Abzan Charm is an option, but I'm not crazy about it.
I only play this deck occasionally, but it seems to me that the Charm fills a very nice removal hole for the deck, and the other options could come int handy as well.
I only play this deck occasionally, but it seems to me that the Charm fills a very nice removal hole for the deck, and the other options could come int handy as well.
My biggest concern is it doesn't stop the Twin combo or a Scavenging Ooze (or a lot of other troublesome creatures), and it doesn't hit noncreature permanents like Cranial Plating or Blood Moon either. What exactly are you trying to hit with it?
What slot would it take in the deck? Would it replace a different removal spell? I don't think you can drop Abrupt Decays for something that doesn't answer graveyard hate, I don't think you can replace too many Smallpox or Liliana of the Veil for cards that don't discard Haakon, and you definitely can't replace Darkblast.
I have been testing with two Crib Swap in place of Smallpox, and it has been pretty useful in a number of games.
What specific matchups do you find it particularly useful? I think in the place of Smallpox is where it makes the most sense because there is so much antisynergy between the two. Have you had trouble finding discard outlets for Haakon without it?
Updated the OP to a Primer, feel free to check it out! It's my first Primer, so it's probably missing a few things that I overlooked.
I focused mostly on the matchup section because the deck can feel very different in different matchups. I only included matchups that I have played enough to feel like I really understand how the matchup should be played, so there are probably a few random T2 decks missing. Feel free to let me know if you don't agree with some of the difficulty placements or analyses of matchups, as there was a lot to get through so some might be wrong.
I'm curious if anyone ever gave Nyx Weaver thought for inclusion.
I mainly ask because a) it keeps filling your yard so you don't have to dredge every turn, and b) you can pop its activated ability to buy an important answer (I.e. Abrupt Decay) without having to pray for a topdeck.
Not sure what would be best to come out to facilitate it, but I think it merits some thought. It definitely enables plays you wouldn't otherwise have access to, specifically when it comes to needing specific outs to specific cards.
I'm curious if anyone ever gave Nyx Weaver thought for inclusion.
I mainly ask because a) it keeps filling your yard so you don't have to dredge every turn, and b) you can pop its activated ability to buy an important answer (I.e. Abrupt Decay) without having to pray for a topdeck.
Not sure what would be best to come out to facilitate it, but I think it merits some thought. It definitely enables plays you wouldn't otherwise have access to, specifically when it comes to needing specific outs to specific cards.
It doesn't play out of the GY though. It works as an enabler, but to have that happen with any regularity you have to run it in multiples because you need it before you start dredging. The majority of cards in this deck can be played from the yard, and the ones that can't are catchall removal spells and huge game changers. Look at the cards in the OP that can't be reused once dredged: Liliana, Smallpox, Abrupt Decay, and Damnation. Weaver's ability isn't on the level where you can ignore the fact that you frequently won't be able to play it.
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I'm curious if anyone ever gave Nyx Weaver thought for inclusion.
I mainly ask because a) it keeps filling your yard so you don't have to dredge every turn, and b) you can pop its activated ability to buy an important answer (I.e. Abrupt Decay) without having to pray for a topdeck.
Not sure what would be best to come out to facilitate it, but I think it merits some thought. It definitely enables plays you wouldn't otherwise have access to, specifically when it comes to needing specific outs to specific cards.
It definitely provides extra utility and value and works on the same axis as the deck, but the problem is that the overall power level of the card just isn't very high. I would seriously consider it if it had 4 toughness, but having your 3 drop die to bolt is pretty awful. The fact that it has 3 toughness also means the card won't be walling any meaningful flying threats, as the most common ones are Restoration Angel, Insectile Aberration, Vendilion Clique, and Celestial Colonnade.
You can certainly try it, just every time you see it ask yourself if it would be better as just another Knight of the Reliquary, because it's very hard to justify other 3 drops when we don't even play the full 4 of that card. The 3 drops that DID make the cut are Liliana of the Veil and Lingering Souls, cards that are both incredibly strong on their own while also being enablers for our strategy.
I've been thinking about the new Delve cards, and I feel like all the hype around them might cause a shift away from Grafdigger's Cage and towards Relic of Progenitus. This would be pretty good for us, as it's much easier to play around a Relic.
Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? It's also very possible most people just won't bother switching them around.
