Does anyone here have a report of the Pittsburgh PTQ? I know that PES will post the lists soon, but I just wondering how it went.
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It was a pretty weird PTQ, there were lots of strange decks there I thought. I made top 8 with RDW, basically the same list Adrian Sullivan T8'd with a few weeks back. I didn't see the whole top 8, but I know most of it:
RDW(me)
Bant Aggro/Sea Stompy?(the deck that beat me here)
Mono W Weenie
Affinity
Affinity
???
???
???
The Bant Aggro deck had Noble Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, Jitte, Rhox War Monk, Ethersworn Canonist, and Mana Leak in it. I'm going to call it Sea Stompy since that's what it reminded me of. My games were close, but I came up 1 damage short at the end of game 3(drew a 2 damage burn spell when I needed a 3 to win).
The Mono W deck is the only one I lost to in the swiss. I don't know what was going on with that, the only card I remember seeing that was not in standard was Isamaru. It definitely was running Kitchen Finks, Spectral Procession, and MD Burrenton Forge-Tender.
No idea what won, I left after I lost in the T8, but I'm pretty the Sea Stompy deck was going to play the W Weenie deck in the second round, so one of them should've at least made the finals.
i wont go into too much detail but i too went to the ptq. I chose to play affinity.
First round i played againsr a bant aggro deck, not sure if its the one that made top 8 but i know he went turn 2 trygon predator on the play, and i couldnt recover. he had 2 exalted BOPS out so he hit for four to boot. Game 2 i got my dream opening, i was able to play land drum thopter and thoughtseize. he had a land with 2 Gaddock Teeg(not sure why these were left in), 1 Kataki, and 4 land. I took kataki, but he managed to topdeck another. This was a long day of daving kataki, made me really i had chosen to run darkblast in my sideboard.
0-1
Round 2 i played against deathcloud. He got a game loss because he registered 2 crimepunishments in his sideboard instead of 3. Sucks for him, but we play on. game 2 (technically) he starts out with multiple elders and seals of primordium and gets up to 6 mana taking little to no damage. He starts clouding and i cant rebuild. game 3 was a massacre i got turn 2 master and turn 3 plating, gg.
1-1
Round 3 i played against Rock (i think deathcloud) This was my quickest match. 2 games i had just average affinity draws and all i see from him is cycle lands, green/black lands and basic mountains??? he played goyf i pathed it. He played almost no spells despite having plenty of mana. I kept calling out the card i figured he was holding back both games of damnation and got the feeling he didnt play it. after the match i ased hat the mountains were for, he said firespout and only firespout. Seemed odd to me that he would choose to go into another color for a weaker sweeper as opposed to running damnation but meh.
2-1
Round 4 (i get deck checkedi played against zoo. A zoo deck running 4 MD Sudden Shock. He gets a much better opener than i did and my threats consisted of frogmites and ravagers. Sudden Shock was an allstar for him against me. blah blah i get cat warriored to death. Game 2 as cruel and unusual. i have a pth waiting for kataki in my opening hand. i play ravager with ancient den up. he plays kataki i eot path it. i attack with 4/4 ravager and he chumps it, which surprised me. Only to see him play another kataki. My upkeep i save my untapped ancient den and ravager and sac everything to ravager making him a 7/7 and hope to draw path to exile. he chumps again. next upkeep i am in a no win situation, keep a tapped land an lose rvager or keep ravager and lose land. i keep ravager and topdeck path to exile 1 turn too late.
2-2
Round 5 vs Storm. (i get deck checked AGAIN two rounds in a row)To sum this match up quickly.
Game 1: i have lethal for turn 5 he tries to go off and fizzles
Game 2: i have canonist and turn 5 lethal, he kills canonist tries to go off and fails.
