Reporting back from FNM: the unstoppable win streak has come to an end! Disappointingly finished 1-1-1. Then picked up some good reps against Bant Eldrazi though (won games 3-1). And traded for some 2x foil Lost Legacy
Exact same 75 as last monday. Report:
R1 Necrotic Ooze combo: weird deck but guy has been playing for years and is pretty potent at it. It's also highly anti-artifact tuned. I'm on the play. G1 I disrupt his plan and naturally draw into Thopter-Sword and Nihil Spellbomb, he never recovers (1-0). G2 I keep a 6 featuring Nihil Spellbomb. I choose to sandbag it as I know for a fact that he runs some Abrupt decay and I am also expecting some form of Naturalize effect. I haven't seen any discard spell yet. Well, on his turn 2 he Thoughtseizes the Spellbomb away and I quickly die to some GY shenanigans (1-1). Noteworthy: my GY hate of choice is 2x Grafdigger's Cage in the board and it doesn't affect this deck at all. G3 I keep a 6 featuring good hate, I Needle his Fauna Shaman, land a Bridge and drop a Witchbane Orb to save me from Masticore bolts. In his words: «Some godly topdecks» allow him to answer all of that within a couple of turns and I die to an infinite/infinite Necrotic Ooze that blows up artifacts at will. Sided in Lost Legacy aiming it at Ooze, but never saw it. Lost 1-2.
R2 New player on Grixis Delver: G1 is an Ensnaring Bridge game with Spellskite backup (1-0). G2 a Young Pyro populates the board. I stabilize with Bridge, but he finds Kolaghan's command at the right time (1-1). G3 I control him pretty solidly but time is called and nobody is dead yet. Tied 1-1. I consider this a good matchup. Too bad it played out too slowly, will be more careful next time.
R3 8-Rack: G1 I Engineered Explosives away all his The Rack effects. I topdeck Tezz, cast it and he falls too far behind to recover (1-0). G2 He gives me the play, I keep a shaky six with not enough mana sources, Engineered explosives, Lili and Tezz. I get my hand shred appart quick and die slowly to the Rack (1-1). G3 I choose to be on the DRAW, and keep an all-in 7 with Swamp, Citadel, Fair, Talisman, Talisman, Inquisition of Kozilek and Tezz. I ramp out into an indestructible 5/5 then start ticking up Tezz to gain card advantage; his Shrieking Afflictions are sitting uselessly on the board as he dies to the beatdown. Won that one at least, and not a particularly easy match-up I'd say, 2-1.
Bonus: Then got in some reps I wanted against Bant Eldrazi, we agree on a best of 5. He is on the play. G1 I disrupt him some into my quick combo and he is overrun (1-0). He is on the play again. I cast an early Torpor Orb to shut down his stuff, then resolve Lost Legacy naming Engineered Explosives, resolve a Bridge, and get the hand extension GG sir (2-0). G3 he's on the play again. I stumble on mana; reach 2 mana on my third turn, cast a Brutality that I only escalate once. In retrospect I should've double-escalated because I died two turns later after having resolved a Bridge but one mana short of being able to empty my hand on time and save me. Not a lot of breathing room! (2-1) G4 I'm on the play at last. He draws all the hate, but I have all the counter-hate cards. My t1 I Thoughtseize away his Stony Silence, just like it should be. His t2 his Ancient Stirrings reveals and Engineered explosives. My t3 I Lost Legacy for EE and let him draw one (because «who cares?» Thought I). He then lands a Worship (wtf?!). Crane beats down. I discard his Elspeth, Sun's Champion. I resolve Tezzeret which is answered by his topdeck Stony Silence slam. I then slam an Ensnaring Bridge down myself. Tezz ults, I take it home: 3-1.
Fun night. Deck feels strong. Lili was a little awkward all night; not even sure when I want her in anymore. Good testing in and Drazi; we're ok. Lost Legacy is great. Pre-release foils are gorgeous!
@Joker: Awesome to see you live spellslinging! Entertaining match, congrats!
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
So ended up at SCG Balt for modern side events yesterday. Played our favorite cyborg, went 4-0. I'm usually on Abzan at comp rel but the updates to the deck recently really took it to another level. If I was around to run it back tomorrow at the classic I would deck feels great. the rogue-ish nature of the deck really gives us an edge as people often don't know how to play against us.
Here's the list:
main takeaways -
My deck is basically a port of the legacy version of this deck. it is a prison version of the deck.
the manabase is pretty greedy but 4x ghost quarter is a total all-star. being able to handle tron, infect, and manlands effectively g1 is huge. also crucible lock. it fixes your mana with darksteel. inventor's fair->get crucible gives you an unreal lategame.
Modern is in an aggro free-fall so my mb is totally skewed towards hosing unfair aggro. deck DOES NOT LOSE to stony silence, especially with the Ensouls in the board. I previously used TKS in this slot but the ensouls are fantastic for racing. chalice for 1, play ensoul beats a lot of decks.
THIS DECK NEEDS CHALICE. We are a durdly, tapout prison deck trying to exist with decks that kill you t2/t3 effectively. Chalice has won me so many games against most of the field and I find I only board them out vs Valakut, chord/company decks that aren't elves, and jund/junk. speaking of, jund is a horrible matchup but is winnable as we have some big threats that if we can stick, we can ride out (ex darksteel 5/5).
Tezz decks are also extremely hard to play I've found. Very unforgiving of mistakes and because of the multitude of lines, you need to be able to switch between prison/aggro/control/ramp very fast. knowing your role at any given turn means the difference between winning and losing. the deck turns the corner REALLY fast due to Tezz making 5/5's and thopter/sword but going in early before they're locked out or mis-evaluating board states = death. The power level of the deck is very high but the difficulty may be contributing to the reasons we don't see it placing well more often. I've been playing with Tezz in legacy for over 5 years but still make decision tree mistakes! additionally, it requires fast play/quick math if you're on the prison versions (similar to lantern) or you may get draws.
