I played RUGw again today. I had some issues with with the deck and a few with my own play. I got a bye so I only played 3 rounds. Here's the deck I ran:
The manabase is definitely clunkier for four-color over RUG. There were a few times I got into awkward spots trying to get on all four colors by the time I might need them. The worst feeling is top-decking a Bring to Light and realizing you don't have white to fetch the essential card.
I took out Electrolyze because I felt like Anger of the Gods was almost always better. This was basically true for the matches I had.
Matchups like Affinity and Eldrazi seem like a race to get a sweeper. I'd like to play a version that has more consistent sweepers on Turn 4 or access to early removal. I'll probably try putting Lightning Bolt back in.
The Eldrazi match is tough when you're playing the game of needing to play a real sweeper on Turn 4 and have some interaction before then. I'm not sure what the solution is. Perhaps some more fog-like effects or just always make sure you have Damnation or Supreme Verdict in the deck.
Timely Reinforcements under-performed against these decks, but it has been great against others. I'm thinking it's a sideboard-only card for burn match-ups.
Round 1: UR Eldrazi
Game 1 I was on the draw and he lead with Eye of Ugin into two Mimics. I put out Breeding Pool and a Search for Tomorrow. Turn two he played Endless One for 3 and hit for 6. I untapped, didn't have anything interesting to play, so I just played a tapped Valakut in preparation for dropping Anger of the Gods next turn. He then played an Endless One for 4 and swung for 11, putting me at 3. I untapped, but at this point I couldn't kill all four of his creatures. I could cast Anger, but his 4/4 would survive, and I only had 4 mana out and no better sweeper. So that was that. In game 2 I had a hand with three red/blue/white sources, of which two were red and an Anger of the Gods, STE and Bring to Light. I figured with the scry and two draws if I got a green source I would be fine and I had Timely to buy time. I found another Timely and another Bring to Light, but never found another land. On his side of the board he only played 5-toughness creatures: Vile Aggregate, Reality Smasher and Drowner of Hope. It was a fast game.
Round 2: Bye
Round 3: Tooth and Nail
These games went about as you'd expect. They were pretty positive for me. In the first game I used my Bring to Light when I was on 6 lands to clear out this three land-untappers because I had run out of counters and I had a Remanded Tooth and Nail into his hand already. I fought for a while but couldn't find the second BtL or Scapeshift. Game 2 went pretty well with three Cryptic Commands keeping him from playing anything scary while I dug and dug to find Scapeshift. He had two Leyline of Sanctity out, and eventually I cast Back to Nature to buy time by clearing his land enchantments, and was able to find Scapeshift shortly thereafter.
Game 3 was my worst play of the tournament. We were down to less than 8 minutes for our final match and so I was playing fast. He had a Leyline out from his starting hand, so I was digging hard to find a Bring to Light or the Back to Nature to wipe it out so I could cast the Scapeshift in my hand. In my efforts to play fast I cast Cryptic Command and chose Counter + Draw instead of Counter + Bounce, missing the win. On turn 4 of extra turns he was able to resolve Tooth and Nail and I lost.
Round 4: Affinity
A typical Affinity match-up. In the first game I mulliganned to 4 because I my first hand was all four-cost spells and the next two hands had one non-green land then no lands. He had a slightly slow start with Ensoul Artifact on a Darksteel Citadel for the beats, but I couldn't find an answer. The second game was easy. I stalled a bit to get him to play out cards, then cast the Shatterstorm from my hand, even having an extra Anger of the Gods for backup and resolving Scapeshift for the win was easy.
Game 3 was one where my mana base didn't cooperate. I kept a Misty, Valakut, Search for Tomorrow, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Bring to Light, Ancient Grudge and Crumble to Dust. He dumped his cards and started swinging. I managed to buy a little time with a Cryptic command I drew, but I also drew the second Valakut and an Island as lands to make things hard. By the time I was ready to start casting Ancient Grudge on things I was to the point that I had to save the mana for Cryptic. The critical mistake was that I searched up a Plains with Steve to get all four types for Bring to Light, but at that point it was turn 4 and I was at 2 and he had two Blinkmoth Nexuses. I could cast the BtL for four to get Shatterstorm, but then I wouldn't have the green I needed to flashback the Ancient Grudge to save myself from the Blinkmoths.
I've been playing the RUG list for a while now. Nothing serious, just testing and FNM so far. It feels far less consistent than the BtL version. Every few games I feel like I'm sitting there digging through half my deck and stalling while looking for a Scapeshift. It also hurts to not have some simple answers to BTL for, such as Back to Nature to deal with multiple Blood Moons or Slaughter Games to take out random combo decks.
On the topic of RUG, I have a few comments on specific cards:
Lumbering Falls - I've been running 1-2 of these and they're really underwhelming. They're useful if you end up against a true control deck, but who has one of those these days? Far more often I feel like the deck is stalling for time to get a big turn off and the falls aren't really contributing and only slowing down the mana base.
Lightning Bolt - This card is of such limited usefulness. Against half the decks I just side it out, either in favor of Anger of the Gods or because it isn't particularly relevant. It does shine against the fast burn/zoo decks, but we have other tools for those.
Serum Visions - This card makes so many more draws keepable. One blue source and a visions makes a lot of mediocre hands decent. However, it is really clunky with all the shuffle effects. The sequencing is tricky, but manageable. I'm not sold, but I'm still interested.
I might go back to RUGw. The BtLs bringing the effective Scapeshift count to 7 and the effective bullet count to 5 is really useful.
I agree that white seems to have more tools we need over black. It's particularly true in this metagame where there aren't many combo decks and so Slaughter Games is less useful. Verdict is great right now. I also like Timely Reinforcements since it buys sooo much time against aggro decks.
I love the idea of Eternal Witness and Pulse of Murasa, but I worry that it's trying to get a little too cute. I know I've seen a few Eternal Witnesses in decks in the past, and she has great value, but she's a lot slower than some of our other options.
I finally got back to my LGS (ChannelFireball) for FNM. I was surprised by how few aggro decks where there. I was playing a RUGw list, for the Surpreme Verdict and Timely Reinforcements, since I was expecting a lot of aggro and I only had three Scapeshifts this week due to loaning one out.
I felt like a lot of people had shifted their decks to have more control elements as Twin was gone and those players were looking for a new psudo-control deck, and I think everyone was afraid of Eldrazi. Out of 30ish people I only saw two Eldrazi decks, and one was more of an old-style BW processor deck. This meant that it was a great field for Scapeshift!
I ended up playing against:
Infect (2-1): I was able to get a few good 2-for-1s off with Anger of the Gods. I only lost the second game because I kept a greedy hand with Electrolyze, Izzet Charm and Bring to Light, but no ramp and no blue source. I figured I could draw one since I was on the draw and had mulliganed so I had a scry. I never did. I think the pilot wasn't particularly good with the deck and made a lot of mistakes.
UWR Kiki Control (2-1): A classic counter war. The first game I got in 8 damage with a single Steve. We joked about the beat down, but it stopped being a joke in game 3 when I beat him down with Obstinate Balloths. He Vendilion Cliqued me during my draw step and saw a Baloth and Bring to Light in my hand. He took the Balloth since I had four mana out, but I just played a land and since he was tapped out I used the Bring to Light to just grab the Balloth right off the bottom. He didn't even bother to cut since I didn't have to look at my deck.
Esper Gifts (2-0): Scapeshift has more counter magic and a more efficient combo. The first game I won on Turn 4 with a Search for Tomorrow, Steve and Farseek. I was able to remand his turn 4 gifts which meant he tapped out to cast it on his turn which is why I was able to go off safely. I felt bad letting him go through all the motions of picking his package when I was just going to kill him.
UWR Geist (ID).
I'll be trying pure RUG once I get my fourth Scapeshift back.
I'm currently testing a single Lumbering Falls in my list as a potential alternate win-con. I just need to evaluate how much it hurts the mana base to have it there.
