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TheInfamousBearAssassin
07-14-2006, 07:35 PM
This is a list I played at the second Duel for Duals last weekend; tournament report can be found here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3796).

4x Savannah
4x Scrubland
4x Bayou
4x Windswept Heath
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Swamp
2x Plains
2x Forest

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Vindicate
3x Wrath of God

3x Sensei's Divining Top

3x Krosan Tusker (I loveded you piggy! I loveded you!)
3x Eternal Dragon
2x Grave-Shell Scarab
2x Gigapede
2x Haunting Echoes

Edit: -2 Decree of Justice, -1 Vindicate, +3 Sensei's Divining Top, -1 Savannah for +1 Polluted Delta, and replaced Gerrard's Verdict with Hymn To Tourach

SB:
4x Loxodon Hierach
4x Eternal Witness
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Infest


The deck's overall strategy is to be as vulnerable to Wasteland as it wants in favor of simply touching on all the best control cards and kill conditions across the three best control colors in the game. It runs an arsenal of powerful removal, some disruption, and an array of extremely hard to deal with kill conditions, the sixth of which attacks not the life total but the library (Echoes).

Individual card choices:

Bayou/Scrubland/Savannah- Fuck Wasteland.

Windswept Heath- Grabs basics of either color.

2x each Basic- Allows for some more enduring land drops and fuel for Krosan Tusker, and allows you to not cry at Ruination.

1x Mire- The best 23rd land I could think of. Smoothes the mana a bit while allowing another basic swamp that can, if need by, not be.

Pernicious Deed- The most versatile and efficent board sweeper in the game.

Wrath of God- The most efficent creature sweeper.

Vindicate- The most versatile pin-point destruction spell at a reasonable cost.

Swords to Plowshares- The most efficent 1-for-1 creature removal spell in the game.

Duress- The most efficent 1 cc discard spell.

Hymn to Tourach- Slightly harder to cast than Gerrard's Verdict, but very usually doable with 16 black sources and back breaking a large part of the time, helping a lot more against both Goblins and Solidarity.

Eternal Dragon- Colorless mana fixing and a late-game, recurring airborne threat.

Krosan Tusker- a 2-for-1, uncounterable mana accelerant and digger that transforms into an additional beatstick late game; while 7 mana isn't efficent, 6/5 is relevantly huge, able to kill every threat in Goblins or Threshold, including post-board Patrons, and seldom trading.

Gigapede/Grave-Shell Scarab- Swords proof, counter proof beaters. Gigapede is a little better against aggro-control/combo, and Grave-shell is a little better against aggro and decks running tons of removal.

Sensei's Divining Top- Combos with infinite shuffle effects to provide long-term card quality and keep up in the mid-to-late game, as well as stabilizing mana early game.

SB Choices

Loxodon Hierach- Almost maindecked. A remarkably well costed beater and defensive specialist.

Eternal Witness- Recurs your most relevant cards; usually sided in in place of discard against aggro, or in place of control against combo. Combos with Therapy nicely.

Cabal Therapy- Additional discard and a combo with Witness.

Infest- Early board sweeper against Goblins.



Debatable Slots:

Vindicate- This deck has no dedicated LD strategy. While it is the card's role against Solidarity, it still doesn't make game 1 amazing, meaning Vindicate is mostly a fleible Disenchant/Dark Banishing slot. This is acceptable, but it makes me question the 4x. I'd be comfortable going down to 3, I think.

DoJ- The deck suffers from potentially too many kill conditions in an aggro/combo heavy meta like we say at the D4D, making me want to cut one, and DoJ pulls the least weight, not really being useful until turns 6-7 most of the time.

Krosan Tusker- I love the card, but I'm a bit biased. It might be better off as Sakura Tribe Elder, Yavimaya Elder, or Wall of Blossom.

Eternal Dragon- Same as above. The danger is in figuring out how many kill conditions you can actually safely cut.


Other Options:

Condemn- It might improve the goblins matchup, or aggro in general, to add 1 or 2 of these for StP 5-6. The question is if it's close enough to StP to run, and if the deck needs more StPs.

Sensei's Divining Top- Synergy with a ton of shufflers, and a way to spend excess mana and improve the late game a bit more.

Sakura-Tribe Elder/Yavimaya Elder/Wall of Blossoms- Additional chumpage/dig/manastabilizing. The latter two having much greater synergy with Cabal Therapy post board, obviously.


Matchups:

Goblins- Unfavored. It's too easy for them to keep your mana base disrupted. That said, it's far from unwinnable, you just want to keep them off their feet long enough to get fat down or Echoes away their muscle. Sideboard: -4 Duress -2 Gigapede, -1 Krosan Tusker, -1 Eternal Dragon, -2 Grave-Shell Scarab, +3 Infest, +3 Loxodon Hierach, +4 Eternal Witness

Solidarity- Hard matchup. Very hard. You need to draw all the right cards to win this game 1. Try to keep them off cards with discard, Vindicate land when you can, and try to get out a fast threat to take advantage of the lull in their plans. Sideboard: -4 StP, -3 Wrath of God, -4 Deed, -1 Haunting Echoes/Graveshell Scarab (the former on the draw, the latter on the play); +4 Cabal Therapy, +4 Eternal witness, +4 Loxodon Hierarch.

Threshold- Autowin. No, seriously. I know I said Train Wreck was a near autowin, but the difference was that once in a great while Threshold could race Train Wreck out. If you have land and you haven't drawn removal for all their threats, it means you've drawn creatures that kill them in combat instead. SB: +4 Hierarch, +4 Witness. I'd change what I sided out depending on the build and who was on the play, but discard, DoJ/E.Dragon, and Wrath of God are all potentially fair game. Vindicate is tempting to side out, but does kill Needles naming Deed. Speaking of which, I'd always side out 1 Deed so that Needle never completely rapes you, but in general I think I'd cut out 1 card here or 2 there rather than bring out the entire playset of any one card as all of them are pretty good in this matchup.

Rifter- Autowin. Discard + Deed + Haunting Echoes + No Good Swords targets... well, you don't want to activate too many cyclers while Rift is in play and mana is untapped, but otherwise it's a cakewalk. Vindicating land is fun too. Sideboard: -4 StP, -3 Wrath of God, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Cabal Therapy. Try to Witness back Vindicate as many times as possible and keep them off of one color of mana, probably Red.

Angel Stompy- Heavily favored. Their biggest threat is their Equipment, but that opens them up to Deed. Post-board, Armageddon is threatening, but you can easily have a threat out by the time they can support it, and you run more land to recover quicker than them anyway. -8 Discard spells, +4 Hierarch, +4 Witness.

Suicide- I had little trouble with this matchup, actually, which surprised me. The discard and LD failed to make up for the difference in threat density and creature quality; I could always topdeck creature removal while my opponent ripped gradually weakening LD or hand disruption, and my opponent could never adequately deal with the fact that my creatures crushed his in a fair fight. Barring turn 1 Negator/Hyppie in lack of an StP, this is quite favorable

Deadguy Ale- See above, only more so as Deadguy really must try to play an aggro role it's less suited for in this matchup. In both cases sb would be; -8 Discard, -2 DoJ, -1 Wrath of God; +4 Loxodon Hierarch, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Infest.

Salvagers Combo- You know, I expected this to be bad as well, but both Legoman and I found this deck ridiculously easy to beat. Every card but Wrath of God is good in some way against them. Non-land permanents are clearly < than this deck. SB: -3 Wrath of God, -2 DoJ, -1 Eternal Dragon, +3 Cabal Therapy, +3 Eternal Witness

Angel Stax- 2 kill conditions, reliance on non-land permanents, vulnerability to hand-disruption. This matchup was also surprisingly favorable. Keep pressure off the board, and the only real threat is Smokestack. SB: -4 StP, -3 Wrath of God, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Therapy/Hierarch (former on the play, latter on the draw).

Burn- A really difficulty matchup. Your clock is half of theirs. Verdict is a bomb, but it's your only one MD. SB: -4 Pernicious Deed, -3 Wrath of God, -2 DoJ, -1 Eternal Dragon, -1 Krosan Tusker, +4 Loxodon Hierach, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Cabal Therapy

Anarky87
07-15-2006, 02:09 AM
I actually liked the idea of this when I read your report. The list looks pretty good, but I would like to see a way for you to work Top into the deck. I ran a G/B/W deck in Standard (I know, not really that comparable), but it also ran 3 Top and just the ability to keep digging constantly to find answers is huge.

I was actually looking for a way to port that deck to 1.5, but it looks like you got a good start on it. This is what I was running in Type 2:

4 Temple Garden
2 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamps
4 Plains
7 Forests

4 BoP
4 Tribe Elder
4 Hierarch
3 Carven Caryatid
2 Grave-Shell Scarab

4 Kodama's Reach
4 Mortify
3 Putrefy
2 Condemn
4 Wrath of God
3 Top
2 Golgari Signet

Top and Elder were pretty rock solid in this limited environment. So I knew the possibilities would be great in Legacy.

despo
07-15-2006, 04:08 AM
Why don't you play eternal witness main? It looks like you side it in every time and it's a great card of course.

With all that vulnerability to wasteland and LD in general, why not side life from the loam? It probably won't do much against goblins, but against decks like Train Wreck or Deadguy it might be great.

Bane of the Living
07-15-2006, 08:47 AM
Where are the sideboarded Therapies you mentioned like 5 times? I think this deck would work much better if it ran 4 witness, 4 lox, and 4 elder maindeck. Then you can squeeze therapy in over verdict. A terrible card imo.

How's your combo matchup? It looks like you mull to Duress and hope to resolve a game winning echoes?

Tao
07-15-2006, 11:12 AM
- 2 Scarab
- 2 Gigapede
+ 4 Loxodon Hierarch

I am very sure about this. The deck doesn't need any creatures that dodge Removal. You still have more fat than they have removal and you have DoJ and Echoes. If it gets sworded it gained you 8 Life with card parity (protecting E Dragon from that Sword) - call it Renewed Faith on steroids. If Red Gro or Beatz start targeting it with red spells- duh.
Hierarch kills like the others every creature Gro and Goblins have on the Ground, it is faster against combodecks. Hierarch is furthermore the obvious bomb against R/G Beatz things and Burn. And against Deadguy, where you fight for every Mana it shines, too.

Furthermore the inclusion of Sensei's Divining Top seems great for the deck. But I am not sure what to cut. Maybe Tusker...

Evil Roopey
07-16-2006, 02:20 PM
Am I missing something here? If this deck is supposed to be a joke, it's not very funny.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
07-16-2006, 04:00 PM
I suppose I could always do impersonations of my girlfriend and/or anonymous internet strangers to keep the thread interesting. I'd hate to tread into the domain of plagiarism, though. I'm afraid you're going to have to settle for things as is.

re Top: Top is definitely in. -2 DoJ, -1 Vindicate, +3 Top.

re The Board: It is noticeable that 8 of the cards in the sideboard are incredibly maindeckable (Witness and Hierarch) and that I often side them in. The thing to note is that they're siding in for very different cards every game. Control by it's nature tends to have the wrong answers to the wrong threats fairly often. I could cut discard for maindeck Witness/Hiearch, but that would make combo unwinnable g1 and make Threshold much more difficult. I could cut creature control for Hierach/Witness, but that'd make aggro, Goblins, and Angel Stompy much worse. G1 keeps the strongest control elements possible for most matchups and then g2 switches out the weakest elements for quality filler.

Hymn to Tourach; I'm testing out Hymns in place of Verdicts with -1 Savannah, +1 Polluted Delta.

Hierach; This might be a good move in a Sui/Deadguy or Zoo/Burn dominated meta. Against Threshold I've found Gigapede and Grave-Shell to be amazing as they dodge both StP and counterspells. They also kill a Werebear and come back for the next one, which has been quite relevant in testing.

Lego
07-16-2006, 07:59 PM
This is like that Thunder Blugg thing, isn't it? "Krosan Tusker"? Yeah right, that thing doesn't even exist.

Seriously, Hymn to Tourach, still testing. It feels better late game that Verdict does, but I too often have it in my opening hand with no way to cast it. It has yet to be relevant that I couldn't cast it turn 2 (i.e. losing me the game) but I haven't tested it extensively versus combo. So I'm still up in the air.

@ Krosan Tusker: In all seriousness, should this guy be something else? I thought about cutting Dragon, but I have won too many games wherein I cycled this guy early, went about my thing, and then as soon as I had put the game away he came back and I didn't have to wait around for a win condition while my opponent fought his way back into the game. Krosan Tusker never comes back, which is why I'm wondering if something like Sakura-Tribe Elder might be better in the Goblins matchup, where he can chump. Then again, Tusker draws you into more relevant early-game stuff against Solidarity. But Sak Elder ramps you up a turn, which could be huge. I haven't tested him, but I think I will (the deck just wouldn't be the same without the Piggy)

@ Top: I haven't looked back. This thing is so good at finding you that one card you need to put the game away. Some games I've needed Pernicious Deeds or Haunting Echoes and late game you will often have enough mana to to look, bring back Eternal Dragon, cycle, look, grab a cycler or a fetchland on your draw, look again, fetch, look again. It just breaks a lot of stalemates is all I'm saying.

@ Board: The only one of these that I would consider maindeck is the Eternal Witness, but I'd be hesitant to cut anything out of the main. Jack explained this exactly how I would have.

P.S. Edit the opening post to reflect the awesomeness that is Top with 11 shuffle effects (not to mention the near-awesomeness of Top + Scarab)

Tao
07-16-2006, 08:35 PM
It is f.. time that Divining Top finds its way into Legacy. It won me more games than I can count with Survival. You should increase your Fetchland count by 1 or 2 to support it more.

Hierarch is still better than Scarab and Gigapede. Aside from the obvious Burn and Deadguy / Sui matchup it is good vs Gro, too. Gro's only chance is a fast rush and Hierarch stops that. The mana base will get better, too, if the deck doesn't need GG anymore.

What about Regrowth? Witness is nice, but expansive and in one slot with Tusker, Deed and Vindicate. Regrowth can work as a land drop together with fetchlands, it can recur Swords and Duress really fast and it works as late game bomb when it recurs Wrath, Deed or a countered Echoes. Together with Divining Top you can go down to 21-22 lands without weakening the Mana base.

But why do I say it: IBA will surely about about the raw power of Regrowth from the Helldozer.dec

Suggested changes:

- 1/2 lands /Tusker
- 2 Gigapede
- 2 Scarab
+ 3 Hierarch
+ 3 Regrowth

Playing Regrowth would cut the Witness/Therapy plan from the SB.

Lego
07-16-2006, 11:21 PM
It is f.. time that Divining Top finds its way into Legacy. It won me more games than I can count with Survival. You should increase your Fetchland count by 1 or 2 to support it more.

At times I've wanted more fetches, but with 6 there already (I miscounted, forgetting that I added another for Hymn) I'm not sure it's needed. I'll test another though.


Hierarch is still better than Scarab and Gigapede. Aside from the obvious Burn and Deadguy / Sui matchup it is good vs Gro, too. Gro's only chance is a fast rush and Hierarch stops that. The mana base will get better, too, if the deck doesn't need GG anymore.

