Alpine Moon is probably gonna be another contender for that slot I'm guessing. It can also push Mardu Pyro from the meta making Jund the go-to deck for midrange enthusiasts since it shores up a lot of Jund's weaknesses against Tron and Valakut. Jund also already has a better Tron MU and a faster clock compared to Mardu Pyro.
Junds problems aren't Big Mana decks at the moment, so no worries about that.
What do you think about Goblin Rabblemaster in the side? I've played with it a few times, and I can't make up my mind. The matchups I am bringing it in (clock for combo decks and Tron), I feel like Young Pyromancer can do a similar job, or Hazoret could be better.
Has anyone else had experience playing with Rabblemaster?
I used to play it and it was quite good at pressuring opponent but you need to pair it with Blood Moon. Blood Moon slows them just enough that Rabblemaster can do its job, without BM it's still too slow. Young Pyromancer is slower, Hazoret is an option too but I prefer Rabblemaster against these decks because it's faster.
You can also play both when playing against these decks which is what I would do given the fact that you probably have enough cards to board out to make place for both of them.
Generally speaking I was quite happy with him but as I said it will still need a help in order to beat big mana decks.
Awesome, thanks for the insight. I'm still fairly new to the deck, so I am just trying to get a few tips on the sideboard. I used to play Jund, but I've been liking Pyromancer a lot more.
Hi guys! I'm running this deck for the first time in a Qualifiers's tournament this weekend, I should be playing a fairly standard build.
Some of the decks that I'm expecting to run into a lot are:
Humans
Jeskai Control
Lots of Hollow Ones.
Some combos / Tron.
Any tips regarding side-deck with this decks ?
And general strats.
Hi guys! I'm running this deck for the first time in a Qualifiers's tournament this weekend, I should be playing a fairly standard build.
Some of the decks that I'm expecting to run into a lot are:
Humans
Jeskai Control
Lots of Hollow Ones.
Some combos / Tron.
Any tips regarding side-deck with this decks ?
And general strats.
Humans: This matchup is hard but winnable. Blood moon if it lands can be a back-breaker, but you also need to deny them access to aether vial and noble hierarch for that to truly lock them out. Boarding should include your sweeper of choice (Engineered explosives is the pro choice, if that's too expensive you can try anger of the gods) but be VERY careful about trying to blow the board if they have a vial on 2. Any extra spot removal can't hurt either
Jeskai Control: This matchup is slightly in our favor, their countermagic doesn't affect us that much so long as we can safely land a dude. Lingering souls is a card you want to hardcast as often as you can, wait for a sweeper/detention sphere before playing another. Blood moon can be really good here as well (make sure they're playing jeskai and not UW, as the latter is much more resilient against Moon). Any discard effects in your board should come in, if you have LD and can find room it's not bad.
Hollow One: This matchup isn't terrible, but expect to lose a lot of game 1s. Our spot removal isn't great since their dudes are so often recurred, but if we can amass enough fliers while clogging up the ground it's doable. Game 2 you want to bring in all your graveyard hate. Surgical extraction if you run it can be a backbreaker on the right card, more removal doesn't hurt since it will slow them down (and give you chances to hit things with SE)
Tron: We're screwed. There's very little we can do when they're dropping karns and world breakers on turn 3. Blood moon can snipe if we're on the play or they somehow whiff on a third piece to buy a little time (not anywhere as much as you think, though. The deck doesn't DIE to blood moon, it just slows down a couple turns.) post-board you can try to molten rain/surgical lock them off it, but again they can just get to 6 lands and start rawdogging wurmcoils and the like.
Combo: By this I assume you mean storm, we're decent against them. Blood moon surprisingly is okay against the deck since they've gone away from fetches, and constantly discarding and killing medallion bears as soon as you get priority to makes it harder to get to critical mass. Post board you have both surgical extraction to nail their storm spell, Kambal to punish their mass of non-creature spells. If you play anger it can answer their goblins from empty the warrens too.
Sideboarding is an art I could devote an entire thesis to, the basics are that there will be some mainboard cards in every matchup that are dead, those are the first ones you cut (usually some combination of blood moon, fatal push/terminate, and collective brutality if 2 of the modes miss.)
General tips from the past few pages:
-Early game, play discard spells before looting (to see what you need and what you don't)
-Don't discard lands to faithless looting unless you have or can get to 3 lands. We only play 20, there's a difference between saving cards for later and getting too greedy.
-Don't be afraid to discard other lootings or bedlam revelers to looting/LotV's +1. We can flashback FLoot as needed, and reveler can be recurred with kolaghan's command.
-Kolaghan's Command can be used as a [url=http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Drop_Off]Drop Off[/card] in our opponent's draw step if you're worried about them topdecking answers. It doesn't always catch them, but it feels amazing when you do.
-If you haven't played with the deck much, it's going to feel VERY clunky. This is not a deck you can pick up and play without a lot of thinking.
Good luck out there!
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Top 16 - 2012 Indiana State Championships Currently Playing: GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
First night back at fnm in a while. Went 2-2 (landbase still missing a few Blackcleaves and a few Marsh Flats, but otherwise complete)
First round
0-2 to a Green Devotion(ish) deck, really just a green value deck. First game I had him on the back foot with some tokens and early removal but he was able to flash in some Wolfir Avengers for the next turn kills. Game two I fizzled on two lands early after casting a few discard spells. Felt bad man... Second Round
2-1 Jeskai Control. First game went well with pretty fun interaction on both sides. Second Game I mulled to 5 before finding a single land, and then no more... Third game I got a Kambal on board two or three times (getting him back twice I think with K-command). Grinded it out with him and some tokens. Good games, luckily against a really good friend who caught my miscalculation in life totals and let me know I had lethal before I thought I would. Third Round
2-0 Red Green "haste". Just a fast "haste" keyword deck. First game I shot down some dudes and clocked him with tokens. Second Game probably had the best Thoughtseize of the night, going down to 1 life to get the bolt in his hand and praying he didnt top deck another. Fourth Round
0-2 Burn. Still my hardest match up so far. Both games pretty close I'd say, but Eidolon locked me out of game one. Game two I sided in 2x Collective Brutality for a full playset and 2x Kambals. Never saw them, repeat of game one basically. Ah well...
Just got home from the Last Chance invitational I mentioned, and I'm very happy to say that I won it even if running this deck for the first time!
It was a 14 players tournament, meaning there were 4 matches, plus a top 8 elimination.
My matches were as follow:
1- Vs. Death and Taxes (2-0)
2- Vs. Humans (2-0)
3- Vs. KCI (0-2)
4- Vs. Traverse Shadow (2-0)
Top 8: Vs. Hollow One (2-1)
Top 4: Vs. Jeskai Control (2-0)
Finals: KCI (2-1)
I absolutelly loved the deck. Being a Jund player originally, the deck felt delightfully consistent and powerful. The only matchup where I felt the odds were heavilly against me were vs. KCI because of the slow clock of the deck, but even then I managed to grind out the victory at the finals making it a 7-1 run!
If people wish, I can give a more proper review of each match, what I boarded in/out and how it played out/felt like.
This deck felt particullarly unstoppable when facing Traverse and Jeskai, as exepected, Lingering souls is a beast and "RR Draw 3 cards, 3/4" is as broken as it sounds. Felt weak against KCI and I lost game 1 without a chance, it was side-deck with a bit of luck that got me out of there. And it felt favorable vs. Humans and Hollow One even if not that easy. Just the ability of the deck to dig deep for silver bullets/more interaction while generating mass chump blblockers made me feel very safe all the time.
Just got home from the Last Chance invitational I mentioned, and I'm very happy to say that I won it even if running this deck for the first time!
It was a 14 players tournament, meaning there were 4 matches, plus a top 8 elimination.
My matches were as follow:
1- Vs. Death and Taxes (2-0)
2- Vs. Humans (2-0)
3- Vs. KCI (0-2)
4- Vs. Traverse Shadow (2-0)
Top 8: Vs. Hollow One (2-1)
Top 4: Vs. Jeskai Control (2-0)
Finals: KCI (2-1)
I absolutelly loved the deck. Being a Jund player originally, the deck felt delightfully consistent and powerful. The only matchup where I felt the odds were heavilly against me were vs. KCI because of the slow clock of the deck, but even then I managed to grind out the victory at the finals making it a 7-1 run!
If people wish, I can give a more proper review of each match, what I boarded in/out and how it played out/felt like.
This deck felt particullarly unstoppable when facing Traverse and Jeskai, as exepected, Lingering souls is a beast and "RR Draw 3 cards, 3/4" is as broken as it sounds. Felt weak against KCI and I lost game 1 without a chance, it was side-deck with a bit of luck that got me out of there. And it felt favorable vs. Humans and Hollow One even if not that easy. Just the ability of the deck to dig deep for silver bullets/more interaction while generating mass chump blblockers made me feel very safe all the time.
