How to SB???
How do I sideboard against all these decks? Everyone's been saying D&T is a metadeck, but what does that mean?
Lately we've seen the rise of and .
Yet we still have to fight all these other decks. Feeling overwhelmed?
Perhaps.
Perhaps, you think you can manage it?
If not, that's quite alright. That's what we're here to talk about it. Because the thing is, no two sideboards like exactly the same. I always rant about how we're a metadeck. That means we attack the most played (top tier) decks in the format. Now we try to have decent matchups against every deck either through the main deck or sideboard (like any competitive deck). I'm a strong believer in looking at every card in your deck and thinking about what MUs the card shines in. If it's not enough MUs, then you have to strongly considering cutting the card. There are some cards like spellskite that might go MD or SB depending on your list. Having cards like these MD means that you free up room in your SB. These kinds of cards should be put main deck if they're good against a lot of decks and would otherwise come in from your board a lot. However, sometimes mirran crusader might just go main deck because you expect to see a lot of GBx decks at your next tournament. If that's the case and you end up being correct, then it's likely that your gamble will pay off, but it is a risk because there's no real way to be completely confident in your assumptions. Making decisions like these can really help your chances against the field. A great place to start is looking at different decks percentages in meta. Perhaps your just sick of losing game 1 to Jund. It's not that unreasonable to include some MD mirran crusaders if that's the case since he's still a 2/2 double strike even if your opponent isn't on GBx. But be careful not to dilute your gameplan or overdo it with cards that are great in the board, but simply wouldn't be worth it in other MUs.
But some decks are just hard to beat game one with some things that just run over you. These kind of decks demand silver bullets. Now you can just jam 4 of both of those cards in your board, but then other MUS might become much harder. That's why it can be wise to do one of two things:
1. you can put less powerful but more well versatile cards. The classic example of burrenton forge-tender vs kor firewalker comes to mind.
2. Make your mainboard better against these kinds of decks so you don't need 4 ofs in your board. Perhaps you're running BW and you have 2 basic swamp slots. It might be wise to take one out and put in a bojuka bog. Additionally, you can put cards that are pretty good well rounded answers in your deck. For instance, it turns out blade splicer can help you fight off those prized amalgams. I alluded to this earlier with spellskite as that card has a lot of game against a lot of decks. It's difficult to find something else that can be that good against burn, jund, and infect all at the same time. Because otherwise you may find yourself going overboard for certain matchups and sacrificing your game for others. You might beat dredge every time if you had 4 rips, but maybe you had to take out all those burn slots and burn is beating you silly. If you feel confident enough for a matchup that you don't think you need anything for it, then that's a good realization, but I will warn you to think long and hard about this and test it to make sure that you can still beat your opponent even after they board in cards meant to beat you and you just don't have anything to bring in for them. This is an exaggerated version of how your SB works though. Every time you cut one card for another you change how you fight against certain decks and probably, consequentially, your win percentages.
A place that I like to start it is to have ~3 slots that you can bring in against any deck that you feel you are likely to run into.
Let's try something like this:
3 anti graveyard slots
3 anti burn slots,
3 anti artifact/enchantment slots (I'm really talking about affinity here),
3 anti combo slots,
3 anti control (the grindy matches) slots,
and some good catch alls or +1s for the harder MUs.
The catch all slots might be something like engineered explosives, ratchet bomb, or surgical extraction. I really like a lot of these kind of slots because they hit multiple matchups and they really are the "maybe not the best card per deck, but hits a lot of decks" kind of slots and this whole mentality is something I live by and consequentially complicates how we make our sideboards since they can help fill other slots. For instance, EE can hit an aggro deck decently hard, can hit affinity, and tokens. Surgical might hit a tron land, a combo piece, or a control deck trying to flash something back with snapcaster mage, or hit those prized amalgams. You can also put stuff here that are just the acknowledgement of brew decks. It's why I like hibernation and echoing truth when I play WU.
* For anti burn, the only real slot I'd recommend moving to the main is spellskite. It turns out we can have decent game against them with our mana denial. Your real options otherwise include burrenton forge-tender and kor firewalker. The former along with sun lance and mark of asylum win the *hit multiple decks* award while firewalker really is the silver bullet here.
* For aggro, we have ghostly prison, worship, sunlance, and dismember among others. A lot of these slots can be pretty flexible. For instance, catmix feels good enough with his BW list to run ghostly as his anti affinity slot too because his main has enough tools where he feels comfortable without stony silence. Aggro is a broad thing so it's hard to have a silver bullet, but lots of these cards can hit multiple decks. A card to try main if you're on BW might be orzhov pontiff or wasteland strangler. For WU reflector mage can be surprisingly good. Otherwise you're stuck with blade splicer or kitchen finks.
NOTE: As mentioned before, engineered explosives and ratchet bomb can come in. A good to card an all-in creature you couldn't otherwise kill can also be blessed alliance.
* For your grindy matches, it can really depend. The main two kinds of decks I'll focus on here are RUx and GBx. As mentioned burrenton forge-tender and mark of asylum can both be good if you're worried about your creatures being burned dead. mirran crusader can be good here. Also some GY hate may find its way here. If you want to keep stuff in your hand you might consider leyline of sanctity or you can try loxodon smiter if you're in GW. Some popular options otherwise are swords of X/Y or walkers as both of these can provide a lot of value. Some main deck cards to consider here are ways to get you CA. I don't leave home without at least 2 horizon canopy (bonus points for EE!). You can also give sea gate wreckage a shot. UW gets moorland haunt. GW gets gavony township. BW gets vault of the archangel. RW gets slayers' stronghold. All of these kinds of lands have unique pros, but tend to keep you in the game longer and can turn otherwise dead or useless creatures into something more. manlands also help make your topdecks better as they still produce mana early on, but can help you out later and turn into a threat. Essentially, you want value cards here (Some of you might be hurt if I didn't include lingering souls here). I'd also like to note that celestial purge tends to hit most of these decks troublesome permanents. Also, cards that are hard to kill/ bring lots of value are worth considering putting in your deck if these guys are giving you trouble. Some good value cards might include courser of kruphix and collected company in GW, Pia and Kiran Nalaar in RW, and Ephara, God of the Polis in UW.