I'm not sure that Hierarch *is* better than those dudes. A lot of games are won by being able to recur your win conditions and the fact that they dodge the most played forms of removal. Hierarch doesn't do this. There has also never been a time in testing when Hierarch would stop a fast rush that Scarab or Gigapede wouldn't also stop. Also, by the time you have 5 mana (let's hope it's turn 5, because the whole point is that you don't miss any land drops) if you don't have GG, you had some pretty F***ed up land drops (or you screwed up somewhere.) I've not had a problem hitting GG, even dropping a Savannah. With 15 green lands plus Krosan Tusker and Eternal Dragon, your mana base won't really get ay better by taking out one of only two GG spells you support (the other of which is rarely hardcast, and is done way late game if it is)


What about Regrowth? ....... Playing Regrowth would cut the Witness/Therapy plan from the SB.

I thought about Regrowth as well, but that last part is pretty much the reason I decided against it. Regrowth plays one role: recur your cards. Witness plays another two roles: beat, and recur Therapy. While I will often advocate Regrowth over Witness for the one mana difference, here I'd rather have the Witness. The point in this deck over Train Wreck is to have an actual clock, and in the combo matches where you'll be using the Witness a lot, she not only utterly destroys your opponent's hand in combination with Therapy, but she also begins the clock that is so crucial. She's usually a bunch better against Goblins, too.

The GG was my biggest problem with her, but in testing that's been pretty easy to get. Turn 2 I often have problems getting double single colored mana (BB or GG), especially depending on what I want to play turn 1 and 2 (which is why I'm still iffy on Hymn), but turn 3 and later I find I've often got two of every color, and rarely don't have the two I need. She isn't always cast on turn 3, because you want to use that Vindicate or drop a Deed early, so I haven't yet had a problem casting her.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-08-2006, 06:48 PM
Somewhat dissapointing results from the Dual Land Draft. I lost to having to play 2/3 of the Goblin decks there and generally poor matchups, with Solidarity and quicksilver's BurningWish/Discard/Survival madness insanity deck. Not to mention my Raffinity opponent's insane draws.

Lego also played the deck and lost to wasting time, making mistakes, and getting two draws in matchups that he should've won.

Both of us ran about the same list and found absolutely no problems with it, so the changes for the Tops and Hymns in place of Verdicts are going to be permanent.

Zilla
08-08-2006, 08:46 PM
Somewhat dissapointing results from the Dual Land Draft.
I want my 2 dollars.

Lego
08-08-2006, 10:49 PM
My thoughts on the deck after the DLD are this:

1) Don't change a single card maindeck or sideboard
2) Don't be a dick, because you'll lose to yourself thinking it was your opponent
3) The deck does requires a lot of thinking, but learn to do that thinking quickly, because going to time sucks.

I went to time in literally every single one of my matchups except for vs. Herbig, who was playing Solidarity (and I think we came close to going to time anyway.) Play quickly, and you should be golden. I was messing around a lot during this tournament (as is evidenced by the fact that I boarded out Duress against Burning Tog because I felt bad for PR) and had I not been doing so, I fully believe that I would have T8ed. Given a little luck, there is nothing in the format that this deck cannot beat. That doesn't mean everything is easy, but there were only two games all tournament wherein I didn't feel completely in control of the game, and one of those was due to drawing 8 out of my 10 win conditions despite a Sensei's Divining Top (the other was because I was playing against Herbig.)

One of the best reasons, I think, to play this deck in a large tournament is that you'll never get bored playing it. It just seems like every game plays out differently, and you win a different way each time. Give it a bit of serious testing and you'll see what a powerhouse it seriously is. I was dissapointed a couple of times with my playskill, but never with the deck.

frogboy
08-09-2006, 04:51 PM
Why would you not play four Sensei's Divining Top?

kirdape3
08-09-2006, 05:31 PM
I would actually consider the Kamigawa dragons for some finishers. Yosei and Kokusho in particular are awfully nice - either they kill it or you have a 5/5 flier for (C)(C)4.

Aggro_zombies
08-09-2006, 05:39 PM
I would actually consider the Kamigawa dragons for some finishers. Yosei and Kokusho in particular are awfully nice - either they kill it or you have a 5/5 flier for (C)(C)4.
...or they StP it and nothing happens.

Seriously, though, the prevalence of Swords to Plowshares (in decks like Thresh and Rifter among others) makes these guys less sexy than they otherwise would be. I've been tempted to run the Kami Dragons in decks before but have always been kinda leery about it because of StP. Granted, you could just board the dragons out against decks packing Swords, but I'm pretty sure that either those are the matchups that could benefit most from a 5/5 flying clock or the matchups where the dragons are good were already decent for you with the deck as-is. Now, maybe if you had an instant-speed sacrifce outlet so you trigger the dragon in response to a Swords...

kirdape3
08-09-2006, 06:28 PM
So run Miren, the Moaning Well.

If they run a Plow at a Dragon, good beats. It's when they don't or they don't have Plows in their deck is when I'd be happy to have them.

Lego
08-09-2006, 09:53 PM
Kadi and I were talking about Yosei a bit at the DLD, but it doesn't solve any problems that the deck has right now. They don't speed up your clock or provide any significant advantage over the creature base currently being run.

If you replaced Eternal Dragon or Krosan Tusker, you're reducing the efficiency both of your mana base and of Sensei's Divining Top, while also removing a recurring beat stick. Krosan Tusker is the most likely candidate, but he's not dead in the early game, whereas the Kamigawa Dragons are. If you instead replace Grave-Shell Scarab or Gigapede, you're going to make a lot of matchups worse. Don't underestimate the power of recurring creatures that are immune to swords. These guys combined give you huge game against a ridiculous number of decks.

@frogboy: The reason not to go to 4 Tops is twofold: First, while a second Top is not technically dead (because of all the shuffle effects) it is certainly not as good as something relevant. 4 Tops will increase the number of mulligans you take, albeit slightly, and decrease the number of answers you will find once Top is active. That's really the second reason right there: adding another Top decreases your relevant card count. There's nothing I would really want to take out for the 4th Top, and I hate seeing a Top on top when I look with Top.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-09-2006, 09:55 PM
Not running colorless producing lands in a three color deck is one of the ways in which I feel this deck is an improvement over something like Dirt. The problems the deck faces are also unadressed by adding 6cc threats that don't do anything earlier on and aren't that resilent.

The fourth top is a thought, but there's not that much to cut except conceivably the 23rd land or an E. Dragon.

bigbear102
08-12-2006, 04:27 AM
Ok, instead of arguing throughout like 3 different threads, lets just do it here Jack.

The 61st card is a preference, and I will always run it, so that's that. And the 61st card was the 4th Vindicate. Later on when I ran smother I replaced an E. Dradon with Witness main so that I could still have 4 total. I believe it is the right move, as if I didn't do it then the board would become unbalanced and therefore I would have to cut another card. The reason I played Witness main is that it is essentially any card you already have maindeck.

I also thought about Condemn in the Smother spot, but decided against it. Two main reasons. The first is not as important, but pro white creatures are already dodging swords (Orders instead of shades in deadguy, but that matchups already great), and the more important reason is that they don't have to be attacking. Spot removal is X times better when it can be played whenever. Also, if they know you are playing condemn then they may play differently, Smother doesn't give them that advantage. I didn't board it to deal with Lackey as you may have thought, it takes care of any 2nd turn goblin. Hitting a warchief BEFORE they declare attackers is usually good. Funeral Charm is just not good enough removal. If you are going to play a removal spell, play one that will remove more creatures. Again, this was not a move to kill Lackey, it was to shore up the overall goblin match, which it did very well.

For the record, boarding against Goblins normally looked like this, for me at least,

-4 Vindicate
-4 Duress
-1 Deed
-1 Hymn
-1 Dragon
-1 Tusker

+4 Hierarch
+3 Witness
+2 Infest
+3 Smother

I also have to say that I didn't encounter the problem with going to time that often. It was hard against goblins if you lose game 1 to win games 2 and 3, but other than that it was actually reasonably quick. Compared to my matches I used to have with Wombat, this deck seems to be a bit quicker. I'm not sure what the difference is, but I was fine with most matches.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-12-2006, 02:35 PM
Is there a reason, if you wanted to run 61 cards and keep 4 Witnesses between main and board, you didn't move one of the Smothers maindeck, since that card actually compliments a maindeck strategy you already have?


And yeah, no, having a better combo matchup in exchange for a worse Goblin matchup in a metagame shifting that way is only part of the reason I've switched to Truffle Shuffle from Train Wreck. It also just has a better matchup against the clock. 5cc insect beats for the win.


Related to other matters, my stance on discard against Deadguy Ale/Red Death:

Now, while a large majority of this experience is with other decks like the Rock, Jack Black or Train Wreck, my experience with discard was that initially, I felt the same way you did; I want to keep in my Duress/Hymn to hit his Duress/Hymn as well as Sinkholes, Vindicates, whatever. However... in actual testing in game after game, I noticed a trend. The first Duress or Hymn I drew would be useful. It would get rid of something threatening that I didn't want to deal with. However... every time, the aggro black decks will empty their hands getting rid of your resources so fast that the rest are all just dead cards. It compounds their disruption by giving them more free discard. This is why my strategy against these decks is to side out all discard for more cards that are useful off of the top, which is where I switch to playing the game from. Offering also that these decks are so light on creatures that removal is golden against them, I'm not sure what you could possibly have rather had in the side than the dead discard spells.

Against Deadguy I'd also switch out Wrath for Infest, but that's neither here nor there.

legacyplayer0
08-12-2006, 02:47 PM
Boarding out all your wraths leaves you more vulnerable to Phyrexian Negator.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-12-2006, 02:51 PM
Hence why I would only do it against Deadguy, which doesn't run Negator. It's also not hawt against Nantuko Shade and Rotting Giant, more reasons not to do so against Red Death.

Kadishack
08-12-2006, 02:52 PM
Boarding out all your wraths leaves you more vulnerable to Phyrexian Negator.

You would still be able to fall back on deed. Deed can whipe Deadguy or Red Death's board. So you wouldn't be completely vulnerable.

Great job Abold!! Wanna sell some of those packs?

Ridiculous Hat
08-12-2006, 04:14 PM
61 cards is always a mistake. Literally every single time.

Whit3 Ghost
08-12-2006, 04:38 PM
Really? I run 61 in a lot of decks and it hasn't been a big deal. Why do you think.(I would love a pro's opinion)

Lego
08-12-2006, 11:02 PM
If you have a StarCityGames Account, go read this article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/12478.html

It's about why 61 cards is always bad. Essentially it boils down to the fact that if you're playing 61 cards, one of them has to be less optimal than all the others. Chapin does a good job of explaining it.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-13-2006, 03:01 AM
The flaw in that, particularly in a control deck, is that every card has a different function, so it's hardly a straight up case of StP being worse than Wrath of God or Gigapede or Hymn to Tourach. There's an argument to be made for wanting an exact percentage of some function, but it is incredibly unlikely that getting one percentage of a certain cardtype down to an exact decimal point is more relevant than having a more consistent ratio of land and spells. There's probably a .1% of the time when 61 cards would be correct, but I don't think I'd ever rely on my math for this one. However, I might run 61 cards if I was doing some tweaking relatively late and I thought it was likely more dangerous to cut a particular card without certainty that it was the correct cut.

Lego
08-13-2006, 10:04 PM
I might run 61 cards if I was doing some tweaking relatively late and I thought it was likely more dangerous to cut a particular card without certainty that it was the correct cut.

This makes sense in this particular situation, but I have trouble accepting a 61 card decklist as optimal. I'm not saying it's not possibly the case, especially in a control deck (and one with Sensei's Divining Top, hawt) but something in me would cringe if someone asked me how I would build this deck, and I gave them a 61 card main.

Goblin Snowman
08-14-2006, 03:51 PM
61 card main = Super Secret Solidarity Tech :cool:

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-14-2006, 05:55 PM
It was mainly a technical, trivial point, Lego. The point is that there are technical times when due to precise percentages and a roughly equivalent power level in the different elements in your deck, 61 cards might be correct. However, the math would be so precise and difficult to calculate correctly that you're almost always going to be wrong to run the 61 cards.

nightshade81
08-14-2006, 10:28 PM
I was wondering why run Sensei's Divining Top over Sylvan Library since your playing green? With the Divining Top you commit one mana per turn more, and the fact Sylvan Library is super sexy with Grave-Shell Scarab.

Just a random thought.

noobslayer
08-14-2006, 10:38 PM
They're both super sexy with GSC. What's your point? SDT can also pull a card from the top 3 at any time; not just during your draw step.

Phantom
08-14-2006, 10:42 PM
They're both super sexy with GSC. What's your point? SDT can also pull a card from the top 3 at any time; not just during your draw step.

Also, SDT can dodge Deed.

nightshade81
08-14-2006, 11:54 PM
Well the super sexiness I was referring to was the card advantage factor not the dredge cards you don't like factor. I guess both are super sex but I was just trying to illustrate the sexier-ness of Sylvan Library w/ dredge.

Lego
08-15-2006, 01:09 AM
Well the super sexiness I was referring to was the card advantage factor not the dredge cards you don't like factor. I guess both are super sex but I was just trying to illustrate the sexier-ness of Sylvan Library w/ dredge.

The reason to run Top is that you run 12 shuffle effects. Late game, Sylvan Library showing three lands gives you nothing but one of those three. You don't ever get to see a new three, and you have to pay life if you desperately need more than one card on top. With Top, any shuffle effect in play, in your hand, or in one of those top 3 rewards you with a fresh three, allowing you to find the Answer/Threat that you need much faster. It's great early game when you aren't doing too much with your mana, and late game it's an absolute bomb. In one game I looked, cycled Dragon, looked again, popped a fetch, looked again, untapped, returned dragon, cycled, and looked again, finally finding the Deed that I needed FTW. Much more useful than the Library.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-15-2006, 01:24 AM
Sylvan Library comboes just fine with shuffle effects. It's the slight early game tempo boost as well as the ability to dodge Deed, combined with the lack of life gain, that makes Top the better choice, although I've always liked Sylvan Library.

emidln
08-15-2006, 01:24 AM
The reason to run Top is that you run 12 shuffle effects. Late game, Sylvan Library showing three lands gives you nothing but one of those three. You don't ever get to see a new three, and you have to pay life if you desperately need more than one card on top. With Top, any shuffle effect in play, in your hand, or in one of those top 3 rewards you with a fresh three, allowing you to find the Answer/Threat that you need much faster. It's great early game when you aren't doing too much with your mana, and late game it's an absolute bomb. In one game I looked, cycled Dragon, looked again, popped a fetch, looked again, untapped, returned dragon, cycled, and looked again, finally finding the Deed that I needed FTW. Much more useful than the Library.

This is a flawed argument. You can just as easily use shuffle effects on your upkeep to get a new three cards from a Library.

Lego
08-15-2006, 01:55 AM
This is a flawed argument. You can just as easily use shuffle effects on your upkeep to get a new three cards from a Library.

Sylvan Library only works once during your draw step, so a shuffle effect will allow you to remove the two you put back last turn, seeing three fresh cards, but it does not by any means approach the sort of searching ability that Top can provide. With multiple shuffle effects late game, you can see 3 new cards multiple times. And if you have no shuffle effects, but there is one on top, drawing into it with Top in play, you can immediately use it to see three new cards, whereas with Sylvan Library, drawing into a shuffle effect will only let you see new cards on the following turn.

