How would you design a battle of wits deck if you know in advance that all of your opponents were also playing battle of wits decks? What are the key cards for the mirror? What is the best colour combo? Is it still UB and BUG?
Stupid question? Perhaps but it is going to be very relevant soon. There is going to be a Battle of Wits tournament in my LGC that is awarding 4x Foil Bonfire of the Damned. I am pretty sure that I need those Bonfires. Logistics aside this is going to be a fun tourney but how does the deck change in that kind of environment?
I grind out game one as per the plan. He literally counters every spell I cast and kills my with a blade splicer. In game 3, we go to extra turns and he beats me on turn 5. I finish the game with 1.5 lands in play for every spell I drew.
What I learned: I may need one fewer land and a different arrangement of spot removal. Liliana was predictable bad against blade splicer + restoration angel.
Rd 2 - Solar Flare - Lose 0-2
I lost game one to a misplay. I discarded a Mutilate to a lilana activation when I should have discarded a mimic vat. 8 turns later I was dead to the sun titan chain. Mimic vat was destroyed by a ratchet bomb along with my liliana. Game 2 was super close and really showcased the strength of Sign in Blood. My opponent was eroding my hand size and positioning for the win. He was using cantrips like forbidden alchemy and ponder for card draw therefore he was imporving his card quality whereas I would cast a single Sign in Blood and undo his carefully constructed card advantage. In the end, he assembled sun titan + image chain and pass the turn to me with 2 cards in hand. I had 2x mutilate and he had 2x negate. Oh well.
What I learned: Mutilate is great against the sun titan chain and sign in blood is boss in the control matchups. Very few cards in are seeing play in standard that can match SiB's straight 2 for 1.
Rd 3 - RB Vampires - Win 2-0
This was not really a match. My opponent was buried under sweepers and life gain.
What I learned: MBC is pretty solid against turn-em-sideways decks without any way to recoup card disadvantage.
Rd 4- GW Sublime aggro - Win 2-0
Again my opponent could not put up any resistance to sweepers and life gain. Staff of Nin stood out by killing off mana dorks and exalted creatures (2/1 pro-black Knight)
What I learned: It was more apparent that this was not as bad a deck to bring as orginally demonstrated. I also learned that all-in exalted decks fold to targeted removal.
Rd 5 - RB zombies - Win 2-0
This was a more interesting matchup than the previous two until my opponent kept a 1 lander and didn't get there in game one. Game 2 demonstrated the power of mimc vat by shutting off undying and killin gmy opponent with geralf messager triggers.
What I learned: Grafdigger's cage and nighthawk are excellent sb options against zombies.
Overall I went 3-2 in matches and 7-4 in games. The loses felt close and wins did not. I am going to tweak the numbers and sideboard plan and run it back next fnm. I broke even on the night with $5 store credit entrance fee being covered by a $5 prise for 14th. I will do better next time.
I have to agree with Jakalova here. Nighthawk is very versitile but I only want him in against g/x and aggro. He is pretty terrible against any form of control especially if he is in the main. I like to side board in some night hawks and bloodline keepers against control decks because they will have taken out their day of judgements and terminuses. If you have him in the main there is a tension between the sweepers and the hawks.
Pristine talisman does a great job of trying to stablize while not being effected by the sweepers. 3-4 life is the medium case scenario but usually you will gain more than that. This is a deck that tries to grind out the opponent and pristine is very grindy. It also offsets the life loss to sign in blood.
I also include a batterskull, a wurmcoil and a griselbrand for life gain because I think it is very important in this deck.
That is true about the sword. Pristine talisman buys time to resolve a finisher and accels into one. It is really unlikely that we would be able to control the board state forever against moorland haunt and a sword(not many decks can). So we need to buy enough time to move into a position to ignore it.
