@davis if u're referring to game 1 (not entirely sure cos the whole match is quite long tbh) then yar, i only saw this line of play when i rewatched my games. thanks for watching though, i know this match is taking forever and was reluctant to share it here.
Hi everyone! So yesterday was the first modern PPTQ for the season, with 59 participants. I finished 5-1 in the swiss portion, and lost in the semi-finals.
The list i'm running is the exact copy of the 5-0 list on MTGgoldfish by Elfkid: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/698187#paper
My memory for each round was quite fuzzy, so I will just give a brief report, and talk about the important parts.
ROUND 1 - Grixis Death's Shadow with Delver of Secrets (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent didn't cast an early delve creature, and I manage to kill off 2 Death's Shadow with EE. I also decide to play conservatively when I saw a Mana Leak revealed off the Delver of Secrets. I search up a Cavern of Souls off Tolaria West, and win from there by chaining Primeval Titan.
Game 2: My opponent missed on 3rd land for a few turns, plus missing on black source for Terminate. I killed off his transformed Delver of Secrets with Walking Ballista before i finish him off with multiple Primeval Titans.
~ 1-0 ~
ROUND 2 - GW Tron (2-0)
Game 1: Opponent assemble T3 tron, but no big payoff. I manage to cast a Titan with Amulet of Vigor in play and deal 8 dmg. Opponent then cast Oblivion Stone and pass the turn. I made the misplay of casting my second Amulet into the Oblivion Stone and was set back by a lot, because I would have been able to search up Walking Ballista and cast it big enough for lethal if I had kept my second Amulet in hand. Luckily, I was able to deal the last few damage with Azusa + Slayers' Stronghold + Sunhome, followed by Sakura-Tribe Scout + Slayers' Stronghold + Sunhome, Right before my opponent was able to resolve an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
Game 2: I draw the god hand and won on turn 2. T1 land amulet, T2 amulet, bounceland, azusa, bounceland X 2 and 2 titan with haste and double strike.
~ 2-0 ~
ROUND 3 - BR Blood Moon, ft Goblin Rabblemaster and Demigod of Revenge + Faithless Looting (1-2)
I was quite demoralized when I found out from my friends what deck my opponent was playing. Knowing what colors he is playing, I expected hand disruption spells like Thoughtseize, but Blood Moon is...
Game 1: Opponent resolves T2 Blood Moon off Simian Spirit Guide, but I was able to cast a Primeval Titan off Forest and Vesuva copying Forest. But that was too little too late when he cast Demigod of Revenge, which pulled his friend from the graveyard and present a 2-turn clock.
Game 2: I kept a decent hand which luckily had a Forest. Opponent missed on T3 land drop, but was able to resolve a Blood Moon eventually. I waited until I have enough mana to destroy the Moon with Reclamation Sage and cast Primeval Titan to search up another Forest and Vesuva to play around another copy of Blood Moon. Unfortunately my opponent has Terminate for my Titan, but I was able to stabilize and cast another Titan for the win.
Game 3: Opponent went T1 thoughtseize, T2 Blood Moon, T4 Demigod. I never got to draw my Forest to cast Reclamation Sage and I scooped when he cast the second Blood Moon.
~ 2-1 ~
ROUND 4 - Merfolk (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent wasn't able to put up pressure fast enough, and I resolve an early Titan and won from there.
Game 2: Both of us took a mulligan. My opponent kept a medium hand with little aggression, while i have 2 Dismember. I deal with his problematic threats with Dismember and cast Primeval Titan.
~ 3-1 ~
ROUND 5 - Merfolk ft. Smuggler's Copter (2-0)
Game 1: Opponent was able to draw a few cards off his Smuggler's Copter, but Primeval Titan into Engineered Explosives for 2 was able to deal with this and end the game.