Ridiculous Hat
08-15-2006, 02:34 AM
Library is perhaps more powerful, but it's also more vulnerable and significantly harder to use. Top gives you instant gratification, is impossible to kill and lets you abuse shuffle effects to act as impromptu impulses.

frogboy
08-15-2006, 02:57 AM
There was also someone complaining about drawing multiple Tops. First, that rarely happens. Second, it's insane in the opening grip, so you always want to have one. Third, you can cash in extras for sweet stuff when you use your shuffling effects.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-25-2006, 09:35 AM
My current list I will be playing at the Mana Leak Open presuming I can get my cards back from Bigbear and don't just end up playing Solidarity:

2x Forest
2x Plains
2x Swamp
4x Windswept Heath
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Polluted Delta
4x Bayou
4x Scrubland
3x Savannah

3x Krosan Tusker
2x Grave-Shell Scarab
2x Gigapede

4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Duress
2x Haunting Echoes

4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Wrath of God

3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Gaea's Blessing


SB:
4x Loxodon Hierarch
4x Eternal Witness
4x Cabal Therapy/Mesmeric Fiend?
3x Smother


Changes:

Eternal Dragon: This was cut because basically I was finding that way too much of the time I was never casting him and never recurring him. He was just a little bit slower than the deck wanted to be, and ended up as just a Lay of the Land most of the time.

To replace the Dragons, the 4th Vindicate was one of the first choices. I also thought a long time about the 4th Top, but after testing against Gro a lot, I decided against it. It opens you up far too much to Needle, which is by far their best card against you already. There's no sense in weakening your best highly prevalent matchup, really.

Gaea's Blessing- I ended up with these partly as an extra little bit against Solidarity, partly because they fulfill the role of mini-Tuskers, giving you both a shuffle for your Top and a card draw. It also fights off Threshold, keeps up your card quality, lets you recycle back through your best cards or even just more land when facing LD, and digs.


SB Smother over Infest: I suppose in the 4x Waste, 4x Port builds, keeping alive in the early game against Goblins is more difficult and vital than clearing the board once you've gotten to three mana. This is still in the pretty early testing phase.


I'm considering Mesmeric Fiend over Cabal Therapy as a possible answer to Iggy Pop. Glowrider would be another consideration here.

A Banana
08-28-2006, 12:26 PM
Gaea's Blessing- I ended up with these partly as an extra little bit against Solidarity, partly because they fulfill the role of mini-Tuskers, giving you both a shuffle for your Top and a card draw. It also fights off Threshold, keeps up your card quality, lets you recycle back through your best cards or even just more land when facing LD, and digs.

I'm not quite sold on this arguement. It seems to me that any experianced Solidarity player can play around the blessings, and if they serve as mini Tuskers, than I would just cut one and run a fourth Tusker. I also don't buy that this helps against LD, as it just shuffles the lands back into your library, which doesn't seem to help a substantial amound. Of course, we do have STD to consider, which does make Gaea's Blessing an OK investmint against LD, but that gives you a pretty shitty two card combo, which consists on one useless card. It does fight Thresh, but it seems you already do fine against thresh, or you would be running more thresh hate, and more effective thresh hate. Tormod's Crypt is so much more effective against thresh. I would definately cut at least one Blessing, and probably two.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-28-2006, 04:05 PM
I don't necessarily consider Blessing the strongest card, although tricks with Dredge and Top, as well as fighting graveyard effects like Life from the Loam, Crucible, and Threshold have been effective for me so far. Nonetheless, what would be the suggested alternative? While I wouldn't mind 4 Tusker in theory, that makes the mana curve of the deck really high. I could consider something like 2x MD Smother or Edict, which would improve aggro matchups slightly, but offer less utility. Or Condemn, even. I'd like to make the mana curve smoother rather than worse, however.

Lego
08-28-2006, 09:37 PM
I don't necessarily consider Blessing the strongest card, although tricks with Dredge and Top, as well as fighting graveyard effects like Life from the Loam, Crucible, and Threshold have been effective for me so far. Nonetheless, what would be the suggested alternative? While I wouldn't mind 4 Tusker in theory, that makes the mana curve of the deck really high. I could consider something like 2x MD Smother or Edict, which would improve aggro matchups slightly, but offer less utility. Or Condemn, even. I'd like to make the mana curve smoother rather than worse, however.

My first thought was to throw in a couple of Eternal Witnesses, clearing up some space in the board, but from turn 3 onward, the deck usually has plenty to do. I'm still not sure the Eternal Witness aren't maindeck worthy, but I would rather start by testing something that fits lower in the curve.

I've considered Sakura-Tribe Elder, although never tested it. As a 2-of it doesn't seem horrible, as it would probably do something for the aggro matchup. It seems a little bit better than Dragon while filling virtually the same role.

xsockmonkeyx
08-28-2006, 10:51 PM
I am of the opinion that the Gaea's Blessings are underrated in this deck and should be perhaps be increased to a 3 of. With all the shuffling and drawing going on the GB provides too much pseudo-CA not to be included in the build.

The defense that GB provides against weak Solidarity players is merely a bonus and is not an argument for inclusion. Its defense against other graveyard dependant builds GB provides is a better argument for inclusion than the Solidarity defense, but still not a good argument alone.

Ill break it down like this:

1) The recycling and drawing abilities are awesome in Truffle Shuffle
2) The solidarity defense against weak players is a marginal bonus in a large tournament.
3) The graveyard defense is a decent bonus.

I feel that the advantage Gaea's Blessing provides at 2 cc warrants a 3 of in this deck.

bigbear102
08-28-2006, 11:37 PM
I think the best actual suggestion so far is Sakura Tribe Elder. It is an instant free shuffle effect, can be a blocker in a pinch, and puts the land directly into play. I guess I'll try -1 Witness -2 Dragon from my GenCon build.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-29-2006, 01:08 AM
I'm going to still run the 2x Blessing for the Mana Leak, as I personally don't expect enough difficult Aggro matchups, aka Goblins, to justify running more slots for that matchup. I would personally suggest trying Wall of Blossoms over STE when trying an anti-aggro card in that slot. It has greater synergy with Cabal Therapy post board, does not essentially count as an additional 2 land slots, bumping you to 25, and is a stronger answer to Lackey on the play, as it is not Fanaticable/Gempalmable.

Alfred
08-29-2006, 02:20 AM
First of all, I like this deck quite a bit, but I have a huge hankering to add Treetop Villages to the manabase. This deck seems to be in want of additional threats and good blockers, so Village seems like it would be a natural inclusion in the deck. I suggest Village over other manlands because it still taps for colored mana, is pretty beefy, and like all manlands, allows you to increase your threat density without sacrificing deck space.

bigbear102
08-29-2006, 10:51 PM
Wall of Blossoms might be playable, but I think I would like Eternal Dragon over it, because it does not search for basics, something this deck needs over answers to Lackey. Lackey isn't the problem, it's his friends, and their lands. I think I still like STE in this slot, testing will provide a bit more answers though.

PTBNL
08-30-2006, 07:38 AM
I read that this deck struggles against Goblins and I see that the deck runs black. So, Engineered Plague?

Finn
08-30-2006, 09:47 AM
Engineered Plague and Pernicious Deed are the best anti-goblin cards and they don't play well with each other. Rinse again.

Funeral Charm is good against Gobs and Solidarity. It's best versus nothing, but good versus all. You side it out every second game, but it wasn't useless until then. You need turn one plays. This is an important one.

Lego
08-30-2006, 03:28 PM
Engineered Plague and Pernicious Deed are the best anti-goblin cards and they don't play well with each other. Rinse again.

Funeral Charm is good against Gobs and Solidarity. It's best versus nothing, but good versus all. You side it out every second game, but it wasn't useless until then. You need turn one plays. This is an important one.

Engineered Plague also has the difficulty of not being that great until you get a second one. Infest was chosen instead because you weren't required to play all 4, and when played it could immediately be game breaking. Jack has removed it in favor of Smother because by the time you hit 3 mana versus Goblins, you're well on your way to losing. It is much harder for them to keep you off two mana, or a single black.

Personally, I think STE plays perfectly into that plan. It fetches for basics, ramps your mana, and provides a small speed bump. I'm going to test it, but I don't see how it could be bad versus Goblins. Gaea's Blessing should obviously be better against Solidarity, creating the occasional random win, but STE has its uses there as well, hitting for a couple and letting your big threats come down a turn quicker.

I guess my question is which is more relevant in their respective matchups, and which matchup will be more prevelant. I think it's safe to say that Solidarity will be more popular, but it's unclear to me how much Gaea's Blessing will actually do in that matchup. The Elders would at the very least make me not feel helpless versus Goblins.

Phantom
08-30-2006, 08:01 PM
Any chance Darkblast is better than smother? It hits lackey first turn on the draw, kills Warchief and Piledriver if you don't mind skipping your draw, and has nice synergy with Eternal Witness and Top. Hell, lategame it can kill a SGC. Also, it's pretty damn useful in other random matchups.

bigbear102
08-30-2006, 08:31 PM
I REALLY like STE in this deck... he lets you play a lot more basics too. My build now is:

EPIC Insect Advantage:

1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
4x Windswept Heath
3x Bayou
3x Scrubland
2x Savannah
3x Plains
3x Swamp
3x Forest

3x Eternal Witness
2x Krosan Tusker
1x Eternal Dragon
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
2x Grave-Shall Scarab
2x Gigapede

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Wrath of God
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Haunting Echoes
3x Sensei's Divining Top

SB:
1x Eternal Witness
4x Loxodon Hierarch
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Infest
3x Smother
1x Naturalize
1x Disenchant

With the cutting of 1 Vindicate from my build, and with Needle backed up by Mage/counters, I find disenchant effects necessary. I kinda wanna cut the 1 Witness from the board... but i'm not sure why or what for.

Lego
08-30-2006, 11:01 PM
@bigbear: With STE, how do you find your mana situation now? Could you see cutting a land for a Vindicate, or maybe another STE or something? 22 doesn't seem bad with 2 STE, 1 EDragon, 2 Tusker, and Top, although the deck is incredibly mana intensive, and mana screw is the easiest way to lose.

And how do you board now with Naturalize/Disenchant in the board? Your board seems to have changed a bit from the original build, so I'm wondering what you take out in the major matchups.

Otherwise, looks good. Yay for random 1-ofs and 61 cards decks :wink:

jazzykat
08-30-2006, 11:52 PM
I see that an eternal dragon has made it back into the list. Why not make the deck a little more consistent and put an STE in its place. They both fetch you a land but STE give you a little more early game and E Dragon gives you late game. However, you already have some big bad bugs (beaters) for late game, which are much easier to get back (i.e. costs you a card or a draw, instead of a fuckaton of mana)

bigredmeanie
08-31-2006, 06:17 PM
Why is it that something like Vindicate is seeing play? Is it just for versitility? What do you find yourself killing with it most often? In such a creature heavy format something faster seems like it would be better, as Deed can take care of most other permanents in legacy.

Whit3 Ghost
08-31-2006, 06:59 PM
Why is it that something like Vindicate is seeing play? Is it just for versitility? What do you find yourself killing with it most often? In such a creature heavy format something faster seems like it would be better, as Deed can take care of most other permanents in legacy.
Needle on deed is a BITCH.

Vindicate killed 4 of my Red sources when I had 2 Fledgeling Dragons in hand at the last DLD.

CURSE YOU IBA AND YOUR HATRED OF GRO, CURSE YOU!!!!!

dakkon
09-01-2006, 12:17 AM
I like the deck and I'm glad it did well at GenCon.

Have you considered adding in red instead of white? Red let's you run a set of burning wish main, which lets you do some pretty broken things (echoes, pyroclasm, massacre, persecute, shattering spree, cranial extraction, Life from the Loam, etc). This of course opens up more slots in your deck so you can run therapies main, thus improving your combo matchup and aleviating some of the wasteland vulnerabilities (Loam).

Missing out on StP, WoG, and Hierach is pretty big, but I like the idea of relying on wish and deed to hold off aggro so that you can pack enough disruption MD against control and combo.

Finn
09-05-2006, 02:02 PM
Why is it that something like Vindicate is seeing play? Is it just for versitility? What do you find yourself killing with it most often? In such a creature heavy format something faster seems like it would be better, as Deed can take care of most other permanents in legacy.

It sits in your hand from time to time while your less-versatile (cheaper) spot removal takes down opposing creatures. But when this happens you are cruising anyway. I'm not sure if this is what Whit3 Ghost is saying, but it very often takes out Pithing Needle set to Pernicious Deed. It can also (although not nearly as much as in Dirt) remove the third color from Thresh.

Pithing Needle is occasionally useful against the Deed, but not usually for this very reason. In fact, I am willing to bet that most opponents of this deck fish through their sideboards looking for anything at all that is remotely useful. Graveyard hate does a little, but is a wasted effort almost always. Duress without Hymn backup is similarly unsuccessful.

This feels like I am saying the same damned things I did a while ago when so many folks *knew* how bad BWG control was, but this deck will continue to knock out most aggro, disruptible combo, and pretty much all control until the opposing decks learn what IS a good strategy against it. The ways of Blood Moon and Price of Progress are both very good for starters. Either will be an effective single-card sideboard answer. Creatures that fetch stuff ala Ringleader and Trinket Mage are good. Fact or Fiction is very good, but counterspells are not. So someone would need to work that angle better. Winter Orb and Armageddon are both very hard to overcome when played right. Intuition into AK is very good. Most of this stuff is nearly nonexistent in the top decks of the moment. The aggro decks that practice good card advantage like Goblins are the ones that fare best.

And IBA, sorry to read about your unfortunate loss to Nightmare's UGW Thresh. Double early Mongoose is just about all that kills you, but it happens.

jazzykat
09-05-2006, 03:09 PM
Back to basics and recurring wasteland will also cause this deck problems. This deck is very powerful because it uses the best that 4 colors has to offer. Because it uses 4 colors just go at its manabase hardcore and with large 5cc threats they will have a difficult time dropping one. Granted they can fetch basics but that means they have to do so from the onset, and they need to draw into the fetches.

Lego
09-05-2006, 03:21 PM
Back to basics and recurring wasteland will also cause this deck problems. This deck is very powerful because it uses the best that 4 colors has to offer. Because it uses 4 colors just go at its manabase hardcore and with large 5cc threats they will have a difficult time dropping one. Granted they can fetch basics but that means they have to do so from the onset, and they need to draw into the fetches.

With the build that bigbear and I ran at the Mana Leak, you will almost never be scared of Wasteland, or for that matter even Back to Basics. You've got 6 fetchlands, 3 Krosan Tusker, 3 Sakura-Tribe Elder, plus Sensei's Divining Top and nine basics. If you don't fear Armageddon, it's easy for you to hit 6 or more basics, and Wasteland is no longer a problem. Even with the 6 basic version, I could relatively consistantly hit 6 basics against Landstill, and Wasteland only served to keep me under 7 mana, which was virtually irrelevant.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
09-06-2006, 02:57 AM
I think it's a bit early in the meta stage to start building up the mana base for fighting off hate instead of maximum objective power. STE is a 2x additional 2cc land, making it little more than the E. Dragons it's replacing, sans the ability to finish the game once in a while. I was in love with Gaea's Blessing's performance all day at the Mana Leak Open.

So much so, in fact, that after looking at some of the decks more problematic matchups, I'm tinkering with -1 Plains, +1 Blessing for 3 total main, the 4th in the board, and possibly a couple of Krosan Reclamations in the board as a way of fighting off problematic matchups like Reanimator, LifeFromtheLoam, Iggy Pop and Solidarity.

