Mainly B/W with splash into blue for
Delay
EDIT: Plus Detention Sphere and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver now!
Main board plays a lot of hand hate, with a more aggressive style using Reality Smasher. Little bit of control, little bit of aggro, trying to take advantage of both at times, and praying it works.
Mana base is hit and miss, most times with Aether Vial and a couple fetches the reliability gets me 2 of my colours when I need them, the deck ends up being fairly playable without seeing immediate blue mana, however this is one of the largest weak points of the deck.
Match-ups:
Abzan Coco:This match feels a little favoured for our side, as we have so many ways to disrupt their combos, and if we can stop their Collected Company from resolving it feels like our creatures are just better than theirs. However all the games I've played are close. Mastery of the Unseen and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver are great if it gets to late game, but that means we need to stop their combo from going off.
Infect:This match-up a tad rough, if we can turn Eldrazi Displacer online, we are most likely going to win. Otherwise it's grinding our way into the later game and picking them apart where we can with one shot removal and Ghost Quarter. Aether Vial feels slow, but could just be me, might start taking it out. Sideboard has some nuisance cards to drag them into the late game if we can. Now playing more Zealous Persecution to help my game here.
Affinity:This match-up feels great. Etched Champion loses to all out devoid cards,
Wasteland Strangler
easily kills anything then blocks to stop their tempo, Edrazi Displacer definitely helps against Cranial Plating. Also Kataki, War's Wage makes sure game 2 doesn't go anywhere for them. I have had some problems with Steel Overseer in games where I just don't draw removal though.
Jund:So grindy, pretty much have to counter Liliana of the Veil, as her landing causes major problems, also Tarmogoyf gets a little bit hard to block too. Other than that who can removal harder, and get beats in. Pray that our sideboard stuff can just value us through the next couple games. Not sure how many Rest in Peace to play here, but I would assume it is some!
G/R Tron:This match up is tough, all the cast triggers on something like World Breaker render my counters pretty useless, and with tron having that ability to get redundancies our one shot pieces of removal have problems. Keeping them off tron seems like the only way to win, as even if they have tron and no cards in hand their top deck game is strong. Pray for Ghost Quarter and enough hand hate to shut down their tron.
Bant Eldrazi: They like to get a little bit bigger creatures than us. Most times it's whoever can get a Eldrazi Temple first and start being the aggressor. However our sideboard has things like Ghostly Prison to stop them from going wide, and Zealous Persecution to help beat their creatures. Do some praying and try to removal out their mana dorks with
Wasteland Strangler
.
Mirror match/Edrazi and Taxes: I've had good match-ups the time I have played them, no one expects delay to come out and stop their tempo, and post sideboard Mastery of the Unseen is insane value. However the hate aspect of their deck poses a big problem, so I usually try and just stop that aspect of their deck, and piggy back on their hate cards with my own Path to Exile's and Ghost Quarters.
Dredge: Pray for the sideboard cards, Rest in Peace / Ghostly Prison is the only help I've head here, otherwise this deck is damn fast. Or just pray for a banning :P
U/W control: Aether Vial is an MVP at dodging counters, along with the matches I've played against this deck getting Mastery of the Unseen being a basically unbeatable card against them. Maybe a skewed analysis, will report if more games are played.
G/R Valakut: This deck poses a a tough match, but still fairly even on the win/loss split. I've learned that shutting down their early ramping is necessary. Done some lovely processing on their Search for Tomorrow which feels really good, and then after that is basically trying to peel all of the Primeval Titans out of their hand before they can play it, because that ends up being a win if they can resolve one of those. Ghost Quarter does really good work, but sometimes it just isn't enough which is sad. Hand hate is necessary, but also awkward because Anger of the Gods still kills our Tidehollow Scullers.
R/W Soul Sisters: Lately I have been playing this matchup with a friend a lot, it goes well at times, and can get really out of hand at other times. Not having artifact or enchantment hate poses a large problem against their Genesis Chamber combo which provides a large life gain and damage engine when paired with
Impact Tremors
. Playing Celestial Purge in the sideboard has helped combat half of this by removing their
Impact Tremors
, Purphoros, God of the Forge and Blood Moon. On the other half though,
Wasteland Strangler
completely wins against norin the weary, an amazing feeling 2 for 1, and tends to even be game winning.
Burn: I've gotten extremely lucky in the matches I've won against this deck. Our main angle of attack is landing a 4/4 or 5/5 and taking advantage of them running a very painful mana base. Other than that some praying that they don't have the nut draw is important, and hate hate to peel out the Deflecting Palms is pretty important for ensuring we don't kill ourselves. Something I'm not very sure about is whether or not to play Tidehollow Sculler. It is nice for stealing a burn spell, getting some little attacking in, and creating processor fodder for out
Wasteland Strangler
. However it also dies to any one of their burn spells/ all of their creatures (assuming they have a spell to trigger prowess on Monastery Swiftspear). Although forcing them to use a spell to kill it is kind of nice and does act as a way to get them to lose value. Very on the fence about this, suggestions are welcome.
Suggestions are welcome.
