Gifts-storm should be fairly easy. It's hard for them to actually get anything going if you have access to rest in peace; in general, extractions OR RIP should be your graveyard hate. Most other options just aren't good enough for a long-game control deck.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
@CMOR How did you get to 3 Tar Pit and 1 Colonnade? Judging by a quick look at other lists people tend to favor colonnade.
To anyone else reading this, I'm still curious about the Mana - why colonnade over tar-pit? Obviously they both get the nod over Shambling Vent due to producing blue. Yet isn't vents exactly the type of card we could use to shore up the burn match, which I imagine is pretty bad? Again, haven't played the deck yet...Just trying to get an understanding.
unsure if i'll go with duress or thoughtseize, and i'm playing with ideas on the final sideboard slots.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
unsure if i'll go with duress or thoughtseize, and i'm playing with ideas on the final sideboard slots.
Can you explain to us the rationale on the sweeping mainboard changes?
Why have your switched extractions for rest in peaces now, given than you've spoken so highly of extractions in the past?
If you aren't playing extractions, wouldn't clique be more appealing over discard?
A single negate and 0 dispels feels a little lacking in sideboard countermagic.
I feel like your list is fairly soft to tron, though tron might have been replaced with eldrazi-tron for the most part at the classic.
Your valakut matchup also seems weak, requiring you to heavily lean on the leylines, but I'm not sure how popular it will be.
I think anguished unmaking is pretty legit right now, it seems good against a lot of the slower permanents.
Extractions are great but I wouldn't expect the classic to be as heavy with the grixis/jeskai/gifts storm/dredge as my local area.
Rest in Peace is better against the fair decks in general (grixis, jund, abzan) which I expect will be more prevalent now than previously.
Because I expect more fair decks, I think I probably want the 4th verdict over the 4th spell snare; I might end up swapping back on that.
Where i'm kind of lost is on how exactly I want to hedge my sideboard. Right now I'm thinking I want at least one dispel and maybe an additional piece of countermagic. Infect seems to have died down so maybe this is the time to switch to duress over thoughtseize and just play 1-2 negates and 1-2 timely reinforcements to just really make a statement against burn.
Edit: After some more digging into metagame stats, I think I do actually want the 4th snare, which means I definitely want the wrath of god in the sideboard to have access to a 4th sweeper.
Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
2 catacomb mystic gate and ghost quarter I can see why you have trouble with fetches but you should still have like 8-10 mana. 2 Revs is too much imo especially with white suns. Regarding the sideboard run 4 leyline, consider countersquall over negate although both are good. I actually really like baneslayer but am wondering why it is in the build, I assume it is a faster clock but geist of saint traft probably does the job better. The deck looks like it loses pretty hard to tron with only 1 ghost quarter, you can probably cut a blessed alliance from the side if you need more space you should be fine against infect especially with the dispel and you have plenty of interaction for burn. Don't take this too harshly I'm focusing on the weaknesses but if you feel it works for your meta then go for it. Lastly 4 think twice, 2 revs and white suns seems insanely greedy to me. If you like baneslayer you could consider dragonlord ojutai or blood baron over her.
Went to the classic in baltimore. Had a miserable run--I started 0/3, and ended 4/5. Full report sometime tomorrow. The TL;DR: I got nut-drawn so many times today I'm not sure I could've won some of these rounds with a legacy deck.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Techmarime seems to have not done his research, which as we all know, is akin to heresy.
Im currently playing 8 fetches and 10 fetchables. In the late game, yiu will some draw dead fetches, but in my experience, it rarely matters.
Otherwise, your list looks fine, if removal heavy.
Sucks to hear, amalek. What list(sideboard) did you bring, and what did yiu play against?
Techmarime seems to have not done his research, which as we all know, is akin to heresy.
Im currently playing 8 fetches and 10 fetchables. In the late game, yiu will some draw dead fetches, but in my experience, it rarely matters.
Otherwise, your list looks fine, if removal heavy.
Fatal push seems really good vs the death shadow lists, but not so good vs the great amount of eldrazi. (sideboard material, IMO)
More negates / dispels also seem like a strenght...
And props to the esper planeswalker list.
I'm anxious for Amaleko's report.
Dispel seems poor. It's best against other Ux decks and combo (Goryo's/Ad Naus), and those are both a relatively small part of the meta. I'd rather have Disdainful Stroke in my SB over Dispel as it actually addresses the bad MU's the deck has. If I wanted a card that's versatile and good against burn (in other words a dispel replacement), I'd much rather have Collective Brutality.
I was in a rush to get out the door and drive up to baltimore, so I left half the contents of my esper staples-box at home. I ended up registering this list:
For those who followed what I was going to switch to--i left the stack that had RIP, duress, and a few other things at home--had to grab a dispel even after I got to the event site. On the whole, I didn't even play against any deck where RIP would have been a significant upgrade, so that's a wash.