I play UR Tempo Twin and the only graveyard hate I have in the board is a single Relic of Progenitus although against this deck I'd also board in Batterskull and Keranos.
I play UR Tempo Twin and the only graveyard hate I have in the board is a single Relic of Progenitus although against this deck I'd also board in Batterskull and Keranos.
Oh sorry I meant people's sideboard for this deck, should have mentioned that I was changing the topic. I feel very confident about my main board, but I feel like there's still a lot of wiggle room left in my sideboard so I'm curious as to what other people are doing.
I play UR Tempo Twin and the only graveyard hate I have in the board is a single Relic of Progenitus although against this deck I'd also board in Batterskull and Keranos.
Oh sorry I meant people's sideboard for this deck, should have mentioned that I was changing the topic. I feel very confident about my main board, but I feel like there's still a lot of wiggle room left in my sideboard so I'm curious as to what other people are doing.
I took out the Leyline of the Voids to put Leyline of Sanctity back up to a playset because that card is way too good. Other than that my sideboard is the same as yours.
The cardinal rule for considering cards for this deck is: can it use the graveyard synergies the deck is built around? If not, is it very high impact- providing a lot of advantage over a long period in the game (Liliana of the Veil) or capable of X-for-1-ing the opponent (Damnation).
Abzan Charm might be playable in some other decks, but it's not really the kind of card I'd either want in my opening hand compared to Liliana of the Veil, or Courser of Kruphix, or the kind of card where I'd consider not dredging in the hopes that I'd hit it (Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Liliana). The various modes aren't particularly useful for us; Lingering Souls doesn't need to be a beater; the Loam engine gives us more card advantage than pretty much any deck in the format, and once we can get the Haakon-Nameless interaction in play we can basically shotgun down any problematic creature that doesn't have hexproof. The only creature I think we'd need Abzan Charm for is Baneslayer Angel, and that doesn't see a lot of play.
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
Is it just me, or is this deck a real dog to the durable creatures in Pod, i.e. Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks? It was definitely a limited sample size, but I had this deck built and played some casual games against a Melira Pod player on Friday evening. I don't know if it was my lack of experience in piloting the deck, though I'm comfortable with the style as it's not far off from the Junk Pox deck I've already been playing for a while. I just felt like they were too resilient to meaningfully disrupt before they could start working up the food chain with Pod into worse and worse cards for me. Being able to Pod into Scavenging Ooze was a particular beating, as that card eats us alive (or dead... or whatever...) by keeping our relevant dredgers and utility cards out of our graveyard as soon as they hit.
Does anyone have tips they want to share regarding this matchup? Specific advice on keeping the Sc'Ooze from ruining our days? I really felt like this deck was able to keep me off balance, so I'd be grateful for insights from more experienced pilots.
Is it just me, or is this deck a real dog to the durable creatures in Pod, i.e. Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks? It was definitely a limited sample size, but I had this deck built and played some casual games against a Melira Pod player on Friday evening. I don't know if it was my lack of experience in piloting the deck, though I'm comfortable with the style as it's not far off from the Junk Pox deck I've already been playing for a while. I just felt like they were too resilient to meaningfully disrupt before they could start working up the food chain with Pod into worse and worse cards for me. Being able to Pod into Scavenging Ooze was a particular beating, as that card eats us alive (or dead... or whatever...) by keeping our relevant dredgers and utility cards out of our graveyard as soon as they hit.
Does anyone have tips they want to share regarding this matchup? Specific advice on keeping the Sc'Ooze from ruining our days? I really felt like this deck was able to keep me off balance, so I'd be grateful for insights from more experienced pilots.
The matchup gets TONS better with experience. The first 3-4 months I played the deck, I was thoroughly convinced that Pod was one of our worst matchups, and now I rarely lose to it. I think one of the most important things to do is to make a plan early and stick to it. I think there are 4 general plans in the matchup, and which one is correct depends on your opening hand.
Stabilize with a Damnation. If your opener has lands, a Damnation, and some number of removal/ways to set up dredge, then this is usually the best plan. This means trying to milk that Damnation for every bit of value you can without putting yourself below 6-7 life. This means DO NOT use removal on your opponent's creatures until AFTER you cast your sweeper. Exceptions are using removal on the first half of a creature (Voice or Finks), although this should only be under dire circumstances, or if you can pick it off with Darkblast. Lingering Souls is very good at stalling while you wait for your opponent to commit more creatures to the table. Most Pod opponents generally will not play around Damnation unless they know your deck. After you cast the Damnation, all your removal will then clear up any recovery attempt by your opponent, as you will be so far ahead on resources that you can 1-for-1 them while you set up your engine.
