MTG Salvation

Played an IQ yesterday, here goes my attempt at a tourney report (from memory)



-- Rd 1 -- vs Bant Eldrazi (L, 0-2)

Game 1: He turn 2 Spellskite, turn 3 Engineered Explosives, turn 4 Thought-Knot Seer --- GAME

Game 2: I am aggressive as all sin, playing a Swiftspear into Swiftspear Bolt your face plus Mutagenic. He stabilizes at 5 life with Spellskite, rips EE off the top, and that's game.

Sideboard plan: Out: 2x Mutagenic, 3x Become Immense, 1x TBR. In: 2x PtE, 1x Dismember, 1x Ancient Grudge, 1x Duress, 1x Hooting Mandrills (this plan was probably way wrong)

-- Rd 2 -- vs Jeskai Control (L, 0-2)

Game 1: We trade creatures for removal -- I am conservative with my life total and get him low and he just Nahiri, kills my guy, Snap Path my guy, and takes control

Game 2: We again trade creatures for removal until he burns me out.

Sideboard Plan: Out: 3x Become Immense, 2x Bolt, 1x TBR. In: 3x Hooting Mandrills, 1x Duress, 1x IoK, 1x Forest

------I am feeling rather hungry and annoyed right now, mainly because I get a strong sense that I am playing somewhat loosely, though aggression has led to the most success with this deck, and I want opponents to play afraid (a feeling, perhaps, coming from my Twin days). -----


-- Rd 3 -- vs Dredge (L,1-2)

Game 1: he Turn 4's me. I developed my board but unfortunately ripped a couple of Thoughtseizes which was annoyingly inopportune.

Game 2: He leads with Leyline of the Void, rendering the Become Immense in my hand useless. I lead with Grafdigger's Cage and proceed to beat down.

Game 3: I had him down to 3 life with a bolt in hand and he...he...he, uh... flashes back Gnaw to the Bone for 22 life. 22. Life. I lose.

Sideboard plan: In: 2x Grafdigger's Cage, 2x Path to Exile. Out: 3x Thoughtsieze, 1x Mutagenic Growth.

-----Brutal. I am 0-3 and can't see why. I feel like I'm playing fine, and my draws have been satisfactory. And this point I am considering trading into Suicide Bloo, not because I feel it's better, but dammit what is going on here -----

Rd 4: Kid with a brew. (W, 2-0)

I destroy him. I 2-0 him in probably 7 minutes. He missed a ton of triggers, and in game 2 died to his Bitterblossom.

Sideboard Plan (none)


Rd 5: Dredge (W, 2-0)

Game 1: I get a Death's Shadow out t2, and t3 him (Aggressive as all hell here with my life total -- I was going for it!).

Game 2: He can't seem to locate a Faithless Looting or a Cathartic Reunion. I t1 Grafdigger's cage him and Drew 3x Death's Shadow. Easy win in spite of him Gnawing to the Bone for 12 life.

Sidebord Plan: out: 3x Thouthseize, 1x Become Immense. In: 2x Pte, 2x Grafdigger's Cage.

I dropped. Final tally was 2-3 (1-3 versus real decks).

Overall, the deck felt good. Goyf may be unnecessary, given that it sets up strange situations with Become Immense and also costs a lot of money for middling returns. I am considering trading mine and running this creature build:

4x Death's Shadow
4x Wild Nacatl
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Street Wraith
3x Kiln Fiend

For that matter, Nacatl also makes mana kind of wonky. I get that he's great, but given what we are trying to do, I am having faint doubts. If Goblin Guide is reprinted, I would try this build for the hell of it.

4x Goblin Guide
4x Monastery Swiftspear
4x Death's Shadow
4x Street Wraith
3x Kiln Fiend

Haste seems great in this deck, as does prowess, and honestly I am excited to try to keep messing with it.

Certain facts must be established from my experiences.

1. Death's Shadow is busted.

2. Mutagenic Growth + Death's Shadow is nutty.

3. Thoughtseize is a must.

4. Wild Nacatl can beat down well, but he doesn't excel in any match-up outside of infect. His best work of my night came in trading with Prize Amalgams...

5. Grafdigger's Cage should be in the sideboard if Chord decks persist, and probably should come in against Snapcaster deck.