Tallbollocks
09-09-2006, 07:01 PM
I mostly play 1.5 on apprentice, but I am curious about how rediculously favorable the match against 43 land is. In theory, it seems like it would be terrible for them.

Any insight?

TheInfamousBearAssassin
09-10-2006, 03:25 AM
I've only played a couple of games, but recurring Wasteland can actually be a real pain, in that it can keep you off of Echoes mana. And once in a great while they can actually race. It seem pretty heavily favored over all though, with Blessing doubling as graveyard hate beside Echoes and the untargetable beatsticks.

Tallbollocks
09-10-2006, 04:30 AM
Yeah, i had a feeling that the matchup would mostly be in favor of this deck.

What is the build that is actually accepted as the "best" build? I have been trying IBA's build on apprentice and blessing has has literally never shown up...I am a lucksack when it comes to tangible cards but the results on apprentice are distressing. The deck looks so good on paper....

bigbear102
09-13-2006, 06:22 PM
The 43 lands matchup actually isn't as good as you would think it to be. If you can get an Echoes to take out wither Mishras or Monastery, then you auto-win, but if not it can be a real pain in the ass. Their creatures only die to Deed and swords (Vindicate too, I guess...), and they can come back from Deed. The problem here being that you have to time your Echoes so as that they have not recurred all of the good lands out of their yard, and you also have to make sure that you actually killed a land without STP to have Echoes hit it.

Wasteland and Port together are no good for this deck, as it can normally keep you off of whatever color will screw them the most (Black 99% of the time).

All in all it is a decent matchup, but not as good as it has been assumed. I have played it several times and have quite a few headaches.

Team-Hero
09-14-2006, 02:01 AM
The way I run my build is that I focus all into creature hate. If a combo match up comes in, I use 13 of my 15 sideboards for it.

Lego
09-14-2006, 10:56 AM
The way I run my build is that I focus all into creature hate. If a combo match up comes in, I use 13 of my 15 sideboards for it.

This probably isn't the way to go, because I'm assuming that even with 13 sideboard cards, your matchup is only going to be 50/50 post-board. This means you'll autolose the first match and lose half of the post-board matches. You'll never win a round that way.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
09-14-2006, 06:21 PM
Also, at that point, there's no reason not to skirt Wasteland and just play Rabid Wombat. The improved combo matchup is the main reason to play the deck as is; this weakens a lot if Iggy Pop becomes more played than Solidarity, though.

bigbear102
09-14-2006, 08:11 PM
Team-Hero: What does your build look like? I know you said all creature kill, but what else do you play? If you take out all of the discard your game worsens against a lot more than just combo. I'd like to know your theory behind this and what cards you cut.

Team-Hero
09-15-2006, 04:30 PM
my build is like this; granted that I am considering changing it back to the original build to be a nice 50/50 hate to both metas instead of just 1.

3 Savannah
3 Scrubland
3 Swamp
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
2 Plains
3 Forest
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta

2 Krosan Tusker
4 Eternal Witness
2 Gigapede
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Loxodon Hierarch

3 Smother (Dibating if I should change this to Last Gasp... any thoughts?)
3 Vindicate
1 Infest
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Haunting Echoes
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Wrath of God
4 Swords to Plowshares

SB
2 Infest (for Goblins and Elves)
1 Hymn to Tourach
3 Rule of Law
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Cranial Extraction

If you guys count the creature hate with the combo hate in the sideboard, both numbers match up to 13. Perfect enough so you don't have to debate what card you should add or take out to play against High Tide. Ill-Gottens might change though because you might want to have those Deeds in the deck in order to kill off his 0 casting cost stuff, but I much rather have the Rule of Law and the Discard instead of the Deed.

What do you guys think? I know it's a narrow tunnel vision but 60% of the field is creatures and the sideboard provides just enough spice for you to tweak your deck to adapt to the deck your playing against.

On a side note. The LAND deck (Life From the Loam, Manabond... etc) it is very hard to beat with this deck. Your only hope is to nuke the board well, get as much of his 'kill' lands as possible, and Echoes the opponent before he recovers them.

Tallbollocks
09-21-2006, 08:23 PM
Alright, I tried out the matchup against forty-three land.
To be short about it, it's terrible. Perhaps it is because I just ripped off the list posted on the opening topic post or something but the matchup was just awful.

If I get around to any testing, I will post any innovations. One of the first that has come to mind is cranial extraction. I will need to see if it works in practice but it seems like it would be a strong choice to bring in versus several popular decks like solidarity, iggy and 43 land. I'm sure there are others too...the question to me is wether or not the abillity to when a game after hitting three mana is worth giving up so you can derail a few combo-esque decks.

Anarky87
09-21-2006, 09:45 PM
Alright, I tried out the matchup against forty-three land. To be short about it, it's terrible. Perhaps it is because I just ripped off the list posted on the opening topic post or something but the matchup was just awful.

As I understand it, the current list is:

1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
4x Windswept Heath
3x Bayou
3x Scrubland
2x Savannah
3x Plains
3x Swamp
3x Forest

3x Eternal Witness
2x Krosan Tusker
1x Eternal Dragon
2x Sakura-Tribe Elder
2x Grave-Shall Scarab
2x Gigapede

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
3x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Wrath of God
3x Swords to Plowshares
2x Haunting Echoes
3x Sensei's Divining Top

SB:
1x Eternal Witness
4x Loxodon Hierarch
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Infest
3x Smother
1x Naturalize
1x Disenchant

That was posted by Bigbear 18 posts back, and it's also the current build I'm trying out.

Lego
09-23-2006, 09:59 AM
As I understand it, the current list is:

[61 card list]

That was posted by Bigbear 18 posts back, and it's also the current build I'm trying out.

If you take that list and go -1 Eternal Dragon, +1 Sakura-Tribe Elder, you've got Bigbear's current list. That's the one that I finished Top 16 with at the Mana Leak Open. IBA has a different list, which also got rid of Eternal Dragon, but here for the 4th Vindicate and 2 Gaea's Blessing, and he also finished T16 at the mana leak (although slightly lower than me, not that that means [i]anything[i].) His Sideboard remains the way it used to be, and he also doesn't play 61 cards. So there's a bit of a debate as for which way to go, but you can make your own little tweaks. I really like the maindeck Eternal Witness, but I've never tested Gaea's Blessing.

bigbear102
09-24-2006, 08:46 PM
4 Vindicate is important no matter what version you play.
I have also cut the Tribe-Elders, they just don't do quite enough. The mana base with 9 basics seems to work with or without them.
Blessing seems pretty strong in a lot of matchups also, I have been testing with the Witnesses back in the board, it seems to be fine that way. MD Blessing helps quite a bit more than I thought it would also. I seem to be casting it targeting my opponent a lot. Reanimator and Gro really hate that.

IBA mentioned Condemn and Gerard's Verdict main, 1 of each, and it has also been working out pretty well for me. It allows you to keep Therapy as a 3-of in the board, and still have 12 Discard spells G2.

I want to be able to fit Rule of Law in the board somehow, but first we need to be able to beat Goblins.... somebody figure that one out for me and I'll give you a cookie. If we could get goblins to actually be in our favor then this deck will absolutely dominate the format....seriously.

Team-Hero
09-24-2006, 11:05 PM
well, if your meta is completely full of goblins and much less of thresh... you can always run echoing decay instead of smother. you might get lucky and pick more than 1 goblin off the spell. but on a serious level, infest is probably the best card we have right now for anti-goblins... there isn't anything better when it comes to tempo and effectiveness.

if you want something more consistant, the only thing i can recomend is engeniered plague or culling scales. culling scales isn't the hottest card out there but it forces a goblin player to either feed the scales or slow down and stop playing goblins. the only thing that survives culling scales is ringleader, tiki, and ringleader. it's nice that the scales can pick off the vial as well.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
09-25-2006, 01:58 PM
In testing, I was extremely happy with the 1x Condemn, as 5 StP's made Goblins a lot more winnable. I would consider replacing the Smother/Infest spot in the board with additional Condemns; while it can't kill Warchief before it attacks, in all other ways it's much better than Smother, including being able to kill Mystic Enforcers and the odd River Boa or Arrogant Wurm.

The verdict on Verdict, however, was very dissapointing, as two of your choice is just so vastly weaker than two at random against combo, especially Solidarity. I also found that I was very often able to put just enough pressure on Solidarity between the Hymns, Duresses, Vindicates and Giga-beats that they could win without my running Blessings but not around them. To this end, I'm currently running the following tweaked build;


4x Windswept Heath
1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire (2x Delta is probably better, since it's much less revealing as a first turn drop, but I only own the one)
4x Bayou
4x Scrubland
3x Savannah
2x Swamp
2x Plains
1x Forest
3x Krosan Tusker
2x Gigapede
2x Grave-Shell Scarab
2x Haunting Echoes
4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords to Plowshares
1x Condemn
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Wrath of God
3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Gaea's Blessing

SB:
4x Eternal Witness
4x Leyline of the Void (Not only is it good against Ichorid, Iggy Pop, Reanimator, and Life From the Loam, it's also surprisingly solid against Raffinity, shutting down Modular, Disciple of the Vault, and the occasional Terrarion)
3x Loxodon Hierarch
2x Cabal Therapy
2x Condemn

nitewolf9
09-25-2006, 03:00 PM
That build looks really solid. I think the leylines in the board really tie everything together. I can't really think of a matchup that would be too terrible for this, aside from getting your manabase disrupted badly (have you found that to be an issue, with red death/dead guy, or do those decks just die to your removal/hierarch?). It seems like the game against goblins would actually be positive, have you found this to be true or is it just too hard to kill them before they recover from mass removal?

This is tempting to build...especially since I already have 95% of the cards.

bigbear102
09-25-2006, 03:14 PM
Ok, I like the new build, but I have to wonder if Leyline is really that important. I think that Rule of Law may be a better fit in that slot. IGGy Pop is probably the main reason you play it, and I think it is probably amazing there, but I don't believe it is the best, considering the other decks you mentioned are either underplayed or not too bad for us already. It seems as though a better card could be found for the Leyline slot (Rule of Law possibly, as mentioned before).

Team-Hero
09-25-2006, 11:04 PM
What is currently the best build for this deck against LandStill?

bigbear102
09-27-2006, 02:56 PM
Landstill is a pretty broad deck right now, with the traditional build being kind of dead, and the new build being completely different.

That being said, I haven't really tested against it much because I haven't played against it for close to a year now.

If they play Crucible, you're going to have a harder time than if they don't. Vindicate is probably your best card in the match, as it neuters their kill. Getting a top on the board is going to be very important as your card quality is going to have to beat their card advantage.

Echoes is huge in any control match, hopefully taking away most of their win conditions. After you take out their lands and possibel decrees, your insects swing for the win, being swords-proof and recurring.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
10-12-2006, 04:47 AM
As weird as it sounds, I think Leyline is a broader sideboard solution than Rule of Law. Board control decks tend to have problems with two things;

1) Storm combo, and

2) Recurring threats.

In this case, Leyline hits 1.5 out of 2 and can come down a lot earlier. While Ichorid, Survival, Reanimator, Loam decks, and Affinity aren't very popular, they're a presence, and combined they represent a significant one, as does Iggy Pop. And really... Solidarity isn't a terrible enough matchup to run an otherwise narrower sideboard card. It comes down to a tier 1 factor versus a random factor, and my experience in Legacy is that you place against a lot of random.


So, I'm waiting for a tournament report from Darland or Canook. Although this weekend sounded like a horrendous metagame for the Shuffle, with goblins going X-0 all over the place.

Team-Hero
10-12-2006, 10:19 PM
Layline of the Void ISSSS Good but I don't want to de dependant on a card that I need to get in my opening hand. Sure the chances are good but I don't want to have to throw my luck into the table to have to win.

Instead I add a little more 1cc discard and a Rule of Law.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
10-13-2006, 02:58 AM
Well, you can hardcast it first of all. Secondly, there are some decks like Friggorid or straight up Reanimator where you can just mulligan agressively as Hell to it and pretty much auto win from that point.

Kenji
10-21-2006, 09:54 AM
I realise it could just be because it's new but has anyone tested Sudden Death in the place of Smother yet? It is an extra coloured mana for the deck to handle but I could see the benifits out weighing that.

Team-Hero
10-21-2006, 02:59 PM
In respective to Sudden Death. Yes, it is a good card but it does not really fit in with Truffle Shuffle. The fact that it costs 1 more black mana really hurts because not only is it 1 more color mana of a color that you already have, but it's also a turn slower. In a way, might as well run Last Gasp. The Split Second ability in Sudden Death is irrelevant because most decks that you encounter that require creature removal do not have counters. Accounting for the other side of the scale, most decks that have counters do not have creatures. The important part about Smother is that it only cost 2 to cast. Very important when you are playing Threshold or Goblins because you need that second turn kill for the Werebear or the Piledriver/Lackey. Besides, you don't want to spend 3 mana when a 2cc card could of done the same in the end. If your really into -? -?, I'd use Last Gasp or Infest. In Legacy it's all about speed and consistancy my friend.

What I do like in the sideboard though is Krosan Grip. The uncounterable unresponsable spell is very good against Scepter Chant, Survival, Alluren, and Landstill. It is far better than Naturalize because in Legacy, most of the time, when the opponent drops an artifact or enchantment, it's probably going to be a good one that you want to make sure you get rid of ASAP.

TheAardvark
10-31-2006, 12:52 AM
I played my build of TS at our local Legacy tourney yesterday, finishing in 1st place. I had a lot of fun playing the deck, and figured I'd give a brief overview. First, the list:

CREATURES (7):

2x Gigapede
2x Krosan Tusker
2x Grave-Shell Scarab
1x Eternal Dragon

SPELLS (24):

4x Duress
4x Hymn To Tourach
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Vindicate
3x Wrath Of God
2x Haunting Echoes
2x Gaea's Blessing
1x Cranial Extraction

ENCHANTMENTS (4):

4x Pernicious Deed

ARTIFACTS (3):

3x Sensei's Divining Top

LAND (23):

4x Bayou
4x Scrubland
4x Windswept Heath
3x Savannah
2x Polluted Delta
2x Forest
2x Plains
2x Swamp

SIDEBOARD (15):

4x Leyline Of The Void
4x Gerrard's Verdict
3x Shadow Of Doubt
2x Krosan Grip
2x Pulse Of The Fields


A few notes:

1). Yes, 61 cards. I added the 2nd Forest at the last minute because I was slightly concerned about LD that some people have started playing. 1 land isn't a huge difference, but it helped smooth out some draws.

2). The 1 Cranial Extraction was basically there for the mirror and similar decks that I have "popularized" in our meta. 3 people were playing variants of TS or Train Wreck, so it worked out well.

3). The SB is very meta specific. Goblins does not exist in our meta unless I play it or someone else plays my build, generally, so I can afford to SB towards control style matchups. Pulse Of The Fields was a last minute addition when I saw multiple people shuffling up many Mountains, and it was excellent. Never had to bring the Grips in, and Shadow Of Doubt never really was a factor in my matchups either. I'd keep it this way with out meta, however.

Anyway, I played Round 1 against Zoo, beating it 2-0, with me clearing the board after she ran out of gas and dropping Echoes. Game 2 I had to use Pulse a few times, but managed to drop Echoes again, and cruised from there.

