I don't mind archetype of endurance as much as I hate tidespout tyrant. When that gets into play and they go force your swords, lotus petal, brainstorm, etc it's basically lights out.
I have a hard time imaginingthis critter to be any better than Mirran Crusader on average. It also makes it even more tempting to over-extend into something you won't recover from, plus it's also bad against any kind of spot removal (since removing either creature in the pair makes both lose Double Strike). I'd just run Mirran Crusader in its stead.
Played at a local last night and didn't do too hot. Most relevant part of the conversation is SBing against Miracles. I realized I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
That's my list. I know I wanted to bring in Gideon, Needle, and Judgment, what should I have taken out?
Sidenote: Spirits were a last minute swap for Serra Avenger. Ultimately all they did was pull a couple early Swords out of my Miracles opponent. Arguably something Avenger couldn't have done as I played Spirit as my first creature G2 and G3. Didn't get any game-breaking Brainstorm counters though.
It's not stupid, but "What about X?" is a common question. The strongest argument you can make for a card is not why it's awesome (which you did state), but why it's better than something else in the deck (which you didn't). It's useful to consider what card you would take out in favor of a more recent printing. If you can justify the swap to yourself, you might be onto something new and exciting. If you can't, you probably aren't.
I agree double strike and equipment is great, but we didn't give it up for nothing. We now have more first strike options and more disruptive effects and another long-wished-for library manipulation option.
Played at a local last night and didn't do too hot. Most relevant part of the conversation is SBing against Miracles. I realized I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
That's my list. I know I wanted to bring in Gideon, Needle, and Judgment, what should I have taken out?
Sidenote: Spirits were a last minute swap for Serra Avenger. Ultimately all they did was pull a couple early Swords out of my Miracles opponent. Arguably something Avenger couldn't have done as I played Spirit as my first creature G2 and G3. Didn't get any game-breaking Brainstorm counters though.
I tend to board out 1 or 2 swords to plowshares, depends on the Miracles build. Legends build I usually board out 1, other builds I drop 2.
I board out 1 Mother of Runes since their main removal is Terminus.
In your list I would also board out Spirit. Mostly because you aren't likely to "get em" unless the pilot is careless.
Round 1: 0-2 (Legacy Splinter Twin)
This deck caught me by surprise, totally didn't expect it or know how to deal with it since I haven't played modern enough to ever match up against it. He ran a playset of bolts, so prelate had to start out on one. Sadly he had a fairly diverse manacost was able to combo out through my disruption in both games.
Round 2: 1-2 (7-Thalia Eldrazi)
Took him out in match 1 through a combination of Port, Karakas, and Wasteland which didn't ever let him get his big Eldrazi out. Match 2 he pulled multiple mimics on turn 1 followed by a thought-knot on turn 2. I died pretty quick. Match three I had some decent disruption and land denial, but I used it at the wrong time once or twice which allowed him get the lands he really wanted into play and eventually cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Next time I'll do better since I know what to expect from the deck.
Round 3: 2-1 (Reanimator)
Match 1 I had an early head start and managed to beat him in the long game through the typical disruption/denial/beatdown. Match 2 I kept a hand I shouldn't have and got overwhelmed by an early Griselbrand. I managed to copy his Griselbrand with Phyrexian Metamorph, but he followed up with a grave titan that I didn't have removal for. Match 3 I played a turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage, to which he cast force of will pitching another force of will to it. Turn 2 I cast Rest in Peace which went unanswered for a long time. Eventually he got rid of it and got a Griselbrand out, but it ate a Swords. Then he put out pithing needle on Karakas and tried another Griselbrand, to which I vialed out a flickerwisp hit his needle and then used karakas on Griselbrand. He conceded after that with only 4 life.
So far I'm not sure if I like the feel of post-CN2 taxes better than pre-CN2. Prelate is super strong, as is Recruiter. But I miss running 7 Thalia.
I also played against an Aluren deck before the tourny and absolutely devastated it.
I just realized you were the other D&T player in the room at Collectormania last night. Sup
As far as your commentary on the deck and specifically how it plays post-conspiracy, Prelate is a beater of a card that I have yet to be disappointed to have drawn. Recruiter is the tough one that sometimes feels awesome for me and other times I can't afford to spend 3 mana or a Vial activation on putting a 1/1 into play, even if it's going to replace itself with a card of my choice.
I'll endorse the sentiment I've seen (I think from Medea either here or on Thraben Academy, correct me if I'm wrong): Thalia, Heretic Cathar is the best T3 play we can make in certain situations, but her value goes way down in others. She definitely isn't a 4-of, but she's definitely not a 1-of either. So if you're going to play her, you want 2-3 so you can see her on T3 regularly, otherwise, cut her completely and use the spots for other cards.
At least for discussion, I think a lot of people have settled on 2/2/2 between THC and the conspiracy bros so we have a decent bit of access to all of them, but we aren't going to see any of them all the time either.
side-note: That eldrazi deck was hilarious and I don't think your recap of the game does it justice. For the benefit of everyone in the thread, this Eldrazi guy was playing Oblivion Sower, Newlamog, Flametongue Kavu (wtf?) and all kinds of nonsense. From what I understand, he made top 8 at the IQ I couldn't make it to this past weekend.
Splashable, kills dudes, great for blinking, leaves you with a beater. You could do worse in a deck full of Sol lands and Displacers. I've heard it mentioned in other threads, and Medea tried a brew with some:
I had my first official tournament with Death & Taxes last Saturday (10/8) at my LGS. Five rounds, very small event (20 people) but still good fun and I already knew quite a few of the competitors, so it was good fun. Went 4-0-1 (intentionally drew the last match) and was first seed in the top 8, but lost in the quarterfinal to a rather unique Esper Stoneblade variant.
Round 1: Death and Taxes (2-0)
First official tournament matchup for me happened to be the mirror. Game 1 I won the die roll, and kept my seven while my opponent had to mulligan to five. I don't recall the exact way the game went, but it was pretty back and forth. I had to revoke Umezawa's Jitte even though I had my own on my side of the board, otherwise his Mirran Crusader would just go ham. Stoneforge Mystic stuck and I managed to land a Batterskull, swinging the game my way. Game 2 I kept my seven and my opponent mulled to six. I got a turn 1 Aether Vial and he didn't, and on turn 3 the game pretty much swung and stayed my way after he swung his Thalia into my vialed-out Serra Avenger. It did go back and forth but from that turn on, between land disruption with Rishadan Port and him getting slightly mana screwed, I pretty much was in the driver's seat. I chatted with him after the match and he runs a more traditional decklist, pre-Recruiter. He told me he wasn't a big fan of Recruiter as he felt it made the deck too midrange-y, and preferred the pressure that a package Serra Avenger and Mirran Crusader could provide. I'll admit that Serra Avenger was an early-game MVP for me, forcing him to make sub-optimal plays to remove it, although Recruiter tutoring up Phyrexian Revoker to revoke that Jitte game 1 really did save my ass. I don't recall my sideboard cards doing much though, aside from Council's Judgment. I don't even think I boarded much in aside from Path, Sword of War and Peace, and Judgment.
