I'm having trouble sideboarding with this strategy. Tonight, I found myself boarding out remands on the draw, but struggling to make further cuts. Obviously there are some matchups where electrolize or other burn spells aren't as good, but what are the other cards are you cutting for silver bullets? In the few matches I played the remands tended to come out even if i was on the play in game three?? (3 out of 5 rounds). Also, when are you guys (if ever) siding out Geist? I've taken him out against GBx. He seems like he gets blocked by goyfs all day. Has anyone tested the Collected company matchup (elves? Zoo? Merflok?). Any idea how that we can board for that?
There is the Team Geist sideboard guide which is not yet complete but has a description of the cuts for almost every matchup , so I think we can start from there and make small adjustments for the black splash.
I haven't tested the CoCo matchup (though probably going to face it tommorrow) but I don't think it's bad , we have a lot of cheap removal and counters. Anger is pretty good against the elves and the anafenza version but not very useful vs. zoo and merfolk , I think Verdict might be a consideration if you are worried about the bigger decks.
Tar Pits seems too hard to activate , I don't think that's the direction we want to go , I was just naming some cards that might be useful off the top of my head. Tasigur is pretty good I feel even if later than turn 2 , specially if you have mana to activate. It dodges a lot of the common removal and I don't think it makes a big impact at our mana base if we are already running black for lingering souls.
Also I wouldn't expect a twin player to go for the combo without protection if you have one white mana open either way (or to let geist resolve uncontested in the first place) , plus I can't think of a lot of places where a fused wear/tear matters , mainly killing an artifact + ensoul artifact vs. affinity , and a batterskull + blood moon vs. twin or skull + outpost siege vs. jund. I'm not sure if we actually need all the hate against tron though , so the wear/tears might be the best option , just another idea I brought up anyway.
Okay spent some more time thinking about the black splash and a sideboard for it. I truly believe the black splash helps us tremendously, at not a huge cost. 2 SB cards, and 2 Main Board Cards (one of which only needs bleach for flashback). This deck looks to me like it just will steam roll almost any matchup. I'm excited to play this.
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I Really REALLY like this list. Please give feedback. I'm going to try and get the cards together to start testing it. I think this is what the deck needed to put it at tier one, I don't think it has bad match ups.
I agree on this deck looking really sweet , definetely gonna experiment with it. Some other options black gives us for sideboard are Blood Baron of Vizkopa (pretty good against Abzan , though the meta has shifted a bit from that) , Darkblast and Olivia Voldaren (awesome against small creature decks like the CoCo combos running around and even delver). Also we could swap Wear // Tear for Hide // Seek , depending on wheter we prefer having Seek against Tron to the Fuse potential of Wear/Tear , or maybe cutting the affinity-only hate and playing like 2 of each as a way to have more game on the Tron matchup and not lose too much vs. affinity.
I know my matchups and I know my role in most of them. I've got just one big headache - GW Hatebears. There is guy in my LGS and he is destroying me(and everyone else :P). I can't do anything. I'm trying to 1 for 1 his creatures but there's moment in a game when we've got like 2 cards in hand - I've got Geist and Remand. He's got Blade Splicer and Restoration Angel. And it's GG.
He's playing GW Blink version, I'm thinking about Supreme Verdict in sideboard. Thoughts?
You can try some number of Sulfur Elemental in the sideboard depending on how many X/1s they run , it also makes our guys stronger so we can race and is not completely dead against other matchups. The verdict seems a bit too hard to cast with all the Thalias and Leonin Arbiter + Ghost quarter they run.
Sideboard's a mess. I'm happy with a lot of the slots, but perhaps Curse of Death's Hold is a little too cute. I'd like to try to fit some Fulminator Mage in there because my meta has quite a bit of Tron, but then maybe I'm better off conceding that it's a bad matchup and focus my slots on where I can still possibly win.
I think with 4 mentors 4 snapcasters and 2-3 myths Rain of Tears is better than fulminator in this deck
Anyone tried Monastery Siege with this deck yet? Seems like a decent option since we can chuck many cards in the gy and still profit, or it can protect our big threats.
Yeah , I have 2 sieges in by board and it's been pretty good whenever I board it in. I originally wanted something for burn but that could be used in another matchups , as there is not that much burn in my meta to need the usual 4 timely reinforcements.
