This literally made me laugh out loud largely because people get so mad bringing up this type of thing here. Geist of Saint Traft is alright, but you really don't want to see too many of them so trying to find the right number can be awkward. Clique is marginally useful as disruption but has a decent clock. The information you get from Clique is usually the most important thing though. Spell Queller is not good in this matchup in my opinion. At best, you snag a Farseek, Sakura-Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow. That is not where the party is because those aren't generally the spells that matter. I mean they are, but you'll never counter enough of them for it to matter because they're so dense on the number of ramp spells. Then there's the question of how many Aven Mindcensor would you really want to play? It's not bad at all, but let's not forget that RG Breach decks play more actual threats out of the sideboard in games 2 and 3. Not to mention all those threats make Aven Mindcensor look like a waste of time. Going flash is a nice idea, but I don't think it significantly improves your chances on its own. You really just need to identify your best cards against them and use them appropriately. Some number of Geist of Saint Traft (two for me), Spreading Seas and Cryptic Command (already in the main) have been pretty good for me.
Lol...glad I made your day I guess. It really does feel like taboo whenever someone brings it up. I'm just saying...if certain people are legitimately having trouble against these decks (which, admittedly, are tough match-ups), and are suggesting the sky is falling...they may as well shift their build dramatically. Sometimes you gotta stick it to them (mainboard those Crumbles if you truly hate those decks lol).
2-3 Geists is where it's at. It kinda blows to open with too many of him, but it's really hard to tweak the numbers any further; 4 is too many slots wasted and forces you to have too many in your openers (unless that's what you want), and 1 is too low to build a whole game plan around.
Edit: 1 is fine as like, a sideboard card/hedge card. But if the entire plan is leaning on him, I'm not sure if 1's enough.
Yeah, V-Clique isn't the most amazing as far as disruption goes; sometimes you peek at a hand that's unsolvable. But the 3-power body is the main thing I'm looking at. It's not uncommon for a Clique to just run away with a game on its own. In addition to the clock and the hand knowledge, I just like that you can hold open mana for counters such as Negate, Leak, Remand, etc. And if they don't play into counters, then just drop a Clique eot (same line of thinking with Queller). I really like attacking decks like this from this angle (very reminiscent of when I used to play Jeskai Geist -- this game plan is legitimately the only way you'd win against the likes of Tron, Breach, and Scapeshift when you're on Jeskai Geist). The reason why I suggest upping numbers of Clique is because if that's the plan one would try to play, it'd makes sense to have the appropriate number of copies to best maximize drawing into.
Mindcensor was more just so I can cover bases. Honestly am never sure about the card; looks amazing on paper. But in practice it doesn't quite do enough for me. Just from personal experience anyway.
I guess those are fair points about Queller; I figured that hitting things like Scapeshift, Anger of the Gods, Nahiri, Obstinate Baloth, etc. was reasonable enough. But I thought it'd hit more important cards too...but looking at some deck lists here and there, I guess that's about the extent of what you'd hit -- assuming you'd prioritized action spells and ignored ramp anyway. I don't think it'd be that bad to hit ramp spells either; we won't need to hit every ramp spell -- just enough early on and then resolve a clock to win the game. I might be misevaluating Spell Queller here though...haven't gotten around to playing the dude much.
Admittedly, I have a hard time differentiating between TitanShift, Scapeshift (RUG? With counterspells?), and RG Breach...the general theme is ramp hard and Primeval Titan...but they have their nuances that makes it hard for me to fully zero-in on their weaknesses. From personal experience, Spell Snaring their Tribe Elders and early ramp is amazing. And playing Draw-Go against them feels awful. No idea if I'm "doing it right," though...I don't see these decks enough in my metagame. It's usually just Blue Moon, Jund, Abzan, Burn, and Merfolk.
Reprints the one card that people point to when saying that art objectifies women.
Well done Wizards.
Liliana does not objectify women in any way at all. We have gotten to a point in our society that every single picture of a women must be objectifying a women in some negative way......blah blah blah.. That is not the case. (((Sarcasm)))Picture of a girl drinking a milk shake, must be sex related and putting women down, picture of girl sitting on a beach, picture of a girl driving a car, picture of a girl on the moon at a new space station.)))
