I did pretty well in Lyon, but don't remember enough of the games for a full report.
R1 against UR Pyro 2-0: French guy, the matchup is just great and he cannot do much.
R2 against Affinity 0-2: Another frenchie who did a couple mistake but it turns out T1 Plating is still pretty good. G2 I flood and manage to do some sequencing mistakes which cut my outs in half, but I draw a couple blanks anyway.
R3 against Mardu Pyro 2-0: The guy made some mistakes in the games, sideboarded very wrong and complained in the end.
R4 against Infect 2-0: He didn't draw any Inkmoth Nexus and without this card the matchup is pretty unwinnable for him.
R5 against Etron 2-0: G1 I play a discard spell only to see 2 Chalices, a Relic, GQ, Mine, and 2 creatures. I'm on the play and take a chalice, hoping to draw an answer to the second one. He draws a temple, plays it and the relic. I play a Shadow and pass with a blue up. He draws a second temple, plays it and the chalice. I draw a tarmogoyf to go with my DS and kill him on turn 4 with a battle rage.
G2 I keep a one lander with street wraith, play a discard spell and see 2 chalices, 1 Dismember, 0 temples and some lands and a creature that I select. I leave both chalices because I have a Maelstrom Pulse and a Grudge in hand. He draws 2 temples but has no pressure while I can't find lands. on turn 4 he plays the second chalice on 2. I draw 2 lands the following turn and Pulse the Chalice, he draws an Endbringer but my triple Death's Shadow hand kills him anyway.
R6 against Tron 2-0: I misscount his lands G1 and give him the out of drawing the last tron piece on the last turn by taking the wrong card with a Thoughtseize, but even if I had played right and taken the Ugin with Thoughtseize the tron piece was still 90% to win him the game there. G2 is uneventful, he doen't have green mana for Thragdaddy and Stirrings and can't get to Tron.
R7 against Shuhei Nakamura on Jeskai Tempo 2-1: An interesting incident happened there. I won G1 just by playing a big Shadow while I knew he had no Burn or answers to DS in hand. G2 I sideboarded wrong thinking he was on a more controlling build and died to snapcaster bolts with 2 D-Stroke in hand. G3 I'm fairly ahead and at some point I cycle a Street wraith in order to get delirium and play Traverse the Ulvenwald. While I'm searching my library, a friend of mine says us to wait and calls a Judge: it turns out I didn't draw with the Wraith and upon learning that Shuhei laughs immediately. The Judge fixes the situation, we both get warnings and I win the game with the card drawn. At the end of the game, the Judge asks Shuhei Nakamura to come with him and my friends tell me he could get DQ'd because his reaction with the judge call seemed to show he was aware of me not drawing the card and just didn't tell me even though he should have. He has a long discussion with the Head Judge and ends up not being DQ'd.
R8 against Jeskai Breach 2-1: He left the combo in even though it's pretty bad against me, and I take down both postboard games with most of my removal out.
7-1 and happy so far, but I have to keep focusing on each game as best as I can.
R9 against Grixis Shadow 2-1 despite me cracking my Bauble during main phase like a noob when we're in Topdeck war.
R10 against the Mirror 1-2: In G3 my opponents discard my Stubs and Discard and Traverses for a land on turn 3: I think about what I can do against the obviously upcoming Lili, Bauble myself and see a thoughtseize on top, and choose not to play any creature thinking he might want to wait for me to have a board. He doesn't and wins with Lili active for more than 10 turns and me not finding any of my 3 answers.
R11 against Storm 2-0. Easy win G1, and he's mana screwed during G2.
R12 against Bogles 2-0 through T1 Leyline G1 because he only had a Kor. G2 He doesn't have a Leyline and Lili crushed him.
R13 against Burn 2-1 thanks to my opponent letting me resolve my Street wraith cycling which let me draw the Stubborn Denial that countered the Helix he had to cast to survive.
R14 against Abzan Aggro (Time Walk Feature Match, it's at the end of the round) 2-1: I'll let you see all my punts live on Twitch, I did a bunch of them.
R15 against Mardu Pyro 2-0: The guy mulled to 4 G2 and wasn't happy about it :/
I end up 10th on breakers, with a PT invite and airfare plus a thousand bucks. Super stoked with this at my 2nd GP ever, and hope I can keep being this lucky in the future and step my game up.
WOW Congratulations on such an impressive run! Now having run so well with your list is there any changes you would make moving forward? I am about to buy into this deck and am really having a tough time with how to put the deck together. I noticed you have a small blue package with Snapcaster etc. and I am wondering if that is something you would recommend in the new meta with some different decks floating around? If you have any tips or an updated build I would really be interested in your opinions. Thanks for any advice you might have!