3-2
Round 6 (i pause for a second after present my deck figuring ill get deck checked again but dont) i played against burn heavy zoo. game 1 was all about master of etherium. He puncture blasted, sealed, and incinerated it to kill it. then i play another next turn. he played fanatic, watchwolf, kird apes, nacatl and goyfs as his creature suite. game 2 he has tons of ancient grudges, which should be good except he just didnt like to target cranial plating. We both end up hitting the mana pockets of all time. W eare both top decking with me at 2 him at 20. but i have a plating.I top deck a frogmite hit paths it. i top deck a frogmite he grudges it. i topdeck another frogmite he flashesback gruge. He topdecks kird ape and wins. my next two cards were lands. final land count in play 21 land!
Game 3. Kataki, path. next turnL Kataki Path. next turn kataki, i hold back my urge to cuss him out, and sign the slip and drop.
3-3
I heard about the mono W weenie deck that was 5-0 when i heard it. I didnt get to see it in action but i heard about the angry affinity player that cursed him when he found out he has main deck kataki. It made alot of sense as alot of meta hate are white weenies canonist, forgetender, kataki. still want to see that decklist.
Id be willing to say faeries is prolly a bad matchup for it from the sounds of it. However i saw almost no faeries think i might have counted 4 faerie decks just from walkin around.
It was a crazy crazy day, and i cant wait to check out those decklists.
There were definitely faeries there, but not very many. I wish there would've been more faerie decks there actually, I played against that deck twice at this PTQ and beat it both times. The majority of the room seemed to be Affinity or TEPS.
I haven't seen the decklists yet, but I read on another board that the finals ended up being Affinity vs. White Weenie, and Affinity won. The WW deck was certainly annoying, but definitely not unbeatable. I would think that deck would have a rough time against The Rock and Faeries at least. The other matches depend on whether or not the hate shows up(Kataki vs. Affinity, Canonist vs. TEPS, etc).
The Bant deck in the top 8 was another good example. He could've easily had Trigon Predator in there, I'm pretty sure he had Canonist and Teeg both main.
Game 2 i got my dream opening, i was able to play land drum thopter and thoughtseize. he had a land with 2 Gaddock Teeg(not sure why these were left in), 1 Kataki, and 4 land. I took kataki, but he managed to topdeck another. This was a long day of daving kataki, made me really i had chosen to run darkblast in my sideboard.
If it was the Bant deck that took 2nd, he probably left Teeg in for thoughtcasts, I suppose. Looking at the board, he has 6 cards to bring in against you (3 kataki, 3 condemn). Assuming he took out the 4 maindeck cannonist that leaves only 2 cards to take out. Probably took out the two jittes for being too slow, left in the Teegs because at the least they're more aggressive, can chump block, and stop your card draw.
There was a lot of the Bant deck that took 2nd running around that day. I actually played the guy who got 2nd in the 4th round and was surprised because of how inconsistent it was.
I saw game 1 almost all of his lands were blue and boarded in Choke game 2 only to find he was only running a couple blue sources. And then he dropped a Wilt-Leaf Leige off of my Raven's Crime and I proceed to draw nothing the rest of the game to halt his army. Game 3 I board out my Raven's Crimes for more creature kill which I had boarded out first game because I had saw very few creatures. I get great board position for the first 5 or 6 turns then I don't draw any more relevant spells and he continues to draw answers to anything I try to do.
I played against a version of it 2nd round as well, and the match was just a blowout in my favor.
My day was something like this playing B/G Aggro Loam
R1 Zoo 1-2
R2 Bant Aggro 2-1 (I started with a game loss due to an illegal card that I had found between rounds)
R3 Affinity 2-0
R4 Bant Aggro 1-2
R5 Zoo 1-2 (Worst match all day, neither of us draw anything relelvant for the whole match, the game I won I almost decked myself trying to find removal.)
R6 Affinity 2-1
R7 TEPS 1-2 (Game 3 we sit there for 6 or 7 turns while I have 2 Extirpate in my hand and only 2 land in play, one Tranquil Thicket and one Barren Moor. I have a chance as long as he doesn't hit a Desire off his Desire for 6, he hits 2.)