Tournament:
Round 1: lose die roll, 0-2 against bant eldrazi.
Game 1: he leads on double temple into thought knot seer (my colonnade-go), turn three reality smasher off cavern, turn 4 stirrings into smasher, turn 5 drowner of hope. Let's just say I didn't have a shot.
Game 2: I stabilize after another near-nut draw start with a baneslayer, and start to race him. Eventually he slams threat after threat and baneslayer has to go on blocking duty; this stalls the board for a few turns while he topdecks in hellbent mode while I start to re-gas. Then he slams drowner of hope--drawing the cryptic tap-draw, into a forced verdict. He's at 4 life now from activating fetches, so I have lethal with colonnade the next turn. He rips another drowner--oh boy. I chain some card draw and verdict it away, with blessed alliance AND logic knot up--he's dead to literally any topdeck except drowner of hope. Which he rips off the top, for the kill. Can't beat an opponent that has everything every time.
Round 2: lose die roll, 8 whack, 0-2.
I'll summarize this simply. He kills me on turn three both games. I did a total of zero damage to myself with lands in both games. I cast a path to exile or spell snare in each game. I had an untapped painless land + verdict ready in each game. Didn't matter. I never got a 3rd land drop in the first game, and never got a 4th land drop in the second game. I'm not sure anything short of marrow shards could have actually won game one; maybe bw tokens can win that game two, I don't know.
Round 3: Lose die roll, RG titanshift, 0-2
Game 1: I keep a 7 card hand with three removal spells, a think twice and lands. He has turn 3 primeval titan, which I do get to path, but I'm dead a turn or two later to natural land drops with basically no interaction possible on my part.
Game 2: I mull a zero lander with a leyline into a hand with thoughtseize, esper charm, three lands, and the one verdict I kept in the deck. I bottom a land with the scry, and long story short: I drew exactly one other non-land card the entire game, which was a think twice (that also found two more lands). Not much I can say about this game in all honesty. He didn't even kill me that fast--I conceded on my turn 6 when I topdecked another land and was just dead to titan attack + triggers.
Round 4: Lose die roll, RW burn, 2-0
I had turn 0 leyline game one. He had a zero creature draw. After I hit 5 lands, I ask him how many removal spells he wants me to show him before he concedes, he says 3, so I show him verdict/path/blessed alliance and we're off to game two.
Game two, I turn 0 double leyline. He has one goblin guide and one destructive revelry, but when the goblin guide has shown him negate, dispel, spell snare, snapcaster, and I path the guide, he just scoops it up.
Round 5: Win die roll, RG tron, 2-0
Game 1: turn 2 ambush viper goes most of the way, but it turns out opponent is on a really *****ty build with 4 wurmcoil engine, 4 scuttling doom engine, some number of shrapnel blast, and eldrazi mimic in addition to a few karns and actual emrakul, the aeons torn. I still eventually get there.
Game 3: I play tight and get there with early snap pressure and small zeniths. I mean, opponent is on a terrible deck. Should've been a free win, but I just never expected to see banefire...
Round 6: lose die roll, merfolk (7 seas) 0-2
Game one, he has a fast hand with double sea's claim effects. he turns off two white sources early and just commits all in and dares me to find a white source on top of my library--he's empty handed after abusing merrow reejery and vial hardcore. I don't rip it and I die with three verdicts in hand.
Game two, he has aether vial, into cursecatcher + spreading seas, into lord + sea's claim, into spreading seas + sea's claim. I muster a little bit of a defense, but he has the eventual double soft counterspells for the wrath of god that turns out to be the only wrath effect I find. Yeah, I got bit for playing the singleton wrath over the 4th verdict. Guess what? Could just as easily have been coco elves.
Round 7: Lose die roll, Jund, 2-0
Grind him out. Game one, I literally go down to zero cards in library and cast zenith twice. It was that kind of game. But it was pretty inevitable. I survived two liliana ultimates and still ground him out.
Game two: grind him out, from an inquisition he eventually knows he's playing off the top of his deck against three cryptic commands, but I don't even have to cast all of them as I find an elspeth off the top and kill him a few turns later.
Round 8: lose die roll, affinity, 1-2
I think i'm stabilized game one, and I slam a board wipe on turn six with path and spell snare up at 7 life. he has double galvanic blast. Game two, he mulligans to five and does nothing. Game three, I take some early damage, verdict on 4, baneslayer on five, and he TRIPLE GALVANIC BLASTS ME. I shouldn't have to worry about stabilizing from 11 life against anything other than burn.
Round 9: lose die roll, affinity 2-0
spell snares into two drops, baneslayer can't be stopped.
TL;DR: I lost 8 out of 9 die rolls, I had at least two opponents have double games that were virtually unbeatable linear nut draws, and I had some absolutely piss-poor matchups.
