Noticed a lot of lists are running 4 Ghost Quarters over 4 Rishadan Ports. What's the main reason for this? Has anyone tried it and is it working for them?
Not happy about this first round. I know my opponent is on Omnitell, and he proceeds to do what his deck does on turn 3 both games without me being able to really interact. Kind of a poor start to the first round.
Round 2 vs Death and Taxes (2-1)
This is what I've been waiting for. With the printing of Recruiter of the Guard and Sanctum Prelate, I anticipated a LOT of Death and Taxes today (which there was). Game 1, I have a pretty decent hand, and am able to lock him out of the game with Tabernacle, multiple Mazes, and Punishing Fire/Grove. I lose game 2 to an unchecked Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Game 3, I, again, get a solid lock on my opponent, leaving him with 5 Plains, all 3 equipment on the battlefield, no cards in hand, and no creatures to attack. We go to time before he realizes there's no real way for him to win.
Round 3 vs Esper Deathblade
This matchup went about as well as one would expect. Any time he would get me close to death, I would make a Marit Lage and gain another nice 20 life cushion until he ran out of StPs. Game 2, he makes the mistake of trying to FoW a Loam cast off of a Boseiju, and proceeds to concede.
Round 4 vs Death and Taxes (2-1)
Game 1, Vial and a lot of disruption, and I am unable to catch up and lose to Batterskull beats. Game 2, I keep a sketchy hand of 6 lands and Helm of Obedience, He stars off a little slower this time, with Mother of Runes, into Stoneforge Mystic, into Prelate on 2, to which I Kozilek's Return EOT, and cast Loam on my turn, prompting him to cast Rest in Peace. I play a 5th land and Helm him for 1. Game 3 is a grindfest, but with an Exploration and Loam, and my opponent with no way to answer my GY, he loses to Marit Lage.
Round 5 vs Grixis Delver (2-1)
I keep a slow hand, and lose to double Young Pyromancer, and timely Stifles and counterspells. Game 2, I am able to keep the board relatively clear, and make a Marit Lage before he can really recover. Game 3, Turn 1 Chalice on 1, Turn 2 Wasteland, Turn 3 Wasteland, Turn 4 Loam. Opponent concedes.
Round 6 vs RUG Lands (0-0-3)
I am paired against a friend, and instead of one of us knocking the other out, we agree to ID and try to win our last round of swiss.
Round 7 vs 4 Color Loam
Game 1, he gets a lock of Chalice on 1 and 2, and kills me with a 10/10 Knight of the Reliquary. Game 2, I play a fast Marit Lage without a way for him to answer, and steal the game. Game 3, he draws his only Forest in his deck, and I Ghost Quarter/Wasteland him out of the game.
Quarterfinals vs TES Storm (2-1)
Game 1, I know what my opponent is playing, and know that there's not really much I can do to interact with what he does, but I play it out to see more cards in his deck. He kills me on Turn 3. Game 2, I Gamble on turn 1 for Trinisphere, which he ends up Duressing, but draw another on a few turns later, while my opponent has a series of unfortunate draws, and basically does nothing for the rest of the game. Game 3 is a nail biter. At no point did I really feel ahead in the game. No Chalices, no Trinispheres. My opponent casts a LOT of cantrips, but continues to draw rather poorly (possibly due to over sideboarding). Then he starts to go off, leading with triple LED and probe. He sees my hand contains the Tabernacle that I left in to combat an Empty kill, which I think he was planning on going for, as his pace of play dramatically slows down as soon as he sees it. He Ad Nauseams into a rather poor hand, and is only able to Tendrils me down to 2. On my turn I Ghost Quarter and Wasteland the rest of the lands he has left in play, and Bojuka Bog his graveyard. It had turned out, my opponent had made a mistake when casting his last Brainstorm, which locked up the game for me.
Overall, I am very happy with my performance today. Of the 68 players who attended, there were more new players than I had expected (which does say something about the interest players who have not been playing for years have for Legacy). My tech choices today for DnT were great, and I feel like I would have had a fine time against Miracles, had I played against it all day. There were a few situations today where I wished the Tranquil Thickets were Horizon Canopies, but I don't think it made THAT much of a difference. Not once did I miss Rishadan Port.
So today, I finally got to play MTG again after taking a short break to focus on getting my L2 Judge certification. I ended up making top 8 in a 25 player $1k event.
Round 1 vs UW Eldrazi (2-0)
The new boogieman of the format.
Game 1: My opponent plays turn 1 Eldrazi Mimic, turn 2 Endless One, turn 3 Reality Smasher. While that is good, I am able to secure the kill on my Turn 4 with a Blighted Agent and multiple pump spells.
Game 2: Mull to 6. My opponent is now on the play, and Path to Exiles my turn 1 Glistener Elf. This accelerates me to a turn 2 Wild Defiance into a turn 3 kill with Inkmoth Nexus.
Round 2 vs Affinity (2-1)
Game 1: I lose this very close game due to underestimating how much damage my opponent can do to me in a single combat step.
Game 2: My opponent mulls to 6, and cannot recover from multiple Nature's Claims and Viridian Corrupters.
Game 3: Opponent mulligans to 5 this time, and I am able to draw a few timely Nature's Claims to seal the game up.
Round 3 vs UR Burn/Prowess (0-2)
My opponent has been playing this deck for a while now, and I feel like the matchup is close, but slightly unfavorable for me. Both games play out about the same, with me dealing close to 10 poison, but having to work through Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt, Vapor Snag, etc. while dealing with multiple Monastery Swiftspears and Stormchaser Mages.
Round 4 vs Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1: We grind it out for quite a few turns before eventually folding to an unchecked Liliana of the Veil.
Game 2: Yet another grindfest. I was able to finally push regular damage for the win after my opponent missed a few landdrops and was forced to fetch/shock a few times in order to get the correct colors of mana in order to cast spells.
Game 3: A quick kill with poison before he could begin to lock me out of the game.
An interesting note about Game 2. I had hedged on a larger showing of Zoo due to it being very popular in my meta, which skewed my choice to play Wall of Roots in the sideboard. I decided to bring them in in this matchup in order to get ahead of my opponent on mana. It turned out to work double and triple duty to brick wall Tasigur, the Golden Fang and acted as a sacrificial creature to LotV to allow me to swing with 2 creatures to get lethal damage in this game
Round 5 vs ??? (0-0-3)
We Id this round into top 8 so I have no idea what my opponent was playing.
Top 8 vs Blue Moon
Game 1: This was the most interactive game of MTG of the day. We fight over the course of 3 or 4 turns over a few Electrolyzes and Bolts, and I top deck a second +4/+4 spell in order to push an exact, unblockable 10 poison.
Game 2: I mull to 6 and keep a hand with fetchland/Noble Hierarch and proceed to brick on lands after a t1 bolt on my Hierarch. I miss my next landdrop and get locked out by Blood Moon
Game 3: We have another very close game, but eventually fold to being whittled out of resources by Lightning Bolt, Roast, Electrolyze, Burst Lightning, and Snapcaster Mages.
Some thoughts I had throughout the day:
It seems to me that most decks are currently trying to gum up the board with a bunch of little dudes, and Slip Through Space does an excellent job at getting through all of my opponents little friends.
The Eldrazi matchup, while seemingly bad on paper, is actually a lot closer to 50/50 in my testing, with a few points going either way depending on play/draw.
Maindeck Viridian Corrupter was absolutely a correct choice for my meta, with 5 or 6 of the players there playing Affinity.
Wall of Roots is a flex spot that I have been testing interchangeably with Pulse of Murasa and I feel like it is WORLDS better in this faster meta. I think Pulse has a place in our arsenal in a grindier Grixis/Jund meta, but not today.
I had gone up to 3 Spell Pierces during the Tron heavy meta game, and feel like it is correct to cut at least 1 of the sideboard Pierces in place of a Dispel.
Overall, I am happy with how well I did, considering I have very little playtest time these days. Next week will be another tournament for me, a $3k event, which should give me an even larger testing bed with more players from all around the Bay Area. I will be back with another tournament report in about a week.
Hi, finally got the Nexuses to finish the deck. I have started from one of the stock lists I found on the internet, but I feel the list isn't as explosive as I want it to be in tomorrow's FNM.
- Is it correct to run 19 lands and dryad arbor in the side if little BGx is expected?
- Late lists are running less mutagenic growths and running serum, dismember or images. Isn't it better to be more explosive in the new meta?
I have read the comments about slip through space and I'm willing to give it a chance, what should I cut from it?
Thanks in advance!
I was running 2 Serum Visions pre-ban and have gone back to 1 Mutagenic Growth and 1 Sleight of Hand in the post-ban meta. So far, it has been working out really well for me.
Hey guys! I don't have Infect deck, but I'm thinking of building one because I really like the concept and it looks so much FUN. This deck is generally very cheap, except for Nobles and Inkmoths. I was wondering if this deck can be playable without those two key cards (for FNM). I just want to start a casual/budget of this deck for now, and build it up with time. Any tips ? Thanks.
I think it will be very hard to have a playable list that doesn't include Inkmoths.
As I'm having the same question I'd like to ask why do you think it will be very hard to play without Inkmoths. I know they're powerful in the deck, but are they this important?
I do have the 4x Noble of Hierarch though.
One of the best ways to defeat Infect is to kill our creatures on the opponents turn so that we cannot save them using combat tricks and pushing more damage (often times lethal). By playing Inkmoth Nexus, it ensures that our opponents MUST pick fights over it on our turn, typically in our combat step. In addition, flying is often times just as good as unblockable in many of our matchups. This is why Inkmoth Nexus is so important.
Overall, I have been very happy with Slip Through Space. Of course, this has been exactly 1 tournament, and I will work on refining this list in the near future.
Thoughtseize isn't so bad for us to deal with. Chalice and Spellskite are both equally annoying, but have their weaknesses. We have more outs to Spellskite than Chalice, but can play through Chalice a little easier.
Rancor is excellent against decks that are relying on creatures as blockers to keep us from winning. Snapcaster Mages and Vendilion Cliques being flashed in and Lingering Souls tokens are notable examples of cards that can be problematic for us without Rancor.
A lot of people have trouble with double sleeving of cards with Perfect Fits, with their card sliding up and down. I don't really have this issue, but for $3 for 100 of these new sleeves, I thought I'd give them a try. I don't believe that they will be replacing the Perfect Fits in my modern and legacy decks, but these are worth a try at least.
I just bought a pack of Ultra Pro Side-Loading Pro Fits. While I know that the regular Pro Fits are pretty much garbage, I have found that the side-loaders are significantly better, without much variance between sleeves. I will be testing them and getting back to y'all about their quality.
Played 4 Ghost Quarter today at the CFB 1K/2K
Round 1 vs Omnitell (0-2)
Not happy about this first round. I know my opponent is on Omnitell, and he proceeds to do what his deck does on turn 3 both games without me being able to really interact. Kind of a poor start to the first round.
Round 2 vs Death and Taxes (2-1)
This is what I've been waiting for. With the printing of Recruiter of the Guard and Sanctum Prelate, I anticipated a LOT of Death and Taxes today (which there was). Game 1, I have a pretty decent hand, and am able to lock him out of the game with Tabernacle, multiple Mazes, and Punishing Fire/Grove. I lose game 2 to an unchecked Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. Game 3, I, again, get a solid lock on my opponent, leaving him with 5 Plains, all 3 equipment on the battlefield, no cards in hand, and no creatures to attack. We go to time before he realizes there's no real way for him to win.
Round 3 vs Esper Deathblade
This matchup went about as well as one would expect. Any time he would get me close to death, I would make a Marit Lage and gain another nice 20 life cushion until he ran out of StPs. Game 2, he makes the mistake of trying to FoW a Loam cast off of a Boseiju, and proceeds to concede.
Round 4 vs Death and Taxes (2-1)
Game 1, Vial and a lot of disruption, and I am unable to catch up and lose to Batterskull beats. Game 2, I keep a sketchy hand of 6 lands and Helm of Obedience, He stars off a little slower this time, with Mother of Runes, into Stoneforge Mystic, into Prelate on 2, to which I Kozilek's Return EOT, and cast Loam on my turn, prompting him to cast Rest in Peace. I play a 5th land and Helm him for 1. Game 3 is a grindfest, but with an Exploration and Loam, and my opponent with no way to answer my GY, he loses to Marit Lage.
Round 5 vs Grixis Delver (2-1)
I keep a slow hand, and lose to double Young Pyromancer, and timely Stifles and counterspells. Game 2, I am able to keep the board relatively clear, and make a Marit Lage before he can really recover. Game 3, Turn 1 Chalice on 1, Turn 2 Wasteland, Turn 3 Wasteland, Turn 4 Loam. Opponent concedes.
Round 6 vs RUG Lands (0-0-3)
I am paired against a friend, and instead of one of us knocking the other out, we agree to ID and try to win our last round of swiss.
Round 7 vs 4 Color Loam
Game 1, he gets a lock of Chalice on 1 and 2, and kills me with a 10/10 Knight of the Reliquary. Game 2, I play a fast Marit Lage without a way for him to answer, and steal the game. Game 3, he draws his only Forest in his deck, and I Ghost Quarter/Wasteland him out of the game.
Quarterfinals vs TES Storm (2-1)
Game 1, I know what my opponent is playing, and know that there's not really much I can do to interact with what he does, but I play it out to see more cards in his deck. He kills me on Turn 3. Game 2, I Gamble on turn 1 for Trinisphere, which he ends up Duressing, but draw another on a few turns later, while my opponent has a series of unfortunate draws, and basically does nothing for the rest of the game. Game 3 is a nail biter. At no point did I really feel ahead in the game. No Chalices, no Trinispheres. My opponent casts a LOT of cantrips, but continues to draw rather poorly (possibly due to over sideboarding). Then he starts to go off, leading with triple LED and probe. He sees my hand contains the Tabernacle that I left in to combat an Empty kill, which I think he was planning on going for, as his pace of play dramatically slows down as soon as he sees it. He Ad Nauseams into a rather poor hand, and is only able to Tendrils me down to 2. On my turn I Ghost Quarter and Wasteland the rest of the lands he has left in play, and Bojuka Bog his graveyard. It had turned out, my opponent had made a mistake when casting his last Brainstorm, which locked up the game for me.
Overall, I am very happy with my performance today. Of the 68 players who attended, there were more new players than I had expected (which does say something about the interest players who have not been playing for years have for Legacy). My tech choices today for DnT were great, and I feel like I would have had a fine time against Miracles, had I played against it all day. There were a few situations today where I wished the Tranquil Thickets were Horizon Canopies, but I don't think it made THAT much of a difference. Not once did I miss Rishadan Port.
2 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Wasteland
4 Ghost Quarter
3 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Tranquil Thicket
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Dark Depths
4 Mox Diamond
4 Crop Rotation
4 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam
3 Punishing Fire
4 Exploration
1 Molten Vortex
1 Seismic Assault
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Krosan Grip
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Trinisphere
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Boil
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dark Depths
2 Kozilek's Return
3 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
2 Pendelhaven
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Glistener Elf
4 Blighted Agent
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Spellskite
3 Groundswell
3 Might of Old Krosa
3 Mutagenic Growth
2 Become Immense
2 Slip Through Space
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Wild Defiance
1 Spell Pierce
1 Twisted Image
1 Apostle's Blessing
4 Nature's Claim
2 Twisted Image
1 Spellskite
1 Viridian Corrupter
2 Spell Pierce
2 Wall of Roots
1 Dismember
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Wild Defiance
Round 1 vs UW Eldrazi (2-0)
The new boogieman of the format.
Game 1: My opponent plays turn 1 Eldrazi Mimic, turn 2 Endless One, turn 3 Reality Smasher. While that is good, I am able to secure the kill on my Turn 4 with a Blighted Agent and multiple pump spells.
Game 2: Mull to 6. My opponent is now on the play, and Path to Exiles my turn 1 Glistener Elf. This accelerates me to a turn 2 Wild Defiance into a turn 3 kill with Inkmoth Nexus.
Round 2 vs Affinity (2-1)
Game 1: I lose this very close game due to underestimating how much damage my opponent can do to me in a single combat step.
Game 2: My opponent mulls to 6, and cannot recover from multiple Nature's Claims and Viridian Corrupters.
Game 3: Opponent mulligans to 5 this time, and I am able to draw a few timely Nature's Claims to seal the game up.