Aggressively use removal while you set up Haakon/Inversion. This is usually correct if you have Haakon/dredger with a discard outlet in hand. This plan gets MUCH better if you also have a Darkblast, as then you can out-tempo them by killing their mana dorks and small creatures, leaving their larger ones open to Smallpox and Liliana of the Veil while you dig.
Wall with Knight of the Reliquary. Knight is generally large enough to wall any opposing Kitchen Finks and/or Voice of Resurgences, and just playing him on turn 3 can often buy you a lot of time to set up Haakon/Inversion. The focus when choosing this plan is on attacking their mana, to prevent them from going wide around your Knight or generating too much value off a Birthing Pod. Darkblast makes this hand much better, as generally all your removal will be aimed at mana dorks and Scavenging Oozes.
Slow them down with hate. This is only relevant in games 2 and 3, but a Damping Matrix or a Torpor Orb can often slow your opponent down enough when combined with a Lingering Souls or removal while you dig for Haakon/Inversion.
Those aren't the only possible plans, but they are the good ones to look out for. You have to keep in mind when looking at opening hands that you WILL NOT win the 1-for-1 battle, so hands either need to be proactive or have a way to generate large amounts of card advantage (Damnation/dredger). Generally hands without a card with Dredge, Damnation, or Knight of the Reliquary can't be kept.
Also keep in mind that while they generate tons of value, they do not provide much of a clock. I almost never point removal at an opposing Voice of Resurgence or Kitchen Finks unless I can clear up the second half with a Darkblast. Your end game is always Haakon/Inversion, which means it doesn't matter how much value your opponent can generate if you aren't dead, as you can shut off everything your opponent is doing if you are given enough time. Focus on only slowing your opponent down until you reach Haakon/Inversion. This is why attacking your opponent's mana dorks is generally much better than attacking your opponent's random 2/2s and 3/2s (unless they slow you reaching your endgame like Scavenging Ooze).
September deck feature is over, so the thread is getting unstickied for now. Definitely a lot of great conversation and interesting deck talk going on though! One of our more successful features in the past few months. Hope to see you guys stickied again soon!
Recently I've been trying out Worm Harvest by replacing a single copy of Lingering Souls. So far I'm very happy with the results. Did anyone else look at this card?
I've messed around with it before. The obvious problems are that it's very slow and expensive, and the tokens don't fly. What matchups are you trying to improve with this change? I would feel good casting Worm Harvest against BG variants and nonred control strategies. It's also okay against slow, nonevasive creature strategies like hatebears and Pod. In exchange for this, you are raising your curve, dropping valuable percentage points against Affinity, and reducing your ability to pressure early planeswalkers or combo decks.
The main difference is that Lingering Souls provides early pressure and combat interaction, while Worm Harvest is a late game finisher that overwhelms your opponent with card advantage while being mostly immune to countermagic and removal.
Sound familiar?
Worm Harvest provides an effect much more similar to Haakon than Lingering Souls. Lingering Souls is meant to be able to put a few bodies on the table with spare mana while still having extra mana to devote to attacking your opponent's resources. Worm Harvest is meant to be cast in the late game when we have lots of mana, but would rather be executing our Knight plan.
If you really want more finishers, I'd probably run the fourth Haakon before running a Worm Harvest, although I'm interested to hear how it goes for you in the future.
I'm also tempted to somehow splash red for two cards: Ancient Grudge and Flame Jab. I know that Flame Jab might seem similar or worse to Darkblast, but it might help against planeswalkers. This might be especially the case with Karn - normally when it lands quickly, I just scoop.
Splashing Flame Jab doesn't really make sense. Flame Jab obviously gets much better the more red mana you have, which requires more than 1-2 shocks to have it be worthwhile.
I've considered playing Ancient Grudge before. You only need 1 red shock to splash it, and it's not a big deal if you don't have red, as most often you will be flashing it back anyway. However, even adding one red shock to the manabase would be quite a strain. Lands in this deck do a lot more than just let you cast your spells, and you need to be able to fit in a ton of utility lands in addition to fetches and fetchable lands, while still having enough basics to not damage yourself too much when Loaming fetches. I'm just not sure it's worth it.
