I'm playing a list similar to Shaun McLaren's. I would appreciate advice on how to play against tron and scapeshift as they seem like the worst matchups.
For instance, do I want to drop a turn two snapcaster and try to just start beating down? Do I counter their acceleration and hope to stall them long enough to combo out?
Sideboarding: What is your goal here? I don't know if salts or geist is a better route. Geist will end the game if they don't have an answer immediately. Salts lets me control the game more.
Thanks!
I tried salts for quite awhile but it generally underperformed, especially with all of the lists running multiple Wurmcoils now. They will still hit 6 mana and drop Wumrcoils, then hit 7 to drop Karn afterward, you really need a plan to kill them and not just stall their late game.
Also really like Rickster's advice that was quoted above for playing against Scapeshift.
Does anybody have any thoughts on Vedalken Shackles as a one of in the side? A friend of mine used it in his RUG Twin list and the card just seems bonkers.
Our island count isn't as large as the decks that generally run shackles, with Glacial/Colonnade/Tec Edge we have plenty of draws where we won't have enough islands to pickup a goyf in time. Also, the GBx decks where we want to steal goyfs/bobs are running 3-4 Abrupt Decays which makes Threads and Shackles less resilient (though they will probably side some out vs us).
Curious to hear how Condescend works, please post back if you're trying it out.
My main concern, given I'm not a fan of the Kiki version, is that we need a stronger finisher. The durdle and finally win with colonnade plan just isn't ideal with all of the combo and strong proactive decks running around. I'm debating trying a full set of angels to put pressure on them earlier or try any suggestions for a better finisher to close games out.
I play a classic Uwr version (the Orange one to be exact).
What do you side against Jund?
Relics, Celestial Purge, Wrath of God/s, Wear/Tear if they have equipment. Keep Scooze dead so he doesn't eat your spells and kill Bob at all times, matchup isn't that bad just be mindful of Thrun as well, don't waste Wraths if you don't have to.
What does Tormod do against Scapeshift? Relic cycles which makes it much, much better. You can play your spells and snap around an active Relic to minimize the downside but Tormod's shouldn't be considered unless its a match where the 1 CMC activation on Relic is losing you games.
Glad I'm not the only one having problems lol, I use a lot of those plans already but going to Molten Rain is a pretty big SB commitment for one matchup.
Stony Silence can def slow them down but with 4x Nature's Claim and All is Dust it is only going to buy a short respite. If you can get some temporary control of the game Clique + Angel can lock them out of drawsteps for a bit to hopefully burn/tempo finish them off.
That Gregory/Smith match was good but the Tron player never actually had Tron online, which is pretty atypical with the velocity of that deck. You can't counter all the 1cmc cantrips and most of the time they won't durdle until T4 and let you tec edge them prior to having Tron active.
Chromanticore probably was going to be Legendary but not enough room for the text in addition to the other types. I'm fairly certain it was due to lack of space for legendary.
More likely because he has Bestow.
And that hate bear is going to be really annoying ;/
You don't understand. This is the first step. They print MM and Commander's Arsenal and some bean counter at Hasbro HQ goes, "Oh, we made bank on that and we only printed X. Why didn't we print more? Like 5x? Let's do more reprint products." And the design people are going, "Well, MM sort of worked...next time, print more Goyf and Bob." Pretty soon it's their go-to to make more money...why put cash in R&D and card design when we can reprint stuff for .00000001 cents per card and sell for $20 a card. It's all gravy and extra profits until the market can't take anymore. Oversaturation, dig? Then it becomes why should I pay $4 for a booster when I know every single card in that pack will be worth about .05 in a year because of overprinting. Standard dies, then modern, then Legacy.
BUT HEY CHEAP CARDS!!!!!!!!$!$!$!$
There are a lot of idiotic posts regarding economics or finance in this thread already but yours definitely takes the cake. You have no clue what you're talking about, this is not a sign that the sky is falling it is them reaping the benefits of MTGs growth that is a result of their design philosophy.
WoTC and Hasbro are entities that exist to make money, of course they are going to print product that people will buy, but they are not going to shoot the cash cow in the process.
The more R&D can grow the game and get people playing the more opportunities they will have to sell specialty products and increase revenue. One begets the other.
They made the mistake once before, it's called Chronicles, and they've done pretty well at avoiding that mistake again in the subsequent 20 years. If anything, Commander's Arsenal is still an over-correction from those days.
I thought the lists that ran 3 Jace were only those that ran 4 Divinations, since they already had enough card-advantage and they ran the 4th Divination over the 4 Jace due to tempo and the Divinations increasing the chances of quickly drawing a Jace, hmm.
I run 3 Jace and 3 Divination and have found that to be quite good. It's fairly common to draw multiple Jace's, discard one, shuffle it back in and Rev into it again later even when I only have 3. This deck goes through 60 cards pretty quickly and having dead 4 of's is not where it wants to be.
Divination is more of a personal preference, I always want to see 1-2 fairly early in the game but don't want to Divination into Divination like we do with Rev. Keep in mind if you face lots of Thoughtseize/Duress decks Div is one of your best cards. I would love to have 4 vs those decks.
