[Deck Discussion]R/G Tempo, revisited

[ruken]

I don't know how seriously you guys were considering it, but if you really are thinking about Sonic Burst in the deck, why not just Flame Rift?  Same casting cost, same damage.

There's always Lava Spike/Chain Lightning, too.

How does this deck feel about Ground Seal in the SB?  Is it pretty much overkill with the Root Mazes maindeck?

[Revvik]

I don't know how seriously you guys were considering it, but if you really are thinking about Sonic Burst in the deck, why not just Flame Rift?  Same casting cost, same damage.

I actually don't advocate either.  For much the same reason as modern control running a core of 8 counterspells, I feel 8 burn spells is more than adequate (and in some metagames, overdoing it).  My personal candidates, if I were to run this deck tomorrow, would consist of the following:
Lightning Bolt
Incinerate
Fire / Ice

How does this deck feel about Ground Seal in the SB?  Is it pretty much overkill with the Root Mazes maindeck?

Root Maze and Ground Seal accomplish fundamentally different things.  Looking at both pieces of hate cards individually will hopefully give a clarity of purpose (and also because I feel like reitirating some things):

Ground Seal:
Obviously, turns Welders and animate effects into dead draws for the opponent.  This card is not good for much else, and since the majority of the maindeck makes for a terrible fight for Control / Goth Slaver, I would only suggest using Ground Seal in heavy Slaver and Dragon metas.  Granted, another huge component of whether to run Ground Seal or not is how effective you find Null Rod, which is starting to become really good against certain decks (Fish couldn't always rely on it, because Sundering Titan and Pentavus weren't really hosed by Null Rod, whereas R/G can always knock them dead).  If you don't like Null Rod, then Ground Seal becomes more attractive.

Root Maze:
Speaking strictly from my control side - this card is fucking irritating, and I hate it with a passion.  Gives you a Time Walk when played first (and hardly affects you since you have such a low mana curve), and neuters fetchlands (which doesn't mean you should stop running yours).  This doesn't qualify as a sideboard hate card - it's a maindeck form of disruption, like Trinisphere was (obviously not as powerful, since they can still cast Force of Will and the "free" spells like Snuff Out).

So to answer your question - since this deck is Metagaming Incarnate, if Ground Seal feels like overkill, then in your area you should not be running Ground Seals sideboard and instead free up space to help against weakeer matchups.

[never]

Has anyone tried Nimble Mongoose? Awful synergy with grim, but I've been thinking about removing grim anyway. A very strong 1 drop, and with the recent Bird Sh*t deck, most people that played against it made comments on their inability to get Mongoose off the board. But does R/G reach threshold quick enough to be worth it? I'm going to test it out.

I've also been pondering Argothian pixies. I have been looking for ways to not roll over and die to tinker->pentavus or tinker-> trike

[AnFgangsta]

As for the flame rift idea... not a good idea because:
1. Sorcery
2. It damages you too

[Revvik]

Has anyone tried Nimble Mongoose? ... I've been thinking about removing grim anyway ... does R/G reach threshold quick enough to be worth it?

No.  Do not remove Grim Lavamancer.  And no.
If you find yourself "rolling over" to Tinker -> big stuff a lot, try maindecking Artifact Mutations or finding a spot for Red Elemental Blast somewhere in the main or board.

As long as Welders are still good (i.e. until this format undergoes a complete and drastic irrevocable change) Lavamancers should be a part of the deck.

[never]

Has anyone tried Nimble Mongoose? ... I've been thinking about removing grim anyway ... does R/G reach threshold quick enough to be worth it?

No.  Do not remove Grim Lavamancer.  And no.
If you find yourself "rolling over" to Tinker -> big stuff a lot, try maindecking Artifact Mutations or finding a spot for Red Elemental Blast somewhere in the main or board.

As long as Welders are still good (i.e. until this format undergoes a complete and drastic irrevocable change) Lavamancers should be a part of the deck.

I found 12 ways to deal with welder was often excessive, and would usually rather be beating for more.  I think lava dart is just as much of a threat as grim, if not more so.