Karn Liberated is very hard for us to deal with. If you are consistently having trouble with him, I think the best solution is switching some number of Abrupt Decay in the maindeck out for Maelstrom Pulse. Also try to mulligan more aggressively in the Tron matchup. You have a very small subset of cards that are INCREDIBLY powerful against their strategy, and finding them generally ends the game on the spot.
Has anyone had experience with this deck against the Jeskai Ascendancy deck? I have a lot of ideas about how the matchup might go, but I'm curious to hear about how the games ACTUALLY play out, seeing as that deck seems to be the hot new thing.
Hey guys. I've been playing this the past few weeks and I really like it, except I'm super bad at playing it. I've been reading through the new primer, and it's great. I'm wondering if I'm having trouble in particular because of my meta, which usually has me fighting 1-2 UW/UWR Geist decks, B/W Tokens, and occasionally Burn. The other decks in my meta are more comfortable to play against (Scapeshift, 8Rack, Angel Pod, Affinity), but I'm having lots of trouble with the before-mentioned decks. I know that they are all pretty poor matchups in general, so I'm wondering what I can do either to my sideboard or mainboard to hedge against this meta.
I'm running bGnomes list except -1 Damnation in the board due to availability. I replaced it with +1 Golgari Charm, but I am looking in to Drown in Sorrow to help with Geists and Etched Champion and buffed tokens. That helps with some cards I've had trouble with, but still burn has been giving me headaches. Vault of the Archangel has been slow. I don't think I've ever been able to activate it when it would matter. I was looking at Miren the Moaning Well, but I'm still afraid of dying before I can get it and activate it. So that led me to Blind Obedience, since I remember someone else having some success with it earlier in this thread.
What do y'all think? Are there any cards I'm completely forgetting about?
Hey guys. I've been playing this the past few weeks and I really like it, except I'm super bad at playing it. I've been reading through the new primer, and it's great. I'm wondering if I'm having trouble in particular because of my meta, which usually has me fighting 1-2 UW/UWR Geist decks, B/W Tokens, and occasionally Burn. The other decks in my meta are more comfortable to play against (Scapeshift, 8Rack, Angel Pod, Affinity), but I'm having lots of trouble with the before-mentioned decks. I know that they are all pretty poor matchups in general, so I'm wondering what I can do either to my sideboard or mainboard to hedge against this meta.
I'm running bGnomes list except -1 Damnation in the board due to availability. I replaced it with +1 Golgari Charm, but I am looking in to Drown in Sorrow to help with Geists and Etched Champion and buffed tokens. That helps with some cards I've had trouble with, but still burn has been giving me headaches. Vault of the Archangel has been slow. I don't think I've ever been able to activate it when it would matter. I was looking at Miren the Moaning Well, but I'm still afraid of dying before I can get it and activate it. So that led me to Blind Obedience, since I remember someone else having some success with it earlier in this thread.
What do y'all think? Are there any cards I'm completely forgetting about?
Welcome! I'm glad you like the deck. Your meta seems a little hostile, but I'm sure it is fixable.
I think the first thing to point out is that Maelstrom Pulse is generally better against your meta than Abrupt Decay. It can kill multiple tokens or anthems, in addition to Birthing Pod, Restoration Angel, and any Batterskulls that come in for games 2 and 3. Maelstrom Pulse definitely makes the BW Tokens matchup much more winnable, as it lets you keep up somewhat by killing multiple tokens, and deals with the double anthem draws that generally wreck you. There is no Twin in your meta, so Decay is less needed. I would try experimenting with swapping out 1-2 Decays in the main for Pulses.
Vault of the Archangel is slow. However, there are a lot of games where you have the game locked up and your opponent's only out is burning you for the last few points. Vault stops this. It essentially ends the game a few turns before you actually kill them, giving your opponent 1-4 less draw steps to kill you. Against a Burn opponent with a Knight of the Reliquary in your opener, you can "end" the game on turn 5 if they can't kill it. This actually provides a reasonable number of game 1 wins against them, especially if you have a Raven's Crime as well to remove a few pieces of burn and grow your Knight. Many burn lists nowadays are playing more creatures as well, which we can actually interact with in game 1.
