Feels wrong yeah. The card is very powerful. However, I think DS is definitely worth a try, and, after thinking about it for a while, I believe it is a sensitive well-based opinion.
Granted some of these decks run Engineered Explosives, but if you are boarding Stony Silence against that, you are prooooobably doing something wrong. RDW can cast multiple spells same turn, but I see this too marginal to consider it a point here.
Decks that are equally affected by both pieces of SB are:
• KCI: Doesn’t matter if we lock their abilities or prevent them from casting a million spells in a row. The final effect is the same. Stony Silence is harder, but the final results is equal in my opinion.
• Jund: Damping Sphere makes Bloodbraid Elf a 5 CMC creature, but also taxes our spells (path + tokens same turn) so it is not worth it in my opinion.
• Eldrazi: Tron or not, Eldrazi Temple is no longer a concern in any case. Here both pieces of SB are slightly worse than against regular Tron.The chance to numb a Walking Ballista makes Stony Silence great. On the other hand, one could argue as well that without big mana going on… it won´t be that bad. Not sure about this one. It will definitely depend on the rest of our SB.
• Affinity: they may cast several spells in a row, but by t2 they will most likely be already empty handed. Stony Silence is game.
• Lantern Control: Stony Silence locks them out of the game until they draw an answer. Damping Sphere helps making more difficult for them to empty their hand, but that is far less impactful than the former.
• Humans, Hatebears, Merfolk... Vial decks: I have seen people boarding Stony Silence in these matchups as a 1-of and I don’t think is bad. For me, this is a not very important part of the discussion, since you might as well bring Pithing Needle and maybe randomly cover some Eldrazi Displacer, but still worth mentioning.
• Tron: Even if they manage to get Tron turn 3, we can still get them with Damping Sphere. Stony Silence is only worth it here if you play it on t2 and if you are on the play, and the might even get natural Tron anyway… We don’t care about all the eggs anymore and the only things we are missing now would be Walking Ballista and Oblivion Stone, but without big mana, they are less of an issue.
• Elves: Prevents crazy combos where they fill up the board with creatures using lords and Heritage Druid shenanigans.
• Infect: taxes their manabase heavily and makes them much less likely to kill you all of a sudden.
• Bloom Titan: Makes their dual lands tap for a single mana, AND COLORLESS. Huge point there. Also delays their Summoner’s pact + Primeval Titan combo.
Marginally better:
• Hollow One: Prevents multiple Hollow Ones to be played same turn (probably even the first one). As counterpart, it might be too slow, if it comes turn 2.
• Bogles: Slows them down as well, although I don´t see it being too effective against them, might be wrong.
• Scapeshift: Taxes their Summoner’s pact + Primeval Titanand their Bring to Light plays. Also interesting against suspended spells, taxing their whole turn. Not sure if worth including, but definitely worth considering.
• Reanimator: After they successfully cast Griselbrand, they will probably try to go off by casting shoals or the like. Dumping Sphere should help with this problem, although might be a bit too late for it to work.
• Living End: Also taxes their Living End cascades.
From all the matchups where any of these cards is really relevant, the following are unfavourable/not favourable for us:
• KCI, Lantern, Tezzerator, Ad Nauseam, Tron, Eldrazi, Elves, and Bloom Titan.
In these group, 4 are Stony Silence “dependent”, 4 are Damping Sphere “dependent”, and Eldrazi is a bit ambiguous. If we remove the latter and KCI, as are influenced by both smilarly, we have 3 and 3 respectively. Let us check if Stony Silence and Damping Sphere are our only answers to them:
• Lantern: Lantern is a horrible matchup, but mainly because they have the chance to do three things: 1) play Ensnaring Bridge, 2) make us discard our artefact hate, 3) prevent us from drawing anything else. I do believe that it could still be manageable relying only in our Disenchant effects. Stony Silence gives us time to draw resources, but doesn´t win us the game. Disenchant/hand disruption + Surgical Extraction on their bridges is our best bet.