The sideboard needs some serious work....suggestions? I'm definitely interested in ppl's experience with Lost Legacy.
g1: crucible lock with inventor's fair/gq, he can't get to 5 mana to activate his o-stone
g2: t4 ugin I scoop with some walker's on board
g3: chalice for 1 on t2, t3 animate blinkmoth, ensoul. goes the distance while I gq him.
sb out -> brutality, dismember, damnations
sb in -> glen elendra, ensoul, revokers, 1 ts
Matchup 2: Burn
g1: chalice for 1. he scoops stuck on 1 land
g3: he has a fast draw and I keep a sketchy hand.
g4: THIS GAME WAS CRAZY. I end up with 2x chalice for 1, I'm at 4. I play a 3rd chalice for 2, he skullcracks me down to 1. He's at 15. I win with a crane and blinkmoth attacking through a bridge while he bricks on rift bolt.critical play that allowed me to survive was gqing myself to play 1 less life through an eidolon with a dismember. gq is fantastic and provided all sorts of color fixing with darksteel all day.
Matchup 3: 8-rack
g1: he gets me with triple rack, almost get there going all in on thopters with no sword.
g2: chalice for 1, he turtles with bridge but i get a tezz down and eventually dome him for 18 with just the tezz.
g3: chalice for 1, get ensoul and some flying beaters and race his racks.
Matchup 4: Burn
g1: chalice
g2: he mulliganes to 4
sb: same
Modern is starting to look a lot more like legacy, making Chalice/Bridge that much better. One thing I would posit is if you're going to make a Tezz deck I'd steer away from discard/aggro as you end up like a bad Jund/Junk or bad Affinity. Tezz has only traditionally shown success as a prison deck when ppl are doing broken stuff. it does less well when there's lot of midrange/abrupt decay.
Totally agree that 4 ghost quarter is right for this deck because manlands and big mana decks can be an issue. Ive been playing memoricide in side to deal with combo because It can still be played in turn 3 with mana rock and they don't get to draw cards like life legacy.
chalice shores up the deck's weakness, which is we tapout for 3-4 mana spells. playing a chalice early means that we're usually safe against the decks that can kill us with spells early, then bridge/walkers come down to shut the door. additionally, a lot of sb anti-artifact (nature's claim ,etc...), bolt, and path are shut off, which means 5/5's, and planeswalkers are generally going to stick around longer. it helps beat stony silence decks as they can land a stony then we land a walker with them locked out via chalice.
we lose when decks can double spell better than us, which is most of them. our spells are generally not very efficient, but are haymakers. I also enjoy having some auto-win cards and this is the most synergistic with our deck.
I'd rather not transform into a bad midrange deck via adding discard or a bad affinity by trying to go aggro with platings/1-drops and such. the benefits of most midrange decks is that they're hard to hate out and we are not.
I definitely think chalice is a playstyle thing.
my manabase is definitely greedy. I forgot that I switched the tolaria west to a darkslick shores last minute. I haven't had many color screw issues due to the talismans/opal and being able to gq my darksteels. I definitely value using my manabase as another strategic tool but that's me. I could see adding another tar pit or switching to river of tears/darkslick instead of fetch/shock
1-2-2. Beat R/U Eldrazi, Draw against Eltronzi and some combo deck, lost against Jund and a weird BW Spirits deck?
So this is my first ever event so I will try to let ya guys know;
Game One, R/U Eldrazi (2-0). Honestly he never been against Tezz. Both times Tezz ult for the win
Game Two, Jund. I did not have answers and his draws and skill beat mine, 2-0.
Game Three. This game was wierd. He ran Eltronzi. I got game one, 5/5 beatdown via Tezz. Game two I Needle'd Karn, Ugin whipped my ass. Game three, needled Ugin, couldn't find my second needle for Karn. He restarted the game 3 times with Karn due to poor plays and draws on both sides, went into turns.
Game Four. This was an odd game with a deck I've never seen. It was the Anafenza/Kitchen Finks/Unlimited Life Gain/Viscera Seer/Murderous Recap combo. Got him game one, games two and three he tied the whole "infinite combo I win" tactic, played it out. Game two lost out when he killed my bridges, game three was a draw when I needle'd the combo.
Game Five. I have no clue. He ran some sort of wierd BW spirit control build? Game one he had 3x paths in hand, could not 5/5 citadel, did not draw hand kills after 5 turns. Second game he boarded exiles (shoulda known!!), got me after killing 3x bridges via Austere Command after I used my only Negate in hand to a previous Stony Silence.
I went home sort of crappy, I want this to work. BUT! In the end, it was a couple hour drive, had a free room, learned some stuff, and got my first ever card (Revised Balance) signed by Mr. Poolse.
@piproberts: hey thanks for streaming again today. Wish I could've stayed for longer but unfortunately, I couldn't. I watched the rest of the stream later on. There are some moments I wish I would've been there to assist on gameplay. Like this one: if you would've cast the Blood Moon, it would've turned those Wild Nacatls into 1/1 kittens. Then you could've freely Collective Brutalitized their feline arses dead.
Also, you had some sideboard issues you wanted to discuss? I'm all ears. And, on a more general note, there are some things I like very much about the Grixis build. However the more I see Saheeli, the less I like her. She really does nothing lol. We have so little sorcery-speed duplicate targets, and 3 mana for a couple of scry 1 effects seems like a horrible return on investment to me. In a modern cutthroat world. Eh. At last, the combo that we never seem to reach seems to be mostly waste of slots. I see Saheeli (+Colossus) as a horribly worse Nahiri (+Emmy).
My kind advice would be to steer away from her. We know I'm all Bridges and thopters, heh.
So ended up at SCG Balt for modern side events yesterday. Played our favorite cyborg, went 4-0. I'm usually on Abzan at comp rel but the updates to the deck recently really took it to another level. If I was around to run it back tomorrow at the classic I would deck feels great. the rogue-ish nature of the deck really gives us an edge as people often don't know how to play against us.
Awesome man! Congrats. Keep it up. Others have very well covered the Chalice question I think. It really boils down to what you're gunning for and what's your playstyle.