* For your GY decks, it's pretty straightforward. Our options are: rest in peace, relic of progenitus, and surgical extraction. Rip is obviously the strongest of these and I'm fairly well convinced that most versions of our deck out to run at least 2 somewhere unless you have something real going on with your yard. If so you might try relic. Otherwise, I'd recommend rip. It just shuts down something like dredge so well and even comes in against something like Jund and junk. That's too many decks to ignore. Surgical is versatile as I mentioned before. Some main deck cards you could try are bojuka bog (in BW), scavenging ooze (in GW), or Jötun Grunt. Relic has also seen play in some of our lists and its cantrip can be quite useful. Plus it fuels those wasteland stranglers if that's your prerogative.
* For affinity our most common choices are stony silence and kataki, war's wage. Both of these do a pretty good job. Stony hits harder, but kataki has legs. It depends what you need. BW probably has the most game preboard here since they have access to extra removal. Some cards to note here are lingering souls (it can block everything they have and usually profitably so), phyrexian revoker (shutting down the right piece of their deck can be brutal), and even fiend hunter. Some more well rounded but perhaps not strong enough removal pieces here might be disenchant or sundering growth. These both hit enchantments too though. That's worth considering if you're having trouble with those.
NOTE: As mentioned before, engineered explosives and ratchet bomb can come in.
* Combo decks come in a lot of shapes and sizes. Depending on how you cut it, tron and valakut decks might both be combo. Infect might be too. Oh and don't forget about ad nauseam or storm. How could I forget about Lantern? Well that's a heck of a list to all be lumped together and that's probably not even all of them... You might want your paths real bad, but then again you might not. What do they have in common? Well, again, we want spellskite and it turns out Thalia, guardian of thraben hits em all decently well. That and discard. But you might want to try different 1 drops to deal with them accordingly. Icatian Javelineers might suit your fancy since it shoots their dorks before they go off. Or perhaps Dryad Militant is needed to exile their spells. Then again judge's familiar could keep your hate piece alive long enough to matter. Or different still, you might not want a 1 drop. Since it's so broad, this category kind of ends up being lumped with the miscellaneous one, but if you're seeing a lot of these decks, you probably want those main deck skites, 4 thalias (or other Thalia might help too!), and if you're feeling adventurous, you could try vryn wingmare to double up on your taxes, or eidolon of rhetoric if you're having a real hard time, or perhaps magus of the moon if you're on RW.
As seen above, I once counted decks like valakut and tron as combo decks and while I don't think that's wrong, I've decided to add a new section:
Big Mana Decks.
Here, I will be including Tron (all splashes), Eldrazi Tron, Valakut (both primeval titan through the breach and scapeshift variants), and Bant Eldrazi.
The number one best maindeck card I've found to be here is Thalia, heretic cathar. The earlier she comes down, the better. Cards like Leonin arbiter and or thalia, guardian of thraben can do some serious work here, depending on which deck you're facing, but Big Thalia seems to do her work very well across the board (yes amulet of vigor and or removal can get around her, but that's about it). She enables us to beat face while our opponents plays are significantly slowed. All of these decks run lots of nonbasic lands and try to cheat out their unfair cards with it when you're not ready. Even an early Thought-knot seer can be back-breaking. We should be a more prepared deck to deal with these at their root (at their mana) since we have lots of mana denial tactics in our deck, but it's not always that easy. That's why some people will push these parts of their decks by running cards like MD Big Thalia or even renegade rallier in GW to reoccur more LD. WU gets some interesting SB options like ceremonious rejection which hits about half of the above mentioned big mana decks hard. WR gets the obvious choice of magus of the moon because blood mooning these decks can often prove to just end the game. BW gets hand disruption and the possible unfair permanent removal in the form of the WOMBO-COMBO. All of these decks can bring in cards like crucible of worlds if they feel they have enough time for it to work, or the possible gotcha play with surgical extraction + valakut or a tron piece. Some other options, depending on which deck you're facing might be stony silence (to shut off those early expedition maps or even those later batterskulls) or Worship which prevents Bant Eldrazi from winning period (they often have no way around it outside of TKSing it out of your hand).
There are also a lot of plays which just have to be done to win against these decks which might not be obvious when one first puts their hands on the deck. I'm talking about stuff like flickerwisping away a tron piece at the end of your turn, or aggressively taking bant eldrazi off a color (or colorless!), or how Thalia stops tron from player karn on T3 even if they have natural tron. BASIC CHECK PEOPLE OFTEN (many decks only run three or so basics and some run less!).
Finally, one thing to look at is, how do these decks beat us when we stop them from getting their unfair mana so quickly? Well, they do what any reasonable deck in that position would do, they try to sweep our board. For these reasons, selfless spirit can actually be a bit of a sleeper here.