• Tezzerator: They usually bring 3-4 Abrupt decay after their first match (probably won), so us playing Stony Silence usually ends up in a card for card trade. In any case, I find the best way to disrupt this deck is with GY hate: Surgical Extraction is great here. Stony Silence is nevertheless very powerful. Pithing Needle is relevant in the matchup anyway for the Tezzeret kill, so we could use it to lock the combo as well if needed.
• Ad Nauseam: This is where I think we lose the most by giving up Stony Silence. It really slows our opponent down. Main plan is still disruption (possibly followed by extraction effects), lifegain, and clock them, so losing Stony Silence wouldn’t be that bad, but still hurtful.
• Tron: Other than the two pieces of disruption here mentioned, our best plan is disruption, lucky Pithing Needle, and Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction a Tron piece. We all know how tough this matchup is, so I guess… we need at least one of these two pieces to face them and stand a chance.
• Eldrazi: As I said before, I am not sure at all about which card would do better, but I believe that Damping Sphere could be favoured if we make use of our Pithing Needles to lock pesky Walking Ballistas or Endbringers. Other than that, removal is probably our best asset for the matchup. 4 Path to Exile please!
• Elves: Early disruption, removal, a bit of chumping, and a timely Wrath of God are our best bets. I don’t think I would side in Damping Sphere because we should be able to keep their mana production under control with our disruption. A random Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can be stopped with Ghost Quarter. The matchup is bad, and if we lose turn 2 casting something only to slow them down a bit, we might give up on our chances to win.
Summing up, I feel that there is more to win from using Damping Sphere than from abandoning Stony Silence. The best way to implement it would be in combination with 2 Pithing Needles. From these matchups, I believe the ones we will be facing the most in general (depends on your meta), are tron and eldrazi, so, at least me, I will be using the following SB plan for now:
I dont think the control shell is out of place in the current meta. BBE has made Jund better, but it is still a favourable matchup. Aggro decks have always been a problem for control and midrange shells, but we pack a ton of removal and hand disruption. Cant be good against grind, control, combo, and aggro. Cant have it all.
I dont think the aggro version of tokens is a winner, because if what you want is to play aggro creature based decks, there are a ton of decks in modern that will be better than tokens. The shell that makes the best of a tokens builds is a disrupting deck that builds up value over turns using resilient and versatile cards. As and other deck of the sort, struggle first turns and try to survive until you get in control of the situation.
Scapeshift is a horrible matchup, but we pack lost of disruption for combo decks like that (ad nauseam, storm...). I think most of them are 50/50 matchups. Now that I am playing Liliana, not even tron looks that bad (I have won my last 4 tron matches). I have cut the procession for the same reason you explain and because they are not resilient enough, unlike the rest of the threats we play (flashback, aftermath, Bitterblossom, PWs...). 3 GQ gives us a chance in combination with surgical extraction. And no Damping Sphere will make our chances against most of the decks I mentioned in this paragraph better.
I guess, in the end every player feels a bit identified for some deck's playstyle and gets a bit biased, but I dont think the control shell is dead, by any means.
Yesterday FNM was almost perfect. I went 3-1 with the list in my signature. I had some doubts about SB, since it was the first time I took this deck to a somewhat competitive environment (28 people tournament), and I made some decision that would not make next time. I will briefly comment the matches and strategy:
Claim // Fame is actually AMAZING, seriously. I was able to pull a game after bringing my goblin guide back and +2/+0, next turn he was at 7 lives and was too afraid to attack, what gave me the time to draw a couple gobs and whack them for the win.
The reason to take the Piledrivers out is that they are a bit weak against all the removal that Jund packs. Same line serves for Rabblemaster, however, I supposed that for grindier matchups, he could do some work. Topdecking him after the first removal fight seemed to be appealing. They worked great honestly, but after speaking to the second guy (the first told me they were great against him, but maybe was a bit biased by how hard they smashed him...), I believe the tech I would use would be:
The Earwigs survive fatal push, block goyfs, and would allow my to take their SB hate like finks, angers, or the like. What do you guys think?
