Here's another video. This time its vs 4C Loam. I'm excited to bring this video because 4C Loam is an archetype that has been doing well lately. Another match will be up on Thursday, but I won't have any uploads next week since I am out of town. I'll be back on schedule the week after, however!
I know this is Legacy, but who here is going to go play Modern Merfolk at GP OKC?
Thanks L0rdAceX for the videos! It's great to see some matches, I think it's very useful and entertaining for all us
I hope you don't mind getting some "negative" comments such as "I would have done X/Y instead", etc. You play pretty well, and it's a great way to debate opinions, plays and card choice. I think we can all learn a lot from your videos!
Some comments on the Miracles match:
1. First, I thought the same as fanattic: I would have Forced the turn 1 top. It's just so hard to loose a game when they don't have top in play... I'm generally not in favor in keeping all Fow post-board (more on this below), but if I do it's for Turn 1 Top, or hard cast it later on Mentor or Terminus. Nevertheless, forcing the first mentor was key so your play probably was better in that game.
2. I don't think you want to take the pyroclasm if you're going to chalice for 2 on the next turn, you're giving him a card for free...
3. I have a different opinion on sideboarding in this matchup. I don't claim it's necessary superior, but this is what I would have done in your case: In: +1 Relic, +1 Needle, +1 Venser, +2 Dismember; Out: -2 Fow, -1 Jitte, -1 Echoing truth, -1 Island. My reasoning: He's playing Bonanni miraclss, so he probably has 4 mentor, 2 snap, 2 DTT and zero entreat. Relic is fine, but 1 is probably enough with only a pair of snapcaster. Dismember is very good, as it makes it hard to race with mentor. Venser is great as it can remand terminus, save a guy from swords, etc. I think it's much better than echoing truth when they don't play entreat. Needle is a fine answer to top. In terms of what to take out, I'm a big proponent of keeping the threat density very high. Clunky hands with a lot of reactive cards is the main way to loose. For instance your hand G2 wasn't great, and fortunately you drew out of it! This is why I don't board out any creatures and just swap some reactive cards for the more efficient answers we're bringing in. I think 3 chalice is enough, it's very good but the second one is quite bad, and the first one is not always better than a threat. I generally think that fighting over terminus is unnecessary: just play two guys at a time and they'll eventually run out of sweepers. I would keep the island on the play however.
Hey, welcome to Salvation! I appreciate this comment. I certainly love to hear constructive criticism for my own learning as well as other people's potential learning so I'm glad someone is here to challenge my play decisions.
1. I would agree with this and I probably should have countered the Top t1. He just happened to have Mentor for me to have that Force be good, but I think countering it was most likely correct. I told Fanattic on YT that I generally don't counter it when I have Chalice in my hand because it's harder to abuse, but I still think it might be correct to just counter the Top because it helps them sculpt a hand early on and I can potentially punish them. Another argument to not countering top with Chalice though is that I can wait and just counter the eventual Terminus they get off the top because they can't ever cast the Top again after doing so due to Chalice. This also lets me see more cards and maybe there will be a better card to pitch to said FoW.
2. I really didn't think about this, but you are definitely right. I guess I hadn't thought of the Chalice for 2 play at that point in time when I should have. Letting him have it was correct because why give him a chance to draw outs.
3. I was at first inclined to think Echoing Truth is fine because of Mentor tokens, but there is also an argument that if Mentor got out of control, I was losing that game anyway. You are right in that it is probably best to keep threat density as high as possible because how you beat the matchup is have a clock/pressure and maintain it while rebuilding after they use their removal spells and continually demand answers of them. I do, however, think that even a reactive hand with Chalices is keepable because of how hard Chalice hoses Miracles. The hand was definitely threat light, but I do think it was worth keeping. I think fighting over Terminus is dependent on how your draw is can still be potentially more important than just sticking 2 threats. For example, I value True Name much more highly over any random lord so I am more inclined to protect it if it will win me the game. I think 4 Chalice is necessary, it hoses so many cards plus they could be playing Wear//Tear, Council's Judgment, or Engineered Explosives to remove the redundant copies. This usually puts their shields down and involves slowing down their so it gives you time to play another or put more pressure on them and continue to hose them; I think redundant copies aren't completely awful for this reason. You almost always want to open it against Miracles as well.
