Temur Delver seems fine to me. I think this thread should remain a little more broad, but I do think that iGrow needs it's own space because it is more specific and can easily not be using green.
The things you absolutely need are a threat and two lands. It becomes keepable with one of these missing if you have a few cantrips. You also would obviously like to have some interaction (counters or bolts), but I wouldn't say you can be too picky on exactly what interaction you have in your opener.
Game 2 (or if you know what they're playing already, you can more aggressively be looking for specific cards you know are really important, but you still need land and a pretty early threat most of the time.
Whenever I'm playing something new, I play a whole lot of solitaire with it before playing anyone. When I'm playing these practice games, I always look at the first 6 cards then look at the 7th. This helps you get the average 6 card hand engrained into your mind. I find that this helps me assess whether a 7 card hand is keepable or not.
Hey Guys! I have been looking for something new lately and decided to build this deck as it looks really sweet (and I already owned most of the stuff in it). I got to playtest a little and am planning to take it to a PPTQ next weekend. Here is my most important: How aggressively do you mulligan, and for what if you do? Basically every single hand i got with this deck seemed rock solid so far except for a few no-landers along the way. So is this deck just very unlikey to draw mulligans, or did i just get lucky until now or is my evaluation of what is keepable just terrible?
Long story short: What kinds of hands should I mulligan?
No worries. I can't help but to laugh at me not winning against Ad Nauseum too.
That GW vial plan definitely makes sense for the last deck I played. I simply didn't hit enough of my red removal to be able to control things I also didn't hit Huntmaster at all. It was rough drawing that was emphasized by the interaction between Thalia and my cantrips. The matchup feels 100% manageable with the right drawing.
On the other hand, I really don't know what the plan would be for my round 5 opponent. It would probably be similar but with ancient grudge and pyroclasm being a lot less helpful. Most of his guys were x/4. Another Rending Volley could have probably helped.
Overall, I'm still loving the deck. It feels very powerful when you don't keep bad hands and you can pretty easily win against the tons of aggro and combo decks. The good matchups against Affinity, Burn, Twin, and even Infect are very important right now. I'm okay with having to dodge some matchups against Seige Rhino to really be able to succeed. We beat out their enemies pretty well and you can never underestimate the possibilities with Blood Moon and/or Huntmaster of the Fells. I'm really intrigued by your bauble build because that extra but of power on the goyf would help against Rhino and Tasigur, but I'd be afraid to keep adding air to the deck. I already had trouble hitting business cards as it is.
I ended up taking Ashton's advice and running his list with a Vapor Snag instead of the Feed the Clan and I'm very happy I did that. I would have never cast the feed the clan and snag ended up being pretty helpful along the way. I wrote down a sideboarding guide for myself to use compiling all of the sideboarding and discussion in the last few pages of this thread then adjusted for any differences in cards.
The event went through 7 rounds of swiss with 99 people.
I'll start with the result so you don't get too excited: I was one of 6 people to be 4-0 through four rounds. Then, I fell apart and ended up 4-3.
I can credit some of the slide to my matchups, some to my lack of experience with the deck, and some to my lack of mental endurance.
My memory isn't the best and my notes are mediocre, but here we go...
Round 1: Jamie on Affinity
Game 1: My first ever hand with the deck when not playing solitaire had two shoals in it. It might have been along the lines of land, land, shoal, shoal, snapcaster mage, cantrip, and cantrip. I got to disrupting shoal a signal pest and a cranial plating in turns 1 and 2. I think I also played snapcaster as a simple 2/1 flash to try to start attacking somehow. All I know is that I saw 0 lightning bolts and was not able to get any green walls slash beaters out there. He took over with fliers while snapcaster was hopeless on the ground.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Thought Scour
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Detructive Revelry
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Vapor Snag
+1 Deprive
Game 2: I had a pretty absurd hand with a delver, lands, two ancient grudges, a pyroclasm and who cares what else. Turn 1 delver on the play. He casts a discard spell and knew he was in trouble. He took my pyroclasm. The delver flipped and I went to town with my grudges hitting most of what he dropped. I got down to 10 life, but there was no threat of me losing it.
