Hey Yall, Here is what i have deduced from my matches online and IRL. Hope it makes since. Feel free to comment feedback.
Mono BlueIn game 1 Mono you just have to try and run over your opponent before they run over you. Playing Firebrands turn 1 is important to remove potential threats like Ptremander, Siren, or Herald. You always want to kill these as soon as you can when OPP is tapped out, because if not, you just increase your chances of wasting your creature/removal to the
dive down. No reason to wait. When Mana is available, Lava coils are good tools to bait out the counter or
dive down, and playing the Trophy or strike behind it is usually how removing things like Djinn goes, so dont be surprised having to hold mana, and waiting.
When you side for this matchup:
-3 Hellkite
-3 Domri
-2
Rootbound Crag-4 Growth-Chamber
+3
Cindervines+2 Vraska
+2
Fiery Cannonade+2 Harpooner
+3
Deathgorge ScavengerThe Cards we removed are cards that slow us down in the matchup. We are trying to match the tempo of the blue deck as much as possible in order to get ahead and stay ahead.
Cindervines helps you by adding damage to the clock and giving you an ability to remove curious obsessions while dealing 2 damage. This enchantment attributes a negative consequence to opts, dive downs, counters, and obsession, and can remove obsessions in a pinch.
Vraska, Golgari Queen does the same thing coil does in this matchup, plus creates a lasting threat that must be dealt with if the removal ability gets dive-downed. She comes in if we are on the play in Game 2, but we will not need her if we are on the draw game 2. If we are on the play in game 3 she comes in.
Fiery Cannonade comes depending if you feel your OPP is playing allot of 1 drops, and goes wide early game. Being you can play this behind divedowns makes it good enough to play.
Harpooner is self explanatory.
Deathgore Scavenger comes in to reduce the effectiveness of Ptremander, and bring some lifegain to the table.
Sultai MidrangeIn game 1 you want to reduce the effectiveness of their mana base as much as possible. Killing
Llanowar and incubation druids. then building and maintaining a 2 or 3 creature board, while removing theirs as much as possible. This reduces the value of their Find // Finallity, while keeping the pressure. If you can keep their Krasis to 3 or 4 power, and maintain the board, you are effectively going to win.
When you side for this matchup:
-4 Growth Chamber or -4 Zhur-taa
-1 Zhur-Taa or -1 Firebrand
-1 Domri
+2 or 3 Deathgore Scavenger
+2
Vraska, Golgari Queen or +2 Drillbit
+2 Harpooner
I feel like when you are playing VS this midrange deck, playing aggressively is not the way to win. Removing less effective creatures to add more sturdy and advantagous creatures is the way to go, escpecially given you want to try to remove you OPP early game creatures with your spells and firebrands.
Deathgore Scavenger reduces the effectiveness of Find // Finallity. Maybe playing 3 would even be a better choice.
Vraska, Golgari Queen kills anysize Krasis and Growth Walker, and creates an extremely viable threat if she comes down and cleans your OPP board.
Drill Bit is not necessarily an alternative to Vraska, as you can play it along side her, but i play it INSTEAD of her in cases where OPP is playing a more dimir centric deck with hostage takers as well as carnage tyrants.
Harpooner are effective vs the early game Theifs and late game Krasis.
Esper ControlGame 1 VS more esper decks comes down to luck in my mind. Either they have it all, or they miss 1 and effectively end up taking 13 damage from a 1/1. Lightning strikes are played when your OPP is tapped out to gain the most value, and you play every card in your hand, and every top deck you get to maintain a board.
When Side boarding:
-4 Growth Chamber
-2
Lava Coil-1 Domri
-1 Assassin Trophy
+2
Drill Bit+4
Cindervines+2
Vraska Golgari QueenGrowth chamber present the slowest / least value of all creatures in the deck to me and lava coils are mostly useless. You have lightning strikes for the suprise Theif of Insanity
Drill Bit force counterspells, and remove Lyras, chromiums, and other weird creatures esper plays. This opens your OPP's hand as well allowing you to play around spells effectively forcing your OPP into plays.
Cindervines punish drawing, countering, and killing. This kills azcantas as well.
Vraska, Golgari Queen is for killing azcantas, Dovin, and Kaya , as well as presenting an alternate win con. Sometimes this can be the touch.
Azorius AggroMostly just monowhite with life gain and bounce spells from what ive seen. They can also play black for Thief. Game 1 usually looks like you trying to pace your hand while hoping 5/10 of your OPP cards end up being lands so you can build a board with them. Go big with your creatures if you start to fall behind. Once you hit the flying creatures you can effectively win from there.
Side boarding VS this deck:
-3 Assassin trophy
-1 Domri
+2 Vraska
+2 Firey Cannonade
I have seen the least of this deck, and my win % is pretty solid in matchups vs this deck IRL and online, so i tend to just change my removal and be more reactive game 2.
Vraska comes down to kill and maybe eat 2-10 damage to remove that 1 loyalty. Shes effective at killing benalish marshals and legion landings.
Firey Cannonade is our only board wipe, and clears the board when OPP taps out to play loxodon.
Temur
Reclamation / Gates
Game 1 VS this deck you have to play allot of haste creatures to get damage in. They are drawing and playing lands, so dont expect any counter spells until game 2. You want to hold your trophy for turn 4
reclamation, but be warned this can enable a turn 5 Niv-Mizzet. Sometimes, if you have control of the board, just keep going face and dont worry about
reclamation.
When Siding this matchup:
-4
Growth Chamber Guardian-2
Lava Coil-1 Domri
-1
Fanatical Firebrand+2
Drill Bit+4
Cindervines+2
Vraska Golgari QueenThe lack of creatures and the amount of removal OPP has renders
Lava coil and Growth Chamber in effective in this matchup.
Your OPP has no effective way of preventing
Drill Bit, so playing it can be devastating turn 2 or turn 3 for OPP.
Cindervines punishes this deck for doing what it does, removes
reclamation, can kill
gate colossus, and kill azcantas.
Vraska Golgari Queen adds an alternative win con, and removes Azcantas
Gruul Stompys / MidGame 1 relies on you being able to hold the board and find opportunities to push 20 damage. Understand OPP most likely is playing
shock and we are playing firebrands, so try to minimize the value they gain from these early game. Always go for the +1/+1 counter on the creature with riot, this will put most of your creatures out of range of OPP removal. Since we have 3 trophys, we have a slight advantage when it comes to removal.
What to side for this matchup:
-2 or 3 Firebrand
-1 or 2 Domri
+2
Drill Bit+2
Vraska Golgari QueenWhen it comes to this matchup, theres not much that needs to be changed. You can spare the firebrands because you only need them to kill pelt collectors early game and Phoenix eggs in the late.
Drill Bit here can end up not doing much, but sometimes it gives you a little breathing room. Its best played to remove
siege-gang commander, Phoenix, Carnage Tyrants, and Hellkites.
Vraska is played in the matchup to remove hard to hit creatures like chainwhirler and Spellbreaker. She doubles as a
shock and
lightning strike target once you get the value from her.
Izzet Drakes/PheonixGame 1 is about trying to run over your OPP with creatures. Save your lava coils for Crackling Drakes, or if possible, pheonix. Expect Niv-Mizzet Turn 6, so save a trophy if you can. There will be turns where you have to play
lava coil to bait the
dive down, and play the trophy behind it. Depending on the list, you may want to mulll to get removal in your hand in order to remove a turn 2 electromancer.
When siding for this matchup:
-1
Rootbound Crag-4
Fanatical Firebrand-3 Domri
-1 Hellkite
+2
Kraul Harpooner+4
Cindervines+3 Deathgore Scavenger
The deck is looking to try and reduce
dead draws in the matchup. The firebrands do nothing unless they touch a ptremander if your OPP is playing them. Domri will pass up your removal, and we want as much of that as we can get.
Kraul Harpooners are self explanitory
Playing deathgore scavenger reduces the effectiveness of ptremander and
enigma drake, increasing the chance your harpooner can survive fighting one.
Cindervines punishes the deck for dumping cards in the yard to pump the drakes and ptremander
NexusGame 1 is hard to know that your OPP is playing nexus at all until it happens. These decks come in the form of
Bant, Simic, Esper, and Jeskai, so its best to haste all creatures that resolve, and dont pass turn to avoid creatures being countered. OPP has to be very lucky for his spells to completely line up with yours every turn, and by turn 3 you could be resolving 2 creatures a turn.
What to Side:
-3 Domri
-3 Rekindling Pheonix
-2
Lava Coil+4
Cindervines+2
Drill Bit+2
Vraska, Golgari QueenDomri, Rekindling Pheonix, and
lava coil are all vapid cards that have no outright usefulness in this matchup. Domri is arguably useful, but in order to bring more useful cards into the deck from the sideboard, these can go.
Cindervines punishes nexus for pulling off multiple turns. They will effectivly kill themselves if these are not dealt with. When in danger of destruction, these will pummel Azcanta and
Reclamation. Your OPP playing a Jeskai build will have more enchantment targets, resulting in the ability to pull off more damage with these.
Drill Bit is useful even at 3 cmc. Delaying nexus by removing combo pieces such as
reclamation, Teferi, and even shuffling a nexus back into the deck may set you on the path to victory.
Vraska comes in to remove azcantas, and provide an alternate win con in 5 turns if left alone. She also can remove Kaya and Dovin that are seeing play.
Rakdos / MarduGame 1 in this matchup is fairly
simple: Make a bunch of bigger creatures and destroy their key damage creatures like Chainwhirler and Judith. This match up tends to be about going wide and swinging big with judith to shore up damage when creatures are blocked, and when value trades are taken chainwhirler comes down. Watching out for these two can make the difference in the matchup. If OPP is playing white, you can expect a
Heroic Reinforcements.
What to Side:
-3 Domri
-1
Rootbound Crag-1
Fanatical Firebrand+2
Fiery Cannonade+2
Vraska, Golgari Queen+3 Deathgore Scavenger
There are not allot of cards you want to see removed from the deck, but domri, when playing on the draw, comes down to fill my hand, but does not effect the board to protect my life total. Domri might just get ignored and by OPP extending the board out of our control, he could lose us the game.
Fiery Cannonade helps with the big swings if you can see it coming. Letting OPP take control of the board with a ton of tiny guys, or to fall victim to this card, might just end the game.
Vraska provides life and an extra source of removal for Judith. I do not expect Vraska to become a win con in this matchup, so every 3rd turn, if she still exists, she should be removing a creature from OPP board.
Deathgore scavenger comes down to gain 2 life, and if left alone, can
negate OPP efforts to burst you down before you take control of the board. This is a creature heavy matchup, so they will have many targets.
Selesnya / White WeenieGame 1 this version of WW is a toss up in the fact that they could have a large board, and drop a march on you out of nowhere, and you lose the game. Remove as many creatures as possible to prevent a massive march, and biuld a resiliant board. The Pheonix and Hellkites will be the best way to win the game, and with trophys in hand, there is a ton of counter play that could result by removing conclaves and bindings.
What to side:
-3 Domri
-2
Rootbound Crag-1 Hellkite
+2
Vraska, Golgari Queen+2
Drill Bit+2
Fiery CannonadeThere is never a time where giving OPP an
opportunity to expand out of control is good, and Domri often presents that
opportunity when played in this matchup. We can play with less lands, and 1 less hellkite.
Vraska kills key creatures like benalish marshall, and various other creatures in the matchup. Having an additional kill spell is great.
Fiery cannonade is for playing after March of multitudes. I would not reccomend playing it before unless OPP presents lethal.
Drill Bit is for removing March and Loxodon. All other targets are mediocre to bad.
RDWThis can be an easy matchup, or a hopeless matchup. OPP can beat you with little to no interaction with your creatures, and in order to win you have to press the creature advantage as hard as possible. Remove Electrostatic fields and guttersnipes as soon as possible. All riot creatures should be given haste to make them better targets for removal, thus saving your life total from damage.
Risk factor does a really good job of putting Red back in the game if they have it, so think really hard before you take damage or give OPP cards.
What to Side:
-3 Hellkite
-2
Overgrown Tomb Or
Rootbound Crag-3 Domri
+3 Deathgore Scavenger
and+1 or 2
Vraska Golgari Queen or
Drill bit+3 or 4
Cindervines or+2
Vraska, Golgari Queen or
Drill bit+2
Fiery Cannonade+1
CindervinesRemoving the top of your curve makes your deck more on par tempo wise with red. This makes your deck overall CMC .25 less and give you an ability to remove some lands. Choosing a
shock land over the check lands is preference, but i want to remove some unneeded damage if there is not real need for the land in general.
Deathgore Scavenger eats Risk factors and can turn Ghitu into 1 atk pwr creatures. They also
heal us and are exceptional targets for OPP removal. Some times you can look at this card as healing you for 4 or 5 life points the turn it comes down, if its removed immediately. This card can
turn the tide in games VS RDW
Vraska golgari queen adds more ways to gain life, and can come down to kill immediately. She touches almost every creature RDW plays, and is a target OPP must take care of, saving your life total from at least a
shock or an attack from 1+ creatures; maybe even generating a value trade.
Drill Bit would be played to remove frenzy or unplayable lightning spells. This card is more relevant in the frenzy matchup, as it has a precise target.
Fiery Cannonade is played in the creature heavy version that plays spewer, ghitu, steamkin, pyromancer, and warboss. This can
devastate OPP if they have no cards in hand and are topdecking.
Cindervines is less relevant in the creature heavy version of RDW, but it never hurts to be able to punish OPP for playing red spells. This card does splendid VS the Exp. Frenzy version with less creatures.
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