What do people think of cutting a fetchland for a 2'nd blood crypt in the mana base? It looks like there's a lot of dredge and a lot of company running around right now, so I really want to run 2 angers in my SB.
As a big proponent of 3x tarfire, one thing I like about Grim Flayer is that it helps enable delerium without also being garbage. It probably slows the average traverse turn down a little bit, but in a meta that's shifting towards grindier decks that's probably a worthwhile tradeoff. How has going down to 3 IoK been? I've been really liking the 8 hand disruption so far, but I guess that normal Jund never ran more than 6, and they did fine. I guess that a large role of the hand disruption is to protect our admittedly sparse threats, and going up on threats should help offset the fewer discard.
The spicy tech I've been testing is 1xInfernal Tutor. It's probably wrong for consistency reasons, but it's pretty amazing when you topdeck it late game.
Push is definitely a good card. But we have a lot of hand disruption to get rid of threats, and our threats are usually bigger than theirs, so IMO we don't need 4. Push is also a somewhat mediocre SB card if you have the white splash.
3/2 push/decay MB, 0/0 SB seems totally fine. And push doesn't sound very good in the meta you described anyway.
Do you need the 4'th fatal push in the SB? When are you bringing it in, and how impactful is it? The primer's "stock" decklist doesn't have the push in the SB in the white splash version, and I agree that you don't need it when you have the more impactful white cards instead.
Real talk, every time I take on UW Control (which is often because it is everywhere on MTGO), it feels like an impossible match-up. Has anyone seen success in devoting SB cards to the match-up? If so, which cards have helped? I usually go with the following.
I've actually yet to lose a game against UW control (admittedly, I'm not playing against the best players/lists, but still). I also played control almost exclusively in modern, which IMO gives you an enormous advantage playing against it.
For sideboarding, remember that at heart, we are a jund deck. In the traditional jund mirror, the best players would sideboard out all of their hand disruption. The basic theory is that if the game is going to go long, the most important thing is gaining card advantage. It doesn't matter as much if you can't protect your threats as well, per se, since you're guaranteed to just draw more. We want to take a similar approach - turn our deck into a card advantage machine.
So with that said, the first thing I would take out is temur battle rage, because this card is always card disadvantage. Then go down to 1 tarfire, because the only way this card isn't card disadvantage against them is killing snapcaster mage or v clique. Leaving in one for the goyf is probably fine. Then I would cut terminate, since push can kill all of their creatures. I only run 3 pushes, so I would leave in those three plus the abrupt decay, personally. Next, start cutting hand disruption. Thoughtseize is better than IoK here, so the rest of the cards that you need to cut should be IoK.
Bringing stuff in, you want to bring in everything that could be a 2-1 that you can. All three lingering souls, and the ranger of eos. The ranger is undoubtedly the best card in this MU. It's a 3-1! If you run Nihil spellbomb, bring those in too. Your goyf will be big enough with just your yard, it's worth it. Collective brutality is a tough one. You can get virtual card advantage by pitching lands to it, but I usually want my lands in this MU. Plus if it gets countered, you fall way behind. Personally I don't bring it in.
Even if you boarded perfectly, you'll still lose if you don't play against it correctly. I suggest sleeving up a proxy (or real, if you can) version of the UW deck and playing it against a friend, who is playing your death shadow deck. Just jam a bunch of games, then try switching.
The key here is to always deny them the 2-1. (1) Never have more than 1 threat on board, because board wipes. (2) Always try to overload their countermagic. Thought experiment. They have a hand full of cancels, you have a hand full of goyfs, and you each have four lands in play. If you play 1 goyf per turn for the rest of the game, you will draw. But if you play two goyfs per turn, and they always cancel the first one, you'll win. A common play that I make in this MU is cast traverse, grab a threat, then pass the turn with plenty of open mana. If they let the traverse resolve, they're just going to counter the threat. I want to wait until I can play two threats per turn to overload their cryptic commands. (3) Never run out of gas. If they have a cryptic in hand, and you only have one threat in hand, just don't play it. You'll draw a thoughtseize or other threat eventually. (4) Be mindful of thinning your deck of threats with traverse. This actually comes up. If you've drawn two threats already, then you only have 6 left. If you traverse twice, you've now reduced your number of threats by 33%. By nature of the decks, this game is going to go long, and we run 8+ cantrips. You will draw enough cards that the %'s add up. Wait to cast traverse until the situation demands it, not just willy nilly.
I hope that helps some!
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The spicy tech I've been testing is 1xInfernal Tutor. It's probably wrong for consistency reasons, but it's pretty amazing when you topdeck it late game.
3/2 push/decay MB, 0/0 SB seems totally fine. And push doesn't sound very good in the meta you described anyway.
I've actually yet to lose a game against UW control (admittedly, I'm not playing against the best players/lists, but still). I also played control almost exclusively in modern, which IMO gives you an enormous advantage playing against it.
For sideboarding, remember that at heart, we are a jund deck. In the traditional jund mirror, the best players would sideboard out all of their hand disruption. The basic theory is that if the game is going to go long, the most important thing is gaining card advantage. It doesn't matter as much if you can't protect your threats as well, per se, since you're guaranteed to just draw more. We want to take a similar approach - turn our deck into a card advantage machine.
So with that said, the first thing I would take out is temur battle rage, because this card is always card disadvantage. Then go down to 1 tarfire, because the only way this card isn't card disadvantage against them is killing snapcaster mage or v clique. Leaving in one for the goyf is probably fine. Then I would cut terminate, since push can kill all of their creatures. I only run 3 pushes, so I would leave in those three plus the abrupt decay, personally. Next, start cutting hand disruption. Thoughtseize is better than IoK here, so the rest of the cards that you need to cut should be IoK.
Bringing stuff in, you want to bring in everything that could be a 2-1 that you can. All three lingering souls, and the ranger of eos. The ranger is undoubtedly the best card in this MU. It's a 3-1! If you run Nihil spellbomb, bring those in too. Your goyf will be big enough with just your yard, it's worth it. Collective brutality is a tough one. You can get virtual card advantage by pitching lands to it, but I usually want my lands in this MU. Plus if it gets countered, you fall way behind. Personally I don't bring it in.
Even if you boarded perfectly, you'll still lose if you don't play against it correctly. I suggest sleeving up a proxy (or real, if you can) version of the UW deck and playing it against a friend, who is playing your death shadow deck. Just jam a bunch of games, then try switching.
The key here is to always deny them the 2-1. (1) Never have more than 1 threat on board, because board wipes. (2) Always try to overload their countermagic. Thought experiment. They have a hand full of cancels, you have a hand full of goyfs, and you each have four lands in play. If you play 1 goyf per turn for the rest of the game, you will draw. But if you play two goyfs per turn, and they always cancel the first one, you'll win. A common play that I make in this MU is cast traverse, grab a threat, then pass the turn with plenty of open mana. If they let the traverse resolve, they're just going to counter the threat. I want to wait until I can play two threats per turn to overload their cryptic commands. (3) Never run out of gas. If they have a cryptic in hand, and you only have one threat in hand, just don't play it. You'll draw a thoughtseize or other threat eventually. (4) Be mindful of thinning your deck of threats with traverse. This actually comes up. If you've drawn two threats already, then you only have 6 left. If you traverse twice, you've now reduced your number of threats by 33%. By nature of the decks, this game is going to go long, and we run 8+ cantrips. You will draw enough cards that the %'s add up. Wait to cast traverse until the situation demands it, not just willy nilly.
I hope that helps some!