The Hostage Taker was pretty bad, everytime I drew it I never had the mana and the time to cast it, but this might be because of the sample size.
2 D-Stroke might be too many: Against Jeskai, you don't want to draw 2 most of the time and 2 manas is somewhat clunky. But given how great they are in some other matchups (Etron, Tron, Through the breach decks) I'm really not sure about this one.
Fulminator Mage was great in a lot of matchups, I'm pretty sure most people should play at least 1 and maybe even more. BGx Midrange (Shadow and non-Shadow), Control, Burn, Infect and Big mana decks make up a large percentage of the meta.
I think TBR is great in the Mardu Matchup and we shouldn't sideboard it out, we have to hope to go faster because it's too hard to grind them out and they don't have that many answers to our big creatures (Like 4 preboard and maybe a couple more postboard). Maybe It's even right to side in the 3rd copy but I haven't tried it.
Snapcaster was pretty good but I'm not sure he deserves a spot in the 75, he was often a bit clunky. I never traversed for it, maybe Grim Flayer is just better even though I'm not playing Souls. Even if you're not playing it, I would still play the breeding pool because of the tron matchup, and having 2 blue sources against Field of ruin decks can be critical (unless you're playing a bunch of Tarfires and Terminate which necessitate a Stomping Ground).
I only found myself wanting to Traverse for a Ghor Clan once but I won the game anyway. I'm not sure it's needed unless swarm decks become much more prevalent (It would necessitate a rework of the mana and/or some manamorphoses in the deck).
I was happy with the removal split. I have no idea what I could cut but getting a couple manamorphose in the deck could be great.
I did pretty well in Lyon, but don't remember enough of the games for a full report.
R1 against UR Pyro 2-0: French guy, the matchup is just great and he cannot do much. I kill his things, discard all his relevant card and kill hime with big monsters.
R2 against Affinity 0-2: Another frenchie who did a couple mistake but it turns out T1 Plating is still pretty good. G2 I flood and manage to do some sequencing mistakes which cut my outs in half, but I draw a couple blanks anyway.
R3 against Mardu Pyro 2-0: The guy made some mistakes in the games, sideboarded very wrong and complained in the end. Turns out Wear//Tear isn't good against our deck.
R4 against Infect 2-0: He didn't draw any Inkmoth Nexus and without this card the matchup is pretty unwinnable for him.
R5 against Etron 2-0: G1 I play a discard spell only to see 2 Chalices, a Relic, GQ, Mine, and 2 creatures. I'm on the play and take a chalice, hoping to draw an answer to the second one. He draws a temple, plays it and the relic. I play a Shadow and pass with a blue up. He draws a second temple, plays it and the chalice. I draw a tarmogoyf to go with my DS and kill him on turn 4 with a battle rage.
G2 I keep a one lander with street wraith, play a discard spell and see 2 chalices, 1 Dismember, 0 temples and some lands and a creature that I select. I leave both chalices because I have a Maelstrom Pulse and a Grudge in hand. He draws 2 temples but has no pressure while I can't find lands. on turn 4 he plays the second chalice on 2. I draw 2 lands the following turn and Pulse the Chalice, he draws an Endbringer but my triple Death's Shadow hand kills him anyway.
R6 against Tron 2-0: I misscount his lands G1 and give him the out of drawing the last tron piece on the last turn by taking the wrong card with a Thoughtseize, but even if I had played right and taken the Ugin with Thoughtseize the tron piece was still 90% to win him the game there. G2 is uneventful, he doen't have green mana for Thragdaddy and Stirrings and can't get to Tron.
R7 against Shuhei Nakamura on Jeskai Tempo 2-1: An interesting incident happened there. I won G1 just by playing a big Shadow while I knew he had no Burn or answers to DS in hand. G2 I sideboarded wrong thinking he was on a more controlling build and died to snapcaster bolts with 2 D-Stroke in hand. G3 I'm fairly ahead and at some point I cycle a Street wraith in order to get delirium and play Traverse the Ulvenwald. While I'm searching my library, a friend of mine says us to wait and calls a Judge: it turns out I didn't draw with the Wraith and upon learning that Shuhei laughs immediately. The Judge fixes the situation, we both get warnings and I win the game with the card drawn. At the end of the game, the Judge asks Shuhei Nakamura to come with him and my friends tell me he could get DQ'd because his reaction with the judge call seemed to show he was aware of me not drawing the card and just didn't tell me even though he should have. He has a long discussion with the Head Judge and ends up not being DQ'd.
R8 against Jeskai Breach 2-1: He left the combo in even though it's pretty bad against me, and I take down both postboard games with most of my removal out.
7-1 and happy so far, but I have to keep focusing on each game as best as I can.
R9 against Grixis Shadow 2-1 despite me cracking my Bauble during main phase like a noob when we're in Topdeck war.