I usually board it in against control and abzan , the khans mode is awesome in the grindy games , and the dragons mode even won me a game against jund when my opponent was stuck in 2 lands and couldn't kill my mentor. I'm also running 3 myth realized , so I can usually present enough threats my opponents won't have enough removal or enchantment destruction to handle them all and I manage to keep some around.
Be wary of the round clock , though , the draw and discard is very time consuming and tricky to resolve.
(And bonus points for looking awesome in foil)
Last game vs the Boros Bridge deck. Main deck: Anger of the gods, blood moon, wrath of god, ghostly prison and ensnaring bridge + 11 spot removal (path, bol, helix). I keep a rather slow hand and get locked out and beaten down by espleth tokens.
Second game I need to mull to 6 then I play discard t2 (see no blood moon), land my lingering souls t3 (I ned to get some pressure on the board fast) and get smacked by Blood Moon with no white (I could not fetch for it) and I'll never see it either (I had fetched for black and blue so I put up a little bit of resistance). Overall the matchup seems very, very poor for us. No maindecked creatures gives us tonnes of dead cards G1.
Odds are I'm coming up against this deck again in the future, what enchantment hosers do we have in our colors? (Finished 3rd btw)
Myth Realized and the manlands should be great in the matchup , just keep bridge off the board. Ghostly Prison shouldn't be a big problem if you are on the myth plan and blood moon also isn't a big problem if it doesn't lock you out. Your opponent seems to be playing more spot removal than usual though , most of the lists I've seen only run 4 helix. Discard is also tricky since most lists run some number of leylines main and the rest in the board , though if you didn't see it both games he might not have them or not boarded them in.
So, what do you people think of Sorin, Lord of Innistrad vs. Sorin, Solemn Visitor on the mentor lists? In my testing the solemn visitor showed to be more effective, the lifegain being really useful, but both lists from the japanese top 8 played the lord of innistrad so I'm no certain.
Celestial Flare looks good against infect (as well as being great against hexproof) , though maybe it's a bit mana intensive since they usually have dispels game 2 and 3. I like the discard against the blue-green version that seems a bit thread-light in terms of infect creatures, though we'd have to put IoK in place of duress (at least that's what I'm running) which is pretty bad in some matchups like scapeshift and twin. Maybe we just need a lot of cheap removal to fight through the protection , maybe some number of Condemn which is also pretty good against zoo and aggro decks in general. Just my first look analysis , could be very very wrong.
Also , does anyone have Patrick Chapin's decklist? I read somewhere that he was on a weird esper build with a bunch of delve cards like tasigur and even Gurmag Angler but couldn't find the decklist so not sure if it was a control build or what.
I think against affinity you would want something at instant speed because of Cranial Plating , but I think the best awnser at sorcery speed is Vandalblast. It kills early threads like a turn 1 plating/ravager/overseer while still being very relevant as the game goes longer.
Maybe if we are really worried about affinity we can swap the hallowed fountain and the white splash and run a breeding pool for Ancient Grudge in the sideboard. Wear // Tear could be Nature's Claim wich is quite good against storm and jeskai ascendancy as well , and we don't really care about the 4 life. We loose a bit in the burn matchup without the white splash but green has some good options , not sure what would be the best.
Just some ideas , I'm not really a blue moon player.
A blue moon deck did finish 12th at GP Milan played by Fabain Moyschewitz , going UR with 2 blood moons and 3 cliques main (with a 61 card deck). Also interesting is the white splash from a single hallowed fountain for three sideboard timely reinforcments and I guess one engineered explosives as well.
After some testing I decided to play the Snapcaster/counters version. Not saying it’s definitely better but I think it has better matchups now that all the decks have adapted into TC , also fits my playstyle better . Still need to experiment with the mix of TC/DTT , probably 3 TC 1 DTT is not the best. Sideboard was also a bit weird since the metagame was a bit different from what I expected.
Game 1: 2-1 vs UWR Delver
Not sure what list he was on , he had delver and pyro but I didn’t get to see any swiftspears or geists. Also had colonnade. Game 1 he flooded , game 2 I got stuck on 1 land , game 3 I landed a turn 1 delver that he had to path which put me quite ahead and I managed to get an early pyro and counter his stuff.
Game 2: 2-0 vs UR Delver
He was on the 4 swiftspear list , didn’t get to see any snapcasters. Game 1 we both played our early threads but I managed to remand his cruise and play mine which just put me ahead. Game 2 he got stuck on 2 island and I managed to protect a turn 1 delver until he was in burn range.
