Hi, can anybody explain me why a lot of people run a Nissa in the mainboard. I feel like it's not good. I'm new to the deck maybe i'm missing something.
Am i the only one who dosn't like the mishra's bauble ?? everytime i draw this card and it's not in my opening hand i feel like i would have like to draw something better.
I just top 8 a 150 player event (5k Face to face tournament in montreal) with BUG lantern.
Ill do a report of the event when i have more spare time !
Round 1 (1-1 draw) against Fairy
Game 1: went smmoth, i was able to lock my opponent and even with 3 mill rock she didn't scoop so it went for a long time.
Game 2: She was able to counter a bunch of my stuff, but i still manage to pull the lock. Sadly after milling her 2 good card against me, the 3th card she got was Hurk's recall. That was game.
Game 3: It went to time, she had me lethal next turn but i was able to get saved by the clock with a abrupt decay letting me to 1 life.
Recap: This matchup is really rough because of all the counterspell and discard.
Round 2 : (0-2) Against G/W druid/vizier combo
Game 1: i had the lock in place, seriously everything was setup but even after milling myself 9 cards and 2 ancient stirring i was not able to see any of my bridge/Whir of invention. This one was a game loss due to bad luck. These things happen.
Game 2: I literally got steamrolled. This matchup is pretty hard, even with graftdigger cage to block the coco/chord, they still have the combo. But in this game it was an early kataki that my opponent was able to top deck that wrecked me.
I feel that this is one of the deck worst matchup because you have to literally needle everything: Duskwatch, druid, Quasali pridemage (Game 2-3), and you have to deal with noble hierarch and ultimately a walking ballista. Even if you manage to deal with all these cards you have to pray the gods that he doesn’t have a tireless tracker in play. Tracker and canopy are really great against us.
Round 3: 2-0 Against Bant Eldrazi
Game 1 and 2 where pretty much the same, I locked the guy really fast and he wasn’t able to do a thing.
The funny part was that my deck made him really mad. He was literally discusted wich made me smile a lot !!
Round 4: Sultai Death shadow (2-1)
Game 1: I was able to lock him hard, after taking 15 damage. It was pretty close I got a hard time to find a bridge. The guy dropped himself to 6 and I was able to kill him with collective brutality by casting 1 and bring 2x the same with the shredder.
Game 2: It was fast, brutal and I just wasn’t able to do a thing.
Game 3: The game was pretty 1 sided, I had the lock early but with only 2 mill stone. It took a while and the game when trough time. At this point, I had 5 mill rock in play and I had the perfect amount of milling to kill him. This was a clutch win because at this point, another draw would have kill all my hope for the top 8.
Round 5: Eldrazi and taxes (2-0)
Game 1: Needle on displacer, 1 mill rock, a lantern and a bridge and he scooped. The game took like 2 minutes.
Game 2: It was pretty much the same but he waited for my 3th mill rock before scooping.
First time in the tournament that I had a break during the round.
Round 6: G/W Elf 2-0
Game 1: I was able to lock my opponent early, he didn’t have anything to deal with a bridge so he scooped fast.
Game 2: I landed a turn one graft digger cage and turn 2 lantern and toughtseize,
This all gained me the time I need to finish the lock and beat him. My opponent scooped after the 3 mill rock.
Round 7: 1-0 against Abzan coco
Game 1: was a fast lock and I was able to control the game before he dropped one of his 1 billion treath.
Game 2: This game was one of the greatest magic games I ever played. First of all even if my opponent had a *****ty attitude, he was a damn good player. Lucky for me I think I’m a pretty good player too. This game went back and forth from the beginning, I was able to lock him but he was always able to bring another treath to the board using his coco/chord to shuffle his library because I had a cage in play. At 1 point in the game he was able to land a kataki and I had 4 mana. At this point my plan was to mill myself to draw in this order 1 land/1 mill piece. I was able to do this and have a total of 8 artifacts in play with 8 lands. I had a good control of the top of his deck. My opponent was still able to beat me down to 1 life. At this point I was able to mill myself into a engineered explosive and kill all his bird/noble on the last turn after the clock run out. So the game finished with me at 1 life. This game was nervewrecking but insanely great. Even the 3 judge that where looking at the game was like WTF !!!
At this point 5-1-1 I finished in the 8th place.
Championship round Top 8:
Round 8 against Abzan coco with a splash of blue (2-1): Holy 3x in one day how unlucky can I be to face 3x time one of my worst matchup.
Game 1: He was able to outvalue me with an active duskwatch and was able to turn 2 tireless trackers.
I was just not able to do anything. Everytime I milled him, he was able to instant draw into it.
Game 2: I was able to lock him pretty fast and made him scoop after the 3th rock.