Round 2: Jeskai Miracles (2-0)
My first time facing miracles, I knew my priority was to get either Revoker or Sanctum Prelate onto the battlefield. I lost the dice roll game one but did resolve a Mother of Runes turn 1, which he removed with a topdeck Terminus. I won with Sanctum Prelate on 6, and then a Sanctum Prelate on 1 coming off Recruiter of the Guard in addition to revoking his Top before he play one to join his Counterbalance. The tutor effect was fantastic, although he did have a 4/4 Angel token floating around from an unfortunate topdeck Entreat the Angels so I couldn't really do much by way of damage until I finally got my Batterskull. Game 2 I resolved a Mother of Runes and Thalia pretty quickly thanks to Cavern of Souls, but he flipped a Terminus and a turn later resolved Top. I drew into Revoker (naming Top), Sanctum Prelate, and Flickerwisp, forcing him to use an Engineered Explosives on 3. He did get a Monastery Mentor with a few tokens onto the board before he blew up the Explosives then cast a second Mentor, but I was able to recover pretty quickly thanks to not over-extending and forced him to Terminus away another wide board state. With most of his resources and wincons depleted I top decked a Stoneforge Mystic and beat him down with Umezawa's Jitte until he scooped. I don't know if I got the sequence exactly right but aside from an embarrassing moment where I tried to cast a Swords to Plowshares despite having Prelate on 1, I feel like I played pretty tight and never really gave him a chance to pull himself together. In this game my sideboard cards never really made much of an impact either.
Round 3: Shardless Sultai (2-0)
I lost the die roll but the first game was pretty much just a stomp, I revoked his Deathrite Shamans pretty quickly, then got another revoker on Liliana of the Veil, and from that point never really relented. The second game, however, was a much different story. I boarded in Rest in Peace, Council's Judgment, and Gideon and my opener was 2 plains, a Cavern, RiP, Thalia, and Mother of Runes. He took out my creatures in pretty short order and also forced me to discard my RiP through Vendilion Clique (which I should've played much earlier rather than trying to compete for the board). Needless to say his board was Clique, a 4/5 Goyf, a Deathrite Shaman with summoning sickness, and he had 15 life and one card in hand. My board was a Flickerwisp, a Pithing Needle naming Liliana of the Veil (I flickered something else), an Aether vial on 3, an unequipped Umezawa's Jitte, and 3 plains/1 cavern of souls. I had a plains in hand and one life. A turn earlier as he gained momentum I decided to play to my only out, Rest in Peace, and kinda just go full speed ahead. And on my potentially last turn, I topdecked the second Rest in Peace, equipped the Jitte, attacked with Wisp, removed a counter to kill his Clique, and passed. From that point on, he never touched me with damage and I just started drawing more Flickerwisps and my Avenger. He couldn't deal with the Pithing Needle so his topdecked Lilly was worthless, and I kinda stole the game from him. I don't know if I could've played the earlier turns tighter to avoid getting in that situation, I probably could've, but I was proud of the way I dealt with that situation.
Round 4: UBRG Delver (2-0)
Game 1 was just ugly for the both of us and we definitely didn't look like a pair of 3-0's. I lost the dice roll and got my first Vial Dazed, but did resolve a second. My land destruction/disruption suite was kinda keeping me afloat for my slow early turns. He flipped his T1 delver and began the beatdown, and end of turn 3 I vialed in Mother of Runes to avoid getting her bolted right away. I passed to my upkeep and he tried to bolt then, forgetting how summoning sickness worked and completely wasted a bolt. Later that game I had revoked Jitte but tried to equip mine, also looking silly. I did win somehow, but I don't remember much aside from both of us looking like a bad table 1 (we had a pretty good time laughing about that). Game 2 was another game where Rest in Peace was an allstar and we had both misplayed. I had a Mom and a Stoneforge on the field and he bolted SfM. I gave SfM pro-red and he darkblasted Mom in response. I forgot that the pro-red was still on the stack and also illegally put SfM in the graveyard, although no one caught it and I didn't think of it until after the game. The game from that point just became a weird series of topdecks, as I kept topdecking Flickerwisps and had all three of my equipment in hand. I resolved Jitte but he ancient grudge'd it, and kept resolving Flickerwisp and dealing three at a time only for him to keep Darkblasting it, milling 9 cards in the process in total. I did draw another SfM and didn't get much happening, and later I played the Sword just to bait out Ancient Grudge (however he had other plans and Force of Will'd it.) He had a Baleful Strix and a pair of Deathrite Shamans starting to chip at my life total, and while I did play out Batterskull I couldn't do much with it in the face of Ancient Grudge. However, once again a topdeck RiP (althoguh in fairness I had three in my deck) saved the day, and after plowing the Strix I attacked him with Batterskull with impunity, and he never really recovered. Serra Avenger joined the fun and it was pretty much over from there.
Round 5: Orzhov Eldrazi (0-0-3, intentional draw)
Both me and my round 5 opponent were guaranteed a top 8 slot, so we drew and had lunch at the italian place next door. We chatted about our decks and had a good time. I like Round 5 sometimes.
Quarterfinal: Esper Stoneblade (0-2)
The quarterfinals saw me paired up against a store regular named Chris. I was not thinking at all about my lines of play game 1, and he played a much tighter game than I did. There was a bad combat step where I forgot to factor in Thalia's first strike when activating Jitte, losing me a Prelate on 1 and getting him his Brainstorm/Ponder engine going off. Game 2 he had two True-Name Nemesis in his opener and I got off to a slow start (bad keep I think) and never saw my Council's Judgments. He went on to win the tourney which made me feel a bit better. I really had no idea what I was up against this game, partially because I'm not familiar with Esper Stoneblade and partially because he had a brewed version that splashed green for Leovold, Emissary of Trest. It was pretty cool that his manabase could support all that plus four wasteland, he did a really good job.
The lesson I learned from the is that legacy isn't as scary as I thought it would be, and definitely not nearly as blazing fast as I was afraid of (the Death and Taxes mirror just never ended). I feel like I have a good grasp of the general idea of the deck, but need a lot of work in sideboarding, doublechecking my cards, and certain combat scenarios. I'm going to Eternal Extravaganza to try the deck out again and while I don't expect to place well, I hope to get a lot of experienced.
Also, I learned that Serra Avenger really does help out against blue decks, which most of the field was that Saturday. She's no silver bullet but the pressure she puts on can force bad choices from good opponents (all the players there that Saturday are far more experienced and probably competent at Magic than I am in general) and even Mirran Crusader can't match that.
One final question I have is regarding True-Name Nemesis: aside from Council's Judgment, is there any other way to deal with him? I know I'm gonna be packing three of them in my SB the next time my LGS has that tourney (mid-December).
Splashable, kills dudes, great for blinking, leaves you with a beater. You could do worse in a deck full of Sol lands and Displacers.
Oh that was the most positive kind of "wtf?" possible. I was laughing maniacally the whole time I watched the dude play. His entire deck tickled me in a way that only a well-tuned clunky brew can.
Some of the highlights:
-He casts Ulamog in the late stages of his first game of the night. His opponent, looking very pissed off just starts grabbing cards while he's trying to select targets and he seems confused. His opponent looks up at him and say in the best kind of angry tone: "You've got an Ulamog on the board, what am I supposed to do against that?" and starts sideboarding/brooding.
-The room is kind of quiet with everyone doing their thing, dude leans back and says "I have 30 CMC worth of stuff in my hand right now." And everyone just starts laughing.
-While up against Lestibournes, he topdecks a Oblivion Sower in the middle of a game, giggles to himself and says "Now I need to combo THIS into THIS" pointing at two cards in his hand. Throws down a land, bringing him up to 4 mana + Eye of Ugin, plays the sower, gets a plains and a wasteland from his opponents top 4, then uses those two to play a TKS basically ending the game on the spot.
The deck definitely worked when it worked, but maybe more important than that, the dude was just having a blast playing it, and I loved every moment of watching it.
Yeah, it seems like Silverblade Paladin opens you up to bad combat blowouts if your opponent has a way to kill one of your soulbonded creatures, especially since our fliers die to a variety of removal. I'd still advise testing it and seeing how it performs for you though.
