I wanna give my thoughts and experience to some of those topics as well:)
1) Why is everyone running Nature's Claim over Natural State?? Natural State kills everything we want and the 4 life really can matter in race matchups like Affinity if you cannot Turn 4 them anymore. I would prefer it over Claim ALL the time.
2) Leyline has been great against Burn and I do think you see it enough with 4 copies(Calculation:40% of seeing it in starter, 60% of seeing it in starter or Mull to 6, 75% of seeing it in starter, mull to 6&5.) If you're on the draw against Burn you need some REAL interaction to win. A bit of Lifegain won't be enough, I've experienced that too much. If I'm on the draw against Burn I mulligan until I see a Leyline (stop at 5). They don't anticipate it and we don't have a big problem mulliganing. It buys SO much time that it's almost impossible to lose. Burn players running Shrine over Eidolon only makes this better. It is also a great mirror breaker, same strategy here, on the draw if I only have a medium starter, I mulligan to Leyline. If the hand is fast I keep (especially with Omen in starter), you can still draw into leyline and cast it.
3) I do like my 4 Bolts maindeck. Against almost every matchup you will find a target that you want to kill. And it is needed to keep those Game 1 wins against decks like Vizier Combo, Burn, Death&Taxes, Elves and Affinity. Sweltering Suns is great against all these matchups so I can really see the 3/2 split. I don't like the cycling against anything else though, it seems clunky and I would rather have the Explore most of the time. I'm running 4 Bolts, 1 Explore.
4) I wouldn't overthink the GDS matchup too much. Having a Silver Bullet like Chameleon Colossus is great and I would definitely take the Relics in but I wouldn't overboard and include stuff in SB like Roast. The matchup isn't bad. Our deck is good against Discard. We cannot beat double Shadow, but anything else is beatable. Steves, Wood Elves and Baloths or even Thrun is also good after Sideboard. I would only bring Leylines in if you don't have enough playables. The discard isn't the problem, the early threats are. Bring in your ways to disrupt them or killing their threats. And Colossus just means you WIN.
First of all, congratulations to FoodChainGoblins, you really deserved that win, all that grinding paid finally off;) Now it's time to crush that RPTQ:)
I played in a PPTQ myself this weekend (my first paper tournament with Titanshift). I managed to pull off a top 8 finish right away and gathered my first experience with the deck. It is much more difficult to navigate and manage the triggers in paper magic than playing Titanshift online^^ But hey, I didn't miss a pact trigger which I expected myself to do:D I didn't have the easiest matchups, but I will cover that in my round for round report.
Round 1 MonoW Death & Taxes; My opponent shuffles his deck and a Tectonic Edge falls out. Not the first card you want to see playing Titanshift. Game 1 he Double Arbiters me. I punted letting the first Vial trigger resolve instead of cracking the fetch first. This costed me game 1, but woke me up.
Game 2 I keep a hand with Ramp and triple Bolt. I managed to kill 2 Arbiters and a Thalia and ramped to win. Game 3 I had double Sweeper, but he had Burrenton Forge-Tender. This time I played around the vial triggers well, represented Bolt the whole time. He still managed to double Tec edge me plus Ghost Quarter. I had Omen in the play the whole time, I manage to pull off Hour of Promise off the top and wrath his board. I was on 3 life, so that was just in time. 2-1
Round 2 Esper Gifts; Game 1, I keep a good Turn 4 hand, my opponent plays turn 1 fetch, untaps and drops a Runed Halo. Him having more than enough answers for creatures like Prime Time in hand I concede as I would be the first to be milled out. My opponent was playing a Gifts Unburial Rites deck though. The second rough matchup to start off a day. In game 2 I feared Gifts for Rites + Iona, Shield of Emeria, and that's exactly what he had in hand. He had 2 discards, takes my payoff cards but I have 6 lands + Omen in play. I topdeck Scapeshift right in time, next turn he would have Iona in play. Game 3, he made me discard some ramp cards, leaving my hand with Baloth, Hour, Titan and Gaeas Revenge. End of my turn 4 he casts Gifts for Iona and Rites. I concede, as I have no chance of winning without casting green spells and having no Valakuts in play. The hate is real, 1-2.