Game 3: I started the game with a shredder and milled him a druid and surgical it. At this point he had no combo. I had to Whir of invention into a graftdigger’s cage but duskwatch recruiter is what killed me. I wasn’t able to deal with it and my opponent was able to draw into his birds and noble hierarch. He just beated me to a pulp.
Conclusion after this tournament: I had a pretty good run, I really wish I had 1 pyrite spellbomb in the maindeck in a lot of my games. This card would have won me a lot of grindy game much faster. Clock is a huge deal in this deck. If your opponent win game 1 and just play slow in game 2, it become really hard to close game 3 without being a dick to your opponent and pressure them to play faster. I also really wished to have another phyrexian revoker. This guy helped me soooo much because my opponent had sided out all their removal. I found the surgical and the wicthbane orb underwhelming but TBH these cards still deserve their spot in the list. I’m thinking of adding 1 flaying tendril to the SB. The deck is hard to pilot, you have to play fast, you have 0 room for mistake and you have no brakes between rounds. But when you manage to top 8 a big event with it, the satisfaction that you get (and the money of course) is priceless (except the money … it’s the definition of price).
Have a good day folks.
Match 1 vs merfolk (2-1)
Game 1: i had a killing hand turn 1 i got the lock in place and turn 2 i had bridge. At this point it was over.
Game 2: my hand was semi ok but he landed a couple of creatures, even if i had the lock, i never drew a discard spell and he had hurk's recall in nagd to wipe my board.
Game 3: he landed a couple of treath and i had the lock in place. He tapped out to land 2 creature and planing to kill me on the next turn. Sad for him, i had a toughtseize in hand and make him discard his hurky's recall. At this point this game was over.
Match 2 Affinity (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent mull to 4 and was too slow to kill me fast. He still got me a good amount of dmg dropping my life to 10. Signal pest are really good against us. I was able to lock the game and stabilize with inventor's fair because at this point he was only able to deal 1 dmg a turn with signal pest and ornithopter. At this point i milled him his 0 power creature and he scooped at the 3th mill rock.
Game 2: He had the godlike hand, turn 1 signal pest, thopter, mox opal and memnite. Turn 2 Cranial plating and at this point i was overwhelmed.
Game 3: He did a agressive mull to 5 for a sideboard card that he never saw. He still pulled a turn 1 mox opal ornithopter and memnite. I anwsered with engineered explosive for 0 and kill all his stuff. At this point i was too far ahead droping a mill rock because i had lantern turn 1. He scooped after i milled him a ravager.
(This matchup is hard but not unwinable. The sb is pretty good against affinity.)
Match 3 vs Esper control (2-0):
Game 1: i landed the lantern on turn 1, a mill rock on turn 2 and a toughtseize discard him his espercharm. Next turn i whir of invention into another mill rock. At this point it was pretty game. My opponent didn't concede right away, he was waiting me to do a mistake wich i never did. He scooped after a painfull 10 turn of lock.
Game 2: This one was pretty weird, i started the game with 2 mill rock in hand and discards spell. I kept on drawing mill rock. By turn 3 i had 5 mill rock on the table but no lantern. I started milling him with 3 codex shredder and 2 pixis. My opponent was stuck at 2 lands for a bunch of time because everytime he was going to draw 1 my blind mill was on a land. When he found his 3th land the 2/3 of his library was gone. Even if i didnt see a lanter of the whole game, i was able to mill him to death.
Match 4 Grixis Death's shadow (2-0)
Both game where pretty much the same: Lantern turn 1 followed by turn 2 mill rock and a toughtseize and kept on milling and whir of invention for a bridge and more rock. I was lucky that he didnt have any discard turn 1.
I was pretty satisfied with the list. Whir of invention is doing wonder.
As why i cut the 2 bell is because with whir of invention i just dont need them. And i dont really like ghoulcaller's bell because if you dont have lantern, this card is useless. You just don't want to blind mill yourself with this deck unless you have a academy ruins. Pyxis is just better in my opinion because it can deal with cards like ancient grudge, emrakul/ulamog.
Btw sorry for all my spelling error. English isn't my main language and my writing skills are not that great.
Hello everyone, i have been running Nissa Steward of elements lately 2x in the main and i was impressed how well it served me.
This card filter the deck, soak damage, let you play 2 treath a turn if the setup is good and give a kill pretty much all the time if you reach 8 mana out of nowhere. On paper, this card seems itchy, but after playing it i'm sold.
Did 4-0 at my LGS yesterday and Nissa gave me at least 2 of those win on her own. She is a beast against control deck and casting her for 1 is still a pretty solid treath early on.
