[Deck] Natural Order RUG

[Kuma]

Overview:

NO RUG is a blue/green/red aggro-control deck that features the Natural Order/Progenitus combo. Superficially similar to many NO Bant lists, NO RUG runs red to cover its weaknesses at the cost of green/white utility creatures like Knight of the Reliquary, Stoneforge Mystic equipment packages, and white sideboard options like Gaddock Teeg. Using the best free countermagic, green acceleration and beaters, and red for repeatable removal/protecting Natural Order, NO RUG is a deck with few bad matchups.

History:

NO RUG burst onto the Legacy scene when Reid Duke piloted it to third place at GP Providence 2011. Since then, NO RUG has put around one or two pilots into the top 16s of the Star City Games Legacy opens. Michael Jacob piloted the deck to fourth place at the first Star City Games Invitational.

Decklists:

Alex Bertoncini, 13th place Star City Games Legacy Open Baltimore, Maryland

Creatures
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mental Misstep

Legendary Creatures
1 Progenitus
3 Vendilion Clique

Sorceries
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
2 Ponder

Basic Lands
1 Island

Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wooded Foothills

Land Creatures
2 Dryad Arbor

Sideboard:
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Trygon Predator
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Todd Anderson, Star City Games Legacy Open Baltimore, Maryland

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
2 Fire / Ice
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mental Misstep

Legendary Creatures
1 Progenitus
3 Vendilion Clique


Sorceries
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
1 Ponder

Basic Lands
1 Forest
1 Island

Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wooded Foothills

Land Creatures
2 Dryad Arbor

Sideboard:
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Terastodon
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Submerge
3 Surgical Extraction

Ron Natividad, 8th place Star City Games Legacy Open Denver, Colorado

Maindeck:

Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf

Enchantments
1 Sylvan Library

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Mental Misstep
1 Spell Pierce

Legendary Creatures
1 Progenitus
3 Vendilion Clique

Sorceries
2 Chain Lightning
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
1 Ponder

Basic Lands
1 Forest
1 Island

Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wooded Foothills

Land Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor

Sideboard:
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Terastodon
1 Mental Misstep
2 Pyroblast
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Card Choices:

Manabase: Red gives the deck numerous advantages over white, and is a much better complement to the Natural Order strategy.

Noble Hierarch: The best acceleration in the format also sacrifices to Natural Order. Run four.

Grim Lavamancer: One of the biggest reasons to run NO RUG over other aggro-control lists. Grim Lavamancer eats up Goblins and Merfolk, two of aggro-control’s worst matchups, while stopping Stoneforge Mystic and manlands cold. Lavamancer kills almost all of the formats problem creatures while often providing those last few, important points of damage.

Tarmogoyf: The best beater in the colors we run. Provides early defense while you set up Natural Order and acts as a strong backup plan if Natural Order is countered. In large numbers, Tarmogoyf can win you games on his own.

Vendilion Clique: Arguably the best non-Progenitus creature in the list, this is one of the few decks that want to run more than two. Vendilion Clique curves beautifully into Natural Order, while letting you see if the coast is clear for Progenitus to start stomping your opponent’s guts out. In a pinch, Clique can put Progenitus back in your deck or pitch to Force of Will. Blue Duress plus an evasive beater, what more do you want from a card?

Dryad Arbor: Turns Green Sun’s Zenith into mana acceleration and allows your fetchlands to get you a green creature for Natural Order if needed.

Natural Order/Progenitus combo: An often-maligned strategy that shines in this shell. The combo can win you games out of nowhere as Progenitus has Protection from everything, making him nearly unanswerable once he hits the table. Potentially fast enough to race Goblins and in a format where nobody runs Wrath of God, he slays control if he hits the table. Acts as a catch-all in matchups where our other cards are ineffective.

Brainstorm: Arguably the most powerful card in Legacy. Run four.

Force of Will: A card whose usefulness has been debated to the point where Bant lists have cut it and many decks are now running three, NO RUG wants four. It provides much needed protection for Natural Order, hits the few answers there are to Progenitus such as Moat and Humility, acts as a speedbump for the faster aggro decks, and is invaluable against combo.

Daze: Another free counterspell whose merits have been debated in NO RUG. Setting yourself back on land is counterproductive to casting four-mana bombs, but its value on the first few turns of the game has kept it in the lists for now.

Mental Misstep: The new kid on the block, Mental Misstep has redefined Legacy. Saves your guys from removal while making sure aggro and combo play fair.

Lightning Bolt: Kills just about everything Swords to Plowshares does without giving your opponent any life. Lightning Bolt is a much better choice against Merfolk and Goblins than Swords to Plowshares. Many important tournament matches have been decided by a NO RUG player ripping a Lightning Bolt off the top for those last three points of damage.

Green Sun’s Zenith: Acts as acceleration while being able to fetch Tarmogoyfs when needed. Green Sun’s Zenith is a versatile, essential part of NO RUG.

Ponder: Grows Tarmogoyf, feeds Grim Lavamancer, and digs for whatever you need. Often the first card sideboarded out of the deck, it smooths your draws and helps ensure you draw Natural Order.

Sylvan Library: Provides card selection while also granting massive card advantage against control and combo decks that aren't rapidly chewing away at your life total. A situational, but useful card.

Chain Lightning: A debated slot. See Lightning Bolt.

Fire // Ice: A recent addition to the deck. Fills many of the same roles as Lightning Bolt while pitching to Force of Will, and cantripping at worst.

Relic of Progenitus/Tormod’s Crypt/Surgical Extraction: Graveyard hate is essential in an increasingly graveyard-dependant format. Relic cantripps, but makes Tarmogoyf tiny and depletes Grim Lavamancer. Surgical Extraction is free and instant speed, but may not get the job done against Ichorid decks. Tormod’s Crypt may be found to be an acceptable compromise between the two.

Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast: Another trump in the Merfolk match. Also protects your Natural Orders and gets Jace, the Mind Sculptor off the table.

Ancient Grudge: Another benefit of the red splash. Kills equipment dead, hits Affinity’s dorks, answers problem permanents like Ensnaring Bridge, and sticks around to do it again.

Jace, the Mind Sculptor: Gives you another win condition against decks that can answer Natural Order. Very helpful in winning against dedicated control.

Thrun, the Last Troll: Another trump for the control matchup, Thrun, the Last Troll is also a fantastic Jitte carrier.

Submerge: Another new addition that gives you answers to most of the creatures that Lightning Bolt can’t reliably handle such as Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary.

Umezawa’s Jitte: Helps out against creature heavy decks.

Terastodon: Another answer for problem artifacts and enchantments, but really shines in a few matchups. Against aggro decks, he provides blockers and 18 total power worth of creatures for those times Progenitus just isn’t quick enough. Blowing up all your Islands while making 18 power worth of creatures has swung more than one Merfolk match. It’s also funny to hit High Tide’s manabase.

Playing Natural Order RUG, by Jona

Like the title suggests, this is about playing Natural Order RUG (or NO RUG in short). At first, I'm going to write something about how the deck plays in general (which is hard by the way, because how you play heavily depends on the matchup) and after that I'll go more into detail on specific matchups. Note that these analyses are limited to the decks I frequently face in tournaments.

I'm going to use the most recent list I played to showcase what the deck is capable of doing:

//Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

//Creatures
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique

//Other Spells
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire // Ice
4 Force Of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mental Misstep
4 Natural Order
3 Ponder

//Sideboard
1 Relic Of Progenitus
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Thrun, The Last Troll
2 Energy Flux
2 Krosan Grip
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction

The list is of course not optimal, but what list is? I would only change two cards in the maindeck as of now, but these changes are mostly untested. As you can see, the deck has more than a few cards in common with Canadian Threshold or Next Level Thresh. On top of that, it has elements of Bant Aggro (and Big Zoo) in Green Sun's Zenith and Noble Hierarch. And in that shell, which is already strong by the way, you have the Natural Order package.

The way I see it, this is not a straight up combo deck. It's rather an aggro deck with disruption to both force through it's late game (turn three to four) bombs (Natural Order) and protect its threats (Tarmogoyf and Vendilion Clique mostly, sometimes the Exalted-ability). It's also interesting to see how Vendilion Clique is the perfect card for this deck since it can represent a clock and disrupt your opponent. There are only few matches where you're going to act as a combo deck and it's crucial to know in which matches you are going to do that.

Finding out what your opponent is playing is really important for your success with this deck. You need to know how they are trying to beat you in order to chose the according gameplan. I know that this is basic Magic strategy, but this is more important for this deck than for most other decks.

In general there are two ways they can try to beat you: The first one is that they try to race you. Not easy when you can curve into a turn three Natural Order but definitely manageable if you're facing some form of combo or really fast aggro. Keep in mind that a turn three Natural Order is usually only a turn five kill. The other way to beat you is to not let you win. This is what most control decks are trying to do.

If you know your opponent's plan for the game, you want to find out how you're going to interact with them and how they plan to interact with you, i.e. find out what particular cards play a major role in the current game. If you do this carefully and consequently, you will manage to win a lot of games with this deck.

In a lot of games casting Natural Order is the easiest and fastest way to win. Sometimes you need to explore other routes to victory though, such as beating with a lonely Vendilion Clique or flooding the board with Tarmogoyfs (this is basically only good against few decks, but you will encounter situations where it's the best plan). This deck does not focus on resolving Natural Order but it's still one of the best bombs in the format so if you can have it, why not use it?

If you have the turn three or four Natural Order, it's usually the best move to use it. As long as you don't blindly tap out into everything, Natural Order will rarely let you down. If you've played some form of combo deck before, you should know that it's often bad to wait too long, your opponent will only get more answers and opportunities to sculpt their hand.

As with every other deck, don't overextend into sweepers. Play your cards carefully. Don't dig for Natural Order if you don't need it, you want to get as much value as possible out of your cantrips. This is also true for how you play Vendilion Clique. You only want to cast it early on when you have no other way to win the game or multiples in hand and it will kill them if they don't deal with it (unlikely) or you set up for Natural Order. If you want to use it for disruption, you should either cast it when they're tapped out or in their draw step to see as many cards as possible before your opponent can play them.

After this general introduction, let's look at the matchups.


UWR Stoneblade / Patriot

This is the deck I currently see the most at the top tables. It's really hard to play this matchup and overall it's pretty even. In my experience your best bet is to play as aggressively as possible in game one, but don't waste your burnspells. Use them to kill their Stoneforge Mystics, Jaces and eventually them. This should be obvious. Try to kill them before they can resolve Ancestral Vision and just overwhelm you. Also keep in mind that Batterskull can do a decent job in racing or stalling you.

For postboard games there are different ways you can play. You should definitely bring in your Krosan Grips for their Batterskulls and most likely some Red Elemental Blasts. Depending on what you bring in, this keeps your main plan mostly intact. You sure can board out your removal, but I don't think this is a good move. I did this before I tried out what Reid Duke wrote about in his report from Providence: Boarding out Green Sun's Zenith and Tarmogoyf. This was much more successful. It's definitely a bold move but it's hard for them to deal with Natural Order, they only have few outs to it.

Cards you need to deal with are Stoneforge Mystic, Wrath Of God and Ancestral Vision. Jace, The Mind Sculptor obviously wins games but the first three cards are more important.

With the list posted above, my boarding was this:

-4 Tarmogoyf
-4 Green Sun's Zenith
+2 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Thrun, The Last Troll
+2 Krosan Grip
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Spell Pierce


Maverick

This is another deck I frequently encounter where I play (according to TCDecks this is actually the most successful deck as of now). Against them it heavily depends on what they're playing, there's a lot of variance in decklists. Again, it's probably your best bet to resolve an early Natural Order and race them. Don't get killed by Mirran Crusader or screwed up by Aven Mindcensor. Luckily both of them die to burnspells so you should be able to deal with them. Also make sure to take care of Mother Of Runes or otherwise it might protect their pesky creatures. Force Of Will and Vendilion Clique are rather bad as they neither have relevant countermagic you need to take care of nor do they have any key spells you want to take away from them. Vendilion Clique also loses to Scryb Ranger, which sees some play.

For postboard games you have a lot of really strong tools; you can bring in Krosan Grip to deal with their equipment, Grim Lavamancer to kill off their creatures and draw removal away from your Tarmogoyfs and Submerge which is a beast and deals with their flashed in Aven Mindcensors. That move has won me quite some games as drawing Aven Mindcensor after you resolved Natural Order is pretty much useless. Keep in mind that they can board in stuff like Wing Shards and don't run into it. Green Sun's Zenith for Gaddock Teeg also happens, but you can deal with it (hint: use red cards).

For sideboarding I recommend this:

-3 Vendilion Clique
-4 Force Of Will
+1 Relic Of Progenitus
+2 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Krosan Grip
+2 Submerge

You don't necessarily need all of these cards and could probably keep some of Vendilion Cliques, but Submerge, Grim Lavamancer and Krosan Grip definitely are among the best available sideboard cards in the current meta, not only against Maverick.


Natural Order RUG - The Mirror

The mirror is hard to play. You both want to resolve an early Natural Order and kill your opponent before they can to so. This mirror is mostly about tempo. Because of that you want to kill your opponents Noble Hierarchs and Dryad Arbors. Fire // Ice is a great tool against the mirror, it can also occasionally tap down lands to keep your opponent off Natural Order mana if they're playing around removal.

Natural Order, Force Of Will and Vendilion Clique are the most important cards in this matchup, but also play around Daze when necessary. Mental Misstep and Tarmogoyf are not too strong here, but even though Mental Misstep won't hit any keyspells here it's quite strong to maintain tempo advantage or prevent your opponent from gaining an edge. Turn two Vendilion Clique into turn three Natural Order is one of the strongest possible lines of play in the format, this is especially true for the mirror.

Postboard you have access to Submerge, Spell Pierce, Grim Lavamancer and Red Elemental Blast to counter their stuff. A timely Submerge can not only slow them down considerably but also screw up Brainstorms they use to protect against Vendilion Clique. There are way more cards you want to bring in than you want to board out. I don't think Grim Lavamancer is necessary to win here, especially not if you board out Tarmogoyf.

-4 Tarmogoyf
-1 Mental Misstep
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+1 Spell Pierce
+2 Submerge


Zoo

In my experience, this is one of our hardest matchups. They can simply just race your Progenitus and they have lots of removal to prevent you from accelerating and keep you low on mana in general. Try to counter sources of massive damage like early Wild Nacatls and Steppe Lynxes, huge creatures like Knight Of The Reliquary or even Terravore and blowout-burnspells like Price Of Progress. Don't lose to Grim Lavamancer, that guy can easily rain on your parade.

Just like Maverick, they don't have real keyspells so Force Of Will and Vendilion Clique are rather bad cards here. What you bring in mostly depends on what you expect from them and what kind of list they play. Against some lists you definitely want to bring Krosan Grip, against others Submerge just wins games on its own.

Because I mostly face Big Zoo lists with equipment and the occasional Choke, my boarding is usually the same as against Maverick:

-3 Vendilion Clique
-4 Force Of Will
+1 Relic Of Progenitus
+2 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Krosan Grip
+2 Submerge

Merfolk

Apart from the fact that this matchup is really easy, I enjoy playing it since it's highly interactive and can play out in a lot of different ways. Sometimes you just have it and go for the turn three Natural Order but between Daze, Cursecatcher, Wasteland and Mental Misstep on your Natural Order, this doesn't happen too often. Rarely, but sometimes, they can also just blow you out. Another way to win is if you just beat them down with multiple Tarmogoyfs.

Apart from Lord Of Atlantis and Æther Vial, there aren't really any overly important cards in their deck. My plan for this matchup has always been to board out the Natural Order combo. It's much harder for them to deal with a bunch of Tarmogoyfs backed up with burnspells, Grim Lavamancer and Red Elemental Blast. Note that you have a lot of mana but your curve is quite low without Natural Order so you don't lose to their Dazes, Cursecatchers and Wastelands in postboard games. Blowing them out with Vendilion Clique on a crucial Æther Vial activation is a quite strong move.

It doesn't really matter whether you bring in Spell Pierce or Thrun, The Last Troll, both have their merits and neither is incredibly important. If you expect Umezawa's Jitte or odd things like Cursed Totem you can also bring in a Krosan Grip.

-1 Progenitus
-4 Natural Order
+2 Grim Lavamancer
+1 Spell Pierce
+2 Red Elemental Blast


How to beat…

…countermagic? Resolve a Vendilion Clique. This is often important and Vendilion Clique is generally a strong card against decks with countermagic. An end of turn Clique occasionally kills Jace, The Mind Sculptor. Against decks with countermagic your three most important cards usually are Natural Order, Vendilion Clique and Force Of Will. Sometimes you get Red Elemental Blast and Spell Pierce.

…Wrath Of God? This is similar to beating countermagic. But keep in mind that you rarely need more than a two turn window to attack with Progenitus and if you manage to keep your opponent from having four mana or you can counter it, this is usually enough. If you don't have Progenitus, don't overextend into Wrath Of God or Damnation. Thrun, The Last Troll laughs at Day Of Judgment.

…Diabolic Edict and the like? Have one or two uncracked fetches with at least one Dryad Arbor in your deck when you already have Progenitus on the table. Flashing in Vendilion Clique is also rather useful.

…Jace, The Mind Sculptor? You don't necessarily need to deal with him. Attacking your opponent with Progenitus often helps. Jace helps them finding answers though, so you could Red Elemental Blast it. End of turn Vendilion beats him, as does Grim Lavamancer or a creature you have on the battlefield before resolves and then killing him with a burnspell.

…boatloads of spotremoval? This works like beating Diabolic Edict: You set up a gamestate where you can resolve Natural Order. You then either have four lands plus an uncracked fetch, Dryad Arbor in your hand or enough mana to cast Green Sun's Zenith, Noble Hierarch or Tarmogoyf. You then get a green creature to sacrifice for Natural Order and do so without passing priority. And violà: you get a 10/10 with protection from everything (including spotremoval).

…lifegain (Batterskull)? First off: Run Krosan Grip. It also beats Umezawa's Jitte. Other than that, race it with a 10/10 protection from everything of your choice. You can also burn Stoneforge Mystic or cast Vendilion Clique in response to Stoneforge Mystic's activation. This works, trust me.

…Hive Mind? Pay for the pacts, make sure you counter your copies, don't let them resolve Hive Mind or just race them. Lists with Daze have a huge advantage here.

Suggested Reading:

GP Providence Report: 3rd with Natural Order RUG (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21996_GP_Providence_Report_3rd_With_Natural_Order_RUG.html)
NO More Games (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21991_Constructed_Criticism_NO_More_Games.html)
I Get NO Respect! (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/21963_Constructed_Criticism_I_Get_NO_Respect.html)
The Baltimore Open (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22218_Constructed_Critcism_The_Baltimore_Open.html)

[death]

i was expecting Reid Duke's up there.

[Kuma]

i was expecting Reid Duke's up there.

Him and Todd Anderson agree on just about everything about the deck, and Duke's GP-winning list was a little outdated. I might add it later for historical purposes.

[tsabo_tavoc]

Awesome Primer! The deck was driving fast from Developmental to a DTB (I'd appreciate Nihil explaining the statistic behind the election). I enjoy how this deck was disguised as a Bant deck during most of its developing days and people screamed how StP was "strictly" better than Bolt during the transition.

Are you going to add some MU analysis, Kuma? The way I see it, it is like 60-40 against Vial Aggro and Chalice Aggro, about even against Bant, Zoo, but not as sound against Combo and Dredge (slightly below 50-50 against competent pilots). I need more tests against Control, Stoneblade and Rock. I feel that the above-average MU is due to the few Progenitus hates around. The recent printing of Phyrexian Metamorph, Phantasmal Image lends the card pool some MDable hates against this deck.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I think I'm going to write something about the matchups, how they play out and what sideboard cards are valuable. I might write an article or just post it here, given that I don't write for SCG or something.
Regarding the matchups; it's hard to lose against Merfolk and Goblins. Dredge is also favourable in my experience. UWR Stoneforge is pretty even but slightly favourable with the right boarding plans and tight play (tried something out yesterday and that seemed pretty strong).
This deck's main selling point is its versatility, you can basically play combo, beatdown or control; depending on what cards you see (or dig for with your cantrips) and how you sideboard. It's also nice that you can switch roles between games two and three, this has won me quite a few matches.
I played in a tournament yesterday and one of my two losses was because I wasn't focused at all and heavily punted two games against Zoo (still managed to win one though). The other one was against DDFT which I obviously didn't metagame against. This was my list:


//Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

//Creatures
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique

//Other Spells
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire // Ice
4 Force Of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mental Misstep
4 Natural Order
3 Ponder

//Sideboard
1 Relic Of Progenitus
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Thrun, The Last Troll
2 Energy Flux
2 Krosan Grip
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Spell Pierce
2 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction

The list was really strong and I'm only going to change two cards at most in the maindeck and a few cards in the sideboard. You can also read my report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?21389-12th-place-with-NO-RUG-in-Iserlohn-Germany-on-July-3rd&p=567420#post567420) from last week for some information on how I play and sideboard.

By the way, this deck didn't start with Reid's performance in Providence but when he piloted it to a sixth place finish in Boston (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=38060) in April. This was even before Mental Misstep was legal though.

[CaBaaL]

I used to play Pro Bant but after the print of mental misstep and the rise of landstill decks I shifted to RUG (mostly for red elem. blast and cause lighting bolt>merfolks).
I wanted to ask if adding 2 jaces MD worth it. My list is:

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
2 Dryad Arbor

/Creatures
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique

/Other
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire // Ice
4 Force Of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mental Misstep
3 Natural Order
3 Ponder
2 Jace the Mind Sculptor
3 Green Sun Zenith

He provides an other win con and they never expect him.
I used to have +3 daze +1 grim lavamancer -1 V. clique -1 ponder -2 fire // ice
but after seen fire//ice in action i never go back, also V. clique does the same thing as a daze in order to protect NO or jace.
lastly I removed 1 NO for the jaces cause its the only card I do not want to see in multiples ( I am happy with 2 cliques+fow but i hate it with 3 NO in opening hand).
Any suggestions are wellcome.

EDIT: I do not say that daze is not good (it kicks ass) but the fear of having daze does more damage than actualy having daze

[Jonathan Alexander]

Is your list missing 3 Green Sun's Zenith? Seems like. Also, in my testing Jace was not good. I don't care if I get multiple Natural Orders, it easily wins games anyway. How often do you lose after you resolved Natural Order? I lost a total of two tournament games after resolving it and drew another one (this was a very interesting situation that came up yesterday). Jace, The Mind Sculptor is also not too strong against most cotrol decks, they actually have less out against Progenitus than against Jace. Further, it's also easier to resolve Natural Order than Jace.

[death]

Care to explain why Natural Order is easier to resolve than Jace? Both require double colored mana but NO needs a green creature to sacrifice. Since most control decks are U/w, if I'm playing U/w I would reserve my counters for NO than Jace because 1) Jace won't kill me in two turns 2) I can still attack Jace with critters 3) I can cast Jace to legend-rule your Jace. If I'm playing U/b/x then it's a different story, I would let your NO resolve and get rid of Progenitus with black removal spells, cast my Jace to fateseal you and prevent you from drawing NO or resolving Jace. But again, U/w is more played.

[mchainmail]

This thread needs more discussion about how to identify roles in game, and when to pursue the Tarmogoyf plan instead of the NO plan.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Care to explain why Natural Order is easier to resolve than Jace? Both require double colored mana but NO needs a green creature to sacrifice. Since most control decks are U/w, if I'm playing U/w I would reserve my counters for NO than Jace because 1) Jace won't kill me in two turns 2) I can still attack Jace with critters 3) I can cast Jace to legend-rule your Jace. If I'm playing U/b/x then it's a different story, I would let your NO resolve and get rid of Progenitus with black removal spells, cast my Jace to fateseal you and prevent you from drawing NO or resolving Jace. But again, U/w is more played.

First off, I didn't say Natural Order was easier to resolve than Jace but harder to deal with (though it actually is easier to resolve because of Red Elemental Blast on Jace). Anyway, you explained it yourself, a resolved Natural Order is way harder to deal with than Jace and setting up a gamestate with four mana and a fetch for Dryad Arbor is not exactly hard to set up.



This thread needs more discussion about how to identify roles in game, and when to pursue the Tarmogoyf plan instead of the NO plan.

I'm writing on this as I've been experimenting with stuff like boarding out Natural Order or Tarmogoyfs. I'm sure I'll be able to post full in-depth matchup analyses with explanation of the deck's general playstyle tomorrow or even today (but that's rather unlikely).

[Jonathan Alexander]

Care to explain why Natural Order is easier to resolve than Jace? Both require double colored mana but NO needs a green creature to sacrifice. Since most control decks are U/w, if I'm playing U/w I would reserve my counters for NO than Jace because 1) Jace won't kill me in two turns 2) I can still attack Jace with critters 3) I can cast Jace to legend-rule your Jace. If I'm playing U/b/x then it's a different story, I would let your NO resolve and get rid of Progenitus with black removal spells, cast my Jace to fateseal you and prevent you from drawing NO or resolving Jace. But again, U/w is more played.

First off, I didn't say Natural Order was easier to resolve than Jace but harder to deal with (though it actually is easier to resolve because of Red Elemental Blast on Jace). Anyway, you explained it yourself, a resolved Natural Order is way harder to deal with than Jace and setting up a gamestate with four mana and a fetch for Dryad Arbor is not exactly hard to set up.



This thread needs more discussion about how to identify roles in game, and when to pursue the Tarmogoyf plan instead of the NO plan.

I'm writing on this as I've been experimenting with stuff like boarding out Natural Order or Tarmogoyfs. I'm sure I'll be able to post full in-depth matchup analyses with explanation of the deck's general playstyle tomorrow or even today (but that's rather unlikely).

[CaBaaL]

Is your list missing 3 Green Sun's Zenith? Seems like. ....

yeah I will edit it now.

In my meta there are more bug landstill than U/w ones thats why I wanted to try jace.

[jin]

First off, I didn't say Natural Order was easier to resolve than Jace but harder to deal with (though it actually is easier to resolve because of Red Elemental Blast on Jace)...

Not to be a dick, but your reply was kind of condescending, so I feel that I should point this out...


Is your list missing 3 Green Sun's Zenith? Seems like. Also, in my testing Jace was not good. I don't care if I get multiple Natural Orders, it easily wins games anyway. How often do you lose after you resolved Natural Order? I lost a total of two tournament games after resolving it and drew another one (this was a very interesting situation that came up yesterday). Jace, The Mind Sculptor is also not too strong against most cotrol decks, they actually have less out against Progenitus than against Jace. Further, it's also easier to resolve Natural Order than Jace.

I personally feel that Jace2 and Natural Order fill up the same slot, so they don't really go in the same deck unless it's to sideboard one for the other like Burtoncini's list. I Think Jace2 is undeniably strong post board plan as surely, they will be siding in hate against your Progenitus more than for your Jace2. Jace2 is actually a great card against control decks because the card advantage is what allows you to win the attrition wars control decks often put you into. How do you guys feel about the 2x Grim Lavamancers that frequent this deck? Is that even enough? Just a random question I thought I'd throw out there.

PS: I don't understand how you lost after drawing multiple Natural Orders.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Not to be a dick, but your reply was kind of condescending, so I feel that I should point this out...

This was not my intention, sorry. Also, I should probably start remembering what I write.




I personally feel that Jace2 and Natural Order fill up the same slot, so they don't really go in the same deck unless it's to sideboard one for the other like Burtoncini's list. I Think Jace2 is undeniably strong post board plan as surely, they will be siding in hate against your Progenitus more than for your Jace2. Jace2 is actually a great card against control decks because the card advantage is what allows you to win the attrition wars control decks often put you into. How do you guys feel about the 2x Grim Lavamancers that frequent this deck? Is that even enough? Just a random question I thought I'd throw out there.

I agree with your opinion on Jace. In my testing against U/W/r it was rarely worth it as they have a lot of ways to deal with him. Against UBG I'm not sure, that deck is not really prevalent where I play, even in bigger events. About the Grim Lavamancers: I tested them maindeck and then tried Fire // Ice instead, which was way better. Fire // Ice has won me more games than Grim Lavamancer because of stuff like killing two Goblins, not being hit by Mental Misstep, tapping down Batterskulls to race them and pitching to Force Of Will (this one is actually really important).



PS: I don't understand how you lost after drawing multiple Natural Orders.