Round 3 Burn; Game 1 I won the die roll and that's basically the story of the game as I turn 4 him. Would have been dead the next turn. I feel positive about this matchup post sideboard as I have 4 Leyline of Sanctity to bring in. I mull to 6 to find a Leyline and win easily. 2-0
Round 4 Bring to Light Gifts; Game 1 I won ramping fast and with a turn 4 kill. In that game, my opponent suspened Search for Tomorrow and played Tribe Elder. As he had 4 colors in play I was thinking of Bring to Light Scapeshift. I was wrong as Game 2 showed. My opponent suspended SFT again but missed his second land drop. I had Turn 1 + 2 Ramp. Turn 3, he firstly plays a Faithless Looting discarding Iona (yes again) and Unburial Rites. At this point I was like "WTF is this?". Then he plays Collective Brutality and sees a Hour, Prime Time, Scapeshift and Beast Within. He has no real good discard here. If he takes Beast Within, I Hour of Promise into 3 Valakuts and I could kill his Iona the following turn. So he takes Hour and I beast Within his white Dual land to "Time-Walk" him. Next turn I cast Prime Time for the win. After the match he told me he wasn't playing Scapeshift at all, so I played the second "Gifts-Iona deck" today. 2-0
Round 5 Affinity; My win and in, I know his deck, keeping a hand with triple bolt and a ramp spell. He mulls to 6 game 1 and I managed to get game 1 quite easily. Game 2 I draw my Sideboard hate (Thank god!) and ramp quickly into Prime time, unusual easy 2-0 win against Affinity. I am in the top 8 being number 4 seat.
Top 8 QUARTERS against Affinity; 3 Affinity decks made Top 8 (That's what I meant FoodChainGoblins, that Affinity is in a good spot right now;)) and I was playing one. I was on the play and Turn 4ed him Game 1. Game 2 he had the Affinity draw they get sometimes. Turn 2 Steel Overseer plus Master of Etherium. My wrath's suddenly look pretty bad;) Game 3 I mull to 6 and was stuck on 3-4 lands the whole game. Drawing some Bolt interaction didn't compensate that as he had the Ravager draw and brought his Inkmoth Nexus out of Bolt range. I am eliminated. 1-2
The best card of the day were my 2 Omen. There was always at least 1 game each match where Omen saved my ass. It made interacting with the opponent much easier (especially against D&t and Affinity). I am thinking of going up to 3 copies.
Unfortunate finish, but a good day. Gathered my first experiences playing the deck on paper and except Match 1 Game 1 I played pretty well I think. The matchups weren't always good on paper, which makes me very happy with the Top 8. I think 4 Affinity decks made Top 10, and I am not surprised, seeing what other decks were played that day. Next week I'll try again:)
Don't be scared of affinity. I've practised the matchup extensively. With the proper sideboard, we can take games 2 and 3. Just give them game 1
Can you write up your exact sideboard guide against it please?:)
And I think FoodChain meant it from the perspective of playing Affinity, he is afraid of the hate (Stony Silence...).;) But at the moment Affinity is a bit under the radar, so I think you shouldn't be afraid of too much hate.
The Value Town deck sounds like a pain in the ass for us to play against. Overall, Azusa does the job there even better than Summer Bloom I think.
On Magic Online you can basically choose another deck to play for the next weeks/months. I don't know if it's just me or my timezone but you cannot play Titanshift anymore. If played against 2 Main Board Blood Moon deck the last 4 leagues. The hate is real ^^! I've won 2 out of those 8 matches, they are not unwinnable but definitely not good. If you have some linear Aggro strategy deck like Affinity on MTGO, this is the time to play it, I think I haven't played against a single bad matchup of it.
