I've had no problems with double sleeving double-faced cards. For my Garruk, Relentless, I keep one double-sleeved in one of my decks, and a foil copy of the card double sleeved in a clear sleeve in my deck box. For easy transforming.
Since I don't have a second copy of Liliana, Heretical Healer, I just use a checklist card, while having the real card double-sleeved (with clear outer sleeve) on the side.
I don't put too much stock into my Delvers, so I just double sleeve those and just pull them out of sleeve when transforming.
Went to play Magic for the first time in a while. Sorry that it's a high-profile tourney; it's just an FNM-Hero report, but I figured I'd post my list for critique/suggestions.
Decklist notes:
Very similar to Jim Davis's/Pete Ingram's list.
2 Sulfur Falls instead of 2 Spirebluff Canals because I don't yet own them. Sulfur Falls haven't been bad though, really. Seachrome Coast was more or less great each time I had it. So I'm sure Spirebluffs will be cool to have in the deck.
2 Ancestral Vision/1 Cryptic Command. Mostly because I don't have the 3rd Ancestral Vision. But I don't necessarily think a 1-of Cryptic is the worst thing. It's probably fine at the FNM-level when your expected meta can be all over the place. I like the counter suite of 3 Remand/3 Mana Leak/2 Spell Snare/1 Cryptic Command.
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The event (4-0 Match Wins; 8-0 Game Wins). Was fortunate to not have to mulligan at all the entire night.
Round 1 (Jeskai Ascendancy Combo): 2-0
Game 1: Traded resources until we're almost top decking. I land Nahiri and taking out Jeskai Ascendancy. Looking to ride off of her to win. He combos off with 2 cards in-hand and 1 Stitcher in the graveyard with 1 Caryatid on the field. He bricks and isn't able to attack for lethal, as I have Snapcaster to block his only attacker. I win in quick fashion afterwards.
Game 2: Traded resources till he's low again. Then when he tries to go for the combo, I Dispel his Thoughtscour and Path his only Stitcher. I win in quick fashion afterwards again.
I think both games were won off of creature beats and burn. Also, my opponent suggested that I don't keep in Spell Snare as it apparently doesn't hit much in the match-up. I'm not so sure about that...what do you guys think? Also, the Dispel I sided in was awful. lol
Round 2 (UW Control): 2-0
Game 1: Opponent had to mull down to 5 on the play. Was planning on casting Nahiri with counter back-up. But she tapped out with 1 mana open for Jace, Architect of Thought. I countered it and immediately windmill slammed Nahiri. It was met with DSphere. Topdecked another Nahiri and this time she stuck. Rode her to Emrakul ultimate.
Game 2: She taps low for Gideon Jura. I Remand it, then cast VClique to tuck the card. She topdecks Ojutai. Next turn she swings in and I just path the card. Eventually I take over the game with Snapcaster, Colonnade, and Nahiri.
Round 3 (Bant Knightfall): 2-0
Game 1: I open with 2 Spell Snares, 1 Mana Leak, 4 lands on the draw. Looked *okay*, but is kinda loose. Kept it. Opponent started turn 1 Birds of Paradise. Basically if Knight of the Reliquary lands turn 2, I could potentially be in trouble. I think he lands either a Courser of Kruphix or something that was too fast for Mana Leak (on-the-draw woes lol). Had to leverage every counter to the max meanwhile playing around Spell Queller. Worked out pretty well; all counters were able to trade 1-for-1. Long grind-fest. At one point, he dropped me to 1 life, while I had a Nahiri on 6. Eventually I stabilize and win with Nahiri ultimate. I used Cryptic Command to tap his team and draw a card to clear the way for Emrakul to connect for lethal.
Game 2: Was an easier game here. Partly because of opponent's inexperience; he sided out a couple Selfless Spirits. I suspend Ancestral Vision turn 1. He's stuck on 2 lands even with Courser of Kruphix out. He then overextends with 2 Kruphix, 1 Birds of Paradise and I think 1 other card. Not sure. I cast Wrath of God on his board. Then land Nahiri and tick up. After Ancestral resolves, he scooped.
Round 4 (Eldrazi-Tron): 2-0
Game 1: After I see Tron land turn 1, I immediately start planning on how to race his deck. Didn't realize he was also on Eldrazi till turn 2. He plays Matter Reshaper turn 2 I think. I cast Mana Leak on his turn 3 play. Then on his draw step, I VClique him and see a hand of Thought-Knot Seer, 2 Ugins, 1 Endless One, Eldrazi Mimic, and some other cards. I tuck the Thought-Knot Seer, as I know he can't get to 8 mana quite yet. And I also know I have Mana Leak, should I untap. I'm also holding Lightning Helix and Snapcaster Mage. I proceed to try and race him and just take advantage of the 3 damage per turn that Clique provides. He eventually casts Dismember and pays the 4 full life. This cements the victory via Clique beat + Helix. Throughout the game, I had to stave off the temptation of using my burn spells as removal and playing the control route; had to play like a Geist deck to take that one.
