I had one of my non-tezzerator playing friends help me tune this list. He is a rather experienced Lantern control player and was able to shed share some insights to help lead us towards a more optimized build. I got this idea after hearing about Radouf hanging out on the Lantern forums. After working together for a few hours we came to a few conclusions which you can see reflected in the decklist above.
- Much like Skred Red, we have the tools to beat Dredge in our arsenal. These tools (Relic of Progentius and Nihil Spellbomb) allows us to streamline our more powerful plays by cantripping or just stopping some decks dead in their tracks for the low, low cost of 1 mana. We decided that if we were going to go the route where we wanted to beat graveyard strategies consistently in game 1, we were going to mean it.
- It took longer than it should have for me to be persuaded by the ways of the crane. However given that turn 3 Ensnaring Bridge and Thopter/Sword is the route to victory in so many games it only makes sense to have the most efficient ways to find them quickly. 4 Crane. 4 Serum Visions. Never look back.
- "But racing089, didnt you just tell us that you don't like collective brutallity!?" I did. My Lantern playing friend was very passionate that I play the card in the main and some number of copies in the sideboard. I comprised at 1/1 and still wasn't thrilled with the card overall. That being said I am going to keep it around until I can think of a flexible or powerful enough card to put in that slot.
- Remind me why we ever play less than 4 of Tezzeret? I have been playing between 3-4 but his raw power level is at 11 when the games routinely boil down to winning from behind a bridge. If you are playing 3-4 Bridges you should have 4 Tezzerets. Period.
- My sideboard is largely targeted towards gaining the most percentage points and less so on fixing bad matchups. I wanted to play sideboard cards that once I side them in, I am a heavy favorite to win now that I drew one. Otherwise I will hold true to the game 1 plan. Whats that saying they have in modern community? "When in doubt, Tezz them out."
My report is as follows:
2-1 GW Tron. Raced to 5/5 beats while disrupting with Pithing needle and sideboard thoughtsieze. If they don't have turn 3 Karn, we can race them.
2-1 Jund. He did what Jund does and beat me in game 2, but a batterskull equipped to an indestructible 5/5 land took us all the way.
2-0 Eldrazi and Taxes. If they don't land either of the Thalias I don't care what they are doing, I will kill them Tezz or Thopter/Sword handily.
2-0 Mardu Nahari. The games drug on forever given the large amount of sideboard hate for us in RW but was able to grind it out and win with crane beats w
2-0 UW Gifts Tron. This deck was actually to slow to keep up with the continued must answer threats of thopter/sword, LoTV, and Tezzeret. Graveyard hate *****s out Unburial Rites cheesing us as well.
2-0 Living End. He can't beat 4 game 1 graveyard hate pieces. By the time he is ready to start casting big guys and blow up the bridge he is dead to a Tezz Ultimate.
One of big take aways from the tournaments and working with a similar player but yet an outside perspective, was that we really need to rely more on the raw power of our deck like many other tier 1 strategies. Focus on cutting the fat and play the most streamlined and consistent game we can. If we drew it up to have Bridge into Tezzeret or Thopter/Sword than lets play disruption and digging effects to get us there.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
@Radouf I always think about Welding Jar for the same reasons but I don't play it over Spellskite because Spellskite has more utility in more places. Also, neither saves you from a Shatterstorm because of the can't regenerate clause. Spellskite being great against infect, burn, bogels, Kolghan's Command, Malestrom Pulse, etc. Makes it a better choice than Welding Jar.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Definitely agree about cutting the fat as well as main deck GY hate (especially on MTGO, where I feel Dredge is an even higher %).
How are you doing with no mana rocks? I feel like every other time I play it is either "Man I wish I had a mana rock in this hand" to "Can't believe I drew 2 stupid mana rocks late game". Radouf is firmly in the 3/2 rock/opal split while you have cut all but 1. I'm still torn.
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Modern: Tezzeret
???
Legacy:
Imperial Painter aka. Strawberry Shortcake
Tezzeret, aka. Dack in Black
Since Mox Opal costs zero I effectively count it as an artifact land. I cut the mana rocks a while back and haven't looked back. They are just so low impact. When you need a land and you have a rock, or you need action and you have a rock. The only upside it has in my deck is t3 tezz or t4 batterskull. I have plenty of other things to be doing.
@Racing089: Congrats, awesome!!!! Were both GPTs combined only six rounds of magic?
To adress your points:
- Relic: I agree that we should start playing more Relic of Progenitus, and MB makes sense going into the Open. Relic grinds better than Spellbomb and, seriously, it should be fairly easy to play around exiling our own sword, neh?
- Brutality: I am suspecting that you will be persuaded by Brutality sooner than later, too!
- Tezz: Running 3 Tezz in my build was a concession to the main focus of my build shifting to Ensnaring Bridge. Tezz always is the hardest/latest card to (be) cast and, back when the metagame shifted to lots of hyper aggro stuff (Infect/Suicide Zoo/Dredge/Burn/Affinity all consolidating their mainstays status), I'd die because of Tezz stuck in my hand and Bridge offline too often to my taste... But yeah, as I write this, I'm realizing that we now have Glint-Nest Crane and Collective Brutality to deal with 'em small critters that use to slip under. Wasn't the case back then. Will consider going back up to 4.
- SB: thinking out loud some more; my SB really is designed to «cover everything» (and have overlapping cards between match-ups) more than really kill specific ones. Isn't the latter kind of win-more, since we have very reasonable game vs most of the field??? So, if I look at my whole SB strategy, it is meant to make most average (~50-50%) match-ups closer to ~60-40 (the way Jund does it), and bad match-ups (Tron, Valakut; ~30-70%) up to ~40-60. Maybe it's not the best strategy? Would you break down your sideboard for us and guesstimate the impact of each cards on tight match-ups?
On my part, SB cards for big mana decks are pretty much:
i. Thoughtseize (self-explanatory; get under),
ii. Lost Legacy (pull out stuff; win-con or lock-breaker),
iii. Surgical extraction (more of the latter),
iv. Needle (self-explanatory),
v. Liliana (to put a cap on ressources; ie. It's harder for Scapeshift to reach 7 lands with her ticking up, unanswered in play -- I really feel like she doesn't do enough to be honest here. She shines against control, but who plays control nowaday? I could bump her out for the time being.)
... And like I said, this all adds up to gaining us, what? 10% post-board. Obviously some cards overlap with other match-ups but, that's a lot of slots to be honnest. Maybe they should just be friggin' Blood Crypt and Blood Moons!
Important semi-random side note, while talking win % points: playskill, correct sideboarding and mulliganing, and understanding what the opponent's gameplan is; which most of our opponents DON'T because ROGUE we are; in my recent experience DO add up to some sizeable chunk of win percentage points.
Also, I really like Thopter Spy Network. BGx match-up breaker, amirite? It's a shame I don't see these decks much anymore, I'd totally jump on this train.
- Lastly, I understand the argument for cutting rocks. My rocks may still be relics from a pre-Crane & Brutality era. They do give us explosive combo starts though, like T3 online combo with spare mana up, which I like very much and happens reliably enough. Also, I am running MB Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize which all synergize very well with Talisman of Dominance (as does Serum Visions) while ramping out. This «sets us up» faster. And IoK and TS are very important bits of interaction that I'm not close to cutting, ever. Reaaaaaaally powerful. Discard into combo/Bridge beats almost anything but big mana decks, and is as slickest as things get, IMO.
@SirPsychoMantis: I guess a middle ground on Mana rocks could be Mind Stone, but you need to have a very streamlined mana-base for that.
I really don't like Liliana of the Veil in our 75. She's good, but she doesn't help really any of our bad matchups. I've moved to more copies of Collective Brutality and Lost Legacy.