The baloths are also definitely a card that you can bring in for an alternate win con. Otherwise Keranos, Surak, Inferno Titan, they all make good alternate finishers, particularly if there is some significant danger to the combo. Try out the control match-up a few times and I think you'll find that Dispel and Negate are the power cards there.
01- There's a big difference between the usual RUG/BtL decks and mine. And the difference is that I have 04 Snapcaster Mage. I think he adds flexibility to the list, and he is an awesome addition when you have 4 visions, 4 bolts and 4 remands (snap + cryptic is also great in gaining tempo). Moreover, the serum visions is very good in setting up drawsteps despiste of the shuffling effects. You are either using it on turn 01 to draw more lands when needed or at the turn 3,4 in order to find scapeshift/interaction while holding cryptic/remands. I know that in theory Anticipate sounds better. I tested, and usually 02 mana (even in instant speed) is somethimes too slow for a cantrip. Also you ALWAYS KNOW when you're supposed to shuffle or not your deck, so serum visions drawback can be easily managed.
I'll definitely give a list like yours a try this week. I love playing 4 Snapcaster Mage. I also thought about it a lot and the fact that Serum Visions only costs 1 is great. It gives the deck something proactive to do on turn 1, where in the past it was just Search For Tomorrow.
First of all, I want to, once again, discuss my thoughts on RUG x BtL Scapeshift.
I'm also leaning towards RUG, for reasons I've mentioned in the past. It has the tools to interact with the strong linear decks we're seeing now, and honestly I felt like the bullet plan wasn't working out great anyway because having to tap 5 mana at sorcery speed meant the effect had to be HUGE to make a difference.
I think there was a time not long ago when midrange was all over the place, mostly Tron, Jund and Abzan, and the BtL plan worked great there. However, I don't think it works very well right now and I'm leaning towards RUG.
Two questions:
Why Serum Visions over the other search spells? With all the search effects we have I think the consensus has been that Serum Visions is one of the worst because you often can't afford to set up a draw with an Elder out SfT suspended.
Thoughts on the Eldrazi menace? For the foreseeable future that will be the deck to beat.
I like the idea of Dragonlord Dromoka, just because I love casting him, though he is too expensive to really be anything but an alternate win-con against control decks (but how often do you see those?) We already have a pretty good game against most non-control decks and control isn't very common so I think we need to look at how to beat the aggressive decks, particularly Eldrazi.
Against Eldrazi I think we need to take an approach similar to something like the Blue Moon deck where we focus on some cheap interaction. The goal isn't to win on turn 4 (that's RG Titanshift), and it's not to control the board (that's Jeksai control). The goal of Scapeshift is to delay the board long enough to resolve a Scapeshift for the win. I feel like tricks with Glittering Wish and building on expensive interaction spells (e.g. Bring to Light, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss) will just mean it's it's harder to make it to that end-game. I think we should be looking for cheaper ways to stall and fog the Eldrazi decks through effects like Anger of the Gods, Gigadrowse, Into the Roil and maybe Supreme Verdict/Damnation.
Why is no one playing Halimar Depths? It's the only card I want with double Scapeshift hands. It's great vs. Thoughtseize and Karn decks. What has turned people off it?
The main reason not to play Depths is that we have far too many search effects. If you play a Halimar Depths it's not uncommon to end up searching again or maybe drawing the one card before searching. That could be a boon if the two cards were crap, but I'd rather just have an Anticipate to get the card I want and put the others on the bottom always.
I am not a fan of Wordly Council or Anticipate. Wordly is really bad on two. We don't want to be shocking in MUs we have to dig. I feel Farseek to be far superior. Against Infect and Burn if you play defense and don't focus on winning the game you will lose that race nine times out of ten. Is Wordly/Anticipate stronger than Telling Time or Peer Through Depths?
I don't think I've ever cast a Worldly Council for 2. It's so easy to cast it for 3 or 4 because rarely am I forced to use it on the second turn with two basics in play. I think the reason that people have been moving to Anticipate and Worldly Council is the ability to pick up any card they want. Peer Through Depths is definitely strong and some RUG lists use it because they need to dig deep to ensure they get Scapeshift. With the BtL lists there are 6-7 Scapeshift enablers in the deck so it's useful to be able to get that land when you need it and not reveal.