Keeper for sure, especially considering a) most lists don't run Aetherling anymore and b) you don't need Aetherling to win if you are running Elixir.
Keeping a hand with Elixir is something I would actually hesitate about, anything else can be recycled.
Unless they(or you) somehow get Aetherling on the board in the early/mid game it is a very poor win condition against most control lists now. Haven't lost a resolved opponents Aetherling in several weeks, since the lists changes with Hueys plan.
Debating on my SB package to handle mono-red and the increasingly present "mostly" red devotion deck. Are any of you running the Archangel/Fiendslayer/Soldier package? If so, how many of each?
Red and the occasional mono-black draws are about the only thing I really have problems with online recently, currently have 3 Fiendslayer Paladin, 3 Last Breath, 1 Blind Obedience, and 1 Ratchet Bomb to fight them with.
How necessary are mutavaults in a UW control list?
They're essential. I'd like to fit 3 in but that would mess up verdict consistency.
Time is rarely an issue if you're familiar with the deck. Rarely will G1 take an exorbitant amount of time unless you are the one winning, in which case the pressure is on them to play faster in G2.
I tried salts for quite awhile but it generally underperformed, especially with all of the lists running multiple Wurmcoils now. They will still hit 6 mana and drop Wumrcoils, then hit 7 to drop Karn afterward, you really need a plan to kill them and not just stall their late game.
Also really like Rickster's advice that was quoted above for playing against Scapeshift.
Our island count isn't as large as the decks that generally run shackles, with Glacial/Colonnade/Tec Edge we have plenty of draws where we won't have enough islands to pickup a goyf in time. Also, the GBx decks where we want to steal goyfs/bobs are running 3-4 Abrupt Decays which makes Threads and Shackles less resilient (though they will probably side some out vs us).
Curious to hear how Condescend works, please post back if you're trying it out.
My main concern, given I'm not a fan of the Kiki version, is that we need a stronger finisher. The durdle and finally win with colonnade plan just isn't ideal with all of the combo and strong proactive decks running around. I'm debating trying a full set of angels to put pressure on them earlier or try any suggestions for a better finisher to close games out.
Relics, Celestial Purge, Wrath of God/s, Wear/Tear if they have equipment. Keep Scooze dead so he doesn't eat your spells and kill Bob at all times, matchup isn't that bad just be mindful of Thrun as well, don't waste Wraths if you don't have to.
Stony Silence can def slow them down but with 4x Nature's Claim and All is Dust it is only going to buy a short respite. If you can get some temporary control of the game Clique + Angel can lock them out of drawsteps for a bit to hopefully burn/tempo finish them off.
That Gregory/Smith match was good but the Tron player never actually had Tron online, which is pretty atypical with the velocity of that deck. You can't counter all the 1cmc cantrips and most of the time they won't durdle until T4 and let you tec edge them prior to having Tron active.
More likely because he has Bestow.
And that hate bear is going to be really annoying ;/
There are a lot of idiotic posts regarding economics or finance in this thread already but yours definitely takes the cake. You have no clue what you're talking about, this is not a sign that the sky is falling it is them reaping the benefits of MTGs growth that is a result of their design philosophy.
WoTC and Hasbro are entities that exist to make money, of course they are going to print product that people will buy, but they are not going to shoot the cash cow in the process.
The more R&D can grow the game and get people playing the more opportunities they will have to sell specialty products and increase revenue. One begets the other.
They made the mistake once before, it's called Chronicles, and they've done pretty well at avoiding that mistake again in the subsequent 20 years. If anything, Commander's Arsenal is still an over-correction from those days.
I run 3 Jace and 3 Divination and have found that to be quite good. It's fairly common to draw multiple Jace's, discard one, shuffle it back in and Rev into it again later even when I only have 3. This deck goes through 60 cards pretty quickly and having dead 4 of's is not where it wants to be.
Divination is more of a personal preference, I always want to see 1-2 fairly early in the game but don't want to Divination into Divination like we do with Rev. Keep in mind if you face lots of Thoughtseize/Duress decks Div is one of your best cards. I would love to have 4 vs those decks.
Keeping a hand with Elixir is something I would actually hesitate about, anything else can be recycled.
Unless they(or you) somehow get Aetherling on the board in the early/mid game it is a very poor win condition against most control lists now. Haven't lost a resolved opponents Aetherling in several weeks, since the lists changes with Hueys plan.
Red and the occasional mono-black draws are about the only thing I really have problems with online recently, currently have 3 Fiendslayer Paladin, 3 Last Breath, 1 Blind Obedience, and 1 Ratchet Bomb to fight them with.
They're essential. I'd like to fit 3 in but that would mess up verdict consistency.
Time is rarely an issue if you're familiar with the deck. Rarely will G1 take an exorbitant amount of time unless you are the one winning, in which case the pressure is on them to play faster in G2.
Mainly because Marlon didn't concede when Huey had the game completely locked up.
And I'm not saying he should have, especially in a top 8, but in normal circumstances players realize its over and move on to the next game.