I'd like to note that it can be a bit difficult to define certain decks as well as certain cards as being in one category or the other. I'm aware there's a lot of overlap here in the sense that say lantern only really beats you with one card even though it does grind you ought. Equally, burn and affinity are both aggro decks, but they earned their own slots since siding for one or the other can be quite different than it might be for say zoo. Don't be afraid to correct me if you disagree with my assessment. We can give more decks their own categories if people would like to add/ correct information they think is missing/ wrong here.
All in all, I'd say, try to make your mainboard hate out those top tier decks without diluting your deck. Make sure you have enough hate slots for the decks that give you trouble, but try not to overdo it! Yes dredge and affinity are the boogeymen out there in the night, but we CAN beat them with a little help from our friends. It's all about the balance.
I hope this write up was helpful! As always, if you guys have any questions, comments, or anything, feel free to hit me up. Get out there and get taxing!
EDIT: formatting is haaard
How do I sideboard against all these decks? Everyone's been saying D&T is a metadeck, but what does that mean?
Lately we've seen the rise of and .
Yet we still have to fight all these other decks. Feeling overwhelmed?
Perhaps.
Perhaps, you think you can manage it?
If not, that's quite alright. That's what we're here to talk about it. Because the thing is, no two sideboards like exactly the same. I always rant about how we're a metadeck. That means we attack the most played (top tier) decks in the format. Now we try to have decent matchups against every deck either through the main deck or sideboard (like any competitive deck). I'm a strong believer in looking at every card in your deck and thinking about what MUs the card shines in. If it's not enough MUs, then you have to strongly considering cutting the card. There are some cards like spellskite that might go MD or SB depending on your list. Having cards like these MD means that you free up room in your SB. These kinds of cards should be put main deck if they're good against a lot of decks and would otherwise come in from your board a lot. However, sometimes mirran crusader might just go main deck because you expect to see a lot of GBx decks at your next tournament. If that's the case and you end up being correct, then it's likely that your gamble will pay off, but it is a risk because there's no real way to be completely confident in your assumptions. Making decisions like these can really help your chances against the field. A great place to start is looking at different decks percentages in meta. Perhaps your just sick of losing game 1 to Jund. It's not that unreasonable to include some MD mirran crusaders if that's the case since he's still a 2/2 double strike even if your opponent isn't on GBx. But be careful not to dilute your gameplan or overdo it with cards that are great in the board, but simply wouldn't be worth it in other MUs.
But some decks are just hard to beat game one with some things that just run over you. These kind of decks demand silver bullets. Now you can just jam 4 of both of those cards in your board, but then other MUS might become much harder. That's why it can be wise to do one of two things:
1. you can put less powerful but more well versatile cards. The classic example of burrenton forge-tender vs kor firewalker comes to mind.
2. Make your mainboard better against these kinds of decks so you don't need 4 ofs in your board. Perhaps you're running BW and you have 2 basic swamp slots. It might be wise to take one out and put in a bojuka bog. Additionally, you can put cards that are pretty good well rounded answers in your deck. For instance, it turns out blade splicer can help you fight off those prized amalgams. I alluded to this earlier with spellskite as that card has a lot of game against a lot of decks. It's difficult to find something else that can be that good against burn, jund, and infect all at the same time. Because otherwise you may find yourself going overboard for certain matchups and sacrificing your game for others. You might beat dredge every time if you had 4 rips, but maybe you had to take out all those burn slots and burn is beating you silly. If you feel confident enough for a matchup that you don't think you need anything for it, then that's a good realization, but I will warn you to think long and hard about this and test it to make sure that you can still beat your opponent even after they board in cards meant to beat you and you just don't have anything to bring in for them. This is an exaggerated version of how your SB works though. Every time you cut one card for another you change how you fight against certain decks and probably, consequentially, your win percentages.
A place that I like to start it is to have ~3 slots that you can bring in against any deck that you feel you are likely to run into.
Let's try something like this:
3 anti graveyard slots
3 anti burn slots,
3 anti artifact/enchantment slots (I'm really talking about affinity here),
3 anti combo slots,
3 anti control (the grindy matches) slots,
and some good catch alls or +1s for the harder MUs.
The catch all slots might be something like engineered explosives, ratchet bomb, or surgical extraction. I really like a lot of these kind of slots because they hit multiple matchups and they really are the "maybe not the best card per deck, but hits a lot of decks" kind of slots and this whole mentality is something I live by and consequentially complicates how we make our sideboards since they can help fill other slots. For instance, EE can hit an aggro deck decently hard, can hit affinity, and tokens. Surgical might hit a tron land, a combo piece, or a control deck trying to flash something back with snapcaster mage, or hit those prized amalgams. You can also put stuff here that are just the acknowledgement of brew decks. It's why I like hibernation and echoing truth when I play WU.
* For anti burn, the only real slot I'd recommend moving to the main is spellskite. It turns out we can have decent game against them with our mana denial. Your real options otherwise include burrenton forge-tender and kor firewalker. The former along with sun lance and mark of asylum win the *hit multiple decks* award while firewalker really is the silver bullet here.
* For aggro, we have ghostly prison, worship, sunlance, and dismember among others. A lot of these slots can be pretty flexible. For instance, catmix feels good enough with his BW list to run ghostly as his anti affinity slot too because his main has enough tools where he feels comfortable without stony silence. Aggro is a broad thing so it's hard to have a silver bullet, but lots of these cards can hit multiple decks. A card to try main if you're on BW might be orzhov pontiff or wasteland strangler. For WU reflector mage can be surprisingly good. Otherwise you're stuck with blade splicer or kitchen finks.
NOTE: As mentioned before, engineered explosives and ratchet bomb can come in. A good to card an all-in creature you couldn't otherwise kill can also be blessed alliance.