2-1 Blood and Taxes (just the RW variant of D&T, I totally made the name up right there)
Aether vial deck. I was able to race him super hard game 1. Loyalist was UNBELIEVABLE blanking those 3/3 golems with first strike. Game two i kept a very risky 1-lander and didnt succeeded. G3 I won t3 :O.
Didnt see any SB but he showed me after the match his copy of Worship. I sort of knew something like that was coming so I brought in a 1-of Earwig. God, that card is so versatile... And hits for 5!
0-2 Affinity
G1 he starts with a hand such that ends up playing 2 Vault Skirges. I drop GG and reveal a plating... he hits for 9 lifelink t2 and I fail to find any of my removal so I concede. I couldnt find any piece of disruption in g2 either. Only a very well played sudden shock got rid of a pesky arcbound but in the end it didnt help against a metalcrafted etched champion... I feel like our plan against affinity is similar like burn´s plan, i.e., try to be the control deck for the first turns and remove all relevant threats and build up the counter attack after that. Pity I couldnt find a single Mogg fanatic... What is your approach guys?
Overall a very solid performance. I wish I could have gone 4-0, but, hey!, affinity is a great deck and he had a reeeaaally good draw. So nothing to complain about Any feedback you guys might have, please let me know. I think this version of the deck is definitely great and offers a bit of extra consistency thanks to the black splash. Spike Jester was the main reason I went black, and couldnt be happier about it now.
I believe the closest/best answer we have right now for card advantage is claim // fame. I have been playing it as a 1-of for some time and works wonders. An additional copy goes in the SB for grindier matchups. Skirk Prospector seems really strong but I am not sure it fits an aggressive deck... It would be great in some sort of combo/midrange deck, but I think it wouldnt fit versions like mine. Ideas on this?
I agree with MagicYio. I run 3/3 Iok/TS and it feels alright. Then I have 2 Brutalities and I like them as well, because they are really versatile. I recently included the 3rd Start // Finish and a singleton Legion's landing for the 2 spectral procession I was playing. I have been feeling like they are not so relevant anymore for some weeks and I want to try without them now. We have enough flyiers and they are not as resilient as the rest of our generators. The singleton LL works just fine in a control shell. I thought it was only for aggro builds but I totally changed my mind after testing.
I could see, for example, going to 1 CB, or 2 Fatal push to get the 2nd LL, but so far I like it like it is now.
If you are already playing 2 collective brutality, I dont think you need many more in the SB. True we make use of our GY, but playing 4 seems excessive, even for dredge. We simply don't have so many resources in our hand to dump.
With this piece of tech, I think we can safely go to 2 Stony Silences. Let them build tron, and then smash this on the field. Boom. It works t2 on the draw as well!
I mean, it was the first time I took my burn deck to this FNM, but I have been playing it forever, so I was really shocked and depressed after I lost all the rounds... Anyway, I dont think my meta is the best for a deck like burn. There is also a ton of Abzan/Jund decks that can really win life very easily.
Super quick report: I lost 0-4 last FNM, it was horrible. list in the signature.
UW control: he got down to 1 life both games and I couldnt topdeck a spell for some turns. Tried to accumulate spells to funnel his counters, but he found balance way before I accumulated enough damage.
Bogles: game 1, I go keep and he goes... Leyline of sanctity. He drew coronets as well. Could this be our worst MU?
Ponza: won g1 easy. But could not get there games 2 and 3... I really dont know how that happened, since it sure looks favorable for us, right?
Taxes: Won G1 easy again. Thalia plus surprise Worship finished g2 for him. g3 I mulld to 5 with a horrible hand...
I mean... how is this possible? going through the plays with my ops, they really couldnt think of any play that I could have chained better. It feels unrealistic that such a robust deck runs out of spells so man times in a row (I even play 2 extra shard volleys for extra reach). I am really confused...
