I don't like that Rise From the Grave at all, the regular artwork for that is much better. But Mind Control is great, the regular one is just awful(which is weird coming from Tedin).
I had high hopes for Ice Cage being at least decent in limited, but after playing with it the card is terrible. Usually it's being broken by the creature being equipped by something, but Blinding Mage or Prodigal Pyromancer work just as well.
Illusionary Servant is better, though it's still terrible against Blinding Mage or Pyromancer.
I got 4 textless packs and didn't get a Damnation this time. But it's not a mistake obviously, just like in the previous mailing the foil Damnations are just mixed in with the regular textless cards now. I got one last time, and a bunch of other people on here did too. My guess is that WotC just had a bunch of the Damnations left over. It should be interesting to see if the same thing happens a year from now with Cryptic Command actually.
Ok... so I got my Player Rewards today. I guess we know where Spellbreaker Behemoth came from now, as it's an oversized promo card like Feral Hydra was last year. My mailing didn't have a Cryptic, or 4 textless sets, and my DCI page says I'm owed both, but I assume that means one textless set and the Cryptic just missed the cutoff point this time. Here's what I don't get, I actually got 3 textless sets which were:
Trinisphere does a nice job at hitting those MUs, not too great against teps, but hopefuly the LD can get there.
Too bad you didn't face any of those decks for trinisphere, not that they are good MUs.
Blood Knight would be killer against the one white weenie deck from the top 8. That MU is non-existent though. Maybe against Bant and MartyrProc?
Trinisphere is not great against TEPS because they have answers, but it helps. Your goal in the TEPS match is to slow them down as much as possible so you can outrace them. Trinisphere is just one more hurdle for them to jump. In testing, most of the time I was able to outrace them, but it depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is how lucky the TEPS player gets off of Desire. Land destruction followed by Firecat is key in this match, because 7 damage is a lot and it can force TEPS to try to go off before they're ready.
Trinisphere is a lot better against Affinity, actually they have a hard time beating it if you can get it early. Pre-board, Affinity is a tough match which usually comes down to opening hands and which player draws better. If the Affinity player has a weak hand, sometimes early land destruction is enough, but not usually. The board helps a lot here though, since you bring in Trinisphere and Shattering Spree(and I'm going to add Dead/Gone, which also comes in here).
If Blood Knight does end up making the board, Bant will be the reason for it. The deck is becoming popular, and Blood Knight helps a lot agains War Monk, Bant Charm, and Path to Exile(if anyone's actually playing this). First strike is somewhat relevant in some matches as well, especially against Zoo.
I don't feel that only 1 jitte in the 75 is good enough.
What MU's did you side in the trinispheres (In tournament)?
I don't really like boil in the sideboard, but I feel that there is a need for relic.
I agree, there should at least be a second Jitte, in the sideboard. I haven't settled on an exact SB yet. Sullivan's list has 2 in the board, and it's probably a good call, but I'm just not sure yet. I definitely want to put in Dead/Gone in some number, and I'm going to at least be testing Blood Knight to see if he goes in.
In this tournament the Trinispheres came in against nothing. They are there for storm, elves, and affinity. The decks I played against were Faeries, Zoo, The Rock, White Weenie, and Bant. Trinisphere doesn't really help against any of those.
Considering how much storm & affinity were there I was surprised to have not played against them.
Boil is obviously for the faeries match. Not that it's a bad match, but it's close because faeries can beat anything given enough time. The best tool this deck has for fighting them is land destruction so having more to bring in is important. In round 6, I actually won through a Circle of Protection: Red out of faeries. I got him to tap out on his turn so I could resolve a Magus when he had no basic lands out, and then a few turns later I drew a Blastminer and started slowly blowing up his lands one turn at a time.
Yeah, that's the guy that beat me in the top 8. In game 3, I went with turn 1 Jitte, turn 2 Fanatic, equip... and of course he had the T2 Jitte so my hopes of just steamrolling him changed to being forced to play fair. I still got him to 2, and he only won because of 2x Tarmogoyf and another Jitte. Without both goyfs, or without the second Jitte, I would've won. Still, it was a fun match, and I don't feel like it really matters anyway since there's no way I was getting past that White Weenie deck without a lot of luck.
My SB was not great, I was trying a few things out(Volcanic Fallout & Relic) that just didn't work like I wanted. My SB will be better for the next PTQ.
There were definitely faeries there, but not very many. I wish there would've been more faerie decks there actually, I played against that deck twice at this PTQ and beat it both times. The majority of the room seemed to be Affinity or TEPS.
