Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

[morgan_coke]

An Astral Slide deck won the eighth MTGS Legacy tournament. It beat Hulk Combo, Landstill, and Elf Survival w/NO in the T8. List is below.

Astral Slide
Creatures
4x Eternal Witness
3x Knight of the Reliquary
3x Loxodon Hierarch

Planeswalkers
1x Elspeth, Knight Errant

Enchantments
3x Astral Slide

Sorceries
3x Decree of Pain
3x Life from the Loam

Artifacts
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Mox Diamond
2x Engineered Explosives

Instants
3x Expunge
3x Radiant's Judgement

Lands
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Wasteland
3x Windswept Heath
4x Tranquil Thicket
2x Secluded Steppe
2x Barren Moor
3x Ancient Tomb
2x Bayou
1x Scrubland
1x Savannah
2x Forest
1x Plains
1x Swamp

Sideboard
3x Lapse of Certainty
3x Krosan Grip
3x Extirpate
3x Ghostly Prison
3x Ethersworn Canonist

EDIT: Here is a complete list of the decks Slide beat during the tourney, going 7-0-2.

2 White Stax builds
1 Quinn the Eskimo w/Painters servant
1 Hulk Combo
1 Landstill
1 Elf Survival
1 Threshold Variant

In the tournament before this, the deck went 4-2.

[undone]

To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.

The deck above seems like it folds to any deck running tendrils or LED (ichorid) or even painters stone.

Basicaly the above looks like 43 lands, beats the heck out of everything but combo and has 4 outs on the play to combo. Might be better than 43 lands but considering that 43 lands isnt insane I wouldnt say its the nuts.

[TheLion]

Great News.

Congratulations for the success.
Keep the good work going!


To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.

The deck above seems like it folds to any deck running tendrils or LED (ichorid) or even painters stone.


Who is "they" ?
And so many other decks lose to fast combo, too. So this is really no argument not to play this deck. If it was everybody should play fast combo, then?

[phoenix33]

To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.

Interesting proof. :eyebrow:


Basicaly the above looks like 43 lands, beats the heck out of everything but combo and has 4 outs on the play to combo. Might be better than 43 lands but considering that 43 lands isnt insane I wouldnt say its the nuts.

I don't think anyone has claimed this is "the nuts". It won a set of solid matchups, much like a deck like 43 Lands or Belcher could. It's not "proof" that a community knows nothing about Legacy when one of those decks wins.

I was playing the Elf Survival deck in the final, which was obviously a rough matchup for me, but the deck seemed to play reasonably well, with Knight of the Reliquary being quite the beating.

[Aggro_zombies]

It's not "proof" that a community knows nothing about Legacy when one of those decks wins.
What he probably meant to say was, "This is the last nail in the 'they know nothing about Legacy' coffin," considering the overall quality and huge aversion to criticism of many of the MTGS posters on these boards.

That said, the deck looks like it would fold to combo, obviously, but it probably has a decent matchup against Threshold and a passable matchup against LSV-style Counterbalance (what are we calling this again? Baseruption or NLU?). I could see beating Landstill on a counter-light draw.

This deck just feels underpowered. The most broken play it has is sliding out Hierarch every turn, which isn't that spectacular unless your opponent is beating down with a singleton Goyf and doesn't have Shackles. Not only that, Slide is pretty weak outside of a narrow range of "creature-light, mid-range aggro-control deck" matchups.


EDIT: I'll echo morgan_coke on the list of matchups here. Aggro decks are actively bad for Slide because the mana denial they run bends you over backwards, and Sliding out one or two guys does jack shit to stop them. Sliding out Hierarch a lot can help slow them down a lot, but this list has main deck Decree of Pain for a reason. Still, I really don't like needing a Tomb that badly to really get into the game in a relevant time frame. I ran Wall of Roots in my Slide decks for a reason: having a fat ass and mana acceleration on one guy is really good.

Traditional Threshold would have a hard time with this deck because of the low creature density coupled with the relative dead-ness of Counterbalance. Baseruption probably has a better time because of the creature theft and main deck Grips, meaning it basically just has to keep Slide off the table to win. I can't see Landstill being a consistently positive matchup, though that's probably build-dependent. Combo is basically an auto-loss, probably even worse for this deck than for Aggro Loam.

Basically, it's an anti-Threshold deck. I would prefer Aggro Loam in that role, but this probably works too.


EDIT 2: I guess Sliding out Witness is good, but it's not very exciting when you line it up with, say, locking the opponent out of the game with a two card combo, one of which is in the format's best color. Slide-Witness is the only combo that makes the deck worthwhile, but it won't really help you if you're trying to get ahead because it's so fucking slow and disruption-prone. If you win because of it, you probably had an edge anyway. At least, that's how it's been in my experience.

[JeroenC]

This deck is obviously a "glass cannon". No discussion there. And yes, of course MTGS has a lesser Legacy community than we do- it's a general Magic board and some Legacy players stumble upon it, just as some MTGS forummers stumbled upon Legacy. However, I think it's fair to say it's not just MTGS "people" playing in this tournaments. For one, they are always announced on the Source. Secondly, I seem to recal Nihil winning one of the latest tournaments? Players like emidln and Eldariel are regulars as well.

Don't bash the community or the tournament setting because of what wins- only bash the single tournament. You're more than welcome to take a "deck with Tendrils and LED" and clean house. There's usually prices to win even, so what are you waiting for?!?
In other words: would you bash every tournament scene that gets a winner piloting 43lands at some point? I hope not, because it's a deck that wins every now and then, whether you like it or not.

[Forbiddian]

Sometimes metagame calls own. The deck might be good or bad in a vacuum, but since he didn't run into TES (ostensibly), he ended up golden.


I do find it peculiar that Death and Taxes has ~4x as many posts (1200) as any other archetype, yet it's pretty rare to see anywhere in T8.

Goblins has about 300 posts.
Then Burn, then Ichorid.

Dreadstill has only 13 posts and the overarching Ad Nauseum Tendrils only has 45 posts. "Balanced Threshold" whatever that is has 90 posts.

On TS, those numbers might be flipped.

[undone]

Originally Posted by phoenix33
It's not "proof" that a community knows nothing about Legacy when one of those decks wins.

What he probably meant to say was, "This is the last nail in the 'they know nothing about Legacy' coffin," considering the overall quality and huge aversion to criticism of many of the MTGS posters on these boards.

Pretty much what I meant.

The deck folds to almost all combo decks, it seems acutaly rough against team america and red tempo thresh as the deck appears (especialy if they draw a tomb) to be fed on non basics and big spells and the LD plan just seems like it will get there against this deck.

In short its list of good matches (Merfolk, goblins, elves, fae, some thresh varients) are common but it still seems like the deck punts away any deck that isnt the mainstream or even the control mirror, I mean come on, how terrible is slide vs humility.

The deck may be a narrow metagame deck but I thought lands already had that slot covered.

[morgan_coke]

What's with all the hatred? The thread only states that the deck performed X-well in X-tourney vs. X-decks. And the majority of the replies are actively hostile and derogatory. Are you perhaps missing something in your own life that you feel is made up for by insulting others? Do you so lack success that you must attempt to disparage that which others achieve? Undone's last post just really takes the cake for idiocy. There's so much stupidity crammed into so few words I'm not even entirely sure how to respond. So I guess I'll take it apart piece by piece.


The deck folds to almost all combo decks.
Almost all combo decks fold to t1 chalice@1, which this deck hits over 30% of the time. Add in Lapse and Canonist from the board and I'm really confused as to how it "folds". (I'll admit Lapse is fairly weak, but Canonist+Chalice are anything but) But hey, maybe that's just me being dumb and not having any idea what I'm talking about since I've never played the deck or tested it or anything. Oh wait. I have, you haven't.


In short its list of good matches (Merfolk, goblins, elves, fae, some thresh varients)

You completely don't understand the deck, how it works, or how it plays if you think that is correct. Monored Gobs with a full suite of ports/wastes is actually NOT a good matchup. Same with fishies if they run a full mana-denial suite. All, and I do mean ALL versions of thresh are prey for this deck. It was specifically designed to punish them and their low curve. Notice the "starts at three" curve + mana acceleration and chalice? This avoids counterbalance while shutting down their cantrip plan.


the deck appears (especialy if they draw a tomb) to be fed on non basics and big spells
The deck runs four basics and four mox diamonds, plus fetches and KotR. That's quite a bit more of nonbasic hate dodging than the vast majority of decks in Legacy run. It also runs life from the loam for land recursion. LD can be an effective tempo strategy vs. this deck, but only if it a) doesn't draw a knight or loam, and b) that LD is simultaneously supported by large numbers of free attacking creatures + draw (the heavy LD monocolor versions of Gobs and Merfolk)

Exactly what big spells are you talking about here? Decree of Pain? It's a three-of. Everthing else cycles for one or two, costs three, or is Loxodon Hierarch. (elspeth, e.e., and lftl also do not cost three mana) I'm not really seeing the "big spells" you're talking about. I don't really see 2 or 3 mana as "big spell" territory in a deck that can get three mana on t1 and runs 10 pieces of acceleration.

Aggro_zombies - the decks most "broken" play is the witness+slide combo, endlessly re-using the same spells. Hierarch+slide is only super great vs. burn.

Humility is not a huge threat. E.E. can hit it with a Diamond, and Elspeth actively laughs at the card in the maindeck. From the sideboard Krosan Grip rather effectively destroys it.

This deck has plenty of weaknesses. Dark Confidant, for starters, is a big one. The targeted removal suite doesn't deal well with small black creatures, and he's powerful enough to make that a real liability. Zoo/Goyfsligh is not a good matchup at all. Some builds of combo are easy, others are hard. This deck also has significant strengths. It draws more cards than any other deck barring decks that see their entire library in the course of winning (Dredge, Solidarity, etc.) draws or sees, including Landstill and Threshold. It's a control/prison deck with heavy recursion, draw, and acceleration. It has limited counters, but they are infinitely recurrable (post board) or just lock out a particular cc (maindeck). This is NOT a glass cannon. It's a complex interactive control/prison deck with its roots in Stax and the Rock, but addresses those two decks' biggest weaknesses - i.e. draw/card selection and counters. All of the removal "answers" (decree, judgement, expunge) cycle except for e.e., and it is extremely rare for that to be a dead card.

[beastman]

If your going to post a decklist on a top notch legacy website, you have to be ready to accept critisism. I don't see anybody but you "attacking" anyone else on this thread. there is simply discussion on the weaknesses that the deck clearly has. There is no reason to take what anyone else is saying personally.
The simple fact of this deck is, there are much more efficient decks that do almost the same thing as yours, that are much more competetive, aggro loam pops into mind. Nobody is saying its a bad deck, there are just better ways to do everything your deck does.

[frogboy]

I heart Slide more than probably anyone else, but I'm pretty sure that deck needs way more Swords to Plowshares and way fewer cards that cost six million mana. I'm also not sure what Knight is doing in there or why there are 3 Loams.

[Jujuhawk]

Almost all combo decks fold to t1 chalice@1, which this deck hits over 30% of the time. Add in Lapse and Canonist from the board and I'm really confused as to how it "folds".

End of turn, wipe away, etc. You put on no pressure so combo literally has infinite time to find a bounce spell or whatever.