My opponent was on Tron. I learned this by the quick keep after she won the die roll, slammed an Urza's Tower into an Expedition Map. Great. THE bad matchup. I drop a delta and pass. She drops a Mine and main phase grabs a Power Plant. I fetch a steam vents to fake grixis or jeskai, untap and drop an Academy Ruins. She plays the power plant, then Karn, then like all good tron players who see red mana up, she pluses him to 10. Sweet. I give her the extra Academy ruins I have in my hand. I untap, play glint nest crane, which she reads (yes!), then I find and play Pithing Needle. A few blank turns for her later, and a lot of sylvan scryings, she casts a World breaker onto my board of Synod Sanctum, Pithing Needle, Academy Ruins, Thopter Foundry, Trinket Mage, Glint-Nest Crane, and Ensnaring Bridge. I have all of my mana untapped. She targets Pithing needle with the cast trigger, I assume hoping then to minus Karn into my Ensnaring Bridge and go crazy. I exile the pithing needle in response with Synod Sanctum, then with World breaker still on the stack, I sac Synod Sanctum to bring back the Needle and rename Karn. End step I put the Synod Sanctum back on top. I cryptic command an Ugin, Pithing needle Oblivion Stone, and manage a Tezzeret the Seeker to find Sword of the Meek and complete my ValueTown combo. She dies a thoptery death two turns later. I'm surprisingly up a game vs. tron.
Game two she keeps and drops a turn 1 Grove of the Burnwillows and plays Map. I go nutty and play turn 1 citadel, mox, chalice on zero, then Chalice on 1. She untaps, draws a card, and passes. woah. I draw Crucible of worlds and play it, but with no Ghost Quarter yet. She untaps and draws a land (Sanctum of Ugin) then searches up Power plant. I draw Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, play-n-plus and get a Bridge. She sighs. She untaps, draws a card and plays the Power Plant, followed by another Map (countered) and then a sylvan scrying for Tower. Panic mode beginning for my side of the table. I untap and see the beautiful artwork by Heather Hudson. Turns out Tron can't win when they can't play lands. She scoops after I strip mine her entire side of the table.
2-0
I have 1 minute before the round is over and find that my friend has just been Spiritcooked by infect in 6 total turns. Great. His day hasn't started well.
Round two. Jund em Out-of-time.
I find my seat and stare at a Jund player. Three turns in he has Bob, Grim Lavamancer, and Tarmogoyf. I have Relic of Progenitus, Pithing (naming Scooze), Glint nest, Mox, and a bridge. He finds out the hard way that Trading Post does everything, including trading useless goats for useful Thopter Foundries that had been Inquisitioned away. Game one ends on turn 300 with him nearly killing himself with two Bobs, and with an artifact Bob of my own on my side of the table. He's at two, I have Inventor's Fair he passes the turn, and at EOT i go get a pyrite spellbomb to force the concession. Game 2 I eat 7/8 Tarmogoyfs as he curves T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Goyf, T3 InquisitionGoyf, T4 Ancient Grudge, Flashback, Kill you?. Game three we go to time but only because I miraculously topdeck a Trinket mage in extra turn 3 after a MASSIVE play-mistake on my part (Drop tezz the seeker on an empty board and minus to go grab a thopter foundry that LOL I exiled all my swords with relic in order to shrink-a-goyf the turn before... shoulda grabbed bridge). The trinket mage finds explosives that enables me to clear the board of scooze goyf goyf bob and what was sure to be lethal the next turn. Could I have grabbed the pyrite and hope he dies to his own bob? Maybe, but he's more likely holding removal for bob in his hand. His life:4 my life:9. Turn 5 I draw Cryptic command which reads Cycling 1UUU, and draw into an Island. Oh Well.
1-1-1
Let's check in with the friend. He's just beaten BW Eldrazi and Taxes. He's happy.
Round three. Dredge.
Game one I have 2 lands, Tezzeret agent of bolas, relic, glint nest, explosives, bridge. Snap keep. I play the Relic first (if you play explosives on 1 turn 1, you're likely to have the burn or zoo or death's shadow player play REALLY SLOWLY against you). My opponent audibly curses under his breath, untaps and plays faithless looting. teehee. No Dredger discarded, but he does discard bloodghast and conflagrate. I play land then bird and see a mox, so i grab it and play it. My opponent untaps, draws, smiles, and casts Mom Hugs. Crap, Shinyfirely is tapped out! He discards Bloodghast and GGT, first dredge hits another GGT, 2nd dredge hits Stinky, third dredge finishes and he brings back Narcomoeba x2 and prized amalgam. I untap and draw no land, but I tap out again for Ensnaring Bridge after activating metalcraft by wasting explosives on zero. two cards left in hand. He untaps, dredges a life from the loam and plays it, plays a land from the grave and brings back one bloodghast. Opponent attacks, I block where I can, I'm at 15. I untap, draw another bridge. I really have to get this hand empty. I play another bridge and pass. This is where it gets interesting. My opponent untaps, dredges life from the loam again. Casts it. Picks up three lands from his graveyard. Casts it again, picks up a wooded foothills, a blood crypt, and a card I cant identify before he sets them all on top of his hand (with the top card of his face-down hand the one i didn't see. I say "Hey, let me see that last one, I didn't see it. He picks up his hand. He says "what?" I say "I didnt see THAT card" (pointing to the back card) and say "let me see that card it should be a land". My opponent isn't a very good magician, so it's easy to spot when he flicks the back card of his hand to the front, then shows three cards: blood crypt, wooded foothills, and copperline gorge. I call for a judge. With my hand raised, my opponent confesses that he actually grabbed Faithless Looting, but he didn't mean to, and that I should let him take it back real quick. Judge comes over. I tell her what happened. She gets the head judge involved. 26 minutes later my opponent has been disqualified. At this point I'm physically ill and my body decides enough is enough. My only thought process is this: He wanted the extra dredge to try and find his other two bloodghasts, then he'd play a land and conflag my blocker dead and me to 10, then attack with all of his bloodghasts and narcomoebas. Oh well.
Lets check in on the friend. He's in game 3 against RW Sun and Moon. He's under double stony silence but he has Nahiri held down with Pithing needle, three bridges, a grafdigger's cage (well done there), 2 Darksteel Citadel, and a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas on 4 counters. Life totals? Him 15, Opponent 11. I expect a Tezz -4 handshake, but see him plus tezz. I look at my opponent's graveyard and see lightning helixes. Better safe than sorry. Two turns later he ultimates tezz for 16 to seal the victory. He's 2-1.