Game 2: It came to a point where I was at 6 life facing down a Cursecatcher, a 2/1 Merfolk and a Lord of Altanis, with 2 Mutavault and 2 Island. I have 4 untapped mana and a Kozilek's Return. I could cast the Return now to deal with the 3 permanents, but I would die to the remaining Mutavaults. So I decided to wait it out. Turns out, my opponent decided to animate both his Mutavaults and swing with the team, and I was able to kill 5 of his permanents. I then cast a Primeval Titan and search Radiant Fountain to stabilize my life total before eventually winning the game.
~ 4-1 ~
At this point, there are 4 people with 4-0-1 score, and 5 people with 4-1-0 score, which means I can't ID into top8 and have to play it out. Luckily the matchup for the next round is decent.
ROUND 6 - Abzan ft. slight tokens theme
Game 1: Opponent has 2 Tarmogofy, but I was able to keep the graveyards clean with 2 active Relic of Progenitus. He eventually was able to amass a board state with a few Lingering Souls token and Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Luckily I was able to top-deck a Tolaria West with Amulet + Azusa in play, and attack with 2 Primeval Titan for lethal.
Game 2: I was able resolve an Azusa and Tireless Tracker, which generated a few clues. However my opponent was putting a significant pressure on me with Lingering Souls. I was forced to EE = 0 to clear the board, which also cleared my remaining clues which I don't have mana to crack. The Tracker was kill off shortly and he was able to finish me off with an exalted Fulminator Mage.
Game 3: Opponent kept a hand with little interaction, which allows me to cast my Azusa safely and eventually resolve Primeval Titan for the win.
After the games I found out he actually board out Liliana of the Veil, which I think was bad especially when his deck is capable of casting a T2 Liliana off a Noble Hierarch.
~ 5-1, first in seating ~
QUARTER-FINALS - Eldrazi Tron (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent was aware of the matchup, and cast a Chalice of the Void = 0. Luckily, I didn't draw any pacts for the game, and I can safely cast Amulet, Scout and Azusa, all the while gaining life from Radiant Fountain. Eventually I top-decked a Primeval Titan and won the game.
Game 2: I start the turn with Amulet, but my opponent brought in Ratchet Bomb to deal with it before I got a chance to do anything. Opponent was able to assemble early Tron and cast Endbringer, AND Surgical Extraction my Amulets. He then drew a bunch of cards off Endbringer. I was able to cast a Primeval Titan, but he has a All is Dust ready. After some grindy turns he draws Reality Smasher and finish me off.
Game 3: I had a T1 Amulet again, but my opponent played well in keeping off 6 mana with ratchet bomb and multiple Ghost Quarter. However he never got to draw Thought-Knot Seer, which I was able to eventually cast Primeval titan to search up Ghost Quarter to kill his Tron pieces in order to play around All is Dust. He cast a Wurmcoil Engine, but I have another Titan in hand. So I attacked with the first titan, which traded with Wurmcoil and he create 2 tokens. I then cast the second Titan to search up EE = 0 to kill the tokens and win the game from there.
SEMI-FINALS - Abzan Company (1-2)
Game 1: I was a turn away from winning the game, but my opponent was able to assemble infinite life combo with Viscera Seer + Vizier + Kitchen Finks and I conceded.
Game 2: I made a few important decision, like killing his single mana-dork with EE, and not cracking the Relic of Progenitus to play around his infinite life combo. This allows me to survive until I can cast Titan and keep attacking until he's dead.
Game 3: I am on the draw, and kept a hand of Amulet, Khalni Garden, Explore, Scout, Kozilek's Return, Simic Growth Chamber and Boros Garrison. My opponent cast T1 BoP and passed the turn. I draw Gruul Turf, lay Khalni Garden and pass the turn. T2 my opponent cast Kitchen Finks and pass the turn. I draw another Gruul turf. I have no combination of play that allows me to generate 3 mana for Kozilek's Return, so I cast Amulet into bounceland into Explore, replay Khalni Garden and cast Scout. My opponent untaps and cast Vizier + Seer for the infinite life combo and I concede.
My semi-finals opponent then went on to face my friend in the finals who's playing affinity and my friend won, so congrats to him! Hopefully I will be able to join him soon.
So I have a few thing I could take away from yesterday.
