@blindtherapy said in [MH1] Sword of Sinew and Steel:

@thewhitedragon69 if it's equipped already it stays equipped, and you'll still get the triggers until the dack player plays a creature to equip it to.

It's equipped, but the trigger owner is who control the sword. It doesn't give the ability to the creature.

The red is better than ball lightning as it's not easily removed and can get through if opponent has one big blocker. Also, combat tricks can get some pretty good value.

Seems like a better card than counterspell.

It's cancel or entrancing melody for 1 or instant speed divination. Whatever you may need at the time, you probably get (or get closer to) with it.

@serracollector said in [MH1] Force of Vigor:

So 2-3 of these in Survivals sideboard almost ensures a victory versus MUD? Chuck my extra survival EOT, destroy what ever, untap, win??

It certainly helps the matchup. Hitting 2 artifacts for free is absurd, while energy field is usually a win but not Always castable, i think this card gives a better show at winning. The only thing I'm not sure about is it's use against decks like outcome. It would be a 4 for 2 hitting 2 artifacts in response to outcome (or even before) but IDK...

I thought about this guy and the fact that it doesn't have to connect is huge. It makes it easier for him to connect and in a grixis shell, you can kill opp's creature, play this, then attack flashing back the 1 mana kill spell and still leave some 1 or 2 power on opp's board because it doesn't matter. It can be good in a Legacy grixis style deck with tons of 1cmc discard, removal and cantrip. It may be better at Legacy, but it's harder to remove in vintage.

@shadowandlight Oh if it's just the playset lands you can play a tabernacle deck xD

I'm not sure if it doesn't play any expensive card in that deck, but I think you can play monored prison without power. And monored does have some pretty powerful plays.

@serracollector trygon is bad against PO as an artifact destroying card. I usually keep it in the deck because it's a blue card to force and maybe it can be useful in games that take longer. But in games that take longer I wouldn't survival for it, I would for Leovold.

We don't use any creature solely to that purpose, and manglehorn sounds bad, a 3 mana creature that's good against PO if you survive until there with a 3 mana spell and doesn't pitch to force. Leovold is better than it against PO and almost any other deck where we would want manglehorn. It's only worse against shops, but I don't think it would give us an advantage there. If there was no Leovold maybe we could be back playing it. But even when there was no Leovold I had cut it from my deck.

@AeonSovarius In that case you're absolutely right, extra stony silences certainly improve that matchup and even if it's a good one, it's good to improve as much as you can if it's 4/7 of the people you will be facing. And yeah, I didn't mention MBT because it's not for artifacts but I run it on the SB for that matchup as well.

@aeonsovarius That sometimes is the best option. When you have counters it's usually better to try that IF you have a hand that can go off. G2 and G3 I don't value it that highly, because our opponent is spending their resources to try to stop the combo, so our midrange gameplan can be enough. G1 obviously we should kinda try to combo at all costs (unless fighting blue decks, then it's usually it or protect the king leovold).

But still, I like VV games 2 and 3. Against decks with dack I side out usually 2 hollow ones, because it can be good if we are behind and they don't land a dack but it's risky. When I'm ahead I just cycle hollow ones even when I'm able to play it. And against decks like xerox with cage, getting a 4/3 haste for 4 when they are trying to hate out your combo can be devastating. Specially if they play cage instead of leyline, then you can later on just hit them in the air.

Games 2 and 3 against hates trying to combo usually comes down to: try to survival into trygon (if the game is going to take long), and protect it. If we can ok, just try to shatter the hate and go off. Otherwise, just cast our stuff. And honestly, that's what I love about the bug version, it's well prepared to fight hateful decks.

And unless you are fighting decks where you have to have hate yourself (dredge, oath, storm), I don't oversideboard. Against PO I was siding in only 4 cards if I recall correctly.

PS.: Hurkyl's have been insane against shops when I get to draw it. Lately my matchups against PO have been about 4 dudes in each side staring at each other and the robots getting +1/+1 counters each turn that passed by. There was a game where energy flux wasn't gonna be enough, but luckily I drew hurkyl's instead. And as said before it's still a kind of a counterspell for PO, so I think it was good. Still running 1 stony (now my hate for artifacts is 1 hurkyl's, 2 flux, 1 stony).

I don't like rod that much. Feels clunky and sometimes just bad if they have some mana denial strategy and you have mox(en). I've never got to really play hurkyl's against shops yet, not that I remember. But lately there has been lots of games where we stare at each other with some board, or even just bounce their artifacts and revokers eot and activate survival in my turn ftw.

That's still kind of only theory. I haven't played against shops and drawn into it yet but I guess I will soon.

@wfain Yeah I know, I usually board it in as an outcome counterspell and I think that's usually worth it. But I just don't think that gives a reasonable edge in the game. I mean, you have to hold 2 mana up for something that may not even be the counterspell we need (they often times also have recall, dig, etc).

But you're right, it's surely to be considered. Hurkyl vs rod is like saying do you prefer getting a better % against shops or PO? If you rather have better tools against shops go with hurkyl, otherwise go with null rod.