If fast aggro/combo decks pick up more of the metagame share in coming weeks, I'll probably switch back to 3/3 though. 4x Thoughtseize + 4x Bitterblossom is a lot of life-loss, but it's not as relevant as the value of those cards in the current metagame at the moment IMO.
This goes in line with what I had in mind too. I will try a 3/3 split for now, since I dont want to be overexposed to aggro decks that will try to response to the Jace meta shift **ehem**lightning bolt**ehem**.
Hello guys! After almost a year I am back on tokens to face this new Jace and Elf meta! I started testing this list. I took the base from a guy who brought to recent GP Lyon with a decent result (for being a tier3 especially) and I changed some parts!
This list is really interesting. I feel butterflies in my belly if I think about running again those 4 Raise the alarm, for a more explosive start. In my case I would need to drop the 2 Start // Finish and the 2 Spectral Procession, which makes total sense if we are shifting towards a hybrid deck. After that, 2 copies of Legion's landing for a collective brutality and a land would get me there. My only but are the little gideons. Wouldnt Lili offer better value? I see the synergy with the other gideons but IDK... Probably makes more sense for this build, although not playing her makes me feel guilty xD. Can someone give a little explanation about what matchups is he good at? It would be really helpful.
that is actually something I have been strongly considering lately. Would love to hear some arguments in any case but I can imagine that the un-bans are quite a heavy point in this discussion, arent they? I see you play 3/3, and I think that is something I would like to try at some point.
Quick report, last FNM I went 2-2, always on the draw:
1-2 Elves:
Game 1 disruption was key, but the rest of the games, I couldnt keep up because I found almost no ways to interact, after mulliganning both games...
In: 2 Wrath of God
Out: 2 Lili
0-2 Tezzerator:
Game 1 I saw the bridge and I kept playing just in case, but I knew the game was over... Game 2 I find the Stony silence and he top decks Decay... He was playing a playset after SB, so I wont say it was luck. The guy was prepared. A pitty because I had the disenchant in hand for an alpha strike. I should have played the pithing needle I had in hand same turn after stony to double block the sword/foundry combo. This matchup seems really unwinnable if we dont hit a perfect hand with disruption, Lili, and aggressive token production (which is beyond "nuts").
In: 3 Stony, 2 Disenchant, 2 Surgical, 2 Pithing
Out: 4 paths, 3 push, 1 BB (too slow and can kill me if the game goes long), 1 Virtue (not so good against bridge decks).
Maybe I should have boarded out a brutality for a path, because he brought a single hangarback walkers from SB, but I wanted to make sure I could remove his decays/whirl of invention.
2-0 Miracles:
Discard and GQ made his combo pieces and scries crumble. I would have probably also won without SB.
In: 2 Wrath, 2 Surgical
Out: 4 Path
2-1 Esper control:
Esper charm really pairs up good against our deck. Enchantment removal mainboard is nasty. BB, Lili, Discard, and "grindiness" will get us there against this kind of deck. The best of my play was not to throw our value cards (PW, BB, anthems) into counters and wait for the right spot. They are a reactive deck, so If there is nothing worth reacting the wont. Meanwhile, we just cheap damage with 2-4 tokens from lingering (the flashback is damage or a counter less in their hand). Never overcommit the board, because you would make wraths worth it. liliana won g3 ALONE.
In: 2 Surgical (snap, wraths, cryptics...)
Out: 2 path
I considered disenchant for detention sphere, but given that I won game 1, I waited to see it before I bring it. It didnt happen.
overall mediocre performance, but the MU were really not the best. Hope it helps!
So basically we have a number of decks that do not suffer at all from either Stony Silence or Damping Sphere. These are:
• Red Deck Wins, Death´s Shadow, UW(R) control, Ponza, Grixis, Bant variants, Abzan, Creature Toolbox, Dredge, Turns…
Granted some of these decks run Engineered Explosives, but if you are boarding Stony Silence against that, you are prooooobably doing something wrong. RDW can cast multiple spells same turn, but I see this too marginal to consider it a point here.