Round 2 I played against U/W Counterpost, which eventually finished in 3rd. I just work around his countermagic using Top, eventually exhausting his resources and hitting him with Echoes, with his only win conditions being Ophidians, with multiple removal spells in hand. Game 2 is more of the same, with Top winning the war of attrition and Echoes mopping up.

Round 3 was against mono black Void, and it went to 3 games. Game 1 we just trade Hymns, etc., with me ripping Gigapede off the top after we're both out of cards in hand, and ride it to victory. Game 2 is iffy for me, but I keep a strong hand that gets decimated when he drops Nether Void on turn 3, and proceeds to topdeck 2 consecutive Wastelands, locking me under the Void. Game 3, he keeps a questionable hand, and ends up dropping Void, but it locks him because he draws 0 mana sources afterwards, and I have top on the table. I eventually get a creature and just bash face.

Round 4 I ID with the guy playing Ichorid.

In the Top 8 I play against Madness, and win when I really shouldn't have. Game 1 I just get outdrawn and blasted by flying Wurms. Game 2 is more of the same, but I manage to draw more Plows, Vindicates, and Wraths. I also had turn 0 Leyline to eliminate Wonder. He drops 2 Pithing Needles naming Deed, so we sit for a while, with him occasionally getting a creature, me at 2, and drawing removal with Top. I rip Grave-Shell and Gigapede in successive turns, smash his creatures, Echoes him, and deck him. Game 3 is eerily similar, with me stabilizing at 3 life, him playing around the removal, and me dropping a Hymn to force him to play the Arrogant Wurm in hand. I Vindicate it, and again have the creature advantage, eventually running him out of threats and smashing in FTW.

Top 4 is against Ichorid, and I lose Game 1 on turn 3. Good times. Game 2 I get turn 0 Leyline, but it gets Chained. I have a solid hand, and he has a slow draw. He dredges a couple of times, and I take a couple of hits from ichorid, and drop Echoes, removing all of hits threats from the game, and he scoops. Game 3 I keep a good hand, but without Leyline. I get Top turn 1, and he again has a slow draw. He plays a Zombie Infestation, I play Deed; he makes a token and attempts to Chain the Deed. I am tapped out, but he only has 1 card in hand and is mana light, so I pop the Deed for 0, killing his token (he had Therapy in the 'yard) and Chrome Mox. He seemed surprised, took his turn, and passed. I played Gaea's Blessing, targeting his Ichorid, Ashen Ghoul, and Golgari Grave-Troll, buying me all the time in the world, dropping Leyline shortly afterwards and cruising to victory.

The finals is against Solidarity; yay. Unfortunately, I didn't have Dark Ritual, Persecute, and Sphere of Resistance in the SB this time, so I figured I'd lose. Game 1 I make him discard a few cards, Cranial away his Tides, drop a Grave-Shell, and ride it to victory. Game 2 I hit him with 6 discard spells, but can't find any pressure. I eventually get a Scarab, but he has plenty of time to develop his hand. With 6 lands in play, he attempts to go off, but he has already used 3 Wishes, and needs 2 to work around the 2 Blessings in my hand. So, he goes for the Stroke win, but confuses his count of my library and Strokes me for 31 when he was supposed to Stroke for 39. He'd asked me 3 times earlier in the turn for a library count, and each time I told him 39; he simply confused the numbers. I felt kinda bad, but he wasn't overly concerned.

So I won a bunch of TS packs and actually managed to crack some good times. The deck is incredibly durable, as you should know, and very fun. Of course, everyone will be gunning for it with hate, so I may have to alternate next month. We'll see.

That is all.

Team-Hero
10-31-2006, 02:03 AM
Good job on that tourney win.
IFFF Goblins were in the meta... what would you have changed?

When you Echoed someone... did you rip everything or leave the lands in their deck?

Eatatjoes
10-31-2006, 05:06 AM
just a quick question, when you cycle krosan tusker, before you draw a card, if you have a sensei's top in play, can you look at the top 3 and rearrange them before you draw?

Anarky87
10-31-2006, 11:47 AM
I've too been posting some pretty awesome results with this deck, including coming in first and winning some Tropical Islands. My list is based some off the older lists, such as still having Witness MD as I like her recursion. I haven't tried Leyline or Blessing, but if I were to take it to a much larger field (Such as the upcoming Columbus) I would definitely include them.

TheAardvark
10-31-2006, 02:02 PM
Good job on that tourney win.
IFFF Goblins were in the meta... what would you have changed?

When you Echoed someone... did you rip everything or leave the lands in their deck?

If Goblins were present, the SB would have been different...something like:

-3 Shadow Of Doubt
-1 Gerrard's Verdict
+4 Condemn/Infest

Not sure which would be better, honestly. I had a lot of success with Infest previously against Goblins, but Condemn comes down even faster, and can buoy my life total to be pseudo healthy on turn 4 so I can wipe the board with Deed or Wrath. I'd have to do some heavier testing to make a concrete decision, though.

As far as Echoes goes, it depends. If they have minimal/no threats left in the library, I'll remove whatever lands I can to speed up the decking process (if they don't concede for whatever reason); if they still have a few threats left, though, I'll leave the lands in to create more dead draws for them while I drown them in card quality.

Lego
10-31-2006, 02:54 PM
I also had turn 0 Leyline to eliminate Wonder. He drops 2 Pithing Needles naming Deed, so we sit for a while, with him occasionally getting a creature, me at 2, and drawing removal with Top. I rip Grave-Shell and Gigapede in successive turns, smash his creatures, Echoes him, and deck him.

Turn 0 Leyline + Echoes for the Deck? Doesn't sound right to me.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
10-31-2006, 03:50 PM
just a quick question, when you cycle krosan tusker, before you draw a card, if you have a sensei's top in play, can you look at the top 3 and rearrange them before you draw?

Yes.


1x Cranial Extraction is interesting. I kind of like the idea of popping a one-of or two in there since Top gives you such dig power, but I'm not entirely sure if any of the choices are worthwhile in an unknown metagame.

TheAardvark
10-31-2006, 05:50 PM
Turn 0 Leyline + Echoes for the Deck? Doesn't sound right to me.

I think I mixed up my games...I know I won via decking from Echoes in one game, and the other game had a turn 0 Leyline. Sorry for the confusion.


1x Cranial Extraction is interesting. I kind of like the idea of popping a one-of or two in there since Top gives you such dig power, but I'm not entirely sure if any of the choices are worthwhile in an unknown metagame.

Well, in my meta, Haunting Echoes is played a lot, and I like having an answer for it, as well as other similar cards that can be REALLY bad if resolved. The discard isn't always a proper answer, especially with Eternal Witness and Regrowth played somewhat regularly, so I figured that was a decent addition. I'd like to find room for a second copy, actually, but I may just relegate 2 copies to the SB instead. We'll see.

Team-Hero
10-31-2006, 07:47 PM
Please test the Infest vs Gerrards Verdicts against Goblins.

Eatatjoes
11-01-2006, 03:52 AM
Yes.


1x Cranial Extraction is interesting. I kind of like the idea of popping a one-of or two in there since Top gives you such dig power, but I'm not entirely sure if any of the choices are worthwhile in an unknown metagame.

thanks

Cait_Sith
11-02-2006, 07:31 PM
I found that the build shown on page 3 if perfect. However, since I am so angry about the fact I cannot make a single at least partially unique decent deck AND I HATE playing other peoples decks, I will only play Truffle Shuffle in Legacy until further notice. Thanks for the dek BA! Oh I like Leyline of the Void better btw. and Smother is better than Infest or Verdict vs Gobs.

throst54
11-02-2006, 07:53 PM
Have you tried using the 1 of Condemn or Ghastly Demise instead of smother?

Cait_Sith
11-02-2006, 09:00 PM
Ghastly Demise is little to slow (my graveyard doesn't always fill up as fast as I need it) and I will admit I am mixed on Condemn, but Smother's consistency rocks.

throst54
11-02-2006, 10:33 PM
I ended up cutting the Piggies from my deck, though i run 7-8 fetches and its very rare that first turn I cant get a fetchland into the yard to support the ghastly demise. Also, its why I wouldnt run more than 2 Ghastly Demise.

I ran condemn and didnt like having to wait to use it when they attacked, b/c it didnt stop the goblin shenanegans of warchief-matron-driver-driver etc etc (well, not very well).

I need to test out smother myself, Im just trying to stick to 1cc removal.

Cait_Sith
11-05-2006, 11:07 AM
Piggies are more important than you think. They are an alternate win con! (Yes I have won games with the Piggies)

Lego
11-05-2006, 11:17 AM
Piggies are more important than you think. They are an alternate win con! (Yes I have won games with the Piggies)

They're just demoralizing. When someone shuffles it up with one of these, grabs a basic to completely foil your wastelock, activates top and then draws their choice of the top 3, you just slump in your chair, and it's all elementary from there.

Anarky87
11-05-2006, 12:33 PM
They're just demoralizing. When someone shuffles it up with one of these, grabs a basic to completely foil your wastelock, activates top and then draws their choice of the top 3, you just slump in your chair, and it's all elementary from there.

This true. In my finals match against Landstill, I made his entire Waste+Crucible combo worthless when I drew two Pigs in the course of a few turns. It makes it easier to play around Wasteland with that many outs to basics. Not to mention the shuffling for Top.

throst54
11-05-2006, 06:47 PM
I run 7 fetches and 7 basic lands w/ 3 STE, and I've found that i can do fine w/o the piggies.... tho i do miss thier shiney FNM glory.

bigbear102
11-05-2006, 08:13 PM
Ok, why are people still running so few basics??? The deck can handle 9 basics very easily, which takes out a crucible wastelock on it's own.

Anarky87
11-05-2006, 08:45 PM
I'm still running the 9 basics set up.

Lego
11-06-2006, 11:43 AM
I haven't played since I swore off Jack Elgin decks, but I run 9 basics, because Jack Elgin doesn't.

throst54
11-06-2006, 06:03 PM
Ok, why are people still running so few basics??? The deck can handle 9 basics very easily, which takes out a crucible wastelock on it's own.

Because I want to have BB on turn 2 consistantly, and I can run against a wastelock w/ 7 basics. Also, im not worried about wastelock as i can wish for Withered Wretch.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
11-13-2006, 06:34 PM
I think the question is, where the Hell have you seen Crucible Wasteland lock recently that wasn't Landstill? And why are you having any trouble beating Landstill?

I know you're going to say 5/3, but I just want to pre-empt this by pointing out that that is not, technically speaking, actually a deck.


Why do I run only 5 basics? Because Wasteland will routinely kick your ass anyway. You might as well reduce Rishadan Port's ability to do so and avoid giving them an overly merry Christmas.

Tao
11-13-2006, 07:28 PM
And why are you having any trouble beating Landstill?

I don't think the Landstill matchup is one-sided as long as the Landstill player knows that Landstill is the aggro deck and that he has to Force/CS Senseis Divining Top.

Landstill has some serious threats with Decree of Justice and Crucible of Worlds. It can deal an annoying amout of damage with Faerie Conclaves and can create real card advantage with Standstill and Fact or Fiction.

If you play againt UR/Landstill you have to play against an opponent who draws a bazillion of cards and has 20 or more points of direct damage in the deck.

Of course your deck has good weapons, too, but I don't think that the matchup against the most underplayed deck of the format (in the USA) is more than 55% in TS favor.

Anarky87
11-13-2006, 09:15 PM
I've been mostly playing against U/W Landstill and BHWC Landstill. Both of which have some good answers to your shit. I'd say it's around 50/50 for each deck. When I played against the U/W version at Parkland I had lost to it in Round 3, by just kinda getting crappy draws and him Waste locking me when all I could draw was non-basics. Then in the finals it was the exact opposite, I just curb stomped him game 1 with Echoes and in Game 2 Gigapede and later a Scarab took the game after I had exhausted his resources.

I haven't tested much against the BHWC version, but I expect much of the same. In the little testing I've done against both decks, just throwing alot of discard at them in the early game usually gets them off balance enough for you to get the advantage.

Henk
12-06-2006, 11:45 AM
How about Engineered Explosives in this deck. Looks like it can act like Pernicious Deed 5-8.

dre4m
12-17-2006, 12:36 PM
How about Engineered Explosives in this deck. Looks like it can act like Pernicious Deed 5-8.

I would rather have Crime // Punishment personally =/

Alex_Van_R
01-01-2007, 07:40 AM
How about the new WoG? Damnation. Then you can drop the white splash.
Swords to Plowshares and Hierarch are replacable with other cards.

Tao
01-01-2007, 09:48 AM
How about the new WoG? Damnation. Then you can drop the white splash.
Swords to Plowshares and Hierarch are replacable with other cards.

Don't forget Vindicate. You would have to replace the two best spot removals in the game, which is impossible.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
01-01-2007, 11:35 AM
Perhaps, but it definitely strengthens the mana base, as you no longer need double white.

nitewolf9
01-01-2007, 04:58 PM
It also weakens your solidarity matchup (no more vindicate...). Maybe the manabase would be worth it but I duno.

Whit3 Ghost
01-01-2007, 05:05 PM
No, you can still run the White splash and all it's goodies, you just don't need WW for Wrath anymore.

Anarky87
01-02-2007, 02:57 AM
So how would an updated decklist look including Damnation? I was tossing around the idea of:

//Lands// (23)
4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
2 Savannah
3 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Bloodstained Mire

//Creatures// (10)
3 Eternal Witness
2 Grave-shell Scarab
2 Loxodon Hierarch
2 Krosan Tusker
1 Gigapede

-Non Creature- (27)
3 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Damnation
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Haunting Echoes
4 Vindicate

Bumped some Hierarchs to the MD, because the last time I played the deck, it always seemed to take me forever to land a threat, which a time or two, led to me losing the game.

lukatron2
01-03-2007, 02:18 PM
looks really good, but I think that it looks rather like GBW rock now with the creature base

Anarky87
01-03-2007, 03:21 PM
That's really how I view the deck anyway; as a G/B/W Rock deck, but with some better elements. I like Gigapede and Scarab for the essential 'bullet proofness,' and Hierarch is just an awesome beater, while StP, Vindicate, Deed, and soon to be Damnation are the best pinpoint and mass removal around. I always enjoyed playing this deck, but kinda grew away from it recently when I lost pretty bad to a lot of stuff at a past tournament, going 2-3 (Lost to Deadguy, Landstill, and Belcher). But hopefully the deck will be able to break out here soon.

Zach Tartell
01-30-2007, 08:41 PM
I think that the new white drop of honey might warrant some consideration. I've been looking at this deck since Matt Abold took it to gencon and made it to seventh. I think it'd be a great answer to goblins (not an immediate answer to the turn one lackey, but a pretty good one after they power out a ringleader or siege gang commander. It kills geese agianst Gro, too. Thoughts?

TheInfamousBearAssassin
02-05-2007, 03:39 PM
The old Drop of Honey wasn't really a consideration, so I don't see why the one in a tertiary color should be so different. Well, I do, but pricetag alone isn't enough reason.


Drop of Honey/Nodes has very good synergy with Gigapede. Unfortunately, it has horrible synergy with Deed, which I think is the biggest strike against it.


