Does Stifle have a place in hulk's sideboard ?

[Didor]

In order to face the current rise of mindslaver decks, which ruin every tog player's day, I' ve been toying with this idea: why couldn't Stifle become a perfect sideboard material?

Stifle could, imho, replace a couple of Coffin Purge: against rector or dragon decks, stifling or purging seem both efficient ways to resist their combo, which purge also did.

Furthermore, stifling an opposing Smokestack ability could give the tog player some more time, and improve the stax matchup.

And much more than purge, Stifle would greatly help avoiding a lethal mindslaving.

So, what do you all think of this ? Could Stifle take the place of Coffin Purge in tog's sideboard ? Is its inclusion really worth tweaking the sideboard ?

[Apollyon]

In the Tog build I'm working on, I don't run Coffin Purge. I just don't really think that it's all that great... For the most part, when you Coffin Purge, Stifle does the exact same thing. Purge is better vs Welders, but Stifle is much more flexible and works vs Mindslaver. My build runs 2 Stifle main, 1 SB, and 1 Wish SB.

[Didor]

I have come to the same conclusion: with Mindslaver decks around, Stifle is strictly superior to Coffin Purge.
Yet, I still run one purge in the board to wich for against welder or madness.

[Smash]

Purge deals with a lot of stuff stifle can't. It can also nail squees vs dragon/ roars vs madness, and is "duress proof"

Both have their benefits, depending on the situation.

[jpmeyer]

Really the only problems with it are 1) space in the SB and 2) you kinda have to telegraph the card

[FORCE-OF-WILL]

In my area there is a lot of dragon and Keeper. And of course a crap load of budget crap
I Have accually gone to playing two stifle main deck in order to keep up.

Fortunatly when im not playing either of these two decks I still usually find a use for this card, very rarely will a game go by when I will have NO oppertunity to use the card to my advantage.

I forgot, two guys in my area are now playing slavery-which is the main reason for both maindeck

[defector]

I think the new core for blue control is

Force of WillX4
Mana Drain X4
Stifle X2
That's what I run, about the sb, I'm mixed at 1 stifle and 2 purge.  
defector

[jpmeyer]

Tog doesn't need maindeck Stifle because Stifle doesn't help it win

[defector]

To JP Meyer:  Do you see much draw7.dec in your game, I would want stifle main for that as it will probably go off before tog does.  What do you think?  I was writing my list thinking more of "Blue Based Control" than Tog in specific, the list is from my Keeper list, I've been running it in Tog because my friend plays a lot of dragon, kind of permanently sideboarded.  What do you run?
defector

[Xhad]

Stifle isn't that good against Draw7.dec.  Unless it's stopping Mind's Desire, if you have a reason to cast it you've probably already lost.

[jpmeyer]

Yeah, I'd rather like splash red and maindeck Gorilla Shaman or something there.  And against Dragon I'd rather have more Duresses.  It's hard to beat Dragon with reactive cards anyway since they have inevitability.

[defector]

I run red in tog,no Shaman though because none of my friends own moxen, just for A-Mutation and REB.  I haven't played the deck or won worlds with it, so let me bow out of this please before I make a fool out of myself.
thanx
defector

[Didor]

So, for sure, tog doesn't need Stifle maindeck... but what about the sideboard ? Currently, I'm playing a 2 Deep Analysis, 3 Duress, 2 Pernicious Deed maindeck (without red), and here is my sideboard:

3 Back To Basics
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Deep Analysis
1 Berserk
1 COFFIN PURGE
3 STIFLE
1 Oxidize
2 Naturalize
1 Smother

It has so far been good to me, but I'm still wondering wether 1 purge / 3 stifle would be better than 3 purge / 1 stifle ...

[MaxxMatt]

Even if the Hulk version we referred to is the one with 5 Strips, I don't see HOW stiffle can improve Matchups ( maindeckked AND/OR Sided in... )

Purge vs. Stifle is won by Stifle ONLY for his potential versatility but NOT for the real utility of the card

As gravyard hate ( thinking about reanimating dragon and stifling his WCtP triggered ability ), I think that is selfexplanatory that Purge always win against Stifle.
Agaisnt any Slaver.dec I think that is better to get rid of the Slaver in the grave rather than Stifling one time and losing to the possible future Welder's recursion.
Sometimes ( very rarely of course ) it function as a partial "Orim Chant" that cost BB and if I can remove from the game Walk and Ancestrall iI can possibly be in a not so desperate situation.

Stiffle IMHO is great if the field is FULL of Decree and Deeds. An high rate of this spell in the decks of my opponen't can let me think about adding Stifle. But I don't want tohave it more than as a 1ofs in my side.
I want to be able to Wish for it but I don't want to depower my side to add "Stifle Redundancy"

If you want to add Stifle to prevent Workshop.dec to abuse of their Somockstack or other lock components, I think that, another time, Stifle is a suboptimal and temporary solution to the Stax's problems. More R&R and more Naturalize/Oxidize/H.Recall would be the Artifact Hate cards in my Atog's Side.

If I would have played Tog with red, my side would be:

3 ReB
2 Purge
1/2 D.A.
1/2 R&R
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
2 Ground Seal
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Chain of Vapor
 
Without red I think that the chosen side would be:

3 Swarm
2 D.A.
3 H.Recall
1 Chain of vapor
2 Purge
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
2 Perniciuous Deed

the slots were chosen to fight well : DARgon, Control Mirrors, Stax, Slavery and Control Madness.

[jpmeyer]

If you are worried about Dragon, Coffin Purge is much better since you can go Intuition for 3x Purge and win right there.

[Eastman]

Yah Stifle just isn't happening in Hulk.

I wouldn't even play it in keeper right now.


It is far too conditional. Drawing stifle in a stalled game or when you need an answer just sucks too hard.

[Didor]

A little off-topic, but without stifle in the board, what would you all board in to deal with stax and the other prison matchups when playing a U/G/B Tog build ?

[jpmeyer]

Deed and Oxidize

[Didor]

To jpmeyer : would hurkyl's recall be of any use in this matchup ? Do you think uping the number of sideboard oxidize/naturalize to 4 (1 naturalize+ 3 oxidize for example ) would be useful if I expect to face lots of workshops ?

[jpmeyer]

You probably don't need that many.  I get by pretty well with 1 Deed maindeck and then having a Deed, a Naturalize, and an Oxidize in the board.

[Didor]

Would Ground Seal be efficient against stax ?
If so, it might be worth including, as it also hoses dragon and TnT...

[Smash]

Would Ground Seal be efficient against stax ?
If so, it might be worth including, as it also hoses dragon and TnT...

I wouldn't say "hose" TNT. It stops welder. Meanwhile you just spent 2 mana and possibly a turn to play it. This means they can beat your face in with large, angry men.  You can almost as well with any random 1/1 killing spell.

[jpmeyer]

Ground Seal is good against Dragon, but against Stax you're much better off just winning the game rather than fooling around.

[Justinsane]

I think stifle is a great card.  It could deserve a spot in any blue control sideboard.  It helps me a lot in the slaver matchups, but slaver is what everyone is playing around here, and its getting old.

[Krizzyn]

If you're main concern is vs the slaver matchup, the Stifle isnt going to do anything but either :

A) Stop the slaver for possibly 1 turn (assuming they dont have an active welder and enough mana to activate again)

or

B) Stop the welder from bring the slaver back for 1 turn (again, assuming they only have 1 active slaver)

Yes, if you are going to win the next turn, Stifle is fine, but I think your better alternatives are to remove the threat complete rather than just stall.  You are going to get slaved a lot more when you arent ready to smash face next turn that when you are ready.