I have been dabbling with Returned Phalanx as a SB card against Barley Boros and RDW. Haven't had a chance to try it out in a tournament setting yet, but in some casual games it seems to stem the tide long enough to stabilize. Clogging up the ground for a couple turns while you find that Pharika's Cure or Whip of Erebos that you need to stabilize.
Sure both decks have answers but it is counter to their path to victory. RDW needs to burn a lightning strike (which protects your Nightveils) or get 2-1'ed with a creature and other burn spell. BB needs to go over it with Skyjek, use an early brave the elements, or waste an arrester.
What am I missing? This seems to be too simple of an answer to have been overlooked for so long.
Tried that, managed to go from 30% win rate to around 50% win rate. Lightning strikes and combat tricks remove them from combat pretty efficiently.
I went to the SCG open in Dallas and out of the 7 matches I played I played 4 matches against aggro. I won only one of those. I was destroyed in the others, especially when they got to start. I can't recall any significant misplays on my part. You either have to curve perfectly with removals and creatures or you die.
I should have played something else considering that I suspected that the meta was going to be mainly aggro, but now at least I have more experience with how fast the meta moves and I should be prepared for future events.
I've been running a MBD variant (pure black, no splashes) and i'm 17-1 at Cockatrice against at least 15 competitive decks. Lost to a Boros Weenies decks pretty much for my mistake on trying to outrace him with my own Pack Rats
MBD is far from dead, he's still a decent deck with actually NO bad matchup when well built. The main problem on MBD is how to sideboard, you either have to prepare it for aggro or prepare it to have a better MU vs. control and mirror.
The only cards that really breaks the deck by half ATM are Assemble the Legion and Blood Baron of Vizkopa (the latter being kinda easy to answer on my list and i'm considering putting Illness of the Ranks on SB for assemble). Other than that, this deck has a pretty fair MU against most decks and only does badly against pretty fast weenie decks (RB Aggro is the best example of it, even though i've won 2 of them by 2-0 and 2-1), if you can prepare your deck to deal with these decks without losing an overall good MU against other decks, you're in a good shape running MBD in the format.
Mono black has a LOT of bad matchups in the meta right now, and it is growing worse since even decks which it is usually really good against are sideboarding mainly against it. Either a new incarnation has to emerge, or it needs to sleep for 1-2 more weeks until all the black hate dies and midrange sweeps away the aggro storm.
Esper is a favorite here, I assure you that. The match hinges on the Esper player knowing what tools are for what job. Nuking Detention Sphere is a rather big play that Mono Black cannot make should it need to, and keeping a Packrat alive from a Wrath on the back of a Golgari Charm can be devastating. Mono Black does not have enough gas to otherwise push through well times wraths and ingeniously placed spheres, which can make Esper a problematic match.
I would question the skill level of your opponents at this point.
Those situations where Abrupt Decay and Golgari Charm shine against esper, still feel pretty few and far between to me.
Also, mtgtop8 also uses MODO information, which skews those numbers for paper representation. Just glancing at it, you are not going to get accurate readouts for paper mtg when you are looking to prepare for an event. At least not without putting effort into breaking the data down.
Your opinion sounds far too biased to be factual. I too have relatively few problems with esper, does that mean that i faced inferior opponents?
hardly.
I can appreciate defending a deck you like, but to do so in the glaring light of fact, biased opinion does little more than lend the appearance of churlishness.
Mono black has a LOT of bad matchups in the meta right now, and it is growing worse since even decks which it is usually really good against are sideboarding mainly against it. Either a new incarnation has to emerge, or it needs to sleep for 1-2 more weeks until all the black hate dies and midrange sweeps away the aggro storm.
Yeah, i may be either getting pretty lucky, playing against bad players or i have made a new incarnation for MBD myself. Yeah, i don't run the usual list that everyone plays, although i do run the classic shell and base of this deck, i've changed a coulpe things on the deck that makes it run pretty different from what it's supposed to run on the classic lists when needed, it gave my deck a lot of versatility, something that classic MBD lacks.
Your opinion sounds far too biased to be factual. I too have relatively few problems with esper, does that mean that i faced inferior opponents?
hardly.
I can appreciate defending a deck you like, but to do so in the glaring light of fact, biased opinion does little more than lend the appearance of churlishness.
I think Brad Nelson talked about this in a video about Esper vs Mono-black actually.
Esper players think they will win against Mono-black while Mono-black players think they win against Esper. So the matchup is really close to 50/50 I would say and player skill decides who is victorious.
I think Brad Nelson talked about this in a video about Esper vs Mono-black actually.
Esper players think they will win against Mono-black while Mono-black players think they win against Esper. So the matchup is really close to 50/50 I would say and player skill decides who is victorious.
Its basically does mbc land an unanswered underworld connections, erebos, or even nightveil? If it does it will probably win the matchup fairly easily, its also unlikely to comeback from an unanswered whip.
Meanwhile MBC can't let esper durdle until they land an aetherling with a million mana up and having no threat of getting merchant out.
I'm over-simplifying the matchup but that is what it basically is. Since esper really only has detention sphere as an effective answer and mbc gains more from the sb and has the ability to grind out or beat down vs esper I think the matchup is slated to mbc.
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Tried that, managed to go from 30% win rate to around 50% win rate. Lightning strikes and combat tricks remove them from combat pretty efficiently.
I went to the SCG open in Dallas and out of the 7 matches I played I played 4 matches against aggro. I won only one of those. I was destroyed in the others, especially when they got to start. I can't recall any significant misplays on my part. You either have to curve perfectly with removals and creatures or you die.
I should have played something else considering that I suspected that the meta was going to be mainly aggro, but now at least I have more experience with how fast the meta moves and I should be prepared for future events.
Maybe you're just getting lucky, but that's not what my playtesting or the other 20 people I've talked to revealed or the results for the past 2 weeks on mtgtop8 or the numerous articles around say (watch this video for example http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27304_Brad-vs-Todd-BR-Aggro-vs-Mono-Black-Devotion.html).
Mono black has a LOT of bad matchups in the meta right now, and it is growing worse since even decks which it is usually really good against are sideboarding mainly against it. Either a new incarnation has to emerge, or it needs to sleep for 1-2 more weeks until all the black hate dies and midrange sweeps away the aggro storm.
Your opinion sounds far too biased to be factual. I too have relatively few problems with esper, does that mean that i faced inferior opponents?
hardly.
I can appreciate defending a deck you like, but to do so in the glaring light of fact, biased opinion does little more than lend the appearance of churlishness.
Yeah, i may be either getting pretty lucky, playing against bad players or i have made a new incarnation for MBD myself. Yeah, i don't run the usual list that everyone plays, although i do run the classic shell and base of this deck, i've changed a coulpe things on the deck that makes it run pretty different from what it's supposed to run on the classic lists when needed, it gave my deck a lot of versatility, something that classic MBD lacks.
On DeTora's extra land drop on PT:GTC
I think Brad Nelson talked about this in a video about Esper vs Mono-black actually.
Esper players think they will win against Mono-black while Mono-black players think they win against Esper. So the matchup is really close to 50/50 I would say and player skill decides who is victorious.
Its basically does mbc land an unanswered underworld connections, erebos, or even nightveil? If it does it will probably win the matchup fairly easily, its also unlikely to comeback from an unanswered whip.
Meanwhile MBC can't let esper durdle until they land an aetherling with a million mana up and having no threat of getting merchant out.
I'm over-simplifying the matchup but that is what it basically is. Since esper really only has detention sphere as an effective answer and mbc gains more from the sb and has the ability to grind out or beat down vs esper I think the matchup is slated to mbc.