While I've repeatedly tried to squeeze Witness into the main, since it invariably comes in games 2-3, there's such a wide variety of things it pinch-hits for that I never really want to cut anything. The two cards that sort of fulfill the same function are Blessing and Tusker, but unlike Witness they both have great synergy with top and strengthen your mana base instead of putting more strain on it. Blessing in particular I've found is really crucial to the Solidarity matchup; without it, you can keep them off balance a bit but they very often recover just enough to freeze you for lethal. If you can cut off this route, however, it's not that difficult to make it so that they're unable to fully combo off and Wish for a lethal Stroke.

I can see Hierarchs main over Gigapede in a Goblin-heavy meta, but it seems otherwise to decrease your ability to land a threat reliably. I think I'd rather bump it to 3 Scarabs, 2 Gigapedes, than to a 2 Hierarch, 2 Scarab, 1 Giga configuration. The great thing about this deck's threats are that they're very low maintenance and don't need to be protected, whereas Hierarch does. You can't drop him carelessly (Witness you can drop carelessly, which is another great reason I wanted her main, but I could never get it to work... perhaps a 1 Scarab, 1 Gigapede, 3 WItness configuration could work though? I haven't tested it, however).

The mana base I'm using right now is:

4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
2 Savannah
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire


Also, I cut down to 1 Echoes, as Top + a bajillion shuffle effects is enough to find it the vast majority of the time, and you don't want it cluttering up your hand early game.

Anarky87
02-05-2007, 05:56 PM
The old Drop of Honey wasn't really a consideration, so I don't see why the one in a tertiary color should be so different. Well, I do, but pricetag alone isn't enough reason.


Drop of Honey/Nodes has very good synergy with Gigapede. Unfortunately, it has horrible synergy with Deed, which I think is the biggest strike against it.


While I've repeatedly tried to squeeze Witness into the main, since it invariably comes in games 2-3, there's such a wide variety of things it pinch-hits for that I never really want to cut anything. The two cards that sort of fulfill the same function are Blessing and Tusker, but unlike Witness they both have great synergy with top and strengthen your mana base instead of putting more strain on it. Blessing in particular I've found is really crucial to the Solidarity matchup; without it, you can keep them off balance a bit but they very often recover just enough to freeze you for lethal. If you can cut off this route, however, it's not that difficult to make it so that they're unable to fully combo off and Wish for a lethal Stroke.

I can see Hierarchs main over Gigapede in a Goblin-heavy meta, but it seems otherwise to decrease your ability to land a threat reliably. I think I'd rather bump it to 3 Scarabs, 2 Gigapedes, than to a 2 Hierarch, 2 Scarab, 1 Giga configuration. The great thing about this deck's threats are that they're very low maintenance and don't need to be protected, whereas Hierarch does. You can't drop him carelessly (Witness you can drop carelessly, which is another great reason I wanted her main, but I could never get it to work... perhaps a 1 Scarab, 1 Gigapede, 3 WItness configuration could work though? I haven't tested it, however).

The mana base I'm using right now is:

4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
2 Savannah
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire


Also, I cut down to 1 Echoes, as Top + a bajillion shuffle effects is enough to find it the vast majority of the time, and you don't want it cluttering up your hand early game.


Conceded. If you drop the 2 Hierarch's from the main, you could then essentially have a configuration of:

3 Witness
3 Scarabs
2 Gigapede
2 Tusker

I can see cutting 1 Echoes, as I tended to draw into it quite a bit. Perhaps I'll put the 4th Duress back in the MD. IBA, have you included Damnation in your build yet, or do you still have Wrath in. Granted Wrath is the only playable card right now until Damnation's legality, but I was curious as to whether you had tested it. I've always enjoyed having Witness MD, because in the past she's just pulled so much weight that I can't imagine her not being there. I never got around to including Blessings.

4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
2 Savannah
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

3 Eternal Witness
3 Grave-Shell Scarabs
2 Gigapede
2 Krosan Tusker

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Damnation
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Haunting Echoes
4 Vindicate

I think that would most likely be my list, including your updated mana base, MD Witnesses, and increased threats. What would you cut to fit Blessings in there? -1 Witness, -1 Duress?

TheInfamousBearAssassin
02-05-2007, 07:12 PM
With that list, my first inclination of where to try and fit the cards in is -2 Scarab, -1 Gigapede, +2 Blessing, +1 Condemn. I liked the 5 StP configuration a lot versus Threshold and Goblins. Cutting your fat somewhat can hurt in certain matchups, but Witness can fulfill a similar role- it's hard to tell if this would be beneficial in the long term, as this plan leaves you with fewer heavy beaters, but the Witnesses might be worth it.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
03-06-2007, 01:07 PM
Further playing around with Witness reveals that... I'm just not a fan. The 3 slot is really full, and there's never a card that really supports cutting it. If Solidarity were less popular I'd be okay cutting the Blessings for it, but Blessing makes your Solidarity matchup. And I've been very happy cutting threats; Threshold and Goblins just aren't scared of 2/1's. It's great in the sideboard because it's always better than what you don't need and usually compliments what you do, before you know what that is it's just clumsy and awkward.

Further thought; why does no one play this deck? Really.

Cait_Sith
03-06-2007, 01:12 PM
If you post your most recent list I will play it. Or Sharazad if I hate my opponent.

Anarky87
03-06-2007, 01:35 PM
Further playing around with Witness reveals that... I'm just not a fan. The 3 slot is really full, and there's never a card that really supports cutting it. If Solidarity were less popular I'd be okay cutting the Blessings for it, but Blessing makes your Solidarity matchup. And I've been very happy cutting threats; Threshold and Goblins just aren't scared of 2/1's. It's great in the sideboard because it's always better than what you don't need and usually compliments what you do, before you know what that is it's just clumsy and awkward.

Further thought; why does no one play this deck? Really.

So then it would be -3 Witness for +2 Blessings and +1 Condemn out of curiosity? I haven't played this deck in awhile, but I think I might like to give a try now with Damnation out and see how it performs. And perhaps I'll try SB'ing the Witnesses.

bigbear102
03-06-2007, 04:42 PM
I have been playing around with this for a while once Damnation came out. I have always had problems with the little green men, so I made that my priority. I think this list is what I'd play if I was going to right now:

4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
2 Savannah
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Damnation
2 Haunting Echoes
3 Sensei's Divining Top

3 Krosan Tusker
2 Loxodon Hierarch
2 Gigapede
1 Grave-shell Scarab
2 Eternal Witness


This build gives me what I want against the major decks in the format. You can pretty much go 1-1 on removal against thresh, especially with hierarch acting as removal in that match. Goblins is still weak game 1, but if you can get to turn 4, hierarch usually puts you out of the red zone long enough to stabilize. He is essentially a fog becuase he blocks piledriver and most of the time the 4 life negates any other beaters coming in.

The problem I had with the deck for a while was gaining complete control and then not doing a damn thing. I added more creatures so that I could just win quicker. More beating means more winning.

I do very much want to add blessing to the list, and will probably drop 1 tusker and add the 61st card.

One thing that this deck needs is a solid SB. I think discussion should move toward that, especially the goblins match. My SB now would probably consist of:

2 Hierarch
4 Therapy
2 Verdict
4 Leyline
3 Plague

I may be horribly wrong here, but I think it's a start.

Anarky87
03-06-2007, 05:10 PM
The problem I had with the deck for a while was gaining complete control and then not doing a damn thing. I added more creatures so that I could just win quicker. More beating means more winning.

This was a problem I also ran into while playing which led me to bumping 2 Hierarchs to the MD. I would gain control, and then take eleventy billion turns hoping to find a threat. There were also games where I just threw down a turn 4 Hierarch and beat until they answered it. He may not be able to dodge removal like the Scarab and Gigapede can, but he's still a 4/4 beater that gains you 4 life (8 if they decide to StP it) for which they have to answer.

I haven't actually put the Blessings in the deck, but I will get them in there eventually. I think the SB looks tight, I had already added Plague to my SB over Infest because it actually dealt with the Goblin problem by saying, "You can't play anymore Goblins." I like the extra discard and tools to bring in against combo so you don't have as many dead cards afterwards. Looks like a very good place to start.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
03-06-2007, 05:23 PM
Manabase:
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
3 Scrubland
4 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
1 Plains
2 Forest
3 Swamp

Creatures:
2 Gigapede
2 Grave-Shell Scarab
3 Krosan Tusker

Spells:
2 Gaea's Blessing
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Condemn
4 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Damnation
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Haunting Echoes


sb:
4 Eternal Witness
3 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Condemn
3 Leyline of the Void



I just bring in extra Condemns against goblins. I have enough board sweepers already, I'm more interested in preventing turn 1 Lackey and taking out an early Piledriver or Warchief. In general I like this sideboard; while it's not a bunch of specific hate cards, it's got a lot of different utility cards that are themselves pretty maindeckable, so that you should never not be sideboarding to improve your matchup. You can also switch up your game plan depending if you're on the play or the draw, or based on boarded in hate you expect from your opponent.

Whit3 Ghost
03-06-2007, 08:07 PM
An Anticombo sideboard I developed with testing against both Bryant(TES) and Emidlin (Solidarity/Iggy/TES)

4 Chalice
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Verdict
3x Slots

Chalice is for faster storm combo, if there is absolutely none of that in your area, run Wrench Mind or the like.

This board is also transferrable to Trainwreck, if you feel the need.

Cait_Sith
03-11-2007, 10:42 PM
// Lands
2 [RAV] Forest (4)
2 [ST] Plains (1)
2 [7E] Swamp (1)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [R] Bayou
4 [A] Scrubland
3 [B] Savannah

// Creatures
2 [RAV] Grave-Shell Scarab
2 [ON] Gigapede
3 [ON] Krosan Tusker

// Spells
4 [FE] Hymn to Tourach (3)
4 [US] Duress
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [TSB] Gaea's Blessing
3 [PLC] Damnation
1 [DIS] Condemn

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch
SB: 4 [FD] Eternal Witness
SB: 4 [TO] Mesmeric Fiend
SB: 3 [JU] Cabal Therapy

Probably the big WTF here is still using the MD Blessing and SB Witness: This deck is about the long game. Blessing favors the long game be restoring 3 cards to your library with shuffling and top acting as a pseudo tutor. Witness gives you stuff now, but it gives you very little. Note give +0 CA so you aren't losing there, but Witness makes dead cards like, ruining your virtual CA (so it can result in negative numbers anyway for card advantage). This deck has the potential to keep a board clear of threats for long periods of time, so not having the cards now is rarely a problem. Finally, this deck does tend to curve out heavy, so the 3 over 2 helps to smooth out mana.

dre4m
03-11-2007, 11:18 PM
Probably the big WTF here is still using the MD Blessing and SB Witness: This deck is about the long game. Blessing favors the long game be restoring 3 cards to your library with shuffling and top acting as a pseudo tutor. Witness gives you stuff now, but it gives you very little. Note give +0 CA so you aren't losing there, but Witness makes dead cards like, ruining your virtual CA (so it can result in negative numbers anyway for card advantage). This deck has the potential to keep a board clear of threats for long periods of time, so not having the cards now is rarely a problem. Finally, this deck does tend to curve out heavy, so the 3 over 2 helps to smooth out mana.

Blessing's primary purpose is the Solidarity matchup, which is for many reasons the most difficult, especially game one. That being said, I think I might have missed something, because I can't really understand the point of your post. Were you trying to post an updated list? If so, your list differs from Jack's only in the lack of SB leylines and a different number of basics and Polluted Delta/Bloodstained Mire. The SB Witnesses and Therapies combine with the maindeck to disrupt combo very well, and I think that Leyline is a better suppliament than Mesmeric Fiend, being much better in the IGGy Pop matchup, as well as the Life from the Loam control, 43land, and occassianl Threshold matchup. Mesmeric Fiend seems like he would be decent against solidarity, but Blessings, Duresses, Hymns, Therapies, and Witnesses will all be better.

Cait_Sith
03-11-2007, 11:19 PM
The trend has been to shift Truffle into a direction of Witness over Blessing, but I am arguing here that Blessing is superior to witness. Actually I would like to add a third, I forgot it is another shuffle effect.

Lego
03-11-2007, 11:28 PM
The trend has been to shift Truffle into a direction of Witness over Blessing, but I am arguing here that Blessing is superior to witness. Actually I would like to add a third, I forgot it is another shuffle effect.

A) Look 2 posts above yours, you'll see that the creator of the deck posted a list almost card for card the same as yours.

B) There's no trend for Truffle Shuffle. No one plays it.

C) You've obviously never played it in a tournament. Your biggest problem isn't your opponent; you've got enough power to beat him. Your biggest problem is the clock. Enter Witness maindeck.

Cait_Sith
03-11-2007, 11:32 PM
Is the 10 turn clock of witness really that impressive. It dies to almost half your removal and any form oh chumpage.

Lego
03-11-2007, 11:38 PM
Is the 10 turn clock of witness really that impressive. It dies to almost half your removal and any form oh chumpage.

In a race against the clock, yes, ever single point of damage is important. That's not even mentioning that Witness is simply useful. I'd throw some Hierarch main as well. You just can't expect to consistently win with a deck this slow. It seems good on paper, and it tests well on MWS, but on MWS it's just Ctrl-S, Ctrl-S, Ctrl-S. When you're doing that over and over in a tournament situation, you're eating up a lot of clock, and even fast play sometimes can't make up for that.

dre4m
03-11-2007, 11:40 PM
Is the 10 turn clock of witness really that impressive. It dies to almost half your removal and any form oh chumpage.

While I personally do not like Witness in my maindeck, I have also never really had a problem using Scarabs or Gigapede as my kill condition. However. That is not to say that Witness would be terrible in the maindeck, and certainly merits more than this reply. Witness is obviously more than a ten-turn clock, and most creatures die to my removal. As far as 'any form oh chumpage,' I have no idea how to interpret that. If I wanted to speed up my clock, I would include Heirarch maindeck.

Lego Army Man got there first, but my post still says something more or less.

torgar
03-18-2007, 01:51 PM
I've been playing with this deck and I'm finding the Scarabs to be less than impressive. I'd almost always rather have Gigapede or Hierach.

Gigapede is more 'bulletproof' than Scarab. The both cost five but Scarab effectively costs 6 if you want to play it a keep it safe from a single Swords. (not to mention two, which isn't terribly unlikely given the low amount of threats). Then, in later turns, you're also forced to keep an additional mana open that could be being used to Top. Additionaly, when it comes to recurring, with Gigapede I'm not forced to choose between blindly milling away a potentially good card or returning it. I can just toss the useless fodder without losing a potentially good draw. Then, of course, I'll always take the 6/1 body over the 4/4 anyday.

I'm not arguing for more Gigapedes, I think two is a good number, but rather more Hierachs instead of Scarabs. Or even Baloths. I know they AREN'T bulletproof, but that's what Gigapede gives us. Packing a bunch of 4/4s for 4 are good way to just win some games faster. (Knowing this problem all too well from Wombat) Also, it seems that in the MUs where you would want recurrable threats for the long game, you've also got Echoes to do the job in addition to the Gigapedes.

I'm think there are better options than a recurring 4/4 for 5 given the already strong resiliency of the deck. [Plus having Scarab means E.Plague naming Insect is just that much more effective.... hardy har.] Any arguments in favor of the Grave-Shell?

