[Deck] Iggy Pop

[Bane of the Living]

Nassim Ketita - Iggy Pop
GP Philadelphia


3 Island
2 Swamp
4 Underground Sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta

3 Tendrils of Agony
2 Chromatic Sphere
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Impulse
3 Telling Time
4 Dark Ritual
4 Intuition
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor

SB
3 Defense Grid
2 Duress
3 Echoing Truth
3 Pithing Needle
4 Engineered Plague


Nassim Ketita, from London, Ontario, had played the deck to a 9-1-1 record after 11 rounds. He'd just picked it up instead of playing Solidarity, he did amazing with it. Was it the meta?

Obviously I bring this up because this deck has had very little action here on The Source. Alot of people mention it but no ones talking about it. Is it that underground. Nausea's had alot more notice here rightfully so. But the Tendrils deck thats putting up numbers is no where to be seen.

This deck just got two huge additions in the past 3 sets.

Leyline of the Void
This card is auto trump to the most played deck in the format. Sorry Thresh I win game one.. It also lets IGG work only in our favor. After it discards our opponents hand of course.

No more opponents returning Force to hand during your combo. No more reanimator tricks, no survival toolbox bs, no more flashbacked anythings, maindeck graveyard hate. HOly ShIT! That scares me!

Infernal Tutor
Do I need to start? This card is ridonculous in here. Im pretty sure it could safely replace Telling Time or Impulse.

Discussion?

[MasterBlaster]

Infernal Tutor
Do I need to start? This card is redonculous in here. Im pretty sure it could safely replace Intuition.

I don't think that Infernal Tutor should replace Intuition. I was under the impression that Intuition was very important as it fills up your graveyard with what you need for Ill-Gotten Gains to go infinite.

[emidln]

I don't think that Infernal Tutor should replace Intuition. I was under the impression that Intuition was very important as it fills up your graveyard with what you need for Ill-Gotten Gains to go infinite.

Intuition doesn't go. You replace the Intuition slots with Infernal Tutor. Also, change from to Echoing Truth. You do this (so Chalice @ 0, 1 doesn't spell GG) to support MD Leyline of the Void for a heavy disruption element against Threshold and any other deck where you start the game with Leyline and play IGG (and proceed to win). Other changes are losing the Telling Time and Chromatic Spheres for an additional Tendrils of Agony and 4 Leyline of the Void.

These changes bring you up to speed with the latest suggested incarnation of the deck when Dissension becomes legal. Check TMD's Iggy Pop thread for more info.

The 4 Underground Sea is a misprint, it should have been 2 Underground Sea and that's all you need.

The updated decklist that is recommended by the deck's creator on TMD:

Iggy Pop

4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Intuition
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Echoing Truth
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

[AnwarA101]

Michael Bomholt's primer which was published by StarCityGames is a very good introduction to the deck. When I started playing the deck I read over his primer and then went through many gold-fishing sessions. The primer is located at -

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10989.html

It obviously doesn't include the newer cards like Leyline of the Void or Infernal Tutor, but its just as relevant today as a starting point for learning the deck.

As a side note, I stopped playing the deck because it was difficult to beat Solidarity and Gro (both are always in my meta).

[Bane of the Living]

Leyline is surely a back breaker for Thresh decks. Its nice to have a hate card maindeck against the most played deck in the format. Even when not playing against Thresh, turning IGG into..

2BB
You and your opponent discard your hand.
You return 3 cards from your graveyard to your hand.
Remove IGG from the game.

Wow.

More testing has shown turn 2 IT for my second Cabal Ritual or Dark Ritual or LED makes the next turn a tko. It sets you up for alot of explosivness.

[MonkeY]

Does anyone have a list of goldfishes? This deck is consistantly fast and I would like to see the number of turn 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 kills.

On a sidenote, I think this deck is inherintly better than Nausea because it ony has to rely on a 2 color mana base.

EDIT: Link to TMD discussion here (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=26081.0)

[AnwarA101]

Leyline is surely a back breaker for Thresh decks. Its nice to have a hate card maindeck against the most played deck in the format. Even when not playing against Thresh, turning IGG into..

2BB
You and your opponent discard your hand.
You return 3 cards from your graveyard to your hand.
Remove IGG from the game.

Wow.

More testing has shown turn 2 IT for my second Cabal Ritual or Dark Ritual or LED makes the next turn a tko. It sets you up for alot of explosivness.

I have tested Leyline of the Void though I was running it out of the board. I do think it makes sense in the main deck. I was considering the same move before I stopped playing the deck. While a first turn Leyline is very good against Threshold it doesn't get around the fact that your spells can still be countered. Every Ill-Gotten Gains can still be countered and often you won't have enough spells that they need to counter. They won't counter your acceleration, but will counter or Ill-Gotten Gains or even Intuition to prevent you from continuing the combo. I'm still seeing this deck have trouble with Threshold. Is this incorrect? Has anyone tested the deck recently against Threshold to make this incorrect because of Leyline of the Void.

[Anarky87]

I have tested Leyline of the Void though I was running it out of the board. I do think it makes sense in the main deck. I was considering the same move before I stopped playing the deck. While a first turn Leyline is very good against Threshold it doesn't get around the fact that your spells can still be countered. Every Ill-Gotten Gains can still be countered and often you won't have enough spells that they need to counter. They won't counter your acceleration, but will counter or Ill-Gotten Gains or even Intuition to prevent you from continuing the combo. I'm still seeing this deck have trouble with Threshold. Is this incorrect? Has anyone tested the deck recently against Threshold to make this incorrect because of Leyline of the Void.

Well with Leyline neutering most of their threats, I suppose you could just play the accelaration like you said and just go for a couple big Tendrils, working up a storm count of 4-5, then play Tendrils, and use the life gain to setup the next one. I would assume boarding in Defense Grid and Xantid Swarm would help, making their counters/removal cost three more.

I haven't tested this much, I'm just going by what's pointed out in the primer.

[syssc9]

I've been gold fishing Mental Note in the Telling Time/Impulse slot as an aid to quick Threshold. Seems to work great! Any comments?

[AnwarA101]

I've been gold fishing Mental Note in the Telling Time/Impulse slot as an aid to quick Threshold. Seems to work great! Any comments?

The first version of the deck I played was just like the Primer -2 Chromatic Sphere (I think this card is terrible in the deck) and -2 Strategic Planning +4 Mental Note. The reason for Mental Note was not just for Threshold, but also because when you combo off the cards you put in the graveyard can be replayed via Ill-Gotten Gains. I found the card solid, but I agree that Leyline of the Void should be played in that spot instead. Leyline fixes so many of the decks problems mainly the ability to recur spells by your opponent. It also allows you to play Mind Twist for 4 mana.

[Nightmare]

The first version of the deck I played was just like the Primer -2 Chromatic Sphere (I think this card is terrible in the deck) and -2 Strategic Planning +4 Mental Note. The reason for Mental Note was not just for Threshold, but also because when you combo off the cards you put in the graveyard can be replayed via Ill-Gotten Gains. I found the card solid, but I agree that Leyline of the Void should be played in that spot instead. Leyline fixes so many of the decks problems mainly the ability to recur spells by your opponent. It also allows you to play Mind Twist for 4 mana.Not just Mind Twist, but to RFG your opponent's hand. This is Extremely Important against decks packing Fow. Since I have MD Leyline in my build, I have also added Duress back in, since it can much more effectively clear the way for the Turn 2 Yawgmoth's Mindtwist. I've also cut down on the Fetchland count to add in 3 Chrome Mox. These have been amazing in testing. They allow for more free storm at worst, and get rid of extra Leylines that otherwise clog your hand for Infernal Tutor.

[AnwarA101]

Not just Mind Twist, but to RFG your opponent's hand. This is Extremely Important against decks packing Fow. Since I have MD Leyline in my build, I have also added Duress back in, since it can much more effectively clear the way for the Turn 2 Yawgmoth's Mindtwist. I've also cut down on the Fetchland count to add in 3 Chrome Mox. These have been amazing in testing. They allow for more free storm at worst, and get rid of extra Leylines that otherwise clog your hand for Infernal Tutor.

If a deck is playing Force of Will then it should probably Force your Ill-Gotten Gains if you have a Leyline of the Void in play. If you are able to go off after that then it might work, but don't kid yourself - Force of Will is still bad news. Playing Duress in the main deck still seems like a mistake because it removes another combo or search spell to play a disruption spell that only works with Leyline of the Void.

[Bane of the Living]

Not just Mind Twist, but to RFG your opponent's hand. This is Extremely Important against decks packing Fow. Since I have MD Leyline in my build, I have also added Duress back in, since it can much more effectively clear the way for the Turn 2 Yawgmoth's Mindtwist. I've also cut down on the Fetchland count to add in 3 Chrome Mox. These have been amazing in testing. They allow for more free storm at worst, and get rid of extra Leylines that otherwise clog your hand for Infernal Tutor.

Wow Chrome Mox is such a good idea. Did you cut out actual fetch lands or other cards?

[syssc9]

@AnwarA101 - I am also running Leyline and would not be without the card in this deck. In fact I just built the deck last weekend and my initial build includes it. Early this morning I replaced Telling Time with Mental Note and I see direct improvement. Faster, more reliable threshold and a quicker kill. The fist three times I goldfished this deck, I was had Leyline and IGG in my opening hand and enough acceleration to cast it (IGG). That has to hurt, wrestling fans!

[AnwarA101]

@AnwarA101 - I am also running Leyline and would not be without the card in this deck. In fact I just built the deck last weekend and my initial build includes it. Early this morning I replaced Telling Time with Mental Note and I see direct improvement. Faster, more reliable threshold and a quicker kill. The fist three times I goldfished this deck, I was had Leyline and IGG in my opening hand and enough acceleration to cast it (IGG). That has to hurt, wrestling fans!

So what card have you cut to play both Leyline and Mental Note? I only had spot for 1 one of those two cards. I imagine that you cut Impulse/Telling Time slot? That seems okay, but I really think that Infernal Tutor needs to go into that spot. I'm going to start testing the new build suggested by the creator -

4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Intuition
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Echoing Truth
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

[Koby]

Mystical Tutor is just so.... eh.

How about:
-2 Mystical Tutor
-1 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Infernal Tutor

+4 Mental Note.

Infernal Tutor can grab extra copies of whatever, but you're porbably not in a good position to use Infernal Tutor if you're lacking a game-breaker (IGG, Cabal Ritual, LED). Intuition is STILL the #1 tutor for this deck. Infernal Tutor simply aids in completing the combo faster: ie. more mana to go off with.

[syssc9]

@AnwarA101 - The simple answer to your question is that I do not have any Infernal Tutors. Frankly, I am having trouble seeing how they could help this deck in any substantive way. Win more? This is, of course, sans testing. I agree completely with ruckus - Intuition is #1!

[Nightmare]

@AnwarA101 - The simple answer to your question is that I do not have any Infernal Tutors. Frankly, I am having trouble seeing how they could help this deck in any substantive way. Win more? This is, of course, sans testing. I agree completely with ruckus - Intuition is #1!Intuition is also blue, and costs 3. It's worth noting that going Cabal Ritual, LED, Infernal Tutor(crack) for IGG, IGG for Cabal+LED+Tutor leaves you with exactly the same mana you started with. This means its free to do that. FREE. Intuition can't say that.

@ FoW and Duress - I'm not kidding myself, I know. However, with Infernal Tutor, you don't need the extra draw/search! I'm running 4 intuition, 4 Tutor, and 4 Brainstorm. That's all I've needed, although I admit I may change it to 3 Intuition/1 Mystical. Infernal Tutor is that good. Adding Duress does slow the deck down by a turn or so. However I feel it's worth it to add this bit of disruption so you can guarantee the ability to go off at your leisure. There's a lot to be said for turn 0 Leyline, turn 1 Duress, turn 2 IGG returning Ritual, X, X, and then having all the time in the world to build up the perfect hand.

@ Chrome Mox - I only run 4 fetches, 5 basics (3 Swamp, Black is so much more important than blue now) and 2 Useas. This hasn't really been an issue, but I can see it being a problem vs. Gro. I'll be testing the matchup a lot more soon.

[emidln]

Intuition is also blue, and costs 3. It's worth noting that going Cabal Ritual, LED, Infernal Tutor(crack) for IGG, IGG for Cabal+LED+Tutor leaves you with exactly the same mana you started with. This means its free to do that. FREE. Intuition can't say that.

@ FoW and Duress - I'm not kidding myself, I know. However, with Infernal Tutor, you don't need the extra draw/search! I'm running 4 intuition, 4 Tutor, and 4 Brainstorm. That's all I've needed, although I admit I may change it to 3 Intuition/1 Mystical. Infernal Tutor is that good. Adding Duress does slow the deck down by a turn or so. However I feel it's worth it to add this bit of disruption so you can guarantee the ability to go off at your leisure. There's a lot to be said for turn 0 Leyline, turn 1 Duress, turn 2 IGG returning Ritual, X, X, and then having all the time in the world to build up the perfect hand.

@ Chrome Mox - I only run 4 fetches, 5 basics (3 Swamp, Black is so much more important than blue now) and 2 Useas. This hasn't really been an issue, but I can see it being a problem vs. Gro. I'll be testing the matchup a lot more soon.

Getting your mana source dazed does seem like a slight issue. Doesn't chrome mox also hurt more against B/W Confidant where you rarely have extra cards in hand to pitch?

[Nightmare]

Getting your mana source dazed does seem like a slight issue. Doesn't chrome mox also hurt more against B/W Confidant where you rarely have extra cards in hand to pitch?Vs. Daze: Lead with the land, and it won't get Dazed. Vs. B/W Confidant: At worst, +1 Storm. At best, an un-sinkholeable Swamp. This is a matchup where Duress shines.

Also: I don't know about sideboards, I haven't really looked at lists, but you should all have 4x Defense Grid in yours. AMAZING.

[AnwarA101]

@AnwarA101 - The simple answer to your question is that I do not have any Infernal Tutors. Frankly, I am having trouble seeing how they could help this deck in any substantive way. Win more? This is, of course, sans testing. I agree completely with ruckus - Intuition is #1!

I have yet to test Infernal Tutor, but it seems like everything this deck would want in a 2 mana tutor. I played the deck before Dissenssion and I haven't tried it lately. I was debating Leyline of the Void in the main, but it seems like that debate has been settled.

@Mr.Nightmare - You basically cut Mystical Tutor for Duress? I can see how that would help your control matchup, though it would still hurt the aggro matchup, wouldn't it? Maybe you are right and Infernal Tutor is that good that the deck can still beat aggro comfortably and thus Duress is there to help against Control. But what if you don't get Leyline of the Void in the early game, Duress still seems horrible in this case.

[Nightmare]

The thing with Leyline is, you have to get it early against control. It's worth going to 5 (which is effectively 4) to get it out there uncounterable. It swings the game that much. Even if it costs you game 1, game 2 and 3 you have Defense Grid, which is an unbelievable house against them, and I bring in Bob as well, which helps get those threats out there, as well as decreasing the critical mass I need to win, often to the point of not even needing IGG. In the early game (post board), Duress doesn't so much lead into an IGG, as much as a Bob or a Defense Grid. Once Grid comes online, it may as well be Leyline. Control will be hard for this deck to fight, but Duress is the opposite of bad for that matchup.

[bigredmeanie]

I've been wanting to add a 2 mana land to the mix. There are a lot of colorless requirememts in the spells you cast, and tapping a City of Traitors or an Ancient Tomb for a C Ritual than casting IT just seems so good to me. It also helps to cast Leylines when you don't want to mull into them.

[Parcher]

I've been wanting to add a 2 mana land to the mix. There are a lot of colorless requirememts in the spells you cast, and tapping a City of Traitors or an Ancient Tomb for a C Ritual than casting IT just seems so good to me. It also helps to cast Leylines when you don't want to mull into them.

I thought the same until I tried it. The issue becomes: This deck has highly strict color requirements to be developed in a short time. The reason it tries to run on basics alone is that Wasteland is a Time Walk against this deck. Losing a colored mana slot, while maintaining the same vulnerablilites has not proven worth it. Especially since the combo only will let you abuse the mana boost once or twice.

[Kadath128]

I played this deck last night (card for card the list suggested by the creator swapping Bloodstained Mire for Delta because of availability) ended up going 2-2 purely because of idiotic single play mistakes caused by never playing storm combo (and being a relative idiot).

Learned that the deck is silly unaffected by discard as long as your going of with IGG and it makes me wonder if Darkblast might not be of a little use to set up IGG with. There are a few times I've been delayed going off having to topdeck a single card to be able to go get a tendrils or because I can cast IGG but dont have the accel I need (probably can be solved by a better muligan). Seems like binning three would be better than drawing one in these situations.

However probably on the whole its not better than Mystical Tutor, I've been playing with -1 Mystical Tutor, +1 Darkblast and there has been about one game that it helped. Its more likely that I'm just not playing the deck as well as I should but I figured some more experienced folks with the deck might be able to point out why its useless.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

I've been playing this deck at a local T1.5 tournament lately finishing first. I have a small report written at MTGS. You might want to look into it.

Small Report on MTGS (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=35625&page=2#post1084257)

Greets

TheSorcerer

PS: 4x Defense Grid and 4x Dark Confidant should be a staple in this decks Sideboard.

[emidln]

I've been playing 4x Infernal Tutor, 4x Leyline lately, 1x Bayou over an Island, and 1x Spoils of the Vault in place of 1x Mystical Tutor and I'm loving it. My board has become 4x Xantid Swarm, 4x Dark Confidant, 4x Pithing Needle, Rushing River, Rebuild, Echoing Truth after some experimentation with Cabal Therapy. I'm currently running the 1x Spoils because there are many times when I want an LED or Pithing Needle to go off safely and Mystical Tutor won't let me grab those.

The only problem I have right now is that I'm still learning all of the combinations that make me win on turns 1 and 2 and the mulligan decisions that go along with it. It seems like this latest combination with Infernal Tutor and Leyline might be the deck that brings Legacy to a FT of 3.

Given the surge of popularity of the deck, I'm also beginning to test the mirror. Any thoughts here?

[Evil Roopey]

Hoi!

I've been playing this deck at a local T1.5 tournament lately finishing first. I have a small report written at MTGS. You might want to look into it.

Small Report on MTGS (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=35625&page=2#post1084257)

Greets

TheSorcerer

PS: 4x Defense Grid and 4x Dark Confidant should be a staple in this decks Sideboard.
Gro dodge FTW.

How does this deck do against Gro anyways? I'm curious.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

It's basicly the worst matchup you can think of - really, there isnt anything close as bad. Meddling Mage, free couters and fast clocks are not exactly what you want to face.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[emidln]

Gro dodge FTW.

How does this deck do against Gro anyways? I'm curious.

In testing against Gro/Tog with my board I've been stomping them. Game 1 seems to be about 60% in our favor because of Leyline but the reason it's not higher is the 50/50 racing issue (you can race, bait, and hope they don't have many counters) without Leyline. If they end up with 2-3 counters in the first two turns, you might be able to recover, it depends on their creature support, but probably not.

I have yet to lose games post-board when I've boarded against them. This was with my old board of:

4x Dark Confidant
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Bounce (Rushing River, Rebuild, Echoing Truth)

where I would board:

+4 Confidant
+4 Swarm
+3 Therapy
-1 Therapy (against Tog)
+1 Rebuild (against Tog)

-3 IGG
-4 LED
-4 Intuition

leaving in 1x IGG for the random Mind Twist. Tog is actually a tougher matchup because they can board Chalice against you which really, really sucks. The good news is that they probably won't draw 3x Chalice so you can still win from under 2x Chalice @ (1,2,3).

You board into a deck that ends up playing similarly to Vintage Intuition Tendrils going for a double Tendrils. You simply play an attrition war. They can only really board in REBs and/or Crypts which are both pretty worthless against you post-board. The black versions of Gro and Tog are a lot more difficult thanks to the potential for Duress/Cabal Therapy, but those don't see much as much play as UGW and UGR. I've found in the UGR matchup that I sometimes have to do a mini tendrils for 12 or 14 and finish them off a turn or two later.

I'm not using the Therapies in the board anymore (switched it out for Pithing Needle) and I haven't tested the Threshold matchup post-therapy removal.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

I know this was brought up before, but no one really addressed the matter. Does anyone have some accurate goldfishing results, like the percentages to go off on turn 1,2,3,4 and so on?? I believe that this would be very helpful in determing whether or not to give this deck a shot. I have been goldfishing the deck, and I cacn consistently go off turn 4 every time and most likely turn 3 if i really need to.. Thanks!

[Benie Bederios]

This deck can go off more than 20, even maybe 25 % on the time on turn one on play. This is just about as fast as Belcher. This is included first turn IGG with a Leyline in play. You only have to see the loop for getting ten spells. So is 2x LED+Land+Infernal Tutor+ Lotus Petal also a one turn kill.

I've tested 100 games

first turn 21 ( 6 x Leyline + IGG)
second turn 34
Third Turn 46
Fourth turn 7
Later 2

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

Now throw disruption into the mix.. What do you do if you can't go off first turn and someone decides to duress you. That duress can slow you down quite significantly. The deck goldfishes exceptionally well, but why play this deck over solidarity??

[Benie Bederios]

Well a single duress doesn't slow you down much. The spells who are most likely chosen are Infernal Tutor and Intuition. You're change of drawing a new one is quite big and you also have Brainstorm and Mystical Tutor. The problem is alot of handdisruption and counters with a fast clock, but both of those are beatable.

Why play it over Solidarity?
1. easier to play, at least for me.
2. Totally wrecks Goblins. Goblins sometimes run Solidarity, but they're unable to run IGG.
3. Less hurt by LD. Although you run 2 colors you can go off quite easily with one land and a Petal. Solidarity needs 3 lands so Confidant can keep him of bay for a little while.
4. Fastest consitant deck in the format.
5. No resets; no expensive or rare cards.

Well of course there are alot of points to run Solidarity over IGG, but IGG is becoming a very powerful deck, being able to win against all tier one decks and smashes random crap.

[GreenOne]

Why play it over Solidarity?
1. easier to play, at least for me.
2. Totally wrecks Goblins. Goblins sometimes run Solidarity, but they're unable to run IGG.
3. Less hurt by LD. Although you run 2 colors you can go off quite easily with one land and a Petal. Solidarity needs 3 lands so Confidant can keep him of bay for a little while.
4. Fastest consitant deck in the format.
5. No resets; no expensive or rare cards.


6. People use dedicated slots in their sideboard to beat Solidarity. We are not as much affected by some of them (Boil, sirocco, REB) and we can race others (Rule of law).
7. We can play 4 maindeck hate to some decks in the form of Leyline of the void. This doesn't offer control as Solidarity's Force of will, but sometimes happens you just run into "byes" (Ichorid, Reanimator, Teen Titans, FEB, Loam Decks) or have significant advantages (Survival, Gro, Affinity)
8. You're sure to win. You can't fizzle, Solidarity can.