I don't have a Titanshift, but I'm a big time green player. Its nice to see lands doing work. I started from the first page and read every word, and it seems to me land-hate is the big enemy, obviously.
I have seen not even a word about Life from the Loam. I understand that this isn't necessarily a dredge deck. So it probably wouldn't be more than a 1-of... but that is card is a house against land hate and has positive effects for scapeshift decks. I don't have a single Titan or Scapeshift and they're very expensive but I'm rooting for this deck and I think it could at least be tested.
This deck shouldn't have a problem against Grixis Shadow... AT ALL. In fact Grixis Shadow isn't even that good of a deck. It relies on combat damage so it gets beat by bigger threats, protection, and chumpers, or an excessive amount of removal. This deck has 3 of the 4. Still, because it is prevalent my vote is for the elk over the chameleon-thing. It can't get countered, is 1 cheaper, and u don't necessarily have to do more than chump anglers with it.
Be forwarned: Someone is going to make a GQ Ramunap ExcavatorSummer Bloom deck with or without fetches and its going to be a house. It's probably sideboard material... but you should sideboard it. It hoses any deck that doesn't use a lot of basics... which includes pretty much every Tier 1 deck.
Land hate is annoying but it only slows us down (except for Surgical Extraction shenanigans). The big enemy are Aggro and Combo decks that goldfish faster than us. Decks like Burn, Affinity, Ad Nauseam and like u said Storm have always been tough ones. Out of the three cards you mentioned Aven (unanswered) is definitely the scariest for me, the other 2 can be played around / beaten (especially easy with Scapeshift). Life from the Loam could be a fine card against UW Control, to repeatedly play your Valakuts but otherwise I don't see that much use in them. I agree that GDS isn't as bad as a matchup for us as people think sometimes. They need a fast clock (preferably on turn 2) to race us as we're very discard redundant. It is definitely beatable, especially after Sideboard. I think Chameleon is still better than the Stable as the Chameleon comes down, blocks and wins the game the next turn. (As they're mostly below 10 life.) On Turn 3 we always have 4 mana so the 4CMC isn't really a problem.
And I don't fear Summer Bloom in Modern, at least for now, as it is banned;)
If you are thinking of splashing Black I highly recommend 4 Push 2 decay. I've been doing it for months and it's fantastic. I played the exact maindeck list for the splash that's in the Primer for a little while. I found that farseek was so good for perfect mana that I dropped the two explores to max out farseek. I recently replaced Courser of kruphix with Hour of Promise. The removal is so much better than what Red offers and having maindeck answers to Blood Moon, Cranial Plating, and random other things is amazing. With 3ish sweepers in the side, you don't really lose much on the Aggro matchups. The 6 maindeck removal spells is often enough to still get game 1. And the additional sweepers seals it for games 2 and 3
I've been interested in the Black splash for a while, and as you're kind of experienced with the splash I wanted to ask you a few questions I've been wondering about.
1) In the primer decklist, 3 Misty Rainforests are played, why? If you're splashing Black you should definitely play Verdant Catacombs, right?
2) I see that Prismatic Omen is a better card in the splash version as it fixes your mana but are 3 really needed? At 3 copies the risk of drawing 2 copies a game rises and that is something you really don't want to see happen.
3) How often do you bring in your discard (like Collective Brutality)? It is an auto include and wincard against Burn of course but do you bring it in against UW Control to discard their counterspells? Do you bring it in against combo strategies?
4) I see you have no SB plan against the Titanshift mirror? Aren't you seeing it more frequently?
I would be glad to hear your answers and I'm thinking about trying the list out. The black splash really doesn't look like it hurts the mana base too much.
Why not just pyroclasm then?
Especially against elves it can be too late to deal 2 dmg for 3 mana.
I have no experience with Pyroclasm, but I wanna try out Kozilek's Return because of the Instant speed and how powerful it sounds against Affinity. Pyroclasm sounds interesting because you can cast it on Turn 2, which makes it much better when you're on the draw. Has anyone else experience with those two sweepers? Is the 2 mana really worth it, because I feel the 1 mana less wouldn't matter to often.