Decks that are equally affected by both pieces of SB are:
• KCI: Doesn’t matter if we lock their abilities or prevent them from casting a million spells in a row. The final effect is the same. Stony Silence is harder, but the final results is equal in my opinion.
• Jund: Damping Sphere makes Bloodbraid Elf a 5 CMC creature, but also taxes our spells (path + tokens same turn) so it is not worth it in my opinion.
• Eldrazi: Tron or not, Eldrazi Temple is no longer a concern in any case. Here both pieces of SB are slightly worse than against regular Tron.The chance to numb a Walking Ballista makes Stony Silence great. On the other hand, one could argue as well that without big mana going on… it won´t be that bad. Not sure about this one. It will definitely depend on the rest of our SB.
Decks against which Stony Silence is better:
• Affinity: they may cast several spells in a row, but by t2 they will most likely be already empty handed. Stony Silence is game.
• Lantern Control: Stony Silence locks them out of the game until they draw an answer. Damping Sphere helps making more difficult for them to empty their hand, but that is far less impactful than the former.
• Tezzerator: Stony Silencebreaks the combo and Damping Sphere does nothing.
• Ad Nauseam: While Damping Sphere can make them slower ( AN + Lightning Storm will cost one extra Simian Spirit Guide), Stony Silence nullifies their mana ramp and gives us time.
Marginally better:
• Humans, Hatebears, Merfolk... Vial decks: I have seen people boarding Stony Silence in these matchups as a 1-of and I don’t think is bad. For me, this is a not very important part of the discussion, since you might as well bring Pithing Needle and maybe randomly cover some Eldrazi Displacer, but still worth mentioning.
Decks against which Damping Sphere is better:
• Storm: obvious reasons.
• Tron: Even if they manage to get Tron turn 3, we can still get them with Damping Sphere. Stony Silence is only worth it here if you play it on t2 and if you are on the play, and the might even get natural Tron anyway… We don’t care about all the eggs anymore and the only things we are missing now would be Walking Ballista and Oblivion Stone, but without big mana, they are less of an issue.
• Elves: Prevents crazy combos where they fill up the board with creatures using lords and Heritage Druid shenanigans.
• Infect: taxes their manabase heavily and makes them much less likely to kill you all of a sudden.
• Bloom Titan: Makes their dual lands tap for a single mana, AND COLORLESS. Huge point there. Also delays their Summoner’s pact + Primeval Titan combo.
Marginally better:
• Hollow One: Prevents multiple Hollow Ones to be played same turn (probably even the first one). As counterpart, it might be too slow, if it comes turn 2.
• Bogles: Slows them down as well, although I don´t see it being too effective against them, might be wrong.
• Scapeshift: Taxes their Summoner’s pact + Primeval Titanand their Bring to Light plays. Also interesting against suspended spells, taxing their whole turn. Not sure if worth including, but definitely worth considering.
• Reanimator: After they successfully cast Griselbrand, they will probably try to go off by casting shoals or the like. Dumping Sphere should help with this problem, although might be a bit too late for it to work.
• Living End: Also taxes their Living End cascades.
From all the matchups where any of these cards is really relevant, the following are unfavourable/not favourable for us:
• KCI, Lantern, Tezzerator, Ad Nauseam, Tron, Eldrazi, Elves, and Bloom Titan.
In these group, 4 are Stony Silence “dependent”, 4 are Damping Sphere “dependent”, and Eldrazi is a bit ambiguous. If we remove the latter and KCI, as are influenced by both smilarly, we have 3 and 3 respectively. Let us check if Stony Silence and Damping Sphere are our only answers to them:
• Lantern: Lantern is a horrible matchup, but mainly because they have the chance to do three things: 1) play Ensnaring Bridge, 2) make us discard our artefact hate, 3) prevent us from drawing anything else. I do believe that it could still be manageable relying only in our Disenchant effects. Stony Silence gives us time to draw resources, but doesn´t win us the game. Disenchant/hand disruption + Surgical Extraction on their bridges is our best bet.
