b-tings
Basic User
Posts: 114
I'm gonna sing the doom song!
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« Reply #84 on: August 05, 2005, 04:07:25 am » |
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I know I'm not really segueing (Microsoft Word says it's a word *shrugs*) from anything, but I'd like to turn our attention to the most flexible, most powerful, and arguably most important slots in the 5-colour deck: the Sideboard. Clearly, what you put in your sideboard will be metagame dependent, so constructing a 15 card sideboard and calling it "optimal" is pretty stupid. Rather, I'd like to create a matrix of the powerful cards available to the 5 c Stax player in each match-up. This may end up looking a lot like an article or tutorial of some sort, but I'm hoping it's going to get the juices flowing and the discussion rolling. If this works at all, this could be a valuable resource in the future as something you may come back to before a tournament trying to get the best mileage out of the 15 trickiest slots in the deck.
The questions we need to address when looking at each card are:
1) Is this card versatile? This entails two things. (a) Can it be applied in different matches? (this is regarding sideboard space, so is not a consideration of the card by itself) (b) Can it by applied in different situations within each match?
2) Is this card trumped by a card in an opponent's deck?
3) Is this an aggressive (proactive) or defensive (reactive) card? Does this synch up with the role I want to be playing in this match-up?
4) Is this card a "lock part?" Clearly lock parts have better synergy with the rest of the deck than random hosers.
5) With regards to sideboard space, is this the strongest card available to us for the given match-up? If so, why?
I will not address sideboard space issues except in specific instances. I will try to only talk about realistic contenders for the slots; this means, despite the fact that Carpet of Flowers is very obviously targeting blue-based control, it gets no blurb.
For the record, the maindeck I'm starting with looks like this as of August 4th, 2005.
//NAME: Untitled Deck
    2 Karn, Silver Golem
    1 Sundering Titan
// Draw
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Tinker
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Mystical Tutor
// Lockdown
    4 Sphere of Resistance
    4 Smokestack
    3 Crucible of Worlds
    4 Chalice of the Void
    1 Trinisphere
    2 Engineered Explosives
    1 Gorilla Shaman
// the goodies
    1 Balance
    1 Crop Rotation
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Time Walk
    1 Swords to Plowshares
// Mana
    2 Gemstone Mine
    2 Glimmervoid
    4 City of Brass
    4 Mishra's Workshop
    1 Strip Mine
    4 Wasteland
    1 Barbarian Ring
    1 Tolarian Academy
    1 Mana Vault
    1 Sol Ring
    1 Mana Crypt
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Emerald
Yes, it still needs work, but let's pretend for a crazy second that it's staying the way it is. Even if it's not, this exploration into what we want to come out and go in for matches might help us tune things up.
BLUE BASED CONTROL DECKS
These would be labeled "Mana Drain decks" if it weren't for the fact that some builds of Oath forgo the card.
The decks I will cover in this section are Meandeck Gifts, Control Slaver, Mono-Blue, Oath (Salvagers and Akroma/Hydra), and Landstill.
General Blue-based control hosers:
Red Elemental Blast
REB is a classic. There's not really much to say about it; it's straightforward, brutal efficiency.
1) (b) Yes, very much so. Blue decks plays a lot of blue spells, and REB can be used both aggressively to protect our spells, and defensively, to keep our opponent from resolving gamebreakers like Rebuild, Tinker, Back to Basics etc etc etc
2) No, Force of Will and Mana Drain do not count as "trump" cards.
3) Covered this in 1(b).
4) No, REB is not a lock part. However, it does help on occasion to force other lock parts past a counter, so it probably deserves some weight as a lock part greater than 0%.
Choke
In my mind, Choke is competing with In the Eye of Chaos for anti-blue slots. They're both similarly costed at 2x (with In the Eye of Chaos getting a slight edge because of Academy), and they both serve as an imposing obstacle for the control player to win around. Since these two are close in function and application, I will be bringing in the comparative point 5).
1) Whether Choke is versatile by the normal definition is questionable, but by the definition we're using, it is. It applies to every different situation where the blue player needs to untap islands. For those of you just tuning in to our program, that's a hell of a lot.
2) No, barring extremities such as the suggestion made in the Meandeck Gifts discussion of bringing in a plains and 3 Serenity or some such ridiculousness.
3) This is a difficult call. Originally, I had this listed as aggressive, since it's not really dependant on the blue player doing "something" as much as it is dependant on him doing "things." However, given that your opponent has to actually "turn Choke on" by tapping lands, I've decided it sits between the two categories. I know, I'm not exactly sticking my neck out on this one. I'm going to wait for one of you to do it first.
4) Yes, Choke is a lock part. I therefore award it five bonus points.
In the Eye of Chaos
1) In the Eye of Chaos is specific to the blue player having instants. Good odds are In the Eye of Chaos stops something, but it is not as sure a bet as Choke.
2) Barring Serenity stupidity, no.
3) ItEoC is most definitely aggressive. You want to get it down before your opponent has any chance to do things, ideally.
4) Yes, durhurhur.
5) In my estimation, Choke is worse than the similar In the Eye of Chaos. The major reasoning behind this is that I have seen many builds move to maindeck Echoing Truth, which should be easier to cast under Choke than under In the Eye of Chaos. If they are able to bounce the Choke, all of their lands untap. Furthermore, if you lack a certain Monkey, they can tutor up Mox Sapphire and probably run reasonably well off that. Finally, Choke doesn't really contribute much to a Smokestack lock, since they just end up sacrificing dead cards. However, they can still Brainstorm under ItEoC, and Tinker is a sorcery. Furthermore, if they've run out a few of their cheaper instants like Brainstorm and Impulse before you can get ItEoC down, they can try and set themselves up around it.
Gorilla Shaman
In my current build, I have one Monkey residing in the board, and the second Explosives main. This flip-flops depending on metagame, but that is a different discussion.
1) No. Particularly on the play, there are many situations where Gorilla Shaman will be an absolutely awful draw, usually involving setting a Chalice for 0, but they can also involve redundancy with Big Papa Karn. Yes, Shaman can eat Sol Ring. It had to be said. However, on the draw, he is obviously a much better AntiMox than Chalice.
2) Burning Wish -> Pyroclasm, I suppose, but that's the last thing I'm scared of Gifts doing, Mox Monkey or otherwise. I suppose if they board in their Welder hate, we could be in trouble.
3) Gorilla Shaman is a defensive card. It requires your opponent to make a certain set of plays before it becomes functional (unless you fancy yourself boarding in Mountain Goat). It's true that it can act as a deterrent to playing future moxen, but because it does not actively prevent them from being played, it is still defensive in nature. This does not bode well for the Little Monkey the Could.
4) Yes.
Chains of Mephistopheles
Blue decks like to draw cards. Chains of Mephistopheles makes this harder.
1) This card applies to at least five cards in every Blue-based control deck: Four Brainstorms and Ancestral Recall. Beyond that, it varies wildly, from no additional cards (Meandeck Gifts) to four Ophidians and at least three Thirst for Knowledge (Mono Blue). The number of situations it applies to are therefore widely varying.
2) Fuh fuh fuh Serenity fuh fuh fuh.
3) Chains is an aggressive card.
4) Chains makes our opponent's draw spells very bad. However, I am hesitant to call it a "lock part," since they can still cast Ancestral Careful Study, or if they're feeling particularly masochistic, Brainstorm. Brainstorm is obviously rarely relevant, but if they have a full grip and the card they desperately need is in the top 3, it does work. It still probably qualifies, but I'm a picky bastard.
Deck specifics:
Meandeck Gifts:
This is generally considered a very good match-up for the Stax player. The cards we want to remove from that deck are the two maindeck Engineered Explosives, although one could conceivably be kept in on the draw as additional Mox cleanup. Mirage tutors are generally bad against decks with heavy counter elements, so Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor are arguably cuts here as well, but on the other hand Gifts is not Mono Blue. It does not play like Mono Blue, and it does not sit on four counters with UU up like Mono Blue. 1 Karn can also come out here, although it pains me greatly.