What do you guys think of Kozilek's Return? In my meta Dredge is a dead deck and the Exile + 1 more damage effect of Anger wasn't really important the last matches/weeks. The instant speed seems much more appealing to me as I still have many troubles against Affinity (Which is a popular deck around here) despite playing all the hate. The normal wrath's just aren't "as good" against them. An instant speed wrath dealing with the manlands is great, and you can cast it in response to a Steel Overseer activation. The instant speed also helps in many other matchups as you can wait for them to play more creatures, I don't think anyone expects this wrath from our deck. 2 damage is also enough to kill/slow down Abzan Company (except Kitchen Finks, it's worse there), Elves, Death&Taxes, Burn and any Token decks.
He killed a Prismatic Omen with Destructive Revelry. Is that worth siding vs. us? He's a good Burn player that I know from a team and he sided 4 of them against me.
Burn players tend do oversideboard with Destructive Revelry. They brought 4 in when I was playing Merfolk (4 Vials), Bant Eldrazi (2 Spellskite) and Titanshift (2 Omens). I think in none of these 3 matchups it's correct for the Burn player to bring in 4 copies. There is just a very large chance that they won't find a target. And I always try to make that chance 0% postboard (If they saw something). You killed him Game 1 with Omen out. There is a really good chance that he is scared of it and brings in Destructive Revelry. If I were in your position I would have taken out the Omens Game 2 and make Revelries a dead 4-of in his deck. We can still kill them Turn 4 with Scapeshift (more likely if he has dead cards in hand) or Turn 5 the latest if we've drawn some interaction.
Good run, I know your feel about Affinity. I just hate playing against that deck, as it is so "hate-draw" dependent and normal interaction isn't enough. But you were on the edge of winning against GDS and seemed to be really close, so keep up the grinding, I'm sure next time you'll make it:) Next two weekends I'm attending 2 PPTQ's as well:)
1) I think most of the time it is correct to bait them to play the Spreading Seas on turn 2. As I played Merfolk myself, I know that Spreading Seas is like a win condition for them in creature matchups and they play it late. Against us, the matchup for them is a pure race. Every point of damage matters. So they should play out their creatures first. And if you're facing a good Merfolk player he knows that and plays the lord even though you give him the opportunity to Spreading Seas on Turn 2. They will look to play the Seas one turn before we get to six mana, so Titan often cannot kill a creature and cannot block the following attack.
2) I don't like siding in too much Artifact removal. There is a very well chance that you won't even see one of these 6 pieces. If Rec Sage is better than a main deck card i would take it in, otherwise leave the hate in the SB. If they play 4 copters,(which they generally don't) things might change.
Thanks a lot wtyyy for the long answer. The mirror is a pure race, that's why you're really disadvantaged on the draw, a mirrorbreaker like Witchbane Orb seems perfect in this situation, so I agree. What do you think on Witchbane Orb vs. Leyline, this has been the hardest decision in the past days for me. 2 Leylines seem reasonable but I haven't included White mana in my deck to cast. My plan is just to put it onto the battlefield from the starter. Does that seem bad? It's just so much better against GDS, Burn and other Discardheavy decks (that don't expect it at all, Burn won't bring in Destructive Revelry).
I'm definitely with Spike, that Omen is a very good card against UW, I've liked it a lot so far. Unfortunately the scenario often looks like you get it down early and they counter all your threats, you can't play your Valakuts because they have GQ and Tec Edge ready, and then in the late game Omen gets removed by Detention Sphere and suddenly you find yourself with only 5-6 Mountains in play and they start killing your lands. It really is a tricky matchup.
Sandfrog, I'm happy that Great Stable Stag works for you. Could you explain me why you prefer it over Chameleon Colossus? Does the Pro Blue come up often? Can you close out the game against DS with it or do you just use it as a wall blocker?
