ultimately I see early shriekmaw as bad against them, (and its what i side out for those sideboard additions) because I don't want to kill a meddling mage set on living end with a shriekmaw only for living end to later revive that same meddling mage and allow them to set it to something else. same would go for reflector mage. If you pull off a living end, send all those humans to hell!
Why do you even care what meddling mage names on the return? You should be in a commanding position and whatever they name is going to be irrelevant as your creatures > their creatures
I could see an argument to bring in Blood Moon and Chewers as well, because on the play, you can play mana denial. Their lands fold to a Blood Moon, but it has to be fast and you have to be able to answer Vial.
Land disruption like blood moon is usually overkill for humans. You win because even if they have lands, a resolved living end backed by an average cycling process will net you the win as the cards they play with those lands are very unlikely to be better than yours.
Sideboarding question,
Do you bring in ignot chewers against Humans?
100% yes, vial is nuts in their deck, especially if they drop it in the first two turns. Even if it's the only artifact in their deck, it's worth siding in chewers to deal with them because vialing in meddling mage or Thalia in response to cascade can really ruin our plan not to mention all the synergy they get out of vialing things at instant speed (lieutenant, image, etc)
Worst comes to worst, you bin a 3/3 in the yard at sorcery speed and don't draw a card. The stats are still better than most of the base stats of the standard humans list.
What are we so scared of that we would eschew shriekmaw in favor of dead//gone though? The usual taxers we'd likely face (Thalia) makes it so it's the same cost as shriekmaw anyways.
And if humans in the general sense is a deck to be worried about, the key is to diversify our answers to beat meddling mage, i'd sooner play anger of the gods over dead//gone. Between it, shriekmaw, beast within, and living end itself, it's unlikely they would be able to have all those meddling mages on the field simultaneously.
To me, playing Dead//gone is if you're really, and I mean really afraid of hyper aggro creature decks and i'm not personally seeing the need for it when shriekmaw exists and one hit isn't the end of the world. The bounce also doesn't strike me as particularly useful for the mana cost and the lack of widespread applications.
I'd personally wouldn't side in thragtusk against burn, 5 mana is already a tall order against a deck as quick as burn and getting blown out by skullcrack/command is not something i'm interested in either. I might like it more against grindier decks like the various gb/x decks but i'd rather run other cards at that point.
I'm kicking around the idea of putting together Living End. I know the list is pretty well established at this point but is there any reason the deck doesn't play Forbidden Orchard in some number? It gives you control of keeping Demonic Dread live and is an untapped multi-color land. Seems like interesting consistency tech at the least.
Deck is already consistent enough, between fetches, fast lands and the ability to draw a crap ton of cards in the beginning, getting colored screwed is very rare.
As for having a target, it's rarely needed in this meta (or the past several). Most decks will provide a target for us and we can always beast within or cast a 3 mana creature to provide a target. At the moment, very few decks require the urgency of having to provide a target and cast demonic dread in the same turn. Not to mention we dig pretty deep as is so getting to a violent outburst is definitely not unreasonable nor uncommon.
Unless your local meta is filled with taking turns, i'd simply just the roll the dice and hope to dodge. It's not a favorable matchup whatsoever and our answers are very limited, but it's a fringe tier 1.5/2 deck that only really enthusiasts play so we have that going for us.
As far as the SB goes, I’m kind of perplexed. Is everyone really condoning Leyline right now?
Leylines has a lot going for it, though probably less than the prior meta of GDS to be fair.
First of all, it's multipurpose which is huge in general sideboarding strategy. Not only do we bring it in against burn, but it hits many other decks. It demands an answer from storm, lantern, valakut in terms of meta decks, and can be situationally sided in against decks running a lot of targeted discard like jund.
Second, it's free and comes down turn 1 which is a big deal. Compared to the more traditional boar/weaver/gnaw, they come down on turn 3 which is a critical turn when we also want to wipe the board to relieve creature pressure and start pressuring ourselves.
Finally, it requires the opponent to recognize we're on leyline and side in the correct card. For burn decks they need destructive revelry and we're very likely to squeak a free win if they don't expect leylines in the first post board game. And if they do have it, they need to have it and play it proactively to start playing their game. With board/gnaw/weaver, we're at the mercy of unknown information and potentially being blown out by anti-lifegain cards like skullcrack and command.
The downsides of leyline of course is that it's a dead card if we draw it and we have to mulligan for it. Luckily, living end does mull quite well and it's certainly not the end of the world to go to 5 or even 4 aggressively searching for it. I remember reading a while back on leyline probability breakdowns of seeing at least 1 at the start of the game and with 4 leyline produces has a ~40% chance of having 1 in the opener and it hops to ~60% if we mull to 6 and increases so on.
