I think any kind of graveyard hate works fine against Storm, because we are already heavily favored in this matchup. I also switched from Fulminators to extra counterspells and it seems to work a lot better. Even though they were more scared of me when I ran Fulminators + Extractions.
One of the thing I like in going Esper/Grixis+white is Celestial Purge + Disenchant in the sideboard. The first actually helps a lot in the mirror (planeswalkers and Shadow's war) + Moon & Leyline (which usually are in deck against whom we should side it anyway) and Disenchant also provide a similar effect.
ji
I'm playing the white splash. Ranger main. With 2x wear//tear from the side.
@tasighoul, fair points about spell snare all around.
I still like the idea of counterspells and the idea of looking for mirror breakers. Thoughts on the list that went 11th at GP Kobe? Stillmoon seems a bit too spicy but I really like the idea of playing deprive in this deck as a surprise catch all counterspell and for more stack protection (although I might only like 1. 2 seems a tad much).
I also really several other ideas that list is doing. I like the idea of playing a 3-1 gurmaug tasigur split, as gurmaug eats their tasigurs and gurmaug enables temur battle rage better (even if one or more end up in the sideboard). I love the 1 of dismember. Slightly harder to flashback but otherwise just seems much better than the second terminate. I also really like playing 3 street wraiths. As good as 4 are, they also interfere with mulliganing, so maybe it's okay to shave 1. That said, shaving a street wraith and playing an extra gurmaug angler feels a bit loose. Obs he's the one who top 16'd a gp, so something was clearly working for him, but if I were cutting a wraith for something I'd look for another delve enabler. With so many people on vizier decks my first thought is a main board collected brutality.
Idk, just spitballing. We seem to have a near consensus on a "stock" list, which is awesome, but now that we have that I'm interested in looking for some ways to "break" that and keep the opponent guessing.
With everyone suggestions(thank you to all who contributed), I'm now on this sideboard package:
2 ceremonious rejection
2 stubborn denial
3 spreading seas
2 liliana the last hope
2 nihil spellbomb
2 anger of the gods
1 rakdos charm
1 collective brutality
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
How I like to win games:
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
I'm still not completely sold on Temur Battle Rage. I tried to run one copy of it maindeck in place of a Lightning Bolt for a few matches. I won one game with it against Elves, but I was already in a comfortable position at that point. In another game, a Gurmag Angler bravely gave his life for the team against a 9/10 Nivmagus elemental right after I had foiled my opponent's attempt to cast Temur Battle Rage on the Elemental. Well, that was pretty epic actually and won me the game, because my opponent had emptied their hand. But in several other games Battle Rage didn't matter or it ended up in my graveyard when I had Snapcaster and three lands. In at least two of these cases, snapping back a bolt would have changed the game state in my favor. So overall, Temur Battle Rage felt borderline gimmicky, even though I like that it makes our deck less predictable. It also seems worse as a sideboard card than maindeck, because even an innocent looking CoCo deck might have 3 Paths to Exile after boarding and plenty of open mana during our turn.
Battle Rage is for decks that completely flood the board with creatures faster than you can draw/cast your spot removal. It also lets you race vs. any linear strategy for a super quick clock. The key to the card lies in when and where you cast the card. I would go as far as to say that at least 1 copy is necessary in your 75 if you are not running any copies of Tribal Flames.
Also this is what Pro Immanuel Gerschenson (who finished 11-4 at GP Copenhagen) feels about TBR in Shadow decks: "I have heard from lots of people who're not very fond of Temur Battle Rage anymore. Especially in the States, folks have been cutting the card. But really, Battle Rage is the main reason to run red in the first place, and essential to racing combo decks."
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern URBSome variant of Death's Shadow URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version) JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / Infect
Anyone consider Flaying Tendrils for the board? It's double black, which we will often have regardless, and it still has the exile clause for Dredge. Only problem is it doesn't hit Amalgams like Anger, but it's a step up from Kozilek's.
Interesting quote. I think with combo decks he means Dredge. I don't see the need to rush Storm, CoCo or Ad Nauseam. I'm a control player at heart and feel comfortable switching to that role against most combo decks.
But against dredge, an extra Anger of the Gods seems to be a better card to have in the sideboard than Temur Battle Rage. Temur Battle Rage requires Death's Shadow to be effective and Dredge players will likely board in several copies of Abrupt Decay.
What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.
If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.
What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.
If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.