My deck run 4 relic main deck and 3 Surgical extraction Maindeck too. The surgical extraction is great to exile a fetch turn one. It fuel the strangler/blight herder and the oblivion sower skyrocket when you cast it. It's not rare that i net 4-5 lands with it. A well played surgical extraction in this deck is a steroid boost to your game plan. Usually if my opponent play fecth, the turn after i play a sower, i'm already able to activate Eye of ugin or cast Ulamog if i got it in my hand.
People should not overestimate the power of surgical extraction maindeck. Of course i run a mono black shell.
After a lot of analysis i still feel like mono black is a beter build than any colored version. More stable and you can do almost everything you need with a good sideboard.
Ill do a report of the event when i have more spare time !
Round 1 (1-1 draw) against Fairy
Game 1: went smmoth, i was able to lock my opponent and even with 3 mill rock she didn't scoop so it went for a long time.
Game 2: She was able to counter a bunch of my stuff, but i still manage to pull the lock. Sadly after milling her 2 good card against me, the 3th card she got was Hurk's recall. That was game.
Game 3: It went to time, she had me lethal next turn but i was able to get saved by the clock with a abrupt decay letting me to 1 life.
Recap: This matchup is really rough because of all the counterspell and discard.
Round 2 : (0-2) Against G/W druid/vizier combo
Game 1: i had the lock in place, seriously everything was setup but even after milling myself 9 cards and 2 ancient stirring i was not able to see any of my bridge/Whir of invention. This one was a game loss due to bad luck. These things happen.
Game 2: I literally got steamrolled. This matchup is pretty hard, even with graftdigger cage to block the coco/chord, they still have the combo. But in this game it was an early kataki that my opponent was able to top deck that wrecked me.
I feel that this is one of the deck worst matchup because you have to literally needle everything: Duskwatch, druid, Quasali pridemage (Game 2-3), and you have to deal with noble hierarch and ultimately a walking ballista. Even if you manage to deal with all these cards you have to pray the gods that he doesn’t have a tireless tracker in play. Tracker and canopy are really great against us.
Round 3: 2-0 Against Bant Eldrazi
Game 1 and 2 where pretty much the same, I locked the guy really fast and he wasn’t able to do a thing.
The funny part was that my deck made him really mad. He was literally discusted wich made me smile a lot !!
Round 4: Sultai Death shadow (2-1)
Game 1: I was able to lock him hard, after taking 15 damage. It was pretty close I got a hard time to find a bridge. The guy dropped himself to 6 and I was able to kill him with collective brutality by casting 1 and bring 2x the same with the shredder.
Game 2: It was fast, brutal and I just wasn’t able to do a thing.
Game 3: The game was pretty 1 sided, I had the lock early but with only 2 mill stone. It took a while and the game when trough time. At this point, I had 5 mill rock in play and I had the perfect amount of milling to kill him. This was a clutch win because at this point, another draw would have kill all my hope for the top 8.
Round 5: Eldrazi and taxes (2-0)
Game 1: Needle on displacer, 1 mill rock, a lantern and a bridge and he scooped. The game took like 2 minutes.
Game 2: It was pretty much the same but he waited for my 3th mill rock before scooping.
First time in the tournament that I had a break during the round.
Round 6: G/W Elf 2-0
Game 1: I was able to lock my opponent early, he didn’t have anything to deal with a bridge so he scooped fast.
Game 2: I landed a turn one graft digger cage and turn 2 lantern and toughtseize,
This all gained me the time I need to finish the lock and beat him. My opponent scooped after the 3 mill rock.
Round 7: 1-0 against Abzan coco
Game 1: was a fast lock and I was able to control the game before he dropped one of his 1 billion treath.
Game 2: This game was one of the greatest magic games I ever played. First of all even if my opponent had a *****ty attitude, he was a damn good player. Lucky for me I think I’m a pretty good player too. This game went back and forth from the beginning, I was able to lock him but he was always able to bring another treath to the board using his coco/chord to shuffle his library because I had a cage in play. At 1 point in the game he was able to land a kataki and I had 4 mana. At this point my plan was to mill myself to draw in this order 1 land/1 mill piece. I was able to do this and have a total of 8 artifacts in play with 8 lands. I had a good control of the top of his deck. My opponent was still able to beat me down to 1 life. At this point I was able to mill myself into a engineered explosive and kill all his bird/noble on the last turn after the clock run out. So the game finished with me at 1 life. This game was nervewrecking but insanely great. Even the 3 judge that where looking at the game was like WTF !!!
At this point 5-1-1 I finished in the 8th place.
Championship round Top 8:
Round 8 against Abzan coco with a splash of blue (2-1): Holy 3x in one day how unlucky can I be to face 3x time one of my worst matchup.
Game 1: He was able to outvalue me with an active duskwatch and was able to turn 2 tireless trackers.
I was just not able to do anything. Everytime I milled him, he was able to instant draw into it.
Game 2: I was able to lock him pretty fast and made him scoop after the 3th rock.
Game 3: I started the game with a shredder and milled him a druid and surgical it. At this point he had no combo. I had to Whir of invention into a graftdigger’s cage but duskwatch recruiter is what killed me. I wasn’t able to deal with it and my opponent was able to draw into his birds and noble hierarch. He just beated me to a pulp.
Conclusion after this tournament: I had a pretty good run, I really wish I had 1 pyrite spellbomb in the maindeck in a lot of my games. This card would have won me a lot of grindy game much faster. Clock is a huge deal in this deck. If your opponent win game 1 and just play slow in game 2, it become really hard to close game 3 without being a dick to your opponent and pressure them to play faster. I also really wished to have another phyrexian revoker. This guy helped me soooo much because my opponent had sided out all their removal. I found the surgical and the wicthbane orb underwhelming but TBH these cards still deserve their spot in the list. I’m thinking of adding 1 flaying tendril to the SB. The deck is hard to pilot, you have to play fast, you have 0 room for mistake and you have no brakes between rounds. But when you manage to top 8 a big event with it, the satisfaction that you get (and the money of course) is priceless (except the money … it’s the definition of price).
Have a good day folks.
Decklist : http://f2fseries.facetofacegames.com/montreal-open-coverage-october-7th-2017/
Match 1 vs merfolk (2-1)
Game 1: i had a killing hand turn 1 i got the lock in place and turn 2 i had bridge. At this point it was over.
Game 2: my hand was semi ok but he landed a couple of creatures, even if i had the lock, i never drew a discard spell and he had hurk's recall in nagd to wipe my board.
Game 3: he landed a couple of treath and i had the lock in place. He tapped out to land 2 creature and planing to kill me on the next turn. Sad for him, i had a toughtseize in hand and make him discard his hurky's recall. At this point this game was over.
Match 2 Affinity (2-1)
Game 1: My opponent mull to 4 and was too slow to kill me fast. He still got me a good amount of dmg dropping my life to 10. Signal pest are really good against us. I was able to lock the game and stabilize with inventor's fair because at this point he was only able to deal 1 dmg a turn with signal pest and ornithopter. At this point i milled him his 0 power creature and he scooped at the 3th mill rock.
Game 2: He had the godlike hand, turn 1 signal pest, thopter, mox opal and memnite. Turn 2 Cranial plating and at this point i was overwhelmed.
Game 3: He did a agressive mull to 5 for a sideboard card that he never saw. He still pulled a turn 1 mox opal ornithopter and memnite. I anwsered with engineered explosive for 0 and kill all his stuff. At this point i was too far ahead droping a mill rock because i had lantern turn 1. He scooped after i milled him a ravager.
(This matchup is hard but not unwinable. The sb is pretty good against affinity.)
Match 3 vs Esper control (2-0):
Game 1: i landed the lantern on turn 1, a mill rock on turn 2 and a toughtseize discard him his espercharm. Next turn i whir of invention into another mill rock. At this point it was pretty game. My opponent didn't concede right away, he was waiting me to do a mistake wich i never did. He scooped after a painfull 10 turn of lock.
Game 2: This one was pretty weird, i started the game with 2 mill rock in hand and discards spell. I kept on drawing mill rock. By turn 3 i had 5 mill rock on the table but no lantern. I started milling him with 3 codex shredder and 2 pixis. My opponent was stuck at 2 lands for a bunch of time because everytime he was going to draw 1 my blind mill was on a land. When he found his 3th land the 2/3 of his library was gone. Even if i didnt see a lanter of the whole game, i was able to mill him to death.
Match 4 Grixis Death's shadow (2-0)
Both game where pretty much the same: Lantern turn 1 followed by turn 2 mill rock and a toughtseize and kept on milling and whir of invention for a bridge and more rock. I was lucky that he didnt have any discard turn 1.
I was pretty satisfied with the list. Whir of invention is doing wonder.
As why i cut the 2 bell is because with whir of invention i just dont need them. And i dont really like ghoulcaller's bell because if you dont have lantern, this card is useless. You just don't want to blind mill yourself with this deck unless you have a academy ruins. Pyxis is just better in my opinion because it can deal with cards like ancient grudge, emrakul/ulamog.
Btw sorry for all my spelling error. English isn't my main language and my writing skills are not that great.
This card filter the deck, soak damage, let you play 2 treath a turn if the setup is good and give a kill pretty much all the time if you reach 8 mana out of nowhere. On paper, this card seems itchy, but after playing it i'm sold.
Did 4-0 at my LGS yesterday and Nissa gave me at least 2 of those win on her own. She is a beast against control deck and casting her for 1 is still a pretty solid treath early on.
What do you think about this ?
People should not overestimate the power of surgical extraction maindeck. Of course i run a mono black shell.