EDIT: a bunch of people posted tournament reports while I was writing mine; I'm super excited to read them all!
I went 3-0-1 in my weekly last night with the list I posted last week, winning against Reanimator, Maverick, and Burn, drawing against Miracles. Tournament report below if anyone's interested (and let me know if this isn't useful/appropriate).
Reanimator 2-0
Didn't know what he was on initially, but on the play, he fetched Badlands and cast Faithless Looting turn one, and I put him on some sort of graveyard strategy. He casts Thoughtseize turn 2 and reanimates my Sanctum Prelate that he takes naming 3 because he saw SoFI in my hand. I hold up a Karakas and wait for my third land before playing Thalia, GoT turn 3. Turn 4 Griselbrand draws 7 then gets bounced. I land a Serra Avenger and beat in with her and Thalia. He reanimates an Iona naming white, and we both realize she's legendary as I bounce her with Karakas, my only out to her. He dies shortly after.
Game 2 I board in 2 Rest in Peace, a Containment Priest, and a Pithing Needle for Griselbrand, taking out a couple of Stoneforge Mystics, Jitte and SoFI. The game ends pretty quickly as I get Thalia on board and get double Port online. He loses with a Griselbrand in the yard, 3 reanimation spells in hand, and no way to cast them.
Miracles 1-1
My opponent is someone I've only played once and lost to, and is quite intimidating to play against. I think he's on a Predict/Mentor list with (as far as I know) no Jace or Entreats.
Game 1 I get him to 10 before he gets Mentor out and Top loops to crash in for lethal.
Game 2 is super grindy. I board in two Gideon, AoZ but never see them. I get Cavern on humans turn 1 to put out Mom and Thalia before he wipes the board with Terminus, but Recruiter of the Guard helps me reload. Three StP and three Terminus later, we're in turns, I have lethal on board with Mom protection, and I'm sweating since he has 10 cards in his deck left with a Top in play and one last Terminus as his (very likely only) out. He TopFetchTops and doesn't find it, luckily for me.
Maverick 2-1
I know my opponent is on Maverick, since I play tested with him while he was finishing off the deck and had a few proxies in.
Game 1 he gets Mom into SFM to fetch Batterskull, whereas I get SFM grabbing Jitte. I get mom and Serra Avenger on board and another SFM grabbing Batterskull while he gets two Qasali Pridemages. He doesn't give Batterskull protection before blocks, so I block and give protection from black to prevent lifegain. I bait his two Pridemages by playing Batterskull off Stoneforge in combat, then activating its bounce ability in response to the first Pridemages activation, which he responds to by popping his second one. With both Pridemages off the board, I'm able to equip Jitte to Serra Avenger and take care of his Mom with a counter. I block his Batterskull with Serra Avenger, and he Abrupt Decays my Jitte after blocks. I use its last counter in response to pump and take care of the germ token. I cast Flickerwisp, getting SoFI. He GSZ's for Leovold, Emissary of Trest, the spicy blue splash in his deck. I equip SoFI on my Serra Avenger and put him down to 8, then he draws a card when I target him with the SoFI trigger, putting him to 6. He plays KotR and Scooze, eats his creatures in the graveyard to go up to 9 (there are none in mine), but I beat in with Flickerwisp and SoFI equipped Avenger for 10 giving him one last out to draw StP off his Leovold trigger, and he doesn't find it.
Game 2 I board in Sword of War and Peace and two Rest in Peace, and Mirran Crusader, boarding out all four Thalia, GoT. He gets Mom + SFM into Jitte fast and blows up all my creatures and equipment as soon as they land. I play as many tricks as I can, including trying to overload his Jitte counters and flickering an active Mom to swords another nonactive one, but I end up dying anyways.
Game 3 we have 2 minutes left in the round, so we play really fast. I keep a hand with Karakas, Port, Vial, and 4 creatures. I play Vial turn 1, flash in Containment Priest turn 2, Vial in Avenger on his turn 3, while he double Wastelands me, putting us both to one land each, but him with no board presence. I flood the board with Vial and beat him down in less than a minute, winning game 3. I generally feel like this matchup is unfavorable for us since they have a lot of the tools we do, but they also pack tutorable ramp, bigger creatures, and artifact/enchantment hate that can be hard to deal with when you're trying to win the equipment battle. Our fliers on the other hand give us some advantages in a race.
Burn 2-1
Game 1 they quickly burn me out with Rift Bolt, double Lava Spike, Sulfuric Vortex, and Price of Progress as I flood out hard on non-basics.
Game 2 I board in two Canonists and SoWaP, taking out all three Revokers. I stick a SFM which they don't kill immediately (I think this is a mistake) into a Batterskull. They deploy Eidolon on their turn 2 and I beat in with my germ. They cast a turn 3 Blood Moon, which shut off my Karakas and Wasteland, but I can still cast Jitte off them. I equip the germ and beat in for some more, holding the counters in case they try to burn it out after combat. They chump with Eidolon and on their turn 4 play two Goblin Guides and a Raging River, which is a pet card of theirs. After showing me how it works, they swing with their two Guides and I put both of my creatures on the same side of the river, never intending to block anyways. The Guides take me to 19 and I crack back with a 10/10 germ for lethal.
Game 3 they lead with a Guide and I play a Vial turn 1. I get Thalia out turn 2 with Plains and Karakas as my only lands. Their turn 3 was spent casting a Price of Progress for 2 since they and running their Guide into Thalia, which they forgot had first strike. I got Serra Avenger on the field with Vial and started beating in. Their turn 4 was a Rift Bolt and another burn spell to my face, and my turn 4 was casting a Sanctum Prelate naming 3 for the Rift Bolt and potentially a Sulfuric Vortex. They burn me to 8 and I vial in Recruiter on their end step, getting another Prelate. Here both of us allow an illegal action (I just realized this as I'm typing and thinking back on it) when I cast the second prelate, it resolves and when I name 6 they Fireblast, which they couldn't do. I go down to 4 off that and beat them down to 4, with my creatures, holding white for a StP if I need it. I get the concession the turn after.
Overall, I've been pretty happy with how my list has performed. I'll probably keep running it back until something warrants a change, but I'll be playtesting variations when prizes aren't on the line.
I just realized you were the other D&T player in the room at Collectormania last night. Sup
As far as your commentary on the deck and specifically how it plays post-conspiracy, Prelate is a beater of a card that I have yet to be disappointed to have drawn. Recruiter is the tough one that sometimes feels awesome for me and other times I can't afford to spend 3 mana or a Vial activation on putting a 1/1 into play, even if it's going to replace itself with a card of my choice.
I'll endorse the sentiment I've seen (I think from Medea either here or on Thraben Academy, correct me if I'm wrong): Thalia, Heretic Cathar is the best T3 play we can make in certain situations, but her value goes way down in others. She definitely isn't a 4-of, but she's definitely not a 1-of either. So if you're going to play her, you want 2-3 so you can see her on T3 regularly, otherwise, cut her completely and use the spots for other cards.
At least for discussion, I think a lot of people have settled on 2/2/2 between THC and the conspiracy bros so we have a decent bit of access to all of them, but we aren't going to see any of them all the time either.
side-note: That eldrazi deck was hilarious and I don't think your recap of the game does it justice. For the benefit of everyone in the thread, this Eldrazi guy was playing Oblivion Sower, Newlamog, Flametongue Kavu (wtf?) and all kinds of nonsense. From what I understand, he made top 8 at the IQ I couldn't make it to this past weekend.
To be fair, I never saw him play anything but Eldrazi and Thalia. Now that I've seen what he does though, I have a better idea of how to play against him.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna yank a recruiter and move back up to six Thalia.