Hey, I need to add on to the sideboarding section in the Primer. Not just some more matchups, but common sideboard cards and how good they are in the matchup, and in what order I think you should cut common mainboard cards for sideboard stuff. But I'm not gonna be able to do all of that today. So, if you can post a handful of decks that you have trouble with or expect to see or just generally want advice on, I and others can give opinions about how the match should play out and what effects are important.
No problem mate, no stress:) I expect the mirror a lot. I know it is 50/50 usually and is mostly decided by the diceroll and starting hands. After SB the player on the draw can draw the advantage on his side with (unexpected) hatecards. I asked for some SB cards for the mirror. You suggested Crumble to Dust. I don't like the variance of the card. If they play their Valakut early, its obviously awesome. (But good players often play around it, so do I now) Otherwise it is not very useful and just a overcosted Stone Rain. Mwonvuli Acid-Moss is a great card with uses in other matchups, but it doesn't just "win you the game". Leyline of Sanctity is great in the starter (and useable in different matchups), but only there and Witchbane Orb is great in the mirror but has no good use against other decks. It's a difficult question but which one is the best?
May I also ask the question how you play out the game vs UW Control (not a SB guide)? I feel like the longer the game goes, the lower our odds are to win. Are you just casting your Titans and Scapeshift into counterspells or do you wait? I know it takes only 1 card to win, but resolving these is almost impossible. The best way to win has been Thrun, but I haven't drawn him or Pacts very much... If you have 8-9 Lands on the battlefield, do you keep your Ramp Spells and Lands in your hand? And do you keep in your Prismatic Omen after SB? they are great against Spreading Seas but can be answered later.
Just generally: How have you achieved your wins against UW? These are all questions that I would be glad if someone could answer:) Thanks:)
I don't know if this topic has already been discussed, but what do you guys think about Witchbane Orb? We are the largest part of the MTGO meta right know. The last 2 leagues I've played 3 times against the mirror. I am playing the classic RG version and one guy brought in Witchbanes in the mirror and me of course not siding in Artifact removal cannot kill him fast enough. It comes down on Turn 3 and can also be sided in against Burn. It has downsides to Leyline (not being in play on turn 0 if in starter) but they don't get stranded in your hand if you draw into them. You can keep normal looking hands and pray to draw into the Orb. I think it is a pretty neat tech, but only really pays off in the mirror. At the moment I have Mwonvuli Acid-Moss in the board for Big Mana matchups. It helps especially against the Tron decks, but is worse than the Orb in the mirror. The orb takes a whole turn of you though, while the Acid Moss keeps you ramping. What do you guys think?
Question for people here. After considering a murderous cut for a bit it's made me think that maybe Tasigur as a card drawing sideboard threat might be good in the black splash. What do you think?
Well we should have enough Delve enablers to cast it on Turn 4. It is a very good card on its own but where would you bring it in? I think if you want a good SB Draw/Value Creature Tireless Tracker is perfect in this deck. Is Tasigur better than Tracker? But as the Tracker is good against most of the decks we're already favored, I don't play it personally.
Just finished a mental match against Jeskai Control. He had 3 Leyline of Sanctity on the board and Spell Queller'd my Thrun 3 times before it finally resolved and won me the game:D These matches against Control are always so long and grindy^^
1) Why is everyone running Nature's Claim over Natural State?? Natural State kills everything we want and the 4 life really can matter in race matchups like Affinity if you cannot Turn 4 them anymore. I would prefer it over Claim ALL the time.
2) Leyline has been great against Burn and I do think you see it enough with 4 copies(Calculation:40% of seeing it in starter, 60% of seeing it in starter or Mull to 6, 75% of seeing it in starter, mull to 6&5.) If you're on the draw against Burn you need some REAL interaction to win. A bit of Lifegain won't be enough, I've experienced that too much. If I'm on the draw against Burn I mulligan until I see a Leyline (stop at 5). They don't anticipate it and we don't have a big problem mulliganing. It buys SO much time that it's almost impossible to lose. Burn players running Shrine over Eidolon only makes this better. It is also a great mirror breaker, same strategy here, on the draw if I only have a medium starter, I mulligan to Leyline. If the hand is fast I keep (especially with Omen in starter), you can still draw into leyline and cast it.