You have a picture of an attractive strong power women who girls dress up as for anime conventions. What more do you want? The picture is fine, happy to see a reprint. Sick of of seeing people claim that everything in existence must be putting women down. Then all I have to do is replace the word "women" with anything else to get the same mentality; fish, cats, arabs, blacks, jews, men, environment, whites, chinese, old people, etc. It doesn't matter what word I put in. Stop sucking life out of everything man. That artwork of her is awesome. Stop putting stuff down man. Just stop. If the picture was really as negative as you claim she would totally nude, in a kitchen, making sandwiches and giving blow jobs. Her abilities would be horrible as well. +1 do nothing -2 do nothing -6 do nothing. Instead liliana of the veil is an amazing planeswalker comparable to jace, the mind sculpter with great art to appreciate.
My suggestion listen to some comedy radio for a while, pandora is free, youtube is free there is something out there for you. ***** go make fun of somebody. The whole world is so serious and campaigning for some cause, or someones rights, everything is a hate crime, racist, sexist. blah blah blah.
"O no mcdonalds must be slandering a hate crime against skinny people every time they make a big mac." hahaha jeeze You're just someone perpetuating another groups negative perspective that they've made you believe is correct. Look at the picture for a hour and tell me what's wrong with it? I don't see anything.
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
So I have been playing Nahiri since its inception and I think that we have some great new cards at our disposal. Keeping in mind we don't have the full spoiler yet, this is What I came up with for a post Kaladesh world.
Creatures (6)
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Vendilion Clique
@Titus0, Spell Queller is a fine card against the versions that are all-in on Scapeshift, but I don't think those decks are as prevalent. RG Breach just has so much more play to it. TitanShift has a bunch of random threats come in from the sideboard, and they all still have their main deck plan on tap. You are also correct in that you can get a lot of their 4-CMC spells, but keep in mind, they also board in sweepers (Anger of the Gods) or even play them main deck. Some play Lightning Bolt. Some don't. There's just too much to account for in my experience to rely on Spell Queller in this matchup. I need the things I counter to be gone. It can be used properly to great effect. I'm just personally not a fan of possibly giving them their spell back. On the other hand, counter magic is really good against all of these variants. So some sort of tempo plan is really key if you go for a flash style, but Nahiri Jeskai has just as many tools available to them.
Spell Snare seems to only have Sakura-Tribe Elder as a target in all variants of Scapeshift/Breach decks, which makes it somewhat weak to me. You're right in that it's really good when you get it, but when you don't, it's essentially a dead draw.
Except the number of Explore and Kalni Heart Expedition are volatile. There can be none of either or maybe up to 2 of one or each. The same goes for Prismatic Omen. You can't count on playing against those. Farseek I did miss though. The problem I have with playing the "gotcha" game is that they don't really care in the long run. If you can't kill them quickly, they will work your face and your board with other threats and removal that get boarded in. Even if you keep all of your Path to Exile in after boarding, how are you going to deal with Oracle of Mul Daya, Courser of Kruphix, Jaddi Offshoot, Thragtusk, Obstinate Baloth, etc, on top of the Primeval Titans you know they have? Aven Mindcensor doesn't really do much against any of that.
I don't know how you are going to approach certain matchups then. In general the consense seams to be that we want to close the game as quick as possible, so wouldn't it be a good idea to improve this kind of game by Boarding creatures that harass and prevent them from getting their plan established?
Clique and Geist are both nice choices. Mind censer and Spell Queller, not so much. Combine that with sideboard negates and Crumble to Dust and you should have a good match-up against this deck.
There's also the matter of how many slots you want to devote to only a handful of matchups. There's always the possibility that you cram your 75 full of creatures to better the tron and valakut matchups, you go to your GP and play 8 rounds without facing it a single time whilst really wishing you had those RIPs and wraths against the abzan company and dredge decks you faced.
As for Spell Queller, I've been testing it myself in a more creaturebased list and my biggest gripe is how slow it is on the draw. I'm currently looking to go bant with it to run manadorks.
Never overboard in bad matchups. If Tron is bad, don't bring in 15 cards to beat Tron. You need a solid mainboard plan and a solid sideboard plan. I think a good strat at the moment is to focus the mainboard on beating midrange and dedicating the side to combo. Aggro should rarely be a problem and tools cross over.
I've really been liking Blessed Alliance in the side. I was never a fan of timely reinforcements as the sorcery speed is very dangerous against an adept burn player, and the edict effect is just useful against so many decks; suicide zoo, infect, jund, and bogles of course.. it also comes in against affinity and eldrazi to kill Etched Champion or Reality Smasher/TKS, although those are a bit more awkward to pull off.
I've really been liking Blessed Alliance in the side. I was never a fan of timely reinforcements as the sorcery speed is very dangerous against an adept burn player, and the edict effect is just useful against so many decks; suicide zoo, infect, jund, and bogles of course.. it also comes in against affinity and eldrazi to kill Etched Champion or Reality Smasher/TKS, although those are a bit more awkward to pull off.
I've been rocking 1 Blessed Alliance in the main in place of Timely Reinforcements. It's been pretty good. Rarely ever a dead card (I think the only match it has been was against Ad Nauseam).
Crumble to Dust is good against them. No Valukts means you just have to PTE their titans to win.
I agree, but how many would you play in your sideboard? I also just tend to like Spreading Seas more. It seems more widely useful whereas I would only use Crumble to Dust against Tron and Valakut decks.
I'm playing jeskai quite a while and I know what you mean. I'm not denying making mistakes but since the release of Nahiri many things have changed. For example RG breach is starting to become more and more popular and I'm struggling to make this matchup better but there's only so much you can do. Have you got a good idea how to approach the mu except for "playing better"?
..my take on the issue of "playing better" and fine-tuning of the deck is to identify as good as possible what the ideal game plan is against the bad match-ups. Only by understanding what the opponent is trying to accomplish with his (deck-)strategy we are able to counteract and eventually take the over the game.
As far as I can deduce we have atm a very strong game plan against creature decks but a somewhat weak spot when it comes to strategies relying on powerful spells (as described by many others in the form of Breach, Ad Nauseam, Tron, etc.). This is where I do not like our countermagic, as a way to disrupt the opponents game plan - our Spell Snares, Remands, Mana Leaks just do not present strong enough ways to interact. I`d rather have Logic Knot, Negates and Cryptics here..
One opponent at GP Lille had Delay in his SB, which was an interesting take - I wouldn't run it, but it is at least a fresh idea...
I don't own the deck but based on testing, I'd agree with you. Remand, Mana Leaks, and Spell Snares are not particularly flexible and they are very frequently the worst cards in my hand. Mana Leak is a little more acceptable but that non-bo with Path to Exile... I've seen some gameplays of Esper decks with Negates and it quite frankly impressed me and the pilot. Running a single spell pierce might be fine as well.
Crumble to Dust is good against them. No Valukts means you just have to PTE their titans to win.
I agree, but how many would you play in your sideboard? I also just tend to like Spreading Seas more. It seems more widely useful whereas I would only use Crumble to Dust against Tron and Valakut decks.
Crumble to Dust isn't even that great against a lot of the Valakut decks. It frustrates me that there are not many impactful efficient sideboard cards against the Tron and Valakut decks.
Seas are just plain bad against the breach deck. Same goes for spell queller and geist. And pls don't confuse these decks with scapeshift, there is a reason why they just run 3 valakut. Any experienced pilot will hardly ever play his valakut in game 2/3 unless he can back it up or is baiting you. The best answer to breach is most likely cryptic, but since we don't run it anymore, dispel+path are fine. Aven is rly bad, since the deck runs about 4 bolts sb/main to handle infect, while shadow of doubt is indeed sweet tech. If they play a chalice list, we are done anyway. I would rate the matchup about 70/30, and it's even worse afetr boarding.
Geist is not bad against Breach. Not sure where you got that idea. It's one of the best clocks that can be presented. And experienced pilots don't always have the luxury of not playing their valakuts. They are trying to cast Primeval Titan and/or a big Scapeshift they would be foolish to miss a land drop or play it tapped for land drop # 6 to play around a 0-2 of sideboard card. I would call that a very inexperienced pilot. You also don't seem to understand why Aven is ineffective. You mentioned some number of bolts sideboard, which is a bizarre defense to aven. Breach players don't usually have the luxury of bringing in lightning bolts to try to stop a card that isn't a normal card for Jeskai. It dilutes their gameplan to play around a card that 99% of people don't run.
Cryptic is not anything special in this match-up. Countering a spell and drawing is fine but not exciting.
And the match-up most-certainly gets better for most of us post sideboard. If you are getting worse than 70/30 postboard you really need to evaluate your list.
No offense, but your plain wrong here. I have +200 games with breach, and avoiding crumble is just common knowledge. Bolt is a 2-4 mainbaord card, and will only be cut if the player has access to chalice, otherwise the breach player is going to sb his angers. Do you really have played against any breach decks recently? @ which point is a geist a clock against a deck that's going to have 2-4 baloth 2-3 courser, 4 titans and maybe some number of hornet queens/ gaea's revenge. Aditionally tapping out @ turn 3 is deadly, if you didn'T manage to counter their turn 1-2 landspells, since they might just have access to 5mana.
Most breach lists don'T even have sb cards against jeskai, as the match is allready incredible easy and will just bring in their anti burn/jund/infect creatures.
+ Not countering a breach to stop they titan with aven might just result into emrakul killing you.
I'm not concerned with how many games you have with Breach. Guys at my local shop have thousands of games with "insert random deck here" and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. After sideboard the Jeskai deck has anywhere between 8-13 counterspells you aren't just able to ramp every turn. As the game one is quite bad for Jeskai we are usually on the play for Game two and can counter all their T2, T3 plays. Countering their first spell and then playing a Geist is a very good way to win against Breach. Playing T4 Crumble on Stomping Grounds(setting them back a land) and then T6 snap it back on either Valukut (game over) or on Cinder Glade makes it incredibly hard for them to burn you out with landfall.
And I wasn't disagreeing that aven is bad, I agree but the reason you presented is ludicrous. It has nothing to do with bolts and everything to do with things like Through the Breach Emrakul. But to be fair, a lot of the top Valukut/Breach decks don't run Emrakul.
I'm playing jeskai quite a while and I know what you mean. I'm not denying making mistakes but since the release of Nahiri many things have changed. For example RG breach is starting to become more and more popular and I'm struggling to make this matchup better but there's only so much you can do. Have you got a good idea how to approach the mu except for "playing better"?
..my take on the issue of "playing better" and fine-tuning of the deck is to identify as good as possible what the ideal game plan is against the bad match-ups. Only by understanding what the opponent is trying to accomplish with his (deck-)strategy we are able to counteract and eventually take the over the game.
As far as I can deduce we have atm a very strong game plan against creature decks but a somewhat weak spot when it comes to strategies relying on powerful spells (as described by many others in the form of Breach, Ad Nauseam, Tron, etc.). This is where I do not like our countermagic, as a way to disrupt the opponents game plan - our Spell Snares, Remands, Mana Leaks just do not present strong enough ways to interact. I`d rather have Logic Knot, Negates and Cryptics here..
One opponent at GP Lille had Delay in his SB, which was an interesting take - I wouldn't run it, but it is at least a fresh idea...
I don't own the deck but based on testing, I'd agree with you. Remand, Mana Leaks, and Spell Snares are not particularly flexible and they are very frequently the worst cards in my hand. Mana Leak is a little more acceptable but that non-bo with Path to Exile... I've seen some gameplays of Esper decks with Negates and it quite frankly impressed me and the pilot. Running a single spell pierce might be fine as well.
..this is my impression as well - often enough I draw one of the counters mid-game and wish it had been pretty much any other non-land card. Mana Leak is indeed one of the better counters until turn 5-7 but it is so painful to have any counter in hand and not be able to answer the threat; casting Leak just for the opponent to tap out and not be able to also equip Cranial Plating, or casting Remand just to cycle through or delay the threat until next round at best, or even worse, having Spell Snare looking at a Through the Breach is disarming to say the least.
As one user in this forum put it, I'm never leaving the house without 1 Cryptic Command and at least 1 Logic Knot. Who feels the same? Is there a point to be made on the quality of counters in our list?
No offense, but your plain wrong here. I have +200 games with breach, and avoiding crumble is just common knowledge. Bolt is a 2-4 mainbaord card, and will only be cut if the player has access to chalice, otherwise the breach player is going to sb his angers. Do you really have played against any breach decks recently? @ which point is a geist a clock against a deck that's going to have 2-4 baloth 2-3 courser, 4 titans and maybe some number of hornet queens/ gaea's revenge. Aditionally tapping out @ turn 3 is deadly, if you didn'T manage to counter their turn 1-2 landspells, since they might just have access to 5mana.
Most breach lists don'T even have sb cards against jeskai, as the match is allready incredible easy and will just bring in their anti burn/jund/infect creatures.
+ Not countering a breach to stop they titan with aven might just result into emrakul killing you.
Your idea doesn't work without Scapeshift being involved, and the RUG version just isn't the prevalent version of this deck now. I recognize that the TitanShift also plays Scapeshift but they don't have the ability to protect it that RUG has. I've played the matchup plenty myself. Breach decks don't handle counter magic that well and it is super hard to avoid Crumble to Dust and Spreading Seas. I don't always have to get a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. That's why Vendilion Clique is really important for info. The deck has issues when you meaningfully disrupt anything they're doing but that only works for so long. I can't tell you how many times Clique plus Snap-Bolt or just a Geist plus burn takes my opponent down. Now my lists changes between flash and Nahiri Jeskai. The flash list feels smoother for me personally against Breach decks but I would argue that the Nahiri lists should be far more solid against it because of the number of ways they have to interact with the post board Breach plan.
every time I re-evaluate my deck I try to cram in a singleton cryptic command, then look at my manabase and just cringe
I brought one in last night, and it performed very well, even with 23 lands. My record on the night was less than stellar (some bad sequencing / bad luck in a loss to 8-Whack, and a very sad game 3 loss to Merfolk, stuck on two lands since the opening hand with an uncastable Anger and Staticaster in hand ), but I was quite happy with how Cryptic Command (in place of a third Mana Leak, with 3 Remands and 2 Spell Snares) performed. At worst, it bought a turn a once or twice, but being able to bounce Nevermore end-of-turn to cast Nahiri, counter-bounce a Countryside Crusher at 10+ power, and even just tap + bounce Aether Vial all felt pretty good. It's not a card I want to start the game with, but knowing it's in the main deck is pretty nice.
Very interested to read all the thoughts on the Valakut decks. I had my first game against that type of deck last night, losing horribly to a Seismic Assault - Countryside Crusher - Life from the Loam build, but it makes me think twice about trying to handle that match-up with just countermagic and Geist. Perhaps this build was a little more challenging due to its use of the graveyard and enchantment-based win conditions (play Nahiri, -2, he does 2 damage in response = 4-mana Disenchant ), but even so, it makes me want to reconsider adding Crumble to Dust to the sideboard...
I think that adding Cryptic Command is very greedy in our deck; with it, we need turn 1 UR, turn 2 WUR, and turn 4 WRUUU avaliable, which will require multiple untapped shock fetching. I think that with the coming of the UR fastland, our manabase actually significantly improves, and then I'll look at cryptic again. I also feel that if I'd warp my manabase to acommodate cryptic, I'd want to run at least two to make it worth it, but the meta isn't that great for that right now
My 5 cents on the RG breach/valakut matchup; I think it's decent, far and wide not as bad as the scapeshift matchup. I do think it is a very skillful matchup however, as you can no longer ever tap out if they get to 5+ mana. Because of that the Nahiri package isn't that great and you have to rely on burn and beatdown which Obstinate Baloth can make difficult. There is also the issue that the deck isn't fully formed yet and there are a lot of fundamental differences between lists; some run Emrakul, some run Scapeshift, some run neither, so it can be difficult to assess under what clock you are playing
Lol...glad I made your day I guess. It really does feel like taboo whenever someone brings it up. I'm just saying...if certain people are legitimately having trouble against these decks (which, admittedly, are tough match-ups), and are suggesting the sky is falling...they may as well shift their build dramatically. Sometimes you gotta stick it to them (mainboard those Crumbles if you truly hate those decks lol).
2-3 Geists is where it's at. It kinda blows to open with too many of him, but it's really hard to tweak the numbers any further; 4 is too many slots wasted and forces you to have too many in your openers (unless that's what you want), and 1 is too low to build a whole game plan around.
Edit: 1 is fine as like, a sideboard card/hedge card. But if the entire plan is leaning on him, I'm not sure if 1's enough.
Yeah, V-Clique isn't the most amazing as far as disruption goes; sometimes you peek at a hand that's unsolvable. But the 3-power body is the main thing I'm looking at. It's not uncommon for a Clique to just run away with a game on its own. In addition to the clock and the hand knowledge, I just like that you can hold open mana for counters such as Negate, Leak, Remand, etc. And if they don't play into counters, then just drop a Clique eot (same line of thinking with Queller). I really like attacking decks like this from this angle (very reminiscent of when I used to play Jeskai Geist -- this game plan is legitimately the only way you'd win against the likes of Tron, Breach, and Scapeshift when you're on Jeskai Geist). The reason why I suggest upping numbers of Clique is because if that's the plan one would try to play, it'd makes sense to have the appropriate number of copies to best maximize drawing into.
Mindcensor was more just so I can cover bases. Honestly am never sure about the card; looks amazing on paper. But in practice it doesn't quite do enough for me. Just from personal experience anyway.
I guess those are fair points about Queller; I figured that hitting things like Scapeshift, Anger of the Gods, Nahiri, Obstinate Baloth, etc. was reasonable enough. But I thought it'd hit more important cards too...but looking at some deck lists here and there, I guess that's about the extent of what you'd hit -- assuming you'd prioritized action spells and ignored ramp anyway. I don't think it'd be that bad to hit ramp spells either; we won't need to hit every ramp spell -- just enough early on and then resolve a clock to win the game. I might be misevaluating Spell Queller here though...haven't gotten around to playing the dude much.
Admittedly, I have a hard time differentiating between TitanShift, Scapeshift (RUG? With counterspells?), and RG Breach...the general theme is ramp hard and Primeval Titan...but they have their nuances that makes it hard for me to fully zero-in on their weaknesses. From personal experience, Spell Snaring their Tribe Elders and early ramp is amazing. And playing Draw-Go against them feels awful. No idea if I'm "doing it right," though...I don't see these decks enough in my metagame. It's usually just Blue Moon, Jund, Abzan, Burn, and Merfolk.
Creatures (6)
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Vendilion Clique
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
Spells (27)
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
4 Path to Exile
1 Supreme Verdict
4 Serum Visions
2 Spell Snare
1 Timely Reinforcements
3 Remand
2 Mana Leak
2 Ancestral Visions
1 Cryptic Command
1 Electrolyze
Lands (23)
3 Celestial Colonnade
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
2 Arid Mesa
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Spirebluff Canal
Sideboard (15)
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Crumble to Dust
3 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Elspeth, Suns Champion
1 Wear//Tear
2 Rest In Peace
1 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Anger of the Gods
Spell Snare seems to only have Sakura-Tribe Elder as a target in all variants of Scapeshift/Breach decks, which makes it somewhat weak to me. You're right in that it's really good when you get it, but when you don't, it's essentially a dead draw.
Clique and Geist are both nice choices. Mind censer and Spell Queller, not so much. Combine that with sideboard negates and Crumble to Dust and you should have a good match-up against this deck.
As for Spell Queller, I've been testing it myself in a more creaturebased list and my biggest gripe is how slow it is on the draw. I'm currently looking to go bant with it to run manadorks.
Never overboard in bad matchups. If Tron is bad, don't bring in 15 cards to beat Tron. You need a solid mainboard plan and a solid sideboard plan. I think a good strat at the moment is to focus the mainboard on beating midrange and dedicating the side to combo. Aggro should rarely be a problem and tools cross over.
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
I've been rocking 1 Blessed Alliance in the main in place of Timely Reinforcements. It's been pretty good. Rarely ever a dead card (I think the only match it has been was against Ad Nauseam).
I agree, but how many would you play in your sideboard? I also just tend to like Spreading Seas more. It seems more widely useful whereas I would only use Crumble to Dust against Tron and Valakut decks.
I don't own the deck but based on testing, I'd agree with you. Remand, Mana Leaks, and Spell Snares are not particularly flexible and they are very frequently the worst cards in my hand. Mana Leak is a little more acceptable but that non-bo with Path to Exile... I've seen some gameplays of Esper decks with Negates and it quite frankly impressed me and the pilot. Running a single spell pierce might be fine as well.
Crumble to Dust isn't even that great against a lot of the Valakut decks. It frustrates me that there are not many impactful efficient sideboard cards against the Tron and Valakut decks.
Geist is not bad against Breach. Not sure where you got that idea. It's one of the best clocks that can be presented. And experienced pilots don't always have the luxury of not playing their valakuts. They are trying to cast Primeval Titan and/or a big Scapeshift they would be foolish to miss a land drop or play it tapped for land drop # 6 to play around a 0-2 of sideboard card. I would call that a very inexperienced pilot. You also don't seem to understand why Aven is ineffective. You mentioned some number of bolts sideboard, which is a bizarre defense to aven. Breach players don't usually have the luxury of bringing in lightning bolts to try to stop a card that isn't a normal card for Jeskai. It dilutes their gameplan to play around a card that 99% of people don't run.
Cryptic is not anything special in this match-up. Countering a spell and drawing is fine but not exciting.
And the match-up most-certainly gets better for most of us post sideboard. If you are getting worse than 70/30 postboard you really need to evaluate your list.
I'm not concerned with how many games you have with Breach. Guys at my local shop have thousands of games with "insert random deck here" and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. After sideboard the Jeskai deck has anywhere between 8-13 counterspells you aren't just able to ramp every turn. As the game one is quite bad for Jeskai we are usually on the play for Game two and can counter all their T2, T3 plays. Countering their first spell and then playing a Geist is a very good way to win against Breach. Playing T4 Crumble on Stomping Grounds(setting them back a land) and then T6 snap it back on either Valukut (game over) or on Cinder Glade makes it incredibly hard for them to burn you out with landfall.
And I wasn't disagreeing that aven is bad, I agree but the reason you presented is ludicrous. It has nothing to do with bolts and everything to do with things like Through the Breach Emrakul. But to be fair, a lot of the top Valukut/Breach decks don't run Emrakul.
As one user in this forum put it, I'm never leaving the house without 1 Cryptic Command and at least 1 Logic Knot. Who feels the same? Is there a point to be made on the quality of counters in our list?
Your idea doesn't work without Scapeshift being involved, and the RUG version just isn't the prevalent version of this deck now. I recognize that the TitanShift also plays Scapeshift but they don't have the ability to protect it that RUG has. I've played the matchup plenty myself. Breach decks don't handle counter magic that well and it is super hard to avoid Crumble to Dust and Spreading Seas. I don't always have to get a Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. That's why Vendilion Clique is really important for info. The deck has issues when you meaningfully disrupt anything they're doing but that only works for so long. I can't tell you how many times Clique plus Snap-Bolt or just a Geist plus burn takes my opponent down. Now my lists changes between flash and Nahiri Jeskai. The flash list feels smoother for me personally against Breach decks but I would argue that the Nahiri lists should be far more solid against it because of the number of ways they have to interact with the post board Breach plan.
I brought one in last night, and it performed very well, even with 23 lands. My record on the night was less than stellar (some bad sequencing / bad luck in a loss to 8-Whack, and a very sad game 3 loss to Merfolk, stuck on two lands since the opening hand with an uncastable Anger and Staticaster in hand ), but I was quite happy with how Cryptic Command (in place of a third Mana Leak, with 3 Remands and 2 Spell Snares) performed. At worst, it bought a turn a once or twice, but being able to bounce Nevermore end-of-turn to cast Nahiri, counter-bounce a Countryside Crusher at 10+ power, and even just tap + bounce Aether Vial all felt pretty good. It's not a card I want to start the game with, but knowing it's in the main deck is pretty nice.
Very interested to read all the thoughts on the Valakut decks. I had my first game against that type of deck last night, losing horribly to a Seismic Assault - Countryside Crusher - Life from the Loam build, but it makes me think twice about trying to handle that match-up with just countermagic and Geist. Perhaps this build was a little more challenging due to its use of the graveyard and enchantment-based win conditions (play Nahiri, -2, he does 2 damage in response = 4-mana Disenchant ), but even so, it makes me want to reconsider adding Crumble to Dust to the sideboard...
My 5 cents on the RG breach/valakut matchup; I think it's decent, far and wide not as bad as the scapeshift matchup. I do think it is a very skillful matchup however, as you can no longer ever tap out if they get to 5+ mana. Because of that the Nahiri package isn't that great and you have to rely on burn and beatdown which Obstinate Baloth can make difficult. There is also the issue that the deck isn't fully formed yet and there are a lot of fundamental differences between lists; some run Emrakul, some run Scapeshift, some run neither, so it can be difficult to assess under what clock you are playing