R10 against the Mirror 1-2: In G3 my opponents discard my Stubs and Discard and Traverses for a land on turn 3: I think about what I can do against the obviously upcoming Lili, Bauble myself and see a thoughtseize on top, and choose not to play any creature thinking he might want to wait for me to have a board. He doesn't and wins with Lili active for more than 10 turns and me not finding any of my 3 answers.
R11 against Storm 2-0. Easy win G1, and he's mana screwed during G2.
R12 against Bogles 2-0 through T1 Leyline G1 because he only had a Kor. G2 He doesn't have a Leyline and Lili crushed him.
R13 against Burn 2-1 thanks to my opponent letting me resolve my Street wraith cycling which let me draw the Stubborn Denial that countered the Helix he had to cast to survive.
R14 against Abzan Aggro (Time Walk Feature Match, it's at the end of the round) 2-1: I'll let you see all my punts live on Twitch, I did a bunch of them.
R15 against Mardu Pyro 2-0: The guy mulled to 4 G2 and wasn't happy about it :/
I end up 10th on breakers, with a PT invite and airfare plus a thousand bucks. Super stoked with this at my 2nd GP ever, and hope I can keep being this lucky in the future and step my game up.
Not a bad looking list at all. However, based on the meta, I think a few more proactive choices would be better against the open field. Grim flayer over snap, cut the breeding pool since you dont need UU, replace with stomping ground, cut a delta for a misty (to grab the ground), cut 1 stub (lots of matchups where its useless, 3 main too many), and then 2 of push/AD/Lili for 2 tarfire and a dismember.
Grim flayer over snap could be a consideration, but I've found that I want to side in snap in 90% of my matches, and that threat density wasn't too much of an issue. I could see cutting a traverse for a flayer though, like Jirock in his PT Top8 deck.
Cutting the pool for a ground is extremely wrong imo though: Having 2 blue sources is critical against Tron in particular, but also against UW, because of Ghost quarter and Field of Ruins. It also allows for the snap Denial plays. Stomping ground is clearly worse, given that I'm not playing Ghor-Clan Rampager or Tarfire.
The other changes you propose are probably fine, but given last week's Toronto results I want to be ready for big mana decks of which there were plenty in the top 32, which is why I'm playing 3 stubs. I want my deck to play out more like sultai splashing red for TBR. Playing a second dismember over one of the other removal could be good, it would improve against decks like Hollow One or Grixis Shadow, but I've chosen to prepare more for decks like Humans, Affinity and Burn. It could be better to play a Jund splashing blue deck as you propose, which would allow me to also maybe play a couple terminate, but I've chosen to go the Sultai route.
That build gives you maximum aggression and consistency. Don't underestimate tarfire, card is great in the meta right now, I like a 1/1 LotV b/w main and SB, she has quite a few bad matchups too. The tarfires and dismembers ensure you can always have huge threats and TBR them while still having Stub backup and whatnot. Tarfire kills a lot of ***** in the current meta, queller and mantis rider being 2 of the misses, and even against decks like tron and valakut it typically stays in post SB depending on your SB, because it can clear Sakura, go to face and help goyf race, or go to your own face and let shadow race while fixing your graveyard.
It's true Lili's not great in the current meta, but I just want to play it for the free wins against Titan Shift, the Shadow mirror, Control decks or ETron. Tarfire would only be good against 12 of the 32 decks in the top of the standings from Toronto, which is not where I want to be.
Hi everyone,
I'll be playing Traverse Shadow in Lyon this weekend, and while I have some experience with Death's Shadow decks, the format being so wide means I have never even played against half the tier 1-2 decks with it. I've locked the following decklist, very similar to Immanuel Gerschenson's list with a couple personal adjustments.
I've written baselines for my sideboard plans against some of the top decks, based on some articles and my personal understanding of the deck. If some of you guys could take the time to give me your opinion about them, it'd be awesome !
Storm (assuming they cut gifts and creatures for pieces, Empty and some interaction, adapt the plan otherwise or if they have blood moon)
-2 Decay
-1 Dismember
-2 Lili
-1 Push
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Return
+2 Brutality
+1 TBR
Grixis Shadow matchup is pretty even, but I'm using the white version which is definitely better against Grixis DS. Path means that turn 2 delve fattie isn't much of a problem, and Chameleon Colossus and Rip in the sideboard are great. RiP even stops Surgical Extraction.
I played 1 snappy for fairly long but with Death's shadow Rise I started playing two. Snapcaster is almost always a Scapeshift in the late game, whereas Council is less consistent, but playing 2 Council and 1 snap is probably fine too. I'm pretty sure I want 1 Snapcaster in the maindeck though, it's a random kill condition, a great grindy card and can also just get them from 20 to 18 sometimes.
