I didn't watch the replays, but if I remember right I conceded when he was in a position to use Codex Shreder to return a whir of invention and tutor Witchbane Orb, which I had no way to remove with my 75. A draw would favor him, so I just tried to save time.
I noticed a couple of decks running gut shot.... am I missing something with this card?
I played humans at the PT with 2 Gut Shots on the sideboard. I had it for Noble Hierarch decks (including the mirror) and Affinity. Those matchups tend to be very play/draw dependent and having a Gut Shot on a key early play is a huge tempo swing that gives you a good chance to win games on the draw - this happened twice at the tournament. Note that it gets better if you are also running Izzet Staticaster, since they can "combo" to kill a x/2 creature.
I wouldn't bring Gut Shot against Liliana or Young Pyromancer decks.
Hey, I am trying to come back to playing this style of deck. I've read the primer, most recent articles and the last 10 or so pages, but I still have some questions, if someone could help: does anyone have a good sideboard plan against Death's Shadow and Jeskai control? Those matchups are supposed to be very difficult, right?
Back before the deck had Vizier of Remedies, and when the black midrange deck of choices were Jund and Abzan, I had found success by sideboarding out Chords and combo pieces to bring some removal, Distended Mindbender, Gideon and Tireless Tracker (like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/5htsi4/modern_rptq_report_abzan_company_top4/?st=javb4m0i&sh=230c5e07). I remeber trying something similar a few months ago, but learning that Mindbender wasn't as effective when it only takes a single card out of my opponent's hand and that my midrange cards got outclassed by the card Death's Shadow.
I've seen the most recent succesful lists (Kazu Negri, Jarvis Yu) and they seem to be back on the removal + Mindbender and Gideon, so I wonder if people find those to be effective specifically against Death's Shadow decks and Jeskai.
Hm, I prefer just casting Liliana. By going all out on Collective Brutality he could start a come back by going Spreading Seas to topdeck Counterspell, followed by topdeck another counter or Snapcaster Mage. With Liliana, you have to deal with whatever instant or sorcery he has in hand, but you can keep recurring Snapcaster Mage until he dies even if he has answers for you two burn spells. If he had more mana available to threaten to untap into a big sphynx revelation or attack Lili with Collonade, I'd agree that Collective Brutality was the better choice.
I'll never understand how people wouldn't play Serum Visions on turn one despite being on a single land in hand. It's pretty much the only option available, expecially against an unknown opponent.
In my case, it was game 2 and I knew it was the mirror, so there is more weight to thoughseizing first just for the possibility to deny his discard.
But even so, the real difference maker is Street Wraith. Being able to scry land on top and draw immediately still gives you 2 mana on turn 2 if you wait to cast Serum Visions, seeing the same ammount of cards (you're only losing out in the case of not seeing a land in 5 card but hitting another cantripm which is minor). Add another factor that you have other good cards in hand which would act as a rod in case he has two discard spells, so the opponent would have to be very determined to use it on Serum Visions.
Tks for the many good answers on what card to take with Thoughtseize. Taking his Thoughtseize is very safe and something the majority of folks said they would do, so can't go wront there. The main arguments against Terminate were this:
I would have taken the Thoughtseize and it would have been an easy decision.
Terminate is not a good pick, also for three reasons:
1. It's not gone unless we also have a way of exiling it from their graveyard.
2. We have no threat on the battlefield yet. So Terminate is a dead card at the moment, unlike Serum Visions and Thoughtseize.
3. We have enough ways of dealing with Terminate. It's no Rest in Peace.
For all those reasons, if I was on the draw, I'd be willing to take Thoughtseize here and keep on playing a long game where I am advatange because of Snapcaster. But on the play, I thought there was an opportunity to capitalize on a kill sequence and finish him off.
My best case scenario would go:
1. He'd spend his first available two mana casting Thoughtseize and a cantrip.
2. I'd dig aggresively for a Delve creature with my Serum Visions. I give odds over 40% to be able find and cast one on turn three or earlier.
3. In order for him to deal with a Delve creature that hits the table in the next two turns, he'd have to topdeck his remaining Terminate, or draw 3 more lands and a Snapcaster, or stick a Death's Shadow that is bigger than my creatures. I judged all those answers to be unlikely because of the pressure I'd been putting on him and because of both removal and Snap on my hand to answer blockers.
But there is more. Taking away his Terminate could force him to Thoughtseize my Death's Shadow, or risk getting killed soon.
If he goes for Snapcaster, he is relying on drawing a Fatal Push very soon or dying. Or his reponse could be to have his Death's Shadow as a blocker to buy time, but since I have initiave on board, that could easily and quickly backfire in case I find lands for Snap + Terminate, or my Death's Shadow naturally grows bigger or I topdeck Fatal Push.
Now say he recognizes the threat of Death's Shadow and takes it away with his Thoughtseize. Any future Fatal Push he draws will be a lot worse, and I'll still have Snapcaster and Terminate to get ahead in the long game. Both are significant.
Snapcaster and Terminate are premium cards in the matchup, while Death's Shadow is something everyone ideally wants to use Fatal Push exclusively to deal with.
How much my win% this game increases because I have a shot of those kill sequences (topdeck delve guy fast, or just kill him if Thoughtseizes away Snapcaster)? Is it higher than what % I lose for allowing him to resolve a Thoughtseize? Well, I thought so, mostly because even I didn't get a quick kill, I was also considering that the game in the mirror typically ends more often because a threat sticked than because one player got too ahead on card-advantage, so taking away any Terminates are always a huge deal (this is because there are many bad topdeck in discard spells, and the deck don't have a lot of card draw, and bolt-snap-bolt can kill out of nowhere). However I am not sure this stimation is true (I don't have that many mirror games under my belt) and is something you guys on this forum are better able to assess.
I thought it was a relly cool decision, it's been almost week and I am still thinking about it. Very thankful for all the answers!
I thought the Delve Creature-Terminate dynamic to be too important in the mirror, even more so than protecting my Snapcaster from his Thoughtseize. So I took his Terminante, expecting to win the game with a topdeck Delve guy. But I am not 100% confident on the decision.
Distended Mindbender.
Saw this in two sideboard this week-end.
In guess this usefull against Tron. But isn t this to slow.
I ran a couple of Distended Mindbenders at the RPTQ a few months back. I really wanted them for black midrange and blue control matchups, where they would take out a removal spell and stay on the table as the largest creature. As a bonus, I would also bring them in against slow spell combo decks (ad nauseam, scapeshift), where they were very good but not 100% reliable, and against big mana decks (tron, titanshift) where they were mediocre. If you want to target those last two matchups, there are more reliable options.
Currently, I don't think I want Mindbender even against the midrange decks because their Death's Shadow will often be larger.
I think Eternal Witness is far better than both. It's necessary to make Collected Company truly great in the deck, as there aren't a high number of impactful hits. The logic os you get a reroll when Company hits Eternal Witness + blank. Neither Tracker or Rallier can have the same effect. I always felt that for game1 the deck is combo first and grind second, and Eternal Witness help with the combo part by making Company better when trying to race another deck (by helping see more cards and find combo pieces). The deck doesn't need the ramp (main upside of Rallier) or has enough disruption to make a long game with Tracker a great option against an open field, at least not in game 1.
For me, running less than 3 Eternal Witness in the main is a big deck constructionmistake, and running any copies of Rallier or Tracker in the maindeck can only be justified as metagame calls or trying to open up sideboard slots. Those two cards don't help with your main game plan for game 1.
The new spoiled card, Fatal Push, is a tremendous addition to the deck and may require the mana base to be schewed in order to fit it. Truly great card.
Yeah, Fulminator + Surgical Extraction makes total sense! Extraction is a good enough card against dredge because taking out the conflagrates is often sufficient.
However, I couldn't fit Fulminators in my sideboard because they aren't impactiful enough against BGx or blue midrange, and I really wanted to make sure I had several heavy hitters for those matchups, which came at the expense of giving some equity against Tron. Note that Demars' version has Tireless Tracker in the main instead of extra combo pieces, so he can afford to have less impactful cards in his sideboard for grindy matchups - it's like he is partially pre-boarded already. Without Fulminator, I opted to go with Ravenous Trap as my dredge hate instead, as it's a bit more impactful.
So I think his sideboard is more well rounded overall, while the one I used was aiming harder at a specific metagame.
I'm curious how you guys side vs bg/x.
I tend to play against jund and mardu (lili, bob, souls, etc, usually no nahiri, just goyfless midrange)
a fair amount, and I've seen a lot of people say they cut logic knots, or other things, which I've never been excited about vs liliana.