I am playing Izzet Charm over Electrolyze, but with the popularity of X/1's right now is that right? Tron is already a good MU. Lili can be a pain. But, I see more robots, poison creatures, and Noble Hierarchs than Lili's nowadays.
Another card I am not seeing much of is Izzet Staticcaster. It has been great in testing against Infect and Affinity. I have seen some Elf and Sliver decks in my meta. But, I am wondering if I am focusing too hard on certain MUs?
The number of Electrolyze you play is 100% a metagame call. Against robots, infect, and other x/1 creatures it's amazing. Against Zoo and Eldrazi it's pretty useless. Play what feels good to you. Personally I'm going to try Roast for a bit because it feels like every other person at my LGS is playing Zoo or Eldrazi right now. The same applies to Staticaster.
I've been reading this thread for a while now and running RUG Scapeshift and I still have huge question about all the BTL decklists: Why only one Snapcaster Mage? Rarely I see someone play 2.
Is it just because things cost too much to recur regularly? I've seen a few people mention Snapping Cryptic, and there are other satisfying plays around the 2 and 3 mana cards to recast.
Is it because it doesn't fit the tempo? Snapcaster is great for tempo. He's a body and he gets you some advantage by snapping back some critical spell.
So why only two? I guess I just love the guy can can't figure why people don't run more.
The top 16 was full of aggressive decks. Delver, Merfolk, Affinity, Burn and Zoo were out in force. It sounds like there were a lot of Eldrazi and Tron decks floating around, but everyone was packing hate. I also heard there were a lot of Scapeshift decks, but I haven't heard any confirmation.
So if you were doubting the aggressive meta calls, here it is:
For those talking about a flying 1/1 Merfolk, there's always Triton Shorestalker, which is flatly unblockable. However, I do find the tempo of curse-catcher to be huge in a lot of match ups. Even their ability to trade for a removal spell that's targetting a higher-priority Merfolk. I'd love to see a 2/1 Merfolk for 1. There are so many 2/1s for 1 in White and Green now. It doesn't seem too unreasonable.
I find Merfolk to have a lot more interesting interaction with my opponent. When I play some of the other decks I feel like I'm just gold-fishing most of the time.
Take a look at the Merfolk side boards. They're all about interaction. Counters, land destruction, bounce. Merfolk is a turn slower than Elves or Affinity most of the time, but it gets there by having some interaction which gives it a more even game against a lot of decks.
Of course, I should probably wait for the people who actually post good results to chime in on why they pick it to win.
Tonight I was playing in a small LGS tournament and in the last round I was up against Mono-Blue Tron. We played a long game 1, but I didn't really have an answer for a recurring O-Stone + Wurmcoil Engine. The second game I mulliganed down to 5 and the game was very sad. I wonder if I made the right choices on the mulligans, so I figured I'd ask.
Here's the full deck list I was running. I have some variety in there because I'm still trying out a few cards to see what I like best.
First hand: Island, Island, Vapor Snag, Spell Pierce, Unified Will, Negate, Dispel
This hand just felt too slow to be useful. It didn't have any land destruction and had no creatures, so I figured I could do better on 6.
Second hand: Aether Vial, Tectonic Edge, bunch of Merfolk that cost double-blue, no lands.
I have a note that it was a no-land hand, but I'm pretty sure I looked at it for a while so it must have had a colorless land. Without any interaction or draw this felt like a slow hand and I worried I wouldn't be able to stop him from getting on to tron and O-Stone.
Third hand: Mutavault, Tectonic Edge, Spreading Seas, Harbinger of the Tides, Master of the Pearl Trident
I figured if I could draw one blue source I would be able to cast the seas and draw into more.
So which hand should I have kept? Was it right to keep that third hand and hope to draw a blue source and I got unlucky? What hand would you have kept and why?
In the end I didn't find a blue source at all and had to hit him a few times with Mutavault until I conceded when he dropped a Wurmcoil engine to my one mutavault (I had used the edge already). I thought at first I got unlucky in getting three bad hands and not drawing into what I needed, but I think now that I probably just didn't do a good mulligan.