The thing I'm most interested in testing some more right now is the Metamorph, it has a lot of potential, maybe even mainboard.
Thanks for the reports! I'm crazy busy at the moment with work and prepping for EE, but I'll put out a substantial write up of my thoughts next week.
@Lestibournes
Metamorph is a likely a win-more card. It does some crazy, crazy stuff against some of the fringe decks of the format, but otherwise is about as good as most of our other cards. It has a very high ceiling, but is not necessarily consistent in power level.
One final question I have is regarding True-Name Nemesis: aside from Council's Judgment, is there any other way to deal with him? I know I'm gonna be packing three of them in my SB the next time my LGS has that tourney (mid-December).
There's always Holy Light. Watch you don't kill your own Revokers though.
I've for a while held that Orzhov Pontiff is a great choice, and I know some people have taken to running him with minimal investment into black mana, namely, just a couple of Cavern of Souls, which are already being run due to the high human count now anyway. Now, I'm not sure that just 2 Caverns is enough, so if it does tempt you, you probably want 1x Scrubland and maybe a couple fetches to be more on the sure side that you will get him out, but damn if he isn't a blowout card, and mostly uncounterable with how the deck is setup. Multiple uses from Flickerwisp are a thing, and the Haunt ability can be surprisingly good from time to time.
[quote=fxckdarsh]One final question I have is regarding True-Name Nemesis: aside from Council's Judgment, is there any other way to deal with him? I know I'm gonna be packing three of them in my SB the next time my LGS has that tourney (mid-December).
I personally like Blessed Alliance as a way to get rid of TNN at instant speed.
There was mention of Surgical Extraction vs Reanimator and I happened to have been watching a VOD of a guy playing elves against Miracles where he cast Surgical on a Terminus in his opponents GY in response to the Miracle trigger which just reminded me of how awesome the spell can be at times.
Should we be talking about including more Surgical in our SB?
RE: Reanimator
I think Faerie Macabre is simply better than Surgical Extraction, especially with Recruiter of the Guard. We don't have many chances of beating a turn 1 reanimate of a non-legendary wincon, so I think something that stops the combo on our Turn 0 that is also fetchable later and is useful if we RiP and have that destroyed makes more sense than the untutorable 1-of instant.
Remember, we have a number of valid threats to their gameplan post-board, so they really, really need to be able to hit us Turn 0/1, which is not as common as they would like.
RE: Stoneblade/Deathblade Orzhov Pontiff is a very nice card in our deck, though I agree that it is a bit dodgy even with 2 Cavern and Vial. It is also good in other matches like Infect and Goblins and the mirror. I generally prefer Manriki-Gusari, however, since except for TNN their creatures are pretty much garbage and with 4 Flickerwisp and 2 Serra Avenger, we can race their damage reasonably most of the time. Also, Batterskull.
Thanks for the reports! I'm crazy busy at the moment with work and prepping for EE, but I'll put out a substantial write up of my thoughts next week.
@Lestibournes
Metamorph is a likely a win-more card. It does some crazy, crazy stuff against some of the fringe decks of the format, but otherwise is about as good as most of our other cards. It has a very high ceiling, but is not necessarily consistent in power level.
Glad to provide, thanks for keeping up with your site. It's been extremely helpful for me getting started.
Quick question, since EE is going to be in Baltimore, do you recommend packing some extra hate against lands? I remember on your website you said lands is popular in the area, but I don't know if that fully applies to larger tournaments.
Part of the appeal of Extraction is it's ability to affect things outside the GY.
Like extraction on Terminus with a Terminus Miracle trigger on the stack will allow you to pull the Terminus out of their hand.
A storm player can go off on turn 1, you see all their cards revealed during Ad Nauseam, you can extract an Infernal Tutor (or something more relevant that you might have seen during the Ad Naus like a Lotus Petal they might need to start up again) from their GY and force them to find Tendrils the honest way or lose.
Infect goes turn 1 fetch a trop, glistener elf, pass, you go T1 Wasteland the trop, extract all trops from his library, pass.
Against Lands, you can Extract Punishing Fire, Life from the Loam, or any of their important lands in a given situation.
Shardless has numerous implications like choking a DRS on mana, shrinking a goyf, or just removing all their Underground Seas from the game.
Delver has targets like Volcanic Island to cut them off of red and even Brainstorm can have a meaningful impact in how they play the game.
Dredge and Reanimator have obvious implications, but they're in the GY.
I know it's nothing new, and it's not something we would want in our MB, but is it something we would want to round out our SB cards with? Maybe something like:
I get your point, but here's the thing: it has never been good enough for any of those other matches before compared to other cards we wanted to play (I think that is the rule of thumb Curby emphasizes, and rightly so.) FM has the value of still being a creature and a tutor target, which works better in my experience. There is a reason that Imperial Taxes always used FM over Surgical and between my experience and theirs, I am inclined to agree with them that fetchability + body is more relevant than the other matches you mention where it just isn't that good (Lands, Shardless, Delver, Infect, even Storm.) It's main value is Dredge and Reanimator and it should only be in there if that is what you are afraid of losing to in the meta you are walking into.
Play it if you want, I am just trying to present why I think FM is a better option for what is it meant to help us with, as opposed to matches where you could use it, but probably shouldn't.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard Tempo Modern Eldrazi and Staxes
Whir Prison Legacy
5c Humans DnT
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
In my local meta, I'm seeing a lot of Maverick and I don't know what to do. Sometimes it feels like they're just a stronger version of our deck. They have a lot of things that blow up equipment and vials. Which cards are strong against Maverick? How do I play this matchup? What do I board in?
Thanks for the reports! I'm crazy busy at the moment with work and prepping for EE, but I'll put out a substantial write up of my thoughts next week.
@Lestibournes
Metamorph is a likely a win-more card. It does some crazy, crazy stuff against some of the fringe decks of the format, but otherwise is about as good as most of our other cards. It has a very high ceiling, but is not necessarily consistent in power level.
Glad to provide, thanks for keeping up with your site. It's been extremely helpful for me getting started.
Quick question, since EE is going to be in Baltimore, do you recommend packing some extra hate against lands? I remember on your website you said lands is popular in the area, but I don't know if that fully applies to larger tournaments.
At literally any event (no matter the size) in the Baltimore area, I bring about 2 extra cards for Lands. Many of the best players in the area are on Lands, so if you expect to do well in the event, you *need* to win that matchup. My hate varies from event to event, but I'll always have something. It's usually an extra Rip, a pair of Surgicals, or an extra Pithing Needle. One of the users on The Source had some success with a 3x Armageddon build, starting out 12-0 in some MTGO play, so I might give that a go this weekend.
In my local meta, I'm seeing a lot of Maverick and I don't know what to do. Sometimes it feels like they're just a stronger version of our deck. They have a lot of things that blow up equipment and vials. Which cards are strong against Maverick? How do I play this matchup? What do I board in?
All the Maverick players I've played against are fairly new to Legacy, so I can't say this is universally applicable, but I think there are a few keys to the matchup: preventing their ramp, fighting over lands, fighting over equipment, and evasive creatures. They can ramp out their threats early with Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor or Deathrite turn 1, and I usually Swords them if I'm holding one. They also usually have one Gaea's Cradle that they can grab with Knight, which can enable some explosive plays like casting Jitte into equipping it (even through Thalia) and swinging much earlier than expected. I tend to name Knight with Revoker unless they have Mom on board and I don't have my own.