The deck is incredibly consistant, its really strong atm.
What was your SB plan against KCI? I think the matchup should not be that difficult actually, between discard, removal, GY hate and Kambal the matchup feels okay to me.
I played a 8-man tournament at my LGS, unfortunately it didn't go that well.
Hollow One 2-0
First match - Blood Moon locked him out of black, and his hand was full of delve creatures.
Second match - Leyline of the Void on my opening hand. LtlH was MVP, allowing me to kill an Hollow One and a Gurmag Angler (after leyline was destroyed). Her ultimate came a bit after.
Not sure exactly how is this matchup for us, but it felt very good.
G Tron 0-2
First match - Blood Moon on turn 3 wasn't enough. My opponent just smiled, played an O-Stone on next turn and on turn 5 blew everything and played the big threats next.
Second match- I had a starting hand of 3 lands + LotV + bolt + terminate + souls. I decided to mulligan (maybe i was wrong) since i didn't had any hate cards. The 6 card hand had 2 hate pieces, but only 1 land. I kept it, although i was on the play, i had looting in hand. No lands were found, and I conceded on turn 6 without seeing any land (my opponent didn't have any pressure, but at least had 5 lands in play).
Tron just seems impossible to win (for our deck) without luck...
UR Wizards Prowess 1-2
First match - I won the match with 2 life, even though he had 2 Thunderous Wrath in a row. Collective Brutality helped a lot.
Second match - Mulligan to 5, kept an hand with only 1 hand... Haven't found any more lands.
Third match - Kept an hand with looting, pyro, 2 iok, 1 fatal push, LtlH and 1 land. Again, no more lands were found...
I feel i should have won this game, unfortunately I got screwed 2 times in a row.
I lost 4 matches, 3 of them was because i got mana screwed. Not sure if I was unlucky or the 20 lands count is not enough (maybe I took some unnecessary risks). Would it help adding a Ghost Quarter? Anyone else had the same problem?
I also changed my sideboard, to have Surgical Extraction instead of Leyline to give more options against Tron. Right now, it looks something like this.
I wouldn't play surgical only. I think its very weak alone. You basically have no GY hate in that SB. At least play some Spellbombs in addition to 1-2 surgicals.
For those of you playing 2-3 Molten Rain, what decks are you bringing those in for besides Tron/Valakut? I struggle to dedicate that many slots for big mana decks when my win% with those is still low and they seem narrow. Maybe I'm missing other matchups in which Stone Rain is a good card?
I am not sure if Molten Rain is all that powerful against control. It can be a dead card at the wrong time. But I am not sure, I can see it being good as well.
I bring it in against control. Especially against Jeskai it seems good along with Blood Moon-play Blood Moon and use Molten Rain to kill their basics.
This is one of my favorite ways to fight against Jeskai. They have a really hard time answering our board and protecting their lands while preventing a Blood Moon from resolving. We pull them in so many directions that are all very hard to answer cleanly. I think that Molten Rain in this deck is a lot like Fulminator Mage in Jund, where people think it's only for matchups where land destruction matters as your Plan A.
I am not sure if Molten Rain is all that powerful against control. It can be a dead card at the wrong time. But I am not sure, I can see it being good as well.
I feel like it is, at least, decent and worth it. I had 2x of them in the invitationals I went 7-1 at and they felt good enough against Jeskai control (where I boarded them in.) Azcanta is their most important card in our matchup as its the thing that allows them to keep up and maybe surpass us in card advantage/selection. To top it off, it goes extremly well alongside bloodmoon and might get rid of Colonnades.
If we draw it at the wrong time, in a match up as lasting and grindy as that, its very likelly that we'll also have the chance to dump it to the graveyard with Revelers, Brutalities or Faithless Lootings, so I think we can allow ourselves to play a card that may not always be great, but might be. It defnetly felt more worth it than a Bolt or Fatal push.
Of course, we can make a very strong case for Fulminator Mages instead, since, like we do it in Jund, they double off as a threat when they're not needed and are a guaranteed 2 for 1 most of the time, making them so much better than Molten Rain if not for the fact they dont favor Revelers and young Pyros for not being a sorcery.. nonetheless, we're a deck that often runs 3x Kolaghan's Command, and recurring a Fulminator mage can be devastating, and we can discard it to the graveyard with looting and get it back with Ko-Command when Azcanta becomes an issue. I'm still unsure between it or molten rain tbh.