Game 3: I kept a decent hand with interaction, lands, at least one cantrip, and a green threat I think. My first draw was an ancient grudge and my hand became 1000 times better. I had a pretty early threat that was able to hold things off for a while as I hit his better cards with my grudge and a lightning bolt. His early plays were a turn 1 signal pest and a turn 2 arcbound ravager. He wasn’t able to hit me very hard because I killed all of his enablers. I was able to take out the pest, the ravager (who only moved the one counter), and a master of etherium later the next turn. I was a little worried about removing the ravager because it could have enabled a decently large flyer that could ignore my bolts and creatures, but I definitely had to make sure he got nothing else on the board to feed to it. I had a huntmaster of the fells but had to wait until I got enough lands on the table. I passed on a chance to play a goyf in order to leave up manaleak when he was down to 1 or 2 cards. I was really worried that I missed an opportunity, but he casted a Thoughtcast after using his mana to hit with a blinkmoth. I followed this with a Tarmogoyf while holding up a lightning bolt. I ended up landing a huntmaster of the fells while at a pretty healthy 12 life and he immediately ran away with the game. I ended up getting two flips off of him which helped me creep up with my life and quickly take his out.
1-0 on matches and 2-1 on games
Match 2: Walter on Boros stuff
Game 1: I T1 thought scour, turn 2 Hooting Mandrills, and turn 3 tarmogoyf. He had turn 2 wall of omens, turn 3 Cavern of Souls naming Shaman to play a Fulminator Mage and immediately took away one of my lands. I think he should have waited to avoid some combat damage with a block sacrifice because my board was already plenty developed, but in fairness the Goyf was still smaller and able to be walled out. He played a second wall of omens which I vapor snagged on his end step to be able to guarantee some damage and push my tempo advantage. The rest of the game was not long as Hootie took out the walls one by one and the duo closed out quickly.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Gitaxian Probe (I don't want to be hurting myself against a Boros deck)
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Rending Volley
+1 Vapor Snag
+2 Destructive Revelry (to hedge against whatever - I was expecting a sword of some kind or a batterskull)
Game 2: I’m durdling around with cantrips for a little and he names Human on a Cavern of Souls. He plays a T2 Wall of Omens, T3 Soulfire Grandmaster, and T4 Avalanche Riders. The creatures couldn’t handle my T2 Goyf, T3 Goyf, T4 Huntmaster of the Fells. He ended up conceding to my first Huntmaster Flip.
Afterwards, he was rightfully miffed that he didn’t see any Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, or Path to Exile. It was an interesting deck, but it couldn’t stop this train.
2-0 on matches and 4-1 on games
We sit down and the pairing next to me is talking to us about infect and how it’s an okay deck, but just doesn’t have enough going on. It’s a bunch of casual chat and my opponent is defending the deck a little bit, but doesn’t say too much. I let them know that I played the deck for the last two years and it always felt a little underpowered and fragile.
Match 3: Dustin on Infect
Game 1: He has a turn 1 Glistener Elf on the play and we have a good laugh. On my turn, I very quickly pay two life to Gitaxian Probe him and see 2 lands, Become Immense, Distortion Strike, Spellskite, and Mutagenic Growth. I know that I had some threat in hand, a vapor snag, some cantrip, and I drew a disrupting shoal off the probe. I think it was a delver I tapped out for on turn 1. I was really eager to Disrupting Shoal something, but I let him have the turn two attack with a distortion strike because I know how low the odds are of a turn two kill (and I had seen most of his cards). I ended up Vapor Snagging the elf on my turn so he can’t protect it as profitably and he would have no attack on his turn. He recasts it and I Disrupting Shoal pitching the cantrip. I followed up with a Hooting Mandrills to accompany the Delver who had already flipped. The Insect and Monkey took over. My infect knowledge helped me out in my decision making in this game.
He was really excited about my deck and just curiously asked if there were Goyfs or just Mandrills. I had to smile and say “I don’t know”. I didn’t feel like giving up any information.
-4 Thought Scour
-4 Hooting Mandrills
+1 Deprive
+1 Flame Slash
+2 Pyroclasm
+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Destructive Revelry
Game 2: He had two early Elves, but I had an early bolt and vapor snag. I also had a bolt and some cantrips along the way. I landed a Turn 3 Goyf and bolted the Elf. I promptly lose my mind for a second and forget to attack on turn 4. He played a Spellskite, but I thankfully had an Ancient Grudge. Goyf hits for 3 on turn 5 putting him down to 14 when he had fetched and shocked earlier. I ended up using the Grudge when he played a blighted agent so I could have a three turn clock due to my 5/6 goyf. He hit me for 1 with the Blighted Agent. I draw a mana leak for my turn to accompany another Goyf and a land in my hand. I play the Goyf and pass while holding land and Mana leak. He has four lands on the table. He activates Pendelhaven, and goes for a become immense which I mana leak. Then he plays a vines of the vastwood with kicker and puts me up to 7 infect and concedes. The top decked mana leak saved the day.
3-0 on matches and 6-1 on games
Dustin (Infect) is my new hype man. We sit down for our round 4 pairings and he is in the match next to me and remembers my deck and is all pumped up. “Temur!!!” He goes on to say how awesome the deck is without giving anything away. I don’t know if my opponent heard the “Temur”, but anything with Tarmogoyf and blue wasn’t going to bode well for him.