On the land fight, it's a Wasteland mirror where I feel we're a bit more advantaged, since we run many more basics and Rishadan Port adds more mana denial on our side. I've won a game off turn 2 Wasteland the Bayou that my opponent fetched after I StP the DRS he cast off it, since he was banking on those two mana producers to carry him through the early turns and had nothing after that. Once they know what you're on, they'll very likely fetch basics though. A lot of our creatures interact with their lands as well, specifically THC, Mangara, and Flickerwisp.
The equipment fight is one that we very likely lose in the long run since they run Qasali Pridemage and Abrupt Decay to deal with our's and it's GSZ tutorable. Ideally, you'd get counters on a Jitte (my first fetch off SFM) before they do and keep their threats off the board. It plays more like a tempo game where you try to hold the advantage until they find a way to remove it or die.
I think we have the advantage in the evasive creatures department, since we have fliers which are so much better with equipment. If they land a big Knight, it's pretty easy to chump it a couple of times with spare creatures like SFM after equipment has already been played out or a Recruiter. If you can't/don't want to chump immediately, it's usually it's okay to take a hit once, even if it's for 10 assuming you haven't taken much damage beforehand. Both sides have Mom to get their creatures through on the ground, but risk having them removed in response.
When I board against Maverick, I usually take out all my Thalia, GoT and one THC since they play as many creatures as we do and they have Karakas as well, which makes your legendaries worse. I usually board in two Rest in Peace, since they neuter Knights, Scavenging Ooze, and DRS, a Sword of War and Peace for more equipment, a Containment Priest to shut off Green Sun's Zenith (you can also do cheeky things like hardcast a Flickerwisp with it on the field, flicker one of their creatures, and it gets permanently exiled at the end of turn), and a Mirran Crusader, since it's almost as evasive as a flier, can block Knights for days, and doesn't die to Abrupt Decay. If it's a large enough percentage of the meta, I'd also consider adding Manriki-Gusari to the sideboard too.
What extra hate do we need against lands? Shouldn't 2x Prelate in the 75, 2x RIP, New Thalia, and Wastelands be enough?
RIP is the single most important card against Lands, so don't hesitate to up the count to 3 if you feel like you need them.
Everything else just complements RIP, but without the card itself the chances of winning postboard games are reduced singnificantly regardless of what other cards you draw.
3x Flickerwisp
1x Mirran Crusader
4x Mother of Runes
2x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Recruiter of the Guard
2x Sanctum Prelate
2x Spirit of the Labyrinth
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4x Swords to Plowshares
Artifact (7)
4x AEther Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land (24)
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Horizon Canopy
3x Karakas
9x Plains
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
3x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
1x Enlightened Tutor
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
That's my list. I know I wanted to bring in Gideon, Needle, and Judgment, what should I have taken out?
Sidenote: Spirits were a last minute swap for Serra Avenger. Ultimately all they did was pull a couple early Swords out of my Miracles opponent. Arguably something Avenger couldn't have done as I played Spirit as my first creature G2 and G3. Didn't get any game-breaking Brainstorm counters though.
It's not stupid, but "What about X?" is a common question. The strongest argument you can make for a card is not why it's awesome (which you did state), but why it's better than something else in the deck (which you didn't). It's useful to consider what card you would take out in favor of a more recent printing. If you can justify the swap to yourself, you might be onto something new and exciting. If you can't, you probably aren't.
I agree double strike and equipment is great, but we didn't give it up for nothing. We now have more first strike options and more disruptive effects and another long-wished-for library manipulation option.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
I tend to board out 1 or 2 swords to plowshares, depends on the Miracles build. Legends build I usually board out 1, other builds I drop 2.
I board out 1 Mother of Runes since their main removal is Terminus.
In your list I would also board out Spirit. Mostly because you aren't likely to "get em" unless the pilot is careless.
4x Flickerwisp
3x Mother of Runes
3x Phyrexian Revoker
3x Recruiter of the Guard
2x Sanctum Prelate
2x Serra Avenger
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
Instant (4)
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x AEther Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land (23)
2x Cavern of Souls
1x Mishra's Factory
2x Karakas
10x Plains
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Sword of War and Peace
Round 1: 0-2 (Legacy Splinter Twin)
This deck caught me by surprise, totally didn't expect it or know how to deal with it since I haven't played modern enough to ever match up against it. He ran a playset of bolts, so prelate had to start out on one. Sadly he had a fairly diverse manacost was able to combo out through my disruption in both games.
Round 2: 1-2 (7-Thalia Eldrazi)
Took him out in match 1 through a combination of Port, Karakas, and Wasteland which didn't ever let him get his big Eldrazi out. Match 2 he pulled multiple mimics on turn 1 followed by a thought-knot on turn 2. I died pretty quick. Match three I had some decent disruption and land denial, but I used it at the wrong time once or twice which allowed him get the lands he really wanted into play and eventually cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Next time I'll do better since I know what to expect from the deck.
Round 3: 2-1 (Reanimator)
Match 1 I had an early head start and managed to beat him in the long game through the typical disruption/denial/beatdown. Match 2 I kept a hand I shouldn't have and got overwhelmed by an early Griselbrand. I managed to copy his Griselbrand with Phyrexian Metamorph, but he followed up with a grave titan that I didn't have removal for. Match 3 I played a turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage, to which he cast force of will pitching another force of will to it. Turn 2 I cast Rest in Peace which went unanswered for a long time. Eventually he got rid of it and got a Griselbrand out, but it ate a Swords. Then he put out pithing needle on Karakas and tried another Griselbrand, to which I vialed out a flickerwisp hit his needle and then used karakas on Griselbrand. He conceded after that with only 4 life.
So far I'm not sure if I like the feel of post-CN2 taxes better than pre-CN2. Prelate is super strong, as is Recruiter. But I miss running 7 Thalia.
I also played against an Aluren deck before the tourny and absolutely devastated it.
I just realized you were the other D&T player in the room at Collectormania last night. Sup
As far as your commentary on the deck and specifically how it plays post-conspiracy, Prelate is a beater of a card that I have yet to be disappointed to have drawn. Recruiter is the tough one that sometimes feels awesome for me and other times I can't afford to spend 3 mana or a Vial activation on putting a 1/1 into play, even if it's going to replace itself with a card of my choice.
I'll endorse the sentiment I've seen (I think from Medea either here or on Thraben Academy, correct me if I'm wrong): Thalia, Heretic Cathar is the best T3 play we can make in certain situations, but her value goes way down in others. She definitely isn't a 4-of, but she's definitely not a 1-of either. So if you're going to play her, you want 2-3 so you can see her on T3 regularly, otherwise, cut her completely and use the spots for other cards.
At least for discussion, I think a lot of people have settled on 2/2/2 between THC and the conspiracy bros so we have a decent bit of access to all of them, but we aren't going to see any of them all the time either.
side-note: That eldrazi deck was hilarious and I don't think your recap of the game does it justice. For the benefit of everyone in the thread, this Eldrazi guy was playing Oblivion Sower, Newlamog, Flametongue Kavu (wtf?) and all kinds of nonsense. From what I understand, he made top 8 at the IQ I couldn't make it to this past weekend.
