I have run off 30 games in the TPC over the last few weeks. (Dragon Age has engulfed me, as well as normal holiday plans)
Overall:
40-32 in games
18-12 in matches
Aggro: 22-15g, 9-5m
WW Quest: 0-2, 1-2
WW No quest 2-1
UW Quest: 1-2
BR Vamps: 2-0, 2-1, 2-0
BUG Infect 2-0
GW Life 1-2R: 2-0
G Tokens: 1-2
UW: 2-1
UG Allies: 2-1
B: 2-1
I made some pretty good misplays in the quest matchups. The rest, I can live with. Need some practice with quest I suppose? Or maybe when they have T1 quest every game, there's not much to do. I need to be alert when they go to combat, because I wait too long to bounce or kill creatures that are going to attack. This is a problem that creeps up in MGE, and Vampire matchups (Pulse Tracker) as well.
Control: 5-3g, 4-1m
UW 2-1
B 1-0, 1-0
UB 1-0, 0-2
These matchups seem pretty well in hand. On the loss, the guy did some "friendly helpful advice", that has been grating on me since it happened. It hurts to lose those games, so they sure stick with you more than the others.
Ramp: 6-8g, 2-4m
RG Valakut: 0-2, 1-2, 2-0, 1-2
GW 1-2, 1-0
All these games felt close. Ricochet Trap cost me one match, and drawing only islands cost me another. Every game against Valakut felt very close. I'd love to rewatch alot of them, but my recordings have been broken.
Other: 0-2g, 0-1m
Game 1 I was looking at a board of Overgrown Battlement, Trusty Machete, and Plated Geopede. What the heck deck is this? Inferno Titan is pretty good. Naturalize for my Volition Reigns on that Titan was pretty good.
RUG: 2-0g, 1-0m
It's hard for me to classify this deck, as ramp or control or combo, since it sits somewhere in between.
Combo: 5-4g, 2-1m
Mirror: 2-1, 1-2
B Discard: 2-1
Can't complain much about the mirror. I was very happy with my choices that deviated from these players, they just drew more PA than I, or I made mistakes that cost games.
===============
Overall conclusions:
I was pretty happy with the Mindbreak Traps. I brought them in against Vampires, Ramp, and Control, and they were pretty good in the first two, and acceptable in the Control matchup.
Aggro matchups with must-answer non-creatures (Eldrazi Monument, Dark Tutelage, (White) Quest/Argentum Armor), or hard to deal with creatures (Leatherback Baloth, Vengevine, Bloodghast, Kor Firewalker) are the most troublesome. I can't leave Mana Leak in, since it is terrible at countering those threats (They just cast them T6, by coincidence). Mindbreak Trap + Into the Roil might be the best answer. It worked pretty awesomely vs vamps, no reason it couldn't work for Kor Firewalker, etc.
The Valakut match-ups are still one to watch, but it feels alot better now. I just need some more experience there, and I'll probably put up better numbers.
Can't draw too many conclusions from these results, but they certainly felt pretty good, especially considering I was 1/4 asleep for half of these. The wake up at 6pm plan does strange things to you...
Next step: Tourneys/Matches?
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Trying Say No vs. Ramp - A Glimmer of Hope
Approach:
+4 Flashfreeze
+3 Mindbreak Trap
-4 Burst Lightning
-3 Into the Roil
Same presumptions about the Valakut deck. (-3 Pyroclasm, +3 Acidic Slime) I'd actually prefer with this deck that they take out the Harrows for anything, because they were creating some havok. Passing the turn with 4 mana open might look like it's a safe time to tap out for a Foresee or card draw, but it's very easy for a Harrow and a land in hand to turn that 4 into 6 and a titan on their next turn.
Participants:
Just me solo this time. I definately want some practice time against this deck when I can't see their hand (either way, to be honest)
I played the Valakut deck to play around Mana Leak, unless they had either multiple Titans, or Summoning Trap backup, or Acidic Slime on the bluff-Summoning Trap. Playing the Valakut deck more aggressively would probably have won them one more game, and lost them three more games. They mostly blanked Mana Leak through this line of play (which was very sad for the Ascension deck), but did miss a few holes where they might have landed a threat to win fast.
Reasoning:
The idea here is that the Valakut deck doesn't really have that many threats that are truly game-winning. Those threats are really dangerous, but if they are neutralized via strong countermagic, it will buy a ton of time for board development, Ascending, and burning out the Valakut deck.
This also means you can do normally scary things like T3 Halimar into Treasure Hunt on the play, or laying out a PA turn 2, just to free up mana for double-counter, or Mindbreak Trap turn 4. You just keep drawing land, and keeping up MBT or double-counter, and eventually you get a charged up ascension, or whatnot.
In past games, I've tried to attack their ramp, which typically ends with them casting a Primeval Titan and killing me either that turn or the next. This plan holds removal for the true threats, and deals with those as well as possible.
Results:
5 wins, 5 losses.
All the games were much closer than before. Some felt like I had them completely under control, some were ragged races against double or triple drawn and played Valakuts. None felt like they were completely out of reach. Some got into a stalled state around turn 10 or so, where we were both in topdeck mode, but I won some of those, and lost some. Perhaps two of the losses could have been wins had I drawn slightly better, and perhaps one of the wins could have been a loss if the Valakut player had drawn better.
Problems:
Most losses in this set were due to the Valakut player laying 1-3 Valakuts, and killing me with those, either with Harrow, or KHE powered by "Fetches". The Valakut player kept one hand with 3 Valakuts, two fetches, and two KHE. I had to MBT the second KHE, or I was dead on board.
The Valakut player only landed 3-5 real Threats over all 10 games, and the PA deck won 1-2 of those matches, though they were very close. Inferno Titan got through a few times, and was double-bolted. Avenger landed twice, and won one game. (Double bolt in response to cracking expedition) PT landed once, and may have led to a win.
I didn't miss the ITR's, they were definately fine to take out. The only real use for them would be to bounce my own Ascension in response to targetting by Acidic Slime, and half the time the Valakut player played a slime, I didn't have an Ascension out.
Mana Leaks didn't feel great with this strategy by the Valakut player, but if they had been more aggressive, they would have done quite well. Often times, I'd have a uncharged PA down, with a Mana Leak and some other card I didn't have any graveyard copies of in my hand, and they'd cast a PT with 3 mana up (and a ST in hand). The Mana Leak can't counter either spell effectively here, and the game will be over soon after. Envision a turn where they cast a PT on 9 mana with ST backup, and you have Mana Leak + Mana Leak, or Mana Leak + Flashfreeze, and you'll see why this strategy blanks Mana Leak pretty well.
Mindbreak Trap was awesome. I could cast it reliably, targetting relevant things, and it short-circuited the Summoning Trap plan. I imagine it will also be quite good against MGE's various green threats. (backed by 4 STs)
I'm not sure how to deal with the Valakut-me-to-death aspect of the Valakut deck, when they are drawn naturally. If I had infinite sideboard space, I'd have 1-3 demolishes, replacing 1 ITR and 0-2 Mana Leaks.
4 Flashfreeze basically just for these ramp matchups is probably as many SB slots as I can manage though.
4 Pyroclasm or Arc Trail for aggro. (-4 Leak)
3 MBT + 1 Sphinx for Control (-4 Burst)
That leaves 3 slots, which could be Negate for control, Demolish for Ramp, or some other crazy card for some of the bad matchups. (WW, Vamps)
I am embarrassed to say that the Valakut deck did beat me on a mull to 5 on the play. (3x Titan, 1x Trap on Turn 5, 6, 7, all countered, Valakuted to death)
Conclusion:
So, results here are at least average, and worthy of further investigation.
I need to log some time against a player where "I" can't see "their" hand, and "they" can't see "mine".
If these initial results hold up, I may have a solution to a very troublesome matchup.
PS:
Volition Reigns may be worth considering. I can let Primeval Titan, Avenger (on 7 mana), Inferno Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, or some planeswalker resolve, and just steal it, which is probably better than countering it. 1x Demolish, 1xChandra or something could be a good round-out.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Trying Land Denial vs. Ramp
Approach:
+4x Spreading Seas
+3x Demolish
-4x Burst Lightning
-3x Lightning Bolt
I presumed the Valakut deck went:
-3 Pyroclasm
+3 Acidic Slime, because Acidic slime does a pretty good job of wrecking my deck, and Pyroclasm does nothing. It is possible that taking out Harrow for Summoning Trap/Fatties would have altered the matchup, because Harrow was pretty beastly, and Summoning Trap + Fatties fall into the trap of the mana denial plan, but whatever.
Participants:
I drafted my girlfriend into playing the Valakut deck, with some assistance from me, as to when things should be done or not. In general, Valakut is a puzzle to find out how to spend all your mana every turn, between taplands, ramp spells, and so on. We played four games before she was hearing the clarion call of level 85 in WoW, and I finished out a 10 game set playing against myself.
Reasoning:
The theory behind this approach is that the threats Valakut presents are mostly/all double-green (Primeval Titan, Avenger of Zendikar, Summoning Trap, Acidic Slime, Rampaging Baloths or Terrastrodon if they have them), but the Valakut decks can only afford to fit in about 5 Forests, and typically a Raging Ravine or Khalni Garden to suppliment this. If you can turn off their first few forests, they may not be able to play any of the "big stuff", and thus, you could have free reign to do whatever you like, and eventually win.
In past games, I've tried to attack their Valakuts, to 10-30% win rate, via Demolish, etc. We'll see how weak the mana base of Valakut is with this testing.
Results:
1 Win, 9 Losses.
My win was due to a active Ascension, then two active Ascensions, combined with some Spreading Seas, Demolish, Call to Mind, and so on.
Problems:
The losses were a combination of:
A) KHE, Overgrown Battlement come down T2, and provide amazingly steady sources of Green mana.
B) Valakut has multiple ways to set up double, triple, even quadruple-Green if they want it, in a way my deck can't disrupt fast enough. Cultivate searches out two land and is only G to cast. KHE is only G to cast, Harrow is only G to cast, and searches out two Forests pretty easy.
Lands like Terramorphic Expanse, and Evolving Wilds allow the Valakut player to "save up" their Forests, while still hitting land drops. Something as simple as TE -> Go -> Sac end of turn for a Forest -> Play a forest -> Cast Primeval Titan was often an easy win for Valakut. They have something like 20 ways to get so many forests out at end of turn, or just kill you, that this is not a reasonable plan.
Overgrown Battlement is a nightmare. They need only a single G to cast it turn 2, that you can't possibly disrupt, and you can't reliably counter it (or risk losing to T2 Primeval Titan off Summoning Trap). This thing sits in play, takes two burn spells (2RR) to remove, or a bounce COMBINED with killing whatever G source they have at the time. That's alot of mana to be spending, when they can just drop another TE/EW and cast it in a semi-non-counterable way next turn.
