There was a big discussion about Steel Wall 2 years ago in this primer, mostly initiated by me starting to play 2 Steel Walls in my sb and also trying Sidisi's Faithful. I don't mind to give you a quick summary:
1. One mana is less than two mana.
2. Against fast creature decks (burn, zoo) you need to do something in the early turns.
3. Turn 2 you already are doing stuff (Condescend, Spatial, Repeal)
4. To better this MU you need to do something good turn1.
So comparing Steel Wall, Sidisi's Faithful, Oona's Gatewarden to TITI, Spellskite, etc doesn't make sense. You are playing these 1 drops to play them turn1 against fast decks, turn 2 you already have many things to do with your mana. If you do have the 1 drops in your starting hand they will buy you a lot of time in those MUs. I really liked them when RG Zoo and Naya Burn where the 2 most popular decks!
I have a good example of how much the Steel Wall can do in one of my old videos on MGS
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY_MGs_C-yQ&feature=youtu.be&list=PL2jQrD9SkZONsMYAXyOa8yy-_wn65bE9o&t=525
Are those from your own personal tracking? I ask because one of the decks I tested against last night was Affinity, all preboard games, and they felt completely lopsided in our favor. I didn't keep track of how many games I played, unfortunately, but if memory serves me right, I only dropped one game. Between Condescends, Supreme Wills, Spatial Contortions, Repeals, and Commits, I was able to easily control the gamestate until just landed a Wurmcoil, Angel, Gearhulk a Memory, or Mindslaver. I would imagine that a rather major difference in our lists would have a very important role in our difference in observations of the matchup.
No I just made up those numbers to show the problem.
My actual data against affinity from a year ago:
50% match win
49% game win
41% on the draw
55% on the play
35% preboard
58% postboard
Not sure if anyone's interested, but I started filling in pie's video data into a spreadsheet to track how particular cards being in the opening hand correlate with wins. I've still got a ways to go, but interesting results so far...
This kind of data analysis is certainly interesting but it has some major flaws that need to be accounted for when interpreting the data. Just to show one of the problems, I will show an example with some made up numbers. Let's assume:
the only MU we bring in Hurkyl's Recall is against Affinity
we have 45% winrate without Hurkyl's Recall in the starting hand
we have 55% winrate with Hurkyl's Recall in the starting hand
our overall winrate across all matches and matchups is 60%
So now the winrate increase we would expect the data to show us is 10% (45% -> 55%). But that's not what the data shows, the data shows a -5% winrate change, because it will look at all starting hands without Hurkyl, not just the ones where we brought it in. Since our average winrate is 60% it registers a 5% decrease to 55% giving the unknowing reader of this data a completely wrong idea about the impact this card has. So a sb card that is boarded in for bad MUs will not be shown correctly at this point and needs to be manually compared to the winrate in those MUs. One way to combat this would be to separate the winrate changes per MU but that would require an insane amount of matches played to provide any meaningful data.
Additionally, this only tells you what is good in your starting hand, not what is good in your decklist. Rather than adjusting your decklist to this data I believe you should use this information to make better mulligan decisions. If you were to make this kind of analysis with all cards drawn during a game rather than just the cards in the starting hand it would be more meaningful for overall deckbuilding.
Anyway more data is always good but people have to be aware of what the data actually represents and where the weaknesses in the methodology are. Don't just look at the numbers and take them as they are, you need to understand why, and which factors are at play.
Champion is really bad tho? Draw 2 discard 2 is not good. Like it wouldn't be good for 1 mana. It's unplayable for 3 mana and a small body. Eternalize is 5UU sorc speed... for that mana you can have Gearhulk casting Thirst at instant speed and same value.
Against rg titanshift i feelalittle unfaired instead. They ramp ramp ramp and play scapeshift wich i cant remand or condescend for enough. :/
How is ur boarding haymakers beside Dismissal?
Against Titanshift just counter Titan and Scapeshift... Make sure you have enough blue to cast both Remand and Condescend against Scapeshift if they have enough mana to recast in one turn. I board in 1 Slaver, 1 Negate, 2 Summariy Dismissal and I board out like 1 Chalice, 1 Rift, 1 Walking Ballista, 1 Angel
T Mage vs Fabricate has been a back and forth over the years for me. It just depends on how many good blocks you will get out of the body and how many bullets you have to hit with Fabricate. Before Death's Shadow I was playing Fabricate for some time but I feel like being able to block a Shadow, Tasigur, Angler, Goyf, etc matters too much right now. There is definitely metagames where Fabricate is strictly better!