All in all, I sat adjacent to a different jund player during every single round, so it felt really bad to get pairings like what I saw. In the games I played, the list felt very smooth for the most part--In basically every match except titanshift in round 3, it felt like the deck was working like it should, and that my opponents were running hotter than the sun. The bant eldrazi player checked in with me repeatedly over the course of the tournament because he felt so bad about the lucksack that was our first round match.
7 seas is going to be a hard deck for us to beat when their deck operates on all cylinders because the level of mana disruption they run is so high compared to the clock, 8 whack is never going to be a positive matchup for us. and bant eldrazi is winnable, but depends on the quality of their draws very heavily. I don't feel too bad about the matchups--losing to titan shift sucked, but the coinflip free win against burn kind of evens that out as far as stealing games. Otherwise, I would have expected to probably go 5/2 in the other matchups (hoping to flip one of bant eldrazi and seven seas into a win); failing to convert either of those AND losing a match to affinity pushed that to a 3/4 record, leaving me at an overall 4/5 instead of the 6/3 I would have hoped for given the matchups. I think if I had a large sample size of this exact slate of matchups with that list, I would have expected the average run to be about 5.5 match wins, so this was definitely not a favorable slate of matchups. I brought in every sideboard card at least twice except for the elspeth, which more than pulls its weight in BGx matchups; I also didn't play against any of the baral/electromancer/gifts storm decks that were running around, or any of the fair grixis/jeskai decks where the rest in peaces I was going to run would have been beneficial. The meta-call to run only three wraths in the mainboard I think turned out to be correct given what I saw in the room, and for the matchups I actually played against.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Interesting notes amaleko - Especially the 8 seas Merfolk. I too find can be an issue if they get double seas in the first couple turns turning off white sources, it's ridiculous, we're a blue deck and seas still bones us haha
A couple thoughts on that -
1. Would some Engineered Explosives in the side be a good choice? I used to think EE was close to an auto-win against Merfolk, until they bring in Sea's Claim, which causes just as much trouble as Spreading Seas and also dodges the coveted X=2 against Merfolk. Same as Vial which dodges EE too.
2. Propaganda effects aka Ghostly Prison. I've been looking hard recently at the prison decks, in particular, their sideboard. I'll get to this in a bit below. But on the topic of Ghostly Prison. I can see this card being a solid side board choice because it doesn't really care for Vial or Seas effects since it's only W. I was playing against a BW tokens recently and the dude kept rebuilding after board wipes either through Bitterblossom or EOT Secure the Wastes. I was talking to him and he actually rate Ghostly Prison higher than sweepers and even higher than Engineered Explosives in the BW tokens match up. I can also see Ghostly Prison being useful against decks packing Selfless Spirit like UW/Esper/Bant Spirits where they have ways to punish Sweepers on turn 4. I can also see Ghostly Prison being fairly decent against Bant Eldrazi, especially if you pack 2-3 in the side, you can stack it. This will buy so much time where the opponent won't be able to take advantage of a turn 4 Verdict or Bust situation.
In regards to the sideboarding, what I've noticed is that the Prison decks tend to pack a 3/3/3 split of RIP/Stony/Leyline. These tend to be some of the hardest hitting hate cards in the format.
Was looking at adopting my sideboard to something like this:
4/3 Rest in Peace
2/3 Stony Silence
2/3 Leyline of Sanctitiy
2/3 Ghostly Prison
3 Thoughtseize
1-2 Flex Slots
I figure the strongest hate cards in the format, taking a leaf out of WR lockdowns book minus the B moon.
RIP - As they say, when people start removing grave hate from their sideboard, that's when Dredge takes off again. Good thing that RIP is very strongly positioned with Abzan CoCo, Grixis.dec, Thopter/Sword, Storm/Gifts. I've tested against Storm Gifts and I think that version is much more potent and consistent than the old UR version. But RIP completely shuts the deck down, it's not even funny. RIP is the strongest GY hate in the format imo.
Stony Silence - All artifacts, past, present and future. There will always be artifacts doing broken things in every format. Stony Silence is the real deal here.
Leyline of Sanctitiy - Shuts down Burn/Valakut/8 Rack or any discard heavy decks that are fighting on a very linear axis. Was tossing up between Timely Reinforcements and Blessed Alliance in this spot for an anti-Burn card but I think Leyline of Sanctity hoses other T1 decks like Valakut which is a more flexible card all around. Heavy handed hate card against a lot of "hard to interact with" strategies.
Ghostly Prison - This card isn't exactly as popular as the above hate cards, but I think it deserves a look. As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of creature decks that are built to get around Sweepers and come back with a huge counter punch if we tap out. These decks also play quite a low - average land count which means they want to either "cheat" things in with either Vial or Temples or play an excess amount of creature threats on a low land count. I think Ghostly Prison can change the dynamics of these match ups where it comes to a "Verdict or Bust" scenario where they could be Chording in a Selfless Spirit or EOT CoCo. Propaganda effects in theory could change the pace of the match and give us time to hit more draw steps and build more lands. Even against Eldrazi, I think it can slow them down considerably and just stacking 2 of these could be very hard for them to deal with. This is the sideboard hate card I'm currently most interested in as I haven't tested it too much but I've tested the others (RIP, Stony, Leyline) and they've all proven to be established choices.
