i testet a few rounds against jeskai control feat. JtmS yesterday.
I won all three Preboard games without issues.
After Boarding the Matchup gets a lot worse. He bring in wear/tear, abrade, stony silence, Engineered Explosives, Vendilion Clique, 2 Dispel. I feel so far behind in the postboard games. I have to manage the jace, the creatures, a bunch of burnspells and his hate cards. Most i can control the creatures, jace and the hate, but then
loose to burn spells. Or i handle the burn, and creatures, then the pithing needle gets bounced and countered and jace finished me off.
Whats your advices in this matchup?
Many Guides says to board out the Witchbane Orb, Spellbomb and a Pithing Needle and put in 2 decays and a search for azcanta. I guess the needle should stay in the md and the third from the sb come to the maindeck.
So there should come 1 Needle, 2 Decay, 1 Search and maybe a Aethgrid against jace. But what should i board out, 1 Bridge, the orb and a spellbomb.
Whats your strategy in this mu and how do you play?
After the games i thought, thats not possible to handle everything. On Sunday i test the matchup more and try to mill the burnspells, handle the creatures with bridge and protect it.
i testet a few rounds against jeskai control feat. JtmS yesterday.
I won all three Preboard games without issues.
After Boarding the Matchup gets a lot worse. He bring in wear/tear, abrade, stony silence, Engineered Explosives, Vendilion Clique, 2 Dispel. I feel so far behind in the postboard games. I have to manage the jace, the creatures, a bunch of burnspells and his hate cards. Most i can control the creatures, jace and the hate, but then
loose to burn spells. Or i handle the burn, and creatures, then the pithing needle gets bounced and countered and jace finished me off.
Whats your advices in this matchup?
Many Guides says to board out the Witchbane Orb, Spellbomb and a Pithing Needle and put in 2 decays and a search for azcanta. I guess the needle should stay in the md and the third from the sb come to the maindeck.
So there should come 1 Needle, 2 Decay, 1 Search and maybe a Aethgrid against jace. But what should i board out, 1 Bridge, the orb and a spellbomb.
Whats your strategy in this mu and how do you play?
After the games i thought, thats not possible to handle everything. On Sunday i test the matchup more and try to mill the burnspells, handle the creatures with bridge and protect it.
Thanks dor your advice.
Are you sure the guides said board out pithing needle?
All the guides I've read state to board out cage.
Based on the PT list (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18360&d=313973&f=MO) this is how I would SB against Jace builds...
OUT
-1 cage
-1 bauble
-1 mox opal
-1 pyrite spellbomb
-1 pyxis
-1 orb
-1 whir
IN
+1 search
+1 abrupt decay
+1 collective brutality
+2 Tez
+1 nature's claim
+1 welding jar / maelstorm pulse / keep 4th whir in / pithing needle
(last spot is a flex spot that changes depending on their build and what I see).
My reasoning: against stony silence decks you typically slim down on the number of baubles/opals you run in addition to bringing in tez.
You want to increase your likelihood of winning through a stony.
You can slim whir because they often bring in dispels. Typically whir is used to force them to tap out on their turn anyways (so you can main phase push artifacts through).
I would not side out a pithing needle unless you are already playing 3. And even with the new jace builds... I could see justification for bringing it in.
The challenge with Jeskai is knowing their deck. How many burn spells do they have left? How many burn spells could they possibly be in their hand (including things like snap-caster + cryptic)? etc. You need all that knowledge to know what to mill correctly.
After playing a few matches with a Whir list it seems to me that, for all intents and purposes of the deck, we have a functional Tinker... at instant speed... with no sacrifice requirement?
After playing a few matches with a Whir list it seems to me that, for all intents and purposes of the deck, we have a functional Tinker... at instant speed... with no sacrifice requirement?
Im loving it!
That's um....well....yes.
However that UUU mana cost is a huge drawback
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@Duodenum, I have three videos to upload with the new meta, two Jace decks and a BBE Jund deck. I'll give a quick rundown on how they went for now, hopefully upload the videos to the Youtube channel here in the next 24 hours.
The first Jace matchup, my opponent was on UB Jace. I was able to win game one through a quick lock. The brainstorming makes me feel panicky every time, hoping they don't draw into something awesome. Game two my opponent brought in graveyard hate, in the form of Leyline of the Void. Not the first time this has happened, people seem to think that bringing in graveyard hate is a good thing to do. They also brought in Surgicals, if I recall correctly. Surgicals were more worrisome, but thanks to lots of discard, my own Leyline of Sanctity, and them having dead Leylines, I was able to win it. There was a turn where they drew a Cryptic on their last blind draw, and it was their only unknown, but I had too many cards for them to be able to Cryptic and bounce. They could try to bounce Needle and get one brainstorm out of Jace, but would have to lucksack and hope that the 2nd and 3rd cards of the brainstorm were good. They could have bounced one Bridge, but I had multiples. They could have tried to bounce a lock piece, but also had duplicates. So, I was fortunate to have built a boardstate in which Cryptic couldn't get there, and slowly whittled their library, being ever careful.
The match (game - they quit after game one) against BBE Jund felt much easier than regular Jund. Them cutting discard seems to help a huge amount. This allowed me to set up the lock extremely quickly after discarding their Decay. They have to get very lucky with their cascades, which they didn't. It also helps that we have semi-control over their cascades. This means that they have to hold BBE to hope for a good cascade, while we're setting up their top card(s) and controlling their draws, and they have to hope we don't just draw a Thoughtseize to get rid of it.
The 2nd match (game - again, they quit after game one) against a Jace deck was against a Miracles build. This deck just has a ridiculous amount of dead cards, as they need to focus on not losing to fast aggro decks. That meant a ton of Paths and Terminus. Their clock is super slow, with their only wincons being Entreat the Angels (which we control the miracle of), Celestial Colonnade, and Jace. I was never able to Needle Jace, just didn't draw into it fast enough. They got a ton of brainstorms, but I always made sure that the top card was a dead one and hoped for the best. On their first brainstorm, they were able to find a Detention Sphere, but I was able to dig to a Thoughtseize and get rid of it. We did have a fight over a Cryptic a little while into the game. Near the end, when they had around 12 cards left in library (them drawing two per turn thanks to Jace, plus my very carefully played mill), I was able to resolve a Whir of Invention. They had just flipped a Search for Azcanta into the Sunken Ruin, so they got one activation off of it, searching for a counter, but they didn't find one. I got Needle into play and was about to name Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin and they conceded. EDIT: Near the end of the game, my opponent mentioned that maybe they should have been using Jace to +2 me, but that would have allowed me to have much more control over their draws and mine, and I would have likely been able to Whir for Needle much sooner. Them brainstorming had drawn them a Clique at one point that was able to take a Whir out of my hand when I was stuck on two mana (my opp had used two Field of Ruins on me). If they hadn't, I could have just waited a turn, drawn a land, and Whir'd for Needle and won the game on the spot.
I'm still very worried about the metagame going forward. While I'm happy with Jund dropping so much discard, I worry about a resurgence in Gx Tron (which seems to have happened, at least on the Cockatrice meta) and nearly every blue deck going forward having a Jace to fight.
Have you tested at all post board against Jund? I agree that game 1 gets easier, but games 2 and 3 are now much harder. They usually run 3 grudges and 3-4 fulminators, as well as some of the missing mainboard discard. Tron is more prevalent, which is bad for us. And therefore a lot of blood moon decks are running around. Blue moon jace control, as well as creature ramp moon decks. I've had a lot of turn 2 moons cast against me, and it hurts a lot. I'd suggest going back to 3 pithing in the main and pyrite gone or in the side.
I'm afraid I haven't tested postboard against Jund. My Jund opponent left after the first game I agree that postboard seems like it's going to be rough, and I was expecting a very difficult game or two, but didn't get to see how tough since they left. I'm guessing maybe they'd changed their sideboard to anticipate Gx Tron and Jace decks, and had minimal artifact hate, although I can't know for sure. I expected postboard against the Miracles deck to also be difficult, expecting Stony Silence, but didn't get to see that, either. I suppose it is possible that so many people are skimping on the artifact hate due to the anticipated meta shift, though I would have at least expected Stony Silence from them, since it has collateral damage against Gx Tron.
I don't run Pyrite at all in my list, though I agree that it might be good to find a spot for the 3rd Needle. I have seem to have noticed a downswing in Collected Company and Dredge decks, so maybe it would be safe to swap out the Grafdigger's Cage for it. I don't know for sure, though.
Just got done writing an advanced strategy article explaining how and why Lantern would take G1 to time. http://redd.it/7z34po
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Holy ***** crexalbo, this would be a very good article but for 2 reasons:
1. In say a GP you will have a standby judge sooner rather than later if you win all your games with just the first game. This judge will be so suspicious for intentional slow play that he might actually give you a penalty for something that could also be legal, like recycling lanterns over and over.
2. It also poses significant risk in the following scenario: You get the lock at lets say 35 minutes left in the round. You durdle around until there is 10 minutes left in the round and then your opponent suddenly realizes, he is not winning game 1 anymore. You now have to play game 2 with 10 minutes left against a deck that can probably win this fast and you have no way of preventing a draw if they do, because our deck is not fast. Had we finished game 1 quickly we could have played all 3 games easily. The thing with lantern is: Wins take time, losses can go super fast.
Jace and BBE are incredibly strong mid-range cards. It makes it so that decks want to tip a bit heavier around them. This means the best ways to fight them is go big or go small. Big is Tron, and small is burn and affinity. Sideways is blood moon. Sideboards therefore are usually dedicated to fighting Tron and fast aggro, including affinity. No one is gunning for lantern, but we are collateral damage.
Re: crexalbo, that is an awful article. Aside from the fact that it is actual cheating (which I'm sure you will pretend it isn't), it is just terrible strategy. Reading it, I am 99% sure you've never played lantern in a GP or PTQ or any real large tournament. We are favored G1 in many matches, but post board it gets very hard. You might do well at FNM with that strategy against poor players. But you will lose many game 2s and have a bunch of draws, so you won't ever get far in real competitive play. What makes the whole thing a joke is that you act as if this is advice for a tournament when it is obvious you've never competed at any high level.
@Kleronomas, While I understand you might not like the article crexalbo wrote, your criticism seems a bit harsh, and assumptive. What he's written about has been discussed, and agreed upon, in this very thread and on the subreddit.
So, first, as for calling it cheating: When I was at SCG Baltimore, my 2nd round opponent used that very same technique against me. They didn't slow play, but I had the lock in game three and the inevitable win. We had a good fifteen minutes on the clock. Yet they made sure to activate all abilities they could, and count every trigger they could, to take up time. The head judge, and multiple judges, were watching our match, as we were the last playing. Again, I'd already gone through their library with a Surgical and knew they had no outs. We ended up going to turns and a draw because of it. I later asked the head judge if I should have called the opponent on slow play (I figured that if it was truly slow play that the head judge would have taken the initiative, which is why I didn't call a judge). The head judge said that what the opponent was doing was legal and well within their rights. My opponent even verbally stated that they were playing for the draw.
What crexalbo is saying here is that we are also able to take advantage of this. If this is cheating, then there's a lot of screwed up judges in the SCG circuit right now that owe me a win. Note that this was at a large event, so your assumption that what crexalbo's written implies that he's never played at a large event seems only based on your own feelings of superiority. Again, I respect that you have a difference of opinions, I find it difficult not to point out the flaws in your argument. Please at least be respectful to others in your disagreement, eh?
EDIT: Ugh. Just saw the comments from others on the subreddit. Sometimes humans just keep disappointing.
In the example you gave, had you employed the suggested strategy and drawn out your game 1, you would have GUARANTEED a draw. As it was, you were racing to finish game 3 in time. Your example backs my point. Forget the aspect of cheating and emotions. It is just an incorrect line to take in game 1 because the only way it pays off is if your opponent is bad. Your opponent even said he was playing for the draw. That's a desperate last measure when you can't win, but want to salvage 1 point from the match. This strategy is playing for the draw from the start. Have you had success doing this in a full day tournament, or can you find any top pilot of the deck that would recommend this?
I have not tried this method, though I am aware of it.
My point is that my opponent used this very same method to get a draw from me, when we would have easily had time on the clock to finish the game and grant me the win. And, apparently, multiple judges (including the head judge) condoned the behavior. Now, if there is something to be done about the quality of judges, and you were to say that the judges at the event were inadequate at being judges, I can accept that. However, if this is allowed to be used against Lantern players, why should this not also be allowed to be used by Lantern players?
Again, I don't use this method, and I prefer to just play it out.
EDIT: And no, if I had employed this method in game one, I was guaranteed a win. My opponent made me mill them out completely in game one, and I was milling aggressively.
EDIT 2: Just got back from playing ten games at my LGS, testing against BBE Jund and UW Control (with Jace).
First, against BBE Jund, here's how I sideboarded:
- 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
- 3 Collective Brutality
- 1 Thoughtseize
+ 3 Leyline of Sanctity
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 1 Welding Jar
+ 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
+ 1 Magus of the Moat
I won game one rather easily, naming Liliana with Needle and getting a quick lock with Bridge. As I figured, their increased average converted mana helps quite a bit here. Tireless Tracker was always very troublesome for us, but it seems that the common thought among Jund players is that Dark Confidant and Bloodbraid Elf are enough card advantage. That, combined with a slightly lower amount of maindeck discard, means that it's much easier to set up the lock and keep it.
After one preboard game, we played four postboard games, with each of us being on play/draw twice. The only game I lost was one in which he had two Thoughtseize (grabbing Decay and then Padeem from my hand), Maelstrom Pulse, and Ancient Grudge in his opener. All other games, I got the lock rather easily, always ensuring that I whir'd for a Pyxis to watch out for the two Ancient Grudge left in the library. Padeem was backbreaking for my opponent in all other games I drew him. Magus of the Moat was less impressive, as once I got a Leyline out, Magus was just a Bolt target. My opponent's only answer to Padeem were their Maelstrom Pulse', and it was rather easy to keep them off of those.
A note on my sideboard plan: This was an idea put forth by mikemaz quite a while ago. We side out almost all of our discard, since they are terrible topdecks. That allows us to ensure that we neutralize as many cards as we can without having to spend as much mana as well. Even if the opponent does discard cards from our hand, we then have too many good cards to truly wreck our hands. In addition, every turn that they are spending paying for discard in the early game is a turn that they didn't play a threat, which buys us turns.
Against UW Control (with Jace - not Miracles), I sideboarded as follows:
- 4 Mishra's Bauble
- 1 Witchbane Orb
- 1 Grafdigger's Cage
+ 1 Seal of Primordium
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
+ 1 Wear // Tear
+ 1 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Collective Brutality
Again, game one wasn't too terribly difficult, although very tricky. I had to plan ahead on what to Needle. I also made sure that I didn't get blown out by Detention Sphere. Otherwise, it felt just like normal UW Control, but with another Needle target.
Postboard (again, we played four postboard games, alternating play/draw), my plan was to overload them with discard, wrecking their hand. While this seems at odds with what I mention above with playing against Jund, the difference is that UW Control doesn't want to play spells on their turn if they can help it, whereas Jund does. So every turn that UW Control is forced to play spells on their turn is another turn that we're free to play around counters. This worked out very well. Again, Padeem was great. I was very iffy on siding out Witchbane Orb and Grafdigger's Cage, but I figured that Snapcaster was just yet another card they had to hold to make the most out of the few Cryptics they have. Also, being able to strip his hand of counters allowed me to just follow up with the lock, Needles, Bridge, etc., without worry.
In hindsight, I think I would rather have a Leonin Abunas than Magus of the Moat. Magus is decent against other matchups, but Abunas would mean that we could have two "Padeem" in play at the same time. I am also seriously considering swapping an Inquisition for a Thoughtseize, due to the amount of Jace and Bloodbraid popping up these days.
You are running 3 main Collective Brutality thnkr? Really? I have never seen any reason to run even 1 main, so I am curious as to what the meta you're playing this in looks like.
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Yerp. I started running it quite a while back, just because of how well it shored up the Burn matchup. I just kept tracking the data, and it continues to perform very well. The versatility is key, I think. While many decks require the use of Pyrite Spellbomb to take out Signal Pests and Noble Hierarchs, which is dead in many matchups (and absolutely useless with Stony Silence out), Brutality is great in many more matchups. It still takes out Cryptics and counters against control, takes out creatures like Thalia, Meddling Mage, Freebooter, Pest (hell, nearly every creature in Affinity), and absolutely swings the Burn matchup entirely. I understand that people like Glogowski and Black don't like it, but I'm not building my deck to fit their opinion. You'll also see that my old list that won States ran four in the main.
Yerp. I started running it quite a while back, just because of how well it shored up the Burn matchup. I just kept tracking the data, and it continues to perform very well. The versatility is key, I think. While many decks require the use of Pyrite Spellbomb to take out Signal Pests and Noble Hierarchs, which is dead in many matchups (and absolutely useless with Stony Silence out), Brutality is great in many more matchups. It still takes out Cryptics and counters against control, takes out creatures like Thalia, Meddling Mage, Freebooter, Pest (hell, nearly every creature in Affinity), and absolutely swings the Burn matchup entirely. I understand that people like Glogowski and Black don't like it, but I'm not building my deck to fit their opinion. You'll also see that my old list that won States ran four in the main.
I mean I definitely agree with your points, however it just makes Brutality seem like more of a sideboard card that a main one. *shrug* if it's been working for you, keep going with it I suppose. I just know when I played more Brutalities main I had too many match-ups where I just wished they were a better discard spell like Inquisition, Thoughtseize, or hell, even Duress.
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Are you sure the guides said board out pithing needle?
All the guides I've read state to board out cage.
Based on the PT list (http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=18360&d=313973&f=MO) this is how I would SB against Jace builds...
OUT
-1 cage
-1 bauble
-1 mox opal
-1 pyrite spellbomb
-1 pyxis
-1 orb
-1 whir
IN
+1 search
+1 abrupt decay
+1 collective brutality
+2 Tez
+1 nature's claim
+1 welding jar / maelstorm pulse / keep 4th whir in / pithing needle
(last spot is a flex spot that changes depending on their build and what I see).
My reasoning: against stony silence decks you typically slim down on the number of baubles/opals you run in addition to bringing in tez.
You want to increase your likelihood of winning through a stony.
You can slim whir because they often bring in dispels. Typically whir is used to force them to tap out on their turn anyways (so you can main phase push artifacts through).
I would not side out a pithing needle unless you are already playing 3. And even with the new jace builds... I could see justification for bringing it in.
The challenge with Jeskai is knowing their deck. How many burn spells do they have left? How many burn spells could they possibly be in their hand (including things like snap-caster + cryptic)? etc. You need all that knowledge to know what to mill correctly.
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After playing a few matches with a Whir list it seems to me that, for all intents and purposes of the deck, we have a functional Tinker... at instant speed... with no sacrifice requirement?
Im loving it!
That's um....well....yes.
However that UUU mana cost is a huge drawback
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The first Jace matchup, my opponent was on UB Jace. I was able to win game one through a quick lock. The brainstorming makes me feel panicky every time, hoping they don't draw into something awesome. Game two my opponent brought in graveyard hate, in the form of Leyline of the Void. Not the first time this has happened, people seem to think that bringing in graveyard hate is a good thing to do. They also brought in Surgicals, if I recall correctly. Surgicals were more worrisome, but thanks to lots of discard, my own Leyline of Sanctity, and them having dead Leylines, I was able to win it. There was a turn where they drew a Cryptic on their last blind draw, and it was their only unknown, but I had too many cards for them to be able to Cryptic and bounce. They could try to bounce Needle and get one brainstorm out of Jace, but would have to lucksack and hope that the 2nd and 3rd cards of the brainstorm were good. They could have bounced one Bridge, but I had multiples. They could have tried to bounce a lock piece, but also had duplicates. So, I was fortunate to have built a boardstate in which Cryptic couldn't get there, and slowly whittled their library, being ever careful.
The match (game - they quit after game one) against BBE Jund felt much easier than regular Jund. Them cutting discard seems to help a huge amount. This allowed me to set up the lock extremely quickly after discarding their Decay. They have to get very lucky with their cascades, which they didn't. It also helps that we have semi-control over their cascades. This means that they have to hold BBE to hope for a good cascade, while we're setting up their top card(s) and controlling their draws, and they have to hope we don't just draw a Thoughtseize to get rid of it.
The 2nd match (game - again, they quit after game one) against a Jace deck was against a Miracles build. This deck just has a ridiculous amount of dead cards, as they need to focus on not losing to fast aggro decks. That meant a ton of Paths and Terminus. Their clock is super slow, with their only wincons being Entreat the Angels (which we control the miracle of), Celestial Colonnade, and Jace. I was never able to Needle Jace, just didn't draw into it fast enough. They got a ton of brainstorms, but I always made sure that the top card was a dead one and hoped for the best. On their first brainstorm, they were able to find a Detention Sphere, but I was able to dig to a Thoughtseize and get rid of it. We did have a fight over a Cryptic a little while into the game. Near the end, when they had around 12 cards left in library (them drawing two per turn thanks to Jace, plus my very carefully played mill), I was able to resolve a Whir of Invention. They had just flipped a Search for Azcanta into the Sunken Ruin, so they got one activation off of it, searching for a counter, but they didn't find one. I got Needle into play and was about to name Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin and they conceded. EDIT: Near the end of the game, my opponent mentioned that maybe they should have been using Jace to +2 me, but that would have allowed me to have much more control over their draws and mine, and I would have likely been able to Whir for Needle much sooner. Them brainstorming had drawn them a Clique at one point that was able to take a Whir out of my hand when I was stuck on two mana (my opp had used two Field of Ruins on me). If they hadn't, I could have just waited a turn, drawn a land, and Whir'd for Needle and won the game on the spot.
I'm still very worried about the metagame going forward. While I'm happy with Jund dropping so much discard, I worry about a resurgence in Gx Tron (which seems to have happened, at least on the Cockatrice meta) and nearly every blue deck going forward having a Jace to fight.
Lantern Control
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I don't run Pyrite at all in my list, though I agree that it might be good to find a spot for the 3rd Needle. I have seem to have noticed a downswing in Collected Company and Dredge decks, so maybe it would be safe to swap out the Grafdigger's Cage for it. I don't know for sure, though.
Lantern Control
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Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
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1. In say a GP you will have a standby judge sooner rather than later if you win all your games with just the first game. This judge will be so suspicious for intentional slow play that he might actually give you a penalty for something that could also be legal, like recycling lanterns over and over.
2. It also poses significant risk in the following scenario: You get the lock at lets say 35 minutes left in the round. You durdle around until there is 10 minutes left in the round and then your opponent suddenly realizes, he is not winning game 1 anymore. You now have to play game 2 with 10 minutes left against a deck that can probably win this fast and you have no way of preventing a draw if they do, because our deck is not fast. Had we finished game 1 quickly we could have played all 3 games easily. The thing with lantern is: Wins take time, losses can go super fast.
Re: crexalbo, that is an awful article. Aside from the fact that it is actual cheating (which I'm sure you will pretend it isn't), it is just terrible strategy. Reading it, I am 99% sure you've never played lantern in a GP or PTQ or any real large tournament. We are favored G1 in many matches, but post board it gets very hard. You might do well at FNM with that strategy against poor players. But you will lose many game 2s and have a bunch of draws, so you won't ever get far in real competitive play. What makes the whole thing a joke is that you act as if this is advice for a tournament when it is obvious you've never competed at any high level.
So, first, as for calling it cheating: When I was at SCG Baltimore, my 2nd round opponent used that very same technique against me. They didn't slow play, but I had the lock in game three and the inevitable win. We had a good fifteen minutes on the clock. Yet they made sure to activate all abilities they could, and count every trigger they could, to take up time. The head judge, and multiple judges, were watching our match, as we were the last playing. Again, I'd already gone through their library with a Surgical and knew they had no outs. We ended up going to turns and a draw because of it. I later asked the head judge if I should have called the opponent on slow play (I figured that if it was truly slow play that the head judge would have taken the initiative, which is why I didn't call a judge). The head judge said that what the opponent was doing was legal and well within their rights. My opponent even verbally stated that they were playing for the draw.
What crexalbo is saying here is that we are also able to take advantage of this. If this is cheating, then there's a lot of screwed up judges in the SCG circuit right now that owe me a win. Note that this was at a large event, so your assumption that what crexalbo's written implies that he's never played at a large event seems only based on your own feelings of superiority. Again, I respect that you have a difference of opinions, I find it difficult not to point out the flaws in your argument. Please at least be respectful to others in your disagreement, eh?
EDIT: Ugh. Just saw the comments from others on the subreddit. Sometimes humans just keep disappointing.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
My point is that my opponent used this very same method to get a draw from me, when we would have easily had time on the clock to finish the game and grant me the win. And, apparently, multiple judges (including the head judge) condoned the behavior. Now, if there is something to be done about the quality of judges, and you were to say that the judges at the event were inadequate at being judges, I can accept that. However, if this is allowed to be used against Lantern players, why should this not also be allowed to be used by Lantern players?
Again, I don't use this method, and I prefer to just play it out.
EDIT: And no, if I had employed this method in game one, I was guaranteed a win. My opponent made me mill them out completely in game one, and I was milling aggressively.
EDIT 2: Just got back from playing ten games at my LGS, testing against BBE Jund and UW Control (with Jace).
For reference, here's my list:
// 24 Artifact
3 Codex Shredder
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Ghoulcaller's Bell
4 Lantern of Insight
3 Mox Opal
1 Pyxis of Pandemonium
4 Mishra's Bauble
1 Witchbane Orb
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pithing Needle
// 5 Instant
1 Abrupt Decay
4 Whir of Invention
1 Academy Ruins
4 Glimmervoid
1 Inventors' Fair
4 Spire of Industry
3 Darkslick Shores
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Island
2 River of Tears
// 12 Sorcery
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Welding Jar
1 Pithing Needle
1 Torpor Orb
1 Jester's Cap
1 Magus of the Moat
1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Wear // Tear
1 Collective Brutality
1 Thoughtseize
First, against BBE Jund, here's how I sideboarded:
- 3 Inquisition of Kozilek
- 3 Collective Brutality
- 1 Thoughtseize
+ 3 Leyline of Sanctity
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 1 Welding Jar
+ 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
+ 1 Magus of the Moat
I won game one rather easily, naming Liliana with Needle and getting a quick lock with Bridge. As I figured, their increased average converted mana helps quite a bit here. Tireless Tracker was always very troublesome for us, but it seems that the common thought among Jund players is that Dark Confidant and Bloodbraid Elf are enough card advantage. That, combined with a slightly lower amount of maindeck discard, means that it's much easier to set up the lock and keep it.
After one preboard game, we played four postboard games, with each of us being on play/draw twice. The only game I lost was one in which he had two Thoughtseize (grabbing Decay and then Padeem from my hand), Maelstrom Pulse, and Ancient Grudge in his opener. All other games, I got the lock rather easily, always ensuring that I whir'd for a Pyxis to watch out for the two Ancient Grudge left in the library. Padeem was backbreaking for my opponent in all other games I drew him. Magus of the Moat was less impressive, as once I got a Leyline out, Magus was just a Bolt target. My opponent's only answer to Padeem were their Maelstrom Pulse', and it was rather easy to keep them off of those.
A note on my sideboard plan: This was an idea put forth by mikemaz quite a while ago. We side out almost all of our discard, since they are terrible topdecks. That allows us to ensure that we neutralize as many cards as we can without having to spend as much mana as well. Even if the opponent does discard cards from our hand, we then have too many good cards to truly wreck our hands. In addition, every turn that they are spending paying for discard in the early game is a turn that they didn't play a threat, which buys us turns.
Against UW Control (with Jace - not Miracles), I sideboarded as follows:
- 4 Mishra's Bauble
- 1 Witchbane Orb
- 1 Grafdigger's Cage
+ 1 Seal of Primordium
+ 1 Pithing Needle
+ 1 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
+ 1 Wear // Tear
+ 1 Thoughtseize
+ 1 Collective Brutality
Again, game one wasn't too terribly difficult, although very tricky. I had to plan ahead on what to Needle. I also made sure that I didn't get blown out by Detention Sphere. Otherwise, it felt just like normal UW Control, but with another Needle target.
Postboard (again, we played four postboard games, alternating play/draw), my plan was to overload them with discard, wrecking their hand. While this seems at odds with what I mention above with playing against Jund, the difference is that UW Control doesn't want to play spells on their turn if they can help it, whereas Jund does. So every turn that UW Control is forced to play spells on their turn is another turn that we're free to play around counters. This worked out very well. Again, Padeem was great. I was very iffy on siding out Witchbane Orb and Grafdigger's Cage, but I figured that Snapcaster was just yet another card they had to hold to make the most out of the few Cryptics they have. Also, being able to strip his hand of counters allowed me to just follow up with the lock, Needles, Bridge, etc., without worry.
In hindsight, I think I would rather have a Leonin Abunas than Magus of the Moat. Magus is decent against other matchups, but Abunas would mean that we could have two "Padeem" in play at the same time. I am also seriously considering swapping an Inquisition for a Thoughtseize, due to the amount of Jace and Bloodbraid popping up these days.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I mean I definitely agree with your points, however it just makes Brutality seem like more of a sideboard card that a main one. *shrug* if it's been working for you, keep going with it I suppose. I just know when I played more Brutalities main I had too many match-ups where I just wished they were a better discard spell like Inquisition, Thoughtseize, or hell, even Duress.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I think the rumors of lantern's demise have been grossly over-stated...
I am currently working on setting up a stream so I can stream lantern on mtgo.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern players experimenting with Jace/BBE decks? @_@