I'd say our LE advocate is PVDDR, he's probably the most well versed with the deck in the pro scene and heavily implied to have tested it extensively at various points.
May I ask why you are running Deadshot Minotaur instead of Monstrous Carabid? I think Minotaur is worse than Carabid if LE resolves and puts Shriekmaw and Minotaur to battlefield and Shriekmaw has to target a non-black creature.
Anyway I like your idea with having Shriekmaw in mainboard right now when current meta is heavy on humans and storm.
Never was a fan of monstrous carabid, was the first creature to be cut when the new cyclers came out. I value the flexibility of being able to block or not attack over the extra point in power and even last meta when I was still on architects so the extra point in power and toughness.
With etb interactions, I generally wouldn't run out a shriekmaw without a target and rarely use it on a token where a resulting LE would force me to kill my own creatures. In all my time playing the deck, the issue has come up maybe once? It's easy to avoid otherwise.
Frankly i'm more concerned with deadshot shooting faerie, but i'm on archfiend so there's a potential outlet for that etb.
Humans is a bit of a pain in the ass for me, i'm on 3 shriekmaw with 2/1 split mb/sb with humans very much in mind and i've got an anger as well.
Personally I think anger is quite good, they'd have to name it separately with mage and unlike cascading into LE, it won't cost 5 with Thalia out, anger will only cost 4. That extra turn for land can be quite critical in this matchup. Plus it does have other incidental applications for matchups that are popular in the meta like dredge, dredge variants, affinity, and even hollow one can get blown out with their recursive creatures.
Also kessig wolf run is quite interesting to force through some, also makes ifnir less clunky, i guess.
Ran a one-of ever since Eldrazi Winter, the downsides are paltry compared to the upside of just stealing games out of nowhere.
Are you cutting the beast withins since your burn opponents do not play RiP? or is it more like "if they're having it i wont win anyway"?
I cut beast withins because i'm assuming i'm going to have a leyline out, under those circumstances, even if they land a RiP, i'm just going to board wipe and hardcast creatures.
Interesting points you made especially the Shriekmaws main. Like stated above i test a lot against affinity so i'm always intrigued to not play it but maybe i should give it a try. I've just recently cut the 3rd trap because i usually only need one and tend to draw them in multiples if i play more than 2
I'm of the opinion that the upsides of shriekmaw main far outweight the downsides currently, think of all the decks that have creatures for shriekmaw to catch (and important ones at that) and compare that to decks that don't. Only time I wouldn't play it main in this current meta is if i'm going to a small local and familiar inbred meta.
My thought process on not cutting street wraiths is that i'm aggressively mulling for leylines, some guy did the math and mulling to 5 produces very good odds of having at least one leyline in the opener so i'm playing the numbers and it's either boom or bust for me, very few hands are going to get me to keep it if it doesn't have leylines otherwise.
As for replacements in the sb, whatever you had for burn originally gets shaved for leylines, possible some anti-combo stuff (there's a lot of overlap with leyline)
Why do you even care what meddling mage names on the return? You should be in a commanding position and whatever they name is going to be irrelevant as your creatures > their creatures
Land disruption like blood moon is usually overkill for humans. You win because even if they have lands, a resolved living end backed by an average cycling process will net you the win as the cards they play with those lands are very unlikely to be better than yours.
100% yes, vial is nuts in their deck, especially if they drop it in the first two turns. Even if it's the only artifact in their deck, it's worth siding in chewers to deal with them because vialing in meddling mage or Thalia in response to cascade can really ruin our plan not to mention all the synergy they get out of vialing things at instant speed (lieutenant, image, etc)
Worst comes to worst, you bin a 3/3 in the yard at sorcery speed and don't draw a card. The stats are still better than most of the base stats of the standard humans list.
And if humans in the general sense is a deck to be worried about, the key is to diversify our answers to beat meddling mage, i'd sooner play anger of the gods over dead//gone. Between it, shriekmaw, beast within, and living end itself, it's unlikely they would be able to have all those meddling mages on the field simultaneously.
To me, playing Dead//gone is if you're really, and I mean really afraid of hyper aggro creature decks and i'm not personally seeing the need for it when shriekmaw exists and one hit isn't the end of the world. The bounce also doesn't strike me as particularly useful for the mana cost and the lack of widespread applications.
