I've found titanshift to be pretty hit or miss, generally in their favor largely depending on how much our disruption is able to snipe their actual threats. Field of Ruin helps if they're forced to play a Valakut early, but that's not something that you can really count on.
If you're really after hate for the match up though you can go for Gideon's Intervention or Runed Halo and name Valakut. They can also serve double duty as hate against other decks, similar to Leyline.
While Kor Firewalker does help destroy burn, I think it's too narrow to occupy 4 sideboard slots. I'd rather have something like Blessed Alliance that can server as Burn hate, and work for additional match ups. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of Leyline in this deck either.
How is this deck against Affinity and Humans? Thinking of picking this up for fun, but it is almost guaranteed I will face one or both of these match ups everytime.
From the outside it looks like Humans might be rough, and Affinity devolves into a pseudo grind fest given the plethora of fliers and colorless creatures.
You can't Disenchant a Teferi or Goyf, but you can cast it out.
You can't pitch Disenchant when looking for answers if it's dead, but you can cycle Cast Out.
The card has merits and the two aren't really that comparable. Sure disenchant can hit some targets you would cast out, but cast out can hit targets you'd never be able to disenchant.
A better comparison is Anguished Unmaking. They hit the exact same targets, so the question becomes do you value the 3 life and cheaper mana cost, or the cycle.
The Relentless Dead "combo" is just a bonus. The biggest appeal for the card is a 2/2 menace that's extremely difficult to permanently remove, that also sometimes brings back a friend.
Nothing too specific, but definitely agree we can hang with the Jace and Elf decks. We've got the removal and grindy walkers to deal with the free spell from Elf, and the ~8 discard coupled with ~10 game ending threats is pretty taxing on Jace decks.
Seconded for a current shell to tweak. Thinking of making this my second deck since I've always been a fan, and some of the new vampire knights seem pretty sweet. Vona and Elenda specifically. I could even see a slight red splash for Olivia but that seems overkill.
My meta is also slacking on grave hate so that's nice too
Liliana I've tested and not liked. My opponents are almost always empty handed before I am, so her +1 doesn't work well with what I'm doing and her -2 is just an edict. She's better in decks like Jund with a low average CMC and Dark Confidants.
I get what he's saying. There have been times where I really want to tick Liliana up, but if I do I either need to discard land 5 or a 5 drop walker, when I would much rather hold onto both. Instead, he is more "aggressive" by putting out the stream of Gideons that demand an answer, so the hand attack and edict isn't as necessary.
FWIW though, I like having 2. Even as a bad edict, she is still fine, and against Combo / Control / Tron, she helps strip out resources.
I still don't totally agree with no Liliana, but he's made it multiple times so it must be right. I'm going to give it a shot (just bought them too ;_;) and see what all the Gideon hubbub is about.
He does still stand by Grim Nemesis, and I've gotta say, I'm really, really liking it. A lot of people ask why not Elspeth, and then they lose their threat and drown in VS.
I'm hoping he keeps it up too. It's a niche deck, and being able to actually see games play out is a huge benefit.
I understand the blue is just a very light splash, but I feel like Search for Azcanta is better than Night's Whisper. It helps you filter to what you want, and the Impulse hits everything you want while avoiding Emrakul.
A point for the UG version is that Jeff seemed to win a lot of games because of Terastadon and not because of Emrakul. Looping it with Proteus Staff didn't come up, but it's something that can exist. It makes me wonder if Terastadon should just be the main thing with Emrakul side, but that's probably not right. Not having haste / cast trigger means your Emrakul can get Jace'd, Cryptic'd, Ref Mage'd, invalidated through go wide, etc. Again, probably wrong, but worth a thought.
I do think Nissa and Garruk are all stars there, as the go wide secondary plan seems to be something that's s relevant. Nissa also helps break the symmetry of Terastadon even more.
He played a second league revising it, mostly hitting the same switches you did.
Is UG better than Esper though? You trade the possibility of T3 Emrakul for targeted disruption and arguably better walkers (Gideon and Jace) and Lingering Souls.
If you're really after hate for the match up though you can go for Gideon's Intervention or Runed Halo and name Valakut. They can also serve double duty as hate against other decks, similar to Leyline.
While Kor Firewalker does help destroy burn, I think it's too narrow to occupy 4 sideboard slots. I'd rather have something like Blessed Alliance that can server as Burn hate, and work for additional match ups. For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of Leyline in this deck either.
From the outside it looks like Humans might be rough, and Affinity devolves into a pseudo grind fest given the plethora of fliers and colorless creatures.
You can't pitch Disenchant when looking for answers if it's dead, but you can cycle Cast Out.
The card has merits and the two aren't really that comparable. Sure disenchant can hit some targets you would cast out, but cast out can hit targets you'd never be able to disenchant.
A better comparison is Anguished Unmaking. They hit the exact same targets, so the question becomes do you value the 3 life and cheaper mana cost, or the cycle.
Thopter Sword seems decent since the tutors hit that as well, but it does take extra slots and loses to grave and artifact hate.
My meta is also slacking on grave hate so that's nice too
I get what he's saying. There have been times where I really want to tick Liliana up, but if I do I either need to discard land 5 or a 5 drop walker, when I would much rather hold onto both. Instead, he is more "aggressive" by putting out the stream of Gideons that demand an answer, so the hand attack and edict isn't as necessary.
FWIW though, I like having 2. Even as a bad edict, she is still fine, and against Combo / Control / Tron, she helps strip out resources.
He does still stand by Grim Nemesis, and I've gotta say, I'm really, really liking it. A lot of people ask why not Elspeth, and then they lose their threat and drown in VS.
I'm hoping he keeps it up too. It's a niche deck, and being able to actually see games play out is a huge benefit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDT3HySXevc&list=PLVfwJL8w3MeeVjPqruurI2BDxlwSs7i71
A point for the UG version is that Jeff seemed to win a lot of games because of Terastadon and not because of Emrakul. Looping it with Proteus Staff didn't come up, but it's something that can exist. It makes me wonder if Terastadon should just be the main thing with Emrakul side, but that's probably not right. Not having haste / cast trigger means your Emrakul can get Jace'd, Cryptic'd, Ref Mage'd, invalidated through go wide, etc. Again, probably wrong, but worth a thought.
I do think Nissa and Garruk are all stars there, as the go wide secondary plan seems to be something that's s relevant. Nissa also helps break the symmetry of Terastadon even more.
Is UG better than Esper though? You trade the possibility of T3 Emrakul for targeted disruption and arguably better walkers (Gideon and Jace) and Lingering Souls.