I usually only cut 1 snap when bringing the RiP's in against Death's Shadow. To be punished, you have to draw a Rip, then the lonely Mage, and have them not discard any of the two pieces. Also, if you draw them both in your opener, you can sometimes afford to wait on the Rip till you get some value out of Thiago.
Maybe I should just cut both Snap in this MU, but it's such a good card that I feel like I shouldn't. Maybe I'm totally wrong though, time will tell.
The usually only play a couple Caverns, so I think Remand is still great, often a Time Walk against this deck. In case they do have a cavern, you can still remand just to draw a card. They can also tutor their cavern with map, but that means they're not getting any acceleration instead so it's fine for me. Chameleon and Pia are kinda random I feel like they'd be OK but probably less good than every card in my maindeck.
Against Death and Taxes, I would sideboard out 1 Scapeshift, 1 Worldly Counsel, and 4 Remand and get in Pia&Kiran, Madcap&Emperion,Helix, Blessed Alliance and Anger of the Gods. Basically you just have to kill Leonin Arbiter and Thalia and be wary of Ghost Quarter+Arbiter. To play around Ghost Quarter when Scapeshifting, you just need to leave your 1 basic mountain in the deck (and then get one more Mountain for every additional Ghost Quarter they have), and against Tec Edge, you need 1 more land too.
Against UWx Control (which often plays 4 GQ or Tec Edge),you just have to be careful with your colored sources against Spreading Seas and Tec Edge, and playing Scapeshift with 1-2 counterspells backup is usually enough, especially game 1. Also don't allow them to neutralize both your Valakuts in case you draw them both.
Crumble is too slow and not impacting enough against Eldrazi Tron imo. With my current sideboard I'd get Timely Reinforcement, Blessed Alliance, Platinum Emperion and Madcap Experiment in, cutting 2 Farseek, 1 Worldly Counsel and a Cryptic.
I'm not a fan of Bolt in the Current meta, small creature decks are just pretty bad right now. I currently run a playset of path, and if I wanted additional cheap removal, I'd probably play 1 Lightning Helix.
I've been running a different manabase than most for a bit now and it's been great at casting Cryptics, wraths and Shift: I only run 1 basic forest and 1 Breeding Pool, and run 2 more fetches (Flooded Strands). The second forest can sometimes be useful when you want to Search for tomorrow and Scapeshift in the same turn, but you can adapt and fetch accordingly in the previous turns. Otherwise, it's only really useful against RG Ponza which isn't widely played and really hard to beat anyway.
Breeding Pool is the best ravland of the deck, but I've very rarely needed 2. I could see running a Flooded Grove instead of the 6th fetch though. Otherwise I also run 10 mountains (the 10th one being a Cinder Glade instead of your Canopy Vista).
Lately, Baloth has been much less useful because Lili-decks aren't played anymore. I play a Timely Reinforcement and a couple Helix/Blessed Alliance instead. I'm trying out Chameleon Colossus as a BtL target against Grixis DS and it's been decent. Also, I run a couple RiP's in the SB, it just hoses a lot of decks at the moment.
I recently stopped playing Crumble to Dust cause it's only good against RG Valakut (and not even great there) and Gx Tron which isn't seeing much play in my area.
Here's my list in case someone's interested (8-1 in LGS events over the last couple weeks):
Grixis Control is a very easy matchup, and Jeskai is favorable for us. I never played UW, but it's not playing that many counterspells right now (around 6, including potential Mana leaks and Cryptic Command, which are fairly easy to play around). So G1 looks fairly easy on paper. Post side, they often have more counters, and some amount of RiP and Rule of Law. It's harder, but given they can rarely tap out, I'd say overall the matchup should be fairly even. Obviously Fulminator Mage is key here.
I'm pretty sure Monoblue Merfolk runs 2-4 Relics more than 90% of the time. The white-blue Merfolk land doesn't mean they're playing white, though, some Merfolk player just run it as a Choke insurance. If you see something like Seachrome Coast or Hallowed Fountain though, their hate is probably going to include RiPs. So Against Monoblue, I'd always bring at least 3 Chewers. Ricochet Trap is more questionable though here, and I wouldn't bring more than 1 in for G2. but G3 if you saw a lot of Negates/Unified Wills, I might bring 2-3. Shriekmaw is always great.
Against Monoblue, Fulminator is really poor (around 10 targets, but you won't ever color screw them and they play vial). It's slightly better against UW, but still not great at all. Faerie Macabre isn't great either, even though not fully useless. Beast Within is somewhat slow, but it's decent. I'd probably side it out against UW. As always, if you side Ingot Chewer, you might want to cut Architects of Will, even though blue cycling cost can be useful.