Nihil Credo
03-18-2007, 03:47 PM
Gigapede is more 'bulletproof' than Scarab. The both cost five but Scarab effectively costs 6 if you want to play it a keep it safe from a single Swords. (not to mention two, which isn't terribly unlikely given the low amount of threats). Then, in later turns, you're also forced to keep an additional mana open that could be being used to Top. Additionaly, when it comes to recurring, with Gigapede I'm not forced to choose between blindly milling away a potentially good card or returning it. I can just toss the useless fodder without losing a potentially good draw. Then, of course, I'll always take the 6/1 body over the 4/4 anyday.
I haven't played the deck enough to advocate either Insect, but I'd like to correct a couple of erroneous assumptions you made in this post:

1) When you sacrifice Scarab, it goes to your graveyard as part of the cost. Therefore, you don't ever need more than one mana to protect it from an arbitrary number of StP. If they try to play a second StP in response to your use of its ability, they will lack a target since the Scarab is already gone.
2) The chance of dredging good cards is an incorrect argument to use. The card you'd rather draw is just as likely to be on top of your deck as it is to be the second from the top, right? Therefore, dredging Scarab is just as likely to improve your draws as it is to worsen them.
Also, assuming decking isn't a concern, dredging is in general a positive thing, simply because it gives you more information about what remains in your deck, which will help you make better play decisions.
Finally, there is the helpful interaction with Sensei's Divining Top (set it up to dredge away bad cards).

For a better explanation of point #2, see this article (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10898.html).

torgar
03-18-2007, 05:05 PM
Ah I see. I stand corrected about the double StP point.

However, the point about the dredge still is valid. I read the article, and the point is you have to make a decision whether or not you want the Scarab or card X without knowing what it is. If you're facing down a horde of Goblins, Scarab is clearly better than a land, but you'd probably rather have Damanation or Infest.

In the example thats posed, the card you dredge away may or may not be any better card than the next card on top of your library after you dredge. That doesn't take into account that the dredge still replaces the draw and the card you end up drawing, you draw on your next turn, a turn later...

With a Top in play, I'd agree Scarab is better than without cause you can see and then dredge away useless stuff. But again, it still costs you your draw, so the effect would be the just the same as pitching the useless card you would draw to a Gigapede the next turn. Although I suppose dredge can allow you to did deeper with the top.

Gigapede gives you the option to choose what you exchange it for, regardless of whether or not there's a Top.

The more important point I think, is that it's effect on the board is a 4/4. There are much better 4/4s for cheaper in Hiearch and Baloth. I think the long-term resiliency of Gigapede and end game of Echoes means it'd be better to opt for the more efficient solution to aggro/burn life-loss with life-gain plus beatstick of equal size.

Khepri
04-13-2007, 08:48 AM
I'm testing this deck and I have to say that here Scarab is better than Hearach or Baloth, with or without Top in play. Scarab simply is a semi-infinite 4/4 in your hand and this is really good for a deck that win in the long term. You are not forced to dredge for it as you are not forced to discard for Gigapede but if you need a creature you are sure that next turn you'll play it.

I can't find three creatures that fit better than Gigapede, Scarab and Krosan Tusker in this deck. :P

I know, my english is really bad. I apologize. ^^'

Bye!

dre4m
04-13-2007, 01:50 PM
In light of the recent decline of Solidarity, is it now feasible to move the Blessings from the MD to the board? I would like to try a few Heirarchs in favour of the Blessings and maybe one Duress/Condemn in the maindeck to give us a better clock. In all my testing, the biggest problem for Truffle Shuffle is aggro-control decks with a substantial creature base that can slow-play their threats against you while you can't apply a fast enough clock to stop them. Particularly decks like MeatHooks and Hannifish can do this well, and using Damnation and Deed as a 1-for-1 gets very disheartening after a while. I would appreciate Jack Elgin's more recent permutations and opinions on this deck very much.

Pinder
04-13-2007, 02:14 PM
I second that. Also, Blessing is really not that strong against a competent Solidarity player anyway. I've seen people win through it all the time. Also, you have to make room for Glittering Wish somehow. Although I suppose moving 4-ofs down to 3-ofs to put 1 of them in the board could do that.

In summary, this deck should run Glittering Wish.

outsideangel
04-13-2007, 03:51 PM
Yeah, Blessing doesn't really actually do a whole lot. It won't stop Solidarity, that's for sure. Shuffling back good cards and hoping to draw them again is less good than just getting the card back to your hand, I think. Also Witness can, like, chumpblock or something I guess. Not really that big a deal but it still counts.

Also, a tutor for Pernicious Deed, Vindicate, Hierarch, and Grave-Shell seems saucy. Maybe add 1x Gerrard's Verdict to the board for some tutorable discard as well?

dre4m
04-14-2007, 03:00 AM
I don't know about Glittering Wish, I don't think a wishboard is what this deck wants. You're more focused on having cards that you want to side out and in, and using Top/shuffle to find the cards that you need in your deck. It does warrant testing, however.

Khepri
04-14-2007, 06:56 AM
In my opinion wish-sideboard are generally terrible. Gaea's Blessing is sometimes useful cause is the only grave-hate card that you play maindeck and is also useful against solidarity. I should consider using Extirpate that is really strong against blue decks and decks that use the grave.

So, may be -2 Gaea's Blessing
+2 Extirpate

Bye!

dre4m
04-14-2007, 10:22 AM
So, may be -2 Gaea's Blessing
+2 Extirpate


I hope that you're talking about the SB somehow, because MD extirpates would be much worse than the blessings. I'm going to tentatively say that we play Heirarchs in the MD until Jack gives us the creator's opinion.

Lego
04-14-2007, 12:24 PM
Jack will probably tell you that Solidarity doesn't have a large enough presence to warrant 2 to 3 maindeck cards devoted to beating it, but let me clarify something real quick:

Gaea's Blessing does help against Solidarity. Without it main, you have an abysmal chance to beat them game 1, but with it you're much closer to 50/50, and post-board you've got a great shot. The reason for this is that you pack a good amount of disruption, but a very slow clock. You can usually put the hurts on Solidarity, but many turns later, Solidarity is able to recover just enough to hit a lethal Brain Freeze the turn before you win. 3x Gaea's Blessing means that after your disruption, they have to Stroke you out, or hit a couple of Brain Freezes followed by a Stroke. With no disruption, this is simple as heck to do, but after a Duress, a Hymn to Tourach, and a Vindicate, it becomes much harder to do. Add in Cabal Therapy, Eternal Witness, and Loxodon Hierarch out of the board, and you may even be pretty favored.

That's not to say that it should be played (the Solidarity presence doesn't warrant it in most places) but it can be an effective answer in this deck.

dre4m
04-14-2007, 01:34 PM
Now that we aggree that Blessing needs to be replaced, what shall be its successor? Fast combo decks like TES will obviously be the biggest problem, and our MD disruption will help, but a quicker clock is more important, I believe. Heirarch seems nice, but I'm sure at least one person will say Spiritmonger.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-15-2007, 01:35 PM
Gaea's Blessing wasn't a backbreaker against Solidarity, but it did shore up the matchup while having synergy with a number of elements in the deck. I have kind of wanted to run something stronger in it's place for a while, but as the 3 slot was clogged, I wanted to make sure it was something that cost 2 or less. I think Glittering Wish could easily solidify the decklist. I'm currently playtesting the following version;


Land:
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
3 Scrubland
3 Polluted Delta
4 Windswept Heath
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains

Creatures:
4 Krosan Tusker
2 Gigapede

Spells:
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Condemn
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Glittering Wish
3 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Damnation
1 Haunting Echoes

Wish Targets:
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Grave-Shell Scarab
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Vindicate
1 Culling Sun
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Gerrard's Verdict
1 Crime/Punishment

Other Sideboard Cards:
4 Eternal Witness
3 Cabal Therapy




I never really felt that Scarab was weaker than Gigapede, as the two are strong in different matchups, with Gigapede being better against Solidarity and Threshold and Scarab being stronger against Goblins. But with Glittering WIsh, there's certainly no need to run the Scarabs main.

So far this build actually seems more, rather than less, consistent than the non-Wish version.

Valdez
04-15-2007, 02:57 PM
...
1 Culling Sun
...
1 Gerrard's Verdict
....
1 Crime/Punishment

I can't find any Reason to Play Deed, Culling Sun and C/P in the Board, because Deed does eveything, the other two Spells do even more efficient.
You are also able to wish Vindicate to find a solution for Needle on Deed.

Further Verdict seems redundant to me, if you really want to play a Discard Spell in the SB you should think about Castigate.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-15-2007, 03:03 PM
I want a certain level of redundancy with my Wish targets. You run 4, and you don't really want the second and third one you happen to draw to be dead.

Alex_Van_R
04-15-2007, 03:09 PM
How about playing Mortify and Putrefy next to Vindicate, Deed and C/P in the sideboard?

Valdez
04-15-2007, 03:31 PM
I want a certain level of redundancy with my Wish targets. You run 4, and you don't really want the second and third one you happen to draw to be dead.
I just can't belive, that that much Massremoval is needed, you run 6 Massremoval MD + Top wich is able to generate an incedible Card Quality and to find everything you need.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-15-2007, 03:38 PM
It might be possible to cut either the Culling Sun or the Crime/Punishment for a different card, although I'm not sure which or what exactly I would want to fit in there... possibly some sort of late game bomb like Phantom Nishoba or Death Grasp.

Khepri
04-15-2007, 07:48 PM
Gaea's Blessing wasn't a backbreaker against Solidarity, but it did shore up the matchup while having synergy with a number of elements in the deck. I have kind of wanted to run something stronger in it's place for a while, but as the 3 slot was clogged, I wanted to make sure it was something that cost 2 or less. I think Glittering Wish could easily solidify the decklist. I'm currently playtesting the following version;


Land:
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
3 Scrubland
3 Polluted Delta
4 Windswept Heath
3 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Plains

Creatures:
4 Krosan Tusker
2 Gigapede

Spells:
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Duress
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Condemn
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Glittering Wish
3 Vindicate
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Damnation
1 Haunting Echoes

Wish Targets:
1 Loxodon Hierarch
1 Grave-Shell Scarab
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Vindicate
1 Culling Sun
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Gerrard's Verdict
1 Crime/Punishment

Other Sideboard Cards:
4 Eternal Witness
3 Cabal Therapy




I never really felt that Scarab was weaker than Gigapede, as the two are strong in different matchups, with Gigapede being better against Solidarity and Threshold and Scarab being stronger against Goblins. But with Glittering WIsh, there's certainly no need to run the Scarabs main.

So far this build actually seems more, rather than less, consistent than the non-Wish version.

Don't you think that the deck may be weaker against counter decks if you only play 2 Gigapede and no main Scarabs? I think that 4 Glittering Wish in the main deck aren't so solid agains a counter deck. If your opponent counters your Scarab you can use dredge next turn but if your opponent counters your Glittering Wish you haven't a second chance. Yes, of course against non-blue decks I'm sure Glittering Wish works fine but i think VS blue decks it isn't so strong.

bigbear102
04-15-2007, 07:58 PM
Duress, Hymn and Vindicate make 'counterspell' decks a pretty good game. Glittering Wish isn't really needed against those decks anyway, as most of them we will beat already. Gigapede is usually pretty good against blue decks, most of which do not have a lot of blockers. The nice thing is that decks relying on counters will have a slow clock, so you have time to grab Gigapede for the win. Also, most competent players will not counterspell the wish, they will wait to see what you are grabbing, at that point the Scarab is in your hand, and will almost definately see play, just as if you drew him off the top.

On a secondary note: Glittering Wish is not legal till AFTER the GP, so don't start changing ur decks yet, that is unless you're Jack Elgin and play strictly casual magic for some reason+...

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-16-2007, 12:53 AM
Oh, right, some of you people prepare for real tournaments.


Yeah, in that case, -4 Wish, -1 Tusker, +2 Blessing, +1 Deed, +1 Vindicate, +2 Grave-Shell, and minus either the Condemn or one Delta, I'm not sure which yet.

Khepri
04-16-2007, 09:59 AM
Also, most competent players will not counterspell the wish, they will wait to see what you are grabbing, at that point the Scarab is in your hand, and will almost definately see play, just as if you drew him off the top.

You are right, i didn't think to this aspect :P

I know that Glittering will be legal after the gp but i love testing new cards ^^'

dre4m
04-16-2007, 10:51 AM
I played Truffle Shuffle yesterday to a finish of 9th at a Grand Prix trial, missing top 8 on breakers.

My list was Jack's most recent list -2 Blessing -1 Divining Top +3 Heirarch and a sideboard of 3 Leyline, 4 Therapy, 4 Witness, 2 Blessing, and 2 Condemn. The maindeck Heirarchs won me at least three games by giving me a clock while I wiped the board with Deeds and Plows. My only loss all day was to RG Survival Advantage, and only then because he topdecked a Witness and a Baloth to vial out after I Damnationed everything else away. Oh yeah, and he boarded in Blood Moons. The most notable victory of the day was against TES, where I actualy managed to beat him Game 1 on the back of Duress, Hymn, Vindicate, Heirarch. Game 2 he won on Turn 1 with double LED, double Rite of Flame, and Burning Wish into D.Returns. Game 3 I got the Witness/Therapy craziness and killed with Gigapede/Heirarch. I'm still not sold on Glittering Wish, but if I play Truffle Shuffle at the GP, I will be running the maindeck Elephants and the Blessings in the board.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-16-2007, 02:12 PM
With more mid game cards and less early game draw-smoothers, I'd just worry more about my mana base. Although it doesn't seem to have hurt you any. Congrats on the win.


Is anyone aware of any kind of early game card or mana smoothing in gold colors? I'm boggled.

dre4m
04-16-2007, 06:04 PM
The mana wasn't a problem all day while I wasn't under a Blood Moon. I was going to take out the Condemn for a elephant instead of a Top, but I was expecting a great deal of goblins [which I didn't face all day]. There are multicoloured cards that could serve as draw or mana fixing, but not in the colours of this deck.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-17-2007, 05:59 AM
Interesting sidenote from testing: Glittering Wish is amazing. In particular, Dueling Grounds + Grave-Shell Scarab is a hard lock against Goblins (Scarab has a limited form of "Vigilance" in that you can sac him and replay him after attacking your second main phase).

dre4m
04-17-2007, 08:34 AM
Jack: Have you had problems surviving long enough vs fast aggro or combo decks to both cast Glittering Wish and the card you fetch with it? It just seems pretty slow against Goblins or TES, but then again I speak on theory only, because I am testing Truffle Shuffle for the GP and thus sans Glittering Wish. I will take the creator's word for the amazingless of Glittering Wish and will combat its inclusion after legalisation no more.

Alfred
04-17-2007, 01:18 PM
Have you considered Giant Solifuge in the Sideboard? Because that seems like a beating against control decks, and puts a fast, difficult to deal with clock on the board against combo.

Also, is Gerrard's Verdict better than Castigate as a wish target? Castigate seems like a more relevant card against combo and control decks, while Gerrard's Verdict seems better against aggro decks. Castigate also seems better if you want to resolve a bomb because it gives you information on their hand, as well as fishing out the counter.

I see that you abandoned the Gaea's Blessing plan. I think that if you want to beat combo, you need a faster clock than what you have currently. Giant Solifuge is good in that spot, and so is Anurid Brushopper. Brushopper is also a good play directly after the Glittering Wish turn, and could help against faster aggro decks where you need a blocker earlier than Loxodon Hierarch. It also dodges Deed, Damnation and enemy removal, which would be great against Goblins, where you can keep that good blocker on the board even after wiping it.