Other than seeing that, I have nothing to say as I haven't played a game with the deck, but even then I don't care about results from MTGSalvation anyway. :\

[mujadaddy]

Exactly what big spells are you talking about here? I disagree with the people that say the deck "runs big spells" but I do think that it's VERY mana-hungry; doesn't it need ~5 mana every turn to get rolling?

Also, it looks mentally tiring to play :laugh:

[JeroenC]

Doesn't Aggro Loam need 5 mana every turn to get rolling? Yet that's not a bad deck, as far as I've noticed.

[beastman]

How does aggro loam need 5 mana?

[Aggro_zombies]

End of turn, wipe away, etc. You put on no pressure so combo literally has infinite time to find a bounce spell or whatever.

Other than seeing that, I have nothing to say as I haven't played a game with the deck, but even then I don't care about results from MTGSalvation anyway. :\
It's more nuanced than that.

TES is the worst of the combo decks for you because it's fast, consistent, and has Wish-able answers. A turn-two Chalice at one (the most likely scenario) against ANT makes things much better because most of their dig costs one mana, but they have turn-one cards like Duress that make it harder to resolve a Chalice. It also doesn't help that Ad Naseum is way outside Chalice range, and that you really need to land a Chalice at zero to put the game away. I can't see this deck applying enough pressure fast enough to prevent the ANT player from dropping a bunch of mana artifacts, a Cabal Ritual or two, an AN, and a Tendrils, or from looping Tendrils with IGG. Chalice and Canonist can help, but getting those into play on turns two and three (or one and two) won't happen often enough to make it a universally positive matchup. This is also ignoring the fact that each time you use Tomb, you add -1 to the lethal storm count.

It's really sort of irrelevant anyway; it's like arguing whether it's better to get a relatively mild case of ebola or a really bad case of Marburg. Neither of them crop up enough to really matter to you unless you're in a very specific place, and when (if) they do it'll be pretty bad regardless.

I'll agree with frogboy that Knight seems out of place here. You really can't abuse it in a deck like this, especially considering that a bunch of your lands (cycling lands) should never come into play to begin with. Also, froggy, I'm pretty sure you don't have a bigger Slide fetish than I do.

Aggro Loam works just fine on three or four mana, and pretty well on as little as two.

This deck did well through a combination of luck and the right meta. Play skill may or may not have also been a factor.

[morgan_coke]

Knight, Hierarch, and Elspeth all provide plenty of pressure. Knight in particular is like a bigger Tarmogoyf that does something useful besides turning sideways to attack. You have eight "pressure" cards, which is at least equal to what Threshold has, so I don't see how combo has all day to find an answer, especially given that the decks disruption prevents or slows down a combo decks ability to FIND an answer in the first place.

The deck is very mana hungry and it does take a lot of mental effort to maintain top game form. Lots of decisions and options. If that's not something you're interested in/good with, then this is a bad deck to play.

This doesn't do any one thing exceptionally well aside from drawing lots and lots of cards. It does a whole lot of things in the "average to good" range though.

EDIT: This is an incredibly short and abbreviated match report from the T8 match against Landstill.

Game one he had a factory and a standstill down by t2. I cycled and waited for awhile, taking damage. Killed two factorys with a cycled Decree of Pain. Used recurring wasteland to fend off Nantuko Monasteries, killed a tarmogoyf with a knight of the reliquary by cycling a land into a loam dredge that revealed more lands. The highlight of this game for me was killing KRM's last two tarmogoyfs and my own witness and elephant with a hardcast decree of pain. KRM conceded this game with 9 cards and one factory left in his library as a win condition opposed to my 13 cards and volrath's stronghold with witness and elephant in the 'yard.

Game 2 I almost got locked out by a counterbalance floating a 3cc deed. However, I managed to land an elspeth, which we then proceeded to spend the next fifteen turns fighting over. Eventually KRM had to draw the deed in order to get green mana from a fetchland to play tarmogoyf. He didn't find a brainstorm or another 3cc spell before slide and witness hit the table. this led to a very complex stack where i declared blockers on goyf with witness, cycled decree sliding witness out, KRM responded with a deed activation for 3, i cycled an expunge to slide the witness out, and KRM responded with an StP, finally offing the witness. However, this cleared all of our boards except for my elsepth. I had a Knight of the Reliquary in hand, and two turns later it was all over.

EDIT2:

A_Z has it right, combo decks with wishes are much worse than the "speed" versions as they can find answers via unchalice-able mana costs. Although post board, Canonist and Lapse help with this issue a lot. Depending on build and type of combo, this deck can have anywhere from a 30%-70% match up against it.

[mujadaddy]

The deck is very mana hungry and it does take a lot of mental effort to maintain top game form. Lots of decisions and options. If that's not something you're interested in/good with, then this is a bad deck to play.Gotcha, that was my impression. ("interested in" is more like it -- I like straightforward Magic :tongue: )

Reading the T8 match, though, what the hell was he doing g2 during the time you were waiting for Elspeth? Nothing? He was counterbalancing your stuff, but what? Were his draws useless for that long?

[undone]

Let me clerify, I dont think the deck is terrible, I think the deck is a nitch deck that is slightly outclassed by decks in the same current nitch.

If I was to make changes to this deck my first 3 would be

1)

2 MD guided light
2 SB Guided light

4 Chant SB

This gives you more outs to combo which isnt bad at all.

2)

4 Needle SB

This prevents you from randomly being wastelocked or ported out of the game. Also good vs top.

3)

4 MD swords

Not running this seems stupid it lowers problems with tons of decks including bob ichorid and other various creatures which you have few outs to (such as a teeg backed up with a stifle and a way to keep slide off the board.)

