My question is mainly how does this deck function against mana denial? A single GQ can knock you completely out of Blue mana, and afaik there isn't any real way to defend against it. Eldrazi, Tron, Bears, Junk etc. all play GQ, and this list hinges pretty heavily on counterspells.
Does anyone have input on how to SB with this deck?
I think your questions may be better suited for the death's shadow aggro thread. However because it's both a death's shadow deck and a 5 color deck, there are definitely sacrifices to be made. Certainly a greedy mana base, but I think that the blue reliance is very minimal game 1, you likely just keep fetches up when you can against the gq match-ups. You don't risk milling your lands either due to the lack of thought scour, which is an occasional problem for grixis.
I mean, twin almost exists today if youre willing to bite the bullet and accept a turn 5 kill over turn 4, although its almost always going to be strictly UR because of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker's RRR casting cost requirement. We've had random cute blue spells printed. Twin would love Opt as well
There is a big difference between 4 & 5 mana, which prevents that kind of twin-similar deck to be top-tier
I feel like grixis is the best suited color-combo for a twin deck if it were part of the format. Access to fatal push, kolaghan's command and tasigur makes grixis better than straight UR, jeskai or Temur in my opinion.
I loved the Grixis shell, but it makes it extremely difficult to play Blood Moon. Unfortunately I didn't get to play it enough before the ban to see if it was worth the black splash over playing Blood Moon. Maybe it would be today, with the addition of Fatal Push, but Blood Moon also wreaks havoc among many of the top decks (GDS, Titanshift, Eldrazi, etc). I would assume the two (UR and Grixis) would coexist with different game plans, just like they used to. But Grixis would be a little more popular thanks to Fatal Push.
I 100% agree with that assessment. Meta game would likely have a lot to do with it as well. My favorite version of twin that I played up until it got banned was a UR with the slightest black splash. Tasigur had often felt clunky with the combo, so this version only splashed for k command 1 murderous cut and 1 terminate. It was a lot of fun and still got to play blood moon very well. Played out like UR twin, but with better removal options.
I feel like grixis is the best suited color-combo for a twin deck if it were part of the format. Access to fatal push, kolaghan's command and tasigur makes grixis better than straight UR, jeskai or Temur in my opinion.
Price is a function of supply and demand. A card being overpriced means that the price of the card is above where the demand and supply curves intersect (in a hypothetical supply and demand economic model). What causes overpricing is often delayed effects such as price memory or future expectations. Standard isn't exactly an example of overpricing as the price of standard cards usually reflects the amount of play it receives in both standard and all other formats. Karn is likely overpriced right now due to price memory as well as future expectations (likely not going to be reprinted soon and thus supply on the market will likely fall).
Bring in the K Command vs them, and possibly even By Force. They should have Chalice of the Void postboard.
I don't think that is very common, I don't see any lists on goldfish playing chalice. Is K-command still worth it at with no chalice? I guess engineered explosives gets played in shift.
Chalice is really good against us, and there's still a reasonable chance that any given GR valakut deck has it (to make up a number say 10%), and the downside is low - shock + discard still helps vs them. I think it's worth it.
EE is definitely not worth it though (someone suggested it up thread). It costs 1 less to deal with chalice, but that's basically all it does.
keep in mind a lot of valakut decks have 4 relics in their 75 as well which adds nonzero value to kcommand post game. i used to board out kcommand but i now leave them in vs valakut for these reasons
That's a good point, I imagine you ended up trimming street wraiths?
Interesting enough there is no reflector mage in the 75, 3 mirran crusader and 2 phyrexian revoker in the sideboard. Also 3 thalia, heretic cathar and 2 kitchen finks in the main.
I think what you board in and board out is good. I would bring in 1 EE as some of them playing chalice and our discard are very good against it unless they have topdeck it. I would play surgical extraction when discard a titan and extract them are enough to win the game.
I agree,I actually just before this tournament switched off of surgical in favor of temur battle-rage. Thus far (from a very small sample size) I've liked battle-rage much much more. It lets you steal games from otherwise difficult match-ups, especially against decks playing lingering souls. I additionally have found surgical as kind of underwhelming, it is of course very good here.
