Відео

Whatss upppp my man, welcome back shadow!!!

Thanks, Mike! You’re one of the reasons why shadow isn’t dead 🙌🏻

Gang gang

On splash colors: the main reason I am skeptical about splashing white for Pest control is the lack of other good tools. How is white better to, for example, red which gives you Pyroclasm improving the same matchup (energy) and giving access, at the same time, to Looting to enhance the reanimate plan (sure, its been a bit less good than ppl thought, but still a card to consider), Meltdowns, the good old bolt/heat if they were still needed, etc

i've been seen UB Frog players ditch Scour for consider for similar reasons to the early UR murktide days when MH2 released. Thoughts on it? I've never hated scour but card selection is always a drug

Shadow in this solitude economy is crazy. Still watching tho 🙏

Return of the King

Wow, a shadow league? And grixis on top of that? Sign me up!!

ehi mike, im tryin crusader 2x in sideboard, its really good in this meta for boros and bw blink..they only have 3 fatal push to kill it and it's unearthable..also block and kills the new ketramose incoming

I’ve really loved these videos, thank you for the effort you made to improve our performances with the frog.

If they go for an early oracle you can push while the trigger is on the stack and then surgical while the trigger is still on the stack and they can’t cast it again since the original trigger is still on the stack

We absolutely don't bring Wrath in a matchup where Vial is so crucial! Thoughtseize is actually great because it's a proactive way to make sure Overlord stays, or to know if you can blink something under Consign, or just to remove that t2 Frog that is - by far - the worst problem Orzhov has in the matchup. We usually shave on Ephemerate, Phantoms and such.

I also suggest to avoid bringing in Spellbombs. If you had stuff like Surgical, you'd absolutely want it, but Spellbomb isn't remotely impactful enough. And, yeah, Trespasser is BY FAR the best creature in the matchup.

I love the confidence in the titles of the other matchup videos and this one pretty much says "sorry for your loss".

What to know if you’re bringing dimir frog: You’re gonna lose

How do you feel about feed the cycle instead of long goodbye? I think this card feels great given that it can even swing an eldrazi matchup, still kill murktides , and you can even use its forage effect to buff a murktide on your field.