Match-up specific sideboard cards:
Jester’s Cap
This applies to pretty much any deck that runs three or fewer win conditions. Unfortunately, if they have one of them in their hand, you’ve just sunk a heck of a lot of resources into a card that won’t be game-breaking. Still, removing Will, Colossus, and Tolarian Academy (or Black Lotus) and forcing them to Tendrils you out from there puts them in a tight spot.
1) Jester’s Cap is fairly versatile, in that it does the same thing in pretty much any game situation _as far as you know._ The problem is, sometimes you lack the necessary information to know whether Cap will win you the game on the spot or whiff completely.
2) Barring Stifle nonsense, no.
3) Cap is an aggressive card; its sole purpose is to win you the game with a single activation
4) It locks your opponent out of winning with an activation, so I guess it can be looked at like this. I prefer to look at it like a win condition.
Control Slaver:
This is a match-up I am not terribly familiar with, because up until this weekend I did not consider it important. Looking at the top placing list from Chicago, this deck has some scary plays for you to deal with that are specific to it: Tinker -> Pentavus can race an active Smokestack, Goblin Welder can mess with your board and do stupid things involving Thirst for Knowledge and Intuition, as well as nonsense like getting to ten mana and Slaving you, or Capping out all your win conditions after countering an early Shaman or something. The good news is, they have to be far more aggressive with their dual lands to support Goblin Welder, and you've got two Explosives main to help prevent him from getting out of control. Chalice for one also gains a lot of potency here for obvious reasons. A Karn is once again expendable here if you absolutely must cut him, although he is better than against the Gifts match-up because this deck relies so much on it's artifact mana to play Welder tricks.
Match-up specific sideboard cards read as a who's who of Welder hate:
Ground Seal
1) No. This card is only applicable to Welders. I guess it cycles in other situations, so it could be worse.
2) No.
3) Ground Seal is defensive; however, its defensive function is to protect your aggressive cards.
4) Ground Seal does very little locking of the game. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is not a lock part.
Triskelion
1) Triskelion is a bit less narrow than Ground Seal, in that it randomly beats for three after it's done munching a Welder, or comes down early and starts taking chunks out of life totals. There are worse things than taking chunks out of an opponent's life total, but there are better things too.
2) Triskelion gets hit by both Goblin Welder and Rack and Ruins from the board.
3) Triskelion looks aggressive, but really, if you're using it as a 4/4 body, you're playing it wrong. Its Welder insurance that can sometimes eat a Rack and Ruin if your opponent is scrambling and gets low. Running out Triskelion before you give your opponent time to play their Welders is probably wrong unless you can put on adequate lock pressure to make sure your beater does his thing.
4) Niet.
Engineered Explosives
I guess I should mention Explosives as a potential sideboard card to be comprehensive, even though I currently have my two in the maindeck.
1) Explosives is extremely versatile, but in this match-up you pretty much have to earmark it for Welder, unless you get the chance to do something stupid like wrath some Pentavite tokens against a tapped out opponent. If you have something else to deal with the Joblin, running this out with a single counter and hoping it eats a Rack from an aggressive CS player can be alright. One of the major problems with Explosives as Welder hate is that once wise players get an active Welder, they will sit on it until they can do something absolutely backbreaking instead of playing tricks for little advantages. Even if you're keeping your graveyard clean, Explosives popping gives them a chance to weld it back in before their Goblin bites it. This is not as much of an issue game one, until people get to know you. Explosives still kills all the Welders dead at a very reasonable price.
2) It's tough to say whether Explosives is "trumped" by an active Welder or not. They get a use out of their Goblin, but Explosives does its job of getting rid of him.
3) Defensive.
4) Although not a lock part in its sideboard role, Explosives CAN help put opponents under by cleaning up Moxen.
Swords to Plowshares
1) Swords to Plowshares is another card that doesn’t mess around. It takes out Welder, and it does it for a single white mana. Narrow, but it does its job.
2) No.
3) Defensive.
4) No.
Damping Matrix
Damping Matrix is a card I've been trying to find a place for in Workshop decks for a while now. When CS was at its peak, I tried a welderless version of Stax that ran it to combat opposing Welders, the Bus, Mindslaver, et al. This is an interesting hoser that doesn't get much attention, and it's costed aggressively for Workshop decks. Granted, Matrix has some negative points. It interacts poorly with the Explosives, Triskelion, Karn, and Gorilla Shaman. Still, it is a powerful card that deserves a look.
1) Damping Matrix is a pretty broad card. It stops Welders, but also the Tinker -> Pentavus plan that can cause you all sorts of fits, or any Jester's Cap nonsense.
2) Damping Matrix gets trumped by Rack and Ruin from the board. Big strikes.
3) Damping Matrix is an aggressive card. I know this sounds a little odd. My acid test is whether or not you play out the card before or after your opponent's card that it is designed to combat.
4) Damping Matrix is a lock part *technically*, but it's not a lock part in the sense of locking your opponent out of the game.
Pithing Needle
Damping Matrix's little brother has gotten quite a lot of attention for sideboards of all sorts recently. It has a lot of upside and is incredibly cheap.
1) Pithing Needle is extremely versatile. It gets you out from under Strip Mine lock, shuts of Welders, keeps Mindslaver at bay, keeps the Bus from dropping children off, and can stop random goofy shit like Fetchland - Crucible if absolutely necessary.
2) Pithing Needle, like Matrix, gets outgunned by Rack and Ruin.
3) Aggressive. See above point, although it works just fine coming down after a summoning sick Welder. Just don't count on it if they haven't burned a Time Walk already.
4) Pithing Needle resembles a lock part, but it's probably closer to a strategically placed tripwire.
Hanna's Custody
Hanna's Custody fulfills an interesting role in this deck, acting as both Welder hate and protection from opponent's Rack and Ruins. However, it's not all sunshine and lollipops. For instance, Hanna's Custody shuts off both Karn and Gorilla Shaman.
1) Hanna's Custody is another narrow card, but its primary function can be expanded to include Rack and Ruin counter-hate as well as Goblin Welder hate. Whether this makes it narrower than something like Explosives, with many more uses but fewer primary uses, I have no idea. It makes it stronger as a sideboard card (within the context of this match-up) though.
2) No.
3) Defensive. Shocking, I know.
4) OMFg PLatz lock lol!!!!1
Mono Blue:
Mono Blue has a bit of a niche following. It's picked up some decent showings on the west coast, and went undefeated through a massive 13 round (including top 8) tournament in the Toronto area, picking up a playset of Workshops for the trouble. It's not mainstream yet, thankfully, but with the recent Chicago top 8, I've heard whispers about playing Nevinyrral's Disk over Powder Keg. Combined with 3 maindeck Back to Basics, and the fourth along with at least three Fluxes in the board, this deck brings the proverbial pain. Thankfully, your game one is not as bad as it sounds. Nev's disk is slow, and counterspells suck against you. Chalice for two or three are both amazing against them (three cuts off Ophidian, who does an excellent job of making land drops for Smokestack to gobble, as well as Thirst for Knowledge, Back to Basics, and the post-board Energy Flux), as is an early Smokestack. Even Sphere of Resistance can give them fits. Crucible is of course subpar, and at least one should come out, if not two. Note that it does provide a valuable service unique to this match-up: thawing you out of Back to Basics lock by Wastelanding your own lands. Explosives are obviously less than awesome, unless you can regularly get to three different colours against Wastelands and Chalice for 0. However, it can bust up Moxen and Chalices, and one might be a necessity on the draw. Titan comes out as well; I like to keep two Karns in, because it allows me to run one out as an early gambit.
Match-up specific sideboard card:
Seal of Cleansing
1) Seal is pretty versatile, especially post-board, but don't get too cute blowing up moxen or chalice for 0. Save them for Nev's Disk, Back to Basics, and Energy Flux unless you're sure you can exploit the hole you create by going for something smaller.
2) Get in there, boarded-in Stifles! I guess if they have bounce spells they can bounce it and counter it on the way back down, but if you give them enough time for such shenanigans, you should probably scoop up this deck and place it squarely in the trash bin, because it hates you.
3) Defensive.
4) No.
Ray of Revelation
This fluctuates between one and two copies in the board. Against Energy Flux AND Back to Basics, it's nice to have a counter-resistant out, especially one that Mystical Tutor can dig up. If they have enough mana and enough counters, I don't think whatever you boarded out was going to save you anyways.
1) Ray of Revelation is narrow, having two targets. However, those two targets eat your children.
2) No.
3) Defensive.
4) No.
There are a couple of other points about sideboarding in the Mono-Blue match-up. Post-board, be wary of setting Chalice for two if you don't have an REB, because it cuts your outs to Energy Flux. If you do have an REB, and they don't Force the Chalice for two, they probably don't have the force, so your countermeasure should go unmolested. However, you're still in a bad, bad way if they hit four mana and drop the Disk. Consider boarding out one-two chalices (especially on the draw), and setting them at three instead of two.
This is one of the matches where Choke is clearly superior to In the Eye of Chaos. They just have far too many non-instant speed threats.
Oath of Druids:
Of the blue-based control decks, Oath is clearly your worst match-up. It has a far quicker clock, and is much less dependent on a high mana count. The good news is, Salvager Oath is picking up and Beat-You-Over-The-Head-With-A-Fat-Angel-Oath is on the decline. Even the decks running Akroma run Ancient Hydra as their back-up creature, which gives you a little more wiggle room. Against Salvager Oath, about half your deck wrecks them if they hit Salvagers. If they hit DSC, you're in a little more trouble. Watch for Tinker out of the board as a back-up plan and don't board in too much Oath hate. You've got a lot of game against this deck without doing much to your own: both Sphere of Resistance and Chalice for 0 stop the combo, Chalice for 2 stops the Oath, the build I played in Washington didn't run a single basic, so Crucibles were tough, Smokestack is Smokestack, etc. Board out Gorilla Shaman and a single Karn, since you don't want an early creature to randomly turn on an Oath. All four Chalices can stay in here even on the draw, since unlike a normal game of Type 1, Chalice for 0 is good basically any time before you're dead. Explosives come out here.
Salvagers:
There are so many cards that stop the Salvagers themselves that I'm not going to go into super detail about each one.
Ground Seal:
1) All it does is shut down Salvagers. That leaves you with finding an answer to Colossus or getting Oath off the table before they can bring the pain.
2) To my knowledge, no, but if they bring in Seal of Cleansing they have outs.
3) Aggressive.
4) No.
Pithing Needle:
1) Again, a narrow answer to Salvagers.
2) Gets trumped by artifact hate of choice.
3) Aggressive
4) This really isn't a useful category anymore. In fact, I'm just going to stop listing it.
Damping Matrix:
1) Shuts down Furnaces and Spellbombs as well. The extra two mana is not worth it to keep opponents off random cyclers.
2) See above.
3) Aggressive.
Swords to Plowshares:
Swords is more versatile in this match-up, since it deals with Colossus as well. However, they get to respond, possibly recurring one or more key artifacts.
1) A little stronger, since it deals with DSC, which can be a big problem for you.
2) No.
3) Defensive.
Ray of Revelation
Cuts the Oath down if you can't handle the fat man coming to town.
1) Pretty narrow
2) No.
3) Defensive.
Goblin Bombardment/Spawning Pit:
Both serve the same purpose. If you expect oxidize, play bombardment. If you expect Seal, play Spawning Pit.
1) Stops Oath, no ifs, ands, or buts. Don't expect this to straight-up win, though, since they have the Tinker backup plan and some builds morph into crazy Gifts-Salvagers setups post-board.
2) Yes. See blurb.
3) Can be either aggressive or defensive.
Jester's Cap
Oath plays 3 win conditions at most.
1) Wins the game if they're not holding a man. There are a lot of situations where Oath fits this bill.
2) No.
3) Aggressive.
Traditional Oath is much harder for you. The Salvager hate is no longer good, leaving you with few options but to suck it up and move on. I'd say Jester's Cap or Goblin Bombardment (or Pit) is your best bet, followed up by Ray of Revelation and keeping your fingers crossed that Oath bites it early in the tournament.
Rather than make this mammoth post completely unmanageable, I'm going to put this up for discussion before moving on to different sections of the metagame, unless you all tell me to shut my word hole and stay away from my children you crazy Jew, in which case I'll shut my word hole. No promises on the children though.
Barring a barrage of hate, I expect to get to Shop decks next installment, followed by Combo decks and "none of the above."
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