Splashable, kills dudes, great for blinking, leaves you with a beater. You could do worse in a deck full of Sol lands and Displacers. I've heard it mentioned in other threads, and Medea tried a brew with some:
http://www.thrabenuniversity.com/?p=494
As for the other stuff, I'm not sufficiently well-read in Eldrazi to know if they were crazy choices.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
First, here's my 75:
1x Banisher Priest
4x Flickerwisp
1x Mirran Crusader
3x Mother of Runes
3x Phyrexian Revoker
2x Recruiter of the Guard
2x Sanctum Prelate
1x Serra Avenger
4x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4x Swords to Plowshares
Artifact (7)
4x Aether Vial
1x Batterskull
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
1x Umezawa's Jitte
Land (23)
1x Cavern of Souls
3x Karakas
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
11x Plains
2x Containment Priest
2x Council's Judgment
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
3x Rest in Peace
1x Sword of War and Peace
Here's how the matches went:
Round 1: Death and Taxes (2-0)
First official tournament matchup for me happened to be the mirror. Game 1 I won the die roll, and kept my seven while my opponent had to mulligan to five. I don't recall the exact way the game went, but it was pretty back and forth. I had to revoke Umezawa's Jitte even though I had my own on my side of the board, otherwise his Mirran Crusader would just go ham. Stoneforge Mystic stuck and I managed to land a Batterskull, swinging the game my way. Game 2 I kept my seven and my opponent mulled to six. I got a turn 1 Aether Vial and he didn't, and on turn 3 the game pretty much swung and stayed my way after he swung his Thalia into my vialed-out Serra Avenger. It did go back and forth but from that turn on, between land disruption with Rishadan Port and him getting slightly mana screwed, I pretty much was in the driver's seat. I chatted with him after the match and he runs a more traditional decklist, pre-Recruiter. He told me he wasn't a big fan of Recruiter as he felt it made the deck too midrange-y, and preferred the pressure that a package Serra Avenger and Mirran Crusader could provide. I'll admit that Serra Avenger was an early-game MVP for me, forcing him to make sub-optimal plays to remove it, although Recruiter tutoring up Phyrexian Revoker to revoke that Jitte game 1 really did save my ass. I don't recall my sideboard cards doing much though, aside from Council's Judgment. I don't even think I boarded much in aside from Path, Sword of War and Peace, and Judgment.
Round 2: Jeskai Miracles (2-0)
My first time facing miracles, I knew my priority was to get either Revoker or Sanctum Prelate onto the battlefield. I lost the dice roll game one but did resolve a Mother of Runes turn 1, which he removed with a topdeck Terminus. I won with Sanctum Prelate on 6, and then a Sanctum Prelate on 1 coming off Recruiter of the Guard in addition to revoking his Top before he play one to join his Counterbalance. The tutor effect was fantastic, although he did have a 4/4 Angel token floating around from an unfortunate topdeck Entreat the Angels so I couldn't really do much by way of damage until I finally got my Batterskull. Game 2 I resolved a Mother of Runes and Thalia pretty quickly thanks to Cavern of Souls, but he flipped a Terminus and a turn later resolved Top. I drew into Revoker (naming Top), Sanctum Prelate, and Flickerwisp, forcing him to use an Engineered Explosives on 3. He did get a Monastery Mentor with a few tokens onto the board before he blew up the Explosives then cast a second Mentor, but I was able to recover pretty quickly thanks to not over-extending and forced him to Terminus away another wide board state. With most of his resources and wincons depleted I top decked a Stoneforge Mystic and beat him down with Umezawa's Jitte until he scooped. I don't know if I got the sequence exactly right but aside from an embarrassing moment where I tried to cast a Swords to Plowshares despite having Prelate on 1, I feel like I played pretty tight and never really gave him a chance to pull himself together. In this game my sideboard cards never really made much of an impact either.
Round 3: Shardless Sultai (2-0)
I lost the die roll but the first game was pretty much just a stomp, I revoked his Deathrite Shamans pretty quickly, then got another revoker on Liliana of the Veil, and from that point never really relented. The second game, however, was a much different story. I boarded in Rest in Peace, Council's Judgment, and Gideon and my opener was 2 plains, a Cavern, RiP, Thalia, and Mother of Runes. He took out my creatures in pretty short order and also forced me to discard my RiP through Vendilion Clique (which I should've played much earlier rather than trying to compete for the board). Needless to say his board was Clique, a 4/5 Goyf, a Deathrite Shaman with summoning sickness, and he had 15 life and one card in hand. My board was a Flickerwisp, a Pithing Needle naming Liliana of the Veil (I flickered something else), an Aether vial on 3, an unequipped Umezawa's Jitte, and 3 plains/1 cavern of souls. I had a plains in hand and one life. A turn earlier as he gained momentum I decided to play to my only out, Rest in Peace, and kinda just go full speed ahead. And on my potentially last turn, I topdecked the second Rest in Peace, equipped the Jitte, attacked with Wisp, removed a counter to kill his Clique, and passed. From that point on, he never touched me with damage and I just started drawing more Flickerwisps and my Avenger. He couldn't deal with the Pithing Needle so his topdecked Lilly was worthless, and I kinda stole the game from him. I don't know if I could've played the earlier turns tighter to avoid getting in that situation, I probably could've, but I was proud of the way I dealt with that situation.
Round 4: UBRG Delver (2-0)
Game 1 was just ugly for the both of us and we definitely didn't look like a pair of 3-0's. I lost the dice roll and got my first Vial Dazed, but did resolve a second. My land destruction/disruption suite was kinda keeping me afloat for my slow early turns. He flipped his T1 delver and began the beatdown, and end of turn 3 I vialed in Mother of Runes to avoid getting her bolted right away. I passed to my upkeep and he tried to bolt then, forgetting how summoning sickness worked and completely wasted a bolt. Later that game I had revoked Jitte but tried to equip mine, also looking silly. I did win somehow, but I don't remember much aside from both of us looking like a bad table 1 (we had a pretty good time laughing about that). Game 2 was another game where Rest in Peace was an allstar and we had both misplayed. I had a Mom and a Stoneforge on the field and he bolted SfM. I gave SfM pro-red and he darkblasted Mom in response. I forgot that the pro-red was still on the stack and also illegally put SfM in the graveyard, although no one caught it and I didn't think of it until after the game. The game from that point just became a weird series of topdecks, as I kept topdecking Flickerwisps and had all three of my equipment in hand. I resolved Jitte but he ancient grudge'd it, and kept resolving Flickerwisp and dealing three at a time only for him to keep Darkblasting it, milling 9 cards in the process in total. I did draw another SfM and didn't get much happening, and later I played the Sword just to bait out Ancient Grudge (however he had other plans and Force of Will'd it.) He had a Baleful Strix and a pair of Deathrite Shamans starting to chip at my life total, and while I did play out Batterskull I couldn't do much with it in the face of Ancient Grudge. However, once again a topdeck RiP (althoguh in fairness I had three in my deck) saved the day, and after plowing the Strix I attacked him with Batterskull with impunity, and he never really recovered. Serra Avenger joined the fun and it was pretty much over from there.
Round 5: Orzhov Eldrazi (0-0-3, intentional draw)
Both me and my round 5 opponent were guaranteed a top 8 slot, so we drew and had lunch at the italian place next door. We chatted about our decks and had a good time. I like Round 5 sometimes.
Quarterfinal: Esper Stoneblade (0-2)
The quarterfinals saw me paired up against a store regular named Chris. I was not thinking at all about my lines of play game 1, and he played a much tighter game than I did. There was a bad combat step where I forgot to factor in Thalia's first strike when activating Jitte, losing me a Prelate on 1 and getting him his Brainstorm/Ponder engine going off. Game 2 he had two True-Name Nemesis in his opener and I got off to a slow start (bad keep I think) and never saw my Council's Judgments. He went on to win the tourney which made me feel a bit better. I really had no idea what I was up against this game, partially because I'm not familiar with Esper Stoneblade and partially because he had a brewed version that splashed green for Leovold, Emissary of Trest. It was pretty cool that his manabase could support all that plus four wasteland, he did a really good job.
