well there is no lifegain so the only good sideboard card would be useless

True. But Ramp blanks half your deck by never having any targets for your spells - until it's too late. Believe me, I am all over this topic, btw. I've been working on cracking the tempo deck for over 2 weeks. I think I've come really close to nailing it - as some sort of Bant midrange concept (note: it's almost not even tempo at that point - and the next set of testing might just remove most of the tempo plays). In the long run, we need keyword exile, not keyword return. Unfortunately :-/

Btw, if they had a sideboard, things might be different.

I probably should have put up more of an argument weeks ago, but I don't think sideboarding would have been a problem as far as providing content goes. When we all know each other's decks, we can prepare a sideboarded copy of the deck beforehand and get to the next game quick. Sometimes I would change my plan on the fly which would take a little longer, but if we're trying to make the content more interesting, then I would really like to watch a streamer make their sideboard decisions and explain them. As an occasional paper player, sideboarding is the aspect of the game that is the most artful and difficult to master, imo.

I think Hakeem playing thopters was a huge surprise...especially since they are absolutely horrid now. And Barney, not playing RDW or BarneyRed...that was the biggest surprise to me. I think he'd have cleaned up nicely with that.

While I agree with you, Danno, we are in Duels, not paper.

Since we cannot sideboard currently in Duels, having a tourney that you can sideboard in is kind of silly, in regards to Duels content. I am a fan of Sideboarding, loved it while I played paper as it brought a whole new set of thinking around a problem, but without it in Duels there is no reason to do it in a tourney (not that I am in it, but my 2 cents).

Yeah, same. Although, I 100% disagree that thopters is a bad choice. I think it's extremely dangerous to assume that deck can't beat a lot of the field - I'd be more worried about it than most. In fact, every deck I'm considering must have a game plan to beat thopters.

Regarding Barney - I'm really sad he didn't do it. I almost sent him an RDW deck that I think would have trounced this competition, I just don't want it out there quite yet.

no Barney Lizard

My issue with Thopters is that I've played them 28 times since B4Z dropped...and I am 28-0 against them. It is the only deck I am perfect against (Elves is 19-1, thanks randomname!) I haven't had any issue beating Thopters, the closest I've come to losing is when I got down to 7 life. That is pretty much why I have such disdain for the deck.

So Round 1 is:

Thopters vs Jund
Gruul Ramp vs Dimir Control
Azorius Tempo vs Sultai Control
Esper Control vs Esper Control (I assume Splinter is taking Hail's spot)
Thopters vs Jeskai Tokens
Esper control vs Jund
Selesnya Control vs Naya
Jund control vs Conflux Control


The decklists are much different than I expected. I love seeing all of the control decks. It gives me hope

PS:
Am I the only one that fears the thopters?

the esper mirror interests me

Thopters was a meta choice for me, I expected an environment with heavy ramp and control. I have lots of evasion and I can recover from sweepers with all the token production. I don't see why anyone would be down on them right now.

Well actually, I do. Did you see Barney's list?

expected: ramp and control

got: ramp and control

Splinter19cc is HA1LtoTHEking, one is my name on here, the other is my gamertag. Just wanted to clear that up so nobody thought I was the only ass-bag who was excited to enter this thing then bowed out...carry on folks!

I knew Barney was on Thopters and Mega was on 5-color for a fact. I've played them on Xbox One before with Mono R.

I've got a permission heavy Simic Tempo deck that's been quite successful; I've been working on it over the last week or so. I suspect that it would do very well against this field.

The Origins version of tempo, with Frost Lynx, Void Mage, etc, isn't a good fit now because so many decks don't much care if you bounce their creatures. Dropping those and replacing them with counters has been much more effective in the current meta. Additionally, there usually aren't two particularly devastating targets for Ulamog's cast trigger, so that ends up being a three for one (you counter it), but you can easily play on. In fact, it's 6-0 against ramp so far, and hasn't really had much trouble shrugging off Ulamog and continuing to beat down.

I suspect that similar Simic Tempo decks would do very well against the field in this tournament. Though, oddly, one of the four losses I've had with it was to UW aggro, so maybe that deck would be a problem? Probably not, that game I kept a dodgy seven.

Also: Earlier in this thread, I totally called CGB on GR ramp. Not that I think too many were expecting otherwise, but I'm rarely right and so like to note the infrequent occasions I am.

Ouch, now that's shot's fired right there, Hakeem.

Seriously, IzzetThopters just roll over and die against me ever time I've played against them since B4Z. And they've been good lists. Ramp, 5CC, Selesnya Control are the decks I can remember I've played against them and never had an issue.

I think I'll watch the IzzetThopter matches and see what I've been missing and possibly take it for a spin on my youtube later this week. Any reason why you didn't go with Vile Aggregate, Hakeem?

I have a hard on for Esperzoa and I can't cut the other three-drops.

That's pretty much what I figured, I just wanted you to type out "hard on".

He's actually probably better overall...he flies, he is good card advantage with Vial/Thopter. He's really only bad on an empty board, and even then he's workable.

Good luck to everyone in the tourney!

Fixing it... thanks for the info.

Err... sorry about that. Elves are bad, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, etc.