Very quick match where the combination of Thalia, TKS, and Tidehallow really shine. Game one a Thalia and Tidehallow went the distance while a Wasteland Strangler refused to be useless and suicided to eat an Ancestral Visions. I won game two off the back of a Thalia and Eldrazi displacer. A flickerwisp came through a vial to turn his dictate off for his turn, which was displaced each of my end steps to do the same. 3-0
R4 - Naya Burn
Game one opponent kept a sketchy 6 with one basic mountain. A Thalia ate a riftbolt and a skuller revealed all red cards. A TKS the following turn wrapped things up. At this point I assumed he was on mono-red burn or some budget variant since all I saw were bolt, spike, blaze, and rift bolt. Game two opponent blows that theory out of the water and I die on T4 to an onslaught of Goblin Guides and Swiftspears. In game three we just both run out a fistful of creatures. I TKS and opponent is stuck off green mana due to an arbiter, I can take an Atarka's Command or Nacatl from his hand and choose the Nacatl figuring he'd have to start chumping next turn and I can close faster than he can. He ripped a land and punished me hard for that line. Luckily a Displacer came up and wrapped up the match by displacing his blockers and swinging for lethal. 4-0
R5 - Elves
I believe this matchup to be fairly bad. They have 8x must kill creatures (Ezuri/Archdruid) and we have 8x answers to them (PtE, Strangler). Once elves starts to amass a board full of 1/1's and 2/2's it becomes very difficult to break through without some Displacer action. G1 is pretty close, but he's able to make a billion mana, pay for both arbiters, pay thalia tax, chord for Ezuri and pump. RIP. G2 follows much of the same pattern. Perhaps we need an infest in the board, ZP has a short shelflife in this matchup and it's gotta really pull a 3-4 for one to be worth cashing in. 4-1
R6 - RG Ponza
This matchup seems great with Aether Vial. On the play I lead Eldrazi Temple into Vial. He starts on forst -> Utopia Sprawl. Efro was playing this deck online in my previous league so I had some idea of how it played out and could pin him on the deck T1. T2 Thalia slows him down a turn and he double Sprawls the forest during his turn. I vial in a Tidehallow to get some information before casting an Arbiter and stripping the double sprawled land to force the concession. Game two was interesting. After mulling hard for vial I kept a hand of GQ-Vial-3 creatures. He molten rains the GQ on T2 and vial goes to town. After Tidehallowing his hand and seeing 2x Stone Rain 2x Acid-moss I refuse to play a land for the rest of the game and he dies to a pair of bears. 5-1
R7 - Dredge
Game one I'm able to take after his draw just doesn't come together. Game two I remember him Thoughtseizing a RIP then "going off" with a fistful of vengevines and bloodghasts. G3 he boarded out his ancient grudges and a Relic was able to hold back his graveyard while I dealt with some mana issues. He forces me to pop the relic after a nice sized dredge and I'm able to find a cage. In his one turn window he's able to put 3x Anamilgram, 2x Bloodghast, 2x Gravecrawler. Thanks to a huge exile zone, Wasteland Strangler and Displacer worked double duty in order to stabilize at 3 and win the game shortly thereafter. 6-1
R8 - Abzan CoCo
Barring any very late game gavony township draws, their only real route to victory is to combo us out of the game. G1 a Flickerwisp - Wasteland Strangler blowout let me race him on board. Game two a Displacer is able to keep a township mangeable while the little flickerwisp that could gets there. 7-1
R9 - Ad Nauseam
This matchup seems incredible. G1 he leads on Halimar Depths and I'm not sure what he's on. I run out Arbiter hoping he's more than a bear. He is just a 2/2 here . A Temple off the top allows T3 TKS and T4 Smasher putting my opponent into Ad Nauseam to find Angel's Grace to live for the turn. He does, plays an unlife on his endstep which Flickerwisp takes care of.