The lesson I learned from the is that legacy isn't as scary as I thought it would be, and definitely not nearly as blazing fast as I was afraid of (the Death and Taxes mirror just never ended). I feel like I have a good grasp of the general idea of the deck, but need a lot of work in sideboarding, doublechecking my cards, and certain combat scenarios. I'm going to Eternal Extravaganza to try the deck out again and while I don't expect to place well, I hope to get a lot of experienced.
Also, I learned that Serra Avenger really does help out against blue decks, which most of the field was that Saturday. She's no silver bullet but the pressure she puts on can force bad choices from good opponents (all the players there that Saturday are far more experienced and probably competent at Magic than I am in general) and even Mirran Crusader can't match that.
One final question I have is regarding True-Name Nemesis: aside from Council's Judgment, is there any other way to deal with him? I know I'm gonna be packing three of them in my SB the next time my LGS has that tourney (mid-December).
Modern:
UU Merfolk UU
RW RW Prison RW
Legacy:
WW Death and Taxes WW
Oh that was the most positive kind of "wtf?" possible. I was laughing maniacally the whole time I watched the dude play. His entire deck tickled me in a way that only a well-tuned clunky brew can.
Some of the highlights:
-He casts Ulamog in the late stages of his first game of the night. His opponent, looking very pissed off just starts grabbing cards while he's trying to select targets and he seems confused. His opponent looks up at him and say in the best kind of angry tone: "You've got an Ulamog on the board, what am I supposed to do against that?" and starts sideboarding/brooding.
-The room is kind of quiet with everyone doing their thing, dude leans back and says "I have 30 CMC worth of stuff in my hand right now." And everyone just starts laughing.
-While up against Lestibournes, he topdecks a Oblivion Sower in the middle of a game, giggles to himself and says "Now I need to combo THIS into THIS" pointing at two cards in his hand. Throws down a land, bringing him up to 4 mana + Eye of Ugin, plays the sower, gets a plains and a wasteland from his opponents top 4, then uses those two to play a TKS basically ending the game on the spot.
The deck definitely worked when it worked, but maybe more important than that, the dude was just having a blast playing it, and I loved every moment of watching it.
EDIT: a bunch of people posted tournament reports while I was writing mine; I'm super excited to read them all!
I went 3-0-1 in my weekly last night with the list I posted last week, winning against Reanimator, Maverick, and Burn, drawing against Miracles. Tournament report below if anyone's interested (and let me know if this isn't useful/appropriate).
Reanimator 2-0
Didn't know what he was on initially, but on the play, he fetched Badlands and cast Faithless Looting turn one, and I put him on some sort of graveyard strategy. He casts Thoughtseize turn 2 and reanimates my Sanctum Prelate that he takes naming 3 because he saw SoFI in my hand. I hold up a Karakas and wait for my third land before playing Thalia, GoT turn 3. Turn 4 Griselbrand draws 7 then gets bounced. I land a Serra Avenger and beat in with her and Thalia. He reanimates an Iona naming white, and we both realize she's legendary as I bounce her with Karakas, my only out to her. He dies shortly after.
Game 2 I board in 2 Rest in Peace, a Containment Priest, and a Pithing Needle for Griselbrand, taking out a couple of Stoneforge Mystics, Jitte and SoFI. The game ends pretty quickly as I get Thalia on board and get double Port online. He loses with a Griselbrand in the yard, 3 reanimation spells in hand, and no way to cast them.
Miracles 1-1
My opponent is someone I've only played once and lost to, and is quite intimidating to play against. I think he's on a Predict/Mentor list with (as far as I know) no Jace or Entreats.
Game 1 I get him to 10 before he gets Mentor out and Top loops to crash in for lethal.
Game 2 is super grindy. I board in two Gideon, AoZ but never see them. I get Cavern on humans turn 1 to put out Mom and Thalia before he wipes the board with Terminus, but Recruiter of the Guard helps me reload. Three StP and three Terminus later, we're in turns, I have lethal on board with Mom protection, and I'm sweating since he has 10 cards in his deck left with a Top in play and one last Terminus as his (very likely only) out. He TopFetchTops and doesn't find it, luckily for me.
Maverick 2-1
I know my opponent is on Maverick, since I play tested with him while he was finishing off the deck and had a few proxies in.
Game 1 he gets Mom into SFM to fetch Batterskull, whereas I get SFM grabbing Jitte. I get mom and Serra Avenger on board and another SFM grabbing Batterskull while he gets two Qasali Pridemages. He doesn't give Batterskull protection before blocks, so I block and give protection from black to prevent lifegain. I bait his two Pridemages by playing Batterskull off Stoneforge in combat, then activating its bounce ability in response to the first Pridemages activation, which he responds to by popping his second one. With both Pridemages off the board, I'm able to equip Jitte to Serra Avenger and take care of his Mom with a counter. I block his Batterskull with Serra Avenger, and he Abrupt Decays my Jitte after blocks. I use its last counter in response to pump and take care of the germ token. I cast Flickerwisp, getting SoFI. He GSZ's for Leovold, Emissary of Trest, the spicy blue splash in his deck. I equip SoFI on my Serra Avenger and put him down to 8, then he draws a card when I target him with the SoFI trigger, putting him to 6. He plays KotR and Scooze, eats his creatures in the graveyard to go up to 9 (there are none in mine), but I beat in with Flickerwisp and SoFI equipped Avenger for 10 giving him one last out to draw StP off his Leovold trigger, and he doesn't find it.
Game 2 I board in Sword of War and Peace and two Rest in Peace, and Mirran Crusader, boarding out all four Thalia, GoT. He gets Mom + SFM into Jitte fast and blows up all my creatures and equipment as soon as they land. I play as many tricks as I can, including trying to overload his Jitte counters and flickering an active Mom to swords another nonactive one, but I end up dying anyways.
Game 3 we have 2 minutes left in the round, so we play really fast. I keep a hand with Karakas, Port, Vial, and 4 creatures. I play Vial turn 1, flash in Containment Priest turn 2, Vial in Avenger on his turn 3, while he double Wastelands me, putting us both to one land each, but him with no board presence. I flood the board with Vial and beat him down in less than a minute, winning game 3. I generally feel like this matchup is unfavorable for us since they have a lot of the tools we do, but they also pack tutorable ramp, bigger creatures, and artifact/enchantment hate that can be hard to deal with when you're trying to win the equipment battle. Our fliers on the other hand give us some advantages in a race.
Burn 2-1
Game 1 they quickly burn me out with Rift Bolt, double Lava Spike, Sulfuric Vortex, and Price of Progress as I flood out hard on non-basics.
Game 2 I board in two Canonists and SoWaP, taking out all three Revokers. I stick a SFM which they don't kill immediately (I think this is a mistake) into a Batterskull. They deploy Eidolon on their turn 2 and I beat in with my germ. They cast a turn 3 Blood Moon, which shut off my Karakas and Wasteland, but I can still cast Jitte off them. I equip the germ and beat in for some more, holding the counters in case they try to burn it out after combat. They chump with Eidolon and on their turn 4 play two Goblin Guides and a Raging River, which is a pet card of theirs. After showing me how it works, they swing with their two Guides and I put both of my creatures on the same side of the river, never intending to block anyways. The Guides take me to 19 and I crack back with a 10/10 germ for lethal.