Pie and Shok or anyone really have you seen much 5c Humans on MTGO? This match up is horrible on paper. only played against it twice but with out a starting spatial in first 8 cards it game over usually. What have you guys seen and experienced? Pie we need a human video!
I have a video, it's going to be up on youtube in 3-4 days, you can already find it on my twitch VOD section
Repeal, Condescend and Spell Burst can be quite useful with Gearhulk, so much even that Gearhulk into Repeal and Gearhulk into Spell Burst have won me games. You will only have to use these spells very rarely though. Almost every time I have a Gearhulk I also have a good spell to target: Thirst for Knowledge, Supreme Will, Remand, Dismember, Summary Dismissal, Hurkyl's Recall. To the people saying Gearhulk is worse than Snapcaster: can you get a Snapcaster with Treasure Mage? Does Snapcaster block a Tasigur, Reality Smasher, TKS? Would you rather spend 4UU for a 5/6 and Thirst for Knowledge or 3UU for a 2/1 and Thirst for Knowledge?
As for the arguement that Gearhulk doesn't help us in our bad matchups, maybe that's the case but I can't think of a bad matchup where Sundering Titan helps? Gearhulk helps a lot in the grindy attrition matchups which are usually 55-65% winrate.
As to the arguement that UU is hard to achieve, firstly, it's not hard to achieve at all if you play a decent amount of blue sources, secondly, Snapcaster requires UU as well so your arguement makes little sense if you are playing Snapcaster.
Playing Mono U Tron you are basically playing a two colored deck, if you go UW you are three colored and much less consistent as well as weaker to Blood Moon and land destruction for little actual pay off.
Snapcaster Mage. I'm not overly impressed, thrilled, awed, or whatever, by this card in the deck. I most often find myself wishing I had something different in hand. However, I don't know if that's a function of wanting to maximize value off of casting a Snap + something else, rather than just using him less optimally, or because it is a lackluster card in the deck, relatively speaking. Currently, I'm considering running without him.
Snapcaster is a great card in the midgame and Spatial Contortion, Remand, Condescend and Thirst are great targets for Snapcaster. It's not as good very early because you don't have the mana or the spells in the yard but it's a very nice 1-of I won't cut. That being said I have played without Snapcaster before and it's not a huge loss when replaced with something like Supreme Will your spell count will stay around the same.
Lands. I've seen a few lists running 23 lands MB and was considering cutting 1 myself. However, I've also seen Shoktroopa running 25 lands and Pierakor is consistently on 24, occasionally siding into 25 or down to 23. Anyone tested with 23 MB or thoughts on the matter?
I wouldn't run 23 unless you are doing something weird like playing Serum Visions/Opt, or at least Anticipate or Talisman/Signets. 25 is where I was at before I played Anticipate, with the addition of 2 more cheap dig spells I made the move to 24. I've since moved to Supreme Will but still prefer 24 lands, I am much closer to adding a land than cutting one tho. I basically believe the theoretical right amount of lands for my list is like 24.3 or so.
Wurmcoil/Walking Ballista/Mindslaver/Ugin. I remember reading a comment by Pierakor that he would love to run 2x Engine, Slaver, and Ugin in the deck. I'd like to run 2x all 4 of he listed items MB, but there's only so much room and the deck is already so wide on threats with a crazy high curve. I think 2x Wurmcoil MB seems to be appropriate, but I struggle with 2x Ballista and 2x Ugin. All of these cards are independently amazing and all have very strong rolls in many, if not all matchups. Ultimately, I'm wondering if my desire to overload the power of the deck with a 2nd copy of Ugin MB is too much wishful thinking on my end. Also, whether a 2nd Ballista is a good idea, whether MB or SB. Of the 4, it seems like the weakest card, but! it is broke as hell in many matchups.
Yeah this is a very tough decision because of the toolboxy aspect we have through Treasure Mage. Sure Wurmcoil Engine is just going to do more than Angel most games but sometimes you got Chalice on the battlefield and a counterspell in hand and you know if you untap with Angel it's over. I definitely believe in running 1 Angel and 1 Gearhulk just because of how good they are in certain situations... I think I get Gearhulk with Treasure Mage about as often as WCE! It's just so good when you have a Thirst in the yard and they might have a path. As for Angel I don't get it quite as often but when I do it's a bigger payoff since it has a huge chance to just win me the game right there. As for Ugin I feel like we have 3 sweepers (O Stone, Rift, Ugin) and 3 is a good number. I like the diversity more than I like having a 2nd Ugin because the diversity means we can have Academy Ruins + O Stone lock, or use Rift early to bounce like a Tasigur or Blood Moon or whatever. 2nd Ugin I can see happening in a meta that has lots of midrange since Ugin just crushes any kind of creature deck and you cannot tutor Ugin so a 2nd copy makes a lot more sense than Slaver. WCE 2nd copy also makes a lot of sense since you will often want to run out a WCE into a potential path and you don't want that to be your last WCE if it does get pathed. Walking Ballista I don't see quite on the same powerlevel as the others but you can definitely try running more than one since it's cost is a little but more varied.
Platinum Angel. This one has me bothered. It seems like a vastly overpriced card for an effect that is often obliterated by the plethora of removal suites that are present in most, if not all decks. If you can set up to play the Angel and then protect it with counters, certainly, it presents another wincon. However, that would seem to be a much more expensive and unlikely setup to encounter than the traditional Mindslaver lock or Wurmcoil beats. It's something I'm considering removing because it doesn't seem to generate enough value to warrant keeping in the decklist. I'm not sure if others feel the same or have competing thoughts on this.
I think Angel is actually really good these days and especially if you play 4 Chalice in the 75 because there are less removal spells that hit Angel since Fatal Push was printed. Chalice on 1 and Angel will be game against most decks game 1 and even if it's not a complete lock it will be unlikely for your opponent to have the removal in hand the turn you play Angel and if you untap... well they might have like 2-3 outs to draw into but you play like 10 counterspell to protect... so you are much more likely to find counterspell than they are to find outs.
Basically every list is running 3 board wipes in 1 Ugin, 1 O Stone and 1 Rift. Some run 4. I don't think I've seen people run less than 3.
Our interaction will often stop the opponent from establishing a huge board (Removal, Counterspell, Bounce)
Furthermore a Wurmcoil Engine or Angel protected by Chalice or counterspells will make the opponents board irrelevant.
If your meta demands it you can definitely play 1 more Ugin or if you are running lots of basics like I do, you could even think about Engulf the Shore or Ætherspouts... but really I don't see the need.
Paying 1UU sorcery speed is really difficult. You will often not have 1UU on turn 3, and even more often you don't want to tap that mana sorcery speed.
The downside is playing less tron lands which doesn't just reduce the chance of natural tron but hurts your overall consistency. You will assemble tron later, and when you do you will have less mana on average. I am not having any issues producing blue mana with 9 lands that tap for blue, 1 field of ruin, 1 gemstone caverns and 4 maps of course. How many blue sources are you running?
I even think this manabase supports double blue spells very consistently.
1. One mana is less than two mana.
2. Against fast creature decks (burn, zoo) you need to do something in the early turns.
3. Turn 2 you already are doing stuff (Condescend, Spatial, Repeal)
4. To better this MU you need to do something good turn1.
So comparing Steel Wall, Sidisi's Faithful, Oona's Gatewarden to TITI, Spellskite, etc doesn't make sense. You are playing these 1 drops to play them turn1 against fast decks, turn 2 you already have many things to do with your mana. If you do have the 1 drops in your starting hand they will buy you a lot of time in those MUs. I really liked them when RG Zoo and Naya Burn where the 2 most popular decks!
I have a good example of how much the Steel Wall can do in one of my old videos on MGS
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY_MGs_C-yQ&feature=youtu.be&list=PL2jQrD9SkZONsMYAXyOa8yy-_wn65bE9o&t=525
No I just made up those numbers to show the problem.
My actual data against affinity from a year ago:
50% match win
49% game win
41% on the draw
55% on the play
35% preboard
58% postboard
This kind of data analysis is certainly interesting but it has some major flaws that need to be accounted for when interpreting the data. Just to show one of the problems, I will show an example with some made up numbers. Let's assume:
So now the winrate increase we would expect the data to show us is 10% (45% -> 55%). But that's not what the data shows, the data shows a -5% winrate change, because it will look at all starting hands without Hurkyl, not just the ones where we brought it in. Since our average winrate is 60% it registers a 5% decrease to 55% giving the unknowing reader of this data a completely wrong idea about the impact this card has. So a sb card that is boarded in for bad MUs will not be shown correctly at this point and needs to be manually compared to the winrate in those MUs. One way to combat this would be to separate the winrate changes per MU but that would require an insane amount of matches played to provide any meaningful data.
Additionally, this only tells you what is good in your starting hand, not what is good in your decklist. Rather than adjusting your decklist to this data I believe you should use this information to make better mulligan decisions. If you were to make this kind of analysis with all cards drawn during a game rather than just the cards in the starting hand it would be more meaningful for overall deckbuilding.
Anyway more data is always good but people have to be aware of what the data actually represents and where the weaknesses in the methodology are. Don't just look at the numbers and take them as they are, you need to understand why, and which factors are at play.
Against Titanshift just counter Titan and Scapeshift... Make sure you have enough blue to cast both Remand and Condescend against Scapeshift if they have enough mana to recast in one turn. I board in 1 Slaver, 1 Negate, 2 Summariy Dismissal and I board out like 1 Chalice, 1 Rift, 1 Walking Ballista, 1 Angel
I am 2-0 against Emeria Titan and the MU is pretty easy. should be 80-90% in our favor if not 100%
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRg9VaC08KmqPJBfqqzNF9TmtTwJyPsXMoyPWTWrw7GXk9DWFsz52Um7Vic5QepcZMyykDaU9BTdpu7/pubhtml?gid=1901420698&single=true
I have a video, it's going to be up on youtube in 3-4 days, you can already find it on my twitch VOD section
As for the arguement that Gearhulk doesn't help us in our bad matchups, maybe that's the case but I can't think of a bad matchup where Sundering Titan helps? Gearhulk helps a lot in the grindy attrition matchups which are usually 55-65% winrate.
As to the arguement that UU is hard to achieve, firstly, it's not hard to achieve at all if you play a decent amount of blue sources, secondly, Snapcaster requires UU as well so your arguement makes little sense if you are playing Snapcaster.
I wouldn't run 23 unless you are doing something weird like playing Serum Visions/Opt, or at least Anticipate or Talisman/Signets. 25 is where I was at before I played Anticipate, with the addition of 2 more cheap dig spells I made the move to 24. I've since moved to Supreme Will but still prefer 24 lands, I am much closer to adding a land than cutting one tho. I basically believe the theoretical right amount of lands for my list is like 24.3 or so.
Yeah this is a very tough decision because of the toolboxy aspect we have through Treasure Mage. Sure Wurmcoil Engine is just going to do more than Angel most games but sometimes you got Chalice on the battlefield and a counterspell in hand and you know if you untap with Angel it's over. I definitely believe in running 1 Angel and 1 Gearhulk just because of how good they are in certain situations... I think I get Gearhulk with Treasure Mage about as often as WCE! It's just so good when you have a Thirst in the yard and they might have a path. As for Angel I don't get it quite as often but when I do it's a bigger payoff since it has a huge chance to just win me the game right there. As for Ugin I feel like we have 3 sweepers (O Stone, Rift, Ugin) and 3 is a good number. I like the diversity more than I like having a 2nd Ugin because the diversity means we can have Academy Ruins + O Stone lock, or use Rift early to bounce like a Tasigur or Blood Moon or whatever. 2nd Ugin I can see happening in a meta that has lots of midrange since Ugin just crushes any kind of creature deck and you cannot tutor Ugin so a 2nd copy makes a lot more sense than Slaver. WCE 2nd copy also makes a lot of sense since you will often want to run out a WCE into a potential path and you don't want that to be your last WCE if it does get pathed. Walking Ballista I don't see quite on the same powerlevel as the others but you can definitely try running more than one since it's cost is a little but more varied.
I think Angel is actually really good these days and especially if you play 4 Chalice in the 75 because there are less removal spells that hit Angel since Fatal Push was printed. Chalice on 1 and Angel will be game against most decks game 1 and even if it's not a complete lock it will be unlikely for your opponent to have the removal in hand the turn you play Angel and if you untap... well they might have like 2-3 outs to draw into but you play like 10 counterspell to protect... so you are much more likely to find counterspell than they are to find outs.
Our interaction will often stop the opponent from establishing a huge board (Removal, Counterspell, Bounce)
Furthermore a Wurmcoil Engine or Angel protected by Chalice or counterspells will make the opponents board irrelevant.
If your meta demands it you can definitely play 1 more Ugin or if you are running lots of basics like I do, you could even think about Engulf the Shore or Ætherspouts... but really I don't see the need.
I even think this manabase supports double blue spells very consistently.