• Tezzerator: They usually bring 3-4 Abrupt decay after their first match (probably won), so us playing Stony Silence usually ends up in a card for card trade. In any case, I find the best way to disrupt this deck is with GY hate: Surgical Extraction is great here. Stony Silence is nevertheless very powerful. Pithing Needle is relevant in the matchup anyway for the Tezzeret kill, so we could use it to lock the combo as well if needed.
• Ad Nauseam: This is where I think we lose the most by giving up Stony Silence. It really slows our opponent down. Main plan is still disruption (possibly followed by extraction effects), lifegain, and clock them, so losing Stony Silence wouldn’t be that bad, but still hurtful.
• Tron: Other than the two pieces of disruption here mentioned, our best plan is disruption, lucky Pithing Needle, and Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction a Tron piece. We all know how tough this matchup is, so I guess… we need at least one of these two pieces to face them and stand a chance.
• Eldrazi: As I said before, I am not sure at all about which card would do better, but I believe that Damping Sphere could be favoured if we make use of our Pithing Needles to lock pesky Walking Ballistas or Endbringers. Other than that, removal is probably our best asset for the matchup. 4 Path to Exile please!
• Elves: Early disruption, removal, a bit of chumping, and a timely Wrath of God are our best bets. I don’t think I would side in Damping Sphere because we should be able to keep their mana production under control with our disruption. A random Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can be stopped with Ghost Quarter. The matchup is bad, and if we lose turn 2 casting something only to slow them down a bit, we might give up on our chances to win.
• Bloom Titan: If they don’t land Azusa, lost but seeking of Amulet of Vigor, we should be fine. True they pack some mass removal where Stony Silence is great like Walking Ballista or Engineered Explosives but I don’t think I would board it in anyway. Removal and disruption. The matchup is bad without Damping Sphere.
Summing up, I feel that there is more to win from using Damping Sphere than from abandoning Stony Silence. The best way to implement it would be in combination with 2 Pithing Needles. From these matchups, I believe the ones we will be facing the most in general (depends on your meta), are tron and eldrazi, so, at least me, I will be using the following SB plan for now:
Comments are very welcome, so please share your wisdom!
I dont think the aggro version of tokens is a winner, because if what you want is to play aggro creature based decks, there are a ton of decks in modern that will be better than tokens. The shell that makes the best of a tokens builds is a disrupting deck that builds up value over turns using resilient and versatile cards. As and other deck of the sort, struggle first turns and try to survive until you get in control of the situation.
Scapeshift is a horrible matchup, but we pack lost of disruption for combo decks like that (ad nauseam, storm...). I think most of them are 50/50 matchups. Now that I am playing Liliana, not even tron looks that bad (I have won my last 4 tron matches). I have cut the procession for the same reason you explain and because they are not resilient enough, unlike the rest of the threats we play (flashback, aftermath, Bitterblossom, PWs...). 3 GQ gives us a chance in combination with surgical extraction. And no Damping Sphere will make our chances against most of the decks I mentioned in this paragraph better.
I guess, in the end every player feels a bit identified for some deck's playstyle and gets a bit biased, but I dont think the control shell is dead, by any means.
2-0 Jund
Just push and play goblins sideways. Nice to see mighty Tarmogoyfs held back by a couple potentially attacking goblins hehe. Rabblemaster was surprisingly great at eating goyfs
IN: 2 Dismember, 2 Goblin Rabblemaster, 1 Claim // Fame.
OUT: 2 Goblin Piledriver, 4 Legion Loyalist.
2-0 Jund
Again, the same line. Got to some conclusion after speaking to the guy.
IN: 2 Dismember, 2 Goblin Rabblemaster, 1 Claim // Fame.