[Revvik]

Part of the strength of the deck against Control Slaver is being able to keep Goblin Welder from sticking (with most of the rest of it being just the deck - Mindslaver does almost nothing to it).

12 ways to kill Welder is better than 8 counterspells.  And it's not just anti-Welder, since 2-3 damage to the face is usually fantastic.  Plus, these 12 cards (when combined with the other 48) help stick it right in Fish's ass.

The deck already beats VERY fast.  Believe me, Nimble Mongoose was tried, but "vanilla" creatures just aren't acceptable in a deck that almost thinks Kird Ape isn't good enough.

Maybe if the metagame shifts and targetted removal is played a hell of a lot more.

[never]

Part of the strength of the deck against Control Slaver is being able to keep Goblin Welder from sticking (with most of the rest of it being just the deck - Mindslaver does almost nothing to it).

12 ways to kill Welder is better than 8 counterspells.  And it's not just anti-Welder, since 2-3 damage to the face is usually fantastic.  Plus, these 12 cards (when combined with the other 48) help stick it right in Fish's ass.

The deck already beats VERY fast.  Believe me, Nimble Mongoose was tried, but "vanilla" creatures just aren't acceptable in a deck that almost thinks Kird Ape isn't good enough.

Maybe if the metagame shifts and targetted removal is played a hell of a lot more.

Because of welder, what decks aren't running targetting removal? Pretty much any deck running white is running 4 swords. Any deck running red is running lava dart. Oath is starting to use Ancient Hydra and Workshop decks run sometimes multiple trike.

Not to mention each lava dart you draw can kill 2 welders.

I have yet to reach the conclusion that Mongoose is "vanilla", but I still want to test that...and I ditched Kird Ape a while ago, he has never appealed to me in this deck.

[MCS]

I've played nimble moongose for about a yaer and something, managed to get into T8 of big T1 tournaments, and it was great in those days when keeper was strong, and when Abyss and STP was common. Today it is useless, and I prefer playing grim's to them. If you want to run moongooses, you must switch to a diferent deck that uses bazar of bagdad and madness creatures as food...but, wait, in that deck moongose is also bad.

Well, no moongose for the moment then, at least until welder doesn't leave the town.

[[FtN|FH] Negator]

Hi, moongose is very good BUT not in the current deck we are building. It whould require more changes to make them fit:
1. Remove the grims
2. Not playing rancor
3. Think about the other creatures if you don't play rancor anymore

So i don't think the moongose is the right choice here.

Some other questions that keep me bussy at the moment:

1.
How are your Oath matchups (i'm running 4 naturalize maindeck) ?
Sideboarding Rootmaze out vs Oath ? I think yes if he plays first. If you play first i'm realy unsure (i have 4 Emerald charm and 3 REB in Sideboard). I'm a bit unsure to run 4 charms and 3 REB (usefull vs TPS and some other decks too) or the other way round.

2.
How do you think about playing vs TPS ?I thought this whould be a bad matchup before boarding and after boarding the pillar whould be the only thing that could save me. But i was wrong. After some testing i must say that the rootmaze is strong in this matchup too. I didn't expected it to be so usefull here. Another thing is that Bargain/Necro are not so usefull for the TPS player against us because we deal much damage to him fast (so he can not draw so many cards) and we play lightning bolts (able to kill him if he draws the cards in his turn and wants to go combo).

[Freelancer]

In my testing against TPS is that against a competent player your chance game 1 is about 10-20%......Yeah that bad...They have all the time to setup a big yawgmoth's win turn at there leisure and even our best maindeck way to deal with them (root maze) either 1) gets hit by force of will 2) get's hit by discard or 3) they completely ignore it and combo off 1/2 turns later...After siding you will probably bring in 3/4 (4 in my case) pillars and 3/4 (4 in my case REB)...Games 2/3 the match still isn't very pretty, since your REB generally don't do that much to them and your pillars will hardly resolve or they end up getting bounced by the time they are starting to care about them...These are just my experiences though from both sides...
On MWS I was testing TPS and ended against a competent RG beatz player, I proceeded to smash him 5 games in a row pre and after sideboarding. It wasn't pretty...