Game 3: 2-1 vs RW Burn w/ Treasure Cruise
His draws were just too good for me to race game 1 , games 2 and 3 Young Pyromancer just took away the game. The card is insane in the matchup if they don't kill them instantly. Also remanding TC is awesome when you're opponent can't do anything about it. Felt very lucky to win as I had no specific sideboard for this , just boarded in a bunch of counterspells.
Game 4: 2-0 vs Scapeshift
Game 1 was the good old turn 1 delver into remand , remand , remand , bolt+snap+bolt. Pretty easy. Sideboarding was +1 Negate +1 Counterflux +2 Spell Pierce +2 Blood Moon , not sure what went out. Game 2 went really slow as I was more interested in being reactive and stopping him , got him down to 7 but he managed to kill my threads and we played draw-go for a while. He ended up misplaying badly , Mana Leak was the only counter in my hand and he had Scapeshift , Izzet Charm and Remand with 10 lands in play. He cast spaceshift , I leaked it (wich is why you never concede in those spots) , he charmed it , I paid the 2 mana , he remanded my leak and I just played it again , with him having only 2 mana left. Not sure why he went with that instead of paying the 3 mana or remanding his own scapeshift or izzet charm. He had no cards left and I managed to find a busrt lightning and a bolt with a DTT. The more controlling version feels better in this matchup as Swiftspear gets chumped by Tribe Elder and Snapcasters and they just win if you don't kill them before they get to 7 lands.
Pretty satisfied with this list , still need more testing though. Also need to get the cards for my sideboard as I just used what I had around. Suggestions that don’t include “just play the aggro version” are welcome.
There is the Team Geist sideboard guide which is not yet complete but has a description of the cuts for almost every matchup , so I think we can start from there and make small adjustments for the black splash.
I haven't tested the CoCo matchup (though probably going to face it tommorrow) but I don't think it's bad , we have a lot of cheap removal and counters. Anger is pretty good against the elves and the anafenza version but not very useful vs. zoo and merfolk , I think Verdict might be a consideration if you are worried about the bigger decks.
Also I wouldn't expect a twin player to go for the combo without protection if you have one white mana open either way (or to let geist resolve uncontested in the first place) , plus I can't think of a lot of places where a fused wear/tear matters , mainly killing an artifact + ensoul artifact vs. affinity , and a batterskull + blood moon vs. twin or skull + outpost siege vs. jund. I'm not sure if we actually need all the hate against tron though , so the wear/tears might be the best option , just another idea I brought up anyway.
I agree on this deck looking really sweet , definetely gonna experiment with it. Some other options black gives us for sideboard are Blood Baron of Vizkopa (pretty good against Abzan , though the meta has shifted a bit from that) , Darkblast and Olivia Voldaren (awesome against small creature decks like the CoCo combos running around and even delver). Also we could swap Wear // Tear for Hide // Seek , depending on wheter we prefer having Seek against Tron to the Fuse potential of Wear/Tear , or maybe cutting the affinity-only hate and playing like 2 of each as a way to have more game on the Tron matchup and not lose too much vs. affinity.
You can try some number of Sulfur Elemental in the sideboard depending on how many X/1s they run , it also makes our guys stronger so we can race and is not completely dead against other matchups. The verdict seems a bit too hard to cast with all the Thalias and Leonin Arbiter + Ghost quarter they run.
I think with 4 mentors 4 snapcasters and 2-3 myths Rain of Tears is better than fulminator in this deck
Yeah , I have 2 sieges in by board and it's been pretty good whenever I board it in. I originally wanted something for burn but that could be used in another matchups , as there is not that much burn in my meta to need the usual 4 timely reinforcements.
I usually board it in against control and abzan , the khans mode is awesome in the grindy games , and the dragons mode even won me a game against jund when my opponent was stuck in 2 lands and couldn't kill my mentor. I'm also running 3 myth realized , so I can usually present enough threats my opponents won't have enough removal or enchantment destruction to handle them all and I manage to keep some around.
Be wary of the round clock , though , the draw and discard is very time consuming and tricky to resolve.
(And bonus points for looking awesome in foil)
Myth Realized and the manlands should be great in the matchup , just keep bridge off the board. Ghostly Prison shouldn't be a big problem if you are on the myth plan and blood moon also isn't a big problem if it doesn't lock you out. Your opponent seems to be playing more spot removal than usual though , most of the lists I've seen only run 4 helix. Discard is also tricky since most lists run some number of leylines main and the rest in the board , though if you didn't see it both games he might not have them or not boarded them in.
Also , does anyone have Patrick Chapin's decklist? I read somewhere that he was on a weird esper build with a bunch of delve cards like tasigur and even Gurmag Angler but couldn't find the decklist so not sure if it was a control build or what.
Maybe if we are really worried about affinity we can swap the hallowed fountain and the white splash and run a breeding pool for Ancient Grudge in the sideboard. Wear // Tear could be Nature's Claim wich is quite good against storm and jeskai ascendancy as well , and we don't really care about the 4 life. We loose a bit in the burn matchup without the white splash but green has some good options , not sure what would be the best.
Just some ideas , I'm not really a blue moon player.
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Visions
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Electrolyze
4 Cryptic Command
3 Mana Leak
2 Dig Through Time
3 Remand
3 Spell Snare
1 Repeal
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Batterskull
2 Blood Moon
1 Mountain
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Sulfur Falls
3 Steam Vents
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Polluted Delta
3 Vandalblast
2 Anger of the Gods
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 Negate
1 Magma Spray
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Spellskite
1 Dispel
1 Combust
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Steam Vents
4 Island
3 Mountain
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
1 Sleight of Hand
3 Treasure Cruise
1 Dig Through Time
2 Forked Bolt
1 Pillar of Flame
1 Burst Lightning
2 Electrolyze
2 Mana Leak
3 Remand
2 Spell Snare
2 Vapor Snag
2 Spell Pierce
2 Combust
2 Smash to Smithereens
1 Counterflux
1 Negate
1 Pillar of Flame
1 Electrickery
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Twisted Image
1 Spellskite
After some testing I decided to play the Snapcaster/counters version. Not saying it’s definitely better but I think it has better matchups now that all the decks have adapted into TC , also fits my playstyle better . Still need to experiment with the mix of TC/DTT , probably 3 TC 1 DTT is not the best. Sideboard was also a bit weird since the metagame was a bit different from what I expected.
Game 1: 2-1 vs UWR Delver
Not sure what list he was on , he had delver and pyro but I didn’t get to see any swiftspears or geists. Also had colonnade. Game 1 he flooded , game 2 I got stuck on 1 land , game 3 I landed a turn 1 delver that he had to path which put me quite ahead and I managed to get an early pyro and counter his stuff.
Game 2: 2-0 vs UR Delver
He was on the 4 swiftspear list , didn’t get to see any snapcasters. Game 1 we both played our early threads but I managed to remand his cruise and play mine which just put me ahead. Game 2 he got stuck on 2 island and I managed to protect a turn 1 delver until he was in burn range.
Game 3: 2-1 vs RW Burn w/ Treasure Cruise
His draws were just too good for me to race game 1 , games 2 and 3 Young Pyromancer just took away the game. The card is insane in the matchup if they don't kill them instantly. Also remanding TC is awesome when you're opponent can't do anything about it. Felt very lucky to win as I had no specific sideboard for this , just boarded in a bunch of counterspells.
Game 4: 2-0 vs Scapeshift
Game 1 was the good old turn 1 delver into remand , remand , remand , bolt+snap+bolt. Pretty easy. Sideboarding was +1 Negate +1 Counterflux +2 Spell Pierce +2 Blood Moon , not sure what went out. Game 2 went really slow as I was more interested in being reactive and stopping him , got him down to 7 but he managed to kill my threads and we played draw-go for a while. He ended up misplaying badly , Mana Leak was the only counter in my hand and he had Scapeshift , Izzet Charm and Remand with 10 lands in play. He cast spaceshift , I leaked it (wich is why you never concede in those spots) , he charmed it , I paid the 2 mana , he remanded my leak and I just played it again , with him having only 2 mana left. Not sure why he went with that instead of paying the 3 mana or remanding his own scapeshift or izzet charm. He had no cards left and I managed to find a busrt lightning and a bolt with a DTT. The more controlling version feels better in this matchup as Swiftspear gets chumped by Tribe Elder and Snapcasters and they just win if you don't kill them before they get to 7 lands.
Pretty satisfied with this list , still need more testing though. Also need to get the cards for my sideboard as I just used what I had around. Suggestions that don’t include “just play the aggro version” are welcome.