Blessing is the best redundancy. You don't lose resources invested in a critical turn to a kill spell with a 2nd reducer in hand. It's also storm count
Amen, this is why I went back to Blessing after dropping it once. Because our strategy against decks with removal typically involve dropping the bear AND going off the same turn, we don't want to have a pesky removal get in the way, and if the removal is timed right it can even throw us off real bad; for eg a tight combo run that has PiF on the stack with just R floating and THEN they throw that bolt.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
With red blue storm being a T1 deck it would probably only make the decklist worse. But I think the card can be really good in a Storm Deck.
Its like the child of ascension and medallion. But that mana cost tho. if it cost 3 i'd run it in a heartbeat. 4 is a little tough, though i suppose it could come in post board since it doesn't rely on the GY and dodges removal.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I think it's a good sb singleton, and look forward to testing it. The cost is prohibitive for main deck play though. I also like it as SB because decks may bring in artifact hate game 3 if they see it game 2, and thus dilute their ability to have the right answer at the right time just to combat a single card.
What are people's opinion on Thought Scour? I have read the last few pages and all of the discussion seems to be about Remand/Peer through depts and then I vaguely saw other cantrips (peek/opt) mentioned. Also, what is the consensus for the optimal number of kill cards (empty/grapeshot) mainboard.
My current list has 7 medallion creatures, 3 kill spells, 12 rituals, 4 gifts, 2 PiF, 10 cantrips (2 thought scour), 3 remands, 1 noxious revival and 18 lands I have enough tickets that I could get 2 spirebloof canals, should I? I'm currently running 4 Flooded Strands, 4 Steam vents, 4 Shivan Reefs, 4 Island, 1 Hallowed Fountain (2 wear tear in the board) and 1 Mountain.
I'm also curious on what you experienced MTGO players think the best SB should be?
I'm really new to this deck, but I got my first 4-1 today in the Friendly Competitive league. Felt great!
I have been facing a lot of burn and all sorts of removal in my meta, but i am still not convinced about blessings and noxious revival. they dont seem to get rid of the main issues that come along that heavy removal. I feel that instead of apostles blessing I could use Dispel(blue mana x "free" 2 life) and get the same effect then, and its much more versatile, because I can use without having a bear in play.
I should give them a shot, of course, I just feel they dont pack a punch to the deck, they are never good by themselves(please dont answer that all the cards are not good by themselves) I like the scroll better, Gifts is the way on g1, I think is good to have "5 copies" of it. if u cast, its almost always is gg, and smoothens the ritual floods. I dont face to many hatebears and taxes, or mainboard leylines of sanctity, but of course, its personal.
Remands give me a bigger mixed feeling too... it has saved my ass many times, but sometimes I just get ****ed with it sitting in my hand behaving like a cantrip... and its not that frequent that I do the remand grapeshot kill, I almost always gifts ftw. Post boards are tricky games that you must have a clear strategy, its a lot of study to do!!!
Thought Scour is really good, those good old times with pyromancer ascension and 3 past in flames made it have much more value. I think Strategic Planning is better for our non-interactive game, let us choose which of those 3 cards we are going to put in our hand, sculpts hand and gy really good for next turn, in the worst case.
In the last 5 times I played I went 4-0(pptq), 3-1, 1-3, 3-1, 1-1drop.
Some pretty good, some pretty mediocre, indeed, but everytime a new learning. My biggest challenges of course are the different burns and 8rack. I must tell, one of these nights I didnt know you could shattering spree to destroy chalice on 1, worth saying because i didnt know that, newbie mistake cost a lot. I feel that the limbo is full of burn and swarm, while the 2-0s and 3-0s more midrangy control decks(what I felt in my meta), so losing second game is painfull, it means a match against burn and swarm, and I need to learn better how to beat them.
Since these were topics one or two pages back and I thought I would offer some thoughts:
Noxious Revival
I feel like deserves the one-of slot it gets. The upside are just about even with the downsides, but I feel one fact tips it in favor of the inclusion. There are a lot of hands that include no one-mana cantrips, and one land, but would be amazing if you hit the second land. We run a high number of fetch lands, so if the one land is a fetch land then we can crack it, put it back on top with revival, and have the needed second land. (imagine your opener is something similar to: Baral, Gifts, Ritual, Ritual, Remand, Fetch, Revival. I feel like, but I might be wrong on this, that the one fetchland + no cantrip issue comes up enough to justify taking this function of Revival into consideration. Also the classic Gifts into Baral, Electromancer, Past in Flames, Noxious,
In meta games that include a lot of burn, affinity, storm, elves, ect... (basically fast decks that don't give you much time), then Peer is the clear winner for it's mana efficiency.
In meta's full of control, death's shadow, jund, ect.. (decks that don't have an extrely fast clock and like to play disruption, then peices is the clear winner for it's ability to help you recover from discard and counters, card advantage and what not.
Apostle's Blessing
I feel like this would require a meta-game full of jund, junk, death's shadow, and other decks that run lots of removal to be any good. If that's your meta go for it. Otherwise it seems like you're wasting a perfectly good slot by being overly cautious about your reduction bears.
I was hoping to get "good MU's" on sunday, ended up facing 2 grixis deaths shadow , 1 jund deaths shadow, RW burn, coco and coco elves.
Went 3:3 beating both cocos and 1 grixis ds. Against burn was a close call lost to a missing landdrop...
Apostles Blessing was fine in this meta (does searing blaze fizzle if I play apostles in resoonse? thats whats the judge said) I had 2 in main, but actually didnt see them too often, going to replace it with peer through depths, peer was incredibly good, putting a 3rd one in for sure and the other slot goes for either etw opt or maybe supreme will??
Searing Blaze does not fizzle. The reason is because searing blaze has 2 separate targets. If only 1 target becomes non-valid while the spell is on the stack, the spell will do as much as it can, which is namely to hit the other legal target, which is the player in this instance.
This is in contrast to spells like cryptic command which may have 1 target and another effect, say for example counter your ritual and draw a card. If you remand the ritual with cryptic on the stack, then cryptic command has no legal targets and will fizzle, meaning the opponent doesn't even draw a card. The same applies if the opponent tried to bounce your creature / draw a card and you gave the creature protection from blue. The cryptic command would fizzle. Now, if the opponent chose bounce baral / counter ritual, and you protected baral, the ritual would still be countered, as the spell has 2 legal targets and only 1 became invalid. The spell still has a legal target and will do as much as it can.
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BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
I was hoping to get "good MU's" on sunday, ended up facing 2 grixis deaths shadow , 1 jund deaths shadow, RW burn, coco and coco elves.
Went 3:3 beating both cocos and 1 grixis ds. Against burn was a close call lost to a missing landdrop...
Apostles Blessing was fine in this meta (does searing blaze fizzle if I play apostles in resoonse? thats whats the judge said) I had 2 in main, but actually didnt see them too often, going to replace it with peer through depths, peer was incredibly good, putting a 3rd one in for sure and the other slot goes for either etw opt or maybe supreme will??
I don't think supreme will is the answer. EtW mainboard is very good imo, and with peer or pieces of the puzzle main it gets a little better. But still, try one merchant scroll instead, and choose gifts ungiven and put it in your hand
I am going with Pieces main. I either face burn or discard, sometimes eldrazi, so my conclusion is that we need more card advantage, specially when we cannot afford to land a bear without it getting removed(is really apostles blessing + noxious the answer for this matchup? works with burn but with eidolon on play or 2 burn spells, its gone.with discard,feels like a whooping amount of card disadvantage). pieces "puts" essentially all sorceries and instants in our hand. cleans up from the top deck whatever rest. it can be IoK.
What about going old school with desperate ravings? people are *****y with randomness, I think we beat it most of the times with redundancy, and card advantage on this card is off the charts.
Any chance of jamming Primal amulet on sb? its a bear, would you ritual into it? not removed by ordinary hate, nor IoK, Flipside is only worth it if we copy either gifts ungiven or dodge a past in flames from counterspell, obviously anything else you copy is awesome, but I think the best use is to chain into rituals, flip it, cast something rude like 2 GU and then go for the victory. Anyways, gotta be tested and thought through
Watched Emma Handy pilot through a 5-0 today, and I'm just not sold on some of her gameplay. Can someone who has also watched the video series give me their input?
I want to know if her list and gameplay is much different fron scherer.
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Supreme Will
I think almost all of us agree that remand has helped us win games that were almost unwinnable otherwise. Maybe you snagged their turn 3 Karn on the draw, maybe you stop the other combo deck from going off, maybe you kept control from killing your bear on a critical turn.
90% of the time I would not run Supreme Will, but... If it's a meta full of opposing combo decks and removal heavy decks, would the ability to counter and dig deep be worth running it?