@racing089 I have faced GR tron in my spare times with my list and i feel it can be still a tough matchup without the crucible of worlds and GQ combo to completely lock them out. I highly recommend Lost Legacy, against many match ups, such a jund, or tron. being able to cast Lost Legacy and name hate such as abrupt decay, or a key piece such as Karn, or ulamog, typically makes lost legacy at least a 2 for 1 at best 4 for 1.
I think serum vision albeit a good card, Inquisition of Kozilek would be a better inclusion as being able to get rid of a key card that our opponent has is invaluable, great insight in our opponent's plan. Also serum visions can create awkward situations with bridge.
Part of me really wants to run Spine of Ish Sah to stop Stony Silence, but the vast majority of me knows that Spine is way too expensive for a deck with Bridge and without Cloudposts or Workshops. Still, Spine...
@racing089 I have faced GR tron in my spare times with my list and i feel it can be still a tough matchup without the crucible of worlds and GQ combo to completely lock them out. I highly recommend Lost Legacy, against many match ups, such a jund, or tron. being able to cast Lost Legacy and name hate such as abrupt decay, or a key piece such as Karn, or ulamog, typically makes lost legacy at least a 2 for 1 at best 4 for 1.
Just nitpicking: we can't count nabbing cards from their deck with LL as X for 1, as the common definition of X for 1 has to impact the board and hand; ie. immediate ressources available. While your argument stands true in that it cuts them off tools that are often crucial to their gameplan (or destroying ours), I don't think it falls under the X for 1 category.
I think serum vision albeit a good card, Inquisition of Kozilek would be a better inclusion as being able to get rid of a key card that our opponent has is invaluable, great insight in our opponent's plan.
I think you and I and @Racing089 (!page) are all working toward the same goal: setting up and winning.
Serum Visions works in accelerating our set up, while hand disruption works in slowing down theirs (buying us time in the process, so achieving a similar goal in allowing us to set up and win). Floor on Serum Visions seems higher as it can still accelerate you in the late game, where IoK can likely be dead when everything is on board, and Thoughtseize worst than dead as it will tax 2 life off you to keep hellbent for Bridge. But ceiling on hand disruption is really, really higher IMO: we get to not only break their gameplan and get info, but often take the ONLY answer they could have to ours; or their hate card. Moreover, I've said it before, when we lose, it's more often than not in the early game. We got super powerful engines for the late game. Hence why I run targeted discard #1-5 over, say, Serum visions #4. I think you should consider that, M. Racing.
Just for curiosity and not implying anything here, have you guys read «Thoughtseize you» by Reid Duke? It describes how the effect is one of the most powerful effects in MTG, although it comes at a cost.
@radouf By the time we both have no cards in hand we should already be winning. I just see serum visions not being necessary and while it does help get to our pieces, our deck practically sets itself up. During my fnm nights and cockatrice testing i never felt the need for serum visions, the deck tends to set itself up as long as u keep smart and reasonable hands. I felt inquisition helps vs all aggro match ups by taking out a burn spell, or key affinity piece, or small tron piece, etc. Im not saying we should jam the lists with thoughtseize or inquisition but rather 1 or the other. 3-4 copies depending on meta.
Our deck tries to lock our opponents out and set an "unwinnable" or stalled game state for our opponent first before transitioning into a beatdown deck with w/e wincon u prefer.
With Lost Legacy while it does not actively impact the board state. Our other pieces should be doing the job for us. Lost Legacy helps in narrowing the options our opponents have to either win or get out of bad positioning. we take out cards that did not effect the board state for something that while doesnt deal with the board state deals with player options. Im sure we all agree Ensnaring bridge or Thoptersword does stall the game for our plan to work. (With stuff like a well timed grudge, or abrupt decay, or ulamog to crush our dreams)
Last Friday I was faced against Jund and i went to LL naming Maelstrom Pulse. his hand had 2 abrupt decays and 1 maelstrom pulse and other stuff. (ALways name decay first) I made some misplays but LL lets me see all possible threats my opponent has 1 more abrupt decay, a maelstrom pulse, and an ancient grudge. Even without him having hate in hand slamming a bridge or getting thoptersword assembled is just step 1 of the plan. step 2 is having to protect bridge, which only has to suffer from our hand(thus i disagree with serum visions) and opponents hate while progressing to our wincon.
Ive wanted the deck to be an actively controlling control deck similar to lantern control but better. Not something like jeskai control which has removal spells and counters and is able to have position to serum visions effectively.
@AGreenCoincidence I feel like you are misunderstanding the practical application of Lost Legacy. It is the very last card I would want to have in the Jund match. You are always going to 1 for zero yourself. Always! That is a fast way to lose against Jund. I understand that you think you are creating "virtual" card advantage through reducing their outs to your lock pieces. But you are living in magical Christmas land if you think you are going to have enough time to take an entire turn off cast a LL while they bash you to death. You are better off playing any other threat in that slot, such as LoTV. Where if they don't kill it they lose.
This also explains your stance on hand disruption over serum visions. Hand disruption is always tempo negative. If you haven't read "Thoughtseize You" you should. It is one of the best magic articles ever written. Hand disruption is of course better when you can soon after jam a threat, but that is not likely to happen on a regular basis. Serum Visions however is tempo positive and makes the scenario of sticking the bridge more likely.
I am no arguing this just for the sake of arguing because I have the opinion that my way is the right way, but because I played hand disruption in the deck for a long, long time before deciding that Serum Visions was a better fit.
Like you said, if we are hellbent we are winning, but only if we are ahead once we are hellbent. If we get hellbent with no bridge staring down a threat, we are going to lose. Drawing a serum visions is much better than drawing a piece of hand disruption here.
Most importantly however, we have been taught time and time again that the best way to win a match is to aggressively push your game plan and force your opponent to have the answers. Serum Visions fits this much better in my opinion.
@shineyfirefly LoTV is simply the best threat card in our colors and it is borderline broken behind an ensnaring bridge. I think not playing it is simply a mistake because you will have games where you keep top decking dead cards when you just wish you had anything to pressure the opponent.
@Radouf Yes, unfortunately both GPT events had exactly 8 people which cuts to top 8 immediately. Mana rocks are great for fixing and ramping, I am simply not interested in taking my build in that direction. If i was going to play hand disruption again, I would likely go back to some number of Talismans as an effort to accelerate the time between the hand disruption and the threat, as well as a way to generate advantge while still casting hand disruption spells. People need to start jamming Thopter Spy Network. I played against a Jund opponent tonight who cast T1 thoughtseize to see Tezzeret and Thopter Spy Network. He had to take TSN because he could at least attack a Tezzeret.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
On side boarding. Everyone has different methods and strategies when it comes to side boarding. However there is a correct way to do it mathematically speaking. However guessing the numbers makes this near impossible without hard match up data. But we will do the best we can. Asthmatically your sideboard needs to work in conjunction with you mainboard to give you the greatest overall increase in match win percentage across the field. Intuitively this makes sense, winning more on average is the whole idea. The best way to do this is to pick out the decks you think you are most likely to face, have a plan for beating them, and then have a significantly better plan for beating them after sideboards. We reference throwing away the Tron match here all the time because I could play 15 sideboard cards all for tron and gain maybe a 15% win rate against 3.5% of the metagame leading to an average increase in match win percentage of .525%. Half a percent! Here is my guide and strategy.
Bant Eldrazi - 60/40_55/45 . I think our game one if great because of ensnaring bridge. We don't even need to get hellbent when we play it, only down to about 2 cards in hand most of the time. Crane can buy us time and they have no outs to Thopter/Sword. I sideboard: +1 Damnation +3 Thoughtseize -1 Collective Brutality -1 Pithing Needle -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek. This match is all about sideboarding for their sideboard in an effort no to lost percentage points. The game 2 Stony Silence and Worship can be a beating, as well as EE. Therefore the 3 Thoughtseize come in to try to rip these cards.
Burn - 40/60_45/55. We all agree this is hard match for us. The route to success usually involves an early thopter/sword or they stumble and race with 5/5 artifacts. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 Witchbane Orb (+1 EE if Nactl Burn). -3 Ensnaring Bridge -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Pithing Needle. Bridge is too slow in this match and you can't take time off to cantrip with a relic. All of your cards need to have an impact to buy time to a tezz or thopter/sword.
Infect - 55/45_65/35 Our game 1 is fine because we can bluff removal and countermagic to slow them down until we can stick a bridge. -1 Mox Opal -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek -1 Batterskull -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Nihil Spellbomb -2 Tezzeret -1 Ensnaring Bridge. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Flaying Tendrills +3 Thoughtseize +1 EE +1 Pithing Needle. We are lucky enough to get a ton of splash hate here. We have a fair amount of main deck cards that are too slow or have no effect and we are able to upgrade them for cheap interaction.
Affinity - 50/50_58/42 (I don't think we are 60/40 postboard, but we are not 55/45 either.) This game depends greatly on the opener they have versus the interaction they draw. Unless they get a blazing fast hand or ornithopter cranial plating to sneak under the bridge i feel alright in this match. -1 Batterskull -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Nihil Spellbomb -2 Tezzeret -1 LoTV -1 Ensnaring Bridge. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Damnation +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 EE +1 Pithing Needle. The idea here is to keep the high impact cards off the board, or bait them into huge blowouts with boardwipes. Many times they will overextend playing around racing a bridge. Remember that Spellskite can steal instant speed cranial plating equips and modular triggers from ravager.
Jund - 55/45_55_45 This match we just win on better card quality and selection. Tezzeret is an absolute bomb in this match. They can't beat an indestructible 5/5 without a LoTV edict. -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek -1 Executioner's Capsule -1 Mox Opal. +1 Spellskite +1 Damnation +1 Thopter Spy Network +1 Pithing Needle. Be wary of ancient grudge, shatterstorm, and K command. All great cards against us, however we have cards that they simply can not beat without drawing a great sequence. Cards like TSN, Tezzeret and Batterskull.
Dredge - 60/40_50/50 This game 1 gets significantly better with game 1 relics. I feel that it sways that match 20 percentage points from the 40/60 it would have been otherwise. But ancient grudge can put a real wrinkle in our plans games 2-3. -1 Executioner's Capsule -3 LoTV. +1 Spellskite +1 Damnation +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 Grafdiggers Cage (If you are on the play bring in 3 Thoughtseize over 2 tezz and a thopter foundry to steal what is likely the only enabler in their hand, time walking them multiple turns.)
Abzan - 45/55_40/60 You may be wondering why i rate this so differently then Jund and it is mostly due to the availability of Lingering Souls and Path to exile being much better cards against us. The 5/5 beatdown is not as likely and Lingering souls can buy them tons of time to hit Abrupt Decay and Malestrom Pulse. They also have the best artifact hate in game 2 with Stony Silence. The side boarding is the same as Jund.
So how did we do with our sideboard?
(.1)*.092=(.0092)
.1*.081=.0081
.2*.076=.0152
.16*.075=.012
X
(.2)*.042=(.0084)
(.1)*.040=(.004)
=.0137
With this strategy I gain 1.37& against the tier 1 metagame by sideboarding. This may not seem great but we are in the worst 2 sideboard colors and we are side boarding against their sideboard. The best players in the game boast a 60% win percentage against the field. This makes 1.37% feel much more relevant. Let me know what you guys think, and feel free to give us your plan and numbers to see how we all matchup against the field. It is late, but it would be relevant to also conclude our G1 avg win percentage across the field when comparing how much better we get post board. Hope this helps everyone.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
On side boarding. Everyone has different methods and strategies when it comes to side boarding. However there is a correct way to do it mathematically speaking. However guessing the numbers makes this near impossible without hard match up data. But we will do the best we can. Asthmatically your sideboard needs to work in conjunction with you mainboard to give you the greatest overall increase in match win percentage across the field. Intuitively this makes sense, winning more on average is the whole idea. The best way to do this is to pick out the decks you think you are most likely to face, have a plan for beating them, and then have a significantly better plan for beating them after sideboards. We reference throwing away the Tron match here all the time because I could play 15 sideboard cards all for tron and gain maybe a 15% win rate against 3.5% of the metagame leading to an average increase in match win percentage of .525%. Half a percent! Here is my guide and strategy.
Bant Eldrazi - 60/40_55/45 . I think our game one if great because of ensnaring bridge. We don't even need to get hellbent when we play it, only down to about 2 cards in hand most of the time. Crane can buy us time and they have no outs to Thopter/Sword. I sideboard: +1 Damnation +3 Thoughtseize -1 Collective Brutality -1 Pithing Needle -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek. This match is all about sideboarding for their sideboard in an effort no to lost percentage points. The game 2 Stony Silence and Worship can be a beating, as well as EE. Therefore the 3 Thoughtseize come in to try to rip these cards.
Burn - 40/60_45/55. We all agree this is hard match for us. The route to success usually involves an early thopter/sword or they stumble and race with 5/5 artifacts. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 Witchbane Orb (+1 EE if Nactl Burn). -3 Ensnaring Bridge -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Pithing Needle. Bridge is too slow in this match and you can't take time off to cantrip with a relic. All of your cards need to have an impact to buy time to a tezz or thopter/sword.
Infect - 55/45_65/35 Our game 1 is fine because we can bluff removal and countermagic to slow them down until we can stick a bridge. -1 Mox Opal -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek -1 Batterskull -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Nihil Spellbomb -2 Tezzeret -1 Ensnaring Bridge. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Flaying Tendrills +3 Thoughtseize +1 EE +1 Pithing Needle. We are lucky enough to get a ton of splash hate here. We have a fair amount of main deck cards that are too slow or have no effect and we are able to upgrade them for cheap interaction.
Affinity - 50/50_58/42 (I don't think we are 60/40 postboard, but we are not 55/45 either.) This game depends greatly on the opener they have versus the interaction they draw. Unless they get a blazing fast hand or ornithopter cranial plating to sneak under the bridge i feel alright in this match. -1 Batterskull -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Nihil Spellbomb -2 Tezzeret -1 LoTV -1 Ensnaring Bridge. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Damnation +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 EE +1 Pithing Needle. The idea here is to keep the high impact cards off the board, or bait them into huge blowouts with boardwipes. Many times they will overextend playing around racing a bridge. Remember that Spellskite can steal instant speed cranial plating equips and modular triggers from ravager.
Jund - 55/45_55_45 This match we just win on better card quality and selection. Tezzeret is an absolute bomb in this match. They can't beat an indestructible 5/5 without a LoTV edict. -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek -1 Executioner's Capsule -1 Mox Opal. +1 Spellskite +1 Damnation +1 Thopter Spy Network +1 Pithing Needle. Be wary of ancient grudge, shatterstorm, and K command. All great cards against us, however we have cards that they simply can not beat without drawing a great sequence. Cards like TSN, Tezzeret and Batterskull.
Dredge - 60/40_50/50 This game 1 gets significantly better with game 1 relics. I feel that it sways that match 20 percentage points from the 40/60 it would have been otherwise. But ancient grudge can put a real wrinkle in our plans games 2-3. -1 Executioner's Capsule -3 LoTV. +1 Spellskite +1 Damnation +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 Grafdiggers Cage (If you are on the play bring in 3 Thoughtseize over 2 tezz and a thopter foundry to steal what is likely the only enabler in their hand, time walking them multiple turns.)
Abzan - 45/55_40/60 You may be wondering why i rate this so differently then Jund and it is mostly due to the availability of Lingering Souls and Path to exile being much better cards against us. The 5/5 beatdown is not as likely and Lingering souls can buy them tons of time to hit Abrupt Decay and Malestrom Pulse. They also have the best artifact hate in game 2 with Stony Silence. The side boarding is the same as Jund.
So how did we do with our sideboard?
(.1)*.092=(.0092)
.1*.081=.0081
.2*.076=.0152
.16*.075=.012
X
(.2)*.042=(.0084)
(.1)*.040=(.004)
=.0137
With this strategy I gain 1.37& against the tier 1 metagame by sideboarding. This may not seem great but we are in the worst 2 sideboard colors and we are side boarding against their sideboard. The best players in the game boast a 60% win percentage against the field. This makes 1.37% feel much more relevant. Let me know what you guys think, and feel free to give us your plan and numbers to see how we all matchup against the field. It is late, but it would be relevant to also conclude our G1 avg win percentage across the field when comparing how much better we get post board. Hope this helps everyone.
I dont know how did you get 1.37 but error margin is bigger for sure for such untested strategy as Tezzeret Foundry
@Timba Did you even read it? It goes into detail to show you how I get 1.37%. My increased or decreased win ratio multiplied by each decks meta share. The matchup number come from my personal experience of playing many, many games with the deck. This is as close to accurate we are going to get without playing hundreds of games of skilled pilots against each other for each match. If you disagree with my numbers, please provide your reasoning and your numbers.
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Hey thanks for the write-up @Racing089. Reading your numbers, I'm realizing that it's likely my 3x Inquisition of Kozilek that's giving me some pre-board win % points against Burn, Infect and Affinity, likely coming at the cost of some % against Jund and Dredge. Yep, and the third Collective Brutality in the sideboard is a testament to my commitment to beating Burn and Infect. Also, maybe your Abzan data is a little dated (some pre-Crane era data, perhaps?), but I've found that with Glint-Nest Crane, Lingering Souls is hardly a threat to us anymore.
So I'll try to quickly breakdown my SB strategies and ratios so we can reflect upon the margins.
Bant Eldrazi: preboard 60/40 | postboard 55/45. -1 EE, -1 Spellbomb, -2 Brutality, -1 Sword, -1 Foundry (because SS); +1 Needle, +1 Torpor Orb, +1 Damnation, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Liliana of the Veil. Bridge and Needle on EE is mostly GG. They win when they T2-3 TKS our Bridge, or postboard T2 Stony Silence. Some Ratchet Bombs may challenge our general Bridge + Needle plan but between choosing wether they wanna blow up all the thopters, the engines, or the Bridge, they're usually in a tight spot anyway.
Burn: 50/50 | 45/55. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Capsule, -2 Thoughtseize, -1 Bridge; +1 Skite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Brutality, +1 Witchbane Orb. Do they have their nut-draw? If not, you'll stabilize at like 4-6 life and let them have one topdeck before you effectively shut the door.
Infect: 60/40 | 55/45. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Sword, -1 Foundry, -1 Tezz; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Brutality, +1 Flaying Tendrils. Do they have their nut-draw? Same question.
Affinity: 55/45 | 55/45. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Capsule, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Serum Visions, -1 Tezz; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Damnation. Are we T3 dead? If not, Crane and Thopters will buy us enough time to turn the game around. Their postboard Thougthseize and Stubborn Denial can hurt us pretty bad, since we're relying on a couple of hosers to really turn the game around.
Jund: 50/50 | 50/50. +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Damnation, +2 Liliana (on the play), +1 Tendrils (on the play); -1 Spellbomb, -2 Thoughtseize, -1 IoK, -2 Brutality (on the play). This is one close match-up. Unlike @Racing089, I consider the Jund match-up harder than the Abzan math-up since the former has Kolaghan's Command to blow up our Bridge that's otherwise a total MVP; with a Bridge online, all we have to worry about is keeping Liliana off her ultimate. And of course, not lose the bridge. They can get overpowered by the Thopter-Sword engine, and we have to carefully set it up and cast the foundry with mana up so that we can activate it in response to whatever Decay or Pulse they might have for it, so we still get value off it. Also, Ooze is very playable around as we'll likely have more mana + spare artifacts than they have open G mana, so the first wave of thopters is good. They have no answer to a 5/5 Citadel. Now that I understand this match-up well, I'd totally run Thopter Spy Network if it was more common in my local meta. Halas, it isn't.
Abzan: 55/45 |50/50. See Jund, minus K-Kommand as an answer to our Bridge, but plus postboard occasional Stony Silence. Stony in the opener, and that we can't nab off discard, is pretty uncommon however. -1 Thougthseize, -1 Brutality, -1 Sword, -1 Foundry; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Damnation, +1 Surgical Extraction.
Dredge: 40/60 | 55/45. -2 Capsule, -2 Thoughtseize, -3 IoK, -2 Brutality; +1 Torpor Orb, +1 Graf's Cage, +1 Skite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Damnation, +1 Surgical Extraction, +1 Lost Legacy, +1 Witchbane Orb. G1 I usually do stabilize and when I lose it's to a big Conflagrate to the dome. Thing is, they always have it! Hence the SB-in Witchbane Orb. G2 is way better, but they still have some degree of inevitability once they've started dredging; they usually find Ancient Grudge fast, so redundancy of hate pieces is key. And spell-based ones like Surgical Extraction have a plus-value to them, since they're un-hatable back. Note: Thopter-Sword can't race Dredge without hate or disruption back-up.
UR Prowess/Titi: 70/30 | 65/35. Pretty much a walk in the park. They're not explosive enough, and both Thopter-Sword and Bridge hoses them 100%. Postboard be scared of Vandalblast and that's pretty much it. I'm toying with post-board 1 Lost Legacy here (because I can afford it) because they mostly have only one answer to our deck, and these guys always seem to switch between Vandalblast, Shatterstorm, Shattering Spree and Smash to Smithereens, sigh. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Capsule, -1 Serum Visions, -1 Tezz, +1 Spellskite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Damnation (+1 Lost Legacy as 61th if I'm feeling cocky).
Grixis Delver/Control: 65/35 | 60/40. As above, but with the occasional T2 Tasigur into counterspell our Bridge (which is playable around, but I'm still learning to slowroll discard to ensure that our payoff card resolve through countermagic) win. And Kolaghan's command as a threat to it. Postboard, same story as above. -1 EE, -1 Capsule, -2 Brutality; +1 Graf's Cage, +1 Skite, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Liliana.
Well, I could go on for UWR Nahiri (70/30 | 60/40): Bridge wins; Merfolk (65/35 | 50/50): Bridge wins, their postboard H's Recall can win; Abzan Company, Bant Company/Spirits and stuff but well, I'll finish by covering the big bad decks as I've worked on the Valakut match-up pretty extensively:
Valakut decks 30/70 | 45/55. -2 Crane (because artifact number decreases), -1 EE, -1 Spellbomb, -2 Capsule (if not Breach), -1 IoK, -1 Bridge, -1 Brutality; +1 Torpor Orb (if Titan), +1 Skite, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Liliana, +2 Lost Legacy, +1 Surgical, +1 Witchbane Orb. Titan Breach is the easiest one since it's hurt by Bridge, and Capsule can kill Emrakul mwehehehe; where Prismatic Omen Scapeshift is the toughest as it's all in on lands and that's specifically what we can't interact with. Moreover, it kills you for 3x more damages when it does. In these situations, even a T3 active Thopter-Sword combo seems cute at best. Plan is: disrupt them as much as possible, pull out Scapeshifts, land and protect Bridge (against Titans - but you have time, at least) and Witchbane Orb (at all freaking costs; this and Skite is our only interaction with Valakut triggers). Lili ultimate can set them back halfway. In all cases, get the fastest clock you can.
RG Tron 20/80 | 30/70. -2 Crane (because artifact number decreases), -1 Spellbomb, -2 Capsule, -1 Bridge, -2 Brutality; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Lili, +2 Lost Legacy, +1 Surgical. You have a shot to win the games where you can disrupt them off either pay-off cards (Karn, Stone, whatever fat thing) or enablers (Maps, Scrying, Eggs and UrzaTron). And they don't topdeck some while you're putting on a clock. Postboard plan is to Needle Stone, Lost Legacy Karn and Ulamog, Skite their Ugin, while disrupting and clocking them all you can. Yeah, it's not very effective because they have so much darn redundancy.
Noteworthy: U-Tron and Eldrazi Tron are nowhere as bad as RG Tron. U-Tron we can race since it's slower to win, and Eldrazi Tron is hurt pretty bad by Bridge.
Let me know what you think!
In light of these recent discussions, going forward, I'm contemplating running -1 (second) Capsule, -1 Spellbomb; +2 Relic and +1 (fourth) Tezz MB -- still need to cut one card there. Also looking at SB: -1 (second) Lost Legacy, -1 Surgical Extraction; +1 (third) Relic, +1 Welding Jar in the board also; the insurance against artifact boardwipes (yeah NOT Shatterstorm but, Vandalblast, (Creeping Corrosion?), O-Stone, EE, and Ratchet Bomb against Bant Eldrazi, etc.) -- Jar is free points against Valakut, to protect a Witchbane Orb for 0 mana. It can come in timely fetched off an Inventors' Fair, for example. Fourth Tezz gives us more points in this match-up also. Both cards will benefit the Jund match-up as well.
Also contemplating jamming a duo of Shadow of Doubt to gain even a couple more points against Valakut and Tron but historically, card has never kept in for more than a couple of days at best. I'll probably test it with a testing partner thursday night and report. Which leads me to:
/u/Alex says: «Grinning Totem and Jester's Cap [also] both work, they're just much more expensive (though much easier to cast). Bitter Ordeal also works [note: Tokens DO count for Gravestorm]. If you can get the land into a graveyard, such as through discard, milling, or land destruction, any Extirpate or Haunting Echoes effect should work. Depending on your mana base, you might prefer a different option.»
I find Jester's Cap particularly appealing, albeit slow a bit. Recurrable off Ruins sounds like a real grindy gameplan though, prolly as powerful as Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter against Scapeshift at least. What think we?
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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.
Hi everyone. Given recent discussion about win rates before and after sideboarding. I made this Super Fancy Spreadsheet on google sheets to allows us to collaborate on decklists and get a better understanding of how we are actually positioned in the metagame. Please contribute! It benefits not only you but all of us! I have already entered my own and Radoufs (but if you could provide a link to a decklist that would be most excellent) to give everyone an idea how it works. Thanks in advance!
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U/B Tezzeret Control
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
- G Column (+/- % Postboard) seems to be off. For example, for your Bant Eldrazi match-up, from 60% pre-board to 55% post-board, column shows a -10% difference.
- I think the main uses of such a tool should be:
a) to get a general idea of how the archetype fares against each Tier match-up, and
b) how each particular build fares in comparison to the average of all builds.
To do so, I suggest (a) you add a «all builds Average» column in E, so we get the average pre and post board win % against each tier archetype. People can then (b) compare their own build and win % (of which some points can surely be tied to their deckbuilding choices) to the average.
Lastly, shouldn't we expand all the way to tier 2?
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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.
-That is actually correct. If it goes from 60/40 to 55/45. A 20 percent split to a 10 percent split. However I see your point and Ill change it for easier use.
-I didn't think to do per a deck, I do like that idea. It helps you realize if you need to play relic or chalice or something of that nature to sure up a matchup. I'll try to jam that in.
-I excluded tier 2 decks because they change quite often. All of tier 2 makes up another 25% of the metagame and there are currently 11 decks in tier 2. We could incorporate it. Most might not have relevant match up data against a chunk of the tier 2 decks as well.
@Timba Did you even read it? It goes into detail to show you how I get 1.37%. My increased or decreased win ratio multiplied by each decks meta share. The matchup number come from my personal experience of playing many, many games with the deck. This is as close to accurate we are going to get without playing hundreds of games of skilled pilots against each other for each match. If you disagree with my numbers, please provide your reasoning and your numbers.
It was already mentioned there was a mistake you multiplying everything by 2. Thats why I didnt understand where 1.37 came from, real percent is 0.69 (0.32 full meta-wise).
There is a number of issues with this number
Confidence interval. Do you know that even 100 matches against particular deck is not enough to call results even close to accurate? How many matches vs every deck do you have?
If these numbers are not based on statistics, then they are even more inaccurate, one player can believe matchup is 60-40 and the other thinks it is 90-10 (your infect numbers seem optimistic to me, half of your deck does nothing against infect, infect is notorious for being able to win through disruption)
Your skill. Your results reflect your skill, they can't be generalised to be called this deck's winrate without adjustments.
Same with opponents' skill.
You took numbers from 2 month old article, metagame shifts fast nowadays and there was a new set out.
Exact list. Lists are not set in stone, did you get all your numbers from exact same list? Moving from 1 to 3 big hate cards can seriously improve a matchup.
All of this adds up to much more than 0.69%
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Inventors' Fair
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
3 Watery Grave
Artifacts:
1 Batterskull
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Executioner's Capsule
1 Mox Opal
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Spellskite
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
1 Collective Brutality
4 Glint-Nest Crane
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Serum Visions
1 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
2 Disfigure
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Flaying Tendrils
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Spellskite
1 Sun Droplet
2 Thopter Spy Network
3 Thoughtseize
1 Witchbane Orb
I had one of my non-tezzerator playing friends help me tune this list. He is a rather experienced Lantern control player and was able to shed share some insights to help lead us towards a more optimized build. I got this idea after hearing about Radouf hanging out on the Lantern forums. After working together for a few hours we came to a few conclusions which you can see reflected in the decklist above.
- Much like Skred Red, we have the tools to beat Dredge in our arsenal. These tools (Relic of Progentius and Nihil Spellbomb) allows us to streamline our more powerful plays by cantripping or just stopping some decks dead in their tracks for the low, low cost of 1 mana. We decided that if we were going to go the route where we wanted to beat graveyard strategies consistently in game 1, we were going to mean it.
- It took longer than it should have for me to be persuaded by the ways of the crane. However given that turn 3 Ensnaring Bridge and Thopter/Sword is the route to victory in so many games it only makes sense to have the most efficient ways to find them quickly. 4 Crane. 4 Serum Visions. Never look back.
- "But racing089, didnt you just tell us that you don't like collective brutallity!?" I did. My Lantern playing friend was very passionate that I play the card in the main and some number of copies in the sideboard. I comprised at 1/1 and still wasn't thrilled with the card overall. That being said I am going to keep it around until I can think of a flexible or powerful enough card to put in that slot.
- Remind me why we ever play less than 4 of Tezzeret? I have been playing between 3-4 but his raw power level is at 11 when the games routinely boil down to winning from behind a bridge. If you are playing 3-4 Bridges you should have 4 Tezzerets. Period.
- My sideboard is largely targeted towards gaining the most percentage points and less so on fixing bad matchups. I wanted to play sideboard cards that once I side them in, I am a heavy favorite to win now that I drew one. Otherwise I will hold true to the game 1 plan. Whats that saying they have in modern community? "When in doubt, Tezz them out."
My report is as follows:
2-1 GW Tron. Raced to 5/5 beats while disrupting with Pithing needle and sideboard thoughtsieze. If they don't have turn 3 Karn, we can race them.
2-1 Jund. He did what Jund does and beat me in game 2, but a batterskull equipped to an indestructible 5/5 land took us all the way.
2-0 Eldrazi and Taxes. If they don't land either of the Thalias I don't care what they are doing, I will kill them Tezz or Thopter/Sword handily.
2-0 Mardu Nahari. The games drug on forever given the large amount of sideboard hate for us in RW but was able to grind it out and win with crane beats w
2-0 UW Gifts Tron. This deck was actually to slow to keep up with the continued must answer threats of thopter/sword, LoTV, and Tezzeret. Graveyard hate *****s out Unburial Rites cheesing us as well.
2-0 Living End. He can't beat 4 game 1 graveyard hate pieces. By the time he is ready to start casting big guys and blow up the bridge he is dead to a Tezz Ultimate.
One of big take aways from the tournaments and working with a similar player but yet an outside perspective, was that we really need to rely more on the raw power of our deck like many other tier 1 strategies. Focus on cutting the fat and play the most streamlined and consistent game we can. If we drew it up to have Bridge into Tezzeret or Thopter/Sword than lets play disruption and digging effects to get us there.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
How are you doing with no mana rocks? I feel like every other time I play it is either "Man I wish I had a mana rock in this hand" to "Can't believe I drew 2 stupid mana rocks late game". Radouf is firmly in the 3/2 rock/opal split while you have cut all but 1. I'm still torn.
Modern:
Tezzeret
???
Legacy:
Imperial Painter aka. Strawberry Shortcake
Tezzeret, aka. Dack in Black
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
To adress your points:
- Relic: I agree that we should start playing more Relic of Progenitus, and MB makes sense going into the Open. Relic grinds better than Spellbomb and, seriously, it should be fairly easy to play around exiling our own sword, neh?
- Brutality: I am suspecting that you will be persuaded by Brutality sooner than later, too!
- Tezz: Running 3 Tezz in my build was a concession to the main focus of my build shifting to Ensnaring Bridge. Tezz always is the hardest/latest card to (be) cast and, back when the metagame shifted to lots of hyper aggro stuff (Infect/Suicide Zoo/Dredge/Burn/Affinity all consolidating their mainstays status), I'd die because of Tezz stuck in my hand and Bridge offline too often to my taste... But yeah, as I write this, I'm realizing that we now have Glint-Nest Crane and Collective Brutality to deal with 'em small critters that use to slip under. Wasn't the case back then. Will consider going back up to 4.
- SB: thinking out loud some more; my SB really is designed to «cover everything» (and have overlapping cards between match-ups) more than really kill specific ones. Isn't the latter kind of win-more, since we have very reasonable game vs most of the field??? So, if I look at my whole SB strategy, it is meant to make most average (~50-50%) match-ups closer to ~60-40 (the way Jund does it), and bad match-ups (Tron, Valakut; ~30-70%) up to ~40-60. Maybe it's not the best strategy? Would you break down your sideboard for us and guesstimate the impact of each cards on tight match-ups?
On my part, SB cards for big mana decks are pretty much:
i. Thoughtseize (self-explanatory; get under),
ii. Lost Legacy (pull out stuff; win-con or lock-breaker),
iii. Surgical extraction (more of the latter),
iv. Needle (self-explanatory),
v. Liliana (to put a cap on ressources; ie. It's harder for Scapeshift to reach 7 lands with her ticking up, unanswered in play -- I really feel like she doesn't do enough to be honest here. She shines against control, but who plays control nowaday? I could bump her out for the time being.)
... And like I said, this all adds up to gaining us, what? 10% post-board. Obviously some cards overlap with other match-ups but, that's a lot of slots to be honnest. Maybe they should just be friggin' Blood Crypt and Blood Moons!
Important semi-random side note, while talking win % points: playskill, correct sideboarding and mulliganing, and understanding what the opponent's gameplan is; which most of our opponents DON'T because ROGUE we are; in my recent experience DO add up to some sizeable chunk of win percentage points.
Also, I really like Thopter Spy Network. BGx match-up breaker, amirite? It's a shame I don't see these decks much anymore, I'd totally jump on this train.
- Lastly, I understand the argument for cutting rocks. My rocks may still be relics from a pre-Crane & Brutality era. They do give us explosive combo starts though, like T3 online combo with spare mana up, which I like very much and happens reliably enough. Also, I am running MB Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize which all synergize very well with Talisman of Dominance (as does Serum Visions) while ramping out. This «sets us up» faster. And IoK and TS are very important bits of interaction that I'm not close to cutting, ever. Reaaaaaaally powerful. Discard into combo/Bridge beats almost anything but big mana decks, and is as slickest as things get, IMO.
@SirPsychoMantis: I guess a middle ground on Mana rocks could be Mind Stone, but you need to have a very streamlined mana-base for that.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
I think serum vision albeit a good card, Inquisition of Kozilek would be a better inclusion as being able to get rid of a key card that our opponent has is invaluable, great insight in our opponent's plan. Also serum visions can create awkward situations with bridge.
I think you and I and @Racing089 (!page) are all working toward the same goal: setting up and winning.
Serum Visions works in accelerating our set up, while hand disruption works in slowing down theirs (buying us time in the process, so achieving a similar goal in allowing us to set up and win). Floor on Serum Visions seems higher as it can still accelerate you in the late game, where IoK can likely be dead when everything is on board, and Thoughtseize worst than dead as it will tax 2 life off you to keep hellbent for Bridge. But ceiling on hand disruption is really, really higher IMO: we get to not only break their gameplan and get info, but often take the ONLY answer they could have to ours; or their hate card. Moreover, I've said it before, when we lose, it's more often than not in the early game. We got super powerful engines for the late game. Hence why I run targeted discard #1-5 over, say, Serum visions #4. I think you should consider that, M. Racing.
Just for curiosity and not implying anything here, have you guys read «Thoughtseize you» by Reid Duke? It describes how the effect is one of the most powerful effects in MTG, although it comes at a cost.
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Our deck tries to lock our opponents out and set an "unwinnable" or stalled game state for our opponent first before transitioning into a beatdown deck with w/e wincon u prefer.
With Lost Legacy while it does not actively impact the board state. Our other pieces should be doing the job for us. Lost Legacy helps in narrowing the options our opponents have to either win or get out of bad positioning. we take out cards that did not effect the board state for something that while doesnt deal with the board state deals with player options. Im sure we all agree Ensnaring bridge or Thoptersword does stall the game for our plan to work. (With stuff like a well timed grudge, or abrupt decay, or ulamog to crush our dreams)
Last Friday I was faced against Jund and i went to LL naming Maelstrom Pulse. his hand had 2 abrupt decays and 1 maelstrom pulse and other stuff. (ALways name decay first) I made some misplays but LL lets me see all possible threats my opponent has 1 more abrupt decay, a maelstrom pulse, and an ancient grudge. Even without him having hate in hand slamming a bridge or getting thoptersword assembled is just step 1 of the plan. step 2 is having to protect bridge, which only has to suffer from our hand(thus i disagree with serum visions) and opponents hate while progressing to our wincon.
Ive wanted the deck to be an actively controlling control deck similar to lantern control but better. Not something like jeskai control which has removal spells and counters and is able to have position to serum visions effectively.
This also explains your stance on hand disruption over serum visions. Hand disruption is always tempo negative. If you haven't read "Thoughtseize You" you should. It is one of the best magic articles ever written. Hand disruption is of course better when you can soon after jam a threat, but that is not likely to happen on a regular basis. Serum Visions however is tempo positive and makes the scenario of sticking the bridge more likely.
I am no arguing this just for the sake of arguing because I have the opinion that my way is the right way, but because I played hand disruption in the deck for a long, long time before deciding that Serum Visions was a better fit.
Like you said, if we are hellbent we are winning, but only if we are ahead once we are hellbent. If we get hellbent with no bridge staring down a threat, we are going to lose. Drawing a serum visions is much better than drawing a piece of hand disruption here.
Most importantly however, we have been taught time and time again that the best way to win a match is to aggressively push your game plan and force your opponent to have the answers. Serum Visions fits this much better in my opinion.
@shineyfirefly LoTV is simply the best threat card in our colors and it is borderline broken behind an ensnaring bridge. I think not playing it is simply a mistake because you will have games where you keep top decking dead cards when you just wish you had anything to pressure the opponent.
@Radouf Yes, unfortunately both GPT events had exactly 8 people which cuts to top 8 immediately. Mana rocks are great for fixing and ramping, I am simply not interested in taking my build in that direction. If i was going to play hand disruption again, I would likely go back to some number of Talismans as an effort to accelerate the time between the hand disruption and the threat, as well as a way to generate advantge while still casting hand disruption spells. People need to start jamming Thopter Spy Network. I played against a Jund opponent tonight who cast T1 thoughtseize to see Tezzeret and Thopter Spy Network. He had to take TSN because he could at least attack a Tezzeret.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
Bant Eldrazi - 60/40_55/45 . I think our game one if great because of ensnaring bridge. We don't even need to get hellbent when we play it, only down to about 2 cards in hand most of the time. Crane can buy us time and they have no outs to Thopter/Sword. I sideboard: +1 Damnation +3 Thoughtseize -1 Collective Brutality -1 Pithing Needle -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek. This match is all about sideboarding for their sideboard in an effort no to lost percentage points. The game 2 Stony Silence and Worship can be a beating, as well as EE. Therefore the 3 Thoughtseize come in to try to rip these cards.
Burn - 40/60_45/55. We all agree this is hard match for us. The route to success usually involves an early thopter/sword or they stumble and race with 5/5 artifacts. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 Witchbane Orb (+1 EE if Nactl Burn). -3 Ensnaring Bridge -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Pithing Needle. Bridge is too slow in this match and you can't take time off to cantrip with a relic. All of your cards need to have an impact to buy time to a tezz or thopter/sword.
Infect - 55/45_65/35 Our game 1 is fine because we can bluff removal and countermagic to slow them down until we can stick a bridge. -1 Mox Opal -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek -1 Batterskull -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Nihil Spellbomb -2 Tezzeret -1 Ensnaring Bridge. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Flaying Tendrills +3 Thoughtseize +1 EE +1 Pithing Needle. We are lucky enough to get a ton of splash hate here. We have a fair amount of main deck cards that are too slow or have no effect and we are able to upgrade them for cheap interaction.
Affinity - 50/50_58/42 (I don't think we are 60/40 postboard, but we are not 55/45 either.) This game depends greatly on the opener they have versus the interaction they draw. Unless they get a blazing fast hand or ornithopter cranial plating to sneak under the bridge i feel alright in this match. -1 Batterskull -3 Relic of Progenitus -1 Nihil Spellbomb -2 Tezzeret -1 LoTV -1 Ensnaring Bridge. +1 Spellskite +3 Disfigure +1 Collective Brutallity +1 Damnation +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 EE +1 Pithing Needle. The idea here is to keep the high impact cards off the board, or bait them into huge blowouts with boardwipes. Many times they will overextend playing around racing a bridge. Remember that Spellskite can steal instant speed cranial plating equips and modular triggers from ravager.
Jund - 55/45_55_45 This match we just win on better card quality and selection. Tezzeret is an absolute bomb in this match. They can't beat an indestructible 5/5 without a LoTV edict. -1 Thopter Foundry -1 Sword of the Meek -1 Executioner's Capsule -1 Mox Opal. +1 Spellskite +1 Damnation +1 Thopter Spy Network +1 Pithing Needle. Be wary of ancient grudge, shatterstorm, and K command. All great cards against us, however we have cards that they simply can not beat without drawing a great sequence. Cards like TSN, Tezzeret and Batterskull.
Dredge - 60/40_50/50 This game 1 gets significantly better with game 1 relics. I feel that it sways that match 20 percentage points from the 40/60 it would have been otherwise. But ancient grudge can put a real wrinkle in our plans games 2-3. -1 Executioner's Capsule -3 LoTV. +1 Spellskite +1 Damnation +1 Flaying Tendrills +1 Grafdiggers Cage (If you are on the play bring in 3 Thoughtseize over 2 tezz and a thopter foundry to steal what is likely the only enabler in their hand, time walking them multiple turns.)
Abzan - 45/55_40/60 You may be wondering why i rate this so differently then Jund and it is mostly due to the availability of Lingering Souls and Path to exile being much better cards against us. The 5/5 beatdown is not as likely and Lingering souls can buy them tons of time to hit Abrupt Decay and Malestrom Pulse. They also have the best artifact hate in game 2 with Stony Silence. The side boarding is the same as Jund.
So how did we do with our sideboard?
(.1)*.092=(.0092)
.1*.081=.0081
.2*.076=.0152
.16*.075=.012
X
(.2)*.042=(.0084)
(.1)*.040=(.004)
=.0137
With this strategy I gain 1.37& against the tier 1 metagame by sideboarding. This may not seem great but we are in the worst 2 sideboard colors and we are side boarding against their sideboard. The best players in the game boast a 60% win percentage against the field. This makes 1.37% feel much more relevant. Let me know what you guys think, and feel free to give us your plan and numbers to see how we all matchup against the field. It is late, but it would be relevant to also conclude our G1 avg win percentage across the field when comparing how much better we get post board. Hope this helps everyone.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
So I'll try to quickly breakdown my SB strategies and ratios so we can reflect upon the margins.
Context:
4 Glint-Nest Crane
1 Spellskite
Spells
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Executioner's Capsule
3 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Mox Opal
3 Talisman of Dominance
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Pithing Needle
1 Torpor Orb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Spellskite
2 Flaying Tendrils
1 Damnation
1 Thoughtseize
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Lost Legacy
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Collective Brutality
1 Witchbane Orb
Burn: 50/50 | 45/55. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Capsule, -2 Thoughtseize, -1 Bridge; +1 Skite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Brutality, +1 Witchbane Orb. Do they have their nut-draw? If not, you'll stabilize at like 4-6 life and let them have one topdeck before you effectively shut the door.
Infect: 60/40 | 55/45. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Sword, -1 Foundry, -1 Tezz; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Brutality, +1 Flaying Tendrils. Do they have their nut-draw? Same question.
Affinity: 55/45 | 55/45. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Capsule, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Serum Visions, -1 Tezz; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Damnation. Are we T3 dead? If not, Crane and Thopters will buy us enough time to turn the game around. Their postboard Thougthseize and Stubborn Denial can hurt us pretty bad, since we're relying on a couple of hosers to really turn the game around.
Jund: 50/50 | 50/50. +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Damnation, +2 Liliana (on the play), +1 Tendrils (on the play); -1 Spellbomb, -2 Thoughtseize, -1 IoK, -2 Brutality (on the play). This is one close match-up. Unlike @Racing089, I consider the Jund match-up harder than the Abzan math-up since the former has Kolaghan's Command to blow up our Bridge that's otherwise a total MVP; with a Bridge online, all we have to worry about is keeping Liliana off her ultimate. And of course, not lose the bridge. They can get overpowered by the Thopter-Sword engine, and we have to carefully set it up and cast the foundry with mana up so that we can activate it in response to whatever Decay or Pulse they might have for it, so we still get value off it. Also, Ooze is very playable around as we'll likely have more mana + spare artifacts than they have open G mana, so the first wave of thopters is good. They have no answer to a 5/5 Citadel. Now that I understand this match-up well, I'd totally run Thopter Spy Network if it was more common in my local meta. Halas, it isn't.
Abzan: 55/45 |50/50. See Jund, minus K-Kommand as an answer to our Bridge, but plus postboard occasional Stony Silence. Stony in the opener, and that we can't nab off discard, is pretty uncommon however. -1 Thougthseize, -1 Brutality, -1 Sword, -1 Foundry; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Damnation, +1 Surgical Extraction.
Dredge: 40/60 | 55/45. -2 Capsule, -2 Thoughtseize, -3 IoK, -2 Brutality; +1 Torpor Orb, +1 Graf's Cage, +1 Skite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Damnation, +1 Surgical Extraction, +1 Lost Legacy, +1 Witchbane Orb. G1 I usually do stabilize and when I lose it's to a big Conflagrate to the dome. Thing is, they always have it! Hence the SB-in Witchbane Orb. G2 is way better, but they still have some degree of inevitability once they've started dredging; they usually find Ancient Grudge fast, so redundancy of hate pieces is key. And spell-based ones like Surgical Extraction have a plus-value to them, since they're un-hatable back. Note: Thopter-Sword can't race Dredge without hate or disruption back-up.
UR Prowess/Titi: 70/30 | 65/35. Pretty much a walk in the park. They're not explosive enough, and both Thopter-Sword and Bridge hoses them 100%. Postboard be scared of Vandalblast and that's pretty much it. I'm toying with post-board 1 Lost Legacy here (because I can afford it) because they mostly have only one answer to our deck, and these guys always seem to switch between Vandalblast, Shatterstorm, Shattering Spree and Smash to Smithereens, sigh. -1 Spellbomb, -1 Capsule, -1 Serum Visions, -1 Tezz, +1 Spellskite, +2 Tendrils, +1 Damnation (+1 Lost Legacy as 61th if I'm feeling cocky).
Grixis Delver/Control: 65/35 | 60/40. As above, but with the occasional T2 Tasigur into counterspell our Bridge (which is playable around, but I'm still learning to slowroll discard to ensure that our payoff card resolve through countermagic) win. And Kolaghan's command as a threat to it. Postboard, same story as above. -1 EE, -1 Capsule, -2 Brutality; +1 Graf's Cage, +1 Skite, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Liliana.
Well, I could go on for UWR Nahiri (70/30 | 60/40): Bridge wins; Merfolk (65/35 | 50/50): Bridge wins, their postboard H's Recall can win; Abzan Company, Bant Company/Spirits and stuff but well, I'll finish by covering the big bad decks as I've worked on the Valakut match-up pretty extensively:
Valakut decks 30/70 | 45/55. -2 Crane (because artifact number decreases), -1 EE, -1 Spellbomb, -2 Capsule (if not Breach), -1 IoK, -1 Bridge, -1 Brutality; +1 Torpor Orb (if Titan), +1 Skite, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Liliana, +2 Lost Legacy, +1 Surgical, +1 Witchbane Orb. Titan Breach is the easiest one since it's hurt by Bridge, and Capsule can kill Emrakul mwehehehe; where Prismatic Omen Scapeshift is the toughest as it's all in on lands and that's specifically what we can't interact with. Moreover, it kills you for 3x more damages when it does. In these situations, even a T3 active Thopter-Sword combo seems cute at best. Plan is: disrupt them as much as possible, pull out Scapeshifts, land and protect Bridge (against Titans - but you have time, at least) and Witchbane Orb (at all freaking costs; this and Skite is our only interaction with Valakut triggers). Lili ultimate can set them back halfway. In all cases, get the fastest clock you can.
RG Tron 20/80 | 30/70. -2 Crane (because artifact number decreases), -1 Spellbomb, -2 Capsule, -1 Bridge, -2 Brutality; +1 Needle, +1 Skite, +1 Thoughtseize, +2 Lili, +2 Lost Legacy, +1 Surgical. You have a shot to win the games where you can disrupt them off either pay-off cards (Karn, Stone, whatever fat thing) or enablers (Maps, Scrying, Eggs and UrzaTron). And they don't topdeck some while you're putting on a clock. Postboard plan is to Needle Stone, Lost Legacy Karn and Ulamog, Skite their Ugin, while disrupting and clocking them all you can. Yeah, it's not very effective because they have so much darn redundancy.
Noteworthy: U-Tron and Eldrazi Tron are nowhere as bad as RG Tron. U-Tron we can race since it's slower to win, and Eldrazi Tron is hurt pretty bad by Bridge.
Let me know what you think!
In light of these recent discussions, going forward, I'm contemplating running -1 (second) Capsule, -1 Spellbomb; +2 Relic and +1 (fourth) Tezz MB -- still need to cut one card there. Also looking at SB: -1 (second) Lost Legacy, -1 Surgical Extraction; +1 (third) Relic, +1 Welding Jar in the board also; the insurance against artifact boardwipes (yeah NOT Shatterstorm but, Vandalblast, (Creeping Corrosion?), O-Stone, EE, and Ratchet Bomb against Bant Eldrazi, etc.) -- Jar is free points against Valakut, to protect a Witchbane Orb for 0 mana. It can come in timely fetched off an Inventors' Fair, for example. Fourth Tezz gives us more points in this match-up also. Both cards will benefit the Jund match-up as well.
Also contemplating jamming a duo of Shadow of Doubt to gain even a couple more points against Valakut and Tron but historically, card has never kept in for more than a couple of days at best. I'll probably test it with a testing partner thursday night and report. Which leads me to:
Creatures
4 Glint-Nest Crane
1 Spellskite
Spells
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Executioner's Capsule
3 Serum Visions
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Thopter Foundry
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2 Mox Opal
3 Talisman of Dominance
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Inventors' Fair
2 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Welding Jar
1 Spellskite
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Torpor Orb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Flaying Tendrils
1 Damnation
1 Thoughtseize
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Lost Legacy
1 Collective Brutality
1 Witchbane Orb
2 in-test Shadow of Doubt
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
/u/Alex says: «Grinning Totem and Jester's Cap [also] both work, they're just much more expensive (though much easier to cast). Bitter Ordeal also works [note: Tokens DO count for Gravestorm]. If you can get the land into a graveyard, such as through discard, milling, or land destruction, any Extirpate or Haunting Echoes effect should work. Depending on your mana base, you might prefer a different option.»
I find Jester's Cap particularly appealing, albeit slow a bit. Recurrable off Ruins sounds like a real grindy gameplan though, prolly as powerful as Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter against Scapeshift at least. What think we?
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
- G Column (+/- % Postboard) seems to be off. For example, for your Bant Eldrazi match-up, from 60% pre-board to 55% post-board, column shows a -10% difference.
- I think the main uses of such a tool should be:
a) to get a general idea of how the archetype fares against each Tier match-up, and
b) how each particular build fares in comparison to the average of all builds.
To do so, I suggest (a) you add a «all builds Average» column in E, so we get the average pre and post board win % against each tier archetype. People can then (b) compare their own build and win % (of which some points can surely be tied to their deckbuilding choices) to the average.
Lastly, shouldn't we expand all the way to tier 2?
OLD SCHOOL 93/94 «The Pain Train» Black Sligh, Esper «Machine Gun» Artifacts, Jund «Psycho» Ponza-Disko.
-I didn't think to do per a deck, I do like that idea. It helps you realize if you need to play relic or chalice or something of that nature to sure up a matchup. I'll try to jam that in.
-I excluded tier 2 decks because they change quite often. All of tier 2 makes up another 25% of the metagame and there are currently 11 decks in tier 2. We could incorporate it. Most might not have relevant match up data against a chunk of the tier 2 decks as well.
Sultai Midrange
Anything Innovative
There is a number of issues with this number
Confidence interval. Do you know that even 100 matches against particular deck is not enough to call results even close to accurate? How many matches vs every deck do you have?
If these numbers are not based on statistics, then they are even more inaccurate, one player can believe matchup is 60-40 and the other thinks it is 90-10 (your infect numbers seem optimistic to me, half of your deck does nothing against infect, infect is notorious for being able to win through disruption)
Your skill. Your results reflect your skill, they can't be generalised to be called this deck's winrate without adjustments.
Same with opponents' skill.
You took numbers from 2 month old article, metagame shifts fast nowadays and there was a new set out.
Exact list. Lists are not set in stone, did you get all your numbers from exact same list? Moving from 1 to 3 big hate cards can seriously improve a matchup.
All of this adds up to much more than 0.69%
G Green Stompy
RG Shamans
UB Mill
UG Infect
WUBRG Slivers!