiter number 2 and noble, swing for 6. He didn’t draw anything relavent and tried to counter both thrun and smiter.
Game 3 same board.
Had to mull to 6 here and kept a decent opener with a noble and a smiter. Turn 3 he had 2x young pyromancer out and a ***** ton of tokens. I was getting low on life. My turn four I top decked a EE and had a chalice in hand. I dropped EE for 0. Blew up the EE and chaliced for 1 to buy me some time. Top decked a worship next turn. After my opponent swung I Was at 6-7. I had 0 critters and I top decked a wildwood. That led me to victory. He swung and got me to one which was fine since he couldn’t vapor snag anything to kill me. Then I top decked threat after threat ended up with a board state of Thrun, 2xVoice, Aven Mindcesor and a few other dudes.
Match 2 Played infect
Game 1 he misplayed and dropped his second land too early with groundswell in hand for the kill on T3. Ended up pathing his critter and stabilizing and just went into beatdown mode.
Game 2. Had a hand with chalice, noble, path and a few land. Snap keep. He played his critter. I pathed it. Didn’t play a second land, and I knew I was golden to drop Chalice on 1 and ride it out. Turn 3 I dropped a Arbitor and ghost quartered his land and he didn’t get another one for ever.
Match 3 Robots
Got to play a good friend of mine in this match. Game 1 started out like any normal match against robots, vomit hand down on the board and pray for something useful. I ended up having an early path for his 3 drop guy that adds +1/+1 counters. Then dropped a Pridemage T2, T3 Smiter. Did some blocking was able to get rid of two of his creatures with path + pride mage which then shut down his edge champions metal craft so I could block it with smiter and kill it.
Game 2 pretty much ended quickly. Turn 1 EE for 0, path his flyer. Pop EE to wipe most of his board. Dropped chalice for 0 and dropped a pridemage with another path in hand. He couldn’t stabilize and lost.
Math 4 and 5 I drew in with the highest win percentages.
Top 8 Consisted of 2x GW Auras, 1 Tron, 1 Pod, 1 Twin, 1 GB Rock, 1 HateBears, 1 Robots
Played Tron
Game 1.
I had all the hate. Arbitors, Mindcensors and ghostquarters for all the things and went to game 2 quickly.
Boarded in 3 Chalice, 2 Worship, 1 Seal, 1 Suppression field
Game 2
I mulled to 5 kept a decent hand. Had a turn 2 smiter to his turn 3 Karn, Which I ended up killing on my turn 3 which then he dropped karn number 2 off a lucky strings.
Game 3
Turn one dork, followed by a chalice on 1. Turn Suppression field with a Seal. Then I just drew threat after threat. I locked him out of the game early on. He had a hand of more spheres and strings after I dropped chalice on 1.
Match 2. My friend again with Robots
Game 1 I pulled out of my ass with lucky top decks to a board full of crap.
Game 2. He played a turn 1 vault skirge and passed. I was like OK?? I dropped a turn 1 chalice on 0 and a dork. Played a pridemage, pathed a vault skirge. He started to stabilize with his two drops, spellskite and vault skirge again. I dropped a chalice on 2 after I had a decent board presence. Game didn’t end well for him with smiter, pridemage, seal, thrun, linvala, and before the chalice I forgot I dropped a surpression field.
Ended up splitting in the final round.
What I took from this event. I sided out baneslayer/sigarda every game almost. I never casted the card once, and when I had it in my hand I rather have been ghost quartering or dropping bears/sideboard cards. I also haven’t missed tech edge. Dropping my colorless land count to 5 helped a lot. I was mulling less all day for having the wrong mana sources. Overall I feel that hate bears is pretty well suited for the environment. I was also testing against twin and GW auras and with the recent changes I was winning more games then losing. Sidenote I was kinda iffy on using Seal of primordium in the board, but I will have to say that card was an all star all day. Just dropping and and having an answer to anything was great. It took my opponents back and had to think about what they wanted to play.
Also at least in my local meta outside of my friends who know I have been playing this deck for ages. I got the respond all day "HATE BEARS???!?! Who plays that." and proceeded to remind them why this deck is A) Annoying to deal with B) Had a decent match up against everything.
What I'm taking from your report and seemingly every other report lately is almost every game siding in Chalice of the Void. Similar to some other cards that typically get seen more as sideboard only I'm starting to think more and more about trying this main deck. As I'm reading reports, it seems that in many situations its a 0 or 1 drop and while that can certainly impact our dorks and paths, sometimes shutting the other guy out more is the better route to take.
I have also been thinking about replacing one or both of the tec edges. Still need to think this over more. Does anyone know if there is a way to mark single cards in cockatrice? When I'm debating switching out a single card in paper I put a piece of paper in the sleeve, and whenever I draw that card contemplate whether or not I would want this card or the one I'm thinking about switching with it. It would be great if there was a way to do this in cockatrice as it would greatly improve playtesting.
@Behlial: I'm fairly certain you felt the way you do about your baneslayers because the decks you've faced are all slightly more aggressive than ours. The point at which you stabilize and are able to push through for the win you often don't need baneslayer for that anymore. At least that is my view on it.
The list I'm currently going to try with some proxies for the more expensive part of the deck (Hierarch spike, why are you so unforgiving...):
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Gavony Township
1 Tectonic Edge
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
1 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
Dudes
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Leonin Arbiter
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Loxodon Smiter
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Worship
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Path to Exile
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Torpor Orb
1 Worship
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Choke
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Troll Ascetic
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
by the time you see their first land drop you can probably make a pretty solid educated guess as to what to drop the Chalice for, imo. My internal debate is the value of just 1, maybe 2 in the main deck. Worship works as a 1-2 of because its value isn't so front-loaded. If I draw it later in the game, that's probably fine by me. On the other hand, top decking your single chalice on turn 7 probably isn't going to help as much as having it in the opening hand, so this almost forces you to play 3 of them to make it worthwhile in g1.
re: gathering intelligence on people's decks - seems like that has always been part of the game. Aside from putting each match in a sealed room I don't know how anyone would be expected to not take advantage of being able to scout around after a quick match.
