Dies to Removal

BTW you were right Whole, the American metagame IS aggro heavy

Man, I told ya, dude. Unless you forgot that I'm an American. In that case, I'll forgive ya.

Someone can please add me to the FOS facebook group? this is my profile page https://www.facebook.com/pinco8

Accept my friend request and I'll add ya.

You are softer to Jund because they have Lightning Bolt, but I think you're about even with the other Rock decks. With that said, I've hardly experienced any G/B/x decks lately and have mostly faced Grixis (the new Jund), which I have found to be very beatable.

As for the Gorges Vs fetches, I like the Gorges right now because I've faced several Burn decks in the last couple days and the extra 1-3 life (and occasional tempo loss) did matter and cost me some games. I think that there are upsides to both manabases, but both meta dependent.

PtE decks are still there, but even with 2-3 Mountains in the deck, PtE is still be a "strictly better" Swords to Plowshares sometimes. I moved down to 1 copy of Mountain and have so far been okay.

I'm playing 4 Foundries myself. But only 1 Mountain.

Also, I'm trying out Stony Silence because the Affinity matchup can be pretty rough. Bonus is that it's really good at shutting down Lantern Control (although I've yet to see it online, I have faced it several times locally).

Ah, okay. I haven't played the Allies yet. WB Tokens can be tough if you don't draw a steady string of burn.

As for Facebook, I shot off a Friend Request to you. Accept it and I'll add you to the FoS Group. A lot of the DtR regulars are there, like James, Valdarith, Ham, Lazer, and Kait. I have no idea how you can link YouTube to Facebook (or even if that option exists) but I do know that you can easily share your stuff there. You may have to dig into YouTube to do it, if the link option exists.

.......Sooooo Tunnel Ignus as a middle finger vs Bloom and Scapeshift? Yes? No? Too cute?

Too cute lol

Like pedrobear said, it's just not needed against Scapeshift.

Bloom is just a bad matchup anyway. If you deal with Titan, Hivemind gets you. If you deal with Hivemind, Titan gets you.

I fucking hate playing against Bloom.

Burn vs Aggro: I actually think aggro (Zoo, Merfolk, WU or G stompy) is a poor MU for burn, its not a dominate part of the league (in accordance to goldfish) or 8Ms (during my timezone) thank goodness, but I'm ok with running 1-2 bridges just to autowin those MUs.

Grim + Delve: Of course you wouldn't run delve with grim, its just another option if your on the creature route.

Are you not running a full set of Blazes?

Zoo can be hit or miss sometimes depending on your position. Sometimes you're on the draw when they get that triple 1-Drop play into Command and just roll you over. Sometimes not. It usually gets a little easier when you can bring in removal options postboard. Especially against Stompy, but that deck is hardly a thing anyways.

Merfolk is really tough when they have a Vial opener into Seas into Kira into Master. Barring that sequencing, I usually have a decent time against them. Path and Volley help postboard.

I'm assuming by UW, you really mean GW? That can be a tough one, since they have so many angles of attack and disruption. Thalia and Arbiter+Ghost Quarter can really hinder the amount of Burn you can play. Bridge won't even help because of Pridemage.

Which one - Mandrills or Bridge?

Delve cards are great when your grinding out your opp. (removing creatures so that your horrid Nacatl can deal damage) while Bridge helps you when your running that control role (this is assuming your playing kill the creature.game).

P.S. I'm not seeing the heavy aggro meta are you guys playing league, daily or single elimination? - I think its a timezone thing

Both cards.

Using delve cards take away your ability to power your Grim Lavamancer, though I can see the case for wanting to include a single copy of Become Immense in the main.

As for Bridge, I just don't think it's necessary. I think the matchup against a lot of the aggro decks are pretty decent enough that Burn doesn't need to use the Bridge. If you're on the Nacatl build, you can actually use your cats as a decent roadblock until you take the offensive. Otherwise, I think that Burn already has the necessary tools to deal with most creatures. Which archetypes are you bringing it in against?

I live in Florida so I'm pretty sure our time zones are a factor. I usually just dive into some Single Elims whenever I have an hour to kill during the afternoon.

Using it in Burn? No thanks.

Not a huge fan of the Nacatl list - though if the meta warp heavy enough into aggro where your forced into pointing everything at creatures I can see the appeal.

It's already getting there. Rock decks are on the downswing and aggro decks are taking off. Faster combo decks are everywhere too. You just gotta match it by getting dirtier. It ain't pretty, but sometimes winning ain't pretty either. 6 months ago I would've called this madness, but now it makes a lot of sense.

I'm tempted to move back into using Atarka's Command after playing with a Nacatl version in paper locally.

What does your Nacatl version look like? I'm trying Wild Nacatls for the first time tomorrow at the FNM, so I'm a bit interested. I'm running a version without Copperline Gorges, which is a bit tough on the life total but I like what I've seen so far.

This is what I was using in between Standard games at FNM:

[deck]
Creature 18
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Wild Nacatl
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Spells 22
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
4 Boros Charm
4 Atarka's Command
2 Searing Blaze

Land 20
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
3 Sacred Foundry
3 Stomping Ground

Sideboard 15
3 Destructive Revelry
3 Path to Exile
3 Kor Firewalker
2 Searing Blaze
2 Rending Volley
2 Deflecting Palm
[/deck]

You hurt yourself a lot, but the payoff is a lot bigger than with Boros. The Searing Blazes in the board could just as easily be Lightning Helix against other aggro decks. Mulligans are actually easier due to the abundance of 1-Drops. Plus, it's sometime easier to play defense when you can hide behind 3/3 kitties before going on the offense.

You're not imagining it, guys - aggro is increasing on MTGO.

I've been on a variation of William Hawk's Boros list that came in 2nd at an Open a couple months back and I love it.
[deck]
Creature 14
4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Spells 26
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
2 Lightning Helix
4 Boros Charm
4 Skullcrack
4 Searing Blaze

Land 20
4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
4 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground

Sideboard 15
3 Destructive Revelry
3 Path to Exile
3 Kor Firewalker
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Rending Volley
2 Deflecting Palm
[/deck]

I'm tempted to move back into using Atarka's Command after playing with a Nacatl version in paper locally, but for MTGO, the Boros version is a lot more conservative with its life total.

As for Eidolon, I still think he's critical for the deck to operate optimally, but if anyone is getting better results without him in the main then more power to ya.

Bolt the bird/dork definitely when you're on the draw. On the play it depends since you're in a much better spot to start out racing.

Man, I'd forgotten that I wrote all of that.

Against those decks you need help hitting your nutdraw and i think VD helps there.

Probably gonna try this list next:
[deck]

Creature 16

4 Goblin Guide
4 Monastery Swiftspear
3 Vexing Devil
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Spells 24

1 Shard Volley
4 Rift Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Forked Bolt
3 Searing Blaze
2 Skullcrack
4 Boros Charm

Land 20

4 Arid Mesa
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Mountain
3 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground

Sideboard 15

3 Destructive Revelry
1 Smash to Smithereens
2 Deflecting Palm
2 Kor Firewalker
2 Path to Exile
2 Skullcrack
3 Molten Rain
[/deck]

Vexing Devil is good again, I think.

I played 5 games last night and lost all but 1. A bad night, yes, but I realized that I was only facing Zoo, Burn, and Grixis varieties. All decks that would be soft to the Devil.

Geez that list is so greedy

How's it been doing?

Still winnable, but the sweepers help. Although sometimes the Fallout still isn't enough when they drop enough lords or Ravager gets crazy with the cheese whiz.

3 is good when Affinity and Merfolk are everywhere.

I wouldn't play Abbot in Burn.

1-2 Fallouts are good in the board.

Just burn the hell out of Living End. They do a ton of damage to themselves from cycling.

No Rakdos Charm?

IMO, I don't think that there is much of a difference between a 1-of and a 2-of in a deck. Like, if you really want to see a card, you'll play it as a 3 or 4-of.

Think about it - is there really that much of a difference between having a single copy of Deflecting Palm and a 2-of? You play it once and they'll play around it forever. You really only want 1. Same with Shard Volley. 2 is acceptable in the main, but more often than not, you'll only play 1.

Also, sometimes the singletons are there to supplement existing numbers of a certain card type. Take the whole 3/1 split on Revelry and Smash - you want it mainly for killing artifacts. Against Tron and Affinity, the 1st Smash is way better than the 4th Revelry most of the time. What enchantments are you really trying to kill at this point? The deck has gotten a lot better at fighting Leyline these days and Twin players are wise to the Revelry tech. Or take Bogles - 3 Revelry and 1 Palm is probably all you want anyway.

With Twin, 1 Path and 1 Rending Volley is probably enough. It's better than just playing 2 Path anyway.

The singleton's seem weird when you look at it on paper, but don't forget that the number one rule about sideboarding with R/x Aggro: don't dilute your gameplan too much postboard.

I'm doing the exact same thing, believe or not. It's a hedge in the Affinity matchup. And believe or not, it comes in handy against Tron, where they can T3 a Karn and exile your Stomping Ground.

His deck is almost a few cards different from mine actually. I just squeezed in a coupe of Forked Bolts in the main though.

What don't you understand about the sideboard?

Serious question. It sounds like I'm being a sarcastic asshole but I'm not. It seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Yeah, that too.

It's a lot better when you're facing aggressive decks like Merfolk and Affinity. And pretty much in games where your life total matters (which is LOT more than you would think).

I shared PSulli's post about it on FB when I saw it. I think it's the best Atarka's Command deck I've seen yet. Dunno how well it stands up to the meta right now - it's pretty hostile to Burn-centric decks. Hell, Burn was the second (or third? but tied with Jund) placing deck for Day 2 at the last Open and the only list to crack the Top 32 was a Nacatyl Burn list.

IHowever, I think that if you're an aggressive Mountain player, I firmly believe that this is the best time right now to play Skullcrack over Command (even though I've been saying it for awhile).

sounds like you're having my luck from a couple months ago

I went down to 3 Blazes once I changed to 19 lands. Seems fine at this point, especially with the addition of Forked Bolt. Speaking of Forked Bolt, it's pretty bad against non-creature decks, or decks with few but large creatures (obviously), but it's easily boarded out for something else after Game 1.

More often than not, running Eidolon out on T2 is the correct play.

Everything Val said is spot on.

I'd just like to add that running Forked Bolt for Affinity can be a beating against them.

Just thought I'd throw my current list out there. I haven't been doing much playing, save for a few local paper matches against other R/x decks.

Vexing Devil has been performing about as well as Swiftspear was. I'd like to think that with the format speeding it up, it could be a better choice.

[deck]
Creatures 15
4 Goblin Guide
4 Vexing Devil
3 Grim Lavamancer
4 Eidolon of the Great Revel

Burn 26
2 Forked Bolt
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lava Spike
4 Rift Bolt
1 Shard Volley
4 Boros Charm
2 Lightning Helix
3 Searing Blaze
2 Skullcrack

Land 19
3 Mountain
3 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard 15
3 Destructive Revelry
2 Lightning Helix
2 Deflecting Palm
2 Path to Exile
4 Kor Firewalker
2 Skullcrack

[/deck]

Ya blew it.

Who's the crazy one now, Val?

Call me crazy, but I think that right now Vexing Devil can be used to speed up the deck's attack.

I'm crazy.

Like a 2 mana bolt that resolves after Angel's Grace.

Fallout is real good against both those decks.