1. Grove of the Burnwillows and Ghost Quarter
Through the tournament the life gain did not provide significant advantage for my opponent, but the same could be said for myself. I do however miss not playing Ghost Quarter in main deck, given that Tron is slightly popular in my meta environment. Going forward I would consider cutting a Grove for a GQ, maybe cutting the GQ in sideboard for something else or keeping it as it is.
2. Kozilek's Return
While testing I was choosing between Kozilek's Return and Pyroclasm. I went with Return eventually. While I did won a game with Return (see Round 5 Game 2), I did lost a significant game in the semi-finals (see Semi-Finals Game 3). Had my opening hand's Return been Pyroclasm instead, I could deal with BoP and first half of Kitchen Finks and stop the infinite life combo from happening. I'm actually quite torn with this decision, and thinking I should play 2 Pyroclasm instead. Had my Merfolk opponent in Round 5 played more conservatively, his Mutavaults would have survive and I might have lost, so Pyroclasm would have the same effect. That being said, I think I will test on 1/1 split between Return and Pyroclasm. Further testing required.
3. Blood Moon sucks
Nothing much on this.
The LGS did do a coverage on the whole tournement on twitch @greyogregames, so those interested could check them out. I believe they will post it on youtube as well so search them up if you prefer youtube.
Thanks for reading and please advise if you spot any significant improvements I could have made. Looking forward to the next PPTQ and hopefully get there.
Hi all, I have joined a few leagues so far but only managed 4-1 once. Most of the losses were due to bad draws and/or misplay.
PPTQ is coming up this Sunday and I am more of less settled on what seems to be the stock list for now (5-0 on MTGgoldfish). I am also referring to Bobby's sideboard guide, and wondering why do we bring in Dismember against Jeskai control, and not against U/W control? I haven't looked deep into their list, but the killable targets for Dismember for these controls decks are Spell Queller, Celestial Collonade and occasional Gideon. Anyone have faced this matchup with Bobby's sideboarding?
@davis thanks!
i would assume the 4 serum visions in your decklist are relics.
could you talk about the 3 swan songs? i assume they are for the combo matchups (storm, ad nauseum etc), but is it necessary to play 3 copies? same with @ekurkian's SB, which runs 1 blue pact and 2 swan. my concern here is with the amt of blue sources we currently have now that groves are confirmed maindeck over botanical scantum. i hav also always liked the 2nd engineered explosives in the SB.
@ekurkian thanks!
i noticed you didnt play any relic of progenitnus. i have read the previous comments saying the relics were quite good against the field, esp against those deck we are bad against e.g. storm. is this a meta-call, or does the playset of explores help with this decision?
i also noticed your enchantment removal package. it has been a while since i see seal of primordium in SB. again, meta-call or simply a better card?
@ekurkian @daviusminmus isit okay to post the current list you playing? im thinking of buying into the deck online i think i need to get more practice for the pptq.
hi all, huge fan of this deck, played it since justin cohen got 2nd at the PT until Summer Bloom got banned. recently picked this deck up again in preparation for upcoming modern PPTQ.
does anyone miss slaughter pact? i have faced a few vizier-variant decks recently and i could really use a tutor-able kill spell, even though i don't think this is an unfavorable matchup.
@davis thanks for updating on your testing, i have been questioning whether are the grooves worth playing for the deathshadow matchup because of the cost and i personally prefer casting serum visions. are you playing full playset of azusa currently?
@sodek your 75 list looks like a throwback to pre-banning list, essentially Summer Bloom = Sakura-Tribe Scout.
a few things i noticed, your SB doesnt include artifact/enchantment hate, and no graveyard hate. i guess you have EEs against affinity, which also excluded cards like pyroclasm and firesprout from your SB. i haven't tried the matchup, but how is Dredge for you? also throwing this question out to everyone.
i have played a few games with your previous list, and i prefer baloth over leyline. compared to your latest list which runs 1 of each, won't running 2 baloth instead of the split be more consistent? concern here is against burn; i dont think i wanna board a singleton leyline against burn, it's simple too slow.
i also noticed your list runs 9 bounceland instead of the usual 10 (missing land being the Selesnya Sanctuary i guess). which land would you suggest cutting if i were to add in the 10th bounceland? or is 9 bounceland really enough?
finally, i noticed you removed Melira from your SB. was the card too narrow, or is the infect matchup too bad that it's not worth a slot?
