Hi everyone!
Starting from Robert Berni's GP KC list, can someone post a serious and well done sideboard guide?
I mean, the deck is very solid and I'm finding very hard to side something out.
The most common match ups are:
Pod based decks
Jund-Junk
Tron
UWR Control
Control (no red), like Gifts
Affinity
Lately also Mono U Faeries
If someone who's testing the deck on MTGO can post the sideboard guide, I'll be very glad
Thank you very much!!
This is a really tough question, but I'll give it my best. Sideboarding is really tricky with this deck; you don't want to dilute your main plan just to bring in answers. I'm still working on this for my own use, but I do have some (very preliminary) sideboard notes (and I would love feedback from the more experienced/skilled players here).
Jund/K: Mizzium Skin is a strictly better Dispel in this matchup, so a straight swap here is good. Hitting their manabase can be very, very powerful, so I bring in 3 Blood Moons. Right now I've settled on dropping 3 Boomerang for them. I like giving them more targets for their Thoughtseizes; they'll ignore Boomerang in my hand, but they have to take Blood Moon. I want every spell to be impactful, and Boomerang is just a straight tempo play against a deck that's good at making games go long.
Pod: We're actually fairly well set up here. 2 Ancient Grudge upgrades Boomerang. You need the Flame Slash and remaining Boomerangs to answer Linvala. The Dispels become Pyroclasm/Slagstorm.
Tron: It depends upon which Tron. I've found that RG Tron will blow up your Blood Moons really easily, so I wouldn't count on that saving you. That being said, your three Dispel and 2 Flame Slash are desperately terrible, and if they have to blow enchantment removal on Blood Moon instead of Splinter Twin, that's not terrible. So out go Dispel and Flame Slash and in come 2 Ancient Grudge and 3 Blood Moon.
Against U or UW Tron, ugh. In this case, Flame Slash and Boomerang are the terrible cards, so bring in Negate, Counterflux, and the Blood Moons. I'm running Pact in the Clique slot, but both of those are good here for the final piece.
Control: Ugh. So gross. Blood Moon will pretty much just win you the game against UWR if you can stick it, so you want that. You also want additional countermagic, so bring in everything you've got. Flame Slash is actively terrible, and so is Boomerang (even the nut draw won't save you from a Path to Exile), so that's six slots to fill. I also like dropping one Splinter Twin - these games will go long in most cases, and you'll likely find yourself wanting to win by attrition rather than combo. That makes seven slots. 3x Blood Moon, 2x Mizzium Skin (effectively a counterspell against removal), 1x Negate, and the Clique (or in my case, the Pact).
Affinity: If they don't have any of the red spells, you're in really good shape. Just bring in 2 Ancient Grudge for 1 Boomerang and 1 Remand, and your red sweepers for the remaining Remand and you're good. You just want to combo out before they kill you. Just be aware that Galvanic Blast and/or Dismember is probably in their sideboards, so you need to keep those Dispels in the deck (in fact, swap them out for Mizzium Skin since that's better than Dispel against non-blue decks). Remand is decent, but their stuff is so cheap that it's often not more than a cantrip.
Fae: They should have a really good matchup against you. I haven't played this matchup at all, but I imagine that Combust is really good. And if they're mono U, I assume Shackles? So Ancient Grudge over Boomerang. Not sure what else to say, other than good luck.
These are all just my opinion, of course. I'm sure I'm wrong about some of this, and I welcome any criticisms.
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It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
it is just my personal opinion, but I think you are siding boomerangs out too much. I think having boomerang can set very nasty turnabout situations even if the game goes longer. I would try to leave a couple in in every matchup. They are also a shield vs any hate you havent considered that stays on the table (propaganda effects, orb etc..).
I also think you are over-evaluating ancient grudge. it is no stony silence. I think vs tron it wouldnt be so effective (and also vs pod).
just my 2 cents
Was there a particular matchup I pulled it out where you thought I shouldn't have? I'm definitely interested in hearing specific thoughts on how to board (and how to better build the sideboard).
My philosophy with Boomerang is that I want to leave it in against decks where I think I can end the game quickly, but take it out against decks where I think the game is going to go long. It's also my general go-to for replacing with Ancient Grudge where appropriate, but I might just be being lazy by doing that (it just feels like a strict upgrade to Boomerang when there are going to be relevant artifacts I need to hit). I haven't really done anything useful if I bounce something they just replay the next turn; Boomerang needs to win me the game when I cast it. It's a great maindeck card because it can answer anything, but I always feel it's right to move it to the sideboard for something that can do the same job better.
I brought Grudge in against RG Tron not because it's amazing, but because it's miles better than the cards it's replacing (Dispel/Flame Slash). They'll be bringing in artifact-based answers for us (Spellskites and Torpor Orbs) since we're a bad matchup for them. Against Pod, it takes down Spellskite and breaks their combo engine. The only downside is that it doesn't hit Linvala, but I left in four answers for that, and if you keep creatures and Pod off of the board, they'll have to naturally draw it as a one-of.
Unfortunately I don't have any time over the next couple of weeks to play any tournaments - at most I'll get a few practice games in here and there. But I'm definitely looking to improve the list through discussion over this time.
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It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Speaking of new tech, does anyone else think these are good in Tempo Twin builds with Tiago (i.e.. the Dargaud version)?
Faerie Conclave: I love Tempo Twin's aggro plan, and this card definitely helps it. It also defends us from some fairly powerful attackers. I have a hunch it's as good in Tempo Twin as Tectonic Edge is.
Psionic Blast: I've closed out so many games with a Bolt for precisely lethal that I'm prone to making all my X/4-killers burn heads. This is merely the most efficient burn card that kills X/4's that I can come up with (although Turn // Burn and Burst Lightning also kill them for 5 mana).
Mouth of Ronom: It's probably the most questionable card of the 3--I already don't like how expensive killing X/4's with it is--but I'd rather play 4 Bolts, 2 non-Serum Visions cantrips, and 4 Remands, so I'm running out of spell slots, and I still want at least 2 maindeck ways to kill X/4's (I only have room for 1 Psionic Blast).
Faerie Conclave seems like a good thing to try in Tempo Twin. Psionic Blast seems bad; that's a lot of mana and life paid to kill a thing, even if it can go to the face.
Mouth of Ronom is interesting to me. Twin decks usually have room for 1-2 colorless utility lands, and that one seems particularly clever. All you need is to add some snow islands to your deck, and your colorless land can now answer a Spellskite or Linvala. I don't know if that's good, but it seems like it could be worth testing.
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It's not your job to win games of Magic where you're mana screwed.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
What are peoples thoughts between, UR Twin, Grixis Twin, WUR Twin?
I've seen a very disruptive grixis list 4-0 dailies recently
We've seen three variants of Splinter Twin see success:
UR All-In: Characterized by running the full set of Serum Visions and Sleight of Hands, sometimes with Gitaxian Probes even. It wants to assemble the combo as fast as possible and doesn't have much of a backup plan. It's very soft to decks with lots of removal, but has the highest percent change of having the combo pieces in hand for the turn 4 win. Current versions of this deck are playing 4 copies of Boomerang in the main to attack the opponent's mana even harder.
UR Tempo: See Darguad's list a few pages back. It will happily assemble the combo given the chance, but uses disruptive elements to keep the opponent off of their game and is completely capable of winning by beatdowns. It can't find the combo as fast as All-In can, but doesn't necessarily need to. I find this list harder to play than All-In, but respect it's power.
Both UR versions pack three Blood Moon in the sideboard to steal games from mana-greedy opponents.
UWR Control: This is really a tweak of UWR control that manages to slide four copies of Splinter Twin into its game plan. It doesn't rely on cantrips to find the combo, but relies on controlling the game to get there. It happily uses Splinter Twin as a value play on cards like Restoration Angel or Wall of Omens, and like the UR tempo deck, is fully capable of winning by beatdowns without needing to assemble the combo.
Between the three, I like the All-In or the Control deck. But that's just my opinion - I haven't seen nearly the level of success that Darguad has, and he champions the Tempo deck.
The Grixis deck that 4-0d doesn't actually look very good to me (it's featured here). His black splash does nothing but turn on 4 Inqusition of Kozilek (edit: and 4 Duress) in the main, and 2 Slaughter Games in the side. I realize that it can strip removal from the opponent prior to going off, but it's just infinitely better to pack blue disruption and not have to worry about getting a third color.
There probably is room to experiment with Grixis, but that list seems pretty bad.
Yea I saw the 4 Duress and 4 IoK and was like...wow that has some hand disruption
I've been testing the tempo, all in (boomerang and nonboomerang), and the wur control. I can't seem to figure out when to go to snapcaster beats with tempo
Going with less than 23 lands (esp. with colourless / spelllands in the mix) is suicide if you ask me. You really want a healthy amount of lands in play. With less Fetchlands in your collections you should in fact play MORE than less lands as you might have trouble assembling your colours. (I'd simply go with 23 though and maybe add a cascade bluffs)
Flame Slash deals with most common twin hate cards and as boomerang-Twin is very combo focused I'd not cut on them. Being that combo focused also makes Snapcaster a lot worse as you generally speaking dont want to go to the later / latest stages of the game where Snapcaster and its interactions with the deck really start to shine.
Why would you cut on Dispels..? :-x It's a fine combo protection as well as extremely efficient protection against common enemies as for example Cryptic Command and Electrolyze.
I cut some dispels because I didn't know how else to make room for snapcaster bolts, what would you drop for them? Or do we just not like bolts in this list at all?
I disagree with the idea of running more lands with the absence of fetches. Fetches thin your deck of lands, leading to less land draw. They are essential in decks like this, because it allows you to ensure your early land drops, whilst not getting flooded later. If I play more lands because of the absence of fetches, it will make a significant statistical difference 20 cards into the deck.
By the way, the fetches I was going to get for tomorrow, I can't get anymore. I only have access to 1 tarn now so I don't even know if I can play the deck anymore.
I have an event at my local store this weekend. I'm thinking of playing the boomerang list but going:
-1 land (Only have 4 of the fetches, so they won't get diluted as much by fetching)
-2 flame slash
-1 spellskite
-1 kiki
-2 dispel
+3 bolt
+4 snapcaster
I like the snapcaster/bolt kit. What do you guys think about this change?
If you want to play Snapcaster/Bolt, you need to retool the entire decklist. The All-In list can't handle the cuts that you're suggesting. The last list Dargaud posted a few pages back is a good place to start:
Rather than post tournament reports directly in here from now on, I've decided to put them in my MTGS blog and just cross-post here when I have a new one. It'll make it easier for me to find them later as well.
Here's my latest, wherein I make a run at a daily event and have a love-hate relationship with variance:
I'm going to test this build. It's actually loosely based on Dargaud's build but I have removed the Peek and Cryptic Command. In their place I added more threats such as Batterskull and Grim Lavamancer.
The reason why I opted for this build is because I'm getting trashed by super aggresive decks like Affinity, RDW, etc in game 1. I cannot rely everytime to win games 2 and 3.
I also added 2 Halimar Depths to able to compensate the loss of card draw from the Peek and Cryptic Command. The Depths and fetchlands will allow to smooth out my next draws.
If you also noticed I added 2 Surgical Extraction on the sb to combat other combo decks. Surgical Extraction + Snapcaster is very powerful even with the lifeloss.
Mana leak makes no sense in the sideboard. Either add another negate or something like deprive. As per diluting your deck with the tempo variant, why not go uwr then? Improves consistency of your tempo half and your combo half.
I prefer Mana Leak because most of the time it is a hard counter. Negate is too narrow. Deprive sets you back 1 mana resource and requires double blue which can be problematic when you use Blood Moon in your sb.
I don't want to go UWR. Going UWR will make Blood Moon almost unplayable. The 3 Blood Moons are almost a game win especially for greedy manabases.
Any inputs on the deck will be greatly be appreciated. Thanks.
Mark
Halimar Depths: The interaction between Depths and the fetchlands is tempting, and it's certainly incredibly powerful. But I'm confused as to why you would put a tapped land into your deck when you say that your worst matchup is aggro. You've made changes that you think will give you an edge against fast clocks, but made a change to your mana base that hurts your ability to interact in the early turns.
That's not to say that I dislike Halimar Depths; I think it's a powerful effect. I just don't think it does enough for you given what you said you put it in for.
Grim Lavamancer: I'm not a huge fan of this maindeck. There are so many Deathrite Shamans running around that there's a really good chance he's just a blank. And even without that, there are far too many games where he just doesn't have any fuel and sits on the board doing nothing.
Mana Leak: This is questionable at best in the side. Once you know what your opponent is doing, you can side in the appropriate countermagic. The sideboard is where your silver bullets should be, not conditional countermagic. Put in something like a Counterflux instead.
Surgical Extraction: This is an interesting one. I think you're going to have a very difficult time putting anything relevant into your opponent's graveyard without having to have already fought and won a counter war. I'm not convinced it's good, but I could easily be wrong.
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shock GR o UG ???
This is a really tough question, but I'll give it my best. Sideboarding is really tricky with this deck; you don't want to dilute your main plan just to bring in answers. I'm still working on this for my own use, but I do have some (very preliminary) sideboard notes (and I would love feedback from the more experienced/skilled players here).
Jund/K: Mizzium Skin is a strictly better Dispel in this matchup, so a straight swap here is good. Hitting their manabase can be very, very powerful, so I bring in 3 Blood Moons. Right now I've settled on dropping 3 Boomerang for them. I like giving them more targets for their Thoughtseizes; they'll ignore Boomerang in my hand, but they have to take Blood Moon. I want every spell to be impactful, and Boomerang is just a straight tempo play against a deck that's good at making games go long.
Pod: We're actually fairly well set up here. 2 Ancient Grudge upgrades Boomerang. You need the Flame Slash and remaining Boomerangs to answer Linvala. The Dispels become Pyroclasm/Slagstorm.
Tron: It depends upon which Tron. I've found that RG Tron will blow up your Blood Moons really easily, so I wouldn't count on that saving you. That being said, your three Dispel and 2 Flame Slash are desperately terrible, and if they have to blow enchantment removal on Blood Moon instead of Splinter Twin, that's not terrible. So out go Dispel and Flame Slash and in come 2 Ancient Grudge and 3 Blood Moon.
Against U or UW Tron, ugh. In this case, Flame Slash and Boomerang are the terrible cards, so bring in Negate, Counterflux, and the Blood Moons. I'm running Pact in the Clique slot, but both of those are good here for the final piece.
Control: Ugh. So gross. Blood Moon will pretty much just win you the game against UWR if you can stick it, so you want that. You also want additional countermagic, so bring in everything you've got. Flame Slash is actively terrible, and so is Boomerang (even the nut draw won't save you from a Path to Exile), so that's six slots to fill. I also like dropping one Splinter Twin - these games will go long in most cases, and you'll likely find yourself wanting to win by attrition rather than combo. That makes seven slots. 3x Blood Moon, 2x Mizzium Skin (effectively a counterspell against removal), 1x Negate, and the Clique (or in my case, the Pact).
Affinity: If they don't have any of the red spells, you're in really good shape. Just bring in 2 Ancient Grudge for 1 Boomerang and 1 Remand, and your red sweepers for the remaining Remand and you're good. You just want to combo out before they kill you. Just be aware that Galvanic Blast and/or Dismember is probably in their sideboards, so you need to keep those Dispels in the deck (in fact, swap them out for Mizzium Skin since that's better than Dispel against non-blue decks). Remand is decent, but their stuff is so cheap that it's often not more than a cantrip.
Fae: They should have a really good matchup against you. I haven't played this matchup at all, but I imagine that Combust is really good. And if they're mono U, I assume Shackles? So Ancient Grudge over Boomerang. Not sure what else to say, other than good luck.
These are all just my opinion, of course. I'm sure I'm wrong about some of this, and I welcome any criticisms.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Was there a particular matchup I pulled it out where you thought I shouldn't have? I'm definitely interested in hearing specific thoughts on how to board (and how to better build the sideboard).
My philosophy with Boomerang is that I want to leave it in against decks where I think I can end the game quickly, but take it out against decks where I think the game is going to go long. It's also my general go-to for replacing with Ancient Grudge where appropriate, but I might just be being lazy by doing that (it just feels like a strict upgrade to Boomerang when there are going to be relevant artifacts I need to hit). I haven't really done anything useful if I bounce something they just replay the next turn; Boomerang needs to win me the game when I cast it. It's a great maindeck card because it can answer anything, but I always feel it's right to move it to the sideboard for something that can do the same job better.
I brought Grudge in against RG Tron not because it's amazing, but because it's miles better than the cards it's replacing (Dispel/Flame Slash). They'll be bringing in artifact-based answers for us (Spellskites and Torpor Orbs) since we're a bad matchup for them. Against Pod, it takes down Spellskite and breaks their combo engine. The only downside is that it doesn't hit Linvala, but I left in four answers for that, and if you keep creatures and Pod off of the board, they'll have to naturally draw it as a one-of.
Unfortunately I don't have any time over the next couple of weeks to play any tournaments - at most I'll get a few practice games in here and there. But I'm definitely looking to improve the list through discussion over this time.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Faerie Conclave: I love Tempo Twin's aggro plan, and this card definitely helps it. It also defends us from some fairly powerful attackers. I have a hunch it's as good in Tempo Twin as Tectonic Edge is.
Psionic Blast: I've closed out so many games with a Bolt for precisely lethal that I'm prone to making all my X/4-killers burn heads. This is merely the most efficient burn card that kills X/4's that I can come up with (although Turn // Burn and Burst Lightning also kill them for 5 mana).
Mouth of Ronom: It's probably the most questionable card of the 3--I already don't like how expensive killing X/4's with it is--but I'd rather play 4 Bolts, 2 non-Serum Visions cantrips, and 4 Remands, so I'm running out of spell slots, and I still want at least 2 maindeck ways to kill X/4's (I only have room for 1 Psionic Blast).
Mouth of Ronom is interesting to me. Twin decks usually have room for 1-2 colorless utility lands, and that one seems particularly clever. All you need is to add some snow islands to your deck, and your colorless land can now answer a Spellskite or Linvala. I don't know if that's good, but it seems like it could be worth testing.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
I've seen a very disruptive grixis list 4-0 dailies recently
We've seen three variants of Splinter Twin see success:
UR All-In: Characterized by running the full set of Serum Visions and Sleight of Hands, sometimes with Gitaxian Probes even. It wants to assemble the combo as fast as possible and doesn't have much of a backup plan. It's very soft to decks with lots of removal, but has the highest percent change of having the combo pieces in hand for the turn 4 win. Current versions of this deck are playing 4 copies of Boomerang in the main to attack the opponent's mana even harder.
UR Tempo: See Darguad's list a few pages back. It will happily assemble the combo given the chance, but uses disruptive elements to keep the opponent off of their game and is completely capable of winning by beatdowns. It can't find the combo as fast as All-In can, but doesn't necessarily need to. I find this list harder to play than All-In, but respect it's power.
Both UR versions pack three Blood Moon in the sideboard to steal games from mana-greedy opponents.
UWR Control: This is really a tweak of UWR control that manages to slide four copies of Splinter Twin into its game plan. It doesn't rely on cantrips to find the combo, but relies on controlling the game to get there. It happily uses Splinter Twin as a value play on cards like Restoration Angel or Wall of Omens, and like the UR tempo deck, is fully capable of winning by beatdowns without needing to assemble the combo.
Between the three, I like the All-In or the Control deck. But that's just my opinion - I haven't seen nearly the level of success that Darguad has, and he champions the Tempo deck.
The Grixis deck that 4-0d doesn't actually look very good to me (it's featured here). His black splash does nothing but turn on 4 Inqusition of Kozilek (edit: and 4 Duress) in the main, and 2 Slaughter Games in the side. I realize that it can strip removal from the opponent prior to going off, but it's just infinitely better to pack blue disruption and not have to worry about getting a third color.
There probably is room to experiment with Grixis, but that list seems pretty bad.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
I've been testing the tempo, all in (boomerang and nonboomerang), and the wur control. I can't seem to figure out when to go to snapcaster beats with tempo
-1 land (Only have 4 of the fetches, so they won't get diluted as much by fetching)
-2 flame slash
-1 spellskite
-1 kiki
-2 dispel
+3 bolt
+4 snapcaster
I like the snapcaster/bolt kit. What do you guys think about this change?
I cut some dispels because I didn't know how else to make room for snapcaster bolts, what would you drop for them? Or do we just not like bolts in this list at all?
I disagree with the idea of running more lands with the absence of fetches. Fetches thin your deck of lands, leading to less land draw. They are essential in decks like this, because it allows you to ensure your early land drops, whilst not getting flooded later. If I play more lands because of the absence of fetches, it will make a significant statistical difference 20 cards into the deck.
By the way, the fetches I was going to get for tomorrow, I can't get anymore. I only have access to 1 tarn now so I don't even know if I can play the deck anymore.
In the list boomerang shockland prefer UG or RG???
If you want to play Snapcaster/Bolt, you need to retool the entire decklist. The All-In list can't handle the cuts that you're suggesting. The last list Dargaud posted a few pages back is a good place to start:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=9896100&postcount=206
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
Here's my latest, wherein I make a run at a daily event and have a love-hate relationship with variance:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/blog.php?b=9056
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
That's odd. I guess it's fixed now? I went and ticked a bunch of options I didn't know existed in the blog menu.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.
The reason why I opted for this build is because I'm getting trashed by super aggresive decks like Affinity, RDW, etc in game 1. I cannot rely everytime to win games 2 and 3.
I also added 2 Halimar Depths to able to compensate the loss of card draw from the Peek and Cryptic Command. The Depths and fetchlands will allow to smooth out my next draws.
If you also noticed I added 2 Surgical Extraction on the sb to combat other combo decks. Surgical Extraction + Snapcaster is very powerful even with the lifeloss.
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Steam Vents
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Stomping Ground
2 Tectonic Edge
2 Halimar Depths
4 Island
1 Mountain
3 Pestermite
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Spellskite
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Batterskull
4 Serum Visions
4 Remand
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Dispel
2 Flame Slash
1 Pyroclasm
2 Slagstorm
1 Dismember
1 Combust
3 Blood Moon
1 Spellskite
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Mana Leak
1 Negate
2 Surgical Extraction
Any inputs on the deck will be greatly be appreciated. Thanks.
Mark
I prefer Mana Leak because most of the time it is a hard counter. Negate is too narrow. Deprive sets you back 1 mana resource and requires double blue which can be problematic when you use Blood Moon in your sb.
I don't want to go UWR. Going UWR will make Blood Moon almost unplayable. The 3 Blood Moons are almost a game win especially for greedy manabases.
Halimar Depths: The interaction between Depths and the fetchlands is tempting, and it's certainly incredibly powerful. But I'm confused as to why you would put a tapped land into your deck when you say that your worst matchup is aggro. You've made changes that you think will give you an edge against fast clocks, but made a change to your mana base that hurts your ability to interact in the early turns.
That's not to say that I dislike Halimar Depths; I think it's a powerful effect. I just don't think it does enough for you given what you said you put it in for.
Grim Lavamancer: I'm not a huge fan of this maindeck. There are so many Deathrite Shamans running around that there's a really good chance he's just a blank. And even without that, there are far too many games where he just doesn't have any fuel and sits on the board doing nothing.
Mana Leak: This is questionable at best in the side. Once you know what your opponent is doing, you can side in the appropriate countermagic. The sideboard is where your silver bullets should be, not conditional countermagic. Put in something like a Counterflux instead.
Surgical Extraction: This is an interesting one. I think you're going to have a very difficult time putting anything relevant into your opponent's graveyard without having to have already fought and won a counter war. I'm not convinced it's good, but I could easily be wrong.
It's your job win every game of Magic where you're not.