While I can see the efficiency of Rubin's list having 12 1-drops, it looks very soft to Burn making it unplayable in my local meta. Have you run into Burn with his list yet?
Also, I'm beginning to feel the meta shift in terms of hate against us. Tonight I played a GW Hatebears deck which dropped 3 maindeck Mirran Crusaders on me in game 1. I bolted 2, but the third carried him across the finish line.
So dominaria leaked. This card piqued my interest.
Damping Sphere
2
Artifact
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount.
Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
It helps to combat tron but hampers our ability to double spell and get under it. thoughts? Will this replace Fulminators? That second ability is really troubling me, card will be perfect if it wasn't there.
EDIT: the second ability hoses storm, not that we struggle with the matchup. Unfortunately Titanshift laughs at this card, and will roflstomp us even harder if we replace fulminators with this.
We would also have to swap out Twilight Mire... probably an extra fetch? BBE's cascade will cost 1 as well
If I can sum up the salient points for the infect matchup:
1) Generally, let the infect player make the first move unless their attack kills us naturally. Kill the infect creatures either at the end of their turn, or anytime out of combat when we can hope to blank or waste their protection spells (especially if they’re tapped out).
2) Save the better / unconditional removal for Inkmoth
3) Be alive to the ramifications of LOTV -2 on dryad arbor when they have a fetchland in play
4) For sideboarding:
Cards to take out / consider taking out:
- 1 land (on 25 land builds)
- Some BBE (don’t want to tap out for it most of the time)
- Maelstrom Pulse or sorcery speed removal (cannot hit inkmoth – but can hit things like Shaper’s Sanctuary, Wild Defiance postboard)
- Scooze
- Tarmogoyf (I won’t personally do this, but if there is more removal in the sideboard Goyf can go)
Cards to bring in / consider bringing in:
- 2 Ancient Grudge
- 2 or 3 Fulminator Mage
- Collective Brutality
- Last Hope
- Needle
- Lavamancer
Lastly - do we want to max out on discard postboard or shave some? How about Anger of the Gods, worth bringing in?
Need some advice against infect. I know it's supposed to be favourable for us but I keep running into trouble against it. I've lost to it the last two times I faced it and at this point I find the control matchups much easier and beatable.
I know the adage about killing infect creatures at their end of turn and I adhere to it. Some questions:
1. Should we be killing their creatures during our turn as well? It won't be the optimal efficient use of our mana, but doing this burns their protection / pump spells as well.
2. My losses are always to Inkmoth Nexus and never to his actual infect creatures which I am able to kill. Is it necessary to board aggressively v.s. Inkmoth with 3 Fulminators and 2 Grudges? What do you shave?
3. Are we weaker to infect now that we have trimmed some removal and gone up in the curve? I find myself struggling to keep pace with their deployment of creatures sometimes, especially without Bob.
4. In a specific scenario which happened to me last night - I was at 7 infect. I had 4 untapped lands, with a K Command and LOTV left in hand and a Grim Lavamancer on board. My opponent has no creatures, with 3 Inkmoths and 1 Breeding Pool. On his turn, he activates 2 Inkmoths and taps out. In this situation, would you have taken the 2 infect to go to 9, or try to kill both Inkmoths with K Command?
- Opponent has 2 cards in hand.
- He had already used 1 mutagenic growth earlier in the game.
After tanking for a bit I made the gamble of casting Kommand to hit both Inkmoths, reasoning that he could only beat me if both his cards left in hand were Mutagenic growths. Of course, he responds with Mutagenic Growth on the one which I pointed 2 dmg at, I respond with activating Lavamancer, and he responds with another Mutagenic Growth. I die.
On hindsight I was probably too greedy and should have gone to 9 infect, but I was feeling like I had to stabilize the board ASAP as I had no threat to clock him, while he had the third Inkmoth which the LOTV in my hand cannot deal with.
Give me some advice guys. Feeling super bummed out.
