So, in the first example, I think you have to go for it. Pact the relic and win in your upkeep. It is a bit awkward that you only have one ritual, though.
Nvm, first and foremost I'm dumb (thought the Looting was a SSG). This changes everything :wall: Otherwise it would be an obvious free roll.
So, lets re-assess this case than:
- If you Pact, you "lose" to double interaction in your upkeep most likely (cause he "stifles" a draw 7 with Path since you need to use Pact on Spell Pierce)
- If you Pact and he has only one remaining Interaction spell, you need to find everything necessary in the top 14 cards (so at least one Shoal to get one redraw). Nice thing is, that your deck is dividable by 7, which doesn't really matter, if there are two Shoals in the last 14 cards (two Shoals let you draw 35 cards). Even if you find three Shoals + Wurms, you can only draw 42 cards (you are exactly at 49 life). This makes things iffy, cause the fizzle chance is REALLY high and since you cannot pay for Pacts (cause not enough U mana) the chance is real, that you just die. If you won game 1 and it is game 2, than I would roll the dices tbh.
- You don't Pact and hope, that he messes it up with Relic and allows you to go off in response. Most unlikely scenario given he plays UW Death and Taxes . However, even if he messes up with Relic, you run into the same problem again regarding interaction. The only change is, that it will be most likely your turn, so you can use your lands twice, before Pact triggers happen.
- You don't Pact, he plays correctly with Relic, you need to TTB. That case is the worst one imo, since a single interaction spell leaves you dead in the water (as long as you cannot cheat in a Borbor and somehow steal a win) since you cannot pay for Pact AND Wurm is not a one hit kill.
So thinking it through, I would yolo it, cause I think in the long run with this exact hand it will be a loss. Especially, since he has a reasonable clock too. Furthermore, since he plays UW Death and Taxes, Vendilion Clique is a card, you need to be aware off, same is true for Spell Queller, which both increases the clock substantially AND give instant speed interaction. V. Clique is especially annoying cause of TTB, since he can just nap the creature in response (happened to me a couple of times >.>' ).
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
However, the obvious line gets wrecked by a SSG :/
So, what happens here is: let the Titan trigger resolve (he cannot shoot you with Valakut, but prevents the risk of some awkward utility lands). Than Ritual into Lightning Axe the Titan. You are "relic proof" cause of two cards in the graveyard and/or you can cast Goryo's in response to the Relic activation.
The Ritual vs no Ritual is purely a personal decision. No Ritual allows some splice action (and a better TTB if you cannot win now), first Ritual sets up the other Rituals easier if you do not draw two SSGs. In this specific case I would most likely not Ritual right now and just keep it up.
The only big question is now is to try to win on the spot, or pass and try to win in response to anything stupid he might want to do. If he grabs double Valakut, he can than go to attacks, attack, get two Mountains trigger both Valakuts twice (4 triggers) which shoots down Griseldaddy and deals overall 9 damage. With the respective land drop and a one land ramp spell you are looking at an additional 12 damage, which is more than lethal.
Hence, I would try to win in this end step, with casting Ritual first.
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
1. Kathal, you have good points about the downside scenarios in going for it. My main concerns were the resource constraints (I noted that I had bottomed a shoal, and plus we do not get to gain 7 by attacking/blocking). That the deck is divisible by 7 is not nearly as big here, because we know the very last card is a Shoal, though if we are unfortunate enough to have key resource constraints in the other 6 cards (fast mana or both Borbys), then it will matter.
Then you have to think about the decision tree branch that you are currently facing. We can't assume the opponent misclicks his relic. Let's call his clock a 5 turn clock. By then, we'll need 5 mana (potentially ruined by arbiter/GQ shenanigans, or thalia, which we can reasonably expect from this sort of an archetype) to breach. And even if you get there, Wurm may be an invalid win condition (path invalidates it. Pacts won't help if we can't one shot them). If the Wurm is not a valid win con, we'll then need to draw griselbrand. We pretty much need to draw ~4 specific cards in ~7 draws (counting looting).
With that said, I thought that it'd be a higher percentage play (although still not great) to trust in the Church of Griselbrand
2. This is actually not as interesting as I thought. I thought I could get reliced (tap ability) out if Griselbrand is the single card in the graveyard (discard is a cost), but you can just vengeance in response. You are cold to a SSG+relic activation regardless (Breach Titan lists play SSGs). It was pretty fun in that the only way we could feasibly win this game was if he indeed played a creature like this.
WRT the decision to ritual or not, we must weigh having a startup R or save the ritual for splicing action. Former matters if we draw the other ritual but don't draw enough SSGs, while the latter is relevant if you draw two ssgs or more. Given that we have 4 SSGs and 1 rit left, I think the best move is to hold the ritual to splice and reduce the # of SSGs that we need to hit.
What happened: I pacted the relic and ritual->axe->vengeance. Neither opponent got to untap.
I would just try to kill the breach player while tapped out. Don't want to leave anything to chance here. If he had something stupid like 2 beast withins main deck that'd be disastrous (grasping at straws, but still, i don't see a meaningful benefit to letting him untap).
Sorry, what am I missing? How can we consider not casting the ritual first? If you don't, he can eat your Gris without a mana. I suppose you could hope he's dumb and acts first so you can respond. I guess I missed that you have 8 cards and can pitch Gris to hand size. But if he untaps, it's just too risky. Same situation where he has no need to try to activate the relic until you cast Goryo. I suppose he might be dumb, but if he's smart, he just attacks and kills you and doesn't exile your yard until you've cast Gris. I'd rather play to a line that doesn't need my opponent to make a mistake to win. And with 20 life you get 14 cards to dig. You even have Gris around on his turn if you need to block or soak valakut triggers. And if he kills your Gris, you get to Goryo again on your turn. Seems like all upside to me.
I suppose anything you do loses to ssg, but you gotta give it a try. You don't have time to wait for a better opportunity.
you have a temple and 2 swamps open. you lightning axe him (2 swamps open), discarding griselbrand. You just have to wait for lightning axe to resolve. If he tries to tap relic while lightning axe is on the stack, you vengeance in response. If lightning axe resolves, any tapping of the Relic you can let resolve by exiling lightning axe, leaving griselbrand safe.
I think Kathal was talking about letting him untap after reanimating griselbrand.
Exactly, I was thinking it through what would happen if you let him untap (with a Griselbrand in play). Since that is basically suicide I advised against it.
Greetings,
Kathal
Private Mod Note
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I have been playing magic since alara and began playing this deck in ~2013. In 2015 I sold it after a lot of talk about banning it because of GP Charlotte. I rebuilt the deck about a month ago. And have been tasting some of the new cards (specifically cathartic reunion, which I thought was bad) http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/gristel-cannon/ this is my current list. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve it I am all ears.
I thought this was an interesting spot. Opp is playing what looks to be RUG midrange. I've seen mana leak and remand from them so far. this is post board. how do we maximize the chance of winning?
This is the first one, I needed to think longer than just 30s
Assumption 1: He has a Remand/Mana Leak in Hand
Assumption 2: He doesn't misplay with those cards or with the two Goyfs on board
Assumption 3: He most likely has no Bolt or Snappy (cause an Ambush Viper would have been lethal here, same is true for Bolt).
Question 1: Around what do we WANT to play? A counter (Negate, Remand, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce or Spell Snare (which is irrelevant)) and a burn spell (Bolt, Tarfire or Electrolyze)
Question 2: Around what can we actually play around?
Here it gets interesting. He has lethal on board, a simple Shoal with nothing added on it saves us against any form of soft counters but makes things more interesting when facing a Negate or Remand. However, also a breached wurm saves us, since he needs to chump and leaves three blockers behind, which are again lethal next turn.
The problem is obvious: ATM we have a hard counter in hand, but cannot use it (cause of upkeep cost). We have "two" TTB, but are not sure if we can resolve either one in time.
Going from gutfeeling, I would do the following: Shoal now (pitch Borbor), if he Negates/Remands, Shoal again with Wurm and splice TTB for another Wurm. If he lets it resolve, he will most likely attack with everything next turn which leaves him open for a Wurm attack.
However, lots of ifs in there :/
Greetings,
Kathal
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
It's probably Gfab's Temur Moon list, which has 1 remand, 3 mana leak and 3 dispel after board.
I don't think we can splice because both dispel or mana leak leave us dead. So, I think Kathal is right; we have to shoal, which is likely to be countered. If it's remanded, we can replay it and TTB. If it's actual countered, we can Breach a Wurm, which forces a block and leaves 3 blockers.
The question is whether we try the shoal with a Wurm or Borbo first. Either buys us a turn, so I think it really just depends on the likelihood it resolves. It's less likely they have a remand than a dispel or manaleak, so we're most likely not casting it again. If our opponent is smart, they let the shoal resolve since it is just a temporary stall, whereas our other spells actually give us the better board state. So, we're hoping our opppnent is impatient. For this reason I'd try it with a Wurm to make it as juicy as possible to draw the counter. Also seems more desperate like we don't have the Breach, again hopefully drawing the counter.
I suppose there is also a question of whether we do this on our turn our theirs. I think it's best to act while they only have one blue source. If they untap and play another blue source we might be sunk if they have a second counter.
I have been playing magic since alara and began playing this deck in ~2013. In 2015 I sold it after a lot of talk about banning it because of GP Charlotte. I rebuilt the deck about a month ago. And have been tasting some of the new cards (specifically cathartic reunion, which I thought was bad) http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/gristel-cannon/ this is my current list. If anyone has any suggestions on how to improve it I am all ears.
Personally, I've never liked the fury of the horde version. You do have an interesting mashup of shoal and horde. While attacking multiple times is fun, and does gain an extra 7, it's usually not necessary. I'd prefer to have 4 more cards towards gettting to the combo since fizzling is already extremely rare. But, I haven't tried the Fury version in forever, so it's up to you.
+2 Anger
-2 Hug (counterspells)
-1 ritual (generally don't like ritual vs. thalia, plus this is a slow ish matchup)
post-sideboard deck consists of 4 SSGs, 1 ritual, 4 shoals, 4 wurm, 2 borborygmos, 2 brutalities, 1 lightning axe, no hugs. rest should be the usual suspects
Ooh, this one is fun. You cast the ritual, then cast the L-axe pitching Gris and then cast Goryo.
Nvm, first and foremost I'm dumb (thought the Looting was a SSG). This changes everything :wall: Otherwise it would be an obvious free roll.
So, lets re-assess this case than:
- If you Pact, you "lose" to double interaction in your upkeep most likely (cause he "stifles" a draw 7 with Path since you need to use Pact on Spell Pierce)
- If you Pact and he has only one remaining Interaction spell, you need to find everything necessary in the top 14 cards (so at least one Shoal to get one redraw). Nice thing is, that your deck is dividable by 7, which doesn't really matter, if there are two Shoals in the last 14 cards (two Shoals let you draw 35 cards). Even if you find three Shoals + Wurms, you can only draw 42 cards (you are exactly at 49 life). This makes things iffy, cause the fizzle chance is REALLY high and since you cannot pay for Pacts (cause not enough U mana) the chance is real, that you just die. If you won game 1 and it is game 2, than I would roll the dices tbh.
- You don't Pact and hope, that he messes it up with Relic and allows you to go off in response. Most unlikely scenario given he plays UW Death and Taxes
- You don't Pact, he plays correctly with Relic, you need to TTB. That case is the worst one imo, since a single interaction spell leaves you dead in the water (as long as you cannot cheat in a Borbor and somehow steal a win) since you cannot pay for Pact AND Wurm is not a one hit kill.
So thinking it through, I would yolo it, cause I think in the long run with this exact hand it will be a loss. Especially, since he has a reasonable clock too. Furthermore, since he plays UW Death and Taxes, Vendilion Clique is a card, you need to be aware off, same is true for Spell Queller, which both increases the clock substantially AND give instant speed interaction. V. Clique is especially annoying cause of TTB, since he can just nap the creature in response (happened to me a couple of times >.>' ).
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
That one is good
However, the obvious line gets wrecked by a SSG :/
So, what happens here is: let the Titan trigger resolve (he cannot shoot you with Valakut, but prevents the risk of some awkward utility lands). Than Ritual into Lightning Axe the Titan. You are "relic proof" cause of two cards in the graveyard and/or you can cast Goryo's in response to the Relic activation.
The Ritual vs no Ritual is purely a personal decision. No Ritual allows some splice action (and a better TTB if you cannot win now), first Ritual sets up the other Rituals easier if you do not draw two SSGs. In this specific case I would most likely not Ritual right now and just keep it up.
The only big question is now is to try to win on the spot, or pass and try to win in response to anything stupid he might want to do. If he grabs double Valakut, he can than go to attacks, attack, get two Mountains trigger both Valakuts twice (4 triggers) which shoots down Griseldaddy and deals overall 9 damage. With the respective land drop and a one land ramp spell you are looking at an additional 12 damage, which is more than lethal.