I'm very lucky or you are playing your Merfolk matchup very wrong. I never drop a game against Merfolk playing Grixis Shadow. You don't have to kill all their creatures, land a early Tasigur/Gurmag, kill the lords with Islandwalk and control the game until you land other creatures and then go to the agressive route. Play around not getting mana screwed by Spreading Seas, use your discard spells to remove their card advantage(Silvergil and Spreading Seas) and you will be fine.
That's the problem with anecdotal evidence. How many matches have you played in total and how many against Merfolk?
My experience is that if the Merfolk player knows what they are doing they have a much larger damage output than we do when you factor that is very easy for them to chump our fat creatures and they can get islandwalk pretty consistently.
Overall, we play a lot of cards that mess with our life total, and Vial + Mutavault makes them very capable of outputting large amounts of damage from a technically empty board.
Kozlak, your win percentage against Eldrazi Tron is higher than mine. Would you explain how you play out that matchup?
Kozilek's Return is also a lot better against merfolk than Anger of the Gods as long as you keep them from getting two lords on the board, which should be your plan anyway. Instant speed can be helpful, being able to hit Master of the Waves and Mutavault is huge and the friendlier mana cost helps playing around Spreading Seas.
Anger of the Gods is much better against Dredge, though. I'm not so worried about Merfolk and Affinity, because our spot removal shines against them. I find game 1 against Dredge nearly unwinnable, so having access to Anger of the Gods in game 2 and 3 helps a lot. If I read your data right, you dodged Dredge for the most part, but this won't last forever.
What's your reasoning behind not including Liliana in your list? Without her, how do you deal with Lingering Souls in the mirror?
I also noticed that you tracked both "Shadow Jund" and "Jund Shadow", which looks like an oversight.
What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.
If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.
I think your sample sizes are still too small to say anything. Affinity is not a bad matchup. Outside of a resolved Champion you should be able to just kill all their stuff and beat them. On the other hand, you have a really good winrate against Burn, which is not a favorable matchup for us. You're definitely right about control being bad, though. That might be our worse.
In the matches I've won against control, it's been when I had a lot of discard to pick off all their removal and an early threat to kill them before they found more. That's how you beat them, you have to tempo them out. Trying to play for a long grindy game is a losing proposition, because they will out-card advantage you in the long run. You want all your discard, so board in your Brutalities. You also want all your Denials. In your list, I would board in the Fulminators just cause they are additional threats that net you a 2-for-1 when they eventually have to try to kill it, but I really don't like Fulminator in the deck, Liliana is just better and is a good way to beat control. They only have Detention Sphere and Cryptics to stop her once she resolves. I would board out your battle rage, terminates, pushes, and bolt. Also, you should play 4 Thoughtseize and 2 Inquisition, Thoughtseize is the best card in the deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
one thing I have noticed against blue control decks playing thought seize and inquisition at the right time is key. On the draw, if they drop a turn 1 ancestral vision it's almost 100 percent correct to NOT make them discard. While they are definitely favored, if they drop 1 or 2 visions, just don't play anything until it resolves, make them discard, then attempt to strip there hand of the most useful things and strike quickly by droping a tasigur and shadows and try to protect them enough to kill them.
What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.
If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.
How outlandish would it be to cut an Extraction for a single Leyline of the Void? From reading it seems like the best # of leylines is 4, then 1, which kind of makes sense intuitively given diminishing returns. Pretty high impact in a lot of matchups, and being able to cast it later is a nonzero benefit
The thing is, Leyline of the Void doesn't exile the grave on ETB, it just stops new things from hitting the yard. This means a lategame Leyline is borderline useless. Running it as a one-off, means this will happen a lot. Also, try to tap out on T4 against Dredge to put it into play, and losing on T5 is pretty much a guarantee.
If you want to run a one-off grave hate card, I'd go with Nihil Spellbomb.
i just mentuoned the ability to cast as having nonzero utility- obviously we want to start with it and not have to draw it later. I've found spellbomb to be pretty iffy- its not great against dredge for one and costing mana can be a real thing
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm playing the white splash. Ranger main. With 2x wear//tear from the side.
I still like the idea of counterspells and the idea of looking for mirror breakers. Thoughts on the list that went 11th at GP Kobe? Stillmoon seems a bit too spicy but I really like the idea of playing deprive in this deck as a surprise catch all counterspell and for more stack protection (although I might only like 1. 2 seems a tad much).
