The thought of running Exquisite Firecraft against Chalice of the Void and Death's Shadow decks is a neat thing that I never noticed. I wasn't planning on running them because I thought they were only for control, but now this seems like a solid sideboard card.
Why is Shattering Spree not a good card against Affinity? To me, it seems like a very fine card. There's probably something I'm not seeing, so please explain. I'm thinking about running it, but if you're telling me that it doesn't work against Affinity, I won't.
Why use Path to Exile against storm? I saw this in the sideboard guide for the forum, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to do. You're giving your opponent a land in exchange for their mana reducer. It just seems counterintuitive.
I'm not sure why you don't like Deflecting Palm. In my opinion, it's just a better Lightning Helix that only works in certain situations, so you bring in against certain strategies. You're bringing it in against Burn too, right?
Grafdigger's Cage is cool, but a previous discussion on this forum led me to believe that it's not worth it.
On another note, did anyone see the SCG stream on the weekend? On day one, Oliver Tomajko, the US National Champion, was playing Burn in the feature match area. He played a perfect game; that match was a masterpiece. I learned a lot watching him play that game, I would recommend everyone else to do the same.
Why use Path to Exile against storm? I saw this in the sideboard guide for the forum, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to do. You're giving your opponent a land in exchange for their mana reducer. It just seems counterintuitive.
Against Storm, a mana reducer is worth a lot more than just a single mana once they start going off. It's still a net gain to get it off the board as soon as possible.
The thought of running Exquisite Firecraft against Chalice of the Void and Death's Shadow decks is a neat thing that I never noticed. I wasn't planning on running them because I thought they were only for control, but now this seems like a solid sideboard card.
Why is Shattering Spree not a good card against Affinity? To me, it seems like a very fine card. There's probably something I'm not seeing, so please explain. I'm thinking about running it, but if you're telling me that it doesn't work against Affinity, I won't.
Why use Path to Exile against storm? I saw this in the sideboard guide for the forum, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to do. You're giving your opponent a land in exchange for their mana reducer. It just seems counterintuitive.
I'm not sure why you don't like Deflecting Palm. In my opinion, it's just a better Lightning Helix that only works in certain situations, so you bring in against certain strategies. You're bringing it in against Burn too, right?
Grafdigger's Cage is cool, but a previous discussion on this forum led me to believe that it's not worth it.
Spree looks good against Affinity, but if they've got a Ravager out, then you just tapped a bunch of red sources to make them pump whatever you didn't target (possibly Inkmoth/Blinkmoth, since you'll pretty much never be able to target it with Spree). It's not very good when you're just forcing them to do what they wanted to do anyway.
Storm has a hard time going off if you keep them off of mana reducers. Path is great there. The difference between giving them a basic and letting them play 6 rituals for 6 mana instead of 12 mana is huge.
Palm is only equivalent to Lightning Helix when your opponent is actively trying to kill you. I've had blowout games where I palmed an Emrakul and it felt great, but I've also had games where Palm is a dead card because my opponent was trying to stabilize and wasn't doing anything that I could use Palm on. Palm shouldn't be viewed as straight up equivalent to or better than Helix.
I'm not big on Cage, but graveyard hate is kind of a personal preference thing. You have to gauge whether you value killing graveyards outright (RiP), incremental emptying with a one-time-use cantrip ability to kill graveyards (Relic), or the graveyard usage hoser that doesn't hurt Delve but hates on CoCo too (Cage). They all overlap a bit and each have their own perks.
The thought of running Exquisite Firecraft against Chalice of the Void and Death's Shadow decks is a neat thing that I never noticed. I wasn't planning on running them because I thought they were only for control, but now this seems like a solid sideboard card.
Why is Shattering Spree not a good card against Affinity? To me, it seems like a very fine card. There's probably something I'm not seeing, so please explain. I'm thinking about running it, but if you're telling me that it doesn't work against Affinity, I won't.
Why use Path to Exile against storm? I saw this in the sideboard guide for the forum, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to do. You're giving your opponent a land in exchange for their mana reducer. It just seems counterintuitive.
I'm not sure why you don't like Deflecting Palm. In my opinion, it's just a better Lightning Helix that only works in certain situations, so you bring in against certain strategies. You're bringing it in against Burn too, right?
Grafdigger's Cage is cool, but a previous discussion on this forum led me to believe that it's not worth it.
Great questions!
Shattering Spree against affinity can be a house. They can play around it with Ravager and Man-lands. I don't like it here.
Path to exile, as others have said, is great for killing a mana reducer. 1 land=1 mana. Mana reducer=several mana. They want to cast remand, and often they're wanting to go off turn 3 or 4 with a remand backup--you want plenty of 1 mana kill spells.
Deflecting Palm is probably one of the most succesful cards that I hate. Everyone has their story about this great blowout beat.
Why I don't love it: It's a reactive card. We're a proactive deck. Will it work against Goyfs/Death shadows--sure. But they could draw another thought-seize. They get more turns to find a stubborn denial for the reactive card that's glued to your hand. If they're able to play around it, it becomes a fog. A lot of times, any burn spell wins you the game. Except palm because the opponent isn't attacking. I want it in decks that are faster than me. Infect/affinity/combo. Infect is fringe now. And I have a ton of great options for affinity.
Cage: It's probably not as good vs certain decks. What I'm seeing online is largely company decks and storm decks. Cage works fine vs storm. It gives you a little added utility vs company.
As someone who plays affinity pretty often to decent finishes, spree out of burn isn’t that threatening. You’ll rarely be able to replicate more than twice, so it’s “take a turn off to kill 3 things” and that’s not always as strong as it sounds.
You can, however, spree everything and leave 1 red up to bolt whatever they target with Ravager’s modular trigger for ultimate value... but it’s still not a shoe in because that requires a lot of mana and cards to be effective
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About Deflecting Palm, I see where you guys are going with it, but I still think it's fine. I'll leave it in my sideboard for now, and I'll just see for myself if it's bad. I'm not saying any of you are wrong, but I think I'll understand its playability if I get to play with it more. And yeah, maybe comparing it to Lightning Helix is a stretch though.
I'm trying to sneak 2 copies of Searing Blood into there, but I just can't find the space. My LGS has a lot of control, and I already play a copy of Grim Lavamancer in the main, so it's possible that I don't really need it at all for small creature matchups, since I don't really see too many.
I really like Palm. I don't really bring it in often, but when it's appropriate it is the best and maybe only call. Tron is not common but it is present in my area, and it is a BLOWOUT to Palm in response to an Ulamog swing. When I bring it in, it usually saves me and is the only card that could.
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Yeah that's what I was thinking. Against burn and stuff, it's just a regular card, but if sideboarded properly, Deflecting Palm can be the best card in the deck, right?
Its not just a matter of "sideboarding properly". It can be a dead card and can cost you the match because of it.
I've dealt 15 with it before and it felt great. I've also been in a situation against ETron where I needed any burn spell for the win and drew palm instead. I lost the game because they weren't actively trying to kill me and they took palm away with TKS shortly afterwards. Other times they've had something on board that would attack but cat a tks in main 1 to take it and it was my last card. In that situation, it's just a fog for a turn. The reactive nature of the card makes it very bad sometimes. It's very high variance.
You can't evaluate Palm by looking solely at its peak potential. It is worse than charm and helix, but does an ok impression of helix or better against some decks.
I wouldn't run more than 2, but I wouldn't be sad about running zero. It's a love-to-hate kind of card.
All right, fair enough.
Can you list the decks where I would bring it in against? I'll compare it with what I tend to see at my LGS to see if and when I should run it.
A friend of mine told me not to fall into using the trap of letting bad data lead you to bad conclusions.
Everyone has a great deflecting palm experience. You remember the good experiences. Dead to rights and you palm a 5/6 Goyf. Tons pf people have Palmed Infect for 8+ or even an Emrakul for 15.
The problem is we don't focus--at least early in our magic experience--om the times it went poorly.
Again, it is a reactive card. Meaning it is best Suited against a jdeckthat is faster than us. These are storm, inect, and affinity. Storm doesn't have a large threat and infect is fringe.
Being a reactive card also means that I cannot top that kid and play it. I need the opponent to do something. Usually attack. There are a lot of problems with this scenario. The simplest is that a lot of times drawing a different Burn spell would have won me the game on the spot. Did you side out a rift bolt?
Since it is reactive, opponents have more chances to minimize it. Some decks can draw a discard spell or a couterspell. People will always point out that any card can fall victim to discard or counter Magic. However, most of the other cards don't require us to wait on our opponent to attack and give the opponent more time to draw those very cards.
I figured I should jump in on why Deflecting Palm is bad. The two main reasons are already mentioned by a majority of thread followers with 1) Palm is too reactive for a proactive deck and 2) Just because it was amazing in one experience, doesn't mean it deserves space in your sideboard. I have a few personal experiences that go into more detail on why I'm not a fan.
