I think the long and short of it comes out to be this: against the stock, tier lists, our deck is pretty decent to very well positioned depending on the day. However, all of the random cheese and sub-optimal card choices you see in an inbred local metagame can be very poor for us, sometimes almost impossible to beat. If someone with three byes were to play this deck in a GP and somehow pull out two wins in a row, once you get to the 5-0 bracket at a GP I think our deck gets SUBSTANTIALLY better; our biggest weakness is random "control hoser" style cards (choke, thrun, gaea's revenge, summoning trap, cavern of souls). I think this is significant because the majority of tier decks go the OTHER way--everyone at that point is well-prepared for everything they have going on in the mainboard and typical sideboard configurations.
Rogue decks sometimes hit modern events by storm on day one or two because nobody they run into is appropriately prepared for the matchup, but they generally fall off into the later rounds of day two because they can't run as hot as the sun EVERY round, and eventually they will succumb to the speed and disruption of the tier one mainstays. I think we have the opposite problem--we're very prepared and have decent (probably better than 50% overall) against the top tier of decks/stock lists, but the problem is getting deep enough into the winner's bracket to avoid all of the nonsense of the lower-tier decks. Once you end up in x-2 or x-3, you're back in "whatever jank ran hot" territory and the better performing tier-two archetypes that are sometimes our problem matchups.
If I could sign up for a GP with the guarantee that 50% of my opponents would curve thoughtseize-goyf-lilly on the play games one, two, and three, and the other 50% would be above average draws from among affinity, burn, infect, and valakut, I think we would be favored to make top 8 between 25 and 30% of the time. The problem is all the other decks you run into that are just terrible matchups in the lower tiers. Example: my history with 8-whack and skred matchups in EVERY CLASSIC IN BALTIMORE (i'm four classics in a row for <8 whack kills me turn 3 on the play through disruption twice in round> or <turn 1/2 blood moon on the play twice in one round> in two out of the first four rounds). And then I watch the undefeated tables full of nothing but good matchups while I get paired against mill, allies, and all sorts of random junk. Maybe I'm just a tad salty.
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Primary Decks:
Modern: Esper Draw-Go
Legacy: RUG Lands
EDH: Sidisi turn-3 storm
Wasn't trying to criticize maindeck prison spells; I used to run 2 Runed Halos when Infect was the "best deck". Just saying that I think the deck does well against Valakut if you play your cards right.
I think a lot of it just depends on the order in which you see things.
If you're able to see a real finisher early enough, then the matchup is possible to win, but the longer the game goes without you finding your kill con, then the less and less likely you are to win, which is fundamentally the opposite of how the deck is built to play.
Cut Snare, not happy about it, but I do have one in the side for Snapcaster decks. 3x GQ+3x Surg in the 75 for Tron, plus 3x Negate helps there too. 1 Dispel because it's a huge trump in the control mirrors, but leaning on Negate to 1) start counter wars, and 2) answer things like Walkers and Scapeshift/Stone Rain type threats -- Snare doesn't see too much play anymore, so it's pretty safe. Leaning on Fatal Push again because Wescoe's videos and various online results show that the card is actually just nutso good, and my testing feels the same way. Still not willing to give up on Alliance as a mainboard card for lifegain, non-targeting, and Eldrazi tho (piles of Halos in the board help in Push's weaker matchups). An Eslpeth as a BGx trump and alt win-con, Baneslayer as a way to close the door against Burn (it was a flex slot). Would've played a 2nd Dispel, but Baneslayer gives an actual finisher to lock out the game against Burn but it's still only a one of, so we'll see what happens).
Cut Snare, not happy about it, but I do have one in the side for Snapcaster decks. 3x GQ+3x Surg in the 75 for Tron, plus 3x Negate helps there too. 1 Dispel because it's a huge trump in the control mirrors, but leaning on Negate to 1) start counter wars, and 2) answer things like Walkers and Scapeshift/Stone Rain type threats -- Snare doesn't see too much play anymore, so it's pretty safe. Leaning on Fatal Push again because Wescoe's videos and various online results show that the card is actually just nutso good, and my testing feels the same way. Still not willing to give up on Alliance as a mainboard card for lifegain, non-targeting, and Eldrazi tho (piles of Halos in the board help in Push's weaker matchups). An Eslpeth as a BGx trump and alt win-con, Baneslayer as a way to close the door against Burn (it was a flex slot). Would've played a 2nd Dispel, but Baneslayer gives an actual finisher to lock out the game against Burn but it's still only a one of, so we'll see what happens).
