GWb Astral Slide + PTQ Butler Tournament Report

DESTRUCTOR · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 113

nice report, i hope you write an article next time.

why 61 cards? what would you cut to make it 60 cards deck?
is there any morningtide card that you would consider for the deck?

i tested a little and does really well against domain zoo, gaea's migth get there and Tarmoburn...i didnt loss any games, testing 5 against each (3 main + 2 SB) i'll teste againt dredge next level blue, affinnity and doran, if keeps being so strong as it did against aggro decks this would be my deck for ptq (rigth now i am bettewen doran, tarmoburn and dredge)

if you can please post here a matchup review.

Eldar · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 351 Location: Rochester

I wasn't sure about the 61 cards myself my friend gave me the list and I just played it. If I had to cut something it would probably be a land of some sort. I know I talked with the other 1-2 people playing slide and I believe they said they were only playing 26 lands.

As for cards from morningtide the only one that may be able to take a slot would be cream of the crop. That card is just nuts; however I don't anticipate the list will change anyway although impulsing every turn is never bad.

The matchup vs next level blue is all about landing slide. Once you do that you just use the all in strategy and let ur little guys do their stuff. If he manages to get ruins/explosives you have to hope he screws up or if its game 2-3 you have to extirpate one of them or needle one of them. Just play it smart, don't use your living wishes unless you need them.

The matchup against dredge is pretty up in the air. They either have the nuts or they don't. If they don't you can normally stabilize before they do anything horribly relevant. Slide kinda wrecks them hardcore and you have living wish to get teeg and jailer as well. After board you get teegs and extirpates to help slow them down. A timely extirpate and you should be able to pull this one out. However if they have the nuts and you don't have black mana and extirpate early you could be in trouble.

The matchup vs affinity is really simple. Just let them do their thing until it threatens you enough. Once they do that just use slide/wrath to take them out of the game. Also living wish for kataki is a total beating despite what most affinity players say. If it hits turn 3 it is still very hard for them to win.

As for the matchup vs doran it is a very easy matchup. Just simply keep a hand that can stall out until you can wrath or land slide. If they have vindicate this may provide a bit of problems however you should be able to stall the game out quick enough for this to be irrelevant. Your trump card here is living wish for mystic enforcer. It is literally impossible for them to deal with game 1 and in games 2-3 you should be able to either stall out for the 1-0-1 win or take it 2-0 if they don't have their only answer out of the board pernicious deed to deal with enforcer. Even then you always have witness to bring him back. Another interesting note. You don't always have to cycle decree. I mentioned how I just stalled long enough to make 3 angels in my first match and fly over for the win. It is basically just throwing their own strategy back at them. They can't win unless profane fears them for the win. Well you have other ways to win and you can always fly over with a very small clock if worst comes to worst.

I honestly believe the absolute worst deck choice at the moment is doran. You will play mirror at least once or twice and the deck is just so dependent on draws. Aside from that it has the classic rock philosophy. It really has no bad matchups and almost no good matchups. Everything is really winnable, but there are no guarantees. It really depends on your matchups. I played tarmoburn at Rocky River and ended up 3-0 after 3 rounds and knew that if I won again I would get into the bracket of near perfect matchups. Tarmoburn is all about your first few rounds. If you can win those you can normally get into the good control matchups and you should be able to just win those. In round 4 I faced mirror and he drew goyfs, I didn't he ended up 6-0-1 and first after the swiss and he honestly didn't seem like the best player he just got the matchups you want. Dredge is really always a good choice. The chance of just winning turn 2 is amazing and you have around a 75% chance to win game 1 against any deck in the format, but post board your chances are slim. Normally only about 1-3 dredge decks squeak into the top 15 or so and are all dependent on luck. If you are lucky and can play well then go for it.

Any other questions feel free to hit me up on AIM or PM.

ChuckNorris · Joined: 13 Dec 2005 Posts: 108

Eldar · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 351 Location: Rochester

Ahhh ic that explains everything.

dickburns88 · Joined: 03 Oct 2007 Posts: 37

MilanG[GER] · Joined: 10 May 2006 Posts: 58

i started on building a slide aswell

a few thoughts i got:

wish are unessesary in the aggro matchups and useless in the control ones in combo they aren't bad g1, but they are slow

and what are the widespread combodecks?
ideal = they run fire/ice and wish for removal and we still got no such brutal clock that this could be a relevant tempoadvantage
dredge = 2 slow
celphi = 2 slow

i run 4 leylines 4 extractions in the sb for those matchups

and 3 plow under in the main which aren't just helpfull against locking out combo once they got a bad start but are also highly usefull against aggro and control to never let them find into the game once their first assault has been stopped

decree and eternal dragon seem to be really slow

i run flametounge kavus and 1 wall of roots instead

i felt kavus being far better than shriekmaw in the current format

and the redsplash also allows you to run boil in the sb which you surprisingly increase your matchup against nlb drasticly

would like to hear your reply

Eldar · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 351 Location: Rochester

1) Wish has worked well for me so far and seems to be fine in testing vs ideal because it slows them down dramatically unless they have a wish. Against dredge sure it is slow game 1 however a good dredge player will find it infinitely harder to play around extirpate than leyline. Also unless dredge wins turn 2 game 2 you can normally win with wish. Same almost for ceph

2) Eternal dragon is just a late game evasion man that gets in the clutch if you need to fly over. Same for decree not to mention it cycles for lots of guys against decks without wrath, damn, or pyro and did I mention it cycles? Astral slide cycling seems good. It was never a bad card for me to have.

3) I used shriekmaw one time the entire time when i wished for it against NLB when I had stomphowler out already against NLB and needed to kill a goyf. Kavu seems completely irrelevant to me and even kills itself on an empty board.

4) I like the prospect of boil at first glance; however it seems completely horrible after a bit of thought and here is why. NLB players than know what they are doing don't pop their fetch lands unless they absolutely need to so you at most will kill 2-3 islands which I guess is alright but you can still lose very easily unless you draw multiples. It would be fine super late game but by then they probably already have you locked out.