Match 4: Danny on Splinter Twin
Game 1: I don’t remember much from game 1, but my life goes from 20 to 17 so it was either serum visions of a delver. I cast a turn 2 gitaxian probe to see Deceiver Exarch, Grim Lavamancer, Remand, Serum Visions and Lands. The jig was up. I play a turn 2 goyf into his remand so he gets less draws to find a permanent solution. I got my Goyf on turn three after he plays a Lavamancer. I hit for 7. Lavamancer takes out the Delver on his turn. Then Goyf smashed away and got me the win. My notes for the match are his hand from the probe and “Goyf” with a heart next to it.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Rending Volley
+1 Deprive
+2 Destructive Revelry
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Vapor Snag
+2 Huntmaster of the Fells
Game 2: He got a turn 1 grim lavamancer on the play and I had no removal for it. I got to probe him early seeing 2 Cryptic Command, Remand, Deceiver Exarch, another lavamancer, and a land. I was not in good shape for the long game. I was able to deal with the Exarch on my third upkeep with a Mana Leak, but the lavamancer was chipping away. He played the second lavamancer eventually to meet my Goyf and Mandrills who had made their way to the board. I was at 7 life and vapor snagged the active grim lavamancer who, along with a lightning bolt, brought me down to 2 on his way out. I slammed a Huntmaster of the Fells while he didn’t have the mana to cryptic command putting me up to a comfortable 4 life and giving me more bodies. My prayers were answered when he didn’t have another bolt and my team finished things off.
Danny ended up winning the whole event. So, it was nice to be what was his only loss of the tournament.
4-0 on matches and 8-1 on games
I’d love to end the report there, but this is where I get to learn.
Match 5: Nick on GW stuff
Game 1: Turn 1 delver. Turn 2 Probe to see Loxodon Smiter, Wilt Leaf Leige, Quasali Pridemage, and Horizon Canopy. Then, I played a Goyf the two creatures were able to push past him for a very fast game 1.
Let us take a brief moment of silence for the 9 games I won in a row.
My boarding was something like this...
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Thought Scour
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Blood Moon
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Rending Volley
+2 Destructive Revelry
+2 Pyroclasm
I was pretty sure had no vials since the deck curved out so well to 4 so I didn’t feel the need to bring in my Grudges, but I brought the revelries in to be safe.
Game 2: I had a hand with no threat but plenty of digging and a Blood Moon. He gets a turn 1 birds of paradise and I get a serum visions putting both cards on the bottom with the scry. He then slams down a CHOKE. I played three serum visions and looked at nearly 1/3 of my deck without seeing a Revelry. He took game 2.
Game 3: I got a turn 1 delver with a pyroclasm and blood moon in hand. The pyroclasm was really awkward with the delver who eventually flipped on his third try. Delver got to swing over a thalia and voice of resurgence. If I had a third land by now, I would have been okay with a 2 for 2 with the pyroclasm, but I didn’t have my land yet. On his turn, Brimaz joined the party. I finally draw the land and cast pyroclasm, but it’s took little too late. I don’t know if there was anything that could have helped me in that situation. I may have had a deprive in hand when the Brimaz went down, but I only had two lands down. At the end of the game there was a Blood Moon and two Huntmaster of the Fells sitting in my hand. I was not able to hit enough land.
4-1 on matches and 9-3 on games
The prior match really shook me. The choke game especially destroyed my mojo.
Match 6: Nathaniel on Ad Nauseum
Game 1: I get a turn 1 delver and a turn 2 delver. Neither one flips. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on when he played a blue white temple (land) and scryed. Turn 2 he played a Pentad Prism when I was tapped out with two disrupting shoals in hand. If I didn’t know what the scry land could mean, the prism should have been a giveaway but this deck slipped my radar. I hit him for 2 with my 1/1 delvers and held up mana leak. He starts his turn by using the prism to play angel’s grace, which has split second of course. Then, he has three lands, a floating mana, a simian spirit guide, and Ad Nauseum. I’m dead.
-1 Vapor Snag
+1 Deprive
Game 2: I know that I probed him on turn 1 and saw land, Prism, 2 cantrips, Mystical Teachings, Lotus Bloom and Ad Nauseum. I think I drew a delver off of the probe and played him. I was able to play hooting mandrills after countering a prism. I probe again and he has added another prism and an Ad Nauseum. Delver flips and I hit for 7 putting him to 11. A lotus bloom comes off of being suspended and I mana leak it. I put him down to 4. He echoing truths the green creature. Delver puts him to 1 and he can’t do anything.
