I've been running RUG Twin for the last few months around here in New England, and have a few things I've been trying out that I'd like some opinions on.
My maindeck is pretty standard, but just running a Thrun and a Keranos maindeck in the orignal slot where 2 ooze were. They obv aren't that great vs combo/aggro decks, but they are great vs your toughest matchups where ooze/v clique just got bolted/terminated/sac'd to lili. I'm also running a Spellskite and twisted image main over probes. I've always not liked probes and only felt they were warranted when I wanted to combo out blindly.
Have people really liked the 1/2 of Tec edges or des lighthouse in TarmoTwin? The mana just seems really tight most of the time.
I've been trying out 2 magma spray and an Izzet Staticaster in the sideboard over running AOTG. I'd found the sorcery speed to be a big problem vs Affinity (manlands) and being able to snapcaster the magma sprays vs pod has been great. It also gives you additional ways to win goyf wars (obv not the staticaster).
I've been off and on with 2 tec edges or 2 blood moons in the board. Blood moon is obviously higher impact, but gets countered/discarded easily where tec edges obv aren't.
another thing you could do (as I've been tinkering with) is a Gifts/Twin variation.
Kind of like RUG Twin, but with gifts/unburial/iona/elesh instead of goyfs/oozes.
it also gets to run a bit more burn to use with SCMages.. and you can get some pretty sweet gifts packages (with village bell ringer/reveillark/pester/exarch, etc..)
There was a grixis version at some GP a year or so back in Japan.
Pedro,
That was similar to what I'd been brewing.
The only changes I had were a few evolving wilds (which also fuel the lavamancers) and a few Stitched Drakes.
My sideboard at the moment consists of ratchet bombs, act of aggressions, dungeon geists, phantasmal images and some negates and whipflares.
the meta for this weekend's SCG tournament here in RI will prolly be Ramp, Delver designed to beat Ramp, R/G aggro and maybe some leftover tokens strategies.
u/r delver seems to sit somewhere in the middle, as I've been doing will vs u/w delver and against g/r aggro and can burn out Ramp occassionaly or steal their titans and KO them with conscripts pre board. Post board, the Geists and Acts ruin them (as mana leaks come out).
are people just missing that they can go a more u/r humans route for this deck with caverns for humans and you get Zealous Conscripts for the ramp/control matchups..
I can't see Temporal Mastery being a 4 of.. maybe a 3 of as you would NEVER want to draw in your first few turns, but you definitely want to see it in the mid to late game.
So I came to RUG Tempo/Thresh/Delver from having played RUG NO and then RUG control and the bane of RUG Tempo for me lately from Maverick has been Choke.
Yes, I've fetched Taiga and had wastes to be able to cast spells, but the turns that they get a jump on us from not tapping down lands until we have an answer or a big enough threat are usually game breaking.
Against Maverick, I've been boarding out FOW and Daze for the most part to have some combination of Submerge/Sulfur Elemental-Firespout-pyroclasm/ancient grudge only to be losing to Choke.
Are any of you running Nature's Claims or the green Seals or have you other ways to not get hosed by Choke?
What cards are people finding helpful in the Tron matchup? Does it matter if it is U/W, U/R, or G?
When I've beaten Tron, its on the back of discard (im running 4 IOK and 2 TS main, with 2 TS and a Duress in the s/b) and artifact removal (Grudges for signets/wurmcoils/exploration maps). Jund charms are good as they are versatile and extractions are fine too to stop them from going the Gifts/Unburial route.
I'm running LD in my sideboard already for the mirror and Tron (i keep flipping between Ruinblasters (as they can attack) and Fulminator Mages (which can attack in a pinch also) and the LD has been a house when you draw enough of it and or discard.
The green tron decks are a joke hoping to get to TnN and if you kill their walls and make them discard a few land search spells they die harshly.
The u/w tron decks are apt to go the gifts route first, then try the long game with Eye =>Eldrazi if they have to. The U/r tron decks go for Breach into Emrakul. Both of them get beat up by LD. Tribute to Hunger is something that has been in and out of my board for Eldrazi/Etc as it is your only instant way out most of the time (well, Geth's verdict also works but is BB instead of B2).
Tron has been a not very easy matchup lately and I really want to change that with the board so ive been testing out the above mentioned items that I can also use in other matchups.
What do you guys think of Matt Mercier's list from the GP?
