There's so much unconscious sexism I'd say. I try to keep cards at it, because they're pieces of paper, and not... people? Maybe that's just me.
But the internal, mechanical usages are one thing, the external cultural ones, are completely different.
And the external, cultural ones are the ones that frustrate me the most, perpetuating myths that simply don't exist. That girls aren't competitive, or smart enough, or some artificial barrier which gives men the privileged to say such things. (not to mention the verbal sexism that occurs all. the. time. moments outside the game that can be extraordinarily wrenching to hear, watch, and socialize with)
Any time a girl is playing, it's always something to note, but, I'd like to see it never be a big deal. Another player, another person to play, and just leave it at that.
I think that's the key and how to look at the board states is: Do you have enough board presence to force them to pay for having to attack you. Most of the time I'd say: Yeah, you could. But I'm not certain you'll get enough use out of it to make it worthwhile. For the amount of spots you'd be playing gideon, it just seems his impact just wouldn't be there.
Purely theorizing here, no actual practice yet. Best case scenario is you get a 6/6 on an empty board. Worst case, he's a fog. Mixed board states are more interesting though because of our lack of flyers it's...
(sidenote. Arashi, the Sky Asunder sorta nukes the hell out of Cliques & Restos and doesn't have to be cast unlike windstorm, and is a body as well).
Against pod, it's probably relevant post board because you can lure the right creatures to block, and they have no tap mechanisms usually (outside of dorks & using pod), and most pod decks don't like to keep pod in post-board. Jund really can't deal with it outside of Maelstrom Pulse & discard... UWR doesn't particularly care, and it's likely too slow for Affinity. It's still probably good against Zoo, bad against Tron. I like that it's non-artifact so it weakens a bit of the artifact hate that they'd bring in for swords & such.
This I agree with. But even still, I think there's a big difference between your list, and my list, and both use Vials. But that's because the core of the deck is trying to do two different things.
Or Akroma.
That was an option, but with the reduction on overall Liliana's, it's why I cut Wilt-Leaf in the first place. I mean, it's very possible that I'll cut the MB Thrun, back for a Smiter. But the thing is, I don't think cutting Crusader is the right plan, for me. UWR Matches are considerably more grindy than Pod Matchups, and having the most available damage before they can combo off is important. You're usually able to get in considerably more draw steps vs UWR than you are against Pod, and that makes all the difference. You're significantly hosing the Pod matchup by cutting Crusaders as Crusader is literally the best card against pod. If you can't get it consistently when you need it, why run it sometimes? It's why the 2 of swords is actually reasonable against UWR, because you're going to draw one in a long match, and once you do draw one, you'll throw a major wrench into their plans.
That's also why I don't play Linvala. You're looking to her as an "out" in a matchup where you don't have as many draw steps. I found Crusader to be better at handling the matchups where I'd use Linvala, G1 at closing out matches vs Twin and Post-Board vs Pod. Having her as a 1-of I think doesn't do enough in a slot to warrant her. I think there's more effective ways to deal with the two matchup she's good against, and that's Pod and Twin, by adding pressure and forcing the former to care about their life-total and how effectively they can speed through their deck and the former is by having the have to deal with threat, threat, threat, and threat instead of trying to necessarily advance their gameplan as effectively as they'd like. I think it's more valid post-board than pre-board with twin. But there's a lot of games where they burn out my first 2 smiters and then I drop a crusader and a pridemage, and put them on a 2 turn clock. Playing 4 paths, Spellskite & 2 Qasali Pridemages, and 1 Worship gives me 8 real outs vs Twin. Adding a 9th isn't entirely useful as another 4 drop. In a lot of cases, Worship covers a lot of the same ground that Linvala does.
Re: Obliterator. Race them. That's about all you can do. Or Path. Also the aforementioned Mirran Crusader's really good with that.
Re: Voice of Resurgence. Good, maybe not great, against conventional/non-anger of the gods sweepers, it's a fantastic card that keeps Worship always turned on. It's definitely in the bottom half of the cards in my deck, but definitely crimps your opponents ability to react to your board. It's not necessarily what you can see it does, but what it forces your opponent not to do sometimes. It's why I think it's easy to misinterpret it's power sometimes if you're not the one staring it down. It's honestly best vs Zoo, and not vs control decks (ironically).
I do have to agree that overall, in blue heavy metas, some of the changes are totally reasonable, because, after all, this is a deck that changes with the meta... I also faced UWR in 66% of the matches, and the top 8 was like, Boggles (which crushes UWR), Affinity, 4 UWR, Jund and... get this, Esper Mill (piloted by a very good player, no less... which makes me think it's not that mill decks are that bad, but most people who play them aren't great). Suboptimal decisions or not, being able to evaluate what went wrong and to what degree what I did was right or wrong helps figure out the direction that I'd take it.
Knowing that the changes that I made in order to try to beat Zoo negatively impacted my UWR matchup makes me want to re-evaluate how I handle the Zoo matchup in order to better equip myself for more UWR matchups in the future. Like, if I had yesterday to do all over again, I'd probably have removed Worship from the MB for that event only, but kept it in in future events because I know against a more diverse field that I'd require it more.
I'll probably run this going forward though...
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Voice of Resurgence
3 Loxodon Smiter
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Path to Exile
3 Forest
2 Plains
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Razorverge Thicket
3 Horizon Canopy
2 Stirring Wildwood
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Temple Garden
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
1 Worship
2 Sword of War and Peace
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Worship
2 Torpor Orb
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Rest in Peace
1 Rule of Law
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
I had a 50 person 1k this weekend, and... lo, I played 4 UWR decks. 4. UWR decks. All of them with Geist.
My list:
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Mirran Crusader
3 Qasali Pridemage
1 Spellskite
3 Voice of Resurgence
4 Loxodon Smiter
3 Scavenging Ooze
Spells
4 Path to Exile
3 AEther Vial
1 Worship
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
3 Forest
2 Plains
3 Tectonic Edge
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Horizon Canopy
3 Stirring Wildwood
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Temple Garden
2 Worship
2 Torpor Orb
2 Burrenton Forge-Tender
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Sword of Body and Mind
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Rest in Peace
1 Rule of Law
And I went 1 of 4 against them. Granted one was a Twin deck, but, they're all "essentially" the same type of control shell.
R1: GR Tron, 2-1.
I pretty much put together his 75 the night before as we talk about magic a lot (and play in a band together). He went on tilt pretty much before g1 started because he was pissed that I had to play him (I do think I'm like 11 of 12 vs him in tournaments... and thankfully I don't get matched up vs him in Legacy). He mulled to 5 and I kept a decent 7 with Mindcensor and Qasali Pridemage, he played one land and 4 eggs, and was like, Yeah, this sucks. G2, I mull my 7 with no action, no clock, nothing, I think it was a Qasali Pridemage and another 2 drop. My 6 was no lands, and my 5 was just... Whatever. I had 2 land, Arbiter, path, mirran crusader... He also mulled to 4. Still complaining about his last game and how much it sucked and how he's like, *bleep* tron. His 4 was Natural Tron + Firespout. And, lets just say he ripped some good cards and I was like, uh. Yeah. I can't beat natural tron, O-Stone, Wurmcoil. Just wasn't going to get there. G3, I also mulled some pretty awful hands down to 5, and he kept his 7, but my 5 was Thalia, Forest, Pridemage, Forgetender, and Hierarch. I did what the deck does vs Tron. Stop them from doing things. He just couldn't get going fast enough to play cards. He had a Firespout in hand, but couldn't play it, he couldn't draw enough land fast enough to get there. I was just a little faster than he could stabilize and ended up 1-0.