Your main deck looks really similar to mine, but I've got 2 timelys and 2 collective brutality in the sideboard. How do you find the burn matchup?
@BloodyRabbit Good luck! Looking forward to hearing how you get on with the leylines.
Your main deck looks really similar to mine, but I've got 2 timelys and 2 collective brutality in the sideboard. How do you find the burn matchup?
I actually hate the Burn matchup, it's my worst one. That said, I did have Timely's in the original sideboard and found that I just wasn't boarding them in anywhere else. The same was true with Brutality. However, I'm convinced my current list can do SOMETHING against Burn, with its 7 1-mana removal spells, 3 Negates/1 Dispel/1 Snare, 3 Halos, 3 Snaps, Purges for creatures/Moons, and 3 finishers (one of which is a Baneslayer). Even with all of that, there's no real life gain here, so they can easily close the door -- but what can you do? I opted for the 3rd Halo over the 2nd Blessed Alliance for Titanshift/Storm/AdNaus/ThoughtKnot/etc. and that does hurt the Burn matchup.
As for Brutality, against other decks (namely URx control) you'd think it's a card that puts you out of Burn range while killing a Snappy and Duressing the opponent, but in reality you never really use more than 1 more due to counters and the fact that we simply want all of our cards in hand in most cases. Thus it's always overcosted unless you take risks, and it doesn't actually do anything too well anyways -- -2/-2 is embarrassing against Tasigur/Angler/Batterskull/Pia and Kiran/etc., its discard more is expensive and doesn't hit creatures/planeswalkers, and its "lifegain" doesn't even counter a full Bolt. I like the card in theory, but I just never found the card that useful in practice, other than against Burn specifially.
I've been playing Esper Transcedant for a while now but Esper draw go looks very appealing to me.
Inspired by Great Nate's list (and by Craig Wescoe's) I want to try Draw go. Is Nate's list a good starting point to do so? It looks coherent to me but I am happy to hear other opinions before I trade for the missing parts.
The list seems reasonable. Countersquall isn't worth playing due to how slow we clock. In all actuality, it should be negate. I also prefer a 3rd wrath effect over the engineered explosives main.
Many thanks for the feedback. I see the Negate vs Countersquall argument. EE is supposed to be a catch-it-all because some of my friends play Chalice of the void or Lantern. I will test it.
Got into an extremely interesting situation against Abzan Coco the other day:
I'm at 4 life, with Dispel + Sphinx's Revelation in hand (new card), no board, 11 lands total (Note that I do NOT have a Godless Shrine. Quick aside, in decks with a good number of Fatal Push, Godless shrine is a very important land to fetch where you can.)
Opponent has Anafenza Kin Tree and Viscera seer pumped by a Gavony to be 5/5 and 3/3 (meaning next turn he can Swing for at least 10, possibly 11 if he gets a bolster trigger).
I have 24 cards in my library, with 1/4 path and 1/3 push used. Here are the reasonable lines that I came up with:
Rev for 7 (10 mana), leaving EITHER W or B untapped, hoping to draw into EITHER Path or Push to kill Anafenza, pretty much guaranteeing that you survive the next turn with a full grip to untap with next turn, but you die to 1 more point of damage.
Rev for 6 (9 mana), leaving BOTH a W and B source untapped, meaning both path and push are live, however you are dead on board if you don't draw any removal or chump blocker.
Rev for 8 (11 mana). You lose if they can push through 2 extra points of damage, but at this point somewhat unlikely. Would have to be CoCo into 2+ creatures and then some.
Rev for 4 (7 mana), which gives additional outs of 2 remaining cryptics, 2 remaining verdicts, and both path/push, 1 snapcaster as a chump blocker, but otherwise dead on board.