It can be activated a turn earlier. Playing a turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary means you can gain 4-6 life on turn 4. However, in order to do so, you lose all of your pressure. This means that if that Knight was your only threat, you are giving your burn opponent a SIGNIFICANT amount of extra draw steps to fight through that 4-6 life you gained. While Vault of the Archangel activates a turn later, it ACTUALLY ends the game by gaining you the same amount of life every turn while not interrupting your pressure, whereas Miren only buys you a few extra turns. It also randomly makes your Spirit tokens insane in certain situations.
If you desperately feel like you want to improve your Burn matchup, you might want to try looking into some of the Courser of Kruphix variants that have been floating around. Courser provides a lot of incidental lifegain, and can stop things like Geist of Saint Traft dead in their tracks. Can anyone who has been playing that version give some input as to what matchups you feel it improves?
Word is my meta is gonna be full of Jeskai Ascendancy this weekend, I was thinking of just jamming 4 Ray of Revelation, but maybe you guys have some better suggestions? I'm fairly confident that it will be saturated enough that I can go up to 8 slots for it.
It's sad this thread has not had any activity in the past weeks . I think the main reason is that this deck seems not to be a good choice in the current metagame... I'm exploring other options to have a decent matchup against burn and U/R delver; the "new" rising treasure cruise/swiftspear delver deck is, IMO, harder to beat and burn keeps on being more and more prevalent in paper meta...
How is your matchup against UR delver right now? Do we need to tweak the deck a little?
It's sad this thread has not had any activity in the past weeks . I think the main reason is that this deck seems not to be a good choice in the current metagame... I'm exploring other options to have a decent matchup against burn and U/R delver; the "new" rising treasure cruise/swiftspear delver deck is, IMO, harder to beat and burn keeps on being more and more prevalent in paper meta...
How is your matchup against UR delver right now? Do we need to tweak the deck a little?
I actually have been meaning to touch base with the thread, and check in every so often, but I've been crazy busy the last couple of weeks, and haven't been playing much. On top of that, I got a new computer, and didn't have my login saved or anything on here, so that added to me not posting.
However, I've been trying to find time to redo my sideboard from scratch, and that was what I planned to post about next. In the last weekly I played in, I noticed that my sideboard plans were all out of whack, and I had too many cards for some matchups and not enough for others. So I wanted to start from scratch and do it right, by making "ideal lists" for each matchup, and then finding common grounds to form a sideboard. I'll probably go into detail on this more later.
As for Burn and UR matchups. It's funny, because UR Delver decks used to be one of our best matchups before treasure cruise. A few weeks ago, after the new decks become popular, my testing friend and I put together UR delver and I tested against it, and the tests didn't go well. It was a very small sample size, and I think the matchup is actually close to 50/50, but here's my thoughts:
The problem is actually not Treasure Cruise, it's Monastery Swiftspear and the additional burn.
Typically, in these matchups, them drawing a bunch of extra cards didn't matter because they had no actual way of killing you because every single threat UR used to play (Delver, Pyromancer/tokens, Snapcaster, Clique) all died to Darkblast and they can't counter Decay. Generally, you'd start the game with some kind of removal (Decay, Smallpox, Liliana) or Souls to stall until you got a Darkblast online, at which point, as long as you didn't get burned out (which they generally only played 4 bolts and snaps, so that took a long time).
Monastery Swiftspear is a huge problem because it's basically impossibly to kill with Darkblast. You can get it with Darkblast dredge Darkblast on turn 2 if you're on the play, but that's about it. You'd think with all the other removal it would be easy to kill, but I found it difficult without a Decay, and even that they can defend with a Vapor Snag.
Also, they're playing more burn than before with the addition of Forked Bolts...which is doubly annoying because it's amazing at undoing a turn we spend casting Souls to fog for a turn.
Last, I had already made the plunge a couple of months back to put the Bojuka Bog back in the deck... if you're still on the fence, I suggest you try it again. Besides countering snapcaster, which it did before, it's effective at cutting them off of Treasure Cruise long enough to find a way to make them discard it. And it doesn't feel as bad just drawing it and playing it to stop Treasure Cruise...just don't get greedy. If they're at 4 or 5 cards in the library, and you can play Bog from hand, don't wait, just clear it.
As for burn...yeah. When I rethink my sideboard, I might do some play testing with more sideboard cards to see if i can improve the matchup. I like the idea of Sun Droplet with some incidental life gain, like Coursers in the side. I also want to test Coursers in the side for UR, and hell, if the field is enough UR and Burn and the Coursers help those matchups enough, maybe it's time to try them main deck again. They seem like they would be a good solution to the UR problems (getting burned out and stopping Swiftspear.