The deck is incredibly consistant, its really strong atm.
What was your SB plan against KCI? I think the matchup should not be that difficult actually, between discard, removal, GY hate and Kambal the matchup feels okay to me.
That was a lot of sideboard, but the matchup felt difficult nonetheless.
I was playing the best player by far we have at the shop, and he has been getting 5-0's with KCI almost every week for the past couple of months, he knows every little bit and corner of the deck.
To top it off, his entire sideboard was pretty much built to counter Kambals and Stony silences, every single time I dropped either of those he either had a bolt or a nature's claim to counter it, if not Engineered explosives ready.
One of the matches I won was thanks to Rabblemaster giving my deck a proper clock.
I did feel like the match was unfavored, and he told me that he was 5-0 in that matchup (he ended up 6-1 after yesterday, since he beat me once and then lost to me in the finals.)
My issues in the match were:
-> For each sideboard silverbullet I put in, he put a counter to it, and his deck draws more or even cards as ours... Meaning that the likeablity for him to always have an answer to my silverbullets was strong. If you look at more recent KCI sideboards, they've been bringing 3 or 4x bolts on the sideboard. That + Engineered explosives makes Cambal a lot weaker.
-> Discard while good, would only buy me time in a deck that the clock is very slow pre-sideboard (And can continue to be even post-board sometimes.)
I think it might have been easier if I'd find a Nihill spellbomb or Rakdos charm, as I feel like GY hate is maybe the best way to beat KCI. But, for my lack of luck, I didnt see neither in any of the matches we had. Happilly, I still beat it in the finals, but I didnt feel favored at all. Match 1 was hopeless for me, Match 2 I got lucky and had a rabblemaster + bolts early. Match 3 I found A LOT of my sideboard cards, which forced him to kill them off instead of combo, buying me enough time to kill him with tokens and eventually a reveler.
Of course!!! Sadly, I'm a bit of a noob at these forums, I dont know for sure how to make a decklist. On a reply.
I'll write it down, hope it doesnt look too awful:
Creatures: (9)
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Bedlam Reveler
1x Hazoret, the fervent
Regular landbase, with 1x Sacred foundry +1 plains as white sources, and 7 fetch lands (4x bloodstained + 3x marsh flats.)
Sideboard:
2x Molten Rain
2x Stony Silence
2x Kambal
2x Goblin Rabblemaster
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Engineered explosve
1x Anger of the gods
1x Wear/Tear
1x Nihill Spellbomb
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Liliana, the last Hope.
The decklist is pretty standard, the only weird thing I added was the mainboard Hazoret. My reasoning behind it was that I didnt have any LotV's to play, and I felt like I could go well with 29 spells instead of 30, having Hazoret as either a better clock vs. Tron/Combo decks (which I expected to run into) aswell as a bomb in grindy matchups (I also knew there was a ton of DeahShadows, Junds, and Jeskais there.) felt like a good idea, so I went for it.
It did pay off, by the way. It absolutelly crushed the first game I had in my match vs. Death Shadow, and it was a powerful card to find everytime I found her. The only time she showed up too early I managed to turn her into a more useful card thanks to our lord and master Faithless Looting.
The cards in the deck that I felt less excited about than I was expecting was BloodMoon and Colective Brutality. I didnt really find much use for my brutality modes in most of my matchups, and none of my wins were thanks to Blood Moon. But I understand that all of this might have been bad coincidence.
The cards that were just as good as I thought they'd be were Lingering Souls (Wrecked every fair match. Made me last ages vs. Humans/Hollow one until I had answers and card advantage. And was absolutelly broken vs. D&T, Death Shadow and specially Jeskai.
Bedlam Reveler was brutal, and the deck's ability to turn bad draws into good ones with looting just made me feel great. Seeing 3 cards each turn and picking one of them in a grindy matchup is too powerful.
Something that I was warned about and worked beautifully was the 2x Rabblemasters + Hazoret in matches 2 and 3 vs. Certain decks. I saw at least 2 RIP's and other kinds of gravehate against me, and making my deck less reliant on the grave post-sideboard was defnetly important for me to win.
I wouldn't play surgical only. I think its very weak alone. You basically have no GY hate in that SB. At least play some Spellbombs in addition to 1-2 surgicals.
(I don't have many experience with the deck, 3/4 weeks).
But in which matches do we want GY hate that it can't be achieved with surgical as well? I thought about it, but couldn't find an answer. Yes, it doesn't stop the delve creatures (a mirror bedlam can almost be considered a delve creature), but for the rest, surgical can take care of almost anything.
The top decks right now, accordingly to mtggoldfish: Tron and humans we wouldn't bring a spellbomb (yet, against Tron we could try to surgical one of their lands). Jeskai Control, Mardu Pyro and UW Control, a spellbomb would stop/delay an Azcanta/Bedlam, but surgical could stop the rest (snapcaster, flashback souls/looting). For BR Hollow One, KCI and Grixis Shadow, surgical can stop their recurrent threats while spellbomb delays Delve creatures. Against Dredge and Storm is where spellbomb would shine more than surgical, yet, a well timed extraction can foil our opponent's plans.
Not sure if this is correct, maybe there is something missing here, a piece of the puzzle that i'm not seeing. If so, please enlight me (for real! i didn't understood why molten rain instead of fulminator until a few weeks ago, so maybe there is something missing in my analysis)
You have to threat surgical as a combo hate, not a GY hate. Surgical is not impactful enough as a functional GY hate. Yeah you can metagame with it, and you can bring it in in the mirror (which is actually something that is usually not correct, because surgical is incredibly bad in grindy matchups, but Mardu utilizies the GY so much that extracting a revler is valuable enough).
Surgical is a card I would bring in against Tron (its best use imo) against Storm (only because I have nothing better to bring or in addition to better GY hate like Spellbomb) and of course against KCI and Hollow One. But I think against Storm, Hollow One, KCI and Mardu, Spellbomb is just better. In addition, you can bring in Spellbomb against control whereas I would not bring in Surgical against control.
Junds problems aren't Big Mana decks at the moment, so no worries about that.
Has anyone else had experience playing with Rabblemaster?
Awesome, thanks for the insight. I'm still fairly new to the deck, so I am just trying to get a few tips on the sideboard. I used to play Jund, but I've been liking Pyromancer a lot more.
I am everywhere where a good midrange deck thrives
Some of the decks that I'm expecting to run into a lot are:
Humans
Jeskai Control
Lots of Hollow Ones.
Some combos / Tron.
Any tips regarding side-deck with this decks ?
And general strats.
Humans: This matchup is hard but winnable. Blood moon if it lands can be a back-breaker, but you also need to deny them access to aether vial and noble hierarch for that to truly lock them out. Boarding should include your sweeper of choice (Engineered explosives is the pro choice, if that's too expensive you can try anger of the gods) but be VERY careful about trying to blow the board if they have a vial on 2. Any extra spot removal can't hurt either
Jeskai Control: This matchup is slightly in our favor, their countermagic doesn't affect us that much so long as we can safely land a dude. Lingering souls is a card you want to hardcast as often as you can, wait for a sweeper/detention sphere before playing another. Blood moon can be really good here as well (make sure they're playing jeskai and not UW, as the latter is much more resilient against Moon). Any discard effects in your board should come in, if you have LD and can find room it's not bad.
Hollow One: This matchup isn't terrible, but expect to lose a lot of game 1s. Our spot removal isn't great since their dudes are so often recurred, but if we can amass enough fliers while clogging up the ground it's doable. Game 2 you want to bring in all your graveyard hate. Surgical extraction if you run it can be a backbreaker on the right card, more removal doesn't hurt since it will slow them down (and give you chances to hit things with SE)
Tron: We're screwed. There's very little we can do when they're dropping karns and world breakers on turn 3. Blood moon can snipe if we're on the play or they somehow whiff on a third piece to buy a little time (not anywhere as much as you think, though. The deck doesn't DIE to blood moon, it just slows down a couple turns.) post-board you can try to molten rain/surgical lock them off it, but again they can just get to 6 lands and start rawdogging wurmcoils and the like.
Combo: By this I assume you mean storm, we're decent against them. Blood moon surprisingly is okay against the deck since they've gone away from fetches, and constantly discarding and killing medallion bears as soon as you get priority to makes it harder to get to critical mass. Post board you have both surgical extraction to nail their storm spell, Kambal to punish their mass of non-creature spells. If you play anger it can answer their goblins from empty the warrens too.
