Looking for a SB replacement for my Phoneix match up. I don't have any surgicals, so it's Crypts or Spellbombs? What's the pick here? Is the 1 mana that important?
I am personally on 1 surgical 2 spellbombs because I don't have the other 2 surgicals. Just my thing though, I like them.
I'd like to promote a discussion about our cantrip selection. I've seen many decks recently split our cantrips in 3 copies of Thought Scour, Bauble, Serum Visions/Opt, and 1-2 Faithless Looting. I firmly believe that 4 Thought Scours are needed in order to power up our early delve threats. Likewise, if our goal is to get those threats on the board ASAP, I don't see how the first copy of Serum Visions/Opt is better than the 4th copy of Bauble. I'd much prefer to pop 2 Baubles and play a discard spell T1 than T1 discard with Visions/Opt in hand.
Since our deck is no longer designed to grind (1 or 0 K commands, 3 Snaps, no LoTV) I don't see how spending mana on Serum Visions or Opt can be beneficial for our strategy. For example, if the pilot feels they constantly need to dig for land, the 18th land should be preferable than one the 2-3 loose copies of extra blue cantrips.
What's your experience with these splits and what are the pros and cons of your split? I'm currently running 4 Thought Scour, 4 Baubles and 18 lands. I'm very happy about it, specially due to being able to hit land drops for 3 CMC spells in the sideboard.
Looking forward to hearing your comments!
I run 4 scour, 2 serum visions, 1 looting, and 3 bauble. It feels perfect to me. I like this because I agree with you, the 4 scours are necessary, and I love the looting game one to bin useless cards.
I still am on the serum visions because I like how it grinds. You mentioned our deck is no longer meant to grind, but I think that is partly incorrect because there are definitely matchups where we do grind them out still - the meta is just a bit too fast to want the 4th snap and playset of visions in our mb.
Those are just my initial thoughts from your comment. Hope this provides a somewhat different viewpoint to the visions argument.
Interesting Star City Games article by Ben Friedman. I wonder about Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. If anyone has experience, I would be interested. I'm not excited about running additional cantrips so I would like to have more answers. I'm not sold on Rise//Fall. I've run it off and an. I think it was better as an answer in Grixis Delver where you didn't expect a random discard spell. On the other hand, it seems like Rise is a good answer to Phoenix decks.
I really like the Jace. It actually won me a game vs whir prison after ensnaring bridge which was halarious. It is quite good in grindy matchups like Jund etc... Not sure if it is better than the 4tb snap, but I am sold on it right now.
I have just started running rise // falls because Michael Rapp sold me on it... We will see how that goes. I like boarding it in against low land count decks, and yeah the Phoenix application is useful. I will probably end up cutting it soon though because it doesn't feel good enough for me to be honest.
Here's a wild idea I'd like some feedback on: maindecking Surgical Extraction. I feel that grave decks are so plentiful now that being able to maindeck SE could be very powerful, but the obvious issue is the card disadvantage which makes it so bad in any fair deck. However, I think if there is a fair deck that could pull this off, it would be Grixis Death Shadow:
It can benefit from the lifeloss as an instant speed trick
it can use it in conjunction with discard spells
it has a gameplan that can really benefit from taking a single specific card out of your opponent's deck, like Path to Exile.
Then, there are a bunch of cute interactions:
You could Mishra's bauble your opponent, see what they draw, then surgical to shuffle their deck or even surgical what they draw
up a creek without a paddle vs tron (or any similar deck) you could Thought Scour them in hope to Surgical a tronland
poor man's Gitaxian Probe
You would side out Surgical a lot, similar to faithless looting, but gain a large percentage against dredge and phoenix, the two top decks.
No one is running faithless looting? I’m currently on 2x faithless, 2x serum, 2x opt, 3x thoughtscour. The diversity seems to do well for me. Feel like bobble doesn’t do enough, even if it is free. Never played with it though
I currently run 1 faithless. I agree with the response above in that it lets you get rid of bad cards later on. It also allows for earlier anglers too. However, I would never go up to two because it loses a card, as well as it is a terrible topdeck later into the game.
