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.