If it was the Bant deck that took 2nd, he probably left Teeg in for thoughtcasts, I suppose. Looking at the board, he has 6 cards to bring in against you (3 kataki, 3 condemn). Assuming he took out the 4 maindeck cannonist that leaves only 2 cards to take out. Probably took out the two jittes for being too slow, left in the Teegs because at the least they're more aggressive, can chump block, and stop your card draw.
Interesting strategy, i made it a point to side out my thoughtcasts in that match, i bring in so many non artifact colored cards that i felt that siding them out was appropiate. The Runnerup is the one the creamed me. Grats to him.
Yeah, that's the guy that beat me in the top 8. In game 3, I went with turn 1 Jitte, turn 2 Fanatic, equip... and of course he had the T2 Jitte so my hopes of just steamrolling him changed to being forced to play fair. I still got him to 2, and he only won because of 2x Tarmogoyf and another Jitte. Without both goyfs, or without the second Jitte, I would've won. Still, it was a fun match, and I don't feel like it really matters anyway since there's no way I was getting past that White Weenie deck without a lot of luck.
My SB was not great, I was trying a few things out(Volcanic Fallout & Relic) that just didn't work like I wanted. My SB will be better for the next PTQ.
Yeah, that's the guy that beat me in the top 8. In game 3, I went with turn 1 Jitte, turn 2 Fanatic, equip... and of course he had the T2 Jitte so my hopes of just steamrolling him changed to being forced to play fair. I still got him to 2, and he only won because of 2x Tarmogoyf and another Jitte. Without both goyfs, or without the second Jitte, I would've won. Still, it was a fun match, and I don't feel like it really matters anyway since there's no way I was getting past that White Weenie deck without a lot of luck.
My SB was not great, I was trying a few things out(Volcanic Fallout & Relic) that just didn't work like I wanted. My SB will be better for the next PTQ.
I don't feel that only 1 jitte in the 75 is good enough.
What MU's did you side in the trinispheres (In tournament)?
I don't really like boil in the sideboard, but I feel that there is a need for relic.
Interesting strategy, i made it a point to side out my thoughtcasts in that match, i bring in so many non artifact colored cards that i felt that siding them out was appropiate. The Runnerup is the one the creamed me. Grats to him.
Really? The deck pretty much isn't gonna do better than 1 for 1 you most the game, seems like thoughtcast would be a gamebreaker, but I suppose you know affinity better than I
What did you side in against him? Out of curiosity.
I don't feel that only 1 jitte in the 75 is good enough.
What MU's did you side in the trinispheres (In tournament)?
I don't really like boil in the sideboard, but I feel that there is a need for relic.
I agree, there should at least be a second Jitte, in the sideboard. I haven't settled on an exact SB yet. Sullivan's list has 2 in the board, and it's probably a good call, but I'm just not sure yet. I definitely want to put in Dead/Gone in some number, and I'm going to at least be testing Blood Knight to see if he goes in.
In this tournament the Trinispheres came in against nothing. They are there for storm, elves, and affinity. The decks I played against were Faeries, Zoo, The Rock, White Weenie, and Bant. Trinisphere doesn't really help against any of those.
Considering how much storm & affinity were there I was surprised to have not played against them.
Boil is obviously for the faeries match. Not that it's a bad match, but it's close because faeries can beat anything given enough time. The best tool this deck has for fighting them is land destruction so having more to bring in is important. In round 6, I actually won through a Circle of Protection: Red out of faeries. I got him to tap out on his turn so I could resolve a Magus when he had no basic lands out, and then a few turns later I drew a Blastminer and started slowly blowing up his lands one turn at a time.
I agree, there should at least be a second Jitte, in the sideboard. I haven't settled on an exact SB yet. Sullivan's list has 2 in the board, and it's probably a good call, but I'm just not sure yet. I definitely want to put in Dead/Gone in some number, and I'm going to at least be testing Blood Knight to see if he goes in.
In this tournament the Trinispheres came in against nothing. They are there for storm, elves, and affinity. The decks I played against were Faeries, Zoo, The Rock, White Weenie, and Bant. Trinisphere doesn't really help against any of those.
Considering how much storm & affinity were there I was surprised to have not played against them.
Boil is obviously for the faeries match. Not that it's a bad match, but it's close because faeries can beat anything given enough time. The best tool this deck has for fighting them is land destruction so having more to bring in is important. In round 6, I actually won through a Circle of Protection: Red out of faeries. I got him to tap out on his turn so I could resolve a Magus when he had no basic lands out, and then a few turns later I drew a Blastminer and started slowly blowing up his lands one turn at a time.
Trinisphere does a nice job at hitting those MUs, not too great against teps, but hopefuly the LD can get there.
Too bad you didn't face any of those decks for trinisphere, not that they are good MUs.
Blood Knight would be killer against the one white weenie deck from the top 8. That MU is non-existent though. Maybe against Bant and MartyrProc?
i still find it crazy that affinity beats bant guy who has maindecked trygun predators and stuff...
Yeah, the bant guy seemed to have the stuff for affinity. Affinity probably got the nuts while Bant drew into ethersworn canonist/other irrelevant cards.
Trinisphere does a nice job at hitting those MUs, not too great against teps, but hopefuly the LD can get there.
Too bad you didn't face any of those decks for trinisphere, not that they are good MUs.
Blood Knight would be killer against the one white weenie deck from the top 8. That MU is non-existent though. Maybe against Bant and MartyrProc?
Trinisphere is not great against TEPS because they have answers, but it helps. Your goal in the TEPS match is to slow them down as much as possible so you can outrace them. Trinisphere is just one more hurdle for them to jump. In testing, most of the time I was able to outrace them, but it depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is how lucky the TEPS player gets off of Desire. Land destruction followed by Firecat is key in this match, because 7 damage is a lot and it can force TEPS to try to go off before they're ready.
Trinisphere is a lot better against Affinity, actually they have a hard time beating it if you can get it early. Pre-board, Affinity is a tough match which usually comes down to opening hands and which player draws better. If the Affinity player has a weak hand, sometimes early land destruction is enough, but not usually. The board helps a lot here though, since you bring in Trinisphere and Shattering Spree(and I'm going to add Dead/Gone, which also comes in here).
If Blood Knight does end up making the board, Bant will be the reason for it. The deck is becoming popular, and Blood Knight helps a lot agains War Monk, Bant Charm, and Path to Exile(if anyone's actually playing this). First strike is somewhat relevant in some matches as well, especially against Zoo.
Trinisphere is not great against TEPS because they have answers, but it helps. Your goal in the TEPS match is to slow them down as much as possible so you can outrace them. Trinisphere is just one more hurdle for them to jump. In testing, most of the time I was able to outrace them, but it depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is how lucky the TEPS player gets off of Desire. Land destruction followed by Firecat is key in this match, because 7 damage is a lot and it can force TEPS to try to go off before they're ready.
Trinisphere is a lot better against Affinity, actually they have a hard time beating it if you can get it early. Pre-board, Affinity is a tough match which usually comes down to opening hands and which player draws better. If the Affinity player has a weak hand, sometimes early land destruction is enough, but not usually. The board helps a lot here though, since you bring in Trinisphere and Shattering Spree(and I'm going to add Dead/Gone, which also comes in here).
If Blood Knight does end up making the board, Bant will be the reason for it. The deck is becoming popular, and Blood Knight helps a lot agains War Monk, Bant Charm, and Path to Exile(if anyone's actually playing this). First strike is somewhat relevant in some matches as well, especially against Zoo.
I agree with most of your points.