Game 3: I keep a hand with 3 lands, 2 cantrips, and 2 counters. I start digging for threats while he plays his scry land, some more lands, and a phyrexian unlife. I’m stupidly surprised by the card and really wishing I currently had destructive revelry in my 60. I couldn’t find anything useful and lost.
This matchup should have been an easy 2-0, but I had a huge punt on not using disrupting shoal on the pentad prism.
4-2 on matches and 10-5 on games.
I’m X-2 and most likely out of the top 8, but I came here to play this deck so I played the last round.
Round 7: GW Bears with Aether Vial
Game 1: He had a turn 1 vial, an early dryad militant and an early Judge’s familiar. While I had a Goyf on the board and a Mandrills in hand, I probed him to see two paths and a flickerwisp. I was still fighting along and hit a delver on the way. I got behind early but was still in the game. This game ended up taking 30 minutes. He did have a lot of decisions to make with vial, flickerwisp, and judge’s familiar, but the slow play was outrageous. There were a couple of times that he picked up his vial and held it in the air for 5-10 seconds and set it down. The pace annoyed me but didn’t seem like an issue until the game ended and we had around 18 minutes left. I ended up calling a judge over to watch for slow play in the second game.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Thought Scour
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Blood Moon
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Rending Volley
+2 Destructive Revelry
+2 Pyroclasm
I may have somehow squeezed the Ancient Grudges in there as well.
Game 2: He plays a cavern naming soldier and has an early Thalia, but I have two Goyfs in hand. I think I had a turn 3 Goyf after removing the Thalia on turn 2. I drew a third goyf on turn 4 and put two more on the table. The three Lhurgoyfs closed the game out.
No slow play here. There are now less than 10 minutes on the clock.
Game 3: During game 3, my opponent was urged by the spectating judge multiple times to make a play. I was busy playing at a breakneck pace to try to emphasize how terribly slowly he was going. He had an early Thalia that kept me off of a lot of my cards in my threat light hand. The game grinded on and on as he had a few creatures and I had a delver and Mandrills most of the time. We finally hit time and he barely manages to kill me on turn 5 of extra turns because of several misplays I made while trying to move things along more quickly. With the right choices, I may have been able to hold off his flying army long enough to find a huntmaster.
The combination of Thalia, Dryad Militant, and fliers made things really rough in this match.
Oh well. The cutoff for top 8 was 16 points (x-1-1). So, I couldn't have made it even with a win here.
I was happy not to face Abzan at all, but I didn’t care for my matches against GW decks.
I'm going to try to wait until I'm granted access to "Non Latin Unicode"
The broad overview of it is here:
Ohio SCG States
I ended up taking Ashton's advice and running his list with a Vapor Snag instead of the Feed the Clan and I'm very happy I did that. I would have never cast the feed the clan and snag ended up being pretty helpful along the way. I wrote down a sideboarding guide for myself to use compiling all of the sideboarding and discussion in the last few pages of this thread then adjusted for any differences in cards.
The event went through 7 rounds of swiss with 99 people.
I'll start with the result so you don't get too excited: I was one of 6 people to be 4and0 through four rounds. Then, I fell apart and ended up 4and3.
I can credit some of the slide to my matchups, some to my lack of experience with the deck, and some to my lack of mental endurance.
I ended up facing Affinity, Boros Stuff, Infect, Twin, GW stuff, Ad Nauseum, and GW bears with Aether Vial.
I got 25th out of 99 and certainly made some bad plays down the final stretch.
I'm going to be running Ashton's latest list tomorrow at Ohio SCG states. The only change is a flashfreeze in place of the Feed the Clan in the sideboard.
I want to have at least this much down before piloting this for the first time in a tournament:
What should my board plan be for the big 4 decks (Abzan, Twin, Affinity, and Burn)?
Is there any particular playstyle I should have in mind for these 4 matches?
Keep it coming! I'd love to keep hearing how events are going for you.
As far as new cards go, Rending Volley is perfect for the sideboard. It's cheaper than combust and still hates out any threat that twin can put on the table. It's also only three mana total to snap it back which is a lot more comfortable than four.
So for lists going bigger than the shoal version, would the new Sarkahn be any better than Keranos?
The deck may fall out of delver territory at that point and lean closer to blue moon.
5 mana (2GUR) starts at 4 loyalty
+1 Draw a card, then add one mana of any color to your mana pool
-2 Put a 4/4 red dragon creature token with flying onto the battlefield
-8 Search your library for any number of dragon creature cards and put them on the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
The ultimate would be useless, but cards and 4/4 fliers are pretty nice...
These lists with Delver, Goyf, Mandrills, Disrupting Shoal, and Stubborn Denial are super exciting. Shoal, Denial, and Mandrills are all very powerful cards that should see play and this looks like the right place.