CG
I've been on the Worship pre-board train for a week now and I think it's won me 2-3 games straight up (dying only to twin where their only out was essentially flameslash/double bolt+cryptic). Rot in my hand another 2-3 games where I thought, maybe I play it, force them to play around it, force them to maybe board harder to beat it if it's a deck that they just simply have zero outs to most of the time (blue decks mostly, green decks sometimes). It's really not been as awful as I thought it was going to be pre-board...
I've also made a realization. Having 3-4 Crusaders MB pretty much means I'll see more than one. They'll have to have more than one bolt, and Crusaders off the top are pretty sweet. I got my first 2 bolted in a G1 vs Grixis Fae, that third one stuck and I rode it until the end. It's something that you can bring out pretty easily that gives your SB more flexibility to bring in more effective cards (read: creatures).
I've put in a fracturing gust as a wincon vs affinity. Worship won't lose you the game, but there's more than a few times where you can't actually win the game with worship out. This allows you to do both. Plays as worship #4 vs affinity, and considerably more efficient vs baneslayer. I've just completely eliminated Stony Silence though. I figure between EE's, Swords, Vials, it just hoses my gameplan too much.
Board is sitting:
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1 Fracturing Gust
2 Worship (3 Total)
1 Qasali Pridemage (3 Total)
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Torpor Orb
2 Burrington Forge-Tender
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Engineered Explosives
How I board?
Affinity
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Draw/Play - IN: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +1 Fracturing Gust, + 1 Qasali Pridemage, OUT: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -3 Mirran Crusader
G/R Tron
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Qasali Pridemage, Out: -3 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Worship, -1 Path to Exile.
-- Notes: Aether Vials are really important here in this matchup, I believe because often you're ghost quartering without the best of value (aka NORMAL GQing). Fixes mana problems and allows you to respond aggressively to those red sweepers (although you're hosed significantly vs o-stone, but o-stone is still bad vs voices).
U/x Tron
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Worship, -1 Path to Exile, -2 Mirran Crusader.
Blue Moon
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Worship, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Mirran Crusaders, -1 Aven Mindcensor.
-- Notes: More anti-shackles targets. Sword gives you blue protection and puts most of your bears out of bolt range. Worship because the first one won't resolve, You could bring in 2 worships if you feel their diving into more countermagic (which they usually don't, postboard). Thrun's a beating. I mean, you could also contemplate bringing in an EE or Two as you'll often have access to RED mana to get to 2 (or 3). Did I mention Blue Moon hates it when you play T1 Vial? Pretty much requires them to have a Vandalblast to actually attempt to punish you.
Living End
------
Draw: In: +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Worship, +1 Thrun the Last Troll, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Aether Vial, -1 Leonin Arbiter, -1 Loxodon Smiter.
Play: +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, +1 Worship, +1 Thrun the Last Troll, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Aether Vial.
-- Notes: I think Thalia's a good, not great card, and significantly better on the draw than the play because on the play, you can be very aggressive with your arbiters/ghost quarters and push them off of a shakey landbase. On the draw, it's way harder to accomplish that, so what better way to do that than to tax their spells (aka Violent Outburst/Living End) and force them to pay 5 mana. Forge-Tenders block for days. Mirran Crusaders just straight up beat the deck often enough if they're in the yard, or if you play them post-living end.
UWR Control/Geist
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Storm
------
Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thrabin, +2 Worship, + 2 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Voice of Resurgence, -1 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: EE @ 2 is pretty much ideal. Turns off both Pyromancer & Electromancer. If you show Worship G1, don't be surprised to see Negate/Swan Song from the board, otherwise, they might just go with Echoing Truth EoT. Voice is pretty bad vs most combo decks, because most of the time the token's irrelevant.
Mindcensor's too slow. You could take out Sword of War and Peace on the draw, because on the play you can go t1 dork (pray it doesn't get bolted), t2 sword (pray that dork doesn't get bolted), t3 (still praying) equip, gain 5 life and get out of grapeshot range by a fair chunk. Life gain is totally relevant if they have to go the grapeshot route, if they go pyromancer? It's not otherwise. Scooze also gets solid work done. Don't be afraid to constantly rip up their GY every turn if you have to. It works with both Past in Flames & Pyromancer routes (and nabs Faithless Looting).
Ad Nauseum
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Burrington Forge-Tenders, Out: -1 Worship, -1 Aether Vial, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -4 Path to Exile
-- Notes: They can beat worship with one card in their 60. Patrician Scorn does a fine job of it. They don't need it while going off. It just needs to be in the deck. Burrington-Forge Tender on the other hand requires them to play slaughter pact in order to win. EE, Thalia, and Pridemage do 80% of the work vs this deck while Arbiter and Mindcensor do the rest. Just remember to destroy their Lotus Blooms in upkeep. EE @ 0 is key/clutch/everything good. Thalia + Forge-Tender usually means they can't win. Forge-Tender, if you're unaware, beats lightning storm. The other thing you can do is: hold 2,3,4,5 lands in hand. If you don't have to play it, don't play it. Attempt to gain any life you can too. If you're at 25, 27, 30 life, it's pretty tough for them to beat you if you have a land or two in hand because they'll have to discard 10+12+14 lands. Sword of Body and Mind is also pretty hilarious too. I've connected once with it and that pretty much wins you the game one way or another because you either take out multiple win-cons or 10 lands. And 10 lands = 20 damage.
Merfolk
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -3 Mirran Crusaders
-- Notes: You're the control deck. Don't bother to get value on their lands early. If they play Coralheim Commander, you can probably take out in the SoWaP because they're generally better vs if they're not playing with as many flyers (because there aren't a bunch of flying merfolk, obv.) and you can suit it up on a bird and break parity a bit... EE is super strong. Paths are not, but are still a necessary evil vs Kira as you don't want them to just dominate you by t3, t4. Vials aren't that useful because they're not likely to counter your creatures. Scoozes are because the life gain vs Vapor Snag is important with Worship.