I played with 2 Last Hopes tonight and gosh in matchups she is good, she is really amazingly good. She eats Souls for lunch and shrinks problem creatures, making creature combat a headache for the opponent. She recurs Bloodbraid for a 3 for 1 and Fulminators, which let me leave a tron player with 1 land on turn 4. Her ult ends games. I am really impressed so far, and will stick with 2 for now.
Yea that decks' strength lies in the fact that even if Burning Inquiry doesn't result in Hollow Ones, they just stocked their Graveyard for the Anglers coming down, or Bloodghasts / Phoenixes.
Not to mention, once you discard 3 lands, there goes the game on turn 1. Ridiculous
Played the 25 land build tonight and damn burn is an absolute beating. I find myself missing the pushes dearly. Also lost to Grixis Shadow whom the pilot told me he built the sideboard to beat Jund. He had LOTV, Dreadbore, even Lilianas Defeat coming out which he snapped to kill my third LOTV. Brutal beating tonight.
I did manage to 2-0 BR hollow call so ended on a sweet note at least.
IIRC I drew the ravine either on the turn I ulted LOTV, or the turn after that. My notes are unclear. I know that I had no cards in hand at that point in time though.
Be that as it may, was I prioritizing his lands too much? Against control I get antsy when they get to a high land threshold so I wanted to bring his land count down. Probably a better idea to keep the LOTV ticking up. On an empty board, I should be keeping the LOTV around instead, I agree.
If I already have a Ravine in play, the correct play is to keep her around for sure.
Live and learn, I was punished with a loss so at least it helps me remember.
Sorry for double posting, but today I played 20 games with 24 lands. I get mana screwed / unable to hit 4 lands on turn 4 in at least 7 of these games. I am beginning to agree that 25 lands is the correct configuration, given the clunky 8 3-CMC spells and 4 bloodbraids. Extremely frustrating to see a control opponent developing his mana while you have 2 Elves stranded in hand and unable to apply pressure. you get put on the back foot instead.
I ulted on 6 lands so my LOTV hit the bin. My line of reasoning is that - against control decks playing red and snaps, i try to ult LOTV as soon as I can given that they have many ways to damage LOTV (bolt, helix, kommand, cryptic bounce etc). I knew he was on the Burkart 8 command grixis list with 4 snaps so he had many live topdecks. Even an Opt or serum visions is scary as he can filter into an answer. If I was greedy and went to 7 before ulting, I run the risk of him drawing an answer to LOTV. Therefore I ult immediately.
If I play against pure UW control, they have less answers to LOTV ult. I can only think of 3-4 cryptics (depending on JTMS density), 1-2 D sphere, 1-2 celestial purge, 1-2 snaps. the chances of fading a topdeck from them is better so I feel better to going to 7 before ulting.
Anyway, in that game, as @FlyingDelver pointed out, I would have won or had a much higher chance of winning had I shut him off red instead of the piles I chose. it was the kommand rebuying tasigur that did me in. oh well.
I also think BBE in this deck may be a real thing.
Also, I'm beginning to feel the meta shift in terms of hate against us. Tonight I played a GW Hatebears deck which dropped 3 maindeck Mirran Crusaders on me in game 1. I bolted 2, but the third carried him across the finish line.
Damping Sphere
2
Artifact
If a land is tapped for two or more mana, it produces C instead of any other type and amount.
Each spell a player casts costs 1 more to cast for each other spell that player has cast this turn.
It helps to combat tron but hampers our ability to double spell and get under it. thoughts? Will this replace Fulminators? That second ability is really troubling me, card will be perfect if it wasn't there.
EDIT: the second ability hoses storm, not that we struggle with the matchup. Unfortunately Titanshift laughs at this card, and will roflstomp us even harder if we replace fulminators with this.
We would also have to swap out Twilight Mire... probably an extra fetch? BBE's cascade will cost 1 as well
If I can sum up the salient points for the infect matchup:
1) Generally, let the infect player make the first move unless their attack kills us naturally. Kill the infect creatures either at the end of their turn, or anytime out of combat when we can hope to blank or waste their protection spells (especially if they’re tapped out).