KHE turn 2 is something that virtually guarantees that your land denial plan will not work. It's pretty high variance for it to not work. You can bounce it, like Overgrown Battlement, but with the same problems.
Harrow was always good. Forest -> Cultivate for 2 Forests was game over most of the time. (Unless you have an active Ascension + Demolish + them having nothing else.
At times, I felt that 4x Acidic Slime was doing a better job denying me options than my 3x Demolish + 4x Spreading Seas was doing denying the Valakut deck of options. Slime your 1x Island or Mountain, good game?
This plan seems to be a resounding failure. It's extremely high variance, and will work not at all against non-Valakut ramp decks, which aren't so green-light. (GU, RUG, MGE). Time to try something else.
PS:
Attacking the Valakuts tends to not work, because PT fetches them out so fast, and all the ways available to destroy them are sorcery speed, so you can often just be dead the turn they cast PT, between Harrow, Cultivate, KHE, and so on. PT is the real problem, so we'll be trying to Mindbreak it in the future.
Aggro Matchups, as of 12-16-2010
We'll break this down by broad categories, and see if there are any subsets where I'm doing horribly, as well as give some general thoughts about the match-up, problem cards, etc.
Vampires
Mono Black:
8-8 (50%) in games
4-4 (50%) in matches
RB:
3-8 (27%) in games
3-3 (50%) in matches
This transition from B to RB has been one of time as well. I had some bad draws, and bad decisions in some of these games, but clearly, Viscera Seer, and Bloodghast are the problem creatures here. Bloodghast is just hard to deal with generally. Viscera Seer forces you to bolt it first, or the deck gets out of control.
Possible answers to Bloodghast to improve this matchup are Calcite Snappers, Mindbreak Trap, and the black Spellbomb. All of these are pretty dubious answers. (Calcite gets Gatekeepered, Mindbreak is a 4 mana exile counter to a 2 mana spell, and the black spellbomb is a one-time answer, to one card.)
Elves:
9-8 (53%) in games
4-3 (57%) in matches
Problem cards are planeswalkers, Nissa's Chosen, Leatherback Baloth, and Vengevine.
These creatures or PW have high toughness, relative immunity to pyroclasm, or return once spells are cast. Into the Roil are some of the best answers to this, or two cards combined.
Volition Reigns would be a pretty good card to deal with some of these. Arc Trail would do a better job of dealing with planeswalkers than Pyroclasm does.
Green-based Infect.
4-4 (50%) in games.
2-2 (50%) in matches.
This deck is very bursty, and probably just needs tight play to defeat. My first two encounters were losses, the last two are wins, so I may have a better idea of what to do now.
Goblins:
13-5 (72%) in games
7-1 (88%) in matches
Early, many 2:1s were had with Spell Pierce countering Kuldotha Rebirth, or Mana Leak vs Devistating Summons, or Pyroclasm, etc, etc. Kuldotha Rebirth, or multiple Goblin Guides are the biggest threats, but often the PA deck stabilizes at 6 or so, and that's game.
GW Tokens
3-2 (60%) in games
2-1 (67%) in matches.
Both losses were in the same match, to planeswalkers + Monument + Naturalize. Bounce is not amazing vs these planeswalkers, and they have a fair amount of mana from Eldrazi spawn, to pay for Mana Leak. Negate may be the counter card of note here, since it counters everything they might do that is threatening. Arc Trail is inferior to Pyroclasm in this matchup, because they have a true swarm of guys. (Though, Arc Trail kills their planeswalker...). The last win was with the most recent deck, with no Pyroclasms main.
R Artifacts:
3-3 (50%) in games.
1-1 (50%) in matches
Kuldotha Phoenix is the problem card here, along with Koth. They come out hard and fast, and the Phoenix recurses. This should probably be 4-2, 2-0 if I had played better in G2-3 of the second match.
R Kiln Fiend:
9-3 (75%) in games
5-6 (83%) in matches
All in creature deck, meet 8 1cc removal spells, 8 2cc counter/bounce spells, 4 3cc removal spells, all instant speed. The loss involved 15-20 points of burn to the face.
RW (Boros landfall)
13-6 (68%) in games.
7-3 (70%) in matches.
Two matches were lost to KFW + other threats. One was lost to being stupid (and probably See Beyond), and Koth is good. Koth, or early lack of removal + several threats + Fetches + Sword of Body and Mind for them. (And KFW probably). Arc Trail is probably better than Pyroclasm in this match. (Since their guys have 1 toughness by in large)
White Weenie
Overall:
11-20 (35%) in games
4-9 (31%) in matches
White allies: 1-2g, 0-1m (Umbra, Luminarch, Leyline, KFW, Purge, Brave the Elements)
W aggro 1-2g, 0-1m (emeria, sun titan, KFW maindeck)
WW Quest: 7-8g, 3-3m
WW Non-Quest: 2-8g, 1-4m
I made some mistakes here, and did some things badly, but this is clearly my worst matchup, thanks largely to Kor Firewalker, in an aggro deck. KFW in an control deck is rarely a problem, because it is a 10 turn clock, rather than the 5 or so turn clock it represents in a deck that actually attacks you with things.
There aren't many things that would deal with Kor Firewalker in a more perminant way. Ratchet Bomb, Necropede, Calcite Snapper blocks it, Perilous Myr, or something terrible like Brittle Effigy or Volition Reigns. One of the bad parts about KFW in aggro matchups is that I often side out Mana Leak in order to bring in Pyroclasm, which means that I can never get rid of KFW for good.
On the bright side, decklist 1+2 (the two most recent) are 6-6g, 3-2m against this archtype.
The rest:
More random stuff here. Overall:
17-9 (65%) in games
9-4 (69%) in matches
Losses:
RB aggro Goblin Guide, Dark Tutelage, Bloodghast, Hexmage
WB Allies: Dark Tutelage, Memorice, Revoke Existance. Spell Pierces countered nothing G3.
UW: Grand Architect, Jace, Masticore, Steel Overseer.
4C Tokens: Grave Titan, Cultivate, Sylvan Ranger, Inferno Titan, Elspeth, Walls, Cunning Sparkmage
Only one of these losses in the two most recent decks.
Conclusions:
The worst match-ups are WW (all but quest), and Vampires.
There's no real card that answers both matchups. I suppose Volition Reigns answers both... Kor Firewalker gaining you life is pretty non-terrible, against whatever else they have that gets through. Taking Bloodghast and them killing it is probably terrible, so it's not a real solution there. Arc Trail may improve the matchups by getting some damage into the face, but either way KFW and Bloodghast are pretty rough.
There are a ton of good match-ups here. If I was playing Pyroclasm main-deck, I'd be tempted to take it out due to these results. I could consider cutting Burst Lightning for draw or counter, but the card is really not dead in other matchups.
Overall, this seems like very good news for the aggro matchup.
Vampires
Mono Black:
8-8 (50%) in games
4-4 (50%) in matches
RB:
3-8 (27%) in games
3-3 (50%) in matches
This transition from B to RB has been one of time as well. I had some bad draws, and bad decisions in some of these games, but clearly, Viscera Seer, and Bloodghast are the problem creatures here. Bloodghast is just hard to deal with generally. Viscera Seer forces you to bolt it first, or the deck gets out of control.
Possible answers to Bloodghast to improve this matchup are Calcite Snappers, Mindbreak Trap, and the black Spellbomb. All of these are pretty dubious answers. (Calcite gets Gatekeepered, Mindbreak is a 4 mana exile counter to a 2 mana spell, and the black spellbomb is a one-time answer, to one card.)
Elves:
9-8 (53%) in games
4-3 (57%) in matches
Problem cards are planeswalkers, Nissa's Chosen, Leatherback Baloth, and Vengevine.
These creatures or PW have high toughness, relative immunity to pyroclasm, or return once spells are cast. Into the Roil are some of the best answers to this, or two cards combined.
Volition Reigns would be a pretty good card to deal with some of these. Arc Trail would do a better job of dealing with planeswalkers than Pyroclasm does.
Green-based Infect.
4-4 (50%) in games.
2-2 (50%) in matches.
This deck is very bursty, and probably just needs tight play to defeat. My first two encounters were losses, the last two are wins, so I may have a better idea of what to do now.
Goblins:
13-5 (72%) in games
7-1 (88%) in matches
Early, many 2:1s were had with Spell Pierce countering Kuldotha Rebirth, or Mana Leak vs Devistating Summons, or Pyroclasm, etc, etc. Kuldotha Rebirth, or multiple Goblin Guides are the biggest threats, but often the PA deck stabilizes at 6 or so, and that's game.
GW Tokens
3-2 (60%) in games
2-1 (67%) in matches.
Both losses were in the same match, to planeswalkers + Monument + Naturalize. Bounce is not amazing vs these planeswalkers, and they have a fair amount of mana from Eldrazi spawn, to pay for Mana Leak. Negate may be the counter card of note here, since it counters everything they might do that is threatening. Arc Trail is inferior to Pyroclasm in this matchup, because they have a true swarm of guys. (Though, Arc Trail kills their planeswalker...). The last win was with the most recent deck, with no Pyroclasms main.
R Artifacts:
3-3 (50%) in games.
1-1 (50%) in matches
Kuldotha Phoenix is the problem card here, along with Koth. They come out hard and fast, and the Phoenix recurses. This should probably be 4-2, 2-0 if I had played better in G2-3 of the second match.
R Kiln Fiend:
9-3 (75%) in games
5-6 (83%) in matches
All in creature deck, meet 8 1cc removal spells, 8 2cc counter/bounce spells, 4 3cc removal spells, all instant speed. The loss involved 15-20 points of burn to the face.
RW (Boros landfall)
13-6 (68%) in games.
7-3 (70%) in matches.
Two matches were lost to KFW + other threats. One was lost to being stupid (and probably See Beyond), and Koth is good. Koth, or early lack of removal + several threats + Fetches + Sword of Body and Mind for them. (And KFW probably). Arc Trail is probably better than Pyroclasm in this match. (Since their guys have 1 toughness by in large)
White Weenie
Overall:
11-20 (35%) in games
4-9 (31%) in matches
White allies: 1-2g, 0-1m (Umbra, Luminarch, Leyline, KFW, Purge, Brave the Elements)
W aggro 1-2g, 0-1m (emeria, sun titan, KFW maindeck)
WW Quest: 7-8g, 3-3m
WW Non-Quest: 2-8g, 1-4m
I made some mistakes here, and did some things badly, but this is clearly my worst matchup, thanks largely to Kor Firewalker, in an aggro deck. KFW in an control deck is rarely a problem, because it is a 10 turn clock, rather than the 5 or so turn clock it represents in a deck that actually attacks you with things.