NinjaBear
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Play/Draw - In: +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, + 1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Worship, Out: -2 Aven Mindcensor, -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aether Vials
-- Notes: Really similar to Blue Moon. More likely to have Hibernation. Pretty much all of your creatures if you take out Mindcensor and Crusader are... Green. Don't need all of the Aether Vials, but having 1 for value is fine (you can remove it on the draw if you think they're bringing in Spell Snares).
Melira Pod
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -2 Aether Vial, -2 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Qasali Pridemage.
-- Notes: Feel free to sub an Aether Vial for a Worship if you feel their manabase is shakey (to allow you to Ghost Quarter aggressively). Pridemages are good, but never great. Resolving Birthing Pod isn't nearly as good with a Arbiter or Mindcensor. I've found that more often than not I side in only 2 worships.
Kiki Pod
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Play - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -1 Aether Vial, -2 Qasali Pridemages, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Scavenging Ooze
Draw - In: +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, Out: -1 Birds of Paradise, -2 Qasali Pridemages, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Scavenging Ooze
-- Notes: You really want the 3 Worships vs Kiki, moreso than against Melira. They're pretty likely to board out of some Birthing Pods and just focus on trying to be more of a creature deck (Melira Pod is set up more like that MB). Izzet Staticaster is verrrry common, and sucks verrrry much vs dorks. If they don't see Vial, they'll be more likely to keep it in, where it's not nearly as good vs the rest of the x/1 creatures we have. Ooze isn't very good, but not being fully pulled because there's still value, but not essential in the way that it is vs Melira.
UR Twin, URg Twin
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Play/Draw - ???, only certainty is in: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb
-- Notes: They're not playing nearly as many Kiki-Jiki's as before which makes Spellskite top-notch. But this is one of those decks you really have to feel out how to sideboard against because the configurations can be so radically different. If you see Snapcasters and Grim Lavamancers, prioritize your Oozes. If you see Flame Slash or zero Pestermites, contimplate bringing in Burrington Forge-Tenders (because they might bring anger of the gods). Totally possible that they have Batterskull, or not. They may not actually have hard-counters or have flame slash, and they'd have to double bolt something to kill it. Thrun has uses, but not all the time. They may just try to play the tempo deck and win that way (which you obviously have the advantage against). They might play Blood Moons, they might not. Pay attention to their landbase... The Green Variants try to beat you with Tarmogoyf post board most often, Crusaders could still be very good. Aether Vials have some usage. This is probably the single most skill dependent sideboarding matchup for any configuration of GW Hatebears.
URw Twin
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Play/Draw: In: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aether Vial, -1 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: Much more consistant configurations make it an easier deck to prepare for. Usually 8-10 spells that can kill a Mirran Crusader. They tend to play more proactive than reactive UR/URg. They can use EE against you. Still not a great matchup. Burrington Forge-Tender gets a lot of work though, because they can/will bring in sweepers because they don't have Pestermites. Wall of Omens will bite you usually. But they run very few pieces of enchantment hate usually, Wear//Tear or two, and not many actual hard counters. They're likely to bring in Stoney Silence if you show Vial's/Swords game 1...
Zoo
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Draw/Play - In: +2 Worship, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +2 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Mirran Crusader, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Qasali Pridemage
-- Notes: EE is to taste. You want them to burn your dorks. But don't keep hands reliant on them. They'll beat you if you keep bad hands. Faster Zoo decks require more EE's, Slower ones, more Worships. The slower they are, generally the more consistent they are. They won't fizzle and explode if they're a bit slower/bigger as often. Worship wins games. I like SoWaP, but too often I feel like it's a dead draw because you don't get those explosive hands where you get to keep your birds when you untap. Pretty much most decks are playing Ghor-Clan Rampager. Those are gross. Save your Paths for them.
Gifts
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Worship, Out: -1 Qasali Pridemage, -1 Path to Exile, -1 Loxodon Smiter
-- Notes: They'll bring in sweepers usually in the form of 3 differently named wrath effects (usually, wrath of god, damnation, supreme verdict), Timely Reinforcements as well. Aether Vial though, gets around Iona. They may bring in Stony Silence, but that's not something to really care about. Most of their creatures are Green/Blue (except for the default Iona + Elesh Norn), which makes Mirran excellent for getting in with early damage. If you keep hands with GY hate, you better have cards that'd make them pay otherwise. They get little value from Liliana. Swords + Mirran > Iona, Swords + Smiter < Iona. Worship may never resolve, don't bring in too many. They're slowwwwww as hell. You might contemplate bringing in an EE or two if you're getting smacked with timelys.
Mirror
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Draw/Play - In: +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Worship, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Engineered Explosives, Out: -3 Aether Vials, -1 Voice of Resurgence, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: This one changes up from time to time but Mirran Crusader is literally _the house_ vs the mirror. Leonin Arbiter is one that you pull in/out to taste, because your opponent's likely to keep in a few as well, you don't need to get stacking symmetry, and it's by far the worst of the Bears from a purely offensive standpoint. EE's are good if you feel that there's a fair opportunity you can take a part of the board's CMC that you don't control. Sword of Body and Mind makes you pretty much unable to be blocked by 60% of the creatures. Pridemage is because everyone knows you play Worship, because they do too. It becomes a Pridemage war. Thrun is a big blocker in a deck that doesn't have a ton of evasion, that's a plus. That's how these games come down to nowadays is: Who can keep a Worship on the board the longest (or who can resolve and connect with a Sword of Body and Mind
Boggles
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, + 2 Worship, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Fracturing Gust, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -2 Loxodon Smiter, -1 Leonin Arbiter, -3 Scaveging Ooze,
-- Notes: Yep. Bring in 10 sideboard cards. EE @ 1 pretty much resets the board, but SoBaM gives you protection (and a 5 turn clock vs lifelink). Gust is like EE, but wins you games straight up. Worship gives you enough time to cast real cards. Thalia slows them down considerably. This is one of three matchups where I feel that Ethersworn Cannonist is better than Thalia (but if cannonist was just a white creature, it'd be an auto-include, the other two are storm & living end). Vials are too slow, along with Mindcensor, Smiters don't have protection, and that requires them to have either Daybreak Coronets, Unflinching Courage, or Rancor. Always target Daybreak Coronet first, Ethereal Armor second. They usually only have 1 basic land.