Supreme Will
I think almost all of us agree that remand has helped us win games that were almost unwinnable otherwise. Maybe you snagged their turn 3 Karn on the draw, maybe you stop the other combo deck from going off, maybe you kept control from killing your bear on a critical turn.
90% of the time I would not run Supreme Will, but... If it's a meta full of opposing combo decks and removal heavy decks, would the ability to counter and dig deep be worth running it?
I don't think so, because it doesn't both counter AND dig. It counters OR digs. Remand both counters AND digs which is super important.
Jund has a decent combo MU and a pretty winnable Affinity MU, Tron isn't impossible but the less Tron they see, the better they do for sure lol
Edit:
Not dick-riding here, but I've been watching Scherer's stream the last few days and fetchless Storm is looking pretty damn good. The number of matches where not shuffling bottomed cards back in has been pretty relevant. I think it's going to take some getting used to, but worth it.
I mean there have definitely been a few matches that he punted to silly misplays on MODO but that's understandable after an hour or two of straight streaming.
sidenote does anyone have extra storm cards IRL? I want to sleeve up for goldfishing and a few runs at PPTQs but no one in my LGS has the stuff for trade. I've got plenty to put towards it but I'd rather not "buy" into it. Just thought I'd ask you guys!
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I decided to try the fetchless version last night, and either it being Friday the 13th was messing with me or there's something eeply flawed with the deck. There was only one match where I was able to cast gifts, multiple times I had to bury it to get a 2nd or 3rd land, and in spite of (or more likely because of) all the churn, I seemed to never have enough to try comboing out.
There were so many times I was thinking "Geez I need the bottom of my deck to be live again" and had no way for it to happen. what am I missing?
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Amen, this is why I went back to Blessing after dropping it once. Because our strategy against decks with removal typically involve dropping the bear AND going off the same turn, we don't want to have a pesky removal get in the way, and if the removal is timed right it can even throw us off real bad; for eg a tight combo run that has PiF on the stack with just R floating and THEN they throw that bolt.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
With red blue storm being a T1 deck it would probably only make the decklist worse. But I think the card can be really good in a Storm Deck.
Its like the child of ascension and medallion. But that mana cost tho. if it cost 3 i'd run it in a heartbeat. 4 is a little tough, though i suppose it could come in post board since it doesn't rely on the GY and dodges removal.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Doesn't transform, but are you really ever going to want to transform Amulet?
My current list has 7 medallion creatures, 3 kill spells, 12 rituals, 4 gifts, 2 PiF, 10 cantrips (2 thought scour), 3 remands, 1 noxious revival and 18 lands I have enough tickets that I could get 2 spirebloof canals, should I? I'm currently running 4 Flooded Strands, 4 Steam vents, 4 Shivan Reefs, 4 Island, 1 Hallowed Fountain (2 wear tear in the board) and 1 Mountain.
I'm also curious on what you experienced MTGO players think the best SB should be?
I'm really new to this deck, but I got my first 4-1 today in the Friendly Competitive league. Felt great!
I have been facing a lot of burn and all sorts of removal in my meta, but i am still not convinced about blessings and noxious revival. they dont seem to get rid of the main issues that come along that heavy removal. I feel that instead of apostles blessing I could use Dispel(blue mana x "free" 2 life) and get the same effect then, and its much more versatile, because I can use without having a bear in play.
I should give them a shot, of course, I just feel they dont pack a punch to the deck, they are never good by themselves(please dont answer that all the cards are not good by themselves) I like the scroll better, Gifts is the way on g1, I think is good to have "5 copies" of it. if u cast, its almost always is gg, and smoothens the ritual floods. I dont face to many hatebears and taxes, or mainboard leylines of sanctity, but of course, its personal.
Remands give me a bigger mixed feeling too... it has saved my ass many times, but sometimes I just get ****ed with it sitting in my hand behaving like a cantrip... and its not that frequent that I do the remand grapeshot kill, I almost always gifts ftw. Post boards are tricky games that you must have a clear strategy, its a lot of study to do!!!
Thought Scour is really good, those good old times with pyromancer ascension and 3 past in flames made it have much more value. I think Strategic Planning is better for our non-interactive game, let us choose which of those 3 cards we are going to put in our hand, sculpts hand and gy really good for next turn, in the worst case.
In the last 5 times I played I went 4-0(pptq), 3-1, 1-3, 3-1, 1-1drop.