Game 2: I open a hand with Path, Mana Leak, Vendilion Clique, and Crumble to Dust with 3 lands. Looked perfect. He turn 1 Inquisitions me. Takes Vclique. ****. Turn 2, he casts a second Inquisition and takes Path. I thought he was gonna take Mana Leak and slam Karn/Ugin. Turns out he was going for a big Eldrazi creature card. I crumble his Urza's Mine. Slows his game to a crawl, but sadly I don't have a way to end the game quite that fast. I resolve Nahiri and tick her up. I Serum Visions and keep an Elspeth hidden on-top just incase of Thought-Knot Seer. I was right on that call and he did have one, stealing away an irrelevant card. I considered keeping Elspeth in-hand until I had enough mana for both Elspeth and Negate. I slam her anyway and decided to tick up for 3 creatures instead of ticking down to kill the Seer. Got blown out by Ulamog, targeting both Elspeth and Nahiri. The ultimate feels-bad. So I guess Negate couldn't have stopped Ulamog anyway...though maybe sandbagging Elsepth would've allowed me to get a +2 on his board and clear it. Hindsight is a ***** though. He also forgot his Sanctum trigger here. Seer swings in. I take the hit. I drop another Nahiri and -2 to exile it. He drops a 9-counter Endless One. And again he forgets his Sanctum trigger. I do the best I can to keep Nahiri alive with my tokens. I don't quite remember if the next sequence of events is in order, but his Ulamog trigger takes care of my Emrakul. I take care of his Ulamog with Nahiri. I cast a third copy and it looks good. But I think he drops a Reality Smasher on me and swings in with both Smasher and Endless One. I'm forced to chump block both creatures. Nahiri goes to 2. Then she -2's to exile Endless One. I destroy his Sanctum with Tec Edge. I know he's missed his trigger twice, but I don't want to risk him remembering. lol
We're both at roughly 17 life. I decide to race him, as I have Helix + Bolt in-hand. I put him to 13. He taps out and casts a fair Ugin. Mana Leak took care of it. I go down to 8. On my turn, I drop him to 9, with another Helix in-hand. Once I was able to untap, I knew it was done. Bolt-Helix-Helix for game. Things might've gone differently, had he sided in Thoughtseizes instead of Inquisitions (or in addition to Inquisitions), and he should've remembered his Sanctum triggers. That was a really fun match. Nahiri and Vclique were putting in work. Nahiri was a removal spell on legs and Vclique is always MVP vs. Tron variants.
Final Comments:
Deck was fun and still feels pretty good. You still kinda have to work for your victories though, but I'm used to that; basically the only kinds of decks I play in any format these days. *shrugs* Wish my opponents were stronger to really be tested, but all-in-all, it was still practice. Haven't played against Knightfall or Eldrazi much before today.
I didn't have any problems with the manabase today. If I had 3 Scalding Tarns, I'd run them over Deltas obviously. It didn't punish me today, so there's that. I'd like to add the Spirebluffs to complement Seachrome Coasts. Seachrome didn't disappoint. The 1-of Anger mainboard didn't really pay off today, as I didn't get to draw into it much game 1's. It would've been decent vs. Ascendancy (not amazing, but decent). And I would've appreciated it against Bant Knightfall. Though it doesn't hit Knight and Scooze with a loaded graveyard. And not sure how to feel about it against Eldrazi. Wish I could've played against Bant Eldrazi. If I expect it more, I might swap the Wrath of God out for Supreme Verdict. I know that my local scene has some Elf players though.
Cryptic was k...didn't draw it much today, so didn't really test it. Just glad I didn't draw it early. Reasonably happy to see it mid-end game. You know, the usual feelings when playing a deck with Cryptic Command. It let me tap down guys for a guaranteed 1-shot with Emrakul. You can argue it was overkill and win-more, since even if he blocked with Birds of Paradise, his board would've been culled hard. On the flip side, it'd only take a couple Chord of Callings and Collected Company top decks for my opponent to come back into the game. So the Cryptic's versatility was appreciated. It also helped hard-counter a Summary Dismissal (cheese-hitting Nahiri ult). Though I also had Snap + Remand and that was enough too. Great card when you can resolve it. Getting around to casting it is the problem, obviously. It's my 1-of/fun-of; I don't necessarily think it's wrong to have 1-2 in the 23/24 land builds. Regardless of whether or not you're "all-in" on the Nahiri plan. I can see myself cutting the card if I plan to go to a GP or an event with a more..."clear" metagame.
After playing against Ascendancy and Bant Knightfall, I'm half tempted to add in graveyard hate again. Didn't think I'd run into any at the event tonight. Not sure of those two decks fall in that category, but having stuff for them would've been cool.
The Grixis and Jeskai lists with 4x Cryptics look pretty enticing. Might give them a whirl sometime in the future.
Anyway...let me know what you think of the list, match-ups, gameplay, etc.
Maybe I'm alone here, but I honestly think cryptic (like remand) are more or less the worst they've ever been in modern right now.
I would absolutely not play any in jeskai nahiri if I were to attend a major tournament right now.
If you wanted them that much, cutting the mainboard clique is probably the first cut to make.
Sweet sideboard cards for bgx right now:
celestial purge, ajani vengeant, elspeth, sun's champion, tamiyo, leyline of sanctity, spreading seas.
Most bombs that are difficult to remove shine in that matchup, of course, but something like keranos I would stay away from, as its more or less only good there.
If Keranos is only good vs. BGX, where else would you side in Ajani Vengeant and Tamiyo that you wouldn't side in Keranos?
Chris Hanrahan, THEE largest trader of volume and value on Puca Trade, puts sending cards on a whole new level. I just got, from him, my very first vacuum-sealed & shrink wrapped, lol... bwahahahahaha... He cracks me up... at least they came safe, WITH a toploader, hehehehe
Early on, some people suggested they were bad. It was a pretty back-and-forth discussion. Some were for them. Others were against. Most switched over to the VoteYay camp, once they actually tried out the fastlands.
Pucatrade was nice while it lasted. Got a couple fetchlands, a Wasteland, 3x Nahiri, the Harbinger a few weeks before GP Charlotte, a pair of K-Commands, Celestial Colonnade...it was pretty solid for a bit. I've burned myself on the site a couple times though -- trading in 2 Wastelands in hopes of getting 2 new-art Wastelands. Ended up only ever getting sent 1 and having to settle for full-art Helix/Leaks/etc.
My problem with Puctrade is the wait. There's no telling when you'll get the card you want. Though that was fine maybe in early 2015-mid 2015, it's not really acceptable now. 1-2 months is kinda ok...sometimes a little longer for bigger wants is fine...2-3 months isn't the worst thing ever...but if it's taking 4+ months to get anything, then until you "cash in the pucapoints," you're stuck with useless currency.
There's a line between patience and being a chump IMO. If it takes 4+ months to move the points to the Wasteland/Dark Confidant/whatever it is that you want...IMO you can just sell/trade away the card you don't want and get the card you need in that same time-frame, if not sooner.
Exact dollar values might not match up, but IMO time's a precious resource you can't afford to just waste.
MTGsal's trading post switch to curse actually has some similarities to FS. The curse version was clunky in UI and the search function was arguably worse than the old version. There was talks to upgrade the trading post as soon as it came out and continued for a month but so far, nothing has been done and consequently people stopped using it.
Yeah, that about nails it. Also, though it's not perfect, I wouldn't mind using the current MTGS website for trading if the traffic and activity on here was higher; I've done several trades on here with the new website and it's alright. It's not perfect, but it got the job done.
These days finding people who actually have the stuff I want is the hard part.
This, along with the uprise of facebook trade groups essentially killed trading here.
I've also opted out of Puca now. Can't see myself going back anytime soon the way things are going.
It's such a shame; I'm used to the old style of trading on MTGS and Pojo.com and the like...
I can't seem to find many good Facebook trading groups; most are local players and they don't always have what I need. lol I kinda liked having a (seemingly) near-global scale of trading. But I may just be biased.
Anyone else experiencing major slowdowns in receiving? I've received maybe 1 envelope in the past 2 months. I think future site may have done some major damage to the userbase.
Similar to when this site was bought out by curse. My sales thread used to do 2-3 sales a week, now I'm lucky if I do 1 a month. I still miss the old MTGS layout and function.
Yeah, that's quite a shame, actually. Trading/buying/selling on here just doesn't feel the same anymore.
I do understand supply and demand. Unfortunately I missed my window to sell it right after the prerelease. I'll plan on holding it long term now.
For stuff like this, I feel like going out of your way to gain an extra $20-40 is not worth the time and effort spent getting rid of it...then patiently waiting for it to come down. That's just me though. Maybe it's also partially because I'm afraid the version I buy back won't be as "perfect," as a pack-fresh one.
Currently just waiting for Masterpiece Sword of Feast and Famine to go down. I absolutely adore that card.
I have not, personally, but it's pretty much a promo card repack. SCG isn't going to be handing out judge foils in these things.
Though I can't imagine them placing high-dollar cards in them, do you think they'd pack in full-art cards like old Player Rewards cards and the like? Even cheap ones? That'd actually be kinda cool.