@Benie Bederios: "5. No resets; no expensive or rare cards."
Intuition? Underground Sea?

[Nightmare]

I think the most important reason to play this deck over Solidarity is the Turn 2 Yawgmoth's Mindtwist. No other Legacy deck has the ability to go Turn 1 Duress, turn 2 remove your entire hand from the game, leaving 3 cards in mine, and giving me infinite time to set myself up for a lethal Tendrils.

[AnwarA101]

The main reason to play this deck over Solidarity is that almost always beats aggro decks. It functions like a classic combo deck in that it beats aggro but has trouble with Control especially Force of Will. While Solidarity is pretty good against aggro sometimes it just isn't able to setup a good enough hand in time. Solidarity has the distinction of being a combo deck that has an amazing game against Control.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

I fully agree with Anwar on what he said. There is absolutely no aggresive deck out there, that beats Iggy Pop - except those sporting Counterspells themselves or enough disruption. Solidarity simply goldfishes one to two turns slower, which is a huge difference against most Legacy aggro decks. If you want to apply this to the "Fundemental Turn"-Theory, Iggy Pop simply outraces every single deck in the current envoirement with having an average turn 3 goldfish.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[bigredmeanie]

I've tested 100 games

first turn 21 ( 6 x Leyline + IGG)
second turn 34
Third Turn 46
Fourth turn 7
Later 2


hate to break it to you but thats 110 games.

[Benie Bederios]

hate to break it to you but thats 110 games.
Oops my mistake, I lost the count but 100 * 20 / 110 is still 19 %. Counted that I didn't play flawless, I can't even count, it probably can go over 20 % first turn kills.

@ GreenOne: well Intuition is alot cheaper than Reset and sea's can be replaced by the new duals.

[Bane of the Living]

Guys what do you think about adding a man plan to the sideboard. Instead of trying to race Rule of Law or Duress away Force, what about just switching it up a bit. Phyrexian Negators, Promise of Power, Juggarnaut, ect..

It might be worth a shot against Thresh. But then again, we already have Leyline.

[AnwarA101]

@ GreenOne: well Intuition is alot cheaper than Reset and sea's can be replaced by the new duals.

While this thread isn't a discussion about cost. I think the idea that Intuition is much cheaper than Reset is probably false. I purchased my intuitions for about 15 and I think they average around that amount. You can probaly get a set of Resets on ebay for about 70 (making it about 17.50 a piece). If you want
to play this deck over Solidarity I don't think cost is the main factor. You still have to purchase the same fetches and Infernal tutor is still a decent amount of money as is Lion's Eye Diamond. I don't know which deck is overall cheaper but I would guess the two decks are fairly close.

[Benie Bederios]

Guys what do you think about adding a man plan to the sideboard. Instead of trying to race Rule of Law or Duress away Force, what about just switching it up a bit. Phyrexian Negators, Promise of Power, Juggarnaut, ect..

It might be worth a shot against Thresh. But then again, we already have Leyline.

I don't think that is a good plan; ******** can beat the shit out of aggro, so I don't think this deck must change in a bad aggro deck. Even without removal for creatures they still have alot of counters. If they play red, it's only worse because they might still have some bolts in the deck.

Phyrexian Negator is a nice anticombo card, because he is a very fast clock, but he bad agains aggro-control. The only creatures who would be nice are Dark Confidant and Xantid Swarm, but I run neither of them. Someone mentioned that he used Confidant to speed up the non IGG kill but it costs you life. Against ******** with a fast clock that isn't fixing the problem. Because you will die 1 or 2 turns earlier if you have badluck and they are able to resolve a Meddling Mage.

Promise of Power looks awfully slow even with all the accelaration. Juggernaut is in boltrange and to just as expensive as IGG.

I think Leyline with discard is the best remidy. I normally board in Defense Grid and Duress, and mull aggresive in a thirst turn Leyline or second turn Grid.

But I have a question about the sideboard: Xantid Swarm or Defense Grid. They both have advantage.

Xantid Swarm easily be played first turn and make sure you're opponent can disrupt you at all. But is affected by creature removal( but most deck will board removal out.) and takes a additonal place in the sideboard( trop Island)

Defense Grid costs one more, but isn't affected by creature removal, but can be played around( three mana open and a FoW). Nice of Grid is that it slows down Solidarity too.

[Bane of the Living]

I was just throwing it out there. Bob seems like gold here tho, I can see boarding him and 4 Defense Grids against control. Seriously he might be better than Duress. I like Defense Grid more than Xantid because red thresh will still burn him and counter your shit. Artifacts are harder to kill, always have been, and if you opponent uses up a counterspell on it than its one less for your combo.

I saw someone using 1 copy of Hymn to Tourach as an IT target when he didnt have Leyline in play. It works well if you have the mana cause you get it back with Gains and play it taking out counterspells if you didnt have Leyline.

[Benie Bederios]

I was just throwing it out there. Bob seems like gold here tho, I can see boarding him and 4 Defense Grids against control. Seriously he might be better than Duress. I like Defense Grid more than Xantid because red thresh will still burn him and counter your shit. Artifacts are harder to kill, always have been, and if you opponent uses up a counterspell on it than its one less for your combo.

I saw someone using 1 copy of Hymn to Tourach as an IT target when he didnt have Leyline in play. It works well if you have the mana cause you get it back with Gains and play it taking out counterspells if you didnt have Leyline.

Yeah but what else did you change against ********. Boarding in 4 Grids 4 Confidants against 4 IGG and 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds won't win you the game. Simply Meddling Mage on Tendrils spells good game for you, with only one way to remove it and no recursion in the form of IGG. So what else did you do? I normally bring in Grids and Echoing Truths( or Massacre if I play it in the board due to much UGw ******** decks) and try to mull into Leyline or in a fast kill( opponents won't always mull in a FoW against this deck, because they don't know how fast this deck really is.)

Oh yeah, another point of runnig both Confidant and Xantid Swarm in the sideboard is that you can effectively play Cabal Therapy.

[emidln]

Yeah but what else did you change against ********. Boarding in 4 Grids 4 Confidants against 4 IGG and 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds won't win you the game. Simply Meddling Mage on Tendrils spells good game for you, with only one way to remove it and no recursion in the form of IGG. So what else did you do? I normally bring in Grids and Echoing Truths( or Massacre if I play it in the board due to much UGw ******** decks) and try to mull into Leyline or in a fast kill( opponents won't always mull in a FoW against this deck, because they don't know how fast this deck really is.)

Oh yeah, another point of runnig both Confidant and Xantid Swarm in the sideboard is that you can effectively play Cabal Therapy.

Cabal Therapy is amazing in this matchup, but it's significantly worse across the board when compared to Pithing Needle in my testing. Against Threshold, the discard is a house, but against stuff that brings in Crypt that I can't reliably go Confidant/Double Tendrils plan on (Goblins, Zoo, etc) I really want that Pithing Needle or 4 coming in.

In my board, I always include at least 3 bounce/kill, all with high casting costs/different names to avoid Chalice/Mage yet make a Intuition pile if Intuition is in. Usually, it goes like this:

Echoing Truth
Rushing River
Rebuild / Massacre
Massacre (if I play four)

Before I stopped testing Iggy Pop, I was boarding out:

3 IGG
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Intuition
1 Spoils of the Vault/Mystical Tutor
1 Echoing Truth (depending on if it was Tog or Thresh (Tog can run Chalice))

For:

4 Confidant
3-4 Xantid Swarm
2-3 Cabal Therapy
1 Rushing River
1 Massacre/Echoing Truth/Rebuild
0-1 Bounce/Destruction (if Echoing Truth comes out)

[bigredmeanie]

How do you win if you board out IGG? Can you just hope to have enough storm to win or is Confidant supposed to go part of the way?

[emidln]

Double Tendrils thanks to Mystical Tutor/Infernal Tutor or finding/using my single IGG. In longer games you also only need to do between 16-18 (8-9 copies) damage due to fetches. Against some opponents (like Tog), you might be able to get in some swings with Confidant too.

[bigredmeanie]

Ah, double Tendrils. I'm good at this. Also boarding out IGG makes you ignore the GY hate your opponents will board in.


What is wrong with this deck? Why isn't it breaking the format?

[emidln]

Ah, double Tendrils. I'm good at this. Also boarding out IGG makes you ignore the GY hate your opponents will board in.


What is wrong with this deck? Why isn't it breaking the format?

For some reason people have difficulty playing it properly. I attribute that to the fact that they don't goldfish the deck enough and aren't experienced enough to know quickly which hands when at what time at what odds and thus how to mulligan properly.

Also, as far as exposure, there are a lot of suboptimal builds that lose a lot of power in favor of a slower kill, which necessitates using more control cards in the board to beat things like Goblins. (I'm talking about people MD'ing Duress over Leyline here.)

I've also seen some people playing it that don't know how to bait and play against Daze/FoW/Force Spike. That, again, seems like playskill. I know I'm not perfect, but it seems goldfishing this deck often and thinking through the value of your spells would allow a decent player to have a rediculous win percentage with this deck. I've given up on it in favor of my team's other decks like Sun Palace for now though.

[bigredmeanie]

@ Emidlin, I think you just shot yourself in the foot. You say that a good player with experience with the deck should have a rediculous win percentage with the deck, but you and your team have put it down to play Sun Palace. If it really is that good, than why would you put it down? If it really were about to break the format, wouldn't you want to be on the front lines?


Also, what is Sun Palace? Search yeilded nothing.

[emidln]

@ Emidlin, I think you just shot yourself in the foot. You say that a good player with experience with the deck should have a rediculous win percentage with the deck, but you and your team have put it down to play Sun Palace. If it really is that good, than why would you put it down? If it really were about to break the format, wouldn't you want to be on the front lines?


Also, what is Sun Palace? Search yeilded nothing.

Code name. ;) We'll let you know when we're finished. As far as putting it down, I believe I've found a faster, more consistent combo deck. My opponents in the last few weeks likely agree with me. If you can find someone who plays Legacy around the Chicago area, they might be able to fill you in on older versions of the list, but I think Iggy Pop and Spanish Inquisition fill different roles. If S.I. gets released and someone figures out how to hate it out, I'll probably come back to Iggy Pop as it is very resiliant with MD bounce and varied casting costs.

Basically, Iggy Pop will move the format ahead in terms of speed. I believe it has moved the FT up to 3. The solution to Iggy Pop is to out-goldfish it or play extreme hate now that it can go at least 50% or better against Threshold.

As far as being on the front lines, I played the deck for a few months. From playing it so much I can hate on it very well. I know the percentages and have done the math. I know the decklists very well. I'm very confident when I play against Iggy Pop, because I'm faster.

[michael_noah]

I have a short report of my first RL experience with the deck at a local tournament (3-1 with no cut) this weekend if anyone is interested. I'm not sure if this is the right place for it, but don't think it's amazing enough to interest anyone other than those active in this thread...

My thoughts on my experience in the tournament and a lot of MWS play (with scrubs... and a couple awesome people):

Discard does not really affect us much. Therapy could be a problem if people work it very well and get multiple copies of something we need - but we've so much redundancy that I've never had a problem.

Counter magic affects us almost as little. Many players won't know that we'll be going for the double tendrils plan and will not counter the acceleration. Even if they do, we have a ton of redundancy, and can often just try again the next turn. This isn't even considering that often one can just go off blind and win when the opponent doesn't have a FoW.

Leyline + IGG is flat out amazing. Others have said this, I know, but I won 3 games in 4 rounds just by yawg-twisting my opponent turn 2.

My one loss in the tournament actually came against... Rifter. Gilded light was my downfall. I see this being a tough matchup, because one can't go with the Confidant plan (their entire deck is removal, so there's no way they'll side it out), and they often have 8 "counters" to our combo, in Gilded Light and Abeyance. Gilded Light is about the worst thing we can see, in fact, because it can stop even the double tendrils plan - and can do it after we've already used up all our acceleration.

I attempted to use Defense Grid to stop their hate, but after one got disenchanted, I didn't see another until they already had 5 mana. It makes me think that therapy or duress could be better out of the board. My only thought on this is that I should have just sided nothing and raced. The deck wins turn 2 often enough that it could be worth it on the play. I'd appreciate any more insight on this.

[Skullclamping]

didin't you tried to Leyline+IGG the Rifter Player early and then go off, or, if heplayed one of his anti-combo cards in response, just wait a turn with 3 cards vs 0 in your hands?

[michael_noah]

I didn't want to stick with the full-blown IGG plan, because he boarded Tormod's Crypt (and both games 2-3 dropped it turn 1), so I had to work around that. I didn't mulligan too aggresively into a Leyline, perhaps I should have. Without it, IGG is almost as bad against Gilded Light as against FoW.

[Benie Bederios]

How does a Sideboard look like. The old lists packs 4 Engineered Plagues SB, but are they still needed, or can this deck beat the hate of goblins that fast that it don't longer need it.

Does Pithing Needle fits in the side, bounce or discard.

Xantid Swarm or Defense Grid. If Xantid Swarm, how do we cast it, Trop Island MD or SB.

What do we use against Meddling Mage or ***** in general.

[AnwarA101]

How does a Sideboard look like. The old lists packs 4 Engineered Plagues SB, but are they still needed, or can this deck beat the hate of goblins that fast that it don't longer need it.

Does Pithing Needle fits in the side, bounce or discard.

Xantid Swarm or Defense Grid. If Xantid Swarm, how do we cast it, Trop Island MD or SB.

What do we use against Meddling Mage or ***** in general.

I played Iggy Pop this weekend at my local tournament. I went with the following sideboard -

4 Engineered Plague
4 Dark Confidant
4 Night's Whisper
3 Echoing Truth

My sideboard strategy game against Gro -

-3 Mystical Tutor (I only play 3)
-4 IGG

+4 Dark Confidant
+3 Echoing Truth

I won both games. First game because I was able to play a Leyline on turn 2 with a Ritual and he didn't have the counterspell (I was on the play). Game 2 I boarded out the IGG plan because I think its terrible against a deck running like 7 hard counters. It seemed to work well, I used the card advantage from Confidant to get a double Tendrils hand that he wasn't able to counter everything. I had ten cards in my hand the turn I went off (double Confidant).

I was unhappy with Night's Whisper because I never boarded it in. I think that spot should be something against aggro - I'm leaning towards Mental Note because it builds Thresh as well as you can play the cards dropped into the yard when you go with the IGG plan against aggro.

And if anyone is wondering Fearie Stompy is a tough matchup - the only one I lost all day. Chalice of the Void is a back-breaker.

[emidln]

And if anyone is wondering Fearie Stompy is a tough matchup - the only one I lost all day. Chalice of the Void is a back-breaker.

If you board Echoing Truth/Rushing River/Rebuild you should never lose to Chalice unless they go 3x Chalice. Game 1, Chalice @ 0 and 2 is roughest for you, but post-board you should have the tools to fetch out whatever bounce you have left using Mystical Tutor and Infernal Tutor.

[Phantom]

And if anyone is wondering Fearie Stompy is a tough matchup - the only one I lost all day. Chalice of the Void is a back-breaker.


If you board Echoing Truth/Rushing River/Rebuild you should never lose to Chalice unless they go 3x Chalice. Game 1, Chalice @ 0 and 2 is roughest for you, but post-board you should have the tools to fetch out whatever bounce you have left using Mystical Tutor and Infernal Tutor.

(Fair warning: I've never played Iggy, so some of this will probably be wrong.)

I'll comment on this as a Faerie Stompy player. This matchup is probably going to be a huge headache for any combo player. FS combines 7-8 ways to get a Chalice out (Trinket Mage) with a fast clock (turn 3 kills possible, turn 4 often) and FoW. Winter orbs come in from the board (I'm assuming they hurt)

Also, discard is fairly poor against FS.

I'm not saying it's unwinnable, but I couldn't imagine it being a favorable matchup.

[emidln]

(Fair warning: I've never played Iggy, so some of this will probably be wrong.)

I'll comment on this as a Faerie Stompy player. This matchup is probably going to be a huge headache for any combo player. FS combines 7-8 ways to get a Chalice out (Trinket Mage) with a fast clock (turn 3 kills possible, turn 4 often) and FoW. Winter orbs come in from the board (I'm assuming they hurt)

Also, discard is fairly poor against FS.

I'm not saying it's unwinnable, but I couldn't imagine it being a favorable matchup.

I'd agree. If I'm playing modern Iggy Pop I only really fear Faerie Stompy and Angel Stax, much moreso than Threshold which is a known quantity. I'm saying that Chalice alone should not stop an Iggy Pop player with a properly built sideboard. Also, if you are playing the control game, your kill will slow down, even if only a turn or so. I would not board Orb btw, as it does nothing against a deck that only really wants one land to win with.

I'm was not playing Cabal Therapy in the board anymore, and I don't know anyone who plays the deck often that runs any discard in the deck other than Leyline + IGG.

That said, I'd fully expect Iggy Pop to race you quite well. I don't foresee the matchup being favorable but I wouldn't put more than 55-60/40-45 in Faerie Stompy's favor. That also depends a lot on Iggy Pop's draws. They can flat out combo on turn 1 very easily a very real percentage of the time. For matchup analysis you need to balance that with the liklihood that you find FoW and, on the play, Chalice. The ability to combo out ignoring chalice @ 0 and 1 on turn 4 is also present with Iggy Pop so I wouldn't discount that either. I'd probably board Pithing Needles if I suspected Crypt, Dark Confidant, and bounce as you don't seem to have a lot of countermagic.

This is all theoretical of course since I only play this deck online now, and even then not very often. All of my insight came from the two weeks or so when Dissension was out that I was testing Iggy Pop basically every day for a couple hours. If Iggy Pop rises to more prominenc I'd expect that Faerie Stompy would follow as it's a good foil to the deck that can try to race and disrupt it fairly well.

[Benie Bederios]

So what you're all( well maybe not all) saying that going with another strategie is better than the Pithing Needle plan. I mean What if a non-counterdeck( say Mono red Goblins) boards in Tormod's Crypt most of you're SB is unplayable( No confidant, no grid) and you only have three answers if they put down a Crypt( Echoing Truth) wich can countered with their REB. But when you were playing a SB like this one:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Defense Grid
3 Echoing Truth
4 Engineered Plague

you could play Needle on Crypt and still combo off using you're graveyard. That said I'm even considering to remove Plague from the side for Confidant or Duress. I think it's enough to board in Echoing Truth and Pithing Needle against goblins and that way I got still the Confidant to bring in against UWg *****.

About Fearie Stompy, although it's a hard matchup it's certainly winnable. This deck can win through a Chalice, can be faster, or bounce it. I would say its 60/40 for Stompy. Boarding in Winter Orb isn't a great plan, because Iggy Pop can win on one land.

[AnwarA101]

So what you're all( well maybe not all) saying that going with another strategie is better than the Pithing Needle plan. I mean What if a non-counterdeck( say Mono red Goblins) boards in Tormod's Crypt most of you're SB is unplayable( No confidant, no grid) and you only have three answers if they put down a Crypt( Echoing Truth) wich can countered with their REB. But when you were playing a SB like this one:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Defense Grid
3 Echoing Truth
4 Engineered Plague

you could play Needle on Crypt and still combo off using you're graveyard. That said I'm even considering to remove Plague from the side for Confidant or Duress. I think it's enough to board in Echoing Truth and Pithing Needle against goblins and that way I got still the Confidant to bring in against UWg *****.

About Fearie Stompy, although it's a hard matchup it's certainly winnable. This deck can win through a Chalice, can be faster, or bounce it. I would say its 60/40 for Stompy. Boarding in Winter Orb isn't a great plan, because Iggy Pop can win on one land.


I've never played Pithing Needle because it seems very narrow. What else do you want to needle other than Crypt? What if your opponent isn't bringing in Crypt? It seems too much like a guessing game for me. Against aggro decks I just bring in Echoing Truth because it can buy me time as well as remove any type of hate. Against goblins just bring in Plague and win.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

Forget that "bring in Plague and" part and reduce it to "Against Goblins just win". They have absolutely no game against you. Dedicating sibeboard slots to that matchup is a waste in my eyes.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[emidln]

Hoi!

Forget that "bring in Plague and" part and reduce it to "Against Goblins just win". They have absolutely no game against you. Dedicating sibeboard slots to that matchup is a waste in my eyes.

Greets

TheSorcerer

You board needles and bring them in against Goblins because they do play Crypt. If they play crypt turn 1 and you don't combo out turn 1 on the play, then you lose barring some insane double tendrils on turn 3 draw.

This deck needs to side needles to beat crypt in the games that it can't go for the Confidant plan (aka Burn, Goblins, and Zoo).

[parallax]

Engineered Plague + Infernal Tutor is a combo.

I don't like boarding in answers to answers in this sort of match-up. Boarding in a 4-of to deal with a 4-of is inherently flawed. Goblins will have Crypt in their opening hand 40% of the time. You will have Needle 40% of the time. Needles will only help you in 16% of your sideboard games. Echoing Truth seems just as good at getting around Crypt but it can also buy you a turn against a non-Crypt Goblin draw. Not all Goblin decks necessarily even board Crypt. Besides, a semi-lethal Tendrils can buy you a turn or two to find a second Tendrils, allowing you to play around Crypt.

[emidln]

Engineered Plague + Infernal Tutor is a combo.

I don't like boarding in answers to answers in this sort of match-up. Boarding in a 4-of to deal with a 4-of is inherently flawed. Goblins will have Crypt in their opening hand 40% of the time. You will have Needle 40% of the time. Needles will only help you in 16% of your sideboard games. Echoing Truth seems just as good at getting around Crypt but it can also buy you a turn against a non-Crypt Goblin draw. Not all Goblin decks necessarily even board Crypt. Besides, a semi-lethal Tendrils can buy you a turn or two to find a second Tendrils, allowing you to play around Crypt.

The thing is, your 4-of answer trades 1 for 4 with theirs. How do you figure it would only come in around 16% of your sideboard games? I'd board it anytime the opposing deck can't board out enough creature hate. The only decks that the Confidant/Swarm/Defense Grid plan is good against are Control decks. (Your plan with Iggy Pop is to make Threshold a control deck (with terrible options) whether it wants to be control or not.) Control decks include Threshold, Tog, Landstill, U/x Variants, Stax, and other decks whose kill condition is way too slow for you to care about anything other than a double-tendrils while playing around Chalices/countermagic.

Also, you can get a needle 45% of the time by your first draw. This balances by the fact that your opponent will only have Crypt 40% of the time by this point. You then have 4-5 ways to find a Needle if you need it on top of that.

A semi-lethal Tendrils might (probably will) buy you a turn, but probably not two unless the Goblins player is having bad draws. That means you have to refill AND win next turn. How is that a viable solution?

[AnwarA101]

The thing is, your 4-of answer trades 1 for 4 with theirs. How do you figure it would only come in around 16% of your sideboard games? I'd board it anytime the opposing deck can't board out enough creature hate. The only decks that the Confidant/Swarm/Defense Grid plan is good against are Control decks. (Your plan with Iggy Pop is to make Threshold a control deck (with terrible options) whether it wants to be control or not.) Control decks include Threshold, Tog, Landstill, U/x Variants, Stax, and other decks whose kill condition is way too slow for you to care about anything other than a double-tendrils while playing around Chalices/countermagic.

Also, you can get a needle 45% of the time by your first draw. This balances by the fact that your opponent will only have Crypt 40% of the time by this point. You then have 4-5 ways to find a Needle if you need it on top of that.

A semi-lethal Tendrils might (probably will) buy you a turn, but probably not two unless the Goblins player is having bad draws. That means you have to refill AND win next turn. How is that a viable solution?


I believe the 16% comes from the multiplication of .40 (the percentage when they have Crypt) and .40 (when you have Needle). Both of these have to occur for your Needle to matter in the sideboard game.

The logic for trying to board a card your opponent may or may not have seems very risky. Echoing Truth deals with this problem just fine and others that you haven't anticipated. I still think that Engineered Plague should be given consideration for the sideboard. Its so easy to get this down that it hardly matters what Goblin opponent will do and Goblins usually appears in large numbers at major tournaments.

[Benie Bederios]

Well I was suggesting to board Echoing Truth AND Pithing Needle, that will give you 8 answers against hate. Also I found Needle rarely a dead card. Almost anydeck plays Tormod's Crypt as Graveyard hate, baring Homebrew who uses Withered Wretch, so it isn't much guessing. And otherwise you can always go after fetches( against *****, just name the fetch that isn't in your hand) Vial, Jitte( damn irritating if they get to much life) Shade, Survival, etc.

[emidln]

I believe the 16% comes from the multiplication of .40 (the percentage when they have Crypt) and .40 (when you have Needle). Both of these have to occur for your Needle to matter in the sideboard game.

The logic for trying to board a card your opponent may or may not have seems very risky. Echoing Truth deals with this problem just fine and others that you haven't anticipated. I still think that Engineered Plague should be given consideration for the sideboard. Its so easy to get this down that it hardly matters what Goblin opponent will do and Goblins usually appears in large numbers at major tournaments.

A (probably) minor nitpick is that if they are on the play they have a 40% chance of a crypt while you have a 45% (8 chances as opposed to 7) chance of a needle. If you are on the play, you have a 40% chance of an auto-mulligan (playing with just 6 cards) because you fear needle if you are going to continue to combo quickly, but your 6 card mulligan actually has a 100% .chance of being unaffecting by crypt for a turn, making the needle very costly (1 CA). Another possibility is a double Needle which would probably force you to mulligan for real with the potential for, yet again, a "double mulligan" due to a single needle.

[AnwarA101]

A (probably) minor nitpick is that if they are on the play they have a 40% chance of a crypt while you have a 45% (8 chances as opposed to 7) chance of a needle. If you are on the play, you have a 40% chance of an auto-mulligan (playing with just 6 cards) because you fear needle if you are going to continue to combo quickly, but your 6 card mulligan actually has a 100% .chance of being unaffecting by crypt for a turn, making the needle very costly (1 CA). Another possibility is a double Needle which would probably force you to mulligan for real with the potential for, yet again, a "double mulligan" due to a single needle.

I'm sorry, but I'm not following. Doesn't the Iggy Pop player fear Crypt? You will mulligan into Needle? I'm not sure that's correct. But in general I'm a little lost with the statement here. Is it possible to clarify these numbers?

[emidln]

I'm sorry, but I'm not following. Doesn't the Iggy Pop player fear Crypt? You will mulligan into Needle? I'm not sure that's correct. But in general I'm a little lost with the statement here. Is it possible to clarify these numbers?

Okay, sorry. There are two scenarios for game two. The first is that you are on the play. The second is that you are on the draw.

On the Play:

- You start with 7 cards
- Your opponent will not have the chance to play a Tormod's Crypt therefore you don't care.
- If your hand is moderately good, a Pithing Needle will clog up your hand and force itself to be played due to slowing you down a turn or two.
- A double pithing needle in your opening hand is an automatic mulligan. You can keep a six hand opening hand, but 5 with double needle is horrible
- when you Mulligan you have three scenarios (listed from best to worst)
(1) you draw 6 cards not named pithing needle and can set up to go off
(2) you draw 5 cards not named pithing needle and a needle. This is okay since you're going to drop the needle turn 1 and try to go off around turn 3
(3) you draw 4 cards not named pithing needle and are left with an option of dropping to 5 cards or playing with 5 useful cards and an extra pithing needle. if you have a land and some business at this point, I'd probably just accept my losses as mulling to 5 is very dangerous

In any event, the likihood of you drawing at least 1 pithing needle in your initial opening 7 cards is 40%

Scenario 2: on the draw

- You draw 8 cards
- Tormod's Crypt is a potential problem
- your opponent has at least a 40% chance of playing a turn 1 tormod's crypt if they board four copies
- if your opponent gets a crypt you need to do one of two things:
(1) play around it
- this should happen about 55% of the time, although it may not be relevant until turn 2 giving you a better chance to use option 2 (since you don't always play IT or Intuition turn 1)
(2) needle it
- in your initial 8 cards you have a 45% chance of seeing a needle in your initial 8 cards
((3, but not really an option) lose to it)
- if they don't play it and you can go off turn 1, great, otherwise
- you do something and pass the turn
- if it invoves the graveyard, they can still potentially drop a crypt and hurt your threshold/setup
- you can still proactively needle tormod's crypt in preparation for going off on turn 2, 3 or 4

Iggy Pop only fears crypt when crypt has been cast. In that event (crypt is cast), if Iggy Pop is playing with the Confidant plan, they may have boarded out 3-4 IGG, Intuitions, and LEDs (cards good with the graveyard) already and ignore Crypt anyway. The problem is against decks like Zoo, Burn, and Goblins, the Confidant plan is terrible as they can easily destroy your confidants and leave you with a slow tendrils deck. To fix that you can pretty much (a) try your luck without an answer to crypt and randomly lose quite a bit, (b) board needle against crypt, (c) board engineered plague against goblins, ignore crypt and build up a double tendrils hand.

[AnwarA101]

To fix that you can pretty much (a) try your luck without an answer to crypt and randomly lose quite a bit, (b) board needle against crypt, (c) board engineered plague against goblins, ignore crypt and build up a double tendrils hand.

Thanks for explaining your reasoning fully. The only argument I have with your last statement here is that Echoing Truth is a less narrow answer to Tormod's Crypt than Pithing Needle. Why only Pithing Needle? Echoing Truth can bounce other hate cards like Rule of Law or Pyrostatic Pillar while Pithing Needle only does one thing. As long as you don't put any key spells into the yard before you Echoing Truth then its just like a Pithing Needle in the sense they don't get to use it at any point where it matters. It just seems odd to play a card so narrow that actually only affects one card your opponent maybe playing. While Engineered Plague is narrow it at least effectively wins you a game when you play two of them. I doubt the same could be said of Pithing Needle.

[Benie Bederios]

Allright point taken, I dropped the needles from my SB and added Rebuild. This way I've got 1 Echoing Truth MD, 3 in SB and 1 Rebuild( seems to work great against Chalice and Artifactheavy decks( Angelstax, Ravager)) but that leaves me with three open slots. I'm still not sold of Confidant, it's only helping one matchup( UGw *****) and there isn't it an autowin. I tested with the( in my opinion) bad tendrils deck plan( boarding in the Confidants) and I didn't win any game of twenty. It's so tough to beat the free counters and the fast clock they can put down, and Confidant costs me about 5 lifes, before I have to chump block is Werebear, and Meddling Mage staring at me protected by counters and named Tendrils of Agony.

For now I'm going to test this SB.

4 Engineered Plague( beats 1 deck, but beats it hard)
3 Echoing Truth( Multitasker, does what it has to do, and is never dead, Might change it in Rushing River)
4 Xantid Swarm( just trying, It offers a more reliable 2 turn kill, fixes the problems if ***** keeps 3 mana open)
1 Tropical Island( for playing Xantid Swarm)
1 Rebuild( additonal high CC bounce against artifact heavy decks, might change it in Rushin River)
2 Tormod's Crypt( also just trying, slows down ***** his clock and gives them more limited choices to return after IGG, it might be al little overkill with Leyline of th Void)

Also could it be an Idea to play Cunning Wish MD and a wishboard, or is it to slow for this deck.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

I dont believe Cunning Wish is what this deck needs. It doesnt provide any versality you could use in a turn 2or 3 kill.
I strongly recommend to diversify your bounce, so a single Meddling Mage or Chalice cannot shut it off. And also run Rebuild or you will have no good way of removing multiple crytps.

I think one of these should be found in your MD (propably Truth or Chain) and the other 3 in your sideboard.

1x Chain of Vapor
1x Echoing Truth
1x Rebuild
1x Rushing River

I also agree that bounce is far superior as an answer to crypt than Pithing Needle. In the end, Pithing Needle will only do it's job in shutting down crypt in about 20% of the games. Of course, bounce will only do it's job in protecting you against Crypt in also about 20% of the games, however, in about 20% of the other games it will still slow the other player down, wheres Needle would do nothing.

The main purpose for the Confidant plan isn't to beat aggro control. Actually he really isn't very good against aggro control and I would much rather leave him in he sb in favor for bounce & counter protection (Grid or Swarm). He shines however, against decks with heavy disruption (eg Homebrew) or control decks with slow clocks (eg Landstill).

I'd recommend following SB atm:

1x Echoing Truth MD

4x Dark Confidant
1x Rushing River
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Rebuild
4x Defense Grid / Xantid Swarm (I'm not sure on this yet)
4x Engineered Plague

The 4 Plagues could be anything really. Adjust it to your metagame if you like. When you run Swarms you could think about ading Cabal Therapy in that spot.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[bigredmeanie]

If you're running Swarm you don't need Therapy. You run Swarm so you can go off un-molested. In fact once swarm attacks Therapy is dead, and if Swarm doesn't attack it's because they killed it, and Therapy isn't useful for flashback anyway.

[Benie Bederios]

Uhm whos going to play the first mage on Echoing Truth against you.

Echoing Truth/Rushing River/Chain of Vapor will bounce double crypt just easy as Rebuild.

This deck can beat Landstill and Homebrew already with or without Confidant. And I don't see the match change alot. Against Landstill you'll get enough time to win with the double tendrils plan and if you can resolve a Swarm, you can just combo as normal. Homebrew is all about playing Smart. Brainstorm to hide you're keyspell, use you're fetches when you need the land, Normally you will topdeck a Ill-Gotten Gains that will win you the game. And they still have Vindicate to target your Confidant. Also they will board in Phyrexian Negator, which makes you're lifetotal relevant.

What will you board out against Homebrew.

[Finn]

I would have thought that the sided in Withered Wretches would make your life hard versus Deadguy Ale. Don't you have to kill them off before you can combo? Against a deck packing Duress and Hymn, that seems like a dangerous problem to say the least.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

I went 4-1 with an IGG build without Leylines (you can see my build here (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=35625&page=2#post1084257).

I boarded against Homebrew -4 Impulse +4 Dark Confidant. If you are saying you can win ths matchup via keeping Fetchlands and brainstorming correct, you are lying to yourself. You will not win the matchup this way. Your hand will be torn apart while there's serious preasure in form of Hippies, Shades and maybe even Negators facing you.

Confidant really helps you offset that card disadvanage generated by Hymns and Duresses. If you really face a Negator, I'd rather have a Confidant in play than nothing - he is a nice blocker against Negator after all, forcing youre opponent to sac is maybe only two lands.

You will need to handle Wretches via bounce before trying to combo off, or get them flat footed with not enough mana open to seriously hinder you.

Rushing River will bounce double Crypt for you, that is true, Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth will not though, please rethink the scenario. While Chain should be clear (you can only copy it while bouncing your own permanents) a at least medicore player will respond to Echoing Truth sacrifcing his targeted Crypt to make your Echoing Truth countering itself on resolution due to lack of a target.

Only bad players will resolve the first mage against Truth, however, most players will resolve their second mage against Truth - GG.

I see the point, which makes Therapy rather useless if you have a Swarm in play. However, it can still be used to get that Swarm into play in the beginning or to slow the clock on you by hitting threats. However, I wouldn't run Therapy in the first place, it was just an option which felt suiteable if you can board in 8 creatures.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[michael_noah]

Echoing Truth/Rushing River/Chain of Vapor will bounce double crypt just easy as Rebuild.

Echoing truth will fizzle when they sac the targetted crypt. Chain of Vapor can't bounce two crypts unless they're idiots. Rushing river works. However, I don't think one needs to be terribly concerned about opponents with the double crypt draw.

[emidln]

I've been advocating Rushing River/Echoing Truth/Rebuild/Massacre as a removal suite for awhile because Chain of Vapor is absolutely terrible against Chalice, and suboptimal against pretty much everything else (because your own Leyline tends to get bounced). I like Rebuild because one of our worst matchups is Angel Stax and it exists in the metas that I have played in.

Repeal might be an option, despite that fact that it's absolutely terrible against Rule of Law/Arcane Lab/Trinisphere in your removal Intuition pile.

I'm actually starting to think that I'd want to try Personal Tutor in the board along with Dark Confiant in the extra 2-3 slots.

If you run a board like this:

4 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm/Defense Grid
4 Removal (Rushing River/Echoing Truth/Rebuild/Massacre)
3 Personal Tutor

You could speed up the double Tendrils kills that you go for when you board out IGG, Intuition, and LED. Personal Tutor might be total crap, but it seems worth testing.

[Bane of the Living]

Guys goblins is such a ridiculously easy win games 2 and 3. You dont even need to combo off you just resolve a couple e plagues. Ive gotten all 4 plagues out many times with this deck. Infernal Tutor is masterful at this, Intuition for 3 copies is also pretty easy. IGG puts them all in your hand. GG gobs. gg.

I think Echoing Truth/bounce is far better than needle because it deals with 3sphere, Chalice, Rule of Law, Meddling Mage AND Tormods Crypt. Pithing Needle doesnt.

@Deadguy
This is just a bad matchup. Ive found E Plagues to be good here tho, it can be used to slow their win conditions killing confidants and shades.

[emidln]

Guys goblins is such a ridiculously easy win games 2 and 3. You dont even need to combo off you just resolve a couple e plagues. Ive gotten all 4 plagues out many times with this deck. Infernal Tutor is masterful at this, Intuition for 3 copies is also pretty easy. IGG puts them all in your hand. GG gobs. gg.

I think Echoing Truth/bounce is far better than needle because it deals with 3sphere, Chalice, Rule of Law, Meddling Mage AND Tormods Crypt. Pithing Needle doesnt.

@Deadguy
This is just a bad matchup. Ive found E Plagues to be good here tho, it can be used to slow their win conditions killing confidants and shades.

Who has ever suggested running Pithing Needles over bounce? I was running them in addition to bounce in my 3 random slots.

[Kadath128]

I boarded against Homebrew -4 Impulse +4 Dark Confidant. If you are saying you can win ths matchup via keeping Fetchlands and brainstorming correct, you are lying to yourself. You will not win the matchup this way. Your hand will be torn apart while there's serious preasure in form of Hippies, Shades and maybe even Negators facing you.

Unfortunately its been effective for me. Although I dont play Confidant or Impulse at all, using your tools to hide the important cards and increase the chances of their discard simply setting up your yard IS enough. It helps the match-up greatly and has tended to be neough to win.

Pikula is not a deck that has a lot of pressure compared to the other decks out there. Its good against combo that's true, but correct play will mitigate their advantage. Putting yourself on a faster clock by playing Confidant while still getting raped by their discard and land destruction is not the best answer... at least for me.

[AnwarA101]

Unfortunately its been effective for me. Although I dont play Confidant or Impulse at all, using your tools to hide the important cards and increase the chances of their discard simply setting up your yard IS enough. It helps the match-up greatly and has tended to be neough to win.

Pikula is not a deck that has a lot of pressure compared to the other decks out there. Its good against combo that's true, but correct play will mitigate their advantage. Putting yourself on a faster clock by playing Confidant while still getting raped by their discard and land destruction is not the best answer... at least for me.

I've actually used Mystical Tutor to put the spell I need right on top of my library against discard. Intuition is also solid in this matchup using it to put some very important spells into your yard to help you go off. The biggest problem is withered wretch which you probably have to be careful with but I think that going off early against this deck is probably the best option.

[Benie Bederios]

There seems to be quite some differences in the maindeck. This makes SB options very different. If I'm correct the majorty of decks looks like these 2.

----------------------
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony

4 Intuition
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual

4 Leyline of the Void
1 Echoing Truth

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Undergroud Sea
3 Island
2 Swamp
-----------------------

4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony

4 Impulse
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Intuition

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

1 Chain of Vapor

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Underground Sea

The majority of the deck is the same.

The difference are
3 or 4 Intuitions: The Intuitions are very powerfull with Ill-Gotten Gains, but drawing multiples is quite bad. They also lose power against control deck, who will never let Ill-Gotten Gains resolve.

Impulse or Leyline of The Void More search or a sheer broken card, wich makes Ill-Gotten Gains a must counter for any reactive deck. Even without Ill-Gotten Gains it's helps the thoughest matchup( UGw *****.) but having multiple in openinghand is an auto-mull and hardcasting is sometimes to slow and a 2 for 1 trade( you normally ritual him out) if they counter or remove.

land configuration: 4 Sea's and 2/2 Island swamp, or 2 Sea's 3/2 island swamp. The difference is small, but what if you top deck a Sea, and you're opponent has a Wasteland out OR you need black mana and you topdeck a Island.

Chain of Vapor versus Echoing Truth: this spot about the meta. If you fear Chalice of the void, you probably choose Truth, I sometimes respond on a Chalice for 1 with a Tutor for Truth. But Chain of Vapor has nice tricks like bouncing your LED's and bouncing Meddling Mage and up you're Stormcount and removing a problem.

1.Which one is better, why choose one over the other

2. will the SB be different for both decks

3.what will you take out against the Tier 1 decks( Goblins, *****, Confidant) and what will you put in.

[Jander78]

Impulse or Leyline of The Void More search or a sheer broken card, wich makes Ill-Gotten Gains a must counter for any reactive deck. Even without Ill-Gotten Gains it's helps the thoughest matchup( UGw *****.) but having multiple in openinghand is an auto-mull and hardcasting is sometimes to slow and a 2 for 1 trade( you normally ritual him out) if they counter or remove.


I have found Leyline of the Void necessary. Against any deck running Force of Will, not playing Leyline makes Ill Gotten Gains extremely difficult (almost impossible) to "go off" with. Having multiple Leylines is not always a bad thing against a deck like Threshold or any other deck that has the tools to deal with a Leyline in play. I also run Chrome Mox in the version I run which can make use out of multiples instead of them being stuck in your hand.

[bigbear102]

From my testing with the deck I have to say that 3 Intuitions is enough with IT, and that Leyline is broken. It lets you go off with ease and also gives you game against a lot of decks G1.

I play Chain over Echoing strictly because of the mana cost. If you need to bounce multiples you have IT and IGG. It makes the deck a bit faster, which is always useful in combo.

[Nightmare]

I play Chain over Echoing strictly because of the mana cost. If you need to bounce multiples you have IT and IGG. It makes the deck a bit faster, which is always useful in combo.I don't run Chain at all. A smart opponent will chain back your Leyline and make it much more difficult to go off. I run Truth main, and Rushing River/Truth in the side.

[Bane of the Living]

Im glad to see interest in this deck pick up. Ive played with Nausea since around fall or so and I have to say I find this deck much more consistant and usually as fast. I do wonder how the deck would manage with Land Grant.

[FallenOmnipotent]

I appolagize for my ignorance but I was wondering if someone could sumerize the deck's weaker match-ups? I looked through a couple of pages, but not all of them.

[Locutus]

Im glad to see interest in this deck pick up. Ive played with Nausea since around fall or so and I have to say I find this deck much more consistant and usually as fast. I do wonder how the deck would manage with Land Grant.

When I tested my Nausea build last months, I found that you are very likely to win against Iggy Pop when you go off the turn before they get their third land, unless you fizzle. I don't know how fast the deck is at the current stage, though..

[Jander78]

Im glad to see interest in this deck pick up. Ive played with Nausea since around fall or so and I have to say I find this deck much more consistant and usually as fast. I do wonder how the deck would manage with Land Grant.
I imagine that Land Grant would only be a hinderance more than helpful. Adjusting the manabase to run Land Grant would take away a lot of the consistancy you have mentioned, although it would allow for some different sideboard options, I don't think it is necessary.

[Vardaman]

I have found Leyline of the Void necessary. Against any deck running Force of Will, not playing Leyline makes Ill Gotten Gains extremely difficult (almost impossible) to "go off" with. Having multiple Leylines is not always a bad thing against a deck like Threshold or any other deck that has the tools to deal with a Leyline in play. I also run Chrome Mox in the version I run which can make use out of multiples instead of them being stuck in your hand.

I agree. It's savage when you can cast IGG to Mind Twist your opponent on turn 2-4.

[oneman426]

I been testing a few different versions now but mainly only against my own goblin deck and my friend's solidarity deck. What I find to be interesting is that no one that I have seen (I could have missed a decklist somewhere between here and starcity and tmd) plays leylines AND duress. So far with the testing I have done I like this combo. I get a lot of turn 1 leylines+duress which rapes solidarity. Of course this seems to force the deck to be a lil bit slower but a turn 1 IGG just to mindtwist them happens with some degree of frequency and allows you to set up the tendrils win at your own leisure. I have space for 1 or 2 cards depending on whether I want to run 3/4 intuitions and 3/4 tendrils. The slots I have been testing with have been for mental note, impulse and chrome mox. I am least satisfied with impulse cause of the 2 casting cost. Mental is good for threshold and cantripping and chrome mox while it is anti-synergistic with the deck due to removing the card, still allows you to pitch extra leylines while playing a spell for a tendrils. I am undecided still. What I am most curious about right now though is why there is no (or very little) discussion of playing both duress and leyline together. Has anyone else tried this?

[Nightmare]

Has anyone else tried this?I have! It works well, but I'm beginning to test Unmask in that slot, as it's, you know, free.

[Bane of the Living]

Is Unmask better than Force? Its proactive where force is reactive, dont we want a proactive combo deck? Its not like we're playing Reset. Unmask would be another great way to get use out of extra Leylines.

[oneman426]

Force? I think I'm missing something here...cause to me there aren't enough blue cards to support FoW. Isn't a good standard like 16 blue cards to support FoW? Never thought of unmask, course I never played MM so glad to see that someone has pointed out a card that could work very well here. WIll have to try this out myself. Maybe -3 duress and -1 intuition for +4 unmask.

[AnwarA101]

Force? I think I'm missing something here...cause to me there aren't enough blue cards to support FoW. Isn't a good standard like 16 blue cards to support FoW? Never thought of unmask, course I never played MM so glad to see that someone has pointed out a card that could work very well here. WIll have to try this out myself. Maybe -3 duress and -1 intuition for +4 unmask.

I don't see how running discard or countermagic will help this deck at all. If you don't have Leyline in play this almost does nothing against Countermagic. I think its faulty analysis to play a card that works with Leyline but doesn't when not drawing Leyline. I would run neither Force of Will nor Unmask.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!


Putting yourself on a faster clock by playing Confidant while still getting raped by their discard and land destruction is not the best answer... at least for me.

Of course you can make the matchup more winable by playing accurate, but that is true for every single matchup in magic. If you play correct your chances of winning will increase. However, I don't believe this is a favorable matchup yet. Withered Wretch, Land- & Handdestruction just are tough overcomings.

The statement, that putting yourself under additional preasure by playing Confidant is just not true. Some thoughts and math here:

I hope you agree, that winning with a combo deck is linked to getting the correct cards in time. By drawing extra cards you improve your chances of getting those cards in time (it is lightly linked to how much mana is available aswell, becuase of the possibility to play tutors, but this is only a small margin, especially, because IGGy Pop plays alot of fast mana, what means Cards Drawn ^= Mana Available)

So we can summarize:
%-Of-Winning ^= Cards Drawn

The key to winning is drawing as much cards as possible (and of course playing tutors, filters, etc) to be able to get the card you need to win.

In a normal game of magic the amount of cards drawn is equal to the current turn if you are on the draw. That means of your chances of winning are doubled if you draw 20 cards instead of 10 cards, your chances of winning when your in turn 13 are doubled to as when you where in turn 3.

Lets assume, that Confidant does you a average amount of 2 damage in Iggy Pop. That means he puts you on a clock of 10 rounds himself, which is pretty bad actually, because in theory you have all time of the world to finish the game as long as your not on a clock. However, your opponents do put you on a clock. Lets assume again that the average clock you will be facing by turn 2 is just as fast as Confidant himself (2 dmg per turn). Imagine you wouldnt have Confidant, you would be dead in 10 turns and would have drawn 10 cards in that time. Now switch in Confidant. You would be dead in 5 turns and would have drawn 10 cards in that time. Nothing changes really. Now imagine you would be facing a 3 dmg clock of your opponent. Without Confidant you would have drawn 5 cards. With Confidant you would have drawn 8 cards until dead. Confidant actually even reduces the clock of your opponent in relation to the cards drawn, which is far more important to you than the current turn number as a combo deck stuffed full with fast mana.

If Confidant wouldnt be so bad in some matchups (and yes, there are matchups, where he really is bad) I would even advice to maindeck him, because he is good in a lot of proplematic matchups.
The general rule for playing Confidant should be:
If the clock of your opponent is faster than Confidants clock but not as fast, that Confidant will have no impact on the game, he should be played.

After all he can hit for two a turn and chump block aswell.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[Kadath128]

The statement, that putting yourself under additional preasure by playing Confidant is just not true.

I fully understand that paying on average 2 life a turn (which is actually the EXACT average CMC for my list) is well worth a card. Also adding in the fact that each time bob can sneak through is one less storm count (although storm is rarely an issue).

What I am saying is that specifically for the deadguy match-up, its not a good idea. I know it seems silly to say that drawing extra cards while your getting hand and land raped is not what you need, but honestly I've never needed the extra cards.

Pikula is a SLOW deck. It's fastest wins are going to be turn 1 ritual Shade, turn 2 swing for 4, turn 3 swing for 5, turn 4 triple ritual swing for 11. I play the deck a lot and I've never seen that. You can win just by using your tools to weather the initial storm (if there is one, the deck can be very inconsistant) and then win.

Yeah maybe its lame to say "play better and win" but really its normally enough to beat the deck. If Confidant works for you by all means play it, but I know I personally dont run it in the side and don't think the deck honestly needs it as bad as it needs answers to control and recurring counterspells. Maybe its just because I have NEVER hardcasted a Leyline of the Void, or its my paranoia of a weak match-up showing through.

Also I had my roommate test cutting an Intuition, Tendrils, Lotus Petal, and I think a fetch to run 3/4 Chrome Mox. I don't think its all that hot, but has anyone else had success squeezing in Mox to make use of some dead cards and combo out a turn earlier?

[michael_noah]

Having my only loss in my last tournament come against B/W, I think that you're commenting on the wrong aspect of the deck with that quadruple ritual, shade draw. You're right that if they try to play the beatdown like that you'll walk all over them.

When they open with ritual, duress, hymn, then drop a hippie to keep you at 4-5 cards, you're going to have a heck of a time coming back while they hit you for 2-4 a turn and blow up your land. I'm pretty sure that openings like that, which are admittedly their god hand, are almost impossible to beat, no matter how well you play.

[emidln]

Having my only loss in my last tournament come against B/W, I think that you're commenting on the wrong aspect of the deck with that quadruple ritual, shade draw. You're right that if they try to play the beatdown like that you'll walk all over them.

When they open with ritual, duress, hymn, then drop a hippie to keep you at 4-5 cards, you're going to have a heck of a time coming back while they hit you for 2-4 a turn and blow up your land. I'm pretty sure that openings like that, which are admittedly their god hand, are almost impossible to beat, no matter how well you play.

I think the proper response to Rit, Duress, Hymn, Hippie is scoopage and go to the next game on the play where you can use your hand for a turn or so.

[AnwarA101]

I think the proper response to Rit, Duress, Hymn, Hippie is scoopage and go to the next game on the play where you can use your hand for a turn or so.

I don't know about that. Your opponent may hit the wrong cards with Hippie or Hymn. You may still be able to go off quickly (turn 2 or turn 3) with limited disruption. Discard can also build Threshold for Cabal Ritual. Discard is much easier for this deck to handle than countermagic.

[bigredmeanie]

I think the proper response to Rit, Duress, Hymn, Hippie is scoopage and go to the next game on the play where you can use your hand for a turn or so.

That's never the right play no matter what deck your playing with or against. Scooping is a bad idea unless you are strapped for time and can win the match in 3. Like Anwar said you could get lucky.

[Lego]

That's never the right play no matter what deck your playing with or against. Scooping is a bad idea unless you are strapped for time and can win the match in 3. Like Anwar said you could get lucky.

Or at the very least, see a bit of your opponent's deck in the process. If I'm not pressed for time, I will almost always let my opponent kill me. You never know if someone will drop a Tundra and a Meddling Mage in his seemingly BW Confidant deck, and that's something you might want to know before going to side.

[tivadar]

Or at the very least, see a bit of your opponent's deck in the process. If I'm not pressed for time, I will almost always let my opponent kill me. You never know if someone will drop a Tundra and a Meddling Mage in his seemingly BW Confidant deck, and that's something you might want to know before going to side.

Actually I had a game against UGW threshold where I had to mull to 6 to get a 1 land hand with brainstorm (playing UW angel stompy). After brainstorming and seeing no lands, I drew one past the end of the BS and still didn't have a land. At this point I had nothing on the field and he had a threshed goose and bear. I scooped so my opponent wouldn't see MY deck that game. He admitted second game that he had no idea how to board because of this.

[Ridiculous Hat]

Actually I had a game against UGW threshold where I had to mull to 6 to get a 1 land hand with brainstorm (playing UW angel stompy). After brainstorming and seeing no lands, I drew one past the end of the BS and still didn't have a land. At this point I had nothing on the field and he had a threshed goose and bear. I scooped so my opponent wouldn't see MY deck that game. He admitted second game that he had no idea how to board because of this.You weren't the victim of a Duress, though. If you get Duressed and your opponent is going to know what you're playing no matter what, don't scoop. At least make him show his win.

[tivadar]

You weren't the victim of a Duress, though. If you get Duressed and your opponent is going to know what you're playing no matter what, don't scoop. At least make him show his win.

I suppose that's true, hadn't taken into account the duress. Just saying, typically I live by the "never mulligan" rule, but there are situations where it is the right thing to do. I'd agree though, in that situation, it's not an automatic fold.

EDIT: Oops, I meant "never scoop", not never mulligan, it's late here...

[bigredmeanie]

The "never Mulligan" rule is for bad players. Good players know odds, and they know their deck. Sometimes it is necessary to mulligan otherwise good hands because they aren't that great in a particular matchup. Getting better at mulliganing will make you a better player. My general rule of thumb is that if I have to think about it too long I probably should mulligan. Though not all questionable hands are that way. Really it's just knowing your deck, and how lucky you feel.



I scooped so my opponent wouldn't see MY deck that game.

Good play. How did the match end?

[tivadar]

Heh, don't ask, second game I mulled down to 6 again sitting on a brainstorm and a land and still didn't see another land off the brainstorm. My deck runs 22 lands, so seeing 2 typically isn't that bad :-P. Fortunately my deck kicked it in my hardest matchup and I still made top 4, winning the other three rounds.

[Kadath128]

Having my only loss in my last tournament come against B/W, I think that you're commenting on the wrong aspect of the deck with that quadruple ritual, shade draw. You're right that if they try to play the beatdown like that you'll walk all over them.

I said that purely to point out how slow the deck's clock is. Even if the OPTION of that play was available I doubt they would take it.

The deck, at it's fastest, cannot beat an average win for this deck. The only option they have is to slow you down with discard and land destruction which can be played around. That was the point.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!


The deck, at it's fastest, cannot beat an average win for this deck. The only option they have is to slow you down with discard and land destruction which can be played around. That was the point.

You cannot play around discard. You cannot play around land destruction. Yeah of course "Just don't use your fetches and Brainstorm in response to discard!!!!111one", but then you had a god hand with all land fetches and don't need to cast a single spell until you go for the win - that's redicilous. Seriously, if you have only fetches in play, they will Hymn or Duress you, making you play your Brainstorm if you have it and Sinkhole you next turn or off the Ritual. If you don't you'll propably lose anyway. Or at least be Offset alot to make it hard winning while they keep smacking and disrupting you.

This is not a good matchup by any means and playing tight will alter your percantage from maybe 25/75 to maybe 30/70 - it still isn't what you want to be facing. I believe (without any concrete testing results though) that Confidant can shift this to at least 40/60 maybe even better for you. And Confidant is good against Threshold. And Against Landstill. And any other freaking control or disruption strategy.

Go and test him and you will love him. If you don't, well, I guess it shouldn't bother me.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[Benie Bederios]

What do you take out for the confidants? Ill-Gotten Gains or something? that's nonsense loosing the power of Leyline+IGG. But what do you drop for Confidant, Lion's Eye Diamond? They will board in Withered Wretch, wich stops you're combo too. If you wan't to stop that you have to board in Echoing Truth, that are already 7 cards you have to board.
If you remove the IGG you don't have to bother you're graveyard. But you won't have the insane turn 1 kills, wich can happen 20% of the time, but have to rely on a bad combo deck. You're opponent still plays Vindicate to stop your Confidant. They will board in Phyrexian Negator wich give them a fast clock. But maybe you will win if you remove 3 IGG and 4 Leyline for 3 Echoing Truth( or other bounce) and 4 Confidant. I play about 40/60 against Confidant pre board. They can't put a clock, and if you have enough lands in play( 3 or 4) you only need a topdecked IGG and a Dark Ritual, I also lay my LEDs down fast( unless they don't no what we are playing.)

Against *****( UGw) you have already have to board in Echoing Truth and Defense Grid to stand a chance. You want to add Confidant too? that are 11 cards. I doubt that you can find enough spots for that. Also ***** has a fast clock so the life you loose on confidant are important. Again removing Ill-Gotten Gains is even worse than against Confidant, because a resolved IGG with Leyline in play is GG for you. Against UGr confidant won't live a single turn, so that isn't also optimal.

Standstill isn't a problem, so why bother playing Confidant. They can't put up a clock at all. So waiting till turn 7 or 8 gives you enough cards to just double tendril them.

I agree with Sorcerer that Confidant( the deck) and ***** are horrible mathups, but I can't see how Confidant( the card) makes alot better.

[TheSorcerer]

What do you take out for the confidants? Ill-Gotten Gains or something? that's nonsense loosing the power of Leyline+IGG. But what do you drop for Confidant, Lion's Eye Diamond? They will board in Withered Wretch, wich stops you're combo too. If you wan't to stop that you have to board in Echoing Truth, that are already 7 cards you have to board

I would definitly cut Leyline of the Void into the sideboard for this matchup. Of course you can Mind Twist them with it hard, but beside that it basicly does nothing in this matchup: it doesnt protect you from recurred Forces, it doesn't hinder their game plan, etc. It's just a horrible card you don't want to topdeck. I'm not sure on the Echoing Truth slots, but maybe you should try cutting Intuition for it, so that you can go for the double LED Infernal Tutor kill. Or remove an Intuition, a Tendrills and an IGG or so.


Against *****( UGw) you have already have to board in Echoing Truth and Defense Grid to stand a chance. You want to add Confidant too? that are 11 cards. I doubt that you can find enough spots for that. Also ***** has a fast clock so the life you loose on confidant are important. Again removing Ill-Gotten Gains is even worse than against Confidant, because a resolved IGG with Leyline in play is GG for you. Against UGr confidant won't live a single turn, so that isn't also optimal.

Please reread my post regarding lifeloss and clocks in this thread. Confidant actually even slows Thresholds clock against you in a relative perspective. I agree though, that you will hardly find the slots to sideboard Confidant.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[Benie Bederios]

Bonn, so if we play this MD:

4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Intuition

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

1 Chain of Vapor
4 Leyline of the Void
1 ...( maybe a land, or Intuition, or something completely else, in other words, please help)

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

We could play this SB
4 Dark Confidant
2 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
4 Defense Grid
4 Engineered Plague

As for SB this means

Vial Goblins
-4 Mystical Tutor???
-1 Chain of Vapor

+4 Engineered Plague
+1 Echoing Truth( better for bouncing multiple Pyrostatic Pillars)

Just resolve multiple Plagues and buy enough time to win

UGw *****
-4 Ill-Gotten Gains???
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-3 Intuition???

+4 Dark Confidant
+4 Defense Grid
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Rushing River

Don't go for the cycle but just double tendrils, let them waste the graveyardhate they boarded in

UGr *****
-4 Mystical Tutor

+4 Defense Grid

They don't play Meddlin Mage wich is a releave, but you still need some protection

Bw Confidant
-4 Leyline of The Void
-1 Chain of Vapor

+4 Dark Confidant
+1 Echoing Truth( again better ad bouncing multiple Withered Wretch

As suggested by the Sorcerer

Solidarity
-4 Leyline of The Void

+4 Defense Grid

I don't no, resolve a Grid, and combo before them, I suppose.

Any comments on this?

[Lego]

I have little experience with this deck, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Just two things I noticed in your board plan.



UGw *****
-4 Ill-Gotten Gains???
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-3 Intuition???

+4 Dark Confidant
+4 Defense Grid
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Rushing River

Don't go for the cycle but just double tendrils, let them waste the graveyardhate they boarded in

Because you'll have Leyline of the Void versus Thresh, I might leave in a single IGG for the possibility of an early Mind Twist.



Solidarity
-4 Leyline of The Void

+4 Defense Grid

I don't no, resolve a Grid, and combo before them, I suppose.

Any comments on this?

I'd be careful about removing Leyline of the Void, as Solidarity plays Force. It's tough to go off when they can return a Blue Card and a Force every cycle.

[Bane of the Living]

Why do you like Impulse so much? I find it sub optimal and I'd often rather play Mental Note.

[Benie Bederios]

Ghehe my mistake should have been Leyline of the Void, I will fix it

[AnwarA101]

Bonn, so if we play this MD:

4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony

4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Mystical Tutor
3 Intuition

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

1 Chain of Vapor
4 Leyline of the Void
1 ...( maybe a land, or Intuition, or something completely else, in other words, please help)

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea

We could play this SB
4 Dark Confidant
2 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
4 Defense Grid
4 Engineered Plague



I would cut the Chain of Vapor for Echoing Truth because you don't want to have the issue of them bouncing your Leyline of the Void. I know its a small issue, but it seems to make sense. Also I play 4 Intuitions and I've never been unhappy to draw them. What I do find worse is multiple Mystical Tutors. I cut that to 3 and added 1 Island.



As for SB this means

Vial Goblins
-4 Mystical Tutor???
-1 Chain of Vapor

+4 Engineered Plague
+1 Echoing Truth( better for bouncing multiple Pyrostatic Pillars)

Just resolve multiple Plagues and buy enough time to win



I would board out Leyline of the Void here and board in Engineered Plague. I would leave the 1 bounce spell so that you can mystical for it if you need it. Leyline is not very good against aggro and deserves to be cut.



UGw *****
-4 Ill-Gotten Gains???
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond
-3 Intuition???

+4 Dark Confidant
+4 Defense Grid
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Rushing River

Don't go for the cycle but just double tendrils, let them waste the graveyardhate they boarded in


I've usually cut 4 IGG and 3 Mystical Tutor for 4 Confidants and 3 Echoing Truths. Mystical Tutor is terrible against a deck that is playing Predict. It might be worth it to leave 1 IGG in with Leyline.

[emidln]

My board plan against Threshold has always been

-3 Ill-Gotten Gains
-4 Intuition
-4 Lion's Eye Diamond

+4 Dark Confidant
+3 Xantid Swarm
+1 Massacre/Echoing Truth
+1 Rushing River
+2 Duress

[Kadath128]

You cannot play around discard. You cannot play around land destruction. Yeah of course "Just don't use your fetches and Brainstorm in response to discard!!!!111one"

Do you always feel so hopeless? Yes both can be played around. Maybe the fact that you can't realise that is why you suck so bad against B/W?

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!


Do you always feel so hopeless? Yes both can be played around. Maybe the fact that you can't realise that is why you suck so bad against B/W?

You can only effectivly play around spells with a reactive nature. You cannot really play around proactive spells. Yes, you can make them less effective by playing good, but you cannot "play around" them in a classic manner. I explained that in my last post already and if you don't mind, please quit questioning my playskill in such an insulting manner. This board is not for flame wars I guess.


I would cut the Chain of Vapor for Echoing Truth because you don't want to have the issue of them bouncing your Leyline of the Void. I know its a small issue, but it seems to make sense. Also I play 4 Intuitions and I've never been unhappy to draw them. What I do find worse is multiple Mystical Tutors. I cut that to 3 and added 1 Island.

I totally agree that you should not run Chain together with Leyline.

I also added an additional land for one Intuition (which is a Mystical on your list). I still believe tough that Intuition is the correct card to cut. I'd rather have multiple Mysticals than multiple Intuitions. While you will rather seldom actually play multiple Intuitions, you will more often play multiple Mystical Tutors in the course of a single game if you have them

Then comes the fact, that Mystical is the less expensive card and can always get you an Intuition if you need one for your win, where as you don't need an Intuitoin to win the game you can always use Mystical to find the pieces you need for the win - and that very efficient for only one blue mana (compared to 2U for Intuition).

However, I also believe that the list should be modified to run an additional land, because I encountered mulligans because of to few land more often than mulligans due to the fact that the hand simply doesn't have the pieces you need t go off.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[Bane of the Living]

I will continue to push the option of Land Grant here. We really dont give a shit if the opponent has wasteland anyways since we can run off few lands, but land grant is a free spell that adds to storm, not like that was hard. Green dual lands will give us Xantid Swarms. Better than Defense Grid.

[AnwarA101]

I will continue to push the option of Land Grant here. We really dont give a shit if the opponent has wasteland anyways since we can run off few lands, but land grant is a free spell that adds to storm, not like that was hard. Green dual lands will give us Xantid Swarms. Better than Defense Grid.

I was reviewing some old thread about Iggy Pop on The Mana Drain and Michael Bomholt did run Land Grant. But I really think that going back to that is really a step backwards. This deck became more streamlined when it cut Land Grant from the main deck and relied simply on lands and basics for the most part to setup the combo. There is no reason to have your mana sources Forced.

If you want to run Xantid Swarm you still can by running a Tropical Island in your board. With 8 blue fetches you should be able to find it when you need it.

[TheSorcerer]

Hoi!

I fully agree with AnwarA101 on this point, too. The deck does well without Land Grant and because when comboing out on the classic way, you have a storm count of at least 12 anyway, you hardly need that one more from Land Grant.
Land Grant doesnt provide anything more to the deck than the storm count, which you don't need if comboing in the classic way (it's not like you play Charbelcher or Bounty of the Hunt or anything, that would make Land Grant a reasonable replacement for lands). Land Grant can only fetch non-basic lands in this deck and can easily be countered. There's absolutely no reason for running it.

Greets

TheSorcerer

[Lanfeng]

@Xantid Swarm+land grant

THe idea is bad for a few reasons

1. it adds a 3rd color to your deck, not impossible to support but its starting to stretch it
2. it gets removed by every deck thats tier cept solidarity-Homebrew, rifter, thresh, and goblins all have answers.
3. A smart opponent will just counter the swarm, then its left to sit in the graveyard untill you play IGG, and then they will wreck you

Defense Grid is worse only because it costs 1 more mana, and 3 mana+ force sounds like a good plan

but its better because

1. it doesn't add a color
2. its not removed AS easily by the same decks
3. it can set up a situation where you can go for the double tendrils plan and feel safe if you've got the right combo pieces

Also I have been testing leyline for a while, in the end, i found it just wasn't up to par against everthing but thresh, and in my meta thresh is absent. turn 2 igg with that on the table is only good against control if
A) They Don't counter the IGG
B) And you go off within the next 2-3 turns (short one IGG)

Leyline is meta dependent.

So testing Defense Grid main is better for many reasons

1. it hurts control, your worst match up
2. it forces solidarity to go off without the might of Reset
3. its irrelevant vs. all your good matchups, meaning that you are going to win against everything that you don't need defense grid with wether you have it or not, just board it out and win more.

The beauty of this deck is that it loses to counters but always beats anything other then control (or aggro control)

so md stuff against the matchup you always lose to, and you should be winning a vast majority of the time.

[AnwarA101]

I played Iggy Pop on the first day of the back to back Duel for Duals. I'm including a brief tournament report just to give some insight of how the deck performed at a major tournament. My final record was 4-2-1, but I had my second loss in the fourth round so I was out. But I continued to play just to see how the deck would do.

I'm having a little trouble remembering the order of some of these decks specifically Deadguy Ale because I played it 3 times, but this is my best guess on the order. I am sure about all 7 decks and how the matchup played out.

Round 1 Deadguy Ale

Game 1 - He makes me discard my whole hand destroys alot of my lands. But when I draw Ill-Gotten Gains I just win with the acceleration I put on the board.

Game 2 - I think I lost this one he had too much disruption plus withered wretch.

Game 3 - Alot like game 1 but I needled his wretch and won.

1-0

Round 2 - GW Slide

Game 1 - I Mind Twist his hand and win at my leisure.

Game 2 - He gets down Chalice which I am having trouble finding the bounce spell for. He drops some Hierarchs and starts beating. I find a bounce spell, but I'm still unable to go off.

Game 3 - Very similar to game 2 except that I just drew acceleration and no combo pieces.

1-1

Round 3 - Goblins

Game 1 - I just win on turn 3 way before he has lethal damage.

Game 2 - I go off on turn 3 but he REBs my Intuition and kills me on turn 4.

Game 3 - I'm facing lethal damage next turn. But my hand is 3x IGG, LED, Tendrils, and a land. I draw Cabal Ritual (I don't have Thresh) and go off with exactly 10 spells to kill him. This was hot. I just drew the loop and didn't have to set anything up.

(2-1)

Round 4 - Burn

Game 1 - I keep a questionable hand with 3 lands and brainstorm into 3 more lands none of these were fetch lands so I was stuck. My opponent just burned me out because I couldn't do anything.

Game 2 - I am planning to go off turn 3 but my opponent drops a Crypt and I can't do anything because I didn't board in Pithing Needle. I can't win in time and just lose.

(2-2)

Round 5 - Deadguy Ale

Game 1 - He destroys my hand and wrecks my lands, but again I draw Infernal Tutor and just win.

Game 2- He plays Planar Void on turn 1. I'm like what! I didn't board in any extra bounce except the one. So I think I'm dead, but I keep playing. He drops a Confidant. He keeps hitting Vindicates and Sinkholes off his Confidant. He is at 10 life. My hand is Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor, Cabal Ritual, Tendrils. I play Dark Ritual, Infernal Tutor for Cabal Ritual, play Cabal Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and Tendrils for the win.

(3-2)

Round 6 - White Weenie

Game 1 - He plays Silver Knight turn 2. I win turn 2.

Game 2 - He gets a bunch of guys out there, but I massacre his team. I proceed to Intuition for 3 LEDs and go off with Infernal Tutor.

(4-2)

Round 7 - Deadguy Ale (Man I'm tired of playing this deck!)

Game 1 - He plays Wretch on turn 5. But he plays Vindicate with 2 open. I go off through two Wretch activations and just win. My hand was incredible. I had everything LED, Infernal Tutor, Intuition, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual (with Thresh). Plus I already had 2 Infernal Tutors in the yard. He was unable to hit all of my engine cards and I went off.

Game 2 - He hits me hard and is able to use Wretch to lock up the game.

Game 3 - He starts wrecking my hand, but is unable to win in time because that deck has no clock. He also had Wretch on the board. I doubt I would have won, but you never know against a deck in which you normally have like 8 turns to find the win.

(4-2-1)

Overall I found the deck suprisingly fast and fairly consistent. But the deck was very suspectible to graveyard hate. I felt like I always had to board Pithing Needle in regardless of what my opponent would board, but he might Rule of Law and then I to board bounce. Its really too bad the deck is so vulnerable to graveyard hate. I really think that something has to be done about this to make it more resilient. I didn't really find Leyline very necessary because I didn't play against decks playing Force of Will, but is it only good against Threshold and Solidarity? I only know of those two decks that are playing Force of Will and you have almost no shot at Solidarity and Threshold is an uphill climb.

[Jander78]

Overall I found the deck suprisingly fast and fairly consistent. But the deck was very suspectible to graveyard hate. I felt like I always had to board Pithing Needle in regardless of what my opponent would board, but he might Rule of Law and then I to board bounce. Its really too bad the deck is so vulnerable to graveyard hate. I really think that something has to be done about this to make it more resilient. I didn't really find Leyline very necessary because I didn't play against decks playing Force of Will, but is it only good against Threshold and Solidarity? I only know of those two decks that are playing Force of Will and you have almost no shot at Solidarity and Threshold is an uphill climb.
I'm surprised you didn't do better against some of the matchups you faced. It sounds like bad draws, but I don't generally place blame there. I've had this deck to just win against any deck not running counters/early disruption. I haven't faced an aggro deck that can outrace IGGy as it has always performed consistently like it should. Control is an uphill battle still. Game one is extremely hard, and games 2 and/or 3 are still a struggle with all the sideboard options. The list I play is only a few cards off of some of the ones posted here.

I have different experiences with running Leyline. Even against decks that aren't running Force of Will, I've found that there is a lot of "splash damage" just not allowing random decks a graveyard (Reanimator, The Game, Tog, etc...). It's also not horrible to drop an opponent’s entire hand on turn one and leaving them with nothing, which is pretty much a turn one win as well.

I had a similar experience with Pithing Needle as it came in, in just about every matchup. If anything it was in anticipation of Crypt, but it always seems to have a major use against an opposing threat. I find Needle and Bounce very necessary sideboard options in the Legacy environment for this deck.

[Bane of the Living]

Bump!

Is anyone on the source still playing this? It seems like a good foil to Solidarity when playing maindeck Duress.

[AnwarA101]

Bump!

Is anyone on the source still playing this? It seems like a good foil to Solidarity when playing maindeck Duress.

I played this deck at the Dual Land Draft in Syracuse. I went 4-2 finished 15th place. You should never play this deck with main deck Duress as far as I'm concerned. Its just terrible against decks with Force of Will. They will just recur their force via Ill-Gotten Gains. Play Leyline of the Void. It actually prevents recursion.

[parallax]

Bump!

Is anyone on the source still playing this? It seems like a good foil to Solidarity when playing maindeck Duress.

This deck is not a good foil to Solidarity. Solidarity pretty much just beats you.

[Lanfeng]

screw foiling solidarity, obviously that is the least of our worries

**points to gencon t8**

[Benie Bederios]

This deck has got a bad match against UGw ***** and Solidarity, so it's a bad choice to play right now. Maindeck Duress' won't help alot against those matchups. The positive of this deck is that it can beat any deck due to the high number of T1 kills.
But at large tournaments it won't top 8 easy due to the fact that Thresh is almost an autoloss, solidarity isn't much better and that all other decks can board in there Solidarity AND ***** hate to beat this deck.

[MattH]

But at large tournaments it won't top 8 easy due to the fact that Thresh is almost an autoloss, solidarity isn't much better and that all other decks can board in there Solidarity AND ***** hate to beat this deck.
Heh. Someone should sig this.

[Benie Bederios]

gheh luckily, just before I posted I put "easy" after "top 8.

Great performance though, I think I'm going to play this deck again, instead of Solidarity, no turn 1 kills sucks.

[Jander78]

screw foiling solidarity, obviously that is the least of our worries

**points to gencon t8**
The lists that made top 8 at Gencon did have maindeck foils for Solidarity/High Tide. Defense Grid is really a great maindeck addition to this deck as it functions much better against control decks and High Tide decks than Duress or any other hand disruption would.

[Nightmare]

Defense Grid is really a great maindeck addition to this deck as it functions much better against control decks and High Tide decks than Duress or any other hand disruption would.I had been running Duress in my build in order to ensure a IGG would resolve, but I'm pretty sold on the Defense Grids now. The issue I see with that decklist, though, is the lack of MD Chrome Moxen. I still feel like it's your best option for removing extra chaff (in particular, redundant Leylines) from your hand and putting it to good use. The free storm and accelleration it gives you are only added bonuses in my eyes. I would most likely take his list and change:

-2 Flooded Strand
-1 Mystical Tutor (I hate this card, but it's necessary.)
+3 Chrome Mox

I'm also unsure of the reliability of the single Tendrils in the main. If I could find room (I don't have the list in front of me) I would love to try and fit the second in. Sometimes IT for the second Tendrils is the right play, and I'd hate to lose the double Tendrils plan in the control matchup.

[Jander78]

I had been running Duress in my build in order to ensure a IGG would resolve, but I'm pretty sold on the Defense Grids now. The issue I see with that decklist, though, is the lack of MD Chrome Moxen. I still feel like it's your best option for removing extra chaff (in particular, redundant Leylines) from your hand and putting it to good use. The free storm and accelleration it gives you are only added bonuses in my eyes. I would most likely take his list and change:

-1 Island
-1 MD Defense Grid
-1 Mystical Tutor (2 reasons, 1: I hate this card, but it's necessary. 2: -1 Island means less reliability in the basic U source)
+3 Chrome Mox

I'm also unsure of the reliability of the single Tendrils in the main. If I could find room (I don't have the list in front of me) I would love to try and fit the second in. Sometimes IT for the second Tendrils is the right play, and I'd hate to lose the double Tendrils plan in the control matchup.
I tested Duress and never found it to be necessary. It never did perform how it should. I was running Defense Grids in the sideboard as they are one of the best disruption options this deck has. Mental Note, as horrible as this card seems, really helps speed this deck up (to threshold and getting key cards in the graveyard for Ill Gotten Gains). I'm glad to see its inclusion in the Gencon list.

I do understand the desire to run MD Chrome Mox. I do think that card is an asset in the maindeck, but I don't know that 3 is the right number to make room for. I was running 2 and was happy enough with that. I don't agree with cutting a Defense Grid or Mystical Tutor from the maindeck to fit them in. I think it would be better suited to cut 2 fetchlands as it would keep the mana sources in the deck even without taking away from any of the MD redundancy. The double Tendril's plan is still available post-sideboard, so I do like the fact that only 1 is main. If you think you will have an issue with control, it can come in for that situation.

[Nightmare]

I just went over to TMD and looked at Mike's(bobholm) list. I like the Xantid Swarms a lot, especially after playing them in Grimlong in Vintage. I'm not sure they're better than Defense Grid, since Solidarity still gets to go off during the attack step, but he also runs ITEoC from the board.

I think you're right that Fetchlands are probably better to cut than basics, and I've edited my post to reflect that. 2 Chrome Mox still seems like its unreliable to me. There really aren't any disadvantages to the card if you put it in place of a spell rather than a mana source, since at best it gives you mana in exchange for removing dead cards from your hand, and at worst it gives you +1 storm. I'm pretty much always happy to see one (but not 2) so I feel like 3 is the right number. You automatically have 3-4 dead cards in the deck, so I don't think the drawback is that constraining. I still hate Mystical Tutor, though.

[AnwarA101]

I just went over to TMD and looked at Mike's(bobholm) list. I like the Xantid Swarms a lot, especially after playing them in Grimlong in Vintage. I'm not sure they're better than Defense Grid, since Solidarity still gets to go off during the attack step, but he also runs ITEoC from the board.

I think you're right that Fetchlands are probably better to cut than basics, and I've edited my post to reflect that. 2 Chrome Mox still seems like its unreliable to me. There really aren't any disadvantages to the card if you put it in place of a spell rather than a mana source, since at best it gives you mana in exchange for removing dead cards from your hand, and at worst it gives you +1 storm. I'm pretty much always happy to see one (but not 2) so I feel like 3 is the right number. You automatically have 3-4 dead cards in the deck, so I don't think the drawback is that constraining. I still hate Mystical Tutor, though.

What dead cards are you talking about? You should be able to brainstorm away most of the "dead" cards and then use one of the numerous shuffle effects to draw a different card. I don't like Chrome Mox at all especially cause it removes one card from the yard. This is especially important when you go off and you end up dumping your hand into your yard and bring back 3 cards. You still want to have threshold at that point after brining back the 3 cards. The storm is not an issue because if you go off you shouldn't ever be off by just 1 spell (in my experience).

What don't you like about Mystical Tutor? I've won games just because I draw this card and play it on my upkeep and just win the game. I tried running only 3 but I think 4 is actually much better.

[Nightmare]

What dead cards are you talking about? You should be able to brainstorm away most of the "dead" cards and then use one of the numerous shuffle effects to draw a different card. I don't like Chrome Mox at all especially cause it removes one card from the yard. This is especially important when you go off and you end up dumping your hand into your yard and bring back 3 cards. You still want to have threshold at that point after brining back the 3 cards. The storm is not an issue because if you go off you shouldn't ever be off by just 1 spell (in my experience).

What don't you like about Mystical Tutor? I've won games just because I draw this card and play it on my upkeep and just win the game. I tried running only 3 but I think 4 is actually much better.The 3-4 dead cards are any Leylines after the first, and often the 4th if you don't have it opening. The list I'm referencing runs Mental Note, so the threshold issue really isn't there anymore.

I dislike Mystical Tutor because I believe the other Turoing effects are much, much stronger, and it's extremely weak when going off. I do see the necessity of it in the deck, and I wouldn't cut it. The third Mystical and third Mox are debateable, which is why they've been interchanged.

[Jander78]

The 3-4 dead cards are any Leylines after the first, and often the 4th if you don't have it opening. The list I'm referencing runs Mental Note, so the threshold issue really isn't there anymore.

I dislike Mystical Tutor because I believe the other Turoing effects are much, much stronger, and it's extremely weak when going off. I do see the necessity of it in the deck, and I wouldn't cut it. The third Mystical and third Mox are debateable, which is why they've been interchanged.
I'm not sure that the third Mystical Tutor is debatable. I would consider either 3 or 4 Mystical Tutors, but no less than 3. The card is really strong in this deck. It may be one of the weaker tutors, but it essentially let's you find the strongest tutor in the deck, or get the missing mana source/etc you need to go off or setup. It's one of the many reasons why this deck is so consistent.

[Jander78]

Please keep the thread on topic. This isn't the place to disuss the status of a deck.

[Benie Bederios]

Pfft I've tested the "new" version with MD Grid, and it plays alot different. It is good that the deck has more MD protection without loosing much speed though. I also like the Mental Note, Although I will test Strategic Planning. But is the deck really better? Counters slows down both versions, but where the old version just plays Double Tendrils, this version tries to find and resolve a Defense Grid and then the opponent must have less then 3 mana free or he still can Force IGG. And against Aggro you have 7 weak cards in the deck. In the my last version I didn't even played them in the SB anymore. I packed I SB full of Thresh/Confidant hate, with Massacre, Disrupt and Confidant.

About Tutors, I believe 9 Tutors with 4 draw spells( Mental note is only cantrip) is the minimum. Combo is all about tutoring and drawing card so you need as much as possible. I don't like Chrome Mox because it doesn't speed up the kill, is carddisadvantage and is often( atleast for me) a dead card.

EDIT: Btw this is the list that top 8ted I think

4x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Island
2x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Cabal Pit

4x Brainstorm
3x Mental Note
3x Mystical Tutor
2x Intuition
1x Echoing Truth

4x Leyline of the Void
4x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Tendrils of Agony

3x Defense Grid
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

[Llama_Bill]

What is the usual build for IGGy Pop now adays? I want to get into Legacy and this deck seemed like a good one but there are too many builds to pick from and I want to make a good start.

Thanks for your time.
Bill.

[Angel of Despair]

What is the usual build for IGGy Pop now adays? I want to get into Legacy and this deck seemed like a good one but there are too many builds to pick from and I want to make a good start.

Thanks for your time.
Bill.

Look one post above yours. Reading the thread is also a good way to get into Legacy. It says that it Top 8ed. Give that one a try.
AoD

[FallenOmnipotent]

Here's one of the Top 8 lists:
Here's the guy's report: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=29611.0

//Land
1 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Swamp
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Cabal Pit
//Fast mana
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

//Combo
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony

//Disruption
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Echoing Truth

//Search
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Infernal Tutor

//Sideboard
4 Xantid swarm
3 In the Eye of Chaos
3 Massacre (this thing was amazing, it was a free wrath in 5 of my 9 matches)
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Chain of vapor
1 Echoing truth
I noticed the list a few posts above is 61 cards... just saying...

PS. Quick newb question. How is it that this deck does so well? The primer on SCG says Threshold is one of it's worst match-ups. Thresh isn't a rare deck in the meta-game... So did the deck change to be good vs. it or something?

[Benie Bederios]

For Solidarity ***** is also a very though matchup. But it also does well. With enough practice this deck can win against *****. Also the primer was written before Leyline and Infernal Tutorcame out, and those card( especially Leyline) have made this deck capable of killing *****.

This deck can adept to different situations. This is the way how it wins against *****. Sometimes you have an insane draw and just kill the opponent T1. Sometimes the games against ***** will take alot of turns and you have to play multiple small Tendrils' over multiple turns.

In short. The deck is capable of winning against *****, but it must be piloted by a good player, and you must have a bit of luck too.

Yeah I know the deck runs 61 cards, but I never played that version, it's just the list that topped 8.

[Lanfeng]

I'm not sure that the third Mystical Tutor is debatable. I would consider either 3 or 4 Mystical Tutors, but no less than 3. The card is really strong in this deck. It may be one of the weaker tutors, but it essentially let's you find the strongest tutor in the deck, or get the missing mana source/etc you need to go off or setup. It's one of the many reasons why this deck is so consistent.

owned by the oracle

Search your library for an instant or sorcery card and reveal that card. Shuffle your library, then put the card on top of it.

no grabbing leds or lands, still got dark rituals tho

[quicksilver]

owned by the oracle

Search your library for an instant or sorcery card and reveal that card. Shuffle your library, then put the card on top of it.

no grabbing leds or lands, still got dark rituals tho

Yes I think he was reffering to dark ritual and cabal ritual when he stated that it can get mana.

[Lanfeng]

4x Polluted Delta
3x Flooded Strand
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Island
2x Swamp
2x Underground Sea
1x Cabal Pit

4x Brainstorm
3x Mental Note
3x Mystical Tutor
2x Intuition
1x Echoing Truth

4x Leyline of the Void
4x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Tendrils of Agony

3x Defense Grid
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

Is this version more consistent then the others? cause it looks like this version needs 2-4 acceleration spells an intuition/infernal tutor and if your using intuition you also need tendrils in gy/hand or IGG in hand when your going off, the list also screws over your ability to go nuts off double tendrils late game, it just seems less consistent, I mean i've tested a version that takes out Leyline for grid, and even then my hands are clogged up with too many defense grids and too little buisness spells for me to go off, this version seems like it'll have even more protection and less I win more often.

[Benie Bederios]

I've tested the deck and I went back to the old one( with triple Tendrils.)

I don't like the deck for the following reasons:

No more intuition for Tendrils of Agony. While this is small difference, sometimes I don't have the mana to Intuition for Infernal Tutor and after that for Tendrils.

No more double Tendrils. The Defense Grid method isn't particulary faster. You must search for Grid and resolve it. After that, if your opponent has 3 mana open and a FoW in the grave, you still can't combo. Then you have to wait until you can play 9 spells and kill because your opponent will never let a IGG resolve.

More deadcards. Against aggro decks you have zeven dead cards( Leyline is quite weak in the aggro matchup too.) And Defense Grid is completely dead, the only use you can think of is that is a spell for the stormcount.

What I do like about the deck is the Mental Note. In this deck it means you draw 1.5 card for 1 mana. It also gives ***** for Cabal Ritual. It also is nice with Brainstorm. T1 land EOT brainstorm, during your upkeep Mental Note, put unwanted cards in the yard and draw new ones. The only problem is, that it doesn't make the deck less yarddependent.

In the version I'm testin now, I even removed Grid from the SB, because most of the time I found double Tendrils more effective. My SB at the moment is:

4 Dark Confidant
4 Disrupt
1 Massacre
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
1 Rebuild
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Duress

[GreenOne]

if your using intuition you also need tendrils in gy/hand or IGG in hand when your going off

Not really. At the end of the IGG chain you can intuition for infernal tutor, and IT for Tendrils. Just remember it needs 2 mana more.

[NANTUKO_SHADY]

And remember folks, make sure you float a BLUE mana at the end of the Iggy chain if you are planning on casting Intuition at the end to snag Tendrils or Infernal Tutor. Once in a while in goldfishing I will get lazy and fail to float a blue at the end of the chain. Of course I can take it back in testing, but that probably won't slide in a big tourny! 0_o

[Lanfeng]

Not really. At the end of the IGG chain you can intuition for infernal tutor, and IT for Tendrils. Just remember it needs 2 mana more.

At the end of the Igg Chain, if its turn three I don't have 9 mana, in fact I don't even have 6 mana and a cabal ritual/LED

to get that much on turn three you have to like cast trip to quad accel into 4 floating after you IGG, thats rit with 2 lands into cabal rit (unthreshed) into LED, and then even then your cabal rit has to be threshed, thats really hard considering you need to intuition first, I think the other version will go off much faster then the defense grid main version, since all it needs are 3-4 accel spells and and intuition/infernal+1 IGG to win the game and often has a tendrils or extra IGG on top of that.

[GreenOne]

At the end of the Igg Chain, if its turn three I don't have 9 mana, in fact I don't even have 6 mana and a cabal ritual/LED

to get that much on turn three you have to like cast trip to quad accel into 4 floating after you IGG, thats rit with 2 lands into cabal rit (unthreshed) into LED, and then even then your cabal rit has to be threshed, thats really hard considering you need to intuition first, I think the other version will go off much faster then the defense grid main version, since all it needs are 3-4 accel spells and and intuition/infernal+1 IGG to win the game and often has a tendrils or extra IGG on top of that.

I'm not saying which version is better (i'm currently testing the grid version, but like more the 3 tendrils one), but it's not difficult to combo on turn 3 using intuition.

Look at these scenarios.

- turn 2: lotus petal or chrome mox -> intuition. Combo on turn 3

- turn 3: you have threshold and so got enough mana from cabal ritual. Combo on turn 3.

- you have tendrils in hand/grave. Combo on turn 3

- you have IGG in hand. Combo on turn 3

- you have 3-4 acceleration pieces. Combo on turn 3.

What makes 2nd or 3rd scenario possible (or much more probable) is Mental Note.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

What do you think about Mox Diamond? It gives more speed, and more storm when going off. When you have 3 lands in your opening hand the card disadvantage is not so bad...

edit:
sorry for my bad english :)

[Nightmare]

i am just a noob but what do you think about mox diamond?
gives more speed and more storm and when you have 3 land cards in your opening hand tha card disadvanteg is not so bad...Hello HdH_Cthulhu, and Welcome to The Source!

Please read the Forum Rules (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/announcement.php?f=24) and FAQ for New Members (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3468) before you continue posting. There are strict guidelines on grammar and spelling on this site, please familiarize yourself with them.

As for Mox Diamond, it generally is necessary to run 22 lands in a deck to support the card, and this deck runs 15-17. You can, however, run Chrome Mox, which has seen some success in various builds.

[Toranor]

Last Sunday I playes the deck (standart variant with Leylines and 3 Tendrils, 16 lands with an additional USea instead of a Cabal Pit) at a local tournament.
The fantastic amount og 70 players showed up and having placed 18th I might be happy (I had the best opp score of all players with 12 points) but the way the tournament went, I'm a little bit disappointed.

My Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Massacre
1 Rebuild
1 Rushing River
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Cabal Therapy (just wanted to test them, liked to have a little bit disruption)

As I didn't write down any notes after the rounds, I cannot give you a real tournament report but a some information.

Round 1 - U/w Landstill - 2:0
I was a bit lucky *g*. Just drawing exactely the cards you need and getting your IGG countered (Leyline in play) with the CS being the 9th spell 2 Mana open and a Tendrils in Hand as a 2nd turn kill is nice...

Round 2 - Suicide/r - 2:0
Although some players are afraid of this match-up, I'm not. Let him discard your hand, save IGG with Brainstorm or play Mystical for IGG and win the next turn. Ok, in reality this isn't ever so easy. The truth is, that I was able to save a IGG this way with a Dark Rit and a useless card left in my Hand while he attacked with a Spector, picking the wrong card (from his point of view :)).

Round 3 - Goblins - 1:2
This might have been the revenge for my 1st round lucky play. Too many things went wrong here. In the 1st game I draw bad cards, in the 2nd game Rushing River was a match winner (Pillar and Crypt) but then...
He started with a Lacey. During my turn I casted Cabal Therapy naming Goblin Matron but he showed me 2 Mogg Fanatic, 1 Goblin Ringleader, 2 Pyrostatic Pillar and he draw a Wasteland then - no chance of winning.

Round 4 - NQG/b - 2:0
This was easy with Swarms in the 2nd game. I cannot remember this match exactely but I know that he even made some mistakes.

Round 5 - Loam Confinement - 2:0
Just an easy match with a little back up in form of Echoing Truth and Leyline is nice too (Loams).

Now you can imagine why I'm a little bit disappointed to get only 12 points after standing 4:1 after 5 rounds.

Round 6 and 7 - U/w Landstill - 0:2
Bad match-up, missing luck of the 1st round and being mana screwed in round 7 is no fun. By the way in round 6 another funny thing happened to me. I saw my only chance to win in drawing many cards. I even managed it to get 3 Confidants out but the first turn I could get 3 extra cards I saw 2 Tendrils...
(besides only 1 IGG the only cards with a cc4).

Nevertheless I have to say that I like this deck a lot but I'm thinking of playing without Leylines in the future. Even though it did not happen this tournament, I can remember situations when I drew a Leyline (bad with an Infernal Tutor in hand - but not too bad if you have enough mana acceleration) and the next turn again a Leyline...
I just don't want to draw this card and 3 of them is too less to get one in your opening hand.
That's why I tend to test Duress and/or Defense Grids and maybe less Tendrils.

Another thing I have problems with is a situation where I need mana of a LED.
After having played all my mana acceleration and putting IGG on the stack I need to crack the LED in response (imange I have Infernal Tutor left in hand and want to get it back with the IGG). Then the opponents has got (yes, not has still because of the stack/timing rules) the opportunity to counter the IGG leaving you with some mana and 0 cards in hand.
If I plaed MD disruption (Grid or Duress) this problem could be solved.

What do you think?

[saxking93]

Regarding LED, the susceptibility to counters post-LED has been around forever, and therefore you should only do something like IGG, break LED, when you're sure IGG will resolve, or it's absolutely necessary to attempt to go off.

Being as that may, the control matchup is still difficult and some measures should be taken to improve it. Both bomholmm and TimDeluxeIt have added defense grid to their builds. D.grid main also was shown to be viable when it T8'd at Gencon.

[quicksilver]

Xantid swarm is amazing against counters. Especially solidarity since it forces them to try to go off like turn 3/4 or risk you winning, even if you got crap for a hand.

[Lego]

Xantid swarm is amazing against counters. Especially solidarity since it forces them to try to go off like turn 3/4 or risk you winning, even if you got crap for a hand.

The problem with Xantid Swarm in the Solidarity match is that it doesn't hinder them while going off, it just makes them attempt to do it faster. Then again, it should be golden in the thresh matchup.

Speaking of the green plash, I played against someone on MWS playing maindeck Gaea's Blessing. It was weird.

[Benie Bederios]

Seeing this thread almost going out of the first page it needs a bump.

About the posts

Xantid Swarm vs Grid

If you have a pokerface and great in bluffing I should play Xantid Swarm. That way you can win games against Solidarity and have it is the better choice against UGw thresh. Against slow control decks Xantid Swarm will keep your combo fullproof protected, where Defense Grid can be played around.

Defense Grid on the other hand forces Solidarity to play spells on there own turn, wich might tap them out and let you go for the kill.
Against UGr thresh Defense Grid is also better because it can't be bolted. Quite some players will keep Bolt in the deck to speed up there clock.

I think the point is wich one is easier cast. Non of the top tier decks that runs counters, runs wasteland, so TropIsland is not a problem. Xantid Swarm can also protect the T2 kills. The only question is if you play TropIslands main or in the board.

@ Toranor

Fine performance, but maybe you could have don better. Landstill isn't really a bad matchup. Normally you can win G1 with double Tendrils plan, this way you only have 2 win one more post board. The game is getting worse though, because they board in Meddling Mage, but you still have a change, because you only have to win one of the games.

I'm thinking of removing the Leyline's from the main too, but they can just steal games and help in the hardest matchup.

How where the Cabal Therapys Post board. I think it is savage against slow control, just remove 4 LED's, 3 IGG's 4 Leyline's for all creatures/ Therapy and a bounce spell.

@ Lego_Army_Men


For what reason was Gaea's Blessing played? For Solidarity? Or is it some secret tech I don't see?

To all:

Should Cabal Pit in the deck or not. Preboard it is good, but postboard it is very hard to get Threshold.

[Lego]

@ Lego_Army_Men


For what reason was Gaea's Blessing played? For Solidarity? Or is it some secret tech I don't see?

*Shrug*... I can only assume it was to make the Solidarity match winnable, which it really isn't... I never saw the rest of his deck or anything, I just saw that. While I was going off he said, "You're not going to win, I've got Blessing" which leads me to believe that he thought Solidarity couldn't win when Blessing was involved. I just thanked him for the information and Stroked him.

[Toranor]

Yes, Blessing is sh*t, because only with Grid in play you could survive but with a grid in play your opponent won't try to get off...
Therefore he will bounce it and go off in response of you playing it again.
This doesn't mean that Grid is bad, too but I would play only Grids against Solidarity. Even then you have the problem that not all players call a playset Resets their own and play Spring Tide instead.
Honestly, if I expected a lot of Solidarity in my meta, I would not even play Iggy Pop.
In my Meta there are only 2 players who sometimes play Solidarity at our tournements with at least 50 players and there are never more than 3 Spring Tides.
The chance of hitting another Combo player is very low but then my SB Cabal Therapies might help a bit (naming High Tide / Reset).
As my meta consists of Goblins, NQG (nearly only r) and Landstill (nearly only w), some MM (it's Suicide with Black Knights but we call it Mighty Muscle-Turk (maybe not a good translation, meant is a Turk with a lot of muscles) for a very obscure reason I don't want to tell here :)) I liked my SB Therapies.
They can get rid off nasty Counterspells, Stifles (they play them in LS/w here) or cards you expect to being boarded in against you.
The reason I play them over Duress is the possibility to flashback them for a Dark Confidant (see my report -> Confidants finding 2 Tendrills is no fun).

For the LS match-up. I think I need more practice with this deck because awaiting Crypts I boarded out 3 IGG, Leylines and (the mistake) not all LEDs in favour of some LEDs and some Cabal Rituals (but getting B is better than getting BBB, Infernal countered and 3 damage due to mana burn) and randomly 1ofs of different cards (Brainstorm, Mystical, Intuition) to get enough room.
I hope to do better next time against LS :).

The Leyline problem:
If there wasn't NQG so dominant here I would replace Leylines by Duresses or Grids. Anyhow although I'm starting to dislike Leylines more and more I don't dare to remove them as they fit in the deck's concept with IGG.

[Evil Roopey]

If there wasn't NQG so dominant here I would replace Leylines by Duresses or Grids. Anyhow although I'm starting to dislike Leylines more and more I don't dare to remove them as they fit in the deck's concept with IGG.

Why is Leyline even being played? I can't figure it out. LIke the only real reason I can see is so that your opponent can't recur Force, but if they have a Force they are just going to counter the first IGG anyways so this is pointless. Other than that making your opponent lose there hand is highly irrelevant in a deck that wins on turn 3. Grid should most definatly be played over it.

[Toranor]

Against a non blue deck (exception: Salvagers) Leylines are useless, ok.
(Even that's not absolutely true because Burn can get back its Bolts for example.)
Otherwise if you fear your IGG getting countered than the question must be why you play an IGG - without the will to play IGG Leyline is useless (exception: NQG) but preboard we just have these 4 IGG.
And there is another problem: If you plan to play without Leyline and they have no Force in hand (image they have just countered a Dark Ritual) you will get your next acceleration countered but spent 4 mana for IGG that could have been spent for Tendrils.
Then again the double Tendrils plan against Control 1st game is the way to go but when you draw IGG you are slower and than Leylines could be good but maybe this thought is stupid because even a Leyline slowes you down in that case.

EDIT:
Another thought which might be important: If you play with Leylines (and have one in play) a controlplayer will wait to counter IGG and you can go for the double Tendrils plan instead (or he might feel that and counter the first Dark Ritual which should be good for us although it slows us down. On the other hand the control player might be wrong and a IGG could resolve but I think these thoughts are more about poker than about magic) but if you play without Leylines the will counter the first mana acceleration played which leads to the described situation. (They can hope, that if we are able to let a IGG resolve, they get their counterspell back)
As the last scenario can always happen (nobody guarantees that we have a Leyline in our starting hand) and a Leyline in play lowers the chances of a resolved IGG, I tend to agree with all those you prefer to play without Leylines. If we have Grids instead the described scenario of a countered Dark Ritual could lead to a situation where we can get a Grid in play the same turn.

Finally, however, I have to say I'm so confused that I cannot judge if the reasons for playing without Leyline are good enough to weaken matches against NQG.

[laststepdown]

The synergy with IGG is insane. Turn 0-Leyline. Turn 1, IGG, you discard your hand-oh wait, it's RFG-I get 3 cards back. Mind Twist much?

[MattH]

The other reason is that it buys so much time against the deck's worst (popular*) matchup - threshold.


*I suppose Stax might be worse, but whooooo plays that?

[Toranor]

I have played Iggy Pop at some tournaments during the last months but only once I was able to cast "Leyline Gotten Twist" %). Turn 0 Leyline has happened quite frequently, but to start with Leyline, IGG, Dark Rit, Land + Land / another acceleration piece and that your opponent has no FoW (or CS if we won the roll and you have no 2 acceleration pieces) just does happen so rarely that in my opinion this cannot be a reason to play Leyline.
The other argument about the NQG match-up is very importan instead as I wrote before. Nevertheless I don't like Leyline and still play it.

[emidln]

Cutting Leyline of the Void turns this deck into a bad mid-range combo deck. Leyline of the Void greatly increases your ability to neuter your opponent (a) before they go off, (b) before they do stupid tricks with their graveyard, (c) on turn 1. In fact, this is so true, that I rarely, if ever board out Leyline of the Void. My control strategy normally boards out Intuition, LED, and 3x IGG for Xantid Swarms, Cabal Therapies, Bounce, and sometimes Dark Confidant.

Also, Leyline is amazing against Solidarity, which people on the net seem to think is a bad matchup. While I haven't personally observed this (it seems to me that we are faster, pack a lot more disruption, and can stop them from going off...), Leyline stops one of their key cards from working (e.g. Flash of Insight) which is their plan of action to win on turn 3 or on their turn, if they are forced to try.

[parallax]

I've seen this a lot: people don't believe that Solidarity is a bad match-up for Iggy Pop. So here is a list of reasons:

1) Force of Will and Remand stop you from being able to combo turn 3.
2) You pretty much can't cast Ill-Gotten Gains without Leyline or Grid out after turn three as Solidarity will go off, let IGG resolve and get three cards back to continue to go off. It is almost impossible for Solidarity to fizzle under these circumstances. Twincast allows them to go infinite.
3) By the time you are able to cast a second Tendrils for the double-Tendrils plan, Solidarity will be able to go off with ease.

It is nearly impossible for you to win the game at any point pre-board. Note: if you run Defense Grid maindeck, then that is your one shot. They still have the ability to Force or Remand the Grid, or Force your spells after turn three.

[emidln]

I've seen this a lot: people don't believe that Solidarity is a bad match-up for Iggy Pop. So here is a list of reasons:

1) Force of Will and Remand stop you from being able to combo turn 3.

Remand isn't up until turn 2 if Iggy is on the play. Turn 2 is very easy. You have around a 60-65% chance of seeing a Force of Will by turn 2 if you don't see Remand, although some of that time you will need to take land off brainstorms/impulses and thus it won't be available. On turn 1, you have anywhere between a 40-50% chance of seeing it depending on if you have a Brainstorm. Force of Will is the only card that helps you until we get into the "mid-game" which is the point when you have 2 lands.


2) You pretty much can't cast Ill-Gotten Gains without Leyline or Grid out after turn three as Solidarity will go off, let IGG resolve and get three cards back to continue to go off. It is almost impossible for Solidarity to fizzle under these circumstances. Twincast allows them to go infinite.

Before turn 3, Ill-Gotten Gains, with or without a Leyline, is a must-counter. If it is not countered, Solidarity faces an insurmountable CA-loss and will not be able to combo out any time soon (excepting ridiculous topdecking and other lucksackery).

After boarding, Ill-Gotten Gains is even more rediculous because Xantid Swarm forces Solidarity to remove it, combo, or risk Iggy Pop casting Ill-Gotten Gains (essentially FTW since you are going to force them to discard down to 3), or worse, comboing off.


3) By the time you are able to cast a second Tendrils for the double-Tendrils plan, Solidarity will be able to go off with ease.

I would never go double Tendrils unless it just happens to be the way to combo using rituals and tutors. Double Tendrils seems really bad in this matchup. Why do that when Ill-Gotten Gains is a huge bomb in the early game were Iggy Pop should try to be playing anyway?

[Mad Bomber]

Why is Leyline even being played? I can't figure it out. LIke the only real reason I can see is so that your opponent can't recur Force, but if they have a Force they are just going to counter the first IGG anyways so this is pointless. Other than that making your opponent lose there hand is highly irrelevant in a deck that wins on turn 3. Grid should most definatly be played over it.

Leyline is played because well...its AMAZING

How good is mindtwisting your opponent on turn 1 or 2?

I hear its pretty strong in the Thresh match...go 1/1 beat sticks!!

It also stops solidarity from doing so many nasty tricks game one should you not draw into grid.


Trick 1) they twincast your ill-gotten gains, cast reset and have infi mana!!
Trick 2) stops them from being able to brainfreeze themself and set up a perfect flash of insite

Leyline also stops the recursive Force of Will, but most importantly stops the recursive maindeck Stifles that are becomming so popular these days.

So yea, Leyline keeps a 4 of slot in the deck for sure!!

[mercc]

4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
3 Island
2 Swamp

4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Brainstorm
3 Mental Note
3 Mystical Tutor
2 Intuition
1 Echoing Truth
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Defense Grid

SB
1 Defense Grid
3 Misdirection
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Echoing Truth
3 Massacre
3 Chrome Mox

This is Ben Roberts version that T8 legacy championship 2006.

- Is MD defense grid a good thing? If you are expecting alot of landstill, threshold and solidarity? Well, that sounds likely :) And it saves you SB-slots keeping 'em main.

- And its also the only version I've seen with MD mental note, I think they play nice with brainstorm if you want to get rid of crap, and they help with threshold, If you play a cabal ritual getting BBBBB it's hard NOT to go off.

- The only thing I don't like is not having a double tendrils plan.

And his SB is also up for discussion:
- 3 Chrome mox, does he want speed in certain matchups? Mirror?

- 3 Misdirection, also secret mirror tech? And ofcourse vs. Hymn.

What do you think of his version?

[Benie Bederios]

Well this build is post a few pages back( without SB), but I shall give you my opinion on the matters.

- I don't like Defense Grid MD. You don't have much tutors for it, so it is still quite random. It can be played around and is dead in quite some matchups. If my meta was totally control/ aggro-control and I have to play this it might be an option. But I rather would play another deck then. Against non-counter aggrodecks( Affinity, Goblins) you will have 7 dead cards( Leyline is pretty dead too most of the time.) In my testin I found it better/easier to just go for the double tendrilsplan.

- Mental Note. It is a good card, but with 2 minor drawbacks. 1) It doesn't make your deck less GY dependent and 2) It isn't improving your cardquality. It makes it easier to get back in the game after a badtimed crypt, but I'm not sold on this card. Maybe it is because it is rather weak without Brainstorm.

- Agree, The double Tendrils plan is great, if you can't get/keep a Grid, it's almost impossible to get a stormcount of 10 against decks packing counters.

- 3 Chrome Mox, I think it is for the long games. Midgame you will get some deadcards( Intuition, multiple Leylines) so I think he played Chrome Mox to have some additional staying mana, but I'm not sure. I don't think it is good in the mirror, or atleast not gamebreaking.

- Misdirection. Another, to me, strange slot. I presume it is against Hymn to Tourach, but it can be in the mirror, but most decks are capable of dealing 24 damage, so it's not that great.

Personally I gave up the deck and started reinovating. One thing I did was removing 3 Ill-Gotten Gains, as I found that you rarely needed more than one to get the stormcount to 10. This gives you alot more options as you not longer have to run Leyline of the Void, wich is strong if you got in your opening hand and able to IGG turn 1 or 2 but otherwise weak.

[Bane of the Living]

Maindeck grid seems ridiculous to me. This format is like 75% aggro and its completely dead against them. Multiples suckass too. Only having one tendrils is dangerous and means you need a tutor for it, rather than just drawing into it with the nuts. Playing one IGG is stupid because if countered your screwed. The decks flawless comboing is garenteed thanks to triple IGG off Intuition. I would never ever pull that powerfull aspect from the deck. Intuition should also always remain a 3-4 of.

Misdirection seems like a bad choice against Hymn just because its still costing you 2 cards. I would rather play Divert. Chrome Mox also seems like a poor sb choice. Its a bad card against Thresh since the card advantage lost is difficult to make up for. So just dont play it at all in that case.

I dont know why he's playing those Echoing Truth in the board either. They should be sided in against Meddling Mage thus, should had different names.

Rushing River? Chain of Vapor?

[AnwarA101]

I dont know why he's playing those Echoing Truth in the board either. They should be sided in against Meddling Mage thus, should had different names.

Rushing River? Chain of Vapor?

Chain of Vapor is a poor card when you want to keep your Leyline of the Void in play and not in your hand. Echoing Truth is a reasonable choice because it bounces multiple permanents and doesn't cost an excessive amount of mana. Rushing River is okay as it can bounce permanents when your opponent has Chalice of the Void or multiple Meddling Mages (you lose to this anyway).

[Bane of the Living]

Oh yea forgot about the Chain + Leyline thingy. Well at least Hurk's Recall looks out of place. I mean, was he really expecting to play against stax or affinity?

[MattH]

Man, I wouldn't trust some of you to come near a combo deck with a ten foot pole!

The Chrome Moxes are against goblins, to SPEED THE DECK UP (not to play the long game - wtf @ this), and also to guard against Waste/Port.

Hurkyl's Recall is there to go LED, LED, Petal, Recall, LED, LED, Petal, Mox -- replaying them all to generate massive storm without needing IGG (plus yeah it's quite good against Stax and Affinity and the occasional Chalice from the FStompy and Burning Tog players).

[Benie Bederios]

Man, I wouldn't trust some of you to come near a combo deck with a ten foot pole!

The Chrome Moxes are against goblins, to SPEED THE DECK UP (not to play the long game - wtf @ this), and also to guard against Waste/Port.

Hurkyl's Recall is there to go LED, LED, Petal, Recall, LED, LED, Petal, Mox -- replaying them all to generate massive storm without needing IGG (plus yeah it's quite good against Stax and Affinity and the occasional Chalice from the FStompy and Burning Tog players).

Ghehe you're right about the Chrome Mox, silly of me, that I didn't see it. I thought why do you want to speed up the deck, when you're already the fastest in Legacy.

[Lanfeng]

Man, I wouldn't trust some of you to come near a combo deck with a ten foot pole!

The Chrome Moxes are against goblins, to SPEED THE DECK UP (not to play the long game - wtf @ this), and also to guard against Waste/Port.

Hurkyl's Recall is there to go LED, LED, Petal, Recall, LED, LED, Petal, Mox -- replaying them all to generate massive storm without needing IGG (plus yeah it's quite good against Stax and Affinity and the occasional Chalice from the FStompy and Burning Tog players).

riiiiigggght. So you are suggesting that you would be so pro that you can draw half of your artifact sources, recall them back (losing card advantage along the way if you are floating with mox, when you could just play whatever you imprint) play them all again, and tendrils for 20 at least or just double tendrils all within the first 9-11 cards you draw in the game? Are you kidding yourself?

[Krieger]

IggyPop (http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=19270)

This is a link to the winning list that made fourth on the second day of the Duel for Duals tournament. The one thing to notice is the lack of maindeck Leylines. I suggested this prior to the tournament. I had played around with the idea for a while. I like Xandit swarm because it seems like a better protection spell, It makes it so that you don't lose to a single Force of Will. The Leylines in the board almost seem unnecessary.

[al the great]

Same here I dont main board leylines anymore either. When I play tested it personally it hurt me more than it would help.

[Bongo]

Sorry to necro this old thread, but I think the deck is more than worth it.

Any changes to the Bomholt list?

What are your sideboards?

[AnwarA101]

TimDeluxeIt posted the following list on TMD for dealing with counterspells ie Thresh, Solidarity, and basically every deck playing Force of Will. Krieger and I are pretty interested in the deck, but we have yet to do any testing with it. Its seems much better against blue-based control as you can try to Force through Orim's Chant and then win from there.



I was waiting to release this but I'm curious to see what you guys think:

Search/Dig (14)
3x Infernal Tutor
4x Brainstorm
3x Intuition
4x Mystical Tutor

Acceleration (16)
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion’s Eye Diamond

Win Stuff (4)
3x Ill-Gotten Gains
1x Tendrils of Agony

Protection (11)
4x Force of Will
2x Misdirection
4x Orim’s Chant
1x Chain of Vapor

Land (15)
4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
2x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
2x Island
2x Swamp


Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
3x Chrome Mox
3x Massacre
2x Tendrils of Agony
1x Wipe Away
1x Hurkyl’s Recall
1x Rebuild



The original post (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=26081.msg449973#msg449973)

[Bane of the Living]

Chant is no where near as good as Swarm. Why would you wait till the turn you combo to chant, after your opponent has sculpt a fist full of counters? Play Xantid turn one, if they dont have force your set. Besides, people take out their removal against you, making swarm dangerous.

Swarm also puts pressure on Solidarity to go off in response to his attack, whether or not you can even combo in that turn.

[blitz]

er, I may be just naive about the deck... but if you give them reason to side in/out removal (given that they either did or didn't see swarm), shouldn't there just be a replacement for swarm that doesn't care about removal so that they are never sure which form of anti-control you'd be using? Just a thought... could be a good mindgame. Not sure on the viability of your options with that kind of SB structure...

[Pathian]

TimDeluxeIt posted the following list on TMD for dealing with counterspells ie Thresh, Solidarity, and basically every deck playing Force of Will. Krieger and I are pretty interested in the deck, but we have yet to do any testing with it. Its seems much better against blue-based control as you can try to Force through Orim's Chant and then win from there.



The original post (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=26081.msg449973#msg449973)

I played against Ben (TimDeluxeIt) at the Pastimes 40 Dual event on the 30th. I was playing Solidarity. I like his list, but I had to say I would have been a lot more scared of a first turn Xantid Swarm than the chants since, as stated, it's a recurring thread that puts the pressure on me to go off even if the IGGy player can't. During our third game we went chant, force, chant, but I managed to combo out on 3 lands and 4 cards with his second chant on the stack. In retrospect, I wish I had asked him what he drew that turn/why he chanted me on his main phase instead of his upkeep. I figured that he must have either drawn a second chant or a piece he needed to combo out that turn, but I'm not sure. I probably would have lost to a chant on upkeep

[laststepdown]

Why not Unmask instead of Orim's Chant?
It's pretty much free disruption, and can protect your chain easily.

[AnwarA101]

Why not Unmask instead of Orim's Chant?
It's pretty much free disruption, and can protect your chain easily.

Unmask like all discard doesn't prevent your opponent from bringing back Force of Will each time you cast Ill-Gotten Gains unless you bring back Unmask. If you bring Unmask back you won't have enough cards in hand to continue going off. Orim's Chant works because if it resolves you simply can play all your spells without worrying about what your opponent brings back to his hand. Discard simply doesn't do anything about Force of Will recursion that is the main problem for Iggy Pop.

[thebadmagicplayer]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so here it goes.

I have a few question about playing IGGY-POP mainly because i've only been playing it for about a month :rolleyes: . so basically i just want a consensus on what's good and what's not.

1) how do we play around cards like extirpate and abeyance? i have un into decks that run the cards or shortly will (extirpate) and if i cant go off turn 1-2, i generally won't

2) i'm currently playing strait IGGY with no splash, However, there appears to be splashes in green for city of solitude and xantid swarm. the white splash looks interesting because of Orim's Chant and the abillity to not die to disruption due to counterspells or extirpate. so which is better for the splash?

3) it seems to me that the deck is a bit of a "one trick pony", has anyone concidered spalshing red for empty the warrens? or playing death wish with one copy of tendrels in the board?

4) 3 or 4 defence grid in side board?

5) last question. has anyone concidered running the Black totem in the board for an alternate kill? might be good in stale mate situations:rolleyes:

any way, feed back is very welcomed on my part,
peace:tongue:

[Bane of the Living]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so here it goes.

I have a few question about playing IGGY-POP mainly because i've only been playing it for about a month :rolleyes: . so basically i just want a consensus on what's good and what's not.

1) how do we play around cards like extirpate and abeyance? i have un into decks that run the cards or shortly will (extirpate) and if i cant go off turn 1-2, i generally won't

2) i'm currently playing strait IGGY with no splash, However, there appears to be splashes in green for city of solitude and xantid swarm. the white splash looks interesting because of Orim's Chant and the abillity to not die to disruption due to counterspells or extirpate. so which is better for the splash?

3) it seems to me that the deck is a bit of a "one trick pony", has anyone concidered spalshing red for empty the warrens? or playing death wish with one copy of tendrels in the board?

4) 3 or 4 defence grid in side board?

5) last question. has anyone concidered running the Black totem in the board for an alternate kill? might be good in stale mate situations:rolleyes:

any way, feed back is very welcomed on my part,
peace:tongue:

1) Play around Abeyance with Defense Grid, Xantid Swarm, or Orims Chant. Unless they Abeyance you during upkeep these are fine options. Defense Grid might be the best since it cant be removed by Swords to Plowshares which they obviously play in white.
As for Exirpate, you can always try Ground Seal since its also protecting you from Jotun Grunt. Swarm and Chant are both great here.

2) I think white is the best splash. Chant > all. It acts as an emergency fog against aggro and its tutorable with Mystic Tutor unlike swarm and d grid. You could always go for your own Abeyance's since it cantrips.

3) These options are unneeded and probably unaffective. If you want a deck like that look at TES or another faster wish based deck. Iggy remains more consistant than the other options.

4) Depends on your meta. Some people are playing them main and going down to 1 Tendrils to make room. I havent tried that out, Im not sure how effective it would be since the plan against control decks is to combo off in short multiple spurts or double tendrils. Dark Confidant is a great sb option to go that plan, siding out IGG since you can never cast it. Confidant can draw you into your fuel.

5) No.

Welcome to the source.

[thebadmagicplayer]

thanks for the feedback.

i'm concidering using 4 confidants in the side for the controll match-up. and would extirpate fit in IGGY's side-board?

Please use capitalization. Proper grammar is required on these boards. Thank you. - Zilla

[AnwarA101]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so here it goes.

I have a few question about playing IGGY-POP mainly because i've only been playing it for about a month :rolleyes: . so basically i just want a consensus on what's good and what's not.

1) how do we play around cards like extirpate and abeyance? i have un into decks that run the cards or shortly will (extirpate) and if i cant go off turn 1-2, i generally won't


The ability of Iggy Pop to deal with Extirpate is as of yet really unknown (as I don't know of anyone who has done testing with it). But it can be said that black-based disruption based decks now have the ability to just win provided they are able to extirpate either Tendrils or Ill-Gotten Gains. Typically the problem in this matchup is that Iggy Pop can just top deck the win either Ill-Gotten Gains or Infernal Tutor with enough artifact mana on the table.

As for Iggy Pop actually playing Extirpate as a sideboard it seems a bit tricky as you need your opponent to some how put his Force of Will in his yard which will only happen when you try and go off. You will need to try and go off again, but often you won't be left with many resources to do that.

[BreathWeapon]

Hi everyone, this is my first post so here it goes.

I have a few question about playing IGGY-POP mainly because i've only been playing it for about a month :rolleyes: . so basically i just want a consensus on what's good and what's not.

2) i'm currently playing strait IGGY with no splash, However, there appears to be splashes in green for city of solitude and xantid swarm. the white splash looks interesting because of Orim's Chant and the abillity to not die to disruption due to counterspells or extirpate. so which is better for the splash?

3) it seems to me that the deck is a bit of a "one trick pony", has anyone concidered spalshing red for empty the warrens? or playing death wish with one copy of tendrels in the board?

any way, feed back is very welcomed on my part,
peace:tongue:

I would recommend using the Force of Will and Orim's Chant list with a SB Volcanic Island and 3 Empty the Warrens; it allows the deck to disregard the opponent's counterspells, Meddling Mages and Tormod's Crypt and "just win."

[thebadmagicplayer]

I would recommend using the Force of Will and Orim's Chant list with a SB Volcanic Island and 3 Empty the Warrens; it allows the deck to disregard the opponent's counterspells, Meddling Mages and Tormod's Crypt and "just win."

Well, the problem with that is getting my paws on some FoWs.:frown: The EtW in the sideboard sound like the way to go though.
My new side board will probably look like this to deal with the two white controll decks that run abeyance and the two deadguy ale decks that I expect to run extirpate when it's legal:

4x enginered plague
4x defence grid
3x empty the warrens
1x volcanic island
3x dark confidant

Comments?

[Vardaman]

Why are you boarding Engineered Plauges when you should have a great goblin's matchup? :(

[thebadmagicplayer]

To side out leyline(which is useless vs. goblins) and win more.

[ForceofWill]

But With leyline you can cast IGG turn 1 just to dump there hand.

[thebadmagicplayer]

Lets compare the cards for a minute shall we?

Leyline: good with IGG and vs. thresh, doesn't buy time when playing against goblins.
Plague: kills alot of goblins and buys you time.

any questions?

[AnwarA101]

Lets compare the cards for a minute shall we?

Leyline: good with IGG and vs. thresh, doesn't buy time when playing against goblins.
Plague: kills alot of goblins and buys you time.

any questions?

In practice the best spell to board in against Goblins is the spell that helps you get through their hate. While 2x Plague can win you the game it doesn't do so immediatedly. Your opponent can board in Disenchant effects or even non-Goblin creatures (Patron of the Akki comes to mind). Bounce spells such as Chain of Vapor and Echoing Truth can bounce almost all hate cards goblins boards in such as Tormod's Crypt, Pyrostatic Pillar, etc. Bounce can even buy you a turn by bouncing a warchief or even an early lackey.

[blarknob]

Bounce is much better than eplague against goblins.

[Bryant Cook]

3) These options are unneeded and probably unaffective. If you want a deck like that look at TES or another faster wish based deck. Iggy remains more consistant than the other options.
How do you mean ineffective? Correct me if I reading or am misunderstanding your post but how are Defense Grid/Xantid Swarm ineffective? They win games against your one bad match-up I don't see this being a bad thing. It's the direction Iggy needs to go if it plans on staying alive; concentrating on your goblins match-up is irrelevant. They don't play Force of Will, who cares.
If you are calling Empty the Warrens ineffective I completely disagree with you. Turn 1 or turn 2 ETW, for 8+ is 80% of the time an auto-win. As for Death Wish it proved itself pretty bad; the evolution of IGGy Pop is leaning towards TES more and more if you read other MTG websites many of you will soon see it. People on MTGsalvation have realized it and people on TMD have also, it's just a matter of time.
More consistent? I disagree with you here. Iggy is more consistent at gold fishing on turn 3-4 I'll agree with you here. TES is more consistent at winning turns 1-3(They are about the same on turn 3), and against actual opponents; TES has the tools it needs to beat decks this where IGGy Pop is lacking. It can't deal with hate and it certainly can't deal with control where with TES it's not that bad. You'd know that if you read my report.

[BreathWeapon]

I doubt TES is the evolution of IGGY POP, but rather, IGGY POP is going to have to adopt a new role in the metagame as a combo-control deck with Force of Will and Orim's Chant and aim for protected turn 3 and 4 kills instead of TES's protected turn 2 and 3 kills. Both decks have their advantages and disadvantages, TES can outrace Meddling Mage and the third Island, where IGGY POP is more inevitable. As IGGY POP stands, I do agree that the deck is obsolete in comparison to TES, but no one has been openly developing IGGY POP for awhile.

[AnwarA101]

I doubt TES is the evolution of IGGY POP, but rather, IGGY POP is going to have to adopt a new role in the metagame as a combo-control deck with Force of Will and Orim's Chant and aim for protected turn 3 and 4 kills instead of TES's protected turn 2 and 3 kills. Both decks have their advantages and disadvantages, TES can outrace Meddling Mage and the third Island, where IGGY POP is more inevitable. As IGGY POP stands, I do agree that the deck is obsolete in comparison to TES, but no one has been openly developing IGGY POP for awhile.

I'm not sure you can call the deck obsolete when it just won the recent Meandeck Open (35 players) and it also made Top4 on Day2 of the Duel for Duals (55 players).

Turning Iggy Pop into a slower combo-control deck seems to drift the deck into the direction of Solidarity. The obvious question becomes how would it be better? I'm not discounting this direction and I have not really tested this version of the deck, but it still seems like its advantages over Solidarity at that that point don't seem all that obvious.

[BreathWeapon]

I'm not sure you can call the deck obsolete when it just won the recent Meandeck Open (35 players) and it also made Top4 on Day2 of the Duel for Duals (55 players).

Turning Iggy Pop into a slower combo-control deck seems to drift the deck into the direction of Solidarity. The obvious question becomes how would it be better? I'm not discounting this direction and I have not really tested this version of the deck, but it still seems like its advantages over Solidarity at that that point don't seem all that obvious.

Even with Force of Will and Orim's Chant, the deck's fundamental turn is 3, that is one turn faster than High Tide's fundamental turn. Also, IGGY POP can still go off on turn 1 and turn 2 against aggro, which is something High Tide can't do.

[Lego]

While 2x Plague can win you the game it doesn't do so immediatedly. Your opponent can board in Disenchant effects or even non-Goblin creatures (Patron of the Akki comes to mind).

Not that I'm advocating Plague, I think it sucks, but if your opponent is boarding in Disenchant or Patron of the Akki, you've probaby already won.

[thebadmagicplayer]

if your opponent is boarding in Disenchant or Patron of the Akki, you've probaby already won.

Agreed. The only reason I play Plague is to replace a card that i find sub-par in the goblin match-up. I mean really, other than dumping their hand, (which is an auto win vs. any deck) what does leyline do when your playing goblins?

i'm going to try and playtest the U/B/w/r Iggy Pop. (Yes the red is in the sideboard) I'll tell you how it goes when playing stax, U/G/w thresh, goblins and Mono White Controll.

[Bane of the Living]

How do you mean ineffective? Correct me if I reading or am misunderstanding your post but how are Defense Grid/Xantid Swarm ineffective? They win games against your one bad match-up I don't see this being a bad thing. It's the direction Iggy needs to go if it plans on staying alive; concentrating on your goblins match-up is irrelevant. They don't play Force of Will, who cares.
If you are calling Empty the Warrens ineffective I completely disagree with you. Turn 1 or turn 2 ETW, for 8+ is 80% of the time an auto-win. As for Death Wish it proved itself pretty bad; the evolution of IGGy Pop is leaning towards TES more and more if you read other MTG websites many of you will soon see it. People on MTGsalvation have realized it and people on TMD have also, it's just a matter of time.
More consistent? I disagree with you here. Iggy is more consistent at gold fishing on turn 3-4 I'll agree with you here. TES is more consistent at winning turns 1-3(They are about the same on turn 3), and against actual opponents; TES has the tools it needs to beat decks this where IGGy Pop is lacking. It can't deal with hate and it certainly can't deal with control where with TES it's not that bad. You'd know that if you read my report.

In regards to Empty the Warrens and Death Wish yes both are unneeded for Iggy Pop. Empty cant make a massive amount of storm unless using Ill Gotten Gains. If your opponent didnt name Ill Gotten Gains you should win by bouncing Mage on Tendrils.

Death Wish just isnt effective in Legacy, and if your looking for this option just go with Burning Wish.

Im still on the fence on Chant vs Swarm and Grid. Swarm is probably better than Grid do to its cc. But Chant is probably the better choice if your looking for outs against Exirpate. They'll be in black based removal decks well capable of taking down Xantid. Chant also has the ability to Time Walk a goblin deck on their upkeep, avoiding their hate cards by chanting them the turn before your planning on comboing, also an effective fog like mentioned.

The problem with Chant against FoW is your giving them time to find the FoW for it. Once they FoW your chant they just need one more counterspell to make you fizzle. That situation becomes worse if you resolve IGG but have no Leyline in play, which happens.

I think its fair to say TES and Iggy are two different decks. They dont look like they're becoming the same deck at all. Iggy is a well developed deck that brought claim to the legacy scene of tendrils combo. Something no other tendrils deck has done. Coming into the thread and arguing your pet deck as the 'evolution' of Iggy and more 'consistant' isnt very justified and Im thinking Anwar is with me on that. We've had plenty of tendrils decks developed on the source and they still dont have any good tournament standings. Iggy's combo engine leaves space for given meta cards such as Leyline or Chant, these capabilities are nearly unpredictable when playing against it and dont affect the deck's consistancy.

[BreathWeapon]

IGGY POP vs TES is a relevant argument, because if IGGY POP remains as it is, it is just a bad version of TES; it's reliant on the discard pile, it's reliant on disruption, it's reliant on Tendrils and it's a turn slower. I wouldn't even consider traditional IGGY POP over TES, and I have played both decks objectively more than any other person I know of. IGGY POP needs Chant, and I think there is a strong argument for including FoW as well.

[thebadmagicplayer]

Hey everyone,
Just finished testing U/B/w/r iggy pop. It sucks.:frown: But there's good news :smile: I realize it early and cut red. U/B/w Iggy is solid and can take on the big three with ease.
on a side note, FoW sucks in the deck because of a lack of blue cards to pitch. if the deck ran more blue i'd say it would be good.

@breathweapon: I both agree and disagree with you. Iggy-pop is not the same deck as TES, they are similar and can go off useing the same combo engine, but they are not different versions of the same deck. They have very different stratagies as far as I can tell. However i do agree that the standard U/B list for Iggy-pop is not a good idea to play on a competetive level. the deck needs to change either to a white splash or a green splash if it is going to stay a tier 1.5 deck. And this thread is for Iggy-pop discussions so lets keep TES out of the thread as much as possible unless it's relevent. okay?:wink:

Anyway i think 2-3 chants are the way to go for this only because it can be tutored for.
Thoughts?

[baptist]

In my meta landstill is a concern (UW versions with stifle MD, meddling mage and tormod's crypt on SB.

I ask myself what the optimal sb plan is: what do you board out to make place for 4 orim's chant/xantid swarm and 3 other cards (wipe away, sudden death, ?).

My reference is the last list of Mike Bomholt.

[laststepdown]

Has anyone been testing this deck against Deadguy with Extirpate? If not, I will. I've been thinking about playing this deck for a while, and I'm only missing the Flooded Strands, 1 Tundra and 3 FoW's from the recent top 8 list (the build with Orim's Chant that Anwar posted). I'll proxy it up and take it with me to the draft on Thursday and FNM. Blah.

I still don't get the Hurkyll's and Rebuild. Mini-storm counts? Null Rod?

[AnwarA101]

Has anyone been testing this deck against Deadguy with Extirpate? If not, I will. I've been thinking about playing this deck for a while, and I'm only missing the Flooded Strands, 1 Tundra and 3 FoW's from the recent top 8 list (the build with Orim's Chant that Anwar posted). I'll proxy it up and take it with me to the draft on Thursday and FNM. Blah.

I still don't get the Hurkyll's and Rebuild. Mini-storm counts? Null Rod?

You are somewhat mistaken. The list I posted was posted by TimDeluxeIt, but it never made Top8. From my knowledge no Iggy Pop list with Force of Will has made Top8. Orim's Chant was the in the board of Mike Bomholt's recent winning list from the Meandeck Open, but not Force of Will.

As a side note, I tested the Force of Will version against Goblins and UGR Thresh and I went 7-3 against both of them. In general I found Orim's Chant to be very good, but Force of Will was usually unimpressive. Against Goblins I rarely had the chance to cast Force of Will without really setting me back and it was very hard to go Hellbent Infernal with Force of Will or even worse Misdirection in my hand.

[thebadmagicplayer]

I still don't get the Hurkyll's and Rebuild.

The reason is to do an end of turn "I bounce your trinnispeare and chalice set at 1":tongue:


As a side note, I tested the Force of Will version against Goblins and UGR Thresh and I went 7-3 against both of them. In general I found Orim's Chant to be very good, but Force of Will was usually unimpressive. Against Goblins I rarely had the chance to cast Force of Will without really setting me back and it was very hard to go Hellbent Infernal with Force of Will or even worse Misdirection in my hand.

I agree with you 100%. I did something close to that but i used three chants and found that they don't clog up the deck as much and still seem to show up regularly.

[laststepdown]

The reason is to do an end of turn "I bounce your trinnispeare and chalice set at 1":tongue:



I agree with you 100%. I did something close to that but i used three chants and found that they don't clog up the deck as much and still seem to show up regularly.

Thanks for the explaination on the artifact bounce. I've yet to see all the hate this deck has against it.

Also; Orim's Chant=good karma. FoW=bad karma.

So, generally Leyline is out of the main? That just doesn't seem right to me...I know it's almost useless against gobs and all, but it's so freaking good!

[thebadmagicplayer]

I run leyline in the main because it's good vs. thresh, combo, and you can mindtwist turn one with it.

you have a good game one vs. goblins and they dont run hate in the main (usually). my main is geared to thresh and the mirror but I can side stuff out to play better vs. goblins in game two and three.

[Nightmare]

I split the discussion on TES vs. IGGy Pop to a new thread, located here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5157). Please continue that discussion in the new thread, and leave this one for IGGy Pop itself.

[emidln]

Something I've been working on recently is a build of Iggy Pop designed for a control meta. I've played with Orim's Chant, Chant + FoW, and Swarm MD versions of Iggy Pop as well as more estoteric builds including Confidant, AK, and some other weirdness that turned out to be awful enough to not bring up. Something I noticed about Leyline of the Void is that, while it is useful against Force of Will when you're using IGG, the amount of time it takes to setup a turn where you can resolve an IGG and go off through 1-2 pieces of countermagic with a single tendrils is on average turn 6. This disturbed me, and I went searching for solutions.

The first contender was Merchant Scroll. I am personally in love with Merchant Scroll and tried really, really hard to abuse it in Iggy Pop. This ended up necessitating adding Chrome Mox as well as almost always finding either Mystical Tutor or Brainstorm. This seemed like a waste of time and energy to tutor chain for Orim's Chant or double Tendrils. When I did actual playtesting, it turned out to take the same amount of time against control that playing with just leyline did. While a cute idea, I didn't like the idea of playing a card that doesn't accelerate me versus aggro (leyline can do this in a way if you get the mind twist combo). I abandoned this and went back to playing UbaStax for awhile.

Some point along here, I remembered Veggie Tendrils. For those of you not familiar, Veggie Tendrils played infinite Cabal Pits, Jet Medallion to make its black spells better, and Grim Tutor as an extra tutor in addition to Infernal, Mystical, and Intuition. The idea was to build up a double tendrils a bit slower than Iggy Pop, but to be better vs control. I savagely stole the Grim Tutor tech testing it in the Leyline of the Void spot.

It turns out that Grim Tutor is absolutely amazing in Iggy Pop. The key, as far as I can tell, is that in the past it has always been replacing a key combo piece. Where I'm suggesting it now is in place a card that isn't a combo piece, doesn't help versus control, and doesn't accelerate against aggro that much. In short, I'm saying that Grim Tutor is strictly better than Leyline of the Void.

Let's look at the theory behind this. Grim Tutor reads, for those of you not familiar:

Grim Tutor
1BB
Sorcery
Search your library for any card and put it into your hand. Lose 3 life.


This card has a lot going for it. First off, this is an extra way to find any card in your deck, unconditionally, without showing your opponent, and put it in your hand. When casting cast isn't an issue, this is significantly better than Mystical Tutor. Secondly, Iggy Pop has evolved a lot since the days of Impulse and Strategic Planning around GP: Philly. Our fastest way to win is to assemble 2 Lion's Eye Diamonds and an Infernal Tutor with 1B available. Due to its convenient casting cost of 3, it can easily be played off stray Dark Rituals or Cabal Rituals. What I'm proposing is that against aggro, Grim Tutor sets up the Infernal Tutor loop first. The makes a turn 3 goldfish vs aggro a lot more of a sure thing involving fewer brainstorms, mystical tutors giving your opponent time to prepare, and intuition manipulation at the last second.

The first thing means that Grim Tutor is amazing at finding a bounce spell vs aggro control, a tendrils vs control, or even acting as a tutor for tendrils off a simple amount of accel + a lone IGG. The second lets you 2 for 1 trade rituals and Grim Tutors for cards that make you win now.

It's also worth noting that you don't have to cast Grim Tutor to do anything. You still have all the goldfishing power that was available to Iggy Pop in the past, it is just sometimes expanded. When you don't need it, it can sit in your hand just as well as Leyline of the Void, but when you do, it can help to accelerate you out.

As I played the deck more, I've noticed more Chalices in my meta (mostly due to Goblins boarding it and Faerie Stompy, but not entirely since Sun Tower is loaned out when I don't play it). This has led me to reevaluate Wipe Away. It's really good, but I want more variety when playing against hate cards. Instead of replacing Wipe Away, I suggest adding a 2nd MD bounce. I chose Echoing Truth due to its proficiency at removing multiple treats, its cost, as well as nullifying EtW in the combo mirror.

// Grim Iggy

// Manabase
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island/Tundra
1 Bayou/Scrubland
2 Swamp
2 Island

// Accel
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

// Tutors
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Intuition
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Grim Tutor

// Busted
4 Brainstorm
4 Tendrils of Agony
3 Ill-Gotten Gains

// Utility
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away

Deviations form accepted lists are listed in bold. The manabase has been expanded to help against land destruction (smokestack specifically, since i bring it to my meta) and provide a board possibility of Orim's Chant or Xantid Swarm. It was determined through testing that no more than 3 IGG are ever needed since that's all you need to setup Intuition in the worst case scenario. Also, given the extra tutoring power, double Tendrils is easier to setup, encouraged, and Tendrils has been restored to a 4-of. I'm still not sure about the 4th Intuition/4th Grim Tutor. I think that Grim Tutor might be better since it's playable first turn off Dark Rit to setup an immediate win as well as not being wasteful against graveyard hate, but I could be wrong.

I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on these changes. In testing they have been amazing, but I tend to focus my testing on specific hard matchups (control decks tuned against combo, tempo decks maindecking stifle, other combo decks, and prison) without as much testing against aggro.

[Bane of the Living]

Wow that was a long detailed post. Thanks for your insight. Id love to try the deck with Grim Tutor because sometimes Id have the combo loop in place with the need for a tutor to get tendrils. Did your kill turn get any better with the tutors? It seems dire to have Leyline in the sb still. Are you confidant playing the deck with no protection or disruption. Turn 1-2 Mindtwist was one of the decks greatest aspects.

[emidln]

Wow that was a long detailed post. Thanks for your insight. Id love to try the deck with Grim Tutor because sometimes Id have the combo loop in place with the need for a tutor to get tendrils. Did your kill turn get any better with the tutors? It seems dire to have Leyline in the sb still. Are you confidant playing the deck with no protection or disruption. Turn 1-2 Mindtwist was one of the decks greatest aspects.

My protection is double tendrils turn 4-5 due to overwhelming tutoring power. If you count turn 1/2 Leyline + IGG as a win (even though it isn't always depending on play/draw situations and your opponent's deck (it's close, but not a sure thing in some matchups, especially depending on what you have left)) then you might actually go down, but your number of turn 2s should increase significantly, and I find myself going off with Tendrils quite a bit by using a lot of accel and grim tutor to find IGG and then to find Tendrils. It costs more, but it's highly functional if you don't have Infernal/have infernal online (extra lands) (this normally only works off led, but it's possibly elsewhere). I don't have hard numbers, but it feels faster in a goldfish.

[lukatron2]

I like the Idea of Grim Tutor. My question for emidln is this: with the addition of grim tutor, do you find yourself using your rituals in order to cast Grim Tutor more often or less often? If you do it more often, does that hinder your ability to go off as efficiently? I ask because you usually want the rituals when you are going off, but is the 2 for one card often times worth it?...Basically this is gonna sound kinda noobish but can you give an example of how grim tutor speeds up the deck or makes it more consistent? I really like the idea but for some reason it just seems a little clunky...

[emidln]

I like the Idea of Grim Tutor. My question for emidln is this: with the addition of grim tutor, do you find yourself using your rituals in order to cast Grim Tutor more often or less often? If you do it more often, does that hinder your ability to go off as efficiently? I ask because you usually want the rituals when you are going off, but is the 2 for one card often times worth it?...Basically this is gonna sound kinda noobish but can you give an example of how grim tutor speeds up the deck or makes it more consistent? I really like the idea but for some reason it just seems a little clunky...

The only time that I use a ritual to Grim Tutor is when I absolutely must have something now. Usually this situation comes up when I'm about to win, or about to lose. Most of the time, Grim Tutor sits in my my hand and looks expensive. You really don't need Grim Tutor to win, but sometimes situations present themselves where you'd win if your Dark Ritual was an LED. Grim Tutor helps in those situations. Think of Grim Tutor as a backup plan in case things go bad.

[Shriekmaw]

I was looking around for an updated Iggy Pop list and found one posted by the creator of the deck Mike Bomholt.

Iggy Pop 2007

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delata
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Intuition
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Wipe Away

SB

1 Wipe Away
1 Sudden Death
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Defense Grid
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Orim’s Chant

I think added white into the main deck for the sideboard use of Orim's Chant is very appealing for the control matchups that are difficult to win. I would like comments or suggestions on the most current build.

I think its the most powerful deck in Legacy period.

[thebadmagicplayer]

SB

1 Wipe Away
1 Sudden Death
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Defense Grid
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Orim’s Chant

what do you side out for all that bounce?
Also, what do you side in/out in the thresh matchup? there seems to be alot of protection in the side board and i want to know what to do if i'm running this SB or something simmilar and why sudden death.

personally I run 3 chants in the main but I got the idea from this deck so I'd like to know the reasoning behind the SB.

[Shriekmaw]

SB

1 Wipe Away
1 Sudden Death
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
3 Defense Grid
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Orim’s Chant



The Orim's Chants usually come in against a control deck. Some examples would be Landstill and Gro as the major two players. Chant is a must counter for them without the fear of Force of Will, Daze, or Counterspell to worry about. I found that Defense Grid actually works the best if your playing against Gro.

These are my suggestions and tell me what you think.

Gro (w/Meddling Mage)

+3 Defense Grid
+1 Sudden Death
+2 Orim's Chant
+1 Chain of Vapor

-4 Leyline of the Void
-1 Intuition
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Infernal Tutor

Gro (w/o Meddling Mage)

+3 Defense Grid
+4 Orim's Chant

-4 Leyline of the Void
-1 Ill-Gotten Gains
-1 Intuition
-1 Wipe Away

Usually Gro does have a pretty slow clock, so you have plenty of time to set your combo up. I think Defense Grid is your best sb card, because its a must counter, since they don't run that many lands. All the different bounce spells are in there b/c of Meddling Mage since it can name bounce spells if they resolve multiple copies.

This is a tough matchup, but a very winnable one if you sideboard correctly. Tell me what you think. I'm always looking for better sb strategies as this deck is always evolving.

[thebadmagicplayer]

if we only side in 1-2 bounce spells vs. gro, why 4 chain of vapor? I see no point if we put in 3-4 Defence Grids and 1-2 mage killers. essentially we're wasting three to four SB spaces where we could run confidants instead.

[Shriekmaw]

if we only side in 1-2 bounce spells vs. gro, why 4 chain of vapor? I see no point if we put in 3-4 Defence Grids and 1-2 mage killers. essentially we're wasting three to four SB spaces where we could run confidants instead.


If you want to try another card in the board instead of the chain of vapor, thats fine, but I'm against Dark Confidant. He just doesn't do that much for you, expect help our opponents have a quicker clock. I've tried him in my board before but was unimpressed with him. I didn't find one situation where he actually helped me in a given matchup.

I think the added bounce helps you not only against mage, but also against enchantment cards like rule of law.

[Kronicler]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss confidant. He is amazing in TES's board against agro control because their countermagic just can't keep up with the card advantage he provides. The damage might be slightly higher in IGGy because of the increased number of 4cc spells, but don't forget that he can also attack to decrease the storm needed when you combo, or block if the life loss is becoming a problem.

Kronicler

[thebadmagicplayer]

well i'm finally getting around to posting my list so here it goes:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delata
2 Island
2 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brainstorm
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Tendrils of Agony
2 Intuition
4 Mystical Tutor
1 Wipe Away
3 Orim's Chant
SB

1 Echoing Truth
1 Sudden Death
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
4 Defense Grid
4 Engineered Plague
3 Dark Confidant

I have three questions about my list.

1. Am I playing the right number of Ill-gotten Gains?
2. should there be more bounce in the SB?
3. If I was to add 1 Ill-gotten Gains to the main what would you take out?

[Radley]

Orim's chant? I think replacing it with defense grid will be better because you dont have to add another color.

Only 2 intuition? I think 4 of it will make the deck more consistent. Well, wipe away is good but it has 2 blue mana in casting cost though.

[thebadmagicplayer]

i find that two intuition works well and the splash seems stronger and I have Defence Grid in the SB

[Radley]

Actually, intuition is the best card to play(for me). Cast intuition, get 3 IGG if your mana is ok for win. If you use grim tutor, then you cast it to get intuition for you to get 3 IGG or less with a combination of dark rituals/cabal ritual if you got 1 IGG in hand. I haven't tried infernal tutor yet but i guess it would be great, although i would love to use 4 intuition and 4 infernal tutor ^_^

[blarknob]

If you aren't playing infernal tutor then you aren't playing iggy, its probably the best card in the deck. They aren't expensive go get them.

[lukatron2]

did you mean Grim Tutor?...anywho...I think that it would be much more optimal to have 4 IGG than 4 Tendrils...So what I'm saying is cut the 4th tendrils for a 4th IGG

[freakish777]

Playing without Infernal Tutor in this deck isn't bright in my opinion (especially playing Grim over it). Grim doesn't give you a 5 card hand, first turn kill. Grim doesn't "just win" when your opponent has been nailing you with discard when you rip it off the top. That one extra mana is huge.

[Radley]

Playing without Infernal Tutor in this deck isn't bright in my opinion (especially playing Grim over it). Grim doesn't give you a 5 card hand, first turn kill. Grim doesn't "just win" when your opponent has been nailing you with discard when you rip it off the top. That one extra mana is huge.

I mixed 4 infernal contract, 4 cruel bargain, to IGG. these draw 4 cards can make you win turn 1 consistently and turn 2 even more consistent. I also put land grant in for added storm count. The drawback is if your opponent is a red deck with lots of direct dmg. I called my deck Suicidal Storm.

[Radley]

:laugh: LOL:laugh: i always win turn 1 against control decks. My opponent said in my first turn in 2nd game after he lost at turn 3 at first game "So early in the first turn huh?" then logged out. Haven't tested against red decks yet, I'll probably auto lose. I'm wondering what to add

[Bane of the Living]

I mixed 4 infernal contract, 4 cruel bargain, to IGG. these draw 4 cards can make you win turn 1 consistently and turn 2 even more consistent. I also put land grant in for added storm count. The drawback is if your opponent is a red deck with lots of direct dmg. I called my deck Suicidal Storm.

I was gonna say.. your not really playing Iggy anymore. What did you pull out and why did you decide to? I know Land Grant gets the axe in anything that isnt belcher because revealing your hand to a control player, or god forbid someone with Cabal Therapies is usually a bad idea.

[Radley]

Ye, i forgot to put land grant on my deck. maybe that's why its going well :laugh: but usually, when i use land grant, the opponent will be dead that turn.

Suicide Storm:

lands
2 underground sea
4 polluted delta
4 flooded strand
3 island
2 swamp

spells
4 lotus petal
3 ill-gotten gains
3 tendrils of agony
3 impulse
4 brainstorm
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
3 intuition
4 lion's eye diamond
1 wipe away
4 cruel bargain
4 infernal contract
4 infernal tutor
1 Leyline of the void

You win by using rituals and then drawing 4 cards which usually gets you the cards you needed for kill. I can't really call this deck as Iggy pop because i don't really need iggy pop to win because I always dig what i want with the "draw 4 cards" i have.

chrome mox would be a good addition because i always have lots of cards in my hand and can't use all of it, and chrome mox also adds to storm count and is a mana source too. I guess I'll just replace LED with chrome mox. Hmmm.. and add mox diamond? - Actually, mox diamond is better because discarded land will feed the graveyard for threshold.

LED usually waits till you can cast either intuition or infernal tutor, most of the time there's no need to use it because IGG is teh bomb.

I use IGG to produce Lots of mana. The original deck that i made doesn't have IGG and it only gets stuck because mana stops flowing so i decided to add IGG to revive the rituals i used. Then ended up removing night's whisper and added Intuition and then eventually i used most of the iggy pop cards.

I found infernal tutor is utterly useless in the deck but maybe it's a good back up.

[Radley]

Tested against a combo type elves. Elves deck is really slow, my combo goes off with no problem. I really should play against solidarity, goblins vials, and other top decks DX

[ForceofWill]

All I can say is.. 1 leyline WTF?????????? That just threw me for a loop.

[Bane of the Living]

It looks like the leyline makes 61 cards anyways so cut it. Since you dont have Mystical Tutor do you ever feel short on ritual? You dont have a reliable way to get your Wipe Away anymore. LED makes this deck.. Dont remove it from tendrils combo ever.

[Radley]

Everytime i play this deck, i didn't feel the need for a mystic tutor. It puts the instant or sorc on top of library. I guess I'll just put mystical tutor for infernal tutor because i can't hellbent because i removed lion's eye diamond for mox diamond which is more effective. With leyline, it only gets stuck in my hand when i draw cards, i go for quick kill, not set up. I'd remove leyline so the deck will be exactly 60.

Well, you guys test it out and give me feedback what happens. Leyline - Turn 1 discard all cards from opponents hand means you'll win.

[Kronicler]

Dude, you are playing a completely different, much worse deck at this point. And if you somehow wanted to go the draw 4 route I'm sure it could be executed better than you are currently. Try actually playing IGGy Pop, I think you might find it surprisingly good. And BTW never ever EVER suggest cutting LED from Legacy tendrils combo.... ever.

Kronicler

[Radley]

Dude, you are playing a completely different, much worse deck at this point. And if you somehow wanted to go the draw 4 route I'm sure it could be executed better than you are currently. Try actually playing IGGy Pop, I think you might find it surprisingly good. And BTW never ever EVER suggest cutting LED from Legacy tendrils combo.... ever.

Kronicler

LOL.. My deck isn't an iggy pop so don't tell me not to cut LED in iggy pop when my deck is not iggy pop, i know this is worse in some ways but this deck is better in some ways too. i take out LED because i don't depend on IGG most of the time. Cast rituals to cast draw cards then cast 0 casting cards and draw cards, cast rituals - all that can lead to 10 storm count or more, if IGG comes out, it's win more situation. I could do a better draw cards but the only card i can think of is meditate which is a really big draw back rather than losing half of life.

IGGY pop is consistent as it is right now, suicidal storm is consistently faster than iggy pop although the difference is you go down to 1 life so im careful against red decks. IGGY pop comboes out approximately in turn 3, sui storm can combo off turn 1 as long as you got card drawer.

If you compare IGGY pop and sui storm, sui storm has a really big drawback ^^ And I know it.

hmm.. What if i use nefarious lich? I'll try it hahaha. Can't lose the game for 4 black mana. Might work, or might make the deck really stupid. Or probably just a back up against red's direct damage or against winnie decks just in case. Quite a solution :)

ok, kronicler, I'm going to make a new thread for this deck. The addition of nefarious lich might make the deck better or worse.

[emidln]

LOL.. My deck isn't an iggy pop so don't tell me not to cut LED in iggy pop when my deck is not iggy pop, i know this is worse in some ways but this deck is better in some ways too. i take out LED because i don't depend on IGG most of the time. Cast rituals to cast draw cards then cast 0 casting cards and draw cards, cast rituals - all that can lead to 10 storm count or more, if IGG comes out, it's win more situation. I could do a better draw cards but the only card i can think of is meditate which is a really big draw back rather than losing half of life.

IGGY pop is consistent as it is right now, suicidal storm is consistently faster than iggy pop although the difference is you go down to 1 life so im careful against red decks. IGGY pop comboes out approximately in turn 3, sui storm can combo off turn 1 as long as you got card drawer.

If you compare IGGY pop and sui storm, sui storm has a really big drawback ^^ And I know it.

Unless you're consistently killing turn 1 then you're not faster than Iggy Pop. To my knowledge, the only two legacy decks to even put a significant amount of turns one kills up are Belcher and SI. Your deck actually looks like a bad mashing of SI and Iggy Pop. You gained all of the bad elements of SI (lifeloss, random card drawing leading to inconsistency) without the additional mana production or speed that gives you a reason to even play the deck.

To effectively use draw4s against aggro you need to guarantee that your opponent can't deal you 5-10 damage in a single turn. Against Goblins, this is nearly impossible since even a benign turn 1 fanatic, turn 2 piledriver, turn 3 warchief will kill you if you cast even a single draw4. You need increased black mana production that comes from LED, and to an extent Culling the Weak. Also, you seem to ignore the best draw4 in legacy, Meditate, which is in your colors, easy for you to cast, and doesn't mean gg to stuff like lightning bolts or random fanatics.

Modern Iggy Pop (that is, 4 Intuition, 4 Infernal, 4 Leyline, 4 LED builds) average a turn 2.5 kill with around a a 20% chance of a first turn victory due to Leyline of the Void + IGG or Infernal Tutor + 2x LED loops. There is yet another 3-6% of the time where you should be able to build turn 1 kills just with some amount of accel, igg, tendrils and/or tutors. These accel + igg + tutor kills account for a good majority of turn 2 kills. Most of the time Iggy Pop kills on turn 2 or turn 3 undisrupted. In a goldfish, you should throw back hands that don't win before turn 4.

Traditional, pre-Leyline, pre-Infernal Tutor Iggy Pop had a turn 3/4 average kill. The addition of Strategic Planning and Leyline of the Void sped up the deck considerably turning it into a solid turn 3 deck against aggro in the pre-Infernal Tutor period. Later, Strategic Planning would be cut as well to allow essentially two engines, Infernal Tutor/LED/Cabal Rit and Intuition/IGG to work in the same deck, speeding up the deck further to its current state.

In short, your deck isn't Iggy Pop, isn't faster than Iggy Pop, is being designed on flawed logic, and generally looks quite awful. Now, back to our regularly scheduled Iggy Pop discussion.

Anyway, has anyone been testing out the substitution of Grim Tutor for Leyline of the Void/Xantid Swarm? The more I test it, the more I like it against random hate. It seems to make winning through multiple hate cards like Children of Korlis, Tormod's Crypt, Leyline of the Void, and Force of Will a lot easier. The current build I'm playing runs the 15 land fetch/dual/basic config with tundra/scrubland, 2 Intuition, 1 Echoing Truth, 1 Wipe Away, 4 Grim Tutor, 4 IGG, 4 Tendrils, and 1 Orim's Chant MD. I'm experimenting with the lone Chant as a tutor target against control. It seems to be okay so far in the limited testing vs U/W Landstill and 0-0-4 Drop I've had.

[Bane of the Living]

LOL.. My deck isn't an iggy pop so don't tell me not to cut LED in iggy pop when my deck is not iggy pop, i know this is worse in some ways but this deck is better in some ways too. i take out LED because i don't depend on IGG most of the time. Cast rituals to cast draw cards then cast 0 casting cards and draw cards, cast rituals - all that can lead to 10 storm count or more, if IGG comes out, it's win more situation. I could do a better draw cards but the only card i can think of is meditate which is a really big draw back rather than losing half of life.

Wait, your the guy who wanted to put Life from the Loam in goblins arent you? You really should play decks in their current form before implimenting such tenacious changes. Decks like Goblins and Iggy have been very finely tuned already. There are certainly adjustments you can make by preference but things like core engines of decks shouldnt be messed with much. The reason LED is so important in the deck is that its truely black lotus when set up correctly. It works in conjuction with Intuition, IGG, and Infernal Tutor to set up the consistancy the deck contains. Replacing sure fire cards with draw random 4's will surmount to game losses because your gonna see things like Mox Diamond, Draw 4, IGG, Tendrils. Opps now you lose because thats all you have. Mox Diamond is card disadvantage just like Chrome Mox, but if you prefer the moxen acceleration do choose Chrome. The deck is very land light as is, You dont want to draw hands with one land and mox. Chrome Mox, although I dont like it much, can help get something like Leyline out of your hand so you reach hellbent. I know your having problems reaching hellbent but its because of your changes this happens. Once you cast IGG getting back two accelerants and Infernal Tutor, hellbent is never an issue, do what you did with LED and you change IT into Demonic Tutor.

If you really want to build a custom tendrils deck go ahead and try, there have been countless tries at it and in the end there seem to be only 2 successfull versions, Iggy and TES. If you just want to win a turn faster swap over to TES.

Sorry to sound like a dick but your replacing good card choices with bad ones imo. It sounds like you just need to playtest much more with current versions of decks.

[Radley]

Wait, your the guy who wanted to put Life from the Loam in goblins arent you? You really should play decks in their current form before implimenting such tenacious changes. Decks like Goblins and Iggy have been very finely tuned already. There are certainly adjustments you can make by preference but things like core engines of decks shouldnt be messed with much. The reason LED is so important in the deck is that its truely black lotus when set up correctly. It works in conjuction with Intuition, IGG, and Infernal Tutor to set up the consistancy the deck contains. Replacing sure fire cards with draw random 4's will surmount to game losses because your gonna see things like Mox Diamond, Draw 4, IGG, Tendrils. Opps now you lose because thats all you have. Mox Diamond is card disadvantage just like Chrome Mox, but if you prefer the moxen acceleration do choose Chrome. The deck is very land light as is, You dont want to draw hands with one land and mox. Chrome Mox, although I dont like it much, can help get something like Leyline out of your hand so you reach hellbent. I know your having problems reaching hellbent but its because of your changes this happens. Once you cast IGG getting back two accelerants and Infernal Tutor, hellbent is never an issue, do what you did with LED and you change IT into Demonic Tutor.

If you really want to build a custom tendrils deck go ahead and try, there have been countless tries at it and in the end there seem to be only 2 successfull versions, Iggy and TES. If you just want to win a turn faster swap over to TES.

Sorry to sound like a dick but your replacing good card choices with bad ones imo. It sounds like you just need to playtest much more with current versions of decks.

should my previous posts affect m post in here and my future posts? Really, I guess you just intend to flame me, yes? (I guess you just saw what i posted and said WTF and replied to the first thing you saw and never read it. Anyway, I don't intend to post about that deck in this thread any further so anyone who will see the previous posts, don't bother to flame me any longer.

Things i clarified already but you didn't read my post:
I don't need hellbent. I need threshold.
The reason i used mox diamond is because i draw too much so discarding a land is not a problem.
There is alot of cards that lets you win in this deck that's why drawing 4 cards doesn't randomly win you games. there are cards like Intuition, IGG, 8 draw 4 cards. brainstorm, intuition and you won't get stuck with mana.
I removed infernal tutor because i removed LED, i put mystical tutor in.
The adition of nefarious lich(protection from direct dmg) and Defense grid(protection from direct dmg and conterspells) makes the deck better.

and hey bane, you don't sound like a dick, you are a dick.

Flames not needed

-PR