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Mana Drain
01-06-2011, 12:03 PM
Uwgr Intuition CounterTop
by Mana Drain, with substantial editing, added content, and influence from Valtrix and significant influence from ivanpei.

(Disclaimer: We’re well aware that there are two older threads that use both Intuition and CB (It’s the Fear and the previous Intuition/CB thread). This deck is not ITF, and the other Intuition/CB thread was only 2 pages long, with the second page about primarily about combating a deck that is no longer in existence. This deck can now be considered optimized. This thread’s main focus is about Uwgr Intuition CounterTop, utilizing Tarmogoyf, Jace TMD, and the Ruins/EE combo to take control of the game and end it in swift order, while having multiple internal synergies and a huge number of both MD and SB options due to color choice. If you want to play Pernicious Deed, Innocent Blood, and recur Eternal Witness and Etched Oracle with Volrath’s Stronghold, please go to the (very old) ITF thread. If you want to play Daze, Rhox War Monk, Qasali Pridemage, and Ponder, please go to the Countertop Goyf thread. If you want to play the best control spells in blue, red, green, and white, have a diversified game plan that can play around any single form of hate or beat it, while controlling the board with the most effective and versatile cards available, please continue reading.)

Contents
Introduction

Decklists

Overall Strategy of the Deck

Card Choices and Explanation

The Sideboard

Matchup Analysis

Why Play this Deck?

The Future

First and foremost, if this deck is any good, why didn’t it show up months ago? The answer to this is simple: The deck did show up months ago, but like many (most) other decks in the format, we had serious problems with a certain 1G enchantment. I mean serious. As in, “we have to dedicate about 7-8 slots in our board to Needles, GY hate, Spell Snares/Spell Pierces to have a chance” serious. So for the latter half of 2010, Intuitive remained in the same position all CB decks were in: a bad one. Now that the green menace has been removed from existence by the powers that be, the deck is in a favorable position, as Aggro, Combo, and other CB strategies are predicted to make a return. Why play this deck over any other CB deck, or any other deck utilizing Intuition? My answer to that is: Why not play the best of both? CB is undoubtedly the most powerful control element in the format, providing a passive wall of counters for only UU, when paired with the best piece of card-quality in the format: Sensei’s Divining Top. Top is strong enough that the deck would run 3-4 even if we weren’t playing the overpowered enchantment. Together, they allow you to save your removal and hard-counters like Force and counterspell for the rare things that CB can’t stop and dramatically alter the game, like a Natural Order, opposing Jace/Elspeth, Tombstalker or other big-mana bomb.

Intuition is a 3 mana engine or a 3 mana, instant-speed Demonic tutor that pitches to FoW. For 3 mana and a card, you have the ability to set up a long-term late game strategy no other deck can handle pre-board. Recurring Explosives will win you the game against any deck that relies on permanents to win. The combo does take time though, which is why so much of the deck is centered on staying alive. If you do manage to stay alive and resolve an Intuition, you will win the game. Why? I’ll explain further in a later section. Utilizing Intuition as a Demonic Tutor in the end step is also completely acceptable, turning it into a Force of Will, Counterbalance, Firespout, StP, or a Jace/Tarmogoyf to win the game quickly. More info on Intuition later.

Finally, we come to the fact that most Counterbalance decks are not really control decks at all. They’re often mid-range aggro decks that just happen to run a one-sided shifting Chalice of the Void and some counters. This isn’t always the case (Supreme Blue for example), but most Counterbalance decks fit this description. Their overall strategy is to drop CB, some dudes, and lay the beats. This is an extremely solid and proven strategy, but what if the opposing deck doesn’t care about your CB? More than likely, you’re in trouble. Hence, decks that control-ish decks should be good against, like Zoo, are actually bad matchups. In addition, most CB decks don’t focus on board control, rather laying down a single, efficient beater/utility dude backed up by CB. This lack of board control is a significant weakness against decks that can quickly overwhelm you like Tribal and Zoo or decks that are not crippled by CB like Landstill and Dredge. Whether the community chooses to acknowledge the fact that many CB decks are significantly weaker with their namesake enchantment not in play or neutralized (via Needle, Pridemage, Grip, Vial, etc.) is extremely relevant due to the ease of hating on CB. When CB is not in play, most CB Goyf lists plays like a 2007-era UGx Threshold list, without the tempo package. This is not acceptable for me. We’re not proposing that Intuitive CB should or would replace all current CB decks (which are indeed powerful decks when the metagame is favorable), but will do better in a metagame with a strong Zoo, Merfolk, or Goblins presence, without having the difficulties that more traditional blue control decks like Landstill have with Combo and to a lesser extent, Tempo decks. Now, show us the decklists damnit!


//Lands (22)

2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
1 Academy Ruins

//Creatures (4)
4 Tarmogoyf

//Spells (34)
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Firespout
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Life From the Loam
3 Intuition
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Counterspell

// Sideboard TESTING (if you want a more open/broad SB, Valtrix's is very versatile with cards for every matchup possible. Mine is primarily aimed against Aggro and other Control decks):
SB: 1 Path to Exile
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 1 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Vendilion Clique
SB: 1 Nature’s Claim
SB: 1 Tormod’s Crypt
SB: 3 Grim Lavamancer
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Spell Pierce



//Lands (22)
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Island
2 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins

//Creatures (4)
4 Tarmogoyf

//Spells (34)
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Firespout
1 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Firespout
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Path to Exile
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 1 Counterspell

Overall Strategy of the Deck

The deck wants to do multiple, independent things, all of which support the same goals: Stay alive, Stabilize, and Win. The removal suite (StP, Firespout, EE, Shackles) and hard-counter suite (Force, Counterspell) all support the first objective effectively. Counterbalance helps you stay alive if dropped early enough (providing free countering of threats/disruption), and is a major benefit to the second and third objective. Intuition’s purpose is very similar to CB’s, by providing recursive permanent destruction, but primarily for the second objective, and solid support for the third. Jace does all three at any time he wants, bouncing lone threats, drawing you into answers to stabilize, and being a disruptive win condition once the smoke has cleared. Like Jace, Tarmogoyf also serves all three goals effectively; Goyf is much faster and can stall multiple threats, but less stable due to the ease of removability.

All four work together in conjunction with the counter/removal suite and the card quality provided by Brainstorm/Top to ensure early-game survival, mid-late-game stabilization, and late-game victory. They also allow the deck to utilize different methods of controlling the game, depending on what is required against the opponent’s deck. When you need blow up the board against a horde of little dudes and become pseudo-Landstill, you can. When you need to use CB and StP to stop a big beater who is backed up by disruption and become CB Goyf, you can. When you need to be the beatdown and start swinging with a monster to lock the game up, Tarmogoyf has your back. Many games you’ll do all three. Running so many varied ways to dominate the game also makes it very difficult for your opponent to stop your strategy, as answers are rarely versatile enough to deal with creatures, planeswalkers, card quality, Ruins-EE, and Counterbalance-Top.

Card Choices and Explanation

The manabase
Fetches: 9-10 fetches instead of the usual 8 for increased color consistency, resilience against T1 Wasteland, and additional shuffle effects. If you’re not comfortable with the increased vulnerability to Stifle and extra lifeloss, feel free to trim the number to 8. My experience has proven the -1 life loss to be far less relevant than not having the mana to play StP, Goyf, or Firespout. Additional fetches bolster the power of Loam, Top, BS, and Jace. Whichever fetches you use doesn’t make a difference if you’re not running any non-Island basics, but I suggest to staying away from Flooded Strand unless you are running the basic Plains. Why? Because “Flooded Strand, Go” is a signature play of blue control and an obvious tell, whereas “Rainforest/Tarn/Delta, Go” leaves room for the other player to guess between Tempo Thresh, normal CB variants, Combo, etc. It may seem ridiculous and irrelevant, but why not possibly change the way your opponent plays and save information about what you are playing if it costs you nothing? Also, proper use of fetches (only cracking when necessary, saving them when possible) is required when playing this deck. Failure to comply will lead to much more common color screw.

Basics: I choose to run just 2 basic Islands, as I like to live dangerously. In all seriousness, I’ve found that not being able to play Counterbalance or Counterspell on T2 is highly relevant, and choose to run the 2 basic Islands as my only basics. That said, guaranteeing that you always have access to either Loam/Tarmogoyf or StP/Path is strong in the face of Tribal. This is a matter of personal preference and risk vs. reward that you as the player must decide on. When you run basics the Plains is better than the Mountain because you’ll usually have more relevant white cards against aggro (Swords and Path) than your lonely Firespouts, and there are oftentimes when you want white but not red, but never the other way around. Plus, you really only want a Mountain turn 3 to Firespout, but might want Plains sooner than that.

Duals: Three of each is a perfect balance of all colors, as they all have the same necessary requirements in the deck. Three duals plus nine fetches gives you 12 lands that can provide the colors you need to cast your spells. Nothing costs two of any non-blue mana in the deck, so fetching out one of each is recommended if you need crack a fetch to play a blue spell. The highest priority color is green, as it allows you to cast your Goyfs for defense, and recur your other colors with Loam. This is followed by Tundra for StP defense, and finally, Volcanic, for wrathing away hordes of little dudes. You may cut a dual of a respective color if you add a basic of that color (i.e. cut a Tundra if you add a plains) if you so choose. Unless you’re constantly playing decks with Wastelock (not decks that just play Wasteland) or serious non-basic hate (Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Price of Progress), I highly suggest running 3 of each dual for maximum color consistency.

Academy Ruins: What allows you to recur your artifacts, and set up the dreaded EE lock. Amazingly powerful, but try to hold it until necessary to play, to avoid Wasteland and spontaneous self destruction from an opposing Ruins. Also, it doesn’t produce blue, so factor that into your mulligan decisions, although this is kind of obvious. Always run 1. Not 2, not 0, but 1.

Creatures
Tarmogoyf: Suddenly, out of nowhere, Tarmogoyf. Yes, the ubiquitous green monster makes another appearance, and is put to great use. The best wall in the game, a 2 drop for the CB curve, easily protected under Counterbalance, and a great finisher with easy color requirements all make Goyf a 4 of. You want to see him in just about every matchup, and in multiples. Significantly improves the Zoo, Goblins, and pretty much every other aggro matchup out there, while still being relevant against non-aggro strategies. But you probably know this already. Run 4.

Spells
Brainstorm: We’re blue, and play fetchlands. Duh. Serves double duty since we’re playing Counterbalance. As always, save your Brainstorms until absolutely necessary. Common Brainstorm rules apply. Play 4.

Force of Will: We play blue cards, and about 20 of them including this. Duh. Save them for the “OH SHI-“ moments, like a Choke, Price of Progress, Show and Tell, Counterbalance, NO, Standstill, etc. Play 4.

Counterbalance: Our curve is about 12-14 1 drops, 10-12 2 drops, and 6-8 3 drops, which has been optimal. A solid card in almost all matchups, with exception against Vial decks and some fringe decks (like Affinity and Chalice/Tomb decks). It’s a pillar of the format for a reason. 4 of, no exceptions.

Sensei’s Divining Top: Amazing card quality by itself, and an unbeatable advantage at almost every point in the game, and of course a passive counterwall in combination with Counterbalance. Every opening hand with one is significantly better than one without. Great synergy with Loam and fetchlands. Run 4.

Swords to Plowshares: The best removal printed, and the reason to run white. There is no control deck that can’t be made better by including Swords. Run 4, all day, every day.

Firespout: 3 mana WoG in the tribal matchup, and still amazing in the Zoo matchup, all of which are extremely dangerous for their ability to kill you before stabilization. A 3 drop for the CB curve, a significant boost in the matchups mentioned above, and easy on the color requirements. Awful in multiple matchups, but any matchup where Firespout is dead, we’re probably in good standings. Run 3 in the MD, with the fourth in the board for extra insurance against Tribal/Zoo/Affinity/littledudes.dec.

Vedalken Shackles: Slow, but game breaking. If you untap with it in play against a creature deck, you’ll probably win. Another 3 drop for the curve, recurable with Ruins, and significantly improves the Goblin matchup. It can be too slow in matchups about speed, but in G1 few decks have an answer for it and it certainly will win games on its own. For this reason, it’s a one of.


Engineered Explosives: Versatile removal for almost any problem that you have. With Ruins, a soft lock that shuts out almost any non-land permanents that your opponent draws since the deck runs 4-colors. Also, a great way to remove opposing CB’s by making X greater than 2 while only using 2 colors. Unfortunately, 0cc doesn’t do much for the curve, and it can get mana intensive quickly. You only want one in the main for these reasons, and its slowness. Extras in the board are great to get around graveyard hate and have versatile answers.

Life from the Loam: The heart of the Intuition engine. Provides infinite shuffles and lands for the rest of the game, a 2 drop for CB, card advantage (in the form of lands), synergy with Top, Brainstorm, and Jace, easy color requirements, and of course enables Ruins and possible other land combos (Cephalid Coliseum for example). Obviously amazing against land denial strategies. Is in effect extra lands for the deck. However, you don’t really want to run too many land effects and deck space is tight, so there’s only room for one.

Counterspell: When I first started playing this deck, I didn’t like Counterspell. While it’s the most consistent and versatile card in the deck, I was convinced that there was some other 2 drop more powerful, and I should be running something else. The truth is, CS fills many important rolls in the deck. It’s blue (Force consistency), a 2 drop (CB), and a hard answer for whatever serious problem is on the stack (NO, Jace, KotR, Vindicate) that CB can’t answer or when you don’t have CB (common). Spell Snare was played in this slot, but didn’t have much synergy with the rest of the deck, and was not versatile enough in topdeck mode. Besides that, you want to be dropping Top T1 or StPing an important dude. All serious 2 drops (besides Standstill and CB) can be answered with an StP, and CS is important when trying to stabilize or trying to maintain stabilization when your opponent topdecks something dangerous. All in all, it’s a fine card to SB out for something more important, and is a huge help against a number of matchups (Bant, Rock, other control decks, combo). A big thank you to Valtrix for pointing out to me the importance of this card in the deck.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor: Superman makes another triumphant appearance, and does not disappoint. If you have 4 mana, and aren’t facing down an army of dudes, playing Jace is probably a game-winning play. In fact, he’s a large reason for the removal suite, allowing you to one-for-one, get to 4 mana, drop him and win. A six-turn disruptive clock that can also create card advantage and quality, bounce problematic creatures until an answer is found, and just be all around amazing is truly, no joke. Three is just the right number, allowing you to Intuition for him, and have multiple copies in the deck incase an early one dies, but rarely drawing multiples and clogging your hand. If you don’t have any, start selling drugs and buy some. He’s that good. Run no less than two, period.

Intuition: Finally, the namesake card of the deck. As mentioned above, a three-mana engine and Demonic Tutor. Resolving it creates inevitability that other decks can’t compete with G1. Postboard, if forces the other player to put in GY hate or EE hate, diluting their strategy at a minimal cost to ours, or face the inevitability of being blown out if they don’t kill us fast enough. As the pieces for the combo are solid and useful on their own, this is a serious advantage for us. Hating on the GY is necessary against us, but doesn’t affect the other 54 cards in the deck at all. They still have to deal with Goyf (feeding off their GY), CB (which requires an entirely different set of hate), and Jace (who is that fucking good). Even hating on the yard will accomplish very little, as Intuition is still a 3 mana Demonic Tutor for whatever you need at the time. The most common pile is “Loam/Ruins/EE”, but more will be mentioned below. A blue 3 drop for CB, always castable with 3 lands, and a shuffle are just bonuses. It’s creates an entire late game strategy out of 3 cards in your deck, in addition to some already great and synergistic cards already present. Three is the right number, as you never want to see two in an opener, and resolving one is all it takes, but you still want to see at least 1 a game. Additional Intuitions after the first are used to strengthen a board further, or as a tutor for a kill condition. It also allows for a number of different internal combos that can be played that aren’t included in the lists posted, like Thopter/Foundry, and Grove/Punishing Fires. The card opens unlimited possibilities, but for now, we’re sticking to the most effective, independent, and space-conservative ones.

(SB Choices and Matchup Anyalisys on next pages)

Mana Drain
01-06-2011, 12:04 PM
The Sideboard, and possible choices for YOUR metagame
Core choices that should be in your SB no matter what the metagame. These are must haves that are too good to pass up.

Path to Exile: Additional StPs in the matchups where you need it, somewhat self-explanatory. Amazing against decks with low threat densities or fat men that FS can’t handle. Tempo Thresh/TA, The Rock, New Horizons/Bant, Zoo, Merfolk, Affinity, and even Goblins are all reasons to keep an extra Path or two in the board. Run 1 at the minimum, extras at your discretion.

Extra Engineered Explosives: The obvious question here is: Why don’t you run more EEs in the MD then? Well, you don’t always need extra EEs, and one is all it takes to lock the other guy out. It also messes with the CB curve having multiples in the MD. Because of its cost running a lot can be cumbersome, but post-board your deck will be more streamlined against the opponent so that you can more-easily afford to run additional EEs without much detriment. This card is useful in just about every matchup, since it’s such a versatile answer, and is definitely crucial in dealing with resolved counterbalances and is a great answer to vial. Running extras in the board also negates in large part graveyard hate strategies. For this reason 2 EEs in the board is recommended, so that even if they take out one or even two you can still just not care and continue to lock them out when you get another. Major thanks to Valtrix for pointing this out to me.

Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast: The second reason to run red, after Firespout. At any given tournament, you can reasonably expect that 40% of the metagame will consist of decks playing blue cards. One mana hard-counters and Vindicates for Jace and fishy men are no joke. A serious advantage against any blue deck and makes the Merfolk matchup much more tolerable. I highly suggest three of these in any combination, but if your metagame is either heavy blue or very little blue, you may certainly add or subtract one.

Grave hate of your choice: Because you never know when Dredge/Lands/AggroLoam is going to show up and just wreck your shit. Recurring engines are difficult for us to stop or race preboard and generally cause a loss if assembled. I personally use one Crypt (for speed and recurability) and one Relic (for versatility and the draw) in addition to Enlightened Tutor (more on that soon) to find them. I have also had great success against GY decks with Ravenous Trap. Any time that you want the Trap in postboard, it’s always a Crypt with flash that is immune to all forms of anti-hate, sans Therapy from Dredge (if they’re casting Therapy, they’re not naming Trap first). Always run at least one Crypt, so you can Intuition for “Loam/Ruins/Crypt” to perpetually hate the grave when needed, but more GY hate is advised. Relic is also great against Tempo Thresh and Rock decks running Loam as it shuts down Goofy, KotR, opposing Loams, Lavamanacer, and Mongoose at no cost of cards to you. The quantity and type of GY hate is to be determined by what you predict your metagame to warrant, but I suggest at least 1 Crypt for locking out GY dependant opponents with Intuition for “Loam/Crypt/Ruins”.

Ratchet Bomb: You should probably play one of these in the board. The main reason to play this card is to get around needle on EE, and sense its so versatile you can board it in with no risk. It effectively allows you to run more hate on creatures, planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts, and the like with one card in your board so its slowness is often negated by the fact that this just supplements your answers in your deck to any type of threat. I also like having another 2cc to bring in for the combo matchup. This was straight stolen tech from one of Valtrix’s posts.

Firespout: You should have 3 in the main and one the board. Firespout is the card that really allows you to stomp on aggro the most. By running all 4 copies of it you give yourself great odds against any type aggro deck as you start having a critical mass of removal spells between firespouts, swords, paths, EEs, shackles, etc. that makes it difficult for decks even with a lot of creatures to win.

Other SB choices that are worth consideration

Krosan Grip: Counterbalance isn’t any less of a problem just because we’re running them too. Obviously great against CB, Top, and other Control, but many decks will have Arts/Enchantments you would like to kill. Grips main purpose though is helping you not scoop to a resolved Counterbalance, which does happen. Always be aware of possible Chokes coming in from The Rock and Zoo. If you choose to run more EE’s in the board, it’s fine to cut one of these, but I suggest at least 1 in addition to other Art/Ench hate (EE, Ratchet, Claim) as the color requirements are easy and it’s another 3 drop for CB. Nature’s Claim is also an option if CB isn’t present in your metagame, but Art/Enchant hate is coming in against you (Choke, Needle, Relic/Crypt, etc.). Just an all around solid card for the purpose it serves, but it can be slow and better alternatives exist for killing off non-CB arts/enchants.

Pithing Needle: Great against the Vial and Wasteland decks. I don’t feel that there are enough other activated abilities to worry about were this would be significant. In addition you need to land one early to stop the above, which would require multiples, or Enlightened Tutors. A major no-go with EE. Some may get good mileage out of Needle, but I don’t feel it’s necessary. Solid targets include Waste, Vial, Pridemage, Mutavault/Mishra’s Factory, Planeswalkers.

Vendilion Clique: Modern tech CB Goyf players have been putting to good use. A blue 3 drop, a 3 power flyer for trading, a possible clock, a disruption piece and some info on what’s coming up. I like it as an answer to possible Grips/Extirpates, and forcing the removal spell if they have it, and hits their strongest card in hand. Can also be used on yourself, trading a bad card for a draw in the late game. Amazing against Control, effective against The Rock and New Horizons for stopping their hate. A useful card against most non-fast-aggro decks.

Enlightened Tutor: This choice is confusing to a lot of people, but I love the Tutor. It functions as additional Counterbalances/Tops against decks where CB is a blow out (Loam decks, Combo, Burn), as additional Relics/Crypts (where GY hate is important), and as a tutor for EE, Shackles, and Ratchet, but those are weaker and far less common targets. With CB in play it’s a hard counter and a Tutor in one. It also opens up a million different silver bullets in the SB if you choose to run them like Circles of Protection (serious here), Needles, Ensnaring Bridge, O-ring, etc. I suggest giving this a spin if you want to get some additional mileage out of your sideboard without dedicating more slots than necessary to GY hate and Combo hate.

Nature’s Claim: I really don’t like getting blown out by Choke. It’s an extremely common SB card from any deck not running blue that’s not combo. It’s more backbreaking than any other hate we will face with any pressure on the board what so ever. Claim is the best removal for it I can think of but also great against Needle, Sylvan Library, GY hate, Tops in response to a fetch, and a bunch of other nuisances. It’s constantly going in and out of my board as a meta card, but I’ve always enjoyed having it against any mid-range deck. It’s less effective than Grip against a resolved CB and other control decks, but half of the SB comes in against those matchups anyway.

Peacekeeper: Even though the green menace is gone, this is still a solid SB card for the Merfolk, Dredge, Madness, or Sneak and Tell matchup and usually wins the game as soon as it hits. If you’re going to run this, make sure you have the basic Plains MD. Don’t side it in against Goblins (duh).

Spell Pierce: Great combo hate, great CB hate, and just all-around great cards. The MD doesn’t have the room to accommodate them, but you may find them great in the SB for the matchups they’re amazing in (Combo, CB, Control, and Tempo). Huge insurance against Combo, and very helpful against Tempo.

Spell Snare: Like Spell Pierce, an all-around good card, there just isn’t room in the MD for it and CS serves the curve and mid-lategame a bit better. I like it more than Spell Pierce because there are a number of 2 drop creatures that can wreck our shit. Goyf, Pridemage, Confidant, Stoneforge, and LoA to name a few. Being a hard counter has also proven to be relevant, when topdecked threats in the mid-lategame can be dangerous. Not nearly as good against combo or heavy control, but much better against CB Goyf, Zoo, Merfolk, Bant, Rock and other creature decks.

Blue Elemental Blast/Hyrdoblast: Anti-Zoo and Goblin cards, also hating on randomness like Moons and burn. Too narrow and insignificant to warrant space in most metas, but if you find yourself being overrun by Goblins, Zoo, or other red decks constantly, give it a try.

Core choices and user customization

These cards are not to be cut under any circumstances, as talked about in card choices
4 Brainstorm
4 Force
4 Counterbalance
4 Top
4 Swords
4 Goyf
2 Intuition
2 Jace
1 Loam
1 EE
3 Firespout
22 mana sources, including Academy Ruins

So, there isn’t much room for change right now. The two lists posted (Mine and Valtrix’s) look almost identical for a reason. Dozens upon dozens of cards have been tested in various slots, and what was posted was what made the cut. But, the most flexible slots in the deck would be: Vedalken Shackles, the third Jace, and if need be, the third Intuition. Below are a few choices that didn’t make the MD cut, but were still effective or useful enough to keep in consideration for the future.

Maze of Ith: Turns Intuition into an immediate removal spell in addition to the Loam engine. “Loam/Maze/x” guarantees Maze next turn facing down a single threat. Although it doesn’t help the CB curve and costs a land drop, this is still a powerful option and may warrant space. Ivanpei was a big proponent of Maze in the first Intuition CB thread, but it was eventually deemed unnecessary. While it can be a saving grace to Intuition into the package and is helpful against the midrange decks and Zoo, the loss of a land drop and vulnerability to Waste is significant. If you’re going to try this, I don’t suggest running more than one.

Wasteland: Wastelock is a scary thing for most decks in the format, especially if early enough. It’s great insurance against Landstill, and handles problematic utility lands like opposing Ruins, Strongholds, Ports, Factories, and Mutavaults. I don’t feel it’s worth the loss of a blue-producing land, and really, with one-Wasteland you can’t do a whole lot of waste-locking without having to stop your draw every turn.

Cephalid Coliseum: Allows for “Loam/Coliseum/x” Intuition packages that will win a stalled board. It’s a draw engine that costs U and a land-drop, to draw 3 cards and discard 2 lands and something else. It’s a nice option to have, but EE recursion accomplishes the same task almost all of the time. I used it in some of my original lists, but dropped it for the second Delta for more mana consistency. Try this and see if it works for you.

Daze: Daze was originally played in my list, but it had a few problems that turned out to be big. Setting yourself back a land-drop is big, even as nice as it is to have another free counter. It being dead in the lategame is also a big consideration. Not being a hard-counter for NO, Jace, KotR, and other gamebreaking topdecks is just too big of a drawback. That said, if you play a lot of the other CB decks, Zoo, or combo, you may want to swap the 2 CS with Daze. It's an amazing card in regular CB Goyf, but here, CS does what we need it to do while always being useful and never becoming dead.

Pernicious Deed: While it’s possible you could trade an Island for an Underground Sea and play a pair of Deeds, it doesn’t solve any of the decks problems, namely being overrun early game or massive disruption backing up a Tarmogoyf/KotR/Tombstalker. Major non-bo with CB. An absolutely amazing card, it’s a little slow here and just doesn’t fit in the deck neatly enough to warrant play.

Bojuka Bog: Possible MD GY hate that is tutorable. While the effect can be amazing, it effectively taps for colorless and comes into play tapped. This has proven significant enough to not include it, but it may still be a valid SB option for people looking for more functional, but versatile GY hate.

ManLands (Mishra’s Factory/Mutavault/Nantuko Monastery) : With nothing but Loam to take advantage of them, I feel that they are suboptimal. Monastery is actually an effective win condition, killing in five swings, but doesn’t come online early enough to be an effective blocker and Factory/Vault are both just too small. Not tapping for colored mana also is major lameness.

Regrowth: Regrowth can be a great way to strengthen your Intuitions or recur win-cons/removal mid-lategame. It's also another 2 drop, and easy to cast. But it tends to suck when you see it in the early game. For this reason, it was not included in the MD. We need every card we draw to be focused on staying alive.

Etched Oracle: An Ancestral Recall when it hits the field, and a 4/4 body to block/beatdown when need be. Cut because anytime you have the opportunity to start recurring and playing Oracle, you could just be sealing the deal recurring EE/Coliseum. Also, intensive color requirements, does nothing for the CB curve, and isn't very good at helping you stay alive when facing an assault.

Matchup Analysis
Note: I had actually written card by card SB plans, but I feel that it would be better to let you guys make your own decisions on your SB and what cards to swap. I will give suggestions for what to side out each matchup, to give you a better idea of how to maximize your SB. I highly recommend tuning the board to your own metagame, while still playing the always solid cards like Path, Blasts, Grip, and EE, with GY hate as insurance. Everybody’s board should be different and there is no correct way to SB for everyone. Just play with the deck and feel for yourself what cards should be what and when to side them in. Best of luck in this regard.

Tier 1 and other very common matchups

Goblins: Well shit, we play CB, they play Vial. Autoloss right? Not quite. The nice thing about non-blue decks is they don’t counter your spells, which is good seeing as we run Firespouts, Tarmogoyfs, Force of Wills, Counterspells, and Shackles. Obviously, prevent the Lackey from connecting. Their most dangerous spells cost between 3-5 mana, so CB isn’t going to be of much help here, regardless of Vial. Don’t drop Tarmogoyf too early to prevent them from just Timewalking you with Incinerator. But after a Firespout sweep, or if they keep a threat-light hand, dropping him dramatically halts whatever their plans were. Goblins has been around for almost 9 years, so everyone know how to play them and play against them. We’re control, we have massive board control elements, and we play Tarmogoyf. EE lock isn’t as strong here due to the varying cost of their dudes. Shackles is strong, and gamebreaking if they can’t kill it. CB is pretty useless here even without Vial on the table with half their deck being 3+cc. Intuition is also weak here, really only useful for tutoring for FS or slowly assembling Shackles, which is very slow.

Zoo: This can go south really fast if you keep a removal light hand. It can also be a complete blowout if you drop an early CB and they can’t answer it. Only fetch when necessary, and BS/shuffle all your Jaces away until stabilized. He’s just too slow and fragile against burn, and they always have an out to him (Burn, REB's, little dudes) unless you have CBTop online. Goyf is a huge boon in this matchup, protect him and you’ll be rewarded. Fetch basics when possible, as price of progress blowouts are not uncommon for us. Shackles is dangerous, as their dudes are not only big, but some of them are also disenchants. If you can get an EE lock out while staying above 7 life, you’ve got it. Sylvan Library, Choke, and KotR are serious threats, save your Forces for those. Intuition for Recurring EE is still good, but mana-intensive. Just play control, play around PoP as much as possible, and don’t let the Choke resolve. Stay alive long enough to set up EE lock, and stabilization with a CB out is usually game over for them. Postboard, Jace is extremely vulnerable due to burn and Blasts; I usually side them out. Shackles is too vulnerable and slow. Paths are extremely useful here, and EE’s are great for dealing with the little men while still being great latter in the game.

Merfolk: This all depends on how many Mutavaults and Standstills they draw G1. Vial is a huge threat for CB, but you’re way more concerned with LoA negating your Goyfs and Standstills chaining into each-other to just blow you out. Mutavault is a big threat because of it being immune to FS, and with a lord out they have a fast clock. The good news is we play StP and Firespout, and if we can keep LoA off the table, Goyf is a major problem for them. Shackles is also great, as they have no answer for it MD or SB, but it is mana intensive. If they kept a creature-light hand with more disruption than threats, we have a much better chance of taking G1. Losing G1 to creature-heavy draws with Mutas and Standstills is common, but you get to bring in half your SB G2, dramatically changing the odds. I like to side out my CBs and FoWs for the obvious Blasts, EE’s, and Paths. The reasoning behind siding out FoW is because other than T1 Vial and early Standstill, they have nothing worth 2 for 1ing yourself for. Their entire deck is dudes, counters, land, and Vial/Standstill. We can handle the creatures, and Vial/Standstill can be mitigated with EE and Blasts and other cheap counters. Two cards to stop one of theirs is just a bad trade in this matchup, and they run infinity cheap counters to punish you for it. Also, you’re blue count postboard is really low with CB out. Needles are common postboard for EE, Top, or Jace, so the Ratchet/Claim plays double duty in stopping those in addition to Vial. Save Paths for LoA and Mutas, since they are just too dangerous to let live. Watch out for Spell Pierce, it’s a beating. Same with Back to Basics, but thankfully we have removal for it and it’s very rare in modern builds. We have a shitload of cheap, great cards against them postboard, and this dramatically evens the odds.

Counterbalance Goyf: This whole matchup revolves around 3 cards for us: Intuition, Jace, and CB. Intuition for the EE package is game over if they can’t kill you next turn or stop the Loam. Jace is always a gamebreaker in blue mirrors, but they don’t play any Wastelands, so getting the mana to cast him is much easier. CB is the make or break card here. Either player who has it in play can do what they want uninterrupted (except from FoW of course). If theirs is in play, dedicate all resources to stopping it. If ours is in play, just make sure you don’t die next turn and protect it. Both of our decks are centered around 1-2, and both of us play some dead spells MD (FS), so having Top is also a huge boost. Always play around Daze unless absolutely necessary (like stopping a Jace or CB). Bait Spell Snares with Goyf, as they’ll always play removal for him. Postboard things get easier for us. They have way fewer cards to side in than we do, and they’ll have serious difficulty stopping EE lock, our CBs, and protecting their own CB and creatures from our hate. The basic strategy post-board is just the same as pre-board: Assemble CB lock or resolve Intuition for EE lock. ALWAYS stop the CB they play, as it’s just way to dangerous. We’re light on win-cons post-board, but we have a far heavier control element than they do, and this matchup is about control, not speed. Really, player skill, proper SB precautions, and draws can make or break this matchup, so do your own testing to find a SB plan that you’re comfortable with if the above one is not to your liking.

Landstill: Another fun control mirror. Difficulty depends on what colors they are. If they’re Ugbx Deedstill, then Deed is a major problem. If they play UWx, then the matchup should be easier. Both of them have the punishing T2 Standstill, and most builds run Spell Snare, which complicates decisions further. Their Wastes are insignificant unless you kept a bad hand, as they have no pressure to back it up. Both our deck and theirs run significant creature control, so both decks will be drawing dead cards. This makes our Tops extremely powerful against them, and good players will counter our Tops if possible. The only things you really have to fear are the Planeswalkers, and a Factory when you’re at 8 or less. CB doesn’t beat them, but it will help win counterwars when it comes to protecting Jace or a Tarmogoyf. Also, resolving Intuition will almost always lead to a win, as they can’t handle EE recursion without Cunning Wish (modern builds have mostly discarded wish anyway). If you run her, Clique is majorly important against the Ugbx version, as they have access to both Extirpate and Grip. Also, being a 3 drop for CB is highly relevant, as Landstills 3 drops tend to bad news for you (Crucible, Grip, Vindicate). The gameplan here is resolve Intuition, fight off GY hate, and win. CB is much better post-board as most of their hate will be centered around 1 and 3. Control mirrors are often decided by who has the best/most support for the gameplan (Blasts, Pierce, Counterspells), not who has the most bombs. That said, resolving Jace is a very solid strategy for winning, and should be played for, slowly assembling cheap counters to force him through. Keep a few StPs in for the Factories/Eternal Dragon.

