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Bugs n' Bolts

Modern ManWearingHat

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Local Play Update: Sideboarding & Key Cards —Feb. 16, 2017

Jammed a series of games at a friend's house last night, going to share some brief notes on the games below.

--Mono-Black Zombies Midrange: 2-2 pre-board, 1-0 post-board--

This is always an interesting matchup to play, as my friend's deck functions very similarly to a Jund/Abzan matchup, with lots of removal and discard spells, followed up by either Cryptbreaker grinding you out and going wide, and closing with pressure from Geralf's Messenger, Phyrexian Obliterator, and Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

The matchup is very "Protect the Queen" style, where getting a flipped Delver of Secrets  Flip early and protecting it allows you to shut the door with burn spells and Snapcaster Mage. Cryptbreaker is an immediate kill-on-sight card, as letting one get out of hand by going wide and drawing cards quickly leads to a loss. Sideboarding was similar to Abzan. Scours come out for longer grindy games, and Brutality isn't the best in the matchup. Pyromancer is a bit worse here specifically because of how wide his deck can go, and Leak is worse on the draw. EE is excellent against the tokens, Izzet Staticaster kills Cryptbreakers and Gravecrawlers, and Ancestral Visions is excellent to refuel after early discard and attrition battles.

--Bant Knightfall: 2-0 pre-board--

The deck ran absurdly hot for both of these games and they were just utter blowouts, so there's not a whole lot of intricacies to describe. I didn't see a single Delver of Secrets  Flip either game, but I opened up hands full of Mana Leak, Spell Snare, Fatal Push, Lightning Bolt, and Snapcaster Mage. This is exactly what you need in order to win this matchup, because their creatures are so much larger than yours, which makes racing with Delver of Secrets  Flip a risky proposition.

The best hands for this matchup are ones where you can kill every mana dork they play and just Snare/Leak/Terminate/Push every spell they play up the curve, eventually sticking a Snapcaster Mage or two, chipping in for two damage at a time until they die. If you have the graveyard for it, do not be hesitant to Murderous Cut a Noble Hierarch. Stunting their mana development is key. I also didn't see any Tasigur, the Golden Fang, but he regularly just gets a Path to Exile and no chance to block, so don't try to resolve him unless you're holding protection.

My prospective sideboarding plan would be bringing in Blood Moons to turn off their combo and punish the three color manabase, as well as Dispel to fight Collected Company. Brutality and Electrolyze are too small for their beaters, but Staticaster is good at sweeping up dorks and winning combat trades. The goal is to stick a Delver of Secrets  Flip or fast Tasigur, the Golden Fang under a Blood Moon to shut the door before they can recover, and failing that just play the control role and 2-for-1 them into oblivion. Be very wary of playing into Spell Queller.

Going forward, I think Collective Brutality pulls less weight than it used to, and I'm going to replace the sideboard copy. Like Electrolyze, it's excellent in enough matchups to earn one mainboard slot, but the matchups it shores up (Burn, Infect) either aren't weak enough or aren't common enough to earn a second copy in the sideboard. I'll be replacing it with a third Blood Moon, to improve Tron/Valakut which is the worst matchup, while still being pseudo-removal against Infect by taking out Inkmoth Nexus.

ConnBeleren says... #1

How do you feel about thing in the ice as a two of, dropping young pryo. I've been on that build for about 6 months.

February 14, 2017 11:06 p.m.

Red_X says... #2

Have you considered the builds that run Dark Confidant over the delve creatures? From what I understand, they are generally better in a heavy midrange or control meta that can kill/chump big bodies, but has trouble dealing with the massive number of cards provided by confidant and can't punish you for the life loss effectively. Do you think that's a legitimate option, or should you just stick to dropping 5/5s turn 3 and rebuying spells?

February 15, 2017 12:57 a.m.

ManWearingHat says... #3

@ConnBeleren

That is an interesting switch I hadn't thought of! I might have been more receptive to it before Gitaxian Probe got banned and we could play more cheap/free stuff, but it's a really close call. One downside I see is that in order to immediately extract value from TITI, you need to blast out 4 spells immediately after playing it, and bounce everything as it dies. Young Pyromancer on the other hand leaves behind bodies when you immediately extract value, for less than 4 spells.

It honestly sounds like a meta call to me. If your meta is jam-packed with Bolt-but-no-Push/Terminate decks, or heavy go-wide strategies like BW Tokens, TITI could be particularly strong.

@Red_X Typically I'm loathe to get rid of Tasigur because of just how many matchups it's effective in. Being able to rebuy cards with him is amazing in grindy matchups, he's Goyf-sized a lot of the time so he checks attackers well, and he's immune to Fatal Push and Lightning Bolt which give tons of percentage points against decks I run into locally (Burn, Esper Control, MonoBlack, 8-Rack, Jund). Bob not being a large clock in addition to a grind engine make them different enough that I'm not convinced it's a 1-to-1 swap, but Bob has a lot of potential.

I could see him going in a much lower to the ground proactive Tap-Out version of Grixis Delver perhaps? It might look like something with no Delve threats, but Bobs and Delvers, plus perhaps Young Pyromancer or TITI additionally, maybe one-mana discard spells and a particularly cheap spell suite, with Fatal Push, Spell Snare, and some Vapor Snag maybe? With no Delve threats you get to run Logic Knot safely which is very powerful, and maybe you add in Creeping Tar Pit for reach and closing power. I think Bob naturally shifts it to be a wholly different deck than my list, but it's got lots of merit and is worth exploring!

February 15, 2017 8:58 a.m. Edited.