What PimpDonny said. I agree on not taking out logic knots precisely for this reason, unless you are also bringing in other ways to deal with Liliana (celestial purge, engineered explosives usually). You don't want too many counterspells though, so negates and mana leaks could go. I also think you can go down to two supreme verdicts post-board as long as you are bringing in removal for Raging Ravie (condemn, blessed alliance). If you are playing 26 lands you could go down to 25 on the draw, or trim some serum visions.
On another note, weve been talking alot about cards and strategy, but I feel like we might need to talk a little more about tactics. I feel like alot of people could beneficiate from that kind of dicussion. For exemple, what do you PtE, what do you counterspell or not. When do you switch gear and start beating and against what deck? The variance between the deck appreciation might come more from these decisions than a difference between 3-4 cards.
This would be great, but works best when someone can stream or record screenshots of these scenarios. Things like how a previous poster said he counters "anything on turn 2" are more contentious than a lot of people realize. There's a huge variance in how people play the deck.
I think this is important as well. I previously recorded a video to discuss playing x RG Valakut, and game 3 in particular there were some difficult decisions (I could play the matchup in a totally different manner) and I would like some more input (https://youtu.be/MoTfu1of-rg?t=23m20s timestamp just to game 3, there are some notes on video description). I could do more of those if there was interest, I have a few past replays that would be cool to discuss.
@apokephalismos I agree on the idea of cutting some of the powerful but expensive spells for their less powerful but less expensive counterparts, but the downgrade from Cryptic Command to Counterflux and Sphinx's Revelation to Glimmer of Genius looks to be too much loss in card quality, unfortunately, at least from a first glimpse.
I played humans at the PT with 2 Gut Shots on the sideboard. I had it for Noble Hierarch decks (including the mirror) and Affinity. Those matchups tend to be very play/draw dependent and having a Gut Shot on a key early play is a huge tempo swing that gives you a good chance to win games on the draw - this happened twice at the tournament. Note that it gets better if you are also running Izzet Staticaster, since they can "combo" to kill a x/2 creature.
I wouldn't bring Gut Shot against Liliana or Young Pyromancer decks.
Back before the deck had Vizier of Remedies, and when the black midrange deck of choices were Jund and Abzan, I had found success by sideboarding out Chords and combo pieces to bring some removal, Distended Mindbender, Gideon and Tireless Tracker (like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/5htsi4/modern_rptq_report_abzan_company_top4/?st=javb4m0i&sh=230c5e07). I remeber trying something similar a few months ago, but learning that Mindbender wasn't as effective when it only takes a single card out of my opponent's hand and that my midrange cards got outclassed by the card Death's Shadow.
I've seen the most recent succesful lists (Kazu Negri, Jarvis Yu) and they seem to be back on the removal + Mindbender and Gideon, so I wonder if people find those to be effective specifically against Death's Shadow decks and Jeskai.
Tks!
In my case, it was game 2 and I knew it was the mirror, so there is more weight to thoughseizing first just for the possibility to deny his discard.
But even so, the real difference maker is Street Wraith. Being able to scry land on top and draw immediately still gives you 2 mana on turn 2 if you wait to cast Serum Visions, seeing the same ammount of cards (you're only losing out in the case of not seeing a land in 5 card but hitting another cantripm which is minor). Add another factor that you have other good cards in hand which would act as a rod in case he has two discard spells, so the opponent would have to be very determined to use it on Serum Visions.
Tks for the many good answers on what card to take with Thoughtseize. Taking his Thoughtseize is very safe and something the majority of folks said they would do, so can't go wront there. The main arguments against Terminate were this:
For all those reasons, if I was on the draw, I'd be willing to take Thoughtseize here and keep on playing a long game where I am advatange because of Snapcaster. But on the play, I thought there was an opportunity to capitalize on a kill sequence and finish him off.
My best case scenario would go:
1. He'd spend his first available two mana casting Thoughtseize and a cantrip.
2. I'd dig aggresively for a Delve creature with my Serum Visions. I give odds over 40% to be able find and cast one on turn three or earlier.
3. In order for him to deal with a Delve creature that hits the table in the next two turns, he'd have to topdeck his remaining Terminate, or draw 3 more lands and a Snapcaster, or stick a Death's Shadow that is bigger than my creatures. I judged all those answers to be unlikely because of the pressure I'd been putting on him and because of both removal and Snap on my hand to answer blockers.
But there is more. Taking away his Terminate could force him to Thoughtseize my Death's Shadow, or risk getting killed soon.