[MCS]

Always willing to proove you wrong about it, my experience is a bit different, but then, it is always possible that I played against awfull TPS players.

[[supa_t(im)]]

@[FtN|FH] Negator
The Oath matchup isn't as bad as you might think.  I've found that root maze wrecks their game for a while, which gives you time to get some beats in.  Remember, you don't have to kill them before they oath, just have them down enough for it not to matter.  I run 4 MD naturalize as well, and it works wonders.  I do think that emerald charm is over kill, and just too narrow.  And DON'T side out root mazes for Oath.  I would put in the REB's but that's about it.

As for the TPS matchup, this is our worst matchup by far.  Root maze does help here, as there is no gauruntee that they will duress or force it.  However, TPS can play around root maze better than other combo.  Game one all you can hope for is that root maze (if you get it) slows them down enough for you to beat them down.  Game 2-3 I side in 4 pillar and 3 null rod.  That is 11 hate cards after boarding.  The TPS player can't duress and force all of them.  Still, sometimes they don't work and combo wins, that is the way of the game.  I've also found that fireblast helps here as it is a free 4 damage.  If you can slow them down enough, it really helps to get that last damage through.  I do agree with Freelancer though, its a horrible matchup, and there is not much we can do about it.

On the subject of nimble mongoose, he is used as a cheap fat creature in some decks.  Our cheap fat creatures are kird ape and river boa slapped with a rancor.  Rancor + Mongoose =/= good.

[Freelancer]

Yeah if you side in 7 (!) cards you stand a chance (small but existent)...Often what happens though is that the opponent will just decide that root maze slows them down but not enough to counter it and they will move there focus to pillar and null rod...And if they manage to get the classic deathlong win your dead anyway (ritual,some other good stuff, mana, demonic tutor/will)...Basicly often the games comes down to them trieing to find will or a chain off draw7's...The biggest problem is that we have NO disruption besides the stuff on the board, this means that they can do whatever they want and only have to care about what's on the board. Not to mention the turn 1/2 kills they occasionally have...
As supa mentioned our only shot is slowing them down together with fast beats...And even this is kinda difficult because 11 cards against combo slows you down quite a lot, unless DCI prints a card like  R enchantment; players can only player creature spells (this is obviously a insane card that will put RG beatz over the top )or 1 spell a turn this is going to stay a horrid matchup...


Ps. I wouldn't mind playing against you...good to get some practise...
(have been playing doomsday lately so I might be a bit rusty)

[xrobx]

The biggest problem is that we have NO disruption besides the stuff on the board, this means that they can do whatever they want and only have to care about what's on the board.

Actually...

I'd consider my game one disruption to be about 12 cards:
-4 root maze
-4 waste land
-1 strip mine
-3 gorilla shaman

and my game 2 disruption to be about 19 cards:

-4 root maze
-4 wasteland
-1 strip mine
-3 gorilla shaman
-3 red elemental blast
-4 pyrostatic pillar

This is hardly no disruption.

Against combo, you don't really suffer the same way you would against stax/slaver in sideboarding, in the way that your beats are taken out for utility in the match.  By this I mean that when you play against a stax/slaver deck, you cannot sideboard out too many threats or you will dilute your deck far too much to be competitive against the said deck.  I found this out the hard way, and it kept me from top 8ing at the last SCG tournament in Syracuse.  However, against combo, they don't play any locks, or force a fatty on you that you must deal with, they simply want to cast tendrils of stupidity.  By dropping any of the above cards (minus the REB; this is a reactive spell meant to force your things into play), you are locking them up and drawing these cards late game (minus root maze) only further increases the lock.

This deck packs more disruption than Osama ever did, and can utilize it's creatures to maximum efficiency via the extremely low mana curve.

[Freelancer]

If you read carefully what I said is that; We have no disruption besides the stuff on the board...(no I don't consider REB that much disruption since it mainly serves as protection for your own spells)
Also the stuff you named (wastelands, monkey) isn't that great as disruption at all...Since the mana base off TPS is so rocksolid, they run a grand total off 4 nonbasics and often less. Wasteland maybe hit's ones every 1/2 games...Mox monkey same story, they generally hold back moxen and lotus for storm count so mox monkey is kinda pointless most off the time...Root maze is only good to stall the first couple off turns and in the mid/late game he's completely worthless, and you are bound to get into the mid/late game because your beatz are so slow...The only hate cards TPS really bothers is pyrostatic pillar and null rod (occasionally), and the fate off these is that often they get it by a duress or force...Really this matchup is horrifying...it's almost a bye for TPS...
You will almost always loose game 1 (if they get a halfway decent hand they win) and games 2/3 are uphill battles...I doubt that you will have a 40%+ matchup win percentage...It will be closer to 30% IMHO (these are just figures to illustrate my point, they are not conclusive at all)...

[MCS]

Ps. I wouldn't mind playing against you...good to get some practise...
(have been playing doomsday lately so I might be a bit rusty)

Sure, I usualy hung on mtg-league, always willing to play a game or two.

Regarding the dilema, I usualy side out all the direct damage and lavamancers against tps and trow in null rods and pyro pilars. So, after sb, my deck hate is next:

4xgorila shaman
4xroot maze
3xpyrostatic pillar
3xnull rod

I don't sb pyroblast. They are just not good enough against tps. Btw, there is another card that helps me against the matchup: wasteland (and, of course, strip mine). Not the best of matchups, but winnable.

[[FtN|FH] Negator]

If you read carefully what I said is that; We have no disruption besides the stuff on the board...(no I don't consider REB that much disruption since it mainly serves as protection for your own spells)
Also the stuff you named (wastelands, monkey) isn't that great as disruption at all...Since the mana base off TPS is so rocksolid, they run a grand total off 4 nonbasics and often less. Wasteland maybe hit's ones every 1/2 games...Mox monkey same story, they generally hold back moxen and lotus for storm count so mox monkey is kinda pointless most off the time...Root maze is only good to stall the first couple off turns and in the mid/late game he's completely worthless, and you are bound to get into the mid/late game because your beatz are so slow...The only hate cards TPS really bothers is pyrostatic pillar and null rod (occasionally), and the fate off these is that often they get it by a duress or force...Really this matchup is horrifying...it's almost a bye for TPS...
You will almost always loose game 1 (if they get a halfway decent hand they win) and games 2/3 are uphill battles...I doubt that you will have a 40%+ matchup win percentage...It will be closer to 30% IMHO (these are just figures to illustrate my point, they are not conclusive at all)...

Hm i don't see it that way.
Root Maze + Gorilla = Null Rod (vs TPS)
You can destroy the power before they can use it. So if you say that null Rod is ok, RootMaze and monky should be ok too.

If they go the way with Ritual & Y.Will we can't do much.
But against bargain/Necro we can try to take as much life as we can.
Vs Mox & bounce the monkey and root maze help.
Sure a hard game, but 10-20% is a bit too low in my eyes.

[Freelancer]

root maze+gorilla=null rod...Yeah this is correct but null rod is a single card, doesn't cost UG and doesn't require mana to keep it's effect...But true it's more or less the same, it still means they only have to stop 1 card and ignore the other one...

Yeah I was probably kinda stupid to give percentages, but really in the 15 games I played against TPS I won pre-boarding 2...(wich was pure mana screw or bad luck on there side) While I don't know this is my fault, and I didn't play that many games it still means that the matchup is horrifying and this is by far your worst possible fear to meet in a tournament...(don't forget that a match is 2/3 games, so you can't rely on your sideboard to win) (no a situational null rod -as you call it- isn't going to win you a lot off games pre-board)

This is just my experience though, feel free to argue with me...

[[supa_t(im)]]

I think everyone has the same view of TPS.  Its a bad matchup that can be made better after sideboarding.  It seems the "how much better" is what people are disagreeing on.