The decks that it's fantastic against just don't show up much at all. (Such as bogles, infect, goryos, etc.) I can't bring it in against the decks I really want it against such as Death's Shadow, goyf decks, eldrazi tron because of the heavy discard spells. Most times against Etron they are either going to strip it with TKS or put chalice on 2 causing palm to be a fog(at best). I don't even really like it in the mirror because of skullcrack.
*The only good thing about Palm is that sometimes my opponents will make extra conservative lines to play around the palms that aren't in my 75.
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Standard: UB Control
Modern: UWR Control
EDH: Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Titania, Protector of Argoth
Phelddagrif
Glissa, the Traitor
Rosheen Meanderer
Unrelated to this topic, can you post the Humans matchup on the forum as well as the sideboard plan? Thanks.
I added Humans just now. I believe the matchup is approximately even.
I'd bring Palm in against Infect and Affinity. I've brought it in against Jund, Gx Tron, and ETron, and had some success and some failures with it. I've also brought it in for the mirror, but you need to find a time to cast it while they can't Skullcrack in response.
Thoughts on 1-2 copies of Abrade in the SB for Vial decks?
Siding in Revelry/Smash is awkward if they don't draw a vial. Abrade can still shoot their guys.
Well Abrade isn't really that good because it can't hit face. You do make a good point but I don't think it's worth it to add a sideboard card just for a very few matchups. Maybe you can bring Destructive Revelry against Merfolk because it also targets Spreading Seas, but otherwise, I wouldn't even bother trying to get rid of AEther Vial, since it's not even that problematic. If you're really worried about it, you could try sideboarding out a few copies of Eidolon of the Great Revel.
How many lands, Lavamancers and Skullcracks are you running in your main to pair with this sideboard?
The thought of running Exquisite Firecraft against Chalice of the Void and Death's Shadow decks is a neat thing that I never noticed. I wasn't planning on running them because I thought they were only for control, but now this seems like a solid sideboard card.
Why is Shattering Spree not a good card against Affinity? To me, it seems like a very fine card. There's probably something I'm not seeing, so please explain. I'm thinking about running it, but if you're telling me that it doesn't work against Affinity, I won't.
Why use Path to Exile against storm? I saw this in the sideboard guide for the forum, but it doesn't seem like a good thing to do. You're giving your opponent a land in exchange for their mana reducer. It just seems counterintuitive.
I'm not sure why you don't like Deflecting Palm. In my opinion, it's just a better Lightning Helix that only works in certain situations, so you bring in against certain strategies. You're bringing it in against Burn too, right?
Grafdigger's Cage is cool, but a previous discussion on this forum led me to believe that it's not worth it.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/222922407
Starts at 3:29:45
There's another Burn match earlier in the same video, but the one with Oliver Tomajko is truly impressive
Against Storm, a mana reducer is worth a lot more than just a single mana once they start going off. It's still a net gain to get it off the board as soon as possible.
Spree looks good against Affinity, but if they've got a Ravager out, then you just tapped a bunch of red sources to make them pump whatever you didn't target (possibly Inkmoth/Blinkmoth, since you'll pretty much never be able to target it with Spree). It's not very good when you're just forcing them to do what they wanted to do anyway.
Storm has a hard time going off if you keep them off of mana reducers. Path is great there. The difference between giving them a basic and letting them play 6 rituals for 6 mana instead of 12 mana is huge.
Palm is only equivalent to Lightning Helix when your opponent is actively trying to kill you. I've had blowout games where I palmed an Emrakul and it felt great, but I've also had games where Palm is a dead card because my opponent was trying to stabilize and wasn't doing anything that I could use Palm on. Palm shouldn't be viewed as straight up equivalent to or better than Helix.
I'm not big on Cage, but graveyard hate is kind of a personal preference thing. You have to gauge whether you value killing graveyards outright (RiP), incremental emptying with a one-time-use cantrip ability to kill graveyards (Relic), or the graveyard usage hoser that doesn't hurt Delve but hates on CoCo too (Cage). They all overlap a bit and each have their own perks.
Great questions!
Shattering Spree against affinity can be a house. They can play around it with Ravager and Man-lands. I don't like it here.
Path to exile, as others have said, is great for killing a mana reducer. 1 land=1 mana. Mana reducer=several mana. They want to cast remand, and often they're wanting to go off turn 3 or 4 with a remand backup--you want plenty of 1 mana kill spells.
Deflecting Palm is probably one of the most succesful cards that I hate. Everyone has their story about this great blowout beat.
Why I don't love it: It's a reactive card. We're a proactive deck. Will it work against Goyfs/Death shadows--sure. But they could draw another thought-seize. They get more turns to find a stubborn denial for the reactive card that's glued to your hand. If they're able to play around it, it becomes a fog. A lot of times, any burn spell wins you the game. Except palm because the opponent isn't attacking. I want it in decks that are faster than me. Infect/affinity/combo. Infect is fringe now. And I have a ton of great options for affinity.
Cage: It's probably not as good vs certain decks. What I'm seeing online is largely company decks and storm decks. Cage works fine vs storm. It gives you a little added utility vs company.
You can, however, spree everything and leave 1 red up to bolt whatever they target with Ravager’s modular trigger for ultimate value... but it’s still not a shoe in because that requires a lot of mana and cards to be effective
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Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
About Deflecting Palm, I see where you guys are going with it, but I still think it's fine. I'll leave it in my sideboard for now, and I'll just see for myself if it's bad. I'm not saying any of you are wrong, but I think I'll understand its playability if I get to play with it more. And yeah, maybe comparing it to Lightning Helix is a stretch though.
How does this look?
2x Kor Firewalker
2x Relic of Progenitus
4x Destructive Revelry
2x Deflecting Palm
2x Exquisite Firecraft
I'm trying to sneak 2 copies of Searing Blood into there, but I just can't find the space. My LGS has a lot of control, and I already play a copy of Grim Lavamancer in the main, so it's possible that I don't really need it at all for small creature matchups, since I don't really see too many.
I've dealt 15 with it before and it felt great. I've also been in a situation against ETron where I needed any burn spell for the win and drew palm instead. I lost the game because they weren't actively trying to kill me and they took palm away with TKS shortly afterwards. Other times they've had something on board that would attack but cat a tks in main 1 to take it and it was my last card. In that situation, it's just a fog for a turn. The reactive nature of the card makes it very bad sometimes. It's very high variance.
You can't evaluate Palm by looking solely at its peak potential. It is worse than charm and helix, but does an ok impression of helix or better against some decks.
I wouldn't run more than 2, but I wouldn't be sad about running zero. It's a love-to-hate kind of card.
Can you list the decks where I would bring it in against? I'll compare it with what I tend to see at my LGS to see if and when I should run it.
Everyone has a great deflecting palm experience. You remember the good experiences. Dead to rights and you palm a 5/6 Goyf. Tons pf people have Palmed Infect for 8+ or even an Emrakul for 15.
The problem is we don't focus--at least early in our magic experience--om the times it went poorly.
Again, it is a reactive card. Meaning it is best Suited against a jdeckthat is faster than us. These are storm, inect, and affinity. Storm doesn't have a large threat and infect is fringe.
Being a reactive card also means that I cannot top that kid and play it. I need the opponent to do something. Usually attack. There are a lot of problems with this scenario. The simplest is that a lot of times drawing a different Burn spell would have won me the game on the spot. Did you side out a rift bolt?
Since it is reactive, opponents have more chances to minimize it. Some decks can draw a discard spell or a couterspell. People will always point out that any card can fall victim to discard or counter Magic. However, most of the other cards don't require us to wait on our opponent to attack and give the opponent more time to draw those very cards.
The decks that it's fantastic against just don't show up much at all. (Such as bogles, infect, goryos, etc.) I can't bring it in against the decks I really want it against such as Death's Shadow, goyf decks, eldrazi tron because of the heavy discard spells. Most times against Etron they are either going to strip it with TKS or put chalice on 2 causing palm to be a fog(at best). I don't even really like it in the mirror because of skullcrack.
*The only good thing about Palm is that sometimes my opponents will make extra conservative lines to play around the palms that aren't in my 75.
Modern: UWR Control
EDH: Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Titania, Protector of Argoth
Phelddagrif
Glissa, the Traitor
Rosheen Meanderer
RIP Jimmy foREVer
I added Humans just now. I believe the matchup is approximately even.
I'd bring Palm in against Infect and Affinity. I've brought it in against Jund, Gx Tron, and ETron, and had some success and some failures with it. I've also brought it in for the mirror, but you need to find a time to cast it while they can't Skullcrack in response.
Siding in Revelry/Smash is awkward if they don't draw a vial. Abrade can still shoot their guys.
Well Abrade isn't really that good because it can't hit face. You do make a good point but I don't think it's worth it to add a sideboard card just for a very few matchups. Maybe you can bring Destructive Revelry against Merfolk because it also targets Spreading Seas, but otherwise, I wouldn't even bother trying to get rid of AEther Vial, since it's not even that problematic. If you're really worried about it, you could try sideboarding out a few copies of Eidolon of the Great Revel.
Haha! I guess it's not so bad of a card after all.