Does anyone here have a deck with above 45% winrate against abzan? That matchup is so brutal it seems no matter what build I try out they have answers for everything. Tried to goblin build, that gets obliterated by drown in sorrow/bile blight/languish; and the burn builds get blanked by courser and siege rhino. God help you if the abzan player ever goes T2 bile/ultimate price, T3 courser/sorrow, T4 rhino/languish. Do the atarka builds fare any better or is abzan always just a 30/70 matchup for us?
Opponent is red/black he has 20 life and I'm at 5. I'm playing U/R skywise deck with mostly spells.
My opponent is on 5 mana and 1 card in hand (he was stuck on 4 mana for a few turns, so this is likely to be a spell). His board is gurmag angler, sabretooth outrider, summit prowler, and kolaghan aspirant.
The only instant speed removal he had shown in the previous 2 games were 2 twin bolts, and he used one of them already. He also hadn't shown any tricks up to this point and the only dash creature I saw was a kolaghan forerunners. He could still have more removal/tricks/dash however since g1 lasted 15 turns and g2 lasted 10 turns so I didn't get to see all of his deck.
It's my turn, and my board is 8 lands, skywise teachings, 1 djinn token, 1 gurmag drowner, 1 4/4 manifested land, 1 cloudform manifested monastery loremaster. I cast sight beyond sight this turn and my choices are monastery loremaster and a whisk away. I have 4 untapped mana left to use with a single land in hand. I already played a land this turn.
If I take the whisk away, there's 4 ways the next turn can play out. No matter what I will double block his angler with the 4/4 and 2/4, block the 2/1 with the 2/2, and block his 4/3 with my 2/2 facedown loremaster. If he has a trick I 2 for 1 him, if its a kill spell we trade 1 for 1, but either way I am forced to chump block his summit prowler with my face down cloudform loremaster which is a 0 for 1 and let his sabretooth hit me and go to 1 life. My chance of winning if he uses a trick are decent, if he has a removal spell then I have to topdeck a removal spell next turn or I lose. If he has no instant speed spells then I can whisk away his outrider and stay at 5 life while sacrificing my facedown loremaster to his prowler, or whisk away his prowler to save my loremaster and go down to 1 life. The spells I have in my graveyard are ojutai's summons, fierce invocation, sight beyond sight, and twin bolt. I have 20 cards left in my library and the only removal spells are roast and cunning strike.
If I take the loremaster and play it as a 3/2 I can theoretically trade 1 for 1 with all of his creatures assuming he has no trick or instant speed removal by not blocking his sabretooth and going down to 1. The only advantage do doing this would be that I could kill his prowler instead of just putting it back to the top of his library, which is more likely to be lands since he was mana screwed for awhile. This would buy me time to unmorph the loremaster next turn if my opponent just draws a brick. I think this is flawed reasoning but I wanted to throw it out there.
So the two questions are:
1) Do you take whisk away or loremaster?
2) Assuming my opponent has no instant speed spells, do you let the outrider hit you down to 1 or do you sacrifice your loremaster to save some life?
I could just be running bad, but I dropped over 100 points in the last week on MTGO and it seemed like half my losses were from keeping 5 landers and flooding out or keeping 2 landers and not getting there. If I'm on the play I literally never used to mulligan a 5 lander because I know going to 6 on the play drops your winrate by like 20%. But I do get an awful lot of 2/5 lander hands, I've been thinking that choosing to be on the draw might be better just so I can get that free mulligan.
What are the odds of someone drawing a specific card by turn 4 every game? Been matched up against citadel siege in my last 2 8-4 drafts and every time my opponent played it turn 4.
I played against 10 variations of G/R, maybe 5 abzan aggro/control, and 5 random deck brews. I while I played against plenty of thunderbreak regents in mono red, I didn't play against a straight up token aggro red like the one that won the PTDTK. I think that matchup would be the most difficult for a control deck but I can't find any opponents that play that deck.
I recently started playing on Xmage to test out an esper control standard deck that I was thinking about playing on MTGO. My record so far is 20-0 and each game I 2-0ed. When I first started winning I thought maybe I had stumbled onto a great deck, but now I think maybe everyone on xmage is bad and my results are meaningless. I would hate to spend money on a deck on MTGO that I thought was good but actually sucks. Are the player pools of the other mtg alternative clients at least comparable to MTGO or are they all generally new players?
Just drafted the best deck of my life in an MTGO 64 player draft event. B/R dash with ALL of the pieces. Lightning berserker, brutal hordechief, warbringer, warbrute, vault breaker, ambuscade shaman, dragonlord kholagan, kholagan's command, the warsprite dragon, multiple heelcutters, multiple scouts, multiple hand of silumgar and 7 removal spells. Easily 2-0ed, was about to 2-0 the second game when my MTGO client froze.
I managed to log back in only a minute later, but in the tourney window my "Return to Game" button was greyed out. So I had to sit there and wait 10 agonizing minutes for me to lose due to time out with what will possibly be the best deck I'll ever have. Even if I do get reimbursed, I'll still be pissed because I'm relatively new to magic and that was my first real shot at winning a premier.
Here's a screenshot of me losing. My opponent went first and resolved a turn 4 outpost siege but it still didn't matter. Literally right before I'm about to swing in for lethal, my opponent starts talking to me in chat. I started talking back before killing him, and in that 20 second conversation my client crashed then bugged out. If I had just ignored my opponents chat and swung in ASAP I would have been in game 3, and maybe the bug doesn't happen.
So I don't know if this is only me, but whenever MTGO crashes during a duel, I can always log back into MTGO but I can't access the game I'm playing. Like I'll be in the tournament window, it will say I'm still in a duel, but the return to game button will be greyed out. Is this a common bug, because this has happened to me more than once and its infuriating when you are playing for real money. I don't think I'll ever play another game on MTGO.
Am I crazy for thinking delvers aren't that good against MBC? I have about 50% winrate against MBC in tourney practice mode and I find that most games I win is either early game where I get lucky with delver flips AND they don't have enough removal (rare), or super lategame where they draw 4 lands in a row and I win by outdrawing them.
First off, ive seen familiars beaten by delver, its not the best matchup but not to bad it seems.
MBC is pretty easy. Are you not playing Spire Golem? Stitched Drake? Stormbound Geist? Any Curse of Chains? Any of these in your main or SB should give you the power to beat MBC.
After playing against MBC some more yesterday I actually won all the games when my opponent didn't have a copy of witches in his starting hand. Stormbound seems like the perfect card against MBC, but I don't know if I should mainboard it because it doesn't do anything against other matchups. I could sideboard out my Piracy Charms for some Geists since I can't remember the last time I had to sideboard in Piracy Charm. Also Curse does nothing against MBC, witches can tap in reaction to chains activating.
I don't run very many high toughness fliers because in my experience they don't do **** against those cloudpost wannabe decks like Tron and Familiar. I got turn 4 GG'ed against Tron today and I didn't even know that was possible until it happened. I just don't see how you're supposed to beat decks that always have a hard win condition on turn 5 or 6 at the latest. It's like if I don't get a flipped delver by turn 2 I might as well concede. Are there any videos of people beating these decks without a god draw starting hand? I wanna know how people can win before turn 5 with this deck.
I took a long break from MTGO when cloudpost based decks were destroying me every game but now that they're banned I've come back tried my hand at delver again. I seem to do much better now that everything isn't always storm or cloudpost based, but I still have abysmal win rates against two decks in particular.
The first is UBW Familiar, it seems like everytime I play against that deck, they get off their "I win" infinite loop combo by turn 5 or 6. I find that Delver, while aggressive, simply can't win the game fast enough to ever beat this deck. It has no way of killing those ramp creatures except by countering them, but if I leave up mana for counters then I can't put out enough damage to kill them fast enough. Unless I get extremely lucky with multiple flipped delvers up by Turn 3 I consider this matchup an auto loss. It feels just like playing against cloudpost all over again.
The second is Mono Black. This matchup basically boils down to one card: Cuombajj Witches. If my opponent has this in his opening hand and he's smart enough to wait until I'm tapped out to cast it then there's nothing I can do to stop it. Are there any ways for blue to deal with this card? None of the decklists I've seen posted have any way of dealing with witches.
Man I keep trying to make this deck work but it's literally impossible to win if I don't start out with at least 2 creatures + 2 lands + 1 rancor/bonespitter in my starting hand. I often times have to mulligan down to 5 cards just because my starting hand is either 3+ lands and 1 creature or no lands at all, and I keep drawing lands in spots when just one more pump spell or enchantment would have won me the game.
I'm new to competitive magic but it seems like blue decks never need to mulligan and always have good hands because of all the SCRY and card drawing effects whereas in aggro decks if you draw a land or heaven forbid 2 lands after T3 that could easily cost you the game.
I think you're focusing on the bad land draws more than the times when you draw the right amount of lands. I'm not particularly sold on 17 lands myself, so I've been testing with 16 matching Forests and 1 unmatched Forest to let me know when that 17th land would have been a spell instead. The 17th land has definitely made what would have been mulligans keepers more than flooding me out.
Blue decks should be pretty easy when you get used to the deck, just practice more. Play around removal spells and utilize Gather Courage whenever possible to save your guys.
Do you have a tutorial on what hands to mulligan/keep vs blue decks? Just seems like every time I play any kind of cloudpost deck if I don't have multiple creatures with bonespitters and rancors out by T3 I auto lose. Come to think of it I seem to auto lose every match up anytime my starting hand doesn't contain the perfect combination of lands/equips/creatures.
When I do get rancor/bonespitter, am I supposed to save them until the other player is tapped out? Playing them as soon as possible always gets them countered, but waiting until my opponent is tapped out wastes a lot of valuable turns in a stompy deck that runs out of steam quickly.
I actually do decent against affinity and nivix based decks, but anytime I see a cloudpost played I feel like insta quitting the game.
My opponent is on 5 mana and 1 card in hand (he was stuck on 4 mana for a few turns, so this is likely to be a spell). His board is gurmag angler, sabretooth outrider, summit prowler, and kolaghan aspirant.
The only instant speed removal he had shown in the previous 2 games were 2 twin bolts, and he used one of them already. He also hadn't shown any tricks up to this point and the only dash creature I saw was a kolaghan forerunners. He could still have more removal/tricks/dash however since g1 lasted 15 turns and g2 lasted 10 turns so I didn't get to see all of his deck.
It's my turn, and my board is 8 lands, skywise teachings, 1 djinn token, 1 gurmag drowner, 1 4/4 manifested land, 1 cloudform manifested monastery loremaster. I cast sight beyond sight this turn and my choices are monastery loremaster and a whisk away. I have 4 untapped mana left to use with a single land in hand. I already played a land this turn.
If I take the whisk away, there's 4 ways the next turn can play out. No matter what I will double block his angler with the 4/4 and 2/4, block the 2/1 with the 2/2, and block his 4/3 with my 2/2 facedown loremaster. If he has a trick I 2 for 1 him, if its a kill spell we trade 1 for 1, but either way I am forced to chump block his summit prowler with my face down cloudform loremaster which is a 0 for 1 and let his sabretooth hit me and go to 1 life. My chance of winning if he uses a trick are decent, if he has a removal spell then I have to topdeck a removal spell next turn or I lose. If he has no instant speed spells then I can whisk away his outrider and stay at 5 life while sacrificing my facedown loremaster to his prowler, or whisk away his prowler to save my loremaster and go down to 1 life. The spells I have in my graveyard are ojutai's summons, fierce invocation, sight beyond sight, and twin bolt. I have 20 cards left in my library and the only removal spells are roast and cunning strike.
If I take the loremaster and play it as a 3/2 I can theoretically trade 1 for 1 with all of his creatures assuming he has no trick or instant speed removal by not blocking his sabretooth and going down to 1. The only advantage do doing this would be that I could kill his prowler instead of just putting it back to the top of his library, which is more likely to be lands since he was mana screwed for awhile. This would buy me time to unmorph the loremaster next turn if my opponent just draws a brick. I think this is flawed reasoning but I wanted to throw it out there.