This was on MTGO, and my opponent has run down their clock to < 30 seconds, meaning if I'm able to survive just one turn I have a very good chance of winning. So what line of play would you take here?
I ended up Rev for 7, leaving up W hoping to draw a path. At this point I had really wished I had fetched out my Godless shrine earlier, since this would almost have doubled my odds of a live draw.
Funnily enough, I draw 2 cryptics, 3 lands, esper charm, verdict. His draw for the turn is a Tidehollow Sculler, so he is only able to hit me for 10, putting me to 1. He runs out of time and loses.
As far as cards in my library, I listed any relevant cards. You can assume the rest are dead draws.
As for their deck, I have to remember, but I think only 2 Finks had been played, and 2 CoCo. However, I don't think a Company into Finks does it? Bolster would have to target Finks if they played it wouldn't it? They would have to drop a 3 toughness creature in order to be able to put a counter on the Viscera Seer, unless I'm missing some important interaction here. I believe they had 1 card left in hand (then 1 from draw step), but at this point I'm pretty sure they're just sandbagging a land because they've seen Esper Charms, and they've passed with that card in hand for a turn without casting anything.
I guess the opponent's land count is relevant here as well, I think they had 5-6 mana to work with assuming they activate township. There may not have been a single card that would be able to push through 2 extra points, so perhaps rev for 8 here was actually the correct call.
2-2 tonight; beat Tron & Jeskai control (flash, not the Nahiri version), then lost to GR Ponza & Grixis Shadow Delver
Ponza is just a horrible matchup, not much that can be done there other than hope to dodge IMO
I mis-sideboarded vs Shadow Delver but also felt that I really wanted the 4th Snapcaster in my deck (over Clique), & double Explosives in the 75 (both in the sideboard I think)
With the increase in cheap interaction that we have available (push, blessed alliance, collective brutality), I'm starting to think running less than 4 Snapcasters may be incorrect. Even more so if you're on Secure over White Sun's. Basically, if you're going to cut a Snapcaster, 90% of the time I think there is a better cut you can make.
No way I'm running 4 Snapcaster with only 6 reliable spells to use it with for 3 mana. Getting Snapcaster flooded is awful. If I had 4x Serum Visions or 4x Spell Snare I think I could go for it, but that's not the case. I'd want a full 10 1-mana spells before I ran the 4th Snapcaster.
I'm inclined to never play the fourth Snapcaster in a deck with, already, four Think Twices and three Logic Knots. I was on the full set for a little time, swapping sometimes a Secure The Wastes, sometimes a piece of removal, other times the fourth Think Twice. Well, the last option is the only one I found "okay" to play the Snap-set, but then it's even worse when we're facing Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace without having access to Charm, Surgical Extraction and so on. I'm still not convinced by the ratio 4^ Think > 4^ Snap (at least, when I'm on 4 Path + 3 Push + 2 Secure), but it seemed to be a little more resilient.
I guess I needed to clarify the context a little bit more, my current configuration is 4 Snap, 3 Think Twice, 2 Knot. I would agree that having 4/4/3 would be way too much GY dependency, but I think given X of those slots, 4 should be Snaps, and (X-4) should be other cards. Since there is a higher density of answers in the maindeck with push and alliance, we're less reliant on Think Twice to draw into them in a timely manner. Though it definitely slightly skews our MU Win percentage ever so slightly towards Aggro from Control, but I think our Control MU's are good enough that we can afford to lose 1 Think Twice.
I would agree though post-board you don't always want 4 snaps.
Goblins, 8Whack and this kind of strategies are very powerful against us. They are too fast for Verdict, AND, contrary to Burn, they don't care much about our counterspells.
This is very true. A friend of mine is on 8-Whack goblins, too and the deck is scary fast. I see multiple problems facing the deck:
This means that our common tools for dealing with decks like this are just useless despite target removal like fatal push,path to exile or condemn which we also need to have in our 7 at the beginning of the game. Because of Lantern Control i usually play 1 single copy of engineered explosives in the sb but even this answer needs to be in the opening hand or at least in the first draw to be effective. I feel like the matchup is very bad for us and im curious if we can come up with better solutions.