I also did play one exhibition game vs Affinity during the players' meeting. Nice kid from Portland, OR. He jumped out early to get 4 poison on me and get my life to 4, but couldn't handle Pyrite on inkmoth followed by cracking explosives on 2, then explosives on 1, then explosives on 2 again. Everyone around our quick game was laughing at the hysteria brought on by Academy Ruins and Engineered Explosives. Also, turns out Pyrite spellbomb clears out Etched Champions wearing Cranial Plating, whoda thought?
I was thinking about Chalice, another matchup that it will take from bad to good is Lantern Control, they can lock us out super easily with their 3-4 Pithing Needles. Chalice on 1 crushes that deck.
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Modern: Tezzeret
???
Legacy: Imperial Painter aka. Strawberry Shortcake Tezzeret, aka. Dack in Black
@sirpsychomantis One of my playtest partners just bought into Lantern and we have been testing a lot of games. Pithing Needle, Chalice, EE, Academy Ruins and Tezzeret are easily the best cards in the match up for us. They have multiple game 1 abrupt decays that can snipe down our hate artifacts and ghost quarter to hit our academy ruins, and needle to hit our tezzeret. The best way to beat them is to force them to have all the answers to your diversity of threats. Post board the match up gets better in my opinion because we can take out all of our removal and bridges for more relevant interaction.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Brutality, discard, bridge, chalice in the SB, the couple removal spells, Crane and Skite. You have a million tools for the MU !
The mulligan decision is indeed the way you get better in this MU, and in Magic in general. Two pieces amongst the things I listed is needed in your opener. Tezz is very bad in the MU, and the combo is not enough on its own. Bridge will do the job only if you can empty your hand with Brutality by T3, basically.
Edit : on a side note, I don't understand why Bridge is cut for Damnation in some lists. Bridge stops a wider range of creatures, costs less mana and less colors. We can't ignore Inkmoth, Wurmcoil, Breach for Titan, Grisel and Emmy, Smasher, Nahiri's ultimate, etc... and we can't ignore the clunky manabase we're playing with. But maybe that's just me, since I never questionned the 4 Bridges, or if I did, I came back to the full 4-of inevitably.
@Awemaigawd I don't believe I have ever dropped a match to infect. Could you share your list with us? I could probably point you in the direction. Between Engineered Explosives, Chalice of the Void, Pithing Needle, Ensnaring Bridge, Spellskite, spot removal and LotV It feels almost unloseable.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
@headminerve Although bridge is great at stopping combat, creatures have so many other utility functions in magic that it doesn't hurt to have a way to sweep them all away (Tasigur, Grim Lavamancer, Noble Hierarch, Eldrazi Displacer, Tidehollow Sculler, Thought Knot, Platinum angel, Platinum Emperion etc.) Also the second bridge is usually not a good draw. Damnation also allows for plays that bridge doesn't. Make 5/5 indestructible, then wrath the board, swing 5.
I managed to get a match in on MTGO. Found out that my mic quality is terrible so there is no commentary. Hopefully in the future I can get a better mic and explain my thought process. Tezzeret Online
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
@headminerve Although bridge is great at stopping combat, creatures have so many other utility functions in magic that it doesn't hurt to have a way to sweep them all away (Tasigur, Grim Lavamancer, Noble Hierarch, Eldrazi Displacer, Tidehollow Sculler, Thought Knot, Platinum angel, Platinum Emperion etc.) Also the second bridge is usually not a good draw. Damnation also allows for plays that bridge doesn't. Make 5/5 indestructible, then wrath the board, swing 5.
I managed to get a match in on MTGO. Found out that my mic quality is terrible so there is no commentary. Hopefully in the future I can get a better mic and explain my thought process. Tezzeret Online
Thank you for your thoughts. I do disagree about the 2nd bridge being a waste. I love Ensnaring Bridge every time I see it. Most artifact removal in the metagame currently is targeted. Having multiple Ensnaring Bridges is a great insurance policy against a stray Nature's Claim. I also find that Pithing Needle does well enough to stop most of those creatures, with the exception of the two platinum creatures. Those are both solved with Executioner's Capsule or Cryptic Command.
@Awemaigawd I see the infect matchup as one where I prioritize Chalice on 1, and Explosives in hand. If I have 2 lands and a Chalice in hand vs Infect, I know I'll have time to develop my board.
Standing up in protest against that general statement! @Shinyfirefly put it well. I'll tell my experience:
Bridge is a total hoser-baller. Running the fourth one increases your odds of hose-balling your opponent by (veeeeery roughly) 25%. I'll take that 25% more hose-balling.
When you do land one, if they have no answer, you often just win. If they did have or draw into an answer, options are: you've stripped it off with discard, you have some form of insurance policy (Skite, or another Bridge), or you better find a way to stabilize again (strategically chumps with thopters or take it like a man until you find another Bridge).
My point being that the fourth Bridge makes it so that your Bridge lock will not only come up more often, but will be 25% more «sticky», in that you'll find another Bridge (insurance) sooner. Your postboard games will be more resilient to Stony Silence by 25%. List goes on.
Yes, minus some points for the couple of times there's going to be two Bridges in your opener and it can be an actual nuisance, but you can mulligan that. Those games are far-and-between and are manageable. I'll take my 25% increase on the way 90% games play out.
Not bashing on Damnation though: it's a GREAT plan-B. But the second Bridge you draw, the fourth Bridge in the deck, has been phenomenal to me.
That being said, thanks for the video, will look it up
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
@Awemaigawd: there are games / nutdraws from Infect that are just stupid and not many decks would survive against. It's why it's dubbed as so unfair. This being said:
On your «bonus game» opener of 2x DC, Delta, Fair, Opal, Extraction and Spellskite, although Spellskite is a good card against them, I don't think this is a keep. Think about it: you have a wooping 5 mana sources, one card that doesn't impact the board (Extraction) AND NO WAY TO ENABLE IT (targeted discard), and then one good card (Skite). You're all-in on skite, and knowing that these Infect guys have (even MB) 2x Twisted image and probably a playset of Nature's Claim against which Skite is just dead... Factor in that YOUR DECK LIKES TO MULLIGAN because on an all-in Bridge plan such as this list, a sixer + scry is often better at setting up a fast Bridge, than a seven card hand, well, this one was an easy mull to me.
Keep it up!
