Are you having trouble casting certain spells when you need 2? They best way is to test...
Personally I cant see Rites being very useful to you and the singleton needle seems out of place.
It's for the gifts ungiven package. You tutor Unburial rites, Grave Titan, Cruel Ultimatum, Snapcaster so they are forced to give you what you want. **** is pro.
well if you weren't playing a stupid 4 color build you could own the deck. Trust me I played many games against it with teachings back in extended when it had arti-lands. It is really weak to almost any removal. Hell sideboard infest if it is that big of a deal.
Yeah, we really can. The blue Affinity lists are far weaker and less dangerous than the R/x builds. Demolish their hand, kill their big threats, and ride your card advantage to victory.
Bolding mine. It sounds like you're trying to make your mana base do way too much. Post your list- we'll see what can be done with your deck.
I'll concede that my mana base may be atrocious, but I know that a mana base can be found that makes it possible to cast all the spells I play without stretching my luck.
For testing purposes we tried desperate ravings yesterday instead of esper charm because it's cheaper and easier to cast and we had an argument over whether or not the other two abilities were relevant enough. So we just sleeved it up for one day.
Sadly I never saw them outside of two games, but the game I did see it I ended up with an epic set up because it dumped a helix for me and drew me into a snapcaster. and the other game I got bloodbraid into rise fall and got to pitch teachings and ravings and the flashback on ravings gave me a kill spell.
4 Path
4 Helix
4 Spell Snare
4 Desperate Ravings/esper charm
4 Snapcaster
3 Teachings
3 Cryptic Command
2 Repeal
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Terminate
1 Rest for the weary
1 Tribute to hunger
1 White Sun
1 Consume the meek
The mana base is ugly but here it is.
3 Island
1 Watery Grave
4 Creeping Tarpit
2 reflecting pool
3 mystic gate
1 hallowed fountain
2 steam vents
4 scalding tarn
1 mountain
1 plains
2 marsh flats
1 sacred foundry.
Guys I know the basics of beating aggro decks with control. The problem is affinity is actually way better than you guys are giving it credit for. You guys clearly have never suffered multiple thoughtcasts before. Just saying we cannot beat that deck straight up.
Anyway the decks I'm playing against currently are tribal zoo, big zoo, past in flames/ascension combo.dec, affinity.
I play freakin rest for the weary, 4 helixes, 4 paths, 1 terminate, 1 tribute to hunger, and repeals and consume the meeks. Affinity is still ripping me in half. I think I win 1 game out of every like 8. Jund is sorta 50/50 and usually turns into a topdeck war where you need to draw hotness. My storm matchup sucks game 1, but post board it's legit. The zoos were beating my face in today, but I think it's more of a mana issue than the actual list because there were several times I had stuff, but couldn't play it.
After some playtesting, I find that I'm having alot of problems against Jund based decks (notably raven's crime and bloodbraid elf).
Most of the time, the game goes on to the point where the board is clear and both of us are on the topdeck. Exept he can loam out my hand with raven's crime and I end up losing to some random threat.
Is there any card that's good in the graveyard / recurrable? Teachings for extraction doesnt cut it most of the time. You spent an entire turn to fetch something that wont help the board. And msot of the time i end up just pitching teachings to a ravens crime to save more important spells.
We are traditionally bad against Jund decks, but you shouldn't be dying hard if you have snapcaster and teachings. They are enough card advantage when abused properly with esper charm.
Fact. Our deck is AWFUL against affinity. What do you guys do against it. Seriously.
Twisted Image. You guys should try it. At worst a cantrip. At best a kill spell for 1 mana.
Doran, Spellskite, Hierarch, Ornithopter, steppe lynx, birds of paradise, wall of roots. I've had quite a bit of fun ripping people's happiness to shreds with the card.
Guy goes seachrome, memnite, signal pest, mox opal.
My response? Twisted image the pest. he can't even use the mox opal to play the other pest.
It's such a tempo killer it is ridiculous. I'm also starting to like Gut shot, but that is more of a for laughs kinda card. It doesn't kill enough stuff to be worth it.
Got to go to my local shop yesterday and play finally haven't had the chance in a long time and the cards that really shined for me were repeal, white sun, snapcaster.
I think everybody should play atleast 1 repeal just because it saved my ass everyother game and I only played 1 yesterday. White sun is underrated because the cats are actually quite relevant most of the time and you get enough of them they just eat up your opponents removal for some nice card advantage. Also I don't understand how you guys can say its hard to have triple white. Mystic gate exists. I also think Snapcaster should be a 4-of. He was never dead for me.
you should play about 7-8 removal spells in my opinion and you shouldn't need life gain if you have that. Slaughter Pact didn't impress me so I just took it out all together for something else.
but I don't really think that the VClique should be played.
You better have a good excuse for this one and it better not be. "Well the pros didn't have them."
EDIT: When I say "little to no" that means that you guys are playing less than 4 and I disagree with that choice and was curious why the decision was made to not max out on it.
So I'm pretty shocked at all of you guys playing these giant fat creatures and little to no snapcasters and V Cliques maindeck.
The biggest creature I play now is 1 Teferi, because VClique and snapcaster just win all of my games before I need to do anything else.
EDIT: How are you guys on counters? All I have is 3-4 Cryptics and 3 spell snare that would have been cut a while ago if I can think of some neat stuff to throw in instead. I never draw them.
They cast grapeshot to kill you. You Mindbreak trap, they remand grapeshot and try again. Or they can just get infinite mana, fire off grapeshot get it mindbreaked then banefire you.
If your plan twin is to play a combo deck that needs thoughtseize and extirpate, I would put my money on the guy with 4 preordain, 4 ponder, 4 probe//slight of hand//serum visions and not the dork playing 6 discard spells and 2 extirpates that he cannot cast till turn 4.
I'm sorry what exactly is your plan against their deck?
Progress comes from making suggestions not just insulting the people actually coming up with ideas.
So what are the current plans against ascension?
Not let ascension resolve (This means playing stuff like spell pierce)
Destroy it immediately (Krosan Grip/Disenchant/ Celestial Purge)
Kill them first (Not possible)
Surgical Extraction/ Extirpate Them multiple times.
What are all your plans against
Twin/Ascension/12post?
Unfortunately without a ton of counterspells UR combo is impossible to beat. Also pyromancer's ascension doesn't lose to mindbreak trap.
Please explain how it doesn't lose to mindbreak trap...
Twin decks get wrecked by discard. If you noticed a lot of these decks don't mulligan well perhaps thoughtseize next to extirpate/ surgical extraction can completely kill them. I know it slows twin down significantly.
Okay guys torpor orb or spellskite? Both are very good for this meta, but I feel that in the end you only want 1 or the other.
I have been fooling around with a list that plays a lot of 1 drops. My current list plays
4 Preordain
4 Path to exile
4 Lightning bolt
4 Thoughtseize
Maybe in the sideboard we could replace the bolts with more discard type effects like rise and fall?
I also think that we should let up on the counter magic because mana leak and rune snag aren't that great right now. The one weakness most of these decks that are meta have is that hand disruption and stuff like blightning can easily screw a hand up. The only deck this philosophy doesn't really fly with is pyromancer shenanigans. But decks like that lose to mindbreak trap so I say we use that as a plan.
It's for the gifts ungiven package. You tutor Unburial rites, Grave Titan, Cruel Ultimatum, Snapcaster so they are forced to give you what you want. **** is pro.
Blue zoo. Nuff said.
I'll concede that my mana base may be atrocious, but I know that a mana base can be found that makes it possible to cast all the spells I play without stretching my luck.
For testing purposes we tried desperate ravings yesterday instead of esper charm because it's cheaper and easier to cast and we had an argument over whether or not the other two abilities were relevant enough. So we just sleeved it up for one day.
Sadly I never saw them outside of two games, but the game I did see it I ended up with an epic set up because it dumped a helix for me and drew me into a snapcaster. and the other game I got bloodbraid into rise fall and got to pitch teachings and ravings and the flashback on ravings gave me a kill spell.
4 Path
4 Helix
4 Spell Snare
4 Desperate Ravings/esper charm
4 Snapcaster
3 Teachings
3 Cryptic Command
2 Repeal
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Terminate
1 Rest for the weary
1 Tribute to hunger
1 White Sun
1 Consume the meek
The mana base is ugly but here it is.
3 Island
1 Watery Grave
4 Creeping Tarpit
2 reflecting pool
3 mystic gate
1 hallowed fountain
2 steam vents
4 scalding tarn
1 mountain
1 plains
2 marsh flats
1 sacred foundry.
Anyway the decks I'm playing against currently are tribal zoo, big zoo, past in flames/ascension combo.dec, affinity.
I play freakin rest for the weary, 4 helixes, 4 paths, 1 terminate, 1 tribute to hunger, and repeals and consume the meeks. Affinity is still ripping me in half. I think I win 1 game out of every like 8. Jund is sorta 50/50 and usually turns into a topdeck war where you need to draw hotness. My storm matchup sucks game 1, but post board it's legit. The zoos were beating my face in today, but I think it's more of a mana issue than the actual list because there were several times I had stuff, but couldn't play it.
Agreed Teferi is too expensive and most of the time he is just a plumeveil.
We are traditionally bad against Jund decks, but you shouldn't be dying hard if you have snapcaster and teachings. They are enough card advantage when abused properly with esper charm.
Fact. Our deck is AWFUL against affinity. What do you guys do against it. Seriously.
Doran, Spellskite, Hierarch, Ornithopter, steppe lynx, birds of paradise, wall of roots. I've had quite a bit of fun ripping people's happiness to shreds with the card.
Guy goes seachrome, memnite, signal pest, mox opal.
My response? Twisted image the pest. he can't even use the mox opal to play the other pest.
It's such a tempo killer it is ridiculous. I'm also starting to like Gut shot, but that is more of a for laughs kinda card. It doesn't kill enough stuff to be worth it.
I think everybody should play atleast 1 repeal just because it saved my ass everyother game and I only played 1 yesterday. White sun is underrated because the cats are actually quite relevant most of the time and you get enough of them they just eat up your opponents removal for some nice card advantage. Also I don't understand how you guys can say its hard to have triple white. Mystic gate exists. I also think Snapcaster should be a 4-of. He was never dead for me.
You better have a good excuse for this one and it better not be. "Well the pros didn't have them."
EDIT: When I say "little to no" that means that you guys are playing less than 4 and I disagree with that choice and was curious why the decision was made to not max out on it.
The biggest creature I play now is 1 Teferi, because VClique and snapcaster just win all of my games before I need to do anything else.
EDIT: How are you guys on counters? All I have is 3-4 Cryptics and 3 spell snare that would have been cut a while ago if I can think of some neat stuff to throw in instead. I never draw them.
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Consume the Meek
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Pact of negation
1 Repeal
1 Tribute to hunger
1 Terminate
1 Wrath of God
1 White sun's zenith
3 Mystical Teachigns
3 Cryptic Command
3 Path to exile
3 Spell Snare
4 Esper Charm
4 Lightning Helix
Currently Have two mana bases
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Vivid Marsh
3 Vivid Crag
4 Reflecting Pool
1 Steam Vents
1 Island
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Mystic Gate
4 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Watery Grave
1 Dreadship Reef
4 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Reflecting Pool
3 Mystic Gate
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Marsh Flats
1 Sacred Foundry
I'm sorry what exactly is your plan against their deck?
Progress comes from making suggestions not just insulting the people actually coming up with ideas.
So what are the current plans against ascension?
Not let ascension resolve (This means playing stuff like spell pierce)
Destroy it immediately (Krosan Grip/Disenchant/ Celestial Purge)
Kill them first (Not possible)
Surgical Extraction/ Extirpate Them multiple times.
What are all your plans against
Twin/Ascension/12post?
Please explain how it doesn't lose to mindbreak trap...
Twin decks get wrecked by discard. If you noticed a lot of these decks don't mulligan well perhaps thoughtseize next to extirpate/ surgical extraction can completely kill them. I know it slows twin down significantly.
Okay guys torpor orb or spellskite? Both are very good for this meta, but I feel that in the end you only want 1 or the other.
4 Preordain
4 Path to exile
4 Lightning bolt
4 Thoughtseize
Maybe in the sideboard we could replace the bolts with more discard type effects like rise and fall?
I also think that we should let up on the counter magic because mana leak and rune snag aren't that great right now. The one weakness most of these decks that are meta have is that hand disruption and stuff like blightning can easily screw a hand up. The only deck this philosophy doesn't really fly with is pyromancer shenanigans. But decks like that lose to mindbreak trap so I say we use that as a plan.