Bring in the K Command vs them, and possibly even By Force. They should have Chalice of the Void postboard.
I don't think that is very common, I don't see any lists on goldfish playing chalice. Is K-command still worth it at with no chalice? I guess engineered explosives gets played in shift.
After having lots of failure with this deck I ended up winning FNM last night (after barely squeaking into top 8) in which I beat titan shift in both the semi's and the finals. I'm mainly curious as to how other people approach this match-up. My maindeck is 19 land, completely stock.
I sideboarded by cutting 4 fatal pushes, 2 kolaghan's command and 1 street wraith. I brought in 2 Liliana, 2 Temur Battle-Rage, 2 collective brutality, 1 stubborn denial.
This is actually an intriguing topic, just because of how wildly this differs across decks. Obviously what makes a good spell to land ratio in the opening hand of a deck is determined by the play style of that deck. Control decks want to continue making land drops. Aggro decks want to jam a bunch of low mana spells and rarely want to draw above 3 lands. Midrange decks akin to BGx (Jund and Abzan) are looking to maximize efficiency by curving out.
Those are all pretty obvious things that help in determining optimal to good hands. In terms of what is just acceptable enough to keep, I think it's largely contextual. For decks like grixis shadow 4 land hands are abysmal. For a deck like classic Gx Tron 4 land hands are fairly normal keeps. Whenever I've played Collected Company Decks I usually keep 4 land hands when there is collected company accompanied by a turn 2 and turn 3 play. In general when evaluating hands I usually approach it as if I mulliganed to 6 and had the same hand minus the worst card in that hand, would I keep it?
What deck is playing Ethersworn Canonist? Or is this 150% spike just some random buyout? It says "GW Company" on Goldfish, but links to a deck not even running it...
This is legacy driven, new miracles list all play it due to their poor match up against storm
I kept this hand on the play, which is undoubtedly wrong. I was then severely punished when i failed to draw a land for three turns and then drew a blood crypt. However on the draw I feel like the hand is much more interesting as you effectively have three looks at making your turn one land drop and 16 of the 1 lands are live. Do you mulligan to 5 against a control deck thats packed with removal?
I believe this is pretty standard and nothing really special. Are 10 Fetchlands duable or should i cut them down to 8?
Kinda like the sideboard 1-off creatures in conjunction with Eldritch Evolution to free up some slots.
Would be nice if anybody has suggestions or general advices for me as i'm completely new to the deck.
As GoST- said 10 fetches are very doable, the only issue i see with your fetch count is that your wooded foothills may become dead occasionally. You only have 5 lands you can fetch out with them versus the 6 you can fetch out with misty and 7 with windswept heath. You may want to switch one of those foothills into a flooded strand to reduce the likelihood of running out of lands to fetch. Either that or you could cut a fetch in favor of a botanical sanctum which may be good given the mainboard clique.
Having played around with the deck a bit more, I always feel very comfortable against any deck, but I can't seem to ever win against naya zoo. The version with the emissary and the reckless buschwacker.
What is our strategy? Hope to get T1 dork into T2 3drop?
They just go way too wide way too fast, so I haven't found blessed alliance that useful for either removal or life. Courser does help with the life, but he doesn't trade that well. Could the answer be in the reflector mages?
I think this match-up is favorable. I approach the match-up as the control deck looking to create a boardstall. Once we can stabilize and create a board stall we're heavily favored as we can break through boardstalls with flyers and knight doesn't need to attack to create value. Having turn one dork is really important in this match-up and spell queller can be quite devastating for them.
Has anyone tested a version with a couple of tarmogoyfs?
I've tested goyfs briefly, I played 2 of them and found that they weren't all that good. In knightfall we want all of our creatures to serve some other purpose other than being a beater. Goyf was too often just a 2/3 (sometimes less) and really only shined in the matches in which our opponent is naturally putting a lot of card types in their graveyard.
