I'm not as experienced as you two guys but here's my take. I would wait and breach the griselbrand as a blocker on their turn then try and go off on our turn. I would probably cast the faithless on this turn as well to try and set up the kill for next turn.
EDIT: After thinking about it some more doing this would mess us up as we would have 6 cards left in our library that would not be able to see without spending mana making the kill much less likely. I think the right play is hard casting the griselbrand and hope they don't have an answer for it.
game 3 vs. UW Control. you won game 1 and lost to a quick geist game 2. I've brought in 2 pacts, 1 brutality and 3 chalices (btw, is chalice really that great vs UW? 1 shuts down SV/path/surgical/dispel, which are whatever. 2 shuts off negates/snapcasters/spreading seas. I'm wondering if we should just be boarding in blood moon instead, as their mana base can actually be volatile)
t2 - wwyd? what considerations would you make in making this decision?
I would just go for it. UW runs 2 dispel in the side which is unlikely for them to draw. The more time you give them the more answers they might have.
wwyd? no relevant scrys. he's been stuck on 4 lands for a while as you can see. i EoT TTB'd, which met a Negate. I hardcast Griselbrand, which resolved, and now it's getting path'd at my endtep
Very unlikely that you are able to combo off. Draw 7 and pass.
g1 I'm OTD and he went t1 Vents->sleight, t2 sleight->no land drop. T3 he drew a land and played baral and passed. I start my t3 with 3 lands, Vengeance SSG and Looting so I'm hoping to hit a land in the top 5 cards. Of course I whiff on the Borb trigger and now I've just cast Looting with my SSG and hit a brutality. wwyd?
Tough one. You can win next turn with the brutality and 3 lands but its very likely he can just go off next turn. I would probably discard a single land to hit baral and pass the turn. Discard griselbrand and a land preferably keeping temple.
jeskai tempo has been on the rise lately and I'm certain it's not a good matchup. thoughts?
There's a guy at my store that always plays jeskai tempo and honestly, it's not that bad of a matchup. Splicing stuff at their endstep usually gets you there.
Do you guys have any special methods for keeping track of storm count and mana when playing in paper? Do you just keep it in your head and mumble a bit? A storm newbie like myself can't help but wonder.
I personally keep 3 Pokemon energy cards: one fire, one water, one electricity to represent red mana, blue mana, and storm count respectively and then just put dice on top to represent specific numbers. This works ok but I'm also wondering if there is a better way.
While I do think the deck is a very proactive deck I also think that post sideboard we can afford to transition into a more prison style deck until we assemble our combo.
12 cantrips according to the turbo xerox rule should put you at 18 lands. I could see going to 17 but then casting gifts or past without a reducer in play would be tough.
Played at a PPTQ yesterday and missed top 8 on a missplay where I had blood moon out and the op used 4 red to cast a TKS and only realized later what had happened. I called a judge over it but he said that since he had already attacked twice so there was nothing he could do. Earlier the same day another guy tried to convince me that I had to target myself with my own storm copies since his rattlechains died after the first one and he had leyline out. Reminds me why I switched to online from paper.
I'm pretty sure your second opponent was correct on this one. The copies are already on the stack and they have to have a legal target which in this case is yourself.
This happened to my friend at GP SA and that is how the judge ruled it.
New thought, is it even worth it to dedicate the SB to beat GDS? It's such an unwinnable matchup that we are probably better off not dedicating any SB slots against it and just hope to dodge it. This opens up some slots for matchups that are more 40/60 which we can shore up with our new SB slots.
I am new to the devotion deck and need help with playing against control. Every time I run into it I get stomped.For reference here is the list I am running.
Keep in mind that my budget is limited so I won't be able to make too many major changes to the deck. Is there a certain way I am supposed to play this match-up?
I feel like going all in on big dudes is a bad idea. What should I side in and out?
Also the control decks I am referring to are mardu contol (with infinite planeswalkers and removal) and UW control.
Any help is appreciated
There are plenty of big pro blue creatures you could play in the side or even as a 1 of in the main.
What do you guys think about a revolt heavy build? Something like the build below allows you to be a lot faster and get under Tron. The fetches allow you to also sideboard a different color in case that is your thing.
I'm waiting for a couple of Noxious to come in from the mail. I figured they would help vs discard decks and if anything help buy back more draw spells or bring back a Griselbrand if we have Breach in hand.
PS, I just played against grixis DS who did keep in Kcomm for game 2. Strange, but it won him the game when he killed my chalice
It's not really weird for them to keep the K-command. They only have about 2 pieces of GY hate and 2 additional counters in the board. That is at most 4 cards that they can bring in against us. The obvious card to remove is fatal push since that is a completely dead draw. K-command has so many relevant modes for them even if they don't excpect any artifacts like bringing back a creature that was milled by scour, force us to discard, or even just 2 to damage
EDIT: After thinking about it some more doing this would mess us up as we would have 6 cards left in our library that would not be able to see without spending mana making the kill much less likely. I think the right play is hard casting the griselbrand and hope they don't have an answer for it.
I would just go for it. UW runs 2 dispel in the side which is unlikely for them to draw. The more time you give them the more answers they might have.
Very unlikely that you are able to combo off. Draw 7 and pass.
Tough one. You can win next turn with the brutality and 3 lands but its very likely he can just go off next turn. I would probably discard a single land to hit baral and pass the turn. Discard griselbrand and a land preferably keeping temple.
There's a guy at my store that always plays jeskai tempo and honestly, it's not that bad of a matchup. Splicing stuff at their endstep usually gets you there.
I personally keep 3 Pokemon energy cards: one fire, one water, one electricity to represent red mana, blue mana, and storm count respectively and then just put dice on top to represent specific numbers. This works ok but I'm also wondering if there is a better way.
I'm pretty sure your second opponent was correct on this one. The copies are already on the stack and they have to have a legal target which in this case is yourself.
This happened to my friend at GP SA and that is how the judge ruled it.
There are plenty of big pro blue creatures you could play in the side or even as a 1 of in the main.
19 Forest
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
//Spells
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
2 Harmonize
4 Primal Command
4 Utopia Sprawl
//Creatures
4 Arbor Elf
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Elvish Visionary
3 Eternal Witness
4 Llanowar Elves
1 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Primeval Titan
4 Wistful Selkie
3 Acidic Slime
1 Chameleon Colossus
2 Creeping Corrosion
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Natural State
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Summoning Trap
7 Forest
2 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Aspect of Hydra
2 Rancor
2 Vines of Vastwood
//Creatures
4 Avatar of the Resolute
4 Dryad Militant
4 Experiment One
4 Greenwheel Liberator
4 Hidden Herbalists
2 Kessig Prowler
2 Leatherback Baloth
4 Narnam Renegade
4 Strangleroot Geist
It's not really weird for them to keep the K-command. They only have about 2 pieces of GY hate and 2 additional counters in the board. That is at most 4 cards that they can bring in against us. The obvious card to remove is fatal push since that is a completely dead draw. K-command has so many relevant modes for them even if they don't excpect any artifacts like bringing back a creature that was milled by scour, force us to discard, or even just 2 to damage