Thanks again and I appreciate the comments and support!
thank you!
by the way, just to be clear that hand G2 was definitely a keep! I just wanted to say that it would have been better if one of the chalice or the Fow was a cursecatcher/image instead
And I definitely agree that fighting over terminus during the game is often correct (as you said in particular to protect TNN), I was commenting about the post-board strategy ex-ante: that, on average, I'd rather have a threat than a force in hand. But hard casting FOW on a terminus is amazing!
thank you!
by the way, just to be clear that hand G2 was definitely a keep! I just wanted to say that it would have been better if one of the chalice or the Fow was a cursecatcher/image instead
And I definitely agree that fighting over terminus during the game is often correct (as you said in particular to protect TNN), I was commenting about the post-board strategy ex-ante: that, on average, I'd rather have a threat than a force in hand. But hard casting FOW on a terminus is amazing!
I can definitely agree with that! And though I wouldn't count on hardcasting FoW, its great when it comes up.
Chalice in the main work wonderfully unless you are facing a weird local meta of stompy decks. Chalice stops so many cards I'd just go for it, and is my preferred version for legacy Merfolk.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy: WRDeath and Taxes UWRMiracles UBTezzerator GTrinity GBWRLoam URLandstill
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
Hi. It's been years since I've played legacy and I wonder if it is worth to play Chalices in MD? I've read your arguments and I'd like to play them but my consern is mostly that I don't know today's decks and because of that I hesitate playing Chalices in main. Should I play Chalices and just slam them on t2 with one counter and pray that the opponent plays deck that suffers from it, or should I play something else and save Chalices to the side?
It depends on the metagame you're expecting honestly. I can understand playing 0 if your metagame is full of fair nonblue decks like DnT, Jund, MUD, and Stompy.
I think I'd jam 4 for sure in a bigger event though.
I was the other guy on merfolk. Finished 16th at 9/2. My breakers were terrible due to a very frustrating round one loss. I'll see if I can gather up some notes for a report later, but magicman is 100% correct. Merfolk was great in the meta. There were lots of blue decks and chalice on 1 made so many games blowouts. The only games I felt overpowered was vs bob huang when he had two pyros on board. More later...
FANAttIC, how do you sideboard vs Stoneblade? Specifically Jeskai.
The problem with UWr blade is that it has many different lines of attack or cards they could play. Delver or no, how many Snapcasters and Digs (probably 4 total, so how many Relics should I bring for only 4 cards?)...
Verdict can't be countered, Explosives are a problem, Judgment can deal with TNN and they only play cca 17 one-cost spells to be crushed by Chalice, which is not a lot.
Good thing is they have no (mostly) SoF&I, Jace is not that backbreaking, they are not the fastest, we have more TNNs and Image + Vendillion are brutal here.
My friend Ante (jacetmsst on mtgo), http://www.mtgtop8.com/search?player=jacetmsst is Jeskai expert and matches against him has thought me a lot, always close unfortunately. Neither deck has an edge.
Since I can't get a significant edge against it, my advice is probably not good enough. At least not fleshed out yet. So I am not going to present false plan.
I play both UWr stoneblade and ze fish. The most important card to have in your sideboard is a copy or two of Null Rod. I also have a copy of Cursed Totem for more needle-esque effects. Neither stops planeswalkers or lands like Needle does, but the AoE power is completely worth it along with costing 2 instead of 1 (cause chalice). There's not really much else you can do besides that, it's mostly just nuts-and-bolts aggro vs. control magic. Don't bring in Relic, it doesn't do nearly enough to make up for the pressure you'll have to sacrifice to play it, especially with my build of fish nowadays that runs 29 creatures. I tend to feel that how good or bad the matchup most depends on how exactly the UWr deck is built.
It's really hard to nail down "stoneblade" due to the raw flexibility and variability of that archetype. However, it is true that the typical build usually doesn't have all that many Judgements, Verdicts or EEs (like one each), or the single card that has caused my most losses as fish in SoFaI, and I feel like fish is generally favored against that as UWr ends up spending too much time just durdling. However, last time I played it, my build ran 2 judgements, 2 verdicts and EE with academy ruins along with SoFaI, so it ended up semi-accidentally built to beat up on fish as much as stoneblade pretty much can (not that I need to, because I'm *the* fish player locally). Nowadays I've been seriously considering the full 4 verdicts because there's a countertop mentor (I refuse to call that thing "miracles") player here and judgement has gotten real bad at actually killing counterbalance and I need to match my verdicts with his mentors 1-for-1. More verdicts make the fishies even sadder.
EDIT: Nikachu, what are you running vs. what is he running? What exactly happened during those 6 games?