I haven't seen the decklists yet, but I read on another board that the finals ended up being Affinity vs. White Weenie, and Affinity won. The WW deck was certainly annoying, but definitely not unbeatable. I would think that deck would have a rough time against The Rock and Faeries at least. The other matches depend on whether or not the hate shows up(Kataki vs. Affinity, Canonist vs. TEPS, etc).
The Bant deck in the top 8 was another good example. He could've easily had Trigon Predator in there, I'm pretty sure he had Canonist and Teeg both main.
It was a pretty weird PTQ, there were lots of strange decks there I thought. I made top 8 with RDW, basically the same list Adrian Sullivan T8'd with a few weeks back. I didn't see the whole top 8, but I know most of it:
RDW(me)
Bant Aggro/Sea Stompy?(the deck that beat me here)
Mono W Weenie
Affinity
Affinity
???
???
???
The Bant Aggro deck had Noble Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, Jitte, Rhox War Monk, Ethersworn Canonist, and Mana Leak in it. I'm going to call it Sea Stompy since that's what it reminded me of. My games were close, but I came up 1 damage short at the end of game 3(drew a 2 damage burn spell when I needed a 3 to win).
The Mono W deck is the only one I lost to in the swiss. I don't know what was going on with that, the only card I remember seeing that was not in standard was Isamaru. It definitely was running Kitchen Finks, Spectral Procession, and MD Burrenton Forge-Tender.
No idea what won, I left after I lost in the T8, but I'm pretty the Sea Stompy deck was going to play the W Weenie deck in the second round, so one of them should've at least made the finals.
I'm working on a board for this deck, and would like some suggestions. Threads & Crypts are going in for sure, and I think an Engineered Explosives is as well(not sure if I'm going to run one main or not). So I guess the problem is that it doesn't leave many slots.
What can this deck do for Goblins? I would think that's probably one of the hardest matchups, maybe harder than Zoo(since against zoo you can use Explosives for 1 to wipe out a bunch of stuff), and I'm coming up blank.
My first thought was splash black for Engineered Plague but that doesn't work at all with the changelings in this deck. My next thought was to try Tsabo's Decree but I think that is probably way too slow.
I was also thinking that Divert would probably be very good against Zoo, RDW, & also mono red Burn. I know the original list played it in the board as a one of, but I'm wondering if it shouldn't be a 2-3 of instead.
How is Hurkyl's Recall? Good enough against Affinity to have a place in the board, or is it not worth the slot?
From what I saw, Affinity was all over the place. I definitely saw more Affinity decks than anything else, but none of them seemed to be doing very well. Dredge seemed to have not really showed up in any numbers at all, and Next Level Blue seemed to drop out of picture quickly. There did seem to be a lot of Doran at the event as well.
I was definitely expecting Dredge to be there in higher numbers.
Yeah, my current goblin deck looks a lot like that, and I think it'll only be better once we see what Morningtide brings. With Knucklebone Witch, Mogg Fanatic, Mogg War Marshal, and Squeaking Pie Sneak all in the same deck, at least one goblin is always getting through on turn 3.
The Jester's Cap ability may be relevent some of the time(mainly against combo), but the more important thing is that this is a 5/3 goblin for 2B.
It's already been mentioned, but against MUC you want to try to hit Guile with a lethal Skred right away. If they pact it, then they just used a pact to stop your 1 mana spell, and you can go crazy with whatever you want. Teferi shouldn't be a problem since he dies to the uncounterable Mouth of Ronom. It helps if you have Sulfer Elementals & red Akroma in the SB as well(which you probably should, as they come in handy for the Faeries match as well).
I've been testing this deck, and took it to FNM last night. My problem has been the same every time, which is I can beat everything but faeries, which is a match where I get crushed.
I'm considering the green splash for SB Hurricane actually, though if I go that way goyfs will certainly be either main or SB as well, and probably some SB seals. Is there an easier way to stop faeries though? I was already running 4x Sudden Shock SB for faeries & blink, and while it was enough for blink, it barely hurt faeries at all.
As far as I'm concerned, adding "blue" to the card doesn't really affect it's power level much. It was a sideboard card against control before, and it's still a sideboard card against those same decks. Would it be stronger the other way? A little yes. But since you would never, ever side it in except when your opponent is playing blue, the very slight power level difference means nothing.
Illusionary Servant is better, though it's still terrible against Blinding Mage or Pyromancer.
Rampant Growth & Nameless Inversion
Blightning & Flame Javelin
Blightning & foil Damnation
Yes, I got a textless foil Damnation mixed in with my regular textless cards. When did they start mixing in old textless foils in these things?
Trinisphere is not great against TEPS because they have answers, but it helps. Your goal in the TEPS match is to slow them down as much as possible so you can outrace them. Trinisphere is just one more hurdle for them to jump. In testing, most of the time I was able to outrace them, but it depends on a lot of things, not the least of which is how lucky the TEPS player gets off of Desire. Land destruction followed by Firecat is key in this match, because 7 damage is a lot and it can force TEPS to try to go off before they're ready.
Trinisphere is a lot better against Affinity, actually they have a hard time beating it if you can get it early. Pre-board, Affinity is a tough match which usually comes down to opening hands and which player draws better. If the Affinity player has a weak hand, sometimes early land destruction is enough, but not usually. The board helps a lot here though, since you bring in Trinisphere and Shattering Spree(and I'm going to add Dead/Gone, which also comes in here).
If Blood Knight does end up making the board, Bant will be the reason for it. The deck is becoming popular, and Blood Knight helps a lot agains War Monk, Bant Charm, and Path to Exile(if anyone's actually playing this). First strike is somewhat relevant in some matches as well, especially against Zoo.
I agree, there should at least be a second Jitte, in the sideboard. I haven't settled on an exact SB yet. Sullivan's list has 2 in the board, and it's probably a good call, but I'm just not sure yet. I definitely want to put in Dead/Gone in some number, and I'm going to at least be testing Blood Knight to see if he goes in.
In this tournament the Trinispheres came in against nothing. They are there for storm, elves, and affinity. The decks I played against were Faeries, Zoo, The Rock, White Weenie, and Bant. Trinisphere doesn't really help against any of those.
Considering how much storm & affinity were there I was surprised to have not played against them.
Boil is obviously for the faeries match. Not that it's a bad match, but it's close because faeries can beat anything given enough time. The best tool this deck has for fighting them is land destruction so having more to bring in is important. In round 6, I actually won through a Circle of Protection: Red out of faeries. I got him to tap out on his turn so I could resolve a Magus when he had no basic lands out, and then a few turns later I drew a Blastminer and started slowly blowing up his lands one turn at a time.
My SB was not great, I was trying a few things out(Volcanic Fallout & Relic) that just didn't work like I wanted. My SB will be better for the next PTQ.
I haven't seen the decklists yet, but I read on another board that the finals ended up being Affinity vs. White Weenie, and Affinity won. The WW deck was certainly annoying, but definitely not unbeatable. I would think that deck would have a rough time against The Rock and Faeries at least. The other matches depend on whether or not the hate shows up(Kataki vs. Affinity, Canonist vs. TEPS, etc).
The Bant deck in the top 8 was another good example. He could've easily had Trigon Predator in there, I'm pretty sure he had Canonist and Teeg both main.
RDW(me)
Bant Aggro/Sea Stompy?(the deck that beat me here)
Mono W Weenie
Affinity
Affinity
???
???
???
The Bant Aggro deck had Noble Hierarch, Tarmogoyf, Jitte, Rhox War Monk, Ethersworn Canonist, and Mana Leak in it. I'm going to call it Sea Stompy since that's what it reminded me of. My games were close, but I came up 1 damage short at the end of game 3(drew a 2 damage burn spell when I needed a 3 to win).
The Mono W deck is the only one I lost to in the swiss. I don't know what was going on with that, the only card I remember seeing that was not in standard was Isamaru. It definitely was running Kitchen Finks, Spectral Procession, and MD Burrenton Forge-Tender.
No idea what won, I left after I lost in the T8, but I'm pretty the Sea Stompy deck was going to play the W Weenie deck in the second round, so one of them should've at least made the finals.
What can this deck do for Goblins? I would think that's probably one of the hardest matchups, maybe harder than Zoo(since against zoo you can use Explosives for 1 to wipe out a bunch of stuff), and I'm coming up blank.
My first thought was splash black for Engineered Plague but that doesn't work at all with the changelings in this deck. My next thought was to try Tsabo's Decree but I think that is probably way too slow.
I was also thinking that Divert would probably be very good against Zoo, RDW, & also mono red Burn. I know the original list played it in the board as a one of, but I'm wondering if it shouldn't be a 2-3 of instead.
How is Hurkyl's Recall? Good enough against Affinity to have a place in the board, or is it not worth the slot?
I was definitely expecting Dredge to be there in higher numbers.
The Jester's Cap ability may be relevent some of the time(mainly against combo), but the more important thing is that this is a 5/3 goblin for 2B.
I'm considering the green splash for SB Hurricane actually, though if I go that way goyfs will certainly be either main or SB as well, and probably some SB seals. Is there an easier way to stop faeries though? I was already running 4x Sudden Shock SB for faeries & blink, and while it was enough for blink, it barely hurt faeries at all.