About the bauble, I'm on three right now and I feel like it is the right amount. The reason why I'd run it over Opts or whatever is because of angler, and our land count. The free card in the grave yard for delve allows for the turn two angler to be possible, which is partly why street wraith is so good in our deck. Sure, opt is a good cantrip, but I bauble is just better, because it kind of is a scry in a way, as you normally can fetch away the card if you don't like it.
I am running 1 faithless/3 bauble/2 serum visions/4 thought scour as my cantrip as of now, and I really like it.
Sorry this is long and probably has terrible grammar etc... I'm on my phone on my way home haha.
Hope provides some insight.
My record in these two tournaments was 7-4, losing against two burns, one mono red phoenix and Tron. Overall the deck feels very strong but I feel that I need to improve my matchups against burn style decks, even if the games were very close (I was on the draw in all of them). Probably I'll go up in Collective Brutalities.
Yeah, the CB's work wonders, consider picking up 2 or 3 of them. Also, the 4th stub is surprisingly good against burn, which doesn't seem right but it works for me.
A weird question but are we 100% positive that 3 snaps are the way to go nowdays? With K Command being demoted to sideboard and snaps quite often being just a bad Ambush Viper, maybe it's not crazy to consider cutting 1 out?
After reading that, I still think that 3 Snaps is better. Even though the meta game has appeared to speed up a bit with the KCI ban, I still think that these guys provide too much value to pass up - a possible blocker or finisher if necessary, as well as a cast of another removal spell/cantrip/stub. I don't think that the meta is fast enough to cut down to two... yet? I don't think that 3 will change any time soon, however.
TLDR; the card provides too much value and support for our deck, the meta would have to be extremely fast to justify cutting to 2 snaps.
Hey all, just a quick question on our match up against dredge... There will be a dredge player entering my meta game, so I want to be prepared for the match up. How does game one play? I have anger and extirpates in my side board which should make the match up a lot better post side board. Thanks for all answers in advance.
Hey fellow GDS players. I have been revising my list recently, and I am wondering if it is optimal or not. I keep going back and fourth on card choices etc... I just can't decide lol. This mental torture isn't doing me any good, so I am hoping some of you better GDS players could either say my list is fine or I need to change certain cards. I'm pretty solid on my maindeck 60, and I love most of my sb, but I'd like to know your opinion. Here is the list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1559987#paper
*The Extirpates are in there instead of Surgical because buying 40+$ surgical just isn't worth it for me. They have the downside of being not phyrexian mana, which I get is really bad, especially in this deck, but they aren't strictly worse because they can't be countered.
Thanks for all comments/replies in advance!
Your list looks good to me, it conforms to lists with good finishes in the near past. Maybe, your SB could need some tuning, but I don't know what you are expecting to face. I would cut the spellbombs for instance (maybe add a 3rd extirpate, when u need them you REALLY want to draw one or two). You could add the 4th snapcaster for games that take longer, and/or a 3rd Bolt. Brutality also works for me as a 2of. I am on the fence about Anger, some play it some dont (I dont). Just my 2 cents....Good job on the list tho!
EDIT: Regarding the UR Phoenix topic: I actually quite like the matchup. But tbh, game 1 is close to unwinnable when they hit their phoenixes (except u have a really fast hand). Game 2 and 3 become MUCH better (since I play 3 surgicals). The most reliable path to victory for them becomes burning us out, so save your stubborns and ride your threat to victory.
Ok thanks for the feedback. I kind of like the 3:2 fatal push to lightning bolt ratio, so I think I'll leave that. With dredge so prevalent rn, I think I will keep the spell bombs, but CB does seem pretty good too rn. Idk if I have enough space, but I'll definitely take that into consideration. About the +1 Expirpate, I think I will cut an anger for it.