The Merfolk deck that top 8'd the Legacy Championship at Eternal Weekend ran 2 Back to Basics in the side. I'm wondering, what match ups do you typically bring BtB in again, and what match ups are they bad against? I've always considered running two in the side but I don't have the experience with it to tell when they're good vs when they're bad (except in obvious cases.. terrible vs Burn, D&T, High Tide, mirror, have to imagine Elves)
I did play two. I like it. It comes out against most unfair decks (exception so far being lands) but it's great in a field of delver and miracles, which I mostly played today. Whenever I lose to delver or miracles it's because I ultimately run out of gas. Being able to refuel and play what I draw with vial to get around the end turn clause is nice. Plus I'm more than likely to have a Chalice on 1 before I cast it, so whatever cards they're drawing as well are more than likely going to be countered by Chalice.
Admittedly I need more data before I can say it's great. One tournament isn't much, and I only cast it a few times. It did win me my match against lands during the Swiss portion - it just let me rebuild my hand from nothing while also shuffling his gy back to his hand (which was relevant, with loam and punishing fire).
I'm gonna keep testing it. I could be completely wrong and got by despite it
Well, I've been testing 3 Chalice in the main and I see why it is there, now. I still think it is too slow when you can't play it turn 1, but still good. I get why it is insanely good in Delver heavy metas but every man and his dog plays DnT here, super lame. Went 4-0 tonight at my local, 29 players. Beat Stoneblade, Reanimator, a weird 4 colour brew and then drew with Miracles but he scooped me into the win after we went to time as I had been paired down.
I have kept 4 Daze in my list as I still think it is a crazy important card. Current manabase is 3 Wasteland/3 Cavern/3 Mutavault/12 Island, the extra seems to be helping a lot. Current sideboard is:
Yeah, Chalice is huge vs. Delver and good against nearly all other blue decks. It's also very good against Burn and Elves. It's not so great against decks like D&T.
If D&T is really that big in your meta, maybe you could consider maindeck slots for Dismember and Umezawa's Jitte?
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
Sideboard:
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Flusterstorm
3 Swan Song
3 Wasteland
2 Dismember
I like how pretty the mainboard is The sideboard is still way up in the air.
Just an update, I played 5-6 fresh new games vs Jeskai Stoneblade today. The match was way closer, I was not steamrolled at all or I ground out wins. The sample is super small of course but I'll explain the strategy:
I sided out all the artifacts this time around:
-4 Chalice of the Void (probably okay but removing all artifacts made his artifact removal dead in his deck)
-4 Aether Vial (just dead in this attrition match up)
-2 Umezawa's Jitte (Hard to get online when he's killing each creature one at a time. Also mana intensive)
In:
+2 Relic of Progenitus (you can crack in response to removal)
+2 Dismember
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Swan Song
+3 Wastelands (The most unexpected game changer. Either he plays duals, which in unavoidable sometimes, or he fetches basics. The Basics made my opponent's entire game plan way less flexible. For example U,U,W,R cannot even cast Supreme Verdict but he'll want double blue for Dig Through Time or casting multiple cantrips in the same turn. Wastelanding lands helped prevent him from hard casting Batterskull or Supreme Verdict. The threat of being Wastelanded slowed my opponent's game plan to our speed.)
I could be wrong about removing Chalice as he's still playing Pyroblast, Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Bolt. It just felt so bad when he had an answer to it every game, or could Dig Through Time for one. Therefore I preferred to leave my opponent with dead cards in the deck.
Just throwing it out there for critique. Plus maybe people can give me some better sideboard ideas. My sideboard for example might not be balanced overall for the Legacy metagame for all I know. I'm also coming around to trying out Echoing Truth but it needs to be a 2x or I'm not going to bother with it
Here's another video. This time its vs 4C Loam. I'm excited to bring this video because 4C Loam is an archetype that has been doing well lately. Another match will be up on Thursday, but I won't have any uploads next week since I am out of town. I'll be back on schedule the week after, however!
I know this is Legacy, but who here is going to go play Modern Merfolk at GP OKC?
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
Hey, I really appreciate the support! Got one more video up today:
Merfolk vs. UWR Miracles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP4sya-tjwo
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
I hope you don't mind getting some "negative" comments such as "I would have done X/Y instead", etc. You play pretty well, and it's a great way to debate opinions, plays and card choice. I think we can all learn a lot from your videos!
