While I think Duress is the most realist sideboard option, I really feel like I need to mention Spell Snare. It hits all their counters AND oath AND rod. Seems better than Annul at least (in this particular matchup).

Spell Snare seems a tad dedicated though because it gets trumped by REB in the mirror and against Gifts. I'm envisioning an SB of like 3 Duress and maybe 2 REB to bring in addition to the Duresses for Gifts and the mirror.

Go Raiders! Woot!

"Ancestral. Targeting me! ::points::"

Unf. LSV still took games 2 and 3 off me. He's such a mize.

Great stuff again Jeff. Next vintage tournament in the area I will bring my digital, and this time, I mean it.

AH. There it is. Thanks.

Now that I see the interaction that makes necro-ing into the tendrils bad..heh..it's still really tough to see siding necro out. In game 2 they will generally have more duresses, but you will have second tendrils + duresses. The above situation could certainly happen game 1 though. Maybe with more people having MD duress regardless of deck the 2nd Tendrils (or Death Wish) is appropriate.

Thanks again for helping me find the argument...I knew it was there somewhere 

It doesn't seem like your opponent could have done much here.

By making the play he did, you're opponent is signaling that they have no way to stop you grim tutor --> will with misD backup. If he takes the tendrils, that's dumb because you just resolve tutor -> will, will back your tendrils and win. His other play is to take your walk (disabling your misdirection) and hope to stop your tutor. If he goes that route...you then mini-tendrils. If he takes MisD, you win b/c you still get to bleed his counter with your tutor, cast walk, draw some more necro cards, and win on the following turn.

My point being that with that hand, he shouldn't duress tendrils regardless of how many he thinks you have in deck.


I would cut the MD artifact bounce over necro. Also, playing 60 cards is tech.

1) It's rarely ever wasteland, blow up your thing, go. It's usually: bad things + waste. What I'm saying is that when they waste your land, they don't necessarily waste their turn...dig?

2) It puts you another turn away from hitting TFK, and winning. You'd rather they didn't i.e. getting wasted is something you want to avoid (can't believe I said that).

3) If you don't run the swamp, then you can't keep the 1 land, Whisper hand, which could end up being pretty hot depending on the Whisper.


Agreed, but hey, its still out there and not in the bin. And you can then go get basic island from there on out if necessary. It's also not just that they can waste it immediately...its at any point in the game they can kill it. You can run a deck of no basics and say, "Only 50% chance of them having waste in opening 7," but not many people follow that logic...I wonder why?

Ok, so if you follow the argument up until this point, then:

Say its game 1, you're on the play, and you've scouted so you know your opponent is on Stax/Fish/SS/Kudzu. Do you run your Sea out there for the Turn1 NW in the name of "spending mana every turn" and pumping up your hand to deal with their turn1?

Walking into wasteland here is unacceptable, thus my thinking on the MD Swamp.

What are people's thoughts on the MD swamp if you've followed the argument to the point of agreeing with NW as the proper card for the slot? You're weighing the ability to have another non-wasteable source to cast your NW, DT, VT, and Will vs. another non-U source that threatens the turn 1-2 Drain Mana.

I ran the Night's Whisper Slaver build at the last NorCal Vintage tournament in Berkeley to a 1-1-2 record.

I believe the record to be due to my inexperience with the deck in a tournament setting and not necessary this particular build or the viability of slaver in the current metagame. Also, sometimes things don't work out as planned.

I attribute the draw I had to the sideboard plan of 4x Sphere of Resistance against combo. I think the deck wants 4x Chalice 1x Big Platz there instead.

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But to be relevent to the current discussion of Night's Whisper, I found it very strong against the drain decks and against combo *if played turn1* and would not cut it for what essentially amounts to welder/bob hate in the main - Fire/Ice or DBlast.

You clearly board it out against Stax, but you have great cards to bring in for that matchup so you don't mind.

The question that came to my mind while reading this thread is Night's Whisper vs. Merchant Scroll.

Night's Whisper has the advantage of pulling you ahead on the spot. While merchant scroll gives you flexibility, is easier to cast on turn 1, and pitches to FoW (and gets countered by REB..or more often...what it gets is).

The other advantage of Scroll is that it gets broken cards involved. Even IF the ancestral/FoF/Wish or w/e it gets does get countered, those cards are still in grave ready to be willed back. Its a slight advantage, but its something.

For next time, I'm going to add basic swamp to the deck in order to allow the turn1 Whisper against SS/Kudzu/Stax and run the current config as is.

Thanks for the awesome commentary and strategy discussion up until this point. I'd really like to hear your ideas on Scroll vs. Whisper and your sideboarding strategies.

I like this analysis and I thought about giving smother a few sideboard slots and then 2 things occured to me:

1) I haven't seen enough proof that current sideboard plan of clasm/reb doesn't solve the matchup with or without Grunt.
Is Jotun Grunt really a threat? Others in the thread strongly feel that way but I don't buy it quite yet.


Not only for Merchant Scroll, but actually because the card is blue. Your sources of black in this deck are 1-2 Sea, 1 Jet, 1 Petal, and 1 Lotus

Playing your Sea into a wasteland just to kill Grunt is not worth it.

Chain of Vapor still wins in this argument.

Agreed.


More and more people will be playing this deck at future tournaments in the area. I love the board plan of bringing in the enchantments...b/c you strand their hurkyll's in hand while you've got like a Choke/ITEoC out and Chalice @ 1 for their CoV...seems pretty hawt. ::Grabs my E.Truth and R.River back outta my binder::


The more and more I think about the decision...the more and more I feel that those dudes should have called and asked Ryan if they would be allowed to play before they showed up...I felt bad for those guys, because 1) they're good kids 2) I HATE feeling like my time is being wasted...and they basically wasted a day coming out there to not play.

@Lotushead

Jeff, I very much appreciate the pics and reports. I keep kicking myself for missing these events, but I love reading the reports and checking out the pics that you put up. Thank you.

@All

Gamble Stax...yeah funny. ; p

1 3sphere + 3 Gamble = 4 3sphere? No? And obv with the Crux and Welder it's the red entomb. Nice innovation kids. I really like the deck.

I like your build. I tested a bit with it on mws last night. I plan on running it in the next tournament I play in, hopefully this weekend.

I would like to hear your thoughts on these issues.

1) Why 4 Delta 1 Strand? This opens you up to being hosed by needle. Would you recommend 3/2 now?

2) Is the extra blue source in Seat of the Synod worth playing over the Darksteel Citadel...which is clearly better against stax. Do you have a "minimum blue source count" that you go for when building the manabase?

3) The one other change I wanted to make was -1 monkey +1 welder. Did you find that you were seeing welder enough to enable an early broken mindslaver? My fear is that the acceleration and draw will be there, but welder or slaver won't. How comfortable are you with only running 3x welder and 1x slaver?

4) I appreciate you showing your sb decisions in the report, and for showing the deck in general. Thanks.

Jeff, you very nearly threw the game, and the match, away here on turn 1. Why on earth would you tinker away the chalice at 0 for titan? Just tinker the monolith, or a mana artifact, who cares...anything but the chalice.

Stainz.