Hence, I would try to win in this end step, with casting Ritual first.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
1. Kathal, you have good points about the downside scenarios in going for it. My main concerns were the resource constraints (I noted that I had bottomed a shoal, and plus we do not get to gain 7 by attacking/blocking). That the deck is divisible by 7 is not nearly as big here, because we know the very last card is a Shoal, though if we are unfortunate enough to have key resource constraints in the other 6 cards (fast mana or both Borbys), then it will matter.
Then you have to think about the decision tree branch that you are currently facing. We can't assume the opponent misclicks his relic. Let's call his clock a 5 turn clock. By then, we'll need 5 mana (potentially ruined by arbiter/GQ shenanigans, or thalia, which we can reasonably expect from this sort of an archetype) to breach. And even if you get there, Wurm may be an invalid win condition (path invalidates it. Pacts won't help if we can't one shot them). If the Wurm is not a valid win con, we'll then need to draw griselbrand. We pretty much need to draw ~4 specific cards in ~7 draws (counting looting).
With that said, I thought that it'd be a higher percentage play (although still not great) to trust in the Church of Griselbrand
2. This is actually not as interesting as I thought. I thought I could get reliced (tap ability) out if Griselbrand is the single card in the graveyard (discard is a cost), but you can just vengeance in response. You are cold to a SSG+relic activation regardless (Breach Titan lists play SSGs). It was pretty fun in that the only way we could feasibly win this game was if he indeed played a creature like this.
WRT the decision to ritual or not, we must weigh having a startup R or save the ritual for splicing action. Former matters if we draw the other ritual but don't draw enough SSGs, while the latter is relevant if you draw two ssgs or more. Given that we have 4 SSGs and 1 rit left, I think the best move is to hold the ritual to splice and reduce the # of SSGs that we need to hit.
What happened: I pacted the relic and ritual->axe->vengeance. Neither opponent got to untap.
I suppose anything you do loses to ssg, but you gotta give it a try. You don't have time to wait for a better opportunity.
I think Kathal was talking about letting him untap after reanimating griselbrand.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/847762#paper
Assumption 1: He has a Remand/Mana Leak in Hand
Assumption 2: He doesn't misplay with those cards or with the two Goyfs on board
Assumption 3: He most likely has no Bolt or Snappy (cause an Ambush Viper would have been lethal here, same is true for Bolt).
Question 1: Around what do we WANT to play? A counter (Negate, Remand, Mana Leak, Spell Pierce or Spell Snare (which is irrelevant)) and a burn spell (Bolt, Tarfire or Electrolyze)
Question 2: Around what can we actually play around?
Here it gets interesting. He has lethal on board, a simple Shoal with nothing added on it saves us against any form of soft counters but makes things more interesting when facing a Negate or Remand. However, also a breached wurm saves us, since he needs to chump and leaves three blockers behind, which are again lethal next turn.
The problem is obvious: ATM we have a hard counter in hand, but cannot use it (cause of upkeep cost). We have "two" TTB, but are not sure if we can resolve either one in time.
Going from gutfeeling, I would do the following: Shoal now (pitch Borbor), if he Negates/Remands, Shoal again with Wurm and splice TTB for another Wurm. If he lets it resolve, he will most likely attack with everything next turn which leaves him open for a Wurm attack.
However, lots of ifs in there :/
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I don't think we can splice because both dispel or mana leak leave us dead. So, I think Kathal is right; we have to shoal, which is likely to be countered. If it's remanded, we can replay it and TTB. If it's actual countered, we can Breach a Wurm, which forces a block and leaves 3 blockers.
The question is whether we try the shoal with a Wurm or Borbo first. Either buys us a turn, so I think it really just depends on the likelihood it resolves. It's less likely they have a remand than a dispel or manaleak, so we're most likely not casting it again. If our opponent is smart, they let the shoal resolve since it is just a temporary stall, whereas our other spells actually give us the better board state. So, we're hoping our opppnent is impatient. For this reason I'd try it with a Wurm to make it as juicy as possible to draw the counter. Also seems more desperate like we don't have the Breach, again hopefully drawing the counter.
I suppose there is also a question of whether we do this on our turn our theirs. I think it's best to act while they only have one blue source. If they untap and play another blue source we might be sunk if they have a second counter.
Personally, I've never liked the fury of the horde version. You do have an interesting mashup of shoal and horde. While attacking multiple times is fun, and does gain an extra 7, it's usually not necessary. I'd prefer to have 4 more cards towards gettting to the combo since fizzling is already extremely rare. But, I haven't tried the Fury version in forever, so it's up to you.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/36281_Brad-VS-Ross-Grishoalbrand-VS-Mono-Green-Devotion.html