But yeah, anyway, when I have some time to do some of the ground work with the sideboard, I'll post up again to discuss.
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My biggest concern is it doesn't stop the Twin combo or a Scavenging Ooze (or a lot of other troublesome creatures), and it doesn't hit noncreature permanents like Cranial Plating or Blood Moon either. What exactly are you trying to hit with it?
What slot would it take in the deck? Would it replace a different removal spell? I don't think you can drop Abrupt Decays for something that doesn't answer graveyard hate, I don't think you can replace too many Smallpox or Liliana of the Veil for cards that don't discard Haakon, and you definitely can't replace Darkblast.
The manabase can only support so many colorless lands. Do you feel it is more useful than Tectonic Edge, Ghost Quarter, or Vault of the Archangel?
What specific matchups do you find it particularly useful? I think in the place of Smallpox is where it makes the most sense because there is so much antisynergy between the two. Have you had trouble finding discard outlets for Haakon without it?
I focused mostly on the matchup section because the deck can feel very different in different matchups. I only included matchups that I have played enough to feel like I really understand how the matchup should be played, so there are probably a few random T2 decks missing. Feel free to let me know if you don't agree with some of the difficulty placements or analyses of matchups, as there was a lot to get through so some might be wrong.
I mainly ask because a) it keeps filling your yard so you don't have to dredge every turn, and b) you can pop its activated ability to buy an important answer (I.e. Abrupt Decay) without having to pray for a topdeck.
Not sure what would be best to come out to facilitate it, but I think it merits some thought. It definitely enables plays you wouldn't otherwise have access to, specifically when it comes to needing specific outs to specific cards.
It definitely provides extra utility and value and works on the same axis as the deck, but the problem is that the overall power level of the card just isn't very high. I would seriously consider it if it had 4 toughness, but having your 3 drop die to bolt is pretty awful. The fact that it has 3 toughness also means the card won't be walling any meaningful flying threats, as the most common ones are Restoration Angel, Insectile Aberration, Vendilion Clique, and Celestial Colonnade.
You can certainly try it, just every time you see it ask yourself if it would be better as just another Knight of the Reliquary, because it's very hard to justify other 3 drops when we don't even play the full 4 of that card. The 3 drops that DID make the cut are Liliana of the Veil and Lingering Souls, cards that are both incredibly strong on their own while also being enablers for our strategy.
Advices on how to play against most of the decks in the metagame and the "tricky interactions" section are great
Derp! Totally meant to put those in, thanks for reminding me! Added them and changed a little formatting around.
Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? It's also very possible most people just won't bother switching them around.
Oh sorry I meant people's sideboard for this deck, should have mentioned that I was changing the topic. I feel very confident about my main board, but I feel like there's still a lot of wiggle room left in my sideboard so I'm curious as to what other people are doing.
Abzan Charm might be playable in some other decks, but it's not really the kind of card I'd either want in my opening hand compared to Liliana of the Veil, or Courser of Kruphix, or the kind of card where I'd consider not dredging in the hopes that I'd hit it (Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Liliana). The various modes aren't particularly useful for us; Lingering Souls doesn't need to be a beater; the Loam engine gives us more card advantage than pretty much any deck in the format, and once we can get the Haakon-Nameless interaction in play we can basically shotgun down any problematic creature that doesn't have hexproof. The only creature I think we'd need Abzan Charm for is Baneslayer Angel, and that doesn't see a lot of play.
Does anyone have tips they want to share regarding this matchup? Specific advice on keeping the Sc'Ooze from ruining our days? I really felt like this deck was able to keep me off balance, so I'd be grateful for insights from more experienced pilots.
The matchup gets TONS better with experience. The first 3-4 months I played the deck, I was thoroughly convinced that Pod was one of our worst matchups, and now I rarely lose to it. I think one of the most important things to do is to make a plan early and stick to it. I think there are 4 general plans in the matchup, and which one is correct depends on your opening hand.
Those aren't the only possible plans, but they are the good ones to look out for. You have to keep in mind when looking at opening hands that you WILL NOT win the 1-for-1 battle, so hands either need to be proactive or have a way to generate large amounts of card advantage (Damnation/dredger). Generally hands without a card with Dredge, Damnation, or Knight of the Reliquary can't be kept.