My friend told me that anger of the gods is fast enough to deal with the deck, so i was testing flaying tendrils. The card seems ok but i just dont wanna play it at all and also the double B in its casting cost is just too expensive.
I've only played against the deck once as of now, and it's definitely a close matchup. I think though this is definitely a good reason to run Secure over Zenith. Secure for just 2 is usually going to be a 2-for-1, and save you a ton of damage points very early on. But this does mean you have to make sure you remove legion loyalist.
The main problem I found was that Path is actually kind of bad in that MU as removal. Ramping them one land often lets them dump their hand that much quicker. I actually don't think EE is very good against them because their CMC seems pretty spread out. They have quite a few ones, but also sometimes tokens, and some 3's. Still better than Wrath effects though, but I think I'd rather have more Fatal Push than something like Flaying tendrils.
8Whack is another reason I was talking about Collective Brutality, some time ago.
Against them, is pretty much another quick removal + pitch one of your lands/Command to gain life or strip the burn spells they're sandbagging in hand. We don't care about card advantage, we don't care if we won't play the fifth or sixth land for a while. We just need to survive the first 3-4 turns. That, plus Path & Push, plus B.Alliance&RunedHalo, can assure us some percentage in the match up.
I'm also a huge fan of Collective Brutality in for the very same reasons
1. Flexibility. It's easy to overlook how powerful modal cards are (look at all the ones we have already: Esper Charm, Cryptic, Blessed Alliance). Even if sometimes it's just more expensive Duress, the flexibility is often worth it.
2. Mana Efficiency. Aggro decks usually kill you by being more efficient than your removal, but Brutality changes that. You can control the flow of the game so much better when you're able to trade in cards for tempo in the early game.
I don't know how much I like Runed Halo against 8-wack. Their threats are varied enough that it's not going to remove more than 1 creature most of the time.
Got into an extremely interesting situation against Abzan Coco the other day:
I'm at 4 life, with Dispel + Sphinx's Revelation in hand (new card), no board, 11 lands total (Note that I do NOT have a Godless Shrine. Quick aside, in decks with a good number of Fatal Push, Godless shrine is a very important land to fetch where you can.)
Opponent has Anafenza Kin Tree and Viscera seer pumped by a Gavony to be 5/5 and 3/3 (meaning next turn he can Swing for at least 10, possibly 11 if he gets a bolster trigger).
I have 24 cards in my library, with 1/4 path and 1/3 push used. Here are the reasonable lines that I came up with:
Rev for 7 (10 mana), leaving EITHER W or B untapped, hoping to draw into EITHER Path or Push to kill Anafenza, pretty much guaranteeing that you survive the next turn with a full grip to untap with next turn, but you die to 1 more point of damage.
Rev for 6 (9 mana), leaving BOTH a W and B source untapped, meaning both path and push are live, however you are dead on board if you don't draw any removal or chump blocker.
Rev for 8 (11 mana). You lose if they can push through 2 extra points of damage, but at this point somewhat unlikely. Would have to be CoCo into 2+ creatures and then some.
Rev for 4 (7 mana), which gives additional outs of 2 remaining cryptics, 2 remaining verdicts, and both path/push, 1 snapcaster as a chump blocker, but otherwise dead on board.
This was on MTGO, and my opponent has run down their clock to < 30 seconds, meaning if I'm able to survive just one turn I have a very good chance of winning. So what line of play would you take here?
I ended up Rev for 7, leaving up W hoping to draw a path. At this point I had really wished I had fetched out my Godless shrine earlier, since this would almost have doubled my odds of a live draw.
Funnily enough, I draw 2 cryptics, 3 lands, esper charm, verdict. His draw for the turn is a Tidehollow Sculler, so he is only able to hit me for 10, putting me to 1. He runs out of time and loses.
Assuming a fairly typical abzan coco list, the 3/3 already in play means their only out for a bolster trigger is a 4 toughness creature, which means basically resto angel, loxodon smiter, knight of the reliquary, and thrun, the last troll are the only "reasonable" (and I use this term VERY expansively) things they can hit. Each of those is equal to 11 damage, which means you should still upkeep rev for the full 11, or possibly main-phase it if this is modo and the clock is a relevant victory condition (to find a basic + removal spell potentially).
In my mind, the most likely route to victory for the opponent is actually somehow ripping additional direct damage.
Yes, there are corner case cards they *could* have to kill you from there, but I think that 99% of the time, you should just take the line that buys you another untap step.
If you have issues with beating 8-whack, just play a few copies of Marrow Shards. Legitimately the best card against that particular deck that I've ever found, kills everything except the goblin guides.
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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
I admire master Wafo-Tapa, but any list with less than six or seven maindeck spot-removal has been proved wrong.
You simply can't bring yourself to play only four Push/Path when the majority of the metagame is on a fast, efficient beatdown strategy. And don't get me wrong, because I HEAVILY like to play these full-of-cantrips decklist, and being able to maindeck some Serum Visions along to our conventional draw-engine is a dream of mine. But that's just way too focused on playing "air" instead of solutions. And he totally ignores some matchups in the sideboard assett. I definitely won't ever play this list.
Means that every single decklist in the top8 (after Push-print) has at least six spot removals maindeck. Or do you think that's just a coincidence?
No, I definitely agree with you: some of the quirks in this list are very confusing. 3 Snaps and Secure as the wincons are fine, but only 1 Secure? And only 3 Colonnade? How does he even win? I also think that only 4 removal spells is pretty wrong, since most of the current list of 5-0s are on 4 Path 2 Push, or 3 and 3.
HOWEVER, I would say that this is probably a list he's using to test the cards out. You can tell since he has the missing removal in the board, and is playing FOUR Serums to find the right one in given games -- I expect a more tuned list with fewer Serums next. Speaking of "in the board", Lingering Souls. I guess it's for matching the pair of Souls in Shadow Aggro's sideboard? Not sure why he'd be on them again, but I didn't really .
Other than his staple pile of buddy lands, this list is fairly regular -- 4 Verdict, 4 Think/4 Charm/2 Sphinx's, 3 Knot/1 Negate/1 Flex on 2 mana counters (I prefer 2 Negate to 1 Negate/1 Leak still). Of interest, he's on Thoughtseize in the board again.
Edit: Wow. No Tron hate in the 75 is kindof surprising too. Not a single GQ!
Yeah what does Wafo-Tapa know about Esper control right?
4 spot removal with 4 verdicts are perfectly reasonable. Spot removal are a liability against many of the top decks in the current meta and several tier 2 decks; Dredge, Tron, Titan/scapeshift, Ad Nauseam, All sort of control, Griselbrand decks and I'd argue you don't want to many against Burn and the various Eldrazi decks either. Against Eldrazi decks Verdict's the real prize.
Yes spot removal are great against stuff like Death's Shadow, Affinity and tier 2 creature decks like D&T, Elves and Merfolk, but if you feel you rather gain percentage points elsewhere it's totally fine to board into more spot removal if needed.
If anything just dismissing it because several SCG and TCG lists use 6 maindeck is not a good argument. First of all those are glorified FNM, and if everyone simply copied those then magic would never see any innovation. Surely it's more meta dependent than anything.
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Rogue decks sometimes hit modern events by storm on day one or two because nobody they run into is appropriately prepared for the matchup, but they generally fall off into the later rounds of day two because they can't run as hot as the sun EVERY round, and eventually they will succumb to the speed and disruption of the tier one mainstays. I think we have the opposite problem--we're very prepared and have decent (probably better than 50% overall) against the top tier of decks/stock lists, but the problem is getting deep enough into the winner's bracket to avoid all of the nonsense of the lower-tier decks. Once you end up in x-2 or x-3, you're back in "whatever jank ran hot" territory and the better performing tier-two archetypes that are sometimes our problem matchups.
If I could sign up for a GP with the guarantee that 50% of my opponents would curve thoughtseize-goyf-lilly on the play games one, two, and three, and the other 50% would be above average draws from among affinity, burn, infect, and valakut, I think we would be favored to make top 8 between 25 and 30% of the time. The problem is all the other decks you run into that are just terrible matchups in the lower tiers. Example: my history with 8-whack and skred matchups in EVERY CLASSIC IN BALTIMORE (i'm four classics in a row for <8 whack kills me turn 3 on the play through disruption twice in round> or <turn 1/2 blood moon on the play twice in one round> in two out of the first four rounds). And then I watch the undefeated tables full of nothing but good matchups while I get paired against mill, allies, and all sorts of random junk. Maybe I'm just a tad salty.
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
If you're able to see a real finisher early enough, then the matchup is possible to win, but the longer the game goes without you finding your kill con, then the less and less likely you are to win, which is fundamentally the opposite of how the deck is built to play.
4x Celestial Colonnade
1x Drowned Catacomb
2x Ghost Quarter
4x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Hallowed Fountain
2x Watery Grave
3x Island
2x Plains
1x Swamp
Wincons (1)
1x White Sun's Zenith
4x Path to Exile
2x Fatal Push
1x Blessed Alliance
4x Supreme Verdict
Counters (9)
3x Logic Knot
2x Negate
4x Cryptic Command
Card Advantage (13)
4x Think Twice
4x Esper Charm
2x Sphinx's Revelation
3x Snapcaster Mage
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Surgical Extraction
1x Fatal Push
1x Dispel
1x Spell Snare
3x Runed Halo
2x Celestial Purge
1x Negate
1x Baneslayer Angel
1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Cut Snare, not happy about it, but I do have one in the side for Snapcaster decks. 3x GQ+3x Surg in the 75 for Tron, plus 3x Negate helps there too. 1 Dispel because it's a huge trump in the control mirrors, but leaning on Negate to 1) start counter wars, and 2) answer things like Walkers and Scapeshift/Stone Rain type threats -- Snare doesn't see too much play anymore, so it's pretty safe. Leaning on Fatal Push again because Wescoe's videos and various online results show that the card is actually just nutso good, and my testing feels the same way. Still not willing to give up on Alliance as a mainboard card for lifegain, non-targeting, and Eldrazi tho (piles of Halos in the board help in Push's weaker matchups). An Eslpeth as a BGx trump and alt win-con, Baneslayer as a way to close the door against Burn (it was a flex slot). Would've played a 2nd Dispel, but Baneslayer gives an actual finisher to lock out the game against Burn but it's still only a one of, so we'll see what happens).
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
Your main deck looks really similar to mine, but I've got 2 timelys and 2 collective brutality in the sideboard. How do you find the burn matchup?
@BloodyRabbit Good luck! Looking forward to hearing how you get on with the leylines.
I actually hate the Burn matchup, it's my worst one. That said, I did have Timely's in the original sideboard and found that I just wasn't boarding them in anywhere else. The same was true with Brutality. However, I'm convinced my current list can do SOMETHING against Burn, with its 7 1-mana removal spells, 3 Negates/1 Dispel/1 Snare, 3 Halos, 3 Snaps, Purges for creatures/Moons, and 3 finishers (one of which is a Baneslayer). Even with all of that, there's no real life gain here, so they can easily close the door -- but what can you do? I opted for the 3rd Halo over the 2nd Blessed Alliance for Titanshift/Storm/AdNaus/ThoughtKnot/etc. and that does hurt the Burn matchup.
As for Brutality, against other decks (namely URx control) you'd think it's a card that puts you out of Burn range while killing a Snappy and Duressing the opponent, but in reality you never really use more than 1 more due to counters and the fact that we simply want all of our cards in hand in most cases. Thus it's always overcosted unless you take risks, and it doesn't actually do anything too well anyways -- -2/-2 is embarrassing against Tasigur/Angler/Batterskull/Pia and Kiran/etc., its discard more is expensive and doesn't hit creatures/planeswalkers, and its "lifegain" doesn't even counter a full Bolt. I like the card in theory, but I just never found the card that useful in practice, other than against Burn specifially.
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
UW Azorius Control (clicky)
Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
I've been playing Esper Transcedant for a while now but Esper draw go looks very appealing to me.