Some comments on the Miracles match:
1. First, I thought the same as fanattic: I would have Forced the turn 1 top. It's just so hard to loose a game when they don't have top in play... I'm generally not in favor in keeping all Fow post-board (more on this below), but if I do it's for Turn 1 Top, or hard cast it later on Mentor or Terminus. Nevertheless, forcing the first mentor was key so your play probably was better in that game.
2. I don't think you want to take the pyroclasm if you're going to chalice for 2 on the next turn, you're giving him a card for free...
3. I have a different opinion on sideboarding in this matchup. I don't claim it's necessary superior, but this is what I would have done in your case: In: +1 Relic, +1 Needle, +1 Venser, +2 Dismember; Out: -2 Fow, -1 Jitte, -1 Echoing truth, -1 Island. My reasoning: He's playing Bonanni miraclss, so he probably has 4 mentor, 2 snap, 2 DTT and zero entreat. Relic is fine, but 1 is probably enough with only a pair of snapcaster. Dismember is very good, as it makes it hard to race with mentor. Venser is great as it can remand terminus, save a guy from swords, etc. I think it's much better than echoing truth when they don't play entreat. Needle is a fine answer to top. In terms of what to take out, I'm a big proponent of keeping the threat density very high. Clunky hands with a lot of reactive cards is the main way to loose. For instance your hand G2 wasn't great, and fortunately you drew out of it! This is why I don't board out any creatures and just swap some reactive cards for the more efficient answers we're bringing in. I think 3 chalice is enough, it's very good but the second one is quite bad, and the first one is not always better than a threat. I generally think that fighting over terminus is unnecessary: just play two guys at a time and they'll eventually run out of sweepers. I would keep the island on the play however.
thanks again for sharing!
1. I would agree with this and I probably should have countered the Top t1. He just happened to have Mentor for me to have that Force be good, but I think countering it was most likely correct. I told Fanattic on YT that I generally don't counter it when I have Chalice in my hand because it's harder to abuse, but I still think it might be correct to just counter the Top because it helps them sculpt a hand early on and I can potentially punish them. Another argument to not countering top with Chalice though is that I can wait and just counter the eventual Terminus they get off the top because they can't ever cast the Top again after doing so due to Chalice. This also lets me see more cards and maybe there will be a better card to pitch to said FoW.
2. I really didn't think about this, but you are definitely right. I guess I hadn't thought of the Chalice for 2 play at that point in time when I should have. Letting him have it was correct because why give him a chance to draw outs.
3. I was at first inclined to think Echoing Truth is fine because of Mentor tokens, but there is also an argument that if Mentor got out of control, I was losing that game anyway. You are right in that it is probably best to keep threat density as high as possible because how you beat the matchup is have a clock/pressure and maintain it while rebuilding after they use their removal spells and continually demand answers of them. I do, however, think that even a reactive hand with Chalices is keepable because of how hard Chalice hoses Miracles. The hand was definitely threat light, but I do think it was worth keeping. I think fighting over Terminus is dependent on how your draw is can still be potentially more important than just sticking 2 threats. For example, I value True Name much more highly over any random lord so I am more inclined to protect it if it will win me the game. I think 4 Chalice is necessary, it hoses so many cards plus they could be playing Wear//Tear, Council's Judgment, or Engineered Explosives to remove the redundant copies. This usually puts their shields down and involves slowing down their so it gives you time to play another or put more pressure on them and continue to hose them; I think redundant copies aren't completely awful for this reason. You almost always want to open it against Miracles as well.
Thanks again and I appreciate the comments and support!
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
by the way, just to be clear that hand G2 was definitely a keep! I just wanted to say that it would have been better if one of the chalice or the Fow was a cursecatcher/image instead
And I definitely agree that fighting over terminus during the game is often correct (as you said in particular to protect TNN), I was commenting about the post-board strategy ex-ante: that, on average, I'd rather have a threat than a force in hand. But hard casting FOW on a terminus is amazing!
I can definitely agree with that!
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
Modern: WUBValue Titan UMerfolk WGDeath and Taxes
Or do what I do if I don't trust something. Test it out yourself!
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
It depends on the metagame you're expecting honestly. I can understand playing 0 if your metagame is full of fair nonblue decks like DnT, Jund, MUD, and Stompy.
I think I'd jam 4 for sure in a bigger event though.
Modern UMerfolkU
Legacy UMerfolkU
Standard XWhatever's GoodX
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/legacychamp15/top-8-decklists-2015-08-22
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
Verdict can't be countered, Explosives are a problem, Judgment can deal with TNN and they only play cca 17 one-cost spells to be crushed by Chalice, which is not a lot.