That's actually not true. We just exile the RIP with Nahiri if we need to. It's not that big a deal. Also one of the most erroneous judgements that goes around the Jeskai thread is that RIP hurts Snapcaster (and that's somehow a big deal). As we've said many times, RIP only comes in against decks that it completely hoses. If you have out RIP against Dredge are you at all concerned that you can't snap back a bolt? The people that keep making these statements over and over should actually play with cards before they judge them. This kind of misinformation keeps spreading and it's hurting our Jeskai player base and making certain players massively misevaluate cards like Snapcaster, RIP and Relic, just to name a few.
For the love of god...there has to be a way to sticky a note at the top of each page detailing why RIP weakening Snapcaster isn't actually the end of the world. You and I can't be the only ones getting tired of repeating, "RIP > Relic/Cage; RIP's dis-synergy with Snapcaster is workable. Nahiri can remove RIP if it actually comes down to that."
I mean, it's not even a hard concept to understand. You lose some of the power of your deck, but you completely neuter and invalidate their entire deck. If you ruin their entire strategy right off the bat, you won't even need Snapcaster to flashback Bolts, let alone Nahiri ult. Punching them in the face over and over with Colonnade and "Ambush Vipers" beats should be more than enough. Hell, you can control the board entirely -- then at your own convenience, get rid of RIP and ult with Nahiri.
If they use their own sideboard tech to remove RIP then one of two things happen:
>If done early, hey you get your precious Snap+Bolt back.
>If done late (after RIP screws them over), then you should be in a winning position already (Hell, your Nahiri is probably on 8+ counters now; just ult Nahiri -- saves you the trouble of having to -2 remove RIP, then +2 again).
Jeskai is nice reactive deck but with a lot of answers. And a fast win condition in Nahiri, the Harbinger + Emrakul combo. You CAN play an older version, where you just win via Sphinx's Revelation, Bolt-Snap-Bolt, Colonnade plan. IMO Nahiri makes it very unappealing now. There's also a version with Restoration Angel + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker. That one is fun. Not sure if it's worth it, as Kiki is fragile. There's also the midrange deck that is Geist of Saint Traft. I used to play that deck and did reasonably well with it.
Grixis can be built either very reactively (Patrick Chapin, 4 Cryptic Command, Fulminator Mages, etc.). Or it can be proactive with Kolaghan's Command, Tasigur, Kalitas.
Esper Draw-Go is an option (look for Guillame Wafo-Tapa; I forget his username on MTGO, but he's a master at Esper)
UW Control (several different variants of the deck; main plan is stall, board wipe with Wrath of God/Supreme Verdict, then win game with planeswalker).Link to reddit and some decklists/guides With UW Control, you have the version with creatures and the version without creatures. It's pretty strong too. You kinda need to meta game pretty hard to do well with the deck, or so I've been told.
There's also UB Faeries, which is a little harder to play. Idk if it's worth learning if your goal is to do really well at events. Basically, you CAN do well if you learn the ins and outs (Anthony Hyunh), but if you make even 1 mistake, you're donezo.
Blue Moon (UR) and RUG Moon are options too. I'm not a big fan of it (not a fan of Blood Moon in general), but it's aight. Seems like you get shrekt by aggro. My perspective might be skewed, because my friend seems to struggle with the archetype against aggro...
PERSONALLY, I recommend Jeskai Nahiri. But you can get a lot out of Grixis Delver too; Grixis Delver is always considered Tier 1.5-Tier 2, but it puts up results pretty admirably and semi-consistently.
So looking at this list, how would you guys fit 2 Rest in Peace into the sideboard?
It's really hard to say. Your sideboard looks jam-packed with goodies.
From my perspective, your "flex spots," are the following:
1-2x EE
2x Geist
1 Staticaster
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Crumble (arguable -- sometimes the match-up is "bad enough" that you just pray you don't face it)
If anything, I'd maybe cut 1 Blessed Alliance and 1 EE. Or 1 Staticaster, 1 Blessed. Or 2x Geist altogether.
Here's my current decklist: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/08-09-16-AUk-uwr-nahiri/
I played in a modern tournament yesterday, went 3-1 but had a Dispel in place of the Elspeth which I just picked up today. I wanted to play Tamiyo mainboard since I saw a Nahiri deck place 9th at a GP with it and I figured that was as good as making top 8 but having bad tiebreakers, but when I actually started playing I ended up sideboarding it out most of the time. I think it would be better in the sideboard and play a Vendilion Clique mainboard in its place. Also do I really need an Arid Mesa? I don't have one yet but I originally had one in the decklist, but the Glacial Fortress has been fine. I think I will still buy one just to have the option.
The guy that made 9th said Tamiyo was pretty useless. Still though, I'd imagine she's cool tech for an FNM or whatever.
The main problem with Jeskai right now is that strong teams and players aren't playing the deck, that's it.
I'm curious does anyone else here actually prep and participate in GPs? GP lists and FNM lists are much different. If people could agree to try and play one list and do it with other strong players at a particular GP then we could learn more. But everyone playing different lists makes it almost impossible to learn anything.
I thought my last list would be particularly useful as it was 11-4 at GP level competition with no byes. But I haven't heard of anyone else even so much as trying the list.
If people are actually care about the archtpe itself being tier one then it's best to work together to make it work. Now I don't mind helping make a tight list for a particular GP meta either, if you are stateside you are likely to see lots of Bant Eldrazi and Jund, that list isn't going to be hard to make. Those match-ups can be crushed, if that's what you want to do. I just face so little Eldrazi in Asia it's not as worth it for me to put many cards toward that match-up.
I don't get to play in too many GP's (still a college student), but I did get to play in GP Charlotte this past summer. Made Day 2 (6-3), and finished 9-5-1. It wasn't the most spectacular finish, but considering it was my first big tournament in months, I hit my goal (Day 2).
I could've won the drawn game had I had an extra turn (Nahiri and Elspeth ready to ult, Emrakul in deck, ~6 soldier tokens). Meh, that's what I get for playing slow/bad.
But yeah, I played Pete Ingram's list almost exactly (give or take a few sideboard cards). It was the 24-land, Cryptic Command build. I moved 1 of the 3 Helixes to the side for 1 Dispel main, because I suspected a lot of Jeskai Nahiri. Wasn't that great of a move...
I seriously considered trying to add grave hate to the sideboard. But this was when Dredge wasn't quite on everyone's radar. The biggest targets that tournament was Jund, Abzan, Jeskai Variants, and CoCo (along with the typical aggro lists like Burn, Zoo, etc.). I had started writing a report, but I never finished it; got kinda lazy. Now it's probably irrelevant. I might finish it sometime in the future -- if only for completion's sake.
I've noticed people vastly overrate how hard RIP hoses us. It does close to nothing. It essentially downgrades our snapcasters (not a big deal), you are presumably bringing in RIP because it absolutely destroys your opponent. Many people fail to realize that nahiri can exile RIP if you ever need to do that. Cage is a terrible sideboard card for you to run, you can't exile it with Nahiri.
Other than Dredge, Eggs, and Storm-ish decks, what decks does Rest in Peace really shut down completely?
There's that Hulk deck. The one with Reveillark, Body Double, and Protean Hulk (I forget the name exactly). RIP shuts that down, I'd think...not that it's on anyone's radar really.
Since I don't have a second copy of Liliana, Heretical Healer, I just use a checklist card, while having the real card double-sleeved (with clear outer sleeve) on the side.
I don't put too much stock into my Delvers, so I just double sleeve those and just pull them out of sleeve when transforming.
3 Celestial Colonnade
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Arid Mesa
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Seachrome Coast
1 Tectonic Edge
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Instant (20)
1 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Lightning Helix
3 Mana Leak
4 Path to Exile
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
Sorcery (7)
2 Ancestral Vision
1 Anger of the Gods
4 Serum Visions
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Timely Reinforcement
1 Stony Silence
1 Celestial Purge
1 Wear // Tear
1 Izzet Staticaster
2 Geist of Saint Traft
1 Dispel
2 Negate
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Wrath of God
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Went to play Magic for the first time in a while. Sorry that it's a high-profile tourney; it's just an FNM-Hero report, but I figured I'd post my list for critique/suggestions.
Decklist notes:
Very similar to Jim Davis's/Pete Ingram's list.
2 Sulfur Falls instead of 2 Spirebluff Canals because I don't yet own them. Sulfur Falls haven't been bad though, really. Seachrome Coast was more or less great each time I had it. So I'm sure Spirebluffs will be cool to have in the deck.
2 Ancestral Vision/1 Cryptic Command. Mostly because I don't have the 3rd Ancestral Vision. But I don't necessarily think a 1-of Cryptic is the worst thing. It's probably fine at the FNM-level when your expected meta can be all over the place. I like the counter suite of 3 Remand/3 Mana Leak/2 Spell Snare/1 Cryptic Command.
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The event (4-0 Match Wins; 8-0 Game Wins). Was fortunate to not have to mulligan at all the entire night.
Round 1 (Jeskai Ascendancy Combo): 2-0
Game 1: Traded resources until we're almost top decking. I land Nahiri and taking out Jeskai Ascendancy. Looking to ride off of her to win. He combos off with 2 cards in-hand and 1 Stitcher in the graveyard with 1 Caryatid on the field. He bricks and isn't able to attack for lethal, as I have Snapcaster to block his only attacker. I win in quick fashion afterwards.
Game 2: Traded resources till he's low again. Then when he tries to go for the combo, I Dispel his Thoughtscour and Path his only Stitcher. I win in quick fashion afterwards again.
I think both games were won off of creature beats and burn. Also, my opponent suggested that I don't keep in Spell Snare as it apparently doesn't hit much in the match-up. I'm not so sure about that...what do you guys think? Also, the Dispel I sided in was awful. lol
Game 1: Opponent had to mull down to 5 on the play. Was planning on casting Nahiri with counter back-up. But she tapped out with 1 mana open for Jace, Architect of Thought. I countered it and immediately windmill slammed Nahiri. It was met with DSphere. Topdecked another Nahiri and this time she stuck. Rode her to Emrakul ultimate.
Game 2: She taps low for Gideon Jura. I Remand it, then cast VClique to tuck the card. She topdecks Ojutai. Next turn she swings in and I just path the card. Eventually I take over the game with Snapcaster, Colonnade, and Nahiri.
Game 1: I open with 2 Spell Snares, 1 Mana Leak, 4 lands on the draw. Looked *okay*, but is kinda loose. Kept it. Opponent started turn 1 Birds of Paradise. Basically if Knight of the Reliquary lands turn 2, I could potentially be in trouble. I think he lands either a Courser of Kruphix or something that was too fast for Mana Leak (on-the-draw woes lol). Had to leverage every counter to the max meanwhile playing around Spell Queller. Worked out pretty well; all counters were able to trade 1-for-1. Long grind-fest. At one point, he dropped me to 1 life, while I had a Nahiri on 6. Eventually I stabilize and win with Nahiri ultimate. I used Cryptic Command to tap his team and draw a card to clear the way for Emrakul to connect for lethal.
Game 2: Was an easier game here. Partly because of opponent's inexperience; he sided out a couple Selfless Spirits. I suspend Ancestral Vision turn 1. He's stuck on 2 lands even with Courser of Kruphix out. He then overextends with 2 Kruphix, 1 Birds of Paradise and I think 1 other card. Not sure. I cast Wrath of God on his board. Then land Nahiri and tick up. After Ancestral resolves, he scooped.
Game 1: After I see Tron land turn 1, I immediately start planning on how to race his deck. Didn't realize he was also on Eldrazi till turn 2. He plays Matter Reshaper turn 2 I think. I cast Mana Leak on his turn 3 play. Then on his draw step, I VClique him and see a hand of Thought-Knot Seer, 2 Ugins, 1 Endless One, Eldrazi Mimic, and some other cards. I tuck the Thought-Knot Seer, as I know he can't get to 8 mana quite yet. And I also know I have Mana Leak, should I untap. I'm also holding Lightning Helix and Snapcaster Mage. I proceed to try and race him and just take advantage of the 3 damage per turn that Clique provides. He eventually casts Dismember and pays the 4 full life. This cements the victory via Clique beat + Helix. Throughout the game, I had to stave off the temptation of using my burn spells as removal and playing the control route; had to play like a Geist deck to take that one.
Game 2: I open a hand with Path, Mana Leak, Vendilion Clique, and Crumble to Dust with 3 lands. Looked perfect. He turn 1 Inquisitions me. Takes Vclique. ****. Turn 2, he casts a second Inquisition and takes Path. I thought he was gonna take Mana Leak and slam Karn/Ugin. Turns out he was going for a big Eldrazi creature card. I crumble his Urza's Mine. Slows his game to a crawl, but sadly I don't have a way to end the game quite that fast. I resolve Nahiri and tick her up. I Serum Visions and keep an Elspeth hidden on-top just incase of Thought-Knot Seer. I was right on that call and he did have one, stealing away an irrelevant card. I considered keeping Elspeth in-hand until I had enough mana for both Elspeth and Negate. I slam her anyway and decided to tick up for 3 creatures instead of ticking down to kill the Seer. Got blown out by Ulamog, targeting both Elspeth and Nahiri. The ultimate feels-bad. So I guess Negate couldn't have stopped Ulamog anyway...though maybe sandbagging Elsepth would've allowed me to get a +2 on his board and clear it. Hindsight is a ***** though. He also forgot his Sanctum trigger here. Seer swings in. I take the hit. I drop another Nahiri and -2 to exile it. He drops a 9-counter Endless One. And again he forgets his Sanctum trigger. I do the best I can to keep Nahiri alive with my tokens. I don't quite remember if the next sequence of events is in order, but his Ulamog trigger takes care of my Emrakul. I take care of his Ulamog with Nahiri. I cast a third copy and it looks good. But I think he drops a Reality Smasher on me and swings in with both Smasher and Endless One. I'm forced to chump block both creatures. Nahiri goes to 2. Then she -2's to exile Endless One. I destroy his Sanctum with Tec Edge. I know he's missed his trigger twice, but I don't want to risk him remembering. lol
We're both at roughly 17 life. I decide to race him, as I have Helix + Bolt in-hand. I put him to 13. He taps out and casts a fair Ugin. Mana Leak took care of it. I go down to 8. On my turn, I drop him to 9, with another Helix in-hand. Once I was able to untap, I knew it was done. Bolt-Helix-Helix for game. Things might've gone differently, had he sided in Thoughtseizes instead of Inquisitions (or in addition to Inquisitions), and he should've remembered his Sanctum triggers. That was a really fun match. Nahiri and Vclique were putting in work. Nahiri was a removal spell on legs and Vclique is always MVP vs. Tron variants.
Deck was fun and still feels pretty good. You still kinda have to work for your victories though, but I'm used to that; basically the only kinds of decks I play in any format these days. *shrugs* Wish my opponents were stronger to really be tested, but all-in-all, it was still practice. Haven't played against Knightfall or Eldrazi much before today.
I didn't have any problems with the manabase today. If I had 3 Scalding Tarns, I'd run them over Deltas obviously. It didn't punish me today, so there's that. I'd like to add the Spirebluffs to complement Seachrome Coasts. Seachrome didn't disappoint. The 1-of Anger mainboard didn't really pay off today, as I didn't get to draw into it much game 1's. It would've been decent vs. Ascendancy (not amazing, but decent). And I would've appreciated it against Bant Knightfall. Though it doesn't hit Knight and Scooze with a loaded graveyard. And not sure how to feel about it against Eldrazi. Wish I could've played against Bant Eldrazi. If I expect it more, I might swap the Wrath of God out for Supreme Verdict. I know that my local scene has some Elf players though.
Cryptic was k...didn't draw it much today, so didn't really test it. Just glad I didn't draw it early. Reasonably happy to see it mid-end game. You know, the usual feelings when playing a deck with Cryptic Command. It let me tap down guys for a guaranteed 1-shot with Emrakul. You can argue it was overkill and win-more, since even if he blocked with Birds of Paradise, his board would've been culled hard. On the flip side, it'd only take a couple Chord of Callings and Collected Company top decks for my opponent to come back into the game. So the Cryptic's versatility was appreciated. It also helped hard-counter a Summary Dismissal (cheese-hitting Nahiri ult). Though I also had Snap + Remand and that was enough too. Great card when you can resolve it. Getting around to casting it is the problem, obviously. It's my 1-of/fun-of; I don't necessarily think it's wrong to have 1-2 in the 23/24 land builds. Regardless of whether or not you're "all-in" on the Nahiri plan. I can see myself cutting the card if I plan to go to a GP or an event with a more..."clear" metagame.
After playing against Ascendancy and Bant Knightfall, I'm half tempted to add in graveyard hate again. Didn't think I'd run into any at the event tonight. Not sure of those two decks fall in that category, but having stuff for them would've been cool.
The Grixis and Jeskai lists with 4x Cryptics look pretty enticing. Might give them a whirl sometime in the future.
Anyway...let me know what you think of the list, match-ups, gameplay, etc.
If Keranos is only good vs. BGX, where else would you side in Ajani Vengeant and Tamiyo that you wouldn't side in Keranos?
I think he got...carried away.
How does one use a vacuum seal?
Early on, some people suggested they were bad. It was a pretty back-and-forth discussion. Some were for them. Others were against. Most switched over to the VoteYay camp, once they actually tried out the fastlands.
My problem with Puctrade is the wait. There's no telling when you'll get the card you want. Though that was fine maybe in early 2015-mid 2015, it's not really acceptable now. 1-2 months is kinda ok...sometimes a little longer for bigger wants is fine...2-3 months isn't the worst thing ever...but if it's taking 4+ months to get anything, then until you "cash in the pucapoints," you're stuck with useless currency.
There's a line between patience and being a chump IMO. If it takes 4+ months to move the points to the Wasteland/Dark Confidant/whatever it is that you want...IMO you can just sell/trade away the card you don't want and get the card you need in that same time-frame, if not sooner.
Exact dollar values might not match up, but IMO time's a precious resource you can't afford to just waste.
Yeah, that about nails it. Also, though it's not perfect, I wouldn't mind using the current MTGS website for trading if the traffic and activity on here was higher; I've done several trades on here with the new website and it's alright. It's not perfect, but it got the job done.
These days finding people who actually have the stuff I want is the hard part.
It's such a shame; I'm used to the old style of trading on MTGS and Pojo.com and the like...
I can't seem to find many good Facebook trading groups; most are local players and they don't always have what I need. lol I kinda liked having a (seemingly) near-global scale of trading. But I may just be biased.
Yeah, that's quite a shame, actually. Trading/buying/selling on here just doesn't feel the same anymore.