Sideboarding is an art I could devote an entire thesis to, the basics are that there will be some mainboard cards in every matchup that are dead, those are the first ones you cut (usually some combination of blood moon, fatal push/terminate, and collective brutality if 2 of the modes miss.)
General tips from the past few pages:
-Early game, play discard spells before looting (to see what you need and what you don't)
-Don't discard lands to faithless looting unless you have or can get to 3 lands. We only play 20, there's a difference between saving cards for later and getting too greedy.
-Don't be afraid to discard other lootings or bedlam revelers to looting/LotV's +1. We can flashback FLoot as needed, and reveler can be recurred with kolaghan's command.
-Kolaghan's Command can be used as a [url=http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Drop_Off]Drop Off[/card] in our opponent's draw step if you're worried about them topdecking answers. It doesn't always catch them, but it feels amazing when you do.
-If you haven't played with the deck much, it's going to feel VERY clunky. This is not a deck you can pick up and play without a lot of thinking.
Good luck out there!
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
Clan Contest 3 Mafia - Mafia Co-MVP
First round
0-2 to a Green Devotion(ish) deck, really just a green value deck. First game I had him on the back foot with some tokens and early removal but he was able to flash in some Wolfir Avengers for the next turn kills. Game two I fizzled on two lands early after casting a few discard spells. Felt bad man...
Second Round
2-1 Jeskai Control. First game went well with pretty fun interaction on both sides. Second Game I mulled to 5 before finding a single land, and then no more... Third game I got a Kambal on board two or three times (getting him back twice I think with K-command). Grinded it out with him and some tokens. Good games, luckily against a really good friend who caught my miscalculation in life totals and let me know I had lethal before I thought I would.
Third Round
2-0 Red Green "haste". Just a fast "haste" keyword deck. First game I shot down some dudes and clocked him with tokens. Second Game probably had the best Thoughtseize of the night, going down to 1 life to get the bolt in his hand and praying he didnt top deck another.
Fourth Round
0-2 Burn. Still my hardest match up so far. Both games pretty close I'd say, but Eidolon locked me out of game one. Game two I sided in 2x Collective Brutality for a full playset and 2x Kambals. Never saw them, repeat of game one basically. Ah well...
It was a 14 players tournament, meaning there were 4 matches, plus a top 8 elimination.
My matches were as follow:
1- Vs. Death and Taxes (2-0)
2- Vs. Humans (2-0)
3- Vs. KCI (0-2)
4- Vs. Traverse Shadow (2-0)
Top 8: Vs. Hollow One (2-1)
Top 4: Vs. Jeskai Control (2-0)
Finals: KCI (2-1)
I absolutelly loved the deck. Being a Jund player originally, the deck felt delightfully consistent and powerful. The only matchup where I felt the odds were heavilly against me were vs. KCI because of the slow clock of the deck, but even then I managed to grind out the victory at the finals making it a 7-1 run!
If people wish, I can give a more proper review of each match, what I boarded in/out and how it played out/felt like.
This deck felt particullarly unstoppable when facing Traverse and Jeskai, as exepected, Lingering souls is a beast and "RR Draw 3 cards, 3/4" is as broken as it sounds. Felt weak against KCI and I lost game 1 without a chance, it was side-deck with a bit of luck that got me out of there. And it felt favorable vs. Humans and Hollow One even if not that easy. Just the ability of the deck to dig deep for silver bullets/more interaction while generating mass chump blblockers made me feel very safe all the time.
The deck is incredibly consistant, its really strong atm.
What was your SB plan against KCI? I think the matchup should not be that difficult actually, between discard, removal, GY hate and Kambal the matchup feels okay to me.
I played a 8-man tournament at my LGS, unfortunately it didn't go that well.
Hollow One 2-0
First match - Blood Moon locked him out of black, and his hand was full of delve creatures.
Second match - Leyline of the Void on my opening hand. LtlH was MVP, allowing me to kill an Hollow One and a Gurmag Angler (after leyline was destroyed). Her ultimate came a bit after.
Not sure exactly how is this matchup for us, but it felt very good.
G Tron 0-2
First match - Blood Moon on turn 3 wasn't enough. My opponent just smiled, played an O-Stone on next turn and on turn 5 blew everything and played the big threats next.