Hey fellow GDS players. I have been revising my list recently, and I am wondering if it is optimal or not. I keep going back and fourth on card choices etc... I just can't decide lol. This mental torture isn't doing me any good, so I am hoping some of you better GDS players could either say my list is fine or I need to change certain cards. I'm pretty solid on my maindeck 60, and I love most of my sb, but I'd like to know your opinion. Here is the list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1559987#paper
*The Extirpates are in there instead of Surgical because buying 40+$ surgical just isn't worth it for me. They have the downside of being not phyrexian mana, which I get is really bad, especially in this deck, but they aren't strictly worse because they can't be countered.
Thanks for all comments/replies in advance!
Enjoy your stay!
I am personally on 1 surgical 2 spellbombs because I don't have the other 2 surgicals. Just my thing though, I like them.
I run 4 scour, 2 serum visions, 1 looting, and 3 bauble. It feels perfect to me. I like this because I agree with you, the 4 scours are necessary, and I love the looting game one to bin useless cards.
I still am on the serum visions because I like how it grinds. You mentioned our deck is no longer meant to grind, but I think that is partly incorrect because there are definitely matchups where we do grind them out still - the meta is just a bit too fast to want the 4th snap and playset of visions in our mb.
Those are just my initial thoughts from your comment. Hope this provides a somewhat different viewpoint to the visions argument.
I really like the Jace. It actually won me a game vs whir prison after ensnaring bridge which was halarious. It is quite good in grindy matchups like Jund etc... Not sure if it is better than the 4tb snap, but I am sold on it right now.
I have just started running rise // falls because Michael Rapp sold me on it... We will see how that goes. I like boarding it in against low land count decks, and yeah the Phoenix application is useful. I will probably end up cutting it soon though because it doesn't feel good enough for me to be honest.
Seems very interesting I might give it a try lol
TBH, with leylines, you definitely should run 2 lootings. Run 0-1 if you don't run them.
I think that if I ran leylines I would 100% go for the second looting. I'd consider picking up another for something like a visions in your build.
I currently run 1 faithless. I agree with the response above in that it lets you get rid of bad cards later on. It also allows for earlier anglers too. However, I would never go up to two because it loses a card, as well as it is a terrible topdeck later into the game.
About the bauble, I'm on three right now and I feel like it is the right amount. The reason why I'd run it over Opts or whatever is because of angler, and our land count. The free card in the grave yard for delve allows for the turn two angler to be possible, which is partly why street wraith is so good in our deck. Sure, opt is a good cantrip, but I bauble is just better, because it kind of is a scry in a way, as you normally can fetch away the card if you don't like it.
I am running 1 faithless/3 bauble/2 serum visions/4 thought scour as my cantrip as of now, and I really like it.
Sorry this is long and probably has terrible grammar etc... I'm on my phone on my way home haha.
Hope provides some insight.
Yeah, the CB's work wonders, consider picking up 2 or 3 of them. Also, the 4th stub is surprisingly good against burn, which doesn't seem right but it works for me.
After reading that, I still think that 3 Snaps is better. Even though the meta game has appeared to speed up a bit with the KCI ban, I still think that these guys provide too much value to pass up - a possible blocker or finisher if necessary, as well as a cast of another removal spell/cantrip/stub. I don't think that the meta is fast enough to cut down to two... yet? I don't think that 3 will change any time soon, however.
TLDR; the card provides too much value and support for our deck, the meta would have to be extremely fast to justify cutting to 2 snaps.
Ok thanks for the feedback. I kind of like the 3:2 fatal push to lightning bolt ratio, so I think I'll leave that. With dredge so prevalent rn, I think I will keep the spell bombs, but CB does seem pretty good too rn. Idk if I have enough space, but I'll definitely take that into consideration. About the +1 Expirpate, I think I will cut an anger for it.
*The Extirpates are in there instead of Surgical because buying 40+$ surgical just isn't worth it for me. They have the downside of being not phyrexian mana, which I get is really bad, especially in this deck, but they aren't strictly worse because they can't be countered.
Thanks for all comments/replies in advance!