In my list, I use talisman, staff of nin, sweepers, mimic vat, and karn to deal with Moorland Haunt. I also have 4 duress to try and nab swords and mana leaks. This has been working out so far. But maybe a ghost quarter or two could provide the extra insurance against haunt. The first time I need to mutilate a hero of bladehold or angel of restoration on T4 and can't due to ghost quarter, I will probably tear them up.
I'm not sure you want to bother with Spine of Ish Sah unless you have a way to reliably sacrifice it for future uses. Karn on the other hand as a singleton is often excellent. MBC is so geared toward smashing aggro that it is nice to include karn as a late game threat against ramp and control. The fact that it can also grab an annoying artifact is gravy. TheRogue is absolutely correct that most of the time you can play around or ignore the artifacts so it may not be absolutely necessary depending on your meta.
@TheRogue, Pristine Talisman does serious work against moorland haunt. It forces them to overextending to another sweeper after their graveyard is depleted.
I have seen stoney silence boarded in by BW tokens as an anti-ratchet bomb plan. But seriously if they are siding that in against us it is not the end of the world. It is essentially a dead card because it is not a threat and every one beyond the first is redundant. So to bring that in they are taking out some amount of threats or removal. That is fine by me.
@SeishinKizuna, Doesn't witchbane orb only stop the discard a few turns after you have probably cast it all and some edicts? If it is a problem in your meta then I would suggest adjusting your deck to be less affected by it overall and not worry about answering it directly (spine of ish sah).
How do people like Curse of Death's Hold in MBC? Is it too slow? Too low impact? I loved it in UB control but that deck did not have access to mutilate.
One of the things I like about this configuration is that a lot of the cards can be identified in different catagories.
For example, Staff of Nin is also removal and a win con as well as card draw. Over the course of a game, the staff can easily dominate some strategies like solar flare(targets images, out draws them, shoots lingering souls tokens and blade splicers).
It was the goal to have as many of the cards be as flexible in their roles as possible. This is very important in mono-coloured control decks. It is difficult to have every answer to every threat in normal coniditions but when the addtional restriction of mono-colour is applied it becomes impossible. MBC's biggest weakness has always been a bad sideboard due to lack of options. To this end, I have tried to have as many versatile cards in the main deck as possibe and then side into a few heavy hitting game changers in each match.
My meta is very aggressive so I have started the deck in an anti-aggro configuration with only a few sideboard options in massacre wurm, vampire nighthawk and barter in blood. The remainder of the sideboard is for control matchups. Grafdigger's cage is for pod and flash-back heavy control.
The pristine talismans may be one of the best cards in the deck. It offsets the cost of the card draw and encourages an opponent to over-extend into a sweeper. Liliana is only a 2 of beacause I generaly do not want to play her until post-sweeper to get any remaining fatty or the follow up play.
I actually could talk about this deck for hours so if you have any specific questions about strategy or card choices then feel free to ask. I will be playing this at FNM this week and will post a report eventually.
I have won (1st place) the last three FNMs that I attended using variants of this deck. It has also finished 2nd at a booster box tourney. This deck has been generating some serious amounts of store credit. I may not need to pay entrance fees until October because of this sweet, sweet darling. This weekend there is a PTQ and Team Trios event. Both of these are going to be tougher than some random 32-man FNMs so I am throwing the deck out there for some sideboarding help.
In a format that is overloaded with aggro decks, I can not overstate how insane this version is. Control decks, namely solar flare and esper control, are very grindy but we are favored in the long run due to buried ruin. I am still figuring out how to beat them in a timely manner instead of going close to time very time I play against them.
Delver feels a little less than a 50/50 matchup. I think restoration angel is the problem. Geist of saint traft is never going to survive a deck with 8 clones.
I am looking for ideas on sideboarding to improve my delver match up and control match up. The maindeck is very consistant and well postioned. I am not looking to change it but I am open to suggestions.
Explaination of some of the odd cards.
Only 1 Trinket mage - this is all I can fit into the main deck usually. Once you board in multiple mages + tinkets to fetch you have no room to bring anything else in. As you only ever want one cage or parasite, it makes sense to me to only have to bring in 1 mage + 1 trinket depending on the matchup.