Don't forget you can Fulminator your Spreading Sea'ed land to turn off Island Walk, and that Phantasmal Image comes back as a 0/0.
I might get the Gainlands out for Vivids and 5 free spots, but 3-4-5C Midrange/Control is definitely really strong in my cube, so I fear that this might push it over the edge. Also, I'm definitely getting Ash Barrens in as soon as I get one.
I have to say Aether Hub looks really bad to me. Aether Hub isn't good in slow decks because there's no other energy producer, and fairly bad in aggro too cause you often need double and triple colored mana each turn. While Mirrodin's Core requires a turn of setup, it's better than Aether Hub after this.
Hey all,
I was wondering which lands I should leave in my cube, and I would love some input. To me, these are the most common options:
- Bouncelands (Simic Growth Chamber)
- Trilands (Crumbling Necropolis)
- Gainlands (Thornwood Falls)
- Guildgates (Simic Guildgate)
- Vivid Lands (Vivid Crag)
- Random other color fixing options: Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Mirrodin's Core, Rupture Spire, Transguild Promenade, City of Brass, Myriad Landscape, Krosan Verge, Aether Hub, Ash Barrens...
Obviously, there's a bunch of other options, but in my mind these are the main ones. Which one would you put in a 360 Cube ?
I'm currently running the Bouncelands, the Trilands, and the Gainlands as well as Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, and City of Brass.
PS.: Not talking about utility lands here, just color fixing options.
If you don't play Mainboard faerie or Archfiend of Ifnir, Leyline definitely comes in in my experience. Even if you play these, I would probably board in some number of Leylines, depending on what you can cut (Leyline is better than Architects of Will, Fulminator Mage and Beast Within (though I like to have at least 5 answers to Canonist/Relic, so 1 Beast + 4 Chewer is pretty decent), but I'm not sure it's better than Monstrous Carabid if you already have a bunch of Archfiends and Faeries). You mostly can't win against a resolved Ravager in a decent Affinity draw, so you have to have an answer.
I wasn't advising to play Kiki, KikiShift was a very different deck, there wasn't any gifts nor countermagic in the maindeck, and it was a 60 card deck. What was fun was that after G1, people would assume stuff like "He's playing Scapeshift, I can get those Bolts out" or "He's playing Kiki Combo, I need to leave a few removals in" and you could just sideboard out whatever you killed them with, depending on the matchup. Wood Elves was great there too, with Resto Angel.
The Hostage Taker was pretty bad, everytime I drew it I never had the mana and the time to cast it, but this might be because of the sample size.
2 D-Stroke might be too many: Against Jeskai, you don't want to draw 2 most of the time and 2 manas is somewhat clunky. But given how great they are in some other matchups (Etron, Tron, Through the breach decks) I'm really not sure about this one.
Fulminator Mage was great in a lot of matchups, I'm pretty sure most people should play at least 1 and maybe even more. BGx Midrange (Shadow and non-Shadow), Control, Burn, Infect and Big mana decks make up a large percentage of the meta.
I think TBR is great in the Mardu Matchup and we shouldn't sideboard it out, we have to hope to go faster because it's too hard to grind them out and they don't have that many answers to our big creatures (Like 4 preboard and maybe a couple more postboard). Maybe It's even right to side in the 3rd copy but I haven't tried it.
Snapcaster was pretty good but I'm not sure he deserves a spot in the 75, he was often a bit clunky. I never traversed for it, maybe Grim Flayer is just better even though I'm not playing Souls. Even if you're not playing it, I would still play the breeding pool because of the tron matchup, and having 2 blue sources against Field of ruin decks can be critical (unless you're playing a bunch of Tarfires and Terminate which necessitate a Stomping Ground).
I only found myself wanting to Traverse for a Ghor Clan once but I won the game anyway. I'm not sure it's needed unless swarm decks become much more prevalent (It would necessitate a rework of the mana and/or some manamorphoses in the deck).
I was happy with the removal split. I have no idea what I could cut but getting a couple manamorphose in the deck could be great.
R1 against UR Pyro 2-0: French guy, the matchup is just great and he cannot do much. I kill his things, discard all his relevant card and kill hime with big monsters.
R2 against Affinity 0-2: Another frenchie who did a couple mistake but it turns out T1 Plating is still pretty good. G2 I flood and manage to do some sequencing mistakes which cut my outs in half, but I draw a couple blanks anyway.
R3 against Mardu Pyro 2-0: The guy made some mistakes in the games, sideboarded very wrong and complained in the end. Turns out Wear//Tear isn't good against our deck.
R4 against Infect 2-0: He didn't draw any Inkmoth Nexus and without this card the matchup is pretty unwinnable for him.