Game 3 they lead with a Guide and I play a Vial turn 1. I get Thalia out turn 2 with Plains and Karakas as my only lands. Their turn 3 was spent casting a Price of Progress for 2 since they and running their Guide into Thalia, which they forgot had first strike. I got Serra Avenger on the field with Vial and started beating in. Their turn 4 was a Rift Bolt and another burn spell to my face, and my turn 4 was casting a Sanctum Prelate naming 3 for the Rift Bolt and potentially a Sulfuric Vortex. They burn me to 8 and I vial in Recruiter on their end step, getting another Prelate. Here both of us allow an illegal action (I just realized this as I'm typing and thinking back on it) when I cast the second prelate, it resolves and when I name 6 they Fireblast, which they couldn't do. I go down to 4 off that and beat them down to 4, with my creatures, holding white for a StP if I need it. I get the concession the turn after.
Overall, I've been pretty happy with how my list has performed. I'll probably keep running it back until something warrants a change, but I'll be playtesting variations when prizes aren't on the line.
To be fair, I never saw him play anything but Eldrazi and Thalia.
Yeah, I think I'm gonna yank a recruiter and move back up to six Thalia.
The thing I'm most interested in testing some more right now is the Metamorph, it has a lot of potential, maybe even mainboard.
@Lestibournes
Metamorph is a likely a win-more card. It does some crazy, crazy stuff against some of the fringe decks of the format, but otherwise is about as good as most of our other cards. It has a very high ceiling, but is not necessarily consistent in power level.
I've for a while held that Orzhov Pontiff is a great choice, and I know some people have taken to running him with minimal investment into black mana, namely, just a couple of Cavern of Souls, which are already being run due to the high human count now anyway. Now, I'm not sure that just 2 Caverns is enough, so if it does tempt you, you probably want 1x Scrubland and maybe a couple fetches to be more on the sure side that you will get him out, but damn if he isn't a blowout card, and mostly uncounterable with how the deck is setup. Multiple uses from Flickerwisp are a thing, and the Haunt ability can be surprisingly good from time to time.
I personally like Blessed Alliance as a way to get rid of TNN at instant speed.
Should we be talking about including more Surgical in our SB?
I think Faerie Macabre is simply better than Surgical Extraction, especially with Recruiter of the Guard. We don't have many chances of beating a turn 1 reanimate of a non-legendary wincon, so I think something that stops the combo on our Turn 0 that is also fetchable later and is useful if we RiP and have that destroyed makes more sense than the untutorable 1-of instant.
Remember, we have a number of valid threats to their gameplan post-board, so they really, really need to be able to hit us Turn 0/1, which is not as common as they would like.
RE: Stoneblade/Deathblade
Orzhov Pontiff is a very nice card in our deck, though I agree that it is a bit dodgy even with 2 Cavern and Vial. It is also good in other matches like Infect and Goblins and the mirror. I generally prefer Manriki-Gusari, however, since except for TNN their creatures are pretty much garbage and with 4 Flickerwisp and 2 Serra Avenger, we can race their damage reasonably most of the time. Also, Batterskull.
Modern
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
Glad to provide, thanks for keeping up with your site. It's been extremely helpful for me getting started.
Quick question, since EE is going to be in Baltimore, do you recommend packing some extra hate against lands? I remember on your website you said lands is popular in the area, but I don't know if that fully applies to larger tournaments.
Modern:
UU Merfolk UU
RW RW Prison RW
Legacy:
WW Death and Taxes WW
Like extraction on Terminus with a Terminus Miracle trigger on the stack will allow you to pull the Terminus out of their hand.
A storm player can go off on turn 1, you see all their cards revealed during Ad Nauseam, you can extract an Infernal Tutor (or something more relevant that you might have seen during the Ad Naus like a Lotus Petal they might need to start up again) from their GY and force them to find Tendrils the honest way or lose.
Infect goes turn 1 fetch a trop, glistener elf, pass, you go T1 Wasteland the trop, extract all trops from his library, pass.
Against Lands, you can Extract Punishing Fire, Life from the Loam, or any of their important lands in a given situation.
Shardless has numerous implications like choking a DRS on mana, shrinking a goyf, or just removing all their Underground Seas from the game.
Delver has targets like Volcanic Island to cut them off of red and even Brainstorm can have a meaningful impact in how they play the game.
Dredge and Reanimator have obvious implications, but they're in the GY.
I know it's nothing new, and it's not something we would want in our MB, but is it something we would want to round out our SB cards with? Maybe something like:
2x Council's Judgment
1x Enlightened Tutor
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2x Path to Exile
1x Pithing Needle
2x Rest in Peace
2x Surgical Extraction
Play it if you want, I am just trying to present why I think FM is a better option for what is it meant to help us with, as opposed to matches where you could use it, but probably shouldn't.
Modern
Whir Prison
Legacy
5c Humans
"I'm a lead farmer... !" Quote ruined due to policy.
At literally any event (no matter the size) in the Baltimore area, I bring about 2 extra cards for Lands. Many of the best players in the area are on Lands, so if you expect to do well in the event, you *need* to win that matchup. My hate varies from event to event, but I'll always have something. It's usually an extra Rip, a pair of Surgicals, or an extra Pithing Needle. One of the users on The Source had some success with a 3x Armageddon build, starting out 12-0 in some MTGO play, so I might give that a go this weekend.
All the Maverick players I've played against are fairly new to Legacy, so I can't say this is universally applicable, but I think there are a few keys to the matchup: preventing their ramp, fighting over lands, fighting over equipment, and evasive creatures. They can ramp out their threats early with Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor or Deathrite turn 1, and I usually Swords them if I'm holding one. They also usually have one Gaea's Cradle that they can grab with Knight, which can enable some explosive plays like casting Jitte into equipping it (even through Thalia) and swinging much earlier than expected. I tend to name Knight with Revoker unless they have Mom on board and I don't have my own.
On the land fight, it's a Wasteland mirror where I feel we're a bit more advantaged, since we run many more basics and Rishadan Port adds more mana denial on our side. I've won a game off turn 2 Wasteland the Bayou that my opponent fetched after I StP the DRS he cast off it, since he was banking on those two mana producers to carry him through the early turns and had nothing after that. Once they know what you're on, they'll very likely fetch basics though. A lot of our creatures interact with their lands as well, specifically THC, Mangara, and Flickerwisp.
The equipment fight is one that we very likely lose in the long run since they run Qasali Pridemage and Abrupt Decay to deal with our's and it's GSZ tutorable. Ideally, you'd get counters on a Jitte (my first fetch off SFM) before they do and keep their threats off the board. It plays more like a tempo game where you try to hold the advantage until they find a way to remove it or die.
I think we have the advantage in the evasive creatures department, since we have fliers which are so much better with equipment. If they land a big Knight, it's pretty easy to chump it a couple of times with spare creatures like SFM after equipment has already been played out or a Recruiter. If you can't/don't want to chump immediately, it's usually it's okay to take a hit once, even if it's for 10 assuming you haven't taken much damage beforehand. Both sides have Mom to get their creatures through on the ground, but risk having them removed in response.
When I board against Maverick, I usually take out all my Thalia, GoT and one THC since they play as many creatures as we do and they have Karakas as well, which makes your legendaries worse. I usually board in two Rest in Peace, since they neuter Knights, Scavenging Ooze, and DRS, a Sword of War and Peace for more equipment, a Containment Priest to shut off Green Sun's Zenith (you can also do cheeky things like hardcast a Flickerwisp with it on the field, flicker one of their creatures, and it gets permanently exiled at the end of turn), and a Mirran Crusader, since it's almost as evasive as a flier, can block Knights for days, and doesn't die to Abrupt Decay. If it's a large enough percentage of the meta, I'd also consider adding Manriki-Gusari to the sideboard too.
RIP is the single most important card against Lands, so don't hesitate to up the count to 3 if you feel like you need them.
Everything else just complements RIP, but without the card itself the chances of winning postboard games are reduced singnificantly regardless of what other cards you draw.