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MODERN Blue Lantern, UBx Tezzerator. OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Infect is pretty unfair particularly with become immense giving them such a power boost. Also stuff like blighted agent and sb with spell pierce/counters, and distortion strike typically means that you will need to have a spot removal on turn 1 or turn 2. Although the deck does requires as much thought as Affinity in their openers, i think infect is a bit too fast at times.
They don't really have as much hate as other "unfair" decks in the format such as stony silence for affinity or grafdiggers cage/relic of progenitus for dredge. Where its easy to cast and stalls enough for more fair decks to find an opportunity.
@Shinyfirefly: Yes, but even if you have a turn 2 CotV you can still be dead by turn 3 due to Become Immense. Of course the infect player also has to have pretty lucky draws.
Factor in that YOUR DECK LIKES TO MULLIGAN because on an all-in Bridge plan such as this list, a sixer + scry is often better at setting up a fast Bridge, than a seven card hand, well, this one was an easy mull to me.
Thanks for your reply, I'll take the mulligan advise into consideration next time!
Keep in mind, chalice on one does not stop engineered explosives on one. Just play EE for UU or 1U and you're fine!
Yes, the deck mulligans to 6 or 5 a lot. It's pretty resilient with mulligans though, but you really need a specific type of hand with 2-3 mana sources (ideally a rock of some sort) and a lockpiece (bridge/chalice) to ramp into or early tezz/citadel beat.
Infect is pretty rough sometimes. It really depends on if you get your chalice or bridge of early and down low, and/or can shoot their guy with some mana up once they become immense it after playing their git probes into your chalice. Collective Brutality is great in this matchup - killing their dude and enabling a sick 0 card hand bridge.
It is generally easy enough to set up a decent flow of cards with tezz, glint-nest and thirst for knowledge if you need to, so them mulling down to their T2 rest in piece with no other threats is usually not a huge deal as it gives you time to set up shop.
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Exact same 75 as last monday. Report:
R1 Necrotic Ooze combo: weird deck but guy has been playing for years and is pretty potent at it. It's also highly anti-artifact tuned. I'm on the play. G1 I disrupt his plan and naturally draw into Thopter-Sword and Nihil Spellbomb, he never recovers (1-0). G2 I keep a 6 featuring Nihil Spellbomb. I choose to sandbag it as I know for a fact that he runs some Abrupt decay and I am also expecting some form of Naturalize effect. I haven't seen any discard spell yet. Well, on his turn 2 he Thoughtseizes the Spellbomb away and I quickly die to some GY shenanigans (1-1). Noteworthy: my GY hate of choice is 2x Grafdigger's Cage in the board and it doesn't affect this deck at all. G3 I keep a 6 featuring good hate, I Needle his Fauna Shaman, land a Bridge and drop a Witchbane Orb to save me from Masticore bolts. In his words: «Some godly topdecks» allow him to answer all of that within a couple of turns and I die to an infinite/infinite Necrotic Ooze that blows up artifacts at will. Sided in Lost Legacy aiming it at Ooze, but never saw it. Lost 1-2.
R2 New player on Grixis Delver: G1 is an Ensnaring Bridge game with Spellskite backup (1-0). G2 a Young Pyro populates the board. I stabilize with Bridge, but he finds Kolaghan's command at the right time (1-1). G3 I control him pretty solidly but time is called and nobody is dead yet. Tied 1-1. I consider this a good matchup. Too bad it played out too slowly, will be more careful next time.
R3 8-Rack: G1 I Engineered Explosives away all his The Rack effects. I topdeck Tezz, cast it and he falls too far behind to recover (1-0). G2 He gives me the play, I keep a shaky six with not enough mana sources, Engineered explosives, Lili and Tezz. I get my hand shred appart quick and die slowly to the Rack (1-1). G3 I choose to be on the DRAW, and keep an all-in 7 with Swamp, Citadel, Fair, Talisman, Talisman, Inquisition of Kozilek and Tezz. I ramp out into an indestructible 5/5 then start ticking up Tezz to gain card advantage; his Shrieking Afflictions are sitting uselessly on the board as he dies to the beatdown. Won that one at least, and not a particularly easy match-up I'd say, 2-1.
Bonus: Then got in some reps I wanted against Bant Eldrazi, we agree on a best of 5. He is on the play. G1 I disrupt him some into my quick combo and he is overrun (1-0). He is on the play again. I cast an early Torpor Orb to shut down his stuff, then resolve Lost Legacy naming Engineered Explosives, resolve a Bridge, and get the hand extension GG sir (2-0). G3 he's on the play again. I stumble on mana; reach 2 mana on my third turn, cast a Brutality that I only escalate once. In retrospect I should've double-escalated because I died two turns later after having resolved a Bridge but one mana short of being able to empty my hand on time and save me. Not a lot of breathing room! (2-1) G4 I'm on the play at last. He draws all the hate, but I have all the counter-hate cards. My t1 I Thoughtseize away his Stony Silence, just like it should be. His t2 his Ancient Stirrings reveals and Engineered explosives. My t3 I Lost Legacy for EE and let him draw one (because «who cares?» Thought I). He then lands a Worship (wtf?!). Crane beats down. I discard his Elspeth, Sun's Champion. I resolve Tezzeret which is answered by his topdeck Stony Silence slam. I then slam an Ensnaring Bridge down myself. Tezz ults, I take it home: 3-1.
Fun night. Deck feels strong. Lili was a little awkward all night; not even sure when I want her in anymore. Good testing in and Drazi; we're ok. Lost Legacy is great. Pre-release foils are gorgeous!
@Joker: Awesome to see you live spellslinging! Entertaining match, congrats!
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Here's the list:
main takeaways -
My deck is basically a port of the legacy version of this deck. it is a prison version of the deck.
the manabase is pretty greedy but 4x ghost quarter is a total all-star. being able to handle tron, infect, and manlands effectively g1 is huge. also crucible lock. it fixes your mana with darksteel. inventor's fair->get crucible gives you an unreal lategame.
Modern is in an aggro free-fall so my mb is totally skewed towards hosing unfair aggro. deck DOES NOT LOSE to stony silence, especially with the Ensouls in the board. I previously used TKS in this slot but the ensouls are fantastic for racing. chalice for 1, play ensoul beats a lot of decks.
THIS DECK NEEDS CHALICE. We are a durdly, tapout prison deck trying to exist with decks that kill you t2/t3 effectively. Chalice has won me so many games against most of the field and I find I only board them out vs Valakut, chord/company decks that aren't elves, and jund/junk. speaking of, jund is a horrible matchup but is winnable as we have some big threats that if we can stick, we can ride out (ex darksteel 5/5).
Tezz decks are also extremely hard to play I've found. Very unforgiving of mistakes and because of the multitude of lines, you need to be able to switch between prison/aggro/control/ramp very fast. knowing your role at any given turn means the difference between winning and losing. the deck turns the corner REALLY fast due to Tezz making 5/5's and thopter/sword but going in early before they're locked out or mis-evaluating board states = death. The power level of the deck is very high but the difficulty may be contributing to the reasons we don't see it placing well more often. I've been playing with Tezz in legacy for over 5 years but still make decision tree mistakes! additionally, it requires fast play/quick math if you're on the prison versions (similar to lantern) or you may get draws.
The sideboard needs some serious work....suggestions? I'm definitely interested in ppl's experience with Lost Legacy.
2 Blinkmoth Nexus
4 Polluted Delta
2 Watery Grave
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tolaria West
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Inventors' Fair
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Spellskite
3 Glint-Nest Crane
4 Talisman of Dominance
1 Mox Opal
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Damnation
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Dismember
2 Collective Brutality
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Thoughtseize
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Smother
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
2 Ensoul Artifact
Matchup 1: Tron Superfriends
g1: crucible lock with inventor's fair/gq, he can't get to 5 mana to activate his o-stone
g2: t4 ugin I scoop with some walker's on board
g3: chalice for 1 on t2, t3 animate blinkmoth, ensoul. goes the distance while I gq him.
sb out -> brutality, dismember, damnations
sb in -> glen elendra, ensoul, revokers, 1 ts
Matchup 2: Burn
g1: chalice for 1. he scoops stuck on 1 land
g3: he has a fast draw and I keep a sketchy hand.
g4: THIS GAME WAS CRAZY. I end up with 2x chalice for 1, I'm at 4. I play a 3rd chalice for 2, he skullcracks me down to 1. He's at 15. I win with a crane and blinkmoth attacking through a bridge while he bricks on rift bolt.critical play that allowed me to survive was gqing myself to play 1 less life through an eidolon with a dismember. gq is fantastic and provided all sorts of color fixing with darksteel all day.
sb out: 2 bridges, 1 damnation
sb in: smother, ensoul, 1 ts
Matchup 3: 8-rack
g1: he gets me with triple rack, almost get there going all in on thopters with no sword.
g2: chalice for 1, he turtles with bridge but i get a tezz down and eventually dome him for 18 with just the tezz.
g3: chalice for 1, get ensoul and some flying beaters and race his racks.
sb out: bridges, dismember, damnation,
sb in: glen elendra, ensoul, 2 ts (to snipe racks), revoker
Matchup 4: Burn
g1: chalice
g2: he mulliganes to 4
sb: same
Modern is starting to look a lot more like legacy, making Chalice/Bridge that much better. One thing I would posit is if you're going to make a Tezz deck I'd steer away from discard/aggro as you end up like a bad Jund/Junk or bad Affinity. Tezz has only traditionally shown success as a prison deck when ppl are doing broken stuff. it does less well when there's lot of midrange/abrupt decay.
I think we are well-positioned at the moment!
chalice shores up the deck's weakness, which is we tapout for 3-4 mana spells. playing a chalice early means that we're usually safe against the decks that can kill us with spells early, then bridge/walkers come down to shut the door. additionally, a lot of sb anti-artifact (nature's claim ,etc...), bolt, and path are shut off, which means 5/5's, and planeswalkers are generally going to stick around longer. it helps beat stony silence decks as they can land a stony then we land a walker with them locked out via chalice.
we lose when decks can double spell better than us, which is most of them. our spells are generally not very efficient, but are haymakers. I also enjoy having some auto-win cards and this is the most synergistic with our deck.
I'd rather not transform into a bad midrange deck via adding discard or a bad affinity by trying to go aggro with platings/1-drops and such. the benefits of most midrange decks is that they're hard to hate out and we are not.
I definitely think chalice is a playstyle thing.
my manabase is definitely greedy. I forgot that I switched the tolaria west to a darkslick shores last minute. I haven't had many color screw issues due to the talismans/opal and being able to gq my darksteels. I definitely value using my manabase as another strategic tool but that's me. I could see adding another tar pit or switching to river of tears/darkslick instead of fetch/shock
UsedThis Deck
1-2-2. Beat R/U Eldrazi, Draw against Eltronzi and some combo deck, lost against Jund and a weird BW Spirits deck?
So this is my first ever event so I will try to let ya guys know;
Game One, R/U Eldrazi (2-0). Honestly he never been against Tezz. Both times Tezz ult for the win
Game Two, Jund. I did not have answers and his draws and skill beat mine, 2-0.
Game Three. This game was wierd. He ran Eltronzi. I got game one, 5/5 beatdown via Tezz. Game two I Needle'd Karn, Ugin whipped my ass. Game three, needled Ugin, couldn't find my second needle for Karn. He restarted the game 3 times with Karn due to poor plays and draws on both sides, went into turns.
Game Four. This was an odd game with a deck I've never seen. It was the Anafenza/Kitchen Finks/Unlimited Life Gain/Viscera Seer/Murderous Recap combo. Got him game one, games two and three he tied the whole "infinite combo I win" tactic, played it out. Game two lost out when he killed my bridges, game three was a draw when I needle'd the combo.
Game Five. I have no clue. He ran some sort of wierd BW spirit control build? Game one he had 3x paths in hand, could not 5/5 citadel, did not draw hand kills after 5 turns. Second game he boarded exiles (shoulda known!!), got me after killing 3x bridges via Austere Command after I used my only Negate in hand to a previous Stony Silence.
I went home sort of crappy, I want this to work. BUT! In the end, it was a couple hour drive, had a free room, learned some stuff, and got my first ever card (Revised Balance) signed by Mr. Poolse.
Also, you had some sideboard issues you wanted to discuss? I'm all ears. And, on a more general note, there are some things I like very much about the Grixis build. However the more I see Saheeli, the less I like her. She really does nothing lol. We have so little sorcery-speed duplicate targets, and 3 mana for a couple of scry 1 effects seems like a horrible return on investment to me. In a modern cutthroat world. Eh. At last, the combo that we never seem to reach seems to be mostly waste of slots. I see Saheeli (+Colossus) as a horribly worse Nahiri (+Emmy).
My kind advice would be to steer away from her. We know I'm all Bridges and thopters, heh.
Awesome man! Congrats. Keep it up. Others have very well covered the Chalice question I think. It really boils down to what you're gunning for and what's your playstyle.
No love for Inventors' Fair? Man are you missing on something! Cheers on piloting Tezz @ the GP tho
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
First, the list:
2 Academy Ruins
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Glimmervoid
1 Inventors' Fair
6 Island
1 Polluted Delta
2 River of Tears
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
Artifacts
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Elixir of Immortality
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Synod Sanctum
2 Thopter Foundry
1 Trading Post
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Glint-Nest Crane
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
3 Trinket Mage
Spells
2 Cryptic Command
Tezzerets
3 Tezzeret the Seeker
2 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spellskite
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Lost Legacy
Round One: Urza's Real Estate
My opponent was on Tron. I learned this by the quick keep after she won the die roll, slammed an Urza's Tower into an Expedition Map. Great. THE bad matchup. I drop a delta and pass. She drops a Mine and main phase grabs a Power Plant. I fetch a steam vents to fake grixis or jeskai, untap and drop an Academy Ruins. She plays the power plant, then Karn, then like all good tron players who see red mana up, she pluses him to 10. Sweet. I give her the extra Academy ruins I have in my hand. I untap, play glint nest crane, which she reads (yes!), then I find and play Pithing Needle. A few blank turns for her later, and a lot of sylvan scryings, she casts a World breaker onto my board of Synod Sanctum, Pithing Needle, Academy Ruins, Thopter Foundry, Trinket Mage, Glint-Nest Crane, and Ensnaring Bridge. I have all of my mana untapped. She targets Pithing needle with the cast trigger, I assume hoping then to minus Karn into my Ensnaring Bridge and go crazy. I exile the pithing needle in response with Synod Sanctum, then with World breaker still on the stack, I sac Synod Sanctum to bring back the Needle and rename Karn. End step I put the Synod Sanctum back on top. I cryptic command an Ugin, Pithing needle Oblivion Stone, and manage a Tezzeret the Seeker to find Sword of the Meek and complete my ValueTown combo. She dies a thoptery death two turns later. I'm surprisingly up a game vs. tron.
Game two she keeps and drops a turn 1 Grove of the Burnwillows and plays Map. I go nutty and play turn 1 citadel, mox, chalice on zero, then Chalice on 1. She untaps, draws a card, and passes. woah. I draw Crucible of worlds and play it, but with no Ghost Quarter yet. She untaps and draws a land (Sanctum of Ugin) then searches up Power plant. I draw Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, play-n-plus and get a Bridge. She sighs. She untaps, draws a card and plays the Power Plant, followed by another Map (countered) and then a sylvan scrying for Tower. Panic mode beginning for my side of the table. I untap and see the beautiful artwork by Heather Hudson. Turns out Tron can't win when they can't play lands. She scoops after I strip mine her entire side of the table.
2-0
I have 1 minute before the round is over and find that my friend has just been Spiritcooked by infect in 6 total turns. Great. His day hasn't started well.
Round two. Jund em Out-of-time.
I find my seat and stare at a Jund player. Three turns in he has Bob, Grim Lavamancer, and Tarmogoyf. I have Relic of Progenitus, Pithing (naming Scooze), Glint nest, Mox, and a bridge. He finds out the hard way that Trading Post does everything, including trading useless goats for useful Thopter Foundries that had been Inquisitioned away. Game one ends on turn 300 with him nearly killing himself with two Bobs, and with an artifact Bob of my own on my side of the table. He's at two, I have Inventor's Fair he passes the turn, and at EOT i go get a pyrite spellbomb to force the concession. Game 2 I eat 7/8 Tarmogoyfs as he curves T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Goyf, T3 Inquisition Goyf, T4 Ancient Grudge, Flashback, Kill you?. Game three we go to time but only because I miraculously topdeck a Trinket mage in extra turn 3 after a MASSIVE play-mistake on my part (Drop tezz the seeker on an empty board and minus to go grab a thopter foundry that LOL I exiled all my swords with relic in order to shrink-a-goyf the turn before... shoulda grabbed bridge). The trinket mage finds explosives that enables me to clear the board of scooze goyf goyf bob and what was sure to be lethal the next turn. Could I have grabbed the pyrite and hope he dies to his own bob? Maybe, but he's more likely holding removal for bob in his hand. His life:4 my life:9. Turn 5 I draw Cryptic command which reads Cycling 1UUU, and draw into an Island. Oh Well.
1-1-1
Let's check in with the friend. He's just beaten BW Eldrazi and Taxes. He's happy.
Round three. Dredge.
Game one I have 2 lands, Tezzeret agent of bolas, relic, glint nest, explosives, bridge. Snap keep. I play the Relic first (if you play explosives on 1 turn 1, you're likely to have the burn or zoo or death's shadow player play REALLY SLOWLY against you). My opponent audibly curses under his breath, untaps and plays faithless looting. teehee. No Dredger discarded, but he does discard bloodghast and conflagrate. I play land then bird and see a mox, so i grab it and play it. My opponent untaps, draws, smiles, and casts Mom Hugs. Crap, Shinyfirely is tapped out! He discards Bloodghast and GGT, first dredge hits another GGT, 2nd dredge hits Stinky, third dredge finishes and he brings back Narcomoeba x2 and prized amalgam. I untap and draw no land, but I tap out again for Ensnaring Bridge after activating metalcraft by wasting explosives on zero. two cards left in hand. He untaps, dredges a life from the loam and plays it, plays a land from the grave and brings back one bloodghast. Opponent attacks, I block where I can, I'm at 15. I untap, draw another bridge. I really have to get this hand empty. I play another bridge and pass. This is where it gets interesting. My opponent untaps, dredges life from the loam again. Casts it. Picks up three lands from his graveyard. Casts it again, picks up a wooded foothills, a blood crypt, and a card I cant identify before he sets them all on top of his hand (with the top card of his face-down hand the one i didn't see. I say "Hey, let me see that last one, I didn't see it. He picks up his hand. He says "what?" I say "I didnt see THAT card" (pointing to the back card) and say "let me see that card it should be a land". My opponent isn't a very good magician, so it's easy to spot when he flicks the back card of his hand to the front, then shows three cards: blood crypt, wooded foothills, and copperline gorge. I call for a judge. With my hand raised, my opponent confesses that he actually grabbed Faithless Looting, but he didn't mean to, and that I should let him take it back real quick. Judge comes over. I tell her what happened. She gets the head judge involved. 26 minutes later my opponent has been disqualified. At this point I'm physically ill and my body decides enough is enough. My only thought process is this: He wanted the extra dredge to try and find his other two bloodghasts, then he'd play a land and conflag my blocker dead and me to 10, then attack with all of his bloodghasts and narcomoebas. Oh well.
Lets check in on the friend. He's in game 3 against RW Sun and Moon. He's under double stony silence but he has Nahiri held down with Pithing needle, three bridges, a grafdigger's cage (well done there), 2 Darksteel Citadel, and a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas on 4 counters. Life totals? Him 15, Opponent 11. I expect a Tezz -4 handshake, but see him plus tezz. I look at my opponent's graveyard and see lightning helixes. Better safe than sorry. Two turns later he ultimates tezz for 16 to seal the victory. He's 2-1.
I also did play one exhibition game vs Affinity during the players' meeting. Nice kid from Portland, OR. He jumped out early to get 4 poison on me and get my life to 4, but couldn't handle Pyrite on inkmoth followed by cracking explosives on 2, then explosives on 1, then explosives on 2 again. Everyone around our quick game was laughing at the hysteria brought on by Academy Ruins and Engineered Explosives. Also, turns out Pyrite spellbomb clears out Etched Champions wearing Cranial Plating, whoda thought?
CHANGES GOING FORWARD
Here's where the deck is currently:
2 Academy Ruins
3 Darksteel Citadel
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Glimmervoid
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Swamp
5 Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 River of Tears
3 Watery Grave
Artifacts
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Opal
2 Pithing Needle
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Sword of the Meek
1 Synod Sanctum
3 Thopter Foundry
1 Trading Post
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Glint-Nest Crane
2 Trinket Mage
Spells
2 Cryptic Command
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
Tezzerets
2 Tezzeret the Seeker
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Spellskite
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Lost Legacy
Modern:
???
Legacy:
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
The mulligan decision is indeed the way you get better in this MU, and in Magic in general. Two pieces amongst the things I listed is needed in your opener. Tezz is very bad in the MU, and the combo is not enough on its own. Bridge will do the job only if you can empty your hand with Brutality by T3, basically.
Edit : on a side note, I don't understand why Bridge is cut for Damnation in some lists. Bridge stops a wider range of creatures, costs less mana and less colors. We can't ignore Inkmoth, Wurmcoil, Breach for Titan, Grisel and Emmy, Smasher, Nahiri's ultimate, etc... and we can't ignore the clunky manabase we're playing with. But maybe that's just me, since I never questionned the 4 Bridges, or if I did, I came back to the full 4-of inevitably.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
I managed to get a match in on MTGO. Found out that my mic quality is terrible so there is no commentary. Hopefully in the future I can get a better mic and explain my thought process. Tezzeret Online
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Thank you for your thoughts. I do disagree about the 2nd bridge being a waste. I love Ensnaring Bridge every time I see it. Most artifact removal in the metagame currently is targeted. Having multiple Ensnaring Bridges is a great insurance policy against a stray Nature's Claim. I also find that Pithing Needle does well enough to stop most of those creatures, with the exception of the two platinum creatures. Those are both solved with Executioner's Capsule or Cryptic Command.
Bridge is a total hoser-baller. Running the fourth one increases your odds of hose-balling your opponent by (veeeeery roughly) 25%. I'll take that 25% more hose-balling.
When you do land one, if they have no answer, you often just win. If they did have or draw into an answer, options are: you've stripped it off with discard, you have some form of insurance policy (Skite, or another Bridge), or you better find a way to stabilize again (strategically chumps with thopters or take it like a man until you find another Bridge).
My point being that the fourth Bridge makes it so that your Bridge lock will not only come up more often, but will be 25% more «sticky», in that you'll find another Bridge (insurance) sooner. Your postboard games will be more resilient to Stony Silence by 25%. List goes on.
Yes, minus some points for the couple of times there's going to be two Bridges in your opener and it can be an actual nuisance, but you can mulligan that. Those games are far-and-between and are manageable. I'll take my 25% increase on the way 90% games play out.
Not bashing on Damnation though: it's a GREAT plan-B. But the second Bridge you draw, the fourth Bridge in the deck, has been phenomenal to me.
That being said, thanks for the video, will look it up
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
On your «bonus game» opener of 2x DC, Delta, Fair, Opal, Extraction and Spellskite, although Spellskite is a good card against them, I don't think this is a keep. Think about it: you have a wooping 5 mana sources, one card that doesn't impact the board (Extraction) AND NO WAY TO ENABLE IT (targeted discard), and then one good card (Skite). You're all-in on skite, and knowing that these Infect guys have (even MB) 2x Twisted image and probably a playset of Nature's Claim against which Skite is just dead... Factor in that YOUR DECK LIKES TO MULLIGAN because on an all-in Bridge plan such as this list, a sixer + scry is often better at setting up a fast Bridge, than a seven card hand, well, this one was an easy mull to me.
Keep it up!
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
They don't really have as much hate as other "unfair" decks in the format such as stony silence for affinity or grafdiggers cage/relic of progenitus for dredge. Where its easy to cast and stalls enough for more fair decks to find an opportunity.
Keep in mind, chalice on one does not stop engineered explosives on one. Just play EE for UU or 1U and you're fine!
Infect is pretty rough sometimes. It really depends on if you get your chalice or bridge of early and down low, and/or can shoot their guy with some mana up once they become immense it after playing their git probes into your chalice. Collective Brutality is great in this matchup - killing their dude and enabling a sick 0 card hand bridge.
It is generally easy enough to set up a decent flow of cards with tezz, glint-nest and thirst for knowledge if you need to, so them mulling down to their T2 rest in piece with no other threats is usually not a huge deal as it gives you time to set up shop.