Dies to Removal

It's mostly Skullcrack then kill them within two turns. Remember that they're tapping out without impacting the field so you need to plan for that.

BW is a much tougher matchup than MBC. I'm 66% vs. MBC and 53% vs BW so you're certainly not alone.

There's a fine line you have to walk between being a complete dick and being too lenient. At GP Kitakyushu I was eliminated from day 2 contention because I wasn't enough of a dick and showed my opponent mercy. I thought about that a lot, and in hindsight, I regret it. At GPs, PTQs, and Pro Tours, no mercy. At everything else, be a decent human being.

About play mistakes and missed triggers I mean.

Don't be this guy:

Playing VS a pro in round 4 of GP Shizuoka, I magma jet my opponent at EoT. When I'm done scrying, I say, "OK, end" (meaning end of his turn). He untaps his lands and draws a card before I have time to process what's going on. I say "whoa! Wait a minute" and he's like, "you said end, I already drew my card". I said, "don't shuffle that card into your hand," and called the judge. I explained the situation to the judge (who happened to be my friend) and since I could identify the card he drew, he rolled things back so I could take my turn. I was tilting hard after that and lost the match. The next round, the other guy was featured on camera.

In what world does an obvious miscommunication (with a language barrier) mean that you get to timewalk your opponent? In hindsight, I wish I had been more aggressive once the judge was called and requested a game loss for
looking at extra cards. It's pretty obvious that he was trying to take advantage of the situation. You can't end your turn without untapping, drawing etc.

Don't be that guy.

LPs Bard Narson example sounds a bit scummy to me. How much time passed between resolves and -3?

If i notice my opponent missed his trigger, I'm not saying shit. I play to win.

My current sideboard:

2x Chained to the rocks
2x Blind Obedience
2x Spark Trooper
4x Viashino Firstblade
3x Mizzium Mortars
2x Satyr Firedancer


Playing 3 times this afternoon against RG Monsters and win all the three (2-0, 2-0, 2-1). My typicall sideboard plan is about +2x Chained to the rocks, +2x Blind Obedience, +2x Spark Trooper, +3x Mizzium Mortars, -4 Skullcrack, -4 Ash, -1 Boros Charm (sometimes leaves some number of Ash). Do anyone try the third Mizzium Mortars?
Maybe this can be somehow stange but I try to be the control player in the matchup and not exclusive race them. All sideboard cards improve my plan, Blind Obedience is a terror for them. I try put some early presure (the presure I can), but waste time dealing with their planeswalkers, dork elf, curser and sometimes with a Polukranos or a Colossus (usual don't care much of them). I don't know if this is a bad strategy but if I see some number
of sideboard cards I can do it. If I see some hands with few control options I usually try to race them. The pain in the ass card is Ruric but it the life gain we have we can deal with that.

Yeah some hands race, others control. You're always hoping they keep a threat light hand. With a lot if practice and familiarity the matchup had become much more even for me; it's used to be low 30%s and has risen to high 40%s.

I try to play as a tempo deck; kill their dork, play a threat and then disrupt them for 1-2 turns before pointing burn at their face. It's hard for them to beat two life gain spells; that buys you a lot of time to win.

If i notice my opponent missed his trigger, I'm not saying shit. I play to win.

So do I, but you should help newer players at FNM / low level events.

And like I said above, I got a warning for forgetting my opponents trigger in my last PTQ.

One will connect, but how many times? I usually only bring in Firstblades and BlOb vs Esper. Firstblade only has to hit once, anything more is a bonus.

If any creature connects more than once you're pretty far ahead.

I try something like that a tempo play to. Sometimes curser is our best friend to make a plan to beat them. In one of the games he cast a curser put land from curser and revel a ruric. That make me change my pace in the moment. I have a Blind Obedience in play. I burn him in EOT, untap mizzium curser and pray for he didn't have the 6 land! then realised that if he had the 6 land I will win the game because he will cast the ruric that will be tap and that will be a trap for him. He really have the 6 land, I cast a strike in response to the cast. Untap cast trooper and gains enough life to burn him out in next turn.

You shouldn't have. The tournament rules and IPG are clear on the subject.

I try something like that a tempo play to. Sometimes curser is our best friend to make a plan to beat them. In one of the games he cast a curser put land from curser and revel a ruric. That make me change my pace in the moment. I have a Blind Obedience in play. I burn him in EOT, untap mizzium curser and pray for he didn't have the 6 land! then realised that if he had the 6 land I will win the game because he will cast the ruric that will be tap and that will be a trap for him. He really have the 6 land, I cast a strike in response to the cast. Untap cast trooper and gains enough life to burn him out in next turn.

Everyone is always
shocked at how easily you kill them if they tap out. People tap out at 10+ and die all the time.

Double Searing Blood is the most satisfying 2-for-1 ever.

Double Searing Blood is the most satisfying 2-for-1 ever.

With the 6 damage to the face it is hard to even call that a 2-for-1

Double Searing Blood is the most satisfying 2-for-1 ever.

If you kill a Stormbreath Dragon with the double Searing it's even more satisfying

It's SO GOOD.

How aggressively a people bluffing? I've been running Ash Zealot into a lot of things if I respect my opponent enough to know they won't block. Wouldn't do it against a random though.

How aggressively are you guys going turn 1 muta, turn 2 swing for two? If I don't have a zealot in hand I'm basically always going for it on the play.

Once I get one of those blowouts in, I swing nearly every turn. Attack with Mutavault on 2 is so much fun when you have no Zealot unless I really need that scry or kill a mana dork.

In what match ups is shock better than blind obedience? UW control but we are boarding out shock anyway. Weenies? BO should get you 2 extra damage from a tapped would be blocker, not to mention the extort. Does it matter if you are on the play vs. draw?

I friend of mine want to begin playing this deck to. What are your sideboard plan to MonoBlack Control without Firedancer, that he don't want to play?

In what match ups is shock better than blind obedience? UW control but we are boarding out shock anyway. Weenies? BO should get you 2 extra damage from a tapped would be blocker, not to mention the extort. Does it matter if you are on the play vs. draw?

RE: Shock is the best card in the deck vs. little aggro. BO is mostly for haste decks and the mirror; it's not very good against a deck list white weenie or GW little kid.

RE: MBC I -3 shock, -2 Jet; +2 Chains, +3 Viashino. If they're BW -2 Jet, +2 Mortars too.

I throw zealot into everyone. If they block I know what kind of player im against and know how to sequence. If they dont, I know I need to play knowing I can't make any mistakes.

Searing Blood leads to so many blow outs, especially against mono black players. I had one play a rat on turn 3, i played my 2nd ash zealot (and had RR up still) and swung in, he discarded and tried to activate his muta to make the rats 3/3's to block zealots, i searing blood the mutavault and he takes 3 and loses a land and both rats. Loooving this deck.

When you can put so much pressure on, your opponent just isn't able to play around cards anymore; so they have to play into you and if and when you do have it, you just blow them out. I've attacked a Zealot in a Blood Baron so many times; the opponent doesnt want to block because they need to the lifegain, but they also can't afford to take 2 damage etc.

Or Phoenix into Desecration Demon, blocks, double Searing Blood. That was sweet, look forward to that in a video soon.

Checked it out. Good write-up. Really liked the match-up notes.

LPs Bard Narson example sounds a bit scummy to me. How much time passed between resolves and -3?

It was at an Open, and Kosher in my book. The trigger happens before resolution, so if your opponent says resolves, that's that. Same thing with young pyromancer. If you magma jet something, then scry, you get no token. These are things you have to be cognitive of. There's no "being a dick" vs. not "being a dick". Rules are cold and disspasionate. There's simply cheating, and fair play.

You can remind your opponents of things before they would happen which you absolutely should do at FNM. Wether you do it at higher level events is up to you. It'll certainly give you a good reputation which is worth something, but is again
ultimately up to you. I've reminded opponents of triggers before and let them miss others. At the end of the day though, I don't cheat, I always call judges even on myself, and I show respect to my opponents and that's enough for me.

Zem, I just read your article, and I must say I like the list!

I've just noticed so much talk about Blind Obedience and other cards that I'm wondering what your current list looks like? And how do you SB for your matches?

Thanks!

Read the thread from about post 800 forward, it is covered in detail sir!

I am writing an article on it, but going to hold it for a week; I have a GPT next weekend and I want to wreck people.

WAIT TILL AFTER GP PHOENIX!

Which is when?

I think like April. It would actually be mostly impossible to cover up that long and I was being mostly faceitious.

My list already got reported on the mothership, so it won't be secret for long.

Some of my old lists got put on there, but they still include firedancers and a few previous iterations of the deck we've changed a lot haha. So that one still will throw people off =D. Love the article Z. I can't get enough of this deck. I really wanna watch more vids of you piloting it because I feel really good about piloting it now, but I want to get to a place where I know all my lines a bit better. I'm very good at assessing the situation quickly and effectively, but not even close to as good as planning 3-4 plays ahead like you do.

My list already got reported on the mothership, so it won't be secret for long.

Link?

In the Daily Event results, I am not going to hunt it down.

All I see are results from the 8th that look like your old list. If you have some secret tech, it hasn't shown up yet.

This is crazy, but I have hit 50% for the GR Monsters matchup. I was about 35% last week, so I am actually running at better than 50%+ right now. Crazy.