Inspired by Great Nate's list (and by Craig Wescoe's) I want to try Draw go. Is Nate's list a good starting point to do so? It looks coherent to me but I am happy to hear other opinions before I trade for the missing parts.
This is how I would build it:
4 Snapcaster Mage
Spells
4 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
2 Serum Visions
2 Logic Knot
4 Think Twice
2 Countersquall
4 Esper Charm
2 Sphinx's revelation
2 Supreme Verdict
4 Cryptic Command
2 Secure the Wastes
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Godless shrine
2 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
4 Celestial Colonnade
1 Glacial Fortress
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Crumble to dust
2 Thoughtseize
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Collective Brutality
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Stony Silence
2 Runed Halo
1 Dispel
Thanks!
I'm at 4 life, with Dispel + Sphinx's Revelation in hand (new card), no board, 11 lands total (Note that I do NOT have a Godless Shrine. Quick aside, in decks with a good number of Fatal Push, Godless shrine is a very important land to fetch where you can.)
Opponent has Anafenza Kin Tree and Viscera seer pumped by a Gavony to be 5/5 and 3/3 (meaning next turn he can Swing for at least 10, possibly 11 if he gets a bolster trigger).
I have 24 cards in my library, with 1/4 path and 1/3 push used. Here are the reasonable lines that I came up with:
Rev for 7 (10 mana), leaving EITHER W or B untapped, hoping to draw into EITHER Path or Push to kill Anafenza, pretty much guaranteeing that you survive the next turn with a full grip to untap with next turn, but you die to 1 more point of damage.
Rev for 6 (9 mana), leaving BOTH a W and B source untapped, meaning both path and push are live, however you are dead on board if you don't draw any removal or chump blocker.
Rev for 8 (11 mana). You lose if they can push through 2 extra points of damage, but at this point somewhat unlikely. Would have to be CoCo into 2+ creatures and then some.
Rev for 4 (7 mana), which gives additional outs of 2 remaining cryptics, 2 remaining verdicts, and both path/push, 1 snapcaster as a chump blocker, but otherwise dead on board.
This was on MTGO, and my opponent has run down their clock to < 30 seconds, meaning if I'm able to survive just one turn I have a very good chance of winning. So what line of play would you take here?
Funnily enough, I draw 2 cryptics, 3 lands, esper charm, verdict. His draw for the turn is a Tidehollow Sculler, so he is only able to hit me for 10, putting me to 1. He runs out of time and loses.
As for their deck, I have to remember, but I think only 2 Finks had been played, and 2 CoCo. However, I don't think a Company into Finks does it? Bolster would have to target Finks if they played it wouldn't it? They would have to drop a 3 toughness creature in order to be able to put a counter on the Viscera Seer, unless I'm missing some important interaction here. I believe they had 1 card left in hand (then 1 from draw step), but at this point I'm pretty sure they're just sandbagging a land because they've seen Esper Charms, and they've passed with that card in hand for a turn without casting anything.
I guess the opponent's land count is relevant here as well, I think they had 5-6 mana to work with assuming they activate township. There may not have been a single card that would be able to push through 2 extra points, so perhaps rev for 8 here was actually the correct call.
With the increase in cheap interaction that we have available (push, blessed alliance, collective brutality), I'm starting to think running less than 4 Snapcasters may be incorrect. Even more so if you're on Secure over White Sun's. Basically, if you're going to cut a Snapcaster, 90% of the time I think there is a better cut you can make.
I guess I needed to clarify the context a little bit more, my current configuration is 4 Snap, 3 Think Twice, 2 Knot. I would agree that having 4/4/3 would be way too much GY dependency, but I think given X of those slots, 4 should be Snaps, and (X-4) should be other cards. Since there is a higher density of answers in the maindeck with push and alliance, we're less reliant on Think Twice to draw into them in a timely manner. Though it definitely slightly skews our MU Win percentage ever so slightly towards Aggro from Control, but I think our Control MU's are good enough that we can afford to lose 1 Think Twice.
I would agree though post-board you don't always want 4 snaps.