[Aggro_zombies]

Knight, Hierarch, and Elspeth all provide plenty of pressure.
Wait, what? Am I blind? I don't see her in the list.

Also, pressure is a function of both damage and threat density. The cycling cards effectively raise the threat density, but they really don't in the combo matchup because you're spending time rooting around for threats instead of actually playing them and connecting.

Knight may be big, but she requires a lot more babysitting than Tarmogoyf to get there. If you play Knight ASAP, she'll probably be a 3/3 or 4/4, so roughly comparable to Goyf. However, she's a full turn slower and really, really wants you to chain cycling lands into each other to be good - otherwise, you blow even more time using her ability to make her bigger.

Hierarch is also too slow to matter against anything but ANT. TES can consistently go off on turn two or three, which is realistically about the time Hierarch comes down. You may force them to play one to two more spells to actually kill you (depending on whether you used a Tomb or a Mox Diamond to play it), but it sure as hell won't be connecting.

Winning against combo with Eternal Witness beats is just you being a dick and/or slow playing to buy time. Similarly, bringing in Canonist doesn't improve your clock appreciably in the places where it counts.

Basically, TES is bad for you and ANT requires you to hit the right cards in time and to not have them go for a fast kill in games two and three. This ignores the fact that combo will be combo and randomly steal games from you.

This deck really, REALLY wants more mana than you're giving it, especially in terms of acceleration. 3 Tomb and 4 Mox do not feel like enough given your curve and minimum mana requirements.

EDIT: If Elspeth is in the list, that changes the math a little, but not much. If you play her on turn three and already have a guy in play, you can start using the Angelic Blessing ability to get there faster. If you don't, she's going to be glacially slow.

[That kid you all hate]

This deck will never win a real life tournament of decent size. 'Nuff Said.:smile:

[morgan_coke]

I forgot and left Elpseth out of the list. I am awful. added to list.

In the match vs. Landstill Elpseth came down on turn 3 or 4 iirc. His mana was tied up attacking with manlands and using Top. He did play two counterbalances to protect against one of them getting Gripped. He also had trouble with the attacking because I just kept making Elspeth tokens and blocking, and he couldn't attack without a factory in reserve to pump for fear of Decree. There was also some swordsing of tokens to get damage to Elspeth through to keep her from going all indestructible and stuff.

I agree Witness isn't pressure, that's why I only listed Elephants, Knights, and Hierarchs as such. Seven threats with cycling to increase density strikes me as a pretty solid number.

I only generally only use Knights ability if I need to grab Wasteland or Stronghold, otherwise I just attack with her and use fetches, moxes, and cycle lands to grow her.

Um, how much more mana should I put in here? The deck already has 24 lands and 4 moxen, plus 3 loams and 3 kotr, that's 34 mana cards, what more should I add? (you can use kotr to generate mana by tapping the land, then saccing it for another land or tomb - this is frequently how I get the mana for an early hardcast decree to answer progenitus)

Chant, Swords, and Needle are all nice, but they all also conflict massively with Chalice@1. Lapse of Certainty replaces Gilded Light as an anti-combo card. Lapseing an Infernal Tutor, Ad Naseum, or IGG is generally devastating considering the combo player will usually have spent several cards to get the mana up for it and started their storm count. Lapse has more utility in more matches than Gilded does, even if it doesn't counter Tendrils/Freeze.

I don't really feel swords is that needed in this deck anyways. Between Judgement and Expunge, the only commonly played creature in this format you can't kill is Dark Confidant. Not being able to cycle your removal away when it's unneeded also undoes one of the big advantages of this deck.

[Surging Chaos]

Shit happens. If you don't run into your bad matchups (I believe there was next to no TEPS, ANT, storm combo, or other fast combo decks in the tourney) and your opponent gets a bad draw or two (which can definately happen on MWS) then a seemingly bad deck on the surface can do well. Legacy can do that sometimes, which is why I do love the format.

On a sidenote, LftL makes Stax a very sadpanda.

[Aggro_zombies]

Um, how much more mana should I put in here? The deck already has 24 lands and 4 moxen, plus 3 loams and 3 kotr, that's 34 mana cards, what more should I add? (you can use kotr to generate mana by tapping the land, then saccing it for another land or tomb - this is frequently how I get the mana for an early hardcast decree to answer progenitus).
Let me rephrase that: you don't need more mana so much as you need more fast mana. Twiddling your thumbs until you get to three mana generally isn't a good idea - it's one of the (many) reasons why Stax sucks.

Furthermore, even when you've gotten there, you've basically got a Leyline of the Arcane Lab in play until you get to five or six mana. That really hampers you in the Landstill matchup, or any other matchup where you face significant disruption or counter opposition. Note that I'm using "disruption" loosely here: hand and graveyard disruption are obvious, but there's also time disruption and board control disruption. The latter includes things like Pernicious Deed, which require you to hold mana open for Slide-Witness or waste several turns putting your board back together. The former isn't really a category most people would consider (for starters, I made it up to help prove my point), but it refers to being on an intrinsic clock and needing to race to beat that clock - this applies pretty much exclusively to the combo matchup for this deck.

You currently have only seven cards that allow you to accelerate yourself (KoR is a special case, so I won't count it), and of those, three actively hurt you. Stax decks typically have ten to twelve - four Mox, 4 Tomb, and a variable number of City of Traitors. Even that deck doesn't always hit three mana on turn two! It doesn't bode well for you when you're running slightly more than half that number, but with a comparable curve.