I think your questions may be better suited for the death's shadow aggro thread. However because it's both a death's shadow deck and a 5 color deck, there are definitely sacrifices to be made. Certainly a greedy mana base, but I think that the blue reliance is very minimal game 1, you likely just keep fetches up when you can against the gq match-ups. You don't risk milling your lands either due to the lack of thought scour, which is an occasional problem for grixis.
There is a big difference between 4 & 5 mana, which prevents that kind of twin-similar deck to be top-tier
I 100% agree with that assessment. Meta game would likely have a lot to do with it as well. My favorite version of twin that I played up until it got banned was a UR with the slightest black splash. Tasigur had often felt clunky with the combo, so this version only splashed for k command 1 murderous cut and 1 terminate. It was a lot of fun and still got to play blood moon very well. Played out like UR twin, but with better removal options.
That's a good point, I imagine you ended up trimming street wraiths?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpsao17/top-8-decklists-2017-08-13
Interesting enough there is no reflector mage in the 75, 3 mirran crusader and 2 phyrexian revoker in the sideboard. Also 3 thalia, heretic cathar and 2 kitchen finks in the main.
I agree,I actually just before this tournament switched off of surgical in favor of temur battle-rage. Thus far (from a very small sample size) I've liked battle-rage much much more. It lets you steal games from otherwise difficult match-ups, especially against decks playing lingering souls. I additionally have found surgical as kind of underwhelming, it is of course very good here.
I don't think that is very common, I don't see any lists on goldfish playing chalice. Is K-command still worth it at with no chalice? I guess engineered explosives gets played in shift.
After having lots of failure with this deck I ended up winning FNM last night (after barely squeaking into top 8) in which I beat titan shift in both the semi's and the finals. I'm mainly curious as to how other people approach this match-up. My maindeck is 19 land, completely stock.
My sideboard:
1 Stubborn Denial
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Collective Brutality
2 Temur Battle-rage
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 By Force
I sideboarded by cutting 4 fatal pushes, 2 kolaghan's command and 1 street wraith. I brought in 2 Liliana, 2 Temur Battle-Rage, 2 collective brutality, 1 stubborn denial.
Those are all pretty obvious things that help in determining optimal to good hands. In terms of what is just acceptable enough to keep, I think it's largely contextual. For decks like grixis shadow 4 land hands are abysmal. For a deck like classic Gx Tron 4 land hands are fairly normal keeps. Whenever I've played Collected Company Decks I usually keep 4 land hands when there is collected company accompanied by a turn 2 and turn 3 play. In general when evaluating hands I usually approach it as if I mulliganed to 6 and had the same hand minus the worst card in that hand, would I keep it?
This is legacy driven, new miracles list all play it due to their poor match up against storm
Keep or mull?
I kept this hand on the play, which is undoubtedly wrong. I was then severely punished when i failed to draw a land for three turns and then drew a blood crypt. However on the draw I feel like the hand is much more interesting as you effectively have three looks at making your turn one land drop and 16 of the 1 lands are live. Do you mulligan to 5 against a control deck thats packed with removal?
As GoST- said 10 fetches are very doable, the only issue i see with your fetch count is that your wooded foothills may become dead occasionally. You only have 5 lands you can fetch out with them versus the 6 you can fetch out with misty and 7 with windswept heath. You may want to switch one of those foothills into a flooded strand to reduce the likelihood of running out of lands to fetch. Either that or you could cut a fetch in favor of a botanical sanctum which may be good given the mainboard clique.
I think this match-up is favorable. I approach the match-up as the control deck looking to create a boardstall. Once we can stabilize and create a board stall we're heavily favored as we can break through boardstalls with flyers and knight doesn't need to attack to create value. Having turn one dork is really important in this match-up and spell queller can be quite devastating for them.
I've tested goyfs briefly, I played 2 of them and found that they weren't all that good. In knightfall we want all of our creatures to serve some other purpose other than being a beater. Goyf was too often just a 2/3 (sometimes less) and really only shined in the matches in which our opponent is naturally putting a lot of card types in their graveyard.