* For your grindy matches, it can really depend. The main two kinds of decks I'll focus on here are RUx and GBx. As mentioned burrenton forge-tender and mark of asylum can both be good if you're worried about your creatures being burned dead. mirran crusader can be good here. Also some GY hate may find its way here. If you want to keep stuff in your hand you might consider leyline of sanctity or you can try loxodon smiter if you're in GW. Some popular options otherwise are swords of X/Y or walkers as both of these can provide a lot of value. Some main deck cards to consider here are ways to get you CA. I don't leave home without at least 2 horizon canopy (bonus points for EE!). You can also give sea gate wreckage a shot. UW gets moorland haunt. GW gets gavony township. BW gets vault of the archangel. RW gets slayers' stronghold. All of these kinds of lands have unique pros, but tend to keep you in the game longer and can turn otherwise dead or useless creatures into something more. manlands also help make your topdecks better as they still produce mana early on, but can help you out later and turn into a threat. Essentially, you want value cards here (Some of you might be hurt if I didn't include lingering souls here). I'd also like to note that celestial purge tends to hit most of these decks troublesome permanents. Also, cards that are hard to kill/ bring lots of value are worth considering putting in your deck if these guys are giving you trouble. Some good value cards might include courser of kruphix and collected company in GW, Pia and Kiran Nalaar in RW, and Ephara, God of the Polis in UW.
* For your GY decks, it's pretty straightforward. Our options are: rest in peace, relic of progenitus, and surgical extraction. Rip is obviously the strongest of these and I'm fairly well convinced that most versions of our deck out to run at least 2 somewhere unless you have something real going on with your yard. If so you might try relic. Otherwise, I'd recommend rip. It just shuts down something like dredge so well and even comes in against something like Jund and junk. That's too many decks to ignore. Surgical is versatile as I mentioned before. Some main deck cards you could try are bojuka bog (in BW), scavenging ooze (in GW), or Jötun Grunt. Relic has also seen play in some of our lists and its cantrip can be quite useful. Plus it fuels those wasteland stranglers if that's your prerogative.
* For affinity our most common choices are stony silence and kataki, war's wage. Both of these do a pretty good job. Stony hits harder, but kataki has legs. It depends what you need. BW probably has the most game preboard here since they have access to extra removal. Some cards to note here are lingering souls (it can block everything they have and usually profitably so), phyrexian revoker (shutting down the right piece of their deck can be brutal), and even fiend hunter. Some more well rounded but perhaps not strong enough removal pieces here might be disenchant or sundering growth. These both hit enchantments too though. That's worth considering if you're having trouble with those.
NOTE: As mentioned before, engineered explosives and ratchet bomb can come in.
* Combo decks come in a lot of shapes and sizes. Depending on how you cut it, tron and valakut decks might both be combo. Infect might be too. Oh and don't forget about ad nauseam or storm. How could I forget about Lantern? Well that's a heck of a list to all be lumped together and that's probably not even all of them... You might want your paths real bad, but then again you might not. What do they have in common? Well, again, we want spellskite and it turns out Thalia, guardian of thraben hits em all decently well. That and discard. But you might want to try different 1 drops to deal with them accordingly. Icatian Javelineers might suit your fancy since it shoots their dorks before they go off. Or perhaps Dryad Militant is needed to exile their spells. Then again judge's familiar could keep your hate piece alive long enough to matter. Or different still, you might not want a 1 drop. Since it's so broad, this category kind of ends up being lumped with the miscellaneous one, but if you're seeing a lot of these decks, you probably want those main deck skites, 4 thalias (or other Thalia might help too!), and if you're feeling adventurous, you could try vryn wingmare to double up on your taxes, or eidolon of rhetoric if you're having a real hard time, or perhaps magus of the moon if you're on RW.
As seen above, I once counted decks like valakut and tron as combo decks and while I don't think that's wrong, I've decided to add a new section:
Big Mana Decks.
Here, I will be including Tron (all splashes), Eldrazi Tron, Valakut (both primeval titan through the breach and scapeshift variants), and Bant Eldrazi.
The number one best maindeck card I've found to be here is Thalia, heretic cathar. The earlier she comes down, the better. Cards like Leonin arbiter and or thalia, guardian of thraben can do some serious work here, depending on which deck you're facing, but Big Thalia seems to do her work very well across the board (yes amulet of vigor and or removal can get around her, but that's about it). She enables us to beat face while our opponents plays are significantly slowed. All of these decks run lots of nonbasic lands and try to cheat out their unfair cards with it when you're not ready. Even an early Thought-knot seer can be back-breaking. We should be a more prepared deck to deal with these at their root (at their mana) since we have lots of mana denial tactics in our deck, but it's not always that easy. That's why some people will push these parts of their decks by running cards like MD Big Thalia or even renegade rallier in GW to reoccur more LD. WU gets some interesting SB options like ceremonious rejection which hits about half of the above mentioned big mana decks hard. WR gets the obvious choice of magus of the moon because blood mooning these decks can often prove to just end the game. BW gets hand disruption and the possible unfair permanent removal in the form of the WOMBO-COMBO. All of these decks can bring in cards like crucible of worlds if they feel they have enough time for it to work, or the possible gotcha play with surgical extraction + valakut or a tron piece. Some other options, depending on which deck you're facing might be stony silence (to shut off those early expedition maps or even those later batterskulls) or Worship which prevents Bant Eldrazi from winning period (they often have no way around it outside of TKSing it out of your hand).
