Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[Thestatusquo]

It was better when Junk was more of a thing. It's not amazing right now I don't think.

[xRECKONERx]

Like I said -- the stores I play at tend to have a lot of creature heavy decks, so I think leaving one in G1 is a safe bet. If they wind up being control or something I can take it out.

I'm still having trouble figuring out a sideboard plan... I know what to put in, but have no clue what to take out. Here's my final list:

UB Control

2 AEtherling
4 Augur of Bolas

4 Think Twice
3 Opportunity
2 Syncopate
2 Psychic Strike
2 Essence Scatter
1 Crypt Incursion
4 Far // Away
2 Doom Blade
2 Warped Physique
1 Devour Flesh
3 Barter in Blood
1 Cyclonic Rift

1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

4 Watery Grave
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Nephalia Drownyard
7 Island
6 Swamp
2 Dimir Guildgate

SB: 2 Appetite for Brains
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Curse of Death's Hold
SB: 1 Jace, Memory Adept
SB: 1 Notion Thief
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Crypt Incursion
SB: 2 Negate
SB: 1 Dispel
SB: 1 Evil Twin
SB: 1 Psychic Spiral

Versus Jund:

in: 2 Pithing Needle, 2 Negate, 2 Appetite for Brains, 2 Duress, 1 Evil Twin
out: 1 AEtherling, 1 Crypt Incursion, 1 Opportunity, 2 Doom Blade, 4

???

Versus Aristocrats:

in: 1 Curse of Death's Hold, 1 Crypt Incursion, 2 Pithing Needle
out: 1 Tamiyo the Moon Sage, 1 Far // Away, 2 Doom Blade

Versus Control:

in: 2 Duress, 2 Negate, 1 Dispel, 1 Notion Thief, 1 Jace Memory Adept, 1 Psychic Spiral
out: 8 ???

Versus Aggro:

in: 1 Crypt Incursion, 1 Curse of Death's Hold, (maybe Pithing Needle for Domri)
out: 1 AEtherling, 1 Opportunity, (maybe Cyclonic Rift)

Versus Hexproof:

in: 2 Negate, 2 Duress
out: 2 Doom Blade, 2 Warped Physique

plz help me i know this is terribul

[xRECKONERx]

JUND IS SUCH A BITCHHHH

[Thestatusquo]

In general, the way I make a sb is different from the way you're making yours. I try to play several games (like a set of 10) pre-board in each match to see what cards in my main I think are under-performing. Sometimes this is easy (I.E. in the old Jund ground seal came out against everything but Junk and sometimes american flash) and sometimes this is less obvious (counters coming out against aggro, olivia coming out against decks with few creatures and a ton of spot removal) You do that for the most popular decks in the format, then you think of cards that would make those matches better to fill those slots. You look for as much crossover as possible (which is why I suggested taking out notion thief, because hes really only "just ok" against a few things, and good against one specific card which you already should be able to beat if you play correctly. You're just not getting enough bang for the sb slot) and try to decide which matches need the most help. You usually end up with a list of about 20-30 cards that you would conceivably like in the board. Then you try to figure out what configuration of those cards in your board will give you the best percentages to win over-all against the field. It's a long process, but its worth it.

For the record, I think against flash and other blue based control decks you should be siding in Pithing needle if you have it in your board. It's your best answer to Aetherling. Consequently, you should probably side out your aetherlings and try to win with planeswalkers and drownyard activations in that match.

[Fate]

siding out aetherling for pithing needle in a control mirror is pretty brilliant

Drownyards op

[Fate]

hell maybe just a 3rd pithing needle over the notion thief then?

His deck really gets stomped by PW

[Thestatusquo]

Well, maybe. I don't know how I feel about pithing needle in this meta. It might be good, it might be meh. I'd have to test it. The key to playing a deck like this is knowing through testing what the key cards in a matchup are to counter, and saving your counters for them. In any matchup with a deck like this (besides hardcore aggro, for instance, and even then, you really dont want to let, say, hellrider or big daddy thunder resolve) there are like 2-3 cards which are must counters. His are PWs. Garruk can't resolve against Jund. It just can't. If you countered a turn 4 huntmaster (a card you can beat) and lost to the next turn Garruk (a card you can't) then you lost to your own play, not because your deck loses to planeswalkers.

Shrug.

[Fate]

Reck's deck is pretty soft to 3 cmc Planeswalker, like Domri and Lili.

Jund has a LOT of shit that must be countered. Olivia is probably sided out like you said, huntmaster yeah can be answered.... by like barter in blood. if you tap out for that then a thragtusk or garruk resolves then.

Reck can win with just drownyards but he's not playing THAT many counterspells. If a PW resolves against him his deck really does suffer, so having pithing mitigates it

[Thestatusquo]

Which might be a design flaw in the deck, and if your line leaves you open to letting a planeswalker resolve if you play your barter in blood, then don't play that line? It's really that simple. If playing barter in blood routinely causes you to tap out in dangerous situations against decks that can punish you then thats a pretty good argument for not playing it in the maindeck.

[xRECKONERx]

I am actually pretty happy with how the deck performed tonight all things considered:

vs UWR Control: It was a basic countermagic battle. G1 he had a pretty scary Assemble the Legion about to kill me but between AEtherling blocking + Barter in Blood killing two of them + lol top deck a Crypt Incursion to gain 18, I think it ended up okay. He scooped to Crypt Incursion. G2 I got Jace online after he tapped out for AEtherling, then got Tamiyo online the next turn by negating his counterspell. Milled him out shortly after with doubledrownyard + Jace 0.

vs NUWEN'S DOS RAKIS: Beat down G1 with Aetherling. Lost G2 to a stupid stupid stupid misplay where I had an Evil Twin Reckoner out on the board and didn't redirect the damage to her PITHING NEEDLE'D FALKENRATH ARISTOCRAT and just got beat down. G3 I mulled to 5 and still only found one land then drew four nonlands in a row - variance is OP. I just scooped after I top decked yet another Augur of Bolas.

vs the Brian Kibler RG deck: G1 was over before I even had 5 mana out on the field. G2 I milled him. G3 I missed my fourth land drop twice and then was just dead because I couldn't cast my damned Barter in Blood.

vs Junk Reaminator: G1 was easy as I beat him down with an AEtherling. Oh, by the way, this was some 7 year old kid who took 35 MINUTES to play G1 and his dad was sitting right beside him the whole time. G2 I just scooped after 10 minutes so we could hopefully have enough time to go to G3, then G3 went to turns and if I had LITERALLY ONE MORE TURN, I had Jace live on the field with Drownyard too and he only had 40-ish cards in his deck so I could've milled him (especially since I cast Crypt Incursion with 10 creatures in his library). It actually kinda pissed me off... I lost because this little kid took too long and I can't really be a dick and go JUDGE HE'S PLAYING SLOW but I still got fucked over because of it. Then once it's all said and done his Dad makes him drop anyway because "it's past your bedtime and I told your mother we'd be home". Then why not just fucking give me the win instead of fucking me over for your stupid son's fucking inability to decide SHOULD I PLAY VOICE OF RESURGENCE OR AN ARBOR ELF.

/rant

I do think this deck has more issues with aggro than I realized but I haven't been able to get a clear mind about it yet because I keep getting fucked by variance... I never get mana flooded, I only get mana screwed WHEN I'M RUNNING 25 LANDS

[Thestatusquo]

#blamenuwen

[xRECKONERx]

It's all Nuwen's fault. Always.

[Fate]

did reck mention the part where he pithing needled a Falkenrath aristocrat when literally all of his removal spells get through indestructible?

Oh and then then Nuwen played her Chandra two turns later

AWKWARDDDDDDDDDD

[Fate]

Also reck you were saying you wanted desecration demons for another win con.

Maybe Vampire night hawk instead? You don't have much going on at 3 cmc besides 2 counterspells and one side of far and away. And between augur and nighthawk your aggro MU should go a lot more smooth. Especially if they are spearing your night hawk or trading with it, it sets up better barter in blood.


I just think you rather tap out at 3 mana if its safe than at 4 mana, where you can hold up like an essence scatter, negate, syncopate, or even waped physique+ think twice mana to start getting ahead

[Thestatusquo]

I think a major problem with the deck vs. creature based strategies is its inability to generate card advantage through killing multiple things at once. Barter is cute, but I'd be really interested in seeing if we can make mutilate work.

[Thestatusquo]

I say this after testing a few g1s on cockatrice.

[Fate]

We're tunin yo deck for you Reck best appreciate

[Thestatusquo]

I played like 8 preboard games against randos and like 3 against fate, this is what I'm rocking. Haven't attempted to touch the sb yet.

1 AEtherling
3 Augur of Bolas

4 Think Twice
2 Opportunity
2 Syncopate
3 Psychic Strike
4 Far // Away
3 Doom Blade
2 Warped Physique
1 Devour Flesh
1 Rewind
3 Mutilate
2 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Barter in Blood

1 Jace, Memory Adept
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

4 Watery Grave
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Nephalia Drownyard
5 Island
11 Swamp

[Thestatusquo]

Want to cut one spell slot for one more drownyard to get the land count up to 27.

[Nuwen]

Cut a psychic strike and compensate with match-specific countermagic (negate, essence scatter etc) in the SB instead, imo

[xRECKONERx]

Psychic Strike is so good though

IMO Rewind isn't nearly as good as you want it to be because it's only good because you can untap and use the mana for something else but it's not exactly gaining you an advantage... and in a control matchup it ends up just being a 4 mana counterspell sitting on the stack

[xRECKONERx]

I don't know how much I like Forbidden Alchemy -- other than Think Twice I'm not running any flashback and it can easily just shove my threats into my graveyard with no way to get them back

[Sudo_Nym]

Personally, I wouldn't bother with Forbidden Alchemy. I'd just run Opportunity in those slots.

[Thestatusquo]

It's possible. All the changes I just made were for testing. The main reason for alchemy is it gives us something early to do EOT if we dont have think twice. The games where we have think twice are just so so so much better than the games where we don't. Rewind is very good because all of our deck is instants. Its clunky, so one is probably the right number, but it lets us counter and still do things EOT, which is very nice.

[xRECKONERx]

Just got back from a sad excuse for a gameday. Got 2nd, and I only lost because I'm an IDIOT and I tapped the wrong amount of mana for Syncopate (tbf I think he should've let me tap an extra one because it's REL and I specifically asked him how much mana he had available but whatever).