I've only played against the deck once as of now, and it's definitely a close matchup. I think though this is definitely a good reason to run Secure over Zenith. Secure for just 2 is usually going to be a 2-for-1, and save you a ton of damage points very early on. But this does mean you have to make sure you remove legion loyalist.
The main problem I found was that Path is actually kind of bad in that MU as removal. Ramping them one land often lets them dump their hand that much quicker. I actually don't think EE is very good against them because their CMC seems pretty spread out. They have quite a few ones, but also sometimes tokens, and some 3's. Still better than Wrath effects though, but I think I'd rather have more Fatal Push than something like Flaying tendrils.
I'm also a huge fan of Collective Brutality in for the very same reasons
1. Flexibility. It's easy to overlook how powerful modal cards are (look at all the ones we have already: Esper Charm, Cryptic, Blessed Alliance). Even if sometimes it's just more expensive Duress, the flexibility is often worth it.
2. Mana Efficiency. Aggro decks usually kill you by being more efficient than your removal, but Brutality changes that. You can control the flow of the game so much better when you're able to trade in cards for tempo in the early game.
I don't know how much I like Runed Halo against 8-wack. Their threats are varied enough that it's not going to remove more than 1 creature most of the time.
Assuming a fairly typical abzan coco list, the 3/3 already in play means their only out for a bolster trigger is a 4 toughness creature, which means basically resto angel, loxodon smiter, knight of the reliquary, and thrun, the last troll are the only "reasonable" (and I use this term VERY expansively) things they can hit. Each of those is equal to 11 damage, which means you should still upkeep rev for the full 11, or possibly main-phase it if this is modo and the clock is a relevant victory condition (to find a basic + removal spell potentially).
In my mind, the most likely route to victory for the opponent is actually somehow ripping additional direct damage.
Yes, there are corner case cards they *could* have to kill you from there, but I think that 99% of the time, you should just take the line that buys you another untap step.
If you have issues with beating 8-whack, just play a few copies of Marrow Shards. Legitimately the best card against that particular deck that I've ever found, kills everything except the goblin guides.
Yes, I am a local area mod.WELP. GOOD LIFE CHANGES ALL HAPPEN AT ONCE AND SOME ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVEPrimary Decks:
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Proved wrong? What does that even mean...
No, I definitely agree with you: some of the quirks in this list are very confusing. 3 Snaps and Secure as the wincons are fine, but only 1 Secure? And only 3 Colonnade? How does he even win?
HOWEVER, I would say that this is probably a list he's using to test the cards out. You can tell since he has the missing removal in the board, and is playing FOUR Serums to find the right one in given games -- I expect a more tuned list with fewer Serums next. Speaking of "in the board", Lingering Souls. I guess it's for matching the pair of Souls in Shadow Aggro's sideboard? Not sure why he'd be on them again, but I didn't really .
Other than his staple pile of buddy lands, this list is fairly regular -- 4 Verdict, 4 Think/4 Charm/2 Sphinx's, 3 Knot/1 Negate/1 Flex on 2 mana counters (I prefer 2 Negate to 1 Negate/1 Leak still). Of interest, he's on Thoughtseize in the board again.
Edit: Wow. No Tron hate in the 75 is kindof surprising too. Not a single GQ!
UWB Esper Draw-Go Control (clicky)
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Currently pursuing a degree in Biochemistry.
EDH: I've decided I don't like multiplayer formats.
4 spot removal with 4 verdicts are perfectly reasonable. Spot removal are a liability against many of the top decks in the current meta and several tier 2 decks; Dredge, Tron, Titan/scapeshift, Ad Nauseam, All sort of control, Griselbrand decks and I'd argue you don't want to many against Burn and the various Eldrazi decks either. Against Eldrazi decks Verdict's the real prize.
Yes spot removal are great against stuff like Death's Shadow, Affinity and tier 2 creature decks like D&T, Elves and Merfolk, but if you feel you rather gain percentage points elsewhere it's totally fine to board into more spot removal if needed.
If anything just dismissing it because several SCG and TCG lists use 6 maindeck is not a good argument. First of all those are glorified FNM, and if everyone simply copied those then magic would never see any innovation. Surely it's more meta dependent than anything.