R5 against Etron 2-0: G1 I play a discard spell only to see 2 Chalices, a Relic, GQ, Mine, and 2 creatures. I'm on the play and take a chalice, hoping to draw an answer to the second one. He draws a temple, plays it and the relic. I play a Shadow and pass with a blue up. He draws a second temple, plays it and the chalice. I draw a tarmogoyf to go with my DS and kill him on turn 4 with a battle rage.
G2 I keep a one lander with street wraith, play a discard spell and see 2 chalices, 1 Dismember, 0 temples and some lands and a creature that I select. I leave both chalices because I have a Maelstrom Pulse and a Grudge in hand. He draws 2 temples but has no pressure while I can't find lands. on turn 4 he plays the second chalice on 2. I draw 2 lands the following turn and Pulse the Chalice, he draws an Endbringer but my triple Death's Shadow hand kills him anyway.
R6 against Tron 2-0: I misscount his lands G1 and give him the out of drawing the last tron piece on the last turn by taking the wrong card with a Thoughtseize, but even if I had played right and taken the Ugin with Thoughtseize the tron piece was still 90% to win him the game there. G2 is uneventful, he doen't have green mana for Thragdaddy and Stirrings and can't get to Tron.
R7 against Shuhei Nakamura on Jeskai Tempo 2-1: An interesting incident happened there. I won G1 just by playing a big Shadow while I knew he had no Burn or answers to DS in hand. G2 I sideboarded wrong thinking he was on a more controlling build and died to snapcaster bolts with 2 D-Stroke in hand. G3 I'm fairly ahead and at some point I cycle a Street wraith in order to get delirium and play Traverse the Ulvenwald. While I'm searching my library, a friend of mine says us to wait and calls a Judge: it turns out I didn't draw with the Wraith and upon learning that Shuhei laughs immediately. The Judge fixes the situation, we both get warnings and I win the game with the card drawn. At the end of the game, the Judge asks Shuhei Nakamura to come with him and my friends tell me he could get DQ'd because his reaction with the judge call seemed to show he was aware of me not drawing the card and just didn't tell me even though he should have. He has a long discussion with the Head Judge and ends up not being DQ'd.
R8 against Jeskai Breach 2-1: He left the combo in even though it's pretty bad against me, and I take down both postboard games with most of my removal out.
7-1 and happy so far, but I have to keep focusing on each game as best as I can.
R10 against the Mirror 1-2: In G3 my opponents discard my Stubs and Discard and Traverses for a land on turn 3: I think about what I can do against the obviously upcoming Lili, Bauble myself and see a thoughtseize on top, and choose not to play any creature thinking he might want to wait for me to have a board. He doesn't and wins with Lili active for more than 10 turns and me not finding any of my 3 answers.
R11 against Storm 2-0. Easy win G1, and he's mana screwed during G2.
R12 against Bogles 2-0 through T1 Leyline G1 because he only had a Kor. G2 He doesn't have a Leyline and Lili crushed him.
R13 against Burn 2-1 thanks to my opponent letting me resolve my Street wraith cycling which let me draw the Stubborn Denial that countered the Helix he had to cast to survive.
R14 against Abzan Aggro (Time Walk Feature Match, it's at the end of the round) 2-1: I'll let you see all my punts live on Twitch, I did a bunch of them.
R15 against Mardu Pyro 2-0: The guy mulled to 4 G2 and wasn't happy about it :/
I end up 10th on breakers, with a PT invite and airfare plus a thousand bucks. Super stoked with this at my 2nd GP ever, and hope I can keep being this lucky in the future and step my game up.
Grim flayer over snap could be a consideration, but I've found that I want to side in snap in 90% of my matches, and that threat density wasn't too much of an issue. I could see cutting a traverse for a flayer though, like Jirock in his PT Top8 deck.
Cutting the pool for a ground is extremely wrong imo though: Having 2 blue sources is critical against Tron in particular, but also against UW, because of Ghost quarter and Field of Ruins. It also allows for the snap Denial plays. Stomping ground is clearly worse, given that I'm not playing Ghor-Clan Rampager or Tarfire.
The other changes you propose are probably fine, but given last week's Toronto results I want to be ready for big mana decks of which there were plenty in the top 32, which is why I'm playing 3 stubs. I want my deck to play out more like sultai splashing red for TBR. Playing a second dismember over one of the other removal could be good, it would improve against decks like Hollow One or Grixis Shadow, but I've chosen to prepare more for decks like Humans, Affinity and Burn. It could be better to play a Jund splashing blue deck as you propose, which would allow me to also maybe play a couple terminate, but I've chosen to go the Sultai route.
It's true Lili's not great in the current meta, but I just want to play it for the free wins against Titan Shift, the Shadow mirror, Control decks or ETron. Tarfire would only be good against 12 of the 32 decks in the top of the standings from Toronto, which is not where I want to be.