6. Bolt does good work, too, and coupling bolt with Swiftspears leads to some nice turns.

7. Bant Eldrazi is a horrendous match-up, and I think the sideboard should have many slots geared to combat it, specifically.

8. Deck is fun, but tiring to play. I slept not soon after coming home and my wife was surprised.

Everything in this deck feels absolutely great. The problem comes in what I see as divergent goals of the creatures. Steppe Lynx has landfall. Wild Nacatl necessities 3 colors. Death's Shadow requires lifeloss. Swiftspear requires proactive instants/sorceries. And Goyf requires a diverse graveyard. If the deck can operate on only two of these axis, rather than all 5, I am somewhat optimistic that consistency and resiliency can improve. (Suicide Bloo proves that if you just focus on prowess-type effects, you can wreck face).

Curious as to what you all think.

Lost to worship twice tonight --- once against Bant Eldrazi, once against a Kiki-Chord-Evolution deck.

I run a Standard BRGW list, 2 Lynx, 1x Goyf

Match 1 -- Jeskai Dragons brew

G1, t3 Death's Shadow with TBR for the win

Sideboarded in Forest, 2 Discard --- sideboard out 2x Bolt, 1x Street Wraith

For g2, I Thoughtseize his Path and land two Death's Shadow on t2. t3 he attempts to Snap path one of my Shadows and then block the other. In response I Dismember his Snap and TBR for the win.

Match 2 -- Bant Eldrazi
He lands a Displacer and Displaces all my attackers and then Displaces my last creature for a t4 win.

Sideboarded in Forest, 2x Dismember, Artifact hate, sideboard out 4x Mutagenic Growth, 1x Gitaxian Probe

He Paths my guy then lands t3 Worship -- I scoop


Match 3 -- Kiki-Chord Evolution Deck

G1 -- He Paths my guy and kills me with Kiki on a Voice token ( I kept a sketchy-ish hand)

Sideboarded in 1 Forest, 2 Dismember, 2 Artifact Hate, sideboarded out 4 Bauble, 1 Mutagenic

G2 -- We trade cards and build up boards until he lands a t5 Worship.

Match 4 -- Bogles

G1 I kill him t3

Sideboarded out 2x Bolt, Sideboarded in 2x IoK

G2 He paths my guys and kills me with an Dryad Arbor wearing 3+ Enchantments

G3 I Swing for 36 from 1 life and bring him to 2 life (He blocks with an 8/10 life-linking Kor Spiritdancer, gaining 8 and eating 8 damage with the umbra falling off).

Overall FNM record of 1-3. Pretty frustrated. I felt I kept decent hands all around and played fairly tight. No egregious errors, except maybe slow rolling a little against that Kiki deck.

Plan for now is to buy a couple (3?) of the new Fragmentize.

Cheers.

This is my take --- my meta has a lot of removal heavy or creature heavy decks --- Thinking about moving to 4 Apostle's Blessing as it can double at granting unblock-ability.

I regularly 2-2 FNM and sometimes 3-1 --- my difficulty is getting overzealous and moving in too fast for the kill.

Pile A -- 4x Mishra's Bauble

Pile B -- 2x Birds of Paradise (M11), 3x Knight of the Reliquary, 1x Voice of Resurgence, 1x Scavenging Ooze, 1x Wooded Foothills (KTK)

Thank you all.

NOTE --- My sideboarding is based on my own experiences and my LGS Meta: lots of Jund, Nahiri, and flavor of the week combo (was Dredge, now Scapeshift) -- I am unsure if it's optimal ---

The Infect matchup is a toss-up --- board out Mutagenics and board in removal/IOK and race. Take care to keep track of fetchlands to avoid Dryad Arbor blow-outs. Our creatures' are stronger than theirs, and they generally have only one threat on the board, so we can blow them out at any point.
---Prioritize Blighted Agent and their counter-spells with discard -- their only removal option (Dismember) advances our own game-plan and therefore it's a good idea to make an effort to stick two threats and force them into a tough spot.

Affinity I believe we a favored -- their creatures are dinky and they don't have a lot of ways to kill our creatures. A TBR on a Death's Shadow is usually game-over.
--- Board out Mutagenics and a couple cyclers, board in anti-artifact cards and removal (Pyroclasm).

Jund is fairly hard -- As a lightening bolt deck they can burn you out from 8 health or so quickly. Prioritize hands with multiple threats and take care to not carelessly play pumps/TBR into open mana for the 2 for 1.
---I board out 3x discard, 2x Become Immense, 4x mutagenic for 3x Lingering souls, 2x Hooting Mandrills,2x Path to Exile, 1x Traverse the Ulvenwald, and 1x Forest (to help cast Lingering Souls)

For reference, my sideboard is:

3x Lingering Souls
2x Hooting Mandrills
2x Path
2x Pyroclasm
1x Dismember
1x Stony Silence
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Natural State
1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
1x Forest

Candidly speaking I moved from Infect to Death's Shadow and now have both decks. I think Death's Shadow is the overall stronger of the two. However, it (Death's Shadow) is fairly complicated to play ( I have a bad habit of getting burned out by Bolt decks from 7-8 life on turn 3-4 or improperly sequencing interaction). I get frustrated with the deck sometimes as there are a lot more nonsense hands ( 1 Steppe Lynx, 1 Death's Shadow, 2 TBR, 1 Mutagenic, 1 Wooded Foothills, I Thoughtseize) than you would experience with Infect. Sometimes I feel the deck is trying to do to much all at once, being a fast-aggro/combo four-color deck with a black win-con creature, green and red combat tricks, and white sideboard cards. The manabase is difficult to manage, particularly when you couple a card like Wild Nacatl with a card like Thoughtseize. It is, however, FUN and rewarding and I'd recommend it to anyone with a lot of patience and the will to take a good many licks.

One thing I really like about Death's Shadow in comparison to Infect is that match-ups against creature-based decks are a lot easier with stronger, bigger, and more resilient threats. A sequence of Wild Nacatl into Thoughtseize and Death's Shadow is hard for most of these decks to overcome

The Death and Taxes match-up is actually really difficult in my experience -- before Death's Shadow became a known entity they didn't know how to play against us. Now, in my experience, they prioritize attacking our fragile manabase (I've had my T1 land Ghost Quartered many times) and follow it up with slow beatdowns. Still unsure how to sideboard against them.

Cheers.

Quote from gsethi999 »

I'm also wondering, how would you guys sideboard against the RG zoo deck?

We are generally the better zoo deck. If they curve out then there's nothing we can do, and it seems like you just faced God draws.

I run stock list with 2x Kird Ape and 1x Goyf and in this match-up, I take out 2x Become Immense, 2x Git Probe, 2x Bauble and add 2x Mandrills, 2x PtE, 2x Lightning Helix ( my meta is fairly aggressive with lots of bolt decks and tribal decks).

Not sure if this is correct, but cheers.

Struggled at FNM tonight, went 1-3 with some ill luck and such.

I'm sure this has been asked, already, but I would like some feedback on ways to beat Jeskai Nahiri. The combination of Mana Leak + cheap removal has so far been difficult to overcome.

I play a pretty standard list (flex creatures are 2x Kird Ape and 1x Goyf). Against Jeskai, I brought in from my sideboard 2x Hooting Mandrills, 1x IoK, 1x Duress and 1x Traverse the Ulvenwald -- I took out 3x Become Immense and 2x Mutagenic Growth. I'm unsure if this is the right strategy.

For reference, my sideboard tonight:

2x Hooting Mandrills
2x Dismember
2x Pyroclasm
1x Lightning Helix
1x Path
1x Stony Silence
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Natural State
1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
1x IoK
1x Duress
1x Forest

Hi all,

I'm a modern player looking to move into standard (I have 3 modern decks and enough staples to trade into others and whatnot).

In modern I have Death's Shadow Zoo, Elves, and UR Delver -- I like these strategies but am open to trying anything.

I would like suggestions on a deck that has enough non-rotating staples that I'll be set-up all-right for when Kaladesh comes out.

My current standard staples are 2x Declaration in Stone and a few of the SoI duals.

Thank you.

I impulse bought a box thinking they'd sell out and it's my only chance and blah blah:

Tarmogoyf
Emrakul
Bitterblossom
Cryptic Command
Noble Hierarch
Wilt-Leaf
Blinkmoth Nexus
Creakwood
Etched Champion
Remand
Smash to Smithereens Foil

Overall am happy. Fun experience and I managed to get some good cards.