How necessary is firecat though? I find it lackluster in any red or black MUs really.
Really? The deck pretty much isn't gonna do better than 1 for 1 you most the game, seems like thoughtcast would be a gamebreaker, but I suppose you know affinity better than I
What did you side in against him? Out of curiosity.
I brought in 4 Thoughtseize, 3 Atog, 1 more Souls fire, and 4 path to exile.
My atog soul fire package has been an allstar for me in the board. Responding to control decks by killing them is fun too.
In retrospect i want to run 4 darkblast in my board. kataki is WAY WAY WAY more prevalent than i expected, it hits elves and zoo as well. and the synergy with chromatic star is fun.
Part of me wants to drop the thoughtseizes for them.
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RDW(me)
Bant Aggro/Sea Stompy?(the deck that beat me here)
Mono W Weenie
Affinity
Affinity
???
???
???
The Bant Aggro deck had Noble Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, Jitte, Rhox War Monk, Ethersworn Canonist, and Mana Leak in it. I'm going to call it Sea Stompy since that's what it reminded me of. My games were close, but I came up 1 damage short at the end of game 3(drew a 2 damage burn spell when I needed a 3 to win).
The Mono W deck is the only one I lost to in the swiss. I don't know what was going on with that, the only card I remember seeing that was not in standard was Isamaru. It definitely was running Kitchen Finks, Spectral Procession, and MD Burrenton Forge-Tender.
No idea what won, I left after I lost in the T8, but I'm pretty the Sea Stompy deck was going to play the W Weenie deck in the second round, so one of them should've at least made the finals.
First round i played againsr a bant aggro deck, not sure if its the one that made top 8 but i know he went turn 2 trygon predator on the play, and i couldnt recover. he had 2 exalted BOPS out so he hit for four to boot. Game 2 i got my dream opening, i was able to play land drum thopter and thoughtseize. he had a land with 2 Gaddock Teeg(not sure why these were left in), 1 Kataki, and 4 land. I took kataki, but he managed to topdeck another. This was a long day of daving kataki, made me really i had chosen to run darkblast in my sideboard.
0-1
Round 2 i played against deathcloud. He got a game loss because he registered 2 crimepunishments in his sideboard instead of 3. Sucks for him, but we play on. game 2 (technically) he starts out with multiple elders and seals of primordium and gets up to 6 mana taking little to no damage. He starts clouding and i cant rebuild. game 3 was a massacre i got turn 2 master and turn 3 plating, gg.
1-1
Round 3 i played against Rock (i think deathcloud) This was my quickest match. 2 games i had just average affinity draws and all i see from him is cycle lands, green/black lands and basic mountains??? he played goyf i pathed it. He played almost no spells despite having plenty of mana. I kept calling out the card i figured he was holding back both games of damnation and got the feeling he didnt play it. after the match i ased hat the mountains were for, he said firespout and only firespout. Seemed odd to me that he would choose to go into another color for a weaker sweeper as opposed to running damnation but meh.
2-1
Round 4 (i get deck checkedi played against zoo. A zoo deck running 4 MD Sudden Shock. He gets a much better opener than i did and my threats consisted of frogmites and ravagers. Sudden Shock was an allstar for him against me. blah blah i get cat warriored to death. Game 2 as cruel and unusual. i have a pth waiting for kataki in my opening hand. i play ravager with ancient den up. he plays kataki i eot path it. i attack with 4/4 ravager and he chumps it, which surprised me. Only to see him play another kataki. My upkeep i save my untapped ancient den and ravager and sac everything to ravager making him a 7/7 and hope to draw path to exile. he chumps again. next upkeep i am in a no win situation, keep a tapped land an lose rvager or keep ravager and lose land. i keep ravager and topdeck path to exile 1 turn too late.
2-2
Round 5 vs Storm. (i get deck checked AGAIN two rounds in a row)To sum this match up quickly.
