I was running smooth monday night defeating Counters Company, Green Tron, and Grixis Delver but ultimately losing in the finals in 3 games to Grixis Shadow.
The only cards I sided in were 2 additional copies of Empty the Warrens (I have 1 maindeck).
What are some tips for sideboarding against this deck? I found the matchup was very difficult with discard, spot removal, and stubborn denial
Blood Moon is generally really good against alot of decks post sideboard, especially since Storm can ritual into moon turn 2. The issue is storm is one of those linear archetypes that needs to win game 1, game 2-3 will be significantly harder, similar to affinity and burn.
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In a sense, she can be the 9th creature after reducers, which provides another angle of attack. She halves the storm count needed for a kill during the combo turn. Because she's also a must-remove, she could help tank something on turn 2 and then u can lay out your reducer turn 3.
I want to put a curiosity on her SO bad but I can't bring myself to run an otherwise useless card in the 60. Its like running splinter twin, but this aura doesn't auto win.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I am beginning to think that prioritizing Empty the Warrens is correct in this meta due to the prevalance of Grixis Shadow. None of their creatures have trample so being able to create a bunch of creatures to chump for days is really good.
3 to 1 split between warrens and grapeshot might be something id like to experiment
I've been trolling MTG Goldfish looking at the 5-0 decks for the past few days and Storm keeps catching my eye. I've watched a few games and really like how the deck functions. But I keep seeing Pieces of the Puzzle in the sideboard and I'm curious as to why it's there. I never see anyone actually put it in. So what's it's purpose? Just another digger?
Just built a budget version of this deck (no fetches yet, basically) and got my butt kicked 0-3 at a small LGS event between grixis delver, burn and death shadow jund. Seems like if that's going to be the norm around me, this deck isn't a good idea. Or am I missing something, different ways to play to work around decks with disruption and a clock or that stupid red eidolon?
Hi there, sorry for the delay, i´ve been busy the last weeks, here is the sideboard guide as I promise, this weekend i won a 6X ppl tournament going 8-0-1 with a decklist with apostle´s blessing, im prob going to write something about that.
4 Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 Desperate Ritual
1 Empty the Warrens
3 Flooded Strand
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Goblin Electromancer
3 Grapeshot
3 Island
4 Manamorphose
1 Mountain
2 Past in Flames
4 Pyretic Ritual
4 Remand
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Spirebluff Canal
3 Steam Vents
2 Dismember
3 Dispel
1 Echoing Truth
2 Empty the Warrens
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pieces of the Puzzle
1 Shattering Spree
If u have any other question or whatever u can ask here or private message, i will ask you asap, thanks for your patience.
regards.
This is the kind of brief write up I hope to find every time I visit looking to do some learning. Thanks! Your decklist is on point. Will be running something rather similar.
Just built a budget version of this deck (no fetches yet, basically) and got my butt kicked 0-3 at a small LGS event between grixis delver, burn and death shadow jund. Seems like if that's going to be the norm around me, this deck isn't a good idea. Or am I missing something, different ways to play to work around decks with disruption and a clock or that stupid red eidolon?
Pieces of the Puzzle (and to a lesser extent Peer Through Depths) allow you to rebuild after having your hand torn apart by fishing up redundant copies of spells you need to go off. Eidolon on the other hand is a huge mess - if they resolve it, the game's almost over right there. That's a big reason why so many people play lightning bolt and/or Swan Song in their sideboards.
As for the fetches, they're really useful to make sure you have UUR by turn 3 to attempt to go off. The Khans fetchlands aren't that expensive (in the $15-20 range) and you can probably get away with 3 Flooded Strand, 3 Polluted Delta and 1 Bloodstained Mire for a local event.
As for me, I'm being told to just slow down and go back to the basics, so I'm going to keep trying this deck, at least until bans come out in 5 weeks.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Can someone please tell me I'm wrong and then explain how they deal with it.
I haven't played against it, but I have two notable ideas.
1) Leyline of Sanctity You land it, their entire gameplan is torn to shreds and you have all the time in the world to assemble your combo. It's viable against any deck that wants to rip your hand apart (DS variants) and also slows down burn (though we're still dead to Eidolon)
2) Race it. Sure they sometimes have the god hand and you lose your entire hand by turn 4. But they also are light on removal. As long as you can set up a big enough past in flames with a reducer, you ought to have a decent chance to go off.
