Dies to Removal

Not familiar. Do you have a decklist?

we've discussed this on the clan thread:

[deck=Batutinha's BW Control ]Lands 26
4 Godless Shrine
4 Mutavault
3 Orzhov Guildgate
2 Plains
9 Swamp
4 Temple of Silence

Creature 10
3 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
3 Obzedat, Ghost Council
4 Pack Rat

Spells 24
4 Bile Blight
1 Devour Flesh
2 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
4 Hero's Downfall
2 Read the Bones
1 Revoke Existence
4 Thoughtseize
2 Ultimate Price
4 Underworld Connections

Sideboard 15
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Dark Betrayal
2 Doom Blade
2 Drown in Sorrow
3 Duress
3 Lifebane Zombie
1 Revoke Existence
2 Sin Collector[/deck]

The list 6-0's a few PE and this is one piloted by both Batutinha and aytor_92 which are some of the most consistence grinders (the MBC with White splash running Gary is a joke so don't discuss that one).

I found that with burn they just devour your hand and crush you with either Blood Baron of Vizkopa or Obzedat, Ghost
Council nothing you can really do about it - BW is actually doing quite well in the RL scene as well (this may help convince you if you think MODO is a joke (not sure why some people believe that though)).

Oh yeah I faced it a lot. Some versions play sin colectors and zombies md even i in addition of duresses to get your hand. Deck is really strong vs a field.

Saw versions with 1-2 whips as lot of strong creatures with etb effects plus combos well with obzedat.

Oh ok, that is the one I am familiar with. Don't know the other one. It is a tough match up. I imagine you just have to play really aggressively and throw everything at the dome. It's a Hail Mary. Firedancer seems great if he sticks, but he almost definitely won't.

For SB, I imagine you want:

IN:+2 Blind Obedience,+1 Flames of the Firebrand,+3 Viashino Firstblade

OUT:-3 Shock,-1 Searing Blood,-2 Chained to the Rocks

I might be insane though.

The thing that sucks is that chained is the best answer to demon (which a good % of the versions run), but its just dead to baron and ghost daddy. I feel that matchup is a 50/50, really depending on if you have done 2 things: 1.)Done enough damage before Baron comes down to race it. 2.)Have a skull crack when they are at 10 and tap out to play ghost daddy, and deal 7 more the next turn. I wish we had access to another way to turn off lifegain.

Went 3-1 in testing against guys from the GP tonight (trying to do a bit more live play).

2-1 vs Rb Aggro (blind obedience was unbeatable)
1-2 vs GR Monsters*
2-0 vs Bant Control
2-0 vs Rb Devotion (blind obedience was unbeatable)

*The collected player group tonight made the point, and I am probably going to agree with them, that Satyr Firedancer just isn't that good. Sure, its fine against weenie aggro and Mono U, but if I want to beat those decks I can just sideboard 3 Anger of the Gods and REALLY blow them out. Blind Obedience is helping a lot against GR, but we need more to get it above the 43% I currently have; its my only bad matchup (some others are pretty even, but still). I've tried Spark Trooper, its ok. Boros Reckoner is bad. What else is there?

Current data (70 matches, now includes 15 rounds of GP data):

Data presented as game 1; after sideboard; overall

BW Midrange; 80%; 44.5%; 57%
GR Monsters; 33%; 55.5%; 46.7%
RW Burn; 33%; 89%; 66.7%
MBC; 64.7%; 59%; 61.5%
GW Aggro; 33%; 66.7%; 55.5%
Mono U; 50%; 50%; 50% (4 matches only)

Then there is rogue stuff or results that aren't statistically worth discussing. This is a good start; I am starting to increase the win% as I get more familiar with the deck's capabilities too.

Your postboard burn mirror record is just silly. Sign of a great red player.

Ya WW and Mono U are REALLY good matchups with firedancer, but become coinflips (IMO anyway) without him. Its also good against rakdos agro too. He's also good in the g/r matchup if they dont t3 domri, which is their only real removal against him other than mortars, and mortars is fine because they are wasting a turn doing that. I don't know what we would swap with. Spark trooper is the most important card in the g/r matchup (at least in my testing, and I've somehow gotten a ton of matchups against them). I almost feel like I want to just say screw it and go three colors, but then we can't run muta which is one of the rock stars of the deck. Blind obedience is definitely one of the cards we we missing, and is a good start in helping vs some of our tougher matchups.

[quote="zemanjaski » Thu Mar 06, 2014 7:32 am"]Went 3-1 in testing against guys from the GP tonight (trying to do a bit more live play).

2-1 vs Rb Aggro (blind obedience was unbeatable)
1-2 vs GR Monsters*
2-0 vs Bant Control
2-0 vs Rb Devotion (blind obedience was unbeatable)

*The collected player group tonight made the point, and I am probably going to agree with them, that Satyr Firedancer just isn't that good. Sure, its fine against weenie aggro and Mono U, but if I want to beat those decks I can just sideboard 3 Anger of the Gods and REALLY blow them out. Blind Obedience is helping a lot against GR, but we need more to get it above the 43% I currently have; its my only bad matchup (some others are pretty even, but still). I've tried Spark Trooper, its ok. Boros Reckoner is bad. What else is there?[
/quote]

The problem with the GR matchup is that they run more threats than you have answers. I feel like Spark Trooper was strong tech for you because it only focused your burn plan even more which basically ignored what GR is trying to do. I think your best bet is to just find the most uninteractive threats for them and force them to win a race. A lot of GR hands can be durdly and this is a good thing to take advantage of. While they're messing around with Courser and Domri you just burn them to death.

Can you share your current postboard strategy against them?

Ya that's how you win vs g/r is just out racing them. Spark trooper forced them to make the tough choice to block with courser or take 6 to the face. My s/b vs g/r is totally different with the new variation, but generally you want to get rid of magma jet and ash zealot in the main. At the PTQ I boarded in 2 more chains, 3 sparkies, and 3 firedancers. Now it would be for blind obedience and chains.

Is Peak Eruption good against monsters? It goes to the face, sets them back a turn, and against the Jund version it could really fuck with their mana. Hell, if they don't draw a caryatid you could keep either version off stormbreath mana.

Its good if they draw a Mountain, but they only run 8.

I see most lists run 9 or 10, but that still probably isn't enough

If we're just trying to race, do we run madcap skills? They'll never block our Phoenix and it seems good on an Ash Zealot, esp. with burn backup.

I tried running peak eruption. It's just such a specific answer that a lot of the time it's just a dead card. They will often use their red source from caryatid or temple.

The problem with madcap in our deck is that if you don't draw a creature (which is very easy to do with this deck) it's just a dead card. I toyed with the idea of running a scorchwalker for bloodrush, but again, its only good on a creature.

I used Legion's Initiative in my modern Boros deck mainly for critter rescue but making my Zealots and Reckoners bigger was also quite helpful. Just a thought.

Went 3-1 in testing against guys from the GP tonight (trying to do a bit more live play).

2-1 vs Rb Aggro (blind obedience was unbeatable)
1-2 vs GR Monsters*
2-0 vs Bant Control
2-0 vs Rb Devotion (blind obedience was unbeatable)

*The collected player group tonight made the point, and I am probably going to agree with them, that Satyr Firedancer just isn't that good. Sure, its fine against weenie aggro and Mono U, but if I want to beat those decks I can just sideboard 3 Anger of the Gods and REALLY blow them out. Blind Obedience is helping a lot against GR, but we need more to get it above the
43% I currently have; its my only bad matchup (some others are pretty even, but still). I've tried Spark Trooper, its ok. Boros Reckoner is bad. What else is there?

The problem with the GR matchup is that they run more threats than you have answers. I feel like Spark Trooper was strong tech for you because it only focused your burn plan even more which basically ignored what GR is trying to do. I think your best bet is to just find the most uninteractive threats for them and force them to win a race. A lot of GR hands can be durdly and this is a good thing to take advantage of. While they're messing around with Courser and Domri you just burn them to death.

Can you share your current postboard strategy against them?

This is true. You CANNOT control their board; that's why Reckoner doesn't work. Spark Trooper was intended to race. The problem is when your opponent gets ahead with acceleration; that is just very hard to beat. I am going to be testing with a guy
who came in the Top 32 at GP Melbourne with GR Monsters who offered to help me test. We''re going to brainstorm and see what we can come up with.

I feel that what is good for g/r monsters applies to the b/w midrange too, which I feel are our two worst matchups. If we can tighten up somehow vs those two, there will be no matchup under 50% for this deck.

Hi everyone, been following the site as a lurker for some time - now as a first time poster. Love the dialog here.

With regards to gr; would treason be a good sideboard? Seems great against dragon and baron (although admittedly not the best against obzy). Would seem to provide some good reach.

Sorcery is the problem. The key to this deck is the flexibility all of our instants offer. Even all of our creatures are hasty so they deal at least the damage on the initial swing. Once you start adding non-instant spells it becomes less flexible, and generally 3 mana for 4 damage is a bad trade off. You want to try to get 3 damage out of 2 mana. 4 damage is the most you will ever get out of it, and that's only if they have an evasive creature to nab. AoT is much better in the creature heavier versions of red.

Also, the problem with the threaten effects against GR is they usually with have more than one creature out.. ie: Steal your Polukronos, swing, chump with Caratyd.. Now we have wasted a turn and they still have a 5/5

Clearly not good against polk and obviously not optimal as a sorcery. However, does open up the air for phoenixes on dragon, seems ok as a 2 of in that regard. Anyway, just a thought.

Hi guys - I'm loving this deck and this thread. I found DTR because one of you mentioned it in a comment on Zemanjaski's article on Channel Fireball. I'm playing this deck without mutavaults now but traded into them on deckbox so it won't be long.....

Three questions:
1 - I'm seeing a lot of the BW midrange with no packrats. They seem to be moving toward maindeck Lifebane Zombies. How do you sideboard for that as opposed to the one MDU posted above?

2 - Is it ever OK to use the Indestructible mode of Boros Charm? For instance, if I bait out removal by attacking into open mana with two Zealots/Phoenixes, then save them with the Charm? I still deal 4 damage for one card...

3 - How do you play around Bile Blight? The scenario I mentioned in #2 doesn't work if my indestructible Ash Zealots are both -1/-1 when they hit. Just not playing two of the same creature at the same time seems to slow me down.

nThanks in Advance!

1.)LBZ still works like pack rat honestly. He's not as "must answer" as pack rat, but still a great target for searing blood.

2.)Generally, if I have 2-3 creatures out and they board wipe, the indestructible is worth it because it is "still dealing 4 damage".

3.)You play around bile blight by having varied threats. 1 ash zealot, 1 phoenix, 1 muta. Try to never have more than one of them on the field at one time, otherwise you open yourself up for a blowout. They only real exception to this is you have a few in the yard and have the chance to buy them back and play them same turn with a burn spell.

Just a heads up for those of you interested but not subscribed to me on twitter or facebook, I'm going to be making some videos tonight against tier 1 decks and will be streaming it on my channel justin.tv/rdw4life. We should be getting started around 6:45/7:00 CST, possibly a few minutes late depending on arrangements. Some of my teammates are going to be piloting the various decks against me, I'll be playing most of Zemajaski's 75

Went 3-1 in testing against guys from the GP tonight (trying to do a bit more live play).

2-1 vs Rb Aggro (blind obedience was unbeatable)
1-2 vs GR Monsters*
2-0 vs Bant Control
2-0 vs Rb Devotion (blind obedience was unbeatable)

*The collected player group tonight made the point, and I am probably going to agree with them, that Satyr Firedancer just isn't that good. Sure, its fine against weenie aggro and Mono U, but if I want to beat
those decks I can just sideboard 3 Anger of the Gods and REALLY blow them out. Blind Obedience is helping a lot against GR, but we need more to get it above the 43% I currently have; its my only bad matchup (some others are pretty even, but still). I've tried Spark Trooper, its ok. Boros Reckoner is bad. What else is there?

The problem with the GR matchup is that they run more threats than you have answers. I feel like Spark Trooper was strong tech for you because it only focused your burn plan even more which basically ignored what GR is trying to do. I think your best bet is to just find the most uninteractive threats for them and force them to win a race. A lot of GR hands can be durdly and this is a good thing to take advantage of. While they're messing around with Courser and Domri you just burn them to death.

Can you share your current postboard strategy against them?

This is true. You CANNOT control their board; that's why Reckoner doesn't work. Spark
Trooper was intended to race. The problem is when your opponent gets ahead with acceleration; that is just very hard to beat. I am going to be testing with a guy who came in the Top 32 at GP Melbourne with GR Monsters who offered to help me test. We''re going to brainstorm and see what we can come up with.

This is going to sound totally crazy, but have you considered that Chained to the Rocks may actually be bad in this match? It's a card that plays right into their hand because they want you to 1-for-1 them until you run out of answers and they can land a big meany to win the game with. Chained doesn't hit Stormbreath, feels terrible to use on a Courser, and plays into their postboard strategy since they're probably bringing in enchantment hate from the board. Why not bypass that hate by running 0 postboard and load up on burn? If you had access to four Spark Trooper and the fourth Shock postboard I'm willing to bet your GR percentages would increase significantly. I think the
value of Shock goes up significantly against GR since you're running Searing Blood. It gives you a way to kill x/4s as early as turn three without really losing card advantage, and you can also interact with a turn one Elvish Mystic which is extremely important in that match.

While counter-intuitive, I like the thought. We beat that deck by racing, not by responding. Maybe the right answer is just dealing 20 faster, haha. 4 spark troopers in the side though is a bit much, the s/b is pretty tight and I don't know that we have 4 slots for it. The argument could be made to scrap chained altogether, but we don't want to race every deck -- just some of them.

I am also considered cutting the 4th WLH for the 4th shock.

I wouldn't cut Chained out of the board for the reasons you said, Jonny. You definitely want it in a lot of matchups. I'm just not sure it's where you want to be against GR.

I think if GR is popular enough it's going to force a concession and you'll have no choice but to find room for four Spark Trooper. Potential 12-point life swings in that matchup are huge. It's the most impactful spell you can be playing against them. Why not run as many as you can?

Val, the major issue is how many 4 CMC spells do you want to cram into the deck?

7 is pushing it on 23 land as it is.

I think it's time to consult ham's Hypergeometric table!

I think that maybe we keep in the two maindeck chained to the rocks. They're good for a reason. They can be a huge tempo swing to keep the enemy down. It makes sense that it would be incorrect to board in all four chained to the rocks because that puts too far into the control camp and inhibits our ability to race effectively. However, it also makes sense that we should keep a variety of tools at our disposal with which to race our opponent. Chained to the rocks is still a valuable racing tool. We just need to keep the numbers in a range that is conducive to racing our opponent instead of controlling him.

Having 8 on 23 would be difficult, yes.

Lets just say F it and rock archangel of thune. LOL.

[quote="[url=viewtopic.php?p=199661#p199661:2wd6bgft]gabriel_404 » 06 Mar 2014 10:59[/url:2wd6bgft]":2wd6bgft]Hi guys - I'm loving this deck and this thread. I found DTR because one of you mentioned it in a comment on Zemanjaski's article on Channel Fireball. I'm playing this deck without mutavaults now but traded into them on deckbox so it won't be long.....

Three questions:
1 - I'm seeing a lot of the BW midrange with no packrats. They seem to be moving toward maindeck Lifebane Zombies. How do you sideboard for that as opposed to the one MDU posted above?

2 - Is it ever OK to use the Indestructible mode of Boros Charm? For instance, if I bait out removal by attacking into open mana with two Zealots/Phoenixes, then save them with the Charm? I still deal 4 damage for one card...

3 - How do you play around Bile Blight? The scenario I mentioned in #2 doesn't
work if my indestructible Ash Zealots are both -1/-1 when they hit. Just not playing two of the same creature at the same time seems to slow me down.

Thanks in Advance![/quote:2wd6bgft]

1 - BO works fine there. I like to bring in Mortars if I have them to fight Blood Barons. Lifebane Zombies die to Searing Blood and Firedancer all the same. Firedancer also lets us drop Barons with a Boros Charm or Warleader's Helix as well. Chandra is also a possibility if you think they pulled their removal to ping the Zombies.

2 - If know you are going to hit for 4+ next turn with your creatures, use it to save them. It keeps them on the board as persistent threats that require another answer.

3 - If you know they have Bile Blight, not playing 2 of the same creature is your only answer. Force them to use it to kill one creature, then drop the other. I am more willing to risk getting hit with it if I am doubling up on Phoenixes since I can buy them back.

GR couldn't care less about Archangel of Thune.

I know that, it doesn't fit in the deck AND they don't care about it. I was just being silly =P.

Do I really see BlakLanner lurking this thread?