Played against: 4 tron (3-1), 2 jund (2-0), 2 infect (2-0), 1 merfolk (1-0), 1 5-color creature (1-0) 1 Kiki Chord (0-1), 1 burn (0-1), 1 B/W Eldrazi (0-1), 1 4 color knight/retreat to coralhelm (1-0) and some other deck that I can't seem to remember at the moment.
I notice you managed to completely dodge Affinity, even though you had 4 recalls in the board.
A few questions, if you don't mind:
Can you explain a little on why you went with three Vapor Snag main instead of other interaction spells, namely Dismember and countermagic?
I also notice that you went 3-1 vs. Tron with no help from Tectonic Edge. What is your plan going into that match-up without any extra land denial?
Finally, tell us about how the Chalice of the Void worked out for you. Particularly since I notice you had no Cavern of Souls to force cards through even if you had to.
2 Forest
4 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Steam Vents
2 Breeding Pool
3 Stomping Ground
2 Cinder Glade
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Creatures
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Farseek
1 Hunting Wilds
3 Izzet Charm
4 Remand
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Worldly Council
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Cryptic Command
3 Scapeshift
4 Bring to Light
2 Negate
1 Back to Nature
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Crumble to Dust
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Dispel
1 Shatterstorm
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Ancient Grudge
My short thoughts are:
Round 1: UR Eldrazi
Game 1 I was on the draw and he lead with Eye of Ugin into two Mimics. I put out Breeding Pool and a Search for Tomorrow. Turn two he played Endless One for 3 and hit for 6. I untapped, didn't have anything interesting to play, so I just played a tapped Valakut in preparation for dropping Anger of the Gods next turn. He then played an Endless One for 4 and swung for 11, putting me at 3. I untapped, but at this point I couldn't kill all four of his creatures. I could cast Anger, but his 4/4 would survive, and I only had 4 mana out and no better sweeper. So that was that. In game 2 I had a hand with three red/blue/white sources, of which two were red and an Anger of the Gods, STE and Bring to Light. I figured with the scry and two draws if I got a green source I would be fine and I had Timely to buy time. I found another Timely and another Bring to Light, but never found another land. On his side of the board he only played 5-toughness creatures: Vile Aggregate, Reality Smasher and Drowner of Hope. It was a fast game.
Round 2: Bye
Round 3: Tooth and Nail
These games went about as you'd expect. They were pretty positive for me. In the first game I used my Bring to Light when I was on 6 lands to clear out this three land-untappers because I had run out of counters and I had a Remanded Tooth and Nail into his hand already. I fought for a while but couldn't find the second BtL or Scapeshift. Game 2 went pretty well with three Cryptic Commands keeping him from playing anything scary while I dug and dug to find Scapeshift. He had two Leyline of Sanctity out, and eventually I cast Back to Nature to buy time by clearing his land enchantments, and was able to find Scapeshift shortly thereafter.
Game 3 was my worst play of the tournament. We were down to less than 8 minutes for our final match and so I was playing fast. He had a Leyline out from his starting hand, so I was digging hard to find a Bring to Light or the Back to Nature to wipe it out so I could cast the Scapeshift in my hand. In my efforts to play fast I cast Cryptic Command and chose Counter + Draw instead of Counter + Bounce, missing the win. On turn 4 of extra turns he was able to resolve Tooth and Nail and I lost.
Round 4: Affinity
A typical Affinity match-up. In the first game I mulliganned to 4 because I my first hand was all four-cost spells and the next two hands had one non-green land then no lands. He had a slightly slow start with Ensoul Artifact on a Darksteel Citadel for the beats, but I couldn't find an answer. The second game was easy. I stalled a bit to get him to play out cards, then cast the Shatterstorm from my hand, even having an extra Anger of the Gods for backup and resolving Scapeshift for the win was easy.