It seems removal heavy and the Jund Charms main help you win all the graveyard and aggro based matchups.
the 2 Huntsmaster and 2 finks seem good for the mirror and the 2 NOSB look great vs Twin/Pod/Fae/Caw Blade as they will have artifact hate coming in for Torpor orb and not have ways to deal with the legendary enchantment..
heres how I've been boarding for pod... which is open to suggestion:
Out - 3 Liliana, 3 Maelstrom Pulse, possibly 2 finks
in - 2 Torpor Orb, 2 Ancient Grudges, 1 terminate, 1 jund charm, 2/3
surgical extractions
Liliana is horrible with a sea of creatures on their side. Jund charm
sweeps away most of their team. Grudges are better than pulses as the
instant speed matters.
Ancient grudges come in for pods/spellskites and if you
suspect they'll have wurmcoils post board
You are running enough removal that surgical-ing one of their combo
pieces away can win you the game if you don't get sloppy and lose to a
Revilark or Wurmcoil.
They end up having to aggro you out and you *should* win that game.
How is your (and anyone that want to coment) SB plan against Melira? I dont like Liliana in that matchup... they probably bring Baloths, and the edict is underwhelming with lots of mana dorks/walls/creatures with persist. I do bring the Ancient Grudges to fight Pods and Spellskites.
PS: I rolled over all kinds of Delver decks (RUG, UB,...) before, but what about Delver Scepter? I havent played the matchup yet. Any thoughts on it?
That has been my experience with Blightning also when I ran it, it was always the first card I board out (ESP in the mirror). I can see that it would be good against slower midrange and control decks to help empty their hand out faster and still do damage (or be able to do damage to planeswalkers) but I guess I just want cards that help me with my bad matchups (like 2 Jund Charms in their place or 2 Goblin Runeblasters for the Tron matchups).
I used to just ROLL over Tron, but the more recent updates of that deck have gotten a lot harder to deal with. The UR versions require you to probably have access a lot more discard post board (perhaps Thoughtsieze 3 and 4 and 2 Duress?) and something like Tribute to Hunger is workable to stop a Through the Breached Emrakul. The U/W versions I find heavily relying on the gifts/unburial combo where I previously had just Jund Charms (3 total, wheter a few main or all s/b), I'm thinking I want Surgical Extractions also. Perhaps Grafdigger's Cage would work here also, but I think Surgicals are a bit more versatile. Against either version, you need some sort of way to make them sac a creature as Sphinx of Steel Wind or Iona are a pain. What graveyard hate have you been running? What other ways to deal with Emrakuls/Sphinx/Iona have you seen? (perhaps Seal of Doom)
For Tron (and also the mirror) I've been testing out some sideboard LD slots (Fulminator Mage/Goblin Runeblaster/Molten Rain) and haven't been swayed one way or the other for it. Vs Tron, I'm generally bringing the LD in for the Maelstrom Pulses as all I'm going to Pulse are their signets and killing a Tron piece is probably the stronger move. Against the mirror, I generally remove some Pulses and a Liliana for the LD and it has either been amazing or lackluster. Fulminator is always live, where Runeblaster is a mediocre cascade. Molten Rain is nice as it kills ANY land, but does 3 damage for non basics. Anyone else been testing out the LD plans? Would Anathemancer just be better here as it gets you that much closer to killing them and they can't kill it other than pathing it otherwise it will do another 5/6/7 to them eventually?
The other matchup I've been struggling a bit with is Melira, and perhaps it is just my inexperience against it as I do most of my testing online (msg me as AdamT if you want to test) and Melira isn't played much on MODO outside of tournaments. I already had Torpor Orbs in the board for the Twin/Caw Blade matchups and they obv come in as well as any sort of graveyard hate. I'm guessing that switching to Surgical Extraction over Cage would help this matchup also as they can play around Cage, but you can Inquisition/Surgical a combo piece away.
Blightning was really underwhelming all day and I will probably remove it all together from the 75. It was the first thing I sided out in most cases and most of the time I cast it, they had 3-4 cards in hand or had a grip of Obstinate Baloths post-board. I may replace it with Huntmaster or some combination of additional removal/seals.
Thorn of Amethyst in the board was pretty useless as I didn't play burn, twin or storm.
Found myself bringing in 2 Baloths from the side for additional life gain in the aggro matchups. They were ok I guess but I'm not sure if I would rather have something else.
Situations that posed some issues:
Elspeth, Knight Errant: Not much we can do about her in most builds...not sure if there is a SB card with will address this.
Dredge: whether it's Raven's Crime, Loam, Burning Vengeance or Gravecrawler, this deck makes our removal pretty ineffective and is really resilient. If it becomes popular, I'll have to add some grafdiggers cage in the board
Tron: I had nothing to handle Tron other than seal of doom for emrakul. Assembling tron seemed way too easy for either U/W or Mono G. No answer here unless we play some kind of land destruction.
I've played tournaments with both Jund and Caw Blade and right now they are so slow that getting them to under 10 by turn 4/5 puts a ton of pressure onto them to draw perfectly or they will die (much like Boros also did).
You have the same core of bob/finks/goyf/bbelf that grind out the same way regular jund does (obv minus Lili). Undying and Persist go a looong way also vs the grindy decks also.
The more aggro build forces twin or pod to try to go off long before they are usually ready to as you aren't giving them until turn 9/10 to assemble their combos, but more 5/6.
Post board twin is a bye with thoughtsiezes and orbs and terminates coming in and Pod gets better also with most of the same cards (perhaps even jund charm in place of terminates).
I'm not saying I recreated the wheel, I've just been testing it on MODO and have liked it enough to want some other people's input for cards that aren't optimal or other sideboard options, which unfortunately just saying "it loses to x" doesn't help with =( .
btw, are you the same "Mats" that just won the last MODO PTQ with Jund? if so, congrats. Jund Charms main have been really good for me also lately (in the regular Jund builds) vs all the Tron/Gifts nonsense.
Hooting Mandrils have been absurd out of the board and twin bolts have been much better than arc lightnings for me anyhow (for the RG landfall deck)
I'm trying to piecemeal the list from the coverage here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcbj7e3Wsg
My maindeck is pretty standard, but just running a Thrun and a Keranos maindeck in the orignal slot where 2 ooze were. They obv aren't that great vs combo/aggro decks, but they are great vs your toughest matchups where ooze/v clique just got bolted/terminated/sac'd to lili. I'm also running a Spellskite and twisted image main over probes. I've always not liked probes and only felt they were warranted when I wanted to combo out blindly.
Have people really liked the 1/2 of Tec edges or des lighthouse in TarmoTwin? The mana just seems really tight most of the time.
I've been trying out 2 magma spray and an Izzet Staticaster in the sideboard over running AOTG. I'd found the sorcery speed to be a big problem vs Affinity (manlands) and being able to snapcaster the magma sprays vs pod has been great. It also gives you additional ways to win goyf wars (obv not the staticaster).
I've been off and on with 2 tec edges or 2 blood moons in the board. Blood moon is obviously higher impact, but gets countered/discarded easily where tec edges obv aren't.
Thoughts?
Kind of like RUG Twin, but with gifts/unburial/iona/elesh instead of goyfs/oozes.
it also gets to run a bit more burn to use with SCMages.. and you can get some pretty sweet gifts packages (with village bell ringer/reveillark/pester/exarch, etc..)
There was a grixis version at some GP a year or so back in Japan.
twin/infect seem like painful matchups for it, but what are good sideboard cards against it?
That was similar to what I'd been brewing.
The only changes I had were a few evolving wilds (which also fuel the lavamancers) and a few Stitched Drakes.
My sideboard at the moment consists of ratchet bombs, act of aggressions, dungeon geists, phantasmal images and some negates and whipflares.
the meta for this weekend's SCG tournament here in RI will prolly be Ramp, Delver designed to beat Ramp, R/G aggro and maybe some leftover tokens strategies.
u/r delver seems to sit somewhere in the middle, as I've been doing will vs u/w delver and against g/r aggro and can burn out Ramp occassionaly or steal their titans and KO them with conscripts pre board. Post board, the Geists and Acts ruin them (as mana leaks come out).
should be an interesting tournament this weekend.
humans:
delver
snapcaster
lavamancer
bserker
hero of oxid
lightening mauler
wing crafter
mass appeal for card draw
obv more of a creature deck than tempo, but...
Yes, I've fetched Taiga and had wastes to be able to cast spells, but the turns that they get a jump on us from not tapping down lands until we have an answer or a big enough threat are usually game breaking.
Against Maverick, I've been boarding out FOW and Daze for the most part to have some combination of Submerge/Sulfur Elemental-Firespout-pyroclasm/ancient grudge only to be losing to Choke.
Are any of you running Nature's Claims or the green Seals or have you other ways to not get hosed by Choke?
When I've beaten Tron, its on the back of discard (im running 4 IOK and 2 TS main, with 2 TS and a Duress in the s/b) and artifact removal (Grudges for signets/wurmcoils/exploration maps). Jund charms are good as they are versatile and extractions are fine too to stop them from going the Gifts/Unburial route.
I'm running LD in my sideboard already for the mirror and Tron (i keep flipping between Ruinblasters (as they can attack) and Fulminator Mages (which can attack in a pinch also) and the LD has been a house when you draw enough of it and or discard.
The green tron decks are a joke hoping to get to TnN and if you kill their walls and make them discard a few land search spells they die harshly.
The u/w tron decks are apt to go the gifts route first, then try the long game with Eye =>Eldrazi if they have to. The U/r tron decks go for Breach into Emrakul. Both of them get beat up by LD. Tribute to Hunger is something that has been in and out of my board for Eldrazi/Etc as it is your only instant way out most of the time (well, Geth's verdict also works but is BB instead of B2).
Tron has been a not very easy matchup lately and I really want to change that with the board so ive been testing out the above mentioned items that I can also use in other matchups.
It seems removal heavy and the Jund Charms main help you win all the graveyard and aggro based matchups.
the 2 Huntsmaster and 2 finks seem good for the mirror and the 2 NOSB look great vs Twin/Pod/Fae/Caw Blade as they will have artifact hate coming in for Torpor orb and not have ways to deal with the legendary enchantment..
1 Blood Crypt
1 Forest
1 Marsh Flats
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Treetop Village
3 Twilight Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Dark Confidant
1 Kitchen Finks
4 Tarmogoyf
13 creatures
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Jund Charm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Terminate
1 Thoughtseize
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Dead // Gone
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Jund Charm
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Krosan Grip
2 Night of Souls' Betrayal
3 Thoughtseize
my sideboard currently is:
heres how I've been boarding for pod... which is open to suggestion:
Out - 3 Liliana, 3 Maelstrom Pulse, possibly 2 finks
in - 2 Torpor Orb, 2 Ancient Grudges, 1 terminate, 1 jund charm, 2/3
surgical extractions
Liliana is horrible with a sea of creatures on their side. Jund charm
sweeps away most of their team. Grudges are better than pulses as the
instant speed matters.
Ancient grudges come in for pods/spellskites and if you
suspect they'll have wurmcoils post board
You are running enough removal that surgical-ing one of their combo
pieces away can win you the game if you don't get sloppy and lose to a
Revilark or Wurmcoil.
They end up having to aggro you out and you *should* win that game.
I used to just ROLL over Tron, but the more recent updates of that deck have gotten a lot harder to deal with. The UR versions require you to probably have access a lot more discard post board (perhaps Thoughtsieze 3 and 4 and 2 Duress?) and something like Tribute to Hunger is workable to stop a Through the Breached Emrakul. The U/W versions I find heavily relying on the gifts/unburial combo where I previously had just Jund Charms (3 total, wheter a few main or all s/b), I'm thinking I want Surgical Extractions also. Perhaps Grafdigger's Cage would work here also, but I think Surgicals are a bit more versatile. Against either version, you need some sort of way to make them sac a creature as Sphinx of Steel Wind or Iona are a pain. What graveyard hate have you been running? What other ways to deal with Emrakuls/Sphinx/Iona have you seen? (perhaps Seal of Doom)
For Tron (and also the mirror) I've been testing out some sideboard LD slots (Fulminator Mage/Goblin Runeblaster/Molten Rain) and haven't been swayed one way or the other for it. Vs Tron, I'm generally bringing the LD in for the Maelstrom Pulses as all I'm going to Pulse are their signets and killing a Tron piece is probably the stronger move. Against the mirror, I generally remove some Pulses and a Liliana for the LD and it has either been amazing or lackluster. Fulminator is always live, where Runeblaster is a mediocre cascade. Molten Rain is nice as it kills ANY land, but does 3 damage for non basics. Anyone else been testing out the LD plans? Would Anathemancer just be better here as it gets you that much closer to killing them and they can't kill it other than pathing it otherwise it will do another 5/6/7 to them eventually?
The other matchup I've been struggling a bit with is Melira, and perhaps it is just my inexperience against it as I do most of my testing online (msg me as AdamT if you want to test) and Melira isn't played much on MODO outside of tournaments. I already had Torpor Orbs in the board for the Twin/Caw Blade matchups and they obv come in as well as any sort of graveyard hate. I'm guessing that switching to Surgical Extraction over Cage would help this matchup also as they can play around Cage, but you can Inquisition/Surgical a combo piece away.
You have the same core of bob/finks/goyf/bbelf that grind out the same way regular jund does (obv minus Lili). Undying and Persist go a looong way also vs the grindy decks also.
The more aggro build forces twin or pod to try to go off long before they are usually ready to as you aren't giving them until turn 9/10 to assemble their combos, but more 5/6.
Post board twin is a bye with thoughtsiezes and orbs and terminates coming in and Pod gets better also with most of the same cards (perhaps even jund charm in place of terminates).
I'm not saying I recreated the wheel, I've just been testing it on MODO and have liked it enough to want some other people's input for cards that aren't optimal or other sideboard options, which unfortunately just saying "it loses to x" doesn't help with =( .
btw, are you the same "Mats" that just won the last MODO PTQ with Jund? if so, congrats. Jund Charms main have been really good for me also lately (in the regular Jund builds) vs all the Tron/Gifts nonsense.