Game 1: i have lethal for turn 5 he tries to go off and fizzles
Game 2: i have canonist and turn 5 lethal, he kills canonist tries to go off and fails.
3-2
Round 6 (i pause for a second after present my deck figuring ill get deck checked again but dont) i played against burn heavy zoo. game 1 was all about master of etherium. He puncture blasted, sealed, and incinerated it to kill it. then i play another next turn. he played fanatic, watchwolf, kird apes, nacatl and goyfs as his creature suite. game 2 he has tons of ancient grudges, which should be good except he just didnt like to target cranial plating. We both end up hitting the mana pockets of all time. W eare both top decking with me at 2 him at 20. but i have a plating.I top deck a frogmite hit paths it. i top deck a frogmite he grudges it. i topdeck another frogmite he flashesback gruge. He topdecks kird ape and wins. my next two cards were lands. final land count in play 21 land!
Game 3. Kataki, path. next turnL Kataki Path. next turn kataki, i hold back my urge to cuss him out, and sign the slip and drop.
3-3
I heard about the mono W weenie deck that was 5-0 when i heard it. I didnt get to see it in action but i heard about the angry affinity player that cursed him when he found out he has main deck kataki. It made alot of sense as alot of meta hate are white weenies canonist, forgetender, kataki. still want to see that decklist.
Id be willing to say faeries is prolly a bad matchup for it from the sounds of it. However i saw almost no faeries think i might have counted 4 faerie decks just from walkin around.
It was a crazy crazy day, and i cant wait to check out those decklists.
I haven't seen the decklists yet, but I read on another board that the finals ended up being Affinity vs. White Weenie, and Affinity won. The WW deck was certainly annoying, but definitely not unbeatable. I would think that deck would have a rough time against The Rock and Faeries at least. The other matches depend on whether or not the hate shows up(Kataki vs. Affinity, Canonist vs. TEPS, etc).
The Bant deck in the top 8 was another good example. He could've easily had Trigon Predator in there, I'm pretty sure he had Canonist and Teeg both main.
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If it was the Bant deck that took 2nd, he probably left Teeg in for thoughtcasts, I suppose. Looking at the board, he has 6 cards to bring in against you (3 kataki, 3 condemn). Assuming he took out the 4 maindeck cannonist that leaves only 2 cards to take out. Probably took out the two jittes for being too slow, left in the Teegs because at the least they're more aggressive, can chump block, and stop your card draw.
I saw game 1 almost all of his lands were blue and boarded in Choke game 2 only to find he was only running a couple blue sources. And then he dropped a Wilt-Leaf Leige off of my Raven's Crime and I proceed to draw nothing the rest of the game to halt his army. Game 3 I board out my Raven's Crimes for more creature kill which I had boarded out first game because I had saw very few creatures. I get great board position for the first 5 or 6 turns then I don't draw any more relevant spells and he continues to draw answers to anything I try to do.
I played against a version of it 2nd round as well, and the match was just a blowout in my favor.
My day was something like this playing B/G Aggro Loam
R1 Zoo 1-2
R2 Bant Aggro 2-1 (I started with a game loss due to an illegal card that I had found between rounds)
R3 Affinity 2-0
R4 Bant Aggro 1-2
R5 Zoo 1-2 (Worst match all day, neither of us draw anything relelvant for the whole match, the game I won I almost decked myself trying to find removal.)
R6 Affinity 2-1
R7 TEPS 1-2 (Game 3 we sit there for 6 or 7 turns while I have 2 Extirpate in my hand and only 2 land in play, one Tranquil Thicket and one Barren Moor. I have a chance as long as he doesn't hit a Desire off his Desire for 6, he hits 2.)
Interesting strategy, i made it a point to side out my thoughtcasts in that match, i bring in so many non artifact colored cards that i felt that siding them out was appropiate. The Runnerup is the one the creamed me. Grats to him.