Burn
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +2 Burrington Forge Tender, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -3 Aether Vial
-- Notes: Basically all your creatures could/should trade with their creatures. Thalia stops everything but Vexing Devil (and 90% of the time, just take the 4 damage). Skullcrack stops Forge-Tender's protection, but not Worship. Vs. RBw, you're dead to Bump in the Night usually. Keep them off black mana. Straight Boros, Worships considerably more impressive. Thrun is basically another Forge-Tender, aka a card they can't kill which completes the Worship lock.
BG
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Loxodon Smiter
-- Notes: G1 on the draw, it's really important to "appear" to be Birthing Pod so they're more likely to +1 Liliana you into a Loxodon Smiter. They're not going to want to keep a lot of discard spells either, so, that improves the value of Mirran Crusader, Swords, and Worship. You're also not likely to screw with their tight manabases. Thrun's serious business vs their mediocre, but value creatures, and SoBaM pretty much rocks all the green creatures. Pro-Green is relevant vs the field still. Very likely to have a Maelstrom Pulse or two in the 75, so don't play multiple Worships.
BGx
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Aether Vial, -1 Loxodon Smiter, -2 Qasali Pridemage.
-- Notes: Like BG in many ways, except you're likely to get less value from Mirran Crusader as they're not as focused on discard as BG. Vs Jund, your Smiters are better than Crusaders, and vs Junk, Crusaders better than Smiters. Some jund variants (like the PT list), are playing sweepers, and Forge-Tender becomes useful (especially vs Anger of the Gods). You also want more Vials because your more likely to take lands with creaturelands in their decks (stirring wildwoods & raging ravine)
Bitterblossom Fae (not U/R Fae)
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Engineered Explosives, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, Out: -1 Path to Exile, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -2 Scavenging Ooze
-- Notes: More often than not, the game comes down to: they resolve bitterblossom. Bitterblossom kills them because they can't deal with Worship(s). Engineered Explosives is very good. Path isn't, just like in the BW Tokens matchup (sometimes). Thrun is negligible, depending on the build vs Fae. They like to bring in Batterskulls often, and cards like Marsh Casualaties (GROSS). Damnation is actually a fair card vs both decks, just remember to play around it if you're living off of Worship. They won't take out their discard. Hold back your Smiters, keep one, two, three in hand if you can, and pretend as if they're land or removal in your hand (like EE), especially if the board was swept. Torpor Orb might be OK if they're playing a lot of Cliques (Mistbind/Vendillion) or Snapcasters.
8 Rack
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Play/Draw: In - +1 Worship, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Fracturing Gust, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -2 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Path to Exile, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: Arbiter's just aren't that great. They don't search, they're 2/2 bears, and they don't play creatures. So... Same with Aven Mindcensor. Coming in though, Gust, EE, Pridemage, Thalia are all trying to disrupt their gameplan and force them to rebuild. The Rack usually is what does the most damage, but Shrieking Affliction is usually what kills you. Your deck does not play symmetrically with their deck. Play your creatures, but never more land then what's necessary. Don't bother playing Ghost Quarter's on them unless you get the T2 magic (t1 dork, t2 arbiter quarter). The lifegain from Scooze isn't negligible. It will happpen. Your yard will be filled with cards. This deck is absolutely a great reason to find a Horizon Canopy. Play your artifacts even if you don't use them. Force them to reconsider playing Wretch Mind.
BW Tokens
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben Out: -3 Voice of Resurgence, -3 Aether Vial, -1 Aven Mindcensor, -1 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: Worship is the big-heavy vs them, but often times they can gain a ridiculous amount of life with Auriok Champion. It's why you can't take out paths, you'd just auto-lose to that or Hero of Bladehold. Arbiter & Mindcensor aren't super effective in the matchup either, but Thalia slows them down considerably, and Pridemage gives you yet another ability to beat on their anthem effects. Sword of War and Peace gives you reach through their white creatures, while Mirran Crusader through Bitterblossom tokens.
Amulet Combo
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, Out: -1 Spellskite, -3 Scavenging Ooze, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Worship.
-- Notes: Stop the from searching. You're less likely to die from Titans than you are Hive Mind. They'll probably go on that plan in G2/G3. You can pay for pretty much ALL of the pay spells (via Dorks or Lands. Path every Titan. Forge Tender's are because they'll bring in some quantity of sweepers. CAN YOU SAY HOW SWEET GHOST QUARTERING THEIR KAROO LAND IS? They're unlikely to get into Tech Edge range, but if they do... Pull the trigger with vengence. Sunhome, Fortress of Legion is the utility land you want to crush first, as that's the one that will straight up roll over any defense you have.
Scapeshift
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, +2 Burrington Forge-Tender, +1 Worship, Out:
-- Notes: If they play Prismatic Omen, you still want your Pridemages. But, the idea is to either: A) Destroy their 5 mountains down to at least 4 (Ignore the Valakuts mostly), B) Aggressively rock them, C) Play Worship, and load the board with creatures they can't kill or get enough lands on the board to kill all. This matchup has gotten significantly easier in my mind once I figured out the mental blocks to beating this deck.
Infect
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Aether Vials, -3 Scaveging Ooze.
