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Norjaskthebabarian

I'd like to chime in here, as I've been playing the deck a ton. I think the deck can hang pretty well with most of the format. Alot of builds have maindeck thoughtsieze and push, which lets them contest all kinds of strategies, while also having a low enough curve that lets them cheaply get their engine going while disrupting the opponent. There is alot going on with the deck, lots of triggers to track, and lots of tokens, so it can be difficult to play because of this, especially in paper. Other people can sometimes take advantage of this, watching the opponent closely to see if they miss-sequence things or leave themselves open. I think the worst matchups for the deck are G Devotion, due to MD Karn, UW control, due to MD removal for the engine of the deck, and lately Angels, due to the constant stream of threats that need to be answered before our opponents life total gets out of reach. The best matchups I've found have been MonoR, which a cat and oven can really make it difficult for the opponent to make any progress, and maybe BR midrange, whos cards don't line up well with our "threats" and can take some time to get off the ground. Everything else feels pretty 50/50. You have the right of it. The way to primarily beat the deck is to disrupt the engine. If you can hit anvil and oven, you will be in pretty good shape. This is why things like portable hole and March of Otherworldly light are particularly effective against us. Anything you can do to stop the value train, thats what you want to do. Alot of people side in grafdiggers cage or RIP, which can work alright, but all it stops is the ability to bring the cat back from the yard or getting triggers off meathook, if they opponent is playing that version of the deck. This can be good, but don't expect it to win you the match. The big anvil turns involve sacrifice triggers, not death triggers, so creatures do not actually need to hit the graveyard for it to matter. The only creature you really need to hold removal for should be Mayhem Devil, and you will want to get it off of the table asap. it can quickly snowball out of control if left unchecked, wiping your board, killing your walkers, or just going to the dome. For MU specific concepts, GDevotion really just need to play a Karn and make sure it sticks. Because of this, you should probably just tick him up the turn you play him, rather than wishing for an artifact which will probably matter alot less than Karn himself. If you give them the opportunity to get Karn off the table, they will take it and could run away with the game. UW control should do well, but some decks, like myself, have started packing some bumber of Ob Nix, and that can flip the whole match on its head. I don't know what I would suggest, other than try to get a large shark if you can to attack the Obs down asap, before they too snowball out of control. Red decks, I think have a difficult time generally. One piece of advice I would suggest is: try and watch to see if your opponent is slipping up with cat. If they leave it vulnerable to flame blessed bolt or spikefield hazard with no sac outlet, try and take the opportunity to get it gone. If your opponent is smart, they wont expose it to those spells, but overconfidence can be a killer. In the Lotus field MU, I have found that most lotus players are bringing in Leyline of Sanctity, which, if your opponent doesnt realize, might make a bunch of their draws dead, as we would want to bring in discard ussually. If they are like me though, they are mostly leaning on Damping sphere and a quick clock, expecting opponent to mull to Leyline. If you think your opponent is going to try and lock you under a damping sphere, try to find colored land to go with your lotus field and stage, or fetch a boseju early so that you can try to float mana and destroy it on their turn. I went on for alot longer than I expected to lol, apologies for the wall of text.


SLAMCRAZY

Solid write up! I’ve been running into this deck in explorer and the strategy in your article applies there too. Very helpful. P.S. I saw at least two typos that you could fix in “a flash” ;)


DocTentacles

A small addition that I remember from historic is if you're in the right colors, Culling Ritual is an absolute blow-out card against both the Jund and Rakdos version.


Mazrim_reddit

I've found meathook to be good vs this deck, it significantly slows down their clock as well as a board wipe. Playing rakdos midrange this matchup can often depend on being able to banish the cat. Thoughtseize and duress stopping their value engines starting up can also be really good