There are also a lot of plays which just have to be done to win against these decks which might not be obvious when one first puts their hands on the deck. I'm talking about stuff like flickerwisping away a tron piece at the end of your turn, or aggressively taking bant eldrazi off a color (or colorless!), or how Thalia stops tron from player karn on T3 even if they have natural tron. BASIC CHECK PEOPLE OFTEN (many decks only run three or so basics and some run less!).
Finally, one thing to look at is, how do these decks beat us when we stop them from getting their unfair mana so quickly? Well, they do what any reasonable deck in that position would do, they try to sweep our board. For these reasons, selfless spirit can actually be a bit of a sleeper here.
I'd like to note that it can be a bit difficult to define certain decks as well as certain cards as being in one category or the other. I'm aware there's a lot of overlap here in the sense that say lantern only really beats you with one card even though it does grind you ought. Equally, burn and affinity are both aggro decks, but they earned their own slots since siding for one or the other can be quite different than it might be for say zoo. Don't be afraid to correct me if you disagree with my assessment. We can give more decks their own categories if people would like to add/ correct information they think is missing/ wrong here.
All in all, I'd say, try to make your mainboard hate out those top tier decks without diluting your deck. Make sure you have enough hate slots for the decks that give you trouble, but try not to overdo it! Yes dredge and affinity are the boogeymen out there in the night, but we CAN beat them with a little help from our friends. It's all about the balance.
I hope this write up was helpful! As always, if you guys have any questions, comments, or anything, feel free to hit me up. Get out there and get taxing!
EDIT: formatting is haaard
EDIT #2: I've added new decks to better reflect the current meta.
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It’s been awhile since I’ve been on the mtgsalvation forum and in that time there are a bunch of new people here. Allow me to introduce myself for those that don’t know me. I’m dsmonsta. I’ve been playing Magic on and off since the dark days of 4th edition when cards were either broken beyond belief or gimped by modern standards but didn’t play beyond kitchen table until the summer of 2015 or grixis summer as it’s lovingly referred to. This was a time when eldrazi were a punchline and splinter twin made up over ten percent of the meta. DNT has been my go to deck and modern my go to format since then. I’m a player and deckbuilder of unimpressive skill but I can craft a manabase like no one’s business. For what it’s worth I primarily play white/green or straight white. These are my areas of expertise although I’m familiar with the rest of the deck.
I wrote the original DNT manabase primer in April of 2016 and I think it still is useful but the format is much changed since then and my own views have matured as well. The original post can be found here for reference. It is based in large part on Frank Karsten’s superb article regarding manabase construction which is available here and the birds of paradise mana failure table which can be found here . READ THESE! It should be noted that Karsten’s math is more complex than the raw tables and includes a hand selection bias in the math and the tables appear to be more restrictive. This is for good reason. The raw tables are just that, raw.
In general, I like to define the threshold of success of any uncertain task that I set out on before I set out on it in order to temper my own expectations and root them in reality. This prevents me from throwing the towel prematurely if things go rougher than expected or declaring victory when it’s unearned.
1. Reliably casting our spells on the curve.
This is the most important thing that we need mana for and lands are our mana producers. Yes, we have aether vial and green splashes would be remiss to not play a set of noble hierarch but most of our spells will be cast with mana produced by lands. This does not necessarily mean that we need to hit every land drop but we depend on advancing to the middle and late portion of the games while our opponents resources are tied up and they are unable to progress a board state beyond the early game. This is more important now than ever before with a plethora of unfair and quasi-fair decks making up tier one.
2. Provide land destruction
DNT is one of the only decks in format that plays four or more lands that have a primary use that is not producing mana or getting lands that produce mana. Let us start with the obvious. Every iteration of this deck plays four ghost quarters. This is a hard and fast rule. The number of Thalias and arbiters played is flexible but ghost quarter is a four of automatically. Sadly WOTC says we have to play by the same rules as everyone else and four is the limit. Many DNT variants will run tectonic edges supplementally. This is a cornerstone of the deck.
3. Provide additional utility
Nobody likes topdecking a land when the board state is stalled and a land that just taps for mana that you already have nothing to do with is even worse. This is why we run utility lands and it’s fairly unique in format to run more than one or two of these utility lands. These range from man lands that put power on the board, dodge sweepers and can’t be countered to card draw or even stranger. We must eke every benefit possible out of our lands due to the fact we run very few non-creature spells.
This question is almost always asked regarding noble hierarch and for good reason. A first turn hierarch that survives to make mana can enable some tremendously mean plays that shift the percentage for wins in our favor. My favorite is turn two arbiter and ghost quarter but aven mindcensor and Thalia, heretic cathar are very strong as well.
To answer the question though we must know what turn we want to cast these spells on. Consulting Karsten’s tables we see that the answer for the first turn noble hierarch is 14 untapped green sources which is simple enough. Do we really need to cast hierarch on turn one though? It enables strong plays and all but is much less likely to survive until turn two than an aether vial. Every time both are in my opener I have trouble deciding which to play.
On the other hand let us say that we want to be able to cast a card that costs 1W on turn two. The same table says 13 lands are necessary for that to happen with reliability. Lately, I’ve been running a greedier manabases than previously to squeeze every bit of utility out of my cards and have the best top decks possible.
Twenty three. Probably. This has been the popular answer for much of the history of this deck in the modern format and for good reason. We sacrifice our own lands all the time and still need to draw them as vial won’t be seen in nearly half of our games.
The main exception to playing 23 lands is that green splashes have access to noble hierarch which is awesome. This is very well supported in results and 22 is the default answer for green splashses but is not by any means authoritative. I’ve personally run 23 lands in green splashes to use a set of stirring wildwood but that was before fatal push was around and I won’t be doing that at the moment. Some claim that ramp sources let us run a lower land count as they produce more mana. My response is that we still need to draw them and 22 is lower than the 26 draws that can power a green splash while only actually playing 22 lands.
Fetchlands are a staple of every format where they’re legal and for good reason. They provide outstanding reliability in manabase construction as well as deck thinning for a negligible cost in life. Any three color and most two color decks will play at least a set with up to 10 being average. We prey on this with leonin arbiter and aven mindcensor to at least steal tempo and force removal and at most lock opponents out of the game.
We can run fetchlands too and play around our own arbiter. The spider knows what part of the web is sticky. The advanatage of this aside from mana fixing is that we can turn on revolt for renegade rallier and fatal push, take advantage of deck thinning (it’s overrated by most but over the course of a few days it will matter and something is better than nothing) and fetch basics to nullify a blood moon type effect. The disadvantages are that eventually you will get caught by your own arbiter and hatebears/dnt makes up ~5% of the metagame as of this writing so it is not something to be embarked upon lightly. Have a good reason to play fetches if you choose to.
Four. Almost always and no; you won’t auto-lose to burn. You’ll give up a few percentage points against burn and decks of it’s ilk which make up ~7% of the meta as of this writing but improve your chances with almost everything else and besides, we have a solid match against burn already.
Yes. Horizon canopy is expensive (as of this writing SCG is sold out at $100) and the second line of text may as well read “1, tap, sac: draw another land.” but that’s one card closer to what will win you the game and you need a compelling reason to not run four. Here are some good reasons: “I can’t afford them.” “I’m playing a splash that isn’t green.” “My meta is nothing but burn.”
Please note that this is my opinion and it’s a fairly contentious one even among those that have contributed a great amount to this thread and also the development of the deck. I will point out that every pro player that has top eighted a GP with this deck has played a set of canopys though.
Since fatal push emerged on the scene and the meta included more and more ghost quarters I’ve had less and less luck with manlands (looking in your direction stirring wildwood) which had previously been real winners. This is in part due to the fact that spending 1GW to activate it and having it die to one mana worth of tempo in either case is bad trade when previously it survived lightning bolt and abrupt decay; the two best removal spells in format. For this reason I don’t encourage the wholesale use of more than a couple manlands unless they’re low investment types like mutavault that opponents will be less likely to spend removal on and it’s not a huge tempo loss if they do.
The Innistrad cycle utility lands are by and large great. [card[Gavony township[/card] is widely used and for very good reason as it can put a tremendous amount of power on the board. Less utilized lands are moorland haunt and slayer’s stronghold. I’d like to think that this is due to blue and red being less popular splashes. Last but not least is {card]vault of the archangel[/card] which has a tremendous amount of potential but is infrequently played due to WB eldrazi and taxes having a ridiculously tight manabase already.
The Amonkhet and Hour of Devastation cycle of desert lands are something that I think has great potential. Thread contributors and streamers extroardinare Deathandcatmix and Spiderspace have both used shefet dunes to good result on stream and I use them in Wc eldrazi and taxes but the one that I believe has the most potential is scavenger grounds as it allows non-green decks to pack graveyard hate in the main deck. Furthermore this happens at time when grave hate, especially fast and reasonably costed graveyard hate is very important in the meta. I think hashep oasis has playability. This is primarily due to the fact that it can giant growth a mirran crusader for tremendous offensive potential. Lastly, ifnir deadlands seems useable as it provides removal that is land based.
Here are some sample manabases. Each is on the conservative side.
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Are there any questions that you'd like to see addressed? So far the only one I've gotten was the inclusion of deserts which I'll be happy to oblige.
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Fwiw, these are my opinions and by no means the conventional wisdom of the hive mind. Others would suggest not siding out vial against jund citing that it allows flickerwisp to be played at instant speed. Your mileage may vary.
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Dnc, congrats on the 5-0. I caught the very end of it.
Charons & spiderspace, I really enjoyed the GW and bant streams. Think geist is good against both aggressive decks and controlling/combo decks as it doubles as deterrent and clock while requiring a sweeper to remove at parity. Would like to see room for scooze in the deck as it's at least good and often great against fair decks. Very mana hungry though.
Keep up the good work, gang.
Ps. Haven't forgotten about the infect tactica.
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I played in 10 man tourney tonight using a lightly modified spiderspace/dnc white blue list and went 3-0-1 against high quality opponents. This deck rocks! The addition of arbiters was a factor in every match and heavily so versus infect and scapeshift.
4 path to exile
4 aether vial
lands
3 adarkar wastes
3 hallowed fountain
4 seachrome coast
2 horizon canopy
4 ghost quarter
2 mutavault
1 moorland haunt
1 tectonic edge
2 plains
1 island
3 phyrexian revoker
3 spellstutter sprite
3 thalia, guardian of thraben
4 eldrazi displacer
4 flickerwisp
3 reflector mage
3 spell queller
1 vendilion clique
1 restoration angel
1 engineered explosives
2 burrenton forge-tender
2 sunlance
1 surgical extraction
2 rest in peace
2 spellskite
1 detention sphere
2 ghostly prison
1 kira, great glass-spinner
Match one was versus an opponent of significantly higher skill playing infect. I was on the draw for the first game and locked him out with arbiter and land destruction. Spellstutter sprite protected arbiter from removal. I dropped arbiters, a flickerwisp and resto for two spellskites, two sunlances and two ghostly prisons. He was able to establish a board in game two but held at bay by my ghostly prison. He untapped with a blighted agent on board and drew. I tapped out for clique to make lethal and he responded with become immense for the win. I brought the arbiters back in on the play, dropping three revokers and a flickerwisp. I was rewarded by locking him out of the game again. I have long been a fan of having arbiters on the play versus infect but not on the draw. This just further confirmed my belief.
Match two was against a player of slightly higher skill level playing jeskai nahiri. Game one was a back and forth and drawn out slug match that saw him nahiri into emrakul. I was able to use arbiter to lock him out in game two. Game three was a stalemate as we went to turns and agreed to a draw.
Match three was versus a player of moderately higher skill playing blue white control. Game one was a back and forth that saw extremely high levels of play. On one occasion I spell quellered and ojutai's command to have him attempt to remove it. I responded with spellstutter sprite which was spell snared. I vialed in thalia. My sprite was countered and queller removed but he couldn't recast ojutai's command off queller due to the thalia tax. I was able to eke out a win in game one after using spellstutter sprite on an ancestrall knowledge off suspend. Knowing the opponent and this deck, I brought in two ghostly prisons, one Kira, one sword and two rest in peace. reflector mage and eldrazi displacer were sided out He was able to cast all four supreme verdicts in game two and grind me out with collonades. I locked him out of the game with arbiters and thalia in game three.
Game four was against a lower skilled player with scapeshift. I don't know how he made it to the finals. He played scapeshift and was able to combo off after I kept a questionable hand and was mana screwed in game one. I brought in two forge tenders and a surgical extraction in game two and was able to use arbiter to lock him out completely. Game three played much the same except he cast an anger of the gods into my spell queller and then tried to bolt it only to have spellstutter sprite save the day. He didn't understand arbiter and had to have it explained why he couldn't search on more than one occasion.
My impressions are as follows on mvps and cards that didn't pull their weight.
-Arbiter was fantastic and is the definite mvp tonight. Those that are in favor of playing revoker in place of arbiter should try playing them side by side.
-Revoker was a factor in almost half of the games I played. He turned off noble hierarch, nahiri, elspeth, and sakura tribe elder.
-Thalia performed better than ever with protection from sprite. They have an excellent synergy.
-Spellstutter sprite is very well placed in this meta where almost every single deck plays bolt or path to exile. The protection provided by this card was instrumental to my success tonight. It felt like home and proved to be exceedingly useful. The few points of airborne damage should also not be glossed over.
-Spell queller performed exactly as expected, counteracting almost all spells in this format. The interaction with Thalia should not be overlooked as well.
-Restoration angel was cast only once and performed admirably saving a wisp and enabling shenanigans. I think this deck should play two.Re
Cards that I'm unsure about.
-Reflector mage was cut in almost every match. This is a function of not playing against any aggro decks besides infect. I'm sure this is very good.
-Eldrazi displacer was used only once. It was necessary to hold up mana for answers rather than use the displacer. It should be noted that I didn't really play against any grindy decks where it could excel.
-Vendilion clique only factored in as a source of damage. I'm sure it's good versus combo and non-grindy decks.
Going forward I think two vensers and two restoration angels have a place in this deck. I'll be picking up the venser's out of this nights winnings. I wish there was room for another sprite and queller. The following changes seem strong:
-2 displacer
-1 clique
+1 resto
Thanks to spiderspace and dnc for this sweeet deck!
+2 vensers
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@Charonsobol, can you clean that up a little? What I'm looking for is why you don't like leyline and what to use in it's place. Also, for that write up, abzan company is treated as a separate decks than jund/junk/bg midrange. Some of the same strategies will work but they're very different in other regards.
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The Rock/Jund/Junk (henceforth known as bgx) is a black, green and maybe something else aggro-control deck that is one of the most popular decks in the modern format due to ease of play and raw power of the cards in the deck. A novice can take a bgx deck and do well while an expert will be suitably rewarded with the same deck.
This piece is written from the perspective of a wg player. Wg has excellent answers to bgx and is likely the best dnt/hatebears deck against them. This isn't to say that other decks are incapable but rather that's just how the cards line up. Straight-white has the capability of stomping bgx into the ground as well but requires using cards that can make less sense in other matchups. I'll add tech for bw/uw players as I can. For what it's worth, I don't claim expertise that other contributors to this thread have in those splashes. I will add notes regarding them to this post so it can be added to the collective knowledge base in one place for ease of access. Don't be afraid to speak up.
A bgx pilot has three objectives. First, use low cost targeted discard spells (Inquisition of Kozilek/Thoghtseize) to remove threatening cards or disrupt the tempo of the next play while gaining knowledge of our game. Second, destroy every nonland permanent that the opponent plays to have a battle of top decks. Third, win the battle of top decks with Tarmogoyf, Scavenging Ooze, and Dark Confidant/Grim Flayer/Tasigur.
Let's examine each objective and how we counteract it.
In terms of main deck playability our best card is eternal witness as it gets back whatever was taken and acts as a chump blocker or even a source of some damage. Uncommon choices that are good here are Loxodon Smiter and Wilt-Leaf Liege as they're put into play rather than the graveyard. It's sad but wg has the best main deck answers here.
Once we open up the sideboard we find leyline of sanctity that nullifies discard and turns inquisition/thoughtseize into dead cards. This is the reason I play three in my sideboard. The fact that it shuts off many oddball decks is just gravy.
The answer to this is value and threat density which we have innately. This may be in the form of blade splicer, kitchen finks, voice of resurgence, eternal witness, wall of resurgence, or wasteland strangler. These creatures enter or leave the battlefield with a trigger that advances our board state so we' re ahead even if they're removed. This incremental advantage is absolutely vital to beating bgx.
Another important aspect of threat density is the playing of utility and manlands. This is a luxury that we have and most decks do not. Practically every version of dnt/hatebears runs two or more man-lands, up to four horizon canopys and at least one utility land. The mixture is almost always dictated by color. Once again white/green has the easiest time of this as canopy is the best draw card available to this deck, stirring wildwood dodges almost all removal while having reach and gavony township gains two power from an intact blade splicer, resets kitchen finks, and enable hierarchs to swing for damage. This isn't to discount vault of the archangel or moorland haunt. Both are excellent cards in this matchup and otherwise, but the realities of manabase construction dictate that canopy is greedy while wb/wu manlands are either not as good as wildwood or wildly expensive to activate respectively. It should be noted that straight-white is not in a bad spot in this aspect. Mutavault is excellent and seagate wreckage is likely to keep you ahead in terms of cards. Blinkmoth nexus is brutally strong when used in conjunction with wall of resurgence.
The final aspect that we should consider when it comes to our creatures is that of resilience. Having their removal miss our creatures altogether or forcing the opponent to use two cards to get rid of one creature lets us advance or keep our board position. Examples of these cards are Brimaz, thought -knot seer, loxodon smiter, wilt-leaf liege, and mirran crusader. These evade removal by nature of their toughness or protection. It doesn't really matter though. They make life miserable for our opponents. Wall of resurgence is an excellent card in this instance as it is both resilient and provides additional value. [u]It is an absolute nightmare for bgx. [\u]
Note: I specifically did not mention using wisp and resto to blink your creatures and dodge removal as this is a corner play that really can't be taken for granted in a removal heavy deck like bgx.
All of the cards that have been mentioned in this section are mainboard cards. When it comes to sideboard we're still in a good spot. Mark of asylum prevents non-combat damage to our creatures while spellskite is an excellent answer to path to exile and kolaghan's command. The aforementioned leyline also turns off Lilliana's sac ability. I'm a proponent of siding out aether vial in this match. This lets us play over thirty proper creatures and with the lands that were mentioned earlier, we have an excellent chance of drawing more threats than the bgx player can deal with.
The best mainboard solution to goyf, scooze and Lili the last hope are.... Your own scooze! We should have easier access to green mana than the bgx player and don't need to choose between it and casting other spells. Loxodon smiter answers Lili of the veil well. Dark Confidants are troublesome as a path to exile is poorly spent on it. The correct answer is to block off the ground and pressure the opposition with flyers. Black splashes have an excellent target for wasteland strangler. Lingering souls is troublesome as one token trades with a flickerwisp which is part of our win condition. Our best card here is Serra avenger, but that's not a great card in this matchup otherwise. It should be noted that stirring wildwood can block tokens. This is true, but spending three plus one mana to block 25% of a card is inherently inefficient. Forcing them into positions of chump blocking with the tokens keeps them from beating our face in. This is made easier by the fact that junk has less removal than jund.
Post-board we have access to powerful graveyard hate that shuts down goyf and scooze like rest in peace (kill shot), relic of progenitus (cantrip), and jotun grunt (beater). These cards also shut down the most troubling aspect of Liliana, the last hope. This is also how we should oppose lingering souls. Two tokens from one card is much more manageable than four tokens from one card.
Have I pimped leyline of sanctity enough? No? It turns Liliana of the veil into a card disadvantage engine rather than a card advantage engine. It's great against bgx.
The worst threat of bgx are the 4+ cmc creatures that compare favorably to ours and have a secondary ability. Again, save a path to exile for them.
First, garden variety bgx plays with no flyers and counts on removal to deal with yours. This is another reason that lingering souls is so good against them. It should be noted that junk has lingering souls of their own so this part doesn't apply to them.
Second, the bgx manabase is weak and greedy; jund particularly so. They play many fetchlands and no basic mountains. Color screwing them off red eliminates half of their removal and makes it a much more even game. Keeping them off two black mana or two green mana is more difficult, but still doable. This turns off Liliana and damnation. Their own scoozes become much more manageable when starved.
Hope you've enjoyed the read and good luck versus bgx. It should be a practically free win for us. Please comment and I'll add to this post.
Sample decks
4 Aether vial
4 path to exile
Lands
4 ghost quarter
3 tectonic edge
3 blinkmoth nexus
1 seagate wreckage
1 eiganjo castle
2 horizon canopy
8 plains
1 flagstones of trokair
4 leonin arbiter
4 Thalia, guardian of thraben
3 selfless spirit
2 spellskite
1 aven mindcensor
4 flickerwisp
4 wall of resurgence
3 blade splicer
4 restoration angel
3 rest in peace
3 leyline of sanctity
2 burrenton forgetender
1 Sword of fire and ice
2 eidolon of rhetoric
2 stony silence
2 collective blessing
4 aether vial
4 path to exile
Lands
4 razorverge thicket
3 temple garden
4 horizon canopy
4 stirring wildwood
4 ghost quarter
1 tectonic edge
2 forest
1 plains
4 noble hierarch
4 voice of resurgence
4 leonin arbiter
2 qasali pridemage
4 scavenging ooze
2 aven mindcensor
2 kitchen finks
4 loxodon smiter
3 wilt-leaf liege
3 blessed alliance
2 qasali pridemage
1 creeping corrosion
3 burrenton forgetender
2 spellskite
1 sword of fire and ice
3 leyline of sanctity