There aren't many things that would deal with Kor Firewalker in a more perminant way. Ratchet Bomb, Necropede, Calcite Snapper blocks it, Perilous Myr, or something terrible like Brittle Effigy or Volition Reigns. One of the bad parts about KFW in aggro matchups is that I often side out Mana Leak in order to bring in Pyroclasm, which means that I can never get rid of KFW for good.
On the bright side, decklist 1+2 (the two most recent) are 6-6g, 3-2m against this archtype.
The rest:
More random stuff here. Overall:
17-9 (65%) in games
9-4 (69%) in matches
Losses:
RB aggro Goblin Guide, Dark Tutelage, Bloodghast, Hexmage
WB Allies: Dark Tutelage, Memorice, Revoke Existance. Spell Pierces countered nothing G3.
UW: Grand Architect, Jace, Masticore, Steel Overseer.
4C Tokens: Grave Titan, Cultivate, Sylvan Ranger, Inferno Titan, Elspeth, Walls, Cunning Sparkmage
Only one of these losses in the two most recent decks.
Conclusions:
The worst match-ups are WW (all but quest), and Vampires.
There's no real card that answers both matchups. I suppose Volition Reigns answers both... Kor Firewalker gaining you life is pretty non-terrible, against whatever else they have that gets through. Taking Bloodghast and them killing it is probably terrible, so it's not a real solution there. Arc Trail may improve the matchups by getting some damage into the face, but either way KFW and Bloodghast are pretty rough.
There are a ton of good match-ups here. If I was playing Pyroclasm main-deck, I'd be tempted to take it out due to these results. I could consider cutting Burst Lightning for draw or counter, but the card is really not dead in other matchups.
Overall, this seems like very good news for the aggro matchup.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
General Deck Results, as of 12-16-2010
Note: make sure you check out the appendix for terminology, assumptions, and caveats to this report. They are pretty important for true analysis of this data, but since they took up multiple pages, they've been relegated to after the "real data".
All results:
First, it may be a good idea to just look at the general results, across all my testing in the TPR. This includes all the horrific decks.
Aggro:
135-89 (60%) in games.
71-38 (65%) in matches.
Control:
64-37 (63%) in games.
29-13 (69%) in matches
Ramp:
32-51 (39%) in games
15-23 (39%) in matches
Combo:
9-4 (69%) in games
4-2 (67%) in matches
Other: (aka terrible/unknown)
19-4 (83%) in games
15-1 (94%) in matches
Overall:
259-185 (58%) in games
134-77 (64%) in matches
Filter out the junk.
For this report, I am going to concentrate chiefly on decks that I have qualified as "tournament worthy", based on a few rough guidelines.
A) Presence of high-value rares. (People won't buy Gideons, Jaces, Primeval Titans just to play in the TPR)
B) Presence of foil cards. (These are 2-100x more expensive than normal cards, see (A))
C) Alignment with known good archetypes. (Even if these players aren't awesome, I'm still competing with a T1 deck - and it's also pretty hard to say they are making mistakes when I can see my hand, and not theirs.)
Hopefully this filtering will cut down on some of the problems with the TPR mentioned above.
From here on, only "Tournament Caliber" decks will be discussed.
Overall TC results across all testing.
Aggro:
93-76 (55%) in games.
46-32 (59%) in matches.
Control:
58-32 (64%) in games.
27-11 (71%) in matches.
Ramp:
25-46 (35%) in games.
12-21 (36%) in matches.
Combo:
4-3 (57%) in games.
2-2 (50%) in matches.
Overall:
180-157 (53%) in games.
87-66 (57%) in matches.
Key observations from this:
51% of all matches were aggro.
--Probably a skew for the TPC. Aggro is "funner", and definitely cheaper than other options.
2.5% of matches were combo (mostly mirror matches)
--Good, most people will be unprepared for this matchup, and not be as skilled in playing it.
--Ramp and control are an order of magnitude more common.
71% match win% against control
--This may be a result of the Spell Pierces I had early, the Negates I have now, or just the patience I have with this matchup now.
--I would not have said that this matchup is favorable, but it is clearly my highest win% in both categories. The losses mostly feel winnable, and so any losing here is just bad. (Aggro games where you get steamrolled, or face 2x bloodghast t3, don't feel like they can be won, so they don't sting as bad)
59% match win% against aggro.
--This is the most prevalent matchup, and I am not dominating it nearly as well as I could, especially considering the number of cards I have for this matchup.
--Sideboard cards are definately warranted here.
--It is possible that certain matchups are giving specific trouble, and those could be targetted from the side.
We took about a 5% match win% hit across the board to move from "all results" to "all results bgrasher considers tournament worthy"
--We'll probably take a similar hit just moving into a real tournament.
--Unless the people with terrible decks also queue up for tourneys with them!
Match win% by deck:
For the aggro match-up, deck -1 had no Staggershock, probably 4 Pyroclasm, and 8 1-mana burn spells. Deck 0 had 2 Pyroclasm, 8 burn. Deck 1 had 8 burn, 2 Pyroclasm, and deck 2 had 8 burn and 4 Staggershock. All decks had 4 Pyroclasm between main and side.
For the control match-up, it's been pretty consistently high. I've had 1 sphinx in all the match-ups, and staggershock is a heck of a lot better than Pyroclasm in this match-up. (Same with Treasure Hunt vs See Beyond). Deck 0 and 1 had 4 Kiln Fiends. I'm sure they won me some games on their own, but it seems like this match-up is fairly well in-hand, whether I bring Negate, or Kiln Fiend. Kiln Fiend T2 just kills some of them. And some of them kept in creature removal post-sideboard, and the KF's did little.
For the ramp match-up, I think the chief reason for the fall off is that the ramp decks I played earlier in my career were worse than the ramp decks I played later. The ones I beat early were things like RG Ramp without Primeval Titan (Bouncing Wurmcoils is good), or a few MGE players who conceded after G1. I've had a lot of ramp games go 1-2 against me, if I can take game 1. So in general, I think that the low volume of these decks, and the relatively loose qualification of some decks as ramp, when I've a 0-n record against MGE/Valakut+Titan in full matches across all decks has caused the perceived fall off here, when it hasn't really changed much.
The combo match-up is few and far between. I'm winning the mirrors, thanks to main-deck ITR, and superior burn spells or land main-deck. (now) Spell Pierce varied between awesome and terrible here.
Conclusions
Clearly, 4 sideboard cards (either Arc Trail or Pyroclasm) are warranted due to the high volume of aggro decks. Which of these is best is a matter of some debate. I'm taking out 4 Mana Leaks (can't wait around to counter against aggro), which does hurt sometimes when they play a Planeswalker, but burn and bounce can keep them in control. (Am I making a case for Arc Trail? Probably...)
I'm doing things right against control. Having about 4 cards to bring in to deal with control seems like plenty. Whether they should be hard-counters that can target Planeswalkers, Titans, and PA-hate, or sidestep win conditions like Kiln Fiend, or Sphinx, or Random crazy stuff like Volition Reigns, may make little difference.
I'm clearly needing improvement vs Ramp decks. The most important of which are RG Valakut, MGE, and RUG/BUG. Jaces, Lands, Titans, Traps, and other green utility creatures (Revenge, Slime, Terrastrodon) are proving difficult for my deck to deal with.
Combo decks are going to come down to playstyle, and I'm getting much better there. Superior main-deck burn, and whatever counters are brought in for control/ramp will suffice here.
In a future post, I'll look more in-depth into the sub-match-ups. There is almost certainly some portion of the aggro and control field that are giving me more trouble than normal.
Appendix: Caveats:
Hard data > Remembering "how it went".
I have been keeping track of my wins and losses, for several reasons.
A) People remember the things that they tend to remember due to their personality (either the wins, the losses, the close games, the bad beats, etc), which is different for each person. I have results like this, where I thought I was terrible against control, because I lost some long, nail-biter games, but I was in fact something like 8-3 against control decks, which is quite good.
B) People are very bad at accurate statistical representations of past events, especially combined with (1)
C) I like keeping notes. Yes, I'm obsessive.
D) I want a accurate representation of how I, and my deck, perform, so I can judge the impact of changes, see where I need help, and so on.
E) Having an idea of the metagame is important.
Caveats to everything here:
A) These are games in the Tournament Practice Room(TPR). The real pros are not going to spend their time here, they'll know their decks, and just go to the main tournament areas in order to get virtual $ for their time.
B) People may not be playing to their fullest when in a "casual" setting. People may abandon a match if they don't like playing against your deck, because there are more matches starting all the time. I have many aggro matchups where the person just bails out during sideboarding, against my relatively controlling deck.
C) People may have horrible decks, decks with no chance, decks that they are just playing with.
D) There are known differences between this practice room and real tournament settings. WotC studies card counts between them, and makes decisions on what sort of cards to release in future sets based on this data.
We need to remember this, and not be too surprised if real tournament results (which I will also catalog) take a hit in comparison to these numbers. If I beat "aggro" decks 80% of the time in the TPR, and 60% of the time in a real tournament, that'd be about what I expect.
Some other problems.
When a guy skipped out on my during sideboarding, I originally credited myself with a 2-0 in games (presuming I won game one). However, with all this data, I have only credited myself with a 1-0 in games for these scenarios. I may very well win 2-0 in a real tournament, but I didn't have to actually get that win, and I have definately lost to aggro decks that have stuck it out and brought in nightmare cards like Leatherback Baloth, or Leyline of Sanctity post-board. I don't want to overly pad my score here, because I care more about accuracy, than the ego-bump I might get for having a bunch of 2-0's against some kiddie who bailed against a "gay" control deck.
Match win% and game win% will rarely be equal. The further game win% gets away from 50%, the more it pumps match win% up. So if I have a 90% game win%, it translates into something like a 97.2% match win%(10%L -> 10%L = 1%, + 10%L -> 90% W -> 10% L = .9% + 90%W -> 10% L -> 10% L = .9% = 2.8% chance that the 90% guy loses a best two out of three)
Deck Type Vocabulary:
"Aggro" decks are looking to attack from early turns. They play aggressive creatures, like Vampire Lacerator, Goblin Guide, and Memnite. They tend to be slanted towards the low end of the curve, and rarely have anything for more than 4-5 mana. Examples of this type of deck are WW-quest, RDW, Boros, Vampires, Elves, and so on.
"Control" decks tend to be classified by their desire to respond to what the other deck is doing. They play removal, few (if any) big creatures, sweepers, discard, and the like. They have cheap "answers", but they often have a handful of expensive, powerful cards that will swing the game in their direction. These decks often have Blue, for countermagic, Jace, and the like, but it is not strictly required. UW (control), UB (control), UR(Destructive force), and RW non-aggro are typical control decks.