My SB was not great, I was trying a few things out(Volcanic Fallout & Relic) that just didn't work like I wanted. My SB will be better for the next PTQ.
I don't feel that only 1 jitte in the 75 is good enough.
What MU's did you side in the trinispheres (In tournament)?
I don't really like boil in the sideboard, but I feel that there is a need for relic.
Awesome banner and avatar thanks to spiderboy4 from highlight studios!
Really? The deck pretty much isn't gonna do better than 1 for 1 you most the game, seems like thoughtcast would be a gamebreaker, but I suppose you know affinity better than I
What did you side in against him? Out of curiosity.
I agree, there should at least be a second Jitte, in the sideboard. I haven't settled on an exact SB yet. Sullivan's list has 2 in the board, and it's probably a good call, but I'm just not sure yet. I definitely want to put in Dead/Gone in some number, and I'm going to at least be testing Blood Knight to see if he goes in.
In this tournament the Trinispheres came in against nothing. They are there for storm, elves, and affinity. The decks I played against were Faeries, Zoo, The Rock, White Weenie, and Bant. Trinisphere doesn't really help against any of those.
Considering how much storm & affinity were there I was surprised to have not played against them.
Boil is obviously for the faeries match. Not that it's a bad match, but it's close because faeries can beat anything given enough time. The best tool this deck has for fighting them is land destruction so having more to bring in is important. In round 6, I actually won through a Circle of Protection: Red out of faeries. I got him to tap out on his turn so I could resolve a Magus when he had no basic lands out, and then a few turns later I drew a Blastminer and started slowly blowing up his lands one turn at a time.
Yes i am the same guy who trades/sells on MOTL AND Wizards of the Coast and i trade on POJO.
Trinisphere does a nice job at hitting those MUs, not too great against teps, but hopefuly the LD can get there.
Too bad you didn't face any of those decks for trinisphere, not that they are good MUs.
Blood Knight would be killer against the one white weenie deck from the top 8. That MU is non-existent though. Maybe against Bant and MartyrProc?
Yeah, the bant guy seemed to have the stuff for affinity. Affinity probably got the nuts while Bant drew into ethersworn canonist/other irrelevant cards.
Awesome banner and avatar thanks to spiderboy4 from highlight studios!
Trinisphere is not great against TEPS because they have answers, but it helps. Your goal in the TEPS match is to slow them down as much as possible so you can outrace them. Trinisphere is just one more hurdle for them to jump. In testing, most of the time I was able to outrace them, but it depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is how lucky the TEPS player gets off of Desire. Land destruction followed by Firecat is key in this match, because 7 damage is a lot and it can force TEPS to try to go off before they're ready.
Trinisphere is a lot better against Affinity, actually they have a hard time beating it if you can get it early. Pre-board, Affinity is a tough match which usually comes down to opening hands and which player draws better. If the Affinity player has a weak hand, sometimes early land destruction is enough, but not usually. The board helps a lot here though, since you bring in Trinisphere and Shattering Spree(and I'm going to add Dead/Gone, which also comes in here).
If Blood Knight does end up making the board, Bant will be the reason for it. The deck is becoming popular, and Blood Knight helps a lot agains War Monk, Bant Charm, and Path to Exile(if anyone's actually playing this). First strike is somewhat relevant in some matches as well, especially against Zoo.
I agree with most of your points.
How necessary is firecat though? I find it lackluster in any red or black MUs really.
Awesome banner and avatar thanks to spiderboy4 from highlight studios!
I brought in 4 Thoughtseize, 3 Atog, 1 more Souls fire, and 4 path to exile.
My atog soul fire package has been an allstar for me in the board. Responding to control decks by killing them is fun too.
In retrospect i want to run 4 darkblast in my board. kataki is WAY WAY WAY more prevalent than i expected, it hits elves and zoo as well. and the synergy with chromatic star is fun.
Part of me wants to drop the thoughtseizes for them.