A T2 Thalia eats a Slaughter Pact (which is fine by me). The T3 Thalia is proves to be particularly difficult to overcome as my opponent stumbles multiple times determining what line to make. A notible interaction my opponent missed was that when he is casting a Pentad Prism through Thalia, you can pay three different colors mana and get three counters. I made a little stumble when blowing a Flickerwisp to flicker his Leyline in order to cast a Duress. Unfortunately, I forgot about Thalia tax, so no duress. It didn't come back to haunt me as the opponent died on the following turn. 8-1
Day one record 8-1
R10 - Infect
Pretty close matchup, opponent mulligans game one and opens on forest - Heiarch. Next turn was Forest - Viridan Corrupter to tag my Aether Vial. I path the Corrupter in the my main phase and he doesn't take the search. ***GREEN LIGHT TO STRIPMINE*** I fire off the two ghost quarters putting him on only a heiarch. He doesn't find another relevant infect creature and dies to some bears a few turns later.
G2 he opens on Heiarch with Inkmoth and Blighted Agent in-tow. 9 balls me on T3 and I fail to draw an answer to the inkmoth.
G3 was pretty close but I end up getting there while controlling his drawstep with displacer and Tidehallow. 9-1
R11 - Jund
Short and sweet, G1 he does jundy things and Inquisition into Goyf into Lilly. Hand was meh after the inquisition and I never recovered. G2 went pretty long, but a timely Flickerwisp to reset and kill his Lilly turned it around in my favor. G3 was more of the same Jund. T1 Thoughtseize takes a path, T2 Bob sits around for 7 turns or so and eventually takes over the game. 9-2
R12 - Abzan CoCo
Game one I take with a tidehallow -> Strangler curve with Wisp to reset the Tidehallow. Game two I get some good Tidehallow - Flickerwisp - Eldrazi Displacer synergy but punt the game (and T8 contention) away with a horrible, needlessly agressive line... Opponent has one card in hand, Witness and a 3/2 Finks on board. I have two displacers, a tidehallow, strangler, and have the ability to either blink twice or blink and animate my Shambling Vents. I animated and sent the team figuring he'd have to have a removal spell, and even that would only put him to 3 life with no cards in hand while I had 5 power on board. He has a path, but in a moment of brilliance I don't displace my displacer. Almost every other line you could take would have been correct in that place. I could have even just displaced his finks precombat and attacked for lethal. Just a horrible line all around. Logan was a good guy about it though. 9-3 (rip t8)
R13 - Fish
Unexciting games, opponent floods in both and Stranglers and paths never let him establish a boardstate. There was some hot vial on vial action which involved me taking his two drop with sculler. 10-3
R14 - Abzan CoCo
G1 I was on the play and lead with a T2 Arbiter. His T1 was Tomb -> BoP. T3 was arbiter, thoughtseize go. He pays two mana for an arbiter then plays and cracks a fetchland, causing everyone watching to wince as a judge explains that he can't search since I have two arbiters. After paying a life, stone raining himself and tapping out his hand is garbage and I clean up G1 in quick order. 10-4
G2 goes long, but TKS and Flickerwisp put some heavy clocks while he's trying to assemble the combo. He is at 6 and draws a BoP and bolsters to stop my Flickerwisp. Another flickerwisp saves the day and presents lethal on the following turn. (For those that don't see the line, Wisp targets Wisp, EOT I get my wisp back targetting the other wisp, End of his turn I get my original wisp back and flicker his BoP until my EOT. Now I have 6 power in the air and he has no blocker.)
R15 - Kiki Chord
G1 Opponent mulligans and keeps a hand chock full of fetches and dorks. A pair of arbiters stop the chord in his hand and slow his fetches and TKS is able to close the game quickly. G2 opponent mulligans to a dork heavy hand and proceeds to lose while playing 3x Heiarch, 2x BoP, and an Eternal Witness.
Overall deck felt incredible. The only actual "Loss" I'd say was to the elves player in round 5. Jund was a close game and felt even, if I had an answer to his Bob it very well could have gone either way. And the punt against Abzan CoCo was a good case of the deck holding up it's end of the bargain and the pilot failing to close the deal.
T64 finish with a record of 12-3 is a great finish for the weekend. Every matchup felt good. I hit a good string of variance and rode it all the way.
From here I'd like to try a sampling of different hatebears out of the sideboard. Phryxean Revoker seems like a good one. I want to try Dark Confidant's in the main. I want to cut the Reality Smasher. Thalia was good, but she gets outclassed pretty quick and being legendary left me with deadcards in hand a lot of the time :\
The heart of the deck really lies in Wasteland Strangler, Eldrazi Displacer, and Flickerwisp. This trio was just incredible all day and got so many game wins where I appeared to be severely behind only to cast one, vial the other, and suddenly I'm in control. It's unfortunate that they all occupy our three drop slot because I'd like to try some other 3cmc guys but these are so good that I'm going to stick with them 4x.
Big shout out to my UTRON opponent who I met in the T8 of the PIQ at Richmond. Great job man, even though you played burn multiple times in the swiss, I'm convinced the field was very soft to both GR Tron and UTron. As a person who used to play UTron, your list was really sweet. The 4x Rachet Bomb sideboard looked crazy at frist, but understand able.
I think eliminating me would have been smooth sailing to the first place.
The professor did comment later on that he realised his mistake and that it was true that Slaverlock = win.
Time is a resource. In both paper and online executing a slaverlock takes time and can end in a draw instead of your "guaranteed" win. Playing a slaverlock correctly is also something that is not always easy or obvious. I remember Shoktroopa misplaying on stream once when he had Solemn, his opponent had like 2 Ornithopter, 2 Signal Pest, double digit life. The best line here is probably to just slaver lock and attack every turn, it will take 10-15 turns but that's doable (especially since these turns take maybe 20 seconds each so 3-5 minutes in total). Instead he slavered 1-2 times and then abandoned the idea of a lock, digging instead for an engine which took much more time than just lock and attack. As soon as you have a better boardstate than your opp it's usually wisest to just slaver lock and attack with the creature you have. I've won by attacking with Silent Arbiter 10+ times in a lock a few days ago and once I also won without a boardstate against Jund which had only Dark Confidant in play. In paper you need to know how to properly play it down. First of all you have a lock NOT a loop, learn the difference. As far as I know the best way is to agree to use very big shortcuts, which your opponent can disagree on once or twice but if he refuses your (reasonable) shortcut again and again you should be able to call a judge for slowplay.
I don't see how lock isn't a loop? You cast slaver, sac it and put it top, draw, tap out as opponent and pass, continue until he runs out of cards.
It *is* a loop. In paper you can establish a shortcut for your turn. Then you can establish a shortcut starting after their drawstep to cleanup. You say "Draw tapout pass" until they get 7 cards in hand. Then put cards one at a time from their Library into their graveyard. Your opponent never makes another game action, so if he stalls or hesitates for any reason you call a judge for slow play.
MTGO doesn't have the same rules as paper magic. I would not depend on the Mindslaver lock as it is not feesable given the different ruleset.
After playing at my LGS' weekly modern last night I *really* felt Trinket Mage was entirely too slow and should be replaced with either Faithless Looting, Murderous Cut, Darkblast, or something else entirely. Aside from Academy Ruins (which is insane don't get me wrong) I don't see the benefit of having blue anymore.
Getting the combo was much easier than expected, and the mana was fine for the most part. I'm convinced that Liliana should be in the list somewhere. She's a great T3 play against just about any deck and she helps empty the hand for bridge to lock it up. She serves as decent removal with her Edict, and she is very convincing in "speeding" up the game with her ult.
Raven's Crime is there just incase you don't see a Liliana. Life lets you mill over Academy Ruins without caring and "draws" three cards once you have your lock established and are just looking for pieces to close the game with. Many of my games finished last night with Dredging Life, get two lands back, play a land, + liliana. This way you hit a land drop every turn just incase you need to press the "oh *****" mode on Codex Shredder and grab something from the yard.
Omenspeaker is also the most maindeckable answer to Aggro.
I actually have grown attached to Returned Phalanx. Same CMC, can profitably block or trade with most of the important threats in standard. Specifically it trades with Rabblemaster and War-Named Aspirant, as well as eating 2/2s.
And the Returned Phalanx beatdown is real after you have gained control of the game.
For the most part it depends on matchup and what not. I don't play the deck as "Protect the Queen". If I can jam Ashiok into tapped mana and they untap and downfall, I'm happy with them wasting their turn to do that.