I'm tending to agree with Freelancer, that this matchup is very bad for the R/G player.  However, I'm not sure its quite a bye for TPS.  Remember, TPS doesn't always have a duress, doesn't always have a force, and, in my experience, doesn't go off until about turn 3 (can go off before, but I found that they wait until turn 3, to be sure).  Oftentimes, the TPS player won't see the root maze coming, and won't prepare for it.  Sure, it doesn't always work, but it has.  Game one might be an autowin for TPS, but I think the next games should be different.

I think after boarding, things get better, and I think better than what Freelancer is saying.  But not by much.  I think a 40% win percentage is possible after boarding.  They can't take out all your hate.

In conclusion, I don't think there is much more we can do about TPS matchup.  4 MD root maze + 4 SB pillar and 3 SB null rod is about as potent as we are gonna get.

[Freelancer]

I might have a bit off a horrible experience with TPS, and it might seem a bit to bad to some...But that's just my experience...


I am sure the second and third games are better, but the problem remains if you loose the first game (wich is highly probably) you will have a really hard (near impossible) time to win the match...Let's say you loose game 1 and you move to game 2 and you have a 40% (wich is IMHO a bit to high, but k) chance to win, than the chance to win the matchup: (my statistics are completely off -got a 60% off winning the match-, need help!   ) something...Help me...
The point is although game 2/3 might not be to bad you still have little chance in the actual match if you loose game 1 so often...(now don't come saying here that its winnable game 1 because it's not, it's literally a slaughter)


Let's stop arguing about it though, and lets talk about our good matchups...I get all depressed with this TPS shit...

[Revvik]

It is certainly not a bye for the TPS player, but you have to be "on" as far as playskill.

RE: Disruption - So you have no disruption except for what is on the board (barring Red Elemental Blast).  What the hell do you expect?  This is Red and Green - you shouldn't have any.  The board-based disruption is at least excellent quality, especially the enchantments which are unaffected by Rebuild, one of TPS's best storm builders.

All in all, barring land, Lotus, Ritual, Bargain, this matchup can be quite fun and a great test of skill.

Edit: Now that I think about it, your two worst matchups are probably going to be getting very popular.

[Freelancer]

Ah well, we just seem to have 2 different opinions on this...Not to worry, what do you consider our other worst matchup?


Ps. yeah where lucky that TPS can't really use rebuild effectivly against us, but games 2/3 they will have the much more effective chain of vapor and sometimes (rarely) BEB...   (builds with cunning wish tend to have these in the side)

[Revvik]

the first one, obviously, is Storm Combo.  The second one would be Oath of Druids, since the card itself negates aggro strategies (note that I am not saying this matchup is unwinnable - there are pages and pages of discussion on this topic alone).

Oath is a control deck capable of blindingly fast combo-kills, and thus can race the faster combo decks, and yet still have a long-game option with its control pieces.

This makes a difficul field for R/G, which could handle Stax and Workshop Aggro though the use of many basic lands, maindeck disruption / destruction, and efficient beats; and Control Slaver by being immune to any slaving that didn't result in a permanent slave lock.

I did say this deck was an exersize in metagaming.  Although it is possible to continue being competitive in the field that I described, Bird Shit is an acceptable alternative - fun, highly disruptive, and pretty cheap to build.

Staying on topic with R/G, however:
Naturalize maindeck, Mutations sideboard (or dropped entirely)
- Reasoning for this: Naturalize is still one-shot removal, and better for Oath of Druids, Future Sight, and etc.
Red Elemental Blast
- becomes playable.  Protects your hate enchantments.  stops a draw-7.  Read my posts on Reverent Silence for information on how it is useful against Oath of Druids.
Rack & Ruin
- Chalice of the Void could definitely start seeing more and more play, and Rack and Ruin is one of your better ways out

Also, I think anyone not running Null Rod now, should start.

[xrobx]

I've not been posting for awhile in this forum as many of the things people say personally bother me.  For one, you really need to know how to play magic, and NOT make any errors.  I'm not saying this to sound like a jerk, but you should simply know when to play what cards at what time, and how to metagame a deck.  This deck is a metagame hate oriented deck.  Theoretically, it should not work, but playing on such a low mana curve with such amazing cards, it does work.  I've proven this a million times over and this is one of my favorite decks to run, as it can beat any deck out there in the field today.  Sure, it has hard matchups, TPS and oath namely, but these are very very winnable.

A lot of magic comes down to the skill of the player.  With this deck, I've designed it without a draw engine, with a specific mana curve, with specific cards for a specific reason.  It comes down to consistency and probability.  You are not going to be drawing more cards in any way, so you must mulligan correctly with openning hands, play the right spells at the right time, and not fuck it up.  It's not hard, just play the deck a few hundred games and you'll start to see a pattern of when to play what.  If you're losing to TPS more than 60% of the time game 1, you are playing the deck very poorly.  As I mentioned, with experience this deck can be phenomenal, but you have to know how to play it.  Yes, it does require luck, and that luck should be an assumed and probable luck, meaning you should know what you will draw before you draw it (based on odds and probabilites), but you must make correct decisions without any play errors for this deck to function correctly.  This can be said about most any deck, but usually decks run cantrips and draw engines for a reason.

As for my friend Lams birdshit deck, yes it is very good, and the same rule applies: you DO need luck to play it.  You need to know when to cast things and what to cast.  This deck performs amazingly and would've won SCGs last power tourny in syracuse, had the landstill player not topdecked a wrath of god and cast it, killing Lams two 4/4 werebears (at this point, lam had no counters in hand and opponent would be dead in less than 2 turns, opp had no cards in hand).  A certain percentage of magic is luck oriented, as it deals with randomality and 'luck of the draw', but you need to learn how to work this in your favor.

A good discussion topic would be how to improve oath matchup (possibly that 1/1 sniper that is green for 2 mana, that taps their guys...but who runs akroma+spirit anymore anyways?), or how to correctly sideboard against things like slaver, and obtaining optimal threat efficiency, and in what numbers. We should not discuss, however, the opinions of players that like a certain deck and try to argue the credability of this deck archetype and how it is an autoloss to that said deck.  This is pointless, as I believe firmly that no deck in magic is an autoloss to any deck.  Sure, monoU control had a near impossible chance of beating sui black back in the day, but, it was possible with a good draw from the monoU player, and especially post sb.  The same rules apply here.

I'm taking a break with this deck for the moment, as playing with it for the last 6 months has grown boring  You guys have fun testing and figuring.

[[supa_t(im)]]

First, I must say thankyou to xrobx for his hard work in this deck, his continued support, and for actually playing it in a large tournament.  Rock on dude.

And now, so that this isn't a complete waste of post, I will write something hopefully somewhat useful.

Keep in mind that this is a MUST metagame deck.  Meaning some things MUST change based on metagame.

Also, the deck I will be refering to is the deck I use currently, which is:

24 Land/Mana
2 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills/Land Grant
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Forest
3 Mountain
4 ESG
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Diamond
1 Black Lotus

16 Creatures
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 River Boa
4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Kird Ape

20 Utility/Hate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Naturalize
4 Root Maze
4 Rancor
2 Fireblast
2 Bounty of the Hunt

15 SB
4 Artifact Mutation
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 REB
3 Null Rod

How to improve the Oath matchup.

Things we know:
Well, we all know that Oath is a bad matchup for us.  They have uber amounts of countermagic, and an almost aggro proof win condition.  There are a couple of things that I have observed that help this matchup.  MD naturalize is the first thing.  This may not seem obvious at first, since trying to out control Oath is stupid, but combined with the other hate cards we have in this deck, naturalize game one can really swing things in your favor.  Root maze helps a lot, since it causes their moxen and precious green mana sources to come into play tapped.  Wastelands and gorilla shaman help a lot here, taking out green mana sources, and just slowing their tempo down.  A gorilla shaman soon after root maze is an auto counter.  These things make playing naturalize MD worthwhile, as it slows the Oath player long enough for you to exhaust his rescources and when he does finally drop Oath, you have a good chance of nuking it.  Also, the Oath player doesn't always drop Oath early, and with the speed of this deck, that can make the difference.  Like I said previously, you just need to stall them to the point that even if they did get oath to activate, it doesn't matter.

Things to help:
The only thing in the SB that I can see helping this matchup is red elemental blast.  It forces naturalize through all those counters, or maybe an early river boa, or root maze.  I really think this card is good in this matchup.  At the very least is uses up one of their counters.

Some cards to consider/discuss:
Matsu-Tribe Sniper.  Deals damage to flying critters, and taps flying critters it deals damage to.  Interesting.  I can see this little guy being OK in heavy Fish or Oath metagames.  It kills all of fish's flyers, and it taps all of Oath's creatures (unless they run DSC or that hydra).  For two mana, it might fit MD in the kird ape spot.  The only problems are that it doesn't beat for a whole lot (1/1), and the deck has a good game against fish anyway.  It might be too narrow for a SB card.

Wing Snare.  Three mana to destroy target creature with flying.  This seems kinda expensive and fragile to use vs Oath.  It does kill both the flyers, but you need three mana, and its easily countered.  Still, with a REB to force it through, it can be bothersome.  Another problem is that with gaea's blessing, they will just recycle their dead creatures and re-oath them out.  This would give us more time to beat them down though.  Again, may be too narrow for SB.

Emerald Charm.  I like this little bugger.  He destroys enchantmens, and makes people lose their flying.  For one mana its less unwieldy than naturalize, and more versatile (against Oath anyway) since it can make their creatures chumpable.  This, however, seems again to narrow for SB.

In conclusion, I believe this deck may already have the tools to beat Oath consistently.  If you are in a field with heavy Oath, there are tools that can be used to improve this matchup that you can use either MD or SB.  When SBing REB in, I would SB out Lightning Bolts.  I think this is the correct decision because the deck needs consistent damage against Oath, not a couple of random fast damage that can be countered.  Also, you aren't worried so much about one time spot removal as you are about damaging the opponent consistenly.

Against TPS.

I've kinda already gone over this matchup in previous posts.  To re-cap:  They don't always have a god hand, so they won't always counter/duress the hate.  Root maze does hurt them quite a bit, but they most likely will find an answer, so we must be fast laying on the beatdown.  Game one is a hard one, since root maze is really our only hope at beating them bar them being mana screwed.  Game 2-3 is a different story in my opinion.  With 4 root maze, 4 pyrostatic pillar, and 3 null rod, the hate is pretty thick.  This can fairly often stall them long enough to get them down into fireblast range, or straight out aggro beatdown.  REB might also want to come in for this matchup as it will allow some of the hate to come out through FoW, and can counter key spells like chain of vapor.

I really don't think there is much we can do about other SBing options.  Psychogenic Probe maybe, but only if they go the draw 7 route, or mind's desire.

When siding here I belive one should side in/out as follows:
out:  4 Naturalize, 4 Grim lavamancers, 1 Lightning Bolt, 2 Bounty of the Hunt
in:  4 Pyrostatic Pillar, 4 REB, 3 Null Rod
This is because the naturalizes just are dead in this matchup.  With the naturalizes go the bounty, since I don't think we would have enough green to reliably pitch.  The lavamancers because we don't need to worry about spot removal as much.  The lone bolt because of the spot removal thing, and it seemed the weakest card to take out without diluting the threat base.

Thats my take on the decks worst matchups.  I defintely think that they are winnable, otherwise I wouldn't think this deck is viable.  Feel free to disagree with me, I probably missed something, or haven't put the best play down.  Also note, I don't have as much experience testing against TPS as I do against Oath.  Anyone more experienced in either please chime in.

Hope this helped at least a little.

[Jacob Orlove]

Not only has this thread gotten out of control (again), but Trinisphere is restricted. It's time for this thread to start over again.