If he goes for Snapcaster, he is relying on drawing a Fatal Push very soon or dying. Or his reponse could be to have his Death's Shadow as a blocker to buy time, but since I have initiave on board, that could easily and quickly backfire in case I find lands for Snap + Terminate, or my Death's Shadow naturally grows bigger or I topdeck Fatal Push.
Now say he recognizes the threat of Death's Shadow and takes it away with his Thoughtseize. Any future Fatal Push he draws will be a lot worse, and I'll still have Snapcaster and Terminate to get ahead in the long game. Both are significant.
Snapcaster and Terminate are premium cards in the matchup, while Death's Shadow is something everyone ideally wants to use Fatal Push exclusively to deal with.
How much my win% this game increases because I have a shot of those kill sequences (topdeck delve guy fast, or just kill him if Thoughtseizes away Snapcaster)? Is it higher than what % I lose for allowing him to resolve a Thoughtseize? Well, I thought so, mostly because even I didn't get a quick kill, I was also considering that the game in the mirror typically ends more often because a threat sticked than because one player got too ahead on card-advantage, so taking away any Terminates are always a huge deal (this is because there are many bad topdeck in discard spells, and the deck don't have a lot of card draw, and bolt-snap-bolt can kill out of nowhere). However I am not sure this stimation is true (I don't have that many mirror games under my belt) and is something you guys on this forum are better able to assess.
I thought it was a relly cool decision, it's been almost week and I am still thinking about it. Very thankful for all the answers!
http://imgur.com/a/0sRA3
I thought the Delve Creature-Terminate dynamic to be too important in the mirror, even more so than protecting my Snapcaster from his Thoughtseize. So I took his Terminante, expecting to win the game with a topdeck Delve guy. But I am not 100% confident on the decision.
I wrote some more about it here: http://www.dexarmy.com/?p=532
I ran a couple of Distended Mindbenders at the RPTQ a few months back. I really wanted them for black midrange and blue control matchups, where they would take out a removal spell and stay on the table as the largest creature. As a bonus, I would also bring them in against slow spell combo decks (ad nauseam, scapeshift), where they were very good but not 100% reliable, and against big mana decks (tron, titanshift) where they were mediocre. If you want to target those last two matchups, there are more reliable options.
Currently, I don't think I want Mindbender even against the midrange decks because their Death's Shadow will often be larger.
For me, running less than 3 Eternal Witness in the main is a big deck constructionmistake, and running any copies of Rallier or Tracker in the maindeck can only be justified as metagame calls or trying to open up sideboard slots. Those two cards don't help with your main game plan for game 1.
However, I couldn't fit Fulminators in my sideboard because they aren't impactiful enough against BGx or blue midrange, and I really wanted to make sure I had several heavy hitters for those matchups, which came at the expense of giving some equity against Tron. Note that Demars' version has Tireless Tracker in the main instead of extra combo pieces, so he can afford to have less impactful cards in his sideboard for grindy matchups - it's like he is partially pre-boarded already. Without Fulminator, I opted to go with Ravenous Trap as my dredge hate instead, as it's a bit more impactful.
So I think his sideboard is more well rounded overall, while the one I used was aiming harder at a specific metagame.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spikes/comments/5htsi4/modern_rptq_report_abzan_company_top4/?st=iwlej96e&sh=ed7b5784
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gavony Township
2 Forest
2 Temple Garden
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Marsh Flats
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Windswept Heath
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Wall of Roots
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Spellskite
3 Noble Hierarch
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
3 Eternal Witness
3 Viscera Seer
4 Chord of Calling
4 Collected Company
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
2 Distended Mindbender
1 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Tireless Tracker
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Tks everyone in this thread, it was really useful in relearning the deck.
What PimpDonny said. I agree on not taking out logic knots precisely for this reason, unless you are also bringing in other ways to deal with Liliana (celestial purge, engineered explosives usually). You don't want too many counterspells though, so negates and mana leaks could go. I also think you can go down to two supreme verdicts post-board as long as you are bringing in removal for Raging Ravie (condemn, blessed alliance). If you are playing 26 lands you could go down to 25 on the draw, or trim some serum visions.
I think this is important as well. I previously recorded a video to discuss playing x RG Valakut, and game 3 in particular there were some difficult decisions (I could play the matchup in a totally different manner) and I would like some more input (https://youtu.be/MoTfu1of-rg?t=23m20s timestamp just to game 3, there are some notes on video description). I could do more of those if there was interest, I have a few past replays that would be cool to discuss.