2) Save the better / unconditional removal for Inkmoth
3) Be alive to the ramifications of LOTV -2 on dryad arbor when they have a fetchland in play
4) For sideboarding:
Cards to take out / consider taking out:
- 1 land (on 25 land builds)
- Some BBE (don’t want to tap out for it most of the time)
- Maelstrom Pulse or sorcery speed removal (cannot hit inkmoth – but can hit things like Shaper’s Sanctuary, Wild Defiance postboard)
- Scooze
- Tarmogoyf (I won’t personally do this, but if there is more removal in the sideboard Goyf can go)
Cards to bring in / consider bringing in:
- 2 Ancient Grudge
- 2 or 3 Fulminator Mage
- Collective Brutality
- Last Hope
- Needle
- Lavamancer
Lastly - do we want to max out on discard postboard or shave some? How about Anger of the Gods, worth bringing in?
I know the adage about killing infect creatures at their end of turn and I adhere to it. Some questions:
1. Should we be killing their creatures during our turn as well? It won't be the optimal efficient use of our mana, but doing this burns their protection / pump spells as well.
2. My losses are always to Inkmoth Nexus and never to his actual infect creatures which I am able to kill. Is it necessary to board aggressively v.s. Inkmoth with 3 Fulminators and 2 Grudges? What do you shave?
3. Are we weaker to infect now that we have trimmed some removal and gone up in the curve? I find myself struggling to keep pace with their deployment of creatures sometimes, especially without Bob.
4. In a specific scenario which happened to me last night - I was at 7 infect. I had 4 untapped lands, with a K Command and LOTV left in hand and a Grim Lavamancer on board. My opponent has no creatures, with 3 Inkmoths and 1 Breeding Pool. On his turn, he activates 2 Inkmoths and taps out. In this situation, would you have taken the 2 infect to go to 9, or try to kill both Inkmoths with K Command?
- Opponent has 2 cards in hand.
- He had already used 1 mutagenic growth earlier in the game.
After tanking for a bit I made the gamble of casting Kommand to hit both Inkmoths, reasoning that he could only beat me if both his cards left in hand were Mutagenic growths. Of course, he responds with Mutagenic Growth on the one which I pointed 2 dmg at, I respond with activating Lavamancer, and he responds with another Mutagenic Growth. I die.
On hindsight I was probably too greedy and should have gone to 9 infect, but I was feeling like I had to stabilize the board ASAP as I had no threat to clock him, while he had the third Inkmoth which the LOTV in my hand cannot deal with.
Give me some advice guys. Feeling super bummed out.
None of the 7 jund decks in the Magic Online Championship is running Nihil Spellbomb. The graveyard hate of choice is Grafdigger's Cage instead.
4 out of the 7 are running Thrun as well. It could just be that these decks are being highly metagamed for the championship though.
this opening hand of 5 lands 1 bbe you would be inclined to keep is the perfect example of why we are losing to burn all the time on the 25 land build
Not to mention, once you discard 3 lands, there goes the game on turn 1. Ridiculous
I did manage to 2-0 BR hollow call so ended on a sweet note at least.
Be that as it may, was I prioritizing his lands too much? Against control I get antsy when they get to a high land threshold so I wanted to bring his land count down. Probably a better idea to keep the LOTV ticking up. On an empty board, I should be keeping the LOTV around instead, I agree.
If I already have a Ravine in play, the correct play is to keep her around for sure.
Live and learn, I was punished with a loss so at least it helps me remember.
If I play against pure UW control, they have less answers to LOTV ult. I can only think of 3-4 cryptics (depending on JTMS density), 1-2 D sphere, 1-2 celestial purge, 1-2 snaps. the chances of fading a topdeck from them is better so I feel better to going to 7 before ulting.
Anyway, in that game, as @FlyingDelver pointed out, I would have won or had a much higher chance of winning had I shut him off red instead of the piles I chose. it was the kommand rebuying tasigur that did me in. oh well.