Based on this, the deck clearly needs some work. I'm tempted to start in the sideboard: I believe Paradoxical Outcome might be too slow for DS Jund and we might need another option to make this matchup better. Thoughts?
I'm actually not convinced the deck is at fault here. I think several factors are creating this barrier, the largest of which being that Cheeri0s is just never going to be a Day 2 type of deck. Being known, facing a smaller field that probably favors one or two different Tier decks pretty heavily (15 DS at Indy!); and most importantly (and this goes into my other points), on Day 1 the raw power of the engine can easily carry people into the cut. On Day 2, any flaws in card choices, pilot inexperience, bad luck, or bad sideboard calls for the meta become hideous wounds. Not necessarily because the pilot is bad or the field is full of "better players"; but because it's different in a lot of ways (including generally higher skill level).
So, for example:
1) David ran a basic Island. And a maindeck Pact of Negation. These are clearly...bizarre choices, at least. His build was one of the more speed-oriented ones, running SSGs maindeck as well. I don't think that the SSG variants are inherently weaker; but they are definitely not proper for a meta of DS Jund. And they require, potentially more than standard lists; very strict card choices. At the very least, a hyper-fast list running Pact, should just run 3-4 Pact and not try to get cute with a silver bullet.
2) Day 2 had 15 DS decks. It was easily the most represented deck. You can be playing the most broken deck and still walk into a room tailor-made to hand you your head on a platter.
3) Taufik lost his first round to Dredge. This is at least somewhat indicative of the opposing pilot, who, if the internet is to be believed, is the premier Modern Dredge player in the world right now. It also shows that bad luck on Day 1, where you face Affinity and just blow it but still finish 8-1, is not the same as bad luck on Day 2 where a single game thrown to variance means you're suddenly out of the running and possibly tilting. Starting the day rough does not lend itself to good play from even the most seasoned wizards.
3b) This does not mean that Cheeri0s is still too high-variance to be trustworthy. The impact of variance is amplified for all players on Day 2. Smaller field, fewer matches, higher stakes. Remember that 70 other players in Indy also made Day 2, with good decks and good records, and failed to Top 8. Only half of them made 32, and that doesn't mean that the losers were playing bad decks or were bad pilots. Cheeri0s is much, much lower variance now that it has Sram and lists are being carefully optimized.
4) I realize we can't hold to this argument much longer, but the newness is still a factor. Sheridan, you've been playing it for years. Literally, >2 years. Taufik had not. He's very good, clearly. But seriously, you're still coming in here to this day and saying "Guys, I just figured out that _____". Your win rate on MTGO reflects those years of learning and tuning. You have a feel for it that lets you go 52% against "unfavored" matchups. When other pilots (not me, I'm a godawful player) start to get that feel, the deck will be very dangerous in their hands.
5) Reports indicate that there were "a few" Cheeri0s players at Indy. And only 1 made it to Day 2. Being outnumbered like that is a real thing. I could walk into a 1000+ person Modern event with a Legacy deck and scrub out (which, incidentally, is kind of what David was doing =P). Lots of DS in the Top 32, and lots of DS in the field at large. If 1 Cheeri0s player shows up, and wins; that could mean the deck is very strong, or that he got lucky. If 10 Cheeri0s players show up and some of them Top 16 or 32, that probably means the deck is Tier 1 bordering on "too strong". If 10 show up and take places 1-10, that's an indication of brokenness. But we can't get that result without having 10 players to start with. There was a lot of DS in the top 32; and there was a lot of DS in the room. It performed consistently with the numbers for a Tier deck. Cheeri0s being at 1 pilot was basically just flipping a coin on getting anywhere.
6) Not to hammer too hard on the DS thing, but seriously. If those 15 DS players had walked into the room feeling great about their deck choice, and seen 30 of (whatever their bad matchup is, I don't understand metas), they would've felt about like we do now, and they wouldn't have decried the deck. Just thought "welp, we made a bad call".
I think we have clear evidence that the deck is broken, and are just running into a myriad of smaller speedbumps. Maybe we really aren't a 15-round deck; maybe we simply aren't going to put up real results. But I think we need to focus on fighting hostile metas, giving very in-depth techniques to pilots (get cracking on more of those articles bro), and maybe fine-tuning the various maindecks, and giving solid, data-supported explanations of those maindecks to avoid things like a basic Island showing up on camera *shudder*.
If your opponent only needs another turn to kill you after killing your first engine, you're probably playing the mirror??? Or a very fast Infect or Dredge hand that also had removal.
Anyways, that's not that important. Your opponent has the same turn window for both Silence and Noxious, assuming you're curving out. Noxious recovers an engine played on Turn 2 so that you can retry Turn 3. Silence requires 3 mana to go off, so you wait until Turn 3. Your opponent does not get an extra turn with Noxious in the scenario you use for comparison.
Also, you really need to stop bringing up the 2 life as if it's a crippling thing. This deck does not care about the 2 life at all.
As for your last point, I'm very confused by what you're saying. You mention that you'd "rather risk fizzling if it means you get to draw a bunch more cards plus stick a threat". The only cards in the 75 that fit that description (draw more cards AND make Paladins stick better) is...Noxious. And Noxious lowers your chance of fizzling, so you're not risking fizzling. Also, in general, how are you risking a higher fizzle rate with anything that draws you a significant number of cards? That's literally the opposite of fizzling.
The thing is, Noxious Revival is much more flexible than any of your sideboard cards. In your specific case of Silence vs. Noxious: Silence is good because it beats multiple answers if none of them is countermagic. Noxious only beats one answer. However, in the typical case that your opponent only had one answer, Noxious is roughly equal to Silence but also is not a brick mid-combo. All of your sb cards (except Outcome) dilute the combo, while Noxious acts as additional Retracts or Opals, allowing you to continue chaining or drop a second engine and still have mana for Retract.
Esper control is pretty winnable with Paradoxical Outcomes. Because they're playing draw-go, you can wait for them to tap out EOT to draw cards, and respond by drawing your own cards. You have to discard down to 7, but you get to untap with lots of gas and potentially Silence.
Froelich wrecked my feels with Turn 1 Seachrome Coast, Serum Visions. Turns out he's on Ad Nauseam =(
What a downer. Do we have any GP Van Cheeri0s players confirmed yet?
In other news, this coverage needs some work. Too much downtime; I'm sure many players and personalities would be happy to comment in between games and give some Modern coverage. I really don't understand why it continues to be so lackluster. Wizards needs to watch literally any football game to pick up a dozen things they could do differently. Or League. or DotA. Lots of models and resources out there to improve coverage.
Nothing on Twitter. I know one NGA member who's on it today but I don't know their real name to look up standings.
And I agree on coverage. Burn v Grixis kept me bc it was a great match, but other than that I've just been watching for Cheeri0s or Grixis/BGx and then flipping away.
I'm actually not convinced the deck is at fault here. I think several factors are creating this barrier, the largest of which being that Cheeri0s is just never going to be a Day 2 type of deck. Being known, facing a smaller field that probably favors one or two different Tier decks pretty heavily (15 DS at Indy!); and most importantly (and this goes into my other points), on Day 1 the raw power of the engine can easily carry people into the cut. On Day 2, any flaws in card choices, pilot inexperience, bad luck, or bad sideboard calls for the meta become hideous wounds. Not necessarily because the pilot is bad or the field is full of "better players"; but because it's different in a lot of ways (including generally higher skill level).
So, for example:
1) David ran a basic Island. And a maindeck Pact of Negation. These are clearly...bizarre choices, at least. His build was one of the more speed-oriented ones, running SSGs maindeck as well. I don't think that the SSG variants are inherently weaker; but they are definitely not proper for a meta of DS Jund. And they require, potentially more than standard lists; very strict card choices. At the very least, a hyper-fast list running Pact, should just run 3-4 Pact and not try to get cute with a silver bullet.
2) Day 2 had 15 DS decks. It was easily the most represented deck. You can be playing the most broken deck and still walk into a room tailor-made to hand you your head on a platter.
3) Taufik lost his first round to Dredge. This is at least somewhat indicative of the opposing pilot, who, if the internet is to be believed, is the premier Modern Dredge player in the world right now. It also shows that bad luck on Day 1, where you face Affinity and just blow it but still finish 8-1, is not the same as bad luck on Day 2 where a single game thrown to variance means you're suddenly out of the running and possibly tilting. Starting the day rough does not lend itself to good play from even the most seasoned wizards.
3b) This does not mean that Cheeri0s is still too high-variance to be trustworthy. The impact of variance is amplified for all players on Day 2. Smaller field, fewer matches, higher stakes. Remember that 70 other players in Indy also made Day 2, with good decks and good records, and failed to Top 8. Only half of them made 32, and that doesn't mean that the losers were playing bad decks or were bad pilots. Cheeri0s is much, much lower variance now that it has Sram and lists are being carefully optimized.
4) I realize we can't hold to this argument much longer, but the newness is still a factor. Sheridan, you've been playing it for years. Literally, >2 years. Taufik had not. He's very good, clearly. But seriously, you're still coming in here to this day and saying "Guys, I just figured out that _____". Your win rate on MTGO reflects those years of learning and tuning. You have a feel for it that lets you go 52% against "unfavored" matchups. When other pilots (not me, I'm a godawful player) start to get that feel, the deck will be very dangerous in their hands.
5) Reports indicate that there were "a few" Cheeri0s players at Indy. And only 1 made it to Day 2. Being outnumbered like that is a real thing. I could walk into a 1000+ person Modern event with a Legacy deck and scrub out (which, incidentally, is kind of what David was doing =P). Lots of DS in the Top 32, and lots of DS in the field at large. If 1 Cheeri0s player shows up, and wins; that could mean the deck is very strong, or that he got lucky. If 10 Cheeri0s players show up and some of them Top 16 or 32, that probably means the deck is Tier 1 bordering on "too strong". If 10 show up and take places 1-10, that's an indication of brokenness. But we can't get that result without having 10 players to start with. There was a lot of DS in the top 32; and there was a lot of DS in the room. It performed consistently with the numbers for a Tier deck. Cheeri0s being at 1 pilot was basically just flipping a coin on getting anywhere.
6) Not to hammer too hard on the DS thing, but seriously. If those 15 DS players had walked into the room feeling great about their deck choice, and seen 30 of (whatever their bad matchup is, I don't understand metas), they would've felt about like we do now, and they wouldn't have decried the deck. Just thought "welp, we made a bad call".
I think we have clear evidence that the deck is broken, and are just running into a myriad of smaller speedbumps. Maybe we really aren't a 15-round deck; maybe we simply aren't going to put up real results. But I think we need to focus on fighting hostile metas, giving very in-depth techniques to pilots (get cracking on more of those articles bro), and maybe fine-tuning the various maindecks, and giving solid, data-supported explanations of those maindecks to avoid things like a basic Island showing up on camera *shudder*.
Anyways, that's not that important. Your opponent has the same turn window for both Silence and Noxious, assuming you're curving out. Noxious recovers an engine played on Turn 2 so that you can retry Turn 3. Silence requires 3 mana to go off, so you wait until Turn 3. Your opponent does not get an extra turn with Noxious in the scenario you use for comparison.
Also, you really need to stop bringing up the 2 life as if it's a crippling thing. This deck does not care about the 2 life at all.
As for your last point, I'm very confused by what you're saying. You mention that you'd "rather risk fizzling if it means you get to draw a bunch more cards plus stick a threat". The only cards in the 75 that fit that description (draw more cards AND make Paladins stick better) is...Noxious. And Noxious lowers your chance of fizzling, so you're not risking fizzling. Also, in general, how are you risking a higher fizzle rate with anything that draws you a significant number of cards? That's literally the opposite of fizzling.
I'm wondering now if a Kingpin Tezz combo deck is possible with 4 Outcomes and 0cmc artifacts that are actually useful.
Went from maybe 40-60 to 55-45. Card was sick. "Oh no, you stopped my Turn 2 kill with Push! Turn 3 Opal, 4 equipments, EOT draw 5?"
On the bright side, if this really is representative of the room, odds are very good for at least one undefeated Puresteel champion.
Nothing on Twitter. I know one NGA member who's on it today but I don't know their real name to look up standings.
And I agree on coverage. Burn v Grixis kept me bc it was a great match, but other than that I've just been watching for Cheeri0s or Grixis/BGx and then flipping away.