I'll be playing Traverse Shadow in Lyon this weekend, and while I have some experience with Death's Shadow decks, the format being so wide means I have never even played against half the tier 1-2 decks with it. I've locked the following decklist, very similar to Immanuel Gerschenson's list with a couple personal adjustments.
4 Death's Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
3 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Battle Rage
1 Dismember
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Marsh Flats
1 Hostage Taker
1 Fulminator Mage
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Stubborn Denial
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Fatal Push
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Temur Battle Rage
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Collective Brutality
1 Radiant Flames
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Burn :
-1 Seize
-4 Wraith
-1 Dismember
+1 Denial
+1 Fulmi
+2 Brutality
+1 TBR
+1 Push
Be wary of Deflecting Palm
5C Humans
OTP :
-3 Denial
-4 Wraith
-2 Seize
+1 Push
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Pulse
+1 Return
+1 Flames
+1 Hostage Taker
+1 TBR
+2 Brutality
OTD :
-3 Denial
-2 Lili
-2 Wraith
-2 Seize
Fetch Blood Crypt when in doubt
Affinity
-2 Lili
-2 Street Wraith
-1 Stubborn
-2 Thoughtseize
+ 2 Grudge
+1 Push
+1 Return
+1 TBR
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Radiant Flames
OTD -1 Seize -1 Denial +1 Pulse +1 Brutality (in addition to the above plan)
Fetch Blood Crypt when in doubt
Tron
-3 Push
-1 Dismember
-1 Traverse
-1 Decay
-2 Lili
+1 Denial
+2 D-Stroke
+2 Grudge
+1 Pulse
+1 Fulmi
+1 Hostage Taker
Fetch UU.
Eldrazi tron
-1 Denial
-1 Traverse
-2 Inqui
-1 Push
-1 Decay
+2 Grudge
+2 Stroke
+1 Fulmi
+1 Pulse
Grixis Shadow :
-1 Push
-1 Denial/Marsh Flats
-2 TBR
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Hostage Taker
+1 Fulminator Mage
Crack Bauble during their upkeep in the late game
Traverse Shadow
-2 TBR
-2 Denial
-1 Marsh Flats/Denial
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Hostage Taker
+1 Fulminator Mage
+1 Push
Crack Bauble during their upkeep in the late game
Jeskai Control
-2 Fatal Push
-1 Dismember
-2 TBR
-1 Marsh Flats
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Fulminator Mage
+1 Disdainful Stroke
+2 Collective Brutality
Jeskai Queller
-1 Dismember
-1 Push
-1 Marsh Flats
-2 TBR
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Lili Tlh
+1 Fulmi
+2 Collective brutality
UW Control
-2 TBR
-2 Push
-1 Marsh Flats
-1 Decay
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Lili Tlh
+1 Fulmi
+2 Collective brutality
+2 Disdainful Stroke
UR Madcap Moon (assuming they board out Emperion, otherwise pulse/grudge could be boarded in)
-2 TBR
-3 Push
-1 Dismember
-1 Marsh Flats
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Lili Tlh
+1 Fulmi
+2 Collective brutality
+2 Disdainful Stroke
UR Pyromancer/Thing (no moon)
-2 TBR
-1 Dismember
-1 Marsh Flats
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Fulminator Mage
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Pulse
Storm (assuming they cut gifts and creatures for pieces, Empty and some interaction, adapt the plan otherwise or if they have blood moon)
-2 Decay
-1 Dismember
-2 Lili
-1 Push
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Return
+2 Brutality
+1 TBR
Dredge
-2 Lili
-1 Dismember
-1 Decay
-3 Push
+1 TBR
+1 Radiant Flames
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Stubborn Denial
+2 Disdainful Stroke
+1 Fulminator Mage
Mardu Pyro
-2 Lili
-1 Push
-1 Denial
+1 Radiant Flames
+1 Return
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Pulse
BR Hollow One
-2 Lili
-3 Push
+1 Stubborn Denial
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 TBR
+2 Grudge
Titan Shift
-3 Push
-2 Decay
-1 Dismember
+1 Fulmi
+1 Stubborn
+2 D-Stroke
+1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 TBR
BG Midrange/Abzan
-2 TBR
-3 Denial
+1 Hostage Taker
+1 Fulmi
+1 Push
+1 Lili tlh
+1 Pulse
Lili is still too good against Abzan in case they don’t draw Lingering Souls, but a K-return might be better.
Bogles
+1 Return
+1 Pulse
+1 Flames
+1 Stubborn
-1 Dismember
-3 Push
Maybe sweepers are too slow on the draw.
https://deadonboardmtg.com/2017/11/08/the-ultimate-deaths-shadow-primer-and-tournament/
http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/magnus-lantto/the-ultimate-deaths-shadow-matchup-guide
http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/immanuel-gerschenson/traversing-at-pro-tour-rix
http://www.topdeckproductions.com/2018/01/31/traverse-deaths-shadow-primer/
As well as a bunch of Grixis Shadow article before I played this one locally.
