How did you win against burn ? Bad opponents, bad draws ? I have yet to win a full round against an experienced burn player. Game one is always a beating.
How did you win against burn ? Bad opponents, bad draws ? I have yet to win a full round against an experienced burn player. Game one is always a beating.
Play extremely tightly and get lucky. It's close to 50/50 if both players are competent, and even favors Shadow if the Shadow player knows how to navigate the matchup and the burn player does not. But to the point about luck: I mulled to 5 g1 and won anyway because he kept a slow 7 without creatures and I found a shadow.
Edit: but playing the Shadow side is extremely difficult - find a friendly burn opponent and just jam games, discuss lines, etc.
Burn is tricky indeed. Basically, you need to trade as many cards as possible with them and force THEM to do as much of the work to reduce your life total. You need to evaluate each action in terms of cards. If you fetch+shock, you just gave them a free card against you, when they’re just trying to count to 7 with that deck (more or less). Same goes with Street Wraith and Thoughtseize. Constantly think about how many “free” cards you’re giving them or how much life you’re netting yourself. (e.g. if you cast a Thoughtseize and take a Boros Charm, you’re potentially saving yourself 2 life at the cost of a slight loss of tempo).
You also can’t get too comfortable playing a control/attrition role, since burn has great inevitability. If you don’t put a clock on them, they’re eventually just going to draw enough spells to finish you. So, it’s a mix of closely monitoring your own life total to not take extra damage, placing pressure and keeping them from just building a volley of cards to eat your life total down in a single flurry. If they start storing up a hand (constantly holding on to 3 cards or more) they may just be looking for an opportune moment to take you from 10 to zero in a single turn. That's when Stubborn Denial is your best friend.
Delve threats are great in this matchup, since they place any requirements on your life total to be good. Shadow can be situationally great, or awful in this matchup.
But we can all agree that it's impossible to win g1 on the play against burn. And nearly impossible too on the draw G1. I'm talking normal modern magic burn player who knows the match up.
But we can all agree that it's impossible to win g1 on the play against burn. And nearly impossible too on the draw G1. I'm talking normal modern magic burn player who knows the match up.
I'd disagree with this. It's tough, but hardly "impossible," especially if you scout matches before and can decipher that they're on burn before hand to inform your mulligan choices.
Me, too. It usually requires an early Death's Shadow or multiple Stubborn Denials/IOKs, and they might win even then, but it's nowhere near impossible.
Been playing around on mtgo and paper, and I think I've decided the deck is just better off running that 3rd stubborn instead of running the bolt in the flex.
Yes, it's scary to run into mirrodin crusader, but if you run into him, you run into him, I don't think being scared of one deck that doesn't have the meta shares of Grixis, E-Tron and Affinity is worth ruining your win percentages across the board for a card that many consider not good in this meta.
Every deck is going to run into hate, and if someone wants to jam 3 or 4 of those crusaders in your variance encounter, hedging for that 1 bolt seems like a bad plan.
Now if we were talking about going zero bolts vs 3 bolts, that'd be another story, as thats a more consistent bolt snap bolt.
Not sure what you guys feel is better in that flex spot, claim//fame is just too GY reliant on a deck already using it's GY too much
cutting any copies of push is a massive mistake
Cutting a terminate for a bolt feels greedy, and that side dreadbore i've been seeing doesn't cut it
How are you guys feeling about the flex spot?
I found 18 lands wasn't good enough, even if it's subtle. On mtgo, the missing land wasn't missed, but on paper I noticed different results, sometimes it meant just shy of 1 shockland to really getting Shadow rolling, I did notice it missing, even if subtle.
Also, it was in death shadow jund, but I finally played kozileks return, and man that instant factor made a huge impact
Anger has been incredibly hard on the mana and life total to cast, does anyone feel the same way? Lantto in his article seemed to write about leaning towards 1x pyroclasm
Yup. Flaying Tendrils is actually pretty decent. A lot easier to cast than Anger of the Gods and kills Etched Champion. It's only sin is that it doesn't get Prized Amalgam, but it kills all of Dredge's other threats and gets rid of Bloodghast to shut off the heavy recursion engine with Amalgam. It's often enough to get the win.
But we can all agree that it's impossible to win g1 on the play against burn. And nearly impossible too on the draw G1. I'm talking normal modern magic burn player who knows the match up.
I'd disagree with this. It's tough, but hardly "impossible," especially if you scout matches before and can decipher that they're on burn before hand to inform your mulligan choices.
Also disagree. G1 is tough, but the card Death's Shadow closes very fast. Even if you're on the play and don't know that you're playing against burn, you can mitigate the possible downside by doing things like waiting to cycle street wraith. Or fetching in such a way that the second fetch you play can get a basic if it turns out they're on burn. Not every hand has the luxury of doing things like this, but some do.
Been playing around on mtgo and paper, and I think I've decided the deck is just better off running that 3rd stubborn instead of running the bolt in the flex.
Yes, it's scary to run into mirrodin crusader, but if you run into him, you run into him, I don't think being scared of one deck that doesn't have the meta shares of Grixis, E-Tron and Affinity is worth ruining your win percentages across the board for a card that many consider not good in this meta.
Every deck is going to run into hate, and if someone wants to jam 3 or 4 of those crusaders in your variance encounter, hedging for that 1 bolt seems like a bad plan.
Now if we were talking about going zero bolts vs 3 bolts, that'd be another story, as thats a more consistent bolt snap bolt.
Not sure what you guys feel is better in that flex spot, claim//fame is just too GY reliant on a deck already using it's GY too much
cutting any copies of push is a massive mistake
Cutting a terminate for a bolt feels greedy, and that side dreadbore i've been seeing doesn't cut it
How are you guys feeling about the flex spot?
The flex spot should be Liliana of the Veil. (And the 4th Snapcaster should be another Liliana of the Veil). The thing about Push is that it can sometimes be incredibly awkward when you need to kill, an Ezuri, an Elvish Archdruid, a Meerow Reejery, a Thalia, Heretic Cathar, or an Aven Mindcensor etc, but you don't have a fetch to use. By diversifying your cheap removal with 1 bolt you have a better shot at avoiding those awkward spots. It also provides a way to pressure planeswalkers without having a creature in play, which is sometimes relevant. And we're a Snapcaster + Thought Scour + other cantrips deck - we see our 1 ofs far more often than a typical deck, and we can use them twice. So I think there's a lot of value to having access to 1 bolt against the Mirran Crusader decks.
It seems like P&K has worked out well for you.. I'm going to give it a try. What kind of matchups do you bring them in? Assuming it's as simple as "in games where you need more threats". I'm assuming P&K took the slot for Liliana, the Last Hope?
I'm also tempted to ask how you've found LotV and Leak, a combination that doesn't seem to work well in tandem at face value
It seems like P&K has worked out well for you.. I'm going to give it a try. What kind of matchups do you bring them in? Assuming it's as simple as "in games where you need more threats". I'm assuming P&K took the slot for Liliana, the Last Hope?
I'm also tempted to ask how you've found LotV and Leak, a combination that doesn't seem to work well in tandem at face value
Yep, the P&Ks replaced LtlH. The theory is this: 1) everyone is playing more GY hate, so LtlH is less good than otherwise, 2) LtlH takes time to deal with swarms while P&K puts a board presence into play immediately, 3) Lingering Souls is really good against us, and this lets us fight back on the same axis while having "1/1 flying token advantage" in mirrors and against midrange decks that don't have something similar, and if they don't have GY hate, K Command + P&K will take over, and 4) Against affinity P&K deals with the manlands AND Etched Champion, the two hardest things to beat. She comes in vs. all grindy matchups and most swarms. BGx, Shadow builds, control decks, other midrange decks, affinity, elves, goblins (yes I've played against it), most blood moon decks, maybe even Dredge (not sure there).
Leak vs. IoK is very close in that build, and in an RPTQ or GP, I'd probably have IoK. Leak just gives you a bit more insurance against random nonsense, and doesn't really conflict that much with LotV. Yes, sometimes you have 1 card in hand and it's a leak, so you both want to +1 Lily and hold the leak. But it doesn't come up that much with just 2 of each. And there's also some synergy there - when Leak becomes bad because they have too many lands, you can pitch it to Lily.
I have not heard anyone suggest the flex spot and 4th Snap should be an LOTV, neither in articles, streams, here, or mtgo lists.
It seems flat out wrong to clunk up your 3 drop more
Snapcaster is already a 3 drop when you consider him
Because no one has but me, as far as I know! Here's my argument (which I've made a few times in the past couple pages): 1) LotV is one of the best cards to have in the mirror and vs most midrange decks, and even against the midrange decks with Lingering Souls she's pretty good - especially if you can deal with Lingering Souls some other way. 2) Similarly, LotV is pretty good against many aggro decks and control decks, though not an all star and not vs the aggro decks that go wide quickly. 3) Vs. most combo decks, discard into threat into LotV is a tried and true strategy that works, so she's pretty good there. 4) Graveyard hate is everywhere right now, so Snapcaster and the Delve creatures can sometimes be stuck in your hand.
LotV is a very powerful card that is at least decent in most matchups and very good in many matchups that doesn't rely on the graveyard to be good. In fact, her +1 lets you get value out of e.g. dead delve creatures in hand while you're under a RiP or Leyline. Now, to fit 2 in the MD, you definitely need to shave one of the three drops. And the 4th Snapcaster gets the cut against because of the GY hate and diminishing returns. So we're only adding 1 more 3 drop to the standard shell. I've been experimenting with having an extra 3 drop MD for most of the existence of this deck - typically in the form of a LotV, and the 19 land build can handle it.
Vs. Affinity:
-4 Street Wraith, -2 Liliana of the Veil, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Stubborn Denial, -1 Mana Leak
+2 Kozilek's Return, +2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar, +2 Ceremonious Rejection, +2 Collective Brutality, +1 Izzet Staticaster
The mix of Thoughtseize, Denial, and Leak that comes out depends on play/draw and how many Galvanic Blasts you expect them to have. I'm not real certain of the those last 3 that come out.
If you know they won't have Hangerback Walker, the Staticaster should be a Push or a Stub instead. There's some leeway to have more Pushes and Stubs in general, but you have to figure out what to cut. I'm not 100% sure here.
also to note if you have Angers you should be bringing those in as answers to the Hangarback (which have been more common lately) as well as being clean answers to Reshapers
It seems like P&K has worked out well for you.. I'm going to give it a try. What kind of matchups do you bring them in? Assuming it's as simple as "in games where you need more threats". I'm assuming P&K took the slot for Liliana, the Last Hope?
I'm also tempted to ask how you've found LotV and Leak, a combination that doesn't seem to work well in tandem at face value
Yep, the P&Ks replaced LtlH. The theory is this: 1) everyone is playing more GY hate, so LtlH is less good than otherwise, 2) LtlH takes time to deal with swarms while P&K puts a board presence into play immediately, 3) Lingering Souls is really good against us, and this lets us fight back on the same axis while having "1/1 flying token advantage" in mirrors and against midrange decks that don't have something similar, and if they don't have GY hate, K Command + P&K will take over, and 4) Against affinity P&K deals with the manlands AND Etched Champion, the two hardest things to beat. She comes in vs. all grindy matchups and most swarms. BGx, Shadow builds, control decks, other midrange decks, affinity, elves, goblins (yes I've played against it), most blood moon decks, maybe even Dredge (not sure there).
Leak vs. IoK is very close in that build, and in an RPTQ or GP, I'd probably have IoK. Leak just gives you a bit more insurance against random nonsense, and doesn't really conflict that much with LotV. Yes, sometimes you have 1 card in hand and it's a leak, so you both want to +1 Lily and hold the leak. But it doesn't come up that much with just 2 of each. And there's also some synergy there - when Leak becomes bad because they have too many lands, you can pitch it to Lily.
I have not heard anyone suggest the flex spot and 4th Snap should be an LOTV, neither in articles, streams, here, or mtgo lists.
It seems flat out wrong to clunk up your 3 drop more
Snapcaster is already a 3 drop when you consider him
Because no one has but me, as far as I know! Here's my argument (which I've made a few times in the past couple pages): 1) LotV is one of the best cards to have in the mirror and vs most midrange decks, and even against the midrange decks with Lingering Souls she's pretty good - especially if you can deal with Lingering Souls some other way. 2) Similarly, LotV is pretty good against many aggro decks and control decks, though not an all star and not vs the aggro decks that go wide quickly. 3) Vs. most combo decks, discard into threat into LotV is a tried and true strategy that works, so she's pretty good there. 4) Graveyard hate is everywhere right now, so Snapcaster and the Delve creatures can sometimes be stuck in your hand.
LotV is a very powerful card that is at least decent in most matchups and very good in many matchups that doesn't rely on the graveyard to be good. In fact, her +1 lets you get value out of e.g. dead delve creatures in hand while you're under a RiP or Leyline. Now, to fit 2 in the MD, you definitely need to shave one of the three drops. And the 4th Snapcaster gets the cut against because of the GY hate and diminishing returns. So we're only adding 1 more 3 drop to the standard shell. I've been experimenting with having an extra 3 drop MD for most of the existence of this deck - typically in the form of a LotV, and the 19 land build can handle it.
Edit: formatting.
:thumb: good stuff, thanks. I'm going to give it a try. Am very interested in testing LotV/P&K as well as the young pyro versions for the upcoming PPTQs..
I'm happy that Spooly is doing well with the 2 LotVs. While I don't fully agree with this choice, I like to see some diversity.
And it may actually be the right choice for a metagame with lots of midrange. Reducing the dependency on the graveyard is something I'm also striving for. That's why I, unlike some other posters, wasn't enthusiastic about Claim // Fame when it first was spoiled.
I tested Pia and Kiran Nalaar a while ago as well, but hitting four lands by turn four is not what the deck usually wants to do. The fourth land would otherwise be a natural candidate for discarding through LotV's +1 ability, so this doesn't seem overly synergistic.
Cheers guys, what do you think about lili of the veil in the mirror matchup? is she better than dismember??
Significantly. She kills everything and she's a threat that's similarly hard to deal with. This matchup goes very tall, which is that they don't swarm the board and tend to play single large threats (Tasigur, Gurmag, Death's Shadow). As a result Liliana being a 3-mana kill spell at sorcery speed is perfectly fine, especially when she still has to be answered. If you play against an opponent that cut Bolts and doesn't play the sideboard Dreadbore, then they have almost no way to kill her. They need Kolaghan's Command and for her to be at a low enough amount. Suffice to say, she's very hard to remove from the table.
In my last game against the mirror, Liliana single-handedly won me the game. My opponent literally could not remove her and she got up to 9 counters.
Play extremely tightly and get lucky. It's close to 50/50 if both players are competent, and even favors Shadow if the Shadow player knows how to navigate the matchup and the burn player does not. But to the point about luck: I mulled to 5 g1 and won anyway because he kept a slow 7 without creatures and I found a shadow.
Edit: but playing the Shadow side is extremely difficult - find a friendly burn opponent and just jam games, discuss lines, etc.
You also can’t get too comfortable playing a control/attrition role, since burn has great inevitability. If you don’t put a clock on them, they’re eventually just going to draw enough spells to finish you. So, it’s a mix of closely monitoring your own life total to not take extra damage, placing pressure and keeping them from just building a volley of cards to eat your life total down in a single flurry. If they start storing up a hand (constantly holding on to 3 cards or more) they may just be looking for an opportune moment to take you from 10 to zero in a single turn. That's when Stubborn Denial is your best friend.
Delve threats are great in this matchup, since they place any requirements on your life total to be good. Shadow can be situationally great, or awful in this matchup.
I'd disagree with this. It's tough, but hardly "impossible," especially if you scout matches before and can decipher that they're on burn before hand to inform your mulligan choices.
Yes, it's scary to run into mirrodin crusader, but if you run into him, you run into him, I don't think being scared of one deck that doesn't have the meta shares of Grixis, E-Tron and Affinity is worth ruining your win percentages across the board for a card that many consider not good in this meta.
Every deck is going to run into hate, and if someone wants to jam 3 or 4 of those crusaders in your variance encounter, hedging for that 1 bolt seems like a bad plan.
Now if we were talking about going zero bolts vs 3 bolts, that'd be another story, as thats a more consistent bolt snap bolt.
Not sure what you guys feel is better in that flex spot, claim//fame is just too GY reliant on a deck already using it's GY too much
cutting any copies of push is a massive mistake
Cutting a terminate for a bolt feels greedy, and that side dreadbore i've been seeing doesn't cut it
How are you guys feeling about the flex spot?
I found 18 lands wasn't good enough, even if it's subtle. On mtgo, the missing land wasn't missed, but on paper I noticed different results, sometimes it meant just shy of 1 shockland to really getting Shadow rolling, I did notice it missing, even if subtle.
Anger has been incredibly hard on the mana and life total to cast, does anyone feel the same way? Lantto in his article seemed to write about leaning towards 1x pyroclasm
It kills Etched Champion.
Also disagree. G1 is tough, but the card Death's Shadow closes very fast. Even if you're on the play and don't know that you're playing against burn, you can mitigate the possible downside by doing things like waiting to cycle street wraith. Or fetching in such a way that the second fetch you play can get a basic if it turns out they're on burn. Not every hand has the luxury of doing things like this, but some do.
The flex spot should be Liliana of the Veil. (And the 4th Snapcaster should be another Liliana of the Veil). The thing about Push is that it can sometimes be incredibly awkward when you need to kill, an Ezuri, an Elvish Archdruid, a Meerow Reejery, a Thalia, Heretic Cathar, or an Aven Mindcensor etc, but you don't have a fetch to use. By diversifying your cheap removal with 1 bolt you have a better shot at avoiding those awkward spots. It also provides a way to pressure planeswalkers without having a creature in play, which is sometimes relevant. And we're a Snapcaster + Thought Scour + other cantrips deck - we see our 1 ofs far more often than a typical deck, and we can use them twice. So I think there's a lot of value to having access to 1 bolt against the Mirran Crusader decks.
I'm a huge fan of MD 2 LotV - check the last couple of pages for some discussion.
I'm also tempted to ask how you've found LotV and Leak, a combination that doesn't seem to work well in tandem at face value
It seems flat out wrong to clunk up your 3 drop more
Snapcaster is already a 3 drop when you consider him
Yep, the P&Ks replaced LtlH. The theory is this: 1) everyone is playing more GY hate, so LtlH is less good than otherwise, 2) LtlH takes time to deal with swarms while P&K puts a board presence into play immediately, 3) Lingering Souls is really good against us, and this lets us fight back on the same axis while having "1/1 flying token advantage" in mirrors and against midrange decks that don't have something similar, and if they don't have GY hate, K Command + P&K will take over, and 4) Against affinity P&K deals with the manlands AND Etched Champion, the two hardest things to beat. She comes in vs. all grindy matchups and most swarms. BGx, Shadow builds, control decks, other midrange decks, affinity, elves, goblins (yes I've played against it), most blood moon decks, maybe even Dredge (not sure there).
Leak vs. IoK is very close in that build, and in an RPTQ or GP, I'd probably have IoK. Leak just gives you a bit more insurance against random nonsense, and doesn't really conflict that much with LotV. Yes, sometimes you have 1 card in hand and it's a leak, so you both want to +1 Lily and hold the leak. But it doesn't come up that much with just 2 of each. And there's also some synergy there - when Leak becomes bad because they have too many lands, you can pitch it to Lily.
Because no one has but me, as far as I know! Here's my argument (which I've made a few times in the past couple pages): 1) LotV is one of the best cards to have in the mirror and vs most midrange decks, and even against the midrange decks with Lingering Souls she's pretty good - especially if you can deal with Lingering Souls some other way. 2) Similarly, LotV is pretty good against many aggro decks and control decks, though not an all star and not vs the aggro decks that go wide quickly. 3) Vs. most combo decks, discard into threat into LotV is a tried and true strategy that works, so she's pretty good there. 4) Graveyard hate is everywhere right now, so Snapcaster and the Delve creatures can sometimes be stuck in your hand.
LotV is a very powerful card that is at least decent in most matchups and very good in many matchups that doesn't rely on the graveyard to be good. In fact, her +1 lets you get value out of e.g. dead delve creatures in hand while you're under a RiP or Leyline. Now, to fit 2 in the MD, you definitely need to shave one of the three drops. And the 4th Snapcaster gets the cut against because of the GY hate and diminishing returns. So we're only adding 1 more 3 drop to the standard shell. I've been experimenting with having an extra 3 drop MD for most of the existence of this deck - typically in the form of a LotV, and the 19 land build can handle it.
Edit: formatting.
-4 Street Wraith, -2 Liliana of the Veil, -1 Thoughtseize, -1 Stubborn Denial, -1 Mana Leak
+2 Kozilek's Return, +2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar, +2 Ceremonious Rejection, +2 Collective Brutality, +1 Izzet Staticaster
The mix of Thoughtseize, Denial, and Leak that comes out depends on play/draw and how many Galvanic Blasts you expect them to have. I'm not real certain of the those last 3 that come out.
Vs. Eldrazi Tron:
-2 Fatal Push, -1 Lightning Bolt
+2 Ceremonious Rejection, +1 Izzet Staticaster
If you know they won't have Hangerback Walker, the Staticaster should be a Push or a Stub instead. There's some leeway to have more Pushes and Stubs in general, but you have to figure out what to cut. I'm not 100% sure here.
:thumb: good stuff, thanks. I'm going to give it a try. Am very interested in testing LotV/P&K as well as the young pyro versions for the upcoming PPTQs..
And it may actually be the right choice for a metagame with lots of midrange. Reducing the dependency on the graveyard is something I'm also striving for. That's why I, unlike some other posters, wasn't enthusiastic about Claim // Fame when it first was spoiled.
I tested Pia and Kiran Nalaar a while ago as well, but hitting four lands by turn four is not what the deck usually wants to do. The fourth land would otherwise be a natural candidate for discarding through LotV's +1 ability, so this doesn't seem overly synergistic.
In my last game against the mirror, Liliana single-handedly won me the game. My opponent literally could not remove her and she got up to 9 counters.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer