I dunno, i guess i just bring them in vs creature-light decks like ad nauseam, scapeshift, storm, uwr control, etc. They could be thoughtseizes, i didn't even consider the card.
Hey folks. I have been running the creatureless pox list and have been running into some pretty heavy trouble with burn. Does anyone have any tips for that matchup? Any good sideboard tech or cards that have been all stars in the burn matchup?
Burn is pretty tough and generally one of the deck's toughest match ups. You could try sideboarding Kitchen Finks. You could also try Leyline of Sanctity if you have white sources in your deck. Otherwise, fetching without shocking and really pushing Raven's Crime will likely be your best bet to slow the damage.
Yeah, burn is pretty hard. Luckily for me i haven't seen any in my meta. If i were to face it i would try to be aggressive with raven's crime if i can like capt. Nick said and game 2-3 i would side my 3 duress and surgical extractions, in addition to vault of the archangel instead of a GQ.
EDIT: if the deck was very popular in my meta i guess it would force me to reconsider my sideboard/play another deck.
I know its pretty slow but syphon life or batterskull are always good options against burn. Thankfully this isn't legacy and you don't have to play around price of progress and a lot of their damage is creature based which we are strong against.
Syphon life seems pretty good, i'll add a copy in my sideboard. I guess siding another win condition can't hurt, it can remplace a flame jab vs decks win no small stuff to kill.
-1 surgical extraction
+1 syphon life
I've been toying around with a jund loam list for the past few weeks and I've finally gotten it to the point where I feel it's solid, at the last local event I went 3-0-1 with it, drawing to UW tron (1-1) and beating jund (1-0), cryptic zoo (2-0) and storm (2-1).
Here's what I've settled on:
I originally started running 4 smallpox in place of the bloodghast's but I found myself not being able to close out games where I had an active loam but couldn't find/stick a seismic assault . I really like the inevitability and mid game pressure the ghasts give the deck but I'm not 100% sure on them, it's possible they could be goyfs, bobs or even just the pox's but I'm happy with them for the time being.
Thus far tymaret has performed really well, he seems super janky but it gives another angle to grind opponents out and serves as an excellent recurable chump blocker, he generates so much value in creature matchups and represents a good clock when attacking won't end the game (he also recurs through grafdigger's cage, which was a nice surprise). Having said that, I really don't think you want more than one maindeck and even then he isn't stellar without bodies to sac.
The huntmaster + thragtusk side are for fighting through grave hate and give the deck better live topdecks in attrition matchups, so far they have proved useful but the sideboard needs tweaking, there are a lot of times when I don't have enough cards to bring in particularly when discards sucks.
That is quite the list. You literally found room to pack in every neat card that these builds have to offer us. Smallpox being out is probably correct. I love the card as I play it in legacy and modern but you dropping it seems completely correct as you run Liliana and can still get a lot of value out of having to discard most of your spells. Your list seems like you want to still drop and hold onto as many lands as possible so smallpox is probably counter productive for you. I may have to sleeve it up to test it sometime. The murder king seems like a cute touch. Especially if you can't land an assault. Nice job.
Bobbth. Can I inquire as to the lack of lightning bolts in your list? Did you test them and decide they just weren't doing enough? Your list seems really light on burn spells entirely. Have you had any trouble with more aggressive creature matchups like affinity merfolk twin, etc?
It seems to me that between young pyromancer loading up the board and the murder king acting as creature control that aggro match ups shouldn't be too bad for him.
It seems to me that between young pyromancer loading up the board and the murder king acting as creature control that aggro match ups shouldn't be too bad for him.
Murder king can't target creatures, i fail to see how he acts as creature control (otherwise he would be a pretty awesome card).
Other than that i Agree, i myself play pyro + souls and creature matchups are fine without bolts. I still play smallpox though, i'm not 100% sold on bloodghasts, because i'm not conviced the deck needs more win conditions. At least tokens can chump/group block to trade with stuff, ghast is purely made for offense.
EDIT: this is one thing i like about the deck, our wins are flexible, assault can be creature control when you need it and later on it can win the game fast. Same with tokens they can block until you stabilize and win you the game. Ghasts seem to lack that flexibility. Take this with a grain of salt because i never played with ghasts in this deck, if they work for you then thats good.