Storm Combo (TES, ANT, Fetchland/Doomsday): Ah, now we’re talking. Firstly, all ritual Storm decks are cold to most of the same cards, CB and FoW being the best of them. Secondly, ~85% of combo players you will play really don’t use their deck to the full potential, and commonly mis-mull hands and make play mistakes (any mistake made with combo is significant). Doomsday being the most powerful and consistent against us, also is by far the hardest to play correctly and I’ve had many a player punt a game to me by misplaying cantrips or SBing incorrect cards (with this deck and others). If you’re playing Bryant Cook or somebody competent, disregard the previous. Most likely, you’re playing against someone who played Merfolk a month ago and thinks they know what they’re doing after a few weeks practice. Assemble CBTop ASAP, and life is much, much easier. If you make it to your third land, being able to intuition for forces or either piece of countertop gives us a huge edge over other CBTop decks. Tarmogoyf really helps here, giving you a fast clock to back up the CB/Counters, important pressure to force them to act, and the 2 drop is the second most important flip against combo (first is 1). We’re a CB deck here, so just play for CB lock and usual blue control elements. If they’re TES, drop an EE at 0 whenever you see one. While we have FS to stop EtW, Duress, plus a few rituals/LED into Wish/Tutor into EtW is much easier for them to do than fetch Ad Nauseam. I’d say cut Jace here, but we really want as many blue cards as possible for Force, and our threat density is low enough. Blast is great for stopping the cantrips. Spell Pierce is obviously amazing here. If it’s ANT and you expect Swarms, keep some number of StPs in for them. You guys know what to do from here. One of three things will happen in this matchup: 1) They will blow you out because you kept a counter/disruption light hand or they just got an amazing hand and blow you out regardless or 2) You assemble CB with counter backup so that even after they Grip it, you’re still ready for them and win, or 3) You assemble CB early and they just can’t stop it because MT was banned and they can’t tutor for Grip any more (most common).

Dredge (LED and Non-LED): This can go either way. Either you have the counter for their discard outlet and they’re in slowmo mode, or they just blow you out. I’ve won a fair number of G1’s against them, mainly from Forcing the outlet and dropping Goyf for the win. But, you’ll still probably lose the first game, which is understandable against Dredge, because they are the anti-blue deck. If you think your about to be blown out (like them dredging 30 cards on T2), just scoop and save the time and the info about what you’re playing. Put in your extra Paths are for stopping the Pimps/Tribes and also nailing Ichorid/Ghast. The Blasts are useful for stopping the draw spells (Careful Study/Breakthrough) and stop Chains if necessary. CB is useless against a deck that casts 2-3 spells a game, so swap them out first. I’ve also found that FS is only useful when you’re already losing and most of the time says “die 2 turns from now instead”, so swap them for the EEs/Ratchets to stop the tokens. Dredge’s postboard plan against Blue control is to slowroll us and win the war of attrition. With Intuition for “Loam/Ruins/Crypt”, your lategame beats theirs, ten times over. Goyf plays a great defense and Jace draws you into answers. Force them to play at a slower pace and you will probably win, forcing the concession with recurring Crypt or Goyf beats.

Tempo Thresh (UGR with Goose+Goyf): Uhrg, I hate this matchup. We’ll win if we survive to the lategame, but Spell Snare, Daze, Mongoose, and heavy Waste draws end it quickly. If you manage to land a CB/Top, they’re in deep shit, but it’s harder than it looks against a deck that is pretty much land+cantrips+counters+8-10 beaters. Be extremely careful with your fetches, cracking in response to theirs, their cantrips, or if they tap out (extremely rare). Only Force the kill-cons, unless you’re defending a fetch from Stifle and don’t have the land to lose it. Good luck on this one, you’ll need it. Trying to reduce the cost of your spells in important here. EE lock is too good in this matchup to reduce Intuitions, and getting Loam by any means possible ensures mana. They will have Blasts of their own and burn, so Jace’s survivability is low, but if you untap with him in play, you’ll probably win. I still suggest removing at least 1-2 in addition to the obvious Shackles and FS. Play the same as preboard, just be aware of REBs and Spell Pierces. Needle on EE is common, don’t depend on them. Throw in all Relics you have here; they buy time against beaters without costing a card.

The Rock: Another bad matchup. Preboard is not so bad, as their only disruption is hand-based and possibly some permanent hate in Pridemage, Vindicate, Pulse, etc. Don’t let Confidant or KotR live/resolve. They will beat you fast with either of them. Top is huge against them, as it voids all of their disruption, but they usually run a few too. This gives them a huge boost, because they otherwise have no draw engine. Force their Top if possible. CB breaks their entire deck open if you can land it without dying next turn; their whole curve 1, 2 , and 3 with no instant speed disruption. Jace is also a beating, and if they can’t kill him next turn, you’ll usually win. Goyf will likely eat a Swords, don’t count on him.

Extirpate is a killer here, usually stealing CB, FoW, or even worse, a Trop/Tundra. Clique is great at combating their hate, Relic is a stall-piece, Ratchet and EE remove the Needles, scary dudes, and possibly Chokes. Spell Pierce can help with the discard and stop a Choke/GY hate. Nature’s Claim is great in this match if you run it, with plenty of important targets (Choke, Top, Needle, Mox, Relic/Crypt). This matchup is harsh postboard, and all the creatures they play are dangerous (Goyf, Confidant, KotR, Pridemage). Draws can make all the difference for you though, because they need to see multiple threats early in addition to some good disruption (Thoughtseize, Duress, Extirpate). FS is kinda weak here, since the real threats are Goyf, KotR, and Confidant, which Paths handle more efficiently and neither deals with Choke.

New Horizons/ProBant/BantAggro: This is like the Rock matchup, only with counters and no Confidant. KotR is still amazingly good and will demolish us if he sticks. Stoneforge(if they run it) is also great, turning all of their dudes into monsters. Most of these decks I’ve seen don’t run Vial, but they do run Pridemage, which is harsh on the CB plan. If you do manage to land a CB though, they don’t run Vindicate/Pulse to stop it, and are up shitcreek unless they can kill you shortly afterwards. Most list’s countersuite consists of Daze, FoW, and possibly Spell Stutter Sprite, so you can reasonably guess at their countermagic and options available to them. Some lists do run Spell Pierce/Snare, which is extremely dangerous, and should be kept in the back of your mind. Basically, as long as they’re not running NO/Prog, this matchup is an easier Rock. This is another deck that if you can stay alive long enough to set up EE lock, you will win. They play many of the same cards as Rock, but not the really dangerous ones like Thoughtseize, Confidant, Vindicate, and Extirpate. The exception to this is NO/Prog, which will always lose you the game. Side out your Firespouts, and possibly your Goyfs. They run Swords MD, and will probably bring in some Paths, expecting regular CB Goyf. I also like to side out the CBs, due to the million and one answers they have to it (Pridemage, Grip, Pierce/Snare, Needle on Top). Throw in the Blasts, Paths, and some Spell Pierces/Cliques. EE and Ratchet also have merit if you saw no Stifles. Grips are obvious from them, but thankfully no Choke. Do your best to save your hardcounters for a possible NO, as it’s as good as game if it resolves. This is certainly not a great matchup, but is better than the Rock. SB strategy should be mostly the same as The Rock, but with less emphasis on Art/Enchant hate.

Less common matchups that are worth mentioning

Lands (of the 43 variety): If they don’t lock you out of the game early enough, you win. CB beats Loam recursion, and Jace beats their deck. This is all draw dependent on whether or not they get a fast Wastelock hand with an accelerant (Exploration, Manabond). Most builds also run Intuition to set up their own EE lock, which is just as dangerous against us as any other deck. Set up CB as soon as possible, GY hate supplements the gameplan. Jace may not be able to be played due to manalock, so side one out. Expect Chalice of the Void at 1 or Null Rods (far less common). GY hate from them and Needles are also a big possibility. We have tutors and recursion in addition to CB, we can do this. Out with the FS, Counterspells, Shackles, and Swords (unless you saw a shitload of Manlands).

AggroLoam: Without an early Wastelock or a Chalice at 1, these decks just fold. CB > their deck for this exercise, but they usually do run Maelstrom Pulse. Don’t let the Confidant or the Crusher live, as they’ll both end the game in short order. Just set up CB and try to get a 2 in there to shut out everything but Crusher and Pulse. Only Force the threats and a Chalice. If you’re running them, put in the Cliques for additional Loam hate. They usually side out their Chalices if they’re on the draw, but will bring in Chokes to replace them. Thankfully, their threat density is so low that even if they do drop some hate, you’ll probably have time to find an out their hate and beat them regardless. Artifact/Enchantment hate that doesn’t cost 1 is extremely useful postboard, pack all of it. If you run it, Needle is great against Wastelock, and also good to name EE if they are running blue + Ruins (This is not the common build though). Out with FS, Shackles, and possibly Intuitions as they probably will be siding in Leylines or other hate to stop your EE lock. GY hate is mandatory here.

Enchantress: It never ceases to amaze me how people disregard the deck completely and end up getting blown out by it. If you play in an aggro-heavy metagame, you can reasonably expect some Enchantress in there somewhere. The key to winning the matchup preboard and postboard is 1) Never let an Enchantress effect resolve (Presence and Argothian), 2) Don’t get blown out by random hate. This includes Choke, City of Solitude, Karmic Justice, Blood Moon, and others. These decks always have at least 5-6 cards for the blue matchup postboard, including some in the main, usually being 2-3 each of CoS and Choke postboard. Both of those are backbreakers. If you can prevent the Enchantress effect, they extremely slow, and will not be able to handle recurring EE or Jace. Hate cards from them are usually preceded by drawing multiple cards off of the draw effect, then tutoring for their bombs. If you can do the two things mentioned above, this will be a piece of cake.

Countertop Thopter: The same as CB Goyf, only they have way fewer threats and a more consistent CB. What they do have is Thopters, which if assembled early enough will single-handedly win them the game. Don’t let them assemble the Thopter combo, and you can win this with a single Intuition for EE lock and shut out their Ruins recursion. They also have no draw engine, and the deck is inherently full of card disadvantage, but the tutor adds amazing consistency for them to find what they need and they pack a shitload of cheap counters. Take out the obvious cards (FS, StP), and put in the Blasts, Grips, EEs, Cliques, etc; standard anti-control cards. Also make sure you throw in at least Crypt, for the Intuition package, completely stopping their main route to victory. Some of these builds side into Tarmogoyfs to avoid being blown out by GY hate, this is something to keep in mind if you see even 1 Tropical. Jace is still a major threat, and most lists play 2-3, so save your blasts for something worthwhile. I’ve found Goyf to die a lot here, pre and post board. They’ll be siding out their Ensnaring Bridges/Moats/Humilites, but will still keep some StPs in, so make a judgment call on whether you think Goyf would be better than extra GY hate/Spell Pierces/EEs. Their deck is designed to beat combo and aggro, not control, so we have the upperhand with overall more powerful cards and options.

Random Black decks (Pox, Eva, whatever jank playing mostly black non-combo cards): These decks all fold to CB, and Top is extra strong here (all of their disruption is discard). Jace stops them in their tracks just as well. Barring the absurd “Ritual, Thoughtseize, Hymn” draws, it’s pretty hard for these decks to beat you. If they play a recursion game (Bloodghast, Loam+Raven’s Crime, etc.), just scoop and beat them the next games with GY hate. They have a low threat density, and very little significant hate to side in (Duress, Extirpate is about it). Seriously, I don’t know why people play these types of decks. Side out whatever was underperforming.

Madness/Intuition Aggro (UGB Vines, UG Vines): Survival decks, without Survival. That still doesn’t make them a good matchup for Control. Hanni’s UGB deck is extremely fast, and with good draws they are difficult if not impossible to stop preboard. UG usually runs a mana denial plan in addition to the VV monstrosity that both decks play, and has more independent creatures. Both decks are GY dependant, although the UG lists usually have a NO plan or other non-GY dependant strategy in the board. Never let the Madness outlet resolve, ever. They run less than 18-19 lands, and try to play 3-4 mana spells, so manafuck is a possibility for them. But the Madness dudes are 1-2 cc and are enough to get the ball rolling quicklike. Black lists run Bloodghast, which is another recurring problem for us. Both decks are very difficult G1. Postboard, we’ll have GY hate, Paths, and Blasts to help out. Black lists certainly have Extirpate, but Intuition is too powerful if they can’t stop it, locking out their GY. Spell Pierce also helps immensely here, stopping Intuition/Buried Alive/NO and is great against UG’s tempo plan. If you expect these decks in numbers, pack more GY hate. UGB can’t win in the face of GY hate, and UG is significantly slowed down. These are bad matchups for sure, but dedicated SB hate and playtesting the matchup will help dramatically. Both decks rely on speed and you not knowing how to play against them, and both of the decks most powerful draws are uncommon compared to their usual hands. This is you trying to stop them from doing what they want to do, and they rarely have any significant hate for you, just anti-hate for your cards.

Affinity and its variants (Raffinity, AFoWinity, Erayo, Red Cards Affinity): These decks will either lose quickly, or blow you out with fast Cranial Plating/Ravager + Disciple draws. The only 3 cards in their entire deck that matter are Cranial Plating, Ravager, and Master of Etherium. Disciple is also dangerous, but usually just a nuisance without Ravager. Stop the Plating at all costs, as it turns every dude they have into a gamewinner. Master can be Sworded, but is still a beating if all by himself. Ravager is extremely dangerous if they have another dude, because you don’t know when they’re going to decide to go all in. Stop those cards, and they play an inconsistent aggro deck with cheap, but shitty dudes. Erayo relies on Glimpse and Glint Hawk, and you can just Swords the Erayo in response to the fourth spell. The red versions run Shrapnel Blast and Galvanic Blast, but play the same as the above. Just try to stay at a higher life-total and side out your Jaces against these guys. Goyf is the best defense, as he’s always Huge/Huge against a deck full of artifact creatures. Throw in the Grips, Paths, EEs/Ratchets, and possibly a few Blasts if you feel some MD cards are weak in the matchup. CB is a bit too slow in here, so I would take them and some Tops out. If you have extra cards you want to side in against them, a few Jaces are also acceptable to side out.

Chalice decks (Dragon Stompy, Faerie Stompy, whatever Stompy): First of all, if your metagame has a significant presence of these decks, don’t play this deck. You will lose a lot. These are pretty terrible matchups, and Dragon Stompy is about the worst matchup in Legacy. Thankfully, these decks shit all over themselves randomly, and you opponent may just mull to oblivion or scoop when you Force their T1 Blood Moon/Magus. The overall gameplan is stop the disruption element, then StP their overcosted dudes and win. None of these decks run removal for Goyf, none of them have a draw engine, none of them can deal with Jace preboard. Good luck, this is a shitty matchup all around. Side out the FS against non-red versions and Intuitions + Loam against the red version. The rest is up to you. I’ve only tested against these decks a few times, and all of those times I’ve lost (at least to the Moon deck). Win the die roll and play from there to be honest. If you know how to stack, stack their deck when shuffling. Fuck you Chalice of the Void and Moons.

Red Decks (Burn, Rxx Sligh): I only mention these decks because no matter where you play, what the metagame, or what the current deck of choice is, there is always some asshole playing red. Burn and Sligh operate differently from Zoo, because they absolutely no long-term potential. They both scoop to a CB. They both scoop to a Jace fateseal. They both can’t handle Tarmogoyf. But they both can just randomly win if they get the right draws. Put in all your counters that are applicable in the matchup, and all of your Paths to nail Guide, Lynx, Nacatl, or Shusher. Just get a CB, and watch out for Blasts. After the match, pick up your chair and beat the red player with it, to as punishment for being douchebags.

Mana Drain
01-06-2011, 12:12 PM
Why play this pile over something else?

This is a valid question anybody who is reading this is asking themselves. I actually didn’t have high hopes for this deck when I first started playing it (Summer ’10). I had in it a number of janky combos that didn’t do anything until I was already winning. My curve was awful, and my SB was just as bad. It didn’t help that Survival was beginning to pick up steam, and this deck was simply cold to the strategy. I kept working on the deck anyway though, testing the deck against everything in the format except the green menace. Eventually, the card choices became clear and the most effective and synergistic cards made the cut. The deck started showing it's power and it's versatility. Why am I mentioning all this? Because you’re probably thinking exactly the same thing now that I was thinking months ago. But my opinion has certainly changed now, most importantly due to Survival leaving Legacy. This deck is poised to take advantage over an Aggro presence, while beating the Combo decks, and giving other controling decks (CB Goyf, Landstill) a run for their money.

Why play this over regular CB decks (CB Goyf)?
Because regular CB decks are omnipresent, and everybody knows how to play against you, what cards are necessary to beat you, and you are in primary consideration when other people are building their decks. The best ways to beat CB are to overwhelm the CB player, pack versatile answers that are solid on their own while still being effective at stopping CB, or just not care about CB. These strategies are present in Zoo (Pridemage, raw speed, and half of the SB), Goblins (Vial, Blasts, speed, high-mana curve), Merfolk (Vial, cheap counters, speed, manlands, unblockablity), The Rock (Vindicate, Pridemage, Thoughtseize, half of their SB), Bant (Pridemage, cheap counters, NO), Landstill (cheap counters, manlands, infinite answers, PWs), Affinity (raw speed, varied curve), Dredge (just doesn’t care about anything but FoW), and I’m going to stop there because there is no need to continue. Most of the decks I mentioned are all creature decks, either Swarm (Gobs, Folk), Midrange Disruption (Bant, Rock), or just really efficient at beating down (Zoo). Your vulnerable to these creature strategies AND creature-hate (from other control decks, like Landstill and CB Thopter). Modern CB decks are really mid-range decks themselves, and the faster strategies can put you out well before you have your blockers up. Tarmogoyf, Daze, and StP are not always enough to stop these guys. Against other mid-range decks, you’re creatures are often not the size or quality that KotR, Tombstalker, Dark Confidant or their exalted Goyfs are. With no source other than CB for card advantage or inevitability, falling behind often happens, and it’s hard to recover from. Against other control like Landstill, you have to match power plays like Standstill, more PWs, Humility/Moat, Thopter/Sword, and Crucible/Shackles and a much better long-game strategy against you’re tempo counters and creatures (which they play a million and one removal spells for). In addition, other control decks are well aware that CB decks exist, and cards like EE are not only difficult to stop without FoW, but can completely nuke your board in spite of your CB/Top sitting on the table. You’re the beatdown against these decks, and you don’t play a fast beatdown game.

Intuition CB is primarily aimed at beating creature decks, where other similar decks may fall short. With a MD StP, Firespout, Shackles, and EE, we can deal with the opponent resolving a few dudes. We all know that this happens. We can deal with an active Vial on the table. We play the same solid defenses that CB Goyf plays, just more of them. In addition, we can handle falling behind. Our topdecks either generate card advantage, remove difficult threats from play, set up inevitability, or stop future threats from hitting the field. We can also handle control and less-linear strategies like Lands, Dredge, and Aggro-Loam more effectively. We are a control deck, and we can match the Landstill player’s bombs, with either bombs of our own or effective answers. We also have a lategame strategy that can’t be matched answered by a control deck preboard, in addition to excellent card quality mechanisms like Top. All of this is in addition to the CBs that we play. If we happen to set CB/Top up, great. We now have an advantage over our opponent. If they stop it via counters or EE, no problem. We can function without it in play just fine. This is the primary advantage this deck has over other CB decks. We have multiple synergies and tactics to take advantage of, none of which can be answered by the same cards. It’s not too difficult to answer EE recursion. But can you do that when CB is online? How about when Goyf is on the field? Or worse, Jace? Can you stop the Jace from sealing you out of the game when Goyf/StP is defending him? Or when your team of dudes gets swept by a FS? Can you handle the early CB I dropped? Oh, you do have the Grip for it. Good work. I’m going to untap and Intuition, putting you on the clock to kill me before I start blowing up your stuff every turn.

Then why not play Landstill instead?
Because Landstill has the same problems that it did 7 years ago: falling behind when your draw engine is voided because there is a threat on the board, and not living to 4-5+ mana. While Landstill certainly handles the Tribal matchups many times better than most CB Goyf lists, decks like The Rock and ProBant are big problems. They run extremely dangerous threats, that are cheap, and often disruptive or give them a huge advantage (KotR, Pridemage, Confidant, No/Prog/Clique). Landstill is also a very top-heavy deck on the mana curve, and this has caused problems for years. Double-Waste draws can blow you out when you keep a mana light hand. The same thing can happen to this deck, but we compensate for Wasteland with more fetches, a playset of Tops, Loam, a lower mana-curve, and more cheap answers, especially postboard. Tempo Thresh, TA, and other Tempo decks are not easy matchups by any means, but this deck handles the above with more card-quality, fewer big-mana bombs, and the addition of CB, which is a complete blowout against any Tempo deck.

We also have something that Landstill has also, but we can utilize it dramatically more consistently: recurring EE. This combo wins any game with a stabilized or even “not going to die next turn” board, with exception for Progenitus and Tombstalker. Landstill doesn’t run any tutors or consistent engine cards, just an extremely powerful, but unstable draw engine. Landstill hopes to draw into its’ bombs when it hits 4 mana, and hopes it doesn’t draw them when stuck on 2 land. This deck’s curve tops out at 4 with the 3 Jace, possibly spending more mana than that on Shackles + Activation or EE at 3+ with activation in a single turn. Besides that, after an Intuition resolves, we have all the land we need for the rest of the game. We can operate with less land in play, because we play Tarmogoyf and CB. When we’re fighting off an assault, we don’t shit bricks because we only have 3 mana available and a hand full of PWs or Moat/Humility/WoG/DoJ. We start doing stuff to stay alive, by dropping FS, Shackles, StP, EE, or Goyf. When we do happen to have 4+ mana lying around, we just start winning the game with Intuition for gas or Jace or just protecting a Tarmogoyf. CB seals the deal when we set it up on a clear board, and helps prevent future threats from showing up while we dig and draw to find an answer for a problem currently present.

The gist of these last 4 paragraphs can accurately be summed up with just one word:
Options. That’s why we play this deck. We can handle anything (except Progenitus, that guy’s a motherfucker) with time and we have the tools to buy us the time we need. Playing 4 colors also gives us a huge number of SB options, to be tailored to a predicted metagame. The versatility of the deck prevents it from being hated out by a single type of hate, making SB decisions on your opponents part difficult and giving us the ability to side out a particular engine for more effective cards. This deck doesn’t get shut out by any single card or strategy, and has the card selection available to deal with any particular card or strategy.

The Future: Where to take this deck from here?

While I do feel that for now, the MD is pretty much optimal, future printings of cards or a resurgence in a particular strategy may warrant a change. This is where you guys come in: expressing concerns about matchups or potential problems and the community figuring out answers together. The SB certainly changes from meta to meta, while certain cards should remain static (Path, Blasts, EE). Here are some questions I’ve been pondering and am eager to hear the opinions of the community on:

Should this deck play black? Hell, we’re a four color deck right now. Throwing in a USea or two and putting in some power cards like Deed, Extirpate, Perish, EPlaugue, Volrath’s Stronghold or Duress is not out of the question. The only cards on that list that I find interesting are Extirpate, Perish, and Deed, just due to their raw power. Perish in the board would really help the mid-range matchups while also making Zoo easier. Midrange is a problem matchup right now, and Perish would make a huge difference. Extirpate is the best piece of GY hate ever printed, and stops decks like Madness, Dredge, and Lands cold. It’s also a great card against other control decks and is somewhat useful against combo (nailing a fetch, cantrip, disruption piece, or accelerant and giving info on their hand). I would love to pack 3 Extirpate in the board as the sole GY hate, and it would probably be more effective than the current GY hate. Deed is just good, but mana intensive in both color and quantity. If GY or Mid-range decks are abundant in your metagame, you may want to try splashing black.

Should this deck play more engines? I’ve tried Grove + 2 Punishing Fire, and was impressed at how effective it was against Tribal. Thopter/Sword would take up 2 slots in the MD, but add another effective kill condition that can be used on an unstabilized board while also adding 2 more 2 drops to the CB curve. Both of the engines have problems in that they aren’t very effective without Intuition, and the Thopter/Sword combo takes 2 Intuitions if you haven’t already seen a Loam or Ruins. In the end I didn’t like either as much as Ruins + EE, which are both solid cards on their own (at least the Ruins taps for mana). But I’m sure there are some decent engines that are possible that I haven’t tried.

In a large tournament setting and metagame (like a GP), what decks should we SB for or be most concerned about? The meta I play in (about 16 -20 people) is composed of entirely of Tier 1 and Established archetypes with very little randomness, and my board reflects this. I haven’t had serious problems with Storm combo as of yet, but my SB isn’t tuned heavily to beat them. CB, FoW, CS, and Blasts have been pretty successful for me so far, but the Storm players in my area aren’t GP caliber either (with Combo, that is). I’m wondering if something like Spell Pierce should be added to the “must have” list of SB cards, mainly due to combo, but they have their uses in other matchups as well. Combo decks are always updating and adapting their hate, staying current with them is extremely important. Against Merfolk, the deck has performed exceptionally well for a blue control deck. I’ve won many G1’s against them and postboard the odds are much better with Blasts, Paths, EEs, and other dedicated creature removal. Goblins is less common in my area, but I've still had great success riding FS, Shackles, and Goyf to victory. I’m interested to hear concerns about any Tier 1 or Established archetypes that people are having problems with, and how we can deal with these decks effectively.

So after over 12,000 words, I hope I’ve at least gotten your attention. I’m eager to listen to any concerns or answer any questions I can on the deck. Immense amount of credit goes to Valtrix and ivanpei as chief contributors to the old Intuition CB thread. Many ideas and card choices came from their lists and reasoning, and they certainly influenced my build (which coincidently is almost identical to Valtrix’s) for the better.

Thank you for your time and I hope you found this primer useful and helpful, or at least a decent read.

Take it easy all.

jazzykat
01-06-2011, 12:15 PM
Very cool deck. Let' say for whatever reason you only run 2 Jaces what would your other Jace turn into? Thanks!

mossivo1986
01-06-2011, 12:39 PM
Very cool deck. Let' say for whatever reason you only run 2 Jaces what would your other Jace turn into? Thanks!

I didn't see a reasoning behind why the U cycler land shouldn't be included in your mainboard. I understand with colliseum, but I believe its called lonely sandbar.

Ubiquitous Druid
01-06-2011, 12:40 PM
Excellent write-up and analysis on an archetype I really enjoy. Intuition + Loam is one of my favorite combinations in Magic. I have been thinking about lists like this one a lot in the wake of Survival's banning and this list sums up many of my thoughts.

One thing I think the deck could use to its advantage is at least one recurrable artifact creature threat to make intuition piles and abuse Academy Ruins.Etched Oracle was good in ITF lists, but combat rule changes have diluted its power significantly and just isn't as big as I would like. Here's hoping to the new Mirrodin block giving a 4cmc or less artifact beater that has synergy with this deck.

And as has been pointed out in the UBgx Landstill thread: Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows is pretty damn good. It could be super-synergistic with this shell, piggybacking on both Swords to Plowshares(MD) and Nature's Claim(SB). I might attempt to use your list as a jumping off point and testing the combo's potential with Intuition. Recurrable removal turning into a clock? Yes please.

Mana Drain
01-06-2011, 01:07 PM
Very cool deck. Let' say for whatever reason you only run 2 Jaces what would your other Jace turn into? Thanks!

While the deck would function no differently with 2 Jace (you'd just see Jace less often and couldn't Intuition for him), I honestly would have to suggest running Regrowth in the 3rd Jace slot. This allows you to Intuition for him still (albeit slower), and have another 2 drop for the CB curve
The deck is light on win-cons, and Jace is that good. Regrowing him or a Goyf to win it is slower, but still viable. Also having a 1GW StP in your deck is still good. I talked about it in the original draft, but excluded it as a non-obvious choice. I'll edit the opener to put it back in.


I didn't see a reasoning behind why the U cycler land shouldn't be included in your mainboard. I understand with colliseum, but I believe its called lonely sandbar.

Cycle lands were excluded for just not doing enough, and comming into play tapped. This is a big negative, and if your Intuitioning for "Loam/Sandbar/x", you're not making the most out of your Intuition. Coliseum doesn't come into play tapped, and does what you want the Sandbar to do, only more effective. It's not awful, but just not significant enough to make our MD cut.


Excellent write-up and analysis on an archetype I really enjoy. Intuition + Loam is one of my favorite combinations in Magic. I have been thinking about lists like this one a lot in the wake of Survival's banning and this list sums up many of my thoughts.

One thing I think the deck could use to its advantage is at least one recurrable artifact creature threat to make intuition piles and abuse Academy Ruins.Etched Oracle was good in ITF lists, but combat rule changes have diluted its power significantly and just isn't as big as I would like. Here's hoping to the new Mirrodin block giving a 4cmc or less artifact beater that has synergy with this deck.

And as has been pointed out in the UBgx Landstill thread: Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows is pretty damn good. It could be super-synergistic with this shell, piggybacking on both Swords to Plowshares(MD) and Nature's Claim(SB). I might attempt to use your list as a jumping off point and testing the combo's potential with Intuition. Recurrable removal turning into a clock? Yes please.

Like Regrowth, I did include a writeup for why Oracle was excluded, and I'll go back and include it. Basically, any time you have the mana to start recurring Oracle, you're already winning and recurring EE/Coliseum would do the same thing, only they are more useful by themselves. Besides that, Oracle does nothing for the CB curve and is only playable when you have all 4 colors available (not always there for you).

As was pointed out in the primer, Grove + Fires is awesome against Tribal, but we don't need any more help against Tribal. The original lists had them, and they were cut for not doing enough, and are more GY dependant cards postboard. Although, if you're still interested, Grove for a fetch and 2 Fires for possibly CS or some other 2 drop could be good. It also may be a good SB strategy in the SB for aggro. Give it try.

GGoober
01-06-2011, 03:43 PM
Nice primer Mana Drain. I've piloted my own list when this was independently being explored by Valcrix and Ivanpei. I went for a Fire/Groves approach with Loam for a UGwr build. The only issue I ran into was Knight of the Reliquary and Goyf ignoring PFires, and the riskiness of a 4c-manabase against Wasteland.meta. Aside from that, and the risk of running to time (the deck was even slower than Landstill, and most UGwx countertop lists are actually slower than Landstill), the deck was very strong against all other decks.

Aside from that, I'm not sure if you've explored this route, but Intuition-> Loam + Groves + Pfires (or one to two of these pieces if you already have one in play) is very game-winning against tribal, control and non-Goyf.dec. Another issue with such a list was that the engine is super strong (even Extirpate cannot stop PFires since Groves is a mana-ability putting the trigger on the stack) but was fairly slow. You usually start abusing it on turn 6, but with Countertop, you can severely lock out a lot of decks and ride it to victory, although it is slow.

However, my list was a creatureless approach with 4 Factories (23 lands supporting UGwr with 4 factories) so that maybe a key reason I find the mana instability. If you play 4 Goyfs no Factories, I haven't tested how that would pan out. Intuition when used in the right shell (e.g. this list and my list) is an insane broken 3cmc instant tutor that fetches 3 cards.

Mana Drain
01-06-2011, 10:40 PM
Like I said, the Fires+Grove plan isn't bad, but it just isn't optimal for this deck. Fires really wants multiple Groves going, and at that point you want multiple Fires. It also forces the deck to play more red, or fetch red way more than you want to without it, making Wasteland more powerful. Unless you're about to cast a FS, you rarely want to fetch a Volc. With Fires, you have to fetch a Volc, and multiples are required. Basically, it takes the deck into a direction that isn't as productive or resilient as it is now. Fires is a great engine, but want's it's own deck, without Intuition. The fact that it can't take out Goyf and KotR is also extremely relevant, and Extirpate does infact blow Fires decks out.

Factories are no good in this build. They only belong in Landstill, because that's Landstill. And I wouldn't call Intuition (in any shell) broken by any means, but very powerful and quite skill intensive if you intend to build around it effectively.

hyc8028
01-07-2011, 12:36 AM
Nice deck. Can Knight of Reliquary fit in here? It seem like a huge beat stick with Loam around.

I know Elspeth is less effective than Jace with Intuition Engine and require double white, but is it possible to replace one Jace with Elspeth?

jazzykat
01-07-2011, 04:47 AM
This may be the best primer EVER. I ran the deck last night and it was really incredible. It is a streamlined minimalist ITF. While I think there are too many bad matchups (tempo thresh, rock) or toss ups (dredge, landstill, merfolk), along with a lot of 4 wasteland.decs in my meta to run it i will continue to monitor this thread.

mossivo1986
01-07-2011, 05:16 AM
-Great shell.

- Missing trinket mage in your cards that got cut section.
-Your landbase feels incorrect. I'll work on it with you if you'd like.

paK0
01-07-2011, 10:51 AM
Wow, I loved ITF a few months ago and I could really see myself playing this one.

Awesome primer btw.

And I agree with Mossivo, the Manabase looks a little awkward

Mana Drain
01-07-2011, 12:42 PM
Nice deck. Can Knight of Reliquary fit in here? It seem like a huge beat stick with Loam around.

I know Elspeth is less effective than Jace with Intuition Engine and require double white, but is it possible to replace one Jace with Elspeth?

KotR unfortunately doesn't have much to do with this decks gameplan, and the color requirements are something that I try to stay away from (2 non-blue colors). He's off the hook amazing in any aggro deck, but Tarmogoyf fills the wall/beater role better while being easier to cast.

I assume you're looking for a replacement for the 3rd Jace? Elspeth is awesome, in Landstill and Big Zoo, where WW can be gotten easily. Here, WW doesn't do anything for your ability to cast spells. She'd be a good finisher, but I think she would stick in your hand to much to be worth it. Go for it if you're playing a lot of Zoo/mid-range where she'd be better than Jace most of the time. Otherwise, I'd go with either: Regrowth, Maze of Ith, Vendilion Clique, or possibly Trinket Mage (as suggested by moss below). You won't see Jace as often or be able to Intuition for him, but it should significantly impact the way the deck plays and all of the above do add either options, or solid cards to the deck that didn't make the cut (or your 3rd Jace in Regrowth).


This may be the best primer EVER. I ran the deck last night and it was really incredible. It is a streamlined minimalist ITF. While I think there are too many bad matchups (tempo thresh, rock) or toss ups (dredge, landstill, merfolk), along with a lot of 4 wasteland.decs in my meta to run it i will continue to monitor this thread.

Thanks, I put some serious effort into it. As you can tell, I'm not a writer.

I really don't think that Tempo Thresh is a bad matchup or that Landstill and Merfolk are toss ups. We have a low curve of answers and dig/draw spells (StP, EE, Top, BS, Counterspell), CB (blows them out), Gofy to block/trade, and of course, EE recursion causes them to scoop (all the time). Postboard we have Blasts, EEs, Ratchets, possibly Relic, Snare/Pierce to lower our curve and increase our interactivity with the deck, in addition to our normal "you lose" cards. Landstill may take it G1, but postboard the deck is streamlined with EEs, Ratchet, Blasts, Art/Enchant hate, and possibly GY hate in addition to our own Jaces, Intuitions, and CB (better postboard). Playing Goyf forces them to keep in their StPs, leaving them with less useful cards while our deck is completely tuned. Merfolk can beat you G1, but postboard you literally bring in 8-11 cards for the deck. Blasts, Paths, Snares, EEs, Ratchets, Firespout, etc. all are a beating on Folk. So much 1for1ing leading into a Jace/Intuition wins the game handily. My experience has proven all these matchups completely beatable in the match. Please playtest more before jumping to conclusions.

The Rock is indeed a terrible matchup. Thoughtseize, Confidant, Goyf, KotR, Pridemage, Vindicate, Top, and Wasteland are like a "Best of: Anti-blue cards" deck, and they are even more difficult postboard with Grip and Extirpate. This is why I considered the B splash for Perish to improve our game against them. If you have any tech to share for this matchup, please do so.

Dredge is entirely beatable postboard. Of course they'll probably win G1 - They're DREDGE! That's what they do. But postboard, Blasts, Pierces, Paths, and most importantly, recurring Crypt will dramatically even the odds. They have to get a nut-hand that can kill you fast even with their draw spells/disruption being countered, or just lose to an Intuition. Not to mention having their PImps/Tribes nailed by Path/StP, dudes blocked by Goyf, and tokens swept by EE/Ratchet. It's better than it looks for us. Play it some more and find out.

Against Wasteland.dec, if they're not Lands or Aggro-Loam with Wastelock, you play through it. Yeah, you'll lose games to double Waste draws when you kept a 1-2 land hand. It happens to every deck in the format. The deck is completely aware that Wasteland exists, and things like StP, Top, BS, Force, and Counterspell are cheap answers to threats or help you dig to find more land. That's also why the deck runs 3 FS in the main, to comeback against Tribal decks when we've been slowed down. And it works pretty damn well too. In addition, proper usage of fetches is required when playing this deck. Fetching Island T1 for your Top is one example of how to play around Wasteland. There are a million methods of minimizing Wastelands impact on the deck. Practice will prove this.


-Great shell.
- Missing trinket mage in your cards that got cut section.
-Your landbase feels incorrect. I'll work on it with you if you'd like.

In all honesty, I had never thought of Trinket. Please explain further on this, as he could prove useful, but I don't know what slot he could occupy in the current shell. Tutors for EE/Top/Needle(?) could be hot.

My manabase is greedier than Valtrix's. His manabase is probably the most conservative and resilient possible in the face of Waste.dec without sacrificing significant color consistency. Mine has proven itself extremely consistent in it's ability to produce whatever color I need to cast my spells, and I'm completely satisfied with it. This is supplemented by 4 Top, 4 BS, and 1 Loam. Thus far, I have no complaints. Wasteland hurts, but if you're playing a deck with nonbasic lands, Wasteland hurts. If you have any suggestions moss I will definitely take them into consideration, but for the most part, I believe my manabase does everything I want it to do: Play my cards when I need to. Wasteland happens, and if they get a super-fast, double Waste + Gas hand, I may lose, but that's Magic. Wasteland is less relevant than your own deck shitting out on you because you're stuck with 2 Islands, a Volc, and a Trop with 2 StPs in hand while Tarmogoyf beats you to death.

For what it's worth, in the meta I play in (~16-20 people each week), at least 8-10 deck I could be playing that play 4 Wasteland. This includes Tempo Thresh (1), TA (1) Goblins (1), Merfolk (3), Bant (1), The Rock (1-2), Lands (1), possibly Aggro Loam. With the exception of The Rock, and to a lesser extent Bant/ProBant, I've not had major problems with any of them that couldn't be fixed with a few SB cards (mainly Lands and Aggro-Loam). Play and practice with the deck, learn the SB and play techniques that apply to it, and I promise you'll be able to recreate my findings.

Yes, this is a 4 color deck. Yes, my list does run 9 duals. No, I have not had any problems with the deck that other decks playing 3-4 colors (like all CB lists, Zoo, Bant, The Rock) don't have. Look at the color requirements for the non-blue cards in the deck and that should give some understandting to this. We don't play RWM, or KotR, or any other card with 2 non-blue requirements. Red is not necessary against decks where FS is useless.Wasteland has been a consideration in Legacy deckbuilding as long as Legacy has been in existence. Deal with it and plan/play around it. None the less, I'm still open to any suggestions, and will give any well-thought-out manabase a shot. Besides that, this is just a primer filled with suggestions. If you don't feel that either manabase posted is effective/resilient enough for you, change it! I want people to come up with their own ideas, because they may be better than mine (completely possible). And then I can steal them and use them to my benefit!

The Treefolk Master
01-07-2011, 12:59 PM
How does the deck fare against POX? I haven't played against it yet, but the version I'll encounter runs 2 crucible, 4 wasteland, 4 sinkhole and 4 Vindicate. Is the mana base strong enough to stand against that deck, or should I leave the deck away if I expect POX to show up (I run into the guy every tournament, we both start 2-0 or 2-1, and eventually meet in the tournament). Alternatively, could I pack some dedicated hate such as Divert? (Hymn, resolves? Divert, Hymn you? OWNED)

mossivo1986
01-07-2011, 04:44 PM
To be completely honest im not sure what slot Triket Mage would fill. The old UGw Countertop spod lists used to run bunches of tutors for singletons IE 1-2 mage 1-2 e tutor and I just thought it should be something thats explained. You do run ee, top, and could run several other tutorable cards for mage in the board clearly. I think its worth a shot.

Valtrix
01-07-2011, 04:52 PM
-Great shell.

- Missing trinket mage in your cards that got cut section.
-Your landbase feels incorrect. I'll work on it with you if you'd like.

The original list that I made played trinket Mage. Really the issue is that intuition is almost always better and there aren't enough artifacts in the deck. As for the manabases, are you saying that both presented are awkward? The manabases I play with basics has been very consistent and manageable in general. While the deck is four colors, you run such a small committment to everything nonblue that you'll rarely get color screwed since you often fetch for whatever color you need at that moment. What would you recommend?

As for match ups I disagree with merfolk or landstill being that much of a toss up. To start, ruins we destroys landstill. They have no way to beat it main( except maybe wish, but then you're still fine. Goyf and countertop can also be quick to victory and shackles negates factories.

Merfolk always deserves credit, but I've played the match a lot and you have so many tools against them, and especially postboard they can never attack into a goyf and you have an absurd amount of answers to their entire deck.

mossivo1986
01-07-2011, 05:03 PM
As for matchbox, I disagree with merfolk or landstill being that much of a gossip. To start, ruins we destroys landstill. They have no way to beat it main( except maybe wish, but then you're still fine. Goyf and countertop can also be quick to victory and shackles negates factories.


I don't think your being fair to landstill. We should test on mws.

Valtrix
01-07-2011, 06:02 PM
Well, this is the way that the several matches I've played against landstill have gone. There are several builds of landstill, so perhaps this is due to the types that I've played against. As such, tell me in what ways I'm "not being fair" to Landstill so that we could discuss the issue more thoroughly.

Mana Drain
01-08-2011, 08:59 PM
How does the deck fare against POX? I haven't played against it yet, but the version I'll encounter runs 2 crucible, 4 wasteland, 4 sinkhole and 4 Vindicate. Is the mana base strong enough to stand against that deck, or should I leave the deck away if I expect POX to show up (I run into the guy every tournament, we both start 2-0 or 2-1, and eventually meet in the tournament). Alternatively, could I pack some dedicated hate such as Divert? (Hymn, resolves? Divert, Hymn you? OWNED)

The manabase isn't where the threat is, it's the T1 Thoughtseize stealing your gas. Against these guys you're probably playing a 3-color deck, because FS is probably useless. Fetch Trops to make sure Goyf and Loam are online. Assuming that their win-con is Tombstalker, and the rest of the deck is just LD, Discard, and lands, it can go either way. The Black decks usually beat us by massive discard followed by a fast clock (Goyf, Tombstalker). Otherwise, a single Top/BS can lead into plenty of land or some gas and we win from there on the back of Jace/CB/EE-recursion. Color intensity is low here.Either way, get CB/Top online and you'll win. Divert in the board sounds perfectly fine in the slot of some Pierces or similar. If they play Bloodghasts, put in GY hate with the Paths.

4eak
01-08-2011, 09:25 PM
I love this deck; it is quite good. I've been in (a great deal of) correspondence with Valtrix since last summer about this deck. It has been wonderful to see the deck unfold and playtest it. Love the primer. I agree with most of it. I disagree with you about some of the matchups though (I'll address that in a bit). Thanks for the hard work.



peace,
4eak

The Treefolk Master
01-09-2011, 10:42 AM
The manabase isn't where the threat is, it's the T1 Thoughtseize stealing your gas. Against these guys you're probably playing a 3-color deck, because FS is probably useless. Fetch Trops to make sure Goyf and Loam are online. Assuming that their win-con is Tombstalker, and the rest of the deck is just LD, Discard, and lands, it can go either way. The Black decks usually beat us by massive discard followed by a fast clock (Goyf, Tombstalker). Otherwise, a single Top/BS can lead into plenty of land or some gas and we win from there on the back of Jace/CB/EE-recursion. Color intensity is low here.Either way, get CB/Top online and you'll win. Divert in the board sounds perfectly fine in the slot of some Pierces or similar. If they play Bloodghasts, put in GY hate with the Paths.

He wins with 4 Mishra's, 4 Bloodghast and 3 Tombstalkers. I'll test the match up some more and try to leave some useful feedback.

ivanpei
01-09-2011, 08:13 PM
I've been MIA for some time (due to silent protesting of survival's death and also because I've been moving house- huge hassle). We've gone through the benefits of intuition based vs more creatures/removal/counters in "normal" counter top. I find the power of intuition very significant. Of course my pile is slightly different from others. I respect the lists in the OP by Vantrix and Manadrain though my opinion differs on the pile choices. Big props to Manadrain for the heads up on this post.

I've been trying a somewhat non-fullblown intuition list. Or mini-intuition countertop if you like. I've found that I really miss the space for spell snares. I'm currently running a loam-coliseum pile. Like Manadrain and Valtrix have pointed out, maze has been somewhat disappointing. Anything sprouting wastelands/rishadan port can easily blow past it during a critical turn. Also, I've been liking the smoother curve that I've been testing though I'm giving up a lot of power. For those who want a list that is slightly less "clunky" but still retains the power of intuition-loam, give it a try:

4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
4 Top
4 Force
2 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
3 Jace TMS
2 Intuition
1 Life from the loam

4 STP
3 Firespout
4 Goyf

4 Misty
4 Tarn
1 Strand
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Tundra
3 Tropical
3 Volcanic

This is a bare-bones version with all the card slots I'd run in normal counter-top except with the clique-intution swap. Loam + fetchlands + top is still game winning. You lose the power to lock up the board in the mid game with ee/shackles but the list helps you live to the mid game. I've found that I usually still win by locking up with Jace/countertop and that the "heavier" ways of locking through the intuition-loam engine to be fancy overkill. If you're having problems vs fast aggro, give this list a shot! I threw a coliseum in there because it is almost "invisible" in the manabase as it provides colored mana and replaces an island. It hurts like a ***** when you draw it early game but it makes U when you need it and can be the "mana open" for counterspell/top/spell snare. Also turns intuition into the bomb without clogging up space. Cheers!

Mana Drain
01-09-2011, 09:31 PM
I like the list. IntuitionCB plays very much like Supreme Blue already, and your list looks like it opts to play SupBlue, with the Intuition package for the stalled boards. I would love to play Spell Snare, but the MDs are extremely tight. Any reason for cutting EE/Ruins? For a Snare and a land, you turn Intuition into "Beat target CB Goyf or Landstill deck", while still locking up the game against most everything in the format with enough time. That is the only thing I disagree with in your list, as EE is just good on it's own as supplemental removal.

Also, I took the deck to my weekly Legacy Sunday today, but had to drop after my the fourth round (good dinner with family > store credit). I'll write up a small report shortly, to give people an idea on how the deck plays and functions.

ivanpei
01-09-2011, 10:43 PM
Yeah, I just bought a house so MTG is pretty low on my priorities right now too. I have a preference for smooth mana curves at the expense of greater raw power. IMO when playing normal counter top with 3 Jace, 4 top, 4 balance, It was gassy enough to beat aggro and mid range. Only trouble was in the mirror and against jacestill. Solution was: More gas, hence intution + bombs. After testing intuition + bombs against fast aggro, too much gas, so chop the not-so necessary down to the bare basics and I got the list above. The list is worse against the CB goyf and Jacestill, but it flows better vs faster decks so its a matter of the meta you are playing in. Also, spell snare isn't horrible vs CB goyf and Jacestill, just not as bomby. The 3rd snare is loose, so It could be an EE/ shackles. The basic mountain can also be an academy ruins. We don't have much slots to play with. I'm currently testing the stripped down version to see which bomb I miss the most. At the moment, I don't really miss either EE or shackles because superman (Jace) picks up so much slack as removal, CA and preemptive denial, it's crazy.

Btw, I'm looking forward to the report!

Mana Drain
01-10-2011, 04:18 PM
Report time! All right, I took IntuitionCB to my weekly Legacy tournament, with the exact same 75 in the primer with 2 Cliques for 2 Pierces. I find that I side in the Pierces only for Combo and Dredge, as I want other cards in for other matchups and the space to put in cards postboard is limited. Clique I find much better in control mirrors and also great against mid-range, so I went with them again. The metagame was: 1 Goblins, 3 Merfolk (I think all mono-U), 2 Zoo, 2 Rock (no Loam/Diamond), 1 ProBant, 1 Bant CB, 2 Tempo decks (TT and TA I think), 1 Trinket/CB/Painter deck (don't ask), 1 Supreme Blue, 1 Lands (43), 1 Dredge (LED), 1 Landstill (UWrg), 1 High Tide combo, 1 TES, and of course, my partner Jeremy playing IntuitionCB (Valtrix's list with different board, his first tournament with the deck). Needless to say, the people I play with aren't hurting of cash (unlike me and a Merfolk player). This was a good showing today, as everyone has been pumped since Survival was banned, ready to play a deck they like and feel comforatble playing. We were playing for $285 store credit ($15 entry) between the top 4, so the split was something like 1st-120, 2nd-75, 3rd-55, 4th-35. Everybody who attends is at least 16+, so we have a pretty mature crowd (a pleasant change from the Standard FNM) and we always have a good time. Usually, we have 3-4 of these credit tournaments with 14-20 people, and once a month or so we have a big prize tournament (last month was a foil Jace and 3 Goyfs I believe) with around 20+ people attending, so these are like our "fun/test" tournaments. By the way, this is my first time taking intensive notes during a tournament, and I'm not sure if it's legal, but I tell everyone I was doing it for a report and they were cool with it.

Round 1: Bant CounterTop (without NO/Prog)
G1: Of course I lose the die roll in the control mirror, but he mulls to 6 while I keep a legit hand of Top, StP, BS, 2x Fetch, Trop, and Intuition. He lays fetch, go. I draw a Goyf, drop Top, which gets Dazed. He drops his own Top and a fetch, go. I draw a Force, fetch Tundra, and drop Goyf. He EOT StPs it, and I don't Force. He untaps, doesn't drop a land, and goes for the CB, which gets met with Force. I untap, Intuition for Loam, EE, and Ruins, and he gives me Loam. He untaps, spins the top, draws, lays fetch, and ends. I untap, draw Top, Loam my 2 fetches and Ruins back, and drop Top. He draws, lays a fetch, cashes in his Top, cracks both fetches, and drops Jace, BSing and passing. I draw, spin the top and draw a BS, lay fetch and end. He draws, BSs with Jace, and drops RWM. EoT I recur EE after cracking the fetch. Untap, blow up Jace, pass. He draws, beats for 3 with RWM, and lays Goyf. I dredge Loam, play it, then BS into gas, drop Goyf, StP his, and end. He draws, StPs mine, and beats for 3. I recur ruins, lay it down for 3, and then drop CB. He scoops from their.
SB: -3 FS, -4 StP, -4 Goyf, +2 Pyro, +1 REB, +2 EE, +1 Ratchet, +1 Grip, +1 CS, +2 Clique, +1 Claim. Siding out Goyf may seem strange, but I wanted to try a different strategy against control and here's why: I don't expect to need a wall in this matchup, I don't want to be playing spells in my mainphase that aren't named Counterbalance or EE, I board in infinity removal for theirs, they'll have infinity removal for mine, and most importantly, he doesn't fit with the gameplan in this matchup: resolve Intuition, or resolve Jace. Doing either of the two without dieing the following turn should win it for you. For those who don't like this plan (most of you), keep the Goyfs and don't side in the Claim, CS, or Cliques.
G2: We both keep our 7, with mine as REB, Force, Intuition, Top, CB, and 2 lands. He drops land, go. I draw a fetch, drop it, and pass. He draws, lays Top, I Force pitching CB, he Pierces my Force, I REB his Pierce, he Forces my REB pitching his own Clique. That was epic. I draw, lay down my Top and a land, and end. He draws, drops land, and ends, while I spin the top. I draw Pyro, drop land, and pass. He draws, lays a land, and goes for CB, to which I Pyro, then EoT spin the Top. I draw a fetch, lay it down and end. He draws, cashes in his Top, plays a land and goes for Jace,, which resolves. EOT I go for Intuition with Daze mana, and it resolves, fetching the doom package, and he gives me Loam. I draw a CS, loam for 2 fetch and Ruins, lay Ruins, and end with 2 duals and Ruins untapped. He draws, BSs with Jace, and ends. EoT I recur EE. I drop EE at 4, he Spell Pierces, leaving me unable to pop EE, and I end. EOT he Grips my EE. He draws, BSs with Jace, and drops Goyf. I untap, draw a Shackles (of course), play it, and steal his Goyf, with a fetch open. He draws, bounces his Goyf, and ends. I recur EE on my upkeep, drop it for 2, and let it sit, with 2 mana open. He goes for EoT Clique, which gets stopped by CS. He draws, BSs with Jace, shakes his head and drops fetch, go. I crack my fetch at EoT and spin the Top to see Force, Jace, and BS, and draw the Jace. I untap, play the Jace, killing his, and end with 4 open. He draws, lays Goyf AND Pridemage, and I EoT crack EE, to which he blows up my Shackles. I untap, draw the BS, cash in Top for Loam, play Loam, get back 3 lands, then BS. I draw into Clique, EE, and Pyro, putting back 2 lands and dropping the 3rd fetch, lay down Top, end. He draws, drops CB, in response I Clique him, his only card is StP, which he uses, and let his CB resolve with 2 mana open for him. EoT I crack the fetch, spin Top, see Jace + Land + Grip, and stack Jace first. I draw, cash in Top for Grip, Grip his CB (he flips Goyf), and drop Jace, fatesealing my land away. He drops Goyf, go. I recur EE, drop it at 2, blow it, drop my Top, and fateseal my Claim away. He draws, plays Pridemage, and passes. I recur EE for the final time, blow up his Pridemage, and he extends his hand from there. I don't know if removing Goyf was right here, so use this strategy with caution.

Round 2: Merfolk (mono U)
G1: I mull to 5, on the play, keeping Goyf, Land, Land, StP, and Force. This is not good. I drop land, go. He drops Vial, and I shit bricks. I draw, drop land, and Goyf, which resolves (hoping to draw out Daze to avoid Standstill). He drops Muta, and of course, Standstill, and I lose shortly after. Oh well.
SB: -4 CB, -4 Force, -2 CS, +3 Blasts, +2 EE, +1 Ratchet, +1 FS, +2 Path, +1 Claim
G2: I draw infinity answers to his threat-light hand, and just roll him.
G3: I keep a 7 of REB, FS, EE, Path, Land, Fetch, Top. He leads with Needle for EE, go. I drop fetch, go. He draws, goes for the Standstill, and I Blast it. I draw, drop land and Top, end. He draws, drops Reerjay, with that and 3 Island on board. I draw Goyf, drop land, end. He draws, drops LoA, tapping my Tundra down, I float W for Path. I go for Path on LoA, and he has the Force, pitching Force (telling me he drew both AFTER the Standstill play). I take the 3, end. I spin the Top on upkeep, and see another EE and Land, draw the land, drop it and FS his team out. Swing for 4 with Goyf, go. He draws, drops Muta, end. I draw, see Claim for the Needle, draw it and swing for 4. He draws, thinks for a second, then drops Coralhelm. He pumps him to 2, and swings with Muta. EoT I spin the top, finding an StP. Draw, swing for 4, end. He draws, pumps coralhelm to 4, and swings with Muta and Coralhelm. I StP the Muta, go down to 8, EoT Claim the Needle. I spin the Top, seeing FS, untap, draw, swing with Goyf, and EE for 2, leaving the board clean. He draws, drops another Coralhelm, and pumps him to 3 counters. I spin the Top upkeep, see Goyf, drop FS, end. He draws, Plays Needle on Top (I cash it in) and ends. I drop Goyf, end. He draws, ends. I draw, find Ratchet, drop it, and swing for 5. He's at 8, draws, ends. I charge Ratchet Eot, draw land, swing, end. He draws, shows me the Standstill and 2 Dazes he drew, and extends the hand.

Round 3: The Rock (Bant, but with black instead of blue and Thoughtseize/Vindicate)
G1: I hate this deck. I win the roll, and mull to six keeping StP, Goyf, CS, CB, Land, Land. I drop land, go. He drops Bayou, Thoughtseize, stealing CB. I draw BS, drop land, end. He draws, drops Pridemage and I CS. I draw Fetch, play BS, drawing into StP, FS, and Top, putting back FS and Goyf. I drop fetch, Top, end. He draws, drops KotR, end. I draw my Goyf, StP his KotR, drop Goyf. He StPs the Goyf and passes. I spin the top at upkeep, find CB (of course), and win from their (leaving Intuition on top to stop his Vindicate next turn). Fuck yeah, CB!
SB: -3 FS, -3 Intuition, -1 Loam, +2 Path, +2 Clique, +1 EE, +1 Ratchet, +1 Claim
G2: I mull to 5 seeing straight jank, and he opens with Thoughtseize on my Top (my only gas), Wastes my Trop, and Extirpates it with a Goyf in my hand, followed by a Goyf of his own. I scoop.
G3: We both keep our 7, and I drop fetch, Island, Top, go. He drops fetch, go. I draw, drop CB (of course), and end. He draws Thoughtseizes me, and I cash in top to counter it. I draw my top, lay fetch, crack it for Island, play Top, BS, and put back Shackles on top of my deck. He untaps, plays land, and Vindicates the CB, which is met with Shackles flip. I spin top on upkeep, draw a Goyf, and drop it, leaving Shackles on top. He draws, plays Thoughtseize, which steals my StP, land, go. I don't spin the top on my upkeep, and before I draw he Grips the CB, which is met with the same Shackles flip. He dies a little inside, and scoops up his cards. Things rarely go this good for me against this deck, but chance was on my side today.

Round 4: Speed Zoo (Guides, Lynx, PoP, no KotR)
I know that I'm leaving after this round, so I scoop to him so is guaranteed T4, but I want to play it out for fun. He trades me out $15 in credit for the scoop because he knows he has a bad matchup and he's just a cool guy like that, allowing me to compensate for the entry fee.
G1: He blows me out with double Guide, Lynx, PoP, and 3 Burn spells. No chance against that draw.
SB: -3 Intuition, -1 Loam, -4 Force, +2 Path, +2 EE, +1 Claim, +1 FS, +1 Ratchet, +1 CS
G2: I have the Path for the T1 Guide, then drop CB. He goes for the Goyf, which gets blind-flipped by CS. I draw CS, lay land, end. He draws, lays Nacatl through the flip, end. I draw, lay land, Goyf. He swings with the Nacatl, tries to Bolt the Goyf, and I BS in response, flipping Top, and he scoops to that.
G3: I mull to 5, and take massive beat for the first 3 turns. I stabilize on T4 with CB/Top online, and am at 2 life after his next turn, with Guide, Lynx, and Lavamancer on the board. I spin the Top Eot, draw FS, sweep his team, end. He draws, thinks for a second, ends. I spin the top, drawing BS with a Shackles and Loam on top to stop for CB, end. EoT he goes for Blast on the CB, I cash in Top in response, counter the Blast, and he goes for PoP afterwards. I BS, show him the loam AND the Goyf I drew, and he submits to the power of CB. Luckily, this was just a fun match for him.

So, after this round I have to leave, and the Top 4 was: SpeedZoo (round 4), Lands (somehow beating the CB/Prog player 4th round), Supreme Blue, and of course, my boy Jeremy with IntuitionCB at 4th seed. He beats the SpeedZoo 2-0, only to lose to Lands in the finals. I don't know what the Lands player's secret tech was, but he beat 3 CB decks in a total of 6 rounds, only losing the TES player all day. I think he used a combination of Chalice, Confidant, Grips, his own recurring EE, and good mulling, which is actually pretty legit for a deck full of Lands.

I'm currently working on revamping the board, as I find SBing with this deck to be extremely difficult. Preparing exactly what cards you're siding in and out is a must. Maximizing the impact of all your cards and more importantly, having a good idea about what you're opponent is siding in against you while playing around their hate is no easy task .I do agree with Valtrix's stance on very little GY hate, as there just aren't many decks to care about who abuse the GY. Besides that, we can beat Dredge and Lands (at least, most of the time) with the cards we're already playing. Practice with this deck certainly pays off, and I don't suggest running in a tournament at the last minute (J had been playing this and working with me for about 2 weeks prior). The most important matchups to prepare for in my opinion are CBGoyf, Zoo, Bant, Tribal, and possibly Rock (maybe it's just me). For reference, J's board (using Valtrix's exact MD):

2 Path
2 Grim Lavamancer (J called it the MVP in the Tribal and mid-range matchups)
1 EE
1 Ratchet
1 Grip
1 Claim
2 Spell Snare
1 Crypt
1 Relic
3 Blasts
He said that Lavamancer either forcing the removal spell or just demolishing the other guys team/utility creatures was huge. Killing off Pridemage, Hierarch, the entire Tribal archetype, Confidant, Clique, Manlands, and making sure your Goyfs beat theirs is indeed solid. You get a lot of mileage and versatility out of one card using a free resource to us, and at the least, drawing out a removal spell otherwise aimed at a Goyf. I'm certainly going to be trying a pair out next week.

Take it easy all.

ivanpei
01-10-2011, 07:41 PM
I love the report. Great detail especially with regard to opening hands and lines of play. I'm not really sure if you should have been fatesealing yourself with Jace though. Even if you know you're next card is dead, usually I always fateseal the opponent if he is also in top deck mode. Also, is Force out vs folk a good idea? I'd only board it out against UB folk because I won't be expecting Back to Basics. That card is scary. I'd board out the intuitions honestly, as they're somewhat slow.

You're pile of death seems extremely strong/ relevant in you're first match. I noticed that it wasn't as apparent in the other matches. When in the midrange slugfest again countertop, intuition -> pile of death is so win, but in other MUs I feel that maybe it's a bit too heavy. It seems like pile of death is the way to go in you're meta. 8/20 of you're matchups are midrange ( 2 rock, probant, bant cb, Countertop painter, supreme blue, landstill, intuition countertop). Great job!

Btw I would like you're thoughts on nature's claim and ratchet bomb. IMO EE > ratchet, any reason for running it? Also, with survival out, isn't krosan grip more practical compared to claim? Cheers!

Mana Drain
01-10-2011, 08:57 PM
I love the report. Great detail especially with regard to opening hands and lines of play. I'm not really sure if you should have been fatesealing yourself with Jace though. Even if you know you're next card is dead, usually I always fateseal the opponent if he is also in top deck mode. Also, is Force out vs folk a good idea? I'd only board it out against UB folk because I won't be expecting Back to Basics. That card is scary. I'd board out the intuitions honestly, as they're somewhat slow.

You're pile of death seems extremely strong/ relevant in you're first match. I noticed that it wasn't as apparent in the other matches. When in the midrange slugfest again countertop, intuition -> pile of death is so win, but in other MUs I feel that maybe it's a bit too heavy. It seems like pile of death is the way to go in you're meta. 8/20 of you're matchups are midrange ( 2 rock, probant, bant cb, Countertop painter, supreme blue, landstill, intuition countertop). Great job!

I never, ever fateseal myself unless one condition is met: my opponent has an active Top. In this case, my opponent had an active Top.

Siding out Force against Folk is something I've seen a lot of other blue players doing as well, as B2B just isn't that common. Furthermore, there are a couple different ways to remove B2B (Blasts, Claim, EE, Ratchet) and it's reletively easy to play around until you draw/find an answer with the basics. Force is just card-disadvantage against a deck with no real bombs other than Standstill, just a shitload of threats and counters. I'd rather side in more removal than open myself up to a Pierce/Daze on Force blowout. It's worked pretty well in both this deck and my Landstill decks.

You're quite right about Intuition being weak in the mid-range matchup. I side them and the Loam out against Rock, Bant (not CB), and Fast Zoo. Rock has Extirpate to punish your for Intuition, Zoo is just too fast and I want CB/Top more, and Bant has too many threats at different costs and Needles from them are much more common. I keep them in against Tribal because it's still a tutor for FS/Path/whatever or an endgame strategy that is good to have on our side. But if I have more cards to side in against Tribal than I do cards to side-out, I'll take out a few Intuitions. Against Control (CB/Landstill), Tempo (TT/TA/Faeries), Combo and Other (Dredge, Lands, randomenss) it's almost always a "if you don't kill me/lock me out now, I'm going to win the game" card. Intuition isn't always stellar, and if I find it to be less-useful than SB cards, I side it out. It's just one engine of the deck. When Intuition out of the picture, we're playing Supreme Blue with less chaff, which I'm perfectly fine with.

For what it's worth, I don't consider Intuition to be a focal-point of the deck. I think that your list illustrates exactly where I'm coming from: A supplemental engine among a host of already-amazing cards, that has the potential to put the game out of reach for the other player if circumstances are correct. If it's not an endgame card, it's a tutor for whatever you have 3-of in your deck. If it's too slow/risky (Rock, ProBant, SpeedZoo), take them out for something better.

And in hindsight, I'm pretty sure it was a bad idea to take out ALL of the Goyfs against BantCB. Possibly taking out 1-2 if you have THAT MANY cards that are amazing in this matchup is okay, but I don't suggest it. Goyf is just that amazing, and he's another 2 drop to bait Snares/fill the CB curve.

kingtk3
01-11-2011, 07:11 PM
@Mana Drain:
I read that in 11 games you have taken four mulligans, three of which down to five cards: what caused you to mulligan this much (about one third of the time)?
Did you look for better hands in concern of your opponent or were you forced by mana light hands?

Btw, great thread: I appreciate very much your work (referring also to ivanpei and Valtrix).

Cheers.

Mana Drain
01-11-2011, 08:09 PM
All but one of my mulls that day was because I knew what my opponents were playing, and wanted a better hand for against that specific deck. For instance, one of my mulls to 5 against Merfolk I believe I had something like 3 land, Intuition, Jace, Firespout, and EE, which is pretty solid against CB/Control/midrange, but is too slow and not relevantl enough for me to keep that hand against dudesandcounters.dec. Against Rock, I knew not to keep a hand that had very little gas or was very mana-light, as a T1 Thoughtseize can turn a possibly-great hand into a much weaker one in a hurry. Against Zoo, keeping a hand without solid early defense or a CB/Top is too risky. The only mull I regret is the one in the first game against Folk, because I probably could have played with the Standstill, taking the beats from his Muta and friends until an EoT Intuition led me into StPs, followed by FS. I more than likely would have lost against his draw regardless though.

I only had one hand all day that was unkeepable, and that was like 5 lands, Goyf, and StP or something. Everything else was pretty much playable, but I had the extremely beneficial advantage of knowing what my opponents play and how to beat their decks. More importantly than that, knowing how their decks beat mine and how to avoid blowout scenarios. Unfortunately, this is Magic, and blowouts do happen regardless of what hands you keep (like in the first game against Zoo). Thankfully, a few of them were from my side of the table instead of theirs.

If I was playing in the same tournament with little metagame knowledge (rare if you are scouting, which you should be), I probably would have kept ~2 more hands than I mulled. Practicing just shows you which hands will get their and which hands won't. Knowing what the other dude is playing is so beneficial when playing blue, it's like cheating.

Regarding your last comment, my pleasure. I'm glad a few people are checking this thread out.

ivanpei
01-11-2011, 09:25 PM
Oops, I missed the part earlier in the paragraph when you mentioned that he dropped a top, in that situation, you are right, fatesealing yourself is the best play. I'm still on the keep forces in vs folk wagon though. A lot of games revolve around resolving the allmighty firespout. Having the free counter to make sure it sticks is IMO pretty important. On goyfs out, I think taking out 2 is ok, but taking out 4 is a bit much. I agree with keeping 2 in as it makes sure you see a wincon when you have active balance-top. Keeping 4 in, means you are likely to draw one (and having the goyf go farming) before cbalance-top softlock.

I love the intuition engine, don't get me wrong. Pre Jace, I would say that it would be the best supplemental engine to go. However Jace and counter-top, you have 2 engines and intuition is the 3rd Engine. When I was playing it, I felt like the 3rd supplementary engine should have minimal effect on my quick, flexible MD answers. This was very apparent when I was playing against TES and stuff like enchantress. The clunkiness of the deck was severely exposed by the fact that TES and enchantress go off before the engines can be set up. Since trimming the fat of the intuition engine and adding 3 snares, my MUs vs combo MUs have improved. Of course, my attrition capabilities are greatly diminished.

Stifle
01-12-2011, 01:16 AM
Hey guys, thread looks awesome. Amazing job with the primer, Mana Drain.

4c Countertop has been the deck that I've played the most in Legacy and just thought I'd drop in to raise a few questions as well as offer a few suggestions.

As people have already stated, the manabase does look really unstable on Mana Drain's build and I'm liking Valtrix's a little more with the whole basic forest/plains thing going on.

Also really like the Loam/EE/Academy Ruins lock this deck has going but how does the Loam dredge affect the variance of this deck? Yeah, you have top in the deck but it would really suck if a Jace got dredged away.

This sounds pretty greedy but have you guys considered opening up a slot for Karakas? Karakas serves as an out to the occasional Show & Tell decks with the added bonus of having synergy with Vendilion Cliques post game one. The applications with Loam seems pretty amenable but the slots are already pretty tight. Perhaps cut a fetchland or the shackles? Put it in the side?

Valtrix
01-12-2011, 03:50 AM
Hey guys, thread looks awesome

Thanks.


As people have already stated, the manabase does look really unstable on Mana Drain's build and I'm liking Valtrix's a little more with the whole basic forest/plains thing going on.

Would you say my manabase is unstable then too? And if so, what would you suggest?


Also really like the Loam/EE/Academy Ruins lock this deck has going but how does the Loam dredge affect the variance of this deck? Yeah, you have top in the deck but it would really suck if a Jace got dredged away.

Well, if you have a top, Jace, or brainstorm, this variance is significantly less. Dredging jace can suck, but it happens. But its unlikely that a dredge is going to lose you a game besides from just changing the cards you would draw. That is, I don't think you'll lose a game because the dredged cards are "no longer part of your deck." Loam, by far, has many more positive interactions with the deck.


This sounds pretty greedy but have you guys considered opening up a slot for Karakas? Karakas serves as an out to the occasional Show & Tell decks with the added bonus of having synergy with Vendilion Cliques post game one. The applications with Loam seems pretty amenable but the slots are already pretty tight. Perhaps cut a fetchland or the shackles? Put it in the side?

I think as an "out to Show and Tell" decks is a pretty awful reason to play the card, since it's probably unlikely that the singleton against the specific deck will come up that much. So, first you need to first have this card during a game with them, then not have them put something like progenitus into play, and not be able to stop them any other way (Jace their Emrakul, counterspell, etc.). While I haven't tested the matchup, I'd probably be okay going against it because of the number of counterspells we run. As for Vendilion, it's a somewhat cute interaction, but I always felt it was particularly weak for how infrequently it gets set up (especially if Cliques are in the board). Now, I'm not necessarily opposed to running another land (I think the 23rd could be useful...Maybe as a 61st card), but I'd probably rather just have a tundra, since the ability to produce :b: is likely to be more relevant than bouncing legendary creatures.

kingtk3
01-12-2011, 04:49 AM
...
And in hindsight, I'm pretty sure it was a bad idea to take out ALL of the Goyfs against BantCB. Possibly taking out 1-2 if you have THAT MANY cards that are amazing in this matchup is okay, but I don't suggest it. Goyf is just that amazing, and he's another 2 drop to bait Snares/fill the CB curve.

Did the BantCB played the exalted guys? If not I think you've made the correct choice. I explain myself: if they play the exalted package they probably will side their spot removal out because they've figured out that your only creature is goyf but theirs are better. If, however, they don't run exalted they'll need the StP to break your goyf-walls, since they should play aggressive having more creatures than you and fearing your EE lock.
In the first case your goyfs aren't much relevant until you hit the pile of death to control the board.
In the second case your goyfs will eat their StP (I doubt they'll counter them except if they're in a pinch) since you cannot afford to counter their spot removal and you will have to wait CB to protect them.
In both cases, when you should afford to land a goyf you should already walk the path to victory but, in the latter, siding out all of your goyfs makes their spot removal dead cards.

Obviously I don't know the build you were playing against so this is mere speculation, but in general i always like to left my opponents with dead cards in their decks.

Cheers.

PS: what are, in your opinion, the MU in which goyfs are absolutely necessary (leaving alone that they're almost always awesome)?

Aceofspades
01-12-2011, 09:20 AM
Hi!

First of all: Nice deck, nice primer and nice tournament report!

Against the Countertop Bant player you´ve made the following move:


I untap, draw the BS, cash in Top for Loam, play Loam, get back 3 lands, then BS. I draw into Clique, EE, and Pyro, putting back 2 lands and dropping the 3rd fetch, lay down Top, end.

If i understand that right you tapped the Top and dredged the Loam. Then the Top was put on top of your library and you played brainstorm. But how can you draw Clique, EE, and Pyro with it? Where´s the Top?

Mana Drain
01-12-2011, 01:31 PM
Hey guys, thread looks awesome. Amazing job with the primer, Mana Drain.

Our pleasure my good man.


As people have already stated, the manabase does look really unstable on Mana Drain's build and I'm liking Valtrix's a little more with the whole basic forest/plains thing going on.

I cannot stress enough to play the manabase you're comfortable with. Mine is definitely more greedy and fragile to Wastelock, Choke, B2B, Moons and the like, but I enjoy having all my lands tap for blue. It's my personal play consideration that I've made and prefer. Valtrix's is certainly more resielient in the face of major non-basic hate, and the basics can be a great benefit at times. Please, play the manabase that fits your goals and what you feel is safer. Valtrix's is certainly the former.


Also really like the Loam/EE/Academy Ruins lock this deck has going but how does the Loam dredge affect the variance of this deck? Yeah, you have top in the deck but it would really suck if a Jace got dredged away.

With Tarmogoyf MD, we have a total of 8 win-conditions, plus 3 Intuitions to find them. Valtrix covered this above me well.


This sounds pretty greedy but have you guys considered opening up a slot for Karakas? Karakas serves as an out to the occasional Show & Tell decks with the added bonus of having synergy with Vendilion Cliques post game one. The applications with Loam seems pretty amenable but the slots are already pretty tight. Perhaps cut a fetchland or the shackles? Put it in the side?


Again, Valtrix covered this pretty well. It's just to random to hope to find it against the one deck where you want it. The combo with Clique is cool, but not worth playing a non-basic Plains for in my opinion. If we played Ponder, it could be a consideration. Otherwise, keep it in the board if you expect Emrakul decks to be showing up (SnT, Doomsday).


Stuff about Goyf being SBed out


I believe he runs 2-3 Pridemage MD and the full set of Hierarchs. Siding out a few Goyfs instead of all of them was probably the correct decision. I was expecting Grips, Pierces, and extra Paths from him, so I didn't quite know Goyfs relevance postboard. Regardless, I'm glad somebody is on a similar page of logic as I. Thanks for the consideration.



PS: what are, in your opinion, the MU in which goyfs are absolutely necessary (leaving alone that they're almost always awesome)?


You want the set in: Goblins, Zoo, Merfolk (Make sure LoA stays off the board/dies), Combo (for the clock), any type of mid-range aggro (Rock, Bant), Affinity. Really, against anything that isn't a control deck, keep them in. Against Landstill I like to SB them out because those decks run so much removal that they can't SB it all out, and CB isn't expected to live very long here (their EEs, Grips, Blasts, Extirpates, etc). Against CB, make your own decisions based on how many cards you want to SB in. If possible, leave them in as they're just that good.

AceofSpades, excellent spot there. I don't have my notes still, but this is undoubtedly a play error on my part, and one my opponent didn't catch either. I more than likely put the Top on my deck before I dredged Loam back, putting Top in the graveyard. I'm pretty sure I had drawn a dead Top earlier that I was holding on to in my hand, and just didn't notice that I now only have one. I don't think I blatantly returned it to my hand, but that's very well possible too. I only know this because I've done it before, in almost exactly the same situation. In a major tournament, I probably would have gotten a game-loss for that. Thankfully, my opponent didn't catch it either, although it was a pretty dramatic play error.

This isn't setting a good example through play, but I do make mistakes, and the vast, vast majority of them come from cashing in Top. It's a really bad habit, and is exacerbated by my ADD. I've put it in the GY instead of on top of my deck multiple times before, and have also straight put it into my hand from play also. I think I'll write in silver Sharpie "PUT ME ON TOP OF THE DECK IDIOT" on my set. I'm pretty absent minded when it comes to small details that are significant, and it has cost me plenty of games in the past. I should be getting back on 20mgs a day of Adderall XR this week though, hopefully that will help my lack of attention with these things. Again, great eye for detail. Try not to repeat my mindless mistakes! ;)

Mon,Goblin Chief
01-12-2011, 04:11 PM
I remember giving some suggestions to Valtrix on PM about this deck during summer and I'm impressed what the two of you came up with. This is probably my favorite CB list around because it has a solid early game and an overwhelming lategame. The primer is extremely complete and informative. Kudos!
The one thing I'd like to criticize is your estimation of Jace against Zoo and similar decks. In my experience (admittedly, I usually play non-CB control with him, see sig) Jace is actually incredible against Zoo. If you ever get to stabilize the board, which is kind of assumed because otherwise you're dead, Jace is like an instant nail in the coffin. You drop him and ramp him. If they burn him out now, they probably never get back into the game because they just blew their reach. If they don't, he can usually fateseal them out in short order, which means they really don't have any good options left. Maybe I transpose too much of my experience in a different deck onto this one, but taking him out against Zoo (or really anywhere but against combo) just seems so very wrong to me.

GGoober
01-13-2011, 11:57 AM
I remember giving some suggestions to Valtrix on PM about this deck during summer and I'm impressed what the two of you came up with. This is probably my favorite CB list around because it has a solid early game and an overwhelming lategame. The primer is extremely complete and informative. Kudos!
The one thing I'd like to criticize is your estimation of Jace against Zoo and similar decks. In my experience (admittedly, I usually play non-CB control with him, see sig) Jace is actually incredible against Zoo. If you ever get to stabilize the board, which is kind of assumed because otherwise you're dead, Jace is like an instant nail in the coffin. You drop him and ramp him. If they burn him out now, they probably never get back into the game because they just blew their reach. If they don't, he can usually fateseal them out in short order, which means they really don't have any good options left. Maybe I transpose too much of my experience in a different deck onto this one, but taking him out against Zoo (or really anywhere but against combo) just seems so very wrong to me.


Testifying to this statement;

During a couple of games playtesting with a zoo player, I dropped jace and he had to burn him for 8 poitns of damage (after my counter on 1 Bolt) because he could not win if I ever get another turn with Jace. That 8 points of damage is almost 1/2 my total life in this matchup (assuming I lost 2 life to FoW/Fetches the entire course of the game).

I would totally play a 2UU spell that saved 1/2 my life, and win me games if they cannot deal with it. I still lost that game however since he had a Sylvan Library to keep the gas coming, but imagine if he blew 2-3 cards to deal with Jace, then you proceed to deal with his board since you survived 2-3 turns because of the burn that Jace took out. I used to think Jace sucked against Zoo due to their huge pressure, but you need him, to buy turns, and to lock them out if you are in a slightly-good position. Once Jace survives and starts fate-sealing, it becomes hard for Zoo to win (this is true in general, but Zoo doesn't recover from that position as other decks do e.g. Merfolks, Goblins, SDT.dec).

kingtk3
01-13-2011, 03:55 PM
...

I believe he runs 2-3 Pridemage MD and the full set of Hierarchs. Siding out a few Goyfs instead of all of them was probably the correct decision. I was expecting Grips, Pierces, and extra Paths from him, so I didn't quite know Goyfs relevance postboard. Regardless, I'm glad somebody is on a similar page of logic as I. Thanks for the consideration.

...

You want the set in: Goblins, Zoo, Merfolk (Make sure LoA stays off the board/dies), Combo (for the clock), any type of mid-range aggro (Rock, Bant), Affinity. Really, against anything that isn't a control deck, keep them in. Against Landstill I like to SB them out because those decks run so much removal that they can't SB it all out, and CB isn't expected to live very long here (their EEs, Grips, Blasts, Extirpates, etc). Against CB, make your own decisions based on how many cards you want to SB in. If possible, leave them in as they're just that good.


I'm thinking: right now almost all the decks, excluding ANT and Merfolk (the latter at least not in the MD), are packing some degree of creature removals. The low count of this deck creatures, makes the goyfs a must target (they almost always are), but most of all the presence of goyfs legitimates the opponent's removals. I feel that if goyf is dropped early in the game will eat a removal (or we'll have to trade 1-2 with FoW), and if we wait to grasp the control of the board we should win anyway.
Wouldn't be nice to leave our opponent's with 4-6 dead cards in their decks?

My question is: can the deck live without goyfs but maintaining the Intuition engine?

I saw this thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17904-U-W-x-CounterTop-Walker) and I'm thinking if those two deck can be merged leaving the strong short and long plan of the Intuition CounterTop and using the planeswalker to win. I came up with this list, although it's enver been tested:

//Lands (23)
1 Plains
2 Island
4 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins

//Spells (38)
4 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
2 Intuition
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Counterspell
3 Predict
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path of Exile
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
1 Life From the Loam
3 Firespout

Basically, I've cut out the goyfs for the predicts and Elspeth, and I've added a land according to this (jumping to 61 cards MD).

Please, I would like to know what you people think of my arguments and, eventually, what changes you'll do to the list.

I'm open to your criticism.

Valtrix
01-13-2011, 07:27 PM
Now, I think you can play the(/a similar) deck by not playing goyfs and win. However, I think that not running goyfs makes you a worse deck. I think that a lot of people overvalue the usefulness of "having no creatures to make your opponent have dead cards." First, this is only true for game 1--After that every deck will be bringing out dead cards for useful cards, which negates this "bonus". Now think about all the games you've played. How often do you stare down that goyf or knight of the reliquary with no removal in hand and just shake your head as it kills you? This can happen to your opponent very easily. Everybody says decks are "running removal," but if you look at most decks that means swords, and usually little if anything else. While your opponent can answer your creature, it's also pretty likely that they can't. And if they can't answer your goyf? Well, you either have a fast clock, or the best wall that likely stops several creatures from killing you. Even if I trade a goyf for a swords sometimes, I'm fine with that, because if it's not dealt with it will be a huge board presence. And since you're only running 4 creatures it can even be likely that you don't get one, or that you get one after your in control of the game. In that case, you negated your opponent's removal anyway.

In terms of win-conditions, I think you need more than just planeswalkers and intuition to win the game, because walkers can be very slow and awkward to play at 4 mana. Goyf also plays a very important role for counterbalance, because after balance itself he's your best 2cc, and if you really look at the card pool this type of deck doesn't have a lot of choices for things it could and would want to run that cost 2cc.


Testifying to this statement;

I completely agree that Jace is fantastic against zoo. This deck is built to handle zoo regardless of Jace, so getting Jace out there to make their draws even worse will often give you the game. He doesn't necessarily prevent you from losing, but if you're even a little bit behind he almost always dramatically swings the game in your favor.

ivanpei
01-13-2011, 07:30 PM
@ Kingtk3, I have actually played goyf-less countertop before. I used to play counter-top thopthers and my first iterations of intuition-countertop was goyf-less. I ran fire/ice instead of goyf along with factories and Jace for the kill. However, Valtrix and some other posters managed to convince me to play goyf for the following reasons:

-Against aggro, goyf eats removal early but if you have the counter back up, he can be a massive wall that buys you a lot of time. He also forces opponents to play a removal spell instead of whatever threat he was going to play (like the turn 2 pridemage etc), slowing him down as well as netting you free life/land (from STP/path). He really isn't all that bad against aggro. The only MU I would say he is bad against is the bant countertop/landstill MU when they have insane amounts of removal/creatures bigger than goyf (KOTR).

-Goyf is the most efficient clock/win condition in the game. This is a control deck and outside of tournament settings, you don't really care much for winning quickly. However, in tournaments, you want to win, not draw. Countertop will have this problem of going to time because topping EOT every turn, figuring out brainstorm/jace piles, loam shenanigans etc etc all take a significant amount of time. Goyf eats face and wins, fast.

-The "win" window. This is something that many people have not grasped. You don't always "win" when you have the softlock assembled (countertop or Jace). They might draw a card beyond your countertop curve, or they might get a lucky topdeck even after a fateseal. If you have both countertop and Jace, then for sure 99% of the time you will win. However most of us have to squeeze wins out of just Jace or just countertop. After you've exhausted your opponent's hand and they are in top deck mode, you have a "win window" to kill your opponent before they draw an out. This may not be apparent vs decks without a lot of bombs like folk/zoo, but when you are playing against bomby decks like goblins, landstill and the bant countertop mirrors, this is a significant problem. I've lost games when I have an active soft lock to topdecked ringleaders, siege gang commanders, pernicious deeds, opposing Jace, kotr, vindicate, elspeth, EE, etc etc. Goyf helps you win very quickly within your "win window".

-In conclusion, please play goyf. He is the shitznutz best creature of all time.

kingtk3
01-14-2011, 04:14 AM
@Valtrix and ivanpei:
Your observations make sense, but I have quoted the most important


...
Now think about all the games you've played. How often do you stare down that goyf or knight of the reliquary with no removal in hand and just shake your head as it kills you? This can happen to your opponent very easily. Everybody says decks are "running removal," but if you look at most decks that means swords, and usually little if anything else. While your opponent can answer your creature, it's also pretty likely that they can't. And if they can't answer your goyf? Well, you either have a fast clock, or the best wall that likely stops several creatures from killing you. Even if I trade a goyf for a swords sometimes, I'm fine with that, because if it's not dealt with it will be a huge board presence. And since you're only running 4 creatures it can even be likely that you don't get one, or that you get one after your in control of the game. In that case, you negated your opponent's removal anyway.
...

AND


...
-Goyf is the most efficient clock/win condition in the game. This is a control deck and outside of tournament settings, you don't really care much for winning quickly. However, in tournaments, you want to win, not draw. Countertop will have this problem of going to time because topping EOT every turn, figuring out brainstorm/jace piles, loam shenanigans etc etc all take a significant amount of time. Goyf eats face and wins, fast.

...

-In conclusion, please play goyf. He is the shitznutz best creature of all time.

I've always been a control player and the decks I've played over the years have often been control, aggro-control, control-combo: I think that reflects my personality.
I've stopped playing fo quite some years; now I play a tournament once in a while (I only play vintage and draft, not interested in anything else) and the deck I choose for my comeback was Merfolk (aggro-control), since I wanted consistency and speed because the longer the game the higher would be the chance I would do some mistake due to the "dust"on my deck. I have to say that this strategy has worked very well: I won 3 out of 2 little events (10-15 people, in one I conceded in Top4 for a Jace ^^) and made top4 in a 56 tournament (another jace here! ^^).
Moreover, I always hated when a match i was supposed to win finish in a draw due to time and, more generically, playing a tournament with 60 or more people and ending 2-3 matches at the turns is bad, since put much fatigue on you that'll affect your next matches.

I think your quote (feel free to correct me) can be summarized as: "Ok, playing no creatures and winning via planeswalker is doable and has its bonus, but mainly if you have a lot of time and are not stressed (=out of a tournament). If your going to run a deck in an event, however, you have to consider that you could not have THAT much time, and this makes the strategy sub-optimal."

Well, I'm practically sold to this reasoning.

In conclusion, I'm glad I've found this forum: high competence, good and argumented reasoning and no flames is what I was looking for.

Thanks for your advices.

Valtrix
01-14-2011, 10:19 AM
In conclusion, I'm glad I've found this forum: high competence, good and argumented reasoning and no flames is what I was looking for.

Thanks for your advices.

Thank you. I love discussion about control decks (especially this one), so feel free to ask questions about anything and we'll (or at least I'll) do our best to answer them thoughtfully and thoroughly. I mean, while I like my current list, I still think there's a lot of room to more properly shape it for the metagame.

Mana Drain
01-15-2011, 12:57 AM
On removing Tarmogoy: No. Don't do it. He fills too many roles in this deck to remove from the MD. I do find myself removing him against Landstill or other heavy-control decks, but only a few unless my board is randomly stocked with blue/control hate. Even that's probably incorrect. Play 4 MD.

On Jace against Zoo: Of course when you drop Jace on an empty board you're way ahead against Zoo. It's like that against any deck. He'll randomly win games, because he's The Motherfucking Mindsculptor. He's also a 4-drop blue permanent that doesn't do much when staring down an already bad board position against a deck who's entire creature curve is 1-2 with a high power:cost ratio, plays about 8-12 burn spells, and postboard will generally be siding in ~3-4 REB/Pyroblasts (lol 1 mana hard-counters), ~2-3 Choke (try getting 4 mana here), and possibly X Pithing Needle, in addition to the obvious Grips, making the whole "I'll just get a CB online and ride Jace to victory!" plan a bit more difficult (read: unlikely). Having your 4-mana sorcery-speed bomb be countered by a 1-mana instant auto-include from a red deck is just fail and AIDS put together. Also, 4-mana - against a fast-aggro deck - that doesn't stop you from dying next turn (unlike Moat/Humility/Elspeth). You see what I'm getting at here? In all but the already favorable positions against Zoo, Jace is either a 4-mana sorcery-speed 1) Unsummon, 2) Brainstorm + Fog/Raven's Crime, or 3) "Fateseal 1, Prevent the next 5-6 damage that would be dealt to you, unless that damage would kill you".

I've been a Jace-whore since the dude cost $35 a piece (which is still outrageous), and he's by far my favorite card in Magic now (behind Drain of course), but I have stared at him in my hand against Zoo too many times while my opponent has two dudes on the board, or an REB makes me look like an idiot because I just got Timewalked and had no other play to make, or I just didn't get to 4 mana before dying. I'm not cool with this, especially because we're not Landstill. They play other 4-mana bombs that help them survive to cast Jace. They can reasonably expect to 1-for-1 the Zoo player until he's out of cards, or refuel using Standstill, and then drop Jace with counter-backup. They play way more counters and removal than we do (that don't get shut out by Grip), in addition to actual bombs that dramatically alter the gamestate immediately and create a safe-passage for Jace to start fatesealing the Zoo dude away. And Needle/REB still hurts like hell from Zoo with Landstill.

Maybe ya'll play the older Zoo variants or the big-Zoo variants (with Elspeths, 4 KotR, Hierarch, other high-curve dudes) in your metagames, but all I play is Zoo decks that are dropping shit-loads of fast dudes, cheap burn, and cheap bombs (Library, PoP, Choke). I'd much rather have a card that does stuff before T4, like helping me stay alive. The deck has plenty of ways to dig for another win-condition. On that note, I'm still a proponent of keeping Jace in against (almost) every other matchup in the format. I'm not hating on Jace against Legacy, just Zoo.

For anyone who's interested, the pair of Lavamancers I said I was going to try are indeed amazing. The testing has been against MWS opponents only so far, so take it with a grain of salt, but has thus far proven to be excellent. Most aggro opponents side out all or almost all of their removal, figuring Goyf as the only dude, or no dudes at all (if they didn't see a Goyf), leaving Mr. Grim almost immortal. Droping him on T1 puts the other guy in a shitty position, forcing them to decide which dudes to feed to the Lavamancer. With ~9 Fetches, BS, counters, and removal, I've been able to get at least 2 shots off with him in the early-game consistently, nailing Hierarchs, Pridemages, Confidants, Tribal dudes, and helping win Goyf-wars. I highly suggest trying 2 in your board if you are playing in an aggro-heavy metagame or one filled with problematic utility dudes. He's been very helpful/great against: Tribal, Rock, Bant, Affinity(lol), and that GW deck from the SCG Open, which is some good. Amazing against Zoo if he sticks, but Bolts/CLs are used first priority by them. Plus, if you have the Judge Foil versions (which I don't), it would be awesome just to have him in play.

DragoFireheart
01-20-2011, 10:23 PM
Any thoughts on Green Sun's Zenith? Can we fit it into this deck to act as more Tarmogoyfs?

Valtrix
01-22-2011, 11:19 AM
Not useful in my opinion. I'd probably rather just play Knight of the Reliquary over a 3cc goyf.

Valtrix
01-23-2011, 01:15 PM
Sorry for two posts in a row, but I went to a tournament yesterday at Monster's Den in Minneapolis with the list. Anticipating lots of aggro (zoo/merfolk/goblins) I changed my sideboard up a bit, removing the things that felt least usfeul, and adding 4 pyroclasms. They make you destroy zoo and merfolk on top of your other removal, but I'm not sure of their effectiveness against goblins yet. (It's possible we still just lose to them. I'm not sure, since I haven't got to test things post sideboard yet). Furthermore, I added the 4th firespout in the main by cutting 1 intuition. As a result of switching to red so much, I also swapped my plains/fetches for a mountain and scalding tarns. Lastly, since I cut a little bit on my control hate I wanted to help a little bit there, so I cut a spell pierce for the second counterspell in the board, as in my opinion it's just better against combo and control. So, here was what I played:

// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
2 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [SHM] Firespout
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [DLM] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [OV] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell
SB: 4 [OV] Pyroclasm

Round 1: White Stax
Game 1: I'm on the play, not knowing what he's playing. I keep a reasonable hand of lands and spells (Good, right?). He leads with ancient tomb, mox diamond, mox diamond, magus of the tabernacle. My EE in hand just laughs at him, as I play it next turn and destroy both of his mana sources. He gets stuck tapping his ancient tomb to just pay for magus, which is fine by me since magus is only a 2/6. I develop my board for awhile and see an intuition to get life from the loam, so I'm getting lots of lands into play. Eventually he gets another land, but just plays a ghostly prison and I play a goyf to block his magus. He plays a crucible, which loam cares nothing about, then I land Jace, and the game is over from there. I have a force in hand and don't see anything I care about from fateseals. He did have an armageddon though, which I hardcast force for. Right before he's about to get fatesealed I let him have a chalice at one. At 10 life I activate Jace's ultimate, and he hands me his hand, mixes it a little bit and asks me if I want to cut. I say it's fine, and then he plays a baneslayer angel (Maybe I should have cut his three cards). It doesn't really matter since Jace can just bounce it, but I double firespout it away for fun.
SB: -4 firespout, -3 swords to plowshares, +2 Counterspell, +2 EE, +2 Spell pierce, +1 Ratchet bomb
Game 2: He leads with mox diamond, wasteland, chalice at one. Once again I look at the EE in my hand and laugh. I lead with trop, go. He wastes it, then complains about not drawing mana in both games (Excuse me, you played two mox diamonds your first game, how many do you expect to draw? This is why stax is awful). I play another dual and say go. He passes. I drop a land, play EE at zero, and he just quits. He was extremely upset.

(1-0 matches / 2-0 games)

Round 2: Show and tell/Hive mind combo
Game 1: I don't cheat, but this guy was shuffling his deck with the bottoms facing me, and I saw that he had a show and tell on the bottom of his library (I realize now that I should have told him about his shuffling...I will have to do so next time I see him). I draw my seven which includes counterbalance, top, Jace, and I think a counterspell. This seems pretty strong against show and tell, so I keep it. I'm on the play, so I lead with my top, he ponders. I play a land go. He plays ponder again his turn, looking for lands I think since he didn't play another one this turn. I top seeing land, another top, and vedalkan shackles. Awesome, now I get to counter his show and tell. I draw the land, leaving shackles on top, and play my balance. He goes for the show and tell next turn off an ancient tomb, and I flip the shackles on top like a champ. From there its downhill. He plays some mana sources, but just can't do anything because of countertop in play and eventually I get a goyf. Later he goes for hive mind, and this was surprising because I had no idea he was playing it to start. I knew I had enough lands to pay for any pacts except slaughter pact, but I use my force because otherwise hive mind negates my counterspells. He plays pact of negation, so I use a fetchalnd and find a mountain to counter that. At that point goyf gets there and we go to G2.
SB: -4 swords to plowshares, -1 Life from the loam, -1 EE, +2 Spell pierce, +2 Counterspell, +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast (I wanted to keep as many 2cc for balance as possible)
Game 2: Again while he's shuffling I see a wurmcoil engine. I think this is strange, but then realize that he's hoping to just hardcast these monsters, which is unfortunately reasonable against my deck and with all of his mana sources since I also saw him shuffle a grim monolith. I was feeling a little scared without my swords, but hopefully with my abundance of counterspells I'd be fine. He keep a hand with REB, counterspell, and some other stuff. This game was mostly us just playing mana sources, including two grim monoliths on his side. Eventually he goes for a steel hellkite, which I fortunately have force for (otherwise I would have lost to it...That would have been embarassing). He tries to force, but I red blast his force. Sometime later I get Jace into play, but he's not really trying to play threats, because he's scared of my counterspells or doesn't have any combos. I have a counterspell and spell pierce in hand, fetch away some junk, and see two force of wills. Awesome. So, I get both of those into my hand and then Jace gets to 13. My opponent tries to go for his combo: show and tell (Which I hardcast force for), then show and tell (I force, pitching spell snare, leaving two mana up for my counterspell), he forces that leaving only one card in hand, so I counterspell that and win the game. Was fun slinging counterspells.

(2-0 matches / 4-0 games)

Round 3: UR Painterstone
Round 1: I don't really know what he's playing, but I have a hand with top, intuition, and two forces so I keep. He plays a goblin welder first turn, which immediately worries me. With some artifact lands and a grindstone in play he goes for thirst for knowledge, which I force. He was really surprised at this, asking me what I was afraid of. Since I didn't deal with welder yet and having no idea if he might have other artifacts I thought it best to deny him an outlet to get something into his GY and dig so deep into his deck. He gets another grindstone in play, but I firespout his welder and then counter a painter's servant. I also go for intuition for loam/EE/ruins, which I realize was pretty worthless considering the two grindstones in play. But, I could still get the EE unless he keeps paying six mana every turn, since I can EOT put it on top, after he stones it, but it on top again unless he can pay six again...Unfortunately I think that the grindstones just shut it down (Dumb play mistakes). Fortunately the loam digs me into counterspells and gives me absurd advantage with top, and goyf just beats down.
SB: I didn't know how to board, but I think it might have been similar to: -4 Swords, -1 Shackles, -1 Firespout, -1 something else, +2 Counterspell, +2 EE, +1 Ratchet Bomb, +1 REB, +1 Pyroblast
Game 2: I keep forest, tundra, Jace, counterbalance, goyf, double brainstorm. Seems reasonable, right? He played a welder, then a vexing shusher (!), but I don't see a third land by turn three and my hand is worthless, so I brainstorm turn three into three (!) counterbalances. Rough. Next turn I brainstorm again into my other two Jaces. Life is awesome. I lose this game.
SB: The shusher caught me off-guard, so I try bringing some creature removal back
Game 3: This game he leads with ancient tomb into painters servant. His next turn he doesn't play a grindstone, but I swords he servant, which he forces. Figuring he must not have another servant I force the force. He plays some other things and I get a goyf and top in play. I counterspell an intuition. He plays a grindstone, and I have ratchet bomb on top. But for some reason I thought that I could let it sit there for a couple turns because I wanted to apply pressure (and I had counterspells). Eventually he brings himself to one and has a lot of land in play, I counter his intuition, and brainstorms with one card left in hand. He plays LED, painters servant and I lose. Sad day. I knew that's what he needed to win this game. I'm not sure why I didn't let intuition resolve at that point, because I'm pretty sure that anything he could have gotten I could have just counterspelled instead, and then he wouldn't have had enough mana with his brainstorm in hand. I misplayed this match a lot more than what I said, so it made me sad. Oh well, it happens. At least I realized what I did wrong.

(2-1 matches / 5-2 games)

Round 4: ANT
Game 1: I keep a hand with goyfs and double brainstorm, but no countermagic, not knowing what he's playing. He ponder off an island, then ponders again off an island, then thoughtseizes me, taking a brainstorm. Next turn he's able to ad nauseam, and my brainstorm sees me nothing useful.
SB: -4 firespout, -4 swords to plowshares, -1 vedalken shackles, -1 EE, + 2 Spell pierce, +2 Counterspell, +1 REB, +1 pyroblast, +4 pyroclasm (Clasms were to deal with possible confidants and to bolster my 2cc to counter his infernal tutors and cabal rituals.)
Game 2: I keep a hand of force, REB, brainstorm, goyf, lands. I play land, go, he plays land ponder, which I REB. I play land, go (This was a mistake. I shouldn't have been afraid of him going off, since I still had a force in hand. I can't remember why I didn't play goyf sooner. There may have been another reason that I can't remember). After drawing an intuition I play a land and pass, so that I can brainstorm into a counterspell. He plays a ponder, shuffling, wishing how he had discard for my coutnerspells in hand. He does get one, and I Just show him my hand because at this point if I brainstorm and hide my counterspells I think that he'd just combo off. I intuition EOT for three forces after he takes my first force. Perhaps I should have gone for counterbalance and played it, even blind? I figured that with goyf in play it was better to have a force and then a brainstorm with a chance to get another counterspell, that way I forced him to wait until he got protection (and I was hoping it wasn't so soon...Since if goyf would have got in there once more, his ad nauseam wouldn't have been good enough). Then I finally play goyf (So dumb. Should have been out way sooner). I smack him down to 14, but he duresses my other force away and combos off. I wait until the ad nauseam...But brainstorm doesn't get me a counterspell. He has to go to 4 before stopping, without seeing tendrils. Fortunately his brainstorm got it for him. Oh well. Yay for more misplays.

(2-2 games / 5-4 matches)

Round 5: Zoo
Game 1: It's a friend, and we can't top 8, but I think this is fine for me, since my pyroclasms give me even more creature hate than usual, and usually I beat zoo post-board. I have to mull to five though game one, and just don't get there.
SB: Usually I leave balances in, but I thought he might bring in grips so I take my balances out instead, opting to just lock him out of creatures from ruins/EE instead. So, I went -4 force of will, -4 counterbalance, +4 pyroclasm, +2 Path to exile, +2 EE
Game 2: He doesn't really apply any pressure, and I build my board. Even when he does I have an abundance of creature removal and get him with two for ones with firespout and pyroclasm (Ouch). Jace stops him from getting back into the game.
Game 3: Once again, a ridiculous amount of creature removal keeps him out of the game, and me having seen multiple goyfs gets there.

(3-2 games / 7-5 matches)

Moral of the story? Well, I still make misplays, and with this deck misplays cost you matches. It was unfortunate, since I really think I could have been playing in top 8 for prizes, and the top 8 was a lot of other counterbalance and some aggro decks, so I think I would have been okay. Maybe next month. I do have to say that having 4 counterspells between the main and side is very good, since counterspell is way better in the countertop matchup over spell pierce, and pretty much better in the combo matchup, in my opinion, since they can't negate it by just having mana. That said, I still think that I want 4 counterspells in the board to deal with combo, because even with them that matchup can sometimes still be rough. As for pyroclasms...Well, I might just keep this board for awhile, depending on my matchup with goblins. If the clasms actually turn the post-board matches into something pretty favorable, then this could be a huge boost for the deck. What I took out for them was 1x REB, 1x Tormod's Crypt, 1x Krosan Grip, and 1x firespout (since it was in the main). I didn't miss them all that much, Kgrip and REB I don't feel like really do much to improve any MUs all that much, and we have counterspells/EE for counterbalance already. Missing crypt is kind of sad, but I just don't think it's very relevant in the meta right now, and I'd rather have more cards to bring in in more frequent MUs and just be caught off guard so to say in another. I think the only way to have reliable GY hate is to dedicate a lot of slots to it, so I'd rather just not worry about it.

ivanpei
01-23-2011, 07:43 PM
Thanks for the report! Some thoughts on the plays:

VS UR painter stone, I always force intuition only if he has a welder in play. Usually if there is no welder, I just let him fetch whatever, then counter it. They don't play loam so waiting is always better.

VS ANT, Blind countertop > counterspell/force. If you are blind with either 1cc, 2cc, 0cc or 5cc you will screw ANT over royally. Thats like 50/60 cards of your deck. Somewhere along their spell chain you will hit something and cause them to fizzle terribly. Force just eats chant.

And I noticed that none of your games revolved around resolving intuition into the pile of death. Intuition seems to be more of a demonic tutor. I've been having the same observations in my testing. Most of the time my intuitions search for firespout, counterbalance or top. Very rarely do I go for the pile of death. Having said that, I've been running snares instead of EE, Shackles and the 3rd intuition. I also swapped the ruins for cephalid Colosseum. I naturally draw into loam+ Colosseum very often and it is just rocking. Loam + fetchlands + countertop usually just wins me the game. The pile of death IMO is just overkill. The snares would have given you so much flexibility and immediate stopping power when you were playing against painter and ANT.

I also like your inclusion of the 4th firespout. I think firespout is just such an important card. When I'm playing vs tribal, I always wished I could intuition for the 2nd firespout, but with only 2 copies left in the deck, I couldn't.

Valtrix
01-23-2011, 09:12 PM
Against UR painter stone I definitely realized that this was the right thing to do too pretty much instantly after countering it. It's just a deck that I have never played against, so I was caught a little off-guard and wasn't thinking through what he could do. It doesn't help that I haven't been to bigger tournaments as well lately.

Against ANT he plays a lot of diversified mana sources. Also, since game had gone on for several turns and he played a bunch of cantrips, so I figured that counterbalance wouldn't have mattered at that that point, since he could likely play around anything on top of my library, and I needed to be able to counter an ad naseaum if he had it in hand. Additionally, he was clearly waiting to go off until he had protection, so I thought my odds were best to put him on a 5 turn clock with goyf, in which he would have to find a second protection spell or lose. I really think he could just play around my balance, so I needed to go for a counterspell with my intuition. I wanted to wait, but I didn't have enough mana to intuition + counterspell + brainstorm in one turn.

Also, none of my games did revolve around intuition for ruins/EE/loam. Why? Because that combination is primarily for slower decks that it just destroys. If I had played against any counterbalance decks, then this would have been crucial against them. In fact, in my mind this is mostly what the combo is for, because it just wrecks balance decks. I don't think it's overkill, because EE and ruins don't hurt the deck at all on their own right, and it gives you huge possibilities for intuition. I think that cephalid coliseum is strictly worse, at least in this sense, because it doesn't win you the game as well as ruins/EE/loam does against counterbalance decks, since you need to be able to answer balance. I like coliseum a lot, but I'm not really sure where it's necessary, compared to when you'd want ruins/EE or to just use it as a tutor. Mind discussing it a little more?

I think I may stick with the 4th firespout in the main, because I really like the sideboard slots, and I agree that being able to intuition for a second copy is a very useful thing to do.

ivanpei
01-24-2011, 02:06 AM
I like the Colosseum because its almost invisible. As in you don't notice it's presence in the game. It makes blue which is a major plus compared to academy ruins. It serves as the "mana open" for counterspell and spell snare (if you run it) or to spin top for balance. I agree that it is no where as powerful as loam/ruins/bomb artifact pile but it saves space. You can afford to run 3 spell snares in the main and not force yourself to play specific anti aggro cards like the 4th firespout, the shackles and EE which are amazing against aggro but lackluster vs combo. Spell snare IMO is one of my favorite all around cards that make it into almost all my control lists because it is great against aggro, control and combo.

However when the game drags on, the Colosseum serves the same purpose as the academy ruin piles by providing inevitability. You are right about not always having countertop in play. Loam + colosseum is literally a recurring compulsive research (in terms of manacost and CA). You dredge loam, costing a card (similar to drawing a compulsive research). You cast loam for 2 mana. Drop Colosseum and activate it for 1 mana. Draw 3, pitch the 2 lands you grabbed from loam + the worse card of the 3 cards you drew. Net investment= 3 mana, 1 land drop for digging 3 cards and discarding 1 bad card. Compulsive research is by no means great in legacy, but it is tolerable. This is similar to aggro loam's drawing machine without having to play the CIPT cycle lands.

The academy/EE/Shackles IMO should be relegated to the SB. I think the academy can be left in MD but you might have to be slightly greedier with the manabase (ie less basics). EE and shackles can be great out of the board as I can see them being pretty narrow in the MD specifically to fight board presence decks. Since you see quite a bit of combo, the MD spell snares may help alot. Cheers!

Valtrix
01-27-2011, 05:51 PM
I usually don't have trouble getting blue, so I don't think the single coliseum will matter much in that regard. However, the one life to actually use it to produce mana is a pretty big deal in my opinion, between fetches (especially those returned from loam), getting attacked, and forces, your life total can really go down (This is most relevant against aggro). I think engineered explosives is a great card to run in its own right, so I feel like the only opportunity cost of running this combination is the colorless of academy ruins. However, once again, I think that in general this is not much of an issue. I don't think running coliseum really saves you any space in this regard. Shackles is not something you have to run, but is frankly something I would choose to run even without the combination with academy ruins.

I don't think that coliseum provides inevitability in the same way as ruins/EE, namely because coliseum can't deal with counterbalance, and to me this is the main draw of running the combination. It also gives you maindeck answers to a resolved planeswalker, which is relevant in more controlling matchups.

This is not to say that you shouldn't play spell snare necessarily. I think it is a strong card, and could warrant slots depending on your meta. It's also possible that having coliseum in the deck is worthwhile too, since it can sometimes be a much better option in the aggro matchup to build cards rather than recurring EE (Though usually I think that you just want to hope for removal, since both loam/coliseum are pretty slow). The only cost of running ruins/EE is that ruins can't produce colored mana, otherwise EE is a card that you're always happy to see unless you're against combo. I think its worth against counterbalance is just too much to pass on.

Mon,Goblin Chief
01-28-2011, 12:29 PM
@ Valtrix: Thanks for the report, interesting read. The more you play, the fewer mistakes you will make, so just keep churning games. You're doing the most important thing right already, realizing what mistakes you make!

Some comments:

Why would you board out StP against Painter-combo? Gives you another cheap answer to his combo while killing Welders.

Against ANT: Especially with a Brainstorm in hand, Counterbalance seems much better than FoW. Counterbalance is harder for them to win through and is extremely like to turn that Brainstorm into a sweet Dismiss.

Against Zoo: I suppose he didn't have Price of Progress? Otherwise taking out so much of your countermagic AND the balances seems quite risky. I also suspect he was running Steppe Lynx/Goblin Guide, right? Otherwise Pyroclasm seems pretty weak against Zoo. Other than that I really like your plan here, when running CBThopters we realized that, once they have Grip, Counterbalance is actually pretty weak because you take enough damage early to just die to Grip into burn. If you kill everything that moves and finish on Jace on the other hand, they usually can't do much.

As to the decklist, you might consider running a single Cursed Scroll or one Grove of the Burnwillows and one Punishing Fire instead of some Pyroclasms in your sideboard. Both options allow you to set up repeated shooting of annoying Goblins with Intuition, which in my experience they have a really hard time beating. You could even move the fourth Firespout back to the board and have one Grove, one Fire MD. Fire usually finds a relevant target, making it ok to draw in most matchups and once you set up the combo most Tribal-decks just die (as Goblins seems to be a problem for you, having a way to make the MD-matchup better with such slight changes sounds good to me).

@ivanpei: As for removing the EE, why would you want to do that? If the "pile of doom" wasn't available, I'd be tempted to even run more of them. It's incredible against anything that isn't combo because it punishes fast aggro-starts, deals with Vial and Planeswalkers while also providing you with an out to Counterbalance game one where you otherwise are pretty much cold. Once you run EE, having the Ruins seems obvious.

Valtrix
01-28-2011, 02:26 PM
Boarding out swords was a mistake. I think I wanted to be greedy and try and two-for one with firespout, but it was definitely the wrong choice. I forgot to write this, but I brought them back for G3 over some firespouts.

As for ANT...I only didn't go for balance because he had enough turns where he could fight through it, because of the different mana costs in his deck. Once again, I didn't play this right, but it would have been much stronger to go for tops to keep my countermagic just floating on top of my library, since I had a brainstorm to hide my force. Just wasn't in the game I guess.

I knew the zoo player, and I knew his decklist, so I knew that I didn't have to worry about price or progress. He wasn't running goblin guides, but clasm is still very relevant regardless. It hits lavamancer (3), lynxes (3-4), pridemages(4), and possibly sideboard cards like gaddock teeg (0-2). This means that it hits 10-13 of their cards, which seems very relevant since that's at least half their creatures. You can also kill wild nacatls on the play which is just extra nice. Then, it lets me save my swords and EEs for the other half of their deck. I can't see why you wouldn't want clasm in this matchup...

Punishing fire/grove might be worthwhile to test, as it really seems like it might have some serious applications for intuition game 1. My only concern is the R/G of the land and the fact that punishing fire is only 2 damage. But like you said, it's pretty relevant in most matchups to get something, and I do have some draw manipulation. It could be a good intuition supplement to whatever removal I'm already bringing in. I haven't really been able to figure out how to fix this matchup in the way I wanted to. From my testing it seems as though I need to deal with ringleaders resolving, and I seem to only win whenever I play Vedalkan Shackles...Granted, it's not a lot of testing, but it hasn't made me happy so far.

Mon,Goblin Chief
01-28-2011, 03:11 PM
I've been playing quite a bit of ANT and winning through CB @ 2 is nearly impossible (you have to have drawn your Ad Nauseam, basically) and CB being in play produces so many random problems with acceleration and cantripping that I think it's better than getting another hardcounter. I don't see how you could have gone for Top safely as he took your FoW with his Duress (if you Brainstorm in response to hide it, you shuffle it away by Intuitioning, if you wait to draw it again, it doesn't float any more) so you'd be dependant on finding a counter in your top 3 to keep one floating.

Pyroclasm vs Zoo: As soon as they have either Lynx or Guide (which is what I meant), clasm is fine because it kills half their creatures. Not a great one for one, but it does what is needed and sometimes you can get lucky and hit multiple creatures. It's pretty bad against the builds that only have Pridemage and Lavamancer imo.

Regarding Punishing Fire, cutting a Fetch for the Grove leaves you with 18 blue sources, which should be fine. Once you do that, you could even bring in more Groves and Fires instead of Pyroclasms, which should make Goblins a walk in the park from my experience. It's very hard to keep Goblins from ever resolving a Ringleader, so something that allows you to just play through them is probably the best way to address the matchup. I've won a ton of games against multiple resolved Ringleaders with CAB Jace, simply because they can't cast their Goblins fast enough to actually deal much damage once Fire is recurring. In your deck this effect is even stronger because even if they have all the mana in the world, they could just get blown out by a sandbagged Firespout when they try to outpace Fire, putting them between a rock and a hard place. Fire also is an excellent way to profit from the time Wall of Goyf buys you against them.
Note that this also makes your plans against Zoo and Fish better because Punishing Fire can actually kill their three-toughness dudes (Nacatl, double-Lords) once you hit five mana and double-red (other than Grove), while Pyroclasm does straight up nothing at those points (and was coming in anyway). If you're having trouble with Tribal, you should definitely try out the MD 1 Fire 1 Grove and SB - Pyroclasms + 2 Grove 2 Fire, I'm pretty sure that will push your winpercentage if not through the roof at least right up to where you can touch it. At that point I would probably switch one of the Tropicals for a Volcanic, with the basic Forest and Grove producing G, you should still be able to keep Loam running just fine but you're more likely to get to the point where you can Fire twice in a row.
/edit: Having lands in the board also mean you can board in additional manasources should you feel the need, e.g. against Stax.
The combo also is a beating against Landstill-type decks, you get to board out the useless removal and suddenly have an endgame that kills every single way they have to win (if they're not rocking it old school with Decree). Keeping Elspeth or Jace under control by burning them again and again is quite sweet.

Valtrix
01-28-2011, 04:24 PM
For ANT I was trying to represent counterspells too much. I think he duressed me when I had 4 lands in play, so I would have been able to intuition T3, then get top and protect my force. Or I might have drawn it turn 4, I can't quite remember. Regardless, I didn't have any 2cc after goyf, and I still misplayed that. Will not do so in the future.

I think that pyroclasm is still very relevant against zoo, because even if you're playing removal that deals with 7 creatures they run, I think it's still worthwhile to do so, because there's a very good chance that you'll have a target to hit. Most zoo builds are running lynxes anyway, so the 7 creatures is less of an issue. And once again, on the draw it hits even . Another interesting thing is that having more sorceries allows you to get a goyf into play sooner without worrying about it dying to bolt right away, though this is a little more minor.

I think I am going to test the punishing fire/grove and bumping my intuition count up to 3, and even adding the 4th intuition in the board. I am unsure about using SB slots for a lot of grove/fires, but it might also be worth running 1/1 in there. Will have to see what I have room for. I lack the redundancy of the combo, but I have a good chance to set it up with so many intuitions I think, and even having one active still provides nightmares for these decks, in addition to other removal of course.

Link Ramirez
01-29-2011, 07:10 AM
Hi Mana Drain, awesome deck and well written primer. Thanks.
I've played some 2-Man-Queue on MTGO with it and played against Canadian Thresh among others.
I have a question about your sideboarding strategy abainst thresh.


The Sideboard, and possible choices for YOUR metagame

Tempo Thresh (UGR with Goose+Goyf): Uhrg, I hate this matchup. We’ll win if we survive to the lategame, but Spell Snare, Daze, Mongoose, and heavy Waste draws end it quickly. If you manage to land a CB/Top, they’re in deep shit, but it’s harder than it looks against a deck that is pretty much land+cantrips+counters+8-10 beaters. Be extremely careful with your fetches, cracking in response to theirs, their cantrips, or if they tap out (extremely rare). Only Force the kill-cons, unless you’re defending a fetch from Stifle and don’t have the land to lose it. Good luck on this one, you’ll need it. Trying to reduce the cost of your spells in important here. EE lock is too good in this matchup to reduce Intuitions, and getting Loam by any means possible ensures mana. They will have Blasts of their own and burn, so Jace’s survivability is low, but if you untap with him in play, you’ll probably win. I still suggest removing at least 1-2 in addition to the obvious Shackles and FS. Play the same as preboard, just be aware of REBs and Spell Pierces. Needle on EE is common, don’t depend on them. Throw in all Relics you have here; they buy time against beaters without costing a card.


Why do you want to take out Firespout? It takes care about Mongoose and the possible Trygon Predator after Boarding. That leaves Thresh with 4 Goyfs and they can meet Swords and EE. Plus Firespout has protection from Spell Snare, Stifle, Needle and Red Elemental Blast. I play your main deck from the primer (-1Delta + 1Forest) and I'm boarding -3 Jace +2 EE +1REB. I'm thinking about also boarding out Shakles for a second REB.

What do you think?

Valtrix
01-30-2011, 02:17 PM
I think that seems like a good plan. Jace is nice, but ultimately you probably don't need him in this MU, since they have so few creatures and can't deal with a resolved goyf. Plus, fateseal seems particularly weak against them, and you probably won't care about a whole lot once you're in a position to actually start using him. The key is not losing to their mana-denial and not letting their counters stop your answers. REB is definitely good in this MU to protect against stifles and force of will, so bringing in them seems like a strong plan. I agree that taking out 3 Jace for 2 EE and 1 REB is a good plan. I agree cutting shackles for REB, but it should probably be for the ratchet bomb that you should be playing in your sideboard. Having tutorable outs to a resolved needle is huge in my opinion. I wouldn't take firespouts out either, because it's just so easy to kill mongoose with it. 4 swords/3 EE/1 ratchet bomb/3 firespout/2 counterspell should be ample removal for their creatures, in my opinion just don't run goyf into dumb things and you're good.

Also, I'm changing up testing a little bit, because I'm determined to figure out how to deal with the goblins matchup. Merfolk and zoo is pretty easy with the abundance of removal, but goblins is continuing to be a problem. I'm going to be testing punishing fire and grove of the burnwillows combo as a means to try and deal with this matchup. To fit this in I'm playing with 3 firespouts/3 intuition, cut the 2nd counterspell for punishing fire and am playing grove as the 61st card. Many people don't like this, but I'm more doing this until I can figure out what I like, but I also want the 23 land/61 card mana ratio, since I always find myself just wanting a bit more mana. I also found that vedalken shackles is one of the few cards that swing that matchup in my favor, so I'm trying the following board:

SB: 1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
SB: 1 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [OV] Pyroblast
SB: 1 [B] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell

Mana Drain
02-01-2011, 12:55 PM
After my break from MTG and other hobbies, I'm back. I haven't played in a tournament since my last report, but I'm still playing this deck as my primary and lovin' every minute of it.


Also, none of my games did revolve around intuition for ruins/EE/loam. Why? Because that combination is primarily for slower decks that it just destroys.
I think this quote is important enough to highlight in the primer. The emphasis of the deck is to play a control-heavy CB build metagame'd against creature decks, while utilizing Intuition as either a Demonic Tutor or an "I win the game soon" play against any deck that can't kill us fast i.e. Control-ish decks. If you don't need to fetch the doom-package, don't. Fetch Jace or Goyf to end the game faster. Or the missing CB piece. Or just FS to sweep. You play the deck like many other CB decks, just with more options and more answers, rather than a more focused creature-based strategy that goes aggro half the time. If you can Intuition for inevitability, cool beans. If not, no big deal. Intuition for a threat, an answer, or pitch it to FoW.

@Link Ramirez: You're SB plan is perfectly fine there. I don't like FS against TT mainly because it's underwhelming. The only thing it effectively stops that other cards can't is Goose, and that's why it's suggested to run an additional 1-2 EE/1 Ratchet in the board, and I run Clique to suprise block. Trygon/Clique just happen to be blue, making them nice targets for REB. Goyf is removed/matched by our own or half of the decks removal. Also, FS puts more dependance on R, when R is our Tertiary splash color, opposed to W and G.

My SB plan against TT is -3 Jace, -3 FS, -1 CS for +3 Blasts, +2 EE, +2 Clique, and I've found that to be sufficient. My biggest fear against TT is not the creatures, but my own bad hands against their denial-heavy ones. Sometimes you just draw into hands with only 2 fetches, and they end up manafucking you. It happens. Playing a solid basic lineup will do wonders for the matchup. I'm just too stubborn and greedy to do so. Mana-denial and bad keeps will lose you far more games than a Goyf or Goose will against TT. Don't get greedy with your mulls here.

@Valtrix: I think the 4th FS MD is a meta-call type audible, but a good one. If you're expecting a sea of aggro instead of CB/Control/Combo/Random, it makes good sense. I can't say that my meta warrents the 4th MD, but if it did I'm thinking it would be excellent.

On Groves/Fires, I'll try to recreate a August-era list I had that was amazing against aggro, with 1 Grove/2 Fires. It just rolfstomps any tribal and makes Zoo and mid-range much better. I just wonder if it's worth it to play more GY dependent cards post-board in the face of possible GY hate. Regardless, I'll rebuild the list and post it for anyone that's interested.

Also: I'll state again that Grim Lavamancer is off-the-hook good. Dead serious here. T1 Lavamancer against any creature deck has won me more games than I can count. It is the MVP of the board in any creature matchup. Early game, he forces the opponent to either remove him (preventing them from doing something more useful during their turn) or sacrifice smaller dudes to burn you out of fuel. He's always got at least one shot of fuel in him whenever you drop him due to the number of fetchs and cheap spells we play. So many decks SB out their STPs and other cheap removal for more expensive and slower removal to stop CB that Mr. Grim's survivability until T3 is high. During this time, the other guy is either losing dudes, or not playing small dudes, and both results are extremely beneficial. I highly suggest trying out a pair in the SB and putting them in against all Tribal, Zoo, and midrange. Thank you again Jeremy.

Valtrix
02-01-2011, 02:16 PM
As for the 4th firespout, I think that the 2nd vedalken shackles is probably much better. Shackles works best in conjunction with firespouts and in general vedalken shackles is what can win you the game in the long run, whereas firespout just helps you not lose. I love firespout, but I think shackles steals (pun intended) way more games than firespout, and is much more useful in other matchups.

As for fire/groves, I think it's fine to increase the reliance on the GY. Why? Because it's an incredibly potent tool that can dominate the game. Sure, they can bring in their graveyard hate, but in general if they're bringing GY hate in and other spells out I'm happy. I can always kill at least one creature with a punishing fire, and if they're using crypt as the hate of choice then this effectively makes them lose a card. Additionally, there are several ways to play around the graveyard hate:

1) If they preemptively play GY hate to stop you from setting up an intuition package, then EE can remove the hate before you need to go for the pile.
2) Counterspell.
3) Multiple groves/swords shuts down a single piece of graveyard hate. The scariest thing is for them to waste a grove and then play the hate to get rid of grove.
4) Intuition for the pile again, since you should be playing at least two copies of each card post board.

All of these seem like very effective strategies to me, and in any of these cases even if they deal with the punishing fire/groves, you're still making a profit. And if they don't? Well then you probably just win.

Now, lavamancer is very good. He's awesome against Merfolk, but I'm not really worried about merfolk all that much. Perhaps my testing has been off, but I almost never beat goblins without some miraculous draw including multiple goyfs and/or shackles. As such, I am worried about lavamancer not being very stable against goblins, since they have incinerators or warren weirdings to use. Additionally if I want to reliably beat them I want to have a lot of ways to setup something that can dominate the game for me, which is why I favor having access to all 4 intuitions.

hyc8028
02-01-2011, 02:33 PM
The problem I see with Lavamancer is that he has to be in play early to be most effective IMO. I know you mention Peacekeeper as one of the option against aggro, so wouldn't it be better against the aggro? (Peacekeeper also stop Dredge, Show and Tell and Random Junk.)

Concallesco
02-01-2011, 03:34 PM
First off, I'd really like to commend Mana Drain, Valtrix and ivanpei on this deck. I've put it together and have been playing a few games with it, and it's an absolute blast to play. The primer was extremely helpful and well-written as well. Really a great job.

I do have a question regarding the Glimpse Affinity MU. I've found that Etched Champion, and, to a lesser extent, Myr Enforcer, are somewhat difficult to deal with, especially since EE@3 is a bit slow and doesn't solve the rest of affinity, and a Cranial Plating or even +1/+1 counters voids a lot of the effectiveness of Vedalken Shackles. Obviously it's possible to Swords the Enforcer, but Firespout doesn't deal with either of these two creatures. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Valtrix
02-01-2011, 03:54 PM
Affinity can be a rough matchup, though I haven't played it much, and I think it depends on your build a lot. Plating is particularly difficult to deal with, so generally you're going to try and deal with their creatures instead, and perhaps take a couple hits with a plated guy. Fortunately a lot of their creatures die to firespouts (ornithopter, canonist, disciple, frogmite, etc.) so firespout is pretty key to sweep their creatures, especially if they're playing glimpse. You're going to want to set up ruins lock in the matchup, so try and do whatever you can to survive until then. Swords should be saved for enforcers and master of etherium, while counterspells should be aimed at platings and etched champion. Goyf is pretty good in this matchup, because it's easy to make him fairly large to block things. The nice thing about them is that they have only a few threats that really matter, since firespout can sweep away most of the crappy artifacts they play to make the rest of their deck better.

Anusien
02-01-2011, 04:32 PM
If you can't beat Affinity, SB 3 Ancient Grudges. I doubt they can ever beat Intuition for Grudges.

Mana Drain
02-01-2011, 11:14 PM
@Valtrix: I do like the idea of something like 1 Grove/2 Fire/1 Intuition in the board. The numbers would have to be fooled with but Fires recursion is something that no aggro deck can deal with if they don't have hate for it. Very interesting. How has only 1 Fire been working for you in the MD? I feel that 2 is all we would ever need and can support, but 1 would be somewhat underwhelming. If anything, the remaining CS could go for the 2nd Fire, retaining the CB curve stats, with plenty of U cards to support FoW still. Fires is simply devastating if they can't stop it, and allowing us to save STP/Path for Goyf and friends is a major plus.


The problem I see with Lavamancer is that he has to be in play early to be most effective IMO. I know you mention Peacekeeper as one of the option against aggro, so wouldn't it be better against the aggro? (Peacekeeper also stop Dredge, Show and Tell and Random Junk.)

True, to an extent. If your in topdeck mode and staring down an army of dudes, yes, Grim is weak. If you drop him T1 off of a fetch, good shit happens. His main purpose is strengthening the Mid-range matchup by nailing Hierarch/Pridemage/Confidant/MM/whatever utility dude while also helping win Goyf stalemates. Yes, he is vulnerable to removal, but most aggro-ish decks I play against SB out most of their removal. And if he is nailed early, think of it as a 1-1 trade that trades tempo with the aggro deck. This means that they have one less mana to drop an early threat. This might not seem significant, but think of the difference between a T1 Nacatl and a T2 Nacatl - Which one do you fear more? Same goes for Lackey, Hierarch, Pridemage, Confidant. And if they don't stop Mr. Grim (the usual case against Mid-range and Folk), you will more than likely win off of his back. Repeating Shocks are truely no joke, regardless if they have summoning sickness or not. Again, a large part of his effectiveness is due to the fact that if dropped early, he forces the removal or the concession from most creature decks.

It should be known that the few Goblins builds I do play against are all mono-red, heavy mana-disruption based. He is certainly less effective than FS against Goblins, but FS is much less effective against Rock/Bant than Mr. Grim, which is a bigger part of my metagame. I don't like PK here for the reason that it improves matchups that we don't have significant trouble with. I've yet to lose a match to Dredge, we SB in like 9-10 cards for Merfolk as it is, and SnT decks have significant trouble with CB, CS, Force, Red blasts, and other SB spell hate. PK was absolutely amazing - 3-4 months ago when Survival was the best deck in the format. This is no longer the case, and PK's help is not needed anymore. Besides, for the 3 mentioned, there are faster and more versatile answers. Unless Dredge and SnT are relevant in your metagame, I don't suggest PK right now.
However, I think if we can get Grove/Fires worked into the deck somehow again, it will significantly shore up all of the mentioned matchups, as GY hate is usually irrelevant from all of the above as they all have better cards to SB in against us.


First off, I'd really like to commend Mana Drain, Valtrix and ivanpei on this deck. I've put it together and have been playing a few games with it, and it's an absolute blast to play. The primer was extremely helpful and well-written as well. Really a great job.

I do have a question regarding the Glimpse Affinity MU. I've found that Etched Champion, and, to a lesser extent, Myr Enforcer, are somewhat difficult to deal with, especially since EE@3 is a bit slow and doesn't solve the rest of affinity, and a Cranial Plating or even +1/+1 counters voids a lot of the effectiveness of Vedalken Shackles. Obviously it's possible to Swords the Enforcer, but Firespout doesn't deal with either of these two creatures. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Valtix answered the question already, but I must agree that Champion is a motherfucker. If you have the space, Nature's Claim is pretty amazing against them, and is versatile enough to be useful in other matchups as well. Resolved Champion I feel is Affinity's trump against Control. It may be a wacked-out idea, but SBing 1 Underground Sea and 2-3 Deed would be a nasty surprise for them, while still being useful against other decks.


If you can't beat Affinity, SB 3 Ancient Grudges. I doubt they can ever beat Intuition for Grudges.

While Intuition > Triple Grudge would indeed break Affinity, Grudge is pretty narrow in this deck. The only non-Affinity artifacts that I think we have to worry about are opposing Tops, Jitte, Needle, and Vial (and technically Relic/Crypt, but this is moot). On the flip-side, there are many enchantments I don't want to see on the other side, like Choke, B2B, Blood Moon, Library, CB. Extra EEs, Ratchets, Claims, and the slower but certain Grip are just more versatile. But if Affinity starts wrecking the metagame, 3 Grudge is pretty solid hate in addition to our other SB options.

Valtrix
02-02-2011, 12:21 AM
On the affinity issue, 3 meltdown might just be more effective to wreck them instead of ancient grudges, as it destroys their manabase and gets champion (Though probably won't get frogmites or enforcers, I think it's a reasonable tradeoff). It's still very narrow, but I guess it lets you wreck stax too.

kingtk3
02-02-2011, 05:12 AM
If your meta is full of Affinity I think the best hate is Energy Flux since:
it's a mass removal that lives through the game
it doesn't target
it requires only one colored mana that's already in color of the deck
it can be FoW-picked.

In general I agree with Valtrix on how manage the match up.

DragoFireheart
02-02-2011, 09:55 AM
Energy Flux for Affinity decks, Aura Flux for enchantments.

Deady
02-06-2011, 04:29 PM
My apologies for the deleted messages :D!

I'm recently converted from NO/PRO Countertop to Intuition Countertop. I'm also playing UGW Tempo Bant, but I've always prefered Countertop over any other deck.

I think the deck is really great and a blast to play with.

After some testing I came up with the following SB:

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Firespout
3 Punishing Fire
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
1 Ratchet Bomb

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask and/or discuss.

Mana Drain
02-06-2011, 10:18 PM
I've thought about a second Shackles in the board, but never got around to testing it. Valtrix and Deady, what matchups do you bring in the second Shackles?

Also, been testing the 2 Punishing Fires for 2 Counterspells MD. Had to rework the manabase to fit in the basic Forest and Mountain, but overall I'm impressed with the results of such a minor change. Additional spot removal to supplement StP in the MD is very nice, especially against Gobs. We still have 18 U-cards to pitch to FoW, which I'm okay with, but it's worth the significant boost against creature decks. Also playing and extra Grove and Fires like Valtrix and Deadly in the board, which is even better.

Here's my new manabase (much more conservative than my old one and an easier time utilizing Fires):

1 Ruins
1 Grove
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Tundra
3 Tropical
3 Volcanic
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn

I tried the 23rd land briefly (an additional fetch), but felt that I was seeing a little more land than I wanted. Not that I'm against 61 cards, but until further testing proves otherwise, I'm sticking with 22/38 lands/spells ratio.

Mon,Goblin Chief
02-07-2011, 06:12 PM
Happy to see my suggestion seems to work out for you guys :) PFire really is the ultimate answer to tribal because it beats them whenever it comes online no matter what (well, unless they already have an absolutely overwhelming board presence), at least that's my experience. Out of interest, how far has it pushed the Gobs/Fish matchups in this deck? Is the deck massively favored yet?
The one thing I really dislike now is that the only true counters in the deck are the Forces, feels low to me (I know CB counters stuff, but it usually takes quite some time to set up if the opponent is interacting at all, which means you're rather weak to early non-creature threats). I agree though that there isn't really much else to cut.

@Mana Drain: I like that manabase a lot better. Having unwasteable sources for your removal (or in your case, Goyfs) is so good in a meta full of Wastelands and Vials...

ivanpei
02-08-2011, 01:35 AM
@ Mon,Goblin Chief: I agree with you regarding the lack of counters in the early game. I'm playing 3 spell snares in place of the 3rd intuition, shackles and EE. I've been swapping the 3rd snare with an EE if the meta is less combo-ish. I still have the loam-EE-ruins pile for a strong late game while having some early game counters with snare. You can then move the shackles into the board.

On punishing fire, I believe its very strong if you see plenty of tribal in your area. While fire is a good removal spell to draw, I'm pretty doubtful on the grove. Grove doesn't make blue which is a major pain so you should not play more than 2 at any point of time unless you decide to totally forgo basics. Question to people who are testing punishing fire, does it help turn the goblins MU into a positive one? I know it destroys folk/elves etc, but I'm just wondering if 2cc removal spells and the slow engine set up is effective against goblin's lackeys, ringleaders etc. Goblins generates CA and puts pressure on your life total + manabase at the same time. Its the ultimate nightmare.

Thanks in advance for posting your testing results, I'm busy breaking Green Sun's Zenith right now, that card is the nuts. We might want to start preparing for the zenith based decks that are bound to start appearing.

Deady
02-08-2011, 02:22 PM
@Mon,Goblin Chief/Ivanpei:

I'd side out both Counterbalance and FoW against Goblins. Counterbalance is too slow here (you''ll need to set it up early with SDT and double blue mana) and FoW doesn't have the brutal power it's supposed to have with all the added red cards, artifacts and less blue cards. The remaining blue cards are cards that are all important on their own and cards you don't want to pitch to FoW in the first place, at least not in this matchup. In this matchup you should be begging for the right mana at the right time to play all the spells you want to play, nothing more, nothing less.

The goal against Goblins is to play an entirely different strategy, almost an entirely different deck, which is possible with the SB. Intuition is even more powerful here, as it gives you all the options you could ask for (Punishing Fire/Grove/Ruins/EE/Loam/Firespout/Shackles and so on. However, you can't turn a slow control deck into a faster one, but that's totally not the goal anyway. The main goal against Goblins is to constantly slow them down and beat them hard in their face with your own goodies (Goyf, JACE, Shackles), which means you need to have enough mana to support this strategy, as well as the right mana. EE seems more powerful as well, as Grove can tap for both red or green mana. Grove is a serious threat thats even useful aside from the Punishing Fire combo, at least in this deck.

I side-in 3x Grove of the Burnwillows and go -1 SDT, -1 Flooded Strand. SDT is not the best choice as 4-off here (there's no Counterbalance); 3x is the right number. I don't side-out the 2-off Counterspells, as they're always useful to counter their hate or to counter threats like Ringleader or Lackey. I keep the 2 basic Islands in the MD and play with 24 lands (including 3x Grove of the Burnwillows).

This is my stock MD:

2 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins
2 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand


4 Tarmogoyf

1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Firespout
1 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell

=====================

Post-board (against Goblins):

2 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Academy Ruins
2 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf

3 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Firespout
1 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
2 Vedalken Shackles
2 Counterspell

It's still in testing-process.

hyc8028
02-08-2011, 02:29 PM
@ Deady: After sidebording, you SB should still have 15 cards and your deck should have the same number of cards as it did game 1. You need to take another card out in your post board deck.

Deady
02-08-2011, 02:56 PM
My fault, -1 Ratchet Bomb! Thanks.

I've gone -1 Grove of the Burnwillows, which makes up for a 2-3 split with Punishing Fire. I feel that 3x Grove of the Burnwillows is one too much, especially since I find that blue mana is still important in the early/mid game and late game. Cutting a Flooded strand for a Grove also didn't seem quite like a right choice, as it's important to be able to fetch for a Tundra as well, when needed. Cutting a Tropical Island and a Misty Rainforest for 2 Groves is much, much better; you also keep the 22/38 lands/spells ratio this way; I'm even about to make this change into the original MD (-1 Trop, -1 Misty, +2 Grove) to save space in the SB for different, more important hate.

So, my MD has become:

2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

4 Tarmogoyf

1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Firespout
1 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell

With a new SB:

3 Punishing Fire
1 Firespout
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
1 Ratchet Bomb
2.....................

Now let's figure out what to do with the remaining empy spots! Who knows it could be useful for Zenith based decks in the near future.

Mon,Goblin Chief
02-09-2011, 06:20 AM
Thanks for the quick and detailed responses, this thread is awesome!

@ ivanpe: I wouldn't ever cut the MD EE from a deck like this, not having a way to Intuition into some form of board-lock that beats anything permanent-based including opposing CB-decks seems just wrong and in my mind makes running the Intuition/Loam MD not really worth it. At that point the Loam only guarantees landdrops when you already have three to four (Daze) mana. Cutting the Shackles and third Intuition for Countermagic on the other hand seems like an option, EE can deal with most things Shackles can (less powerfully than Shackles, but that can be boarded) and if the plan against Goblins becomes to set up Fire/Grove having either lock available (Ruins/EE and Grove/Fire) should mean Intuition breaks any matchup but combo anyway.
Concerning your doubts about PFire, I have quite a bit of experience with the engine in Legacy control (see sig) and it utterly destroys Goblins. The 2 mana removal is fine and Grove is simply a manasource, something you can't have enough off against Goblins anyway. The engine is actually better against Goblins than it is against Folk because they have nothing at all that makes it so that their guys don't die to a single Fire. Grove not producing blue isn't much of a problem, Deady's list for example has two Groves and still 19 U sources, more than a number of other CB-decks run anyway (because they have fewer lands).

@Deady: That is quite an interesting SB plan as I wouldn't ever want to be without FoW against Goblins. It does the two most important things possible in this matchup: Stops turn 1 Lackey/Vial and stops Ringleader without slowing down the pace of your game. Not having FoW on the draw means you have only four ways to stop a turn one Lackey and no way to answer Vial outside of the EEs. Considering Vial-fuelled mass-drops are pretty much the only way they ever beat Fire/Grove, opening yourself up to these cards doesn't seem like the greatest plan.
Also, Misty Rainforest no. 4 is definitely superior to Flooded Strand no. 1 in your list. Tundra is still an Island, meaning Misty can grap it - actually there is no land in your whole deck Strand can grap that Misty can't (I'm sure you're aware of that, so: hawhaw @ mindfart ;) ).
As to your free SB slots, I'd probably still run the third Grove there, having an additional land against Tribal is useful and you want to draw Grove early and often if you rely on Fire. Having more than one just means you get to kill more things a turn (important against Vial/once Goblins has developed a lot of mana). It also helps find a Grove without Intuition (or to Insta-find it with Intuition without relying on Loam if their start dictates that that's what you need). Definitely curious how the testing goes!

Deady
02-09-2011, 12:25 PM
@Mon,Goblin Chief:

Thanks for your suggestion about running the 3rd Grove in the board and going -1 Flooded Strand instead of -1 Misty Rainforest in the MD...I'll give it a try and perhaps it might be even better with the mana base I'm running. I always start fetching for a basic Island anyway and 2 Island/1 Mountain/1 Forest is everything we need in the matchup (we don't need RR or GG). Running only 1 basic Island in the maindeck isn't something I'd encourage though...2 Islands are very important for Counterbalance and a mid/late game Jace, as well as for your Counterspells (if you run them MD or SB).

Grove gets the best out of Firespout as well.

Manabase:

2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
2 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

SB:

3 Punishing Fire
1 Firespout
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Vedalken Shackles
3 Spell Pierce
1 Vendillion Clique
2 Counterspell
1 Ratchet Bomb

Edit: currently trying out -1 MD Shackles, +1 MD Vendilion Clique.

Mana Drain
02-09-2011, 09:29 PM
Well, I still haven't been able to test much other than a small showing at my Sunday tournament (YuGioh Sneak Peak was going on so our numbers were a low), but I'm pretty much sold on the Fires engine MD. I completely agree with Mon and ivanpei that hard counters are missed, but I've found the strength of Fires against Mid-range and aggro to be worth the weakened matchup against CB/Control/Combo. Nailing Mid-ranges utility dudes has saved me much more than than CSing one of their Goyfs or other dude, and the fact that it answers a Pridemage already on the table so I can drop CB is also extremely relevant. I think at any large tournament (35+), you can reasonably expect a majority of decks to play creatures, and Fires is great against most Tier 1 decks in the format. Landstill is almost non-existent in my meta and other CB decks can be beaten post-board still, while Goblins, Folk, and all sorts of mid-range just can't handle the recurring shocks G1.

I'm not quite sure if I should update the Primer to include the now-popular Fires/Grove set yet, so I'm gonna' give it a little more time so that we can see the full extent of the change before we go about ditching something already proven.

Also, I have to say a big thank you to everybody in this thread. Almost every post so far has been thought out and insightful, and we've got a group of good minds playing the deck. We don't have idiots asking obvious questions or making ridiculous suggestions, but positivel changes with valid merit and intelligent questions with not-so-obvious answers. Again, I personally thank everybody here for their input and suggestions. Posters in other threads only wish they had the content that we do. Let's keep up the good work guys, and this deck can shine.

Link Ramirez
02-10-2011, 06:26 AM
I completely agree with Mon and ivanpei that hard counters are missed, but I've found the strength of Fires against Mid-range and aggro to be worth the weakened matchup against CB/Control/Combo. Nailing Mid-ranges utility dudes has saved me much more than than CSing one of their Goyfs or other dude, and the fact that it answers a Pridemage already on the table so I can drop CB is also extremely relevant.

My take to fit in Fires/Grove was to replace one Fetchland with a Grove and the Shakles with a Fire, keeping the Counterspells, with another Grove and Fire in the Board. I'm not totally set on this, but for me Shakles and Fire/Groves serves the same purpose. And I think Shakles is slower at that.

Mana Drain
02-10-2011, 12:15 PM
My take to fit in Fires/Grove was to replace one Fetchland with a Grove and the Shakles with a Fire, keeping the Counterspells, with another Grove and Fire in the Board. I'm not totally set on this, but for me Shakles and Fire/Groves serves the same purpose. And I think Shakles is slower at that.

Shackles and Fires do serve a similar purpose, but do so in different ways. Fires is instant speed pinpoint removal for just 2 mana and is another way to punish your opponent for letting Intuition resolve. Shackles is a 5-mana investment that completely warps the gamestate in your favor when facing down 1-2 larger threats, of even 3-4 smaller threats, and allows for stabilization in a dangerous position. Post stabilization, dropping Shackles almost always results in a scoop from the other guy if they don't have an out to it.

I think it comes down to the simple and proven fact that Legacy is a creature-based format, and every non-combo deck in the format (excluding Lands and other randomness) runs some number of creatures. Being recoverable through Ruins is just a bonus that is sometimes relevant.
Shackles is slower, but gamebreaking. It's also another 3-drop for the CB curve, which is becoming more and more relevant.

EDIT: Also, now that CB decks are known as the deck to beat, we can expect to face more and more hate aimed at us. That also means that we're going to have to dedicate more slots in the SB to the mirror. I'm currently making adjustments to the MD and SB to see if we can find a happy medium of power against the Mirror, and against aggro. I really want to fit in another EE into the MD, because there are so few times where I'm unhappy to see it. Anybody else feel the same? This is also compounded by the lowered counter-count with Fires in the mix. While I'm satisfied by the increased aggro hate, CB decks and other non-linear decks I'm feeling are becoming a problem. Whether we should address this by using massive SB hate or altering the MD further I can't yet tell. Like I said, I'm making adjustments to the MD to see if a medium can be found.

Link Ramirez
02-10-2011, 03:05 PM
Shackles and Fires do serve a similar purpose, but do so in different ways. Fires is instant speed pinpoint removal for just 2 mana and is another way to punish your opponent for letting Intuition resolve. Shackles is a 5-mana investment that completely warps the gamestate in your favor when facing down 1-2 larger threats, of even 3-4 smaller threats, and allows for stabilization in a dangerous position. Post stabilization, dropping Shackles almost always results in a scoop from the other guy if they don't have an out to it.


Don't get me wrong, I love to play Shackles because it really feels like playing control. While I was playing MUC I rarely needed own creatures. The question is, do I need Shackles MD if I have Fire/Grove. Shackles is standalone good while Fire usually needs Grove. But facing Goblins or that blue tribe I think I prefer Fire early. Only a dead Lord of Atlantis is a good Lord of Atlantis. And Goblins tend to kill me to fast.
I also prefer to kill turn 2 Bob. Of course stealing Bob is fun, but I don't like it when the other guy draws extra cards.
And post stabilisation, dropping Jace is most of the time enough. Plus I like Counterspells MD.
Another problem I have with Shackles is that in the dark I don't want to see it in my opening hand. It always feels like not being useful before turn 5 and even then only if I make every landdrop and don't meet Wasteland. That's why I would like it better in the board.

With all that said, I don't want to rule out that I just make wrong Shackles-decisions in game. I will continue testing.

I also want to play another Explosives MD. But don't you think 24 CMC=0 is too much for Counterbalance? What would the curve look like? Right now I have preboard

0: 23 (22 Land, 1 EE)
1: 12 (BS, Top, Swords)
2: 12 (CB, Goyf, Loam, 1 Fire, 2 Counterspell)
3: 6 (Firespout, Intuition)
4: 3 (Jace)
5: 4

And this already feels sometimes fragile.

GGoober
02-10-2011, 03:33 PM
On punishing fire, I believe its very strong if you see plenty of tribal in your area. While fire is a good removal spell to draw, I'm pretty doubtful on the grove. Grove doesn't make blue which is a major pain so you should not play more than 2 at any point of time unless you decide to totally forgo basics. Question to people who are testing punishing fire, does it help turn the goblins MU into a positive one? I know it destroys folk/elves etc, but I'm just wondering if 2cc removal spells and the slow engine set up is effective against goblin's lackeys, ringleaders etc. Goblins generates CA and puts pressure on your life total + manabase at the same time. Its the ultimate nightmare.



I've done some testing back with PFires/Groves. It definitely keeps goblin in check. If you are worried that a Goblin player is going to play around PFires by going:

Accumulate enough mana, drop a Chieftain, Ringleader and get enough gobs on one turn such that your Fires engine is weak, then you would have to play around that. What I mean is, they still won't be able to play around an active Fires.

If they play Warchief and pass priority, burn it. If they play Ringleader, counter it. It's hard for them to play both warchief/Ringleader or Warchief/Warchief, Ringleader/Ringleader without a Vial (which you need to deal with btw or PFires will be a little tough to maintain checks). The main selling point of PFires is that it will always keep the game in check when its online. Gobs/Folks die to Spout but they can rebuild fast (Silvergill adept and Ringleaders). With Fires, it's hard to rebuild without overextending. If you're playing Goyfs, it makes them even more determined to put dudes out that slowly all die to PFires.

The only drawback against PFires is its inability to answer Goyf/Knights. In my previous testing (2 weeks of tournament so not too much testing), I ran 3 PFires 2 Wish (for the 4th), 3 Groves, and 3 EE. That allowed me to do well against tribal and still have outs to Goyf/Knights.

Mana Drain
02-10-2011, 05:39 PM
Unfortunately, I do agree that Shackles is a bit slow, and now that a majority of people are running 4-5 non-Islands in the MD, not being able to steal a Goyf/Knight/whatever has started to become relevant. Also, being another card that gets hit by Grip/Pridemage post-board is not great. All in all, I'm going to try removing it and see if something faster can be found. It's an amazing card, but right now other cards may be more relevant in the MD.

EE messing up the CB curve slightly is notable, but EE is so amazing in almost every matchup that I feel it outweighs the desynergy. I've been studying the CB lists from the recent SCG and trying to incorporate some of their card choices, but a lot of stuff in the topped lists I just don't understand:

-I tried 2x Trinket Mage with a Needle MD and a Scroll SB, and had very mixed results. Being an easy-to-cast 3-drop is nice with all the basics, but he's effectively a Fabricate + Healing Salve in everything but Control matchups. That is not good enough for me. Fetching the EE or Top I need was cool, but his impact was minimal until T3-T4, and like I said, he usually just chump-blocked.
-Tried cutting a Jace for more room, and wasn't pleased. Very rarely has my hand ever been clogged with multiple Jaces, and if you have 4 mana, he's always either a 4-mana Brainstorm + Fog or a Fog + Unsummon. If he's not either of those, he just wins you the game, and I can't ever see my self running less than 3.
-While I still feel Lavamancer is awesome in non-Fires builds, he's not MD worthy at all. His strength is in aggro-MUs when they SB out their removal. MD he just eats removal or has too little impact in different MUs.

I understand these guys are all great players, but with exception to the ProCB deck, all of their lists look kinda weird. So I don't think we gained much technology from the latest SCG.

Like Mon said, the lack of hard-counters or any other non-FoW counters is being felt. Of course we can make up for this in the SB, but I don't like auto-losing to Combo and SnT G1 if I don't get a randomly amazing hand. A surplus of removal (StP, FS, EE, Fires, Shackles) is really nice against aggro, and would more than likely pay off in a large tournament, but being paired early against a non-aggro deck can put us off on a bad note. For reference, here's the list I've been testing/building that utilizes heavy removal for an aggro meta:

1 Ruins
2 Grove (I'm unsure if one of these should be another Fetch)
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Strand
4 Rainforest
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic
2 Tropical

4 BS, FoW, CB, Top, Tarmogoyf, and StP
3 Jace and Intuition
2 Fires
1 EE
1 Loam
4 missing slots (explained below)

I don't know what the last 4 should be. I'm wondering if I could run 3 Fires MD with no Firespout and SB the 3 FS in order to make space for more counters/EEs/whatever. I would love to have another EE MD for general purpose, and some number of FS MD would also be nice (I'm thinking a 2/2 split between Firespout and PFires). The most important thing I feel the deck needs is 1) more blue cards (perferable 20 MD), and 2) Disruption for other CB/Control/Combo-ish decks. On my list of cards for those roles is: Counterspell, Clique, Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, and Daze.
My list above is also light on the 3-drop curve, which is not good. I've tested 2 Trinket/+1 EE/1 Needle and was not pleased. This is the conundrum I'm facing.

So how do you guys feel?
-Do you guys think we should relegate Fires to the SB completely (something like 2 Grove/2-3 Fires SBed), use a 1 Grove/2 Fires split MD with backup in the SB, go all out and run 5 slots for the Fires engine MD, or just not use it at all?
-What's everyones disruption suite looking like? We all run the standard 4 Force and 4 CB, but what about the other counters/disruption? CS is standard for non-Fires builds, but Spell Snare/Pierce, Daze and others all look to be good candidates. I guess this is irrelevant in an aggro-heavy meta, but as the SCG shows us, CB decks are on the rise. We need to prepare. Should we just running counters in the SB, or start MDing more disruption?
-More EEs MD? I love EE every time I see it, and more EEs means more random EE locks without Intuition. Regardless of what GerryT says, it's amazing against CB and every other non-Combo deck in the format. Should we up the count?

Just some things I've been pondering, and could definitely use some thoughts and opinions from you guys.
EDIT: Metalwalker, can you post your list with Cunning Wish?

Deady
02-10-2011, 06:18 PM
@ Mana Drain:

We're running the same manabase, except for the Flooded Strands (Scalding Tarns). I don't feel either of the 2 Groves should be another fetch; we're running 2 basic Islands maindecked and 7 duals that tap for blue as well. 8 fetches feels just correct; I haven't had a single situation where I'd have wished the Groves were fetches (in fact they're like Taiga's, which is great with the maindecked Firespouts, Goyfs, Loam and 3x Punishing Fire in the SB). I'm running a 3rd Grove in the SB, since I feel a 3-3 split is everything you'd wish for (also without having to use Intuition when you aren't able to do so.

Even with the 2 maindecked Groves, I'm still running 2x Counterspell (but this might be meta dependent as well, the only problem I see is less FoW food.

This brought me to the idea of going -1 MD Shackles, +1 Vendillion Clique? With 2x Punishing Fire in the main instead of 2x Counterspell, you still have +1 blue spell (it can be pitched to FoW, it's another 3-drop for CB and we are able to cast her with a mana base like this (2 basic Islands, 7 duals, 8 fetches).

hyc8028
02-11-2011, 04:21 AM
Grove/Fire Engine seem really powerful on paper, but the more I read about you guys opinion, I kept thinking about these things.

-The engine weakened our mana base and reduce the blue count.
-This engine take too many slots. Our 75 is already really tight.
-Losing Counterspell main. :(
-Does this engine improve the goblin matchup?

I agree with Mana Drain that Lavamancer is not MD material, but he definitely shines in the SB against tribal. He takes less slots in the 75, which is a huge reason why I like it more than Fire/Grove. I don't think 2 is enough in the SB tho. I might bump him up to 3 if I face a lot of tribal. I really like the Grove/Fire in CT also, but I just don't know how I can fit this engine in the deck while maintaining stability of the deck.

@ Shackle: It is very slow, but from my experience it is very gamebreaking if we are playing the control role and it complement Firespout very well. I am thinking of running another explosive in the main instead of shackle. EE is such a beast against everything.

I got my 3rd Jace recently also and 4x Lavamancer coming in the mail, here is my list that I am going to test:
1 Ruins
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Tarn
4 Rainforest
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic
3 Tropical

4 BS
4 FoW
4 STP
4 Top
4 CB
4 Goyf
3 JTMS
3 Intuition
3 Firespout
2 EE
2 Counterspell
1 Loam

SB:
3 Lavamancer
3 REB
2 PtE
2 Nature's Claim
2 Clique
1 EE
1 Firespout
1 Crypt

Basically Mana Drain's primer list with:
MD
+1 EE
-1 Shackle

SB
+1 Lavamancer
-1 EE

Nidd
02-11-2011, 10:33 AM
To those folks complaining that PFire dismantles the manabase etc etc:

// Lands
3 [R] Tropical Island
2 [U] Volcanic Island
1 [ST] Forest
3 [ROE] Island
1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [IA] Plains
2 [B] Tundra
4 [ON] Flooded Strand

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 [SHM] Firespout
2 [TE] Intuition
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [A] Counterspell
2 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares

It has been working like a charm so far and the manabase didn't disappoint me once. Sure, you need Intuition to get PFire started, but that's a risk I'll gladly take when I can run such a flexible deck.
I've been considering to cut 1 PFire and play a Trinket Mage, a V Clique or the 3rd Intuition instead.
I have a Wasteland in the SB for the Control mirrors and it has been the nuts, so far. I also ditched K Grip for Nature's Claim - it's way worse in the mirror, but it deals with AEther Vial asap, Wasteland/Port don't really impede with your ability to cast it and the lifegain is pretty much irrelevant.

Mon,Goblin Chief
02-11-2011, 11:26 AM
Cutting the Shackles instead of PFire is an interesting thought, PFire fulfills a similar role against Tribal and other Weenie aggro while EE-recursion should be able to deal with anything Fire doesn't kill (sans Tombstalker). Maybe Shackles would really be better to have in the SB, having CSpell MD is such a boon for control...

As for running more EEs, I think at that point the deck moves too much in the direction of something like CAB Jace, a transformation that sounds good out of the SB but problematic MD. I mean, I love EE because it's just so versatile but the most common setting is 2 - which has obvious problems in conjunction with CB. I suspect in the end the EEs are better off being in the SB to come in against decks where you're primary focus isn't the CB lock (or that run CB themselves, leaving you wanting more answers).

@Metalwalker: I suspect that the deck you tested with (Wishes) was far more reminiscent of Landstill or CAB Jace than this. Correct? Not that that invalidates what you said about the power of PFire, rather it's just I don't expect the list would belong here.

@hyc8028: The difference between Fire/Grove and Lavamancer is that one wins the game against Tribal on its own while the other can be Incineratored or otherwise rendered useless (Needle, any removal, BEB from Fish, etc). With Loam easily accessible in this deck, there is basically nothing Tribal can do to stop Punishing Fire from completely dominating them. As for the color-issues, 17-18 blue sources seems plenty. Even Draw Go had only 18 Islands and no Brainstorms to fix for them (Impulse doesn't help make turn 2 UU).
Game one having 1 Fire and 1 Grove means if you get to Intuition when you won't die in the next two turns, it's GG against Tribal. Postboard you don't even need Intuition a lot of the time because you have so many pieces. Considering Goblins seems to be the deck's worst matchup (after what I read), this appears quite useful.

It's easy to integrate (in your list you could cut 1 EE (probably pushes a Nature's Claim out of the SB at that point) and a Trop - still 18 U sources - for a Fire and a Grove, than replace Lavamancers and the Firespout in the SB with two more Groves and Fires which also has the incidental benefit of boarding more lands against decks full of mana denial and better supporting the Fires - they really want a lot of mana) and gives you something that utterly dominates aggro instead of more things to work small edges into a win. The engine even dominates Landstill (they can't ever kill you any more because both Walkers and Mishra's can be fired out).

@Mana Drain: In that list, I'd probably turn one Tundra into a Volc to better support the Fires post SB, the engine really is a whore for red mana. You shouldn't need more than two Tundras considering you only have StP and Loam to get back the Tundras should you really run out. As much as I love PFire, though, I'd probably move the second to the board to make room for 3 Firespout (so you can Intuition for it - the SB would then contain another two Fire and a Grove) and play 2 Counterspell in the last two free slots (to help against decks where removal is less relevant/useless), letting EE and Fire take care of the lategame, respectively. Clique is a good card but Counterspell is faster, works better for the CB-curve and always stops what you need to stop (while Clique might randomly draw them into something else/comes to late if they're already casting what you want to stop)

This leaves you with a near-perfect CB-curve of
0 : 23 (lands, EE)
1: 12 (BS, SDT, StP)
2: 12 (CB, Goyf, PFire, Loam, CS)
3: 6 (3 FS, 3 Intuition)
4: 3 (Jace - this might be a little low with Natural Order and Jace on the uptick)
5: 4 (FoW)


Postboard you could configure the deck with the perfect removal engine (EE, PFire, Shackles) and more Countermagic against decks you don't want the removal against (REBs, Spell Pierces even additional CSpell or Negate now that there are fewer Islands). Add a pinch of GY hate and KGrip and you should be good to go. Something like this, maybe?

SB
1 Grove
2 Fire
1 Shackles
2 EE
1 Ratchet Bomb
2 KGrip - not sure how necessary these are, considering you're on the EE plan against CB anyway. Might be better of as something like Bant Charm providing you with even more possible Countermagic, an out to Needle on EE if you can't get the Ratchet bomb (say CB on 2 is active) and more removal for big guys. Or you could simply run even more countermagic (for combo and control, obv) or Paths (if you feel that you need more cheap ways to kill big guys)
5 REB/Pyroblast/Spell Pierce/Counterspell/VClique (Personally I wouldn't leave home without at least a few REBs, Jace is that good and additional removal against Fish is always appreciated. I'd probably run 2 REB, 2 Pierce, 1 Negate)
1 Tormod's Crypt (I hate not having anything that just ends Dredge at least of off Intuition and being able to stop Loam from recurring Wastelands is also quite useful imo)

That way you play an incredibly flexible deck game one that can Intuition to be a board-control-deck, CB-lock them or just aggro them out with Goyfs while post SB you can transform into your choice of regular-style CB control, MonoU + CB (9-13 counters depending on if you run Bant Charm and they run blue, plus 4 CB) PFire-board-control or EE-lock board-control (I'd avoid showing them the Loam/Intuition game 1 if possible to avoid the SB gy-hate, though I know this is probably hard to do). Looks pretty sick to me on paper. You could even run a Nevinyrral's Disk for the total permanent-lock (that conveniently leaves your Jaces alone) and a way to kill Prog if you wanted.

Even thinking about cutting a Jace is a cardinal sin, though, that card is the nuts! ;) No control-deck should run less than 3 Jaces (I'm tempted to say 4 because that's my honest opinion, but the whole rest of the world seems to differ on the matter and 4 mana is kinda pricey in Legacy admittedly). I'm sufficiently annoyed I don't see a way to get a fourth into the deck, I wouldn't ever think of cutting one :p

/edit: wrote this before Nidd posted.
I'm pretty sure you want a third Volc especially without the Mountain, probably in place of the third Island. Two seems like it should be enough and getting a bunch of red online makes Fire shine (mainly a concern post-SB).
How has only having two Intuition been treating you, do they come up often enough to make the one-off nature of certain cards worth it?
Wasteland out of the board against control seems savage. I remember I suggested running one MD to Valtrix when he ran the original list by me last summer.
Finally, if you run Nature's claim mainly as an answer to Vial, have you considered Pithing Needle? It's arguably cheaper (colorless vs Instant speed), has more applications in the Vial-matchups if Vial isn't a concern (Wasteland to protect Grove/Ruins, Mutavault against Fish) and can be Intuitioned up with Ruins if you really need it fast. It's also a cheaper way to stop annoying Planeswalkers if EE for four would be too slow/difficult to resolve.

Nidd
02-11-2011, 11:57 AM
/edit: wrote this before Nidd posted.
I'm pretty sure you want a third Volc especially without the Mountain, probably in place of the third Island. Two seems like it should be enough and getting a bunch of red online makes Fire shine (mainly a concern post-SB).
How has only having two Intuition been treating you, do they come up often enough to make the one-off nature of certain cards worth it?
Wasteland out of the board against control seems savage. I remember I suggested running one MD to Valtrix when he ran the original list by me last summer.
Finally, if you run Nature's claim mainly as an answer to Vial, have you considered Pithing Needle? It's arguably cheaper (colorless vs Instant speed), has more applications in the Vial-matchups if Vial isn't a concern (Wasteland to protect Grove/Ruins, Mutavault against Fish) and can be Intuitioned up with Ruins if you really need it fast. It's also a cheaper way to stop annoying Planeswalkers if EE for four would be too slow/difficult to resolve.
I also think having 1 more R source somewhere in there is necessary, if I can get my hands on another one for the next tournament I'll try it - though playing less than 3 Islands looks pretty greedy to me.
The Wasteland is the stone cold nuts. Plus, the facial expressions of your opponents when a 4 color deck busts out Wasteland is priceless.
Playing 2 Intuition only hasn't been a big concern, to be honest. 4 Brainstorm + 4 SDT ensure I see an Intuition when I need it.
I considered Needle, it would push me towards replacing 1 PFire with 1 Trinket Mage, but I found out that Goblins often board in a Tinkerer against SDT - boarding in Needles when I know I'll face Tinkerer seems like a bad move. I also prefer to cards that get rid of stuff when playing Control decks instead of packing disruptive cards like Needle.
Maybe that's a question of personal preferences, though.

Link Ramirez
02-11-2011, 02:23 PM
Cutting the Shackles instead of PFire is an interesting thought, PFire fulfills a similar role against Tribal and other Weenie aggro while EE-recursion should be able to deal with anything Fire doesn't kill (sans Tombstalker). Maybe Shackles would really be better to have in the SB, having CSpell MD is such a boon for control...

This was also my line of thought for moving Shackles to the board. And if there ever is a Tomstalker, he can meet Sords to Plowshares.



This leaves you with a near-perfect CB-curve of
0 : 23 (lands, EE)
1: 12 (BS, SDT, StP)
2: 12 (CB, Goyf, PFire, Loam, CS)
3: 6 (3 FS, 3 Intuition)
4: 3 (Jace - this might be a little low with Natural Order and Jace on the uptick)
5: 4 (FoW)



As you can see last page, I play the same MD (1Fire, 2 CS). What is in your 22 Lands? For reference, my Mana is:
2 Island
1 Forest
4 Rainforest
4 Tarn
3 of each Dual
1 Grove
1 Academy Ruins

And my current Board is:
1 Grove
2 Fire
1 Shackles
2 EE
2 Pierce
2 REB
2 Grip
3 Tormods Crypt (I just hate to lose against Dredge)

The purpose of the basic Forest is to provide an out to Blood Moon and to always be able to Loam.
Would a basic Mountain be good against the Wasteland-Decks? I mean as soon as we Intuition for Fire/Grove/Loam we get our lands back anyway.

Another question is the amount of grave-hate. As you can see in my Board I literally hate Dredge. How is that match-up for you with only one specific grave-hate? What is your plan to beat them?

Nidd
02-11-2011, 02:37 PM
Another question is the amount of grave-hate. As you can see in my Board I literally hate Dredge. How is that match-up for you with only one specific grave-hate? What is your plan to beat them?
I never felt the need to play GY hate because of Dredge. 99% of the pilots plain suck.
Also, EE + Firespout is decent against them. StP is good against outlets and Ichorid, FoW counters their outlet or Breakthrough.
DDD is kinda slow, I suppose establishing CBT and keeping a Firespout in your hand goes a long way to beating them. Counter their CT with CBT and wipe the board after they reach a certain amount of tokens. They can't keep making Zombies forever.

Link Ramirez
02-11-2011, 03:59 PM
I play MTGO. In my experience, as soon as you play for tix the dredge-pilots are good.

I actually board out the counterbalances, because they only keep them from playing Therapy. I bring in REB, Spell Pierce and EE. REB is not only for Breakthrough, but also to kill Narcos during the slowdredging. But without grave-hate they can just do their big dredge thing via Colliseum and win.
And I don't really like Firespout against zombies. I prefer to fight the zombie-enabler. In my experience, if they can generate a decent amount of zombies, Firespout rarely matters. They therapy and dread return and then Iona swings.

Perhaps 3 Crypts are too much, but I definetly want some.

Mon,Goblin Chief
02-11-2011, 04:12 PM
@Nidd: It's not like your opponent won't be able to Waste you at some point anyway, 2 Islands and two other basics gives you the tools to play pretty much everything even under Waste-lock.
Interesting to know you can bump down Intuition without major negative impact, something to keep in mind if the deck really needs more room. Might allow me to add that fourth Jace should I play the deck ;)
As to Needle vs Claim, I think both choices are perfectly defensible. Needle seems better against Goblins if they don't draw Vial or have multiples (especially with Fire Grove - shutting of Wasteland early before you have Loam, Tinkerer shouldn't come online through Fire) but Claim has it's own advantages, especially blowing up opposing Needles on EE (and even a little Fire-synergy - kill your Vial, get back my Fires, gotcha *g*).

@Link: Actually, I haven't played a single game with the deck, just read the thread and A LOT of experience with (Legacy & Vintage) control, especially grind-out control (I've been playing CAB Jace for about a year now, though with short pauses to still my urge to run combo). That's the reason why anything I've written is either about a particular engine I'm very familiar with (EE-Ruins, PFire) or simply suggestions as to how things look from my perspective considering my general experience with control.
As such, I'm not 100% confident as far as the manabase is concerned because it's nearly impossible to get a manabase right without actually playing a few games to get a feel for it. As to what I'd run if you told me to put the deck together right now, it'd probably be:

2 Island
2 Tropical
1 Forest
2 Tundra
1 Plains
3 Volcanic
4 Strand
4 Misty
2 Grove
1 ARuins

17 blue sources, basics for playing Goyf/StP early while insuring I don't get wasted out of the early defense colors (allows you to run fewer sources over all, which is nice). 2 Groves MD so that I can go to 3/3 post SB without taking up a second slot in the board for a land, otherwise I'd run Nidds manabase - Island + Volc, which I think is actually the best if there's room for two Groves in the SB. Three Groves because I really want to simply draw into the combo postboard more often than not, so much faster than having to Intuition.
The reason I'd decide for red as the color without a basic is that you can always cast the Firespout directly when you need it and if you're using PFire they're better off killing the Grove. That being said, it might actually be correct to run 2 Volc + Mountain with Tarns instead of Misty and simply run three Tropicals (and the Groves) as your green sources (or use Mana Drains mana base -Tundra + Volc if you're ready to play without the basic Plains - that way you get the mana to really support PFire post SB at the cost of having to be careful when you fetch up your white). The reason to make green the no-basic color would be that, if you need G-mana repeatedly, that usually means you have Loam online and at that point you can play around them cutting you off green pretty easily, only make sure you always either have a Trop in hand, 2 on the board or a Fetch available with a Trop still in the deck. This opens you up to Wasteland if you need to use Goyf for defense but has the benefit of having the ability to fetch for your Firespout-mana before you want to use it and have it be immune to Wasteland (sometimes you need to crack your Fetches to play stuff, meaning you can't always hold back until you want to cast the Spout).
Btw, any two non-mountain basics give you an out to Moon because together with your non-basics they allow you to set EE to 3 (Island/Plains probably being the best combination because your StPs and main color are online - with all removal online you should be able to survive and Plains makes it easy to deal with Magus of the Moon if not Blood Moon itself).

As for the plan against Dredge, if I was really planning to make the matchup good I'd run three Crypts same as you do. The SB I suggested was for Mana Drain, who as far as I've seen doesn't run any GY-hate at all normally - so there is probably no reason for him to suddenly run the full anti-dredge program. With the single Crypt my plan against Dredge would be to try and have a EE (for 0) early so that he can't all-in kill me with Zombies, using the regular removal and countermagic to slow him down a tick so that I can Intuition for the lock (Ruins, Crypt, Loam) ASAP.
/edit: You guys always post faster than I do... I think you either want exactly one Crypt (to enable the lock) or at least three (so you can Intuition for them on turn 3 and be ready to pop one). Two doesn't make any sense to me.

Mana Drain
02-11-2011, 05:56 PM
-The engine weakened our mana base and reduce the blue count.
-This engine take too many slots. Our 75 is already really tight.
-Losing Counterspell main. :(



All of these are extremely important points. The manabase is slightly weakened, but drawing Groves and only one other land is dicey. If you really want the engine to be consistent, you need to dedicate ~5 slots, and the space just isn't available MD. Counterspell is a great and valuable addition to the counter-suit and I really don't like not running it.

Also of note: Fires is extremely good against Goblins - sometimes. Fast draws, excessive Wastelands/Ports, and subtle inconsistencies with Fires can be insufficient to stop the green men.


Informative Post

Excellent post. The thing about EE I find is, I side it in every-single non-combo match. I love seeing it at all stages of the game, and increasing the random EE-lock factor is a plus. The only reason for me not running 2 now is space-constraints.

Tundra at 2 is also something I was fiddling with. With only 6 cards at max requiring W and plenty of fetchs to find them, I'm beginning to feel 2 is sufficient.

The minimalist approach to Fires (1 Grove/1-2 Fires) is most appealing to me right now, simply because the space in this deck is almost non-existent. Additional spot removal is always a good thing.

@hyc8028: I like that list, and I'm glad Lavamancer is getting some appreciation. I wouldn't run more than 3 though, because you don't want to see multiples in an opener.

@Nidd: Those are the same reasons why I feel Claim is amazing. The lifegain actually is relevant - It triggers Fires. Something to keep in mind.

@Link-Ramirez: If you're going the Fires rout, the basic Mountain would be good. Making sure you can FS against aggro is strong enough to play basic Mountain.

On GY-Hate: As said in the primer, this is meta-dependent, but I feel a single Crypt should be in everyone's board. It single-handedly gives you a "victory button" against Dredge and Lands while only taking up one slot. More than that is all personal preference. My experience has proven that the lone Crypt is all you need to beat Dredge, and I've yet to lose a single match against Dredge playing my SB in the primer.

Deady
02-12-2011, 11:37 PM
Counterspell should be maindecked, period (if only because it's FoW food and just another 2-drop for CB). This doesn't mean you can't go for the Fire route at the same time...(just not maindecked). We just need to pay serious attention on the manabase and the SB.

I took more time with the deck to see what I could do to the manabase and SB to make it work with the Fire/Grove package; I personally think the Fire/Grove package is too useful and valuable to pass on and yes, you'll need to dedicate some slots to it in the SB.

So, after testing the playability of the deck with Fire/Grove I came up with the following MD manabase:

2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Academy Ruins

Probably the most important change I made to the maindeck is going -1 Forest, +1 Savannah. Why? Because it still produces G, while it's another mana source for Swords at the same time (next to 2 Tundra/3 Tropical). Another very nice thing to mention is that the 1-off Savannah can be fetched of a Misty Rainforest.... It's probably one of the nicest things I've done to the manabase, with 1 Grove included and 3 Fire/1 Grove in the SB. Note: don't forget Grove produces R/G, not only for Fire. Giving 1 life because you just casted a 5/6 Goyf isn't the end of the world. Or 1 life because you just Spouted 2/3 flying dudes.

I really love the Savannah in my list and it also goes perfectly with the SB plan (-1 Trop, +1 Grove). The mana base feels strong because it gives you all the mana you'll ever need, even without taking Intuition/Loam into consideration, but of course we don't run them without a reason, so use them wisely and just play tight as always. My list still contains all the basics it's supposed to have, with the exception of the basic Forest and for good reasons.

SB:

3 Punishing Fire
1 Grove of the Burnwillows (-1 Tropical Island). I side this one in together with 3 Punishing Fire and 1 Firespout.
1 Firespout
2 Pyroblast
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ratchet Bomb

Link Ramirez
02-13-2011, 01:12 PM
@Mon: Thanks for the detailed answer. I just tried the manabase you suggested (basic Forest and Plains) in a Daily Event and went 3-1. I like you argument against basic Forest and pro basic Plains to fight Moon effects. I think I will use as few non-blue lands as possible, so I guess I stick to the basic Plains and use a blue dual instead of the basic Forest.

@Mana Drain: The early Firespout was the reason I was thinking about the basic Mountain. But I think for now I will just play a basic Plains.

In the Daily Event I beat 2xStorm, 1xZoo and lost against Lands. What is the plan against Lands?
Game 1 I tried to get CB online ASAP which was not turn 2 thanks to a non-blue Land. Perhaps I should have mulliganed. Btw this is a reason why I want to play as few non-blue lands as possible. I don't want to mulligan more than necessary.
In game 2 I also brought in the Crypts but it turned out that he didn't need Loam to win.
What would be a good target for Force of Will in this matchup? It was the first time I played against Lands and I FoW a turn 1 Manabond to slow down his developement. Reasonable? Or is it better to ignore the accelerators and keep the Counterspells to delay Loam as long as possible or for stuff that destroys CB or Jace? What about Pithing Needle on Wasteland/Manland/Explosives? I would first need to make room for Needle in the board of course.

Mana Drain
02-13-2011, 04:39 PM
@Deadly: I don't agree with Savannah. One of the major problems with Fires/Grove is the fact that Grove is a non-basic, non-fetchable, non-Island land that doesn't produce U. Savannah doesn't produce U, is still non-basic, and the two colors it produces are can be made just as easily while maintaining plenty of U, Islands for Shackles (if you run it) or providing un-Wastability (Forest). As I said above, even with 2 Tundras I find W easy to get, and in fact don't like seeing Tundra unless I'm fetching for it. Most builds at the most run 6-7 W cards, and Wasteland's are going to be aimed at your R and G sources, rather than the Tundras. You also rarely need more than one G source out at a time, so if you already have Trop/Forest, Savannah's utility goes down even further.

I can't say I've heavily tested Savannah (if at all), but I can say that I can't remember many times when I've ever needed both W and G out of a single land. Especially if Fires is in the mix, I would feel Taiga or additional Groves would be more supportive due to the heavy R requirements Fires asks for.

@Link: It took a while for everyone to convince me that off-color basics were worthwhile, but in the end, Mountain proved extremely useful in every matchup that I NEEDED R for.

Lands can be a pain, but overall I've found the additional basics and Intuition for Loam/Ruins/Crypt to be the game stopper, in addition to CB. They don't need the grave to win, but shutting it down makes life much easier for you, and I've found Lands players often have some sort of "Man-Plan" post-board, like Terravore or Goyf or KotR, which are all grave-dependent.

Forcing the T1 accelerator is a good play. If they don't have Manabond/Exploration out in the first two turns, they are really slow to get rolling, giving us plenty of time to set up CB or Crypt-Lock. Jace is really hard for them to destroy, and Goyf still serves as a 2-drop for CB and a wall for Factories/Mutas. I put in Red blasts for the Intuitions (if they run them), Cliques if I have them, Grips, and all Enchantment/Artifact hate possible for their SB hate for us. Choke, Chalice, Null Rod and others often come in, and they are a major pain in the ass, but if you have the answer for them, the matchup is much easier.

Practice the matchup and it's you'll know how to SB against them and their "must resolve" cards that have to be answered. Random losses to Waste/Port heavy hands do happen, but most of the time they can be shut-out by an eary CB or Jace. If you have the slots to dedicate, Needle is effective against them, but they always run Grips/EEs of their own post-board, so don't lean heavily on them to win. Good luck!

Deady
02-13-2011, 07:01 PM
@Mana Drain,

The reason I chose for Savannah is pretty simple: because I don't like playing the basic Forest anymore with 2 Groves maindecked and 3 Tropical Islands. I think it's overkill, aside from Loam. The basic forest already didn't produce U, neither the Savannah, but I do find the Savannah more useful in general....it gives me far more options and gives a different flavor to my playstyle (it makes it easier for me to fetch for the right dual/basic as well, depending on what's in my hands already). When they waste Savannah, it's like a wasted play. Savannah also makes it easier for me to SB correctly and to be able to go -1 Tropical Island, +1 Grov, which is another reason why I chose for the Savannah.

I hope you understand that STP combo's with Fire as well...Let's say you play STP in the mid/late game (thus giving your opponent life) and pay for another Firespout or Punishing Fire, you get one (or more) of your Fires back again, without necessarily having to use Grove (you just tapped a Volcanic or basic Mountain)...STP is able to do this, because it's only 1 mana; it's not without a reason the best removal spell ever.

Right now with these changes I'm playing with 23 lands instead of the usual 22, but it feels right. It also means I'm playing with 61 cards instead of 60.

Manabase:

2 Island
1 Mountain
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Academy Ruins

SB:

3 Punishing Fire
1 Grove of the Burnwillows (-1 Trop)
1 Firespout
2 Pyroblast
2 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ratchet Bomb

Mon,Goblin Chief
02-13-2011, 08:06 PM
Running non-basic non-blue lands in this deck that don't do anything in particularseems really bad. Your goal is to CB on 2 (or at least to have the possibility). Any land that doesn't help with that has to bring something impressive to the table (unwasteable, does more than produce mana - Grove, Ruins, maybe Waste or some manland would be defensible). Savannah doesn't, all it does is allow you to cast StP of your Forest. G and W are two of the least used colors in the deck. Why would you want a land that only produces colorless mana for 85% of your spells? Grove supports the same number of spells being RG and would you ever play that if it didn't combo with Fires?
I mean you say "When they waste Savannah, it's like a wasted play." To me that means the Savannah was utterly useless to begin with and shouldn't have been in your deck. What if they Waste your other dual instead and you're left without blue mana?


it gives me far more options and gives a different flavor to my playstyle (it makes it easier for me to fetch for the right dual/basic as well, depending on what's in my hands already)

How does Savannah change your playstyle? Sure, you have all your colors of only Volcanic + Savannah but you also can't cast some of your most important spells with that (CB, CS, Jace - though the latter probably comes down when you have some other Island). Having an easier time chosing what lands to fetch also isn't a reason to make your manabase worse, it's a reason to play more until you can fetch correctly in your sleep. Basics give you options - they allow you to decide that you don't want to get hit by Wasteland yet. Fetches give you options (colors and access to basics). Savannah gives you a minor option you usually won't need but costs you all those instead.
In short that land should either be something U-based, a Fetch or a basic. If you feel you have easily enough U and G-sources I suggest a Plains (and swapping Fetches). That way you can make sure they can never keep you off your removal-colors through Wasteland.

PS: I know the feeling. There was a Plateau in CAB Jace for a long time because that way you could get Tundra, Volc, Plateau as your lands and have your main colors available even if one got wasted. That deck needed UU a lot later though and I still cut the Plateau for another Fetch because I rmissed on turn 4 Jace once too often.

Deady
02-14-2011, 04:42 PM
@ Mana Drain, @ Mon,Goblin Chief

You guys were right about the Savannah; it's just the wrong move for an already tight deck where getting UU is much more important than getting G/W in the early game. It's better to have more fetches in your starting hand than holding a basic Forest, Volcanic Island and a Savannah instead of another fetch (or just another blue mana producer). Of course this is most important pre-board as we play Counterbalance, Counterspell and Jace. Post-board it depends on your SB strategy and the matchups you're facing.

My apologies for all the Savannah-talk before this post , but I haven't slept for like 6 hours during the whole weekend (!)

Anyway, forget about the Savannah.

Here's my newest take on the deck (both MD and SB) and of course with Grove/Fire involved. I configured the deck in such way that only 3 slots in the SB are needed to support the full Grove/Fire package (a 3-3 split), which is pretty amazing by itself.

MD:
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf

1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Firespout
1 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell

SB:
1 Firespout
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Punishing Fire
3 Spell Pierce
2 Counterspell
2 Pyroblast
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Shackles
1 Ratchet Bomb

*Note that I'm running a 3-1 split between Swords and Fire in the main!

Mon,Goblin Chief
02-15-2011, 08:02 AM
Really like that list, though I'd like it even more with the fourth StP - running only three seems so greedy in a meta full of creatures. Personally I'd cut the Shackles for the fourth (you have one in the board and EE/PFire should take care of your lategame removal-needs just fine).
Two nitpicks concerning the SB: With the 5 non-blue sources, Negate is proably better than Counterspell (the decks where you're going to bring these in not countering creatures should be irrelevant, I guess). Also, very minor, there's the classic REB - Pyro split, which while having benefits that come up rarely, is generally superior to two of the same kind (and in non-storm-decks REB is generally superior to Pyro if you want to keep them the same).

maximumcarnage
02-15-2011, 10:30 AM
What is the difference between REB and Pyroblast?

Link Ramirez
02-15-2011, 10:42 AM
What is the difference between REB and Pyroblast?

Pyroblast checks on resolution. Therfore you can target a land or whatever to add to your Storm count or to Threshold.
You can also Ricochet Trap Pyroblast easier than REB.

Valtrix
02-15-2011, 06:54 PM
Two nitpicks concerning the SB: With the 5 non-blue sources, Negate is proably better than Counterspell (the decks where you're going to bring these in not countering creatures should be irrelevant, I guess). Also, very minor, there's the classic REB - Pyro split, which while having benefits that come up rarely, is generally superior to two of the same kind (and in non-storm-decks REB is generally superior to Pyro if you want to keep them the same).

I disagree. Having counterspell is huge in any countertop mirror, as they generally have some number of creatures that we care about countering (goyf/Clique/etc.) which is why I like the flexibility of counterspell. I think the need to counter a goyf in these matchups is usually way more relevant than not having UU. You could argue that extra counterspells are unneeded in these matchups and I could agree, but I tend to set myself for as much flexibility, CA, and domination of the lategame that I can, and counterspell matters a lot for this. It also means in the combo MU if they decide to bring in something like Xantid Swarm/Bob that you have another out to them, or if you go against something random like argothian enchantress or painter/stone combo you could potentially have more outs.

Mana Drain
02-15-2011, 08:37 PM
I disagree. Having counterspell is huge in any countertop mirror, as they generally have some number of creatures that we care about countering (goyf/Clique/etc.) which is why I like the flexibility of counterspell. I think the need to counter a goyf in these matchups is usually way more relevant than not having UU. You could argue that extra counterspells are unneeded in these matchups and I could agree, but I tend to set myself for as much flexibility, CA, and domination of the lategame that I can, and counterspell matters a lot for this. It also means in the combo MU if they decide to bring in something like Xantid Swarm/Bob that you have another out to them, or if you go against something random like argothian enchantress or painter/stone combo you could potentially have more outs.

I completely agree. Negate is a fine card, but isn't versatile enough in the matchups we want it to fit the bill. Extra CS come in against all control decks and combo decks, in addition to randomness (use your imagination). In the mirror, we often SB out excess removal, so a resolved creature can cause problems. In addition, most creatures in the mirror will have some disruptive effect tagged-on to them (Clique, Predator, Pridemage, Sower), making them an even bigger problem. Not being able to counter them outweighs being castable when we stumble on color T2. For that matter, a majority of decks we SB in CS against don't run any mana-denial (landstill doesn't count) to effectively color-screw us, so the 1U is going to be relevant less often. If we're keeping a hand that only has one blue source, it probably has Force/REB/Pierce/etc. in it anyway. Otherwise, you need to mull.

On REB/Pyroblast, 99.99% of the time, they're the exact same card. But I always do a split if running >1 for the sole reason that against Dredge's Cabal Therapies, having a blast with a different name can be the difference between losing the blast and keeping it. This has actually occurred in a live match for me before, and ever since then I always split the names. It also helps conceal the number of blasts you're running, and is protection against Meddling Mage and Extirpate. I know it sounds ridiculously stupid and nit-picky, but there is pretty much no downside whatsoever to splitting the names up.

Deady
02-20-2011, 08:31 AM
@ Mon,Goblin Chief,

You're right about running the 4th STP, instead of a 3-1 split with Punishing Fire. I've tested the deck enough last month to find out that the split didn't work the way I thought it would.

Now there seem to be more (R/G/Zoo) decks sleeving up the Fire/Grove combo, because it's just great against tribal. This is good news, as it says everything about the power of it.

However, Fire/Grove make the deck more graveyard dependent and more vulnerable to Wasteland, so it can be hated out. We play counters, Loam and Intuition. We don't need to abuse Fire/Grove in large numbers; it's just a wrong move to run 3 Groves maindecked in a 4-colored Countertop build with enough library manipulation (Brainstorm, Divining Top, Intuition) to find Grove. I found out that even a 3-3 split is too much as it just gives too much mana issues and the 9th fetch is still by far the best choice. Even without Grove in play, Punishing Fire is still very useful in Countertop because it always has a target.

Maybe we need to change the name of the deck, as it's just a refreshing Countertop build that contains the Fire/Grove combo. Intuition is great in the deck, because it's like a Demonic Tutor for Fire/Grove. However, it's slow, just like the Academy Ruins-EE lock. It's just not fast enough to be worth playing in large numbers in nowadays fast format; that's the biggest problem we face compared to other (more standard) Countertop builds.

Because of all the reasons mentioned above, you'll hopefully understand that Intuition needs to be a luxury, not a need. The deck needs to cut some of her Intuition targets/plans, because it's just too slow and not straightforward enough by itself. Also with 2 Fire and 1 Grove maindecked, I've moved the Firespouts to the board particularly for the Goblin/Merfolk matchup; instead I'm playing with 2 Vendillion Clique, 2 Shackles and a 3rd basic Island, which feels great. I also moved the singleton EE and Academy Ruins to the board (IF I plan to go on with Ruins anyway), to go for a more steady mana base and a more straightforward MD with Punishing Fires.

When I side-in the 2nd Grove against Folk/Goblins, I usually go -1 Island as it becomes less relevant in these matchups anyway.

I personally wouldn't call it 'Intuition Countertop' myself...just Supreme Blue or 4-color Countertop with the powerful addition of Fire/Grove and Intuition to tutor for it.

MD:
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
3 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Vedalken Shackles
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB:
3 Firespout
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Punishing Fire
2 Pyroblast
3 Spell Pierce
1 Counterspell
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ratchet Bomb

Nidd
02-20-2011, 09:23 AM
*Lots of text with good points*
I feel the same about the deck as you do. Maybe you remember my list, it's on the last page. If not, here's the link to my post: *snip* (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19651-[Deck]-Ugwr-Intuition-CounterTop&p=521130&viewfull=1#post521130)

I still run 3 Firespout because they saved my ass so often, but I don't miss the 3rd Intuition. It makes the deck feel a lot more clunky, that's another reason why I cut the Shackles. Sure, it's great when it sticks and it can turn games around like no other card, but it always required a lot of setup for me and felt somewhat winmore. Also, drawing it when you have 3 lands and need removal kinda blows.

I wanted to minimize the impact of Punishing Fire on my manabase, that's why I only run 1 Grove. Maybe I'm going to include a basic Mountain over the Plains or another Volcanic Island over a basic Island, but that's subtle tuning and a matter of playstyle, so it's kinda moot to discuss this. My point being, I don't think you ever want to draw a Grove when you don't have a Punishing Fire - on the other hand, shuffling it back in with Jace or Brainstorm + Fetch is a bad move because you want to make your landdrops, that's why I think running 1 is correct - you'll tutor for it if needed, otherwise it won't show up.

Finally, I haven't felt the need for other creatures than Goyf MB, but that might be a matter of your Meta. I have 2 V Clique in the SB and am quite happy with them. I sometimes sit there with CounterTop assembled and without a wincondition, but that's rarely the case and thanks to Top and Brainstorm, I'm always able to find one in ample time.
Also, Punishing Fire provides another way to win the game, though I have to admit it's kinda slow.
All in a nutshell, I've never had to draw a match because I lack winconditions.

The Treefolk Master
02-20-2011, 09:37 AM
Isn't EE better than Shackles as a singleton maindeck Intuitionable answer?

Deady
02-20-2011, 07:49 PM
@ Treefolk Master

It depends on your CB curve (do you already run at least six 3-drops?), on the manabase you're running and the strategy you're playing. Both are great in their own way, although I like EE more as a sideboard card together with Academy Ruins. However, if you have room for it, a singleton EE can't hurt.

ivanpei
02-20-2011, 08:20 PM
After playing this deck for quite some time, I agree that 2 Intuitions is the right number, I dislike the deck being too clunky. I'm currently running the EE-loam-ruins pile. I'm forgoing the punishing fires and shackles for more flexibility maindeck. I play a 2/2 split between spell snare and counterspell like most "normal" countertop decks. I only play countertop in a combo infested meta so I really want my countertop deck to beat combo, hence the extra counterspells.

I feel that this deck has inherent problems vs Aether Vial which are difficult to overcome without hurting other matchups. We are trying to address Aether Vial with punishing fire and shackles which are honestly not very good vs combo and decks with big dudes like zoo. Am I the only one who sees this as a problem?

Nidd
02-20-2011, 09:08 PM
After playing this deck for quite some time, I agree that 2 Intuitions is the right number, I dislike the deck being too clunky. I'm currently running the EE-loam-ruins pile. I'm forgoing the punishing fires and shackles for more flexibility maindeck. I play a 2/2 split between spell snare and counterspell like most "normal" countertop decks. I only play countertop in a combo infested meta so I really want my countertop deck to beat combo, hence the extra counterspells.

I feel that this deck has inherent problems vs Aether Vial which are difficult to overcome without hurting other matchups. We are trying to address Aether Vial with punishing fire and shackles which are honestly not very good vs combo and decks with big dudes like zoo. Am I the only one who sees this as a problem?
Start packing Nature's Claim in the SB, it has improved my Vial Aggro MU by a ton.

ivanpei
02-20-2011, 09:48 PM
Agreed with Nidd that Claim/Needle are very good SB answers to Vial. The MD has to be more flexible, while the Tribal/Vial bashing cards like shackes/pfire should come out of the board along with hate like Claim/Needle.

Valtrix
02-20-2011, 11:20 PM
If you really think that vial is the problem, and that if you can answer vial that you'll win, then you have another thing coming to you. I sincerely doubt that nature's claim in the sideboard improves that matchup significantly. Vial decks, by which I assume people mean merfolk and goblins almost exclusively, win because of their aggresiveness, card advantage, and disruption. Merfolk is going to counter your best answers (firespout, goyf, shackles) while also disrupting your mana and other spells you might want to play, not to mention the card advantage they generate through standstills and sovereigns. Goblins disrupts your mana a lot more but really just grind you out. They have answers to goyf, and matrons/ringleaders/seigegang/mogg war marshal are pure card advantage. In the long run, this is why you lose to these decks. What's important to note is the in the long run part. The only thing claim ever does is make the game go longer (and maybe save you a couple damage because you can use firespout on a guy). But really, if you don't have answers for the long game you're going to lose more often than not. In my opinion, this is what makes fire/grove so strong, because it actually gives you a way to accomplish this.

As for the 3vs2 intuition debate, I'm not really sure where I stand. For a long time I ran only 2 intuitions, because I also felt they were clunky. However, I think that I like 3 a lot more, especially with the addition of punishing fire and grove of the burnwillows. In a lot of ways intuition is your strongest card because we have ways to destroy basically all of the archetypes out there with countertop (combo), EE/ruins (countertop/control), and now punishing fire/grove (aggro). This is general of course, but intuition almost always has a combo to dominate any matchup. I think running 3 gives you a lot more flexibility in how they're used and more consistency in getting these game breaking combos. The problem many people mention is clunkiness, but I have always run the deck with 7 3cc cards and rarely run into problems. In my opinion the "clunkiness" of intuition is outweighed by the fact that it dominates the game, whereas a less clunky card might be better in the short term but not give you game dominance.

Mana Drain
02-21-2011, 12:43 AM
Packing extra answers to Vial against Tribal is an acceptable policy if you have an abundance of cards to SB out in the MD, which I feel we do. Counterbalance and FoW are an easy 8 cards instantly out. An unchecked Vial can quickly lead to a game loss, so why not pack hate? Yeah, they're still good decks even with out it and are difficult MU's preboard, but unchecked Vials can give them almost-free wins against us with decent draws. Packing hate for possible inst-loss cards sounds like a good idea to me.

Everyone on the fence about the number of Intuitions MD needs to remember the four main strategies of the deck: 1) Counterbalance disruption and protection, 2) Tarmogoyf defense and beatdown, 3) Jace, the Motherfucking Mindsculptor, and 4) Powerful end-game engines easily assembled and instant-speed tutors for whatever you need provided by Intuition. These things are the focus of the deck. I can't say that this is the best CB deck playable in Legacy, but I can say that this is what our deck does best and are the reasons why we play it. Cutting Jaces or Intuitions or Tarmogoyfs is just downgrading, because these cards are all extremely important. Three Intuitions or zero Intuitions are the correct number of Intuitons to have at any given time between the MD and SB. Three provides the most consistency without constantly clogging your hand before T3-T4. You only need to resolve one to start an engine, but you really want to have one by T4. The EE/Loam/Ruins package is proven to be far and away the most compact and effective "win-soon" package available, with all pieces being individually useful, and will win you the long-game, every single time. And if you're running PFires, Intuition becomes even more useful.

Seriously, just run 3. It's a core card of the deck for a reason, and when you don't need it, SB them out G2.

Deady
02-24-2011, 07:06 AM
Good discussion going on here.


Currently digging the following list; 39 spells, 22 lands.

Lands:

1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
2 Tundra
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand

Creatures:

4 Tarmogoyf
1 Trinket Mage

Other Spells:

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
2 Firespout
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Pithing Needle
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Mana Drain
02-24-2011, 01:14 PM
Interesting list Deadly. I admit to trying Trinket Mage out and initially being unhappy, but he's extremely versatile for the deck. He's never amazing, but he's always useful for finding either future answers or the missing Top. What worries me is 2 Firespout. I think 4 is pushing it in anything but an extremely Tribal heavy meta but less than 3 is insufficient. Against various aggro hitting that FS on T3-T4 is vital, if only buying a little more time to stabilize. I think the 3rd Counterspell could easily be the 3rd Firespout without messing with the 2-drop curve or blue-count. We're much more likely to need the 3rd FS G1 than the 3rd CS, simply because Firespout is better at stopping aggro than CS, and the addition of Trinket is another great tool against Control.

Also, what's your board for that list? I'm thinking additional Trinkets could be packed in the SB with more Needles to provide a good, consistent hate-engine for a number of problematic cards (PWs, Wasteland, Vial, Equipment, Pridemage) while making the singleton Crypt/Relic even better against the decks we want GY-hate. Also helps maintain blue-count.

ivanpei
02-24-2011, 07:26 PM
I agree with your points, Mana Drain and Valtrix. I'm quite a flexible player in terms of decks I play. I usually rock whatever is suitable for a meta. I have one deck stashed away in my brain for any given meta. I've got 90% of legacy staples (barring some unique ones like ravages of war etc). The 3 intuition, punishing fire lists are better "raw power" all around decks with much better attrition capabilities. This I agree 100%.

The 2 intuition, no punishing lists I play are targeted more towards beating combo, while being pretty good vs the countertop mirror and aggro/tribal. I know that's not a very good argument, but Countertop right now IMO is pretty weak to Zoo and vial decks. It can beat these decks, but only if you include all the specific anti creature cards like the punishing fires combo. This then weakens the combo/control MU, which Countertop is supposed to beat.

I suppose its just a different point of view, I prefer my Countertop deck to wreck combo and be servicable in other MUs. Here's an example of what decks I would play in what metas:

Combo-dominated: Intuition Countertop/ Zenith Bant Aggro
Aggro/Tribal Dominated: Necrotic Ooze/ Tendrils Combo
Control/Countertop/Midrange dominated: Jacestill/Goblins

If I was stuck with Intuition Countertop (like if it was the only deck I brought with me) in an open field with like just 10% combo, I would play the 3 intuition + punishing fire lists. I hope this clears stuff up. Great discussion going on here!

Mana Drain
02-26-2011, 01:10 AM
I do agree that sticking to one deck for every metagame is probably a less-than-optimal playstyle decision, but I like to stick to one deck or at least one archtype that I enjoy playing and tune it to the metagame. I only play blue decks, and with Landstill growing weaker and weaker CB decks are pretty much the way to go for blue-control. What I do greatly enjoy about IntuiCB is that while we don't have many (if any) "always win" MUs, I can't think of any single commonly played deck that we can't beat with SB tuning or "always lose" to (excluding random Chalice decks, which we always lose to, but who actually plays those decks anyway?). Goblins is a rough MU, and probably our most difficult, but you take the good with the bad. I'm currently testing 3 Engineered Plague in the board with 1 USea MD just because Goblins is such a common deck and even with Fires they are serious business.

But I don't think that we are any weaker to Zoo/Tribal than other CB decks. Fast Zoo openers can easily blow us out, but not every opener is fast. Most successful Zoo lists I've played all run a reasonably balanced curve banking on just having more game-enders than you have StPs, not a "shit out fast, cheap dudes and burn you out" plan that is most difficult for us to handle. The ones that go for mid/long-game are way more vulnerable to EE-lock and a midgame CB. Path and EE go much farther against these guys. With Choke being played less (according to SCG results), they have even fewer blow out cards and the MU becomes much more attrition oriented, which we have the upper hand with.

Deady
02-27-2011, 06:30 PM
@Mana Drain:

I'm currently messing with the 1-off Shackles (3cmc) spot in the maindeck (and I'm entirely cutting the Fire/Grove package...too much mana issues) to see if there's something else that could be more useful for the deck (less clunky/slow), preferably still an artifact and some form of creature removal that can be tutored up with Intuition.

Two candidates:

*Forcefield* 1: Lose only 1 life to an unblocked creature.

*Crawlspace* No more than 2 creatures can attack you each turn.

Both are 3 cmc spells and control-orientated.

Forcefield would probably be most worthwhile to maindeck, especially since it's another tool against combo (it stops Emakrul/Progenitus from doing serious harm), while it's useful against mid-range at the same time (KotR/Tombstalker) when you don't have an STP out...yet it's useful against Islandwalk and of course it's another target for intuition. I'm a happy owner of one (bought the card a couple of years ago in NM condition), but these days Forcefield is very hard to come by and very expensive as well.

Crawlspace is there to slow down decks that rely on a swarm of creatures (with or without vial) like Merfolk, Zoo and especially Goblins, but also on decks that rely on tokens, next to your other forms of removal. I'll probably put this one in the board as a 1-off; needs testing.

So this is what I'd like to playtest:

1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Forest
3 Tundra
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
3 Firespout
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Forcefield
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

SB:

2 Counterspell
3 Spell Pierce
2 Pyroblast
1 Vedalken Shackles
2 Path to Exile
1 Crawlspace
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's crypt
1 Ratchet Bomb

Swing4Five
03-04-2011, 01:44 AM
First of all: much, much thanks to Mana Drain, Valtrix, ivanpei, and Mon Goblin Chieftan. This is hands down the best thread I have ever read on this site, mostly thanks to you guys!

The rest of my ranting should probably be in a different thread, but this deck was the closest list I found, and baring me having a brewing break through in the next 24 hours I'll probally end up playing this list.

I actually started on my path to this thread via my interest in Intuition/P Fires/Exploration brew GerryT posted in his article on Starcity last week. I brewed up a list with a few elements borrowed from CAB Jace, and with some quick testing was doing great vs tribal and Junk style decks. Game one vs combo was pretty atrocious, but I had the remainder of Counter-Top in the board. It was impossible to have Counter balances main with so many zero drops in the deck, but boarding into a good curve of counters while removing dead removal and Mazes made games 2 and 3 much easier. The deck was basically set up to destroy creature decks all day, and then board in he entire board to crush spell decks.

This worked pretty well until I started testing the Zoo matchup. 1 drips that can't be fired, disenchants on a stick, and the biggest pain in the ass, Knight of the Reliquary- he comes down too big to be fired, and tutors up Wastelands to break Maze of Iths. And Green Suns Zenith searches up whichever they need.

At the very least the deck needed to splash white for Swords to Plowsheares, and I was thinking about some number of Ensnaring Bridges, possibly Tarmogoyf. I came to The Source for some inspiration, and have spent hours studying this thread. Reading through the primer, a lot of the times you described a whole in a matchups gameplan, I kept thinking "The Punishing Fire engine would help there enormously". Not thinking you guys would come to the same conclusion a few pages later! The pro-goyf arguments won me over in the meantime.

I guess my long winded post boils down to this: Is there any merit in playing an Exploration game plan with this style of deck? Some engine would have to leave the maindeck to live in the sideboard (as mentioned earlier I have Couterbalanace living their). But being able to develop super quickly allows you outresource control decks, and more importantly, allows the deck to get the board control engines online before Vial decks can get thief engines running.

If nothing else, I suppose this is a decent thought experiment.

Valtrix
03-04-2011, 02:06 PM
Thanks for the praise of the thread, we try our best.

As for exploration, I think it is a poor choice in a deck like this, because you're effectively giving up a card to (poorly) accelerate your gameplay. You have to ask yourself how much having a land out sooner is really going to help you. I think the curve of the deck is already built with this constraint in mind, so having access to mana sooner is not going to be that helpful. My major complaint with exploration is that its dead after turn 3 because it doesn't provide any mana itself, and having a card that's dead (at any point in time) is against what this deck wants to do.

Now, if you want something to enable you "more access to land," then frankly you're probably better off running an extra land instead of exploration, since that'll decrease the hands where you get manascrewed a lot. Additionally, two land hands are very keepable, and a two land hand with exploration is just horrible.

If you want to speed up your gameplan to be faster than other decks, then just play cheaper answers. In this format extra path to exiles can effectively be timewalks against a lot of decks. Likewise, spell snare is an cheap and efficient answer.

So, I apologize for not arguing the best in this post, but what exactly do you want exploration to do? What kind of engine could possibly abuse it? Life from the loam is not enough. I think almost always your "faster development" is far outweighed by your lack of resources when exploration just sits in play and does nothing, since people able to answer a card and then get your engines online seems infinitely better than getting your engines online a turn sooner. Plus, there's no guarantee that you'll even have an engine right away, in which case you'd rather just have more answers to control the board until you do have an engine up.

Swing4Five
03-07-2011, 05:35 PM
Yeah, after doing some actual testing I came to the same conclusions.

Exploration requires a deck built entirely around it, and I was trying to fit way too many different strategies into a single archetype. The result was an incoherent hodge-podge. I should have been able to see this earlier, but I really wanted to have my cake and eat it too…

Anyways, thanks for the thoughtful reply, and again for this thread.

jazzykat
03-08-2011, 07:36 AM
Yeah, after doing some actual testing I came to the same conclusions.

Exploration requires a deck built entirely around it, and I was trying to fit way too many different strategies into a single archetype. The result was an incoherent hodge-podge. I should have been able to see this earlier, but I really wanted to have my cake and eat it too…

Anyways, thanks for the thoughtful reply, and again for this thread.

Thanks for doing the testing. I had an idea to jam everything into the same deck more along the lines of CAB Jace mixed with this deck. Maybe I will give it another shot but I think with the meta as open as it is you either have to be very flexible or very focused in your game plan. Going halfway will leave you blaise against too many decks.

Swing4Five
03-08-2011, 01:47 PM
Thanks for doing the testing. I had an idea to jam everything into the same deck more along the lines of CAB Jace mixed with this deck. Maybe I will give it another shot but I think with the meta as open as it is you either have to be very flexible or very focused in your game plan. Going halfway will leave you blaise against too many decks.

That was also my idea... and my results. If you do end up giving it another try, and manage to find a list with positive results, please share with the rest of the class!

Taurelin
03-16-2011, 06:25 AM
First of all, my compliments and thanks for this thread and this deck. So far, I've been playing stuff like SwanThresh and Supreme Blue for quite a while. But the Intuition-engine seems to be just this extra edge that those decks were lacking.

One question:


Intuition: ... Three is the right number, as you never want to see two in an opener, and resolving one is all it takes, but you still want to see at least 1 a game.

(...)

Core choices and user customization

These cards are not to be cut under any circumstances, as talked about in card choices
2 Intuition

I would really like to play Counterspell as a 3-of in the deck. Is it possible/advisable/a cardinal sin to cut Intuition down to 2 copies for that? Or would it be better to cut a land? Or even risk playing 61 cards?

Thanks for your help!

Nidd
03-18-2011, 08:18 AM
I would really like to play Counterspell as a 3-of in the deck. Is it possible/advisable/a cardinal sin to cut Intuition down to 2 copies for that? Or would it be better to cut a land? Or even risk playing 61 cards?

Thanks for your help!
I play only 2 copies and I'm perfectly fine. Brainstorm and SDT are plenty of cardselection and I've always found an Intuition when I've needed one.

Taurelin
03-27-2011, 06:34 PM
I played the deck in a small tournament (Paderborn, Germany - 22 players) and came in 6th.

MUs:
Eva Green (2:0)
Ichorid (2:1)
Canadian Thresh (0:2)
MUD (0:2)
Merfolk (2:1)

List:
// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [B] Tropical Island
3 [B] Tundra
2 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [CS] Snow-Covered Island
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Forest
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Plains
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Mountain
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [5E] Counterspell
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [TE] Intuition
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [U] Swords to Plowshares
3 [SHM] Firespout
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [4E] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 2 [R] Blue Elemental Blast

I agree that 2 Intuition are sufficient. The other minor changes I made were some SB-slots and the full set of basics, which I felt were necessary.

ivanpei
03-27-2011, 09:06 PM
I'm with you Taurelin, did you find the Shakles-EE-Loam-Ruins package ok? Was it quick enough? Would you have prefered punishing fire-Grove? On another note, Countertop seems really bad right now. The printing of GSZ really messed up the deck's plan to lock people out. Everyone now has + 4 Pridemage (that are beyond countertops curve). Anyone feel the same way? I think fires-grove sort of reduces the deck's reliance on artifacts/enchantments. Anyone has a fire/grove centric list?

Valtrix
03-27-2011, 11:38 PM
I think 2 intuitions are probably fine. I first started with 2, then moved to 3, but in general having the third intuition can make for more awkward draws. With the way the format is moving I think the 3rd one is less useful, since it shines most against countertop (which is on the decline).

61 cards I think is fine: The deck really wants a lot of different things in it, and I think that 23/61 manabase is better than 22/60 or 23/60.

Also, I think 4 different colored basics are just too much. For one it's a strain on your manabase, but your color reliance is so small that you can afford to not run either a mountain or a plains depending on your build. Always having 3 different basics is very good in my opinion, because it lets you work around choke very well to get EE @ 3 and having access to the colors is just really good.

Ivanpei, I know you still don't like Ruins/EE/loam, but I think it's still incredibly useful. It's never been "fast," so you go for it against the slow decks when the combo is most relevant anyway. If it won't help you then you intuition for something else and if you draw ruins/EE/loam you're not out anything. Since there's effectively no opportunity cost to run the combo, you always want to have access to it G1.

I don't think countertop is all that bad. In reality it's always trading 1 for 1, which you're fine with. Being able to protect goyfs from swords and randomly wreck games makes it more worthwhile in my opinion. Plus, since we're running intuition, it's a combination that can also be assembled more reliably.

I've been working on synthesizing a new list to incorporate punishing fire/grove combo, but haven't got it streamlined to a point where I'm happy with it yet. I mostly haven't been developing much because I've been spending time with other things right now. My untweaked version of what I had was this:


// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
2 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra
1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [SHM] Firespout
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
1 [6E] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
SB: 3 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell

I think that it's fine to cut REBs from the board. It's a good card for sure, but I always wanted it to do more. Sure it was some nice extra removal against decks, but there seemed to be more flexible cards. With punishing fires the game against merfolk is significantly bolstered, and intuition is very good against any slower decks you may want it against. The deck is certainly a little more oriented around beating creature decks, so I dislike a little bit the lack of as many counterspells for combo, but there's only so much you can do.

And, while I may not be developing as much, I always keep updated with this thread (notification of responses through email), so I will always provide my input should anybody post.

ivanpei
03-27-2011, 11:57 PM
I like that list alot. I am now eating my own words on Conditional counters. Spell snares are terrible right now. I see you have a full set of Fires between MD and SB. Looks hot. I'll give your list a run. Cheers!

Taurelin
03-28-2011, 02:43 AM
did you find the Shakles-EE-Loam-Ruins package ok? Was it quick enough?

Yes, it was a good package. Loam by itself was very, very useful vs LD (note that 4 of my opponents played Wasteland). And the Ichorid-pilot scooped to Ruins+Crypt postboard twice.

And no, it wasn't always fast enough. I had serious troubles keeping Canadian in check. I never got a CB online at all. However, he played perfectly, always had enough counters and Stifles and left me defenseless against his beatdown. He won the tournament, by the way.


Would you have prefered punishing fire-Grove?

I guess vs Canadian and especially vs MUD (a horrible MU, as far as I can see) it wouldn't have changed much.



Also, I think 4 different colored basics are just too much. For one it's a strain on your manabase, but your color reliance is so small that you can afford to not run either a mountain or a plains depending on your build.

I guess that's my personal playstyle (too cowardly). The thing is that you need all those colors reliably particularly vs those decks that play both creatures and Wastelands (e.g. Goblins and Merfolk). And these are also the MUs in which CB is less useful, so it's not always necessary to have UU by turn 2.

Valtrix
03-29-2011, 12:51 PM
I guess that's my personal playstyle (too cowardly). The thing is that you need all those colors reliably particularly vs those decks that play both creatures and Wastelands (e.g. Goblins and Merfolk). And these are also the MUs in which CB is less useful, so it's not always necessary to have UU by turn 2.

What I'm saying though is that you don't need the three "off-color" basics. You always want the forest to have access to life/goyf. However, if you look at the deck you have 4 white cards (swords) and 4 red cards (firespout/punishing fire). Now, it's very easy to play around this in a game and to only go get a color right when you need to cast a spell (or they'll try to take a different color away), so having prolonged access to that color doesn't really matter, in my experience. Yes you need them, but you only need them once or twice, which means that you don't need basics for both of one (protect one color, just get the other when you need it).

Hmm, I don't feel like I did a very job explaining what I meant to say, but does that make sense?

Taurelin
03-30-2011, 12:54 AM
Hmm, I don't feel like I did a very job explaining what I meant to say, but does that make sense?

Of course, don't worry about that. You even explained that point in the opening post.


When you run basics the Plains is better than the Mountain because you’ll usually have more relevant white cards against aggro (Swords and Path) than your lonely Firespouts, and there are oftentimes when you want white but not red, but never the other way around. Plus, you really only want a Mountain turn 3 to Firespout, but might want Plains sooner than that.

I don't want to sound like a stubborn child. I just can't help listening to this voice in my head that says "Yes, but still...". I hope with growing experience I will get more confident about running fewer basics.

Valtrix
03-30-2011, 01:04 AM
One of the trickiest things with the deck is managing your manabase, surprisingly, which starts with how you build your manabase. I look at the opportunity cost this way. The chance that the 4th color basic will be necessary in the game seems less likely than the fact that it wasn't a dual to provide you with blue (and thereby let you fetch other basics more easily). Now, I had already said your color dependence is low, which is one reason to not run so many basics. Additionally, by running only 3 colors in basics it lets you focus your fetches, which I think is more important because then you can more reliably get the basics/fetches when they matter.

What exactly is your main concern about not running all 4 basics colors? That you might want all 4 against wasteland decks? Or is it just that you want more basics in general against wasteland decks?

Taurelin
03-30-2011, 08:17 AM
What exactly is your main concern about not running all 4 basics colors? That you might want all 4 against wasteland decks? Or is it just that you want more basics in general against wasteland decks?

Both, actually. Not only do I like to have each off-color vs decks like Canadian or Merfolk (where I always want Goyf and StoP and Firespout and even REB...). But each Wasteland also makes their Daze / Spell Pierce etc stronger.

The way I see it, it is not such a bad thing to be able to cast each spell in the deck just with the help of basics.

Valtrix
03-30-2011, 10:17 AM
It seems to me that you think that by running more basics you can negate all wastelands. You can't really, however, because in any game you're going to naturally draw nonbasics that you want to play. In terms of defending against wasteland then basics allow you the opportunity early game to go fetch the colors you want, or against decks with wasteland recursion to not be completely screwed. I don't think that the 4th color basic will matter for you much, because the way you should be playing is getting a basic early, then getting your other color on a dual and casting whatever spell you need to cast.

I don't disagree that having basics is a good strategy. The argument that we're looking at is this:

Choice 1:
Play 4 colors of basics, allowing us access to all 4 colors. However, this reduces the consistency for getting a particular basic because of fetches and reduces our consistency in general when we have less blue.

Choice 2:
Play 3 colors of basics, allowing more consistency to get the color we want. Furthermore we are more consistent to get blue.

In my opinion the second choice is more relevant.

Taurelin
03-31-2011, 11:27 AM
Understood. So:


by running only 3 colors in basics it lets you focus your fetches

Like Mana Drain stated in the opening post, W > R as far as color requirements and the choice of additional basics are concerned. If I interpret your points correctly, my manabase might look like this:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [B] Tropical Island
3 [B] Tundra
3 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [CS] Snow-Covered Island
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Forest
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Plains
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

This way each fetchland is able to get me each but 1 colored land. And I am still able to cast 3x Firespout even if all of my red sources are wasted.
________________________

Another question:
In the tourney I had no chance at all vs MUD. And in online testing I had some problems vs Affinity, too. Might some additional artifact-hate in the SB be a good idea?
- Trygon Predator ?
- Ancient Grudge ?
- Energy Flux ?
- Grip no.4 ?

Koby
03-31-2011, 11:51 AM
Ancient Grudge is good with the Intuition package, while Energy Flux actually locks out artifact decks all together. Each one has it's strengths and weaknesses, but I think that Ancient Grudge works better with the plan at this point.

Valtrix
03-31-2011, 03:00 PM
Taurelin,

That manabase is almost exactly what I run. However, I run a 9th blue fetch over the 3rd tundra. Since I have access to basic white already and a small color reliance I'd much rather be able to turn that tundra into a volcanic island, tropical island, or basic island instead. Plus I like added synergy with top. That said, I can't fault you for running a tundra over the 9th fetch. I'm actually running groves/fire, so my manabase has 1 grove of the burnwillows in addition (and is 61 cards total MD).

Also, keep in mind that since this deck has life from the loam you get a little more wasteland resistance than other decks you might be playing.

In testing I had found affinity to be somewhat rough as well, though there are still a lot of answers to deal with the deck. I don't have a lot of testing and they're are a lot of versions, but a lot of times it comes down to if they can stick platings or not. If not, you can usually win. I think versions with punishing fire might be better at beating them now because fire hits a lot of the guys they can equip, though I haven't tested the matchup.

Also, could you direct me to a list of MUD? I'm not 100% sure what you're talking about, so I can't quite phrase suggestions about beating it right now.

Taurelin
03-31-2011, 03:16 PM
Also, keep in mind that since this deck has life from the loam you get a little more wasteland resistance than other decks you might be playing.

Sure! That's one of the reasons why I started to love this variant of the CounterTop archetype.


Also, could you direct me to a list of MUD? I'm not 100% sure what you're talking about, so I can't quite phrase suggestions about beating it right now.

Maybe it is more popular here in Germany at the moment. It looks partly like a stompy shell (Ancient Tomb, Chalice of the Void...) and uses Metalworker to ramp into some big artifact-beaters like Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite or Lodestone Golem.

The list I had to play against also had lots of mana-denial (Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Sundering Titan), and I lost one game to a Platinum Angel equipped by Lightning Greaves.

I don't know if this is typical, but the list in the opening post of this thread (http://www.mtg-forum.de/thread-mud-75301.html) contains most of the stuff I saw in the match.

@ TC-decks (http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/tipo.php?archetype=MUD&format=Legacy) there are several variations.

Thanks for your help and your feedback, btw!

Valtrix
04-01-2011, 06:35 PM
Well, I'd have to guess that the matchup is probably not the best for us. This deck is very much metagamed at most of the field out there, so having a lot of high CC threats makes it a little awkward with only swords for hard removal. I would say that your best options are to hope for Jace to generate a lot of advantage, because he seems very strong in this MU. EE recursion doesn't do a lot in this matchup, but Engineered explosives can be very strong to deal with their disruptions elements like Chalice. I'd hope that they're not too fast so that you can focus on finding the right cards with tops and being prepared to deal with their threats with swords and counterspells. It's also fortunate that smaller cards like lodestone golem and metalworker are killed by firespout.

Fortunately the beauty of this deck, in my opinion, is that you can easily adjust your sideboard to crush any MU that you think you might have problems with. If things are really an issue I think that running 3x Ancient grudge in your board should do the trick--That makes intuition into a 4 for 1, which hopefully is enough for you to win the game. You do have some other options though, but I only theorize that they might be useful and am not completely sure what is best (Most of these are 3x to get with intuition):
3x Shattering Pulse (Likely too slow, but could potentially lock the game up
1/3x Nevinyrral's Disk (Good, because it gives us outs to progenitus/emrakul too and wrecks their board. Can be slow to get online though with ruins)
3x Devout Witness (Probably not as good as capsule)
3x Aura Flux (Okay, but I could still see you losing because of needing to deal with a big threat)
Alternately you could run path to exiles in your board, which in combination with counterspells and swords might allow you to just deal with all of their creatures and have a lot of utility in other MUs as well.

So, I presented several solutions, but I think the best ones would probably be to run 1 or 3 disks because of their utility in other matchups or to run 3 ancient grudges in the board for their speed/high CA. Given the choice I'd probably play one disk to have an out to progenitus and emrakul, and 3 if those decks were actually very prevalent in your metagame.

Taurelin
04-02-2011, 05:11 AM
I like the idea of a recurring Nev's Disk. And I think I'm really going to try it. The thing is that this solution is - like you said - much more universal, and it will help in many other MUs as well. I'm not only thinking of Emrakul/Prog, but also about stuff like Enchantress.

Thx for your input again!

Deady
04-02-2011, 05:46 AM
Red seems like it has become very, very important for Intuition Countertop, particularly because of the rise in popularity of MUD and Affinity decks and of course because of the Goblin matchup.

Ancient Grudge vs MUD.

Punishing Fire vs Affinity and Goblins.

So, what does this mean?

That it's time for the deck to maindeck Punishing Fire and to change more important stuff in order to keep a solid mana base, while being able to keep your good matchups into good ones and preferably not worsen your worse matchups.

So the SB becomes more important.

All of this can only be done with lots of experience and knowledge of the format. With the changes the deck desperately needs, white should be cut. No Swords anymore, just like NLT. So, what do we have instead? Instead we have Punishing Fire, Mage/Collar tech, Counterbalance/Top. I think that's the way to go for us now, if we want to add Punishing Fire to the deck. Remember Grove of the Burnwillows in the maindeck also makes EE-recursion easier to abuse (vs KotR for instance). Intuition AND Mage in the same deck should give the deck even more options, which is what the deck wants to do in the first place.

The goal is to set-up the CB/Top lock in the first place and to dominate the rest of the game, while Intuition and Mage can both search for answers in their own way without CB/Top (EE recursion, Mage or Goyf/Collar, Grove/Punishing Fire).

It's at least something to think about, especially with all the positive results of Collar vs Midrange (and vs Emrakul and Prog) and Punishing Fire vs Affinity, Goblins. Grudge can be added to the Sideboard and more…

Here's what I thought about. I haven't tested it yet, but hopefully it can lead to something: Discuss

Deady
04-02-2011, 05:46 AM
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
2 Intuition
2 Firespout
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Valtrix
04-02-2011, 10:53 AM
Please tell me how basilisk collar is an effective tool against any deck when you're running only 8 creatures, none of which are recurrable. This seems strictly worse than swords to plowshares, even if you don't need to run white.

Deady
04-02-2011, 12:22 PM
Collar can easily get replaced by Pithing Needle.

The thing is that you'll need something against Midrange (KotR/Terravore) in the board, so it's either a single Collar or some number of Gilded Drakes (2), more EE and Shackles. The deck should be able to function without white, but like I said earlier it comes much down to the sideboard.

-2 Firespout, +1 Forcefield, +1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor is also an option, to win through Jace (with Clique/Goyf backup). Punishing Fire/Grove of the Burnwillows is already there vs fast aggro and it's tutorable with Intuition, so Firespout can be cut from the maindeck.

3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Trinket Mage
2 Vendilion Clique

3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
2 Counterspell
1 Pithing Needle
2 Intuition
1 Forcefield
1 Life from the Loam
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Valtrix
04-02-2011, 12:34 PM
Collar just seems terrible in a deck with 8 creatures. I don't think trinket mage is a very good card in this deck in general. I've tried it and pretty much every time it's just a worse intuition. Besides, swords is one of your best cards against midrange, as well as pretty much just every deck, why do you want to cut it so bad? Additionally,I have found that ruins/EE should be fine against midrange, since you're usually not pressed for turns and can grind them out in the long run.

I have often considered cutting firespout from the maindeck. I think with the decline of zoo and addition of punishing fire/grove this is probably a fine thing to do at this point (though I do like them). That said, you need the creature removal density still so that either means replacing them with more punishing fires, path, shackles, or some combination of that.

Deady
04-02-2011, 02:01 PM
Then you'll get something like this:

2 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
2 Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
1 Academy Ruins
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest

4 Tarmogoyf
2 Vendilion Clique

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Punishing Fire
4 Force of Will
2 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterbalance
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Actually I like this list very much. It gives many sideboard options like Ancient Grudges, more Counterspells, Pyroblasts/ReB, Needles...definately worth spending more time with, making the right tweaks to the SB.

1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Punishing Fire
2 Firespout
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Counterspell
2 Pyroblast
1 Red elemental Blast
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt

Punishing Fire can easily get sided out against combo/control, whether it's for Ancient Grudges, more Counterspells or some combination of them with a lonsesome Needle or Crypt...it all depends on the matchup. Again: lot's of options here.

Valtrix
04-15-2011, 09:12 PM
Hello everybody! It's been a couple weeks since anything on this deck. I haven't got to do a lot of testing, but I did get to do a little theory-crafting, so let me know what you think. As I was playing the deck I felt a couple things:

1) Vedalken Shackles is incredibly good. I have won so many games on this card alone, so I wanted to up the count of this card in the deck.
2) Firespout isn't what it used to be with the way the meta has changed (ie, less zoo). Additionally, it doesn't seal up the goblins MU like I want it to, so I want to have a way to deal with this.
3) Jace/Intuition are insane, but I felt like 3/3 was making draws just a little too clunky.
4) Furthermore, I was hoping for just a little bit more win-cons.
5) With the types of combo that are around I want a strong countersuite.
6) I think punishing fire is enough to dominate the tribal MUs, though I would like more testing to confirm/deny this.
7) Dredge is an issue, so we probably need at least one piece of GY hate in the board, unfortunately...That said, I don't know if 1 crypt/3 intuitions is enough to actually matter against dredge...

As such, I took this into consideration in reconstructing a little bit of the deck. I decided to consider knight of the reliquary again, a card I had long wanted to see in the deck. It has obvious synergy with the deck since we want mana, we want shuffle effects, we want big creatures, and it can search out grove/ruins (which is particularly relevant G2 when you can side in extra copies of EE/fire). As such, I created the following:

// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra
1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
1 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
2 [6E] Counterspell

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 3 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb
SB: 1 [CFX] Path to Exile
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt

I also switched the emphasis back to :R:, since we want a lot more :R: now to have fire combo dominate. This also has 3 (!) copies of knight of the reliquary. I originally wanted 2/3 for knight/shackles but thought that 3/2 might be a little bit better against faster decks. I definitely like him in the deck and have had very good success with him. Losing a Jace and intuition from the main makes me sad, but at the same time I think there were just too many and they were making opening draws more awkward. You really want to control the board first and then lay down one of these bombs, and I think that 2/2 lets us do so fairly well.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I think it could use a little tweaking still, but it looks very strong to me overall and I think that the deck is still very good, even in the current meta. I still lose a lot of games to play mistakes though, as this deck is super hard to play (also considering that a huge part of the success of the deck are the small tweaks made to the list in preparing for a tournament).

Deady
04-20-2011, 04:20 AM
So, what do you guys think about the new Mental Misstep? It's finally a real answer to Vial, as well to Stifle, Lackey and Hierarch.

Especially Vial and Stifle were really problematic cards for us to deal with!

Taurelin
04-21-2011, 02:41 AM
Just wanted to quote you here ...


4C Countertop worst nightmares always were Vial and Stifle; it's one of those decks that most likely WILL benefit from MM.

... but you brought it up yourself. What I think is that I desperately want it in here. The question is what to take out to make room for 3-4 copies.

Taurelin
04-27-2011, 06:13 PM
Hm. No help here?

I did a bit of testing myself. My first try was to add 3 MMs dropping 1 Goyf and the Shackles going on 61 cards. Playing felt really awkward, even though I can't really say why.

The second try was 0 Counterspells, 3 StoP, 4 MMs. Surprisingly, this one works much better.

The overall impression is that we really want 4 MMs in the deck. It just helps so much to survive the early game in a variety of MUs. And even later in the game you can still counter removal, small critters, cantrips etc.

Valtrix
04-27-2011, 06:32 PM
Sorry about no responses. It's getting to the end of the semester, so I've been a bit pressed for time.

As far as mental misstep goes, I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand I like the tempo. That can be very useful for us (especially against decks we have more trouble against), but at the same time I hate that it is a (somewhat) narrow card. In a lot of respects it feels like spell snare to me, a card that I gave up simply because I felt like we had more effective options, but it certainly is way better than spell snare because we can cast it for free.

That said, I'm not completely sure where to make the room as the deck feels pretty tight right now. I think cutting the counterspells would be okay, maybe a swords, and probably a shackles/knight/firespout depending on what list you're running so it's hard to say. 3 mental missteps would probably be fine, though I could also see an argument for 4 or even 2.

Anyway, sorry for my lack of a lot of content. I'm not completely sure how I feel about this card at the moment and haven't had time to test. What list are you currently running? It might be easier to look at space in that context.

Taurelin
04-27-2011, 06:52 PM
Okay. At he moment I'm working with this list:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
3 [B] Tropical Island
3 [B] Tundra
3 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [CS] Snow-Covered Island
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Forest
1 [CS] Snow-Covered Mountain
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf

// Spells
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [NPH] Mental Misstep
4 [CS] Counterbalance
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [MM] Brainstorm
2 [TE] Intuition
3 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 [U] Swords to Plowshares
3 [SHM] Firespout
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [FD] Vedalken Shackles

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [4E] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast

Cutting 1 StoP seems as ok to me as cutting 1 Goyf. It's probably just a question of curve.

Valtrix
04-27-2011, 07:34 PM
9 2cc really won't work in my opinion for balance. I'd recommend running 3 MM and cutting one Jace for 2 counterspells. 10 2cc could also work, but having the 11th (and especially 10th!) helps a lot. Otherwise I think your setup is fine. I wouldn't recommend cutting goyf since you really want win-cons, it's great anti-aggro, and is a 2cc.

Also, I'm testing a list without firespout and more focus on punishing fire/grove to deal with tribal. I haven't gotten any testing versus tribal, but in general I like not having firespouts against non-tribal MUs. Furthermore, I recommend running 1x ratchet bomb in the board (probably over grip #3), as it's a great answer vs. needle (since you might not always have grip/grudge against something that brings needle in). Furthermore, I like 2 EE's in the board over grip because in most cases it works as well as grip, but it has a lot of utility in other MUs (And also gives you outs to GY removal of your lonely EE). In particular it gives you more flexibility against CBalance decks (by getting their goyfs or balances which can be huge), gives you a good answer against vial decks (though with MM maybe that argument is a little less), and with dredge on the rise can deal with hordes of tokens. Sorry if this was very tangential to what you really wanted suggestions on.

Taurelin
04-28-2011, 05:59 AM
That's fine.

What I was trying to do is to maintain being able to Intuition for (almost) everything in the deck. That's why I wouldn't cut down Jace to 2 or run 2 Counterspells.

Damn, this is really difficult. The deck is rather tight.

Valtrix
04-28-2011, 10:06 AM
While it seems nice to be able to intuition for everything in the deck, more often than not you just don't need to. Most of the time I end up setting up something with loam, then grabbing a piece of counter/top, and finally tutoring for removal (in that order). In fact, it's very rare when I actually go for a win-con (I think I've tutored for Jaces only once or twice. It can be really bad if they then deal with your win-con and you now have 3 less in your deck).

Valtrix
06-07-2011, 03:00 PM
Hello all, just thought I would see if anybody is still playing this deck anymore. I haven't been playing a lot lately, though I might get a chance to do so some more this summer and do some more tweaking with the current meta (which currently seems hard to describe).

I do have a few comments though:
-- 2 Vedalken Shackles is way better than 1. The card is such a beating against a lot of decks and having twice the chance to get it is awesome.
-- Knight of the reliquary is incredibly useful. Can go toe to toe with any creature and can set up ruins/EE or punishing fire/grove very nicely, as well as also giving you some extra mana to work with. Helps against aggro and gives some more win-cons, though I don't like relying on creatures as much.
-- On that note, fire/grove is very good and can help you dominate problem matchups (merfolk, affinity, goblins), but is sometimes slow to get online. I'm not sure how much if any of the combo we want to run, because I don't like how much space it takes up.
-- Firespout in the main just doesn't cut it anymore I think. We're not facing the same type of decks, and against decks that we don't need it against it hurts a lot.
-- 3 Jace and 3 intuition is too much. I have moved down to 2 Jace and 2 intuition because we need to focus a little more on faster plays. Knight have sort of filled this role a bit.
-- I like mental misstep, though I just can't find room for it in the deck, let alone 4 of them.
-- Killing Jace with EE is still awesome.
-- I mostly intuition for ruins combo, punishing fire combo, top for huge advantage, CB if I have a top, or swords if I need removal ASAP.
-- I still lose a lot of games to playskill. Oh well.

The deck is very malleable to the meta I think and can be designed to target whatever you fear most. I haven't gotten a lot of testing lately, but it would be nice to know if anybody else has gotten a chance to play it more.

Taurelin
06-07-2011, 04:48 PM
The last time I played it was on 1st May - pre MM - at a local tournament. I came in 9th of 20 players.

1:2 vs Dream Halls
2:1 vs RW-Weenie
1:1 vs UWb Jace Control
2:0 vs Faerie Stompy
ID vs GW Zenith Aggro (lost the fun matches 0:2).

The performance was indeed not perfect. And I agree on the Firespouts. They are mostly good vs tribals, and even then they offen don't suffice.

Also, I have no idea how to put 4 MM in it. I definitely would love to.

Valtrix
06-07-2011, 09:29 PM
I think if I were to really try room for it I would use the list below (Though unsure about sideboard...A lot of slots devoted to fire/grove, not sure if it's worth that many without some in the main.) It only has three missteps, but that should be fine. I cut 1 Knight, 1 punishing fire, and 1 brainstorm for three missteps. Yes, I know brainstorm is awesome, but it's kind of redundant with top and not "necessary" in the deck. This makes balance pretty reasonable and our costs with a 14-11-6-2-4 cc curve. Definitely would need a little more tweaking to make sure we can stomp on merfolk though.


// Lands
2 [IN] Island (2)
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
2 [R] Volcanic Island
3 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [RAV] Forest (2)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [ZEN] Mountain (3)
3 [A] Tundra

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary

// Spells
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [R] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TE] Intuition
2 [FD] Vedalken Shackles
4 [CS] Counterbalance
2 [6E] Counterspell
3 [MB] Mental Misstep

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 [TE] Intuition
SB: 4 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
SB: 2 [6E] Counterspell
SB: 3 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [SOM] Ratchet Bomb

Valtrix
07-06-2012, 03:17 PM
Hmm. Anybody still looking at using intuition in a control deck shell? I had a lot of success with it in the past, and would like to continue doing so.

With the printing of Terminus, I think that it is a tool that this deck could use, but we may have to cut the creatures and the deck may end up looking more like the UW miracles deck.

RUG Tempo is also a huge concern, for which I think we need to evaluate the main-deck and cut down to some cheaper answers. I made a mono-white list which absolutely stomps RUG tempo (I'm 16:3 W:L), and so I've basically tried to fuse that deck with intuition countertop because I love both so much. I don't use a lot of blue because I feel like to destroy RUG you need to have a huge redundancy of answers, the best of which are usually white. That said, Jace is the best win-condition ever, and we gain more board options, better lategame/searching with intuition, and more consistent terminuses with brainstorm. In the end though, this is a board control deck.

As such, I'm toying around the below list, which I haven't had much time to test yet, but it has felt pretty good so far. If anybody's interested I'd be up for some more discussion about this deck/variations on it because I think it's possible to tune it for the meta-game again, and I do think that we have things to gain over UW miracles by having intuitions. That said, this post is pretty light because I'm not sure if anybody is interested.


4 Porphyry Nodes
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Eternal Dragon
4 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Terminus
1 Runed Halo
1 Karakas
4 Maze of Ith
1 Batterskull
1 Oblivion Ring
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
3 Plains
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Brainstorm
1 Academy Ruins
2 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
2 Tropical Island
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Counterbalance
4 Windswept Heath
SB: 3 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 Counterspell
SB: 1 Enlightened Tutor
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 1 Memory's Journey
SB: 1 Terminus
SB: 1 Humility
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Nevermore
SB: 1 Ray of Distortion