Gang gang

On the topic of Esper vs. Dimir and there not being enough data to make a stats based conclusion, it is situations like this that we have to rely on theorycrafting to estimate a conclusion. The danger with theorycrafting is that one wrong assumption can derail the founddation and validity of said theorycrafting. With all that being said, in theory, there is no denying that a deck with access to MD pest controls has an advantage over the deck that does not have access if we do not take into account mana issues that arise from introducing a third color. Pest Control offers an effect that is so unique in the MD that the only card comparable are Dimir's SB EE(s). So because Pest Control makes the easiest comparison to EE, let's ask the question of whether or not Dimir brings in the EE (if they are in the SB) vs. Boros and Breach. The answer to that question is yes, ofc Dimir brings in the EE(s) since their main function is to answer either go wide strategies and/or cheap artifacts. Most Dimir lists only have room in the SB for 1 EE, but if hypothetically, there happened to be 3 EEs in the SB, would you bring all 3 in vs. Boros and Breach? The answer again is an easy yes. EE is a selective board wipe in those matchups where it can kill zero drops (tokens and some of the artifacts) or 1 drops with the selection being made on which CMC will yield the bigger dividends (and in a pinch, EE can be used at x=2 but this will never happen vs. Breach and would only happen vs. a flipped Ajani and/or Bombardment). If given the choice that EE can always hit zeros AND ones, you snap accept even if it gives up optionality (but in the case of Dimir, the only 1 drop that it plays is Nihil Spellbomb which can simply be cycled before EE pops with any semblance of competent sequencing). If I am theorycrafting to determine if having access to Pest Control improves the Boros and Breach matchups, why has the main focus of my thought process been on EE and not Pest Control? The reason is that, in specifically the Boros and Breach matchups, Pest Control is essentially a super EE; ie it does everything you would want EE to do but with the added bonus of hitting zeros AND ones while being cheaper than EE. An EE for zero costs the same as Pest Control while an EE for one costs 1 more mana than Pest Control. In other decks, the optionality of hitting either zero or one is a welcome feature of EE; but in this specific deck vs these two specific matchups, hitting both zeros and ones is almost* strictly better (*the almost is there for the potential corner case where weird card choices make the optionality of EE something that we want). The reason that an EE-like effect is wanted by Dimir and Esper is that in both matchups, there are recurring play patterns in both matchups that require the need of a CMC-targeted board wipe. Vs. Boros, this occurs when they start to "combo" off with Ocelot Pride. This often happens even without Ocelot Pride ever entering the Red Zone, either through Guide of Souls triggers or Phlage triggers. After analyzing my data vs Boros, I've identified that the bigger late game threat is Ocelot Pride rather than Phlage. I've lost more to the Ocelot "combo" than to Phlage. This may seem counter-intuitive but my theory as to why this is the case is: (1) Phlage often is a looming threat that gives you several turns to set up an answer while Ocelot Pride is top-decked or slow-rolled and that gives a very small window to answer the Pride before it starts to snowball into its combo. (2) There are other aspects of our deck that has already designed a plan that makes Phlage harder to escape. This comes in the form of GY hate and attacking the mana base in a way that prevents the opponent from making RRWW. So in the case that Pride has already snowballed, we need an EE effect to answer that snowball. EE answers either the symptom (tokens) or the cause (Pride often paired with Guide of Souls), and only in SB games. Pest Control answers both the symptom and the cause, and does so in G1. The beauty of an EE effect is that often times it will act as a one-sided Wrath. Vs. Breach, because of how much disruption we have (relative to the rest of the format), the path of least resistance to a game win is often times making constructs with Urza's Saga. Saga is an un-counterable and un-discardable card advantage engine that takes a lot of resources to deal with. And if Breach ever has a double Saga draw, it is near impossible to answer all of the value without an EE effect, and our best chance to win is to fly over the constructs for lethal. But the racing plan is much easier to say than achieve, especially if the Saga(s) are played in the early game (Turn 2 for the 1st and T3-4 for the 2nd). Our deck is not typically able to kill that early, and what maeks it harder is that Saga also either draws Opp an extra card OR in the worst case scenario for a race situation, the Opp has Aether Spellbomb to search up with Saga, which essentially ends the race in their favor. Aether Spellbomb sets us back a ton either by bouncing a large Frog, which is the only way to race with Frog, or bouncing an Oculus, which often results in an Oculus that is not re-castable. Again the remedy to this recurring play pattern is an EE effect that can clear the tokens while leaving our board intact. Pest Control has the added bonus of often times setting back their other parallel paths to victory by hitting the majority of their permanents (Moxen, both sides of Tamiyo, and any clue tokens). Pest Control often can slow down their Breach combo win, and is a clean answer to another one of their wincons: an early flipped Tamiyo. So now that I've (hopefully) logic'd into the conclusions that (1) EE is good in these matchups and (2) Pest Control is a super EE in these matchups, it is foregone conclusion that Esper (in theory) has a better Boros/Breach matchup than Dimir. So there is no denying that having Pest Control is an advantage in both matchups, the only potential explanation as to why Esper doesn't have a better MU spread than Dimir would be if the advantage garnered via Pest Control was outweighed by the disadvantage from playing a third color. Because of how good mana is in Modern and how light the splash is, I am of the philosophy that the downgrade in mana is mostly negligible. The white splash is facilited by adding two fetchable UW lands. It is important that we build the deck out in a way that white remains a light splash. In most Esper lists, the only MD white card is 2-3x Pest Control (which also has the fail-safe of being cycled for 2), and the only white cards in the SB (if any) are some number of Stony Silence (which again adds some % points to the Breach matchup). In a typical Esper deck, the sources of colored mana are 19 blue sources, 17 black sources, and 13 white sources, which is a better colored mana situation than the typical Dimir deck with colored sources of 17 blue and 15 black (taken from Cntrlfreak's latest Dimir list). We are able to have a better colored mana situation by playing less mono-colored lands: cutting basic island from 2 to 1 and cutting Sink into Stupor from 2-3x in Dimir to 0-1x in Esper.

Debates are easy to fix. My choices good, your choices bad. Easy.

great content. i for one prefer the voice overs.

How do you feel about esper?

I was a little cloudy on whether you bring in Spellbombs for Phlage post-SB. You bring in Trespasser which I agree with, but I think all of the Spellbombs should come in (as long as they do not have RIP or Leyline). I look at Spellbomb as a 2 mana cycler that makes it that much harder for Opp to escape Phlage, either by sniping Phlage(s) or taxing their GY.

Great content! I think you did an admirable job of succintly summarizing the Thoughtseize vs. Counterspell debate that we had in the discord server. I just wanted to add one thing about counterspell and one thing about thoughteseize. The Boros MU is (imo) the prime example of Counterspell losing efficacy; instead of trading up for mana, often it is break-even or even losing out on mana (the same way TS does) which is a hard pill to swallow when faced with the oppurtunity cost of passing with mana open. After SB, I've found that Thoughtseize has a better chance of breaking up their gameplan due to the fact that they either cut creatures or removal for their SB cards so there is a higher chance of hitting one of their few threats or answers.

Hiii, the current list posted in the description of the video doesnt match the showed on the video and also the one your playing on the league doesn’t match the one in the beginning of the video, why is that?

I’m still on sultai. Really digging Grist. Testing a single snapcaster in the main as well. Has done well so far. Keep on keepin’ on.

If I didn’t watch you for your amazing gameplay and analysis , I would still watch for these fire thumbnails.

I really appreciate your content, especially the recent RC prep matchup guides. Serious question though- as someone competing at RC portland and who is thinking about playing Frog, is UB Frog + Oculus a viable option? I feel like I get run over by WB blink and RG Eldrazi. What is your opinion on playing Frog at the RC? thanks

Ah yis,back to gameplay!!

Gang gang!

Awesome content, appreciate this sort of stuff alot

thanks for addressing my question in the beginning of the video!

These deep dives are so clutch for my meta and preparing in between weekends.🎉 I always recommend your channel as soon as someone plays a Poluted Delta near me ;-)

I'm here since the days Mike loathed Frog for Tamiyo, just saying

As an Eldrazi player i really appreciate this video 😅

hi mike, how do you side against bw taxes? it's really represented in the last challenges

Doing these types of break downs for free is so sick. Least I can do is like and comment for engagement. Keep up the great work man and thank you!

Why not bring in the consigns to counter the Thassa's Oracle trigger?

Why 3 sink into stupor?

It's Froggin' time!

Amazing work. Such great delivery, meaningful, and well explained.

Thanks a lot with the content, it is very informative! :) One nitpick: while I agree that subtlety might not be the best card ever, I think it is unfair to characterise it as paying two cards to unsummon something. This because since your opponent has to put the card on the top of his library and draw it again, subtlety still put him down a card. Moreso, let's say that you subtlety his turn 1. Will he really put his guide on top of his library? Intuitively he could have many better topdeck.

Hey man, thanks again for this.

That is my goat cntrlfreak right there 🐐🐐

doing the great work. thank you!

is murktide gone from the oculus builds? in favor of thoughtseize?

Thanks for the video. How do you feel about esper for the pest control splash? Mana base is a little more painful but sweeping go wide strats is such a powerful effect in the main

FANATICAL FROG-BRAND

Definitely not a Boros player watching this to get an edge 👀👀👀👀

No murk? Why?

and the mirror??? XD