3) I do like my 4 Bolts maindeck. Against almost every matchup you will find a target that you want to kill. And it is needed to keep those Game 1 wins against decks like Vizier Combo, Burn, Death&Taxes, Elves and Affinity. Sweltering Suns is great against all these matchups so I can really see the 3/2 split. I don't like the cycling against anything else though, it seems clunky and I would rather have the Explore most of the time. I'm running 4 Bolts, 1 Explore.
4) I wouldn't overthink the GDS matchup too much. Having a Silver Bullet like Chameleon Colossus is great and I would definitely take the Relics in but I wouldn't overboard and include stuff in SB like Roast. The matchup isn't bad. Our deck is good against Discard. We cannot beat double Shadow, but anything else is beatable. Steves, Wood Elves and Baloths or even Thrun is also good after Sideboard. I would only bring Leylines in if you don't have enough playables. The discard isn't the problem, the early threats are. Bring in your ways to disrupt them or killing their threats. And Colossus just means you WIN.
My question I'm still not sure about: Gaea's Revenge vs Thrun, the Last Troll, which one is better???
I played in a PPTQ myself this weekend (my first paper tournament with Titanshift). I managed to pull off a top 8 finish right away and gathered my first experience with the deck. It is much more difficult to navigate and manage the triggers in paper magic than playing Titanshift online^^ But hey, I didn't miss a pact trigger which I expected myself to do:D I didn't have the easiest matchups, but I will cover that in my round for round report.
Round 1 MonoW Death & Taxes; My opponent shuffles his deck and a Tectonic Edge falls out. Not the first card you want to see playing Titanshift. Game 1 he Double Arbiters me. I punted letting the first Vial trigger resolve instead of cracking the fetch first. This costed me game 1, but woke me up.
Game 2 I keep a hand with Ramp and triple Bolt. I managed to kill 2 Arbiters and a Thalia and ramped to win. Game 3 I had double Sweeper, but he had Burrenton Forge-Tender. This time I played around the vial triggers well, represented Bolt the whole time. He still managed to double Tec edge me plus Ghost Quarter. I had Omen in the play the whole time, I manage to pull off Hour of Promise off the top and wrath his board. I was on 3 life, so that was just in time. 2-1
Round 2 Esper Gifts; Game 1, I keep a good Turn 4 hand, my opponent plays turn 1 fetch, untaps and drops a Runed Halo. Him having more than enough answers for creatures like Prime Time in hand I concede as I would be the first to be milled out. My opponent was playing a Gifts Unburial Rites deck though. The second rough matchup to start off a day. In game 2 I feared Gifts for Rites + Iona, Shield of Emeria, and that's exactly what he had in hand. He had 2 discards, takes my payoff cards but I have 6 lands + Omen in play. I topdeck Scapeshift right in time, next turn he would have Iona in play. Game 3, he made me discard some ramp cards, leaving my hand with Baloth, Hour, Titan and Gaeas Revenge. End of my turn 4 he casts Gifts for Iona and Rites. I concede, as I have no chance of winning without casting green spells and having no Valakuts in play. The hate is real, 1-2.
Round 3 Burn; Game 1 I won the die roll and that's basically the story of the game as I turn 4 him. Would have been dead the next turn. I feel positive about this matchup post sideboard as I have 4 Leyline of Sanctity to bring in. I mull to 6 to find a Leyline and win easily. 2-0
Round 4 Bring to Light Gifts; Game 1 I won ramping fast and with a turn 4 kill. In that game, my opponent suspened Search for Tomorrow and played Tribe Elder. As he had 4 colors in play I was thinking of Bring to Light Scapeshift. I was wrong as Game 2 showed. My opponent suspended SFT again but missed his second land drop. I had Turn 1 + 2 Ramp. Turn 3, he firstly plays a Faithless Looting discarding Iona (yes again) and Unburial Rites. At this point I was like "WTF is this?". Then he plays Collective Brutality and sees a Hour, Prime Time, Scapeshift and Beast Within. He has no real good discard here. If he takes Beast Within, I Hour of Promise into 3 Valakuts and I could kill his Iona the following turn. So he takes Hour and I beast Within his white Dual land to "Time-Walk" him. Next turn I cast Prime Time for the win. After the match he told me he wasn't playing Scapeshift at all, so I played the second "Gifts-Iona deck" today. 2-0
Round 5 Affinity; My win and in, I know his deck, keeping a hand with triple bolt and a ramp spell. He mulls to 6 game 1 and I managed to get game 1 quite easily. Game 2 I draw my Sideboard hate (Thank god!) and ramp quickly into Prime time, unusual easy 2-0 win against Affinity. I am in the top 8 being number 4 seat.
Top 8 QUARTERS against Affinity; 3 Affinity decks made Top 8 (That's what I meant FoodChainGoblins, that Affinity is in a good spot right now;)) and I was playing one. I was on the play and Turn 4ed him Game 1. Game 2 he had the Affinity draw they get sometimes. Turn 2 Steel Overseer plus Master of Etherium. My wrath's suddenly look pretty bad;) Game 3 I mull to 6 and was stuck on 3-4 lands the whole game. Drawing some Bolt interaction didn't compensate that as he had the Ravager draw and brought his Inkmoth Nexus out of Bolt range. I am eliminated. 1-2
The best card of the day were my 2 Omen. There was always at least 1 game each match where Omen saved my ass. It made interacting with the opponent much easier (especially against D&t and Affinity). I am thinking of going up to 3 copies.
Unfortunate finish, but a good day. Gathered my first experiences playing the deck on paper and except Match 1 Game 1 I played pretty well I think. The matchups weren't always good on paper, which makes me very happy with the Top 8. I think 4 Affinity decks made Top 10, and I am not surprised, seeing what other decks were played that day. Next week I'll try again:)
Can you write up your exact sideboard guide against it please?:)
And I think FoodChain meant it from the perspective of playing Affinity, he is afraid of the hate (Stony Silence...).;) But at the moment Affinity is a bit under the radar, so I think you shouldn't be afraid of too much hate.
On Magic Online you can basically choose another deck to play for the next weeks/months. I don't know if it's just me or my timezone but you cannot play Titanshift anymore. If played against 2 Main Board Blood Moon deck the last 4 leagues. The hate is real ^^! I've won 2 out of those 8 matches, they are not unwinnable but definitely not good. If you have some linear Aggro strategy deck like Affinity on MTGO, this is the time to play it, I think I haven't played against a single bad matchup of it.
And I don't fear Summer Bloom in Modern, at least for now, as it is banned;)
I've been interested in the Black splash for a while, and as you're kind of experienced with the splash I wanted to ask you a few questions I've been wondering about.
1) In the primer decklist, 3 Misty Rainforests are played, why? If you're splashing Black you should definitely play Verdant Catacombs, right?
2) I see that Prismatic Omen is a better card in the splash version as it fixes your mana but are 3 really needed? At 3 copies the risk of drawing 2 copies a game rises and that is something you really don't want to see happen.
3) How often do you bring in your discard (like Collective Brutality)? It is an auto include and wincard against Burn of course but do you bring it in against UW Control to discard their counterspells? Do you bring it in against combo strategies?
4) I see you have no SB plan against the Titanshift mirror? Aren't you seeing it more frequently?
I would be glad to hear your answers and I'm thinking about trying the list out. The black splash really doesn't look like it hurts the mana base too much.
I have no experience with Pyroclasm, but I wanna try out Kozilek's Return because of the Instant speed and how powerful it sounds against Affinity. Pyroclasm sounds interesting because you can cast it on Turn 2, which makes it much better when you're on the draw. Has anyone else experience with those two sweepers? Is the 2 mana really worth it, because I feel the 1 mana less wouldn't matter to often.
Burn players tend do oversideboard with Destructive Revelry. They brought 4 in when I was playing Merfolk (4 Vials), Bant Eldrazi (2 Spellskite) and Titanshift (2 Omens). I think in none of these 3 matchups it's correct for the Burn player to bring in 4 copies. There is just a very large chance that they won't find a target. And I always try to make that chance 0% postboard (If they saw something). You killed him Game 1 with Omen out. There is a really good chance that he is scared of it and brings in Destructive Revelry. If I were in your position I would have taken out the Omens Game 2 and make Revelries a dead 4-of in his deck. We can still kill them Turn 4 with Scapeshift (more likely if he has dead cards in hand) or Turn 5 the latest if we've drawn some interaction.
Good run, I know your feel about Affinity. I just hate playing against that deck, as it is so "hate-draw" dependent and normal interaction isn't enough. But you were on the edge of winning against GDS and seemed to be really close, so keep up the grinding, I'm sure next time you'll make it:) Next two weekends I'm attending 2 PPTQ's as well:)
2) I don't like siding in too much Artifact removal. There is a very well chance that you won't even see one of these 6 pieces. If Rec Sage is better than a main deck card i would take it in, otherwise leave the hate in the SB. If they play 4 copters,(which they generally don't) things might change.
I'm definitely with Spike, that Omen is a very good card against UW, I've liked it a lot so far. Unfortunately the scenario often looks like you get it down early and they counter all your threats, you can't play your Valakuts because they have GQ and Tec Edge ready, and then in the late game Omen gets removed by Detention Sphere and suddenly you find yourself with only 5-6 Mountains in play and they start killing your lands. It really is a tricky matchup.
Sandfrog, I'm happy that Great Stable Stag works for you. Could you explain me why you prefer it over Chameleon Colossus? Does the Pro Blue come up often? Can you close out the game against DS with it or do you just use it as a wall blocker?
No problem mate, no stress:) I expect the mirror a lot. I know it is 50/50 usually and is mostly decided by the diceroll and starting hands. After SB the player on the draw can draw the advantage on his side with (unexpected) hatecards. I asked for some SB cards for the mirror. You suggested Crumble to Dust. I don't like the variance of the card. If they play their Valakut early, its obviously awesome. (But good players often play around it, so do I now) Otherwise it is not very useful and just a overcosted Stone Rain. Mwonvuli Acid-Moss is a great card with uses in other matchups, but it doesn't just "win you the game". Leyline of Sanctity is great in the starter (and useable in different matchups), but only there and Witchbane Orb is great in the mirror but has no good use against other decks. It's a difficult question but which one is the best?
May I also ask the question how you play out the game vs UW Control (not a SB guide)? I feel like the longer the game goes, the lower our odds are to win. Are you just casting your Titans and Scapeshift into counterspells or do you wait? I know it takes only 1 card to win, but resolving these is almost impossible. The best way to win has been Thrun, but I haven't drawn him or Pacts very much... If you have 8-9 Lands on the battlefield, do you keep your Ramp Spells and Lands in your hand? And do you keep in your Prismatic Omen after SB? they are great against Spreading Seas but can be answered later.
Just generally: How have you achieved your wins against UW? These are all questions that I would be glad if someone could answer:) Thanks:)
Well we should have enough Delve enablers to cast it on Turn 4. It is a very good card on its own but where would you bring it in? I think if you want a good SB Draw/Value Creature Tireless Tracker is perfect in this deck. Is Tasigur better than Tracker? But as the Tracker is good against most of the decks we're already favored, I don't play it personally.
Just finished a mental match against Jeskai Control. He had 3 Leyline of Sanctity on the board and Spell Queller'd my Thrun 3 times before it finally resolved and won me the game:D These matches against Control are always so long and grindy^^