I'd personally wouldn't side in thragtusk against burn, 5 mana is already a tall order against a deck as quick as burn and getting blown out by skullcrack/command is not something i'm interested in either. I might like it more against grindier decks like the various gb/x decks but i'd rather run other cards at that point.
Deck is already consistent enough, between fetches, fast lands and the ability to draw a crap ton of cards in the beginning, getting colored screwed is very rare.
As for having a target, it's rarely needed in this meta (or the past several). Most decks will provide a target for us and we can always beast within or cast a 3 mana creature to provide a target. At the moment, very few decks require the urgency of having to provide a target and cast demonic dread in the same turn. Not to mention we dig pretty deep as is so getting to a violent outburst is definitely not unreasonable nor uncommon.
Leylines has a lot going for it, though probably less than the prior meta of GDS to be fair.
First of all, it's multipurpose which is huge in general sideboarding strategy. Not only do we bring it in against burn, but it hits many other decks. It demands an answer from storm, lantern, valakut in terms of meta decks, and can be situationally sided in against decks running a lot of targeted discard like jund.
Second, it's free and comes down turn 1 which is a big deal. Compared to the more traditional boar/weaver/gnaw, they come down on turn 3 which is a critical turn when we also want to wipe the board to relieve creature pressure and start pressuring ourselves.
Finally, it requires the opponent to recognize we're on leyline and side in the correct card. For burn decks they need destructive revelry and we're very likely to squeak a free win if they don't expect leylines in the first post board game. And if they do have it, they need to have it and play it proactively to start playing their game. With board/gnaw/weaver, we're at the mercy of unknown information and potentially being blown out by anti-lifegain cards like skullcrack and command.
The downsides of leyline of course is that it's a dead card if we draw it and we have to mulligan for it. Luckily, living end does mull quite well and it's certainly not the end of the world to go to 5 or even 4 aggressively searching for it. I remember reading a while back on leyline probability breakdowns of seeing at least 1 at the start of the game and with 4 leyline produces has a ~40% chance of having 1 in the opener and it hops to ~60% if we mull to 6 and increases so on.
Never was a fan of monstrous carabid, was the first creature to be cut when the new cyclers came out. I value the flexibility of being able to block or not attack over the extra point in power and even last meta when I was still on architects so the extra point in power and toughness.
With etb interactions, I generally wouldn't run out a shriekmaw without a target and rarely use it on a token where a resulting LE would force me to kill my own creatures. In all my time playing the deck, the issue has come up maybe once? It's easy to avoid otherwise.
Frankly i'm more concerned with deadshot shooting faerie, but i'm on archfiend so there's a potential outlet for that etb.
Personally I think anger is quite good, they'd have to name it separately with mage and unlike cascading into LE, it won't cost 5 with Thalia out, anger will only cost 4. That extra turn for land can be quite critical in this matchup. Plus it does have other incidental applications for matchups that are popular in the meta like dredge, dredge variants, affinity, and even hollow one can get blown out with their recursive creatures.
Ran a one-of ever since Eldrazi Winter, the downsides are paltry compared to the upside of just stealing games out of nowhere.
I cut beast withins because i'm assuming i'm going to have a leyline out, under those circumstances, even if they land a RiP, i'm just going to board wipe and hardcast creatures.
I'm of the opinion that the upsides of shriekmaw main far outweight the downsides currently, think of all the decks that have creatures for shriekmaw to catch (and important ones at that) and compare that to decks that don't. Only time I wouldn't play it main in this current meta is if i'm going to a small local and familiar inbred meta.
4 Fulminator Mage
3 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Desert Cerodon
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
2 Deadshot minotaur
2 Archfiend of ifnir
2 shriekmaw
4 Violent Outburst
3 Beast Within
3 Demonic Dread
3 Living End
1 Kari Zev's Expertise
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 mountain
1 Godless Shrine
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Blooming Marsh
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstain mire
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Anger of the gods
3 Ingot Chewer
1 Shriekmaw
3 Ricochet Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Lost legacy
Against burn i'd go something like
-2 faerie macabre
-3 beast withins
+4 leyline
+1 Shriekmaw
My thought process on not cutting street wraiths is that i'm aggressively mulling for leylines, some guy did the math and mulling to 5 produces very good odds of having at least one leyline in the opener so i'm playing the numbers and it's either boom or bust for me, very few hands are going to get me to keep it if it doesn't have leylines otherwise.
As for replacements in the sb, whatever you had for burn originally gets shaved for leylines, possible some anti-combo stuff (there's a lot of overlap with leyline)