One thing I find this deck to be missing is a Keranos like effect. Some sort of permanent we can put in play and gain residual advantage every turn from it. I'm still in search of a Trading Post, Keranos, or something of the like that can win the game while I counter and kill everything in sight.
I'm curious if anyone has tried splashing red for Keranos. You also get Augury which is probably better than Jace's Ingenuity in a draw-go style deck.
I am certain this is the next step I will try to take. First I am going to test
-2 Cruise -1 Aetherspouts
+2 DtT +1 Empty the Pits
Then I'll be looking towards
-2 Aetherspout
-1 Liliana
-2 Jace's Ingenuity
+4 Steam Augury
+1 Keranos
List below. On mobile so I can't transcribe it well
http://imgur.com/bauriXa
GP CLT RECAP
-------------
R1 - Bye
R2 - Bye
R3 - Mono U Turns
Very quick match where the combination of Thalia, TKS, and Tidehallow really shine. Game one a Thalia and Tidehallow went the distance while a Wasteland Strangler refused to be useless and suicided to eat an Ancestral Visions. I won game two off the back of a Thalia and Eldrazi displacer. A flickerwisp came through a vial to turn his dictate off for his turn, which was displaced each of my end steps to do the same. 3-0
R4 - Naya Burn
Game one opponent kept a sketchy 6 with one basic mountain. A Thalia ate a riftbolt and a skuller revealed all red cards. A TKS the following turn wrapped things up. At this point I assumed he was on mono-red burn or some budget variant since all I saw were bolt, spike, blaze, and rift bolt. Game two opponent blows that theory out of the water and I die on T4 to an onslaught of Goblin Guides and Swiftspears. In game three we just both run out a fistful of creatures. I TKS and opponent is stuck off green mana due to an arbiter, I can take an Atarka's Command or Nacatl from his hand and choose the Nacatl figuring he'd have to start chumping next turn and I can close faster than he can. He ripped a land and punished me hard for that line. Luckily a Displacer came up and wrapped up the match by displacing his blockers and swinging for lethal. 4-0
R5 - Elves
I believe this matchup to be fairly bad. They have 8x must kill creatures (Ezuri/Archdruid) and we have 8x answers to them (PtE, Strangler). Once elves starts to amass a board full of 1/1's and 2/2's it becomes very difficult to break through without some Displacer action. G1 is pretty close, but he's able to make a billion mana, pay for both arbiters, pay thalia tax, chord for Ezuri and pump. RIP. G2 follows much of the same pattern. Perhaps we need an infest in the board, ZP has a short shelflife in this matchup and it's gotta really pull a 3-4 for one to be worth cashing in. 4-1
R6 - RG Ponza
This matchup seems great with Aether Vial. On the play I lead Eldrazi Temple into Vial. He starts on forst -> Utopia Sprawl. Efro was playing this deck online in my previous league so I had some idea of how it played out and could pin him on the deck T1. T2 Thalia slows him down a turn and he double Sprawls the forest during his turn. I vial in a Tidehallow to get some information before casting an Arbiter and stripping the double sprawled land to force the concession. Game two was interesting. After mulling hard for vial I kept a hand of GQ-Vial-3 creatures. He molten rains the GQ on T2 and vial goes to town. After Tidehallowing his hand and seeing 2x Stone Rain 2x Acid-moss I refuse to play a land for the rest of the game and he dies to a pair of bears. 5-1
R7 - Dredge
Game one I'm able to take after his draw just doesn't come together. Game two I remember him Thoughtseizing a RIP then "going off" with a fistful of vengevines and bloodghasts. G3 he boarded out his ancient grudges and a Relic was able to hold back his graveyard while I dealt with some mana issues. He forces me to pop the relic after a nice sized dredge and I'm able to find a cage. In his one turn window he's able to put 3x Anamilgram, 2x Bloodghast, 2x Gravecrawler. Thanks to a huge exile zone, Wasteland Strangler and Displacer worked double duty in order to stabilize at 3 and win the game shortly thereafter. 6-1
R8 - Abzan CoCo
Barring any very late game gavony township draws, their only real route to victory is to combo us out of the game. G1 a Flickerwisp - Wasteland Strangler blowout let me race him on board. Game two a Displacer is able to keep a township mangeable while the little flickerwisp that could gets there. 7-1
R9 - Ad Nauseam
This matchup seems incredible. G1 he leads on Halimar Depths and I'm not sure what he's on. I run out Arbiter hoping he's more than a bear. He is just a 2/2 here
A T2 Thalia eats a Slaughter Pact (which is fine by me). The T3 Thalia is proves to be particularly difficult to overcome as my opponent stumbles multiple times determining what line to make. A notible interaction my opponent missed was that when he is casting a Pentad Prism through Thalia, you can pay three different colors mana and get three counters. I made a little stumble when blowing a Flickerwisp to flicker his Leyline in order to cast a Duress. Unfortunately, I forgot about Thalia tax, so no duress. It didn't come back to haunt me as the opponent died on the following turn. 8-1
Day one record 8-1
R10 - Infect
Pretty close matchup, opponent mulligans game one and opens on forest - Heiarch. Next turn was Forest - Viridan Corrupter to tag my Aether Vial. I path the Corrupter in the my main phase and he doesn't take the search. ***GREEN LIGHT TO STRIPMINE*** I fire off the two ghost quarters putting him on only a heiarch. He doesn't find another relevant infect creature and dies to some bears a few turns later.
G2 he opens on Heiarch with Inkmoth and Blighted Agent in-tow. 9 balls me on T3 and I fail to draw an answer to the inkmoth.
G3 was pretty close but I end up getting there while controlling his drawstep with displacer and Tidehallow. 9-1
R11 - Jund
Short and sweet, G1 he does jundy things and Inquisition into Goyf into Lilly. Hand was meh after the inquisition and I never recovered. G2 went pretty long, but a timely Flickerwisp to reset and kill his Lilly turned it around in my favor. G3 was more of the same Jund. T1 Thoughtseize takes a path, T2 Bob sits around for 7 turns or so and eventually takes over the game. 9-2
R12 - Abzan CoCo
Game one I take with a tidehallow -> Strangler curve with Wisp to reset the Tidehallow. Game two I get some good Tidehallow - Flickerwisp - Eldrazi Displacer synergy but punt the game (and T8 contention) away with a horrible, needlessly agressive line... Opponent has one card in hand, Witness and a 3/2 Finks on board. I have two displacers, a tidehallow, strangler, and have the ability to either blink twice or blink and animate my Shambling Vents. I animated and sent the team figuring he'd have to have a removal spell, and even that would only put him to 3 life with no cards in hand while I had 5 power on board. He has a path, but in a moment of brilliance I don't displace my displacer. Almost every other line you could take would have been correct in that place. I could have even just displaced his finks precombat and attacked for lethal. Just a horrible line all around. Logan was a good guy about it though. 9-3 (rip t8)
R13 - Fish
Unexciting games, opponent floods in both and Stranglers and paths never let him establish a boardstate. There was some hot vial on vial action which involved me taking his two drop with sculler. 10-3
R14 - Abzan CoCo
G1 I was on the play and lead with a T2 Arbiter. His T1 was Tomb -> BoP. T3 was arbiter, thoughtseize go. He pays two mana for an arbiter then plays and cracks a fetchland, causing everyone watching to wince as a judge explains that he can't search since I have two arbiters. After paying a life, stone raining himself and tapping out his hand is garbage and I clean up G1 in quick order. 10-4
G2 goes long, but TKS and Flickerwisp put some heavy clocks while he's trying to assemble the combo. He is at 6 and draws a BoP and bolsters to stop my Flickerwisp. Another flickerwisp saves the day and presents lethal on the following turn. (For those that don't see the line, Wisp targets Wisp, EOT I get my wisp back targetting the other wisp, End of his turn I get my original wisp back and flicker his BoP until my EOT. Now I have 6 power in the air and he has no blocker.)
R15 - Kiki Chord
G1 Opponent mulligans and keeps a hand chock full of fetches and dorks. A pair of arbiters stop the chord in his hand and slow his fetches and TKS is able to close the game quickly. G2 opponent mulligans to a dork heavy hand and proceeds to lose while playing 3x Heiarch, 2x BoP, and an Eternal Witness.
Overall deck felt incredible. The only actual "Loss" I'd say was to the elves player in round 5. Jund was a close game and felt even, if I had an answer to his Bob it very well could have gone either way. And the punt against Abzan CoCo was a good case of the deck holding up it's end of the bargain and the pilot failing to close the deal.
T64 finish with a record of 12-3 is a great finish for the weekend. Every matchup felt good. I hit a good string of variance and rode it all the way.
From here I'd like to try a sampling of different hatebears out of the sideboard. Phryxean Revoker seems like a good one. I want to try Dark Confidant's in the main. I want to cut the Reality Smasher. Thalia was good, but she gets outclassed pretty quick and being legendary left me with deadcards in hand a lot of the time :\
The heart of the deck really lies in Wasteland Strangler, Eldrazi Displacer, and Flickerwisp. This trio was just incredible all day and got so many game wins where I appeared to be severely behind only to cast one, vial the other, and suddenly I'm in control. It's unfortunate that they all occupy our three drop slot because I'd like to try some other 3cmc guys but these are so good that I'm going to stick with them 4x.
Will post list and brief report later today.
I think eliminating me would have been smooth sailing to the first place.
It's in there because I expected Grixis to be out in all flavors. And everywhere Grixis is, Arena is a MONSTER.
http://i.imgur.com/passwjM.jpg
Something like
It's pretty easy to keep track of and is pretty fool proof. You can even trace backwards in any sort of disagreement.
That's an awful lot of decks that are super soft to UWR Control in the top 8
You are right, I thought it was a cycling ability.
It *is* a loop. In paper you can establish a shortcut for your turn. Then you can establish a shortcut starting after their drawstep to cleanup. You say "Draw tapout pass" until they get 7 cards in hand. Then put cards one at a time from their Library into their graveyard. Your opponent never makes another game action, so if he stalls or hesitates for any reason you call a judge for slow play.
MTGO doesn't have the same rules as paper magic. I would not depend on the Mindslaver lock as it is not feesable given the different ruleset.
I played a list of nearly the same last night
4 Codex Shredder
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Ghoulcaller's Bell
4 Lantern of Insight
1 Nihil Spellbomb
Planeswalkers
4 Liliana of the Veil
Creatures
3 Trinket Mage
2 Extirpate
4 Abrupt Decay
Sorceries
2 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Thoughtseize
Lands
2 Academy Ruins
3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Windswept Heath
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Watery Grave
2 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
After playing at my LGS' weekly modern last night I *really* felt Trinket Mage was entirely too slow and should be replaced with either Faithless Looting, Murderous Cut, Darkblast, or something else entirely. Aside from Academy Ruins (which is insane don't get me wrong) I don't see the benefit of having blue anymore.
Getting the combo was much easier than expected, and the mana was fine for the most part. I'm convinced that Liliana should be in the list somewhere. She's a great T3 play against just about any deck and she helps empty the hand for bridge to lock it up. She serves as decent removal with her Edict, and she is very convincing in "speeding" up the game with her ult.
Raven's Crime is there just incase you don't see a Liliana. Life lets you mill over Academy Ruins without caring and "draws" three cards once you have your lock established and are just looking for pieces to close the game with. Many of my games finished last night with Dredging Life, get two lands back, play a land, + liliana. This way you hit a land drop every turn just incase you need to press the "oh *****" mode on Codex Shredder and grab something from the yard.
I put up a 3-1 in last night's 9pm Daily with a Grixis Control list which I'll post when I get around to it.
Of note I mainboarded
3 Tormenting Voice
2 Keranos
4 Steam Augury
I want to splash Red in UB Control for Steam Augury and Keranos. (And Rabblemaster out of the board :rollout:)
I actually have grown attached to Returned Phalanx. Same CMC, can profitably block or trade with most of the important threats in standard. Specifically it trades with Rabblemaster and War-Named Aspirant, as well as eating 2/2s.
And the Returned Phalanx beatdown is real after you have gained control of the game.
I am certain this is the next step I will try to take. First I am going to test
-2 Cruise -1 Aetherspouts
+2 DtT +1 Empty the Pits
Then I'll be looking towards
-2 Aetherspout
-1 Liliana
-2 Jace's Ingenuity
+4 Steam Augury
+1 Keranos