@davius tried looking for your most recent 5-0 list but couldnt find it.
anyway, what are your thoughts on Tireless Tracker? is it still worth the slot against grindy decks?
looking at your past 5-0 list, how did Sudden Shock do for you? i assume it's good against infect and abzan coco (in stopping their visera combo), or did i missed out anything?
i'm also looking at kevin grove's list, which runs Slaughter Pact in main. have you tried running it? i see that both of you are playing Crumbling Vestige over Mana Confluence / City of Brass. My concern here is, looking at kevin's list, he only runs 5 reliable black sources (4 Gemstone Mine and 1 Golgari Rot Farm), and i'm not sure whether are these enough to pay for Slaughter Pact reliably. Sure, there are other ways to generate black mana, like Gemstone Cavern on the draw, vesuva, or 'flashing' in Crumbling Vestige with Scout, but that sounds kinda narrow.
like Hazanko said, i believe alot of us wants more insight on Trinket Mage. the utility is there (fetching Amulet or Engineered Explosives, and SB cards like Grafdigger's Cage, Relic of Progenitus, Darksteel Citadel (if we're going deep)), so kinda interested on it's consistency or any other issues faced.
for the case of moving hornet queen to the board, maybe u can consider sunhome again, since without the queen u should be trying to close the game faster. i kinda prefer kevin's 4 sakura tribe scout since games are so much easier with scout in play, although i haven't test it. overall kevin's list is somewhat a mix of urs and amulet bloom of the past, with main slaughter pack, 1 simian and similiar utility land.
regarding firesprout, how often does the extra cost compared to pyroclasm affect u, or does the extra dmg justifies the extra cost
@davis great to hear your list is putting up results, and congrats to ur friend! do u mind reposting ur list? i hav recently trying to re-learn this deck in preparation for wmcq. took ur list with leyline in SB to a pptq few weeks ago but didnt make top8, although i was close. i would say the deck is still great, or at least fun to play with, and i like to see my opponent's faces when they see a T1 amulet or scout.
@xrascal, the list than Reid Duke won with was before OGW was legal. Now we have Reflector Mage to fill the role of Anafenze repellant. That said, I still play a few Merciless/Fleshbag is my sideboard.
@iacco, i find his list interesting, but this kind of boarding transform us into a 4-color company deck, and an inferior one compared to the other 4C company becos I dont think watever we are bringing in is worse than watever other people is already playing in their mainboard. I have yet tried Demars' list however, and i would recommand some difference in the number, say more anafenza maybe, to increase our overall creature quality. Sylvan Advocate is good, but we arent using it's landlord ability. I might even consider bounding krasis, but who knows.
The list i'm running is the exact copy of the 5-0 list on MTGgoldfish by Elfkid: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/698187#paper
My memory for each round was quite fuzzy, so I will just give a brief report, and talk about the important parts.
ROUND 1 - Grixis Death's Shadow with Delver of Secrets (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent didn't cast an early delve creature, and I manage to kill off 2 Death's Shadow with EE. I also decide to play conservatively when I saw a Mana Leak revealed off the Delver of Secrets. I search up a Cavern of Souls off Tolaria West, and win from there by chaining Primeval Titan.
Game 2: My opponent missed on 3rd land for a few turns, plus missing on black source for Terminate. I killed off his transformed Delver of Secrets with Walking Ballista before i finish him off with multiple Primeval Titans.
~ 1-0 ~
ROUND 2 - GW Tron (2-0)
Game 1: Opponent assemble T3 tron, but no big payoff. I manage to cast a Titan with Amulet of Vigor in play and deal 8 dmg. Opponent then cast Oblivion Stone and pass the turn. I made the misplay of casting my second Amulet into the Oblivion Stone and was set back by a lot, because I would have been able to search up Walking Ballista and cast it big enough for lethal if I had kept my second Amulet in hand. Luckily, I was able to deal the last few damage with Azusa + Slayers' Stronghold + Sunhome, followed by Sakura-Tribe Scout + Slayers' Stronghold + Sunhome, Right before my opponent was able to resolve an Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
Game 2: I draw the god hand and won on turn 2. T1 land amulet, T2 amulet, bounceland, azusa, bounceland X 2 and 2 titan with haste and double strike.
~ 2-0 ~
ROUND 3 - BR Blood Moon, ft Goblin Rabblemaster and Demigod of Revenge + Faithless Looting (1-2)
I was quite demoralized when I found out from my friends what deck my opponent was playing. Knowing what colors he is playing, I expected hand disruption spells like Thoughtseize, but Blood Moon is...
Game 1: Opponent resolves T2 Blood Moon off Simian Spirit Guide, but I was able to cast a Primeval Titan off Forest and Vesuva copying Forest. But that was too little too late when he cast Demigod of Revenge, which pulled his friend from the graveyard and present a 2-turn clock.
Game 2: I kept a decent hand which luckily had a Forest. Opponent missed on T3 land drop, but was able to resolve a Blood Moon eventually. I waited until I have enough mana to destroy the Moon with Reclamation Sage and cast Primeval Titan to search up another Forest and Vesuva to play around another copy of Blood Moon. Unfortunately my opponent has Terminate for my Titan, but I was able to stabilize and cast another Titan for the win.
Game 3: Opponent went T1 thoughtseize, T2 Blood Moon, T4 Demigod. I never got to draw my Forest to cast Reclamation Sage and I scooped when he cast the second Blood Moon.
~ 2-1 ~
ROUND 4 - Merfolk (2-0)
Game 1: My opponent wasn't able to put up pressure fast enough, and I resolve an early Titan and won from there.
Game 2: Both of us took a mulligan. My opponent kept a medium hand with little aggression, while i have 2 Dismember. I deal with his problematic threats with Dismember and cast Primeval Titan.
~ 3-1 ~
ROUND 5 - Merfolk ft. Smuggler's Copter (2-0)
Game 1: Opponent was able to draw a few cards off his Smuggler's Copter, but Primeval Titan into Engineered Explosives for 2 was able to deal with this and end the game.
Game 2: It came to a point where I was at 6 life facing down a Cursecatcher, a 2/1 Merfolk and a Lord of Altanis, with 2 Mutavault and 2 Island. I have 4 untapped mana and a Kozilek's Return. I could cast the Return now to deal with the 3 permanents, but I would die to the remaining Mutavaults. So I decided to wait it out. Turns out, my opponent decided to animate both his Mutavaults and swing with the team, and I was able to kill 5 of his permanents. I then cast a Primeval Titan and search Radiant Fountain to stabilize my life total before eventually winning the game.
~ 4-1 ~
At this point, there are 4 people with 4-0-1 score, and 5 people with 4-1-0 score, which means I can't ID into top8 and have to play it out. Luckily the matchup for the next round is decent.
ROUND 6 - Abzan ft. slight tokens theme
Game 1: Opponent has 2 Tarmogofy, but I was able to keep the graveyards clean with 2 active Relic of Progenitus. He eventually was able to amass a board state with a few Lingering Souls token and Sorin, Solemn Visitor. Luckily I was able to top-deck a Tolaria West with Amulet + Azusa in play, and attack with 2 Primeval Titan for lethal.
Game 2: I was able resolve an Azusa and Tireless Tracker, which generated a few clues. However my opponent was putting a significant pressure on me with Lingering Souls. I was forced to EE = 0 to clear the board, which also cleared my remaining clues which I don't have mana to crack. The Tracker was kill off shortly and he was able to finish me off with an exalted Fulminator Mage.
Game 3: Opponent kept a hand with little interaction, which allows me to cast my Azusa safely and eventually resolve Primeval Titan for the win.
After the games I found out he actually board out Liliana of the Veil, which I think was bad especially when his deck is capable of casting a T2 Liliana off a Noble Hierarch.
~ 5-1, first in seating ~
QUARTER-FINALS - Eldrazi Tron (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent was aware of the matchup, and cast a Chalice of the Void = 0. Luckily, I didn't draw any pacts for the game, and I can safely cast Amulet, Scout and Azusa, all the while gaining life from Radiant Fountain. Eventually I top-decked a Primeval Titan and won the game.
Game 2: I start the turn with Amulet, but my opponent brought in Ratchet Bomb to deal with it before I got a chance to do anything. Opponent was able to assemble early Tron and cast Endbringer, AND Surgical Extraction my Amulets. He then drew a bunch of cards off Endbringer. I was able to cast a Primeval Titan, but he has a All is Dust ready. After some grindy turns he draws Reality Smasher and finish me off.
Game 3: I had a T1 Amulet again, but my opponent played well in keeping off 6 mana with ratchet bomb and multiple Ghost Quarter. However he never got to draw Thought-Knot Seer, which I was able to eventually cast Primeval titan to search up Ghost Quarter to kill his Tron pieces in order to play around All is Dust. He cast a Wurmcoil Engine, but I have another Titan in hand. So I attacked with the first titan, which traded with Wurmcoil and he create 2 tokens. I then cast the second Titan to search up EE = 0 to kill the tokens and win the game from there.
SEMI-FINALS - Abzan Company (1-2)
Game 1: I was a turn away from winning the game, but my opponent was able to assemble infinite life combo with Viscera Seer + Vizier + Kitchen Finks and I conceded.
Game 2: I made a few important decision, like killing his single mana-dork with EE, and not cracking the Relic of Progenitus to play around his infinite life combo. This allows me to survive until I can cast Titan and keep attacking until he's dead.
Game 3: I am on the draw, and kept a hand of Amulet, Khalni Garden, Explore, Scout, Kozilek's Return, Simic Growth Chamber and Boros Garrison. My opponent cast T1 BoP and passed the turn. I draw Gruul Turf, lay Khalni Garden and pass the turn. T2 my opponent cast Kitchen Finks and pass the turn. I draw another Gruul turf. I have no combination of play that allows me to generate 3 mana for Kozilek's Return, so I cast Amulet into bounceland into Explore, replay Khalni Garden and cast Scout. My opponent untaps and cast Vizier + Seer for the infinite life combo and I concede.
My semi-finals opponent then went on to face my friend in the finals who's playing affinity and my friend won, so congrats to him! Hopefully I will be able to join him soon.
So I have a few thing I could take away from yesterday.
1. Grove of the Burnwillows and Ghost Quarter
Through the tournament the life gain did not provide significant advantage for my opponent, but the same could be said for myself. I do however miss not playing Ghost Quarter in main deck, given that Tron is slightly popular in my meta environment. Going forward I would consider cutting a Grove for a GQ, maybe cutting the GQ in sideboard for something else or keeping it as it is.
2. Kozilek's Return
While testing I was choosing between Kozilek's Return and Pyroclasm. I went with Return eventually. While I did won a game with Return (see Round 5 Game 2), I did lost a significant game in the semi-finals (see Semi-Finals Game 3). Had my opening hand's Return been Pyroclasm instead, I could deal with BoP and first half of Kitchen Finks and stop the infinite life combo from happening. I'm actually quite torn with this decision, and thinking I should play 2 Pyroclasm instead. Had my Merfolk opponent in Round 5 played more conservatively, his Mutavaults would have survive and I might have lost, so Pyroclasm would have the same effect. That being said, I think I will test on 1/1 split between Return and Pyroclasm. Further testing required.
3. Blood Moon sucks
Nothing much on this.
The LGS did do a coverage on the whole tournement on twitch @greyogregames, so those interested could check them out. I believe they will post it on youtube as well so search them up if you prefer youtube.
Thanks for reading and please advise if you spot any significant improvements I could have made. Looking forward to the next PPTQ and hopefully get there.
