My last post talked about how I am currently considering taking out the Telemin Performaces in Vengevine Mythic’s sideboard due to many factors. Mono Red is a more popular deck and Kor Firewalker is a more effective card against them than Telemin Performance is against Polymorph. But before doing anything drastic, I decided to ask our resident Polymorph expert, Vincent Thibeaullt, how he felt the Mythic-Polymorph match-up is supposed to turn out. He most recently won a PTQ with it.
This is what Vincent has to say and I think it is quite the contrarian view on how Mythic should sideboard against Polymorph:
For the match-up vs Polymorph, the problem is that Conscription is often a turn faster than Poly, so it is really hard to win unless they get a draw that is not too explosive. However, the deck does not have much disruption maindeck (usually 0 Path to Exiles and 0 Negates) so the Polymorph deck can cast cast their namesake spell without worrying too much. Jace is the Mythic player’s only out. Most Conscription decks play 3 Jaces so if you are the Poly player, you have to be careful about that, maybe playing your own Jace beforehand, if you have time, or keeping a counter to deal with it if they cast it next turn.
After side, well, it depends what they do. If they enter 4 Negates, a few O-Rings and a few Path to Exiles, the match-up, contrary to what people think, gets better for the Poly player according to my playtesting. It seems counter-intuitive, but it is true. The reason is that entering all these «answers» cards will in fact slow down the Conscription deck and allow Polymorph enough time to go off. If the player piloting the Conscription deck sticks to the plan of killing the player really fast, they are more likely to win than if they dilute the aggressiveness of their deck. So between two pros that know what they are doing, the match-ups would be 50-50 or 45-55 with Polymorph being the slight underdog.
Wescoe wrote another article on the deck and managed to make Day 2 at GP Washington. I was scared of Cunning Sparkmages, so I decided to play Aggro Spread instead. I finished 6-3, punting a game siding badly but otherwise played tight. Wescoe stuck with Poly and added Pithing Needle maindeck in order to be able to deal with Sparkmages or a Jace after resolving Polymorph. I may try it out.
What do you guys think? Leave us some comments below!
On a side note, if you somehow managed to miss my video on Vengevine Mythic, here it is again:
http://www.screencast.com/t/N2I4M2RiMGM
Vincent at GP Washington
Until next time,
KYT
Kar Yung Tom (KYT) is the Digital Content Manager for Face to Face Games. He oversees the F2FTour.com and Magic F2F websites. He is also the lead host of the First Strike podcast.