Thoughtseize/Duress/IoK/Clique/Hand disruption - I think there still needs to be room for targeted discard in the side as a combo/mirror breaker no kikijiki. Card like Thoughtseize always come in handy and is a good reason to play Black in addition to Esper Charm which Jeskai doesn't have access to.
This leaves about 2 Flex slots left for whatever like Disenchants, Planeswalkers, Engineered Explosives, Removals, Counters, BBoV/BA, Crucible of Worlds lol
The problem with a hate-heavy sideboard is that it leaves you without tools for random decks that don't just fold to the hate cards you have. You need some tools to fight on the nuances of different strategic plans, because otherwise someone with a similar slightly nuanced sideboard plan is going to completely destroy you despite your hate.
ghostly prison effects are great if you just need to slow your opponent down. We can't really take advantage of the extra time to clock them back or slam big battlefield cards (unless we want to move to a more tap-out style with elspeths in the main, which is not completely unreasonable), so we'd have to stack them. The problem is then that we're playing the wrong deck--we should be mono white prison with sphere of safety at that point to make it a hard lock. For this reason, I think they're not really a worthwhile consideration in the draw-go builds (midrange or tapout esper decks is a whole other story--it might really shine there).
I also think thoughtseize becomes more questionable if you're running a lot of hate cards AND don't have extractions--I think you're probably better off with runed halo at that point, to really enable the hardcore lockdown when required.
And yeah, merfolk is a very interesting matchup. It can range from very favorable (linear beat down lists with extra lords and harbinger, etc) to very unfavorable (7/8 seas versions) because the pressure core is the same, but one build actively disrupts the manabase JUST ENOUGH to crash in consistently for the kill, while the other is just cold to a verdict all the time. Their average draws are about the same but the above average draws are vastly different in quality against us in particular.
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Yes, I am a local area mod. WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE
Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Was looking at adopting my sideboard to something like this:
4/3 Rest in Peace
2/3 Stony Silence
2/3 Leyline of Sanctitiy
2/3 Ghostly Prison
3 Thoughtseize
1-2 Flex Slots
I figure the strongest hate cards in the format, taking a leaf out of WR lockdowns book minus the B moon.
RIP - As they say, when people start removing grave hate from their sideboard, that's when Dredge takes off again. Good thing that RIP is very strongly positioned with Abzan CoCo, Grixis.dec, Thopter/Sword, Storm/Gifts. I've tested against Storm Gifts and I think that version is much more potent and consistent than the old UR version. But RIP completely shuts the deck down, it's not even funny. RIP is the strongest GY hate in the format imo.
Stony Silence - All artifacts, past, present and future. There will always be artifacts doing broken things in every format. Stony Silence is the real deal here.
Leyline of Sanctitiy - Shuts down Burn/Valakut/8 Rack or any discard heavy decks that are fighting on a very linear axis. Was tossing up between Timely Reinforcements and Blessed Alliance in this spot for an anti-Burn card but I think Leyline of Sanctity hoses other T1 decks like Valakut which is a more flexible card all around. Heavy handed hate card against a lot of "hard to interact with" strategies.
Ghostly Prison - This card isn't exactly as popular as the above hate cards, but I think it deserves a look. As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of creature decks that are built to get around Sweepers and come back with a huge counter punch if we tap out. These decks also play quite a low - average land count which means they want to either "cheat" things in with either Vial or Temples or play an excess amount of creature threats on a low land count. I think Ghostly Prison can change the dynamics of these match ups where it comes to a "Verdict or Bust" scenario where they could be Chording in a Selfless Spirit or EOT CoCo. Propaganda effects in theory could change the pace of the match and give us time to hit more draw steps and build more lands. Even against Eldrazi, I think it can slow them down considerably and just stacking 2 of these could be very hard for them to deal with. This is the sideboard hate card I'm currently most interested in as I haven't tested it too much but I've tested the others (RIP, Stony, Leyline) and they've all proven to be established choices.
Thoughtseize/Duress/IoK/Clique/Hand disruption - I think there still needs to be room for targeted discard in the side as a combo/mirror breaker no kikijiki. Card like Thoughtseize always come in handy and is a good reason to play Black in addition to Esper Charm which Jeskai doesn't have access to.
This leaves about 2 Flex slots left for whatever like Disenchants, Planeswalkers, Engineered Explosives, Removals, Counters, BBoV/BA, Crucible of Worlds lol
Thoughts?