Round 3 vs UR Burn/Prowess (0-2)
My opponent has been playing this deck for a while now, and I feel like the matchup is close, but slightly unfavorable for me. Both games play out about the same, with me dealing close to 10 poison, but having to work through Lightning Bolt, Forked Bolt, Vapor Snag, etc. while dealing with multiple Monastery Swiftspears and Stormchaser Mages.
Round 4 vs Grixis Control (2-1)
Game 1: We grind it out for quite a few turns before eventually folding to an unchecked Liliana of the Veil.
Game 2: Yet another grindfest. I was able to finally push regular damage for the win after my opponent missed a few landdrops and was forced to fetch/shock a few times in order to get the correct colors of mana in order to cast spells.
Game 3: A quick kill with poison before he could begin to lock me out of the game.
An interesting note about Game 2. I had hedged on a larger showing of Zoo due to it being very popular in my meta, which skewed my choice to play Wall of Roots in the sideboard. I decided to bring them in in this matchup in order to get ahead of my opponent on mana. It turned out to work double and triple duty to brick wall Tasigur, the Golden Fang and acted as a sacrificial creature to LotV to allow me to swing with 2 creatures to get lethal damage in this game
Round 5 vs ??? (0-0-3)
We Id this round into top 8 so I have no idea what my opponent was playing.
Top 8 vs Blue Moon
Game 1: This was the most interactive game of MTG of the day. We fight over the course of 3 or 4 turns over a few Electrolyzes and Bolts, and I top deck a second +4/+4 spell in order to push an exact, unblockable 10 poison.
Game 2: I mull to 6 and keep a hand with fetchland/Noble Hierarch and proceed to brick on lands after a t1 bolt on my Hierarch. I miss my next landdrop and get locked out by Blood Moon
Game 3: We have another very close game, but eventually fold to being whittled out of resources by Lightning Bolt, Roast, Electrolyze, Burst Lightning, and Snapcaster Mages.
Some thoughts I had throughout the day:
It seems to me that most decks are currently trying to gum up the board with a bunch of little dudes, and Slip Through Space does an excellent job at getting through all of my opponents little friends.
The Eldrazi matchup, while seemingly bad on paper, is actually a lot closer to 50/50 in my testing, with a few points going either way depending on play/draw.
Maindeck Viridian Corrupter was absolutely a correct choice for my meta, with 5 or 6 of the players there playing Affinity.
Wall of Roots is a flex spot that I have been testing interchangeably with Pulse of Murasa and I feel like it is WORLDS better in this faster meta. I think Pulse has a place in our arsenal in a grindier Grixis/Jund meta, but not today.
I had gone up to 3 Spell Pierces during the Tron heavy meta game, and feel like it is correct to cut at least 1 of the sideboard Pierces in place of a Dispel.
Overall, I am happy with how well I did, considering I have very little playtest time these days. Next week will be another tournament for me, a $3k event, which should give me an even larger testing bed with more players from all around the Bay Area. I will be back with another tournament report in about a week.
I was one of the judges at that event.
I was running 2 Serum Visions pre-ban and have gone back to 1 Mutagenic Growth and 1 Sleight of Hand in the post-ban meta. So far, it has been working out really well for me.
One of the best ways to defeat Infect is to kill our creatures on the opponents turn so that we cannot save them using combat tricks and pushing more damage (often times lethal). By playing Inkmoth Nexus, it ensures that our opponents MUST pick fights over it on our turn, typically in our combat step. In addition, flying is often times just as good as unblockable in many of our matchups. This is why Inkmoth Nexus is so important.
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Breeding Pool
2 Forest
2 Pendelhaven
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Glistener Elf
4 Blighted Agent
2 Spellskite
4 Vines of Vastwood
2 Might of Old Krosa
1 Mutagenic Growth
2 Become Immense
1 Wild Defiance
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Sleight of Hand
1 Twisted Image
1 Slip Through Space
1 Spell Pierce
3 Apostle's Blessing
3 Nature's Claim
2 Twisted Image
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Spell Pierce
1 Dispel
1 Spellskite
1 Piracy Charm
1 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Necropede
1 Wild Defiance
1 Dismember
Overall, I have been very happy with Slip Through Space. Of course, this has been exactly 1 tournament, and I will work on refining this list in the near future.