Have you guys considered Tireless Tracker as a sideboard alternative? I've obtained huge value with him against slower decks.
@FeloniousCrap and @Pokken how do you guys deal with Scavenging Ooze pre-sideboard? I've had a hard time against it playing against an opponent who knows my deck very well. I've been enjoying Flickerwisp so far, and I surely need a lot more experience with this deck. Thinking about using 2x Llanowar Elves along with my 4x Birds of Paradise
An early ooze is fairly tough for my value plan but in general I just try to combo out. Sometimes I can reset the ooze with wisp and race. Thankfully not a lot of decks running it and it doesn't stop my combo. I would maindeck some kind of answer if mainstream jund got common again. Harpooner or fiendhunter or intrepid hero probably.
I do not like tracker. Feels worse than leap to me. 5 mana draw a card is usually how it works out. Every time I played it it died instantly. I get why some people like it but on the whole I do not feel the need.
I took my abzan finks build to a weekly modern event and ended with a 4-1 record. I lost round 1 to the jeskai copy-cat deck. This match-up felt very hard between lightning bolt, path to exile, snapcaster mage and brutal sideboard cards like anger of the gods. I also didn't really have any great sideboard hate for the infinite cat combo besides 2x path to exile and an abrupt decay for saheeli.
I played living end and convincingly win 2 games. Having mirror entity and viscera seer in the deck seem to go a long way in this match-up. They provide a fantastic answer to this deck which is essentially running 7x 3 mana board wipes.
Merfolk in round 3 also felt pretty easy. They have so little interaction that I was able to race to the combo with little resistance and infinite life is impossible for them to overcome. Did encounter a strange scenario here where due to spreading seas I had no white mana available to cast my mirror entity for the kill. However, I was able to use a duskwatch recruiter to locate the mirror entity in my deck and then proceed to count exactly how many activations would leave it in the top 6 cards of my library. From here I used the collected company in my hand to get mirror entity into play and kill with a 200/200 devoted druid.
My last round was against grixis death's shadow. Game 1 was a long back and forth battle with eternal witness and kitchen finks making life miserable for my opponent. We reached a point where we each had 1 card in hand and he had tasigur, angler, and snapcaster in play and was at 3 life. I'm at 10 life and he attacked with tasigur and angler into my eternal witness, kitchen finks, and viscera seer. I declare no blocks and go to 1. On my turn I turn everyone sideways and my opponent scoops, not sure why he would attack into this boardstate, but it was either a bad bluff or a miscalculation on his part. Game 2 is similarly grindy with me sneaking a mirror entity into play on his end step off of company and attacking with 4x 5/5 creatures for lethal on my turn.
All in all it was a fun night and I will be thinking about a better way to fight the cat combo deck even if it is pretty obscure.
I'm not an Abzan Company, but speaking from the side of a control player, I find Fulminator mage is extremely effective. Supreme Verdict and Anger of the gods both require double red, you can often cut them off from a color to cast their spells. (In the worst case scenario, blowing up a correct land target will often force the control player to fetch-shock themselves instead of fetch-basic to deal extra damage) Similarly, you can use Fulminator to apply pressure and sacrifice in response to a lightning bolt. Especially in a deck with 6-8 mana acceleration, a turn 2 fulminator can be brutal.
Another card I would recommend is Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Often you can end of turn, chord of calling/ collected company, force them to use up their counterspell then cast Gideon.
I do not like tracker. Feels worse than leap to me. 5 mana draw a card is usually how it works out. Every time I played it it died instantly. I get why some people like it but on the whole I do not feel the need.
You often can cast tracker, hold priority, play your land or crack your fetch in response. Tireless Tracker isn't your only option. Eternal Witness, Courser, Renegade Rallier, or Liliana Heretical Healder are all fine alternatives depending on your play style and your meta (as well as your deck configuration.
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Fulminator -- because 3-mana 1-for-1s are where you want to be against a control deck? No offense but I don't think that's a particularly good plan. It can sneak in wins, but banking on taking your opponent off colors with fulminator is loose. Evolutionary leap just shuts control off. Generally in order for fulminator to be good against midrange/control you need to be able to run at least 2, if not 3-4 of them -- which we have no room for.
Gideon is another card I'm very suspicious of against control. The 4 mana planeswalker I tested (nahiri) had a hard time resolving vs. control decks but it was OK. Leap is a lot easier to sneak through.
I understand how tracker works--you don't even have to hold priority, you get priority back after a spell resolves as the active player. See what I said about 5 mana draw a card. In most of the occasions I have played tracker it ended up being a 5 mana 2-for-1, which is OK, but not great against a deck full of snapcaster mages and card draw. We'd usually rather play witness or rallier which are much more mana efficient 2-for-1s, or more impactful cards like Pharika or Evolutionary Leap.
Courser is stellar against control for sure. Again, mana efficiency is key. But I would in general rather play Pharika or Leap. Courser's card advantage is fairly unreliable.
I personally find Tracker pretty insane as a card advantage engine but he's a turn 4 play which is when want to start casting CoCo/Chord and the current meta is too unforgiving for that kind of durdley card advantage. It's also another card which imo is better in numbers since you can draw into a second one with the clues which then generates an insane amount of clues if one or more of them end up unscathed. I used to run 3 a few months ago in my FNM's which were often a durdlefest of Jund/Junk/Jeskai/Mardu and literally had games which ended with me with 7+ clues left to crack.
The goal of Fulminator is to go underneath their sweeper and cryptic command, not necessarily to grind them out
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I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
I got what you were saying, I just think it's a bad line. Fulminator has never had results in these decks and the reason is that we do not present enough clock. Fulminator is OK against control when you can run 3 of them and you present a 2 mana 5/6 instead of a 3 mana 3/2.
Leyline is pretty good vs death's shadow since it limits their ability to interact. If those three decks are a significant portion of your local meta Leyline is definitely worth considering.
Leyline is pretty good vs death's shadow since it limits their ability to interact. If those three decks are a significant portion of your local meta Leyline is definitely worth considering.
Thanks for the reply! They are definitely a large part of my meta. I will give leyline a shot in the sideboard next week.
My meta has a lot of burn, valakut and DS players. Do you think it would be worth throwing leyline in the sideboard? Is leyline even good against DS?
I don't know where you would put leylines, and it is such a non-standard choice that I don't know if it would be easy to tell if it was good or not -- you'd get games by people not sideboarding enchantment removal for sure.
My gut instinct is that it is not a good play; I'll give you a quick example of when I tried Worship vs. Valakut. They just put 4 valakuts down and shot every one of my creatures to death with free lightning bolts and beat me to death with titans.
4x leylines would likely be very good against death's shadow, except that they are likely to have sweepers, so I'm not sure it's better than just playing some value cards like Pharika / Leap. Leylines also are nearly unbeatable by Burn in our deck, since they will never know to bring in revelries and even if they did it'll likely buy a lot of time.
Overall, I think it's worth a try but I don't think it will prove good enough.
I would say that if you play leylines you should likely take it very easy on singleton sideboard cards because you will almost surely have to cut chords for them to work, which means you should have fewer flex slots and be more all-in on the combo. I also expect there to be some conflict in the whole chord / all in on the combo thing.
So maybe when you bring leylines in your take mana dorks out, and then you're slower and have more coco whiffs, but all your coco whiffs are good? I dunno.
I guess whatever you do be sure you have a good plan, not just slotting them in at random.
IMO, Leyline is a decent sideboard card against a lot of decks, but it's not a great one against most decks, with maybe burn being the exception. The more I think about the more I feel like it's not even a card you want vs valakut. I think you're just trying to kill them before they kill you and hopefully you can play around Anger of the Gods.
2-1'd a very good burn player, got lucky - t3 killed him on the play, lost to turn 4 kill with double swiftspear, then killed t3 on the play and he missed his searing blaze land drop. Consider this a lucksack victory. In game 1 I had to chord for a flickerwisp to blink his blocker to get there on turn 3, which is an argument for Rhonas or Ballista. Burn is definitely the match where having Ballista or Rhonas makes the most difference as sometimes entity doesn't get there.
2-1'd a budget merfolk deck. I just had really bad topdecks - coco'd 3 times game 1 and lost after not hitting a vizier. Game 2 I killed with the combo on turn 4, game 3 I killed with a mirror entity after he'd played two lord of atlantis (islandwalking 6/6 birds are alright).
Split with a buddy of mine on abzan traverse; games take forever and we both wanted to play EDH About 55/45 with that deck overall, but didn't think it was worth an hour to win a pack maybe.
The deck is still pretty smoothly overall. Figure I might try another approach (FC's GW deck appeals a lot) if I have another bad week at some point.
I went 3-2 today using 4x Finks and 2x viscera build. Lost to a death shadow and mirror match (also using 4x Finks and 2x Viscera). I won against a burn (finks did a tremendous job), against eldratron (he had little removal) and against a grixis shadow (gavony and finks save the day). I should buy myself a Pharika, and am unsure what would give me an edge in a mirror match (he used Pontiff, it was deadly. I was thinking about Linvala)
I went 3-2 today using 4x Finks and 2x viscera build. Lost to a death shadow and mirror match (also using 4x Finks and 2x Viscera). I won against a burn (finks did a tremendous job), against eldratron (he had little removal) and against a grixis shadow (gavony and finks save the day). I should buy myself a Pharika, and am unsure what would give me an edge in a mirror match (he used Pontiff, it was deadly. I was thinking about Linvala)
Playing the same stuff other people play isn't likely to give you an edge in the mirror. Most of what I see in abzan is pontiff, path, decay, scooze and linvala. Of those I am sure Pontiff, Ooze and sometimes path are pretty good. I'd never leave home without at least one ooze and one pontiff in 75.
Linvala I especially dislike cos it's a coco whiff and you will be boarding in removal, making your cocos even worse if you don't take out chords.
In Naya I play lavamancer and fiery justice to get the mirror edge. In Abzan I'm not sure if there is a card that will give you a decided advantage in the mirror in the same way something like Lavamancer might.
You could try something like 2x Marsh Casualties -- good against merfolk, elves and similar as well.
You can also make maindeck tweaks to make the mirror better; play a third township, cut the 2nd viscera seer (which is often bad in the mirror), play a fiend hunter or some other kind of creature killer, etc. Playing a main deck ooze is a pretty big advantage game 1 as well.
I think two viscera seer is right, if you are including both combos in your 75. I am going to test an all in combo build with a sideboard specific to my lgs for a couple weeks and give this deck a second shot. I am also trading into the knightfall version as I think reflector mage is great atm. Deck list for reference of Abzan version.
I just don't understand why anyone thinks that. Viscera seer is the literal worst creature in the deck and playing more than one when you don't have to seems awful. We had to in the previous builds because we needed combo density and enough 1 drops. On top of that it's the easiest combo piece to chord for so the one you are most likely to do so with.
What is your reasoning? To increase the times that you draw viscera seer naturally or to avoid exiling stuff or what?
I seldom want to draw a viscera seer. I'm seriously thinking about using only one, as I can chord him easily (as @Pokken said). I'm unsure about Fiend Hunter, it was an ineffective silver bullet in the mirror match (and completly useless in other mirror matches as well). I'm considering using 2x Ghost Quarters.
Its for combo density pokken, I want go infinite life turn 4 with this deck or win with a ballista turn 3 or turn 4. I don't mind drawing a viscera seer at all I am not playing a beat down game plan with my deck. I am going full in combo for infinite life or death. If I have a seer in hand I don't have to waste a chord on it 2 is correct from my goldfishing t3/t4 combo offs.
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@FeloniousCrap and @Pokken how do you guys deal with Scavenging Ooze pre-sideboard? I've had a hard time against it playing against an opponent who knows my deck very well. I've been enjoying Flickerwisp so far, and I surely need a lot more experience with this deck. Thinking about using 2x Llanowar Elves along with my 4x Birds of Paradise
I do not like tracker. Feels worse than leap to me. 5 mana draw a card is usually how it works out. Every time I played it it died instantly. I get why some people like it but on the whole I do not feel the need.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I played living end and convincingly win 2 games. Having mirror entity and viscera seer in the deck seem to go a long way in this match-up. They provide a fantastic answer to this deck which is essentially running 7x 3 mana board wipes.
Merfolk in round 3 also felt pretty easy. They have so little interaction that I was able to race to the combo with little resistance and infinite life is impossible for them to overcome. Did encounter a strange scenario here where due to spreading seas I had no white mana available to cast my mirror entity for the kill. However, I was able to use a duskwatch recruiter to locate the mirror entity in my deck and then proceed to count exactly how many activations would leave it in the top 6 cards of my library. From here I used the collected company in my hand to get mirror entity into play and kill with a 200/200 devoted druid.
Played against storm round 4 and was able to successfully race game 1 largely due to being on the play. Game 2 after hitting sin collector on turn 2 my opponent case a weak empty the warrens for 6 goblins. Collected company hitting kitchen finks and ethersworn canonist was enough to stabilize and beat down with gavony township support.
My last round was against grixis death's shadow. Game 1 was a long back and forth battle with eternal witness and kitchen finks making life miserable for my opponent. We reached a point where we each had 1 card in hand and he had tasigur, angler, and snapcaster in play and was at 3 life. I'm at 10 life and he attacked with tasigur and angler into my eternal witness, kitchen finks, and viscera seer. I declare no blocks and go to 1. On my turn I turn everyone sideways and my opponent scoops, not sure why he would attack into this boardstate, but it was either a bad bluff or a miscalculation on his part. Game 2 is similarly grindy with me sneaking a mirror entity into play on his end step off of company and attacking with 4x 5/5 creatures for lethal on my turn.
All in all it was a fun night and I will be thinking about a better way to fight the cat combo deck even if it is pretty obscure.
Another card I would recommend is Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Often you can end of turn, chord of calling/ collected company, force them to use up their counterspell then cast Gideon.
You often can cast tracker, hold priority, play your land or crack your fetch in response. Tireless Tracker isn't your only option. Eternal Witness, Courser, Renegade Rallier, or Liliana Heretical Healder are all fine alternatives depending on your play style and your meta (as well as your deck configuration.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
Gideon is another card I'm very suspicious of against control. The 4 mana planeswalker I tested (nahiri) had a hard time resolving vs. control decks but it was OK. Leap is a lot easier to sneak through.
I understand how tracker works--you don't even have to hold priority, you get priority back after a spell resolves as the active player. See what I said about 5 mana draw a card. In most of the occasions I have played tracker it ended up being a 5 mana 2-for-1, which is OK, but not great against a deck full of snapcaster mages and card draw. We'd usually rather play witness or rallier which are much more mana efficient 2-for-1s, or more impactful cards like Pharika or Evolutionary Leap.
Courser is stellar against control for sure. Again, mana efficiency is key. But I would in general rather play Pharika or Leap. Courser's card advantage is fairly unreliable.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Modern
Value Town
Amulet Titan
Legacy
4C Loam
My Peasant Cube
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11667
Thanks for the reply! They are definitely a large part of my meta. I will give leyline a shot in the sideboard next week.
I don't know where you would put leylines, and it is such a non-standard choice that I don't know if it would be easy to tell if it was good or not -- you'd get games by people not sideboarding enchantment removal for sure.
My gut instinct is that it is not a good play; I'll give you a quick example of when I tried Worship vs. Valakut. They just put 4 valakuts down and shot every one of my creatures to death with free lightning bolts and beat me to death with titans.
4x leylines would likely be very good against death's shadow, except that they are likely to have sweepers, so I'm not sure it's better than just playing some value cards like Pharika / Leap. Leylines also are nearly unbeatable by Burn in our deck, since they will never know to bring in revelries and even if they did it'll likely buy a lot of time.
Overall, I think it's worth a try but I don't think it will prove good enough.
I would say that if you play leylines you should likely take it very easy on singleton sideboard cards because you will almost surely have to cut chords for them to work, which means you should have fewer flex slots and be more all-in on the combo. I also expect there to be some conflict in the whole chord / all in on the combo thing.
So maybe when you bring leylines in your take mana dorks out, and then you're slower and have more coco whiffs, but all your coco whiffs are good? I dunno.
I guess whatever you do be sure you have a good plan, not just slotting them in at random.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Modern
Value Town
Amulet Titan
Legacy
4C Loam
My Peasant Cube
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11667
2-1'd a very good burn player, got lucky - t3 killed him on the play, lost to turn 4 kill with double swiftspear, then killed t3 on the play and he missed his searing blaze land drop. Consider this a lucksack victory. In game 1 I had to chord for a flickerwisp to blink his blocker to get there on turn 3, which is an argument for Rhonas or Ballista. Burn is definitely the match where having Ballista or Rhonas makes the most difference as sometimes entity doesn't get there.
2-1'd a budget merfolk deck. I just had really bad topdecks - coco'd 3 times game 1 and lost after not hitting a vizier. Game 2 I killed with the combo on turn 4, game 3 I killed with a mirror entity after he'd played two lord of atlantis (islandwalking 6/6 birds are alright).
Split with a buddy of mine on abzan traverse; games take forever and we both wanted to play EDH About 55/45 with that deck overall, but didn't think it was worth an hour to win a pack maybe.
The deck is still pretty smoothly overall. Figure I might try another approach (FC's GW deck appeals a lot) if I have another bad week at some point.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Playing the same stuff other people play isn't likely to give you an edge in the mirror. Most of what I see in abzan is pontiff, path, decay, scooze and linvala. Of those I am sure Pontiff, Ooze and sometimes path are pretty good. I'd never leave home without at least one ooze and one pontiff in 75.
Linvala I especially dislike cos it's a coco whiff and you will be boarding in removal, making your cocos even worse if you don't take out chords.
In Naya I play lavamancer and fiery justice to get the mirror edge. In Abzan I'm not sure if there is a card that will give you a decided advantage in the mirror in the same way something like Lavamancer might.
You could try something like 2x Marsh Casualties -- good against merfolk, elves and similar as well.
You can also make maindeck tweaks to make the mirror better; play a third township, cut the 2nd viscera seer (which is often bad in the mirror), play a fiend hunter or some other kind of creature killer, etc. Playing a main deck ooze is a pretty big advantage game 1 as well.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Scattered Grove
2 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Gavony Township
2 Razorverge Thicket
2 Horizon Canopy
Creatures
4 vizier of Remedies
4 Devoted Druid
4 Birds of paradise
3 Noble Hierach
2 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Kitchen Finks
2 viscera Seer
3 Eternal witness
1 Walking Ballista
1 Anafenza
2 Renegade Rallier
4 Collected Company
4 Chord of Calling
2 Unravel the Aether
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kataki, Wars Wage
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Orzhov Pontiff
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Spellskite
2 Dusk/Dawn
1 Fairgrounds Warden
1 Fiend Hunter
What is your reasoning? To increase the times that you draw viscera seer naturally or to avoid exiling stuff or what?
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall