I think the thing that leaves the worst taste in my mouth is how beholden WotC is to the pros in this regard. One the main reasons they list as having taken Modern away as a PT format is because of the conversations they've had with pros. Its well known that most pros hate Modern, since they can't win in it simply off of pure skill alone; they cant metagame for it like the other formats either. This is absurd because the player base has demonstrated before that WE want modern as a PT format. The only reason WotC could ban it this time around is because the players raised enough ruckus to have it reinstated after the last time. Regardless of the benefits or disadvantages of having modern removed as a PT format, the reason why they did it still stinks to me.
Isn't having Leyline in the opening hand the BEST time to have it? naturally stop the brutal T1/2 discard and neuters burn as a side effect. Discard is still one of our worst enemies. Besides, it not like fast decks are going to go away, we need the leyline and cant really free up SB space for a critical amount of Ancestral Visions
mesmeric orb has always been a card that interests me because it feeds graveyard decks while milling other players.
Pros:
-Feeds grixis based decks and Dredgevine
-Mills opponent's answers
-punishes opponents for tapping mana/creatures.
Cons:
-punishes you for tapping
I've never understood why after all this years people stil insist that "milling opponents answers" is a thing. It's the same as Thought Scouring yourself which people don't like: you have the same % chance of milling 2 crappy cards or lands that you don't need as 2 game-winning cards. It's exactly the same.
And with Mesmeric Orb you wont actually mill opponents' answers, you may help them. Imagine they have 4 cards that completely wreck you and they are an instant/sorcery. Before Orb, they had 4/60 chance of actually drawing it, but if they play say 3 Snaps/3 Jaces and you Mesmering Orb them, they actually have a 6/60 chance of "drawing" the game-wrecking card!! :S so you helped them, lol.
In short, Orb is obviously unplayable except in dedicated mill, where it provides a decent clock. But, mill is a terrible deck too, so...
And you provide no reason as to why mill is bad when pros have said that mill is a decent combo deck (along with Taking Turns) because of the lack of leyline in many sideboards. Mesmeric Orb has shown up as a 4 of in every mill deck so obviously it's good in the deck, milling away answers has always been relevant (some grixis decks make their opponents mill 2 for the thoughtscour effect when they have enough cards in their graveyard.) Mermeric Orb always hits your opponent first since they untap before you do so yes it will have an effect on them.
Again: no, there is no "milling away answers". Jeez, why do people not understand? Imagine you have flipped Delver in play, Thought Scour in hand, opponent has no cards in hand, topdeck mode, they are at 3. You Thought Scour them blindly, mill the top 2 cards of their deck, which happened to be lands, and they draw a Bolt. You helped them draw a bolt by eliminating 2 irrelevant land draws. In another you mill them, and they put Bolt and land in graveyard. Phew! you "milled the answer". Then they topdeck a Snapcaster and they bolt Delver plus they have a body.
Final scenario, they have a bolt and a random card on top and you mill them, and they draw a blank. Yes, you "milled the answer" which was Bolt in this case. But... don't you see that you had exactly the same % chance of milling an answer than getting them CLOSER to it? In fact, as I've said multiple times, you usually give them outs because of decks that play 4 Jace/4 Snap, and that milled bolt turned into a 8/60 chance of casting it by drawing a flashbacker dude.
Final point: Mill decks are not inherently terrible in some metas, but they are tier 3 or 4 at best, so that's your call if you'd call it a good deck. A similar deck is burn, which uses the 20 life points resource instead of 60 cards resource. But both are esentially "burn" decks. Mill also folds to any deck that has Emrakul or similar giant Eldrazi.
Delve decks are terribly positioned right now so chances are, I'm not versing Grixis delver (or grixis anything.) If I make a twin deck mill away an exarch and a twin, I have milled away answers to their deck. I don't understand how this is hard to comprehend. Second there is no such thing as a tier 4 in magic. Tier 1 is top tier, tier 2 is high tier and tier 3 is barely played. Mill is barely played because Glimpse costs tons of money. Not too long ago people like you said that Bloom was a garbage deck that could never compete when it was made years ago.
The problem is, in a fully randomized deck, milling off the top is the same as milling off the bottom. You have just as much chance to mill them out of action as to mill them INTO action. As it is, the random factor of supposedly "milling answers" nullifies the action. Its a logically fallacy to assume milling is helpful, since you can only say your action was worth it, or not worth it, until after the fact, i.e., seeing what was milled. Also, Glimpse is only a $27, hardly breaking the bank for a format where decks like Jund run into the thousands. Mill isn't played because, outside of local FNMs, it isn't competitive.
Not even sure i SB in Leyline vs Burn, most of them have switched to Nacatl and don't play as much burn anyway. Darkness might just be enough, although it depends on the build of burn as some play more Burn and less creatures.
Thoughts on when to use Serum vs Sleight, these all assume you have both in hand?
T1: Obviously use Sleight to find a Bloom, but if I have a bloom already on T1 then lead with what?
- Have no combo pieces, which do you cast first?
I know you always use Sleight if you need a card as it digs deeper, but if I'm not looking for anything in particular, what do I play?
I would still sideboard in the Leylines. Nacatl Burn is only a part of the burn lists being played. There are still a lot of lists which rely on the tradition creature/burn splits we're used to seeing, where Leyline is an all-star.