For stuff like this, I feel like going out of your way to gain an extra $20-40 is not worth the time and effort spent getting rid of it...then patiently waiting for it to come down. That's just me though. Maybe it's also partially because I'm afraid the version I buy back won't be as "perfect," as a pack-fresh one.
Currently just waiting for Masterpiece Sword of Feast and Famine to go down. I absolutely adore that card.
Though I can't imagine them placing high-dollar cards in them, do you think they'd pack in full-art cards like old Player Rewards cards and the like? Even cheap ones? That'd actually be kinda cool.
For the love of god...there has to be a way to sticky a note at the top of each page detailing why RIP weakening Snapcaster isn't actually the end of the world. You and I can't be the only ones getting tired of repeating, "RIP > Relic/Cage; RIP's dis-synergy with Snapcaster is workable. Nahiri can remove RIP if it actually comes down to that."
I mean, it's not even a hard concept to understand. You lose some of the power of your deck, but you completely neuter and invalidate their entire deck. If you ruin their entire strategy right off the bat, you won't even need Snapcaster to flashback Bolts, let alone Nahiri ult. Punching them in the face over and over with Colonnade and "Ambush Vipers" beats should be more than enough. Hell, you can control the board entirely -- then at your own convenience, get rid of RIP and ult with Nahiri.
If they use their own sideboard tech to remove RIP then one of two things happen:
>If done early, hey you get your precious Snap+Bolt back.
>If done late (after RIP screws them over), then you should be in a winning position already (Hell, your Nahiri is probably on 8+ counters now; just ult Nahiri -- saves you the trouble of having to -2 remove RIP, then +2 again).
Grixis can be built either very reactively (Patrick Chapin, 4 Cryptic Command, Fulminator Mages, etc.). Or it can be proactive with Kolaghan's Command, Tasigur, Kalitas.
Esper Draw-Go is an option (look for Guillame Wafo-Tapa; I forget his username on MTGO, but he's a master at Esper)
UW Control (several different variants of the deck; main plan is stall, board wipe with Wrath of God/Supreme Verdict, then win game with planeswalker).Link to reddit and some decklists/guides With UW Control, you have the version with creatures and the version without creatures. It's pretty strong too. You kinda need to meta game pretty hard to do well with the deck, or so I've been told.
There's also UB Faeries, which is a little harder to play. Idk if it's worth learning if your goal is to do really well at events. Basically, you CAN do well if you learn the ins and outs (Anthony Hyunh), but if you make even 1 mistake, you're donezo.
Blue Moon (UR) and RUG Moon are options too. I'm not a big fan of it (not a fan of Blood Moon in general), but it's aight. Seems like you get shrekt by aggro. My perspective might be skewed, because my friend seems to struggle with the archetype against aggro...
PERSONALLY, I recommend Jeskai Nahiri. But you can get a lot out of Grixis Delver too; Grixis Delver is always considered Tier 1.5-Tier 2, but it puts up results pretty admirably and semi-consistently.
It's really hard to say. Your sideboard looks jam-packed with goodies.
From my perspective, your "flex spots," are the following:
1-2x EE
2x Geist
1 Staticaster
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Crumble (arguable -- sometimes the match-up is "bad enough" that you just pray you don't face it)
If anything, I'd maybe cut 1 Blessed Alliance and 1 EE. Or 1 Staticaster, 1 Blessed. Or 2x Geist altogether.
The guy that made 9th said Tamiyo was pretty useless. Still though, I'd imagine she's cool tech for an FNM or whatever.
I don't get to play in too many GP's (still a college student), but I did get to play in GP Charlotte this past summer. Made Day 2 (6-3), and finished 9-5-1. It wasn't the most spectacular finish, but considering it was my first big tournament in months, I hit my goal (Day 2).
I could've won the drawn game had I had an extra turn (Nahiri and Elspeth ready to ult, Emrakul in deck, ~6 soldier tokens). Meh, that's what I get for playing slow/bad.
But yeah, I played Pete Ingram's list almost exactly (give or take a few sideboard cards). It was the 24-land, Cryptic Command build. I moved 1 of the 3 Helixes to the side for 1 Dispel main, because I suspected a lot of Jeskai Nahiri. Wasn't that great of a move...
I seriously considered trying to add grave hate to the sideboard. But this was when Dredge wasn't quite on everyone's radar. The biggest targets that tournament was Jund, Abzan, Jeskai Variants, and CoCo (along with the typical aggro lists like Burn, Zoo, etc.). I had started writing a report, but I never finished it; got kinda lazy. Now it's probably irrelevant. I might finish it sometime in the future -- if only for completion's sake.
There's that Hulk deck. The one with Reveillark, Body Double, and Protean Hulk (I forget the name exactly). RIP shuts that down, I'd think...not that it's on anyone's radar really.