-- Notes: Just kill their creatures, I know. Easier said than done, but EE/Thalia/Pridemage allows you to slow them down enough. Oozes are probably the least friendly card vs them because they don't play a ton of creatures to start with. I'm probably wrong though. But Thalia and Pridemage are better.
Mono-Green Devotion
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Play/Draw - In: +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -1 Sword of War and Peace, -1 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: This deck has a few variations, but all of them don't like SoBam, Worship, and Torpor Orb. None of them like Mirran Crusader either. It basically is two routes, either A) Play Genesis Wave (we don't care if Torpor Orb is in play, because LOL NICE JOB Craterhoof, or Worship: LOL DON'T CARE), or B) Play really aggressive creatures over mana dorks and use density & planeswalkers to do. EE is also a totally viable option to play with the mana-dork variety. They will play some quantity of the following: Nature's Claim, Acidic Slime, Fracturing Gusts. Kessig Wolf-Run should never kill you. If you see it, blow it up.
Goryo's Vengence
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Play/Draw - In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Out: -3 Mirran Crusader, -2 Aven Mindcensor
-- Notes: They have some spicy things in their SB's, but most/all are sweepers. We don't want to attack that way usually, we want to go more against their landbase. Thalia makes it really tough for them to "do" their business, but, this is another one of those decks where I would prefer Ethersworn Cannonist to Thalia, by a lot. Stops multiple Fury of the Horde, Instant Reanimation, blah blah blah.
Soul Sisters
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Play/Draw: In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +2 Worship, +2 Torpor Orb, +1 Thrun, The Last Troll, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +1 Sword of Body and Mind, Out: -2 Loxodon Smiter, -3 Aether Vial, -4 Leonin Arbiter, -1 Mirran Crusader
-- Notes: Your goal is to stop them from gaining a billion life, and then slowly whittle their life total down while not being able to die. Engineered Explosives for 1 is what you want to be at. Vs the versions with the Immortal Servitiude shenanigans, Scavenging Ooze is solid. EE for 2 is also good if you're stuck with Genesis Chamber/Norin shenanigans.
Mono-White Control/Enchantress
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Play/Draw: In: +3 Engineered Explosives, +1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Qasali Pridemage, +2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, +1 Fracturing Gust, Out: -3 Aether Vial, -3 Voice of Resurgence, -2 Leonin Arbiter
-- Notes: 0% win rate. This deck is nigh impossible to beat for us. Fracturing Gust is literally our only out. They'll bring in creature removal, stuff for Worship, Heliod, all sorts of gross stuff that you can't really deal with. If you're lucky ad have a super aggressive hand, you can pull off a win, but to do it out of 3 is super tough to accomplish. Hope that Thalia can slow them down enough for you to push through.
So as I was looking at your board in / outs I figured I'd see if I could make sense of any patterns.
I tallied your data in a Google Doc and I'm hoping some folks here might be better at analyzing the data than I do, so its open for anyone to edit. Damnit Jim, I'm a programmer - not a statistician!
Some things that I've noticed right off:
Engineered Explosives top the board-in at 39 times, with Worship in second place with 38
Aether Vial top the board-out with 44 times, with Mirran Crusader second at 26
On average, you board in 2.6 explosives and 1.46 Worship
On average, you board out 2.32 Vials and 2.36 Cursader
What does this tell us? Damned if I really know. Just looking at that info above in a vacuum I would probably consider making some of those changes be permanent. Seems to be common things that you're always swapping around. I'm sure theres a lot better analysis that can be done by people here who have more experience in good ways to view data. Your totals on +/- vs each matchup didn't always zero out, so this data may be a bit off.
Another thought that occurred to me - initially I sort of shrugged off your Sword of Body and Mind, but it seems that you not only tend to bring it in more than I would have thought, its probably really solid in those match-ups either due to the protections, alternate win condition, or both. I will have to play around with that one myself, the more I think about it.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Snapcaster Mage
Other Spells: 28
4 Cryptic Command
3 Farseek
2 Firespout
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Peer Through Depths
4 Remand
4 Scapeshift
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Breeding Pool
2 Flooded Grove
2 Forest
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Mountain
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Combust
2 Counterflux
1 Dispel
1 Firespout
2 Inferno Titan
2 Nature's Claim
3 Obstinate Baloth
1 Primal Command
2 Shatterstorm
Scapeshift wants to ramp the early game, control the mid-game, and win via Scapeshift, getting Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle + several mountains, around turn 6-7. They tend to run sweepers such as Firespout as seen here, or Anger of the Gods. Bolt is in there for spot removal and extra damage. Remand and Cryptic Command can help them dig for answers while disrupting our game plan. You may notice that they need 6 mountains for this ability to occur after it's triggered, and they only run around 10 mountains in the entire deck. This gives them essentially one shot to win, so they will play carefully to ensure they go off at the most opportune moment. There are a couple of ways to interact with this deck. I think the preferred route is to target their mana base. Generally I will kill off a Valakut if I ever see one hit play. Otherwise I try to save my land destruction for when they go off. Cutting them down to 5 with the trigger on the stack will stop the effect from going off. Since we have uncounterable land destruction, there is really very little they can do to stop it. Additionally, Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor do a good job of hating on their ramping. Loxodon Smiter and Thrun, the Last Troll get around their counter magic and survive their sweepers. Aether Vial and creatures with Flash are good here too. You can also help push yourself out of lethal range via lifegain. Some builds can be geared to hate this deck effectively, but it's usually an even match up in game 1. Post board expect more removal. Inferno Titan looks solid against us. We can bring in more lifegain. Spellskite and Guardian Seraph can reduce the damage on those Valakut triggers by one. Worship can also make things more difficult for them, but it's still pretty even post board.
4 Deadshot Minotaur
1 Faerie Macabre
4 Fulminator Mage
4 Monstrous Carabid
4 Pale Recluse
2 Shriekmaw
4 Street Wraith
Other Spells: 18
4 Beast Within
4 Demonic Dread
3 Dismember
3 Living End
4 Violent Outburst
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Damping Matrix
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Gnaw to the Bone
3 Ingot Chewer
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Ricochet Trap
The plan for the Living End player is to cycle through their deck with their creatures and use Shriekmaw and Fulminator Mage to disrupt us. Then once they feel it's going to bad advantageous to them, they will cascade into Living End with either Violent Outburst or Demonic Dread. Beware the Combat/EoT Violent Outburst. Fortunately, they do search a little bit. Pale Recluse fetches for lands, and they do run fetch lands. We can also hate on them effectively with graveyard effects, such as Scavenging Ooze. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben also does a good job of slowing down their game plan, effectively pushing them back two turns since they would need 5 mana to go off. Path to Exile and Condemn are particularly useful here, as are Batterskull and Sigarda, Host of Herons. Flash creatures and Aether Vial are also good. They would probably board in Gnaw to the Bone and possibly Kitchen Finks against us. Whatever grave yard hate we can bring in is good against them. Relic of Progenitus and Rest in Peace are probably the most effective ones. I find the match up in game one tends to be slightly unfavorable, and post board becomes slightly favorable.
3 Goblin Electromancer
Other Spells: 39
4 Desperate Ritual
3 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Grapeshot
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Manamorphose
3 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Shivan Reef
3 Steam Vents
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Defense Grid
1 Echoing Truth
3 Empty the Warrens
1 Lightning Bolt
3 Swan Song
2 Torpor Orb
Storm wants to spend their first 2-3 turns setting up to combo out by turn 3-4. They spend their first couple turns digging for the perfect set of cards to setup for one explosive turn. Untapping with Goblin Electromancer or an active Pyromancer Ascension usually means game. They then cast every ritual and draw spell they can before casting Past in Flames and doing it all over again. Then they cast Grapeshot or Empty the Warrens and hope to ride it to victory. We want to slow them down, gain life and hate on their grave yard. Search hate for their fetch lands (almost half the mana base), Thalia, Guardian of Thraben taxing their spells are good things to have. We want Scavenging Ooze to eat away their grave. We want Qasali Pridemage to keep Ascension off the field, and we want Path to Exile to do the same with Electromancer. Gaddock Teeg can prevent PiF and Warrens from being cast. Guardian Seraph is also very good in this match up. After game 1, I would expect more removal to come in. No worries though, because we've got a few cards that shut this deck down though. Ethersworn Cannonist and Rule of Law are probably the strongest cards for this match up. Rest in Peace is effective at shutting them down as well. Even Burrenton Forge-Tender and Worship are extremely effective against them. Because of this, our game 1 is slightly unfavorable, but post board the match up becomes favorable.
You should plan to have some way to interact with this deck in your 75.
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
Other Spells: 29
2 Ajani Vengeant
1 Anger of the Gods
3 Cryptic Command
3 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
2 Remand
1 Spell Snare
2 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Arid Mesa
4 Celestial Colonnade
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
4 Tectonic Edge
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Celestial Purge
1 Counterflux
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Logic Knot
2 Porphyry Nodes
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Stony Silence
1 Threads of Disloyalty
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Wear // Tear
RUW Control is pretty much THE control deck of the Modern format. They play a lot of instants and the only creatures in their deck have Flash. They plan to out tempo decks in the early game with a suite of the most efficient counter magic and removal in the format. Once in the mid-late game they go full on control with Cryptic Command, Snapcaster Mage and Sphinx's Revelation to keep them ahead. Eventually they start wearing you down with Celestial Colonnade, Vendilion Clique, Ajani Vengeant and Snapcaster, and then burn you out with a flurry of back to back Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix and Snappy. Fortunately for us, they have a costly 3 color mana base which includes fetch lands. We also don't have to fear a combo, so tapping out for Loxodon Smiter or Thrun, the Last Troll isn't something we have to worry about. Aether Vial and Flash creatures are good here as well. Scavenging Ooze is also effective at shutting off Snapcaster. Voice of Resurgence is really good here too. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben taxes most of their deck as well. Post board I would expect more removal, and quite possibly Anger of the Gods. I don't see a lot of players running Crucible of Worlds, which is in this list. It seems particularly good against us. There really isn't too much that we would want to bring in. Thrun if you don't run them main deck. This match up is pretty even both pre and post board.
1 Aven Mindcensor
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Deceiver Exarch
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1 Murderous Redcap
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Qasali Pridemage
2 Restoration Angel
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Wall of Roots
1 Zealous Conscripts
4 Birthing Pod
2 Chord of Calling
Land: 23
4 Arid Mesa
1 Breeding Pool
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Forest
2 Gavony Township
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Hallowed Fountain
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Fiery Justice
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Negate
3 Path to Exile
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
1 Voice of Resurgence
Kiki Pod is a resilient deck that has the capability to chain into a combo during a single turn, through a variety of ways utilizing Birthing Pod. In addition to the threat of a combo, they can also tutor up any number of utility creatures from their variable toolbox of cards. Typically, they want Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker in combination with Deceiver Exarch, Restoration Angel or Zealous Conscripts, and they will often use Exarch and Conscripts to untap Pod for multiple uses during a single turn. They are capable of winning games through attrition rather than combo, although this is less common than you typically see with the Melira Pod decks. Our plan is to stop them from searching their deck, and close out the game before they can overcome our hate. You rarely want to tap out past turn 1-2, as it can open up an opportunity for them to combo. Even without Pod, they are still quite capable of drawing Kiki-Jiki and any one of the cards that can combo with him. Linvala, Keeper of Silence shuts off their combo, and they have very few ways of dealing with her main deck. I don't see them bringing in much for us post board outside of removal. Possibly Harmonic Sliver or Ancient Grudge to answer Torpor Orb if they suspect we are bringing it in (and we absolutely should if we have it in our 75). Extra copies of Linvala and layering up on extra hate with Worship isn't a bad plan either. Ghostly Prison is another card that is excellent in this match up. Even though we have a lot of hate for their deck, this match up is slightly unfavorable pre board, and becomes slightly favorable post board.
You should have ways to interact with this in your 75.
4 Cursecatcher
2 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
3 Master of Waves
2 Merrow Reejerey
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Silvergill Adept
2 Tidebinder Mage
4 AEther Vial
2 Remand
4 Spreading Seas
4 Vapor Snag
Land: 20
16 Island
4 Mutavault
2 Dismember
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
1 Swan Song
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Tidebinder Mage
Merfolk has one of the most straight forward plans in Modern. Drop a bunch of dudes who pump each other in the first 3+ turns, and then swing for a bunch of damage via Master of the Pearl Trident and Spreading Seas. Against us specifically, they want to pump their guys up so they are bigger than our bears, or make clear a path for them with Snag or Islandwalk. Secret tech for us is to use Ghost Quarter on our land that has been enchanted with Seas. Removal, First Strike, Fliers and just having bigger guys in general is a good thing for us in this match up. Most of their mana base is basic lands. They don't search, or really care about stuff like Scavenging Ooze or Linvala, Keeper of Silence, which turns a lot of our deck into mediocre cards. Worship can be negated by Vapor Snag as well. I'm not sure what I would expect them to bring in after game 1 other than more removal if they have it. Engineered Explosives, Ghostly Prison and more removal are the best cards we can bring in against them. This match is typically unfavorable, and only gets slightly better (although still somewhat unfavorable) post board.
It is very difficult to beat this deck without some way to interact with them.
2 Master of Waves
3 Snapcaster Mage
Other Spells: 33
2 Batterskull
4 Blood Moon
2 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mana Leak
3 Remand
4 Serum Visions
4 Spell Snare
2 Spreading Seas
2 Threads of Disloyalty
2 Vapor Snag
2 Vedalken Shackles
10 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Steam Vents
3 Anger of the Gods
1 Combust
1 Counterflux
1 Flame Slash
1 Negate
2 Spreading Seas
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Vandalblast
3 Vendilion Clique
This deck basically wants to counter and burn all of our early plays, land a Blood Moon or Vedalken Shackles and call it a day. They can also stall out until they can get Master of Waves or Batterskull going. Our best bet are guys that can't be countered. Taxing effects. Aether Vial, creatures with Flash and anything with Hexproof of Shroud that can avoid being a target of Shackles. Qasali Pridemage can answer a majority of their biggest threats to us, making him one of the strongest cards for us in this match up. They are likely to bring in more removal after game 1. We should bring in anything to hate on their enchantments or artifacts. Stony Silence can turn off the activated abilities of Batterskull, as well as shut down Shackles. Damping Matrix can avoid being shut down by Blood Moon, although it also shuts down our own Pridemages. Batterskull is also pretty good for us here since it also doesn't care about Moon. Seal of Primordium has been popping up in lists lately as well, and would be a fine card to bring in for this match up. Unfortunately, this match is unfavorable pre board, and it doesn't get much better after game 1.
You should have some way to deal with artifacts and enchantments in your 75, and you're going to need them for this deck.
2 Spellskite
2 Sundering Titan
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
4 Wurmcoil Engine
Other Spells: 33
1 All Is Dust
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Karn Liberated
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Eye of Ugin
2 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
3 Defense Grid
1 Dismember
3 Nature's Claim
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sundering Titan
3 Torpor Orb
1 Vandalblast
The game plan for Tron is simply to fetch up Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant and Urza's Tower their first 1-2 turns, and then cast crazy big spells like Wurmcoil Engine and Karn Liberated as early as turn 3. They use Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying, which we can disrupt with our search hate. Ancient Stirrings on the other hand does not care about search effects. The rest of the deck is mostly cantrips to help them draw into whatever they might need. Tron players like to run sweepers as well. Here we see Oblivion Stone and All is Dust, both of which are devastating against us. I've seen lots of Tron decks running Pyroclasm and Firespout as well, so be on the look out for those. Naturally, we want to keep them off of having the full set of Tron lands, and we should be using our Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge to do so. A good rule of thumb is to target the last one they fetched for. Good cards for us in this match are Qasali Pridemage, Path to Exile, Condemn, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Thrun, the Last Troll and Sigarda, Host of Herons (to prevent sac effect of Annihilation triggers). Post board they will likely bring in more sweepers and removal to combat against us. Stony Silence, Pithing Needle and Damping Matrix are among some of the best cards we can bring in against them. Pre board and post board are both slightly unfavorable for us.
I recommend having cards that are particularly effective against Tron somewhere in your 75.
More to come.
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What I came to the conclusion about with the EE is: #1. I actually don't bring them in as much as I indicate. They're sometimes "to taste" sort of sideboarding. But, they're useful. and #2, I turned around my notion on them before because, while it's a PITA to blow it up for 2, more often than not, hatebears is playing the long game. We will rebuild, but we have stability and hate that makes it really different to just get flat out beat. Blowing it up for 1 is way more common though. It's a card that makes sense with the core idea of the deck. Effects may be symmetrical, but they're significantly stacked in your favor when you're controlling how and when they're being used. It's probably my least thought of card, and the card I've used the least, but, conceptually, in a lot of these matchups, it's because it's better than cards that'd still be in the 60. EE has a lot of ranging effects that turn off a lot of decks in modern. It's one of two ways we can kill a Geist of St. Traft (the other being kill their Eijano, and then block with a bear), and Etched Champion (although, slowing them down and playing worship is usually better than eating an etched champion).
Mirran Crusader being brought out is because decks like to bring in more hate vs Crusader. The most common applications are when they use Threads of Disloyalty or Vedalkan Shackles to turn what arguably the best card against us... against us. There's one card that a lot of our decks run that can just stare at a Crusader, and that's a Baneslayer... but that's it (and Qasali Pridemage, ish). But I feel that 3 Mirran Crusaders MB provide enough firepower vs the decks that I need it against, and enough distraction vs decks that I don't. UR Twin can bolt Crusader, but if they bolt crusader, with a leonin arbiter on the board, are they actually getting ahead? Are they just trading life for a still difficult board state?