Obviously it's a bad matchup, but it should be better than 10/90 against.
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Can someone please tell me I'm wrong and then explain how they deal with it.
I haven't played against it, but I have two notable ideas.
1) Leyline of Sanctity You land it, their entire gameplan is torn to shreds and you have all the time in the world to assemble your combo. It's viable against any deck that wants to rip your hand apart (DS variants) and also slows down burn (though we're still dead to Eidolon)
2) Race it. Sure they sometimes have the god hand and you lose your entire hand by turn 4. But they also are light on removal. As long as you can set up a big enough past in flames with a reducer, you ought to have a decent chance to go off.
Obviously it's a bad matchup, but it should be better than 10/90 against.
I have so far lost all 3 matches against it. You lose on average 2 cards per turn, playing your reducer on turn 2 into a Smallpox is just GG. I've had a reducer stripped turn 1, cast another turn 2 to have it dismembered. I've cast 2 reducers on the same turn to have 1 pushed and 1 dismembered, and also lily -2 and dismembered.
It isn't 10/90, its 0/100. Looking forward to hear if anyone has taken on the deck and won (short of the 8rack player drawing badly, which isn't often).
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Being able to beat grixis deaths shadow is very difficult, but necessary to get tournament wins in the current meda. This match up is very bad so you can either hope that you luck out, or you can devote a lot of sideboard slots to this matchup. Dismembers are helpful, so are dispels, turn one leyline really levels the playing field, but there is one trick I'm planning on trying that is a real a game changer: 2 stuffy doles. They don't have an answer and it gets through stub. If you draw it and it doesn't get thoughtsiezed you probs win. They can't destroy it or race it. The only situation I imagine it loses is too a very heavy creature hand: 3 threats. Let me know if anyone tries this.
I haven't had a difficult time with Grixis Shadow so far. They do a lot of stuff in the early turns which can be disruptive, but ultimately u just need to pull off a medium sized empty for 6-8 tokens and you're going to win. Post board, Blood Moon is basically an instant win even if they try to play around it because they are so basic land light. If they're locked out of black they're finished and at the same time their blue is equally critical to them.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I don't like simian. It's possible to allow for turn two or technically even one wins, but the truth is if you have a hand that can win that fast our probably already winning and would do better with a ritual. Simian is a terrible top deck and strictly worse then a ritual and so many ways. How I test gifts targets in the main is every time I want to reveal a noxious revival or an empty the warrens or a simian I write it down with a tally to see how frequently it is relevant. Simian was by far the least often wanted and none of the others made the list either. The deck is just too tight for flex slots being thrown away like that.
I have not had good blood moon luck against GDS. usually they would see it in my hand or a good player knows to play around it. It kills them with a turn 2 on the play, but I don't even bring it in on the draw anymore because it to often becomes a dead card. I agree about empty, but once again most good shadow players will bring in explosives and kozeliks return. One of the few times I beat them I remanded my own empty so that I could create more after they cleared me. My old strategy against the deck was to bring in 4 bolts to try to surprise them with a quick bolt grape shot for 5-7 getting lategame lethal. It seemed bad but I got tons of kills that way and over 50% of the time they would take my bolts first chance they got with hand disruption.
I think against Grixis Shadow I would bring in some copies of Empty the Warrens, and maybe remove a Grapeshot or two - even though Grapeshot is still very good against Shadow as they lose so much life as it is.
None of my other sideboard cards are particularly good: Lightning Bolt, Dispel, Vandalblast, Echoing Truth. True, Dispel stops Stubborn Denial and Fatal Push so I can see an argument for it, but you don't want to get stuck diluting your strategy too much.
I could almost see cutting some of the engine creatures, as they will be picked off too easily by removal.
Like others have said its a very hard matchup and I'm still learning how to best combat it
Shadow is a bad but winnable matchup. Play skill is enormous in this matchup which makes testing hard.