So the two questions are:
1) Do you take whisk away or loremaster?
2) Assuming my opponent has no instant speed spells, do you let the outrider hit you down to 1 or do you sacrifice your loremaster to save some life?
I managed to log back in only a minute later, but in the tourney window my "Return to Game" button was greyed out. So I had to sit there and wait 10 agonizing minutes for me to lose due to time out with what will possibly be the best deck I'll ever have. Even if I do get reimbursed, I'll still be pissed because I'm relatively new to magic and that was my first real shot at winning a premier.
Here's a screenshot of me losing. My opponent went first and resolved a turn 4 outpost siege but it still didn't matter. Literally right before I'm about to swing in for lethal, my opponent starts talking to me in chat. I started talking back before killing him, and in that 20 second conversation my client crashed then bugged out. If I had just ignored my opponents chat and swung in ASAP I would have been in game 3, and maybe the bug doesn't happen.
19 Island
Creatures 20
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Cloud of Faeries
4 Spellstutter Sprite
3 Spire Golem
1 Stitched Drake
Spells 21
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
3 Preordain
3 Snap
2 Mana Leak
2 Gush
1 Deprive
1 Daze
1 Think Twice
2 Coral Net
2 Dispel
3 Hydroblast
3 Piracy Charm
3 Steel Sabatoge
2 Frostburn Weird
After playing against MBC some more yesterday I actually won all the games when my opponent didn't have a copy of witches in his starting hand. Stormbound seems like the perfect card against MBC, but I don't know if I should mainboard it because it doesn't do anything against other matchups. I could sideboard out my Piracy Charms for some Geists since I can't remember the last time I had to sideboard in Piracy Charm. Also Curse does nothing against MBC, witches can tap in reaction to chains activating.
I don't run very many high toughness fliers because in my experience they don't do **** against those cloudpost wannabe decks like Tron and Familiar. I got turn 4 GG'ed against Tron today and I didn't even know that was possible until it happened. I just don't see how you're supposed to beat decks that always have a hard win condition on turn 5 or 6 at the latest. It's like if I don't get a flipped delver by turn 2 I might as well concede. Are there any videos of people beating these decks without a god draw starting hand? I wanna know how people can win before turn 5 with this deck.
The first is UBW Familiar, it seems like everytime I play against that deck, they get off their "I win" infinite loop combo by turn 5 or 6. I find that Delver, while aggressive, simply can't win the game fast enough to ever beat this deck. It has no way of killing those ramp creatures except by countering them, but if I leave up mana for counters then I can't put out enough damage to kill them fast enough. Unless I get extremely lucky with multiple flipped delvers up by Turn 3 I consider this matchup an auto loss. It feels just like playing against cloudpost all over again.
The second is Mono Black. This matchup basically boils down to one card: Cuombajj Witches. If my opponent has this in his opening hand and he's smart enough to wait until I'm tapped out to cast it then there's nothing I can do to stop it. Are there any ways for blue to deal with this card? None of the decklists I've seen posted have any way of dealing with witches.
I'm new to competitive magic but it seems like blue decks never need to mulligan and always have good hands because of all the SCRY and card drawing effects whereas in aggro decks if you draw a land or heaven forbid 2 lands after T3 that could easily cost you the game.
Do you have a tutorial on what hands to mulligan/keep vs blue decks? Just seems like every time I play any kind of cloudpost deck if I don't have multiple creatures with bonespitters and rancors out by T3 I auto lose. Come to think of it I seem to auto lose every match up anytime my starting hand doesn't contain the perfect combination of lands/equips/creatures.
When I do get rancor/bonespitter, am I supposed to save them until the other player is tapped out? Playing them as soon as possible always gets them countered, but waiting until my opponent is tapped out wastes a lot of valuable turns in a stompy deck that runs out of steam quickly.
I actually do decent against affinity and nivix based decks, but anytime I see a cloudpost played I feel like insta quitting the game.