I must admit, for me at least, it is interesting to see an Esper players' sideboard geared so heavily with mostly prison-style cards, especially Ghostly Prison. I don't know why I never thought of it, but with the way you explain it, it makes perfect sense to me. I am totally going to test some out once I get my hands on some. One question I do have about the prisons, and this might be a no-brainer, but I feel like asking anyway; do you bring them in against decks that still fold to Verdict, or are they just redundant in those match ups? You said that they are great against decks that have resilience against board wipes, but do/can you still bring them in against Verdict match ups?
Another thing I also find interesting is the Rest in Peace. I know that it is a great sideboard card, but when I played with them, I never liked how they turned off a lot of my own deck (Snap, TT,and Logic Knot), which is why I always leaned more on extraction effects for my graveyard hate of choice. Is there specific match ups where RiP is better than extractions (besides Dredge and Grixis)?
Another thing I find interesting is the lack of sideboard countermagic. Yes, I know that there are flex slots, but the amount of flex slots that you listed (1-2) seems a little to low IMO. Do you think that trimming down on a Thoughtseize effect and using that slot for an extra counterspell would be better? I feel like there should be more counterspells in your sideboard that doesn't take up potential flex slots. I also think that hand disruption gets better with extraction effects, and RiP gets better with counterspells, since it helps you protect the RiP against a potential removal spell on the RiP (unless it is Abrupt Decay, that is, but not everyone is running that).
I'm sorry if it seems like I am being nitpicky, but I am genuinely interested in knowing a little more in-depth some of your choices and reasoning, especially why you did not include countermagic.
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Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
To anyone else reading this, I'm still curious about the Mana - why colonnade over tar-pit? Obviously they both get the nod over Shambling Vent due to producing blue. Yet isn't vents exactly the type of card we could use to shore up the burn match, which I imagine is pretty bad? Again, haven't played the deck yet...Just trying to get an understanding.
I'm thinking I'd run with this:
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
3 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
1 drowned catacomb
2 ghost quarter
4 cryptic command
3 spell snare
2 logic knot
4 path to exile
2 blessed alliance
4 esper charm
4 think twice
2 sphinx's revelation
2 leyline of sanctity
2 snapcaster mage
1 white sun's zenith
2 stony silence
2 rest in peace
2 baneslayer angel
3 thoughtseize ***
1 elspeth, sun's champion
1 negate
1 celestial purge
unsure if i'll go with duress or thoughtseize, and i'm playing with ideas on the final sideboard slots.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Esper draw go Control!
Twitch stream: http://www.twitch.tv/pimpdonny
Why'd you decide to cut the Extractions?
Can you explain to us the rationale on the sweeping mainboard changes?
Why have your switched extractions for rest in peaces now, given than you've spoken so highly of extractions in the past?
If you aren't playing extractions, wouldn't clique be more appealing over discard?
A single negate and 0 dispels feels a little lacking in sideboard countermagic.
I feel like your list is fairly soft to tron, though tron might have been replaced with eldrazi-tron for the most part at the classic.
Your valakut matchup also seems weak, requiring you to heavily lean on the leylines, but I'm not sure how popular it will be.
I think anguished unmaking is pretty legit right now, it seems good against a lot of the slower permanents.
Rest in Peace is better against the fair decks in general (grixis, jund, abzan) which I expect will be more prevalent now than previously.
Because I expect more fair decks, I think I probably want the 4th verdict over the 4th spell snare; I might end up swapping back on that.
Where i'm kind of lost is on how exactly I want to hedge my sideboard. Right now I'm thinking I want at least one dispel and maybe an additional piece of countermagic. Infect seems to have died down so maybe this is the time to switch to duress over thoughtseize and just play 1-2 negates and 1-2 timely reinforcements to just really make a statement against burn.
Edit: After some more digging into metagame stats, I think I do actually want the 4th snare, which means I definitely want the wrath of god in the sideboard to have access to a 4th sweeper.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
3 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
2 ghost quarter
1 drowned catacombs
4 esper charm
2 sphinx's revelation
4 path to exile
2 blessed alliance
3 wrath of god
4 spell snare
2 logic knot
4 cryptic command
2 snapcaster mage
2 leyline of sanctity
1 white sun's zenith
2 rest in peace
2 stony silence
1 celestial purge
1 anguished unmaking
1 elspeth, sun's champion
2 baneslayer angel
1 dispel
2 negate
1 wrath of god
Edit: Consider Vendilion clique in the side.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Im currently playing 8 fetches and 10 fetchables. In the late game, yiu will some draw dead fetches, but in my experience, it rarely matters.
Otherwise, your list looks fine, if removal heavy.
Sucks to hear, amalek. What list(sideboard) did you bring, and what did yiu play against?
Top 8: http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpvan17/top-8-decklists-2017-02-19 / http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpbri17/9-32-decklists-2017-02-19
Fatal push seems really good vs the death shadow lists, but not so good vs the great amount of eldrazi. (sideboard material, IMO)
More negates / dispels also seem like a strenght...
And props to the esper planeswalker list.
I'm anxious for Amaleko's report.
Indeed.
Day 1 & 2 MU's:
https://i.imgur.com/mRqzza2.jpg
If you're interested, I have a thread dedicated to it in Deck Creation. I'm its designer.
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Agreed.
Dispel seems poor. It's best against other Ux decks and combo (Goryo's/Ad Naus), and those are both a relatively small part of the meta. I'd rather have Disdainful Stroke in my SB over Dispel as it actually addresses the bad MU's the deck has. If I wanted a card that's versatile and good against burn (in other words a dispel replacement), I'd much rather have Collective Brutality.
I was in a rush to get out the door and drive up to baltimore, so I left half the contents of my esper staples-box at home. I ended up registering this list:
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
3 hallowed fountain
2 watery grave
3 island
2 plains
1 swamp
1 drowned catacomb
2 ghost quarter
4 spell snare
4 cryptic command
2 logic knot
4 esper charm
2 sphinx's revelation
4 path to exile
3 supreme verdict
2 blessed alliance
2 leyline of sanctity
2 snapcaster mage
1 white sun's zenith
2 baneslayer angel
2 stony silence
3 surgical extraction
3 thoughtseize
1 wrath of god
1 celestial purge
1 negate
1 dispel
1 elspeth, sun's champion
For those who followed what I was going to switch to--i left the stack that had RIP, duress, and a few other things at home--had to grab a dispel even after I got to the event site. On the whole, I didn't even play against any deck where RIP would have been a significant upgrade, so that's a wash.
Tournament:
Round 1: lose die roll, 0-2 against bant eldrazi.
Game 1: he leads on double temple into thought knot seer (my colonnade-go), turn three reality smasher off cavern, turn 4 stirrings into smasher, turn 5 drowner of hope. Let's just say I didn't have a shot.
Game 2: I stabilize after another near-nut draw start with a baneslayer, and start to race him. Eventually he slams threat after threat and baneslayer has to go on blocking duty; this stalls the board for a few turns while he topdecks in hellbent mode while I start to re-gas. Then he slams drowner of hope--drawing the cryptic tap-draw, into a forced verdict. He's at 4 life now from activating fetches, so I have lethal with colonnade the next turn. He rips another drowner--oh boy. I chain some card draw and verdict it away, with blessed alliance AND logic knot up--he's dead to literally any topdeck except drowner of hope. Which he rips off the top, for the kill. Can't beat an opponent that has everything every time.
Round 2: lose die roll, 8 whack, 0-2.
I'll summarize this simply. He kills me on turn three both games. I did a total of zero damage to myself with lands in both games. I cast a path to exile or spell snare in each game. I had an untapped painless land + verdict ready in each game. Didn't matter. I never got a 3rd land drop in the first game, and never got a 4th land drop in the second game. I'm not sure anything short of marrow shards could have actually won game one; maybe bw tokens can win that game two, I don't know.
Round 3: Lose die roll, RG titanshift, 0-2
Game 1: I keep a 7 card hand with three removal spells, a think twice and lands. He has turn 3 primeval titan, which I do get to path, but I'm dead a turn or two later to natural land drops with basically no interaction possible on my part.
Game 2: I mull a zero lander with a leyline into a hand with thoughtseize, esper charm, three lands, and the one verdict I kept in the deck. I bottom a land with the scry, and long story short: I drew exactly one other non-land card the entire game, which was a think twice (that also found two more lands). Not much I can say about this game in all honesty. He didn't even kill me that fast--I conceded on my turn 6 when I topdecked another land and was just dead to titan attack + triggers.
Round 4: Lose die roll, RW burn, 2-0
I had turn 0 leyline game one. He had a zero creature draw. After I hit 5 lands, I ask him how many removal spells he wants me to show him before he concedes, he says 3, so I show him verdict/path/blessed alliance and we're off to game two.
Game two, I turn 0 double leyline. He has one goblin guide and one destructive revelry, but when the goblin guide has shown him negate, dispel, spell snare, snapcaster, and I path the guide, he just scoops it up.
Round 5: Win die roll, RG tron, 2-0
Game 1: turn 2 ambush viper goes most of the way, but it turns out opponent is on a really *****ty build with 4 wurmcoil engine, 4 scuttling doom engine, some number of shrapnel blast, and eldrazi mimic in addition to a few karns and actual emrakul, the aeons torn. I still eventually get there.
Game 2, he sticks all is dust to wipe my leylines, which I don't think i need to be worried about since I have three cryptics in hand and a pair of snapcasters to deploy. Turns out he had a banefire for lethal in hand on the untap. Because that's a reasonable tron card right?
Game 3: I play tight and get there with early snap pressure and small zeniths. I mean, opponent is on a terrible deck. Should've been a free win, but I just never expected to see banefire...
Round 6: lose die roll, merfolk (7 seas) 0-2
Game one, he has a fast hand with double sea's claim effects. he turns off two white sources early and just commits all in and dares me to find a white source on top of my library--he's empty handed after abusing merrow reejery and vial hardcore. I don't rip it and I die with three verdicts in hand.