My board plan:
+2 Pieces of the Puzzle
+3 Empty the Warrens
+2 Dispel
-2 Peer Through Depths
-4 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Goblin Electromancer
My full sideboard also includes: 3 Blood Moon, 2 Repeal, 2 Pyroclasm, 1 Dismember. Although this is probably not optimal. I haven't had the chance to do serious tinkering. My maindeck has 3 grapeshot and no empty the warrens.
We obviously bring in Pieces of the Puzzle since it's incredible against discard. Dispel is good because it counters Kozilek's Return, Stubborn Denial and the removal spells. It's just quite versatile. Empty is a no brainer. The plan against grixis shadow is to present lots of paths for lethal if they wait too long to kill while not losing too much if they have an aggressive hand. Empty for 8 is usually lethal in one swing and it's quite reasonable to grapeshot for 6-10 without a reducer or if the reducer gets killed. There is an argument for cutting Remand on the draw over Peer but it's still pretty good.
Blood Moon is not good against shadow. Shadow can easily pick apart our hand and if moon is good they'll take it and if they can play around it then they'll leave it we'll have a mismatched hand. The goal in the shadow matchup is to be resiliant against discard by roughly having our hand be as redundant as possible. Our deck should be: lands, mana, cantrips and cards that kill you. Having things that aren't in those categories make it easier for shadow to leave us with an unusable hand. Plus it's a huge tempo loss to get it countered which can be game losing. Yes it can and does win games but too often it does nothing or slows them down by half a turn. It's also a very bad topdeck.
As for SSG, I don't like it at all. It's a bad draw some 95% of the time because it can't be flashbacked and is generally useless and only rarely is it actually necessary to combo. It's also a dead card against discard which hurts the shadow matchup. Overall it just doesn't do enough. Peer or remand are much better in that slot.
For the 8rack matchup you have to reevaluate your mulligans. I would snap keep 5 lands, cantrip, past in flames against 8 rack. The matchup sucks a lot but it's very winnable. The most important thing is to make your land drops. You top deck much better than they do (although smallpox is always a beating) so if you can get a PiF in the graveyard you can often just make land drops until you can combo without a reducer. Empty helps here because empty for 6 on turn 2 is totally legit. Playing around smallpox is also important. Playing out a reducer into smallpox is probably incorrect. It sucks though and the best way to improve is just to get a feel for the matchup since it's like nothing else.
I'll try out the Pieces of the Puzzle tech, thanks. Will have to find room for something to cut out of the sideboard first. Probably a Vandalblast and maybe an Echoing Truth
Unless....could Pieces be good enough for the mainboard considering Shadow is so prevalent?
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Blood Moon is generally really good against alot of decks post sideboard, especially since Storm can ritual into moon turn 2. The issue is storm is one of those linear archetypes that needs to win game 1, game 2-3 will be significantly harder, similar to affinity and burn.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
In a sense, she can be the 9th creature after reducers, which provides another angle of attack. She halves the storm count needed for a kill during the combo turn. Because she's also a must-remove, she could help tank something on turn 2 and then u can lay out your reducer turn 3.
I want to put a curiosity on her SO bad but I can't bring myself to run an otherwise useless card in the 60. Its like running splinter twin, but this aura doesn't auto win.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
3 to 1 split between warrens and grapeshot might be something id like to experiment
Modern: Storm
Legacy: ANT
This is the kind of brief write up I hope to find every time I visit looking to do some learning. Thanks! Your decklist is on point. Will be running something rather similar.
UBR ANT
R Burn
GB/GR/GW/G Karn Tron
GW Aura
RW Burn
BWR Kaalia of the Vast
UWR Narset, Enlightened Master
GWR Uril, the Miststalker
Pieces of the Puzzle (and to a lesser extent Peer Through Depths) allow you to rebuild after having your hand torn apart by fishing up redundant copies of spells you need to go off. Eidolon on the other hand is a huge mess - if they resolve it, the game's almost over right there. That's a big reason why so many people play lightning bolt and/or Swan Song in their sideboards.
As for the fetches, they're really useful to make sure you have UUR by turn 3 to attempt to go off. The Khans fetchlands aren't that expensive (in the $15-20 range) and you can probably get away with 3 Flooded Strand, 3 Polluted Delta and 1 Bloodstained Mire for a local event.