R2: UWR Twin, 0-2
On the play, I wasn't 100% sure G1 that my opponent was on splinter twin, why? But I assumed so. Why? He played a Wall of Omens T2. To my board of Arbiter, Spellskite & Hierarch and an Aether Vial at 2, I made the call to path the wall when he tapped out for it, thinking: with Spellskite, he has to have the following combination: Exarch/Resto + Kiki-Jiki. Pestermite + Kiki-Jiki wouldn't work, Anything + Splinter Twin wouldn't work. He'd have to have Path + Combo in order to go off, and he already Bolted my Arbiter (and I Vialed in Spellskite). If he kept a path, bolt, land, land, land, combo, hand... that'd be ideal, but very low, even with 3 draw steps. No Ghost Quarters or Tec Edges. I keep trying to put the pressure, a pair of Mirran Crusader gets Remanded, Bolted and Pathed, I get him to 4 after playing Elspeth to drain him another 8 life, he plays resto, untaps and kiki-jiki's. I could have been a little bit more patient, but, G1 I saw the opening to limit his draw steps and it didn't go my way. Just the way it goes. Game 2 was significantly more savage to me. I had an early board state of Worship, Spellskite & Torpor Orb and Voice of Resurgence. Good place to be in right? Not vs the nuts. My opponent goes: Anger of the Gods, Bolt the Spellskite, next turn I follow up with a Loxodon Smiter, and I lower his life down to 9, and I'm in OK shape still as his Colonnade isn't active yet. End step he pulls a Wear//Tear vs my Worship & Torpor Orb, and I'm like. Oh. This isn't great. He rips a Path, and then I draw lands for what seems like Eternity as he pushes my life down to zero. Game 2 was just awful luck, whereas Game 1 was something considerably more in my control. Made a pair of reasonable, but ultimately incorrect reads.
R3: Mono-U tron, 2-0
On the draw, I had 3 Tec Edges & an Aether Vial. I slowly got a board and damage down, and when he got to about 7 life, he still wasn't on Tron, but found a Treasure Mage, and I'm like, hey, I got 2 paths, can we just go to G2? G2 was more of the same, ghost quartering even for basics was very good, I had more significant beats, and this matchup is significantly better than it's RG cousin. AEther Vial got a fair amount of work in under his countermagic, and was met with a few more timeley Repeals, but the deck just doesn't have the same kind of gas that UW Tron has.
R4: UWR Midrange 2-1
Game 1 I ended up with 2 Aether Vials in play. Game 2 I had 3. Let me just be the first to say, even late enough, they're not completely dead draws. I was able to push out creatures that were bounced with Cryptic back on the field with alacrity. Game 2 I played Sword of Body and Mind and was able to get enough board presence on the table to fight past his blockers. These games just got so grindy, as we were at about 7 minutes left in the round and only about half way through Game 3, I was trying to be like: yo, Josh, can you please make a play as he was shuffling his cards in his hand and not making a play, and I get it, it was some nasty boardstates, and it's mentally draining, but, I knew I had enough of an advantage to get there, I just needed to get there. Swords are very good in the matchup, and more than wishing I had Elspeth, I wished I had Sword of War and Peace. it would have been significantly better just in this matchup (assuming I could have equipped it, which isn't ever a certainty). Elspeth is really nice in some matchups, but I can't help to think, that with as much UWR as I've seen thus far in the room, that Sword is just vital. AEther Vials are also all-stars in the matchup as well. I saw Stony Silence twice in the six rounds, and both times I didn't really care about it because I was either in an advantageous position, or I didn't have nary an artifact in sight. But I feel that loading up on artifacts that are good against them can lead to more Stony Silences, which in turn makes our artifacts and methods of winning worse. Wilt-Leaf Liege is also an option at brusing past, but most creatures still won't be able make it through an anger of the gods, and really the only option is: Thrun, Bastion of Hope.
R5: UWR Midrange 0-2
Feeling decent at 3-1, I was paired against my second UWR Midrange matchup in a row, and the one where I was probably just least in control. I just got assaulted, wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave... of removal. There was just no end to it. I definitely felt like I boarded wrong in not bringing in Rest in Peace for these matchups, but I also wasn't able to find 3 Scavenging Oozes at a time where I could just rip apart the graveyard with any sort of consistency. RiP would have been very good to have in any of these two matchups because they were just filled with Wrath of God, Anger of the Gods and more spot removal than I could shake a fist at. Game 1 was actually very close. I was able to speed his life down to 1. ONE. ONE LIFE, on the back of three Mirran Crusaders that he dealt with in succession until the last one, and then I was in business taking off chunks of life at a time first 4 and then 6 with a Noble Hierarch in play... and then he finally found a bolt. I was sitting with a Bird and a Hierarch on the table and was pinging him down from 4, to three, to two, to one, and then the parade of Lightning Helixes came through Snapcasters eating first the Hierarch and then the Bird, and then pathing my Stirring Wildwood. I couldn't come back. I had him at 1, he jumped to 7, I was at 4 after taking 12 points of damage from Restoration Angel, and I couldn't get there. I pathed his Angel, and from there on out. I couldn't draw a creature out of 6 draw steps. He eventually went back to back Colonnades and that was it. I was toast. I looked back to see where I could have eked out one more damage and I couldn't find one. I had done 17 points of damage, and that was it. Their manabases are significantly stronger than pre PT UWR... I couldn't find a good opportunity to ever use Arbiter, like in G2, where T1 I play Hierarch, which he bolts, T2 I play a Qasali Pridemage, he plays a untapped shock showing Remand T3 I play Arbiter, he plays a mountain and passes and T4 I play Voice, he remands the voice, and i go to GQ his steam vents, and his mountain was open for a bolt to Arbiter. I saw exactly zero plays all day of T1 Dork, T2 Arbiter GQ Go. It was pretty ugly. If you can't get it on T2, T3 is always going to be significantly riskier, but I felt with how aggressive my hand was I needed to try to keep him off double red, especially because he remanded the Voice with double red on the table already (which indicated that he didn't have Anger of the Gods). Never happened. He Ghost Quartered, and I began the downhill slide. I was sitting with I Worship on the table and a Mirran Crusader, and he had a Geist of St. Traft & Restoration Angel in play, and blundered thinking that "wow, I can't kill him without drawing a cryptic". I was at 4, he attacked with just the Restoration Angel, and I activated Vial with 4 cards in hand... and chose not to have anything enter, because I didn't have anything. I was just trying to throw him off (as I Vialed a few times before in the match without Vialing in anything, because I did get him to jump once with pre-emptively bolting because of a Vial activation)... but he misread Worship & wasn't playing around anything. I played a Mirran Crusader and we just stood at a standstill for a few turns, and then he pathed my Crusader and I scooped. He was like, why did you scoop? Because, uh, Worship doesn't work if I have no creatures? WHAT? IT DOES? I HAD HELIX AND PATH AND BOLT IN HAND AND JUST COULDN'T KILL YOU. I don't know if I would have even come close to winning G3, but I basically would have had a few more turns to try to push through a Geist & Restoration Angel on his blunder. I scooped to my opponents ignorance and my knowing that I was dead on board. Whoops. It happens.
R6: UWR Midrange 1-2
Extremely Hungry and unable to actually get food because my last 2 games have essentially gone to time. I was like, screw it, power through. And it showed. I was basically at the bottom of the 9 pointers (which seems to be my trend if I'm not X-0, my OW%'s are terrible) and had little to no shot of top 8ing. I've played very well in the past vs my opponent (lifetime is 8-2), but I really just didn't have it in me, on top of feeling very outgunned by the meta (HELLO). The matchup just took forever and I didn't have enough gas in any of the games really. AEther Vial was still a beating in G1, but in G2 and G3, I figured they just board out most of their countermagic for removal anyway. It was still very good in G2 which allowed me to put the pressure on my opponent late into the game and force them to use Cryptic to bounce instead of counter... but, alas, I was put to the mercy of chained cryptics garnering ridiculous amounts of value. I would have probably undergone waterboarding for a Scaveging Ooze... But with these midrange decks, they try to get so much more value out of their graveyards and snapcasters than the UWR Control matchups do. Torpor Orb was very good in the midrange matchup as well, and Geist of St. Traft didn't really cause me that much damage, it was the Restoration Angels and Snapcasters that really caused me the most damage.
Closing thoughts
--------
Ended up 3-3, and felt that I played well the first 5 rounds, but just fell into the issue of "completely misread the meta". I played a few pre tournament games and had played very well vs storm and pod and jund in the past week. But the overwhelming amount of UWR made it really tough to get through.
My big mistake: Other than missing the 1/2rd of the room that was running green the entire way, I really overestimated the amount of Zoo that was going to be around. I was assuming probably 10-15% of the Meta would be Zoo, but it wasn't. UW/x was literally 40% of the meta, and I was expecting close to 25%. I thought I'd probably see 2 in 6... but nope. I would have probably swapped about a half dozen cards around, run Thrun, scooped Elspeth, probably moved my MB Worship to the side, ran Sword of War and Peace and maybe a 2nd...
Card I wish I saw the most: Scaveging Ooze. I kinda regret going up to 3 Qasali Pridemages and not the 4th Scaveging Ooze. Definitely an oversight on my part
Card that got the most work: AEther Vial. I hit multiples and didn't hate myself when I did. I know in theory it's not great, but in practice vs UWR it was very effective at most of the points of the game.
Card I wasn't very happy with: Honestly? Elspeth. I couldn't play her when I wanted to, and I actually didn't see a ton of opportunities where I: A) would have been able to play her through cryptic, B) Would have been able to get past their board. I'm okay with the 1 ofs, but, I don't think Elspeth did anything in the UWR matchup... It's really good in the GBx matchups, but I don't think that GBx was a terrible matchup before Elspeth, and I don't know if it made it that much better. It might be a win-more card, honestly whereas SoWaP might actually be a bit better at improving a matchup.
Worst Matchup: UWR might actually be the worst, with the Twin version being the worst. I was pretty convinced that UWR Twin was literally one of the worst matchups for us before because of their faster clock than UWR and their ample removal. They don't bother with Countermagic which isn't that great vs us, but they have a bajillion removal spells and both a good tempo clock and removal. I like our chances vs the UR Twin, but UWR Twin isn't our matchup without getting a little lucky.
Indeed. But because of conglomeration of news sources and TWoo's inability to at least really demarcate the difference between his brews and others... leads to TWoo being overnamed in a lot of decks.
The fact is: The deck is a super troll deck, but it is actually pretty good now. Suppression Field is just ridiculous these days vs most of the field, and especially vs T1 decks.
Swords would also be excellent.
Really though, it depends on what you want to beat, what you think you're going to face, and what your meta looks like.
In your 3 spots, I'd probably try to fit something else that helps break parity and boardstates.
If the 2/2s don't get there though, you probably want some better hate, better mulligans, or start thinking about swords, worships, or rancors (or elspeth).
2 weeks of Elspeth have been very good to me. I think I've seen her 30 times thus far, and she's just done a lot, or given me the opportunity to quickly beat down the board. 5/5 flying Arbiters are saucy. But one of the downsides I've seen to it is that it really is pretty bad on stalled boards with worship out where you're not attacking, and they can actually attack into Elspeth profitiably. But that's like 10% of cases... but it's something to consider.
I'm also playing in a 1k this weekend, packing the deck, will have a nice little report on monday.
There's very few decks that you can't straight up beat, but your success is often measured by how well you know and understand and anticipate what you're going to face.
The deck has a decent skill cap to it, and really requires you to know when you are the beatdown... unlike most prison decks, you're not as able to get a "hard lock" like you would with Rishadan Port & Wasteland and Thalia with legacy D&T or in modern Mono White Enchantments or Stax variants... You basically get to a soft-lock where anything you play is generally better than what they can play reasonably... and like most Modern decks, you have to be very cognizant of your attacks. There's a lot of good builds, but a "best build" doesn't really exist. If you play against a lot of UWR, I would suggest playing Aether Vial (as a personal preference), but you don't have to. Basically, ask your questions: what do i expect to face? how do i expect to beat it?
and then...
That said. I think 4 pridemages/seals might be a bit much. When do you bring in the seals vs pridemages? and why?
I'd probably cut a Wilt-Leaf too. But that's just a personal preference at the moment qualifying the state of Liliana OTV and Thoughseize.
If you're playing EE, I'd possibly go up to a 2nd BOP just so you have access to EE for 3 more consistently.