Keruga Enigmatic Sideboard Guide

Matchup Approach: Two copies of Temporary Lockdown in game one and four in game two means you will not be hurting for sweepers. Bonecrusher Giant Rending Volley and Touch the Spirit Realm both provide some cleanup as well – with all three, crucially, hitting Brutal Catharand getting back your ETB creature that’s underneath it. 

Of course, there are some Humans hands that will apply too much pressure too early, and the deck can recover from a single Temporary Lockdown in a turn or two, but if you can get the game to go until turn five it’s usually not difficult to stabilize and spiral the game out of the Humans player’s reach.

Angels

Matchup Feel: Even

Matchup Approach: If you sit across from an Angels player, you will wish you had the fourth Rending Volley and bigger sweepers in your sideboard. Temporary Lockdown only hits a couple angels (Giada and Bishop of WIngs being the ones that matter), plus the angel tokens Resplendent Angel makes. Leyline Binding and Touch the Spirit Realm are your only ways to deal with an angel pumped up by Righteous Valkyrie. Your answers just don’t line up well here.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Elesh Norn shuts down most of their gameplan and allows you to grab two angels with Leyline Binding or Touch the Spirit Realm. If you can get there, Titan of Industry and Atraxa will put in work, as could a well-timed Clever Impersonator or Agent of Treachery.

Green Devotion

Matchup Feel: Difficult, but even.

Matchup Approach: Elf, Elf, Wolfwillow Haven starts into your turn-three Temporary Lockdown will never not feel good, and usually will slow down the Green player enough for you to set up your engine and start out-valuing them.

Elesh Norn will shut down a fair amount of their gameplan, and Leyline Binding is strong here. Watch out for Haywire Mite and Boseiju blowouts, though you can’t play around either too efficiently. 

Failure//Comply is here for Storm the Festival, Karn, the Great Creator or anything else that might be a nuisance. There are cases where you’ll want to counter something like a Karn or a Kiora with Failure, but follow it up next turn with Comply naming a different card, like a Storm the Festival you know they can flashback next turn.

Izzet Phoenix

Matchup Feel: Slightly Unfavored – Leyline of the Void dependent.

Matchup Approach: Don’t necessarily mulligan to three for Leyline of the Void, but keeping a not-so-great seven with a Leyline of the Void in it isn’t the worst idea.

Mystical Disputes are here to win counter wars, and there will be several of those. Winning the first counter war over a Fires of Invention or Enigmatic Incarnation will usually feel like a major turning point in the game, and will very quickly put you on track to grind them out.

Don’t be afraid to throw out a Leyline Binding with no targets on turn three if they tap out for some reason and you have an Enigmatic in hand, as a turn four Titan of Industry will stop them dead in their tracks. 

Creativity

Matchup Feel: Even

Matchup Approach: Creativity is trying to cheat out big things, and Leyline Binding is a clean way to deal with every version of big thing that the various Creativity decks build around. Elesh Norn shuts down the Gearhulk and Atraxa versions of the deck, and as long as you hold onto your Leyline Bindings for the Worldspine Wurm, you will be in good shape. 

Lotus Field Combo

Matchup Feel: Heavily Unfavored.

Matchup Approach: You just have no interaction and a slow clock in game one. It’s a very, very tough matchup. In game two, Failure//Comply is quite good, and three copies of Mystical Dispute will go a long way. Of course, Archon of Emeriais backbreaking if you can get it down in time, but there will be a lot of times when all of those things combined just aren’t enough.

Prioritize Bonecrusher Giantfor clock and all the countermagic you can find.

Abzan Greasefang

Matchup Feel: Even.

Matchup Approach: Have Leyline of the Void in your opening hand and hold up Rending Volley for Greasefang, Okiba Boss. Through the rest of the game, hold your removal for Esika’s Chariot and it should be simple to outvalue the Greasefang player. If a Greasefang gets through, emergency channeling a Touch the Spirit Realm is always an option.

The Mirror

Matchup Approach: Land Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines before your opponent does. Timing your Leyline Bindings is crucial here, as mirror games tend to be favored for the player who plays the last Leyline Binding – not the first. Of course, once you have an Elesh Norn down, you have effectively won the Leyline Binding war, as two triggers is more than zero triggers.

If your opponent beats you to an Elesh Norn, you’re in trouble. You’ll really just have to wait until you have the mana to channel Touch the Spirit Realm targeting it on their end step to give yourself a turn without an opposing Elesh Norn down. Kenrith, the Returned King is really the only card that functions without enter-the-battlefield capability, so prioritize bringing him in. If both players have an Elesh Norn down, it then becomes safe to grab Atraxa (even without the value of the ETB trigger) and try to beat your opponent down with her.

Gruul Vehicles

No changes.

Matchup feel: Slightly favored.

Matchup Approach: This feels like it should be a difficult matchup, but this never seems to be the case. Their most explosive starts will get you down to a horrifyingly low life total, but stabilizing is never as difficult as it would seem.

Titan of Industry is premium here, as Gruul can’t deal with the shield counter unfairly. Temporary Lockdown is good exactly on turn three, and then pretty dead – so we’re leaving the two in our mainboard in and not bringing in any more. It might be tempting to bring them in to deal with the millions of cat tokens Esika’s Chariot is making, but if that’s happening, you have likely already lost.

Gruul has several ways to destroy your Leyline Bindings, so be careful putting an Esika’s Chariot under one of them.

Rakdos Sacrifice

Matchup feel: Favored.

Matchup Approach: Leyline of the Void is great to slow down their early game, and this is one of those matchups where, in the later game, you can just sacrifice it to Enigmatic Incarnation without worrying too much about them taking advantage of that and roaring back in once it’s gone (like Phoenix could). As long as you grab an Elesh Norn off of it, their Cat triggers will not trigger anyway, so you have still shut off about half of their graveyard utility.

Temporary Lockdown is game-ending into a wide board of ovens, Treasures, cats, Blood Tokens and Goblin Shamans, and Rakdos can’t deal with it the way Humans or Mono-Green can. 

Spirits

Matchup Feel: Slightly unfavored, but better here than the Yorion version.

Matchup Approach: In game one, we’re hoping three copies of Stomp and two copies of Temporary Lockdown are enough to clear up their board or draw out countermagic to allow us to get our engine going. A resolved Atraxa will almost always close out the game, and Titan of Industry functions similarly. Elesh Norn can shut down their gameplan rather well – preventing Rattlechains, Skyclave Apparition, Spell Queller ETBs and Mausoleum Wanderer triggers. 

In game two, we’re cutting all four Fires of Invention for a couple of reasons: one being that it will never resolve, and two being that we don’t want to prevent ourselves from casting Mystical Dispute and Rending Volley on their turn. Temporary Lockdown is important here, as Mausoleum Wanderer can’t counter it and it hits nearly everything.

Boros Convoke

Matchup Feel: Draw-dependent; favored.

Matchup Approach: The four total copies of Temporary Lockdown in the 75 is largely a nod to the initial rise of this deck in the Pioneer metagame. Just one cast will heavily swing the game in your favor, and it will take too long for the Convoke player to build back up again. A strong Convoke player will not commit enough to the board to get completely blown out by a single Lockdown, but you’ll be too far ahead for any reasonable comeback. 

Don’t be hesitant to Stomp or Rending Volley a 1/1 or use a Lockdown into a board to take just a couple of tokens. Treat those tokens like mana elves, because they essentially are. Remove them early and often. Casting Leyline Binding on a 1/1 token might feel bad, but we’re leaving them in because Incarnating them into Atraxa will close the game out quickly.