I also really several other ideas that list is doing. I like the idea of playing a 3-1 gurmaug tasigur split, as gurmaug eats their tasigurs and gurmaug enables temur battle rage better (even if one or more end up in the sideboard). I love the 1 of dismember. Slightly harder to flashback but otherwise just seems much better than the second terminate. I also really like playing 3 street wraiths. As good as 4 are, they also interfere with mulliganing, so maybe it's okay to shave 1. That said, shaving a street wraith and playing an extra gurmaug angler feels a bit loose. Obs he's the one who top 16'd a gp, so something was clearly working for him, but if I were cutting a wraith for something I'd look for another delve enabler. With so many people on vizier decks my first thought is a main board collected brutality.
Idk, just spitballing. We seem to have a near consensus on a "stock" list, which is awesome, but now that we have that I'm interested in looking for some ways to "break" that and keep the opponent guessing.
2 ceremonious rejection
2 stubborn denial
3 spreading seas
2 liliana the last hope
2 nihil spellbomb
2 anger of the gods
1 rakdos charm
1 collective brutality
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
Also this is what Pro Immanuel Gerschenson (who finished 11-4 at GP Copenhagen) feels about TBR in Shadow decks: "I have heard from lots of people who're not very fond of Temur Battle Rage anymore. Especially in the States, folks have been cutting the card. But really, Battle Rage is the main reason to run red in the first place, and essential to racing combo decks."
URB Some variant of Death's Shadow
URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version)
JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / InfectCommander/EDH
This pile of cards when I feel like it
Death's Shadow discord link
What are your thoughts on the Control matchup? In my experience, Affinity, Merfolk and Ux Control are the three worst matchups (Check my results over 120 tracked matches); and Control is the only archetype where I am not sure how to win.
If we wanted to beat Merfolk or Affinity more consistently, the hate cards are pretty self explanatory: we would run more artifact removal, more wraths (I'm not playing Kozilek's Return, which sounds like a huge upgrade to Anger of the Gods in the Affinity matchup), etc. But what is the answer to a pile of removals and better late game bombs? Trying to go under is the only guess I have come up with, but a ~20% win rate means its probably not the right answer.
My decklist for reference
I'm very lucky or you are playing your Merfolk matchup very wrong. I never drop a game against Merfolk playing Grixis Shadow. You don't have to kill all their creatures, land a early Tasigur/Gurmag, kill the lords with Islandwalk and control the game until you land other creatures and then go to the agressive route. Play around not getting mana screwed by Spreading Seas, use your discard spells to remove their card advantage(Silvergil and Spreading Seas) and you will be fine.
My experience is that if the Merfolk player knows what they are doing they have a much larger damage output than we do when you factor that is very easy for them to chump our fat creatures and they can get islandwalk pretty consistently.
Overall, we play a lot of cards that mess with our life total, and Vial + Mutavault makes them very capable of outputting large amounts of damage from a technically empty board.
In any case, any input on my question?
Kozilek's Return is also a lot better against merfolk than Anger of the Gods as long as you keep them from getting two lords on the board, which should be your plan anyway. Instant speed can be helpful, being able to hit Master of the Waves and Mutavault is huge and the friendlier mana cost helps playing around Spreading Seas.
Anger of the Gods is much better against Dredge, though. I'm not so worried about Merfolk and Affinity, because our spot removal shines against them. I find game 1 against Dredge nearly unwinnable, so having access to Anger of the Gods in game 2 and 3 helps a lot. If I read your data right, you dodged Dredge for the most part, but this won't last forever.
What's your reasoning behind not including Liliana in your list? Without her, how do you deal with Lingering Souls in the mirror?
I also noticed that you tracked both "Shadow Jund" and "Jund Shadow", which looks like an oversight.
In the matches I've won against control, it's been when I had a lot of discard to pick off all their removal and an early threat to kill them before they found more. That's how you beat them, you have to tempo them out. Trying to play for a long grindy game is a losing proposition, because they will out-card advantage you in the long run. You want all your discard, so board in your Brutalities. You also want all your Denials. In your list, I would board in the Fulminators just cause they are additional threats that net you a 2-for-1 when they eventually have to try to kill it, but I really don't like Fulminator in the deck, Liliana is just better and is a good way to beat control. They only have Detention Sphere and Cryptics to stop her once she resolves. I would board out your battle rage, terminates, pushes, and bolt. Also, you should play 4 Thoughtseize and 2 Inquisition, Thoughtseize is the best card in the deck.
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
mostly it's a bad match up though
http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/63569
Are you really running a 4 IOK / 2 TS split?
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
If you want to run a one-off grave hate card, I'd go with Nihil Spellbomb.