This wasn't what I meant. I lost two games total where I resolved Natural Order. One was because of a misplay and was actually still really close and the other one was against UWR where I also misplayed and therefore lost. On top of that I drew a game against UWR because of time in which I resolved Natural Order. I could have won that game but variance striked. I had three draw steps to draw either a land, a burnspell, a Noble Hierarch or Green Sun's Zenith in order to win, but I didn't.

Edit: I finished writing a general guide for playing the deck plus matchup analyses with sideboard guide for my latest tested list. I also wrote something about tricks you need to be able to pull off from time to time.
I only wrote about Maverick, Merfolk, Stoneblade, Zoo and the mirror though. BUG Landstill and Bant Aggro are not relevant where I play so I'm not able to write in-depth analyses about these matchups. Is there something else that's important in the current meta or that you feel should be mentioned? Are there any situations that came up in testing or tournaments that you feel should be explained?

[RogueMTG]

This thread needs more discussion about how to identify roles in game, and when to pursue the Tarmogoyf plan instead of the NO plan.

This would be good. I recently played the deck at a smallish event just to try it out.

I ended up going 3-2, beating TES, Uw Stoneforge, and Affinity all rather easily, got crushed by Reanimator and lost a close one to Merfolk.

I found that I almost never wanted NO... in fact I think I sided it out every single round.

Maybe that was incorrect, but the "Zenith up an army of Tarmogoyfs" + Clique beats was almost always preferable.

The NO plan ended up being a turn too slow for me a lot of the time at the event and in other testing.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Did you really feel like you didn't want it or rather like you didn't need it? At one point I also thought that I almost never needed it, but when I had it, I almost always won. The plan of winning with lots of Tarmogoyfs is mostly good against decks without big creatures but with a lot of small ones, i.e. Merfolk, Goblins and Affinity. It might also be too slow against storm combo, but I'm not sure about that. Against basically every other deck in the format Natural Order is amazing.

Edit: I don't think we need the guide twice on the first page.

[jin]

I agree with your opinion on Jace. In my testing against U/W/r it was rarely worth it as they have a lot of ways to deal with him. Against UBG I'm not sure, that deck is not really prevalent where I play, even in bigger events. About the Grim Lavamancers: I tested them maindeck and then tried Fire // Ice instead, which was way better. Fire // Ice has won me more games than Grim Lavamancer because of stuff like killing two Goblins, not being hit by Mental Misstep, tapping down Batterskulls to race them and pitching to Force Of Will (this one is actually really important).

Edit: I finished writing a general guide for playing the deck plus matchup analyses with sideboard guide for my latest tested list. I also wrote something about tricks you need to be able to pull off from time to time.
I only wrote about Maverick, Merfolk, Stoneblade, Zoo and the mirror though. BUG Landstill and Bant Aggro are not relevant where I play so I'm not able to write in-depth analyses about these matchups. Is there something else that's important in the current meta or that you feel should be mentioned? Are there any situations that came up in testing or tournaments that you feel should be explained?

Oh that's interesting. I noticed that a lot of lists opted for Fire/Ice instead of lavamancer in the main. How come the count is only at two if this card is so important?

As for tricks go, don't forget the Vigilant 10/10 protection from everything Natural Order your Progenitus trick. Also another interaction I found interesting was, "Oh shit, I drew Progenitus," Vendilion Clique my 10/10 to the bottom.

That's all for now folks.

[lorddotm]

I wrote a small report about playing NO RUG to Top 8 in a 50ish man tournament. Read about it here (http://www.westcoastlegacy.com/press/2011/teabaggers-combo-and-chivalry/#more-110). Please refrain from commenting about the rest of the article on here.

I really like the deck, but it does need a solution to the Hive Mind match up (they just drop Emrakul, it's fucking annoying. That being said, my opponent was being very sketchy this match, so...)

[catmint]

I like 3 surgical extraction in my SB. I think it can also be used very effectively versus Hive Mind if they intuition or if you manage to counter 1 combo piece. Besides that I think we have to hope to win the counter wars with Red-Blast support or to get lucky with a daze.
...probably still slightly unfavourable, but I did not test a lot!

[Jonathan Alexander]

Oh that's interesting. I noticed that a lot of lists opted for Fire/Ice instead of lavamancer in the main. How come the count is only at two if this card is so important?

As for tricks go, don't forget the Vigilant 10/10 protection from everything Natural Order your Progenitus trick. Also another interaction I found interesting was, "Oh shit, I drew Progenitus," Vendilion Clique my 10/10 to the bottom.

That's all for now folks.

It's not overly important but a strong and versatile card. Plus the deck is lacking space for more. I might actually go up to three, but I don't know what to cut from my current list anymore. I even considered cutting a Tarmogoyf or two but I don't want to focus too much on the Natural Order plan. Being able to execute a somewhat normal Next Level Thresh game is actually quite important against most aggro decks (but Fire // Ice is not bad against these decks either).

And your right, I should have mentioned the vigilance trick, probably in the last section. I'm going to write something about the game I drew on Sunday, as the board state was really interesting and when I tanked, at least five people told me there was no way I could win. In fact, there was no way I could lose.



I wrote a small report about playing NO RUG to Top 8 in a 50ish man tournament. Read about it here (http://www.westcoastlegacy.com/press/2011/teabaggers-combo-and-chivalry/#more-110). Please refrain from commenting about the rest of the article on here.

I really like the deck, but it does need a solution to the Hive Mind match up (they just drop Emrakul, it's fucking annoying. That being said, my opponent was being very sketchy this match, so...)

Interesting report. Also nice to see that you picked up this deck, we should play a few games again (testing against Hive Mind?). Anyway, how did you like Umezawa's Jitte in your sideboard? In my experience it was often not strong enough as this deck doesn't have too many creatures. Also, how did you like Trygon Predator? What are you looking to beat with it, and isn't it too slow for that role? If it's for Affinity, I know for sure that Energy Flux just beats them, but if Trygon Predator is better, tell me.



I like 3 surgical extraction in my SB. I think it can also be used very effectively versus Hive Mind if they intuition or if you manage to counter 1 combo piece. Besides that I think we have to hope to win the counter wars with Red-Blast support or to get lucky with a daze.
...probably still slightly unfavourable, but I did not test a lot!

I'm running Surgical Extraction as well, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. I don't face graveyard based decks or combo decks very often. It has worked quite well so far though, and it won me some games other pieces of graveyard hate wouldn't have won. Having something to exile your opponent's entire graveyard is still quite useful, so I think I'll stick to Relic Of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt for the third slot.


About the interesting gamestate that came up on Sunday:

It was my opponents turn. He had three lands, a Germ token with Batterskull and a Stoneforge Mystic. My board was just two lands plus a Dryad Arbor. Hed had two cards in hand, I had Natural Order, Natural Order, Fire // Ice, Lightning Bolt. He was at 21, I was at 15. He attacked with both of his creatures and time was called in his turn. He was quite sure he would win. I took five, he went to 25. I drew a land for my turn and cast Natural Order, it resolved. I got Progenitus and he said the game was a draw.

What would you do in that situation?

[lorddotm]

Like I said, I bummed the list off of my friend Bryan (keys). The board definitely needed some work. I did like the Jitte, but I don't know if they are good enough. Trygon was in there for SFM decks I think... I don't really know. If I play the deck again, it will be with a very different sideboard. The one I used was pretty bad. I was actually boarding out the NO package in most match ups, except for the No Force match up, it just didn't do enough.

[RogueMTG]

Did you really feel like you didn't want it or rather like you didn't need it? At one point I also thought that I almost never needed it, but when I had it, I almost always won. The plan of winning with lots of Tarmogoyfs is mostly good against decks without big creatures but with a lot of small ones, i.e. Merfolk, Goblins and Affinity. It might also be too slow against storm combo, but I'm not sure about that. Against basically every other deck in the format Natural Order is amazing.


I mean, whenever I cast it, I almost always got a scoop, but I was always -probably- going to win anyway. (eg: My army of Goyfs and hand of counter magic is suddenly backed up by this here 10/10, woo.) So I guess it's more of a "not needing it."

I haven't played against everything obviously, so it was more of a first impression while piloting the deck.

[jin]

It's not overly important but a strong and versatile card. Plus the deck is lacking space for more. I might actually go up to three, but I don't know what to cut from my current list anymore. I even considered cutting a Tarmogoyf or two but I don't want to focus too much on the Natural Order plan. Being able to execute a somewhat normal Next Level Thresh game is actually quite important against most aggro decks (but Fire // Ice is not bad against these decks either).


What about Ponder? It seems like a flex slot in a lot of decks. Is it important to this one?

[catmint]

I am a fan of Ponder (playing 2). It shines in combodecks to find the right cards and is also helpful in finding hate piecies. I usually don't side them out if possible.

How about replacing 1 noble hierach with a birds of paradise?
With all the red in MD and especially SB, I find it is the most effective way of stopping red-blast, lavamancer,... by wasting our volcanic island.

[Mark Sun]

How about replacing 1 noble hierach with a birds of paradise?
With all the red in MD and especially SB, I find it is the most effective way of stopping red-blast, lavamancer,... by wasting our volcanic island.

The idea is definitely feasible. Also, if you're finding mana denial on red sources to be an issue, a basic Mountain might help a little. I'm very interested in the deck, actually, and my MTG hiatus ends this weekend at SCG Cincinnati.

Has anyone found the need for Beast Within?

[jin]

I am a fan of Ponder (playing 2). It shines in combodecks to find the right cards and is also helpful in finding hate piecies. I usually don't side them out if possible.

How about replacing 1 noble hierach with a birds of paradise?
With all the red in MD and especially SB, I find it is the most effective way of stopping red-blast, lavamancer,... by wasting our volcanic island.

interesting.. more useful than goyf?


The idea is definitely feasible. Also, if you're finding mana denial on red sources to be an issue, a basic Mountain might help a little. I'm very interested in the deck, actually, and my MTG hiatus ends this weekend at SCG Cincinnati.

Has anyone found the need for Beast Within?

I think wipeaway is just better

[Kuma]

Has anyone found the need for Beast Within?

Meh, I haven't wanted it. I don't think it's better than existing options and I'm not sure where to fit it in the deck.

I'm intrigued by adding a Birds of Paradise. I think that warrants some testing.

Unfortunately, I 0-2 dropped one of my 15-man locals this week losing an insanely close match to Tezzeret Affinity round one and losing to Maverick round two. To those who are familiar with Maverick or the Maverick matchup, how do you sideboard for it with NO RUG? More specifically, do you keep Force of Will in or not? It seems like there's a lot of cards you really want to counter like Aven Mindcensor (he blew me out game two by flashing one in in response to Natural Order), Choke, and Scryb Ranger (God, that's the most annoying creature in Legacy). I also feel like you almost need a Natural Order to win against Maverick.

I decided to try cutting Daze for Fire // Ice and Grim Lavamancer. I was glad I did against Affinity, as Fire // Ice and Grim Lavamancer kept me in the game whereas Daze would have been awful. It was a little more up in the air against Maverick.

Here's what I ran:

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Forest
1 Island

1 Dryad Arbor

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Grim Lavamancer

4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus

3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire // Ice

4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep

Sideboard:
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Trygon Predator
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Red Elemental Blast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[Brushwagg]

I'm glad this got written up. I picked this deck up before this thread opened and the hardest part I was having was the SBing. I want to keep in so much stuff. The tips should help out alot.

@Fire/Ice: I started with a list from the GP and changed out the Changed Lightning for them and I really like it. The 2 for 1 is great on Fire and Ice can cycle if needed.

@Clique:I'm still not a huge fan of it. I run 2 with a Trigon. But my meta is filled with SFM decks so having Trigon in the MD is good.

@Ancient Grudge: Again I see lists not running it. I find it really good. Again 2 for 1. Is this more a meta choice?

[BlackStarDeceiver]

Mindscensor Maverick can be hard to combat, as you will have to take care of MoR to keep burn useable, KotR because he just beats face fast enough to race Progenitus and Teeg/Mindscensor.

Make sure to Vendilion before NO, as this mostly is enough to safely resolve NO (and actually find Prog) and win. Otherwise you have no choice other than keeping 1 red open to Bolt / Grim the Scensor or to have FoW backup.

Submerge is huge in the board, maybe a Metachoice over the 4th Blast and/or Trygons in the board. It's definately winnable, but Maverick tends to get the "nut hand" (at least it looks like it to most other decks) more often then we do.

Our Maindecks are nearly the same. I rotate with Daze and Grim in the 2 slots as a meta call and got 1 Scanvenging Ooze over goyf, who wins the Maverick MU alone if untouched.

I do keep the FoW's because our role ain't the aggro route in this MU and you want to counter a protected SFM into Batterskull as well as Mindscensor in response to NO and the T2 KotR.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Mindscensor Maverick can be hard to combat, as you will have to take care of MoR to keep burn useable, KotR because he just beats face fast enough to race Progenitus and Teeg/Mindscensor.

Make sure to Vendilion before NO, as this mostly is enough to safely resolve NO (and actually find Prog) and win. Otherwise you have no choice other than keeping 1 red open to Bolt / Grim the Scensor or to have FoW backup.

Submerge is huge in the board, maybe a Metachoice over the 4th Blast and/or Trygons in the board. It's definately winnable, but Maverick tends to get the "nut hand" (at least it looks like it to most other decks) more often then we do.

Our Maindecks are nearly the same. I rotate with Daze and Grim in the 2 slots as a meta call and got 1 Scanvenging Ooze over goyf, who wins the Maverick MU alone if untouched.

I do keep the FoW's because our role ain't the aggro route in this MU and you want to counter a protected SFM into Batterskull as well as Mindscensor in response to NO and the T2 KotR.

Aven Mindcensor is actually not that hard to deal with in my experience since you can usually see it coming miles ahead. It's still one of their best weapons against us though. The only cards you really care about in this matchup are Aven Mindcensor, Mirran Crusader, Mother Of Runes because it protects those guys and sometimes Knight Of The Reliquary and Stoneforge Mystic. The good thing for you is that they can't do anything about your Natural Orders except for trying to race it or flashing in Aven Mindcensor when you can't deal with it. Mirran Crusader still dies to Fire // Ice, Lightning Bolt and Grim Lavamancer and Fire // Ice can also tap down Knight Of The Reliquary.
As you already said yourself, Submerge is huge here. What I don't see is how you need that many Red Elemental Blasts. It's not as strong against blue decks as it used to be because now they have more than just blue spells you want to deal with. I like some Spell Pierces to counter their Wrath Of Gods and other removal. Spell Pierce still deals with Jace, The Mind Sculptor, their countermagic and important Brainstorms.
Further, keeping in Force Of Will is an idea to help you cast Natural Order earlier and more reliably through Aven Mindcensor while also being able to counter the occasional Wing Shards and prevent them from racing you. How do you board against Maverick?
And how do you like the Scavenging Ooze? This is something I though about before and I actually had it in my sideboard but in my experience it was usually too slow.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

Ooze is amazing, nealry pick him up 3/4 times over Goof. Red Blast is in there because im still constructing and testing, but it's the weakest spot ;) Probably switching for Grims, gotta rework the whole SB anyways.

[keys]

Ooze is stellar in a lot of matchups, but is extremely mana intensive. From my experience, if you don't have acceleration he can be awfully slow and vulnerable. I don't think he is competing with Goyf for a maindeck slot, but I would recommend him as a sideboard Zenith target at least. Ooze improves the dredge and Cephalid/4 Horseman matchups with a small SB space commitment.

[lorddotm]

4 Tarmogoyf
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Progenitus

3 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
2 Daze
4 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Natural Order
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire/Ice
2 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
1 Forest
2 Dryad Arbor

SB
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Trygon Predator
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm

This is the list I have been testing. Thus far, it has been sick.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

It's not overly important but a strong and versatile card. Plus the deck is lacking space for more. I might actually go up to three, but I don't know what to cut from my current list anymore. I even considered cutting a Tarmogoyf or two but I don't want to focus too much on the Natural Order plan. Being able to execute a somewhat normal Next Level Thresh game is actually quite important against most aggro decks (but Fire // Ice is not bad against these decks either).

And your right, I should have mentioned the vigilance trick, probably in the last section. I'm going to write something about the game I drew on Sunday, as the board state was really interesting and when I tanked, at least five people told me there was no way I could win. In fact, there was no way I could lose.




Interesting report. Also nice to see that you picked up this deck, we should play a few games again (testing against Hive Mind?). Anyway, how did you like Umezawa's Jitte in your sideboard? In my experience it was often not strong enough as this deck doesn't have too many creatures. Also, how did you like Trygon Predator? What are you looking to beat with it, and isn't it too slow for that role? If it's for Affinity, I know for sure that Energy Flux just beats them, but if Trygon Predator is better, tell me.




I'm running Surgical Extraction as well, but I'm not sure if it's necessary. I don't face graveyard based decks or combo decks very often. It has worked quite well so far though, and it won me some games other pieces of graveyard hate wouldn't have won. Having something to exile your opponent's entire graveyard is still quite useful, so I think I'll stick to Relic Of Progenitus or Tormod's Crypt for the third slot.


About the interesting gamestate that came up on Sunday:

It was my opponents turn. He had three lands, a Germ token with Batterskull and a Stoneforge Mystic. My board was just two lands plus a Dryad Arbor. Hed had two cards in hand, I had Natural Order, Natural Order, Fire // Ice, Lightning Bolt. He was at 21, I was at 15. He attacked with both of his creatures and time was called in his turn. He was quite sure he would win. I took five, he went to 25. I drew a land for my turn and cast Natural Order, it resolved. I got Progenitus and he said the game was a draw.

What would you do in that situation?

I thought the scenario merited a response. It depends a lot on what my next draw step is. I'd pass and hope he draws semi-blanks for the next two turns (nothing that can add a ton of pressure, no Countermagic/Clique), though, that's for sure.

On my next turn I see these choices (assuming double-red in play, otherwise you lose every double-burn scenario to needing to draw a red-source in addition):

Draw any non-arbor land (any green land depending on available mana). Attack with Progenitus, Natural Order again for Vigilance, let him do whatever, swing again next turn and burn him out for exactsies. Active counter turns things back into a draw if not accompanied by another rip.

Any burn. Attack with Progenitus, Ice the Germ, Attack again and burn him out.

GSZ. Two options again. A)Zenith out a Goyf, attack with Progenitus. If he attacks back, Goyf kills the Germ and the opponent goes to 19. If he attacks with both SFM and Germ, you're fine. Attack with Goyf and Progenitus, burn him out. If you expect him to keep SFM back to block like he should, the game is a draw. Instead, GSZ for Arbor, attack with Progenitus. If he attacks back, block the 'skull and Fire your token and him (24). Now a burn-spell, Hierarch, or another Zenith do enough off the top.

Goyf. Play it, hope he attacks with both his guys or you draw a second burnspell next turn (Bolt him eot this turn with the mana not used for Goyf to make sure that works).

Hierarch. cast Hierarch, swing with Prog. Ice the Germ, Swing with Prog, Bolt.

Cantrip. This is fine hitting either a Fetch or a burn spell. Follow either the scenario for drawing burn or the one for GSZ, treating the Fetch + cantrip as Zenith for 1.

Blank on either draw step or cantrip. Attack with Progenitus, Ice the Germ, hope Ice or your next draw step will show you more burn.

I think these are all the options. Essentially you can't win if you draw FoW/Clique here and if the opponent has anything after you draw your out, it turns the game back into a draw or puts you back onto the "draw burn" plan.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

SB
3 Grim Lavamancer
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Trygon Predator
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm

This is the list I have been testing. Thus far, it has been sick.

Pretty much the same list i am running at the moment, just haven't made the change of -1 FoW for +1 GSZ even though it seems really reasonable and well thought out. -1 Goof Md for 1 Ooze maindeck as we have a lot of strong Dredge players around and the whole metagame is infested with KotR, where Ooze helps a lot as well.

How do you do against StoneBlade decks with your SB? Are those 2 Grudges enough? And i find myself often having troubles in chosing what to side out, any suggestions?

[lorddotm]

Pretty much the same list i am running at the moment, just haven't made the change of -1 FoW for +1 GSZ even though it seems really reasonable and well thought out. -1 Goof Md for 1 Ooze maindeck as we have a lot of strong Dredge players around and the whole metagame is infested with KotR, where Ooze helps a lot as well.

How do you do against StoneBlade decks with your SB? Are those 2 Grudges enough? And i find myself often having troubles in chosing what to side out, any suggestions?

Stoneblade is a retardedly easy match up. I go -2 Fire/Ice (Play) or -2 Daze (if you are on the Draw) -2 MM -1 Goyf +1 Ancient Grudge +3 Blast +1 Trygon. Just resolve a Natural Order and they will lose fast. Bolt and Cliques should be saved to break up their SFM package.

The only thing to be worried about is that some lists play a Wrath or two, you can usually just Clique it away, or Daze it. Force+Blasts also help.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

That's about the point. People here start playing 2-3 Wrath main and the rest in the board to fight Maverick & co. Maybe i'll go up to 4 Cliques again.

[lorddotm]

That's about the point. People here start playing 2-3 Wrath main and the rest in the board to fight Maverick & co. Maybe i'll go up to 4 Cliques again.

In that case take out a Ponder for another Force, and leave in the Dazes.

[catmint]

Scanvenging Ooze is just sick. I play now 3 surgical extraction and the ooze as GY hate in the SB.
I don't like to loose to loam or dredge (which is common in my meta) and you will probably see more with the nice manaless dredge list doing well vs. UW and many other decks. The 3 extraction can also be used versus hive minds intution or other combo decks where bolt is useless.

[CaBaaL]

the deck is sick i just won a mox emerald with no rug, I ripped apart my meta. I haven't felt like this since survival era.

[Kuma]

I ended up in 28th place at SCG Cincinnati going 6-3. I can provide more details for any of these matches if people are interested, but I'm not writing a full report.

Round 1: Merfolk, Win 2-0

Round 2: Ugr Stiflenought, Win 2-0

Round 3: Uw Stoneblade, Lose 1-2

Round 4: Ubr Show and Tell/Hive Mind, Win 2-1

Round 5: Enchantress, Lose 1-2

Round 6: BUG Deedstill, Win 2-0

Round 7: Bw Stoneblade, Win 2-1

Round 8: Reanimator, Win 2-0

Round 9: NO RUG, Lose 1-2

Here's the list I ran:

3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Forest
1 Island

1 Dryad Arbor

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Green Sun's Zenith

4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus

4 Force of Will
2 Daze
4 Mental Misstep

4 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire // Ice

4 Brainstorm

Sideboard:
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Mountain
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Trygon Predator
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

I think I'm going to cut a Noble Hierarch for a Birds of Paradise. There were a couple of times where I wanted to be able to Zenith for red mana and couldn't. The exalted was largely a non-factor.

I didn't miss Ponder. Why are we still running that card?

Fire // Ice was amazing, winning me several games on its own. Versus Ugr Stiflenought game one, I used it to tap down a Tarmogoyf with a Basilisk Collar so I could kill him with Progenitus (I was at 3 life). Game two I had both Fire // Ices. The first one met a Force of Will when I tried to kill his Jace, the Mind Sculptor with it. The second one killed his Jace.

Daze was also fantastic, especially versus Hive Mind and Bw Stoneblade. I'd like to fit in a third copy somehow.

I felt really unprepared for Enchantress. When I cast Natural Order against him, I joked saying I would get Terastodon and he threw up in his mouth a little. I had next to nothing to board in for him, and I'd really like to have a Terastodon to find in the combo matchups and against tribal aggro.

Ancient Grudge felt really unnecessary. I never needed to kill a Batterskull; it was enough to burn or Daze the Stoneforge Mystic. The Bw Stoneblade player was smart and got Sword of Fire and Ice against me which won him a game, but we need to think long and hard about Ancient Grudge's purpose.

I never cast a Jace in the tournament. I never felt like I needed him either. It was pretty easy to handle opposing Jaces between all the burn and red blasts. I need more testing before I cut him, but I'm not sure he's essential or even helpful in most matches. People have said that he's a good side in for decks that can stop your Natural Order plan, but most of those cards also stop Jace.

[catmint]

You don't need to side out NO/Prog to add Jace.

Versus midrange or versus longer "grinding" games Jace is good. I also like Jace versus very removal heavy decks like BW.

In general where I think a Goyf cannot go all the way for the win, I consider replacing 1 goyf with 1 Jace.
On the draw Jace can replace daze or if certain matchups MM, Lightning bolt, FoW.
In games where Progenitus can be handled by different type of control decks with cards like Ensnaring Bridge, Wrath effects, sacrifice effects, I like the Jace/Goyf/counter plan.

Versus Renimator Jace is also very helpful!

I would not run less than 2 Ponder. It is important to develop the mana and to make sure we get the cards we need. Since there is no card advantage engine MD it is even more important. There are also many examples where you have a 1-2 land hand (1 land might be a dryad arbor) with Ponder and MM in hand that you are happy to keep because of the Ponder.

[Kuma]

I would not run less than 2 Ponder. It is important to develop the mana and to make sure we get the cards we need. Since there is no card advantage engine MD it is even more important. There are also many examples where you have a 1-2 land hand (1 land might be a dryad arbor) with Ponder and MM in hand that you are happy to keep because of the Ponder.

No, no, no, no, no.

Ponder is not a magic hand fixer. You do not keep one land hands because they have a Ponder. Let's suppose you keep a one land hand that also has a Ponder. You Ponder turn one and see Tropical Island plus two non-land cards. What do you do? Do you keep your top three, knowing that you're going to miss at least one land drop? Do you shuffle and hope that you'll get more than one land in three random cards?

Ponder is a crutch for players who hate to mulligan. You're better off running more copies of things that you want to find with Ponder and learning how to mulligan.

[Tinefol]

Ponder is your digging piece. Much like any combo, deck aims to have Natural Order resolved somewhere around turn 3-4. That requires you to have Natural Order (yea), sac outlet (which is less of a problem - since there is Hierarch, GSZ, and Arbor can be fetched) and some pieces of protection. Well, dig for what your are missing, which Ponder does just fine and Brainstorm alone isn't enough.

[Kuma]

Ponder is your digging piece. Much like any combo, deck aims to have Natural Order resolved somewhere around turn 3-4. That requires you to have Natural Order (yea), sac outlet (which is less of a problem - since there is Hierarch, GSZ, and Arbor can be fetched) and some pieces of protection. Well, dig for what your are missing, which Ponder does just fine and Brainstorm alone isn't enough.

If we want a "digging piece," which we don't, it should be Personal Tutor.

Compare Ponder to Personal Tutor. Personal Tutor finds you Natural Order 100% of the time, mana 100% of the time (through Green Sun's Zenith), a green creature 100% of the time (through Green Sun's Zenith), and protection 0% of the time. Ponder finds you Natural Order about 26% of the time, a green creature or GSZ about 85% of the time, mana about 92% of the time, and protection (which I'm defining as Force of Will, since Mental Misstep almost never protects Natural Order and Daze rarely does), 26% of the time.

The only thing Ponder does better than Personal Tutor is make poor players keep poor hands. Yet for some reason people keep running it, despite the fact that not only is Ponder bad, Preordain is better and still awful in most decks.

[Brushwagg]

I have to agree about Ponder not really being needed. I find it in most match-ups it's one of the first cards I board out since every thing else seems to be useful.

@Kuma: How did you like having the Grim Lavamancers in the MD??

[Kuma]

@Kuma: How did you like having the Grim Lavamancers in the MD??

I'd probably have liked it more if I saw Merfolk more than once. They're great against Merfolk and Goblins, great at killing Stoneforge Mystic and Mishra's Factory against Uw Stoneblade, great at killing Dark Confidant in the Bw Stoneblade match, and great at killing mana dorks in the mirror. Overall I was pretty pleased with them. As long as Merfolk and Stoneblade are the boogeymen of the format, I'm probably running two in the main and one in the board. Although, I wouldn't say it'd be wrong to cut one for an extra Daze, or something.

[catmint]

Personal tutor is card disadvantage, slow and your opponents see it coming. The argument it finds mana/creature and NO sounds very promising but not relevant.

1)We don't need more redundancy on creatures. (Most builds rund only 3 GSZ)
2)Running 5 NO would not be good (you can sometimes even side out 1).
2)A desperation GSZ for 2 which costs 1 turn after loosing a card from the tutor to get the GSZ is a loosing play
3)The issue is not find NO, but the get to 4 mana with 1 creature (with counter backup) while not dying or beeing raced!!

Ponder can also ensure you get your land drops (please don't compare a desperation GSZ for 2 with a land drop) and you get what you NEED in time and very often that will be a land, counter, grim, bolt, krosan grip, GY hate,...

Everyone dismissing Ponder (or siding out too aggressively) does not think correctly about magic deckbuilding. If you have a lot of cards which do the same you don't need Ponder. If you need certain bits and pieces at the right time you need Ponder.
I know it is tempting to leave Ponder out, because there are soo many good cards (also a boarding issue). However, the overall quality of the deck will suffer!

Ponder helps you in the same turn and you can use the information about the top of library by optimizing shuffle effects from fetches & GSZ. Very powerful in every stage of the game. Fixing early, but also makes me happy if I am even on board/cards in the late game

@Kuma: Maybe you suggests Wizards to restrict Prordain in VIntage, since you think it is much better than Ponder! :)

[Haakon]

Someone can tell me how to sideboard against control decks like landeed and classic landstill (with wrath of god and humility)?

The problem is that I don't know if it's better side out orders and side in jaces...

Furthermore, I like to hear some feedback from who has tested:
- krosan grip against ancient grudge
- surgical extraction against relic of progenitus
- spell pierce: is it useful in addition to reb/pyroblast?

Thanks so much

[catmint]

Someone can tell me how to sideboard against control decks like landeed and classic landstill (with wrath of god and humility)?

The problem is that I don't know if it's better side out orders and side in jaces...

Furthermore, I like to hear some feedback from who has tested:
- krosan grip against ancient grudge
- surgical extraction against relic of progenitus
- spell pierce: is it useful in addition to reb/pyroblast?

Thanks so much

vs. Deedstill
- 2 Lightning Bolt
- 0-1MM
- 2-3 Daze
- 1 Grim Lavamancer
- 1 NO

+ 3 Jace
+ 4 REB/Pyroblast

vs. UW (with Stoneforge)
- 0-1MM
- 1 Lightning Bolt
- 2-3 Daze
- 1 NO
- 1 Grim Lavamancer
- 1 Goyf

+ 4 REB/Pyroblast
+ 3 Jace

...would love to hear other comments and experiences about Grim Lavamancer/LB in those matchups.

I run ancient grudge over krosan grip, since it is 2 for 1 vs. artifact builds and there are currently not many enchantments out there. Could change...

I like 3 Surgical Extraction because its free and good vs. loam, reanimate and Dredge. I recently replaced Relic by Scavenging Ooze and was very happy with it.

I don't have a place for spell pierce and combo is not that common currently (besides we have good game against it). I side Extractions vs. combo to have some value... Versus control I dont think adding more counters is good, because they will always have more...

[Kuma]

Personal tutor is card disadvantage

So is Natural Order. I don't care if Ponder is card-neutral if it doesn't get me what I want.


[Personal Tutor is] slow

Ponder is slower than Personal Tutor 74% of the time when we need it most. The card we need more often than anything else is Natural Order since it almost always wins us the game if it resolves and we only run four of it. Because we can only run four, Ponder does a poor job of finding it --- about 26% assuming all four copies are still in your deck. You tell me which is slower: getting Natural Order on your next turn guaranteed, or not getting it and having a ~ 1/12 chance of getting it each subsequent turn.

Also, unless you have the mana to cast Ponder and Natural Order in the same turn, Ponder is as slow as Personal Tutor even if you find Natural Order with it. And if your opponent is playing Daze, are you going to run the Natural Order out there that turn anyway? Probably not.


your opponents see [Personal Tutor] coming.

This is true, but is that worth the massive downgrade in reliability? I'd rather have a Natural Order and my opponent know it than not have one at all. Most of the time Natural Order resolves and most of the time it resolves it wins you the game. A lot of decks have no answers to it. Who cares if those decks see it coming?



The argument it finds mana/creature and NO sounds very promising but not relevant.

How is that not relevant? It's better at finding mana and creatures than Ponder, but somehow that isn't relevant?



1)We don't need more redundancy on creatures. (Most builds run only 3 GSZ)

Where did I suggest we should run more creatures or Green Sun's Zeniths? You said you run Ponder to get the cards you need, which will often include a green creature. When you need that green creature, Personal Tutor finds it for you an extra 15% of the time. The nice thing about Personal Tutor is that it doesn't have to be a green creature --- it can also be a Natural Order. With Ponder you can't control what you get.



2)Running 5 NO would not be good (you can sometimes even side out 1).

That might be relevant if we were discussing running a fifth Natural Order, but we're talking about Personal Tutor, a card that can be mana, a green creature, or a Natural Order. I'm sure there have been plenty of times where you wished you were running five, six, or even forty Natural Orders. When you need one, the correct number to be running is as many as possible. Why is it not good to have two extra cards that can function as Natural Orders in those situations while being something else when Natural Order is not needed?


2)A desperation GSZ for 2 which costs 1 turn after loosing a card from the tutor to get the GSZ is a loosing play

You know, you can GSZ with X = 0 to get a Dryad Arbor which is both a green creature and mana. Just saying...

If you need mana or a green creature, how is a play that gets you mana or a green creature guaranteed a losing play? For that matter, how is a play that fails to get you a green creature 15% of the time, and mana 8% of the time a winning play in that situation?


3)The issue is not find NO, but the get to 4 mana with 1 creature (with counter backup) while not dying or beeing raced!!

Personal Tutor does three out of four of those things better than Ponder. In what way does Ponder better prevent you from dying or being raced than Personal Tutor?


Ponder can also ensure you get your land drops

Ponder can't ensure you get anything.


(please don't compare a desperation GSZ for 2 with a land drop)

How about I compare a GSZ with X = 0 with a land drop, you know, since it puts a land on the battlefield.


and you get what you NEED in time and very often that will be a land, counter, grim, bolt, krosan grip, GY hate,...

Okay, if you're spending one mana to get a land that you need NOW, how is that productive? Both Personal Tutor and Ponder are crap at doing that. If you're in a match where you need graveyard hate and you kept a hand with Ponder and no graveyard hate thinking Ponder could find it for you, you're every bit the terrible mulliganer that I suspected you were.

I suppose Ponder is better at getting Grim Lavamancer and Force of Will than Personal Tutor, but that doesn't change the fact that Ponder is still awful at getting both. I'm not saying that there aren't situations where Ponder is better than Personal Tutor. I'm saying that Ponder is always unreliable, and there are way more situations where Personal Tutor is better. The numbers don't lie.


Everyone dismissing Ponder (or siding out too aggressively) does not think correctly about magic deckbuilding.

I think I just mathematically demonstrated that it's you who doesn't understand Magic deckbuilding.

If you have a lot of cards which do the same you don't need Ponder. If you need certain bits and pieces at the right time you need Ponder.
I know it is tempting to leave Ponder out, because there are soo many good cards (also a boarding issue). However, the overall quality of the deck will suffer!

Ponder helps you in the same turn and you can use the information about the top of library by optimizing shuffle effects from fetches & GSZ. Very powerful in every stage of the game. Fixing early, but also makes me happy if I am even on board/cards in the late game


@Kuma: Maybe you suggests Wizards to restrict Prordain in VIntage, since you think it is much better than Ponder! :)

We're not talking about Ponder in Vintage. The quality of Ponder in Vintage is not relevant in a Legacy discussion. I'm not a Vintage expert, but most of the Vintage players I've talked to think that Ponder shouldn't be restricted in Vintage.

[catmint]

Kuma, I don't want to keep on explaining you why most of the points you are making are wrong.
I was just trying to help...

As a magic player it is important not to be too convinced of your own opinion, to make sure you keep learning. If you don't understand my arguments it might help to ask yourself why no current builds run personal tutor. Is it because all the grinders finishen TOp8 in large tournaments did not have the stroke of genius that you had... or just because they think personal tutor is not a good option.

[Amon Amarth]

I'd much rather play Ponder than Personal Tutor if only because it helps you find your SB cards, none of which are sorceries. Hell, half the reason I'm playing this deck is because of how absolutely sick our SB cards are. REB, Grim, and Grudge are really good right now.

[ivanpei]

Cmon, stop trying to bash innovation. I'm glad this is a dtb now as I was the one who actually started the NO-Zenith bant thread in new and developmental. I also proposed personal tutor on that thread and it is actually pretty good in a combo oriented deck. I played a UBG version with thoughtseize for a combo oriented NO deck. Personal tutor is much better when it can fetch thoughtseize as protection for NO.

I also still prefer NO bant in an open meta but seeing as how popular merfolk is, NO rug is a much better choice at SCG opens. NO rug is a very flexible deck that can play control with grims, aggro with goyfs or combo with NO, in that respect, playing a narrow card like personal over ponder is not a good idea. However, in a version dedicated to forcing through NO, personal is actually a really good card.

On another note I'm abit annoyed that the opening poster didn't give any credit to the guys in the older thread. We tried sylvan libraries, jace tms, kotrs, rwm and spell pierces. We were also responsible for the adoption of 3-4 cliques and 4-off NOs in these decks. I think the guys on that thread at least deserve a thank you note.

Lots of good discussion here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19772-Zenith-Order-(GUW-GWB)&highlight=Zenith+order

[Final Fortune]

Cmon, stop trying to bash innovation. I'm glad this is a dtb now as I was the one who actually started the NO-Zenith bant thread in new and developmental. I also proposed personal tutor on that thread and it is actually pretty good in a combo oriented deck. I played a UBG version with thoughtseize for a combo oriented NO deck. Personal tutor is much better when it can fetch thoughtseize as protection for NO.

I also still prefer NO bant in an open meta but seeing as how popular merfolk is, NO rug is a much better choice at SCG opens. NO rug is a very flexible deck that can play control with grims, aggro with goyfs or combo with NO, in that respect, playing a narrow card like personal over ponder is not a good idea. However, in a version dedicated to forcing through NO, personal is actually a really good card.

On another note I'm abit annoyed that the opening poster didn't give any credit to the guys in the older thread. We tried sylvan libraries, jace tms, kotrs, rwm and spell pierces. We were also responsible for the adoption of 3-4 cliques and 4-off NOs in these decks. I think the guys on that thread at least deserve a thank you note.

Lots of good discussion here:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19772-Zenith-Order-(GUW-GWB)&highlight=Zenith+order

I'm not certain the Bant version of the deck is even relevant, you can just replace Swords to Plowshares with Dismember and run a U/g manabase to be impervious to Wasteland and probably improve your aggro-control and control match ups in the process fwiw.

[Kuma]

I wasn't going to reply to this post, but I think a few things need addressing.


As a magic player it is important not to be too convinced of your own opinion, to make sure you keep learning.

I could tell you to take your own advice. Instead, I'll just say that I am pretty convinced of my opinion, because I have hard math backing it up. Could I be wrong? Certainly, but not for the reasons you came up with, as I demonstrated. As for learning, I find debates like this far more educational than simply reading someone's posts. Debate forces people to examine their reasoning and explain clearly why they believe the way they do. It's through this process that we discover not only what we are right or wrong about, but why. I'm not the one cutting off debate here.


If you don't understand my arguments...

So what you're saying is that the only way I could disagree with you is if I don't understand your arguments? And you're telling me not to be too convinced of my own opinion.

I believe I fully understood you. I also believe that the evidence you presented is not as convincing as my own. If there's something in particular you feel I didn't properly interpret, please tell me. I don't want to misunderstand you, as that benefits no one.


it might help to ask yourself why no current builds run personal tutor. Is it because all the grinders finishen TOp8 in large tournaments did not have the stroke of genius that you had... or just because they think personal tutor is not a good option.

See, this is just wrong. If everyone thought like this there would be zero innovation in the format. I don't really care what all those "grinders" think unless they want to address the very valid points I'm making. The Legacy community has been wrong before. There was a thread in New & Developmental for Vengevine Survival about six months before GP Columbus. The entire Source, even the guy who posted the thread, decided the deck wasn't good enough. A few months after GP Columbus, Survival of the Fittest was banned because of its interaction with Vengevine.

If Personal Tutor is so obviously bad, it should be pretty easy to explain why Ponder is a better card without an appeal to authority.

The funny thing is, if you re-read my original rebuttal to your post carefully, you'll see that I'm not actually arguing that we should be running Personal Tutor. I was using it as an example of a card that's better than Ponder that we still shouldn't be running.

That said, this conversation makes me think Personal Tutor might be worth testing. I might try it at some local events.

That's why we have these debates. :)


On another note I'm abit annoyed that the opening poster didn't give any credit to the guys in the older thread. We tried sylvan libraries, jace tms, kotrs, rwm and spell pierces. We were also responsible for the adoption of 3-4 cliques and 4-off NOs in these decks. I think the guys on that thread at least deserve a thank you note.

Not to piss in your Cheerios, but there's a reason I didn't list an inventor for the deck. Every time people talk about who invented what, there's always a pissing contest that ends in hurt feelings. It's impossible to hand out credit in most cases, since there's usually multiple people working on the same idea simultaneously. I highly doubt you guys were the first people to try Vendilion Clique, Green Sun's Zenith, and Natural Order in the same deck, and even if you were, NO RUG is a red deck. Adding a new color is far more innovative than running some new combination of obviously powerful Legacy staples.

Your post comes off as self-aggrandizing and grasping at straws. I sure hope that wasn't your intention.

[Haakon]

I'm testing against maverick, in particoular with the sideboard. Lavamancer, jitte and thrun are very good, but I haven't appreciated relic of progenitus, because it hits reliquiaries but also our goyfs (and they don't play goyf)...

so I'm asking why other things better to face reliquaries (submerge, mind harness) aren't played?

In which other match up is used relic? I don't think it's enough in 2 copies against grave-based strategies, so we could substitute it...

Opinions?

[catmint]

Sorry Kuma, I did not want to surpress your innovation. I suggest you stop taking this things and too serious. Running personal attacks is not a good advertisement for this magic community.

Instead of wasting your time with a long emotional post lacking relevant information, you can just say something like "I know that Personal Tutor has certain disadvantages, but I think it is more important to ensure you can find NO and GSZ when you need it".

Just 1 comment about "mana-fixing" with personal tutor to make sure some innocent reader is not fooled.

Ponder for a Land drop = mana neutral, card neutral.
Personal tutor for GSZ = -1 mana same turn, -1 card, -1 mana next turn (if you go for dryad arbor, -2 mana if you go for nobel hierarch)

So the turn after you made a land drop from Ponder compared to go Personal Tutor for GSZ for dryad arbor you are 1 card and 2-3 mana up. You can judge if this is more important then the chance of missing the land with your Ponder.

[Kuma]

I'm testing against maverick, in particoular with the sideboard. Lavamancer, jitte and thrun are very good, but I haven't appreciated relic of progenitus, because it hits reliquiaries but also our goyfs (and they don't play goyf)...

so I'm asking why other things better to face reliquaries (submerge, mind harness) aren't played?

In which other match up is used relic? I don't think it's enough in 2 copies against grave-based strategies, so we could substitute it...

Opinions?

Relic is certainly not the best way to deal with a Knight of the Reliquary. Submerge in response to the activation is good, and Mind Harness isn't a bad idea either, although the cumulative upkeep could make it hard to cast Natural Order.

Relic of Progenitus is also useful against Dredge and Renaimator and might be worth bringing in against Enchantress as well. If two copies isn't enough against grave-based strategies, the correct thing to do is run more copies, not zero. There isn't a grave-based strategy that we are heavily unfavored against even with grave hate. Now, if you're not running into graveyard decks, sure, cut Relic.

The reason some people don't run Submerge and Mind Harness is because Bant is a terrible matchup even with sideboard cards. Some fights you just can't win.


Just 1 comment about "mana-fixing" with personal tutor to make sure some innocent reader is not fooled.

Ponder for a Land drop = mana neutral, card neutral.
Personal tutor for GSZ = -1 mana same turn, -1 card, -1 mana next turn (if you go for dryad arbor, -2 mana if you go for nobel hierarch)

So the turn after you made a land drop from Ponder compared to go Personal Tutor for GSZ for dryad arbor you are 1 card and 2-3 mana up. You can judge if this is more important then the chance of missing the land with your Ponder.

If you need to Ponder for a land, you don't have the mana to play the card you want that turn anyway. The -1 mana next turn is something I didn't consider, so I'll concede that Ponder finds mana for a lower cost than Personal Tutor, even if it doesn't find any mana 8% of the time. But which are you more likely to need, mana or Natural Order/green creature? This is why I think Personal Tutor is better.

[loop]

The reason some people don't run Submerge and Mind Harness is because Bant is a terrible matchup even with sideboard cards. Some fights you just can't win.
I'd be interested to hear your thoughts regarding this match up, what exactly makes it so bad in your opinion?

[blueneverfails]

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts regarding this match up, what exactly makes it so bad in your opinion?

Knight of the reliquary.............


To actually give you an answer, No RUG runs a creature base of somewhere like this..

2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
2 vendillion clique
1 dryad arbor
or something of this sort.

Bant decks run
4 noble hierarch
1-4 tarmogoyfs
2 vendillion clique
0-4 rhox war monk
1 dryad arbor
4 KNIGHT OF THE RELIQUARY

now with this, no rug has lightning bolt to kill creatures. yes with some help and done early they can get tarmogoyfs, especially if you block with yours. but by itself, the only thing it kills on that list is the clique, noble, and dryad. Bant lists run swords, which means any of your creatures are killed for 1 mana. So if that person drops a knight of the reliquary which is probable with running 4 and running gsz. You cant stop knight first game, and second game with sideboard, you might be able to stop 1 maybe 2 but most of the side i see against it (submerge) they can just get it back with gsz. Also with that knight can easily get bigger than progenitus and can race you. As a person who plays bant, I enjoy playing against no rug mainly because I play natural order too and so with us cancelling out eachother on that regard, it comes down to the creatures and bant will always have better creatures.

[Amon Amarth]

Sower of Temptation might be something to consider. Stealing a KotR would be awesome, seeing as most Bant lists are removal light and Sower dodges most countermagic.

[DrHealex]

I keep procrastinating this post but since I am sick here it is. Oh well, better late than never.
I got 13th place at the SCG Open Cincinatti and my deck is posted here http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6507&iddeck=47116

1 Hive Mind (2-0) Brian J. Higgins
2 Hive Mind (2-0) Joseph J. Keaveny
3 Dredge (2-0) Bond L. Scafuri Or as scavaging ooze likes to call the deck, "the buffet" :D
4 Imperial Painter (0-2) Chris Tolley I played like a donk!ran into trip moon hand g1 & sideboarded bad g2
5 Affinity (0-2) Matthew R. Frazier "god draws" life totals both games 20->18-> me dead t4
6 Esperblade (2-0) Warren J. Connell
7 Zoo (2-1) MARY JACOBSON
8 Zoo (2-0) Dan L. Musser
9 Enchantress (2-1) Christopher C. Gibbons i felt like I was playing bear.dec versus him with only enchantments and instants being in the yards most of the time (g1 was a turbo win for him with sigil)

Oh ooze, how I love thee, I even sideboard you vs zoo along with thrun. Actually, I believe every one of my cards in the SB saw some action, and that makes me proud of them. The dredge deck I beat was "kinda" manaless, he won the roll and chose to draw first. It ran phantasmagorian, bloodghast, although it did run undiscovered paradises and gemstone mines as well which he only used to cast cabal thereapys and small creatures.

In the legacy challenge the night prior I went 3-1 (lossing only in last round to chranderson's Gwb elf combo to silly late game topdeck modes and a goyf that couldnt get past being a 3/4 vs a vengevine) (previous round wins was vs rug control?, u/w mystic, and merfolk)

I think I'll cut a ponder for a sylvan library though... ponder is nice for the digging and the goyf buffing. I don't know how anyone could play a 9th fetch over a basic island though.. it simply boggles my mind.

[Brushwagg]

Well I played this deck yesterday at Jupiter and did aweful with it. I'm still having a huge problem with SBing. The SBing tips in the opening post need to revised I feel. I followed some the hints you gave and after talking to a few opponents, Merfolk example, wondered why I would SB out the NO/Progs. I feel most matches I lost came down to SB issues more then play errors.

I did end up cutting the Fire/Ices in the MD for 2x Grim and like that change alot. Grim won a game or 2 for me by letting me burn my opponent out.

[Kuma]

Well I played this deck yesterday at Jupiter and did aweful with it. I'm still having a huge problem with SBing. The SBing tips in the opening post need to revised I feel. I followed some the hints you gave and after talking to a few opponents, Merfolk example, wondered why I would SB out the NO/Progs. I feel most matches I lost came down to SB issues more then play errors.

I didn't write the sideboarding tips, but I do agree with siding out the NO/Prog package against Merfolk. Between Force of Will, Daze, Cursecatcher, Wasteland, Phyrexian Metamorph, and possibly Spell Pierce and Llawan out of the board, Merfolk runs a crap ton of ways to stop a Natural Order from ever resolving or mattering. Even Dismember and Mental Misstep can keep you off green creatures.

I don't think it's worth all the effort and resources to cast something that almost certainly isn't resolving/mattering. I board -4 Force of Will, -4 Natural Order, -1 Progenitus, +4 Red Elemental Blast, +2 Umezawa's Jitte, +1 Grim Lavamancer, + 1 Thrun, the Last Troll, +1 Mountain against Merfolk on the play and also -2 Daze, +1 Trygon Predator, +1 Ancient Grudge on the draw, and just slug it out with powerful anti-blue and anti-creature cards.

FWIW, I had a local Merfolk player help me come to these conclusions.

[Jonathan Alexander]

There are some things that I do differently now, but boarding out the Natural Order package is still my plan against Merfolk, for the reasons Kuma pointed out already. I don't board out Force Of Will, but this is mainly because I don't have that many cards to bring in.
By the way, I Top 8'ed another event today with a slightly new list. I tried out maindeck Spell Pierce and it was quite strong despite not drawing it too often. I also topdecked Natural Orders like a champ all day long and I don't see why you could want to cut them. I don't think I'm going to write a full report but here's the list I played:

//Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

//Creatures
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vendilion Clique

//Other Spells
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire // Ice
4 Force Of Will
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mental Misstep
4 Natural Order
3 Ponder

//Sideboard
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thrun, The Last Troll
2 Energy Flux
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Submerge

Sometimes I felt I was wasting time casting Ponder but it really helped the deck run fluently, so I don't think I'm going to cut them. I also had to mulligan absurdly often and I had to ship my seven because of no land about six times. Anyway, it's nice to see how strong Natural Order is against modern control decks as they are often cutting down to three or even less Force Of Will. This deck is still impressive but I'm afraid I won't be able to play any Legacy events until September (unless I scrub out in the main event at GP Shanghai and can tear down the Legacy side event).

[catmint]

Interesting SB plan versus Merfolk. Makes a lot of sense. Leaving NO in, without good counterbackup is not a very good idea. Also the best way for them to hurt is is by wastelanding the red manasources. That's also the reason why I replaced 1 hierarch with 1 Birds of Paradise. I like the basic mountain, however sacrificing a sideboard slot hurts.

I was 3-0 today in my local tourny. Last round versus Merfolk. He offered to draw to share the first place, but I decided to play... and lost. :( I did leavea NO in...

Game 1 I won with Goyf, bolt & V-clique, because he had a suboptimal draw.

Lost Game 2 to back to basics.

Game 3 I misplay badly not attacking with 2 goyfs and burning his face with lavamancer for the win and loose to commander and reejerey

[ivanpei]

@ Kuma, no self-agrandising intended, it's just common courtesy to acknowledge previous work done. If you wish to deny other sourcers even that, then all the more power to you. When you write a paper in college, you reference other sources/ acknowledge other authors, it's just common courtesy and also it saves alot of effort when re-discussing the same issues. It's easier to point to a debate that has already happened instead of arguing all over again on the optimal number of gsz/natural orders.

If you developed the red splash all on your own and do not wish to acknowledge other input from past threads/never read the thread, sure no worries. We've put alot of effort into the deck and have had plenty of fruitful discussion there. It might not be valuable information to you, but others may find it useful.

Also if you guys actually read that thread, sb plans have also been discussed, NO always gets boarded out against folk. You will have a hard time resolving it vs cursecatchers, daze and wastelands. Equip/grim/llawan are the best answers vs merfolk.

[lordofthepit]

I've been playing mostly Zoo; finished 6-2 in SCG Seattle today, but it felt like an uphill battle with no Merfolk or Goblins in sight. I'm thinking of switching to this deck since it seems like even the worst matchups are roughly 50-50.

For more experienced players, what matchups are you most worried about, and what are the keys to winning them?

[ivanpei]

Folk with submerges and Sowers are hard postboard. Still close to 50/50 if you side properly and play tight. Combo is also a problem. The deck is disruption light md, so you need alot of help post board. I would play teeq + 3 spellpierces in the board while in bant but if you are in red, pyroblasts+ spellpierces are the best you can hope for. Zoo and junk match ups are very close. You néed to balance tempo and gas in those mus. I always board out forces in these mathups, you don't want to be 2-1 ing yourself when everycard counts. I like jaces in the board for these matchups. Jaces are also good vs show and tell/ control. Bug/4c still is also hard. They laugh at your creatures and have "real counterspells" for NO. My board looks like this:

Rug
3 reb/pyro
2 jace tms
1 grim lavamancer (2 md)
1 vendillon clique
2 jitte
3 natures claim/ ancient grudge
3 tormods crypt

[lordofthepit]

Folk with submerges and Sowers are hard postboard. Still close to 50/50 if you side properly and play tight. Combo is also a problem. The deck is disruption light md, so you need alot of help post board. I would play teeq + 3 spellpierces in the board while in bant but if you are in red, pyroblasts+ spellpierces are the best you can hope for. Zoo and junk match ups are very close. You néed to balance tempo and gas in those mus. I always board out forces in these mathups, you don't want to be 2-1 ing yourself when everycard counts. I like jaces in the board for these matchups. Jaces are also good vs show and tell/ control. Bug/4c still is also hard. They laugh at your creatures and have "real counterspells" for NO. My board looks like this:

Rug
3 reb/pyro
2 jace tms
1 grim lavamancer (2 md)
1 vendillon clique
2 jitte
3 natures claim/ ancient grudge
3 tormods crypt

Thanks for the pointers.

Are there any matchups where you would board out the Natural Order combo?

[SMR0079]

Thanks for the pointers.

Are there any matchups where you would board out the Natural Order combo?

Hive Mind

[Muradin]

I've been testing Animar, Soul of Elements as a singleton in the board as I found quite some decks running Knight of the Reliquary + a way to deal with Natural Order to be rather problematic matchups with this deck. So far she has been amazing in testing as a pro white/black target for GSZ. Of course the card doesn't play to its full potential in this deck, but its still pretty strong.

In general I found a board with Scavenging Ooze, Trygon Predator, Thrun and Animar to be worth the slots, as each of those cards is fine on its own as well.

Especially Ooze is a gem for this deck, making your Tarmogoyfs real contenders against Knight of the Reliquary. My testing in general has shown that tribal matchups are favorable.
But my best bet against bant has been to rely on resolving Natural Order, as especially the no FoW versions run a much higher card quality than this deck and I lose the game if I can't resolve Natural Order most of the time. This was significantly easier against GW Maverick because they have less disruption for this plan and their Aven Mindcensor's / Gaddock Teeg have a hard time living through our burn.

What's your experience against Bant/GWx midrange with this deck? I already thought about playing Blood Moon in the board, as it would totally crush them most of the time (we can easily burn Noble Hierarch and they usually don't fetch basics due to us running no Wastelands) and its another unexpected thread.

[Muradin]

EDIT:
*Doublepost*

[Kuma]

Bant and Maverick are tough matchups, especially Bant. You pretty much need Natural Order to beat either deck. I've talked about why Bant is so tough before, and a lot of those reasons hold true for Maverick. Maverick will beat you with its superior number and quality of creatures just like Bant. While you don't have to watch out for countermagic, you have to watch for Gaddock Teeg and Aven Mindcensor. I've also lost hard to a Scryb Ranger when I was relying on Vendilion Clique to get there. I've found Umezawa's Jitte to be helpful.


Zoo and junk match ups are very close. You néed to balance tempo and gas in those mus. I always board out forces in these mathups, you don't want to be 2-1 ing yourself when everycard counts. I like jaces in the board for these matchups.

Wait, you like Jace against Zoo? I don't know about you, but I don't like Jace against anything running Lightning Bolt, let alone 12 burn.dec.

Honestly, aside from Lands and Reanimator, I haven't found a single matchup where I like Jace.

[Kellyx]

Hey, versus who do u side jace, tms?And what to side out if you do it?
I just think that there are more gamebreacking sideboard options:S like direct grave hate, direct artifact hate, direct tribal hate (like firespout).

[Jonathan Alexander]

There sure are some really backbreaking sideboard options against linear decks like Affinity or Dredge, but Jace, The Mind Sculptor isn't supposed to be brought in against these decks (which you can mostly beat easily anyway). Jace is there for the control matchups (especially Landstill). For me, he hasn't been extraordinarily good or something, so I'm not running him right now. This is also a bit due to the fact that these decks aren't common in Germany, where Stoneblade acts as a foil to the heavily played aggro decks. You can beat Stoneblade without Jace anyway, so I really don't need him.
If you're looking for top-notch sideboard strategies, consider Grim Lavamancer, Red Elemental Blast / Pyroblast, Ancient Grudge, Krosan Grip and Submerge. These are really strong cards right now.

Also, Kuma. I haven't found Maverick to be too hard of a matchup, and I'm frequently playing against it. My plan for all these GW-based decks is too board out the beatdown plan and go all-in on the combo. This is working really well and especially Submerge helps executing this plan. Keep your Lightning Bolts and other burn for Gaddock Teeg while saving your Submerges for Aven Mindcensor. I'm usually just playing the tempo-disruption role until I find Natural Order and resolve it. Fire // Ice also helps preventing them from racing as it can burn down their manadorks or tap down huge threats and Batterskull. Even if their running Mental Misstep the matchup isn't too hard. Light blue splashes with sideboard Spell Pierce is also definitely winnable, but the more blue they are (i.e. Bant Aggro) the harder the matchup becomes.
Most matchups with this deck are kind of close and only slightly favoured (except for tribal) but knowing what to expect in your metagame really helps a lot, probably more than with most other decks. The only thing I'm missing is a non-Jace planeswalker to bring in against control decks. I'd love to have Elspeth, Knight-Errant, but running four colours might be a tad too much considering I wouldn't want to run Swords To Plowshares anyway and really only splash for Elspeth while still looking to play Grim Lavamancer.
Did anyone test Punishing Fire // Grove Of The Burnwillows yet? I wonder how it works out in this deck.

[Kellyx]

Ive heard there is some trick with progenitus having vigilance.
Could someone please tell me what exactly is it?

[sourcefire]

If you have Prog on the battlefield and attack with him, you can then cast another Natural Order, sacrifice Prog (which gets reshuffled into your library instead of going to the yard) and you can search your library for him and drop him into play untapped.

[coraz86]

Slightly OT, check out konsultant getting some love from the Star City crew (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/misc/22442_Deck_Tech_NO_RUG_With_Geoff_Smelski.html). It's about fucking time one of their Deck 'Techs' was something legit, rather than whatever Drew Levin is going 1-2 drop with this week.

I especially love both his sideboard and his explanation of what's going on with it.

[Mark Sun]

rather than whatever Drew Levin is going 1-2 drop with this week.

Lol'ed.

I finished 5-3 this weekend after starting 5-1 (disaster...). Lost to two people who eventually made Top 8, should have just cut my losses there but Merfolk had the nut draw in the last round and I didn't draw any sideboard cards. Did get a video Feature Match in Round 3 though, which was pretty cool. I incorporated the 3 Counterspell from Geoff's build, which was pretty helpful. The only sideboard card I really missed was Submerge, would have been nice against Zoo in Round 7 (Dan Musser), as it was the win-and-in, pretty much.

[Whit3 Ghost]

It's funny, because what I've done against Merfolk is just ignore everything that isn't Lord of Atlantis and resolve Natural Order, because I haven't wasted resources on things that I ultimately don't care about if my game plan happens (AEther Vial).

In the little bit I've played against the deck, it's been a worthy strategy.

[Jonathan Alexander]

What kind of hands do your opponents have that you can ignore 56 of their cards and still resolve a Natural Order and win before they beat you?

[RogueMTG]

What kind of hands do your opponents have that you can ignore 56 of their cards and still resolve a Natural Order and win before they beat you?

This.

It has been my experience that Merfolk can often race the Progenitus plan.

[Brushwagg]

It's funny, because what I've done against Merfolk is just ignore everything that isn't Lord of Atlantis and resolve Natural Order, because I haven't wasted resources on things that I ultimately don't care about if my game plan happens

I agree on sticking Progs. I also agree that LOA is the biggest threat because of Island walk. If you keep their lord count down you should be able to chump enough damage for 2 turns.

[Whit3 Ghost]

What kind of hands do your opponents have that you can ignore 56 of their cards and still resolve a Natural Order and win before they beat you?
Ignoring things like Vial gives me more resources to actually resolve the Order. In that matchup, Force is almost entirely saved for whichever turn I'm ordering, rather than trying to disrupt their early game.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Well, Forcing their Vial might be wrong, but casting Mental Misstep on it is still alright as it slows them down considerably. Also, given they have Daze, Wasteland, Cursecatcher and postboard Submerge + Spell Pierce to slow you down, I still don't see how that plan is working out on a regular basis.
I see how it can work, as I killed them with Natural Order before as well, but the other plan works much more reliably, as they have a harder time dealing with Tarmogoyfs and Vendilion Cliques backed up by boatloads of removal than only really having to counter one single spell a game.
But still, maybe there's something I'm missing or something about your list that changes the way the matchup plays out. Would you like to share your list and your boarding plan?

[Muradin]

My plan against Merfolk:

-4 Force of Will
-4 Natural Order
-1 Progenitus
-1 Ponder

+1 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Pyroblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Thrun, the last Troll
+1 Trygon Predator

This matchup is favorable preboard and very favorable postboard, as they basically tend to die horribly with me having so many red cards and green beaters.

The rest of my board is:
3 Jace, the Mindsculptor (awesome against control, definitely best card in the SB, shines against every deck hating on Progenitus too much, such as UBG Landstill, Bx decks with Gatekeeper, Loam or Pox variants...)
2 Ancient Grudge // Submerge // Spell Pierce (tinkering around there, if I run Grudges I cut my Predator)

[Whit3 Ghost]

Yeah, Misstepping is fine because worst case scenario, they counter back and put you way ahead. My board doesn't have Jitte, so it's usually -3 Misstep -2 Ponder, +3 Reb +2 Lavamancer.

[Kellyx]

I dont get why dont ppl play 3/4 goyf 1/4 ooze.
He isnt worse than goyf is in most match ups, and is your only chance to win game1 versus decks like reanimator/dredge/agro loam.
I tryed him in magic online championship instead 1 goyf and there wasnt a single situatioan where i regreted it.

[Mark Sun]

My plan against Merfolk:

-4 Force of Will
-4 Natural Order
-1 Progenitus
-1 Ponder

+1 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Pyroblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Thrun, the last Troll
+1 Trygon Predator

I agree with this principle here. In the list I played this weekend I would board out 4 Natural Order, 1 Progenitus and either 2 Force of Will (only played 2) + 1 Ponder on the play, or 3 Daze on the draw. In comes 3 Grim Lavamancer, 4 REB/Pyroblast, and 1 Trygon. You still need to fight their tempo on the draw, so I prefer -3 Daze, +3 Force of Will (one in the SB) on the draw.

The problem with me is that I did happen to run into more than a couple of LoA's in my last round match.

[keys]

My plan against Merfolk:

-4 Force of Will
-4 Natural Order
-1 Progenitus
-1 Ponder

+1 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Pyroblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Thrun, the last Troll
+1 Trygon Predator

This matchup is favorable preboard and very favorable postboard, as they basically tend to die horribly with me having so many red cards and green beaters.

The rest of my board is:
3 Jace, the Mindsculptor (awesome against control, definitely best card in the SB, shines against every deck hating on Progenitus too much, such as UBG Landstill, Bx decks with Gatekeeper, Loam or Pox variants...)
2 Ancient Grudge // Submerge // Spell Pierce (tinkering around there, if I run Grudges I cut my Predator)

I like your sideboard but I would do Submerge instead of the Jittes, since Knight of the Reliquary is a much bigger problem IMO. Are the Jittes that important for beating Merfolk? From my experience you win that matchup with red spells and lots of them.

[bondafong]

My plan against Merfolk:

-4 Force of Will
-4 Natural Order
-1 Progenitus
-1 Ponder

+1 Grim Lavamancer
+2 Pyroblast
+2 Red Elemental Blast
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Thrun, the last Troll
+1 Trygon Predator

This matchup is favorable preboard and very favorable postboard, as they basically tend to die horribly with me having so many red cards and green beaters.

The rest of my board is:
3 Jace, the Mindsculptor (awesome against control, definitely best card in the SB, shines against every deck hating on Progenitus too much, such as UBG Landstill, Bx decks with Gatekeeper, Loam or Pox variants...)
2 Ancient Grudge // Submerge // Spell Pierce (tinkering around there, if I run Grudges I cut my Predator)

I also sideboard almost like this. I have an Ooze main, so I obviously don't put that in, but else it's the same.

[Whit3 Ghost]

One thing I've been pondering is Dismember. Yeah, it costs a hefty amount of life, but it almost always kills Goyfs and can actually axe a Knight in the early game.

[Razorwynd]

In looking at the recent deck successful deck list, I have seen a lot of diversity in the mana base of NO RUG decks:

* 19-21 lands total
* 1-2 Dryad Arbors
* 0-3 basics lands

I understand that these numbers can change a little due to the based upon the number of MD ponder/Jace but still seem rather diverse.

Do you need basic mountain to enable all of your red spells against merfolk?

HELP?
What is the optimal build?

[catmint]

I like to go for the board out NO plan. I lost once to merfolk's boarded back to basics, which is most of the time a game ender such as any moon effect. Therefore I run 1 forest, 1 island in main.

Since Merfolks best strategy to beat us is to waste all the red sources, I also board a basic mountain as suggested by Kuma.

[Jonathan Alexander]

It depends on your metagame. Where I play my build seems very strong, though I'm considering some slight changes to my manabase (cutting the basics). In some metagames I wouldn't even play this deck at all, so you probably should tell us what you're playing against usually.
One thing I can say though is that two Dryad Arbor is way better than one. I won several games because of having two. The basic mountain actually seems to be the most important basic, as against decks with Wasteland, you usually always need red mana (not always, but most of the time). The basic Island is rather weak, you almost never want it.

[Razorwynd]

I think I decided that basic mountain is the most important basic for sure... and if two Dryad Arbors is a must then you can not really afford to play basic forest. As stated basic island is the least useful so that really isn't needed either. Because of the presence of noble heirarch and GSZ, i think 19 lands is just about right (either that or -1 ponder +1 land).

The local meta game is rather new and is someone ill-defined. However, it is primarily dominated by merfolk and blue based combo (UR painters stone, hive mind) some blue based control and very few GWx (Bant, Maverick, Deadguy, Junk, Zoo) players.

This is what I am looking to throw together for this weekend:

2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Progenitus
3 Vendillion Clique
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Tarmogoyf

4 Natural Order
1 Ponder
3 Green Sun Zenith

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
3 Daze
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire//Ice

1 Mountain
1 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
3 Tropical Island
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Misty Rainforest

Sideboard
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Jitte
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Trygon Predator
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Spell Pierce

Thoughts...?

[chinEsE girl]

The deck doesn't get to run stifle, which makes me sad on so many levels, but at least there are red, blue, and green spells in the deck, so I can live with that.

After playing NLT for about a year until mental misstep got released and fucked over stifle, I've had to switch over to NO RUG and have been reasonably satisfied. The first couple tournaments I played it in went real shitty, but I recently went 6-2 at SCG pittsburgh missing top 16 on tiebreakers. Got daggered by having my breakers drop a couple percent over the course of the last round, and the people below me improved theirs. Shit sucks sometimes. About the deck performance though, it was really good. Just about every match I played I felt in control of my destiny, so long as I didn't have to mulligan a lot. The one real round I lost (R7 feature match against ben friedman under the camera) was a very close 3 games, and each game the loser had to mulligan (wonder what would of happened if we had a good 7 for each game). The other round I lost was round 1 to, of all things, turn zero summoning trap. By this I mean that he played summoning trap getting Emrakul before I had a single land in play. To make matters worse, in game 2 i mulled to 4 on the play and he had me with a show in tell, i dazed into his open mana hoping he would make an epic punt, but he pyroblasted my daze anyways, just for the fuck of it. I doubt he won more than 2 matches after our match. Just another dagger.

For the merfolk question, you most certainly board out NO and your forces. Also some number of daze on the draw as well. The deck has 4 red blasts in the board, use them. Also, if you have spell pierce, it's just better then daze or FOW. FOW is awful since you 2-1 yourself, and daze is only good on the play and super shitty on the draw. With a lot of folk using dismember for removal, spell pierce can still counter lots of relevant things. NO is also a slow 4 mana sorcery, so it will just get cursecatchered, dazed, forced, whatever. Bottom line, the chances of it resolving are almost nil, you just want more goyfs and removal. You just play a bunch of goyfs and back em up with burn, you'll win without much trouble. I play against the deck twice in Pitt (and both were good players that knew what they were doing), and I would lose game 1 to a bunch of lords, but games 2 and 3 I just overloaded their lord count with a ton of removal, and my favorite */*+1 would get there every time.

As for the mana base question, me and Alex Bertoncini were talking before the player meeting about the mana base, and how shitty the basic land always was. Bottom line was that worrying about things like blood moon and back to basics was just unnecessary. Those cards aren't even played much any more, what with UW needing their few basics and hive mind just not giving a shit at all. We decided to run a 10th fetch (another tarn), and it was always what I wanted. If it had been a basic island like it used to be, I would of had a much tougher time winning some games. In short, the basic land is just chaff and makes a lot of your draws much worse. Do yourself a favor and don't run any basics. That also means don't run the mountain in the sideboard. I tried that for a month, and it was really really shitty. I never wanted to board it in, and instead it took up space in my sideboard that I wanted to turn into something relevant for once. Even against a deck like merfolk, they only have so many wastelands, and you have a bajillion fetches, so getting your red shouldn't be an issue. The total land count I have is 19, with 2 arbors, and even though I used to run only 1 I've really started to like running the 2 arbors. It allows me to be much more aggresive with searching out arbor, and I don't have to worry as much about playing around other peoples removal. Usually, I can have one out early, it eats a removal spell, then I get the second one and get to use it without much hassle. The land light nature of the deck can be an issue, but so far it has run fine without too much trouble.

[Muradin]

How was that Sylvan Library in the maindeck for you? Many people play it, but so far it has been really bad for me. While its a total house in Zoo or Maverick, it seems to suck in this deck most of the time when I resolve it.

As for the basic lands, I was running Island + Forest alongside 2 Dryad Arbor in a 20 land shell, but I can definitely see myself cutting down to 19 lands and playing another fetchland to compensate the loss of my 20th land. It won't hurt consistency much as especially the Island screwed me way too often. With the basics I felt like I was getting screwed way too often against wasteland while having flood problems against decks not attacking my mana base at all. This might be a good solution and with more fetchlands it also gives us a higher chance to get green mana + Hierarch / GSZ on the first turn, which is crucial.

In general I found Daze to be much weaker than in any URG deck I played before, due to the lack of Stifle + Wasteland in here. We also run 4 mana sorceries and thus returning a land to your hand is a severe drawback because our curve is much higher than most other decks running Daze. I find Jona's list in the opening post is a good example without Daze and I feel we can pretty easily compensate the loss of countermagic by running 2 Spell Pierce in the board to fight Hive Mind and other combo decks. Especially with 17 lands + Dryad Arbor Ponder does an excellent job at growing our Goyfs to 4/5 and smoothing out our draws to find much needed Natural Orders // lands.

Preordain might be better than Ponder for keeping 1 landers, as Ponder often finds you the 2nd land, but denies you the chance to draw #3-4 during the next two turns. Sure Ponder digs 1 deeper, but Preordain is just better in the earlygame smoothing out landlight draws.

In the board my testing has shown, that unless you got Enchantress in your metagame, running 2 Ancient Grudge is a house and the Predator is rather weak against the equipment most of the time.

@Kuma: Jona's list on the OP is only 56 cards, missing probably 3-4 GSZ + X.

[Muradin]

Edit: Why is my PC always double posting now?

[Jonathan Alexander]

My list from the opening post is lacking 4 Green Sun's Zenith. I noticed that as well but forgot telling Kuma about it.

I haven't tested Sylvan Library in this deck, as I didn't like it all too much in similar decks (basically decks that are blue and thus have access to Brainstorm). Preordain is slightly better than Ponder in decks that have to fight attrition wars, which this deck never wants to do. It's my default for decks like Team America, but in any deck that usually only needs to find on certain (type of) card, digging deeper is generally better than not drawing chaff. I always liked Preordain for being able to put away extra land but this deck rarely wants to do so.
Also, don't keep one landers because they contain a cantrip. I have no problem with mulling and no problem with winning after having to mull either. I will never forget Reid Duke's feature match where he mulled to five on the play and resolved Natural Order on turn three or four. That was amazing.

As for Daze. I have never liked it in this deck. I played the deck before Mental Misstep was even spoiled and the first thing I thought when I saw Mental Misstep was that I could drop Daze from this deck.

Regarding the manabase, I'm quite sure that chinEsE girl is right in that we don't need basics. We don't want to sit on two lands anyway so there rarely is a reason to fetch for basics. Further, we need our mana to be flexible and I liked having the second Taiga when I was still playing it. I might replace my basics with a Taiga and the ninth fetch (I really don't think we need ten, but that might be better than having the second Taiga, I'm not sure).

[Jonathan Alexander]

My list from the opening post is lacking 4 Green Sun's Zenith. I noticed that as well but forgot telling Kuma about it.

I haven't tested Sylvan Library in this deck, as I didn't like it all too much in similar decks (basically decks that are blue and thus have access to Brainstorm). Preordain is slightly better than Ponder in decks that have to fight attrition wars, which this deck never wants to do. It's my default for decks like Team America, but in any deck that usually only needs to find on certain (type of) card, digging deeper is generally better than not drawing chaff. I always liked Preordain for being able to put away extra land but this deck rarely wants to do so.
Also, don't keep one landers because they contain a cantrip. I have no problem with mulling and no problem with winning after having to mull either. I will never forget Reid Duke's feature match where he mulled to five on the play and resolved Natural Order on turn three or four. That was amazing.

As for Daze. I have never liked it in this deck. I played the deck before Mental Misstep was even spoiled and the first thing I thought when I saw Mental Misstep was that I could drop Daze from this deck.

Regarding the manabase, I'm quite sure that chinEsE girl is right in that we don't need basics. We don't want to sit on two lands anyway so there rarely is a reason to fetch for basics. Further, we need our mana to be flexible and I liked having the second Taiga when I was still playing it. I might replace my basics with a Taiga and the ninth fetch (I really don't think we need ten, but that might be better than having the second Taiga, I'm not sure).

[d0ner]

I think Daze is such important cause it lets you play Natural Order in Turn 3 with Counterbackup!

I also don't like Taiga in this Deck. Why not playing additional Tropicals/Volcanics? Imho every Deck needs Basics:
- Control often has the Crucible Wasteland Lock
- Wasting the only red Source is Win for Aggro
- Back 2 Basics and Blood Moon will kill u

The Sylvan Library: I realy like it. It helps digging in Control Matchups and don't need Mana, so wen can keep this open for Counters.

[Kellyx]

Sylvan is amazing.
Vs decks like reanimator, hive mind and etc,it lets you draw 4 additional cards during 2 turns+lets you manage your top3 cards each turn obviously.
So basicaly its not worse than ancestral recall vs a lot of decks.
And dont forget-you have like 99999 shuffling effects in deck.

[keys]

On the whole basics debate, I think the only basic you should ever run is Forest. It lets you cast Zenith for Trygon Predator under Blood Moon, Back to Basics, or Crucible of Worlds.

G is also the color you most often want on turn one, and decks with Wasteland absolutely hate seeing Forest -> Hierarch.

Mountain and Island just aren't necessary.

[Solthos]

IMO, I think out of all the basics, the Island is the only one that I would not use. Hierarch nets you the blue mana and we have enough Trop/Volcanic Islands anyway. Forest is absolutely necessary with all the green spells we have. And postboard, Mountain becomes really valuable especially with red intensive SB.

I want to know your thoughts on Dismember and Beast Within. Dismember would take out things that Bolts can't, namely Batterskull. Beast Within is like a mini-Vindicate, I don't see why people don't put it at least in the SB. Is it because Grudges, Grips and Bolts cover everything that we should be afraid of?

I find myself struggling against U/W Stoneblade (visions) in our local meta, I have boarded Ancient Grudges, Thrun. Should I be boarding out the NO combo against them?

[Solthos]

EDIT: Double post fail.

[lolosoon]

Just for you to know :

A TeamMate of mine won a 148ppl Legacy Tournament in France this Sunday with NO RUG, in a field of Reanimator, Junk and CawBlade decks.

HERE (http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=6979&st=75&p=121452&#entry121452)are the top8 lists.

2 Others NO RUG made a Top16 appearance if I remember correctly.
I personnaly punted beeing 27th with a 5-3 result (winning vs UWb LandStill, DeezNought, Junk, CawBlade and Reanimator, losing to Junk, Mirror Match and PatriotBlade) after a leading 4-0 with a similar list with those changes : -1 Witness/Misstep/Arbor, +1 Bolt/Daze/Tarn MD and -1 Terastodon/Finks +1 S.Extraction/S.Pierce SB

I've made a report in french, dunno if it's worth the read, but I can translate it and put the Report in the correct SubForum if needed.

The deck is a blast to play, but denial strategy decks like Junk removing all you manaDudes then your lands before dropping a big KotR is painful. So I don't think dropping any basic is a good option imho.

[chinEsE girl]

I find myself struggling against U/W Stoneblade (visions) in our local meta, I have boarded Ancient Grudges, Thrun. Should I be boarding out the NO combo against them?

NO! And that by that I mean keep natural order in, most definitely don't take it out. It is almost always your best way to finish games. After game 1, you can expect them to have plenty of ways to answer goyf, especially if they bring in path to exile, so the goyf plan gets very poor. It also doesn't beat batterskull whatsoever, so they should come out almost all the time vs stoneforge UW. You also take out your forces next, since red blast pretty much does the same thing, except instead of costing two cards, it costs 1 mana (and I hope you're playing red blasts in your board, it's kind of the reason to play NO RUG in the first place). If you have stuff like spell pierce, counterspell, or terastodon in your sideboard, those can come in too. The other stuff to take out includes daze (especially on the draw where its bad, but sometimes on the play too), and then some small amount of burn if necessary (when you have ancient grudge ready, stoneforge really isn't that much of a threat). The way to play this matchup is to think of yourself as the combo deck playing against control. You have a one card combo (NO) which can end the game if it resolves. Your main priority is to establish your mana, get enough disruption and then force your NO through. The terastodon in the SB can be really helpful against opponents who have wrath and let NO resolve too easily. Last weekend at SCG Pitt I played UW in round 3, and game 2 he let NO resolve without a second thought. I instantly put him on wrath, and went and got nasty terasty with a noble in play, and proceeded to triple LD him. 4 turns later, all his tokens had chumped and I got the win without too much trouble. Bottom line, you're looking to resolve a hard to deal with threat that can't be killed without wrath, such as thrun, terastadon, or prog. So long as you keep batterskull or their copy of sword of something & whatever in check, you'll kill them within a few turns.

[Final Fortune]

Does anyone else find themselves SBing out a lot of cards vs. Merfolk? The NO/PRO package, Daze and even Force of Will aren't that great in the match up, so has anyone tried over loading on anti-Mefolk cards with a wide application (Blasts, Grim etc.) just so you can SB all of the sub-par cards out? I don't really seem to be getting as much use out of my SB in terms of anti-strategy bullets like graveyard hate etc. fwiw.

[Solthos]

NO! And that by that I mean keep natural order in, most definitely don't take it out. It is almost always your best way to finish games. After game 1, you can expect them to have plenty of ways to answer goyf, especially if they bring in path to exile, so the goyf plan gets very poor. It also doesn't beat batterskull whatsoever, so they should come out almost all the time vs stoneforge UW. You also take out your forces next, since red blast pretty much does the same thing, except instead of costing two cards, it costs 1 mana (and I hope you're playing red blasts in your board, it's kind of the reason to play NO RUG in the first place). If you have stuff like spell pierce, counterspell, or terastodon in your sideboard, those can come in too. The other stuff to take out includes daze (especially on the draw where its bad, but sometimes on the play too), and then some small amount of burn if necessary (when you have ancient grudge ready, stoneforge really isn't that much of a threat). The way to play this matchup is to think of yourself as the combo deck playing against control. You have a one card combo (NO) which can end the game if it resolves. Your main priority is to establish your mana, get enough disruption and then force your NO through. The terastodon in the SB can be really helpful against opponents who have wrath and let NO resolve too easily. Last weekend at SCG Pitt I played UW in round 3, and game 2 he let NO resolve without a second thought. I instantly put him on wrath, and went and got nasty terasty with a noble in play, and proceeded to triple LD him. 4 turns later, all his tokens had chumped and I got the win without too much trouble. Bottom line, you're looking to resolve a hard to deal with threat that can't be killed without wrath, such as thrun, terastadon, or prog. So long as you keep batterskull or their copy of sword of something & whatever in check, you'll kill them within a few turns.


Thanks for the info! Yeah, I do board in the REBs as well. I never thought of playing the control role against that deck.

Also, I have never seen the use of Terastodon. I always thought that Terastodon was only there to outrace Combo decks, so I don't have him in my SB. I keep thinking that it is too prone to removal and giving your opponent 3 3/3 beaters would give you a huge disadvantage.

Will definitely try to fit him into my board for more testing.

[Ecoris]

I disagree that you can't board out Natural Order vs UW blade. You can certainly do something like:
-4 NO
-1 Progenitus
-3 (or more) Force/Daze

+2 Jace
+4 blast
+2 Ancient Grudge
+ ..

and grind them out. If they don't have access to wrath but have 2-3 path in addition to swords the Progenitus plan is good (I don't play Terastodon myself). If they have wrath I want to board out Progenitus. I feel the same way vs Perish.

----

What do people think of SB Vithian Renegades over Trygon Predator in non-enchantment infested metas?

[Muradin]

Don't board out Natural Order against UW Stoneblade, that's just like boarding out Force of Will against combo. You can definitely win without it, but its one of your best cards in the matchup. Taking out the beatdown plan has been the way to go for me in several matchups including Junk, Maverick, and some other decks where Goyfs just won't get there because they are very well equipped to deal with our beatdown plan.

Most decks running Swords to Plowshares + Knight of the Reliquary + X other removal spells will beat you unless you resolve Natural Order. Against Zoo I wouldn't take out Goyfs, because they simply race you if all you do is producing a T4 Hydra.

And I'm probably gonna cut the Jittes from my board, they're just not doing enough or feel like win more in the Merfolk matchup. I thought they might help VS Zoo but I don't manage to win with Jitte unless I get to stick a Thrun to go with it.

[Jonathan Alexander]

You should usually not board out the Natural Order package against UW Stoneblade. They're really low on answers to it in general, as neither Jave nor their removal works (except for Wrath Of God and Day Of Judgment obviously) against Progenitus and they only have few counters for it since most lists are even cutting down on Force Of Will. The Plan that's working nicely for me so far was what Reid Duke mentioned in his report form Providence. He boarded out the Zeniths and the Tarmogoyfs to work as a straight combo deck, and they can't do much about it. I bring in two Red Elemental Blast, two Grim Lavamancer, two Krosan Grip and a Thrun for this matchup, boarding out four Tarmogoyf and three Green Sun's Zenith.
I don't think trying to grind them out is a particularly good idea, as their deck is actually built to win in the long run whereas NO RUG basically is a new incarnation of Next Level Thresh.
Also, where I play these kind of decks usually splash red for Grim Lavamancer and Red Elemental Blast, making it even harder to win with Jace (apart from the fact that they're going to see Jace more often than you).

[Solthos]

You should usually not board out the Natural Order package against UW Stoneblade. They're really low on answers to it in general, as neither Jave nor their removal works (except for Wrath Of God and Day Of Judgment obviously) against Progenitus and they only have few counters for it since most lists are even cutting down on Force Of Will. The Plan that's working nicely for me so far was what Reid Duke mentioned in his report form Providence. He boarded out the Zeniths and the Tarmogoyfs to work as a straight combo deck, and they can't do much about it. I bring in two Red Elemental Blast, two Grim Lavamancer, two Krosan Grip and a Thrun for this matchup, boarding out four Tarmogoyf and three Green Sun's Zenith.
I don't think trying to grind them out is a particularly good idea, as their deck is actually built to win in the long run whereas NO RUG basically is a new incarnation of Next Level Thresh.
Also, where I play these kind of decks usually splash red for Grim Lavamancer and Red Elemental Blast, making it even harder to win with Jace (apart from the fact that they're going to see Jace more often than you).

I appreciate the advice for the proper SBing against Stoneblade. I re-read the first page in addition to your post.

In my meta, I see only a UW Stoneblade with no splash, usually with no splash of red. It is also more control-oriented, packing a full set of FoW, missteps, a few Counterspells and Dazes. It also main decks Wrath.

In this case, would Jace be more favorable in this MU?

Also, in the BUGstill or BUG Visions MU, I'm guessing, Thrun, Jace and REBs should come in? (and Grips? in my case I have only Grudges in my SB, don't know if this is wise though :tongue: )

[Solthos]

You should usually not board out the Natural Order package against UW Stoneblade. They're really low on answers to it in general, as neither Jave nor their removal works (except for Wrath Of God and Day Of Judgment obviously) against Progenitus and they only have few counters for it since most lists are even cutting down on Force Of Will. The Plan that's working nicely for me so far was what Reid Duke mentioned in his report form Providence. He boarded out the Zeniths and the Tarmogoyfs to work as a straight combo deck, and they can't do much about it. I bring in two Red Elemental Blast, two Grim Lavamancer, two Krosan Grip and a Thrun for this matchup, boarding out four Tarmogoyf and three Green Sun's Zenith.
I don't think trying to grind them out is a particularly good idea, as their deck is actually built to win in the long run whereas NO RUG basically is a new incarnation of Next Level Thresh.
Also, where I play these kind of decks usually splash red for Grim Lavamancer and Red Elemental Blast, making it even harder to win with Jace (apart from the fact that they're going to see Jace more often than you).

I appreciate the advice for the proper SBing against Stoneblade. I re-read the first page in addition to your post.

In my meta, I see only a UW Stoneblade with no splash, usually with no splash of red. It is also more control-oriented, packing a full set of FoW, missteps, a few Counterspells and Dazes. It also main decks Wrath.

In this case, would SBing Jace in addition to the stated cards be more favorable in this MU?

Also, in the BUGstill or BUG Visions MU, I'm guessing, Thrun, Jace and REBs should come in? (and Grips? in my case I have only Grudges in my SB, don't know if this is wise though :tongue: )

I guess I struggle a lot against control decks. :cry:

Thanks for the inputs btw, I've only started playing MtG for 2 months, but I am able to Top 4 in our meta (10-16 people regularly) with just the sheer power of this deck.

[SMR0079]

I appreciate the advice for the proper SBing against Stoneblade. I re-read the first page in addition to your post.

In my meta, I see only a UW Stoneblade with no splash, usually with no splash of red. It is also more control-oriented, packing a full set of FoW, missteps, a few Counterspells and Dazes. It also main decks Wrath.

In this case, would SBing Jace in addition to the stated cards be more favorable in this MU?

Also, in the BUGstill or BUG Visions MU, I'm guessing, Thrun, Jace and REBs should come in? (and Grips? in my case I have only Grudges in my SB, don't know if this is wise though :tongue: )

I guess I struggle a lot against control decks. :cry:

Thanks for the inputs btw, I've only started playing MtG for 2 months, but I am able to Top 4 in our meta (10-16 people regularly) with just the sheer power of this deck.

WAit to cast NAtural Order until you resolve an EOT CLique or have at least one counter to back it up and you should be fine.

I am running a basic forest and mountain but have cut the island. The Forest ensures you can hit double green for NO and cast Heirarch under a blood moon. The mountain is a nod to Merfolk.

[Haakon]

What's about MU vs team america?

It seems too hard to beat maindeck and the only thing I've found to help us is submerge...maybe it can be run in sideboard instead of jitte and another card (3 copies is the minimum IMHO).

Another ideas?

Some feedback about cutting jitte for submerge in sideboard?

[keys]

Just for you to know :

A TeamMate of mine won a 148ppl Legacy Tournament in France this Sunday with NO RUG, in a field of Reanimator, Junk and CawBlade decks.

HERE (http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=6979&st=75&p=121452&#entry121452)are the top8 lists.

2 Others NO RUG made a Top16 appearance if I remember correctly.
I personnaly punted beeing 27th with a 5-3 result (winning vs UWb LandStill, DeezNought, Junk, CawBlade and Reanimator, losing to Junk, Mirror Match and PatriotBlade) after a leading 4-0 with a similar list with those changes : -1 Witness/Misstep/Arbor, +1 Bolt/Daze/Tarn MD and -1 Terastodon/Finks +1 S.Extraction/S.Pierce SB

I've made a report in french, dunno if it's worth the read, but I can translate it and put the Report in the correct SubForum if needed.

The deck is a blast to play, but denial strategy decks like Junk removing all you manaDudes then your lands before dropping a big KotR is painful. So I don't think dropping any basic is a good option imho.

I really like the Eternal Witness in your teammate's list. I can't believe I never tested that. If you have Natural Order in your graveyard, Zenith for 3 gets it back plus a green creature to sacrifice. It also just seems like a very practical topdeck, returning Lightning Bolts, Goyfs and sideboard cards.

[Kellyx]

Instead whitness u can play a scavenging ooze or trygon predator=/.They can solo win you a game vs unbeatable decks in g1.
Whitness is just too slow, and sometimes its even just a dead card.

[useL]

Instead whitness u can play a scavenging ooze or trygon predator=/.They can solo win you a game vs unbeatable decks in g1.
Whitness is just too slow, and sometimes its even just a dead card.

How can witness be a dead card? You can get a land in worst case scenario to fetch for another arbor. Bringing stuff from GY to hand is rarely a dead card. Trygon Predator on the other hand is a really dead creature against alot of decks.

[lolosoon]

I really like the Eternal Witness in your teammate's list. I can't believe I never tested that. If you have Natural Order in your graveyard, Zenith for 3 gets it back plus a green creature to sacrifice. It also just seems like a very practical topdeck, returning Lightning Bolts, Goyfs and sideboard cards.
Indeed. Witness+Bolt helped him winning the race when Progy wasn't enough. He liked it a lot, especially in mid-Late games and post-board to het some bombs like Jace,TMS back into his hand.

Still, I'm not a big fan of Witness due to the slots it takes (4th Bolt, 3rd Daze/GSZ or 4th Misstep). I like to have consistency in my plays early game, and we still have NO+Clique for the Mid-Late game and bombs/tricks slots.

[Ecoris]

Don't board out Natural Order against UW Stoneblade, that's just like boarding out Force of Will against combo. You can definitely win without it, but its one of your best cards in the matchup. Well, it depends on how many answers they run. If they don't run Wrath (or only run 1 or 2) and have cut a few forces, by all means keep go for Progenitus. Maybe I'm just used to variants with four fow, wrath and maybe even spell pierce out of the board. Against such a configuration the grind-out plan is better and very feasible. They have very few win conditions (batterskull / other equipment, Jace), and you have plenty of answers to those.


Taking out the beatdown plan has been the way to go for me in several matchups including Junk, Maverick, and some other decks where Goyfs just won't get there because they are very well equipped to deal with our beatdown plan.

Most decks running Swords to Plowshares + Knight of the Reliquary + X other removal spells will beat you unless you resolve Natural Order. Against Zoo I wouldn't take out Goyfs, because they simply race you if all you do is producing a T4 Hydra. I agree 100% with you on this.

----

How would you sideboard in the mirror?

[Johnny Tsunami]

Hey everybody. New to this forum stuff and just getting back into playing Magic after a couple of years so bear with me :). Have some thoughts and questions I figured I would ask.

I've been playing this deck for a few weeks and I'm loving turn 3 Progenitus, but I'm wondering how everybody deals with aggro? Fast aggro decks sometimes give me trouble pre-board with only 4 Bolts and 2 Lavamancers. Zoo decks have plenty of burn for the Lavamancers and your early goyfs. Knight of the Reliquary is especially bad news against bolts and is also Misstep-proof and sometimes Daze-proof as well, although post-board is much easier. What's everybody's thoughts on Game 1 against Zoo and Rock-ish decks with goyfs, knights, and discard?

I'm testing 2 Punishing Fires / 3 Grove of the Burnwillows and it's been solid against Merfolk, Goblins, and Zoo thus far although sometimes I just can't dig into it (makes me want to try Sylvan Library or Ancestral Visions). As far as Natural Order goes, has anybody tried Empyrial Archangel? Haven't gotten the chance to test it out yet, but seems really valuable in the board against decks that will race Progenitus. Is the reason for red instead of white mostly for the red blasts and grudges?

Sometimes I feel like the deck is stretched too thin...like against some decks the aggro aspect can't quite get there without enough pressure or there's not enough of a control aspect to control the board and in both cases you really need to rely on NO into Progenitus. Then again, this deck has had plenty of success so I'm welcome to any advice!

[SMR0079]

Hey everybody. New to this forum stuff and just getting back into playing Magic after a couple of years so bear with me :). Have some thoughts and questions I figured I would ask.

I've been playing this deck for a few weeks and I'm loving turn 3 Progenitus, but I'm wondering how everybody deals with aggro? Fast aggro decks sometimes give me trouble pre-board with only 4 Bolts and 2 Lavamancers. Zoo decks have plenty of burn for the Lavamancers and your early goyfs. Knight of the Reliquary is especially bad news against bolts and is also Misstep-proof and sometimes Daze-proof as well, although post-board is much easier. What's everybody's thoughts on Game 1 against Zoo and Rock-ish decks with goyfs, knights, and discard?

I'm testing 2 Punishing Fires / 3 Grove of the Burnwillows and it's been solid against Merfolk, Goblins, and Zoo thus far although sometimes I just can't dig into it (makes me want to try Sylvan Library or Ancestral Visions). As far as Natural Order goes, has anybody tried Empyrial Archangel? Haven't gotten the chance to test it out yet, but seems really valuable in the board against decks that will race Progenitus. Is the reason for red instead of white mostly for the red blasts and grudges?

Sometimes I feel like the deck is stretched too thin...like against some decks the aggro aspect can't quite get there without enough pressure or there's not enough of a control aspect to control the board and in both cases you really need to rely on NO into Progenitus. Then again, this deck has had plenty of success so I'm welcome to any advice!

Don't try to out control aggro, just stall long enough to get off NO. Save your misteps to protect NO in hand or Noble Heirarch to ensure you can cast NO early. Post sideboard you should have Submerge to make the match easier.

The Bant Version is much better against those decks but can hardly win a game vs Merfolk, and REB is the nutz right now.

This deck requires that you understand when to switch roles and adapt to the game state. You play stack control against combo maximizing your CLiques. Against Merfolk you are playing board control using spot removal to kill their lords while you clog the board with Goyfs. Against traditional aggro like Zoo you just try to fend them off until NOPro hits. and against control you are basically a slow combo deck with counters.

Goodluck

[keys]

Instead whitness u can play a scavenging ooze or trygon predator=/.They can solo win you a game vs unbeatable decks in g1.
Whitness is just too slow, and sometimes its even just a dead card.

Pretty sure Ooze and Trygon are more likely to be dead game 1. Also, how is Witness slower than Trygon? They both cost three, but Witness's effect is a CIP ability, whereas Trygon needs to attack.

As useL pointed out, there's going to be something useful in your graveyard 99% of the time, but since it's a 1-of, more often you'll grab it with Zenith when you need to get something back, or late game for the card advantage.


Indeed. Witness+Bolt helped him winning the race when Progy wasn't enough. He liked it a lot, especially in mid-Late games and post-board to het some bombs like Jace,TMS back into his hand.

Still, I'm not a big fan of Witness due to the slots it takes (4th Bolt, 3rd Daze/GSZ or 4th Misstep). I like to have consistency in my plays early game, and we still have NO+Clique for the Mid-Late game and bombs/tricks slots.

I wouldn't cut a Bolt or Misstep or play less than 3 Zenith, but the 3rd Daze is not critical IMO. Whenever I play 3 or more my hand gets loaded up with them late game with no targets. 2 is enough to surprise your opponent, and make them play around it next game, without flooding your hand.

[Kellyx]

Both whitness and trygon/ooze are slow.
But whitness isnt gamebreacking, while trygon/ooze can be an i-win card in several match ups.
Well, trygon should be played only if your meta is swarmed by uw skulls (or other artifact based decks).
But 1 ooze, in my opinion, is just a must have.He is your only chance to win vs several decks in g1 and can do a lot of stuff vs a lot of other decks.

[Solthos]

I personally run 1 Trygon in my main deck because our meta is infested with artifact decks. But I'm prepping for a bigger tourney here and I'm not sure if Trygon is fast or good enough to even be in the 75. Thoughts?


Another question: Is 1 Goyf worth cutting in order to main deck Scavenging Ooze? Or should Ooze strictly be a SB card?

I know I wouldn't want to draw an Ooze against a Hive mind or ANT and it's also mana consuming to pump it against some matchups. But, it's HUGE against other matchups.

[keys]

Both whitness and trygon/ooze are slow.
But whitness isnt gamebreacking, while trygon/ooze can be an i-win card in several match ups.
Well, trygon should be played only if your meta is swarmed by uw skulls (or other artifact based decks).
But 1 ooze, in my opinion, is just a must have.He is your only chance to win vs several decks in g1 and can do a lot of stuff vs a lot of other decks.

It's a meta call, really. In an unknown field I wouldn't play them maindeck though.

[Jonathan Alexander]

To be honest, I wouldn't play either of them without a really good reason to do so.
I don't want to run cute tricks or anything and you have to keep in mind that four mana for Trygon Predator is as much as four mana for Progenitus. If Progenitus is too slow, then Trygon Predator should not do too much.
Scavenging Ooze, well. It's definitely strong, but against what kind of decks do you need it? I win most of my preboard games against Dredge anyway and against Knight Of The Reliquary decks, it's just really slow (plus it often dies to Lightning Bolt). Again, I'd rather cast Natural Order or cantrips to dig for it.
Eternal Witness might be strong, but again, I don't want to dilute the deck. If you're looking to grind out your opponent, sure play Eternal Witness. I'll stick to casting turn three Natural Order.
This might just be my personal preference, but I've also noticed that the longer the game lasts, the harder it becomes for us to win. This is especially true if you run Daze, and Force Of Will becomes worse the longer the game lasts as well.
By the way, I decided to test Daze again and it really sucked. Also, I don't really want to play cards that I'm going to board out in almost every single matchup apart from combo. If there was a lot of Hive Mind here, I'd probably play them, but when it's hardly present at all, no way.

[Solthos]

How do you guys think we fare against B/W Stoneblade and the more recent Deadguy Ale decks?


@Jona: Assuming that you're still using the decklist posted on the first page of this thread, are 2 Surgical Extractions + 1 Relic enough GY hate for Dredge? I know Bridges can easily be dealt with a Lightning Bolt or Fire//Ice.

Personally, I love the Dazes in the deck. It might be counter-productive to our mana ramping plan, but in our Hive Mind infested meta, I'm loving the card. Also, there are some instances where I wasn't able to Clique but tap out to NO anyway with Daze and FoW backup. Then again, maybe the Daze is a meta choice?

[Muradin]

I don't think that Daze is a meta choice. People just can't get away from thinking "URG aggro control ->Daze is awesome". But it isn't very good in this deck. And if you get counter backup for your Natural Order from Daze, your opponent must be doing something terribly wrong there most of the time.

In Canadian Threshold Daze is amazing due to its low curve, the land destruction aspect of the deck and because it supports the ressource denial / grind it out with a single cheap but effective thread plan.

In this deck however we don't have such a low curve, we don't have land destruction and our game plan is not to resolve Nimble Mongoose for [G], but to resolve Progenitus for [G][G][2].

Hive Mind can actually play around Daze nearly all of the time due to Show and Tell and Grim Monolith with their counter backup (which is real counter backup unlike Daze, such as Pact of Negation + FoW) being free as well. URG Natural Order is a well known deck amongst most people playing Legacy in a competitive way, so usually they'll play around Daze anyway with their key spells.
I am not stating here that Daze is bad against Hive Mind, thats not true, however I haven't found myself in a position to counter the key spells with it too often. For me, Clique was MVP in the matchup with FoW being our second best card.

Still, the matchup is not favorable preboard in my oppinion. To achieve this I usually need 4 Blasts from the board and probably even 2 Spell Pierce alongside them to call it a "good matchup postboard". A 4th Clique wouldn't suck there either but I wouldn't overload the board with too much combo hate, but 4 blasts and another 1-3 slots seem to be necessary here.

[Muradin]

*Something must be wrong with my PC, I ain't dumb and always clicking twice while posting but it makes 2 of them every single time since a few days now...*

[Kellyx]

I know I wouldn't want to draw an Ooze against a Hive mind or ANT and it's also mana consuming to pump it against some matchups.matchups.
Vs ANT your goyf will be 3/4.
I bet 2/2 ooze who denyes their IGG plan is a little better even:>

[Jonathan Alexander]

How do you guys think we fare against B/W Stoneblade and the more recent Deadguy Ale decks?


@Jona: Assuming that you're still using the decklist posted on the first page of this thread, are 2 Surgical Extractions + 1 Relic enough GY hate for Dredge? I know Bridges can easily be dealt with a Lightning Bolt or Fire//Ice.

Personally, I love the Dazes in the deck. It might be counter-productive to our mana ramping plan, but in our Hive Mind infested meta, I'm loving the card. Also, there are some instances where I wasn't able to Clique but tap out to NO anyway with Daze and FoW backup. Then again, maybe the Daze is a meta choice?

It's certainly been enough for me, yeah. But replacing Relic Of Progenitus with Scavenging Ooze is slightly better I guess. As long as you can protect it, Ooze just beats graveyard based strategies. There really isn't much they can do about it, especially Dredge. They're basically always going to slowdredge against you so if you can Zenith for Scavenging Ooze on turn two with Mental Misstep or Force Of Will in hand, you have already won (even Daze would do most of the time).
You just have to know when to use your hate. Generally, you want to cast Surgical Extraction for Ichorid, Bridge From Below, Narcomoeba and rarely Cabal Therapy.

Regarding Daze. I agree with Muradin that Daze is generally not good in this deck, but it's quite strong against Hive Mind actually. You're not using Daze to fight Show And Tell but to counter your Pact copies. Daze does that job quite well, but other than that it does almost nothing in most matchups, at least in this deck.
Overall Daze has become much weaker, mostly due to Mental Misstep. Misstep made the format not only slower but also way more serious. You can no longer play crappy manabases anymore because you will always need to consider Wasteland and Mental Misstep on your cantrips. Getting cantrips countered when you're digging for lands sucks hard. Therefore a lot of decks run more lands than they used to, plus Noble Hierarch and Green Sun's Zenith are everywhere, making Daze worse as well.
I really don't want to derail the thread, but this is also the reason why we don't see Stifle as much anymore (yeah, Gerry Thompson won with it, but he said himself that this was the worst deck he ever made top 8 with). People not only know how to play around it, they also can simply play through it. You're not guaranteed to blow people out with these kind of cards and they also hurt your own development. Tempo is very important in current Legacy and you want to put yourself ahead. You don't want to set your opponent back because you not only would have to run situational cards to do so, you also have to run spells that interact with your opponents lands. This means you have less cards that interact with what your opponent brings to the table (yes, Stifle does other things than dealing with fetchlands, but that's mostly an excuse by now) while still running a strong manabase.
Essentially, you need to cut lands to keep running Stifle, but how can you seriously justify hurting your own consistency? You really don't want to be there.
Wasteland is working on a completely different level by the way. Like Stifle, it's often not as much of a blowout as it was before Mental Misstep, but it's still very strong and now you actually have to think about how to use your Wastelands. As of now, you either want to use Wasteland to deal with your opponent's utility lands or to really set them back before they can cast their 4 mana spell of choice. If you don't put yourself ahead significantly in this one turn you gain (or rarely more because your opponent is going to dig for lands) it isn't going to help you anyway.

By the way, Tarmogoyf took a hit from Mental Misstep as well because people are forced to run strong, mostly proactive strategies and not the deck decks that just lost to Tarmogoyf. I wanted to write much more about this, but I'm really tired right now, so I might come back to this later.

[SMR0079]

Here's a rough tournment report and analysis on the deck from my run to the finals at SCG Seattle:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22490_Fighting_Hive_Mind_With_NO_RUG.html

You can read my thoughts on Daze, ect. What I didn't include in the report is where the deck is headed going forward. Basically, NO RUG is on everyone's radar now which means we won't have the luxury of the metagame focusing on Jace Control with situational counters. I predict it will get tougher to win with NO RUG over the next month as players start packing both direct hate like Perish, to indirect hate like playing tempo control keeping us off mana and green creatures to cast NO.

[Brushwagg]

I predict it will get tougher to win with NO RUG over the next month as players start packing both direct hate like Perish, to indirect hate like playing tempo control keeping us off mana and green creatures to cast NO.


Umm..not sure where you've been, but this has been happening for a while now. NO/Progs been seeing play for quite some time and people are wise to it.

I'm not sure what radical change could possibly make this a surpise at all but I'm all ears if someone has an idea.

[Muradin]

I have to revise my thoughts on Sylvan Library. Tested it again and it still was underwhelming in quite some matchups, but its worth running as a 1-of maindeck and perhaps even a 2nd one in the board. It basically does what jace does, but for a much lower mana cost. This card wins against control and any kind of BUG decks out there.

[Julian23]

Sylvan Library is really awesome although I wouldn't run more than a single one in this deck. Unlike for decks like Zoo, that exhaust their ressources quickly, to us Library is just another gimmick that just feels very smooth whenever I draw it.

Besides that, if you run 4 Clique (which I think is correct), adding more cards that are bad in multiples is meeeh...

On Daze: I cut it from my list in todays tournament and replaced it with Spell Snare. Never really missed it.

[Zamussels]

How do you guys think we fare against B/W Stoneblade and the more recent Deadguy Ale decks?


I played against NO Rug with b/w on modo and lost horribly both times. I have both decks built IRL and tested a bit and IMO NO Rug is favored. All of their creatures die to Grim Lavamancer, and they have a hard time dealing with a Tarmogoyf too. 3-4 Swords is not enough anymore. B/W could only win on the play with good discard openings.

[SMR0079]

I played against NO Rug with b/w on modo and lost horribly both times. I have both decks built IRL and tested a bit and IMO NO Rug is favored. All of their creatures die to Grim Lavamancer, and they have a hard time dealing with a Tarmogoyf too. 3-4 Swords is not enough anymore. B/W could only win on the play with good discard openings.

Perish?

[Zamussels]

Perish?

You side out NO Prog, they side in Perish and lose to Clique / Lavamancer.

[catmint]

You side out NO Prog, they side in Perish and lose to Clique / Lavamancer.

...and jace!

[Muradin]

Bw is a lot easier matchup than Junk and in my testing I won it exactly the same way you guys mention above.

BGW is a different animal however. They got KotR and Tarmogoyf, so you basically are the underdog beatdown wise. However usually they don't run Perish and thus Natural Order is a very viable option in this matchup. Just make sure that Progenitus is never your only creature on the board to protect him from Edicts via fetching out Dryad Arbor in response, flashing in clique or just putting some Lava Mancers on the board.

Against Deadguy I'd board out Natural Order, against Junk I'd board out Goyfs.

[gustha]

Hi! Everyone!

I necro my presence here on thesource :D Been away from the forum and generally from magic for some time. Last time I played, I played RUG with no testing at all and ended up 4-2 matching enchantress, elves, merfolk, show&tell, junk dehtps, spiral tide. The tournament ended up with a top of 2 team america, 2 the gate, 1 UW stoneforge control, 1 dredge, 1 reanimator, 1 merfolk.

All in all, the top wasn't very favorable. Apart from merfolk, maybe dredge and UW, I think we're not that much comfortable against Team America and The Gate. So I'd like to ask to the more experienced testers here, how do you see the Mu's.

I'm using this current list:

//Lands
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

//Creatures
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Progenitus
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Vendilion Clique
1 Grim Lavamancer

//Spells
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Daze
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
2 Ponder


SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Grim Lavamancer
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 3 Counterspell
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Manabase: pretty standard. I cut the basic island for the basic mountain, though i'd like to have 1 more tropical island instead. Wasteland is too much popular, don't want to have my bolts dead, though with 9 fetches it's really hard to get screwed. It happens, though. And I don't like AT ALL the basic mountain. Considering the 2nd dryad arbor, but at least the basic mountain gives mana if in the opening hand.

Creatures: again, pretty standard. There's 1 MD lavamancer that acts as a pseudo-bolt#5, due to merfolk being popoular. It helps to shut off some of the gate's creatures as well, mana dorks, etc., i'm happy with it, though my grave is not always that much populated. I can see it being anothe mana dork, but meh. I absolutely love vendilion clique and think it is by far one of the best cards of the deck. I'm happy with 4, tested a bit with 3 after the tournament, came back immediately to 4. Always want to do one on turn 2, possibly. I want to try a 3/1 split between hierarchs and bird, sometimes I want to fetch for a red source with GSZ, missing one exalted doesn't mean that much, i think (aside from the fact that bird doesn't beat on its own, unlike hierarch).

Counter suite: I ran a 3/3 daze/misstep split. I decided to cut a daze for a misstep, and currently using 2 dazes. I have mixed impressions on daze. Against black-based decks, i don't like it. Setting myself a land back it's not a thing I'd like to do, especially when I'm facing a heavy-disruption deck (though sometimes it saves a land from being wasted). Against non-blue aggro decks, I want to accelerate into a t3 order. Why should I have to daze something? Against blue control/aggro decks (namely, merfolk)/combo decks (show&tell), I absolutely love to accelerate into a t3 order with counter backup. Counterspell is a hard counter, ok, but daze is free. I'm still really undecided, and want to hear some more impressions. I read the whole topic, but it doesn't seem there is a very clear position on daze, and Jona's last comment on the subject (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?21432-DTB-Natural-Order-RUG&p=573816&viewfull=1#post573816) remained unfortunately unfinished. (I'm waiting for its conclusion! ^^). Counterspell is also heavy on the colors commitment, but if I support 4 cliques, I should support counterspell too (I'll maybe go back to the basic island).
Other options are spell snare and fire//ice, with a little preference for spell snare (hits hymn to tourach, tarmogoyf, go for the throat, bitterblossom, jitte, stoneforge mystic, grim monolith, cards which I fear the most, and many other useful things). Still I'm not convinced: daze is great in combination with hierarchs, and with 3 mana open is a counterspell @t2, exactly like counterspell is supposed to do (I want to cast a counter @t2, be it counterspell, daze, vendilion clique, spell snare... I don't really mind).

Sideboard: Put up this morning. I miss submerge, I think it's a very versatile card, hits team america's tombstalkers (big pain in the ass), zoo's reliquarys (big pain in the ass), and some other minor things (bant, not a real presence on the field). I miss terastodon. I usually get paired against enchantress, and there's always one show//sneak deck running around (terastodon saved my ass against both, blowing up lands/pesky enchantments). I opted for 2 jace and 3 counterspell. I don't like jace that much, last tournament I didn't side him in once. But I can see that, if countermeasures to progenitus start to arise, another wincondition should serve. Counterspell is good vs black-based decks (where fow isn't that much), and counterspell + jace 2.0 is a house against zoo (I read in the thread that zoo is a problematic Mu): counter and remove every single early spell they cast, then drop jace and fateseal them out of the game (save missteps for rebs). I think I'd maybe cut a reb: 7 counterspell in the sb are a lot, plus thrun can come in in a wide variety of MU's and is especially good against merfolks and control decks, though not against control (where i lose a reb but gain 3 counterspells).

Still, the SB is all about theory. Informations about game experience are needed and much appreciated.

I hope i didn't write too much. :)

[SMR0079]

Hi! Everyone!

SB: 3 Surgical Extraction***
SB: 2 Grim Lavamancer***
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Submerge***
SB: 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Terrastadon***



Sideboard: Put up this morning. I miss submerge, I think it's a very versatile card, hits team america's tombstalkers (big pain in the ass), zoo's reliquarys (big pain in the ass), and some other minor things (bant, not a real presence on the field). I miss terastodon. I usually get paired against enchantress, and there's always one show//sneak deck running around (terastodon saved my ass against both, blowing up lands/pesky enchantments). I opted for 2 jace and 3 counterspell. I don't like jace that much, last tournament I didn't side him in once. But I can see that, if countermeasures to progenitus start to arise, another wincondition should serve. Counterspell is good vs black-based decks (where fow isn't that much), and counterspell + jace 2.0 is a house against zoo (I read in the thread that zoo is a problematic Mu): counter and remove every single early spell they cast, then drop jace and fateseal them out of the game (save missteps for rebs). I think I'd maybe cut a reb: 7 counterspell in the sb are a lot, plus thrun can come in in a wide variety of MU's and is especially good against merfolks and control decks, though not against control (where i lose a reb but gain 3 counterspells).

Still, the SB is all about theory. Informations about game experience are needed and much appreciated.

I hope i didn't write too much. :)

I would add the 4th Trop and the 2nd Dryad Arbor to your maindeck.

holding double blue up for Counterspell is not what you want to be doing, but what ever you do don't cut REB. It's the best card in your board. It wins counter wars, stops Hivemind, and gives you game vs Merfolk.

Why don't you simply add Submerge to your board? They make a big difference against Zoo, Junk, Bant, Team America, and it's better in those matchups. I like Surgical Extraction as it doubles against both graveyard hate and as a tactical weapon against Hiveminds Intuitions, but if you don't face those decks maybe you don't need them.

I used to run the Troll as well but you already beat UW Stoneblade without him, and you bring in Jace anyway which is better against the field.

[gustha]

First, thanks for the kind response!

Now, where am I supposed to fit another dual and another dryad? ^^ The trop is good in the mountain slot, I've considered that before. Still, I see wasteland everywhere, have you been good without a basic mountain? I regard arbor as a necessary evil, i hate the fact that i can't make mana with it the turn it comes down, and I fear mulliganing because I have her as my only G source in my opening 7. I fetch it when I combo out, but maybe I'm using it wrong.

Terastodon vs. troll makes sense if i'm cutting counterspells, otherwise the troll is just plain better. Comes in against every sort of removal.deck, acting as another wincondition along with jace, I think. Counterspell is also good against combo/enchantress, blowing up lands/monoliths/other. Well, countering spells to slow down opponents AND blowing up lands at the same time seems good, so I'd probably re-switch terastodon for the troll as well (didn't thought this way before).

I've yet to test the counterspells, but on paper they seem very versatile, coming in against zoo, against control, against combo, against removal.deck (where I may need spell pierces anyway, and in fact I played 2 pierce in the board, last tournament). It's probably because I've played landstill most of my magic-life! ^^

Submerges: I think counterspell vs submerge is actually a meta call. Last time I played I didn't have to worry that much about green creatures, and wished I had a pair of counterspells instead. The room was well balanced between merfolk and combo decks (high tide, sneak/show), some TA//the gate, very few zoo or maverick, a couple of UW stoneblade, so I felt I needed a couple of those 2 mana instant speed "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" in my hand ^^ I believe that, if zoo or bant//TA start to gain popularity, submerges will be needed. At the moment, let's say I have 3 open slots! ^^

Extractions: Is there any way to fight dredge without devoting space to it? I see the card very good against intuition, though a clique at the same time i could cast extraction should do the same (ok, not actually removing emrakuls from the deck, but at least they searched for nothing ^^). Why you chose to sacrifice jittes?

[Julian23]

From what I know about this deck, I'd definitely recommend running a basic Mountain to ensure your RedBlasts+Bolts are guranteed to be casted against Merfolk. Nothing's more frustrating than losing your red mana sources to Wasteland in that matchup. Oh, and Grim Lavamancers loves that basic Mountain even more.

[chinEsE girl]

I know I said this a few posts ago, but I think it bears repeating. I do not think that any basics are necessary. Merfolk and other wasteland decks have 4 wastelands, you have 9 plus fetches to find your red duals. And cantrips to find them. You should play through their wastelands, not around them. Running basics screws up your draws, often doing thing like keeping you off double blue for clique, or double green for natural order. Additionally, running something like a basic mountain in your board is awful, since it takes away a valuable slot better spent on an actual spell.

[keys]

I know I said this a few posts ago, but I think it bears repeating. I do not think that any basics are necessary. Merfolk and other wasteland decks have 4 wastelands, you have 9 plus fetches to find your red duals. And cantrips to find them. You should play through their wastelands, not around them. Running basics screws up your draws, often doing thing like keeping you off double blue for clique, or double green for natural order. Additionally, running something like a basic mountain in your board is awful, since it takes away a valuable slot better spent on an actual spell.

I agree with your reasoning here, however I still advocate running 1 Forest in order to cast GSZ under a Blood Moon type effect.

[Julian23]

To be fair, not running a basic of this deck's most important color seems just plain wrong. And with like 10 Fetchlands, I hardly ever get mana screwed. Also, Natural Order doesn't seem very good against Merfolk anyways.

As someone (sry forgot the name) mentioned in his SCG article, dropping the basic island might be ok but at least play the Forest if not even the Mountain. Also, running basics makes Path to Exile preemptively cast on your potential Natural-Order-creatures less of a pain. Double blue for Clique is the only thing that might actually suffer from running a basic Mountain but tbh, I don't see that happening hardly ever with 10 fetchlands and 6-7 duals that produce blue + 4 Noble Hierarch.

Being able to constantly activate Lavamancer is way more important in matchups you want that guy in. way more important than double blue.

[SMR0079]

To be fair, not running a basic of this deck's most important color seems just plain wrong. And with like 10 Fetchlands, I hardly ever get mana screwed. Also, Natural Order doesn't seem very good against Merfolk anyways.

As someone (sry forgot the name) mentioned in his SCG article, dropping the basic island might be ok but at least play the Forest if not even the Mountain. Also, running basics makes Path to Exile preemptively cast on your potential Natural-Order-creatures less of a pain. Double blue for Clique is the only thing that might actually suffer from running a basic Mountain but tbh, I don't see that happening hardly ever with 10 fetchlands and 6-7 duals that produce blue + 4 Noble Hierarch.

Being able to constantly activate Lavamancer is way more important in match ups you want that guy in. way more important than double blue.

Yeah, I said it, others have too. You will lose more games to Folk because you cut the mountain then not. This match is the reason we play red instead of white (REB is ancillary). Forest into Heirarch is great against mana denial strategys, and yes, enabling GSZ as well. Natural Order is not worth fighting over against Folk, even if it resolves they can usually race it. Beat them with spot removal and Gofys. Look out for Kira though.

[gustha]

What chinEsE girl said is correct in some degree. If I played Tes or Urg/canadian, I'd simply don't mind and play through opposing mana denial plan. Those 2 decks have lower mana curve that NO RUG, sadly. The key to win here is usually resolve big papa and win. In (natural) order (lol!) to do so, you have to sac a green guy on a 4cc sorcery spell, which means mana denial strategies are a bit relevant to our plan.

Against folks, I think the key plays are: counter vial (thery have to spend mana on creatures, so the aren't likely to waste your lands soon) and bolt everything on sight (idem). Not in every game I have 3 tarmogoyfs waiting to eat fishes, sometimes I just have to struggle a bit to keep coralhelm commanders off the table (and within bolt range), and I desperately need those 3+2 damages to kill them off. Ok, the Mu is balanced if not favored, but chances are that my opponent simply puts enough pressure, that I can't afford being wasted on the first 2 turns. Clique is less relevant in the MU, so starting off with forest-> hierarch-> fetch-> mountain-> goyf, with a misstep somewhere in between, denies their islandwalk and gets me a big dude, having 3 mana to cast everything I want to see in the MU.

Folks might not be a good example, however. You can win without basics I think, but having access to 4+2+4 red spells postboard, with only 4 red (wastable) sources, doesn't make me feel comfortable (all these red spells fall under misstep, and most of them under spell pierce as well). Team america, on the other hand, not only has wastelands, but md stifle/pierce as well. As for zoo, the goal here, as I see from my very little experience with the deck, so correct me if i'm wrong, is to take time and resolve big pap as soon as i can. I can't afford to be wasted, and clique is largely irrelevant in the Mu anyway. (Different situation if I bring in counterspell from the SB.)

I'd remove the basic mountain for the second taiga//4th volcanic, of course, that's a change I had in mind. Being able to fetch red source#5 ("you finished them!") is the goal of the basic mountain! Don't know where to fit the 2nd dryad. How, for those who run it, the 2nd dryad helped?

I'd love more insight on the daze question as well! :) Thanks alot!

[pcccp]

I rushed through the postings and couldn´t find any experiences with burning wish in this deck. It looks like a fine addition. You can cut 1-2 NO maindeck for it. Burning wish gives you some nice answers against decks.

Suggestion:

Main:

-2 NO
-1?
+3 Burning Wish

SB:

+1 Natural Order
+1 Anarchy = Maverick
+1 Reverent Silence = Enchantress / CB / Humility
+1 Hull Breach / Shatterstorm / Meltdown / Pulverize /Shattering Spree = Affinity / MUD / Stoneblade

Possible other cards: Firespout, Life from the Loam

[Jonathan Alexander]

Counter suite: I ran a 3/3 daze/misstep split. I decided to cut a daze for a misstep, and currently using 2 dazes. I have mixed impressions on daze. Against black-based decks, i don't like it. Setting myself a land back it's not a thing I'd like to do, especially when I'm facing a heavy-disruption deck (though sometimes it saves a land from being wasted). Against non-blue aggro decks, I want to accelerate into a t3 order. Why should I have to daze something? Against blue control/aggro decks (namely, merfolk)/combo decks (show&tell), I absolutely love to accelerate into a t3 order with counter backup. Counterspell is a hard counter, ok, but daze is free. I'm still really undecided, and want to hear some more impressions. I read the whole topic, but it doesn't seem there is a very clear position on daze, and Jona's last comment on the subject (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?21432-DTB-Natural-Order-RUG&p=573816&viewfull=1#post573816) remained unfortunately unfinished. (I'm waiting for its conclusion! ^^).

As I said before, I already tested this deck with Daze before Mental Misstep was legal and I really hated Daze. When Mental Misstep was spoiled I made room for a playset. Then I cut down to three Missteps and I was looking for other options. I tried Spell Pierce as a two-off which worked pretty well. I also tried Daze again recently and it sucked. Most players expect Daze from this deck anyway and thus play around it. One thing you should keep in mind though is that this deck is really low on blue cards. Don't cut too many of them.

Ah, Burning Wish. I thought about this as well, but I want to test it out first. I had a GRB Natural Order Rock list that I played in late 2009. That list had Burning Wish as well but I think overall you're better off running a list with cantrips in blue. I'm not too sure though and I wanted to test this out as well. I wouldn't go down to two maindeck Natural Order though. And if you're going to play Firespout in the board, you should obviously go for Birds Of Paradise over Noble Hierarch. Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor becomes worse then as well. Might be worth trying, but I think I found something better for this deck. I'm going to try that out as soon as I get back to Germany but for now I'm focusing more on playing Limited so there's not too much time left for testing.

[Muradin]

I am recently trying out running less than 4 Tarmogoyfs as it seems they are not winning for me in that many matchups. At the moment I got the following configuration:

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Tropical island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
2 Dryad Arbor

4 Noble Hierarch
4 Vendilion Clique
1 Tarmogoyf
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Progenitus

4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Natural Order
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Fire/Ice
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Ponder
1 Sylvan Library

Sideboard:
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Red Elemental blast
2 Pyroblast
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Ancient Grudge

For me Goyf was only good against aggro as my favorite wall of choice. For the beatdown wins, its almost always Clique that gets the job done. More Lavamancers is better against Meerfolk than more Goyfs. Its also better against Stoneforge Mystic based decks. With 2 Dryad Arbor green creatures haven't been an issue.

Sower is good against Knight of the Reliquary, Submerge might be better. However I am comfortable with my boarding plan against Meerfolk being:

-1 Progenitus
-4 Natural Order
-4 Force of Will
-1 Vendilion Clique (#4 sucks here, and I don't need blue cards postboard)

+1 Lavamancer
+1 Ooze
+4 Blasts
+2 Umezawa's Jitte
+2 Sower of Temptation

Jitte is needed if not running goyf. Might get a Kitchen Finks in the board to steem the bleeding against Sligh/fast Zoo builds because I don't have a Goyf wall.

Whats your thoughts on Tarmogoyf not being very good at all in the current metagame? I run the 3rd Scalding Tarn over the 3rd Volcanic because having all 3 red mana wasted has never happened to me so so far and my experience in Magic has shown me that 16 initial mana sources of the color I want turn 1 (green) is exactly what I need and that most of the time Fetches are a good thing.

[gustha]

I can't speak of the current metagame in germany! :D here a lot of aggro is seen, though the gate sees some rising due to green monsters (zoo, maverick, forceless bant, rug on the way?) being very popular. Though, admittely, a little less than before: spiral tide always sees huge play, and stoneforge control is gaining popularity as well, merfolk always present, team america is reinforcing, reanimator//sneak show see some play. I see you're running up to 11 fetches!!! it sounds a little bit too much, though I guess you always want library manipulation for sylvan lybrary and cantrips.

Dunno on tarmogoyf. I feel one of the worst cards of the deck is force of will, I sided it out way too often against discard decks, zoo, maverick, merfolk... If the meta wouldn't have that many combo (I had to face enchantress, 2 spiral tides and 1 reanimator last time), I would be dropping a fow or two. How often do you side tarmo out? I think it's an efficient beater, costs very few and gets big relatively fast (misstep//bolt on random creature, a fetch and he begins to rock). More than lavamancer, he's key winning condition against merfolk. Against combo, between artifact mana, creatures in the grave, sorceries etc., he's always quite decent. Scavengin ooze looks good, but rather mana intensive. The plan against merfolk should be nullifying its CA (some lists don't even play standstill) and beating them down to death quicly before they can recover.

I agree with you, though, that tarmo is not the best creature here (it is vendilion clique, ofc, followed by mana dorks). And cutting 1 may seem legitimate. Going down to 1... I don't know...


Also, again, @daze. Both Jona and you, Muradin, have left daze. It seems you chose fire/ice over it. Why did you chose that cards, and what other options did you tested? Thanks alot!

Alsp, waiting Jona's tech to be spoiled :D

[Alexeezay]

Do you think Skinshifter is viable in this deck? Or is the G activation cost too annoying? I think I'm gonna test it because I like the card

[Muradin]

Fire/Ice is there because I like a 5th removal / reach spell while it makes my blue count 1 higher in comparison to running 4 bolt + 1 blue card. I feel its good against Hierarch, Mother of runes, Dryad Arbor, the flying prot:blue Quirion Ranger, Aven Mindcensor and all those low toughness creatures GW tends to run.

Its 1 more mana for 1 less damage, but the utility of the card is amazing and its never useless because it has fog-cycling // Port-cycling at least.

Force of Will is by no means the worst card in the deck. It protects Natural Order, which is all I want to do in half of my matchups. However you are right about the card getting boarded out quite often. I board out Goyf more than FoW though.

Running 1 Forest instead of the 3rd Scalding Tarn is another good option as well though.

@Skinshifter: Its just worse than Ooze and Goyf. Before you start running them you are better of running 4x Tarmogoyf, 1x Scavenging Ooze. Then you might start adding them.

[keys]

I've also felt like better late game target for Green Sun's Zenith would be welcome.

Knight of the Reliquary seems to be the biggest problem when fighting wars of attrition, so what about a single Terravore as a trump zenith target?

Goyf doesn't always cut it, but I probably wouldn't go down to less than 3. He's still a good wall and super efficient.

[gustha]

Indeed, this is not a bad idea at all... i don't know if replacing a single tarmogoyf is the right place for terravore, but it sure may find a place as goyf#5... we run at least 9 fetches, so being a 4/4 should rarely be a problem. Fetchlands are also common cards, and wasteland too, so it'l be a good guy... I felt a little stupid when "all" i could fetch was a tarmogoyf at the upper end of the curve...

[Julian23]

To be fair, GSZ will get you some mana-dude at least 50% of the time. From the limited testing I've done thus far even way more often. This deck is build around resolving Natural Order against most decks. Therefor 1 Goyf should be enough. I cut down on it. Muradin is absolutely right about Clique delivering most of the non-hydra beats.

Just played this deck to a 3-1 finish on the most recent Daily Event on Modo. I was running a list close to what Muradin posted except for -4 Force +4 Spell Pierce. My matchups were:

Round 1: UW Stoneblade - lost 1-2 (don't let this fool you. I think we have a fucking good matchup here, I just got manascrewed..)
Round 2: Ub Merfolk - won 2-0
Round 3: Zoo - won 2-1
Round 4: Hive Mind - won 2-1

[Jonathan Alexander]

Terravore is what I have been testing over the last week. It's been really strong I'm going to write up something later today about my recent changes to the decklist. I really like my new list and hoped I could show up with it and crush tournaments, but apparently others had similar ideas so it won't stay new and secret until I get to play again anyway. Expect a wall of text! haha

[gustha]

I love walls of text! ^^ Can't wait to read your testing results, will be very helpful.

Agree clique is the best beater by far, I began to play with 4, I'll stick with 4. I always want a t2 clique to mess things up! ^^

So right now, Jona, your counter package is 3 spell snare, 4 spell pierce, 4 mental misstep? I can see spell snare being a very cool option (the other is counterspell for me, fire/ice for the most of you, it seems.. meh, i don't like it that much), but in what sense spell pierce actually helped you more than force of will? Some games are won if you resolve a fast order, how does spell pierce help in that? (not to say that it doesn't counter llawan).

I'm not sold on the goyf thing. He's an eccellent beater, and the reason we have a positive Mu against merfolks (i.e. triple goyf attack! and some bolt here and then). Pushing too hard on terravore may open ourselves to grave hate, plus it's not synergistic with grim lavamancer. I'm waiting for Jona's considerations, however.

[Muradin]

Having more Lavamancers maindeck is a fine way to keep the merfolk matchup positive. Lavamancer is way more brutal here, as it plays out basically like a mini-Visara, killing of all of their guys if it resolves.

I always had a hard time pressuring merfolk hard enough with tarmogoyf. Sure, its a viable option to win the matchup but most of the time I felt behind with them running Daze, Cursecatcher, Vial, Wasteland, Force of Will and Mental Misstep as their tempo tools, which is way more than we have. For it played out like I tried to keep LoA and Coralhelm Commander of the table with my counters/burn and grinded it out in the endgame when they draw their weak sauce Dazes and Aether Vials. For me it has hardly ever possible to be the agressor in the matchup, nearly impossible when I was on the draw.

Cutting Goyfs has hurt my Zoo matchup, but besides I feel rather comfortable with my decission so far.

[Solthos]

Hi guys, after reading the comments and getting advice from you guys. I decided to test this list at our weekly tourney of about 14 people yesterday.

I did not have the Submerges for my SB and I was lacking 1 Surgical. Also lacked the 1-2 more Cliques for my main, so I substituted Jittes, Eternal Witness and Terastodon. This is the list I used to get 3rd place:

Lands:
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Taiga

Creatures:
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Terravore
1 Eternal Witness
1 Progenitus
2 Vendilion Clique


Spells:
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Natural Order
1 Sylvan Library
2 Fire/Ice
2 Daze

SB:
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Spell Pierce
2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Krosan Grip
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Scavenging Ooze

Yes yes, I know the Daze is debatable, but I really liked it in my games so far. Anyway, here's how the games went:

Match 1: Some sort of Extended Warriors Deck (2-0)
The guy I fought was new in the shop and brought an extended-type deck with a Nettle Sentinel and a Warrior that pumps other warriors. G1 and G2 went by really fast with a T3 and T4 NO for Progen.

Match 2: Hive Mind (2-1)
G1: I knew what he was playing and risked a hand with 2 Cliques as distruption. I don't think I should have kept a hand without FoW though. I was able to ramp to 3 mana, but I was on the draw and he got 3 mana and casted SnT. I played Clique in response. He FoWed, SnT resolved. I played Clique he plays Hive Mind, he doesn't pass priority, Pact of Summoner then Pact of negation. I only have 4 mana and on to G2.

SB: I go for the counter and beatdown plan, -4 NO, -1 Prog, -1 Terastodon, +3 REB, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Surgical, I didn't have anything else to board, so +1 Grip.

G2: He mulls to six. I kept a hand with Clique, REB and Daze. I Cliqued him which he responds with a Brainstorm. I see SnT, FoW, Lands and another Brainstorm. I'm thinking that he maybe has 2 SnTs which is why he didn't hide it in the Brainstorm, but I go against my instincts and go for the SnT anyway.

A turn after, the board state is I have 3 mana and a Clique and Hierarch out and he has 3 Islands. In my hand, I have Terravore, 2 REBs and a Daze. I tap 3 for a 4/4 Terravore leaving 1 Volcanic open for REB. At this point I'm thinking that I shouldn't have casted the creature yet in case we go into a counter war.

He plays another land, taps 3 for SnT. I am regretting both decisions at this point, but I REB him which I know he has FoW for. Then, taps out to cast Brainstorm in response to my REB. THANK GOD. He FoWs the REB, I daze. For the next 2 turns, I swing for 7 and 7 for lethal.

G3: He mulls to 5, which is good news for me. I mull to 6, keeping a hand with Clique, REB and Surgical Extraction. He pretty much fails to get cantrips to dig for his missing combo piece. I Clique him, which he FoWs and pitched another FoW. He keeps playing lands and nothing else. I was able to beat him down with an Exalted Goyf to win.

Match 3: Zoo w/o KoTR (2-1)
G1: He drops Lavamancer then I was beaten silly with a Kird Ape. Failed to find bolts, had NO in my hand did not have a green creature to Sac, and was stuck at 3 lands.

SB: -4 FoW, -1 Daze, +1 Ooze, +2 Jitte, +2 Lavamancer

G2: I ramp with Hierarch T1. He plays Loam Lion. He gets mana screwed with only 1 land in play. A quick NO makes him scoop.

G3: This game goes really long. He goes Loam Lion or Kird Ape, I ramp with GSZ. He plays Goyf as a 0/1. I do the same. He then used Chain lightning on my arbor. Things get hazy from here, but basically I dropped Ooze, ate all creatures. Got as big as 7/7 with him failing to draw PtE. I drop sylvan library, we hear the last 5 turns call. I eat my life total to get a Lavamancer, and 2 Goyfs out. He shakes my hand.

Match 4: G/W Maverick (1-2)
If I won this match, I would have gotten 1st, but I was against a top 10 ranked eternal player in our country. You could literally see my hand shaking when I was playing.

G1: He successfully delays my ramping with some removal. Then again, I kind of made it obvious I had the NO in my hand when I FoWed his StP on my Hierarch. He GSZ into Teeg. Then KotR beats my face in.

SB: -4 FoW, -2 Daze, -2 Clique, +2 Jitte, +2 Lavamancer, +1 Surgical, +1 Grudge, +1 Grip, +1 Ooze
I think my nerves got to me at this point. I forgot about the SBing tips against Maverick which was to counter and resolve NO. Should have kept the counters, taken out the Goyfs and brought in Spell pierce. DON'T OUT AGGRO AN AGGRO DECK. GRRR.

G2: I had the advantage with a Exalted 3/4 goyf, then he Wastelands one of my lands, then I debate whether to surgical the wasteland so I can NO later on safely. I again go against my instincts, and he has another wasteland. I then use surgical on the wasteland and remove only 1 more waste in his deck, I see a KoTR in his hand and a Phyrexian Metamorph. Lovely.

It gets to a point where he has Scryb, KotR, and another creature I'm forgetting. I see he's at 10 life. I have a bolt in hand. I'm at around 15 life with 4 lands, I think. I draw an eternal witness. Swing with Exalted Goyf, he doesn't block, strangely. He casts another KotR, then I bolt him on his EOT. On my turn, I cast Witness, recur bolt ftw.

G3: Again he is able to GSZ teeg. He gets superior board control and I shake his hand.

Notes:
- Eternal Witness had its shining moment when Bolt, Witness, Bolt wins you the game, but I have to agree that she is a dead card in your hand most of the time.
- I like the Terravore, there were several times in the Maverick matchup where I could have dropped him and matched the opponent's KotR. He gets big regardless of whether the opponent has KotR or not, fetches are enough.
- I really don't like Terastodon, there hasn't ever been an instance where I wished for him instead of Progenitus.
- Vendilion Cliques are amazing. PERIOD.
- Is submerge really needed? I feel like Beast Within could be used as a more "permanent" removal of a big creature we can't handle.

Thanks for reading.

[chinEsE girl]

Solthos; I understand you were short some cards for the event (clique, extraction), but next time you play the deck you should definitely have more blue cards in your maindeck. You have right now 18 blue cards main (not counting progenitus), which is pretty low for a deck without painters servant. I'd suggest finding a third clique (cuz it's the nuts), and then cutting a bolt for a fire/ice. Except for wild nacatl, fire/ice deals with every threat that bolt does, in addition to being a blue card for force, and just demolishing GSZ based decks by killing two mana dorks.

[useL]

Why isn't Vexing Shusher considered as a viable zenith target? He dies too easy? Tarmogoyf way better ofc but he can win counter wars. Just wanted your opinion.

[Solthos]

Oops, one error on my decklist. I had one Birds of Paradise and 3 Hierarchs.


You have right now 18 blue cards main (not counting progenitus), which is pretty low for a deck without painters servant. I'd suggest finding a third clique (cuz it's the nuts), and then cutting a bolt for a fire/ice. Except for wild nacatl, fire/ice deals with every threat that bolt does, in addition to being a blue card for force, and just demolishing GSZ based decks by killing two mana dorks.

3 bolts and 3 Fire/ Ice? I might do that. I thought the "magic number" for blue cards in a deck with a set of FoWs was 18? Although, I guess it would be better to keep my blue count up. Thanks!


Why isn't Vexing Shusher considered as a viable zenith target? He dies too easy? Tarmogoyf way better ofc but he can win counter wars. Just wanted your opinion.

IMO, Shusher eats up too much mana and the only spell that you really need to protect is NO. I think the deck has enough counters to back that up. Without NO in you hand, Shusher doesn't really help much.

[Final Fortune]

Fire/Ice loses games Lightning Bolt doesn't vs Zoo's 2/3 asses, but Fire/Ice and Lightning Bolt aside, have people tried playing the Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fires combo in this deck? It seems to do a really good job of beating Tribal, which is amongst this deck's more difficult match ups.

And as far as Vexing Shuhser, you can try Xantid Swarm as well.

[Jonathan Alexander]

You're having problems against tribal? I found these matchups to be really easy. Grove Of The Burnwillows is also weak to Wasteland. I found the combo to be clunky and I prefer Fire // Ice for several reasons (mostly versatility). Punishing Fire is quite good against Jace and Stoneforge Mystic though.

As for Vexing Shusher; I don't think we need it. I board out Zenith against decks with countermagic anyway.

[Deady]

The problem with Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire is that the combo isn't consistent enough for the deck.

[Final Fortune]

The problem with Grove of the Burnwillows and Punishing Fire is that the combo isn't consistent enough for the deck.

It seems consistent enough to me, one is a functional Taiga and the other is a functional removal spell by themselves, and with 8 cantrips they come together nicely

@Jona, I have consistent problems with Merfolk and Goblins in the sense they make it hard as hell to resolve NO.

[Jonathan Alexander]

In my testing Punishing Fire didn't work. The parts aren't too strong on their own. I don't want to run too many Groves plus I still want to run at least one Taiga. There isn't really more room for more than two Groves then. Punishing Fire is okay on its own; at least it gets around Mental Misstep against Stoneforge Mystic.

Against Merfolk you should board out Natural Order. Against Goblins you can resolve it much more easily, so I tend to keep it in. Also, this deck is generally super stong against Goblins, at least with Fire // Ice. I talked with Gobo_Lord about the matchup a few weeks ago and he said it's almost impossible for him to beat one of my more mediocre draws. If there's a lot of Goblins in your meta there's basically no way you can play this deck without Fire // Ice. It's golden in that matchup. Tarmogoyf is strong there too. Don't get blown out by Goblin Sharpshooter or Gempalm Incinerator though, these two can sometimes be tough. You have lots of ways to slow them down and you should use them. Don't hesitate using Force Of Will for turn one Æther Vial or Goblin Lackey, they're taking a massive hit if you do so since your clock is nothing to scoff at as well.

[Jonathan Alexander]

In my testing Punishing Fire didn't work. The parts aren't too strong on their own. I don't want to run too many Groves plus I still want to run at least one Taiga. There isn't really more room for more than two Groves then. Punishing Fire is okay on its own; at least it gets around Mental Misstep against Stoneforge Mystic.

Against Merfolk you should board out Natural Order. Against Goblins you can resolve it much more easily, so I tend to keep it in. Also, this deck is generally super stong against Goblins, at least with Fire // Ice. I talked with Gobo_Lord about the matchup a few weeks ago and he said it's almost impossible for him to beat one of my more mediocre draws. If there's a lot of Goblins in your meta there's basically no way you can play this deck without Fire // Ice. It's golden in that matchup. Tarmogoyf is strong there too. Don't get blown out by Goblin Sharpshooter or Gempalm Incinerator though, these two can sometimes be tough. You have lots of ways to slow them down and you should use them. Don't hesitate using Force Of Will for turn one Æther Vial or Goblin Lackey, they're taking a massive hit if you do so since your clock is nothing to scoff at as well.

[Final Fortune]

So far I've really disliked cutting Tarmogoyf(s) and I think it's a bad idea unless you're replacing Tarmogoyf with a Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull package for an equivalent 2 drop. I think the moment you cut Tarmogoyf and/or Stoneforge Mystic you turn your deck into a worse version of NO SHO with no aggro-control or control plan.

[Muradin]

I tested Terravore for some games now and found him pretty good in most matchups. This guy doesn't get jump blocked, beats Knight of the Reliquary every day and last but not least is my favorite creature in magic. I might be biased though.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I tested Terravore for a few weaks now, and it's been amazing. It's much better than Tarmogoyf and even when you board in Grim Lavamancer it's often not too hard to keep him at least at 4/4. Also, like Muradin said, Terravore completely trumps Knight Of The Reliquary, which has been one of the deck's "problems" so far. It makes Relic Of Progenitus slightly better against us, but people can't bring ten pieces of hate for different aspects of NO RUG, so that's kind of a nonissue.
It kinda sucks that others started testing it as well though; now I have to come up with even more new tech before GP Amsterdam. Anyway, I wrote an article about my recent changes to my list but I'm not sure when and where it'll be published. Probably I'm just going to post it on The Source, but who knows. I'll let you guys know anyway. There's also some general Legacy metagame discussion in it, so it might actually be interesting.

[Deady]

Terravore is a turn slower than Goyf (3 mana) and requires GG instead of G...

[Vandalize]

Terravore is a turn slower than Goyf (3 mana) and requires GG instead of G...

Getting GG is the easiest thing in NO RUG.

Still, I wouldn't drop Tarmogoyfs for anything. It's just the best body you can get for 1G. And as someone said before, it's a wall. So don't expect to swing to victory with Tarmogoyf... Clique does this better.

BUT, you can try a 1-off Terravore as GSZ target cutting something less useful.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I finally finished my article, I hope this gives some insight on my cardchoices: Tuning NO RUG: What would Kibler do? (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=1852)

[losada]

Very good article, Jona. Congrats!! I'm testing 1 Terravore maindeck, and maybe I include the second one too.

[CorpT]

I finally finished my article, I hope this gives some insight on my cardchoices: Tuning NO RUG: What would Kibler do? (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=1852)

Scavenging Ooze eats lands in their graveyard too. That shrinks their Knight to a much more manageable size. I see no reason not to run the 1st Ooze over the 2nd Terravore maindeck.

[Muradin]

Played in a Legacy tournament today for the first time since quite some months.

Played No RuG.

2-1 Eva Green
1-2 BUG-Still
2-1 BUG-Still
2-1 UGx Aggro-control
2-1 GW Maverick
2-0 GW Maverick

Lavamancer was busy being awesome all day long. I beat both GW decks only because I could land and protect Lavamancer and consequently kill off all of their creatures. Lost 1 game against GW due to a flashed in Aven Mindcensor combined with 3 Wastelands. Besides the matchup seems to be quite positive.

Jace totally sucked in the control matchups. He was much too expensive, predictable and was not even remotely the bomb I wanted him to be. I thought I was more than prepared to face control, but my sideboard was absolutely suboptimal against this matchup. Sylvan Library was awesome and I feel 1 main, 1 sideboard is the right choice. Lavamancer is the single best card one can play in my metagame featuring lots of GW and other midrange decks that lose if you dare to kill their Noble Hierarch.

I found 4 Clique to be too much for my taste in the maindeck. Nobody runs Hive Mind in Bavaria and all it did against control was to trade with random removal spells. 3 seems to be plenty.


GSZ was performed in a disappointing way, being weak after turn 1. I never killed with Tarmogoyf // Ooze. I won most of my matches with Progenitus or Clique beats.

Fire //Ice is a very strong card in the current metagame and should be a staple in this deck.

I will have to work on my list, as it didn't do what I expected from it. However I like the way the deck plays out.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Scavenging Ooze eats lands in their graveyard too. That shrinks their Knight to a much more manageable size. I see no reason not to run the 1st Ooze over the 2nd Terravore maindeck.

I really didn't like the maindeck Scavenging Ooze in testing. It's not nearly as good against Knight Of The Reliquary as Terravore is and it's usually also much worse against everything else besides Dredge and Reanimator. Terravore is almost always a beating.
I don't like situational cards in my maindeck but if I should have reason to run a Scavenging Ooze maindeck, I will definitely do so. I stated in my article that this slot really is a metagame call, and the German metagame is surprisingly not filled with graveyard strategies right now.


Anyway, are there any matchups you would like to see played out for my next article? I'm thinking Bant Aggro or Maverick, probably Merfolk. Any other suggestions?

[Solthos]

Anyway, are there any matchups you would like to see played out for my next article? I'm thinking Bant Aggro or Maverick, probably Merfolk. Any other suggestions?

Personally, I would like to see it against Junk, Team America, and maybe Reanimator. Although, the ones you wrote would help much more as those are decks that see a lot of play.

Btw, great article Jona!

[gustha]

Good job Jona, i think you did a very good analysis, and especially like the "core" deconstruction of the deck.

Few questions I'd like to ask.
1) f/i#3 - grim lavamancer: I recently swapped daze for 2 spell pierce and 1 mancer. Then cut the 3rd tarmo for 1 f/i (already cut 1 tarmo for terravore #2) and, sadly, I removed the 4th clique to make room for another f/i. In short: do you think there's value in diversifying slots and make a split, of you're more likely to have a third ice effect above a recurring fire effect on legs?

2) force of will, mental misstep. Along with other changes, I cut FoW#4 for Misstep#4. This pairs with the cut of 4th clique, as well. I thought: I only need one force to protect the combo, as I barely want to force anything else (if I'm not playing against combo, ofc). Clique it's just an amazing beater and an amazing protection, actually doubling the number of countermeasures in hand. I'd rather have clique#4 than fow#4 (unless my opopnent has double counter, i can go for a blank order without fow). Fow#4 is good as long as I have clique#4, i.e., a reliable chance I have one clique between the 2nd and the 3rd turn. There are just games, though, where i don't have an order or can't dig for it, and I have to take the beatdown plan. Misstep, here, is very important to protect guys from swords, and I tend to cast a misstep in the first two turns anyway (that's when relevant stuff that costs 1 mostly begin to be cast). We'v always considered FoW as autoincluding, but recent results show that, like other cards, it can be a metacall. How's your opinion about that? (Or about other players playing even 2 fow's only?) Wish I had room for clique#4!

3) clique#4 is out for a matter of taste, testing, space or...?

4) surgical extraction is a choice i don't understand. Sure, it does more than just 1x1 as REB, but... ok, it's useful against controllish MU's, and maybe against combo too. Yeah, makes some sense. Though, I don't know if it's superior to counterspell. Counterspell comes in against lots of mu's, against aggressive ones as well, or those with tons of removal (junk, TA), against controllish decks, against combo ofc. How do you use SE, and when does it shine? (Wasn't a big fan of extirpate too, this can be misstepped).

5) no jitte?

6) How is jace? When I play it, it's not the bomb it uses to be in other decks.. sure, it does thing, and does thing well, but. Meh. I probably didn't play it enough.

My list:
3 Force Of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Mental Misstep
2 Fire // Ice
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Natural Order
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Progenitus
3 Vendilion Clique

Mana Sources (19)
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
1 Forest
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15)
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
1 Terastodon
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Counterspell

Want to make room for a library (considering cutting a pyro, as i have tons of counters), and missing submerge

[gustha]

Good job Jona, i think you did a very good analysis, and especially like the "core" deconstruction of the deck.

Few questions I'd like to ask.
1) f/i#3 - grim lavamancer: I recently swapped daze for 2 spell pierce and 1 mancer. Then cut the 3rd tarmo for 1 f/i (already cut 1 tarmo for terravore #2) and, sadly, I removed the 4th clique to make room for another f/i. In short: do you think there's value in diversifying slots and make a split, of you're more likely to have a third ice effect above a recurring fire effect on legs?

2) force of will, mental misstep. Along with other changes, I cut FoW#4 for Misstep#4. This pairs with the cut of 4th clique, as well. I thought: I only need one force to protect the combo, as I barely want to force anything else (if I'm not playing against combo, ofc). Clique it's just an amazing beater and an amazing protection, actually doubling the number of countermeasures in hand. I'd rather have clique#4 than fow#4 (unless my opopnent has double counter, i can go for a blank order without fow). Fow#4 is good as long as I have clique#4, i.e., a reliable chance I have one clique between the 2nd and the 3rd turn. There are just games, though, where i don't have an order or can't dig for it, and I have to take the beatdown plan. Misstep, here, is very important to protect guys from swords, and I tend to cast a misstep in the first two turns anyway (that's when relevant stuff that costs 1 mostly begin to be cast). We'v always considered FoW as autoincluding, but recent results show that, like other cards, it can be a metacall. How's your opinion about that? (Or about other players playing even 2 fow's only?) Wish I had room for clique#4!

3) clique#4 is out for a matter of taste, testing, space or...?

4) surgical extraction is a choice i don't understand. Sure, it does more than just 1x1 as REB, but... ok, it's useful against controllish MU's, and maybe against combo too. Yeah, makes some sense. Though, I don't know if it's superior to counterspell. Counterspell comes in against lots of mu's, against aggressive ones as well, or those with tons of removal (junk, TA), against controllish decks, against combo ofc. How do you use SE, and when does it shine? (Wasn't a big fan of extirpate too, this can be misstepped).

5) no jitte?

6) How is jace? When I play it, it's not the bomb it uses to be in other decks.. sure, it does thing, and does thing well, but. Meh. I probably didn't play it enough.

My list:
3 Force Of Will
2 Spell Pierce
4 Mental Misstep
2 Fire // Ice
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Green Sun’s Zenith
4 Natural Order
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Progenitus
3 Vendilion Clique

Mana Sources (19)
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
1 Forest
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15)
1 Grim Lavamancer
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyroblast
1 Terastodon
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Counterspell

Want to make room for a library (considering cutting a pyro, as i have tons of counters), and missing submerge

[Kellyx]

Does someone like Jace as i do?:>
Ive added 1 in md and 1 in sb and it shines all the time.Thinking about going 2xmd.3 most popular decks are Hive mind, UW, maverick-he is good vs every of them(w/e he is good vs evertthing).
Also 1 ooze in main instead 1 goyf, is brilliant in my opinion.There wasnt a single situation where i was realy upset to have him on hand instead goyf(most time he was better even)+he can win you a lot of G1 by himself vs a lot of decks.

[Deady]

@Jona: What about -2 Ponder, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Sylvan Library main deck? Spell Pierce is even more powerful as a 3-off and Sylvan Library is just nuts on its own. You'd still have enough blue cards for FoW and your manabase makes it really easy to cast an early Library if needed. Also Library ignores Misstep, Ponder doesn’t. Another bonus is that it would leave an empty spot in your sideboard, perhaps for the 4th Clique, another Extraction or something else relevant.

[Spartacvs]

4!! copies of NO RUG in scg top 8:eek:

[DrHealex]

4!! copies of NO RUG in scg top 8:eek:

Oh noes! Ban Natural Order! It's a TUTOR!



All I can say is grrrreeeaaaat, now the meta is finally going to be gunning for us. I love natural order style decks, but I might have to let it lay low for awhile until the heat has passed :P

[Jonathan Alexander]

First off, thanks for the kind words all! This really gives me incentive to keep writing articles. I'm probably going to start working on my next article later today; I gotta play some games to analyse.



Few questions I'd like to ask.
1) f/i#3 - grim lavamancer: I recently swapped daze for 2 spell pierce and 1 mancer. Then cut the 3rd tarmo for 1 f/i (already cut 1 tarmo for terravore #2) and, sadly, I removed the 4th clique to make room for another f/i. In short: do you think there's value in diversifying slots and make a split, of you're more likely to have a third ice effect above a recurring fire effect on legs?

I think this depends on what you're more likely to face / what's more important for you to beat. Currently, I don't see a lot of Merfolk, but I do see a shitload of Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith decks. Thus I generally get more value out of Fire // Ice than Grim Lavamancer. I still have them in the board for the Merfolk and control matchups, but against decks like Bant Aggro and Maverick, I don't even board them in most of the time.


2) force of will, mental misstep. Along with other changes, I cut FoW#4 for Misstep#4. This pairs with the cut of 4th clique, as well. I thought: I only need one force to protect the combo, as I barely want to force anything else (if I'm not playing against combo, ofc). Clique it's just an amazing beater and an amazing protection, actually doubling the number of countermeasures in hand. I'd rather have clique#4 than fow#4 (unless my opopnent has double counter, i can go for a blank order without fow). Fow#4 is good as long as I have clique#4, i.e., a reliable chance I have one clique between the 2nd and the 3rd turn. There are just games, though, where i don't have an order or can't dig for it, and I have to take the beatdown plan. Misstep, here, is very important to protect guys from swords, and I tend to cast a misstep in the first two turns anyway (that's when relevant stuff that costs 1 mostly begin to be cast). We'v always considered FoW as autoincluding, but recent results show that, like other cards, it can be a metacall. How's your opinion about that? (Or about other players playing even 2 fow's only?) Wish I had room for clique#4!

When I was still running the full set of Mental Missteps, I often had multiples in my hand without needing them or I could only hit mediocre cards with it. The best uses are key Brainstorms and Swords To Plowshares against decks that are light on removal. Using it on classical turn one plays (Æther Vial, Wild Nacatl, Goblin Lackey) is also strong, but after turn one it's often not even worth using it for these cards. We also don't need to counter opposing Missteps often because we pretty much don't have any key plays on one.
Force Of Will on the other hand counters all the strong plays and ironically helps much more in the aggro matchups than Mental Misstep. I don't board it out in any matchup I think. This is not because I'm used to always playing the full set of Forces but because it's very strong in this deck (this is one of the few decks where it's still the awesome tempo card it was one or two years ago). It helps a lot against all the G/W based decks in countering Knight Of The Reliquary, Aven Mindcensor and sometimes Stoneforge Mystic if you otherwise can't race. I really wouldn't want to drop them in this deck, tempo is just so important for NO RUG to work successfully. It's also nice to be able to counter opposing Forces, Jaces, Vendilion Cliques and so on.


3) clique#4 is out for a matter of taste, testing, space or...?

I think the fourth Clique can be okay, but I have often been flooded with them and even with "only" three I have them often enough. I still see two of them in most of my games. It's a bit of all of these factors.


4) surgical extraction is a choice i don't understand. Sure, it does more than just 1x1 as REB, but... ok, it's useful against controllish MU's, and maybe against combo too. Yeah, makes some sense. Though, I don't know if it's superior to counterspell. Counterspell comes in against lots of mu's, against aggressive ones as well, or those with tons of removal (junk, TA), against controllish decks, against combo ofc. How do you use SE, and when does it shine? (Wasn't a big fan of extirpate too, this can be misstepped).

Surgical Extraction only comes in against graveyard based decks and sometimes combo decks (especially with Intuition). It actually helps a lot in the Hive Mind matchup and is often quite strong against Dredge (in response to Narcomoeba triggers for example, but also against Ichorids). Apart from that, it does nothing. It's the most (only) debatable slot in my sideboard I think, but there isn't anything else I want to have in my board anyway.


5) no jitte?

No. I didn't like it in testing. It's certainly an option though. I think it's strong against Merfolk and maybe in the mirror, but in my opinion you're better off bringing in more spotremoval. You can get blown out very easily with Jitte, especially in the mirror. It's a house against Goblins, but that deck doesn't see much play and is already a relatively easy matchup.


6) How is jace? When I play it, it's not the bomb it uses to be in other decks.. sure, it does thing, and does thing well, but. Meh. I probably didn't play it enough.


He's okay. Especially against UBG Landstill he helps a lot, but he's also quite awesome against combo. When I board him in, I rarely see him though. Same with Sylvan Library.
By the way, you're the same Gustha that commented on the article on Eternal Central, right?



@Jona: What about -2 Ponder, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Sylvan Library main deck? Spell Pierce is even more powerful as a 3-off and Sylvan Library is just nuts on its own. You'd still have enough blue cards for FoW and your manabase makes it really easy to cast an early Library if needed. Also Library ignores Misstep, Ponder doesn’t. Another bonus is that it would leave an empty spot in your sideboard, perhaps for the 4th Clique, another Extraction or something else relevant.

My girlfriend had the same changes in mind actually. Yesterday she played my maindeck with -1 Ponder +1 Sylvan Library and a slightly different board. She had the third Red Elemental Blast in her sideboard instead of the Library, so this is quite similar to your suggestions as well. Personally I think the third Blast is best, but it could also be the third Jace or the fourth Clique.
Spell Pierce has proven to be awesome in almost all matchups. Also, my girlfriend pulled the sickest mindgame ever in a tournament yesterday. She played against TES and countered a spell with Spell Pierce while her opponent still had four mana open. I don't know if the third Spell Pierce is better than the one-off Ponder though, since Ponder often helps and is a very strong topdeck most of the time, and Spell Pierce might be a tad too situational for me to run as a three-off. If there's an increase in Natural Order and/or decks packing Perish, I will most likely add the third Spell Pierce.

[Jonathan Alexander]

First off, thanks for the kind words all! This really gives me incentive to keep writing articles. I'm probably going to start working on my next article later today; I gotta play some games to analyse.



Few questions I'd like to ask.
1) f/i#3 - grim lavamancer: I recently swapped daze for 2 spell pierce and 1 mancer. Then cut the 3rd tarmo for 1 f/i (already cut 1 tarmo for terravore #2) and, sadly, I removed the 4th clique to make room for another f/i. In short: do you think there's value in diversifying slots and make a split, of you're more likely to have a third ice effect above a recurring fire effect on legs?

I think this depends on what you're more likely to face / what's more important for you to beat. Currently, I don't see a lot of Merfolk, but I do see a shitload of Stoneforge Mystic and Green Sun's Zenith decks. Thus I generally get more value out of Fire // Ice than Grim Lavamancer. I still have them in the board for the Merfolk and control matchups, but against decks like Bant Aggro and Maverick, I don't even board them in most of the time.


2) force of will, mental misstep. Along with other changes, I cut FoW#4 for Misstep#4. This pairs with the cut of 4th clique, as well. I thought: I only need one force to protect the combo, as I barely want to force anything else (if I'm not playing against combo, ofc). Clique it's just an amazing beater and an amazing protection, actually doubling the number of countermeasures in hand. I'd rather have clique#4 than fow#4 (unless my opopnent has double counter, i can go for a blank order without fow). Fow#4 is good as long as I have clique#4, i.e., a reliable chance I have one clique between the 2nd and the 3rd turn. There are just games, though, where i don't have an order or can't dig for it, and I have to take the beatdown plan. Misstep, here, is very important to protect guys from swords, and I tend to cast a misstep in the first two turns anyway (that's when relevant stuff that costs 1 mostly begin to be cast). We'v always considered FoW as autoincluding, but recent results show that, like other cards, it can be a metacall. How's your opinion about that? (Or about other players playing even 2 fow's only?) Wish I had room for clique#4!

When I was still running the full set of Mental Missteps, I often had multiples in my hand without needing them or I could only hit mediocre cards with it. The best uses are key Brainstorms and Swords To Plowshares against decks that are light on removal. Using it on classical turn one plays (Æther Vial, Wild Nacatl, Goblin Lackey) is also strong, but after turn one it's often not even worth using it for these cards. We also don't need to counter opposing Missteps often because we pretty much don't have any key plays on one.
Force Of Will on the other hand counters all the strong plays and ironically helps much more in the aggro matchups than Mental Misstep. I don't board it out in any matchup I think. This is not because I'm used to always playing the full set of Forces but because it's very strong in this deck (this is one of the few decks where it's still the awesome tempo card it was one or two years ago). It helps a lot against all the G/W based decks in countering Knight Of The Reliquary, Aven Mindcensor and sometimes Stoneforge Mystic if you otherwise can't race. I really wouldn't want to drop them in this deck, tempo is just so important for NO RUG to work successfully. It's also nice to be able to counter opposing Forces, Jaces, Vendilion Cliques and so on.


3) clique#4 is out for a matter of taste, testing, space or...?

I think the fourth Clique can be okay, but I have often been flooded with them and even with "only" three I have them often enough. I still see two of them in most of my games. It's a bit of all of these factors.


4) surgical extraction is a choice i don't understand. Sure, it does more than just 1x1 as REB, but... ok, it's useful against controllish MU's, and maybe against combo too. Yeah, makes some sense. Though, I don't know if it's superior to counterspell. Counterspell comes in against lots of mu's, against aggressive ones as well, or those with tons of removal (junk, TA), against controllish decks, against combo ofc. How do you use SE, and when does it shine? (Wasn't a big fan of extirpate too, this can be misstepped).

Surgical Extraction only comes in against graveyard based decks and sometimes combo decks (especially with Intuition). It actually helps a lot in the Hive Mind matchup and is often quite strong against Dredge (in response to Narcomoeba triggers for example, but also against Ichorids). Apart from that, it does nothing. It's the most (only) debatable slot in my sideboard I think, but there isn't anything else I want to have in my board anyway.


5) no jitte?

No. I didn't like it in testing. It's certainly an option though. I think it's strong against Merfolk and maybe in the mirror, but in my opinion you're better off bringing in more spotremoval. You can get blown out very easily with Jitte, especially in the mirror. It's a house against Goblins, but that deck doesn't see much play and is already a relatively easy matchup.


6) How is jace? When I play it, it's not the bomb it uses to be in other decks.. sure, it does thing, and does thing well, but. Meh. I probably didn't play it enough.


He's okay. Especially against UBG Landstill he helps a lot, but he's also quite awesome against combo. When I board him in, I rarely see him though. Same with Sylvan Library.
By the way, you're the same Gustha that commented on the article on Eternal Central, right?



@Jona: What about -2 Ponder, +1 Spell Pierce, +1 Sylvan Library main deck? Spell Pierce is even more powerful as a 3-off and Sylvan Library is just nuts on its own. You'd still have enough blue cards for FoW and your manabase makes it really easy to cast an early Library if needed. Also Library ignores Misstep, Ponder doesn’t. Another bonus is that it would leave an empty spot in your sideboard, perhaps for the 4th Clique, another Extraction or something else relevant.

My girlfriend had the same changes in mind actually. Yesterday she played my maindeck with -1 Ponder +1 Sylvan Library and a slightly different board. She had the third Red Elemental Blast in her sideboard instead of the Library, so this is quite similar to your suggestions as well. Personally I think the third Blast is best, but it could also be the third Jace or the fourth Clique.
Spell Pierce has proven to be awesome in almost all matchups. Also, my girlfriend pulled the sickest mindgame ever in a tournament yesterday. She played against TES and countered a spell with Spell Pierce while her opponent still had four mana open. I don't know if the third Spell Pierce is better than the one-off Ponder though, since Ponder often helps and is a very strong topdeck most of the time, and Spell Pierce might be a tad too situational for me to run as a three-off. If there's an increase in Natural Order and/or decks packing Perish, I will most likely add the third Spell Pierce.

[JJ_JKidd]

I only played the deck once and I obviously know that a resolved Progenitus is usually game over. Now, I think the deck should just mainly focus on that--resolving the Hydra. Whats my point? I had a lot of Zenith for 0 (Dryad Arbor) T1 during that tournament and looked to NO T3 but my opponents always "Bolted" or "STPed" my Arbor and I realized that running 4 Misteps is the right thing to do IMHO to protect your Dryad Arbor as I was only running 3 at that time.

Jeez T1 GSZ for Arbor, T2 Clique (which is the perfect way to set up NO) and T3 NO is nuts right now.

[Solthos]

I am seeing a few lists packing 1 Kitchen Finks in their board. I'm assuming this is for aggro matchups and to ruin their clock.

Another card I'm seeing is Flame Slash, which I'm assuming is for Batterskull.

What do you guys think of these cards? Do they drastically improve any matchup and warrant an inclusion in the 75?

[Mark Sun]

I am seeing a few lists packing 1 Kitchen Finks in their board. I'm assuming this is for aggro matchups and to ruin their clock.

Another card I'm seeing is Flame Slash, which I'm assuming is for Batterskull.

What do you guys think of these cards? Do they drastically improve any matchup and warrant an inclusion in the 75?

I have been trying to fit in Kitchen Finks for quite some time now, it just seems like one of the last cuts that I make (next to Eternal Witness).

I think Flame Slash is garbage, Ancient Grudge is almost universally better (and reusable for a potential 2-for-1). If they have mana open they're still going to bounce it. If Flame Slash were an Instant I would reconsider, at least it would be somewhat useful against Tarmogoyf, but at the moment it does the same thing. I generally expect there to be Land + Instant in the yard for a minimum 2/3 Tarmogoyf, if you add Flame Slash, you get the same effect out of Lightning Bolt at that point. I have considered Dismember, though.

[gustha]

Yep, I'm the same gustha! ^^
sorry 'bout that, I began to comment and was very late, then I came back to the source because I wanted to write a deeper comment.

Apart from other considerations (jitte, surgical extraction -> counterspell! ^^), I'm not that sold on the Fow argument. Against merfolks, countering vial and clearing the way via spot removal & big creatures is the way to go I think, I board out fow quite often because I don't need to resolve natural order, and perish doesn't see much play either. Even then, I'd probably stick with a vendilion clique beating, and try not to overextend in perish. Chances happen. If they stick vial in play, your force becomes pretty useless as well, you're maybe lucky and counter a dismember or two (since they're light on creatures), but I'd prefer having a jitte stuck on a beating guy. (BTW, kitchen finks is an awesome beater and lifegainer, too bad I don't have room for it). Against zoo, you don't want your fows in. Against Bx discard.deck you don't want doing a nice hymn to tourach by yourself with fow, and counterspell can get rid of kotr as well (plus terravore trumps kotr, you have to protect it with swords).

BTW, I'd like to see some reanimator/blade control/team america/junk MU insight & sb options! Thanks, and keep up with the good job! ^^

[Final Fortune]

I have been trying to fit in Kitchen Finks for quite some time now, it just seems like one of the last cuts that I make (next to Eternal Witness).

I think Flame Slash is garbage, Ancient Grudge is almost universally better (and reusable for a potential 2-for-1). If they have mana open they're still going to bounce it. If Flame Slash were an Instant I would reconsider, at least it would be somewhat useful against Tarmogoyf, but at the moment it does the same thing. I generally expect there to be Land + Instant in the yard for a minimum 2/3 Tarmogoyf, if you add Flame Slash, you get the same effect out of Lightning Bolt at that point. I have considered Dismember, though.

Dismember is pretty solid fwiw, I think it competes with Submerge in the SB mainly because it's effective against Stoneblade in the absence of Tropical Island.

[Final Fortune]

I have been trying to fit in Kitchen Finks for quite some time now, it just seems like one of the last cuts that I make (next to Eternal Witness).

I think Flame Slash is garbage, Ancient Grudge is almost universally better (and reusable for a potential 2-for-1). If they have mana open they're still going to bounce it. If Flame Slash were an Instant I would reconsider, at least it would be somewhat useful against Tarmogoyf, but at the moment it does the same thing. I generally expect there to be Land + Instant in the yard for a minimum 2/3 Tarmogoyf, if you add Flame Slash, you get the same effect out of Lightning Bolt at that point. I have considered Dismember, though.

Dismember is pretty solid fwiw, I think it competes with Submerge in the SB mainly because it's effective against Stoneblade in the absence of Tropical Island.

[CaBaaL]

I finally finished my article, I hope this gives some insight on my cardchoices: Tuning NO RUG: What
would Kibler do? (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=1852)

I used a similar list (-1 terravore +1 ozze -1 fire//ice +1 goyf -2 spell pierce (great idea) +1 misstep +1 lavamancer) and more meta oriented SB.
Have you found any problems without any basic lands? maybe switch a hierarch for a bird of paradise?

[HazMat]

Long time lurker, first time poster. Hi guys.

I'm having a really hard time figuring out some of Alex B's card choices. Considering he has access to every card printed in some form or fashion, I can't for the life of me think of why he would play Pierce over Flusterstorm. I imagine it's brought in for combo decks and to win counter battles... both of which Fluster does better for the same mana cost.

Also, Edric... say wha?

[Draener]

Probably because it answers things like Jace and ensnaring bridge?

[chinEsE girl]

As stated above, pierce actually answers jace, while flusterstorm looks on sadly as the planeswalker resolves. Just a quick example from the boston top 8 where flusterstorm could have fallen really flat (but luckily did not). During the quarterfinals games where boccio was playing against castellon, in game 3 boccio was trying to beat a sheoldred that castellon had brought out. On turn 6 or so boccio tapped 4 mana, but sadly only had natural order, which flusterstorm did counter. It's not hard to imagine what would of happened if boccio had played JTMS with that 4 mana instead. He would of bounced the preator, trapping it in castellon's hand, and then bury castellon under a barrage of card advantage. Flusterstorm is good against mental misstep, as well as in straight up counter wars, but it doesn't counter what's probably the most powerful 4 drop ever made by wizards. Bottom line, I'd much rather have something like spell pierce or counterspell that can deal with Jace.

[HazMat]

Touche' and well put. I never caught the instant or sorcery portion of the text.

Now, for Edric? With the abundance of Stoneblade decks in the format, I can't really see why this would be played over something like Trygon... even with Ancient Grudge and Krosan's in the board... Granted, CA is nice... Ugh.

[chinEsE girl]

As for Edric, I don't really have an explanation. It's been suggested as a zenith target before in this thread, but I haven't seen him in action personally. Personally, I'd rather have trygon as an extra target (and I don't even run trygon in my list), but Edric might be strong enough. I'll ask Alex sometime how it treated him for the tournament, and I'll let you know what he says when I talk to him.

[Tempus]

How do you guys play against Hive Mind?

I tested the match up a little and it was kinda depressing. Postboard I have 4 REB, 2 Pierce, 4 FoW and Misstep (boarding out 2 Lavamancer, 4 Order, Progenitus and a Terravore for 4 REB, 2 Trygon, 2 Jace, as I want to bounce the Emrakul, but otherwise don't tap out after turn 2, Trygon are against Monolith and Hive Mind without pacts).
Do you spare your counters for the key cards as in SnT and Hive Mind or do you counter the Intuition aswell? I keep the Missteps in to counter their cantrips to slow their development.

[HazMat]

How do you guys play against Hive Mind?

I tested the match up a little and it was kinda depressing. Postboard I have 4 REB, 2 Pierce, 4 FoW and Misstep (boarding out 2 Lavamancer, 4 Order, Progenitus and a Terravore for 4 REB, 2 Trygon, 2 Jace, as I want to bounce the Emrakul, but otherwise don't tap out after turn 2, Trygon are against Monolith and Hive Mind without pacts).
Do you spare your counters for the key cards as in SnT and Hive Mind or do you counter the Intuition aswell? I keep the Missteps in to counter their cantrips to slow their development.

That's an interesting one. Personally, I don't think the matchup is that bad.

If you put them on having Emerakrul and have the Jace or THINK you can draw into it (or know you'll draw into it) I put in a land off of s&t, play jace and bounce.

If you put them on having pact, there's a few lines of play. You can just get into a counter war with them over s&t, but remember they have 8 0 casting cost counters between Force and blue pact. Generally I'll either daze my copy of the pact with 1 mana up to pay for their copy if they're terribad and try to daze your daze... Or I clique in response to the s&t and take whatever they plan to bring in... etc etc.

Overall, the matchup isn't bad. I'd put it at 55-60%.

[HazMat]

One of the biggest problems I've been encountering lately is the legend ruling of Progenitus. It's becoming more and more prevalentas the deck picks up in popularity. Merfolk are now even running main deck Phantasmals which can ruin our day, and many people just side in metamorph.

One of the biggest gameplans so far has been to side out the combo and move into a more traditional aggro/control game with goyf/clique beats and counterspells. This is all well and good, but it removes the "trump" aspect of our deck.

I've been trying to think of "good" alternate NO targets... and while Terastadon is good, it's not the best thing in the world in all matchups.

Has anyone considered Godsire in this slot? Or boarding in painters servant/emerakrul? Just some thoughts. I don't think the servant/emerakrul plan would work considering the amount of board space it would take up though... unfortunately.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

The only relevant other targets i have tested in my old NO Maverick lists were Empyrial Archangel and Novablast Wurm. They might be worth a shot in testing if you are troubled with the other things.

[Jonathan Alexander]

If you're concerned about legend-ruling Progenitus by copying it, boarding in Painter's Servant + Emrakul isn't an option. The same thing will happen to your Emrakul and you would board into a two card combo with one piece being fragile as hell.
Boarding out Natural Order and Progenitus against Merfolk should be your default plan. Also, if you're running Terravore, you still have some kind of trumps that can just win if you land them (plus you can consider Grim Lavamancer a trump against certain decks as well).
Also, Godsire. Not really. I don't want to run cute cards in this deck and I certainly don't want to get hit by a Swords To Plowshares after I cast Natural Order. The only alternate Natural Order target I would ever run is Terastodon, and even that is more of a fringe card and debatable. It's an option if you expect to face lots of combo, but that's about it.

[Mark Sun]

Against strategies where NO may be a liability, just board it out. Terastodon and Progenitus are going to be as optimal as you can get with targets, to be honest. Empyrial Archangel has always been underwhelming for me when I have included it in an NO package. The only third target I might consider is Hellkite Overlord, but again, in some situations it would be poor. Seems really good against decks without access to Swords to Plowshares, though.

[Asthereal]

Against strategies where NO may be a liability, just board it out. Terastodon and Progenitus are going to be as optimal as you can get with targets, to be honest. Empyrial Archangel has always been underwhelming for me when I have included it in an NO package. The only third target I might consider is Hellkite Overlord, but again, in some situations it would be poor. Seems really good against decks without access to Swords to Plowshares, though.

Like the mirror.
The deck seems very popular in the US so why not board one?
Could never hurt to try. :)

[Jonathan Alexander]

In the mirror there's still Fire // Ice. So if they could handle Natural Order for Progenitus, chances are they could be able to race you if you cast Natural Order for Hellkite Overlord and they have a Fire // Ice. It's harder though. If you want to improve the mirror, run Terravore. Apart from Natural Order and Vendilion Clique, that guy and Fire // Ice help me winning my matches the most.

[Bignasty197]

I had run Gaea's Revenge in the past as a NO target to moderate success. People don't expect haste and the Pro-Swords gets them too. I only stopped running it because people started to know it was coming. It was more of a surprise metagame inclusion.

[Mark Sun]

I had run Gaea's Revenge in the past as a NO target to moderate success. People don't expect haste and the Pro-Swords gets them too. I only stopped running it because people started to know it was coming. It was more of a surprise metagame inclusion.

Too bad it doesn't have evasion. I can't say I haven't considered it, but I played with it in T2 RUG and it was awful, haha. It does do a great job of dodging Swords, Submerge, and Ice.

[catmint]

Good article Jona!
..but I really don't get how Terravore can be in the MD.
very bad in many matchups / situations and really only shines versus KoR.

I dont think we need a special answer for G/W anyway if we run basics. If we manage their answers to our progenitus postboard, we should rarely loose a race with countermagic/goyf/clique,... If I would look for an answer to KoR, I would prefer submerge since it is also very good in the mirror or any other Tier decks running green.

The point I want to make is that I think the deck can support 3 basic lands and 2 dryad arbor. The basic mountain should be in MD or SB if you want to rely on 4 REB, 3 Grim Lavamancer, 4-5 Burn spells versus a deck that runs wastelands (Merfolk, UW-Stoneblade). I am currently testing if I want the Mountain MD instead of the taiga to save the SB spot.

I think the best answer to the anti-progenitus plan is often to board 2-3 jace and try to win with a bunch of good cards as jona pointed out.

I came in second with a list close the scg configuration in my local tourney yesterday and the most importing findings:
- 2 Sylvan Library won me 3 games (not matches), where Ponder would not.

-On the flip side no Ponder and 3 basics main probably got me color/mana screwed twice (weird variance as well involved!), but there were also 2 very important matches (vs. merfolk and gw) where fetching for a dual WOULD have lost me the game.

...still not sold on the basics idea, but I think we should think more about the mana base (playing around or "through" wastelands) than which green creature to maindeck. The 4 goyfs maindeck are not really debateable for me. As Jona said "we are usually the beatdown deck" and a turn 2 goyf is much better than a turn 2 terravore. I don't worry about the end of the curve for GSZ having Jace and NO which are the best 4 mana spells anyway...

[losada]

Catmin, are you playing Jace and Sylvan Library maindeck? How many copies of each?
Can you post your list? My current list:

1 Island
1 Forest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
3 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor

1 Progenitus
3 Vendilion Clique
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mental Misstep
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
2 Fire // Ice
4 Natural Order
3 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Sylvan Library


Side:
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3 Submerge
2 Tormod's crypt
1 Scavenging Ooze

I really miss the basic mountain, especially against Merfolks. In my testing, Jace is not as decisive as it is in other decks. Sylvan is the card that really has unbalanced my games against control.I'll try 1 Terravore maindeck today.

[Jonathan Alexander]

The thing about Tarmogoyf is that it's really not as good as it used to be anymore. It gets stalled relatively easily and almost nobody plays sorceries anymore, aside from Green Sun's Zenith, which only touched the graveyard if it gets countered. A 3/4 for two mana might be good, but Terravore is rarely smaller than 4/4 and most of the time 6/6 or bigger.

In my experience, it's very hard to get manascrewed with this deck so if you don't get hit by multiple Wastelands in a row, it's almost always a nonissue. It's just +2/+2 for your Terravore. As for boarding it out, I almost never do this if I don't board out Tarmogoyf and Green Sun's Zenith as well. I board out Tarmogoyf much more regularly, for example against Maverick or most Big Zoo lists. These are matchups where Terravore really shines.

As long as there's no serious graveyard-crippling involved (Scavenging Ooze, both players using Grim Lavamancer), Terravore is a house. I tested the mirror with my list against Alex Bertoncini's list and Terravore clearly dominated the matchup. It's also very strong against Team America, where you pretty much have to resolve Natural Order or Jace, otherwise you just lose to Darkblast.

For me, not having basics has never been an issue either. I honestly do not remember a single game that I lost to Wasteland. I saw someone losing because they couldn't get a basic with Path To Exile though, but who plays that card anyway? Also, that was after a mull to four so with one or two cards more this shouldn't have been an issue. I think this rather goes under "sick variance".

In other news, I already submitted my follow-up article with boarding plans and some thoughts on mulligan decisions with this deck. It should be up soon.

Edit: I just read Reid Duke's article from today (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22656_Streamlining_Natural_Order_RUG.html) and I find it interesting that he discusses Terravore as well. Further, I find it interesting that his argument against it is pretty much my argument for it. I agree with him that Tarmogoyf was just sick in the old version with Chain Lightning, but ever since I made the switch to Fire // Ice it has become worse. Unlike him, I also think that Tarmogoyf is much more matchup dependent than Terravore and I really only prefer Tarmogoyf against Merfolk. In every other matchup Terravore has been way better for me. It's quite hard to argue with his results though.

[jin]

The thing about Tarmogoyf is that it's really not as good as it used to be anymore. It gets stalled relatively easily and almost nobody plays sorceries anymore, aside from Green Sun's Zenith, which only touched the graveyard if it gets countered. A 3/4 for two mana might be good, but Terravore is rarely smaller than 4/4 and most of the time 6/6 or bigger.


ancestral vision, duress/thoughtseize, natural order, cabal therapy, dread return, life from the loam, chain lightning, show and tell to name a few sorceries that never see play.

terravore is worst early mid game.. which is where goyf is stronger.. late game is pointless because you have progenitus for that.

[Jonathan Alexander]

Ancestral Vision never resolves earlier than turn five. I don't see how that is not lategame. When Natural Order resolves pretty much usually neither Tarmogoyf nor Terravore matters. Against Dredge Terravore is also way stronger than Tarmogoyf, unless it's Manaless Dredge. When Life From The Loam is online, Terravore should also be way bigger than Tarmogoyf. And Chain Lightning actually does see little to no play.
Duress and Thoughtseize do see some play, right. But decks packing these are either Team America or Junk/Rock or combo. Against Team America Terravore is insanely strong because they can easily stall Tarmogoyf. Junk and Rock do also run Knight Of The Reliquary, which is one of the major reasons to include Terravore. Against combo Tarmogoyf is better, but who plays combo nowadays?

[jin]

Ancestral Vision never resolves earlier than turn five. I don't see how that is not lategame. When Natural Order resolves pretty much usually neither Tarmogoyf nor Terravore matters. Against Dredge Terravore is also way stronger than Tarmogoyf, unless it's Manaless Dredge. When Life From The Loam is online, Terravore should also be way bigger than Tarmogoyf. And Chain Lightning actually does see little to no play.
Duress and Thoughtseize do see some play, right. But decks packing these are either Team America or Junk/Rock or combo. Against Team America Terravore is insanely strong because they can easily stall Tarmogoyf. Junk and Rock do also run Knight Of The Reliquary, which is one of the major reasons to include Terravore. Against combo Tarmogoyf is better, but who plays combo nowadays?

You said sorceries aren't played in legacy. I just wanted to name a few that were played.

[HazMat]

I think I'm going to try siding in 3x painted servant and 1x Iona and see if it's effective

[Final Fortune]

I think I'm going to try siding in 3x painted servant and 1x Iona and see if it's effective

It's not, if they're targeting your NO plan post-board then the best thing you can do is SB out of it and into Jace the Mind Sculptor. Don't get fancy, just invalidate their hate and board in a strong, self sufficient strategy.

[Kellyx]

Hey guyes, ive got a question.
My meta is HEAVY uw stoneblade(modo).Like half of decks in daily events are uws.
How would you tune md/sb to fit such meta?

[Julian23]

@Kellyx:
Run 3 Grim Lavamancer and 4 Vendillion Clique in the main. Also, if your meta is actually FIFTY PERCENT (50%!) UW, run Ancient Grudge! 4 of them + 4 Red Blasts. Oh, and ofc Trygon Predator in the main.

Also, Pithing Needle helps alot vs. SFM, Batterskull and Jace. Although Jace shouldn't be an issue once NO resolves, so maybe more Red Blasts / Pyroblasts.

UW Stoneblade is - from my experience - a really good matchup for NO RUG.

[Muradin]

I am quite sure than overloading on artifact removal is not the way to go against UW stoneforge. Most of the lists tend to board out Stoneforge Mystic + their equipment package against us anyway, because everybody and his mother nowadays knows RUG Order packs Ancient Grudge in the board.

They bring in some Spell Pierce, Wrath of God, Elspeth and you'll be sitting there with your Ancient Grudges. Especially 4 seems to be way too much. I know most good players with the deck are boarding the way I stated above.

Here some lists to back this up:

http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6707&iddeck=48618
http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6674&iddeck=48346
http://thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=6707&iddeck=48624

They all got basically the same boarding plan against us. Seriously, try to resolve Sylvan Library or Jace, slowly whittle them down with your Mancers and Cliques (which you should indeed be running 3/4 or 3/3 depending on your meta imo) and force them to use their resources to handle your weak stuff. If you see the coast is clear with Clique or you amassed some counters proceed to crush them with Progenitus.

Btw, try to play slowly. I don't mean super slow, just take your time.

We can kill fast, they can't. If the score is 1-1 they'll pussy out and board back into their weaker equipment heavy configuration because otherwise they won't be able to finish the match. You don't want the draw for sure, but try to force them away from being the boring UW board control deck into being some kind of fish, which is a better matchup. It also makes your Grudges shine again. For me this worked very well so far and I haven't got 1 single draw out of the matchup yet.

[Muradin]

Doublepost

[Kellyx]

Do you play 3x mancers in main deck?:Z

[Muradin]

Do you play 3x mancers in main deck?:Z

Yes, indeed I do so. My metagame calls for it. People run GW Maverick, UW Stoneblade, Merfolk and the mirror, where Lavamancer is a good card. He is also quite good against Knight of the Reliquary decks, killing of their early Noble Hierarchs/Dryad Arbors/Mother of Runes/Dark Confidant/Stoneforge Mystic....
(Guess you can come up with creatures that can be killed with 2 dmg yourself...)

And he turns your burn into real removal against big creatures. Most of the time a bolt won't kill a knight, but a Lavamancer and a bolt sure will most of the time take her down without card disadvantage.

I also like it when my opponents can't play their Cliques because that little mage is sitting there, threatening to just maw them down.

[BlackStarDeceiver]

What did you cut for this? Mind posting your list?

[Kellyx]

Yeh im wondering as well=)
I guess you reduced goyf count to 1, or dont play jaces/lybraries

[catmint]

I don't get your logic Jona.

In your article you mention:

"What’s much harder to stop is an active Knight of the Reliquary. The current NO RUG lists really have no reliable way to beat it. After getting hit by two or more Wastelands you hardly do anything to stop a creature as big as Knight of the Reliquary".

Now you say you never lost a game to a wasteland?

I lost games to wastelands (merfolk, goblins and KoR Decks,...) and I think a wasteland paired with a MM or a removal for a mandork can set us back significantly enough to race us.

Now if you fetch basics, play mana dorks and FoW junky/GW disruption like gadock teeg, mindcensor or hymn you don't care about KoR. So if KoR is not relevant why devote spots to suboptimal creatures?

The argument that goyf is not that good anymore, because we dont play early sorceries is true though. One downside of replacing ponder with sylvan library. However usually my use of goyf is not to beatdown like zoo, but often more defensive to hold the ground while V-Clique delivers 3-4 dmg up in the air. And as a defensive creature goyf is much much more reliable and better that Terravore.

[Jonathan Alexander]

In tournament matches, I never lost to Wastelands. I should have said it this way, yeah. In testing I found that I usually don't care if I get hit by a naturally drawn Wasteland (or even two). I also noticed that it was sometimes hard to beat a turn two or three Knight Of The Reliquary, unless you have Natural Order before you get hit by three or four Wastelands in a row. Terravore not only discourages them from using Wastelands, it also naturally trumps Knight Of The Reliquary.
My point is that Wasteland, in a vacuum, and if naturally drawn is almost always irrelevant, unless backed up by some other serious disruption (Darkblast for example, or Fire // Ice). Getting hit by multiple Wastelands in the early game sucks, and Knight Of The Reliquary enables that. Since there's a lot of Maverick in Germany, I was looking for a solution for that. I found that Terravore not only beats Knight Of The Reliquary, but is generally a reasonably sized threat. In further testing I realised how strong Terravore is against other decks as well and thus I added the second one.

As for basics. Unless you manage to only draw your basic lands and fetches and have access to all three of your basics (plus a Noble Hierarch), you still open up yourself to Wasteland. Not to multiples, but you'll still get hit. If you have one of each of your duals and a Noble Hierarch, you can still cast all of your non-4CC spells after a Wasteland. With basics this might still be possible, but overall you're not as flexible as you were with duals. This is only my experience, though, and I don't think it's necessarily the right answer. I'm sure it's also a matter of playstyle, as I tend mulligan hands that lose to a single Wasteland in a game one scenario anyway. With basics, you're harder to manascrew, but you're easier to colourscrew. I'm more "worried" about the latter, thus I'm running more duals and fetches instead of basics.

[Krondo9]

what do you guys think about 1 ooze in the maindeck? I have been trying it lately and its sometimes great, sometimes iffy. obviously id rather draw a goyf most of the time, but i usually will, and as a green sun target, ooze is great as graveyard hate and anti-knight/anti-goyf/and even anti-terravore. it stops reanimator and gains you life vs. merfolk and zoo.

my only concern is it is sometimes too slow and might get killed before it gets to do any damage. however, not having to use any SB slots against graveyard is nice by just maindecking it. just wondering what you guys think. i could potentially cut my SB kitchen finks to put ooze on SB instead.

[Kellyx]

I would play 1 ooze instead 1 goyf in ANY meta.
Cuz he wins a lot of match ups on his own and he isnt worse than goyf in most non-gravyard based matches.

[Muradin]

I don't think Terravore is bad here, I am just not sure whether he can reliably beat KotR. Whenever I face Maverick and they can't lock me out of the game by using Wastelands their first target with KotR is usually Maze of Ith, which is a nice solution to Terravore considering we don't run Wasteland on our own.

And imo you should be running 1 Ooze maindeck. Its good considering it beats Goyf/Terravore/Tombstalker/Lavamancer/Knight of the Reliquary.... and most other creatures in a vacuum. Besides I've beaten Reanimator, Lands, Loam, Ichorid, Cephalid Breakfast and Elves sideboarding into Buried Alive + Vengevine with just the 1 Ooze I run. If you don't like him maindeck, at least do me the favor and run 1 in your board. He is better than Relic of Progenitus in this deck due to obvious reasons (your own goyfs, GSZ, can sac to Natural Order...)

By the way, I gave the lone Kitchen Finks some people are running in their board a try and its actually a really good card and for me definitely has done a lot in Zoo/Burn/Meerfolk/Goblins matchups. It works just so well with GSZ, Hierarch, Natural Order and Jitte. Its usually a tutorable that gives you 4 life in the process.

[Kellyx]

Dont you guyes find tarmogoyfs a bit..m...useless?
I dont know about other metas-but mtgo meta is UW/maverick/hive mind.
And tarmogoyf is sided out vs all of these 3 decks=/
I liked the idea of Jona to have just 1 for GSZ and replace other 3 slots.
Currently i use em as 1 ooze 1 jace 1 lavamancer

[nyoro]

Do people seriously just suggest a singleton terravore over a tarmogoyf in NO RUG?

the biggest difference between tarmogoyf and terravore is their casting cost. 1G vs. 1GG makes a game changing scenario especially in a fast and disruptive format like legacy.

Reid Duke's article also talks about why this kind of suggestion is usually suboptimal. When it comes to NO RUG, I will listen to him. http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/22656_Streamlining_Natural_Order_RUG.html

[Kellyx]

Legacy is all about stalling now(guess why best and most popular deck is UW still?).

[gustha]

Also, if it is totally correct to listen to more experienced player's suggestions, you should motivate your opinions through testing the deck by yourself and not simply with things you've read somewhere.

Jona's opinions differ from duke's ones not only about terravore, but about fire/ice vs bolt as well. Plus Jona plays 2 terravore, and some people are even cutting tarmogoyfs for scavenging ooze. etc.

The biggest difference between tarmogoyf and terravore are that terravore tramples and trumps over knight of the reliquary, which tarmogoyf doesn't. Being Swords to plowshares the removal of choice, and due to the fact that less sorceries and artifacts are played in legacy, tarmogoyf is rarely more than a 3/4 in MU's where you want him to grow bigger and beat fast. On the other hand, fetchalnds and wasteland are used everywhere, so that terravore is rarely less than a 4/4 for 1GG.

In theory, there are very valid arguments which oppose to duke's one. Seems they work in practice as well. Before implying someone is stupid (which your reply impied) because he suggested terravore over tarmogoyf, you might want to test the deck with and without tarmogoyf, and see how it suits to you.

[nyoro]

Legacy is all about stalling now(guess why best and most popular deck is UW still?).

There are still tons of viable combo decks that end in quick session. besides, uw is disruptive and its playstyle is unlike the traditional permission type of control decks.

And if UW is the deck you want to beat, trying to resolve your progenitus is a better solution than playing terravore so it can get stp'd or jace bounced.

[gustha]

In facts, nobody said terravore is there to improve the stoneblade MU... goyf can bounced and stp'd too, but it addiction, it can be chumpblocked pretty easily.

[jin]

In facts, nobody said terravore is there to improve the stoneblade MU... goyf can bounced and stp'd too, but it addiction, it can be chumpblocked pretty easily.

I think the biggest problem here is that you are reducing the creature density. If I read correctly, in the few posts prior, someone suggested removing the 4x Tarmogoyf for 1x GSZ, 2x Terravore, and 1x Scavenging Ooze?

Although Terravore is Tarmogoyf's bigger brother, and Scavenging Ooze does seem like it works quite well in today's metagame, playing 4x Tarmogoyf is just better because your creature density is simply higher. Given that all these green creatures can be removed by Swords to Plowshare, and given each deck can only play a maximum of 4x Swords to Plowshare, playing 4x Tarmogoyf just seems better. For starters, they will actually have to draw their Swords and save them for your Tarmogoyfs leaving your Vendilion Cliques, Grim Lavamancers and Noble Hierarchs to their business.

Should they actually "waste" one of their Swords to Plowshares on your other creatures your Tarmogoyfs can do their work freely. The fact is, Green Sun's Zenith is not an actual creature, which makes it easier for them to decide which creature to plow.

Although in most cases, Scavenging Ooze and Terravore both might be bigger than Tarmogoyf, the goyf is simply more efficient at using mana. Unlike his bigger brothers, his investment is light and does quite a lot of lifting for so little mana.

[gustha]

I don't know if one suggested to cut a creature entirely, and I don't want to defend that position. I am running a 2/2 split, as Jona does, and I'm not lowering my creature count (I actually play 8 green creatures, 2 arbors, 3-4 cliques, 1 mancer), and everybody plays a fair amount too. The question was not tarmo -> gsz, but tarmo -> terravore. We all know tarmogoyf's mana investment is lower then terravore, the point is: it's also more fruitful? It seems to me the format has changed a lot since tarmogoyf was printed, and pretty much adapted to fight him, or simply better creatures have been printed. Cutting tarmogoyf has been already done in decks like maverick e.g.: for a mana more, kotr is nearly alway bigger than tarmogoyf. The reason here it's the same I think. For 2 mana you get a creature that's 3/4 most of the times. Sure, 3/4 for 2 mana in nothing to dismiss. But in the big picture, well, 2 mana for a 3/4 in the actual legacy field is not that much. For one mana more, you get nearly always a 4/4, with the chance of getting bigger and bigger by being fodded with the most used cards in legacy nowadays: fetchalnds and wastelands.

[catmint]

On the last pages I read very often "Terravore is USUALLY not less than 4/4" and "Goyf is OFTEN not more than a 3/4" like it is the latest fashion to claim that.

this "usually" and "often" sounds to me like selective perception and memory and not real statistical numbers. I did not get any statistics, however I asked myself in every early game situation if a terravore would be better here and the answer was almost always no. Sometimes it is not even castable T2 (lack of mana or no land in GY) where goyf was already reasonable sized.

So in the early game or against monocolored decks (merfolk!, goblins, burn, artifact based decks) terravore is just very bad, but an early defender is important! Also in decks where we are the aggressor tarmogyof either comes earlier, is bigger earlier or leaves 1 mana open to do other useful stuff!

The reason why I compare goyf and terravore only in the early game is because both are much less relevant in the late game due to the 10/10.

[losada]

Jona wrote the second part of his article: http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2008

[CaBaaL]

Jona wrote the second part of his article: http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2008

great article I only dissagree the boarding plan against bant agro, your plan is only good if they do not play fow and have mystic (that's why you board the grudge) its impossible not to have any answer to progenitus (MD they might have NO package and SB enlightment tutor package with runed halo and the phyrexian clone). maybe remove goyfs and teravores for blasts and keep cliques as protection and force them to be the control I we will go for the combo kill? with blast,pierce,clique and fow we have alot of protection for combo kill, i think at least.

Proper capitalization is required on these boards. Please use it. Thanks. -zilla

[gustha]

On the last pages I read very often "Terravore is USUALLY not less than 4/4" and "Goyf is OFTEN not more than a 3/4" like it is the latest fashion to claim that.

this "usually" and "often" sounds to me like selective perception and memory and not real statistical numbers. I did not get any statistics, however I asked myself in every early game situation if a terravore would be better here and the answer was almost always no. Sometimes it is not even castable T2 (lack of mana or no land in GY) where goyf was already reasonable sized.That's why we have a split.


So in the early game or against monocolored decks (merfolk!, goblins, burn, artifact based decks) terravore is just very bad, but an early defender is important! Also in decks where we are the aggressor tarmogyof either comes earlier, is bigger earlier or leaves 1 mana open to do other useful stuff!

The reason why I compare goyf and terravore only in the early game is because both are much less relevant in the late game due to the 10/10. This is false in 2 ways. The first, monocolored decks have wasteland, which is +2/+2 to terravore. Notable exception is affinity, where goyf IS bigger than terravore due to artifacts. The second is the fact that tarmogoyf is not a reliable beater exactly when your 10/10 doesn't make the difference, or you board out your NO package, or you are forced to go the long game. You're tight: tarmogoyf is better than terravore in the early game (truth be told, vendilion clique is better than tarmo). Unfortunately, we can't end all our games in the early game. Terravore IS a clock, because opponent can't just chumpblock it, and it eats kotrs.