Also keep in mind that while they generate tons of value, they do not provide much of a clock. I almost never point removal at an opposing Voice of Resurgence or Kitchen Finks unless I can clear up the second half with a Darkblast. Your end game is always Haakon/Inversion, which means it doesn't matter how much value your opponent can generate if you aren't dead, as you can shut off everything your opponent is doing if you are given enough time. Focus on only slowing your opponent down until you reach Haakon/Inversion. This is why attacking your opponent's mana dorks is generally much better than attacking your opponent's random 2/2s and 3/2s (unless they slow you reaching your endgame like Scavenging Ooze).
I've messed around with it before. The obvious problems are that it's very slow and expensive, and the tokens don't fly. What matchups are you trying to improve with this change? I would feel good casting Worm Harvest against BG variants and nonred control strategies. It's also okay against slow, nonevasive creature strategies like hatebears and Pod. In exchange for this, you are raising your curve, dropping valuable percentage points against Affinity, and reducing your ability to pressure early planeswalkers or combo decks.
The main difference is that Lingering Souls provides early pressure and combat interaction, while Worm Harvest is a late game finisher that overwhelms your opponent with card advantage while being mostly immune to countermagic and removal.
Sound familiar?
Worm Harvest provides an effect much more similar to Haakon than Lingering Souls. Lingering Souls is meant to be able to put a few bodies on the table with spare mana while still having extra mana to devote to attacking your opponent's resources. Worm Harvest is meant to be cast in the late game when we have lots of mana, but would rather be executing our Knight plan.
If you really want more finishers, I'd probably run the fourth Haakon before running a Worm Harvest, although I'm interested to hear how it goes for you in the future.
Splashing Flame Jab doesn't really make sense. Flame Jab obviously gets much better the more red mana you have, which requires more than 1-2 shocks to have it be worthwhile.
I've considered playing Ancient Grudge before. You only need 1 red shock to splash it, and it's not a big deal if you don't have red, as most often you will be flashing it back anyway. However, even adding one red shock to the manabase would be quite a strain. Lands in this deck do a lot more than just let you cast your spells, and you need to be able to fit in a ton of utility lands in addition to fetches and fetchable lands, while still having enough basics to not damage yourself too much when Loaming fetches. I'm just not sure it's worth it.
Karn Liberated is very hard for us to deal with. If you are consistently having trouble with him, I think the best solution is switching some number of Abrupt Decay in the maindeck out for Maelstrom Pulse. Also try to mulligan more aggressively in the Tron matchup. You have a very small subset of cards that are INCREDIBLY powerful against their strategy, and finding them generally ends the game on the spot.
I'm running bGnomes list except -1 Damnation in the board due to availability. I replaced it with +1 Golgari Charm, but I am looking in to Drown in Sorrow to help with Geists and Etched Champion and buffed tokens. That helps with some cards I've had trouble with, but still burn has been giving me headaches. Vault of the Archangel has been slow. I don't think I've ever been able to activate it when it would matter. I was looking at Miren the Moaning Well, but I'm still afraid of dying before I can get it and activate it. So that led me to Blind Obedience, since I remember someone else having some success with it earlier in this thread.
What do y'all think? Are there any cards I'm completely forgetting about?
Welcome! I'm glad you like the deck. Your meta seems a little hostile, but I'm sure it is fixable.
I think the first thing to point out is that Maelstrom Pulse is generally better against your meta than Abrupt Decay. It can kill multiple tokens or anthems, in addition to Birthing Pod, Restoration Angel, and any Batterskulls that come in for games 2 and 3. Maelstrom Pulse definitely makes the BW Tokens matchup much more winnable, as it lets you keep up somewhat by killing multiple tokens, and deals with the double anthem draws that generally wreck you. There is no Twin in your meta, so Decay is less needed. I would try experimenting with swapping out 1-2 Decays in the main for Pulses.
Because there is no Twin, you also really don't need Torpor Orb in the sideboard. This can make room for either Nature's Claim, more Maelstrom Pulse, the missing Abrupt Decays, Unravel the AEther, or Drown in Sorrow. There are also no graveyard decks, so you can do what most people on the thread have already done and drop Leyline of the Void for the full four copies of Leyline of Sanctity.