Game 3 was one where my mana base didn't cooperate. I kept a Misty, Valakut, Search for Tomorrow, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Bring to Light, Ancient Grudge and Crumble to Dust. He dumped his cards and started swinging. I managed to buy a little time with a Cryptic command I drew, but I also drew the second Valakut and an Island as lands to make things hard. By the time I was ready to start casting Ancient Grudge on things I was to the point that I had to save the mana for Cryptic. The critical mistake was that I searched up a Plains with Steve to get all four types for Bring to Light, but at that point it was turn 4 and I was at 2 and he had two Blinkmoth Nexuses. I could cast the BtL for four to get Shatterstorm, but then I wouldn't have the green I needed to flashback the Ancient Grudge to save myself from the Blinkmoths.
On the topic of RUG, I have a few comments on specific cards:
I might go back to RUGw. The BtLs bringing the effective Scapeshift count to 7 and the effective bullet count to 5 is really useful.
I love the idea of Eternal Witness and Pulse of Murasa, but I worry that it's trying to get a little too cute. I know I've seen a few Eternal Witnesses in decks in the past, and she has great value, but she's a lot slower than some of our other options.
I felt like a lot of people had shifted their decks to have more control elements as Twin was gone and those players were looking for a new psudo-control deck, and I think everyone was afraid of Eldrazi. Out of 30ish people I only saw two Eldrazi decks, and one was more of an old-style BW processor deck. This meant that it was a great field for Scapeshift!
I ended up playing against:
I'll be trying pure RUG once I get my fourth Scapeshift back.
The baloths are also definitely a card that you can bring in for an alternate win con. Otherwise Keranos, Surak, Inferno Titan, they all make good alternate finishers, particularly if there is some significant danger to the combo. Try out the control match-up a few times and I think you'll find that Dispel and Negate are the power cards there.
I'll definitely give a list like yours a try this week. I love playing 4 Snapcaster Mage. I also thought about it a lot and the fact that Serum Visions only costs 1 is great. It gives the deck something proactive to do on turn 1, where in the past it was just Search For Tomorrow.
I just noticed your sideboard in your list a few posts ago is only 13 cards. I assume it's 2 Crumble to Dust that are missing.
Yes, let's do it!
I'm also leaning towards RUG, for reasons I've mentioned in the past. It has the tools to interact with the strong linear decks we're seeing now, and honestly I felt like the bullet plan wasn't working out great anyway because having to tap 5 mana at sorcery speed meant the effect had to be HUGE to make a difference.
I think there was a time not long ago when midrange was all over the place, mostly Tron, Jund and Abzan, and the BtL plan worked great there. However, I don't think it works very well right now and I'm leaning towards RUG.
Two questions:
Against Eldrazi I think we need to take an approach similar to something like the Blue Moon deck where we focus on some cheap interaction. The goal isn't to win on turn 4 (that's RG Titanshift), and it's not to control the board (that's Jeksai control). The goal of Scapeshift is to delay the board long enough to resolve a Scapeshift for the win. I feel like tricks with Glittering Wish and building on expensive interaction spells (e.g. Bring to Light, Mwonvuli Acid-Moss) will just mean it's it's harder to make it to that end-game. I think we should be looking for cheaper ways to stall and fog the Eldrazi decks through effects like Anger of the Gods, Gigadrowse, Into the Roil and maybe Supreme Verdict/Damnation.
Would any other delay tactics work, like Hornet Nest or Arachnogenesis? I'll keep testing Roast for now.
The main reason not to play Depths is that we have far too many search effects. If you play a Halimar Depths it's not uncommon to end up searching again or maybe drawing the one card before searching. That could be a boon if the two cards were crap, but I'd rather just have an Anticipate to get the card I want and put the others on the bottom always.
I don't think I've ever cast a Worldly Council for 2. It's so easy to cast it for 3 or 4 because rarely am I forced to use it on the second turn with two basics in play. I think the reason that people have been moving to Anticipate and Worldly Council is the ability to pick up any card they want. Peer Through Depths is definitely strong and some RUG lists use it because they need to dig deep to ensure they get Scapeshift. With the BtL lists there are 6-7 Scapeshift enablers in the deck so it's useful to be able to get that land when you need it and not reveal.