Also is 2 assaults enough? I mean i'd love to cut one for more sweet stuff like a lily but i'm scared i might not draw it when i need it most.
This is very true. I really need to pay closer attention to what I'm posting here. I don't seem to have this issue on any other page I post on. Ghast is probably a great later game option to close out a game. So I can get behind that.
I think you raise a good point about cutting Smallpox. In my limited testing I've found the sweet spot to be 5 lands; that gives me 2 mana to use Loam and 3 to Flashback Looting, play an Assault, Flame Jab 3 times, Raven's etc etc. Smallpox makes it very difficult to count to 5. Not to mention how color intensive this deck is.
I'm considering 4 Raven's Crime too. It's so good that I think it should be called a core card. I'm never unhappy to see it in multiples, especially in turns 1-3. We operate brilliantly without hands; our opponents generally do not. So 1-for-1s are swell when we want to enter topdeck mode.
Tymaret is indeed a cute looking card. I just happen to have one in the binder..
Bobbth. Can I inquire as to the lack of in your list? Did you test them and decide they just weren't doing enough? Your list seems really light on burn spells entirely. Have you had any trouble with more aggressive creature matchups like affinity merfolk twin, etc?
Yeah, I tested with bolts briefly, I can't really comment on it much other than when I did test them, they were inplace of abrupt decay and I sorely missed abrupt decay.
The deck naturally has a mediocre-to-okay aggro matchup and having more removal could certainly help but I'm not sure whether is worth making room for. Having a huge supply of 1/1's to block with really makes the matchup winnable and the bolts don't really help with that plan. I could certainly be wrong though.
Other than that i Agree, i myself play pyro + souls and creature matchups are fine without bolts. I still play smallpox though, i'm not 100% sold on bloodghasts, because i'm not conviced the deck needs more win conditions. At least tokens can chump/group block to trade with stuff, ghast is purely made for offense.
EDIT: this is one thing i like about the deck, our wins are flexible, assault can be creature control when you need it and later on it can win the game fast. Same with tokens they can block until you stabilize and win you the game. Ghasts seem to lack that flexibility. Take this with a grain of salt because i never played with ghasts in this deck, if they work for you then thats good.
Also is 2 assaults enough? I mean i'd love to cut one for more sweet stuff like a lily but i'm scared i might not draw it when i need it most.
Yeah, the deck is truly unique, it can really adopt any role and gets so much value out of each of it's pieces. Ghasts can be lackluster in some matches and do get boarded out semi-regularly but I can't seem to find anything else to fill that kind of role. The deck need someway to close out games when we cant stick a pyromancer and a pair of souls aren't enough, ghasts do fill that role to some extent, I'll agree that they feel clunky and sometimes they suck but they're the best at what they do. We just need wizards to print a kitchen finks with flashback.
I cut the 3rd assault last minute, it came down to the 2nd lily or the 3rd assault and at that point the lily was over-performing. I haven't really missed it yet but I haven't really played many games since cutting it. I guess it's probably wrong to run only 2.
I'm considering 4 Raven's Crime too. It's so good that I think it should be called a core card. I'm never unhappy to see it in multiples, especially in turns 1-3. We operate brilliantly without hands; our opponents generally do not. So 1-for-1s are swell when we want to enter topdeck mode.
Tymaret is indeed a cute looking card. I just happen to have one in the binder..
My only problem with raven's crime is they're really bad once we get our opponent down to 0 cards, anything they topdeck they will play on the spot or is probably irrelevant (this deck really doesn't care about counterspells/removal). Raven's crime is fine if we're seriously hampering out opponents gameplan (i.e. storm, UWR, twin) but it's really lackluster when we're likely dead to their t2/t3 plays (i.e. Affinity, zoo, infect ) or they just have lots of really strong top-decks (i.e jund, hatebears, to a lesser extent pod)
I have found that affinity and infect are very weak to our massive removal suite. Jund can't keep up with the amount of card advantage that we have access to. I have had mostly trouble with hatebears, twin and ad nauseum. Other than those 3 match ups I have had very much success with the deck.
I played several games yesterday pre-sideboard (bobbth's list) against an RG zoo deck. It didn't feel like a very fun matchup for the deck. What would you sideboard in for that matchup? I got trounced pretty heavily. I had to throw away so many cards just to try and deal with all the three toughness creatures. obviously anger comes in, what else? and what comes out.
Hey guys I'm building the pyro jund version of this deck, I have all the main pieces. I was just wondering how my manabase can be constructed without the use of fetches (as I do not have them and don't Rlly want to invest in them atm) if someone experienced with the deck could help it would be much appreciated.
I have found that affinity and infect are very weak to our massive removal suite. Jund can't keep up with the amount of card advantage that we have access to. I have had mostly trouble with hatebears, twin and ad nauseum. Other than those 3 match ups I have had very much success with the deck.
I haven't had any problems with either hatebears or ad anuseum, we can beat hatebears at the value game and their mana denial plans dont work so well against an active loam. Admittedly thalia does slow us down a little but she doesnt really disrupt our main gameplan. Ad Naus is tough G1 but abrupt decay and raven's crime go a long way, post sideboard we get to run mana denial along with plenty of discard and artifact hate and they genuinely have a hard time wining though all the disruption, Generally their only g2/3 wins come from insane topdecks + lotus bloom. Twni is a bit weird, sometimes I feel like I can't drop a game and they just lose to so much of our deck, othertimes I just either lose to the combo or the tempo plan, I don't really know what to think about it.
I played several games yesterday pre-sideboard (bobbth's list) against an RG zoo deck. It didn't feel like a very fun matchup for the deck. What would you sideboard in for that matchup? I got trounced pretty heavily. I had to throw away so many cards just to try and deal with all the three toughness creatures. obviously anger comes in, what else? and what comes out.
Yeah, small zoo is quite a bad matchup, it can be terrible to unwinnable for my version of the deck. The smallpox versions fare better but not by a lot. Our discard sucks and they can often play threats more quickly then we can set up chump blockers. The only games I've won have involved an active seismic assault. If small zoo is a big part of your meta don't be afraid to sideboard up to 4 anger of the gods.
Big Zoo is much better matchup, they are usually slow enough that we have plenty of time to get an assault/lily/pyromancer online and they don't often get us down far enough that they can burn us out.
Here's how I would side:
+1 Thragtusk
+2 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Anger of the Gods
+2 Maelstrom pulse
- 4 Bloodghast
- 2 Raven's Crime
- 1 Horizion Canopy
My sideboard really doesn't have much to bring in for the small zoo matchup, it's not too common of a deck especially in my local paper meta.
EDIT: if the deck was very popular in my meta i guess it would force me to reconsider my sideboard/play another deck.
-1 surgical extraction
+1 syphon life
Here's what I've settled on:
I originally started running 4 smallpox in place of the bloodghast's but I found myself not being able to close out games where I had an active loam but couldn't find/stick a seismic assault . I really like the inevitability and mid game pressure the ghasts give the deck but I'm not 100% sure on them, it's possible they could be goyfs, bobs or even just the pox's but I'm happy with them for the time being.
Thus far tymaret has performed really well, he seems super janky but it gives another angle to grind opponents out and serves as an excellent recurable chump blocker, he generates so much value in creature matchups and represents a good clock when attacking won't end the game (he also recurs through grafdigger's cage, which was a nice surprise). Having said that, I really don't think you want more than one maindeck and even then he isn't stellar without bodies to sac.
The huntmaster + thragtusk side are for fighting through grave hate and give the deck better live topdecks in attrition matchups, so far they have proved useful but the sideboard needs tweaking, there are a lot of times when I don't have enough cards to bring in particularly when discards sucks.
Murder king can't target creatures, i fail to see how he acts as creature control (otherwise he would be a pretty awesome card).
Other than that i Agree, i myself play pyro + souls and creature matchups are fine without bolts. I still play smallpox though, i'm not 100% sold on bloodghasts, because i'm not conviced the deck needs more win conditions. At least tokens can chump/group block to trade with stuff, ghast is purely made for offense.
EDIT: this is one thing i like about the deck, our wins are flexible, assault can be creature control when you need it and later on it can win the game fast. Same with tokens they can block until you stabilize and win you the game. Ghasts seem to lack that flexibility. Take this with a grain of salt because i never played with ghasts in this deck, if they work for you then thats good.
Also is 2 assaults enough? I mean i'd love to cut one for more sweet stuff like a lily but i'm scared i might not draw it when i need it most.
I'm considering 4 Raven's Crime too. It's so good that I think it should be called a core card. I'm never unhappy to see it in multiples, especially in turns 1-3. We operate brilliantly without hands; our opponents generally do not. So 1-for-1s are swell when we want to enter topdeck mode.
Tymaret is indeed a cute looking card. I just happen to have one in the binder..
Yeah, I tested with bolts briefly, I can't really comment on it much other than when I did test them, they were inplace of abrupt decay and I sorely missed abrupt decay.
The deck naturally has a mediocre-to-okay aggro matchup and having more removal could certainly help but I'm not sure whether is worth making room for. Having a huge supply of 1/1's to block with really makes the matchup winnable and the bolts don't really help with that plan. I could certainly be wrong though.
Yeah, the deck is truly unique, it can really adopt any role and gets so much value out of each of it's pieces. Ghasts can be lackluster in some matches and do get boarded out semi-regularly but I can't seem to find anything else to fill that kind of role. The deck need someway to close out games when we cant stick a pyromancer and a pair of souls aren't enough, ghasts do fill that role to some extent, I'll agree that they feel clunky and sometimes they suck but they're the best at what they do. We just need wizards to print a kitchen finks with flashback.
I cut the 3rd assault last minute, it came down to the 2nd lily or the 3rd assault and at that point the lily was over-performing. I haven't really missed it yet but I haven't really played many games since cutting it. I guess it's probably wrong to run only 2.
My only problem with raven's crime is they're really bad once we get our opponent down to 0 cards, anything they topdeck they will play on the spot or is probably irrelevant (this deck really doesn't care about counterspells/removal). Raven's crime is fine if we're seriously hampering out opponents gameplan (i.e. storm, UWR, twin) but it's really lackluster when we're likely dead to their t2/t3 plays (i.e. Affinity, zoo, infect ) or they just have lots of really strong top-decks (i.e jund, hatebears, to a lesser extent pod)
I haven't had any problems with either hatebears or ad anuseum, we can beat hatebears at the value game and their mana denial plans dont work so well against an active loam. Admittedly thalia does slow us down a little but she doesnt really disrupt our main gameplan. Ad Naus is tough G1 but abrupt decay and raven's crime go a long way, post sideboard we get to run mana denial along with plenty of discard and artifact hate and they genuinely have a hard time wining though all the disruption, Generally their only g2/3 wins come from insane topdecks + lotus bloom. Twni is a bit weird, sometimes I feel like I can't drop a game and they just lose to so much of our deck, othertimes I just either lose to the combo or the tempo plan, I don't really know what to think about it.
Yeah, small zoo is quite a bad matchup, it can be terrible to unwinnable for my version of the deck. The smallpox versions fare better but not by a lot. Our discard sucks and they can often play threats more quickly then we can set up chump blockers. The only games I've won have involved an active seismic assault. If small zoo is a big part of your meta don't be afraid to sideboard up to 4 anger of the gods.
Big Zoo is much better matchup, they are usually slow enough that we have plenty of time to get an assault/lily/pyromancer online and they don't often get us down far enough that they can burn us out.
Here's how I would side:
+1 Thragtusk
+2 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Anger of the Gods
+2 Maelstrom pulse
- 4 Bloodghast
- 2 Raven's Crime
- 1 Horizion Canopy
My sideboard really doesn't have much to bring in for the small zoo matchup, it's not too common of a deck especially in my local paper meta.
Be wary of casting Raven's into Obstinate Baloth (and Smiter in W builds).
Thragtusk looks like a really solid option.
I've still to test Tymaret, though it looks REALLY sick with Lingering Souls.