Played in a PPTQ today at my local shop, 22 man, 5 round swiss cut to top 8. Felt pretty good about my list, and have been playin fish for about a year and a half now.
R1: Lantern Control 0-2
... Nm to say, put him to one both games before he found bridge off the top..
R2 Burn 2-0
Nm to say
R3 Bogles 2-1
A close friend of mine who I actually traded his deck to him, took game 3 by chalice for 1 on t2 and spellskite on 3 where I was then path proof, he had two paths in hand and conceded to my skite. He Was a really good sport about it though.
R4 Infect 2-1
Played against another close friend whos been on the pro tour before, he was not happy for me to side in 3 chalices and 2 spellskites and to see them games 2 and three.
R5 Jeskai Nahiri 2-0
G1 I just tempoed him out and kept his nahiri dead, spreading seas keeping him off red, G2 I sided in 3 Tectonic Edge and kept him off 4 mana pretty much the whole game and when he got it I spreaded his red sources again so he just couldnt cast the better half of his deck. Didnt hurt that I landed master of waves for 5 or 6 on turn 5.
Top 8
Bogles 1-2
Same friend made it to top 8 with me, couldnt quite make a miracle happen twice in a row. The win was because he kept a Kor spiritdancer only creature hand and I vapor snagged it to kill like 4 enchantments, he never saw another creature. I never saw chalice/skite combo
All in all I think we are pretty well positioned right now as a whole in the meta and I wish all other fishy players good luck in their future events! Go get em guys!
The Retreat to Coralhelm, Tribe-Scout/Ranger combo seems very interesting, I am on the side of azusas/explores build, but, what if there is a controlling version of this deck, with a few less karoos, board wipes, remands, that combos into coralhelm/tribescout/amulet to play all titans and attack for a million?
On mobile all day but will post my current list later, I personally believe 8 copies of azusa(3-4), explore(3-4), and Sakura(1 or 2) is a good mixture, im reliably killing turn four with an amulet. And we still have the grindy game. Hive mind may not be viable any more, but its too early to tell. I cut all spirit guides to make room for ramp effects and went down to three titans as payoff cards seeing as we have 7 essentially in the deck. Kessig makes azusa more playable as well, and I feel like the card draw on explore is highly underrated.
While playing with a kessig, inkmoth Package. It is pretty cool to note that T3 Titan attacking sets up t4 Lethal with titan or inkmoth. It seems that the package is super relevant becauae you are threatening to kill them in two ways. If they kill titan outright with triggers on stack, transmute for another, if you get to attack, grab kessig inkmoth and make them deal with 2 lethal threats the following turn. If they kill titan after attacks, inkmoth is a 2 tuen clock that they must deal with at instant and has flying. Seems good now that we are nowhere near as explosive.
It can get out turn two just by turn one amulet, bounceland, her. The play extra lands. Idk if 3 or 4 is the right number but until someone smartee than me cracks the code im jamming 4 and 4 explore. May be worth noting trying tribe scouts as well. But I was just playing a game against affinity, and turn four is pretty much every game. Thats not always good enough against affinity though... It seems like losing speed was wizards intention. Can we replace that by finding a way to slow the game down? Remand? Kozileks return mainboard???
I have been playing with a 4 azusas and 4 explore build since yesterday and explore made consistency go through the roof compared to jamming 4 azusa over bloom. Probably not the right numbers but well see what happens. Super interested in a Kessig/inkmoth package as a backup if they remove titan. Let us know how that goes!
I believe sea gate and spatial contortion both have potential, but will need heavy testing to understand if either has a place in the deck. The top decking bonus may be worth the seventh colorless source, and the lightning strike impression with occasional giant growth mode may be just versatile enough to make side boarding it worth it or even main if the deck looks slightly different from before. What to cut for SC is the puzzle because snag or dismember are all but completely necessary what with tasigur and friends running around.
R1: Lantern Control 0-2
... Nm to say, put him to one both games before he found bridge off the top..
R2 Burn 2-0
Nm to say
R3 Bogles 2-1
A close friend of mine who I actually traded his deck to him, took game 3 by chalice for 1 on t2 and spellskite on 3 where I was then path proof, he had two paths in hand and conceded to my skite. He Was a really good sport about it though.
R4 Infect 2-1
Played against another close friend whos been on the pro tour before, he was not happy for me to side in 3 chalices and 2 spellskites and to see them games 2 and three.
R5 Jeskai Nahiri 2-0
G1 I just tempoed him out and kept his nahiri dead, spreading seas keeping him off red, G2 I sided in 3 Tectonic Edge and kept him off 4 mana pretty much the whole game and when he got it I spreaded his red sources again so he just couldnt cast the better half of his deck. Didnt hurt that I landed master of waves for 5 or 6 on turn 5.
Top 8
Bogles 1-2
Same friend made it to top 8 with me, couldnt quite make a miracle happen twice in a row. The win was because he kept a Kor spiritdancer only creature hand and I vapor snagged it to kill like 4 enchantments, he never saw another creature. I never saw chalice/skite combo
All in all I think we are pretty well positioned right now as a whole in the meta and I wish all other fishy players good luck in their future events! Go get em guys!