Vault of the Archangel is slow. However, there are a lot of games where you have the game locked up and your opponent's only out is burning you for the last few points. Vault stops this. It essentially ends the game a few turns before you actually kill them, giving your opponent 1-4 less draw steps to kill you. Against a Burn opponent with a Knight of the Reliquary in your opener, you can "end" the game on turn 5 if they can't kill it. This actually provides a reasonable number of game 1 wins against them, especially if you have a Raven's Crime as well to remove a few pieces of burn and grow your Knight. Many burn lists nowadays are playing more creatures as well, which we can actually interact with in game 1.
So what does Miren, the Moaning Well give us over Vault of the Archangel in the burn matchup?
It can be activated a turn earlier. Playing a turn 3 Knight of the Reliquary means you can gain 4-6 life on turn 4. However, in order to do so, you lose all of your pressure. This means that if that Knight was your only threat, you are giving your burn opponent a SIGNIFICANT amount of extra draw steps to fight through that 4-6 life you gained. While Vault of the Archangel activates a turn later, it ACTUALLY ends the game by gaining you the same amount of life every turn while not interrupting your pressure, whereas Miren only buys you a few extra turns. It also randomly makes your Spirit tokens insane in certain situations.
If you desperately feel like you want to improve your Burn matchup, you might want to try looking into some of the Courser of Kruphix variants that have been floating around. Courser provides a lot of incidental lifegain, and can stop things like Geist of Saint Traft dead in their tracks. Can anyone who has been playing that version give some input as to what matchups you feel it improves?
How is your matchup against UR delver right now? Do we need to tweak the deck a little?
I actually have been meaning to touch base with the thread, and check in every so often, but I've been crazy busy the last couple of weeks, and haven't been playing much. On top of that, I got a new computer, and didn't have my login saved or anything on here, so that added to me not posting.
However, I've been trying to find time to redo my sideboard from scratch, and that was what I planned to post about next. In the last weekly I played in, I noticed that my sideboard plans were all out of whack, and I had too many cards for some matchups and not enough for others. So I wanted to start from scratch and do it right, by making "ideal lists" for each matchup, and then finding common grounds to form a sideboard. I'll probably go into detail on this more later.
As for Burn and UR matchups. It's funny, because UR Delver decks used to be one of our best matchups before treasure cruise. A few weeks ago, after the new decks become popular, my testing friend and I put together UR delver and I tested against it, and the tests didn't go well. It was a very small sample size, and I think the matchup is actually close to 50/50, but here's my thoughts:
The problem is actually not Treasure Cruise, it's Monastery Swiftspear and the additional burn.
Typically, in these matchups, them drawing a bunch of extra cards didn't matter because they had no actual way of killing you because every single threat UR used to play (Delver, Pyromancer/tokens, Snapcaster, Clique) all died to Darkblast and they can't counter Decay. Generally, you'd start the game with some kind of removal (Decay, Smallpox, Liliana) or Souls to stall until you got a Darkblast online, at which point, as long as you didn't get burned out (which they generally only played 4 bolts and snaps, so that took a long time).
Monastery Swiftspear is a huge problem because it's basically impossibly to kill with Darkblast. You can get it with Darkblast dredge Darkblast on turn 2 if you're on the play, but that's about it. You'd think with all the other removal it would be easy to kill, but I found it difficult without a Decay, and even that they can defend with a Vapor Snag.
Also, they're playing more burn than before with the addition of Forked Bolts...which is doubly annoying because it's amazing at undoing a turn we spend casting Souls to fog for a turn.
Last, I had already made the plunge a couple of months back to put the Bojuka Bog back in the deck... if you're still on the fence, I suggest you try it again. Besides countering snapcaster, which it did before, it's effective at cutting them off of Treasure Cruise long enough to find a way to make them discard it. And it doesn't feel as bad just drawing it and playing it to stop Treasure Cruise...just don't get greedy. If they're at 4 or 5 cards in the library, and you can play Bog from hand, don't wait, just clear it.
As for burn...yeah. When I rethink my sideboard, I might do some play testing with more sideboard cards to see if i can improve the matchup. I like the idea of Sun Droplet with some incidental life gain, like Coursers in the side. I also want to test Coursers in the side for UR, and hell, if the field is enough UR and Burn and the Coursers help those matchups enough, maybe it's time to try them main deck again. They seem like they would be a good solution to the UR problems (getting burned out and stopping Swiftspear.
But yeah, anyway, when I have some time to do some of the ground work with the sideboard, I'll post up again to discuss.