PPTQ is coming up this Sunday and I am more of less settled on what seems to be the stock list for now (5-0 on MTGgoldfish). I am also referring to Bobby's sideboard guide, and wondering why do we bring in Dismember against Jeskai control, and not against U/W control? I haven't looked deep into their list, but the killable targets for Dismember for these controls decks are Spell Queller, Celestial Collonade and occasional Gideon. Anyone have faced this matchup with Bobby's sideboarding?
i would assume the 4 serum visions in your decklist are relics.
could you talk about the 3 swan songs? i assume they are for the combo matchups (storm, ad nauseum etc), but is it necessary to play 3 copies? same with @ekurkian's SB, which runs 1 blue pact and 2 swan. my concern here is with the amt of blue sources we currently have now that groves are confirmed maindeck over botanical scantum. i hav also always liked the 2nd engineered explosives in the SB.
i noticed you didnt play any relic of progenitnus. i have read the previous comments saying the relics were quite good against the field, esp against those deck we are bad against e.g. storm. is this a meta-call, or does the playset of explores help with this decision?
i also noticed your enchantment removal package. it has been a while since i see seal of primordium in SB. again, meta-call or simply a better card?
does anyone miss slaughter pact? i have faced a few vizier-variant decks recently and i could really use a tutor-able kill spell, even though i don't think this is an unfavorable matchup.
@davis thanks for updating on your testing, i have been questioning whether are the grooves worth playing for the deathshadow matchup because of the cost and i personally prefer casting serum visions. are you playing full playset of azusa currently?
a few things i noticed, your SB doesnt include artifact/enchantment hate, and no graveyard hate. i guess you have EEs against affinity, which also excluded cards like pyroclasm and firesprout from your SB. i haven't tried the matchup, but how is Dredge for you? also throwing this question out to everyone.
i'll be attending 2 pptq over the weekend, will update results. hopefully i will only need do one update lol
i have played a few games with your previous list, and i prefer baloth over leyline. compared to your latest list which runs 1 of each, won't running 2 baloth instead of the split be more consistent? concern here is against burn; i dont think i wanna board a singleton leyline against burn, it's simple too slow.
i also noticed your list runs 9 bounceland instead of the usual 10 (missing land being the Selesnya Sanctuary i guess). which land would you suggest cutting if i were to add in the 10th bounceland? or is 9 bounceland really enough?
finally, i noticed you removed Melira from your SB. was the card too narrow, or is the infect matchup too bad that it's not worth a slot?
anyway, what are your thoughts on Tireless Tracker? is it still worth the slot against grindy decks?
looking at your past 5-0 list, how did Sudden Shock do for you? i assume it's good against infect and abzan coco (in stopping their visera combo), or did i missed out anything?
i'm also looking at kevin grove's list, which runs Slaughter Pact in main. have you tried running it? i see that both of you are playing Crumbling Vestige over Mana Confluence / City of Brass. My concern here is, looking at kevin's list, he only runs 5 reliable black sources (4 Gemstone Mine and 1 Golgari Rot Farm), and i'm not sure whether are these enough to pay for Slaughter Pact reliably. Sure, there are other ways to generate black mana, like Gemstone Cavern on the draw, vesuva, or 'flashing' in Crumbling Vestige with Scout, but that sounds kinda narrow.
like Hazanko said, i believe alot of us wants more insight on Trinket Mage. the utility is there (fetching Amulet or Engineered Explosives, and SB cards like Grafdigger's Cage, Relic of Progenitus, Darksteel Citadel (if we're going deep)), so kinda interested on it's consistency or any other issues faced.
regarding firesprout, how often does the extra cost compared to pyroclasm affect u, or does the extra dmg justifies the extra cost
@iacco, i find his list interesting, but this kind of boarding transform us into a 4-color company deck, and an inferior one compared to the other 4C company becos I dont think watever we are bringing in is worse than watever other people is already playing in their mainboard. I have yet tried Demars' list however, and i would recommand some difference in the number, say more anafenza maybe, to increase our overall creature quality. Sylvan Advocate is good, but we arent using it's landlord ability. I might even consider bounding krasis, but who knows.