Game two, he has aether vial, into cursecatcher + spreading seas, into lord + sea's claim, into spreading seas + sea's claim. I muster a little bit of a defense, but he has the eventual double soft counterspells for the wrath of god that turns out to be the only wrath effect I find. Yeah, I got bit for playing the singleton wrath over the 4th verdict. Guess what? Could just as easily have been coco elves.
Round 7: Lose die roll, Jund, 2-0
Grind him out. Game one, I literally go down to zero cards in library and cast zenith twice. It was that kind of game. But it was pretty inevitable. I survived two liliana ultimates and still ground him out.
Game two: grind him out, from an inquisition he eventually knows he's playing off the top of his deck against three cryptic commands, but I don't even have to cast all of them as I find an elspeth off the top and kill him a few turns later.
Round 8: lose die roll, affinity, 1-2
I think i'm stabilized game one, and I slam a board wipe on turn six with path and spell snare up at 7 life. he has double galvanic blast. Game two, he mulligans to five and does nothing. Game three, I take some early damage, verdict on 4, baneslayer on five, and he TRIPLE GALVANIC BLASTS ME. I shouldn't have to worry about stabilizing from 11 life against anything other than burn.
Round 9: lose die roll, affinity 2-0
spell snares into two drops, baneslayer can't be stopped.
TL;DR: I lost 8 out of 9 die rolls, I had at least two opponents have double games that were virtually unbeatable linear nut draws, and I had some absolutely piss-poor matchups.
All in all, I sat adjacent to a different jund player during every single round, so it felt really bad to get pairings like what I saw. In the games I played, the list felt very smooth for the most part--In basically every match except titanshift in round 3, it felt like the deck was working like it should, and that my opponents were running hotter than the sun. The bant eldrazi player checked in with me repeatedly over the course of the tournament because he felt so bad about the lucksack that was our first round match.
7 seas is going to be a hard deck for us to beat when their deck operates on all cylinders because the level of mana disruption they run is so high compared to the clock, 8 whack is never going to be a positive matchup for us. and bant eldrazi is winnable, but depends on the quality of their draws very heavily. I don't feel too bad about the matchups--losing to titan shift sucked, but the coinflip free win against burn kind of evens that out as far as stealing games. Otherwise, I would have expected to probably go 5/2 in the other matchups (hoping to flip one of bant eldrazi and seven seas into a win); failing to convert either of those AND losing a match to affinity pushed that to a 3/4 record, leaving me at an overall 4/5 instead of the 6/3 I would have hoped for given the matchups. I think if I had a large sample size of this exact slate of matchups with that list, I would have expected the average run to be about 5.5 match wins, so this was definitely not a favorable slate of matchups. I brought in every sideboard card at least twice except for the elspeth, which more than pulls its weight in BGx matchups; I also didn't play against any of the baral/electromancer/gifts storm decks that were running around, or any of the fair grixis/jeskai decks where the rest in peaces I was going to run would have been beneficial. The meta-call to run only three wraths in the mainboard I think turned out to be correct given what I saw in the room, and for the matchups I actually played against.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
A couple thoughts on that -
1. Would some Engineered Explosives in the side be a good choice? I used to think EE was close to an auto-win against Merfolk, until they bring in Sea's Claim, which causes just as much trouble as Spreading Seas and also dodges the coveted X=2 against Merfolk. Same as Vial which dodges EE too.
2. Propaganda effects aka Ghostly Prison. I've been looking hard recently at the prison decks, in particular, their sideboard. I'll get to this in a bit below. But on the topic of Ghostly Prison. I can see this card being a solid side board choice because it doesn't really care for Vial or Seas effects since it's only W. I was playing against a BW tokens recently and the dude kept rebuilding after board wipes either through Bitterblossom or EOT Secure the Wastes. I was talking to him and he actually rate Ghostly Prison higher than sweepers and even higher than Engineered Explosives in the BW tokens match up. I can also see Ghostly Prison being useful against decks packing Selfless Spirit like UW/Esper/Bant Spirits where they have ways to punish Sweepers on turn 4. I can also see Ghostly Prison being fairly decent against Bant Eldrazi, especially if you pack 2-3 in the side, you can stack it. This will buy so much time where the opponent won't be able to take advantage of a turn 4 Verdict or Bust situation.
In regards to the sideboarding, what I've noticed is that the Prison decks tend to pack a 3/3/3 split of RIP/Stony/Leyline. These tend to be some of the hardest hitting hate cards in the format.
Was looking at adopting my sideboard to something like this:
4/3 Rest in Peace
2/3 Stony Silence
2/3 Leyline of Sanctitiy
2/3 Ghostly Prison
3 Thoughtseize
1-2 Flex Slots
I figure the strongest hate cards in the format, taking a leaf out of WR lockdowns book minus the B moon.
RIP - As they say, when people start removing grave hate from their sideboard, that's when Dredge takes off again. Good thing that RIP is very strongly positioned with Abzan CoCo, Grixis.dec, Thopter/Sword, Storm/Gifts. I've tested against Storm Gifts and I think that version is much more potent and consistent than the old UR version. But RIP completely shuts the deck down, it's not even funny. RIP is the strongest GY hate in the format imo.
Stony Silence - All artifacts, past, present and future. There will always be artifacts doing broken things in every format. Stony Silence is the real deal here.
Leyline of Sanctitiy - Shuts down Burn/Valakut/8 Rack or any discard heavy decks that are fighting on a very linear axis. Was tossing up between Timely Reinforcements and Blessed Alliance in this spot for an anti-Burn card but I think Leyline of Sanctity hoses other T1 decks like Valakut which is a more flexible card all around. Heavy handed hate card against a lot of "hard to interact with" strategies.
Ghostly Prison - This card isn't exactly as popular as the above hate cards, but I think it deserves a look. As mentioned above, there are quite a lot of creature decks that are built to get around Sweepers and come back with a huge counter punch if we tap out. These decks also play quite a low - average land count which means they want to either "cheat" things in with either Vial or Temples or play an excess amount of creature threats on a low land count. I think Ghostly Prison can change the dynamics of these match ups where it comes to a "Verdict or Bust" scenario where they could be Chording in a Selfless Spirit or EOT CoCo. Propaganda effects in theory could change the pace of the match and give us time to hit more draw steps and build more lands. Even against Eldrazi, I think it can slow them down considerably and just stacking 2 of these could be very hard for them to deal with. This is the sideboard hate card I'm currently most interested in as I haven't tested it too much but I've tested the others (RIP, Stony, Leyline) and they've all proven to be established choices.
Thoughtseize/Duress/IoK/Clique/Hand disruption - I think there still needs to be room for targeted discard in the side as a combo/mirror breaker no kikijiki. Card like Thoughtseize always come in handy and is a good reason to play Black in addition to Esper Charm which Jeskai doesn't have access to.
This leaves about 2 Flex slots left for whatever like Disenchants, Planeswalkers, Engineered Explosives, Removals, Counters, BBoV/BA, Crucible of Worlds lol
Thoughts?
ghostly prison effects are great if you just need to slow your opponent down. We can't really take advantage of the extra time to clock them back or slam big battlefield cards (unless we want to move to a more tap-out style with elspeths in the main, which is not completely unreasonable), so we'd have to stack them. The problem is then that we're playing the wrong deck--we should be mono white prison with sphere of safety at that point to make it a hard lock. For this reason, I think they're not really a worthwhile consideration in the draw-go builds (midrange or tapout esper decks is a whole other story--it might really shine there).
I also think thoughtseize becomes more questionable if you're running a lot of hate cards AND don't have extractions--I think you're probably better off with runed halo at that point, to really enable the hardcore lockdown when required.
And yeah, merfolk is a very interesting matchup. It can range from very favorable (linear beat down lists with extra lords and harbinger, etc) to very unfavorable (7/8 seas versions) because the pressure core is the same, but one build actively disrupts the manabase JUST ENOUGH to crash in consistently for the kill, while the other is just cold to a verdict all the time. Their average draws are about the same but the above average draws are vastly different in quality against us in particular.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
I must admit, for me at least, it is interesting to see an Esper players' sideboard geared so heavily with mostly prison-style cards, especially Ghostly Prison. I don't know why I never thought of it, but with the way you explain it, it makes perfect sense to me. I am totally going to test some out once I get my hands on some. One question I do have about the prisons, and this might be a no-brainer, but I feel like asking anyway; do you bring them in against decks that still fold to Verdict, or are they just redundant in those match ups? You said that they are great against decks that have resilience against board wipes, but do/can you still bring them in against Verdict match ups?
Another thing I also find interesting is the Rest in Peace. I know that it is a great sideboard card, but when I played with them, I never liked how they turned off a lot of my own deck (Snap, TT,and Logic Knot), which is why I always leaned more on extraction effects for my graveyard hate of choice. Is there specific match ups where RiP is better than extractions (besides Dredge and Grixis)?
Another thing I find interesting is the lack of sideboard countermagic. Yes, I know that there are flex slots, but the amount of flex slots that you listed (1-2) seems a little to low IMO. Do you think that trimming down on a Thoughtseize effect and using that slot for an extra counterspell would be better? I feel like there should be more counterspells in your sideboard that doesn't take up potential flex slots. I also think that hand disruption gets better with extraction effects, and RiP gets better with counterspells, since it helps you protect the RiP against a potential removal spell on the RiP (unless it is Abrupt Decay, that is, but not everyone is running that).
I'm sorry if it seems like I am being nitpicky, but I am genuinely interested in knowing a little more in-depth some of your choices and reasoning, especially why you did not include countermagic.