The fun part of this deck, and the frustrating part of this deck, is that often times you give a lot of control to your opponent to make the right assessment of the boardstate, and their deck, and work against your position. I sit back sometimes and think after making a play, this is a very tough decision for my opponent. I know what I have, I think I know what they have, and I think if they choose wrong, it's going to be very good for me, and very bad for them, or it's going to go the other way, and I don't know if my opponent sees that. You have to know what your opponent plays, their outs, and read the boardstate and the game as it's gone in order to magnify the weakspots of your opponents deck. You're forcing your opponents deck to play against itself. Decks that want to search, can't search. Decks that want to play value cards don't get as much value, or decks that want symmetrical effects that they can take advantage of, don't get symmetry. Philosophical tangent aside is over...
Worship doesn't surprise me, because G1, we don't usually want to see more than one, most decks won't have the answer for more than one anyway (assuming you're smart on when and how you resolve it). When it's bad in a matchup (and there are more than a few), it's a really bad card. I had one stuck in my hand G1 vs G/R tron today, and that wasn't exciting (still won, by the seat of my pants). But it's more about being able to find the card when you need it and have it as an out as opposed to a staple. I'm that type of person who picks up a lot of singletons, and I think it's important in modern moreso than in legacy or standard because of the range and coverage of decks and vectors that you have to cover in your 75. It's a tuning paradise. Boarding out Vial is mostly just a quantity and consistency thing. I think it's really important for this deck to win G1. You want to win G1. And I don't like losing G1 because I have poor colored draws. I've tried playing the 23 land 6 bird no vial version. Can't do it without cutting it down to just ghost quarters.
77% of the time, with 23 lands, (10 dual, 8 colorless, 5 basic), you'll get at least one green source that comes into play untapped (assuming you play 2 Stirring Wildwoods). 83% of the time you'll get at least 1 green source. But 12% of the time, you won't. Vial ends up around in your hand (at 3 copies) around 33% of the time. So, 33% of the time, 12% of your mulligans aren't auto-mulligans. In practice, I'd say vial actually saves around 1 in 12 hands from the mulligan, and on mulligans the value goes up on vials. On decks that aren't as stringent on consistency in draws, or don't need the same value operations, you can mulligan better and more effectively because you know what you're mulliganing for, as opposed to blind G1's.
I'll probably thing more tonight about it.
Also, i too, am a code jockey. I think it's a pretty common profession amongst competitive players... but, if you code in Ruby and live close enough to Boston (and not like Lancaster), and are looking for a new job, you should hmu.
Let's take a look at the Hatebears list that just made the finals of a ChannelFireball 5k (!)
Source
3 Forest
2 Plains
2 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Temple Garden
4 Path to Exile
1 Dismember
2 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Leonin Arbiter
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Voice of Resurgence
2 Spellskite
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskoz
4 Loxodon Smiter
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Seal of Primordium
2 Choke
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
2 Torpor Orb
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Imposing Sovereign
1 Stony Silence
First off, that sideboard and most of the main deck #s look VERY familiar. Give yourselves a pat on the back for coming to a consensus with this list. Many of these cards are proving their worth in real tournament situations and at high levels of play. This is a HUGE deal for us! This means we're on the right track with things like Chalice, Seal of Primordium, Choke, etc.
I'd like to know how the Brimaz worked out for this player. I wanted to test it out, but I can only test so much in the time that I have. It seems like a solid creature, and its one that we have discussed on here before. Its not technically a "hate" card, but I imagine it is a powerful creature that will slow down Zoo and our midrange opposition.
Did anyone watch the coverage of this finals match? I know Affinity won, and I'd like to know what happened. This list does NOT run Worship or Engineered Explosives, and I'm wondering if that was an issue or if it was something else. I do like how this runs Stony Silence since it does not have Explosives.
I'm leaning towards cutting the last couple of Explosives. They're great against Fast Zoo, but if its true that Big Zoo is going to be more common, then I'm going to want something like Baneslayer Angel back in my 75. Explosives was slow and hard to use effectively in my testing against Big Zoo, especially due to the fact that I couldn't get 3 counters on EE to kill Knight of The Reliquary or even Domri Rade.
I could see a list that looks like this:
3 Forest
1 Gavony Township
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Horizon Canopy
2 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Temple Garden
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Spellskite
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Path to Exile
2 Worship
1 Baneslayer Angel
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Choke
2 Torpor Orb
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Stony Silence / Engineered Explosives
2 Rest in Peace
2 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
I'm also looking at a Sword or Batterskull in that Baneslayer slot. I just want some sort of "trump" card back in my 75 for when the games go long against BG, Melira Pod, or Big Zoo. I want something that I can draw, slam on the table, and force an answer. "Pulse/kill this or lose" is what I'm looking for here, with a life gain component if possible.
Has anyone tested against Bogle? I'm going to have 10 games in against it this week, and I'm trying to figure out if I need that Back To Nature or if sticking with 2x Seal Of Primordium will work. Back To Nature also hits stuff like Blood Moon, but is one less card I can bring in for Affinity.
dcovino: If you did an analysis of my boarding you'd come to the same conclusion with my Worships as well. I'm really liking the idea of just running them in game 1. Sure, my opponents may have answers for it in game 2, but if it makes bad pre board matches shift in my favor then its worth it, especially since I bet we always have more answers than they have answers-for-our-answers. BTW I will share my testing spreadsheet, probably Sunday night.
~ Brian DeMars
I've still got analysis of our card pool coming down the pipeline too. It's going to take time to get everything typed out, as for a while now I have just been gathering and organizing data from the Pro Tour. I'm looking to use all of this to give the Primer a good overhaul. Then I will probably just give it regular maintenance every time a new set and b/r announcement comes around.
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF