Anger of the Gods also does that, unless Storm goes off twice. Which is something I haven't seen happen yet, but it might happen. But even then you might be able to snap Anger back. So I don't feel Izzet Staticaster is a must-have in this matchup. Anger also kills all of their mana acceleration dorks, further decreasing the chance of an immediate second wave of Goblins. Izzet Staticaster is more discouraging, though. Unfortunately, Staticaster and Anger don't have the best synergy with each other.
I think I will be moving a 3rd Stubborn Denial to the main deck which will free up a spot in the sideboard that I have been convinced to make Izzet Staticaster.
New to the deck. Why is the new Liliana, the Last Hope used? She seems subpar compared to Liliana of the Veil. I am obviously blind to what improvements she brings.
Staticaster seems also very good against some fringe Decks like
- Faeries
- Goblins/Bushwacker-Decks
- BW or Mono-W Tokens (but on the other hand gets outclassed with the first Anthem-Effect they can land)
Outside of that, I think that dealing with Lingering Souls without card-disadvantage is still the main reason for it.
I'm pretty new to Grixis Shadow, but I played UWR Geist for a pretty long time and I was always happy having Staticaster in the Side.
I personally would almost never cut it.
Izzet Staticaster is good vs Souls, yes, but if that were the only issue I think most people would just have another Liliana, the Last Hope. Staticaster deals with Empty tokens, but everyone has a sweeper in their SB for that. It's a boss against Elves and CoCo decks, but again, see Liliana. The main benefits I think are hitting Affinity's manlands. Now that everyone has moved away from Kozilek's Return and toward Anger of the Gods, it's a way to get some % points back in the Affinity matchup. There are some other differences obviously, but they seem like small potatoes. You can K Command Staticaster back, Staticaster kills Souls tokens immediately, Liliana can stick around through an Anger of the Gods, and Lily has other applications in basically every grindy matchup.
New to the deck. Why is the new Liliana, the Last Hope used? She seems subpar compared to Liliana of the Veil. I am obviously blind to what improvements she brings.
One of the best ways to fight Grixis Shadow is with swarms of creatures. In particular, Lingering Souls. Liliana is great against those swarms. Elves, Abzan CoCo, etc. And in any grindy matchup, she's a repeatable source of card advantage. Rebuying fatties and Snapcasters in the midrange and control matchups is big game. Assuming you have a graveyard anyway.
Well staticaster is not the same as liliana vs the tokens, as removing all of them at once can be pretty clutch when we drop to such low lifetotals. So yes anger, liliana and staticaster all have cases where they are individually better.
Well staticaster is not the same as liliana vs the tokens, as removing all of them at once can be pretty clutch when we drop to such low lifetotals. So yes anger, liliana and staticaster all have cases where they are individually better.
I mentioned that But in my experience this isn't that big of deal.
New to the deck. Why is the new Liliana, the Last Hope used? She seems subpar compared to Liliana of the Veil. I am obviously blind to what improvements she brings.
This has been discussed before, but here's the quick and dirty version:
Her +1 takes care of chump blockers, like Lingering Souls tokens, which can be a rough card for us to overcome. Her -2 ability lets us get back creatures from our grave (Snapcaster to replay even MORE instants from the grave, or other fatties when we need to get a threat going), allowing us to grind against decks where we need to play a long game and the final ability just wins the game.
LotV's +1 ability hurts us by forcing us to discard. We don't want to win an attrition war by putting both us and our opponent in top deck mode. We want to grind by recasting stuff that's landed in our grave, a la Snapcaster, or just bringing back creatures that ate up a removal. Basically, we want cards in hand to defeat our opponents. Her final probably also wins you the game, but you'd have to completely get rid of your hand to do so.
LotV's +1 ability hurts us by forcing us to discard. We don't want to win an attrition war by putting both us and our opponent in top deck mode. We want to grind by recasting stuff that's landed in our grave, a la Snapcaster, or just bringing back creatures that ate up a removal. Basically, we want cards in hand to defeat our opponents. Her final probably also wins you the game, but you'd have to completely get rid of your hand to do so.
For the record, I disagree with this analysis. LotV is *great* in this deck. The problem is that it often fights on the wrong axis - in grindy matchups, where you want LotV most, opponents are often trying to beat you with Lingering Souls and similar, and there she can be very poor while LtlH shines. But in grindy matchups where they don't have stuff like Souls and Finks, she is very strong. E.g. vs nearly every control deck in the format (just don't let Secure the Wastes resolve in UW!), and vs. any Shadow deck not packing Souls - and often even when they pack Souls as long as you have enough answers to that card / they don't have too many.
Edit: so the problem is usually slot efficiency. LtlH fights grindy decks pretty well, including those with tokens, and also fights swarm strategies. LotV is typically only good in grindy matchups, though in many she is better than LtlH.
Edit 2: I missed another reason Staticaster has picked up - it's actually a good SB card vs Dredge, whereas LtlH is hopelessly slow.
Grixis Shadow is better in the "mirror" mainly due to Snapcaster Mage which is great against grindy decks. Also delve creatures dodge many removal that Death's Shadow Jund plays.
That's true, but it's not an easy matchup.
Jund DS will usually produce more threats and Tarmogoyf will usually be bigger than the delve creatures. From my experience, Nihil Spellbomb is a very good card against Jund DS. It can shut down their Traverse engine for a while and shrinks their Goyfs. The delve mechanic on some of our creatures helps minimizing the variety of card types in our own graveyard, further adding to the effect.
guys, what are your thoughts on cutting lightning bolts and increasing the number of terminates in the main deck? so like.. 4 push 3 terminate ?
A few of us are experimenting with cutting Bolts. I think most people agree the 4th Push should probably take the place of one, and I've seen people move a third Denial to the main, which opens you up an extra sideboard slot.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
So I'm trying to think of good mirror breakers for us. My thought is that an enchantment would be best because it's very hard for us to deal with. Has anyone tried Bitterblossom out of the board? Other possible options I'm seeing browsing through Gatherer: Monastery Siege (either get to loot every turn, or make all your opponent's removal and discard super mana-inefficient), Phyrexian Arena (didn't even know this was Modern legal...), or Leyline of the Void. Other options could be LotV, Ashiok, or JVP. Thoughts?
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I'm actually still on 2 Bolt going in to Vegas. I'm just more comfortable with them, I love the efficiency. And Wraith, I've been having success with Rise//Fall. Have you tried it?
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How I like to win games:
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
Last time, they wrote that they are keeping an eye on the color balance. I think Grixis DS has been very helpful in that regard, increasing the number of blue spells in the format directly and indirectly. Of the decks listed as tier 1 and tier 2 on this site, 8 decks run green as a primary or secondary color, whereas only 3 decks run blue as a primary or secondary color. I didn't count Burn or Knightfall in this case, because their respective third color is just a splash. I'm pretty sure UWx control wouldn't even be tier 2 without the DS decks. So after a banning of Death's Shadow, the only deck with more than a splash of blue would have been UR Storm atm, which isn't exactly your typical blue deck.
Modern tournaments seem to keep becoming more popular, so even if Death's Shadow is the best overall deck, players seem happy to play the format as it currently stands.
I like that! I only wish they had unbanned something nasty to shift the attention from hating us out. But I guess we will have to wait until we are no longer FotM.
So I'm trying to think of good mirror breakers for us. My thought is that an enchantment would be best because it's very hard for us to deal with. Has anyone tried Bitterblossom out of the board? Other possible options I'm seeing browsing through Gatherer: Monastery Siege (either get to loot every turn, or make all your opponent's removal and discard super mana-inefficient), Phyrexian Arena (didn't even know this was Modern legal...), or Leyline of the Void. Other options could be LotV, Ashiok, or JVP. Thoughts?
Bitterblossom is a no-go because you can't control your life total with it in play. Like you said, enchantments are hard to deal with for us, so what do you do when BB becomes a liability and you need to get rid of it?
JVP dies to every single piece of removal in our deck, I don't know if it's worth the slot. I like Ashiok though and have been running a Lili of the Veil maindeck for a while now.
Did a lot of Brainstorming and theorycrafting on the plane to Vegas and I think I feel OK about the list above. I have not had the time to test LotV but works well in theory and I will take the words of the more experienced players in the thread that suggested this.
Comments:
1. the 76th card is probably lightning bolt. I do want one for bolt/snap/bolt and because it still has a lot of utility against the top tier decks (Affinity, Vizier coco, Burn, Dredge relative to push/terminate, Storm)
2. 75th card is probably TBR, but I've been happy with it so I'm fine here.