The number of Electrolyze you play is 100% a metagame call. Against robots, infect, and other x/1 creatures it's amazing. Against Zoo and Eldrazi it's pretty useless. Play what feels good to you. Personally I'm going to try Roast for a bit because it feels like every other person at my LGS is playing Zoo or Eldrazi right now. The same applies to Staticaster.
Is it just because things cost too much to recur regularly? I've seen a few people mention Snapping Cryptic, and there are other satisfying plays around the 2 and 3 mana cards to recast.
Is it because it doesn't fit the tempo? Snapcaster is great for tempo. He's a body and he gets you some advantage by snapping back some critical spell.
So why only two? I guess I just love the guy can can't figure why people don't run more.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?&t[C1]=28&start_date=01/24/2016&end_date=01/24/2016
The top 16 was full of aggressive decks. Delver, Merfolk, Affinity, Burn and Zoo were out in force. It sounds like there were a lot of Eldrazi and Tron decks floating around, but everyone was packing hate. I also heard there were a lot of Scapeshift decks, but I haven't heard any confirmation.
So if you were doubting the aggressive meta calls, here it is:
I find Merfolk to have a lot more interesting interaction with my opponent. When I play some of the other decks I feel like I'm just gold-fishing most of the time.
Take a look at the Merfolk side boards. They're all about interaction. Counters, land destruction, bounce. Merfolk is a turn slower than Elves or Affinity most of the time, but it gets there by having some interaction which gives it a more even game against a lot of decks.
Of course, I should probably wait for the people who actually post good results to chime in on why they pick it to win.
Tonight I was playing in a small LGS tournament and in the last round I was up against Mono-Blue Tron. We played a long game 1, but I didn't really have an answer for a recurring O-Stone + Wurmcoil Engine. The second game I mulliganed down to 5 and the game was very sad. I wonder if I made the right choices on the mulligans, so I figured I'd ask.
Here's the full deck list I was running. I have some variety in there because I'm still trying out a few cards to see what I like best.
4 Curse Catcher
4 Harbinger of the Tides
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Master of Waves
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
4 Aether Vial
4 Spreading Seas
2 Spell Pierce
1 Dismember
1 Vapor Snag
Lands
4 Mutavault
2 Cavern of Souls
13 Island
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Unified Will
1 Negate
1 Dispel
1 Spell Pierce
1 Vapor Snag
1 Dismember
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Tidebinder Mage
Game two I sided as follows:
+3 Tectonic Edge
+1 Ghost Quarter
+2 Unified Will
+1 Dispel
+1 Negate
+1 Spell Pierce
-1 Dismember
-1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
-2 Phantasmal Image
-3 Merrow Reejerey
I'm on the play since I lost the first match.
First hand: Island, Island, Vapor Snag, Spell Pierce, Unified Will, Negate, Dispel
This hand just felt too slow to be useful. It didn't have any land destruction and had no creatures, so I figured I could do better on 6.
Second hand: Aether Vial, Tectonic Edge, bunch of Merfolk that cost double-blue, no lands.
I have a note that it was a no-land hand, but I'm pretty sure I looked at it for a while so it must have had a colorless land. Without any interaction or draw this felt like a slow hand and I worried I wouldn't be able to stop him from getting on to tron and O-Stone.
Third hand: Mutavault, Tectonic Edge, Spreading Seas, Harbinger of the Tides, Master of the Pearl Trident
I figured if I could draw one blue source I would be able to cast the seas and draw into more.
So which hand should I have kept? Was it right to keep that third hand and hope to draw a blue source and I got unlucky? What hand would you have kept and why?
In the end I didn't find a blue source at all and had to hit him a few times with Mutavault until I conceded when he dropped a Wurmcoil engine to my one mutavault (I had used the edge already). I thought at first I got unlucky in getting three bad hands and not drawing into what I needed, but I think now that I probably just didn't do a good mulligan.
Congrats on making it to 18th.
I notice you managed to completely dodge Affinity, even though you had 4 recalls in the board.
A few questions, if you don't mind: