sideboarding Gush storm vs Shops

[punki]

Hi Everybody,


I'm a shop player trying to become a drain player. I just mention this to warn you that this post will contain more questions than answers.

I now have played 3 tournaments with a drain deck. Result: top 8, 3-3 break even and a top 4 split. The two times I did well, I did it with a german drain list. The first one was painter.deck and the last time it was this list:

(original decklist by Stefan Richter who won the first blackborderbrawl with it)
Maindeck (60):
Spells (45):
1 Black Lotus
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Gush
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Preordain
1 Rebuild
3 Repeal
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Fastbond
1 Ancient Grudge

Lands (15):
1 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15):
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain
4 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pyroclasm
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Thoughtseize

I believe a combination of ingot chewers and ancient grudges is a very good answer to shops
So this list gives me 7 cards to bring in against shops:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Ingot Chewer
1 Mountain

So I have removal and bounce. The problem I am facing now is that I have to board out 1 of my winconditions in order to bring in the sideboard. I always take out 4 gush, fastbond, tendrills and twister. My only win left in the deck now is blightsteel colossus (or ingot chewer beatdown).

This poses the following problem:
The shop players in my meta usually board or play maindeck jester’s cap and/or ensnaring bridge and I also see a lot of duplicants and scuplting steel (and maybe the new version of that last card once the new set becomes Legal). This seriously compromises only having colossus as a win.

Is my sideboarding correct? Are there alternatives? I actually won more games without sideboard than with the sideboard. Especially on the play I am tempted to leave in the engine. The deck has the possibility to bounce their board and win. But more often than I would like, I have to pull an emergency-bounce to stay in the game. Having gushbond in those cases would give me more chances of turning that into a win.

What are (in this list) other  possibilities to board out?

And a more general question: Why don’t we play straight black blue combo of control decks anymore in a shop meta? Do red and green really help us win? Or do we compromise our manabase too much with it, but does it somehow even out a bit because of the extra removal we get to board in?

From the perspective of a shop player I need chalice@2 or at least three on board sphere effects to be pretty sure I stop a hurkyl's recall. If I can waste a few lands in the process, I'm much happier. So facing an opponent with 4 basics an two moxes, possibly holding mass bounce scares me a lot more, than an opponent who can build up mana to destroy one or two of my permanents. In the case of the red and green sideboard cards, my wastelands al of a sudden give me the option to uncounterable shut off all removal from my opponent. So why have hurkyls and rebuild fallen out of grace in favour of ancient grudge and chewers?

[Daenyth]

I would side out FoF before the Tendrils. You should still be able to set up lethal storm with Rebuild->repeal/etc. Depending on the specific shop list, Battlesphere might be good off the board instead of BSC

[hitman]

The reason decks tend not to go straight blue/black is because Lodestone Golem is a real clock and blue and black don't offer enough viable options to handle him and similar creatures in the time needed.  Green and Red give you much more permanent ways of handling troublesome artifacts.  Green is also in the deck for Fastbond, which you shouldn't be cutting against Shops since dropping lots of lands is a good way to blank their Spheres. 

As far as cards you can cut, I'd just cut the bounce spells.  They're terrible against Shops unless you can kill them in that one open turn.  Repeal is particularly bad.  I think you also don't need three Underground Sea and three Volcanic Island.  One of each would probably be better as fetchlands since they make you immune to Wasteland and thin your deck a little for Gushes. 

If I were you, I'd consider mainboarding a couple Steel Sabotage.  They allow you to interact early with Shops and can bounce a Blightsteel Colossus and/or counter early Moxes from Mana Drain decks or Null Rods from Fish.  I'd drop the Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild for them.  I'd keep Repeal even though it sucks against Shops because they're good in the mirror and against stuff like Fish.  With those small changes, your deck doesn't look bad against Shops at all.  I wouldn't think you'd have a bad matchup with them.  You'd probably be 50-50, which is fine. 

[Grand Inquisitor]

straight blue/black...Green and Red

This seems to be the first dilemma for blue players (both Gushbond'ers and TVKey'ers).  The most relevant question I find is: how do you plan to win?  The redux 2c Turbo-Tezz lists can get away without permanent removal.  Why?  Because their win condition works in spite of spheres and chalice.  They plan on racing the beaters by having a manabase that ignores wastes (and to a certain extent spheres with grim monolith) and a win condition that works provided it hits the board.

This is a very different case than the gushbond engine.  Here you can't ignore spheres, especially if you plan on winning with Tendrils.  Your manabase is smaller and weaker.  My read is that bounce in the form of hurkyl's recall is best since it gives you a window to try to go off or resolve tinker>bot.  There are lists that go more the attrition route with removal and stuff like lightning bolt, but these seem weaker against shops since you don't have a win condition that trumps theirs and even 1-2 lock pieces can heavily influence your ability to function.

TMDbot Eastman had a pretty good list that ran Trygon Predators, Jace and Lotus Cobras, basically a Trygon Tez that swapped out Bobs for the Gushbond engine + Preordain.  It had the ability to generate big mana early and put up longterm threats.  I think even his pre-board win% against shops was good, in spite of a lower mana count.

2c

[desolutionist]

If you're planning on using Trygon Predator, don't forgot about those Clones

[desolutionist]

I split in the finals of the most recent New York Lotus tournament using my version of Gush Storm.  In this tournament I played against Stax 4 times, winning 3 and drawing 1.  I didn't play Trygon Predator.  Post board I had 3 Hurkyl's Recall, 2 Ancient Grudge, 2 Nature's Claim, 2 Pithing Needle, and 4 basic Islands (17 post-board lands)

[Grand Inquisitor]

Post board I had 3 Hurkyl's Recall, 2 Ancient Grudge, 2 Nature's Claim, 2 Pithing Needle, and 4 basic Islands (17 post-board lands)

What did you side out for these?

Do you worry about Jester's Cap?  Do you find you usually kill with Tendrils or BSC or X, post board?

[desolutionist]

I don't play Tendrils, I play Empty the Warrens.  And yeah Jester's Cap is a pain but fortunately not that many people play it.  I had to draw round 3 against a Welder Stax opponent because he Capped away all my win conditions.  I was however holding an Empty the Warrens and played it for 2 Goblins to bring him to 2 life before he resolved a creature.  (Just an example of how EtW is better than ToA)  I sideboard out 2 Jace, Lotus Petal, Merchant Scroll, Time Walk, and a Preordain/Spell Pierce.  I do like keeping in two Spell Pierces on the play though.  Maindeck I already have 3 basics, a grudge, a claim, and a hurkyl's.