Second match- I had a starting hand of 3 lands + LotV + bolt + terminate + souls. I decided to mulligan (maybe i was wrong) since i didn't had any hate cards. The 6 card hand had 2 hate pieces, but only 1 land. I kept it, although i was on the play, i had looting in hand. No lands were found, and I conceded on turn 6 without seeing any land (my opponent didn't have any pressure, but at least had 5 lands in play).
Tron just seems impossible to win (for our deck) without luck...
UR Wizards Prowess 1-2
First match - I won the match with 2 life, even though he had 2 Thunderous Wrath in a row. Collective Brutality helped a lot.
Second match - Mulligan to 5, kept an hand with only 1 hand... Haven't found any more lands.
Third match - Kept an hand with looting, pyro, 2 iok, 1 fatal push, LtlH and 1 land. Again, no more lands were found...
I feel i should have won this game, unfortunately I got screwed 2 times in a row.
I lost 4 matches, 3 of them was because i got mana screwed. Not sure if I was unlucky or the 20 lands count is not enough (maybe I took some unnecessary risks). Would it help adding a Ghost Quarter? Anyone else had the same problem?
I also changed my sideboard, to have Surgical Extraction instead of Leyline to give more options against Tron. Right now, it looks something like this.
Not sure if it's the right move. Against Hollow One, Leyline was really good.
Best regards.
UR TwinLegacy
UWR MiraclesThis is one of my favorite ways to fight against Jeskai. They have a really hard time answering our board and protecting their lands while preventing a Blood Moon from resolving. We pull them in so many directions that are all very hard to answer cleanly. I think that Molten Rain in this deck is a lot like Fulminator Mage in Jund, where people think it's only for matchups where land destruction matters as your Plan A.
I feel like it is, at least, decent and worth it. I had 2x of them in the invitationals I went 7-1 at and they felt good enough against Jeskai control (where I boarded them in.) Azcanta is their most important card in our matchup as its the thing that allows them to keep up and maybe surpass us in card advantage/selection. To top it off, it goes extremly well alongside bloodmoon and might get rid of Colonnades.
If we draw it at the wrong time, in a match up as lasting and grindy as that, its very likelly that we'll also have the chance to dump it to the graveyard with Revelers, Brutalities or Faithless Lootings, so I think we can allow ourselves to play a card that may not always be great, but might be. It defnetly felt more worth it than a Bolt or Fatal push.
Of course, we can make a very strong case for Fulminator Mages instead, since, like we do it in Jund, they double off as a threat when they're not needed and are a guaranteed 2 for 1 most of the time, making them so much better than Molten Rain if not for the fact they dont favor Revelers and young Pyros for not being a sorcery.. nonetheless, we're a deck that often runs 3x Kolaghan's Command, and recurring a Fulminator mage can be devastating, and we can discard it to the graveyard with looting and get it back with Ko-Command when Azcanta becomes an issue. I'm still unsure between it or molten rain tbh.
I boarded in:
2x Stony Silence
2x Kambals
1x Wear/Tear
2x Goblin Rabblemaster
1x Nihill Spellbomb
1x Rakdos charm
That was a lot of sideboard, but the matchup felt difficult nonetheless.
I was playing the best player by far we have at the shop, and he has been getting 5-0's with KCI almost every week for the past couple of months, he knows every little bit and corner of the deck.
To top it off, his entire sideboard was pretty much built to counter Kambals and Stony silences, every single time I dropped either of those he either had a bolt or a nature's claim to counter it, if not Engineered explosives ready.
One of the matches I won was thanks to Rabblemaster giving my deck a proper clock.
I did feel like the match was unfavored, and he told me that he was 5-0 in that matchup (he ended up 6-1 after yesterday, since he beat me once and then lost to me in the finals.)
My issues in the match were:
-> For each sideboard silverbullet I put in, he put a counter to it, and his deck draws more or even cards as ours... Meaning that the likeablity for him to always have an answer to my silverbullets was strong. If you look at more recent KCI sideboards, they've been bringing 3 or 4x bolts on the sideboard. That + Engineered explosives makes Cambal a lot weaker.
-> Discard while good, would only buy me time in a deck that the clock is very slow pre-sideboard (And can continue to be even post-board sometimes.)
I think it might have been easier if I'd find a Nihill spellbomb or Rakdos charm, as I feel like GY hate is maybe the best way to beat KCI. But, for my lack of luck, I didnt see neither in any of the matches we had. Happilly, I still beat it in the finals, but I didnt feel favored at all. Match 1 was hopeless for me, Match 2 I got lucky and had a rabblemaster + bolts early. Match 3 I found A LOT of my sideboard cards, which forced him to kill them off instead of combo, buying me enough time to kill him with tokens and eventually a reveler.