3. I tested Leyline and have felt it's impactful enough in the games I open with it that I'm happy with that being in my deck for GP Vegas. It does make for some awkward decisions though (for example, you'd bring in spellbombs/extractions vs storm, but would you bring Leylines in vs them? I'd lean no)
4. I'm on the fence about replacing one Last Hope for Kolaghan's command, with the logic being that they are both good in grindy matchups but artifact hate is becoming incerasingly valuable with Eldrazi Tron's rise, and random hate like Chailce/relic in Valakut decks.
Also I furiously scribbled together a SB guide for myself as well as general commentary for what to watch out for for the top tier matchups. It's quite possible there are some philosophical errors in how I approach certain matchups (for example, I think the best chance we have vs. UW control is to disrupt the hell out of them and protect the queen with a fatty - meaning no fatal pushes/terminates for silly Colonnade/resto shenanigans). Would welcome comments on any of these
Grixis Shadow
*Look out for Strands/Godless Shrines as clues for SB Souls
In:
+2 Last Hope
+3 Leyline of the Void
+1 LotV
Out:
-3 Denial
-3 Wraiths
Affinity
*Kill/counter platings and champions on sight
*Potential singleton SB Blood Moon
*Some discards are likely fine to snipe overseers/platings/champions/masters
Burn
*Mulligan aggressively for a t2 delve fatty, or shadows with permission
*Watch for Paths/Palms post game. Thoughtseize likely ok to leave in some number to discard those, or at the very least save 1-2 life and gain full information
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Brutailty
+1 TBR
+1 LotV
Out:
-4 Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
Vizier Company
*Do not be too careless with the life total as their Coco/Township Plan B can be tough to handle. Also, Knights can just overwhelm you
*Likely correct to not bolt/push a t1 dork. Save your kill spell for their t2 play
*Watch for signs of chord for X=3 for Magus (more magi as bullets in recent lists)
Out:
-1 Denial (this could be wrong)
-2 KCommand
-3 Mix of Scours/Wraiths/IoK (if they can put on pressure reasonably with a Plan B, cut Wraiths)
Dredge
*Likely need a way to kill a Stinkweed at least once. Anger and TBR helps but maybe leave in a terminate/bolt
*Be extra vigilant in watching for conflagrates/pharoahs in live play. Easy to miss certain cards in live play graveyards vs. online
*A lot of lists have SB leyline of the voids. Maybe consider skimping on a scour/snapcaster/fatty? not sure
*If you are playing Extraction, watch out for the interaction with Bloodghasts and fetchlands. They can trigger Landfall twice if you wait until they trigger Landfall the first time to Extract Bloodghast
In:
+2 Anger
+1 Staticaster
+3 LLotV (any graveyard hate if not playing LLotV)
+1 TBR
+1 Denial
*TBR can bypass Wurmcoil's death touch if it is a 6/6 or higher
*Most likely correct to forego a t2 play to leave up Denial on t2
*If you see them bring in multiple hangarback walkers post board, consider bringing in an anger (also cleanly answers Reshapers)
*Keep in mind a Smasher with a Collar can always trample you for 4 (deathtouch=only 1 damage needs to be assigned onto the blocker)
*Leave fetches to revolt Push TKS'
Out:
-2 IoK (misses on TKS, Smasher, Endbringer, Karn, Ugin, Wurmcoil, All is Dust)
-1 Scour (hedge against Relic/chalice)
-1 Push
(-1 Push)
Jund Shadow
*Watch for blowouts with Maelstrom Pulse
*Watch game 1 for Strands/Godless Shrines for Souls/Ranger
*Discard/Counters post board to proactively take out their answers/planeswalkers
*Manage Goyf sizes through selective Delving
In:
+2 Last Hope
+3 LLotV
+1 LotV
+1 Staticaster*
Out:
-3 Denial
-3 Wraith
-1 Wraith*
*if splashing Souls
Gifts Storm
*Watch out for SB Blood Moon ,sometimes madcap (bring back in KCommands if you see it)
*Do not be too careless with life totals in fear of natural grapeshot kills. ~7 life shoudl be fine
*Their plan A post-board is Empty. Therefore, Anger is great as a tokens sweeper and also kills their enablers
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Anger
+1 LotV
(+2 Disdainful Stroke)
No Leyline of the Void (results are too binary, would rather have more consistent cards that are already good)
Out:
-1 Angler (not about threat density)
-2 KCommand
-1 Terminate
(-1 Terminate)
(-1 Thought Scour)
Abzan
*Watch out for SB Damnation for blowouts. Also Pulse blowouts
*Manage Goyf sizes with selective delving
In:
+1 Staticaster
+2 Last Hope
+1 LotV
+2 LLotV (doesn't feel good bout wraiths are probably bad enough to want to force out)
Out:
-3 Denial
-3 Wraith
Living End
*SB Blood Moon, Ricochet Trap
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Brutality
+3 LLotV
+1 TBR
0 Liliana of the Veil?
Out:
-4 Push
-2 Kcommand
-1 Fetchland
Elves
*Watch chord for Selfless Spirit/Forge Tender
*Leave revolt up for Pushing Archdruid/Ezuri
In:
+2 Brutality
+2 Anger
+1 Last Hope (very good but too slow to have 2?)
+1 Staticaster
+1 TBR
Out (some of these are good enough to stay in but too many good cards to bring in):
-2 IoK
-2 Thought Scour
-2 KCommand
-1 Wraith
UW Control
*Best way is to play the tempo game and ignore pushes/terminates post -board
*Removals to watch: Condemn, Blessed Alliance (watch life total, attack with snappy when appropriate), Detention Sphere, Verdict (don't overextend if you don' thave to)
*Watch out for SB Blood Moon ,sometimes madcap (bring back in KCommands if you see it)
*Do not be too careless with life totals in fear of natural grapeshot kills. ~7 life shoudl be fine
*Their plan A post-board is Empty. Therefore, Anger is great as a tokens sweeper and also kills their enablers
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Anger
+1 LotV
(+2 Disdainful Stroke)
No Leyline of the Void (results are too binary, would rather have more consistent cards that are already good)
Out:
-1 Angler (not about threat density)
-2 KCommand
-1 Terminate
(-1 Terminate)
(-1 Thought Scour)
No izzet staticaster? Empty is their post board plan.
Izzet Staticaster is good vs Souls, yes, but if that were the only issue I think most people would just have another Liliana, the Last Hope. Staticaster deals with Empty tokens, but everyone has a sweeper in their SB for that. It's a boss against Elves and CoCo decks, but again, see Liliana. The main benefits I think are hitting Affinity's manlands. Now that everyone has moved away from Kozilek's Return and toward Anger of the Gods, it's a way to get some % points back in the Affinity matchup. There are some other differences obviously, but they seem like small potatoes. You can K Command Staticaster back, Staticaster kills Souls tokens immediately, Liliana can stick around through an Anger of the Gods, and Lily has other applications in basically every grindy matchup.
One of the best ways to fight Grixis Shadow is with swarms of creatures. In particular, Lingering Souls. Liliana is great against those swarms. Elves, Abzan CoCo, etc. And in any grindy matchup, she's a repeatable source of card advantage. Rebuying fatties and Snapcasters in the midrange and control matchups is big game. Assuming you have a graveyard anyway.
I mentioned that But in my experience this isn't that big of deal.
This has been discussed before, but here's the quick and dirty version:
Her +1 takes care of chump blockers, like Lingering Souls tokens, which can be a rough card for us to overcome. Her -2 ability lets us get back creatures from our grave (Snapcaster to replay even MORE instants from the grave, or other fatties when we need to get a threat going), allowing us to grind against decks where we need to play a long game and the final ability just wins the game.
LotV's +1 ability hurts us by forcing us to discard. We don't want to win an attrition war by putting both us and our opponent in top deck mode. We want to grind by recasting stuff that's landed in our grave, a la Snapcaster, or just bringing back creatures that ate up a removal. Basically, we want cards in hand to defeat our opponents. Her final probably also wins you the game, but you'd have to completely get rid of your hand to do so.
For the record, I disagree with this analysis. LotV is *great* in this deck. The problem is that it often fights on the wrong axis - in grindy matchups, where you want LotV most, opponents are often trying to beat you with Lingering Souls and similar, and there she can be very poor while LtlH shines. But in grindy matchups where they don't have stuff like Souls and Finks, she is very strong. E.g. vs nearly every control deck in the format (just don't let Secure the Wastes resolve in UW!), and vs. any Shadow deck not packing Souls - and often even when they pack Souls as long as you have enough answers to that card / they don't have too many.
Edit: so the problem is usually slot efficiency. LtlH fights grindy decks pretty well, including those with tokens, and also fights swarm strategies. LotV is typically only good in grindy matchups, though in many she is better than LtlH.
Edit 2: I missed another reason Staticaster has picked up - it's actually a good SB card vs Dredge, whereas LtlH is hopelessly slow.
I'm looking to buy into Magic again and this deck interests me. What is better in the 'mirror', grixisDS or jundDS?
I'm leaning more towards this because of the lower cost due to absence of goyfs and lilianas.
Looking to buy into Death's Shadow for Modern
Legacy
Looking to buy into Lands for Legacy
Jund DS will usually produce more threats and Tarmogoyf will usually be bigger than the delve creatures. From my experience, Nihil Spellbomb is a very good card against Jund DS. It can shut down their Traverse engine for a while and shrinks their Goyfs. The delve mechanic on some of our creatures helps minimizing the variety of card types in our own graveyard, further adding to the effect.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
Legacy:
Burn
B/R Reanimator (slowly building
EDH:
Sedris Control/Reanimation
Last time, they wrote that they are keeping an eye on the color balance. I think Grixis DS has been very helpful in that regard, increasing the number of blue spells in the format directly and indirectly. Of the decks listed as tier 1 and tier 2 on this site, 8 decks run green as a primary or secondary color, whereas only 3 decks run blue as a primary or secondary color. I didn't count Burn or Knightfall in this case, because their respective third color is just a splash. I'm pretty sure UWx control wouldn't even be tier 2 without the DS decks. So after a banning of Death's Shadow, the only deck with more than a splash of blue would have been UR Storm atm, which isn't exactly your typical blue deck.
On Tcgplayer Seth Manfield wrote in his article: I like that! I only wish they had unbanned something nasty to shift the attention from hating us out. But I guess we will have to wait until we are no longer FotM.
Bitterblossom is a no-go because you can't control your life total with it in play. Like you said, enchantments are hard to deal with for us, so what do you do when BB becomes a liability and you need to get rid of it?
JVP dies to every single piece of removal in our deck, I don't know if it's worth the slot. I like Ashiok though and have been running a Lili of the Veil maindeck for a while now.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
4 Death's Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Fatal Push
4 Thought Scourt
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Terminate
2 Kolaghan Command
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Disdainful Stroke
2 Collective Brutality
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Izzet Staticaster
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Liliana of the Veil
Did a lot of Brainstorming and theorycrafting on the plane to Vegas and I think I feel OK about the list above. I have not had the time to test LotV but works well in theory and I will take the words of the more experienced players in the thread that suggested this.
Comments:
1. the 76th card is probably lightning bolt. I do want one for bolt/snap/bolt and because it still has a lot of utility against the top tier decks (Affinity, Vizier coco, Burn, Dredge relative to push/terminate, Storm)
2. 75th card is probably TBR, but I've been happy with it so I'm fine here.
3. I tested Leyline and have felt it's impactful enough in the games I open with it that I'm happy with that being in my deck for GP Vegas. It does make for some awkward decisions though (for example, you'd bring in spellbombs/extractions vs storm, but would you bring Leylines in vs them? I'd lean no)
4. I'm on the fence about replacing one Last Hope for Kolaghan's command, with the logic being that they are both good in grindy matchups but artifact hate is becoming incerasingly valuable with Eldrazi Tron's rise, and random hate like Chailce/relic in Valakut decks.
Comments welcome
Grixis Shadow
*Look out for Strands/Godless Shrines as clues for SB Souls
In:
+2 Last Hope
+3 Leyline of the Void
+1 LotV
Out:
-3 Denial
-3 Wraiths
Affinity
*Kill/counter platings and champions on sight
*Potential singleton SB Blood Moon
*Some discards are likely fine to snipe overseers/platings/champions/masters
In:
+2 Rejection
+1 Staticaster
+1 TBR
(+1 Kolaghan's Command)
Out:
-4 Wraith
-1 Denial
Burn
*Mulligan aggressively for a t2 delve fatty, or shadows with permission
*Watch for Paths/Palms post game. Thoughtseize likely ok to leave in some number to discard those, or at the very least save 1-2 life and gain full information
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Brutailty
+1 TBR
+1 LotV
Out:
-4 Wraith
-1 Thoughtseize
Vizier Company
*Do not be too careless with the life total as their Coco/Township Plan B can be tough to handle. Also, Knights can just overwhelm you
*Likely correct to not bolt/push a t1 dork. Save your kill spell for their t2 play
*Watch for signs of chord for X=3 for Magus (more magi as bullets in recent lists)
In:
+2 Brutality
+1 Staticaster (mana dorks, vizier, viscera seer, selfless spirit, EWitness)
+2 Anger
+1 TBR
Out:
-1 Denial (this could be wrong)
-2 KCommand
-3 Mix of Scours/Wraiths/IoK (if they can put on pressure reasonably with a Plan B, cut Wraiths)
Dredge
*Likely need a way to kill a Stinkweed at least once. Anger and TBR helps but maybe leave in a terminate/bolt
*Be extra vigilant in watching for conflagrates/pharoahs in live play. Easy to miss certain cards in live play graveyards vs. online
*A lot of lists have SB leyline of the voids. Maybe consider skimping on a scour/snapcaster/fatty? not sure
*If you are playing Extraction, watch out for the interaction with Bloodghasts and fetchlands. They can trigger Landfall twice if you wait until they trigger Landfall the first time to Extract Bloodghast
In:
+2 Anger
+1 Staticaster
+3 LLotV (any graveyard hate if not playing LLotV)
+1 TBR
+1 Denial
Out:
-2 KCommand
-4 Push
-1 Terminate (?)
-1 Wraith(?)
Eldrazi Tron
*TBR can bypass Wurmcoil's death touch if it is a 6/6 or higher
*Most likely correct to forego a t2 play to leave up Denial on t2
*If you see them bring in multiple hangarback walkers post board, consider bringing in an anger (also cleanly answers Reshapers)
*Keep in mind a Smasher with a Collar can always trample you for 4 (deathtouch=only 1 damage needs to be assigned onto the blocker)
*Leave fetches to revolt Push TKS'
In:
+2 Rejection (/Stroke)
+1 LotV
+1 TBR
(+1 KCommand)
Out:
-2 IoK (misses on TKS, Smasher, Endbringer, Karn, Ugin, Wurmcoil, All is Dust)
-1 Scour (hedge against Relic/chalice)
-1 Push
(-1 Push)
Jund Shadow
*Watch for blowouts with Maelstrom Pulse
*Watch game 1 for Strands/Godless Shrines for Souls/Ranger
*Discard/Counters post board to proactively take out their answers/planeswalkers
*Manage Goyf sizes through selective Delving
In:
+2 Last Hope
+3 LLotV
+1 LotV
+1 Staticaster*
Out:
-3 Denial
-3 Wraith
-1 Wraith*
*if splashing Souls
Gifts Storm
*Watch out for SB Blood Moon ,sometimes madcap (bring back in KCommands if you see it)
*Do not be too careless with life totals in fear of natural grapeshot kills. ~7 life shoudl be fine
*Their plan A post-board is Empty. Therefore, Anger is great as a tokens sweeper and also kills their enablers
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Anger
+1 LotV
(+2 Disdainful Stroke)
No Leyline of the Void (results are too binary, would rather have more consistent cards that are already good)
Out:
-1 Angler (not about threat density)
-2 KCommand
-1 Terminate
(-1 Terminate)
(-1 Thought Scour)
Titanshift
*Watch MD relic, SB chalice (therefore leave Kcommand in post-board)
In:
+1 TBR
+1 LotV
+1 Brutality and +1 Denial (or +2 Disdainful Stroke)
Out:
-4 Push
Abzan
*Watch out for SB Damnation for blowouts. Also Pulse blowouts
*Manage Goyf sizes with selective delving
In:
+1 Staticaster
+2 Last Hope
+1 LotV
+2 LLotV (doesn't feel good bout wraiths are probably bad enough to want to force out)
Out:
-3 Denial
-3 Wraith
Living End
*SB Blood Moon, Ricochet Trap
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Brutality
+3 LLotV
+1 TBR
0 Liliana of the Veil?
Out:
-4 Push
-2 Kcommand
-1 Fetchland
Elves
*Watch chord for Selfless Spirit/Forge Tender
*Leave revolt up for Pushing Archdruid/Ezuri
In:
+2 Brutality
+2 Anger
+1 Last Hope (very good but too slow to have 2?)
+1 Staticaster
+1 TBR
Out (some of these are good enough to stay in but too many good cards to bring in):
-2 IoK
-2 Thought Scour
-2 KCommand
-1 Wraith
UW Control
*Best way is to play the tempo game and ignore pushes/terminates post -board
*Removals to watch: Condemn, Blessed Alliance (watch life total, attack with snappy when appropriate), Detention Sphere, Verdict (don't overextend if you don' thave to)
In:
+1 Denial
+2 Brutality
+2 Last Hope
+1 LotV
Out:
-4 Push
-2 Terminate
No izzet staticaster? Empty is their post board plan.