It's definitely something like that, but I think it's more along the lines of it turning every green deck into a toolbox deck. I personally think it is less evil than Pod (assuming dryad arbor is banned) because it doesn't let you go grab your perfect creature of any color costing a certain amount of mana to hate out someone or simply combo.
Thoughts on a Pyromancer Ascension Control transitional sideboard? You can side out the combo against BGx and UWR and control them out. If they understand what the combo is doing, they wouldn't have Enchantment hate post-board. The mainboard would need to have mostly 4-ofs.
The things you absolutely need are a threat and two lands. It becomes keepable with one of these missing if you have a few cantrips. You also would obviously like to have some interaction (counters or bolts), but I wouldn't say you can be too picky on exactly what interaction you have in your opener.
Game 2 (or if you know what they're playing already, you can more aggressively be looking for specific cards you know are really important, but you still need land and a pretty early threat most of the time.
Whenever I'm playing something new, I play a whole lot of solitaire with it before playing anyone. When I'm playing these practice games, I always look at the first 6 cards then look at the 7th. This helps you get the average 6 card hand engrained into your mind. I find that this helps me assess whether a 7 card hand is keepable or not.
Maybe that card is pretty amazing in here. Helps delver flip, feeds goyf and hootie, and works with Taylor Swiftspear if you're playing them.
That GW vial plan definitely makes sense for the last deck I played. I simply didn't hit enough of my red removal to be able to control things I also didn't hit Huntmaster at all. It was rough drawing that was emphasized by the interaction between Thalia and my cantrips. The matchup feels 100% manageable with the right drawing.
On the other hand, I really don't know what the plan would be for my round 5 opponent. It would probably be similar but with ancient grudge and pyroclasm being a lot less helpful. Most of his guys were x/4. Another Rending Volley could have probably helped.
Overall, I'm still loving the deck. It feels very powerful when you don't keep bad hands and you can pretty easily win against the tons of aggro and combo decks. The good matchups against Affinity, Burn, Twin, and even Infect are very important right now. I'm okay with having to dodge some matchups against Seige Rhino to really be able to succeed. We beat out their enemies pretty well and you can never underestimate the possibilities with Blood Moon and/or Huntmaster of the Fells. I'm really intrigued by your bauble build because that extra but of power on the goyf would help against Rhino and Tasigur, but I'd be afraid to keep adding air to the deck. I already had trouble hitting business cards as it is.
I ended up taking Ashton's advice and running his list with a Vapor Snag instead of the Feed the Clan and I'm very happy I did that. I would have never cast the feed the clan and snag ended up being pretty helpful along the way. I wrote down a sideboarding guide for myself to use compiling all of the sideboarding and discussion in the last few pages of this thread then adjusted for any differences in cards.
The event went through 7 rounds of swiss with 99 people.
I'll start with the result so you don't get too excited: I was one of 6 people to be 4-0 through four rounds. Then, I fell apart and ended up 4-3.
I can credit some of the slide to my matchups, some to my lack of experience with the deck, and some to my lack of mental endurance.
My memory isn't the best and my notes are mediocre, but here we go...
Round 1: Jamie on Affinity
Game 1: My first ever hand with the deck when not playing solitaire had two shoals in it. It might have been along the lines of land, land, shoal, shoal, snapcaster mage, cantrip, and cantrip. I got to disrupting shoal a signal pest and a cranial plating in turns 1 and 2. I think I also played snapcaster as a simple 2/1 flash to try to start attacking somehow. All I know is that I saw 0 lightning bolts and was not able to get any green walls slash beaters out there. He took over with fliers while snapcaster was hopeless on the ground.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Thought Scour
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Detructive Revelry
+2 Pyroclasm
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Vapor Snag
+1 Deprive
Game 2: I had a pretty absurd hand with a delver, lands, two ancient grudges, a pyroclasm and who cares what else. Turn 1 delver on the play. He casts a discard spell and knew he was in trouble. He took my pyroclasm. The delver flipped and I went to town with my grudges hitting most of what he dropped. I got down to 10 life, but there was no threat of me losing it.
Game 3: I kept a decent hand with interaction, lands, at least one cantrip, and a green threat I think. My first draw was an ancient grudge and my hand became 1000 times better. I had a pretty early threat that was able to hold things off for a while as I hit his better cards with my grudge and a lightning bolt. His early plays were a turn 1 signal pest and a turn 2 arcbound ravager. He wasn’t able to hit me very hard because I killed all of his enablers. I was able to take out the pest, the ravager (who only moved the one counter), and a master of etherium later the next turn. I was a little worried about removing the ravager because it could have enabled a decently large flyer that could ignore my bolts and creatures, but I definitely had to make sure he got nothing else on the board to feed to it. I had a huntmaster of the fells but had to wait until I got enough lands on the table. I passed on a chance to play a goyf in order to leave up manaleak when he was down to 1 or 2 cards. I was really worried that I missed an opportunity, but he casted a Thoughtcast after using his mana to hit with a blinkmoth. I followed this with a Tarmogoyf while holding up a lightning bolt. I ended up landing a huntmaster of the fells while at a pretty healthy 12 life and he immediately ran away with the game. I ended up getting two flips off of him which helped me creep up with my life and quickly take his out.
1-0 on matches and 2-1 on games
Match 2: Walter on Boros stuff
Game 1: I T1 thought scour, turn 2 Hooting Mandrills, and turn 3 tarmogoyf. He had turn 2 wall of omens, turn 3 Cavern of Souls naming Shaman to play a Fulminator Mage and immediately took away one of my lands. I think he should have waited to avoid some combat damage with a block sacrifice because my board was already plenty developed, but in fairness the Goyf was still smaller and able to be walled out. He played a second wall of omens which I vapor snagged on his end step to be able to guarantee some damage and push my tempo advantage. The rest of the game was not long as Hootie took out the walls one by one and the duo closed out quickly.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Gitaxian Probe (I don't want to be hurting myself against a Boros deck)
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Rending Volley
+1 Vapor Snag
+2 Destructive Revelry (to hedge against whatever - I was expecting a sword of some kind or a batterskull)
Game 2: I’m durdling around with cantrips for a little and he names Human on a Cavern of Souls. He plays a T2 Wall of Omens, T3 Soulfire Grandmaster, and T4 Avalanche Riders. The creatures couldn’t handle my T2 Goyf, T3 Goyf, T4 Huntmaster of the Fells. He ended up conceding to my first Huntmaster Flip.
Afterwards, he was rightfully miffed that he didn’t see any Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, or Path to Exile. It was an interesting deck, but it couldn’t stop this train.
2-0 on matches and 4-1 on games
We sit down and the pairing next to me is talking to us about infect and how it’s an okay deck, but just doesn’t have enough going on. It’s a bunch of casual chat and my opponent is defending the deck a little bit, but doesn’t say too much. I let them know that I played the deck for the last two years and it always felt a little underpowered and fragile.
Match 3: Dustin on Infect
Game 1: He has a turn 1 Glistener Elf on the play and we have a good laugh. On my turn, I very quickly pay two life to Gitaxian Probe him and see 2 lands, Become Immense, Distortion Strike, Spellskite, and Mutagenic Growth. I know that I had some threat in hand, a vapor snag, some cantrip, and I drew a disrupting shoal off the probe. I think it was a delver I tapped out for on turn 1. I was really eager to Disrupting Shoal something, but I let him have the turn two attack with a distortion strike because I know how low the odds are of a turn two kill (and I had seen most of his cards). I ended up Vapor Snagging the elf on my turn so he can’t protect it as profitably and he would have no attack on his turn. He recasts it and I Disrupting Shoal pitching the cantrip. I followed up with a Hooting Mandrills to accompany the Delver who had already flipped. The Insect and Monkey took over. My infect knowledge helped me out in my decision making in this game.
He was really excited about my deck and just curiously asked if there were Goyfs or just Mandrills. I had to smile and say “I don’t know”. I didn’t feel like giving up any information.
-4 Thought Scour
-4 Hooting Mandrills
+1 Deprive
+1 Flame Slash
+2 Pyroclasm
+2 Ancient Grudge
+2 Destructive Revelry
Game 2: He had two early Elves, but I had an early bolt and vapor snag. I also had a bolt and some cantrips along the way. I landed a Turn 3 Goyf and bolted the Elf. I promptly lose my mind for a second and forget to attack on turn 4. He played a Spellskite, but I thankfully had an Ancient Grudge. Goyf hits for 3 on turn 5 putting him down to 14 when he had fetched and shocked earlier. I ended up using the Grudge when he played a blighted agent so I could have a three turn clock due to my 5/6 goyf. He hit me for 1 with the Blighted Agent. I draw a mana leak for my turn to accompany another Goyf and a land in my hand. I play the Goyf and pass while holding land and Mana leak. He has four lands on the table. He activates Pendelhaven, and goes for a become immense which I mana leak. Then he plays a vines of the vastwood with kicker and puts me up to 7 infect and concedes. The top decked mana leak saved the day.
3-0 on matches and 6-1 on games
Dustin (Infect) is my new hype man. We sit down for our round 4 pairings and he is in the match next to me and remembers my deck and is all pumped up. “Temur!!!” He goes on to say how awesome the deck is without giving anything away. I don’t know if my opponent heard the “Temur”, but anything with Tarmogoyf and blue wasn’t going to bode well for him.
Match 4: Danny on Splinter Twin
Game 1: I don’t remember much from game 1, but my life goes from 20 to 17 so it was either serum visions of a delver. I cast a turn 2 gitaxian probe to see Deceiver Exarch, Grim Lavamancer, Remand, Serum Visions and Lands. The jig was up. I play a turn 2 goyf into his remand so he gets less draws to find a permanent solution. I got my Goyf on turn three after he plays a Lavamancer. I hit for 7. Lavamancer takes out the Delver on his turn. Then Goyf smashed away and got me the win. My notes for the match are his hand from the probe and “Goyf” with a heart next to it.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Thought Scour
+1 Rending Volley
+1 Deprive
+2 Destructive Revelry
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Vapor Snag
+2 Huntmaster of the Fells
Game 2: He got a turn 1 grim lavamancer on the play and I had no removal for it. I got to probe him early seeing 2 Cryptic Command, Remand, Deceiver Exarch, another lavamancer, and a land. I was not in good shape for the long game. I was able to deal with the Exarch on my third upkeep with a Mana Leak, but the lavamancer was chipping away. He played the second lavamancer eventually to meet my Goyf and Mandrills who had made their way to the board. I was at 7 life and vapor snagged the active grim lavamancer who, along with a lightning bolt, brought me down to 2 on his way out. I slammed a Huntmaster of the Fells while he didn’t have the mana to cryptic command putting me up to a comfortable 4 life and giving me more bodies. My prayers were answered when he didn’t have another bolt and my team finished things off.
Danny ended up winning the whole event. So, it was nice to be what was his only loss of the tournament.
4-0 on matches and 8-1 on games
I’d love to end the report there, but this is where I get to learn.
Match 5: Nick on GW stuff
Game 1: Turn 1 delver. Turn 2 Probe to see Loxodon Smiter, Wilt Leaf Leige, Quasali Pridemage, and Horizon Canopy. Then, I played a Goyf the two creatures were able to push past him for a very fast game 1.
Let us take a brief moment of silence for the 9 games I won in a row.
My boarding was something like this...
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Thought Scour
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Blood Moon
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Rending Volley
+2 Destructive Revelry
+2 Pyroclasm
I was pretty sure had no vials since the deck curved out so well to 4 so I didn’t feel the need to bring in my Grudges, but I brought the revelries in to be safe.
Game 2: I had a hand with no threat but plenty of digging and a Blood Moon. He gets a turn 1 birds of paradise and I get a serum visions putting both cards on the bottom with the scry. He then slams down a CHOKE. I played three serum visions and looked at nearly 1/3 of my deck without seeing a Revelry. He took game 2.
Game 3: I got a turn 1 delver with a pyroclasm and blood moon in hand. The pyroclasm was really awkward with the delver who eventually flipped on his third try. Delver got to swing over a thalia and voice of resurgence. If I had a third land by now, I would have been okay with a 2 for 2 with the pyroclasm, but I didn’t have my land yet. On his turn, Brimaz joined the party. I finally draw the land and cast pyroclasm, but it’s took little too late. I don’t know if there was anything that could have helped me in that situation. I may have had a deprive in hand when the Brimaz went down, but I only had two lands down. At the end of the game there was a Blood Moon and two Huntmaster of the Fells sitting in my hand. I was not able to hit enough land.
4-1 on matches and 9-3 on games
The prior match really shook me. The choke game especially destroyed my mojo.
Match 6: Nathaniel on Ad Nauseum
Game 1: I get a turn 1 delver and a turn 2 delver. Neither one flips. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on when he played a blue white temple (land) and scryed. Turn 2 he played a Pentad Prism when I was tapped out with two disrupting shoals in hand. If I didn’t know what the scry land could mean, the prism should have been a giveaway but this deck slipped my radar. I hit him for 2 with my 1/1 delvers and held up mana leak. He starts his turn by using the prism to play angel’s grace, which has split second of course. Then, he has three lands, a floating mana, a simian spirit guide, and Ad Nauseum. I’m dead.
-1 Vapor Snag
+1 Deprive
Game 2: I know that I probed him on turn 1 and saw land, Prism, 2 cantrips, Mystical Teachings, Lotus Bloom and Ad Nauseum. I think I drew a delver off of the probe and played him. I was able to play hooting mandrills after countering a prism. I probe again and he has added another prism and an Ad Nauseum. Delver flips and I hit for 7 putting him to 11. A lotus bloom comes off of being suspended and I mana leak it. I put him down to 4. He echoing truths the green creature. Delver puts him to 1 and he can’t do anything.
Game 3: I keep a hand with 3 lands, 2 cantrips, and 2 counters. I start digging for threats while he plays his scry land, some more lands, and a phyrexian unlife. I’m stupidly surprised by the card and really wishing I currently had destructive revelry in my 60. I couldn’t find anything useful and lost.
This matchup should have been an easy 2-0, but I had a huge punt on not using disrupting shoal on the pentad prism.
4-2 on matches and 10-5 on games.
I’m X-2 and most likely out of the top 8, but I came here to play this deck so I played the last round.
Round 7: GW Bears with Aether Vial
Game 1: He had a turn 1 vial, an early dryad militant and an early Judge’s familiar. While I had a Goyf on the board and a Mandrills in hand, I probed him to see two paths and a flickerwisp. I was still fighting along and hit a delver on the way. I got behind early but was still in the game. This game ended up taking 30 minutes. He did have a lot of decisions to make with vial, flickerwisp, and judge’s familiar, but the slow play was outrageous. There were a couple of times that he picked up his vial and held it in the air for 5-10 seconds and set it down. The pace annoyed me but didn’t seem like an issue until the game ended and we had around 18 minutes left. I ended up calling a judge over to watch for slow play in the second game.
-4 Disrupting Shoal
-4 Gitaxian Probe
-4 Thought Scour
+3 Huntmaster of the Fells
+2 Blood Moon
+1 Flame Slash
+1 Rending Volley
+2 Destructive Revelry
+2 Pyroclasm
I may have somehow squeezed the Ancient Grudges in there as well.
Game 2: He plays a cavern naming soldier and has an early Thalia, but I have two Goyfs in hand. I think I had a turn 3 Goyf after removing the Thalia on turn 2. I drew a third goyf on turn 4 and put two more on the table. The three Lhurgoyfs closed the game out.
No slow play here. There are now less than 10 minutes on the clock.
Game 3: During game 3, my opponent was urged by the spectating judge multiple times to make a play. I was busy playing at a breakneck pace to try to emphasize how terribly slowly he was going. He had an early Thalia that kept me off of a lot of my cards in my threat light hand. The game grinded on and on as he had a few creatures and I had a delver and Mandrills most of the time. We finally hit time and he barely manages to kill me on turn 5 of extra turns because of several misplays I made while trying to move things along more quickly. With the right choices, I may have been able to hold off his flying army long enough to find a huntmaster.
The combination of Thalia, Dryad Militant, and fliers made things really rough in this match.
Oh well. The cutoff for top 8 was 16 points (x-1-1). So, I couldn't have made it even with a win here.
I was happy not to face Abzan at all, but I didn’t care for my matches against GW decks.
Would I be able to bypass this?
I'm going to try to wait until I'm granted access to "Non Latin Unicode"
The broad overview of it is here:
Ohio SCG States
I ended up taking Ashton's advice and running his list with a Vapor Snag instead of the Feed the Clan and I'm very happy I did that. I would have never cast the feed the clan and snag ended up being pretty helpful along the way. I wrote down a sideboarding guide for myself to use compiling all of the sideboarding and discussion in the last few pages of this thread then adjusted for any differences in cards.
The event went through 7 rounds of swiss with 99 people.
I'll start with the result so you don't get too excited: I was one of 6 people to be 4and0 through four rounds. Then, I fell apart and ended up 4and3.
I can credit some of the slide to my matchups, some to my lack of experience with the deck, and some to my lack of mental endurance.
I ended up facing Affinity, Boros Stuff, Infect, Twin, GW stuff, Ad Nauseum, and GW bears with Aether Vial.
I got 25th out of 99 and certainly made some bad plays down the final stretch.
I want to have at least this much down before piloting this for the first time in a tournament:
What should my board plan be for the big 4 decks (Abzan, Twin, Affinity, and Burn)?
Is there any particular playstyle I should have in mind for these 4 matches?
As far as new cards go, Rending Volley is perfect for the sideboard. It's cheaper than combust and still hates out any threat that twin can put on the table. It's also only three mana total to snap it back which is a lot more comfortable than four.
The deck may fall out of delver territory at that point and lean closer to blue moon.
5 mana (2GUR) starts at 4 loyalty
+1 Draw a card, then add one mana of any color to your mana pool
-2 Put a 4/4 red dragon creature token with flying onto the battlefield
-8 Search your library for any number of dragon creature cards and put them on the battlefield. Then shuffle your library.
The ultimate would be useless, but cards and 4/4 fliers are pretty nice...
How has your burn matchup been without sideboarding feed the clan or flashfreeze?
Also in general, is pyroclasm better to have than Engineered explosives, rough//tumble or firespout?