Magic: The Gathering - Page 88

On October 21 2011 04:42 DCLXVI wrote:
@bumatlarge
The reason I was able to drop green from the deck was because I added trespassing souleater. I don't think there is enough removal in the deck to clear a path for the ooze, and there is not enough flash back targets for the mage so I would go
-3x snapcaster mage
+2x trespassing souleater
+1x despise

This is extremely reasonable, and after a little test trun against my buddies wolf-run, snapcaster is hardly impactful on the game. Despise, on the other hand was amazing at picking off important drops at every level of the game. I think with such a creature heavy environment it's amazing. I will try soulstealer, many times in the late game verse wolf run we were at a stalemate where he had a feast and famine on something, but I had spellskite or an ooze with skites ability to stop wolfrun. Getting inis just as important as getting big.

I would also add in one more drownyard as the mana is easy to hit with no double blue targets (well, i didn't have a jace in). Also it is very good to sit back on counter mana and a drownyard in play if you don't have your combo built up yet. Untapping with ooze and drownyarding into the final piece of the combo has won me several games as my only out.
-1x swamp
+1x Nephilia Drownyard

Wasn't crazy about drownyard, but if you have less control and more ooze abuse, it's a logical step to take.

I am not sure if phantasmal copying ooze would suicide or not if it tried to combo. Does grimgrins ability copy itself? And skithiryx/trespassing souleater? If not then I would
-2x phyrexian metamorph
+2x phantasmal image
else I would go
+2x negate/unburial rites/spellskite
but I think 7 mana is realistically out of reach in this deck and all of these options would be better than metamorph. untaping with ooze should win the game, you won't need to copy him. Copying an opponents sword/artifact is also pretty useless in this deck.

Image kills itself using any of the abilities except the vampire, and your creatures are not worth copying just for P/T. Playing with missing puzzle pieces still leads to strong board control, because each of your creatures are drops that need to be answered. I could only fathom P-Image being a good sideboard card. Metamorph is 1 mana more that can sync with your deck. I think that makes it worth it to ditch the image. Spellskite is actually the much better choice then any of those suggestions, I don't think you can have too many of those floating around. We often have blue mana open. With soulstealer giving ooze evasion, something it desperately needs, then yes, metamorph is bad.

I have been considering running visions of beyond game one(before the graveyard hate comes in), since this deck can reliably self mill 20+ cards. I don't think the deck can spare mana for think twice, but visions might make the cut. I also toy around with some number of negates as protecting ooze is the most important part of the deck. While bloodline keeper might win a game if left alone for 3 turns or so, grimgrin/souleater/scholar/lilliana certainly won't in this deck. Not to say I haven't won a few games without the combo, but doing so is very hard. This makes the potential upside for scholar pretty unimportant. There are few times I want to attack into their creatures as opposed to looter being able to trade with mages/hero tokens. I would rather play lilliana/alchemy at 3 than scholar, whereas I really only have leak at 2, so I think some number of scholars should be looters.
-1x Civilized scholar
+1x Merfolk looter

Think Twice doesn't seem to have a place here, visions might though. But what are you hoping to draw if you have 20+ cards in your graveyard? I'm assuming the 2 oozes you've drawn have been dealt with? Though, with 4 despise, I would heavily consider visions over probe.

Scholar brings a threat to the table that forces a trade and puts him in your yard, while drawing and filling the grave. I feel like it can take both Lily's and alchemy's role in what your deck needs to do, and potentially faster. Though tripping over fucking emissaries sucks balls. Against wolf-run, I'd throw all my scholars in the garbage. Fucking emissaries. I despise that shit over any titan/PW ANY DAY in that match up before they can drop it turn 2. Merfolk is a solid preference.

I am not sure about the jace, it seems like if you can untap with 5 mana and land him he could steal a game if you have ooze out, but the likely hood of that happening is low. I would rather have a way to draw into ooze or a way to protect it than another way to fill the graveyard. This deck does not lack ways to fill the graveyard, many more times I have to hold ooze in hand with my combo in the yard because I have no protection for him.
-1x Jace memory adept
+1x negate

t4 Ooze > t5 Jace is a likely situation. 5 mana is alot though, but mainboarding negate seems VERY skeptical. You can't really make that out to be a mainboard ancient grudge. Too many creature heavy decks, and not enough control.

Finally I think adding another skithiryx would help as hasting out ooze is the most reliable way to win, and you really don't care about their creatures as you should combo out turn 5ish before they kill you
-1x Go for the Throat
+1x Skithiryx the Blight Dragon

Agreed. 1 is simply too little to be consistently a factor in your combo.

I'm not sure if spellskite should be main deck or not but it really soaks up removal well. I really don't know though, I'll play around with it some more. I still think adding white would help a ton, if just +4x isolated chapel +2x glacial fortress +2x unburial...

If you playtest that with some success, I'd love you forever. I am a doubter at the moment, because I will light fire to any of my lands that impede me from getting double black.

I think the sideboard should include 3/4 mental missteps as RDW and aggro white is a tough matchup

Didn't playtest against them, what besides champ in UWaggro is 1 mana? RDW is a no-brainer though.