In response to the sleight vs. serum first play, even with a Bloom in my hand i tend to go sleight first. I still want to dig to find another bloom on T1, since that can free up my mana requirements considerably, and also, when no looking for a certain card, sleight helps to clear the top of your deck for plays down the road. I usually only start with serum if i need to hit my land the next turn.
went 3-2 yesterday at a 25 PPTQ, just missing out on Top 8 (meh). some really great matches.
My match ups were
R1: Jund (1-2)L
R2: Grixis Twin (2-1)W
R3: Blue Moon (2-1)W
R4: Naya Burn (2-0)W
- best thing about this match was G2 where i had a T0 Leyline and he goes mountain into suspended Rift Bolt, realizing halfway through my turn who he had to point it at lol.
R5: UR Tempo-Twin (1-2)L
- Unfortunately i was the lowest of the 3-1's at this time and couldn't draw in (He was 2-1-1), eventually lost when he went for it on t4 G3 and i had no disruption other than Grace, hoping myself to go off the next turn.
I ran the Peer Through Depths/Anticipate version, mostly because i have the most practice on this build. However, I will be acquiring the parts to the Spoils version and will be testing that exhaustively to see which i like better. Pretty happy with the deck overall tho.
Question for the thread: I've heard all over that UR and Grixis Twin are heavily in our favor. However,in tournaments, i have not found this to be the case, almost always losing the match to these decks. I was just wondering if anyone had some advice to give on how i can play better/improve the match-ups? FYI i am running the peer through depths/anticipate version with fetches.
Hey guys, i went 3-1 at last night's FNM, beating up on Deadguy Ale/BW Midrange, Grixis Control, and Ascendancy Combo sans green. My only loss on the night came from Grixis Delver. It was an abysmal match and i was wondering if anyone else had any tips on shoring up the match up? I'm running the standard list except with a 2-2 split on Sleight of Hand vs Peer Through Depths
3 FNMS with the deck, 3 second places.. It's kinda annoying. Two of the times i've lost to the same guy (faeries)..
And the last time I ran Merfolk and went 4-0 (2-0 in every game) and with the pptw on sunday I have no idea what to run..
What do you guys think? Should I play this deck, which is more rouge and still a really good deck, or the more consistent fish (that people will have sidenbord against)?
I would go fish. While i love this deck and would enjoy seeing it take you to a high place finish, i think its just on this side of inconsistent to really take it to a higher level tournament over fish. It certainly could get you there, but the smart money is merfolk.
Thanks for the help! ya the SB looks great and right along lines of what i was thinking. My only problem now is getting my hands on three for Leylines. Theyre hard as all hell to find in my area.
Hey guys ill be taking my stock list w/fetches to FNM this week. However i haven't been to this particular store in a while. Given an unknown meta, what should my SB look like?
Perhaps punish was to strong of a word i just wanted to get a general sense of what archetype has a good matchup against the untuned decks. I like to have general sense of where to start my own decks before i start building/buying/netdecking.
My LCS has a high number of casuals, and as such has a high concentration of home brews/netdecks with the more costly cards traded out for less costly alternatives. Given the standard metagame, what kind of deck should i have going forward to punish not so highly tuned decks?
Hey, new guy to Ad Nauseam here. Just wondering if someone could explain the optimal way we get Conflagrate into our yard to help beat something like Soul Sisters.
Anyone see any kind of control deck make waves? I would think with all this midrange running around and aggro being beaten down by said midrange, control would be able to take some games.
The problem is, in a fully randomized deck, milling off the top is the same as milling off the bottom. You have just as much chance to mill them out of action as to mill them INTO action. As it is, the random factor of supposedly "milling answers" nullifies the action. Its a logically fallacy to assume milling is helpful, since you can only say your action was worth it, or not worth it, until after the fact, i.e., seeing what was milled. Also, Glimpse is only a $27, hardly breaking the bank for a format where decks like Jund run into the thousands. Mill isn't played because, outside of local FNMs, it isn't competitive.
I would still sideboard in the Leylines. Nacatl Burn is only a part of the burn lists being played. There are still a lot of lists which rely on the tradition creature/burn splits we're used to seeing, where Leyline is an all-star.
In response to the sleight vs. serum first play, even with a Bloom in my hand i tend to go sleight first. I still want to dig to find another bloom on T1, since that can free up my mana requirements considerably, and also, when no looking for a certain card, sleight helps to clear the top of your deck for plays down the road. I usually only start with serum if i need to hit my land the next turn.
went 3-2 yesterday at a 25 PPTQ, just missing out on Top 8 (meh). some really great matches.
My match ups were
R1: Jund (1-2)L
R2: Grixis Twin (2-1)W
R3: Blue Moon (2-1)W
R4: Naya Burn (2-0)W
- best thing about this match was G2 where i had a T0 Leyline and he goes mountain into suspended Rift Bolt, realizing halfway through my turn who he had to point it at lol.
R5: UR Tempo-Twin (1-2)L
- Unfortunately i was the lowest of the 3-1's at this time and couldn't draw in (He was 2-1-1), eventually lost when he went for it on t4 G3 and i had no disruption other than Grace, hoping myself to go off the next turn.
I ran the Peer Through Depths/Anticipate version, mostly because i have the most practice on this build. However, I will be acquiring the parts to the Spoils version and will be testing that exhaustively to see which i like better. Pretty happy with the deck overall tho.
I would go fish. While i love this deck and would enjoy seeing it take you to a high place finish, i think its just on this side of inconsistent to really take it to a higher level tournament over fish. It certainly could get you there, but the smart money is merfolk.