There are basically three ways to generate acceleration in this deck: lower your curve, add more mana accelerators, or both. Lowering your curve into your own Chalices isn't too bright, so you'd be better off adding more mana accelerators. Tooting my own horn somewhat: I had fantastic results with Wall of Roots, but that was over a year ago now. Wall might still be good here because it stops Tarmogoyfs in the early game and powers you into bigger spells on turns three and four. "Bigger spells" isn't really an issue here since your curve is almost exclusively centered on three-drops, but being able to play multiple spells on a turn, or a spell on your turn and a spell on your opponent's, would greatly improve the deck.

Elspeth seems good here, good enough to merit more than one. Reworking your removal package to add more seems like a good plan...speaking of which, your removal spells make me sad. Yes, they cycle, but that doesn't make them any less marginally playable - hence the Swords suggestions from people. If you drop them all and add another Elspeth and four Swords, you've got one extra slot to play with - I'd consider something like Doran to improve your clock, or another Knight. Reducing the removal spell count helps alleviate some of the "Shit, I'm holding dead cards" that you seem to want to avoid, and it ups your real threat density. The only problem is that Swords doesn't play well with Chalice, but I would rather take that risk than use your current removal suite. At least I would still have Slide.

Also,

Seven threats with cycling to increase density strikes me as a pretty solid number.
Normally, this is true, but in the combo matchup the cycling spells don't help to increase your threat density. Cycling is a virtual increase in the number of threats, but when you're facing time disruption you really can't afford to eat up mana looking for your seven win conditions (only six of which are legit against combo). Combo's clock really demands that you have a real threat density, not a virtual one. Then again, I wouldn't play Slide in a meta full of combo, so you may just want to suck up the fact that combo, and especially TES, will never be an easy matchup for you. It works for Aggro Loam.

[4eak]

I've not been convinced by the decklist itself, and I've not played against this particular version, but I do know from playing against him before that Morgan Coke is an exceptional pilot of slide in general.





peace,
4eak

[mercenarybdu]

Proof that nothing is impossible in this format if you put the time and resources into it.

Another point of proof that you don't need Goyf in every build that runs green.

[CaptShetz]

I do find it peculiar that Death and Taxes has ~4x as many posts (1200) as any other archetype, yet it's pretty rare to see anywhere in T8.


MTGS underwent a "reset" of most of its Legacy forum to update the discussion and original posts/primers. Most threads were archived. D&T was one of the few that was up to date and relevant on the archetype, so it was saved from archival.


I don't see anybody but you "attacking" anyone else on this thread.

Sure, except from the very first reply to the OP:


To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.

Which was followed up by general hate on the deck, since it doesn't adhere to popular strategies.

What is more accurate:


Proof that nothing is impossible in this format if you put the time and resources into it.

Another point of proof that you don't need Goyf in every build that runs green.

Nor do you need StP is every deck that runs white. Damnation isn't always better than Decree of Pain. Jeez guys, wake up. It took first in a 60 man tournament. It is an amazing look at what is possible in Legacy.

[Aggro_zombies]

Nor do you need StP is every deck that runs white. Damnation isn't always better than Decree of Pain. Jeez guys, wake up. It took first in a 60 man tournament. It is an amazing look at what is possible in Legacy.
Getting defensive much?

Swords is the best targeted removal spell ever printed. You usually need a good reason not to run it. In this deck, Chalice at one is a pretty compelling reason, but Swords is so ridiculous that it is still worth considering. It is certainly infinitely better than either of the targeted removal spells he has right now.

The deck is pretty obviously a metagame foil. It may have taken first in a large tournament, but had the meta or the matchups been slightly different, it might not have. While some of the "this sux lol" is unwarranted, there are some pretty big weaknesses in the deck that would keep it from breaking out at, say, a Grand Prix.

Also, Decree of Pain is better than Damnation in this deck, but probably only this deck. -2/-2 normally isn't enough in this format, given the number of Tarmogoyfs running around. Just about any card can be decent in some situations, but keep in mind that normally Damnation is better than Decree of Pain, Swords is ridiculous, and Tarmogoyf is fucking huge. These things are widely accepted as fact because they are almost always true across a wide variety of decks and matchups. Sometimes being unique simply for the sake of uniqueness is a bad play.

That said, congrats to m_c on your win. After all that work I sank into Slide a year ago, I would very much like to see an all-around strong Slide deck in the format.

[CaptShetz]

Getting defensive much?

Swords is the best targeted removal spell ever printed. You usually need a good reason not to run it. In this deck, Chalice at one is a pretty compelling reason, but Swords is so ridiculous that it is still worth considering. It is certainly infinitely better than either of the targeted removal spells he has right now.

The deck is pretty obviously a metagame foil. It may have taken first in a large tournament, but had the meta or the matchups been slightly different, it might not have. While some of the "this sux lol" is unwarranted, there are some pretty big weaknesses in the deck that would keep it from breaking out at, say, a Grand Prix.

Also, Decree of Pain is better than Damnation in this deck, but probably only this deck. -2/-2 normally isn't enough in this format, given the number of Tarmogoyfs running around. Just about any card can be decent in some situations, but keep in mind that normally Damnation is better than Decree of Pain, Swords is ridiculous, and Tarmogoyf is fucking huge. These things are widely accepted as fact because they are almost always true across a wide variety of decks and matchups. Sometimes being unique simply for the sake of uniqueness is a bad play.

That said, congrats to m_c on your win. After all that work I sank into Slide a year ago, I would very much like to see an all-around strong Slide deck in the format.

:facepalm:

That was my entire point.

[Jujuhawk]

This deck will never win a real life tournament of decent size. 'Nuff Said.:smile:

I hope somebody beats you in the last round of your next legacy tournament to knock you out of top 8 with this deck. Never say never ;).

I just think this deck has no chance against combo, and should probably just punt the matchup in favor of beating everything else. It seems senseless to dedicate a lot of hate to the combo matchup when it's really just awful. Like, if you play duress and seize, your chalices get worse, etcetc. I think if this deck can just smoke aggro and be fine against control, it could have some ammount of success.

I personally just don't see the advantage of me playing it over my RGB Aggro Loam. I feel like Crusher >>>> knight.

[morgan_coke]

The Damnation/Goyf/Swords argument is pretty well encapsulated by AZ above. I agree that in a vacuum, those cards are superior to what this deck runs. But not in this deck, and this is why.

In this deck Decree is better than Damnation due to cycling and instantspeedyness and the ability to actually hardcast the thing if necessary.

Knight of the Reliquary is better than 'Goyf here because the drawback of costing one more mana is irrelevant for this decks' purposes, KotR is generally bigger than 'Goyf in this deck, and the deck doesn't have room for "just" a beater. KotR has a secondary ability that is usually ignored but occasionally incredibly useful and is also highly synergistic with the rest of the deck.

Expunge/Radiant's Judgement are better than StP in this deck due to cycling and not costing one mana. I've tried one mana spells both main and sideboard. Sideboard, Ghostly Prison does what this deck wants better than StP does. Maindeck, one mana spells are just insanely bad and conflicting with Chalice, which is far more important than StP.

[TheLion]

I tested both KotR and Kitchen Finks in that slot, but in the end, I found Kitchen Finks improves more matchups (Aggro), due to its lifegain and persist and Slide synergy. Knight was only "win more" most of the times and it's more important to survive the first 4 turns, since the lategame is strong anyway.
It's ability was never really relevant.
Just my opinion.

[frogboy]

In this deck Decree is better than Damnation due to cycling

Costing five and not killing everything is loose. I don't care if you draw a card or not; wouldn't it be embarrassing to have all these sweet expensive cards in your hand and then get killed by random animals because your sweeper costs eight mana if you actually need to kill something? Especially since it costs double black.

Finks is awesome. Your Witnesses don't look that impressive. Pretty sure Slide and Loam need to be fours, you need more lands, and more of your lands should cycle. Does Spark Spray kill anything in this format other than Lackey?

KOTR being a clock against combo is lol.

[Aggro_zombies]

Costing five and not killing everything is loose. I don't care if you draw a card or not; wouldn't it be embarrassing to have all these sweet expensive cards in your hand and then get killed by random animals because your sweeper costs eight mana if you actually need to kill something? Especially since it costs double black.

Finks is awesome. Your Witnesses don't look that impressive. Pretty sure Slide and Loam need to be fours, you need more lands, and more of your lands should cycle. Does Spark Spray kill anything in this format other than Lackey?

KOTR being a clock against combo is lol.
Spark Spray also kills Bob.

Finks is much more awesome when you're running discard, specifically Therapy, in which case Finks rock pretty hardcore. Otherwise, shelling out an additional mana for a 4/4 and more life is probably better, if only because Hierarch hits harder. Also, Hierarch plays better with Tomb.

I agree that the removal package here is poorly designed, but Slide tends to be primary removal against decks like Threshold where there are only a few (one to two) big guys in play at a time. In aggro matchups, Decree is better if there aren't many lords in play, since you'll be able to RFG one with Slide and butcher the rest of the team. If there are lords in play, you're royally fucked anyway, so it's a moot point. Hierarch is better than Finks here, btw.

The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to think that DoP is cute but probably worse than Damnation regardless of this deck's intent.

By the time I stopped working on Slide, lots of testing had made my philosophy towards Slide mirror my philosophy towards Survival: in a well-built Survival deck, Survival is almost like an accessory. Survival decks tend to be steaming piles of shitcakes if they rely too heavily on their namesake card (the classic "What happens if you don't get Survival into play?"), so a lot of builds ended up having a primary aggressive strategy with Survival there to fetch silver bullet control cards if things went wrong. Similarly, Slide decks that focus primarily on Slide tend to be bad because the Astral Slide engine, while powerful, is simply too slow and too delicate to compete in this format. My testing showed that the best plan was to have a core aggressive strategy and use Slide as a secondary control element if the game started to go long, making Slide in that deck function more as removal than as an engine with Witness. I don't remember exactly, but I think I only ran two Witnesses by the end. They're cute but not really worth it most of the time, since the few scenarios where the game hinges on Witness recursion are so few and far between that you wouldn't want more than two in your deck most of the time.

The removal package is really the biggest eyesore in this particular build. Hell, Exile would be better than Radiant's Judgment.

[morgan_coke]

The removal package is set up like it is because in Legacy, creatures are either low in number and big - 'Goyf, Tombstalker, Enforcer, or numerous and small - goblins, merfolk, tokens. Decree and E.E. deal with the second category, Slide, Expunge and Judgement deal with the second. Judgement kills 'Goyf, Tombstalker, Monastery, and Enforcer, how is it a bad removal spell? If they don't have one of those targets, you cycle it.

I'm never really been impressed with Wrath or Damnation in Legacy because every aggro deck can work around them so easily. Vial, Haste, Manlands (Factory/Vault), and free countermagic (Daze/FoW) are just a few examples. Against Goblins, Decree wraths them during their attack phase, so they can't just Vial something in after you WoG or drop a Warchief and Piledriver when you're tapped out and laugh at you while not missing a beat. I've yet to see Damnation/Wrath do something about factory's attacking you.

In Legacy, I'd go so far as to say Decree is better than Damnation in most control decks that can get to five mana and run black.

Hierarch is better than Finks, unless you're running Unearth, which is an entirely different build.

[Aggro_zombies]

If they don't have one of those targets, you cycle it.
This is the crux of the problem. Generally, if you have to say something like this, you should be looking at removal spells that don't have targeting restrictions.

Swords is considered so good partly because of its mana cost, but also partly because it can hit anything as long as that thing can be targeted. That makes it very rarely dead when you need a removal spell, and worth holding on to when there are no creatures on the opponent's side of the board. The point here isn't that it cycles when dead, it's that you're having to consider contingency plans for when you want to stop your opponent's Bob from raking in massive card advantage or their Sower of Temptation from stealing your huge KoR. Cycling isn't an upside, it's the only thing that makes the spell marginally playable. The developers gave it cycling for a reason!

Instead of trying to find something that has another function when dead, look for something that's simply not dead. Removal is relevant in every matchup but the combo one.


I'm never really been impressed with Wrath or Damnation in Legacy because every aggro deck can work around them so easily. Vial, Haste, Manlands (Factory/Vault), and free countermagic (Daze/FoW) are just a few examples. Against Goblins, Decree wraths them during their attack phase, so they can't just Vial something in after you WoG or drop a Warchief and Piledriver when you're tapped out and laugh at you while not missing a beat. I've yet to see Damnation/Wrath do something about factory's attacking you.

In Legacy, I'd go so far as to say Decree is better than Damnation in most control decks that can get to five mana and run black.
This is flat-out wrong.

The eight lord plan is all the rage these days in Elf and Merfolk aggro decks, which are making big gains in popularity following strong tournament results. Elves runs Survival in most cases, which laughs in the face of your Wrath, and there are also a number of Elves with an ass bigger than two (the 3/3 deathtouch guy comes to mind right away, but some versions also run Wren's Run Packmaster). Speaking of Packmaster, you'd better pray that they don't float mana and then shit up the board with Wolves after Decree's trigger resolves. Having a Slide in play can help, but now we're getting into scenarios with a lot of variables - what you've drawn, what he's drawn, how fast you get to five, how explosive his development is, etc. - so I won't go there.

Merfolk runs Stifle (lol nice five mana cantrip) and Standstill, and some builds run Jitte. If I strap a Jitte to my Lord of Atlantis or Rejeerey, I can save it from dying to your cycled Decree, which will probably keep a number of my other team members from dying as well. Also, god help you if they Vial a lord into play in response to the Decree.

Goblins doesn't really run lords, but getting a bunch of Shocks to the face from Siege-Gang Commander is always going to hurt. There's also the fact that most experienced and/or competent players will sandbag a Matron or Ringleader once they figure out you've got mass removal, making your Wrath/Damnation/Decree/whatever a temporary solution at best. Buying one turn may or may not be enough when you're trying to stabilize in the face of a full-on, hasty assault. There's also the problem of getting to double black when facing Port and Wasteland backed by a fast clock. Wort in some builds also makes things worse for you.

I realize that Damnation doesn't address some of these problems, but the rising popularity of the Lord Plan makes a strong case for it. Then again, Pernicious Deed and/or recurring EE are much, much better answers.

Swords and/or blockers also kill Factories dead...if they don't have Crucible. Then your Decree is totally irrelevant except as a more expensive black Turf Wound.

tl;dr EE is better in the long run against aggro, especially if you can establish a lock with Witness recursion. Decree is more of a band-aid than an answer.

[Giles]

Looks intresting.

I am going to have to load it into MWS and mess with it for a while before I make a judgement on this.

[CaptShetz]

To A_Z, re: removal suite. You do realize that cycling has more than the slide function in the deck, right? Besides dumping an otherwise useless spell, it does trigger slide, but can also lead to more loaming. And in case you missed it, the 3cc slot is pretty hard to Counterbalance. And for like the 8th time in this thread, it also dodges Chalice. Furthermore, most of the time, Expunge and Radiant's Judgment will have perfectly good targets.

Arguing that this deck should run StP is like telling the Dragon Stompy player that he should be running Lightning Bolt, just because the spell is good. Besides, fulfilling the lightning bolt role with an overcosted piece of jank like Arc-Slogger is bad, amiright? You have to be joking.

How many decks actually play Wrath or Damnation in Legacy? Wait, only one (MAYBE two)? Oh, ok. Moving on. Also, you do realize EE is md, right?

A_Z, your "tl;dr" shows way more about your attitude than the rest of your post, and it totally drains any legitimacy you may have had out of your argument. Yes, StP is good, but you have shown that you aren't interested in learning about how this deck worked its way to the top; you are just too busy hating on its unique approach and keeping to traditional, dogmatic styles of play. Great job.

Moving on.

I also fail to see how KOTR is "win more." That is like saying pumping your goyf or crusher is "win more." Yeah... more like made of "more win." It outguns goyf, can outpace Crusher (Slide out those counters, baby. Oh, you killed my KotR? Well, the second one comes out just as strong... have fun waiting to build up your second crusher again) and can eventually rival Dreadnought for sheer size. And of course all of those beefy, mostly non-evasive creatures totally suck in this format. :rolleyes:

re: Finks, I think it has been explained well enough why Loxodon Hierarch fits that particular role better.

Anyway, this deck is a bit of a surprise, but that should be an exciting thing... and yet his thread is full of, "How dare someone go against the grain and try something different! For SHAME! Something must have gone terribly wrong for this to have happened!" Pretty disheartening.

[Aggro_zombies]

To A_Z, re: removal suite. You do realize that cycling has more than the slide function in the deck, right? Besides dumping an otherwise useless spell, it does trigger slide, but can also lead to more loaming. And in case you missed it, the 3cc slot is pretty hard to Counterbalance. And for like the 8th time in this thread, it also dodges Chalice. Furthermore, most of the time, Expunge and Radiant's Judgment will have perfectly good targets.
And did you know that cycling lands do that too, and for half the cost of these cards? I've said this already, but you seem to have missed it: cycling was added as a rider to these cards because Wizards R&D realized they were only situationally playable. Cycling would make players give them slightly more consideration because those cards could be turned into new, possibly relevant cards if they weren't needed. However, the ability to turn a marginally playable and only sometimes relevant spell into a Life from the Loam or another card and a Slide activation is not sufficient justification for using them over removal cards that are both good and always relevant. Plus, Swords takes up fewer slots.


Arguing that this deck should run StP is like telling the Dragon Stompy player that he should be running Lightning Bolt, just because the spell is good. Besides, fulfilling the lightning bolt role with an overcosted piece of jank like Arc-Slogger is bad, amiright? You have to be joking.
Apples and oranges, kiddo. Setting aside the fact that Bolt isn't really in the same league as Swords, Dragon Stompy takes a fundamentally different approach than this deck to the reasoning behind its curve. DS is built around both Chalice and Trinisphere as disruptive elements, in much the same way Stax is: everything would cost three mana anyway, and it lets you drop Chalice at one AND Chalice at two. Chalice is incidental to the construction of this deck - the curve is ostensibly designed to beat Counterbalance (never mind that NLU runs a number of 3cc spells main and is perfectly capable of using Top to keep them there). This deck can basically only play Chalice at one most of the time, because going up to two would be self-crippling. However, Chalices at one and two hit probably about 70% of the relevant spells in this format. Neat, isn't it?

Swords is a ridiculous card, and vastly superior to both of his current choices. It's so good that I would be tempted to drop the Chalices from the main entirely in order to run them - this deck really needs permanent and flexible targeted removal, not this half and half approach he's got right now, where both of his targeted removal spells don't even cover all the targets Swords can hit alone (*cough* Dark Confidant *cough*). Cutting the chaff for legitimate removal spells frees up slots for, say, more Elspeth, which is a ridiculous card, or maybe more EE, which is also pretty ridiculous when you can use it every turn.


How many decks actually play Wrath or Damnation in Legacy? Wait, only one (MAYBE two)? Oh, ok. Moving on. Also, you do realize EE is md, right?
I noticed. Also, you do realize that in my last post I alluded to the fact that both Wrath and Damnation aren't played very much, right?


A_Z, your "tl;dr" shows way more about your attitude than the rest of your post, and it totally drains any legitimacy you may have had out of your argument. Yes, StP is good, but you have shown that you aren't interested in learning about how this deck worked its way to the top; you are just too busy hating on its unique approach and keeping to traditional, dogmatic styles of play. Great job.
I almost - almost! - didn't take the bait, but my pride won't let me pass this up.

I know how this deck works, I worked on Slide as well. I stopped working on it because it's just plain bad. Let me state the obvious but painful truth here: Slide is underpowered and eats up too many slots in your deck that should be going to other things, such as things that legitimately win games. Counterbalance takes up exactly seven to eight slots and almost wins the game on the spot. Slide takes up at least twice that many spots (3-4 Slide, 3-4 Loam, 8+ cycling lands) and requires a hell of a lot of mana development and time to get even close to doing anything to justify its awesome resource consumption. That is why Slide is not going to be competitive in this format, probably ever. I'm not saying that to be a douche, I'm saying that because I tried to find a way to make it work and I failed. As badly as I want Slide to be good, it just isn't going to happen without cataclysmic metagame shifts.

I'm willing to bet that pilot skill and luck in hitting the right matchups let this deck win. You know what happen if you took it to a GP? It would probably do better than Vial Horror or Death and Taxes, but 90% of the time it wouldn't make day two without byes.

Also, I added the tl;dr thing because my posts were walls of text and I figured most people wouldn't thoroughly read them - you included, it seems. Perhaps I should use tl;dr more often...


Anyway, this deck is a bit of a surprise, but that should be an exciting thing... and yet his thread is full of, "How dare someone go against the grain and try something different! For SHAME! Something must have gone terribly wrong for this to have happened!" Pretty disheartening.
Most of that isn't justified. However, your slavish devotion to rebelling against conventions because it's cool to do so is just as grating. Please realize that things become established conventions for a reason: because tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, of hours of testing and tournament play have proven them to be superior. I am attempting to offer constructive criticism on the deck; if you choose to see it as a threat to your ego, then go ahead and ignore it. Someone needs to scrub out early.

[frogboy]

I'm tilting pretty hard from all of this 'the more expensive spells are better' justification going around. Like, yeah, sure, Hierarch is better on turn four than Finks. Finks is a whole lot better on turn three, and can in fact ensure that you get to survive to turn four (and then five when you can play Slide) and same with Decree asdf.

I don't see how Knight actively does anything for your game plan. It's just a nice card in every sense of the word.

[Artowis]

I also fail to see how KOTR is "win more."

You're a board control deck. You can win with any random beater once you established some amount of control. Using a random beater that's pretty slow to get going and doesn't actually help the major game-plan of the deck is pretty bad. Sure you could run it, because as Max said, it's a nice card. It does nice things. Still doesn't make it an optimal, or even good, inclusion.

[Krm]

I played vs the deck in the semifinals and obviously it is strong versus slower control decks and witness+slide is definitely hard to deal with. The list looks rather underwhelming compared to actually playing it (the unfamiliarity of some players with the archetype might also be a reason for the success), but I still think a lot of matchups would be rather problematic, for example tribal aggro or combo.
For example I still dont understand how you beat elves in the finals, but apparently it was more of an aggro than a combo build.

To the "quality" of the tournament...
In an online tournament like that there is are more people who test considerably weaker decks and the average 'playskill' seemed to be a little lower compared to nononline tournaments. Still it is a great thing that people organize tournaments like that too and some even donate prizes.

[Pltnmngl]

Dude must have been playing Slide for a long time...