As for me, I'm being told to just slow down and go back to the basics, so I'm going to keep trying this deck, at least until bans come out in 5 weeks.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
Can someone please tell me I'm wrong and then explain how they deal with it.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I haven't played against it, but I have two notable ideas.
1) Leyline of Sanctity You land it, their entire gameplan is torn to shreds and you have all the time in the world to assemble your combo. It's viable against any deck that wants to rip your hand apart (DS variants) and also slows down burn (though we're still dead to Eidolon)
2) Race it. Sure they sometimes have the god hand and you lose your entire hand by turn 4. But they also are light on removal. As long as you can set up a big enough past in flames with a reducer, you ought to have a decent chance to go off.
Obviously it's a bad matchup, but it should be better than 10/90 against.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
I have so far lost all 3 matches against it. You lose on average 2 cards per turn, playing your reducer on turn 2 into a Smallpox is just GG. I've had a reducer stripped turn 1, cast another turn 2 to have it dismembered. I've cast 2 reducers on the same turn to have 1 pushed and 1 dismembered, and also lily -2 and dismembered.
It isn't 10/90, its 0/100. Looking forward to hear if anyone has taken on the deck and won (short of the 8rack player drawing badly, which isn't often).
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
What cons and pros?
None of my other sideboard cards are particularly good: Lightning Bolt, Dispel, Vandalblast, Echoing Truth. True, Dispel stops Stubborn Denial and Fatal Push so I can see an argument for it, but you don't want to get stuck diluting your strategy too much.
I could almost see cutting some of the engine creatures, as they will be picked off too easily by removal.
Like others have said its a very hard matchup and I'm still learning how to best combat it
My board plan:
+2 Pieces of the Puzzle
+3 Empty the Warrens
+2 Dispel
-2 Peer Through Depths
-4 Gifts Ungiven
-1 Goblin Electromancer
My full sideboard also includes: 3 Blood Moon, 2 Repeal, 2 Pyroclasm, 1 Dismember. Although this is probably not optimal. I haven't had the chance to do serious tinkering. My maindeck has 3 grapeshot and no empty the warrens.
We obviously bring in Pieces of the Puzzle since it's incredible against discard. Dispel is good because it counters Kozilek's Return, Stubborn Denial and the removal spells. It's just quite versatile. Empty is a no brainer. The plan against grixis shadow is to present lots of paths for lethal if they wait too long to kill while not losing too much if they have an aggressive hand. Empty for 8 is usually lethal in one swing and it's quite reasonable to grapeshot for 6-10 without a reducer or if the reducer gets killed. There is an argument for cutting Remand on the draw over Peer but it's still pretty good.
Blood Moon is not good against shadow. Shadow can easily pick apart our hand and if moon is good they'll take it and if they can play around it then they'll leave it we'll have a mismatched hand. The goal in the shadow matchup is to be resiliant against discard by roughly having our hand be as redundant as possible. Our deck should be: lands, mana, cantrips and cards that kill you. Having things that aren't in those categories make it easier for shadow to leave us with an unusable hand. Plus it's a huge tempo loss to get it countered which can be game losing. Yes it can and does win games but too often it does nothing or slows them down by half a turn. It's also a very bad topdeck.
As for SSG, I don't like it at all. It's a bad draw some 95% of the time because it can't be flashbacked and is generally useless and only rarely is it actually necessary to combo. It's also a dead card against discard which hurts the shadow matchup. Overall it just doesn't do enough. Peer or remand are much better in that slot.
For the 8rack matchup you have to reevaluate your mulligans. I would snap keep 5 lands, cantrip, past in flames against 8 rack. The matchup sucks a lot but it's very winnable. The most important thing is to make your land drops. You top deck much better than they do (although smallpox is always a beating) so if you can get a PiF in the graveyard you can often just make land drops until you can combo without a reducer. Empty helps here because empty for 6 on turn 2 is totally legit. Playing around smallpox is also important. Playing out a reducer into smallpox is probably incorrect. It sucks though and the best way to improve is just to get a feel for the matchup since it's like nothing else.
Unless....could Pieces be good enough for the mainboard considering Shadow is so prevalent?