Oh. And Ghirapur completelly wrecked my tokens.
Of course!!! Sadly, I'm a bit of a noob at these forums, I dont know for sure how to make a decklist. On a reply.
I'll write it down, hope it doesnt look too awful:
Creatures: (9)
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Bedlam Reveler
1x Hazoret, the fervent
Spells: (29)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lingering Souls
4x INquisition of Kozilek
3x Kolaghan's Command
3x Thoughtseize
2x Colective Brutality
2x Fatal Push
1x Terminate
1x Dreadbore
1x Manamorphose
Enchantments:
2x Blood moon
Regular landbase, with 1x Sacred foundry +1 plains as white sources, and 7 fetch lands (4x bloodstained + 3x marsh flats.)
Sideboard:
2x Molten Rain
2x Stony Silence
2x Kambal
2x Goblin Rabblemaster
1x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Engineered explosve
1x Anger of the gods
1x Wear/Tear
1x Nihill Spellbomb
1x Rakdos Charm
1x Liliana, the last Hope.
The decklist is pretty standard, the only weird thing I added was the mainboard Hazoret. My reasoning behind it was that I didnt have any LotV's to play, and I felt like I could go well with 29 spells instead of 30, having Hazoret as either a better clock vs. Tron/Combo decks (which I expected to run into) aswell as a bomb in grindy matchups (I also knew there was a ton of DeahShadows, Junds, and Jeskais there.) felt like a good idea, so I went for it.
It did pay off, by the way. It absolutelly crushed the first game I had in my match vs. Death Shadow, and it was a powerful card to find everytime I found her. The only time she showed up too early I managed to turn her into a more useful card thanks to our lord and master Faithless Looting.
The cards in the deck that I felt less excited about than I was expecting was BloodMoon and Colective Brutality. I didnt really find much use for my brutality modes in most of my matchups, and none of my wins were thanks to Blood Moon. But I understand that all of this might have been bad coincidence.
The cards that were just as good as I thought they'd be were Lingering Souls (Wrecked every fair match. Made me last ages vs. Humans/Hollow one until I had answers and card advantage. And was absolutelly broken vs. D&T, Death Shadow and specially Jeskai.
Bedlam Reveler was brutal, and the deck's ability to turn bad draws into good ones with looting just made me feel great. Seeing 3 cards each turn and picking one of them in a grindy matchup is too powerful.
Something that I was warned about and worked beautifully was the 2x Rabblemasters + Hazoret in matches 2 and 3 vs. Certain decks. I saw at least 2 RIP's and other kinds of gravehate against me, and making my deck less reliant on the grave post-sideboard was defnetly important for me to win.
(I don't have many experience with the deck, 3/4 weeks).
But in which matches do we want GY hate that it can't be achieved with surgical as well? I thought about it, but couldn't find an answer. Yes, it doesn't stop the delve creatures (a mirror bedlam can almost be considered a delve creature), but for the rest, surgical can take care of almost anything.
The top decks right now, accordingly to mtggoldfish: Tron and humans we wouldn't bring a spellbomb (yet, against Tron we could try to surgical one of their lands). Jeskai Control, Mardu Pyro and UW Control, a spellbomb would stop/delay an Azcanta/Bedlam, but surgical could stop the rest (snapcaster, flashback souls/looting). For BR Hollow One, KCI and Grixis Shadow, surgical can stop their recurrent threats while spellbomb delays Delve creatures. Against Dredge and Storm is where spellbomb would shine more than surgical, yet, a well timed extraction can foil our opponent's plans.
Not sure if this is correct, maybe there is something missing here, a piece of the puzzle that i'm not seeing. If so, please enlight me (for real! i didn't understood why molten rain instead of fulminator until a few weeks ago, so maybe there is something missing in my analysis)
UR TwinLegacy
UWR MiraclesSurgical is a card I would bring in against Tron (its best use imo) against Storm (only because I have nothing better to bring or in addition to better GY hate like Spellbomb) and of course against KCI and Hollow One. But I think against Storm, Hollow One, KCI and Mardu, Spellbomb is just better. In addition, you can bring in Spellbomb against control whereas I would not bring in Surgical against control.