I usually only cut 1 snap when bringing the RiP's in against Death's Shadow. To be punished, you have to draw a Rip, then the lonely Mage, and have them not discard any of the two pieces. Also, if you draw them both in your opener, you can sometimes afford to wait on the Rip till you get some value out of Thiago.
Maybe I should just cut both Snap in this MU, but it's such a good card that I feel like I shouldn't. Maybe I'm totally wrong though, time will tell.
Against Death and Taxes, I would sideboard out 1 Scapeshift, 1 Worldly Counsel, and 4 Remand and get in Pia&Kiran, Madcap&Emperion,Helix, Blessed Alliance and Anger of the Gods. Basically you just have to kill Leonin Arbiter and Thalia and be wary of Ghost Quarter+Arbiter. To play around Ghost Quarter when Scapeshifting, you just need to leave your 1 basic mountain in the deck (and then get one more Mountain for every additional Ghost Quarter they have), and against Tec Edge, you need 1 more land too.
Against UWx Control (which often plays 4 GQ or Tec Edge),you just have to be careful with your colored sources against Spreading Seas and Tec Edge, and playing Scapeshift with 1-2 counterspells backup is usually enough, especially game 1. Also don't allow them to neutralize both your Valakuts in case you draw them both.
I've been running a different manabase than most for a bit now and it's been great at casting Cryptics, wraths and Shift: I only run 1 basic forest and 1 Breeding Pool, and run 2 more fetches (Flooded Strands). The second forest can sometimes be useful when you want to Search for tomorrow and Scapeshift in the same turn, but you can adapt and fetch accordingly in the previous turns. Otherwise, it's only really useful against RG Ponza which isn't widely played and really hard to beat anyway.
Breeding Pool is the best ravland of the deck, but I've very rarely needed 2. I could see running a Flooded Grove instead of the 6th fetch though. Otherwise I also run 10 mountains (the 10th one being a Cinder Glade instead of your Canopy Vista).
Lately, Baloth has been much less useful because Lili-decks aren't played anymore. I play a Timely Reinforcement and a couple Helix/Blessed Alliance instead. I'm trying out Chameleon Colossus as a BtL target against Grixis DS and it's been decent. Also, I run a couple RiP's in the SB, it just hoses a lot of decks at the moment.
I recently stopped playing Crumble to Dust cause it's only good against RG Valakut (and not even great there) and Gx Tron which isn't seeing much play in my area.
Here's my list in case someone's interested (8-1 in LGS events over the last couple weeks):
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Remand
4 Cryptic Command
1 Worldly Counsel
4 Path to Exile
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Steam Vents
4 Stomping Ground
1 Cinder Glade
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Flooded Strand
1 Temple Garden
1 Plains
4 Bring to Light
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Farseek
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Platinum Emperion
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
2 Rest in Peace
2 Dispel
2 Negate
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Lightning Helix
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Madcap Experiment
1 Timely Reinforcements
Against Monoblue, Fulminator is really poor (around 10 targets, but you won't ever color screw them and they play vial). It's slightly better against UW, but still not great at all. Faerie Macabre isn't great either, even though not fully useless. Beast Within is somewhat slow, but it's decent. I'd probably side it out against UW. As always, if you side Ingot Chewer, you might want to cut Architects of Will, even though blue cycling cost can be useful.
Don't forget you can Fulminator your Spreading Sea'ed land to turn off Island Walk, and that Phantasmal Image comes back as a 0/0.
I have to say Aether Hub looks really bad to me. Aether Hub isn't good in slow decks because there's no other energy producer, and fairly bad in aggro too cause you often need double and triple colored mana each turn. While Mirrodin's Core requires a turn of setup, it's better than Aether Hub after this.
I was wondering which lands I should leave in my cube, and I would love some input. To me, these are the most common options:
- Bouncelands (Simic Growth Chamber)
- Trilands (Crumbling Necropolis)
- Gainlands (Thornwood Falls)
- Guildgates (Simic Guildgate)
- Vivid Lands (Vivid Crag)
- Random other color fixing options: Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Mirrodin's Core, Rupture Spire, Transguild Promenade, City of Brass, Myriad Landscape, Krosan Verge, Aether Hub, Ash Barrens...
Obviously, there's a bunch of other options, but in my mind these are the main ones. Which one would you put in a 360 Cube ?
I'm currently running the Bouncelands, the Trilands, and the Gainlands as well as Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, and City of Brass.
PS.: Not talking about utility lands here, just color fixing options.