Good thing is they have no (mostly) SoF&I, Jace is not that backbreaking, they are not the fastest, we have more TNNs and Image + Vendillion are brutal here.
My friend Ante (jacetmsst on mtgo), http://www.mtgtop8.com/search?player=jacetmsst is Jeskai expert and matches against him has thought me a lot, always close unfortunately. Neither deck has an edge.
Since I can't get a significant edge against it, my advice is probably not good enough. At least not fleshed out yet. So I am not going to present false plan.
It's really hard to nail down "stoneblade" due to the raw flexibility and variability of that archetype. However, it is true that the typical build usually doesn't have all that many Judgements, Verdicts or EEs (like one each), or the single card that has caused my most losses as fish in SoFaI, and I feel like fish is generally favored against that as UWr ends up spending too much time just durdling. However, last time I played it, my build ran 2 judgements, 2 verdicts and EE with academy ruins along with SoFaI, so it ended up semi-accidentally built to beat up on fish as much as stoneblade pretty much can (not that I need to, because I'm *the* fish player locally). Nowadays I've been seriously considering the full 4 verdicts because there's a countertop mentor (I refuse to call that thing "miracles") player here and judgement has gotten real bad at actually killing counterbalance and I need to match my verdicts with his mentors 1-for-1. More verdicts make the fishies even sadder.
EDIT: Nikachu, what are you running vs. what is he running? What exactly happened during those 6 games?
Twitch channel
UMerfolkU
Legacy
UMerfolkU
Commander
RWBAlesha, Who Smiles At DeathRWB
Lost in finals to Lands in game 3. It was a close last game, I misplayed pretty bad - didn't vial in my Cursecatcher to counter his crop rotation.
Your list appears to be a little messed up on the SCG page. Were you actually playing Day's Undoing? If so, how was it?
Admittedly I need more data before I can say it's great. One tournament isn't much, and I only cast it a few times. It did win me my match against lands during the Swiss portion - it just let me rebuild my hand from nothing while also shuffling his gy back to his hand (which was relevant, with loam and punishing fire).
I'm gonna keep testing it. I could be completely wrong and got by despite it
I have kept 4 Daze in my list as I still think it is a crazy important card. Current manabase is 3 Wasteland/3 Cavern/3 Mutavault/12 Island, the extra seems to be helping a lot. Current sideboard is:
2 Hibernation
2 Pithing Needle
2 Spell Pierce
2 Ensnare
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Dismember
1 Manriki-Gusari
Days Undoing is ******* awesome and I cannot wait to try it out now.
If D&T is really that big in your meta, maybe you could consider maindeck slots for Dismember and Umezawa's Jitte?
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
12 Island
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Harbinger of the Tides
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 True-Name Nemesis
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Aether Vial
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Force of Will
Sideboard:
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Flusterstorm
3 Swan Song
3 Wasteland
2 Dismember
I like how pretty the mainboard is
Just an update, I played 5-6 fresh new games vs Jeskai Stoneblade today. The match was way closer, I was not steamrolled at all or I ground out wins. The sample is super small of course but I'll explain the strategy:
I sided out all the artifacts this time around:
-4 Chalice of the Void (probably okay but removing all artifacts made his artifact removal dead in his deck)
-4 Aether Vial (just dead in this attrition match up)
-2 Umezawa's Jitte (Hard to get online when he's killing each creature one at a time. Also mana intensive)
In:
+2 Relic of Progenitus (you can crack in response to removal)
+2 Dismember
+2 Flusterstorm
+1 Swan Song
+3 Wastelands (The most unexpected game changer. Either he plays duals, which in unavoidable sometimes, or he fetches basics. The Basics made my opponent's entire game plan way less flexible. For example U,U,W,R cannot even cast Supreme Verdict but he'll want double blue for Dig Through Time or casting multiple cantrips in the same turn. Wastelanding lands helped prevent him from hard casting Batterskull or Supreme Verdict. The threat of being Wastelanded slowed my opponent's game plan to our speed.)
I could be wrong about removing Chalice as he's still playing Pyroblast, Swords to Plowshares, Brainstorm, Ponder, and Bolt. It just felt so bad when he had an answer to it every game, or could Dig Through Time for one. Therefore I preferred to leave my opponent with dead cards in the deck.
Just throwing it out there for critique. Plus maybe people can give me some better sideboard ideas. My sideboard for example might not be balanced overall for the Legacy metagame for all I know. I'm also coming around to trying out Echoing Truth but it needs to be a 2x or I'm not going to bother with it