OUT: 2 Goblin Piledriver, 4 Legion Loyalist.
Claim // Fame is actually AMAZING, seriously. I was able to pull a game after bringing my goblin guide back and +2/+0, next turn he was at 7 lives and was too afraid to attack, what gave me the time to draw a couple gobs and whack them for the win.
The reason to take the Piledrivers out is that they are a bit weak against all the removal that Jund packs. Same line serves for Rabblemaster, however, I supposed that for grindier matchups, he could do some work. Topdecking him after the first removal fight seemed to be appealing. They worked great honestly, but after speaking to the second guy (the first told me they were great against him, but maybe was a bit biased by how hard they smashed him...), I believe the tech I would use would be:
IN: 2 Dismember, 2 Earwig Squad, 1 Claim // Fame.
OUT: 2 Goblin Piledriver, 4 Legion Loyalist.
The Earwigs survive fatal push, block goyfs, and would allow my to take their SB hate like finks, angers, or the like. What do you guys think?
2-1 Blood and Taxes (just the RW variant of D&T, I totally made the name up right there)
Aether vial deck. I was able to race him super hard game 1. Loyalist was UNBELIEVABLE blanking those 3/3 golems with first strike. Game two i kept a very risky 1-lander and didnt succeeded. G3 I won t3 :O.
IN: 2 Rakdos Charm, 1 Earwig Squad.
OUT: 1 Claim // Fame, 2 Mogg War Marshal
Didnt see any SB but he showed me after the match his copy of Worship. I sort of knew something like that was coming so I brought in a 1-of Earwig. God, that card is so versatile... And hits for 5!
0-2 Affinity
G1 he starts with a hand such that ends up playing 2 Vault Skirges. I drop GG and reveal a plating... he hits for 9 lifelink t2 and I fail to find any of my removal so I concede. I couldnt find any piece of disruption in g2 either. Only a very well played sudden shock got rid of a pesky arcbound but in the end it didnt help against a metalcrafted etched champion... I feel like our plan against affinity is similar like burn´s plan, i.e., try to be the control deck for the first turns and remove all relevant threats and build up the counter attack after that. Pity I couldnt find a single Mogg fanatic... What is your approach guys?
IN: 2 Rakdos Charm, 2 Smash to Smithereens, 1 Foul-tongue Shriek, 1 Sudden Shock.
OUT: 4 Mogg War Marshal, 1 Claim // Fame, 1 Spike Jester (I believe).
Overall a very solid performance. I wish I could have gone 4-0, but, hey!, affinity is a great deck and he had a reeeaaally good draw. So nothing to complain about Any feedback you guys might have, please let me know. I think this version of the deck is definitely great and offers a bit of extra consistency thanks to the black splash. Spike Jester was the main reason I went black, and couldnt be happier about it now.
Thank y´all for your help! Have a nice one!
I could see, for example, going to 1 CB, or 2 Fatal push to get the 2nd LL, but so far I like it like it is now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDQvTXW7wqU&list=PLt9-hBbjmFT7VEJ6CTSub3XhZjVSt7T9v
Really good tokens player (please forgive the mistakes he made ) with very powerfull list! Recommend checking.
I feel that 2 Legion's landing and a single Raise the Alarm feel a bit clunky... IDK, Wouldn’t you prefer Start // Finish instead? Keeping 1 Legion's landing would be fine still, mostly because you only run 23 lands.
If you are already playing 2 collective brutality, I dont think you need many more in the SB. True we make use of our GY, but playing 4 seems excessive, even for dredge. We simply don't have so many resources in our hand to dump.
Are you really playing Sorin, Lord of Innistrad over Sorin, Solemn Visitor. I play a singleton LoI myself, but never over go'ld Visitor, he is too powerful!
You might want to play 2 swamps for Lili. You could easily cut a Godless Shrine for that.
I have cut a Spectral Procession for a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar in my deck and i love him. This would also free up some SB space for Pithing Needle, which is a very useful tool (although not easy to use).