RUG, and BUG can be control, or ramp. (4x explore, 4x lotus cobra, 4x oracle is ramp, 4x mana leak, 4x Jace is control) My classification is shakiest on these hyper-hybrid decks is done on a case-by-case basis, and probably mood-effected.
"Ramp" decks are designed to accelerate their mana quite quickly, to play powerful threats like Primeval Titan, Emrakul, or Inferno Titan before your aggro opponent can kill you, or before your control opponent can set up an appropriate response. They devote a large portion of their deck to mana acceleration via creatures or lands, and drop 6-9 mana spells on turn 3-5. Examples of ramp decks are Mono-Green Eldrazi, RG Valakut, and UG "TurboLand".
"Combo" decks are set up to put together a combination of cards that wins the game whatever your opponent might be doing. They rarely have creatures, and tend to have quite a bit of card draw, in order to find the hyper-specialized cards they are looking for. They often have disruption for their opponent, through either discard or countermagic, to give them additional time to set up their combo. Examples of combo decks are Pyromancer Ascension, Fauna Shaman heavy decks, and Necrotic Ooze decks.
"Other" decks are either decks that could not easily be classified because the opponent didn't do anything over the course of the game, or decks playing profoundly bad cards. Many of the casual decks are found here, and these are typically filtered out before serious analysis is provided.
All results:
First, it may be a good idea to just look at the general results, across all my testing in the TPR. This includes all the horrific decks.
Aggro:
135-89 (60%) in games.
71-38 (65%) in matches.
Control:
64-37 (63%) in games.
29-13 (69%) in matches
Ramp:
32-51 (39%) in games
15-23 (39%) in matches
Combo:
9-4 (69%) in games
4-2 (67%) in matches
Other: (aka terrible/unknown)
19-4 (83%) in games
15-1 (94%) in matches
Overall:
259-185 (58%) in games
134-77 (64%) in matches
Filter out the junk.
For this report, I am going to concentrate chiefly on decks that I have qualified as "tournament worthy", based on a few rough guidelines.
A) Presence of high-value rares. (People won't buy Gideons, Jaces, Primeval Titans just to play in the TPR)
B) Presence of foil cards. (These are 2-100x more expensive than normal cards, see (A))
C) Alignment with known good archetypes. (Even if these players aren't awesome, I'm still competing with a T1 deck - and it's also pretty hard to say they are making mistakes when I can see my hand, and not theirs.)
Hopefully this filtering will cut down on some of the problems with the TPR mentioned above.
From here on, only "Tournament Caliber" decks will be discussed.
Overall TC results across all testing.
Aggro:
93-76 (55%) in games.
46-32 (59%) in matches.
Control:
58-32 (64%) in games.
27-11 (71%) in matches.
Ramp:
25-46 (35%) in games.
12-21 (36%) in matches.
Combo:
4-3 (57%) in games.
2-2 (50%) in matches.
Overall:
180-157 (53%) in games.
87-66 (57%) in matches.
Key observations from this:
51% of all matches were aggro.
--Probably a skew for the TPC. Aggro is "funner", and definitely cheaper than other options.
2.5% of matches were combo (mostly mirror matches)
--Good, most people will be unprepared for this matchup, and not be as skilled in playing it.
--Ramp and control are an order of magnitude more common.
71% match win% against control
--This may be a result of the Spell Pierces I had early, the Negates I have now, or just the patience I have with this matchup now.
--I would not have said that this matchup is favorable, but it is clearly my highest win% in both categories. The losses mostly feel winnable, and so any losing here is just bad. (Aggro games where you get steamrolled, or face 2x bloodghast t3, don't feel like they can be won, so they don't sting as bad)
59% match win% against aggro.
--This is the most prevalent matchup, and I am not dominating it nearly as well as I could, especially considering the number of cards I have for this matchup.
--Sideboard cards are definately warranted here.
--It is possible that certain matchups are giving specific trouble, and those could be targetted from the side.
We took about a 5% match win% hit across the board to move from "all results" to "all results bgrasher considers tournament worthy"
--We'll probably take a similar hit just moving into a real tournament.
--Unless the people with terrible decks also queue up for tourneys with them!
Match win% by deck:
| -1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| aggro | 65% | 48% | 64% | 62% |
| control | 67% | 73% | 69% | 75% |
| ramp | 50% | 40% | 38% | 14% |
| combo | 0% | N/A | 67% | N/A |
For the aggro match-up, deck -1 had no Staggershock, probably 4 Pyroclasm, and 8 1-mana burn spells. Deck 0 had 2 Pyroclasm, 8 burn. Deck 1 had 8 burn, 2 Pyroclasm, and deck 2 had 8 burn and 4 Staggershock. All decks had 4 Pyroclasm between main and side.
For the control match-up, it's been pretty consistently high. I've had 1 sphinx in all the match-ups, and staggershock is a heck of a lot better than Pyroclasm in this match-up. (Same with Treasure Hunt vs See Beyond). Deck 0 and 1 had 4 Kiln Fiends. I'm sure they won me some games on their own, but it seems like this match-up is fairly well in-hand, whether I bring Negate, or Kiln Fiend. Kiln Fiend T2 just kills some of them. And some of them kept in creature removal post-sideboard, and the KF's did little.
For the ramp match-up, I think the chief reason for the fall off is that the ramp decks I played earlier in my career were worse than the ramp decks I played later. The ones I beat early were things like RG Ramp without Primeval Titan (Bouncing Wurmcoils is good), or a few MGE players who conceded after G1. I've had a lot of ramp games go 1-2 against me, if I can take game 1. So in general, I think that the low volume of these decks, and the relatively loose qualification of some decks as ramp, when I've a 0-n record against MGE/Valakut+Titan in full matches across all decks has caused the perceived fall off here, when it hasn't really changed much.
The combo match-up is few and far between. I'm winning the mirrors, thanks to main-deck ITR, and superior burn spells or land main-deck. (now) Spell Pierce varied between awesome and terrible here.
Conclusions
Clearly, 4 sideboard cards (either Arc Trail or Pyroclasm) are warranted due to the high volume of aggro decks. Which of these is best is a matter of some debate. I'm taking out 4 Mana Leaks (can't wait around to counter against aggro), which does hurt sometimes when they play a Planeswalker, but burn and bounce can keep them in control. (Am I making a case for Arc Trail? Probably...)
I'm doing things right against control. Having about 4 cards to bring in to deal with control seems like plenty. Whether they should be hard-counters that can target Planeswalkers, Titans, and PA-hate, or sidestep win conditions like Kiln Fiend, or Sphinx, or Random crazy stuff like Volition Reigns, may make little difference.
I'm clearly needing improvement vs Ramp decks. The most important of which are RG Valakut, MGE, and RUG/BUG. Jaces, Lands, Titans, Traps, and other green utility creatures (Revenge, Slime, Terrastrodon) are proving difficult for my deck to deal with.
Combo decks are going to come down to playstyle, and I'm getting much better there. Superior main-deck burn, and whatever counters are brought in for control/ramp will suffice here.
In a future post, I'll look more in-depth into the sub-match-ups. There is almost certainly some portion of the aggro and control field that are giving me more trouble than normal.
Appendix: Caveats:
Hard data > Remembering "how it went".
I have been keeping track of my wins and losses, for several reasons.
A) People remember the things that they tend to remember due to their personality (either the wins, the losses, the close games, the bad beats, etc), which is different for each person. I have results like this, where I thought I was terrible against control, because I lost some long, nail-biter games, but I was in fact something like 8-3 against control decks, which is quite good.
B) People are very bad at accurate statistical representations of past events, especially combined with (1)
C) I like keeping notes. Yes, I'm obsessive.
D) I want a accurate representation of how I, and my deck, perform, so I can judge the impact of changes, see where I need help, and so on.
E) Having an idea of the metagame is important.
Caveats to everything here:
A) These are games in the Tournament Practice Room(TPR). The real pros are not going to spend their time here, they'll know their decks, and just go to the main tournament areas in order to get virtual $ for their time.
B) People may not be playing to their fullest when in a "casual" setting. People may abandon a match if they don't like playing against your deck, because there are more matches starting all the time. I have many aggro matchups where the person just bails out during sideboarding, against my relatively controlling deck.
C) People may have horrible decks, decks with no chance, decks that they are just playing with.
D) There are known differences between this practice room and real tournament settings. WotC studies card counts between them, and makes decisions on what sort of cards to release in future sets based on this data.
We need to remember this, and not be too surprised if real tournament results (which I will also catalog) take a hit in comparison to these numbers. If I beat "aggro" decks 80% of the time in the TPR, and 60% of the time in a real tournament, that'd be about what I expect.
Some other problems.
When a guy skipped out on my during sideboarding, I originally credited myself with a 2-0 in games (presuming I won game one). However, with all this data, I have only credited myself with a 1-0 in games for these scenarios. I may very well win 2-0 in a real tournament, but I didn't have to actually get that win, and I have definately lost to aggro decks that have stuck it out and brought in nightmare cards like Leatherback Baloth, or Leyline of Sanctity post-board. I don't want to overly pad my score here, because I care more about accuracy, than the ego-bump I might get for having a bunch of 2-0's against some kiddie who bailed against a "gay" control deck.
Match win% and game win% will rarely be equal. The further game win% gets away from 50%, the more it pumps match win% up. So if I have a 90% game win%, it translates into something like a 97.2% match win%(10%L -> 10%L = 1%, + 10%L -> 90% W -> 10% L = .9% + 90%W -> 10% L -> 10% L = .9% = 2.8% chance that the 90% guy loses a best two out of three)
Deck Type Vocabulary:
"Aggro" decks are looking to attack from early turns. They play aggressive creatures, like Vampire Lacerator, Goblin Guide, and Memnite. They tend to be slanted towards the low end of the curve, and rarely have anything for more than 4-5 mana. Examples of this type of deck are WW-quest, RDW, Boros, Vampires, Elves, and so on.
"Control" decks tend to be classified by their desire to respond to what the other deck is doing. They play removal, few (if any) big creatures, sweepers, discard, and the like. They have cheap "answers", but they often have a handful of expensive, powerful cards that will swing the game in their direction. These decks often have Blue, for countermagic, Jace, and the like, but it is not strictly required. UW (control), UB (control), UR(Destructive force), and RW non-aggro are typical control decks.
RUG, and BUG can be control, or ramp. (4x explore, 4x lotus cobra, 4x oracle is ramp, 4x mana leak, 4x Jace is control) My classification is shakiest on these hyper-hybrid decks is done on a case-by-case basis, and probably mood-effected.
"Ramp" decks are designed to accelerate their mana quite quickly, to play powerful threats like Primeval Titan, Emrakul, or Inferno Titan before your aggro opponent can kill you, or before your control opponent can set up an appropriate response. They devote a large portion of their deck to mana acceleration via creatures or lands, and drop 6-9 mana spells on turn 3-5. Examples of ramp decks are Mono-Green Eldrazi, RG Valakut, and UG "TurboLand".
"Combo" decks are set up to put together a combination of cards that wins the game whatever your opponent might be doing. They rarely have creatures, and tend to have quite a bit of card draw, in order to find the hyper-specialized cards they are looking for. They often have disruption for their opponent, through either discard or countermagic, to give them additional time to set up their combo. Examples of combo decks are Pyromancer Ascension, Fauna Shaman heavy decks, and Necrotic Ooze decks.
"Other" decks are either decks that could not easily be classified because the opponent didn't do anything over the course of the game, or decks playing profoundly bad cards. Many of the casual decks are found here, and these are typically filtered out before serious analysis is provided.
Card Competition - Part 2
In this post, we'll be taking a look at a few of the closer competitions between cards that may still be up in the air. Some of this stuff is sideboard, some of it is main-deck. There are often other options, that we've either said are inferior in the previous card comparisons.
These are both good sideboard options. Staggershock and Lightning bolt are stone-cold locks for the main-deck, because they do the most damage, at instant speed, for the least mana. Staggershock is a crazily good utility spell, especially for this deck, because it charges up PA insanely quickly, acts as a mini-pyroclasm, and does huge chunks of damage.
Burst Lightning is the weakest maindeck spell we have at this time, but it seems better than either of these, because:
1) It goes to the face, and hard.
2) It does more damage
3) It costs less mana
4) It is instant speed.
Pyroclasm and Arc Trail are good cards out of the sideboard for aggro matchups. They're typically going to come in for Mana Leaks.
The problem scenarios in aggro matchups are threefold:
A) They sprint out to an early creature swarm, and you may not have n burn spells, where n = their creature count.
B) They have Bloodghasts.
C) They have some huge creature. (Titan, Baloth)
Both of these solutions are pretty good against the early creature swarm. Pyroclasm takes the edge here, because it kills ALL of them. Memnite-Ornithipter-Duelist? All gone. Killing two of them with Arc Trail is probably good enough though, if it has other advantages.
For Bloodghasts, I would give the edge to Arc Trail. Bloodghasts have 1 toughness, so they can soak the 1 point from the second half of Arc Trail, and I can dome them for 2, or kill some other vampire. Pyroclasm kills "all" their Bloodghasts, but in reality, killing one + doing 2 damage to the vampire player is probably superior. It's the same one land to bring both of them, or one of them, back, and it is pretty rough (read: impossible) to stay over 10 life with 1-n Bloodghasts around. If we pick off a few life here, and a few life there, eventually, they'll be in Staggershock-take 8 -> Dead range.
For the huge creature, neither is particularly awesome. Both fail to kill a Leatherback Baloth or Titan copied. Both fail to kill a Nissa's Chosen singly.
The non-targetting nature of Pyroclasm is irrelevant out of the board (I wouldn't bring either in against Frost Titan), though it is probably better against threats like Grave Titan, Wolfbriar Elemental, and the like. The head-targetting nature of Arc Trail makes it better at just killing the opponent dead, which is a problem the deck runs into sometimes in topdeck mode.
I'd give Arc Trail the edge here.
Negate and Spell Pierce are in direct competition. They counter the same things, the only difference being CC and how hard of a counter it is.
Cancel and Mindbreak Trap are in direct competition. They are both hard counters, the difference being mana/utility.
Flashfreeze is somewhere between Cancel/MBT, and Negate. It may be only partially effective even against a red/green deck, as it will not hit artifacts, eldrazi, etc.
I think, if you are going to go to Cancel, you may as well go to Mindbreak Trap. Exiling is 100% better than countering, in a game where Emrakul, Summoning Trap, and Gaea's Revenge exist. Also, It has the potential to cost 0 instead of 4 instead of 3, so the casting cost is not all that dissimilar. It also has strong advantages for Bloodghast, Vengevine, Kuldotha Phoenix, and the like.
Mindbreak Trap seems like the clear victor over Cancel at this time.
Negate and Spell Pierce are good for:
1) Counter Wars
2) Removal for PA
3) Planeswalkers
4) Summoning Trap
5) Memoricide (and other discard)
6) Doing other things, and still having counters up. (Card draw, cast Ascension, etc.
They are terrible for:
1) Creatures (Offensive threats from the other team)
Spell Pierce is a pretty good "surprise", but Negate holds its value after turn 3 or so.
If we think about Flashfreeze, it counters spells in:
Red:
Mono: Either aggro (where we wouldn't bring it in), or control (where the threats are often artifact in origin)
RW: Aggro (won't bring it in)
RU: The mirror. Negate is better generally.
RB: Vampires (won't bring it in), or some sort of controlly build (also won't bring it in, the threats we care about would be black)
Green:
Mono: Elves (won't bring it in, threats are artifact or cheap), or MGEldrazi (where many of the threats are colorless, artifact, etc)
GW: Token creatures, aggro, etc. Threats are likely planeswalkers (negate) or handleable with some other counter.
GU: Turbo land. Negate almost certainly better in this scenario.
GB: Ooze combo, Green threats are handled with red burn.
Leaving:
GR: Valakut, other ramp strategies. Mindbreak Trap is pretty good. This is one matchup where Flashfreeze counters more things than Negate.
RUG: Threats are blue (Jace, Mana Leak). Green is answered by burn, red is irrelevant.
BUG: Threats are blue (Jace, Mana Leak). Green is answered by burn.
So Flashfreeze would be cheifly useful for Valakut. This is a terrible matchup, but between Negate, Mana Leak, and Mindbreak Trap, that is as many counter slots as we might want to have, even with this matchup.
So, It seems like Mindbreak Trap wins the Hard-counter war.(Between it, Cancel, and Flashfreeze)
Negate vs. Spell Pierce is very interesting. Control decks often go for their "big spell" with two mana open, just to allow them to play mana leak or negate on top of casting their threat. This makes Spell Pierce pretty sub-par, since they are naturally leaving enough mana up just to pay for it. However, Spell Pierce is pretty awesome in early counter-wars, or as a surprise "gotcha", after a tap-low. Later in the game, once ascended, it becomes more of a hard counter, but still with 8 or so land out, it's fairly irrelevant. Negate shuts some strategies down hard. It only looks sad when either would look sad (when they cast a titan)
I have been a strong proponent of Spell Pierce, I am not going to lightly set it aside, since it has done so much good for me in the past. However, I have also had good luck with Negate. It is possible that neither is the right answer, and that a sidestep like landing a Sphynx or Turtle is superior.
Looks like I need to get some Mindbreak Traps. Too bad =(
Negate seems like the 2nd best option. Whether we include it or not depends on whether we have slots after everything else is taken.
The big sideboard question is still how to handle ramp. But we have another thread on that, that will set the direction of more of the sideboard.
These are both good sideboard options. Staggershock and Lightning bolt are stone-cold locks for the main-deck, because they do the most damage, at instant speed, for the least mana. Staggershock is a crazily good utility spell, especially for this deck, because it charges up PA insanely quickly, acts as a mini-pyroclasm, and does huge chunks of damage.
Burst Lightning is the weakest maindeck spell we have at this time, but it seems better than either of these, because:
1) It goes to the face, and hard.
2) It does more damage
3) It costs less mana
4) It is instant speed.
Pyroclasm and Arc Trail are good cards out of the sideboard for aggro matchups. They're typically going to come in for Mana Leaks.
The problem scenarios in aggro matchups are threefold:
A) They sprint out to an early creature swarm, and you may not have n burn spells, where n = their creature count.
B) They have Bloodghasts.
C) They have some huge creature. (Titan, Baloth)
Both of these solutions are pretty good against the early creature swarm. Pyroclasm takes the edge here, because it kills ALL of them. Memnite-Ornithipter-Duelist? All gone. Killing two of them with Arc Trail is probably good enough though, if it has other advantages.
For Bloodghasts, I would give the edge to Arc Trail. Bloodghasts have 1 toughness, so they can soak the 1 point from the second half of Arc Trail, and I can dome them for 2, or kill some other vampire. Pyroclasm kills "all" their Bloodghasts, but in reality, killing one + doing 2 damage to the vampire player is probably superior. It's the same one land to bring both of them, or one of them, back, and it is pretty rough (read: impossible) to stay over 10 life with 1-n Bloodghasts around. If we pick off a few life here, and a few life there, eventually, they'll be in Staggershock-take 8 -> Dead range.
For the huge creature, neither is particularly awesome. Both fail to kill a Leatherback Baloth or Titan copied. Both fail to kill a Nissa's Chosen singly.
The non-targetting nature of Pyroclasm is irrelevant out of the board (I wouldn't bring either in against Frost Titan), though it is probably better against threats like Grave Titan, Wolfbriar Elemental, and the like. The head-targetting nature of Arc Trail makes it better at just killing the opponent dead, which is a problem the deck runs into sometimes in topdeck mode.
I'd give Arc Trail the edge here.
Negate and Spell Pierce are in direct competition. They counter the same things, the only difference being CC and how hard of a counter it is.
Cancel and Mindbreak Trap are in direct competition. They are both hard counters, the difference being mana/utility.
Flashfreeze is somewhere between Cancel/MBT, and Negate. It may be only partially effective even against a red/green deck, as it will not hit artifacts, eldrazi, etc.
I think, if you are going to go to Cancel, you may as well go to Mindbreak Trap. Exiling is 100% better than countering, in a game where Emrakul, Summoning Trap, and Gaea's Revenge exist. Also, It has the potential to cost 0 instead of 4 instead of 3, so the casting cost is not all that dissimilar. It also has strong advantages for Bloodghast, Vengevine, Kuldotha Phoenix, and the like.
Mindbreak Trap seems like the clear victor over Cancel at this time.
Negate and Spell Pierce are good for:
1) Counter Wars
2) Removal for PA
3) Planeswalkers
4) Summoning Trap
5) Memoricide (and other discard)
6) Doing other things, and still having counters up. (Card draw, cast Ascension, etc.
They are terrible for:
1) Creatures (Offensive threats from the other team)
Spell Pierce is a pretty good "surprise", but Negate holds its value after turn 3 or so.
If we think about Flashfreeze, it counters spells in:
Red:
Mono: Either aggro (where we wouldn't bring it in), or control (where the threats are often artifact in origin)
RW: Aggro (won't bring it in)
RU: The mirror. Negate is better generally.
RB: Vampires (won't bring it in), or some sort of controlly build (also won't bring it in, the threats we care about would be black)
Green:
Mono: Elves (won't bring it in, threats are artifact or cheap), or MGEldrazi (where many of the threats are colorless, artifact, etc)
GW: Token creatures, aggro, etc. Threats are likely planeswalkers (negate) or handleable with some other counter.
GU: Turbo land. Negate almost certainly better in this scenario.
GB: Ooze combo, Green threats are handled with red burn.
Leaving:
GR: Valakut, other ramp strategies. Mindbreak Trap is pretty good. This is one matchup where Flashfreeze counters more things than Negate.
RUG: Threats are blue (Jace, Mana Leak). Green is answered by burn, red is irrelevant.
BUG: Threats are blue (Jace, Mana Leak). Green is answered by burn.
So Flashfreeze would be cheifly useful for Valakut. This is a terrible matchup, but between Negate, Mana Leak, and Mindbreak Trap, that is as many counter slots as we might want to have, even with this matchup.
So, It seems like Mindbreak Trap wins the Hard-counter war.(Between it, Cancel, and Flashfreeze)
Negate vs. Spell Pierce is very interesting. Control decks often go for their "big spell" with two mana open, just to allow them to play mana leak or negate on top of casting their threat. This makes Spell Pierce pretty sub-par, since they are naturally leaving enough mana up just to pay for it. However, Spell Pierce is pretty awesome in early counter-wars, or as a surprise "gotcha", after a tap-low. Later in the game, once ascended, it becomes more of a hard counter, but still with 8 or so land out, it's fairly irrelevant. Negate shuts some strategies down hard. It only looks sad when either would look sad (when they cast a titan)
I have been a strong proponent of Spell Pierce, I am not going to lightly set it aside, since it has done so much good for me in the past. However, I have also had good luck with Negate. It is possible that neither is the right answer, and that a sidestep like landing a Sphynx or Turtle is superior.
Looks like I need to get some Mindbreak Traps. Too bad =(
Negate seems like the 2nd best option. Whether we include it or not depends on whether we have slots after everything else is taken.
The big sideboard question is still how to handle ramp. But we have another thread on that, that will set the direction of more of the sideboard.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Trying Blitzkrieg vs.Ramp
I ran 15 or so test games againt GerryT's Valakut ramp list, since he won the most recent tournament, and it seems pretty straightforward. I played only 'sideboarded' games, with me taking out the slow top end (2 Call to Mind, 2 Foresee) for 4x Kiln Fiend, and taking the 3 maindeck Pyroclasms out of the ramp deck for 3 Acidic Slimes, which seems like a good general plan vs. My deck.
It didn't go terribly, but it didn't exactly go well. (5/8 -> 38%)
Observed problems:
1) The mana (colors)
For the blitzkrieg strategy to be effective, you need your KF down on turn 2. Often, I would not have 1R available on turn 2.
This is not really a problem for the deck in general, because I often don't (or shouldn't) cast PA on turn 2 anyway. But it is definately a problem for this strategy.
The straightforward plan also has no need to cast 2-4 spells in a turn, so KFs also stress the one-turn mana.
Also, taking out 4-8 blue cards for red cards doesn't help your mana base.
2). Still have many bad cards.
Mana leak is pretty terrible with the blitzkreig strategy. You won't have the mana open to cast it on turn 2 (when you drop the fiend) and you'd rather be casing something else for 3 KF ppower any other turn. It doesn't draw a card, and almost never pumps "{ for damage in this matchup.
Into the Roil is not very good either. It can only bounce a titan, slime, wall, 1x plant token, Avenger, or Khalni Heart Expedition@in this matchup.
Bouncing Titan would be fine, if Titan #1 didn't kill off any/all of your KFs, or if you could swing for victory.
Bouncing avenger is terrrible. Bouncing Khalni Garden token is not amazing. Bouncing an Avenger token is 100% irrelevant.
Bouncing a KHE would be good, if it happened on your turn pre-attack, but that never happens. I've often cast turn 2 KF on the draw, and they have 3 counters on their KHE by the time it is my turn 3. Pretty meh there, for ITR.
Bouncing a wall is about as good as I could do with this spell, and it was never a time walk.
I ran into quite a few board states where my only ITR target was acidic slime, and that definately doesn't improve my problems with mana colors.
3) Not able to deliver killing blow often, despite 2-4 turns of KF attacks, and only 4 3cc+ spells in my deck.
Not enough 1cc burn + Preordain + card draw, or something. I'd draw ITR + Mana Leak + PA + KF + Staggershock, and be at 2 land, or just not enough damage before turn 4-5 came around.
That said, I did go about 50% against the deck, which beats the heck out of my MtGO record against general ramp decks.
I'm not really happy with my testing methodoly, because solo testing is inherently dangerous. You might make decisions differently, unconciously, because you want the deck to win/lose, or make bad mulligan decisions, orother bad practices.
=====================
I did do some goldfishing today, with See Beyonds over Mana Leak, and it was significantly better, but I don't know that I have sideboard space for that, or how it would play out vs. A real opponent.
If I had Arc Trails instead of Pyroclasms in the board, I would bring those in too over ITR.
It didn't go terribly, but it didn't exactly go well. (5/8 -> 38%)
Observed problems:
1) The mana (colors)
For the blitzkrieg strategy to be effective, you need your KF down on turn 2. Often, I would not have 1R available on turn 2.
This is not really a problem for the deck in general, because I often don't (or shouldn't) cast PA on turn 2 anyway. But it is definately a problem for this strategy.
The straightforward plan also has no need to cast 2-4 spells in a turn, so KFs also stress the one-turn mana.
Also, taking out 4-8 blue cards for red cards doesn't help your mana base.
2). Still have many bad cards.
Mana leak is pretty terrible with the blitzkreig strategy. You won't have the mana open to cast it on turn 2 (when you drop the fiend) and you'd rather be casing something else for 3 KF ppower any other turn. It doesn't draw a card, and almost never pumps "{ for damage in this matchup.
Into the Roil is not very good either. It can only bounce a titan, slime, wall, 1x plant token, Avenger, or Khalni Heart Expedition@in this matchup.
Bouncing Titan would be fine, if Titan #1 didn't kill off any/all of your KFs, or if you could swing for victory.
Bouncing avenger is terrrible. Bouncing Khalni Garden token is not amazing. Bouncing an Avenger token is 100% irrelevant.
Bouncing a KHE would be good, if it happened on your turn pre-attack, but that never happens. I've often cast turn 2 KF on the draw, and they have 3 counters on their KHE by the time it is my turn 3. Pretty meh there, for ITR.
Bouncing a wall is about as good as I could do with this spell, and it was never a time walk.
I ran into quite a few board states where my only ITR target was acidic slime, and that definately doesn't improve my problems with mana colors.
3) Not able to deliver killing blow often, despite 2-4 turns of KF attacks, and only 4 3cc+ spells in my deck.
Not enough 1cc burn + Preordain + card draw, or something. I'd draw ITR + Mana Leak + PA + KF + Staggershock, and be at 2 land, or just not enough damage before turn 4-5 came around.
That said, I did go about 50% against the deck, which beats the heck out of my MtGO record against general ramp decks.
I'm not really happy with my testing methodoly, because solo testing is inherently dangerous. You might make decisions differently, unconciously, because you want the deck to win/lose, or make bad mulligan decisions, orother bad practices.
=====================
I did do some goldfishing today, with See Beyonds over Mana Leak, and it was significantly better, but I don't know that I have sideboard space for that, or how it would play out vs. A real opponent.
If I had Arc Trails instead of Pyroclasms in the board, I would bring those in too over ITR.
Friday, December 10, 2010
What to SB against ramp?
Edit: I've created a proxy Valakut ramp deck, that i'll be trying a few of these strategies on.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Sideboarding Strategy
Decklist from the previous post:
With some modifications: +1 staggershock, +1 island, -2 spell pierce, and some SB changes.
4x Pyromancer Ascension
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Staggershock
4x Burst Lighting
4x Preordain
2x Foresee
4x Into the Roil
4x Treasure Hunt
2x Call to Mind
4x Mana Leak
9x Island
4x Halimar Depths
7x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
Sideboard:
4x Pyroclasm
3x Mindbreak Trap (Currently something else, as a placeholder)
3x Demolish
1x Sphinx of Jwar Isle
4 Flashfreeze
Aggro:
+4 Pyroclasm
-4 Burst Lightning
Valakut Ramp:
+3 Mindbreak Trap
+3 Demolish
+4 Flashfreeze
-4 Mana Leak
-2 Burst Lightning
-4 Lightning Bolt (Or Lightning Bolt, depending on what sort of creature package they have)
RUG control, UW control:
+3 Mindbreak Trap+1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
-4 Burst Lightning
I'd really appreciate any feedback here. I'm really not sure of the SB strat.
With some modifications: +1 staggershock, +1 island, -2 spell pierce, and some SB changes.
4x Pyromancer Ascension
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Staggershock
4x Burst Lighting
4x Preordain
2x Foresee
4x Into the Roil
4x Treasure Hunt
2x Call to Mind
4x Mana Leak
9x Island
4x Halimar Depths
7x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
Sideboard:
4x Pyroclasm
3x Mindbreak Trap (Currently something else, as a placeholder)
3x Demolish
1x Sphinx of Jwar Isle
4 Flashfreeze
Aggro:
+4 Pyroclasm
-4 Burst Lightning
Valakut Ramp:
+3 Mindbreak Trap
+3 Demolish
+4 Flashfreeze
-4 Mana Leak
-2 Burst Lightning
-4 Lightning Bolt (Or Lightning Bolt, depending on what sort of creature package they have)
RUG control, UW control:
+3 Mindbreak Trap+1 Sphinx of Jwar Isle
-4 Burst Lightning
I'd really appreciate any feedback here. I'm really not sure of the SB strat.
Card Competition - Part 1.
Burn:
Lightning Bolt
Never cutting this card. Double Bolt, Double Call to mind for Bolt, 2x double Bolt is a way to kill people pretty dead, with not much mana, which means you can land that late pyro, cast some draw spells to charge up, and STILL kill them. You need that one-mana burn to kill people quickly. You just can't afford to kick a burst and call to mind for the win.
Burst Lightning.
Not necessarily a solid lock. 4 damage for one card, or 2 damage for 1 mana, is pretty good. Kicking a Burst at the end of their turn is pretty good vs control. Being able to kill some creature on their-end-of-turn-2 on the draw, or dealing with a Goblin Guide T1 on the draw is really important. Doming them for 2 end of turn just to feed the graveyard or ascension is also pretty key. There are alot of ways to spend mana, so having cheap ways to charge is good.
It could lose to some of the card advantage or PA-pumping spells. I definately side it out vs control/ramp.
Pyroclasm
Doesn't do damage to the player. Can be dead or less useful in some matchups. Does what it is supposed to do better than many other cards. I often play it T2 against one creature, in deadly matchups, so in that scenario, Arc Trail would translate into 1-2 damage to the head. That is not huge, compared to pyroclasm killing 7 tokens, and letting me bolt the Avenger of Zendikar to finish it off. Doubled Pyros kill 0/4 walls, and pretty much everything that costs 5 or less but Leatherback Baloth. I have cast it just to charge up the Ascension, but those are not good times.
Arc Trail
Can go to the dome against control, but if you're doing that, Staggershock seems clearly better.
Arc is a sorcery, so that has some limitations. The only reasons I could see to play it, Pyroclasm just seems better. Arc Trail may be a better main-deck card than Pyroclasm, but Staggershock seems like a better main-deck card than either. For the sideboard, Pyroclasm does the job a whole lot better than Arc Trail, so it seems like Arc Trail can't really compete on either level. The only time I'd want Arc Trail is if I was in super-hedge mode, while still being terrified of aggro. Arc Trail comes down earlier than Staggershock, so you can use it as your only burn spell against aggro in a better way.
Staggershock:
If it is countered (due to illegal targets, or counterspells) you don't get the rebound, which will be important to know against decks like vampires, that sacrifice their own guys.
The Ascension-Powering, and dome-caving powers of Staggershock can't be denied. It is more efficient than Burst for the 4 damage, but the +1 turn you'd have to wait to kill the creature, or to get the second ping could be enough time for them to kill you. That said, Pyroclasm probably isn't going to prevent them from killing you, and being an instant means you can kill Creeping Tar Pits, Lavaclaw Reaches, and the like.
It seems pretty reasonable to move Staggershock to the maindeck these days, replacing Pyroclasm, and something (Spell Pierce?)
Burn Conclusion:
Main-deck 4x Lightning bolt, 4x Staggershock, 2x Burst lightning (at least)
Sideboard 4x Pyroclasm, 2x burst lightning (if not main)
Probably Main-deck 2 more Burst Lightning, in place of Spell Pierce?
Draw:
Preordain
Can we have more of these? Probably the best draw spell in the deck. It's only one mana, it gives you three shots at what you need, and it gets rid of the chaff with scry. Good early, good late, one of the better topdecks when you're in a bad spot.
Foresee
This is pretty expensive at 4 mana. 3 is the most I'd play, because it is pretty clunky. In a deck with mana leak, the earliest you really want to cast it is turn 6. There is almost no other card you'd rather draw late, but almost any card draw spell will chain into something else. 8-seeing, or 12-seeing should be a guaranteed win. Could easily go to 2 and not blink too much.
See Beyond
Worst draw spell in the deck. Nets you even on cards, for 1U, at sorcery speed. Has a good chance of shuffling the wrong card away. Causes you to keep omni-land hands, because you'll be able to shuffle the land away, but then you just draw more land, and that plan goes to heck. I really want to do some math on this card
Into the Roil
Best utility spell in the deck currently. Solves almost any problem. Not amazing vs comes into play effects. Not amazing vs sacrifice. Not amazing vs Ratchet Bomb. But it solves a ton of problems, while cantripping. It can also be used defensively to save your own Ascension from removal when you don't have a counterspell. Around 70% of the time I cast it kickered, but it still works unkickered, against full-pump leeches, or poison guys, or 7/1 Tramplers. It's a huge tempo swing, for a cantrip. I have a very hard time cutting this, though I'm sure there are some matchups where it's probably a good idea to cut it in favor of something...
Twitch
Twiddle + cantrip is really not terrible. One of the better ways UR can answer titans, since countering them often doesn't work. Tap them down on declare attackers, draw a card, that might do the same thing again.
It can also tap an opponent out so they can't counter you, or tap a mana creature in upkeep, to keep people off the magic 6 mana.
Really, anything with a cantrip is about as good as See Beyond. And it will have the advantage of not shuffling your library most likely, as well as doing whatever is being done from the card in general. See Beyond digs you another card deep, but costs 2, is a sorcery, and causes a ton of misplays, and undoes scrying.
Treasure Hunt
The EV on this card blind says that it draws 1.6 cards on average. I would really like to look into this a bit more, to see how well it works for my deck specifically. (The math would probably be fun). Halimar Depths is a card I'm evolving my playstyle around. I used to play it T1, but just like preordain, it's just so much better turn 4 or so. Treasure hunt is probably the same way. Play out your lands, cast card draw or removal spells to stabilize, then Treasure Hunt to refill and go again. Halimar Depths also works well with Scalding Tarn.
The downside of this card is that it will only ever draw you one "business" spell. See Beyond lets you keep land-heavy hands, and shuffle the land away. Treasure Hunt will be a completely different card than See Beyond. It is possible that the stock of Foresee will rise with Treasure Hunts inclusion, because you will just end up having quite a few more lands in play. You have no real way to get rid of any of the lands you draw, so you'll just end up playing them out.
Draw Conclusion:
4x Preordain
3x Foresee
4x Into the Roil
4x Treasure Hunt
I think I'm going to try Treasure Hunt out for a while. It will require a different mindset to be sure, and It will misfire, or draw only a revealed Mana Leak, which is about as bad as it will get. I might cut a Foresee, but it seems like it will be even better with Treasure Hunt than See Beyond. I'll try and start at 3 for the time being, and see if I am still staring at Foresees on turn 5 with 3 mana in play.
Sideboard: I don't think I'll put any draw into the sideboard. I'm not sure when I would bring a card like Twitch in, and what I would want to take out for it. Probably burn, because taking out ITR for Twitch seems counterproductive.
Countermagic/Answers:
Mana Leak
This is the gold standard for countermagic right now. It's cheap, counters anything, isn't too mana intensive, and allows a ton of bluffing, since most of the time you don't have it. You also end up tapping quite a bit of mana on your turn, to cast your sorcery speed draw, so it's important that the spell be cheap to fill in.
Spell Pierce
Spell Pierce is awesome. It comes out of nowhere, counters countermagic, planeswalkers, end of turn burn. It's better than Dispel, because Dispel really only has one function. Spell Pierce has 3 or 4. It loses alot of its luster late, and it cannot counter a titan, which is important in practically every matchup.
Negate
Hard-countering is important in some matchups. It's just better than Spell Pierce against control, because noone does anything until 6-8 mana or so, or without Mana leak backup. Like Spell Pierce, also very bad against Titans.
Mindbreak Trap
In the hard-counter game, this comes out on top of Deprive and Cancel. Paying one more to counter uncounterable things is plenty good late, and the alternate casting cost is not irrelevant. Picking up a land is not awesome on Deprive, but it would be the second best option. (Resetting Halimar Depths isn't terrible) Mindbreak is great against ramp (disallowing Summoning trap, countering 1st-2nd traps, depending on how the turn went), and is fine at a 1-3 of in the sideboard. It is also guaranteed to freak people out.
Demolish
If I'm running Mindbreak Trap, Demolish might not be as necessary for MGE's Eye of Ugun.
Mimic Vat is pretty easy to bounce with ITR. I don't have any creatures to kill, so the worst it can be typically is acidic slime, or some sort of discard.
Ratchet bomb, Valakut, and Emeria are the big problems, and all of these can be dealt with with a 3-of or so Demolish.
Flashfreeze
Hard counter against Primeval Titan
Countermagic/Answers Conclusion:
4x Mana Leak
1-3x Spell Pierce or Negate
Sideboard: 2-3x Mindbreak Trap
Sideboard: 2-3x Demolish
1-3 Spell Pierce or Negate.
So what does it look like now?
4x Pyromancer Ascension (Almost forgot this...)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Staggershock
3x Burst Lighting
4x Preordain
2x Foresee
4x Into the Roil
4x Treasure Hunt
2x Call to Mind
4x Mana Leak
2x Spell Pierce
8x Island
4x Halimar Depths
7x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
Sideboard:
4x Pyroclasm
1x Burst Lightning
3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Demolish
2xSpell Pierce
1x Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1x Foresee
Lightning Bolt
Never cutting this card. Double Bolt, Double Call to mind for Bolt, 2x double Bolt is a way to kill people pretty dead, with not much mana, which means you can land that late pyro, cast some draw spells to charge up, and STILL kill them. You need that one-mana burn to kill people quickly. You just can't afford to kick a burst and call to mind for the win.
Burst Lightning.
Not necessarily a solid lock. 4 damage for one card, or 2 damage for 1 mana, is pretty good. Kicking a Burst at the end of their turn is pretty good vs control. Being able to kill some creature on their-end-of-turn-2 on the draw, or dealing with a Goblin Guide T1 on the draw is really important. Doming them for 2 end of turn just to feed the graveyard or ascension is also pretty key. There are alot of ways to spend mana, so having cheap ways to charge is good.
It could lose to some of the card advantage or PA-pumping spells. I definately side it out vs control/ramp.
Pyroclasm
Doesn't do damage to the player. Can be dead or less useful in some matchups. Does what it is supposed to do better than many other cards. I often play it T2 against one creature, in deadly matchups, so in that scenario, Arc Trail would translate into 1-2 damage to the head. That is not huge, compared to pyroclasm killing 7 tokens, and letting me bolt the Avenger of Zendikar to finish it off. Doubled Pyros kill 0/4 walls, and pretty much everything that costs 5 or less but Leatherback Baloth. I have cast it just to charge up the Ascension, but those are not good times.
Arc Trail
Can go to the dome against control, but if you're doing that, Staggershock seems clearly better.
Arc is a sorcery, so that has some limitations. The only reasons I could see to play it, Pyroclasm just seems better. Arc Trail may be a better main-deck card than Pyroclasm, but Staggershock seems like a better main-deck card than either. For the sideboard, Pyroclasm does the job a whole lot better than Arc Trail, so it seems like Arc Trail can't really compete on either level. The only time I'd want Arc Trail is if I was in super-hedge mode, while still being terrified of aggro. Arc Trail comes down earlier than Staggershock, so you can use it as your only burn spell against aggro in a better way.
Staggershock:
If it is countered (due to illegal targets, or counterspells) you don't get the rebound, which will be important to know against decks like vampires, that sacrifice their own guys.
The Ascension-Powering, and dome-caving powers of Staggershock can't be denied. It is more efficient than Burst for the 4 damage, but the +1 turn you'd have to wait to kill the creature, or to get the second ping could be enough time for them to kill you. That said, Pyroclasm probably isn't going to prevent them from killing you, and being an instant means you can kill Creeping Tar Pits, Lavaclaw Reaches, and the like.
It seems pretty reasonable to move Staggershock to the maindeck these days, replacing Pyroclasm, and something (Spell Pierce?)
Burn Conclusion:
Main-deck 4x Lightning bolt, 4x Staggershock, 2x Burst lightning (at least)
Sideboard 4x Pyroclasm, 2x burst lightning (if not main)
Probably Main-deck 2 more Burst Lightning, in place of Spell Pierce?
Draw:
Preordain
Can we have more of these? Probably the best draw spell in the deck. It's only one mana, it gives you three shots at what you need, and it gets rid of the chaff with scry. Good early, good late, one of the better topdecks when you're in a bad spot.
Foresee
This is pretty expensive at 4 mana. 3 is the most I'd play, because it is pretty clunky. In a deck with mana leak, the earliest you really want to cast it is turn 6. There is almost no other card you'd rather draw late, but almost any card draw spell will chain into something else. 8-seeing, or 12-seeing should be a guaranteed win. Could easily go to 2 and not blink too much.
See Beyond
Worst draw spell in the deck. Nets you even on cards, for 1U, at sorcery speed. Has a good chance of shuffling the wrong card away. Causes you to keep omni-land hands, because you'll be able to shuffle the land away, but then you just draw more land, and that plan goes to heck. I really want to do some math on this card
Into the Roil
Best utility spell in the deck currently. Solves almost any problem. Not amazing vs comes into play effects. Not amazing vs sacrifice. Not amazing vs Ratchet Bomb. But it solves a ton of problems, while cantripping. It can also be used defensively to save your own Ascension from removal when you don't have a counterspell. Around 70% of the time I cast it kickered, but it still works unkickered, against full-pump leeches, or poison guys, or 7/1 Tramplers. It's a huge tempo swing, for a cantrip. I have a very hard time cutting this, though I'm sure there are some matchups where it's probably a good idea to cut it in favor of something...
Twitch
Twiddle + cantrip is really not terrible. One of the better ways UR can answer titans, since countering them often doesn't work. Tap them down on declare attackers, draw a card, that might do the same thing again.
It can also tap an opponent out so they can't counter you, or tap a mana creature in upkeep, to keep people off the magic 6 mana.
Really, anything with a cantrip is about as good as See Beyond. And it will have the advantage of not shuffling your library most likely, as well as doing whatever is being done from the card in general. See Beyond digs you another card deep, but costs 2, is a sorcery, and causes a ton of misplays, and undoes scrying.
Treasure Hunt
The EV on this card blind says that it draws 1.6 cards on average. I would really like to look into this a bit more, to see how well it works for my deck specifically. (The math would probably be fun). Halimar Depths is a card I'm evolving my playstyle around. I used to play it T1, but just like preordain, it's just so much better turn 4 or so. Treasure hunt is probably the same way. Play out your lands, cast card draw or removal spells to stabilize, then Treasure Hunt to refill and go again. Halimar Depths also works well with Scalding Tarn.
The downside of this card is that it will only ever draw you one "business" spell. See Beyond lets you keep land-heavy hands, and shuffle the land away. Treasure Hunt will be a completely different card than See Beyond. It is possible that the stock of Foresee will rise with Treasure Hunts inclusion, because you will just end up having quite a few more lands in play. You have no real way to get rid of any of the lands you draw, so you'll just end up playing them out.
Draw Conclusion:
4x Preordain
3x Foresee
4x Into the Roil
4x Treasure Hunt
I think I'm going to try Treasure Hunt out for a while. It will require a different mindset to be sure, and It will misfire, or draw only a revealed Mana Leak, which is about as bad as it will get. I might cut a Foresee, but it seems like it will be even better with Treasure Hunt than See Beyond. I'll try and start at 3 for the time being, and see if I am still staring at Foresees on turn 5 with 3 mana in play.
Sideboard: I don't think I'll put any draw into the sideboard. I'm not sure when I would bring a card like Twitch in, and what I would want to take out for it. Probably burn, because taking out ITR for Twitch seems counterproductive.
Countermagic/Answers:
Mana Leak
This is the gold standard for countermagic right now. It's cheap, counters anything, isn't too mana intensive, and allows a ton of bluffing, since most of the time you don't have it. You also end up tapping quite a bit of mana on your turn, to cast your sorcery speed draw, so it's important that the spell be cheap to fill in.
Spell Pierce
Spell Pierce is awesome. It comes out of nowhere, counters countermagic, planeswalkers, end of turn burn. It's better than Dispel, because Dispel really only has one function. Spell Pierce has 3 or 4. It loses alot of its luster late, and it cannot counter a titan, which is important in practically every matchup.
Negate
Hard-countering is important in some matchups. It's just better than Spell Pierce against control, because noone does anything until 6-8 mana or so, or without Mana leak backup. Like Spell Pierce, also very bad against Titans.
Mindbreak Trap
In the hard-counter game, this comes out on top of Deprive and Cancel. Paying one more to counter uncounterable things is plenty good late, and the alternate casting cost is not irrelevant. Picking up a land is not awesome on Deprive, but it would be the second best option. (Resetting Halimar Depths isn't terrible) Mindbreak is great against ramp (disallowing Summoning trap, countering 1st-2nd traps, depending on how the turn went), and is fine at a 1-3 of in the sideboard. It is also guaranteed to freak people out.
Demolish
If I'm running Mindbreak Trap, Demolish might not be as necessary for MGE's Eye of Ugun.
Mimic Vat is pretty easy to bounce with ITR. I don't have any creatures to kill, so the worst it can be typically is acidic slime, or some sort of discard.
Ratchet bomb, Valakut, and Emeria are the big problems, and all of these can be dealt with with a 3-of or so Demolish.
Flashfreeze
Hard counter against Primeval Titan
Countermagic/Answers Conclusion:
4x Mana Leak
1-3x Spell Pierce or Negate
Sideboard: 2-3x Mindbreak Trap
Sideboard: 2-3x Demolish
1-3 Spell Pierce or Negate.
So what does it look like now?
4x Pyromancer Ascension (Almost forgot this...)
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Staggershock
3x Burst Lighting
4x Preordain
2x Foresee
4x Into the Roil
4x Treasure Hunt
2x Call to Mind
4x Mana Leak
2x Spell Pierce
8x Island
4x Halimar Depths
7x Mountain
4x Scalding Tarn
Sideboard:
4x Pyroclasm
1x Burst Lightning
3x Mindbreak Trap
3x Demolish
2xSpell Pierce
1x Sphinx of Jwar Isle
1x Foresee
Weird cards to consider: Creatures, Artifacts, and Enchantments.
These options do not play as nicely with Pyromancer Ascension. They don't get copied, or charge it up. However, they do typically go through a different kind of removal, and game 2, your opponent might not have any of that kind of removal left. This is most plausable against decks that do not have Red, or Green (who can often block these creatures, or who are playing bigger or the same but faster versions of what you would be trying to do. Black also tends to have Gatekeeper, which is a great answer to all of these options.
On the plus side, they tend to dodge Duress, Celestial Purge, Revoke Existance, Luminarch Ascension, Negate, and a few other answers you might see.
Creatures:
Very aggressive. Often bad with countermagic. Often killed by cards they leave in anyway. (Bolt, Gatekeeper), or just blocked and killed by Lotus Cobra, Oracle, Kor Firewalker, etc. Drops on T2 on the play, avoiding Mana Leak, often the only answer control decks have to the creature sideboard plan.
Good against White/Blue/Black/Red, unless they have 1 power blockers (Trinket mage, Gatekeeper). Bad against green (they will have the blocker). Probably reasonable against vampire aggro (Bloodghast killer) if they didn't have Gatekeeper.
Pyro Ascension 5-8, this guy is pretty mana-intensive, but neither red (Celestial Purge), nor an enchantment. He also dodges Ratchet bomb, or forces it to go to 3 instead of the mono-2 you present with Kiln Fiend + PA.
Flys right over the titans. Top card viewing could be very useful for a deck with Treasure Hunt, Scalding Tarn, etc. Most likely counter to this is Mana Leak, and getting to 9 mana to prevent that is often troublesome. Comes down after all the counter fights, so perhaps a good answer.
Not a terrible answer to Frost Titan, but requires 8 mana for full effectiveness. Beats down pretty hard. Among the more pro-active options available.
Beats down amazingly hard. Ends the game in 1-2 turns.
Better against Gatekeeper than other options, and blocks KFW, but Revoke gets him pretty hard.
Blocks creatures pretty well. Great answer to Kor Firewalker, or Bloodghast. Acceptable answer to the landfall guys, or other aggro red threats. Not great vs. Argentum Armor, Frost Titan, Wurmcoil, Gatekeeper.
6 mana full-answer to Frost Titan. (About as cheap as you can get in Red-Blue). Very reactive, which is not terrifically good. Bad as a 4-5 mana answer to Frost Titan, because they'll just tap it on the way in, and you lose. Not awesome vs Eldrazi (You get the copy effect on ETB, and the Eldrazi effect on cast, so you don't get it). Probably too reactive to see play without other threats to back it up.
But hey, who doesn't like a card with 9(!) rules clarifications on Gatherer...
Artifacts:
Pretty good vs. aggro, pretty good vs. Ratchet Bomb, pretty good vs. tokens. Requires a slow play of the Ascension, but slow playing PA is often the best idea anyway in these matchups. (Playing it early is only good vs countermagic)
Planeswalkers:
Beats J:TMS to the punch. Draws cards. Not really a wincon.
Out of my price range and CC range at this time. He's expensive for a reason though.
Powerful, but probably bad against Ramp. Might be good against control if it can land and survive through the hate they already have. Worth mentioning most likely.
I'm open for more options here. Good spells here will be quite a bit harder to find than good instants or sorceries.
On the plus side, they tend to dodge Duress, Celestial Purge, Revoke Existance, Luminarch Ascension, Negate, and a few other answers you might see.
Creatures:
Flys right over the titans. Top card viewing could be very useful for a deck with Treasure Hunt, Scalding Tarn, etc. Most likely counter to this is Mana Leak, and getting to 9 mana to prevent that is often troublesome. Comes down after all the counter fights, so perhaps a good answer.
Beats down amazingly hard. Ends the game in 1-2 turns.
Better against Gatekeeper than other options, and blocks KFW, but Revoke gets him pretty hard.
Blocks creatures pretty well. Great answer to Kor Firewalker, or Bloodghast. Acceptable answer to the landfall guys, or other aggro red threats. Not great vs. Argentum Armor, Frost Titan, Wurmcoil, Gatekeeper.
6 mana full-answer to Frost Titan. (About as cheap as you can get in Red-Blue). Very reactive, which is not terrifically good. Bad as a 4-5 mana answer to Frost Titan, because they'll just tap it on the way in, and you lose. Not awesome vs Eldrazi (You get the copy effect on ETB, and the Eldrazi effect on cast, so you don't get it). Probably too reactive to see play without other threats to back it up.
But hey, who doesn't like a card with 9(!) rules clarifications on Gatherer...
Artifacts:
Planeswalkers:
Out of my price range and CC range at this time. He's expensive for a reason though.
Powerful, but probably bad against Ramp. Might be good against control if it can land and survive through the hate they already have. Worth mentioning most likely.
I'm open for more options here. Good spells here will be quite a bit harder to find than good instants or sorceries.
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