Some pretty good, some pretty mediocre, indeed, but everytime a new learning. My biggest challenges of course are the different burns and 8rack. I must tell, one of these nights I didnt know you could shattering spree to destroy chalice on 1, worth saying because i didnt know that, newbie mistake cost a lot. I feel that the limbo is full of burn and swarm, while the 2-0s and 3-0s more midrangy control decks(what I felt in my meta), so losing second game is painfull, it means a match against burn and swarm, and I need to learn better how to beat them.
Noxious Revival
I feel like deserves the one-of slot it gets. The upside are just about even with the downsides, but I feel one fact tips it in favor of the inclusion. There are a lot of hands that include no one-mana cantrips, and one land, but would be amazing if you hit the second land. We run a high number of fetch lands, so if the one land is a fetch land then we can crack it, put it back on top with revival, and have the needed second land. (imagine your opener is something similar to: Baral, Gifts, Ritual, Ritual, Remand, Fetch, Revival. I feel like, but I might be wrong on this, that the one fetchland + no cantrip issue comes up enough to justify taking this function of Revival into consideration. Also the classic Gifts into Baral, Electromancer, Past in Flames, Noxious,
Pieces of the Puzzle vs. Peer Through Depths in the flex slots. This might sound arrogant but I'm 100% sure this is a meta call.
In meta games that include a lot of burn, affinity, storm, elves, ect... (basically fast decks that don't give you much time), then Peer is the clear winner for it's mana efficiency.
In meta's full of control, death's shadow, jund, ect.. (decks that don't have an extrely fast clock and like to play disruption, then peices is the clear winner for it's ability to help you recover from discard and counters, card advantage and what not.
Apostle's Blessing
I feel like this would require a meta-game full of jund, junk, death's shadow, and other decks that run lots of removal to be any good. If that's your meta go for it. Otherwise it seems like you're wasting a perfectly good slot by being overly cautious about your reduction bears.
Searing Blaze does not fizzle. The reason is because searing blaze has 2 separate targets. If only 1 target becomes non-valid while the spell is on the stack, the spell will do as much as it can, which is namely to hit the other legal target, which is the player in this instance.
This is in contrast to spells like cryptic command which may have 1 target and another effect, say for example counter your ritual and draw a card. If you remand the ritual with cryptic on the stack, then cryptic command has no legal targets and will fizzle, meaning the opponent doesn't even draw a card. The same applies if the opponent tried to bounce your creature / draw a card and you gave the creature protection from blue. The cryptic command would fizzle. Now, if the opponent chose bounce baral / counter ritual, and you protected baral, the ritual would still be countered, as the spell has 2 legal targets and only 1 became invalid. The spell still has a legal target and will do as much as it can.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
What about going old school with desperate ravings? people are *****y with randomness, I think we beat it most of the times with redundancy, and card advantage on this card is off the charts.
Any chance of jamming Primal amulet on sb? its a bear, would you ritual into it? not removed by ordinary hate, nor IoK, Flipside is only worth it if we copy either gifts ungiven or dodge a past in flames from counterspell, obviously anything else you copy is awesome, but I think the best use is to chain into rituals, flip it, cast something rude like 2 GU and then go for the victory. Anyways, gotta be tested and thought through
I want to know if her list and gameplay is much different fron scherer.
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Supreme Will
I think almost all of us agree that remand has helped us win games that were almost unwinnable otherwise. Maybe you snagged their turn 3 Karn on the draw, maybe you stop the other combo deck from going off, maybe you kept control from killing your bear on a critical turn.
90% of the time I would not run Supreme Will, but... If it's a meta full of opposing combo decks and removal heavy decks, would the ability to counter and dig deep be worth running it?
I don't think so, because it doesn't both counter AND dig. It counters OR digs. Remand both counters AND digs which is super important.
But I could be wrong. May be worth trying out
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isn't that partially our fault? I mean, we go around destroying tron players' hopes and dreams.
BGW Elves BGW|BW Tokens BW|WBR Sword&ShieldWBR|BUG DelverBUG|UWR Kiki UWR | UR Storm UR
Edit:
Not dick-riding here, but I've been watching Scherer's stream the last few days and fetchless Storm is looking pretty damn good. The number of matches where not shuffling bottomed cards back in has been pretty relevant. I think it's going to take some getting used to, but worth it.
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sidenote does anyone have extra storm cards IRL? I want to sleeve up for goldfishing and a few runs at PPTQs but no one in my LGS has the stuff for trade. I've got plenty to put towards it but I'd rather not "buy" into it. Just thought I'd ask you guys!
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There were so many times I was thinking "Geez I need the bottom of my deck to be live again" and had no way for it to happen. what am I missing?
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
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