2x Pithing Needle
2x Stony Silence
2x Disenchant
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Extirpate
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Basilisk Collar
2x Wrath of God
With this piece of tech, I think we can safely go to 2 Stony Silences. Let them build tron, and then smash this on the field. Boom. It works t2 on the draw as well!
UW control: he got down to 1 life both games and I couldnt topdeck a spell for some turns. Tried to accumulate spells to funnel his counters, but he found balance way before I accumulated enough damage.
Bogles: game 1, I go keep and he goes... Leyline of sanctity. He drew coronets as well. Could this be our worst MU?
Ponza: won g1 easy. But could not get there games 2 and 3... I really dont know how that happened, since it sure looks favorable for us, right?
Taxes: Won G1 easy again. Thalia plus surprise Worship finished g2 for him. g3 I mulld to 5 with a horrible hand...
I mean... how is this possible? going through the plays with my ops, they really couldnt think of any play that I could have chained better. It feels unrealistic that such a robust deck runs out of spells so man times in a row (I even play 2 extra shard volleys for extra reach). I am really confused...
This goes in line with what I had in mind too. I will try a 3/3 split for now, since I dont want to be overexposed to aggro decks that will try to response to the Jace meta shift **ehem**lightning bolt**ehem**.
This list is really interesting. I feel butterflies in my belly if I think about running again those 4 Raise the alarm, for a more explosive start. In my case I would need to drop the 2 Start // Finish and the 2 Spectral Procession, which makes total sense if we are shifting towards a hybrid deck. After that, 2 copies of Legion's landing for a collective brutality and a land would get me there. My only but are the little gideons. Wouldnt Lili offer better value? I see the synergy with the other gideons but IDK... Probably makes more sense for this build, although not playing her makes me feel guilty xD. Can someone give a little explanation about what matchups is he good at? It would be really helpful.
1-2 Elves:
Game 1 disruption was key, but the rest of the games, I couldnt keep up because I found almost no ways to interact, after mulliganning both games...
In: 2 Wrath of God
Out: 2 Lili
0-2 Tezzerator:
Game 1 I saw the bridge and I kept playing just in case, but I knew the game was over... Game 2 I find the Stony silence and he top decks Decay... He was playing a playset after SB, so I wont say it was luck. The guy was prepared. A pitty because I had the disenchant in hand for an alpha strike. I should have played the pithing needle I had in hand same turn after stony to double block the sword/foundry combo. This matchup seems really unwinnable if we dont hit a perfect hand with disruption, Lili, and aggressive token production (which is beyond "nuts").
In: 3 Stony, 2 Disenchant, 2 Surgical, 2 Pithing
Out: 4 paths, 3 push, 1 BB (too slow and can kill me if the game goes long), 1 Virtue (not so good against bridge decks).
Maybe I should have boarded out a brutality for a path, because he brought a single hangarback walkers from SB, but I wanted to make sure I could remove his decays/whirl of invention.
2-0 Miracles:
Discard and GQ made his combo pieces and scries crumble. I would have probably also won without SB.
In: 2 Wrath, 2 Surgical
Out: 4 Path
2-1 Esper control:
Esper charm really pairs up good against our deck. Enchantment removal mainboard is nasty. BB, Lili, Discard, and "grindiness" will get us there against this kind of deck. The best of my play was not to throw our value cards (PW, BB, anthems) into counters and wait for the right spot. They are a reactive deck, so If there is nothing worth reacting the wont. Meanwhile, we just cheap damage with 2-4 tokens from lingering (the flashback is damage or a counter less in their hand). Never overcommit the board, because you would make wraths worth it. liliana won g3 ALONE.
In: 2 Surgical (snap, wraths, cryptics...)
Out: 2 path
I considered disenchant for detention sphere, but given that I won game 1, I waited to see it before I bring it. It didnt happen.
overall mediocre performance, but the MU were really not the best. Hope it helps!