1 Hex parasite - This is bonkers against: ratchet bombs, planeswalkers, phantasmal images, and shrines.
1 graffdigger's cage - for Green sun's zenith, birthing pod, lingering souls, gravecrawler. undying creatures, suntitan + image.
2 dungeon geist - for ramp decks, mirror matches and any grindy creature decks.
3 spellskite - great for protecting wurmcoil and architect, blocking stragleroot geist and countering rancors.
Again I am looking for sideboard plans for delver and control. What has worked for you guys and do you have any super sicko tech?
Gideon with Sabre
Has anybody received graphic design work beyond altering since starting altering? This has started happening for me in the form of signage and logos for new businesses. A new entrepreneur sees and likes an alter and then contacts me about the work. Is this weird or the does it happen to everybody?
Your mana base. You forgot to type in the darkslick shores. It is a very good land for your deck allowing for more options on turn one. Zephyr Sprite or thoughtseize? I think you have too many basic swamps and verdant catacombs. I would try something like this for your current spell selection:
4 river of tears
4 darkslick shores
1 watery grave
2 verdant catacombs
1 minamo, school at water's edge (sick for the amount of legends you have)
4 mutavaults
2 creeping tar pit
4 island
2 swamp
24 lands
22 may be to few. Ninjas and swords are mana hungry.
I would not worry too much about blood moon. You will lose more games not having the right colour for the spell in your hand. You have discard and counterspells to fight that line of play.
How has Distortion strike been? I think it is likely better to have removal in that spot. You dont need to sneak by creatures that are dead (except zombies). Maybe smother or go for the throat. I personally love darkblast in these decks. So good against the inkmoth/glistner elf, affinity, elves, pestermites, dryad arbors, noble hierarchs, etc. I run 1 main and 1 side.
i understand the signets for the blood moon but it is too many dead cards and seems like you can really stall out with no answers to several decks... i think you need to choose weather to be a lock out deck with moon or the mid-range late game take over control with angels counters and removal to catch up... and thirst for knowledge is cumbersome may want a mage like the previous deck or the sea gate oracle... something that can consistently do something for you in a bind...
what are your concerns with current meta? what is it you want to beat with this build?
The signets have three roles. Firstly, as you mentioned they allow me to play through bloodmoon. Secondly, they allow for a turn three Angel which is good against zoo decks. It forces them to have the path or get 2 for 1'ed and 3 damage is alot against zoo's painful mana. Thirdly, If you draw too many you can discard them to thrist for knowledge.
The strong argument for Thirst for Knowledge is that it is an instant unlike the mages and sea gate oracle. I can keep up or threaten countermagic and EOT to draw a bunch of cards. Thirst has allowed me to use a bunch of early removal to slow zoo/infect then pull ahead on card advantage after trading 1 for 1's. Other than signets, preordains, moons and angels, all the spells are instant/flash.
The blood moons help the 12post match up since control can not beat that deck late game reliably. They have splash damage against zoo.
My meta is mostly combo, zoo, random rouge decks and a few 12 post.
River of Tears have been really good. It is important to have an untapped black source on turn one in order to curve out starting with a discard spell. With 4x River of Tears, 4x Darkslick Shores, 2x Swamp, 2x Watery Grave, 2x Verdant Catacombs and an Urborg, my list has 15. It is also important for my list since I run gatekeeper of malakir. A lot of black mana is used on my turn and blue on the opponents turn. River of Tears fills this space in my mana development admirably.
One of the nice things about this deck is the land. It is very rare to get colour screwed with 20 black sources and 18 blue sources and it has 7 man lands. Best of all the mana does very little damage to you (confidants and thoughseizes do that :P).
Here is a little something I was throwing around. The more I test the more lightning angels I cut. I am eventually going to test with just 4 vendilion clique as win cons but I think that will be a while yet.
I like this list a geat deal and would like to hear some harsh criticisms to keep me honest while evaluating.
Stupid question? Perhaps but it is going to be very relevant soon. There is going to be a Battle of Wits tournament in my LGC that is awarding 4x Foil Bonfire of the Damned. I am pretty sure that I need those Bonfires. Logistics aside this is going to be a fun tourney but how does the deck change in that kind of environment?
Thanks
4 Pristine Talisman
3 Solemn Simulacrum
Win Conditions
1 Mimic Vat
1 Batterskull
1 Karn Liberated
1 Griselbrand
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Distruption and Removal
4 Duress
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Doom Blade
2 Geth's Verdict
1 Tragic Slip
4 Mutilate
3 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Sign in Blood
2 Staff of Nin
3 Vampire Nighthawk
3 Bloodline Keeper
1 Barter in Blood
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Go for the Throat
2 Distress
A quick run down:
Rd 1 - Esper Mid-range - Lose 1-2
I grind out game one as per the plan. He literally counters every spell I cast and kills my with a blade splicer. In game 3, we go to extra turns and he beats me on turn 5. I finish the game with 1.5 lands in play for every spell I drew.
What I learned: I may need one fewer land and a different arrangement of spot removal. Liliana was predictable bad against blade splicer + restoration angel.
Rd 2 - Solar Flare - Lose 0-2
I lost game one to a misplay. I discarded a Mutilate to a lilana activation when I should have discarded a mimic vat. 8 turns later I was dead to the sun titan chain. Mimic vat was destroyed by a ratchet bomb along with my liliana. Game 2 was super close and really showcased the strength of Sign in Blood. My opponent was eroding my hand size and positioning for the win. He was using cantrips like forbidden alchemy and ponder for card draw therefore he was imporving his card quality whereas I would cast a single Sign in Blood and undo his carefully constructed card advantage. In the end, he assembled sun titan + image chain and pass the turn to me with 2 cards in hand. I had 2x mutilate and he had 2x negate. Oh well.
What I learned: Mutilate is great against the sun titan chain and sign in blood is boss in the control matchups. Very few cards in are seeing play in standard that can match SiB's straight 2 for 1.
Rd 3 - RB Vampires - Win 2-0
This was not really a match. My opponent was buried under sweepers and life gain.
What I learned: MBC is pretty solid against turn-em-sideways decks without any way to recoup card disadvantage.
Rd 4- GW Sublime aggro - Win 2-0
Again my opponent could not put up any resistance to sweepers and life gain. Staff of Nin stood out by killing off mana dorks and exalted creatures (2/1 pro-black Knight)
What I learned: It was more apparent that this was not as bad a deck to bring as orginally demonstrated. I also learned that all-in exalted decks fold to targeted removal.
Rd 5 - RB zombies - Win 2-0
This was a more interesting matchup than the previous two until my opponent kept a 1 lander and didn't get there in game one. Game 2 demonstrated the power of mimc vat by shutting off undying and killin gmy opponent with geralf messager triggers.
What I learned: Grafdigger's cage and nighthawk are excellent sb options against zombies.
Overall I went 3-2 in matches and 7-4 in games. The loses felt close and wins did not. I am going to tweak the numbers and sideboard plan and run it back next fnm. I broke even on the night with $5 store credit entrance fee being covered by a $5 prise for 14th. I will do better next time.
Pristine talisman does a great job of trying to stablize while not being effected by the sweepers. 3-4 life is the medium case scenario but usually you will gain more than that. This is a deck that tries to grind out the opponent and pristine is very grindy. It also offsets the life loss to sign in blood.
I also include a batterskull, a wurmcoil and a griselbrand for life gain because I think it is very important in this deck.
In my list, I use talisman, staff of nin, sweepers, mimic vat, and karn to deal with Moorland Haunt. I also have 4 duress to try and nab swords and mana leaks. This has been working out so far. But maybe a ghost quarter or two could provide the extra insurance against haunt. The first time I need to mutilate a hero of bladehold or angel of restoration on T4 and can't due to ghost quarter, I will probably tear them up.
@TheRogue, Pristine Talisman does serious work against moorland haunt. It forces them to overextending to another sweeper after their graveyard is depleted.
I have seen stoney silence boarded in by BW tokens as an anti-ratchet bomb plan. But seriously if they are siding that in against us it is not the end of the world. It is essentially a dead card because it is not a threat and every one beyond the first is redundant. So to bring that in they are taking out some amount of threats or removal. That is fine by me.
@SeishinKizuna, Doesn't witchbane orb only stop the discard a few turns after you have probably cast it all and some edicts? If it is a problem in your meta then I would suggest adjusting your deck to be less affected by it overall and not worry about answering it directly (spine of ish sah).
How do people like Curse of Death's Hold in MBC? Is it too slow? Too low impact? I loved it in UB control but that deck did not have access to mutilate.
I have been tinkering with MBC for a few weeks and have had reasonable amount of success with this list:
4 Pristine Talisman
4 Solemn Simulacrum
Win Conditions
1 Mimic Vat
1 Batterskull
1 Karn Liberated
1 Griselbrand
Distruption and Removal
4 Duress
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Doom Blade
2 Geth's Verdict
1 Tragic Slip
4 Mutilate
3 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Sign in Blood
2 Staff of Nin
4 Vampire Nighthawk
2 Bloodline Keeper
1 Barter in Blood
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Distress
One of the things I like about this configuration is that a lot of the cards can be identified in different catagories.
For example, Staff of Nin is also removal and a win con as well as card draw. Over the course of a game, the staff can easily dominate some strategies like solar flare(targets images, out draws them, shoots lingering souls tokens and blade splicers).
It was the goal to have as many of the cards be as flexible in their roles as possible. This is very important in mono-coloured control decks. It is difficult to have every answer to every threat in normal coniditions but when the addtional restriction of mono-colour is applied it becomes impossible. MBC's biggest weakness has always been a bad sideboard due to lack of options. To this end, I have tried to have as many versatile cards in the main deck as possibe and then side into a few heavy hitting game changers in each match.
My meta is very aggressive so I have started the deck in an anti-aggro configuration with only a few sideboard options in massacre wurm, vampire nighthawk and barter in blood. The remainder of the sideboard is for control matchups. Grafdigger's cage is for pod and flash-back heavy control.
The pristine talismans may be one of the best cards in the deck. It offsets the cost of the card draw and encourages an opponent to over-extend into a sweeper. Liliana is only a 2 of beacause I generaly do not want to play her until post-sweeper to get any remaining fatty or the follow up play.
I actually could talk about this deck for hours so if you have any specific questions about strategy or card choices then feel free to ask. I will be playing this at FNM this week and will post a report eventually.
I have won (1st place) the last three FNMs that I attended using variants of this deck. It has also finished 2nd at a booster box tourney. This deck has been generating some serious amounts of store credit. I may not need to pay entrance fees until October because of this sweet, sweet darling. This weekend there is a PTQ and Team Trios event. Both of these are going to be tougher than some random 32-man FNMs so I am throwing the deck out there for some sideboarding help.
Blue Man Group
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Grand Architect
4 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Spellskite
4 Ponder
4 Vapor Snag
2 Gut shot
4 Buried Ruin
2 Ghost Quarter
17 Islands
1 Trinket Mage
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Hex Parasite
1 Batterskull
2 Negate
2 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Azure Mage
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Dungeon Geist
2 Surgical Extraction
In a format that is overloaded with aggro decks, I can not overstate how insane this version is. Control decks, namely solar flare and esper control, are very grindy but we are favored in the long run due to buried ruin. I am still figuring out how to beat them in a timely manner instead of going close to time very time I play against them.
Delver feels a little less than a 50/50 matchup. I think restoration angel is the problem. Geist of saint traft is never going to survive a deck with 8 clones.
I am looking for ideas on sideboarding to improve my delver match up and control match up. The maindeck is very consistant and well postioned. I am not looking to change it but I am open to suggestions.
Explaination of some of the odd cards.
Only 1 Trinket mage - this is all I can fit into the main deck usually. Once you board in multiple mages + tinkets to fetch you have no room to bring anything else in. As you only ever want one cage or parasite, it makes sense to me to only have to bring in 1 mage + 1 trinket depending on the matchup.
1 Hex parasite - This is bonkers against: ratchet bombs, planeswalkers, phantasmal images, and shrines.
1 graffdigger's cage - for Green sun's zenith, birthing pod, lingering souls, gravecrawler. undying creatures, suntitan + image.
2 dungeon geist - for ramp decks, mirror matches and any grindy creature decks.
3 spellskite - great for protecting wurmcoil and architect, blocking stragleroot geist and countering rancors.
Again I am looking for sideboard plans for delver and control. What has worked for you guys and do you have any super sicko tech?
Green Lantern Ring,
Image from http://www.historyguy.com/comicshistory/green_lantern.htm#.Tz1rK04gcxA
Sad Robot
Image from here
Meloku
Gideon with Sabre
Has anybody received graphic design work beyond altering since starting altering? This has started happening for me in the form of signage and logos for new businesses. A new entrepreneur sees and likes an alter and then contacts me about the work. Is this weird or the does it happen to everybody?
Your mana base. You forgot to type in the darkslick shores. It is a very good land for your deck allowing for more options on turn one. Zephyr Sprite or thoughtseize? I think you have too many basic swamps and verdant catacombs. I would try something like this for your current spell selection:
4 river of tears
4 darkslick shores
1 watery grave
2 verdant catacombs
1 minamo, school at water's edge (sick for the amount of legends you have)
4 mutavaults
2 creeping tar pit
4 island
2 swamp
24 lands
22 may be to few. Ninjas and swords are mana hungry.
I would not worry too much about blood moon. You will lose more games not having the right colour for the spell in your hand. You have discard and counterspells to fight that line of play.
How has Distortion strike been? I think it is likely better to have removal in that spot. You dont need to sneak by creatures that are dead (except zombies). Maybe smother or go for the throat. I personally love darkblast in these decks. So good against the inkmoth/glistner elf, affinity, elves, pestermites, dryad arbors, noble hierarchs, etc. I run 1 main and 1 side.
The signets have three roles. Firstly, as you mentioned they allow me to play through bloodmoon. Secondly, they allow for a turn three Angel which is good against zoo decks. It forces them to have the path or get 2 for 1'ed and 3 damage is alot against zoo's painful mana. Thirdly, If you draw too many you can discard them to thrist for knowledge.
The strong argument for Thirst for Knowledge is that it is an instant unlike the mages and sea gate oracle. I can keep up or threaten countermagic and EOT to draw a bunch of cards. Thirst has allowed me to use a bunch of early removal to slow zoo/infect then pull ahead on card advantage after trading 1 for 1's. Other than signets, preordains, moons and angels, all the spells are instant/flash.
The blood moons help the 12post match up since control can not beat that deck late game reliably. They have splash damage against zoo.
My meta is mostly combo, zoo, random rouge decks and a few 12 post.
One of the nice things about this deck is the land. It is very rare to get colour screwed with 20 black sources and 18 blue sources and it has 7 man lands. Best of all the mana does very little damage to you (confidants and thoughseizes do that :P).
I like this list a geat deal and would like to hear some harsh criticisms to keep me honest while evaluating.
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
3 Blood Moon
1 Izzet Signet
3 Azorius Signet
2 Lightning Angel
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
4 Preordain
3 Plains
7 Island
1 Mountain
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Arid Mesa
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Celestial Colonnade
2 Firespout
1 Path to Exile
2 Echoing Truth
1 Blood moon
2 Vedalken Shackles
3 Flashfreeze
1 Dispel
2 Wrath of God
1 Negate