TES Infernal Tutoring #44

Nathan Golia

This is a tough spot. I’m a little concerned that we have this [[Underground Sea]] in play and a [[Polluted Delta]] in hand with two lands on top of our deck. It feels like a minor sequencing error that could prove costly. We are, however, in our upkeep and can use [[Wishclaw Talisman]], which will allow us to clear the top of our deck and get a better card than the lands on top. It’s going to be sticky to resolve anything, so we have a choice: grab one of our six protection spells and hope to draw one of our nine business cards, or vice versa.

We are too tight on mana to cast any business card here with protection, and hope to go off this turn, besides [[Echo of Eons]]. (We can technically [[Burning Wish]] for it for extra storm, but that seems unnecessarily cute.) With three mana left over after the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] activation (using [[Chrome Mox]] as that retains access to the most colors), we are even able to use a cantrip to redraw to our protection. Two counterspells kills us, but the more we let them draw the likelier they are to find that anyway. On top of that, our protection is still good against them activating [[Wishclaw Talisman]] on their turn if our [[Echo of Eons]] is subpar.

Josh Hughes

Playing against Sneak & Show is rough because each turn that we pass brings the opponent one step closer to winning out of nowhere. While the temptation is there to go off, I think I would wait patiently for either a protection card or another action spell. I would play my fetch land to shuffle the other land on top of my deck.

Bryant Cook

There are two options here:

1. Search for [[Echo of Eons]], take your draw step, and then hope to draw into [[Veil of Summer]]/[[Defense Grid]] (technically, a cantrip into one of these could work).
2. Cast [[Ad Nauseam]].

You have to weigh the odds of [[Echo of Eons]] resolving in the first place (through standard countermagic, but also [[Pyroblast]]), your odds of drawing protection, and then the odds of success of winning if you don’t draw protection and then [[Echo of Eons]] resolves. The issue here is if the first two-thirds happen, but the third doesn’t, your combo opponent is going to have a search from [[Wishclaw Talisman]] which can be extremely dangerous.

You could cast [[Ad Nauseam]] in the upkeep, but if you do this, you’re weak to a [[Daze]]. I’d probably make the land drop. We don’t have the context of the opening hand, but part of me wonders if [[Mox Opal]] was active before the [[Brainstorm]] and if we could’ve shuffled away the dead draws. Oh well.

The [[Echo of Eons]] line has too many variables to hit in my opinion. I’d rather go for the [[Ad Nauseam]] — I would only need to get lucky once rather than three times.

AJ Kerrigan

There a lot of ways we can go with this game. Normally, I would say that trying to play around countermagic in a situation like this is a losing strategy. Trying to take it slow and set up a [[Defense Grid]] just leads to us potentially losing to countermagic anyway while also failing to find action or them being too fast as ways to lose. I think we just have to use [[Wishclaw Talisman]] in our upkeep, and respond by sacrificing [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] to find and cast [[Ad Nauseam]]. Just don’t forget to tap [[Mox Opal]] first! I don’t think we really need this [[Polluted Delta]], so I’d rather have a fresh draw step after the [[Ad Nauseam]] in case things go south.

Alex Poling

I would play the land and then use [[Wishclaw Talisman]] to search for [[Echo of Eons]]. I don’t think they have a [[Force of Will]] because they most certainly would have countered the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] last turn. Once the [[Echo of Eons]] is in my hand, I would sacrifice [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] for and then cast [[Echo of Eons]] using Flashback. I think we could have done this on turn one, so I would have done it the previous turn.

Alex McKinley

Sneak & Show is a deck that does not play [[Force of Negation]]. This means that they only have about a 45 percent chance of having a [[Force of Will]]. Given that the next couple of draw steps are blind and the opponent has a full seven cards in hand with the ability to sculpt or just kill us, I believe that it is best to just jam this turn. By playing the land, [[Ad Nauseam]] can resolve through [[Daze]]. I think I would wait in most situations where I had the option to cantrip to look for a piece of protection.

Landon Sworts

My gut tells me that our opponent kept a hand that is trying to race us. If we wait around to assemble a protection piece, we might just be handing our opponent a combo window. Personally, I would just go for an [[Ad Nauseam]] line now. I think they would have countered [[Wishclaw Talisman]] last turn if they were able to. I might be wary of a [[Spell Pierce]] so it’s not the worst idea to keep that in mind and play our land out to play around that possibility if it presents itself.

Daniel Lee

Our opponent isn’t pressuring us, so we don’t need to put the pedal to the metal here. I’ll draw a land, then play the [[Polluted Delta]] to set up a live draw for next turn.

Theo Andresier

We are in quite a sticky state. Knowing that we have a land on top that we will draw I am tempted to crack the [[Wishclaw Talisman]] in my upkeep (with mana from the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and [[Mox Opal]]) to fetch the [[Ad Nauseam]] and cast that. The chances of our opponent having a [[Force of Will]]/[[Mindbreak Trap]] are relatively high (them having kept a seven-card hand), but we only lose to a [[Force of Will]] or [[Spell Pierce]], and I love to live on the wild side! Next turn, our opponent could combo us so time really isn’t on our side!

Nathan Golia

This actually seems pretty straightforward. I don’t think we kept this hand to play around [[Mindbreak Trap]]. [[Lotus Petal]] into [[Dark Ritual]], then [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] into [[Echo of Eons]] leaving floating seems correct. If we aren’t hit with the [[Mindbreak Trap]], we have the ability to use multiple cantrips to sculpt our new hand.

Josh Hughes

While there is an argument for waiting a turn and playing out our artifacts to play around [[Mindbreak Trap]], I would go for the [[Echo of Eons]] line. The opponent could have [[Force of Vigor]] or a [[Sphere of Resistance]] which would be equally devastating.

Bryant Cook

Honestly, the decision has been made by this point — we’re in our main phase. If you didn’t want to jam on the first turn, you would’ve needed to mulligan. This is an easy: [[Lotus Petal]], [[Dark Ritual]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] (discard hand to add ), and then Flashback [[Echo of Eons]]. This sequencing does play around [[Force of Vigor]], if that means anything.

AJ Kerrigan

We really aren’t getting anywhere by waiting around. I think we pretty clearly need to cast [[Lotus Petal]] into [[Dark Ritual]], and then cast [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] in order to cast [[Echo of Eons]] leaving floating. There is a chance the right play is to just [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] into [[Echo of Eons]] to get it to resolve through [[Mindbreak Trap]], but they aren’t incredibly likely to have it. That makes our post-[[Echo of Eons]] so much worse on average.

Alex Poling

I would go for the combo this turn. If they have [[Mindbreak Trap]] then it is what it is. I would cast [[Lotus Petal]], [[Dark Ritual]], and [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and immediately sacrifice it for . This would put the [[Echo of Eons]] in the graveyard to flash it back. Waiting a turn opens this hand to losing to more cards than trying to go for it this turn.

Alex McKinley

The number of hands that a Lands play can keep that do something quickly have about two different options: A [[Mindbreak Trap]] or a turn one [[Sphere of Resistance]]. If we guess wrong, then this game ends pretty much on the spot. Technically, [[Chain of Vapor]] is an answer to [[Sphere of Resistance]], but there are no initial mana sources besides [[Lotus Petal]]. Therefore, I believe it is correct to go all in on the [[Echo of Eons]]. We could just twist away their hand by just casting the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], but that is generally underwhelming to me. I think I would accept losing to [[Mindbreak Trap]] here. To play around [[Force of Vigor]], I would sequence [[Lotus Petal]], [[Dark Ritual]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], [[Echo of Eons]], floating .

Landon Sworts

They might have a [[Mindbreak Trap]], but I think that’s a risk I’m willing to take. Produce as much mana as we can, bin our [[Echo of Eons]] via [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and flash it back. Spending the entire game underneath [[Sphere of Resistance]] is not the game I want to play.

Daniel Lee

I actually don’t love this hand because of how awkward the mana is. Our most profitable line is to go [[Lotus Petal]], [[Dark Ritual]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], (sacrifice [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] to add ), then Flashback [[Echo of Eons]] with (or ) floating and four Storm count. If you’re putting your opponent on having mulliganed into [[Mindbreak Trap]], then you can skip the [[Lotus Petal]] and [[Dark Ritual]] to be safe. I really don’t like that line, though, because that’s saying you should have mulliganed this hand regardless.

Theo Andresier

I am really worried about the mulligan to five cards, but this hand is too explosive to pass up on. I am very tempted to playing out the [[Lotus Petal]] and [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] in that order and cast the [[Dark Ritual]] off of the [[Lotus Petal]]. I’d then crack the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and cast the [[Echo of Eons]] off of the three blue mana created. If we do not take the fast route, we lose to a [[Sphere of Resistance]] or any other permanent-based hate and I’d prefer to spin the wheel to try and win this turn.

Nathan Golia

Well, as much as I generally loathe the one-sided planeswalker designs, [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] here actually helps narrow our options. Because with her in play, a number of cards in our deck are blanks, including all our cantrips, [[Echo of Eons]], and [[Peer into the Abyss]]. We also did not board in a way to remove her from the battlefield (however, [[Grapeshot]] is an option). [[Mindbreak Trap]] is also constraining us here, because it cannot be stopped by [[Veil of Summer]]. (Boy, we wanted that [[Defense Grid]]. Guess that [[Veil of Summer]] came a turn too late!)

The best chance to win now, in my view, is to fetch a [[Swamp]], play the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], cast both copies of [[Dark Ritual]], and play [[Ad Nauseam]] with [[Veil of Summer]] backup. If our opponent uses a counter on [[Ad Nauseam]] here, we can play [[Veil of Summer]], hold priority, and crack the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]. This play loses to [[Mindbreak Trap]] or two counters. Our opponent has six cards that are unknown to us but has used one [[Force of Will]]. A cursory glance at recorded Legacy decks playing [[Lay Claim]] reveals that there are two [[Force of Negation]] in the deck, meaning we should bet that five free counterspells remain, plus however many copies of [[Mindbreak Trap]] are in the deck (The lists I found didn’t have any, for what it’s worth). We also can probably assume that the three cards at the bottom of the opponent’s deck are not “Forces” of any kind. I am not a math guy, so I can’t say for certain what the percentage chance is that our opponent’s seven cards include [[Mindbreak Trap]] and [[Force of Will]] or [[Force of Negation]] (with [[Standstill]] representing the blue card), especially since we have no idea how many copies of [[Mindbreak Trap]] actually exist. It’s probably slightly easier to figure out that they need two of five remaining [[Force of Will]] and [[Force of Negation]], plus a second blue card, but that is also way above my head.

What we do know as a rule of thumb, from the “before times” when [[Force of Negation]] did not exist, is that in an opening hand of seven cards, the chance that a player will have one of four [[Force of Will]] and a blue card is approximately 40 percent. Given that our opponent is drawing to more free counterspells from a smaller pool of cards, it’s safe to assume that they are more than 50 percent likely to have the combination of cards that beat us.

If we can get our second [[Defense Grid]] into play, our opponent can only play one counterspell on the following turn. I think the safest play is to fetch [[Swamp]] with [[Bloodstained Mire]] and cast [[Dark Ritual]]. If they are savvy and counter it, take our “Hymn to [[Dark Ritual]]” and pass. If it resolves, use the mana to activate [[Wishclaw Talisman]], find the second [[Defense Grid]], and put it on the stack. If our opponent attempts to counter, we can use the [[Lotus Petal]] to cast [[Veil of Summer]]. If our opponent has [[Mindbreak Trap]] or the second counter, we are still in trouble, but we will have forced them to expend resources in a way that still preserves a [[Dark Ritual]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], [[Ad Nauseam]], and [[Burning Wish]] in our hand.

The upside — a resolved [[Defense Grid]] — means that they can’t cast anything on their turn and hope to interact with us (absent something like [[Deafening Silence]]), we will have drawn another card off the [[Veil of Summer]], and we are well set up to play “draw-go” for a while and hopefully get some cards that aren’t blanked by [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] (or a good [[Grapeshot]] line). The downside is that they will have the [[Wishclaw Talisman]], which they can use to find yet another free counter or other piece of interaction, a [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] interaction, and potentially a [[Standstill]] unless it was needed to feed a [[Force of Will]] or [[Force of Negation]]. But that’s Magic. “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.” as Captain Picard says.

Josh Hughes

I would start by fetching for a [[Swamp]] and then attempt to cast both copies of [[Dark Ritual]]. I would then play out my [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and cast [[Ad Nauseam]]. If the opponent has two counterspells, I can play one [[Veil of Summer]] with [[Lotus Petal]], and then if needed, crack [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] to activate [[Wishclaw Talisman]] for the second [[Veil of Summer]].

Bryant Cook

I mean, this is just [[Ad Nauseam]] with double [[Veil of Summer]] backup. Opponent would need at least three copies of [[Force of Will]]/[[Force of Negation]] along with the blue cards here to stop us. Sick ‘bragz’ hand. Search up the basic [[Swamp]], [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] (this de-incentivizes countering [[Dark Ritual]]), [[Dark Ritual]], [[Dark Ritual]], and [[Ad Nauseam]]. At this point, you have the [[Veil of Summer]] in hand as well as using [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and [[Wishclaw Talisman]] for another copy.

AJ Kerrigan

The real issue in this game is that [[Veil of Summer]] doesn’t stop Mindbreak Trap. If we use [[Wishclaw Talisman]], we give our opponent an easy answer to [[Empty the Warrens]]. I don’t really see a path that lets us get through [[Mindbreak Trap]] though. If we try to take it slow and not win this turn, we’d be giving them a [[Wishclaw Talisman]] which can be problematic for us. I want to start by using [[Bloodstained Mire]] to find [[Swamp]] and casting both copies of [[Dark Ritual]]. From there, we play [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and cast [[Ad Nauseam]]. If they try to [[Force of Will]] it, we can cast [[Veil of Summer]]. If they followup with another counterspell that isn’t [[Mindbreak Trap]], we use [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] and [[Wishclaw Talisman]] to find another [[Veil of Summer]]. If they use [[Mindbreak Trap]], we let that happen, with a plan of trying to rebuild in a longer game. If they use [[Mindbreak Trap]] straight away on the [[Ad Nauseam]] instead of a [[Force of Will]], then we even get to save our [[Lotus Petal]] and [[Veil of Summer]].

Alex Poling

I would lead off by sacrificing [[Bloodstained Mire]] for [[Taiga]] and then casting [[Veil of Summer]]. If this resolves, then it’s an easy decision to cast both copies of [[Dark Ritual]] and [[Ad Nauseam]]. If it gets countered then the decision gets harder. To go for it anyway and hope they don’t have a second counter or pass the turn and hope there’s a better opportunity in a future turn. I think either way I am going to go for [[Ad Nauseam]] this turn. I don’t see how waiting additional turns favors us over the opponent. They are going to draw a card and get another [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] activation.

Alex McKinley

This feels like the window. The next chance we could have would be after our opponent has seen eight or so cards and drawn five between [[Narset, Parter of Veils]], [[Standstill]], and their draw step. The opponent also does not have any sort of [[Spell Pierce]] or [[Counterspell]]. We also have double [[Veil of Summer]] back up so if the opponent has three [[Force of Will]] effects, so be it. I would start by casting [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], then both copies of [[Dark Ritual]] and then [[Ad Nauseam]]. I would cast [[Veil of Summer]] as appropriate to how the opponent responds.

Landon Sworts

Wow. What a cool deck! The opponent seems to have navigated the game well up to this point — let’s see what else they have. Let’s retrieve our [[Swamp]], play out [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]], start by casting [[Dark Ritual]]s and see if we can get the opponent to respond to any spell that we chain into [[Ad Nauseam]]. If they do, we have [[Veil of Summer]] ready to go. They may have seven cards in hand but they will need two free counter spells to beat our hand — I say bring it on.

Daniel Lee

This feels like a pretty easy win (unless they have [[Mindbreak Trap]]), since [[Ad Nauseam]] gets around [[Narset, Parter of Veils]]’ effect. Fetch a black source with [[Bloodstained Mire]], use it to cast two [[Dark Ritual]]s then [[Ad Nauseam]], leaving the [[Lotus Petal]] for [[Veil of Summer]]. Our opponent is likely to run away with this game if we pass the turn just because we’re scared of [[Mindbreak Trap]].

Theo Andresier

We are in a relatively strong position here and unless they have three counterspells we are great! I would start by fetching for a [[Badlands]] and playing out the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]]. I would cast the pair of [[Dark Ritual]] and then the [[Ad Nauseam]] (this is where I expect the counter-war to start). With the [[Lotus Petal]] and the [[Lion’s Eye Diamond]] plus [[Wishclaw Talisman]] together, we could get a second [[Veil of Summer]] and so our [[Ad Nauseam]] is likely to resolve. Next turn they are casting [[Standstill]] and finding a new card with [[Narset, Parter of Veils]] which will make a counter war more biased against us. Once again — aggressive action.