I think you want Glittering Wish to be able to find a solution to Lackey -> go as soon as possible. That type of opening sometimes can't be stopped with a turn 4 solution like Deed or Damnation. Brushopper would give the deck a good blocking option that has synergy with the wrath effects in the deck. It also outclasses things like Nimble Mongoose in combat.

Finn
04-17-2007, 02:49 PM
Jack, you are going to want to cut down on the duplicate effects in the sb. Pernicious Deed, Vindicate, Culling Sun, Crime//Punishment, etc all serve a similar purpose. Consider leaving all the Deeds in the main and perhaps all the Vindicates as well. Chances are that you will only see a couple of Wishes them each game, and with a control deck any offense will usually do in a pinch. Conversely, you want the best defensive cards to be available fast.

Also, and importantly, be sure to have 4 excellent sb options for the combo matchup unless you find some killer anti-combo agent in multi. You will be siding these out a lot.

Finally, why would you take your really good cards out of the main in the first place? Living Wish worked well for me because I was not required to nix the main deck to support it.

gl

BreathWeapon
04-18-2007, 04:47 PM
I'm pretty sure you don't need the Damnations any more with Glittering Wish, Glittering Wish for Dueling Grounds pretty much GG's Goblins in every deck I've played it in so far.

Cavius The Great
04-18-2007, 05:29 PM
I played Truffle Shuffle yesterday to a finish of 9th at a Grand Prix trial, missing top 8 on breakers.

My list was Jack's most recent list -2 Blessing -1 Divining Top +3 Heirarch and a sideboard of 3 Leyline, 4 Therapy, 4 Witness, 2 Blessing, and 2 Condemn. The maindeck Heirarchs won me at least three games by giving me a clock while I wiped the board with Deeds and Plows. My only loss all day was to RG Survival Advantage, and only then because he topdecked a Witness and a Baloth to vial out after I Damnationed everything else away. Oh yeah, and he boarded in Blood Moons. The most notable victory of the day was against TES, where I actualy managed to beat him Game 1 on the back of Duress, Hymn, Vindicate, Heirarch. Game 2 he won on Turn 1 with double LED, double Rite of Flame, and Burning Wish into D.Returns. Game 3 I got the Witness/Therapy craziness and killed with Gigapede/Heirarch. I'm still not sold on Glittering Wish, but if I play Truffle Shuffle at the GP, I will be running the maindeck Elephants and the Blessings in the board.

Am I missing something? GP trails don't start till May. Do you have a time machine?? Please explain.

Xero
04-18-2007, 05:39 PM
Wrong. There have been several Grand Prix Trials so far.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
04-18-2007, 05:41 PM
Cutting Damnations is a thought... possibly to finally fit in the maindeck Witnesses? That would even allow Duress to become Cabal Therapy, which would also strengthen the Goblins matchup.

bigbear102
04-18-2007, 11:09 PM
Adding Witness to the main already strengthens the goblin matchup. It gives you a blocker + STP.

It is an interesting thought to cut Damnation, I'll have to test that out.... It doesn't really seem like a good idea to me, but it just might work...

dre4m
04-18-2007, 11:25 PM
Cavius, there have been three GPT's so far that I know of, including the one I was in, and probably a few more that I don't know about. All my attempts to construct a time machine have been unsuccessful.

As far as cutting Damnation.... I can't say I would ever do it, but maybe a Wrath effect via Glittering Wish is better in the long run.

BreathWeapon
04-19-2007, 12:48 AM
Is it possible to be less controlling and just go for creatures and Glittering Wish for Dueling Grounds to smoke Goblins?

4 Ravenous Baloth
3 Loxodon Hierarch
4 Eternal Witness
4 Dark Confidant (I really prefer this guy to top)
4 Glittering Wish
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

23 land

That mana is a mess, but the 4/4 beaters and their life gain backed up with Glittering Wish for Dueling Grounds seem like a solid approach for the aggro match ups this deck is going to face.

It's more like Macey Rock than Truffle Shuffle, but Glittering Wish is such a huge card that pretty much completely changes the way I look at the archetype entirely.

Xero
04-19-2007, 01:27 AM
Is Dark Heart of the Woods (or Overgrown Estate, but that requires all 3 colors) any good as a Wish target? It seems like it could help Aggro matches, but you might not want to kill your lands off..

Nihil Credo
04-19-2007, 10:58 AM
Are you guys sure that Cabal Therapy is the best way to combat combo post-SB? We've already got quite a bit of maindeck discard, and adding some more ends up being fairly ineffective. When I play Solidarity, I'll just Meditate at EOT and refill my hand since you do not have a meaningful clock; when I play Iggy or TES, I have a good chance of topdecking an Infernal Tutor or an IGG (or Diminishing Returns) and still go off from no hand.

Also, the deck is kold to a dedicated LD strategy, as well as to burn-heavy aggro decks. That is something I do not like, since there are a ton of available answers.

I therefore suggest the following 75 cards:

// Lands
2 [PR] Savannah
2 [UNH] Swamp
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [PR] Bayou
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [PR] Scrubland
1 [UNH] Plains
2 [UNH] Forest
1 [JU] Nantuko Monastery

// Creatures
2 [PR] Eternal Witness
3 [ON] Krosan Tusker
3 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch
2 [ON] Gigapede

// Spells
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed
3 [PR] Vindicate
3 [PLC] Damnation
4 [PR] Duress
4 [FS] Glittering Wish
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
4 [PR] Hymn to Tourach (1)

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch
SB: 1 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 [PR] Vindicate
SB: 1 [RAV] Grave-Shell Scarab
SB: 1 [AP] Gerrard's Verdict
SB: 1 [IN] Dueling Grounds
SB: 3 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 4 [EX] Sphere of Resistance


Nantuko Monasteries: Insanely good, I've found I could afford one without weakening the mana. I went back from running two since they lost me some games, but I think they could be run (though I'd have to bring back the fourth Tusker in this case).

-2 Top, +2 Witness: I hated seeing multiple Tops in my hand. Eternal Witness added a different type of consistency, of which I felt more the need for.

-1 Tusker, -1 Condemn, -1 Echoes, +3 Hierarch: Hierarch is a better threat than Tusker, and while weaker than Condemn against Goblins it is useful against every kind of aggro. I like Echoes in MBC and Train Wreck, but Truffle Shuffle is a more proactive deck, and I've never liked them here without any way to tutor for them.

Sphere of Resistance: Chalice of the Void is more powerful in the abstract, but it has the problem of "turning off" our other disruption. Since this deck already crushes Threshold, Sphere of Resistance - which had already proved its worth in Train Wreck - is the superior artifact (I find Trinisphere to be too slow).

Life from the Loam: Like I said, I wanted some out against LD strategies, and this is much better than Sacred Ground. Might warrant a 3-of in some metas, likely cutting a Crypt.

Tormod's Crypt: I wanted some kind of graveyard hate, and discarded Leyline of the Void since I did not have room for a 4-of and it dies to Pernicious Deed.

Khepri
04-25-2007, 08:22 AM
Tormod's Crypt: I wanted some kind of graveyard hate, and discarded Leyline of the Void since I did not have room for a 4-of and it dies to Pernicious Deed.

Tormod's Crypt dies to Pithing Needle that is also worste in my opinion.

Nihil Credo
04-25-2007, 10:08 AM
Awesome, one less Needle aimed at Deed and Top.

dre4m
04-25-2007, 01:08 PM
Awesome, one less Needle aimed at Deed and Top.

No one would ever Needle crypt vs Truffle Shuffle, unless they have three in hand. As far as additional combo hate, Sphere slows you down a lot, so maybe Rule of Law or Extirpate.

bigbear102
04-25-2007, 02:23 PM
Going to 2 Tops is a horrible idea in this deck. That is your engine, you want to get it online ASAP. 3 is a good number because you don't want it clogging your hand. First turn top usually wins games for me, it lets me find what I want against certain matchups.

I like the Hierarchs and witnesses main, as I have had them main for months now.

With 3 Hierarchs you really only need 1 Gigapede, as it is inferior against aggro, and against control you'll have time to find it. I play:
1 Gigapede
2 Hierarch
2 Tusker
3 Witness
With 1 Scarab and 1 Hierarch in the board for G. Wish.

I also like all my Deeds MD. Vindicate in the board is ok, but I would actually replace it with Putrefy and keep the 4th Vindicate main. Wishing for an enchantment removal is almost never going to be relevant, but you might need an out for Needle, and this lets it not be Vindicate, which Mage is probably chanting.

dre4m
05-04-2007, 02:10 PM
Well, loyal Truffle Shuffle players, what will we be doing for combo sideboard hate at the GP? I already pack Witness and Therapy of course, and Leyline for IGGy Pop and Hulk Flash, but is this enough or of the correct nature? I am also considering Extirpate, as it works very well with all the discard.

<edit>I will include my current SB:
4 Eternal Witness
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Condemn
2 Gaea's Blessing

I would really like to fit in the 4th Leyline, and as I really don't expect to see too much Solidarity, I might eschew Blessings for 1 more Leyline and another Condemn.</edit>

TheInfamousBearAssassin
05-04-2007, 04:36 PM
Don't play this deck. As much as it pains me to say it. Other decks can hate on HulkFlash a lot more effectively than you can, and Leylines being anywhere makes your kill conditions kind of weak. You'll probably smash the decks hating on HulkFlash, but to be honest they're not going to do as well as HulkFlash itself anyway.


Although I really hope they just ban the card so I can play this thing.

PhanTom_lt
05-09-2007, 09:06 AM
So in a HulkFlash-free-otherwise-pretty-much-random meta this deck would do allright, yes?
What would be the most current list? (barring HulkFlash).
Trying to revive our Legacy meta here, so having a tourney. For a meta of 1 IGGy, 1 Spring Tide, 1 UGw *****, 2 Pox, 1 Goblins, 1 SalvaGame, some random decks, would this be a correct choice? Or Red Death, BW Confidant or Funkbrew would be better?

bigbear102
05-09-2007, 10:42 AM
This seems like a solid choice for that meta. You may want to add a bit more discard to the main even. With Iggy, Spring Tide, and Pox you will want more disruption. Red Death may be a better pick for that meta, seeing as it already has the disruption package. If you do play Truffle Shuffle, I would suggest MD'ing 3 Therapies or Gerrard's Verdicts on top of Duress and Hymn.

dre4m
05-09-2007, 12:05 PM
So in a HulkFlash-free-otherwise-pretty-much-random meta this deck would do allright, yes?
What would be the most current list? (barring HulkFlash).
Trying to revive our Legacy meta here, so having a tourney. For a meta of 1 IGGy, 1 Spring Tide, 1 UGw *****, 2 Pox, 1 Goblins, 1 SalvaGame, some random decks, would this be a correct choice? Or Red Death, BW Confidant or Funkbrew would be better?

You should maindeck 3 Gerrard's Verdict in this meta and sideboard 2-3 extirpate.

The Leg N00B
05-09-2007, 05:58 PM
Hay, I want to start playing leg, and I thought of this deck. It looks a lot like my normal decks. Could anyone give me a current decklist + sideboard, and maybe a bit info about what card I have to add/cut against wich deck?

Grz TLN

TheInfamousBearAssassin
05-09-2007, 07:33 PM
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [A] Bayou
3 [UNH] Swamp
2 [MI] Forest (4)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [U] Scrubland
1 [U] Plains (2)
3 [R] Savannah

// Creatures
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ON] Gigapede
1 [RAV] Grave-Shell Scarab
3 [ON] Krosan Tusker

// Spells
4 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
4 [US] Duress
3 [PLC] Damnation
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
1 [DIS] Condemn

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [DIS] Condemn
SB: 3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 3 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch

Khepri
05-09-2007, 08:43 PM
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [A] Bayou
3 [UNH] Swamp
2 [MI] Forest (4)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [U] Scrubland
1 [U] Plains (2)
3 [R] Savannah

// Creatures
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ON] Gigapede
1 [RAV] Grave-Shell Scarab
3 [ON] Krosan Tusker

// Spells
4 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
4 [US] Duress
3 [PLC] Damnation
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
1 [DIS] Condemn

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [DIS] Condemn
SB: 3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 3 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch

Thanks, I'll try it. You should have a better combo matchup in this way... or not?

dre4m
05-09-2007, 11:02 PM
Thanks, I'll try it. You should have a better combo matchup in this way... or not?

A better matchup against relatively slower combo, yes. By 'relatively slower' I mean 'not Hulk-Flash,' but the Leylines in the board are pretty good there as long as you can hit their bounce with discard somehow. Use Witness to best effect.

The Leg N00B
05-10-2007, 03:23 AM
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [A] Bayou
3 [UNH] Swamp
2 [MI] Forest (4)
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [U] Scrubland
1 [U] Plains (2)
3 [R] Savannah

// Creatures
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [ON] Gigapede
1 [RAV] Grave-Shell Scarab
3 [ON] Krosan Tusker

// Spells
4 [AT] Hymn to Tourach
4 [US] Duress
3 [PLC] Damnation
1 [OD] Haunting Echoes
4 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [4E] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AP] Vindicate
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
1 [DIS] Condemn

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [DIS] Condemn
SB: 3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [PS] Orim's Chant
SB: 3 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch


So no wishes?

TheInfamousBearAssassin
05-10-2007, 03:25 AM
Not legal yet.

The Leg N00B
05-10-2007, 02:11 PM
There going to be legal somewere end may right? I'm testing a deck to play during the summer, so it doesn't matter is they aren't legal now. I just have to now wich cards I have to search for.

Grz Thomas

TheAardvark
05-10-2007, 02:25 PM
Yes, they become legal on May 20th.

Pre-Hulk Flash, I was going to go and play Truffle at the GP with a terrible (but hot) SB:

4x Cabal Therapy
4x Funeral Charm
4x Gerrard's Verdict
3x Orim's Chant

It would have been pretty entertaining. Alas, Flash happened, and, well...you know the story.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
05-10-2007, 02:37 PM
There going to be legal somewere end may right? I'm testing a deck to play during the summer, so it doesn't matter is they aren't legal now. I just have to now wich cards I have to search for.

Grz Thomas


-1 Deed
-1 Vindicate
-2 Grave-Shell Scarab


Are probably the easiest cuts... at that point, depending on the metagame, you might also cut the Condemn and/or a Damnation, especially if combo is still popular after the banning of Hulk-Flash.

dre4m
05-11-2007, 11:53 AM
-1 Deed
-1 Vindicate
-2 Grave-Shell Scarab


Are probably the easiest cuts... at that point, depending on the metagame, you might also cut the Condemn and/or a Damnation, especially if combo is still popular after the banning of Hulk-Flash.

Jack, your most recent list has only one Grave-Shell Scarab. He might mean Eternal Witness or Condemn.

The Leg N00B
05-12-2007, 09:12 AM
-1 Deed
-1 Vindicate
-2 Grave-Shell Scarab


Are probably the easiest cuts... at that point, depending on the metagame, you might also cut the Condemn and/or a Damnation, especially if combo is still popular after the banning of Hulk-Flash.

You think they're going to ban hulk flash? Cause I'm building that to.

Grz TLN

PhanTom_lt
05-21-2007, 06:55 AM
Played this deck in our last Legacy tourney. 10 players, standings:
1st: Dryad/goyf Sligh
2nd: IGGy Pop w/ red (almost TES, but not quite)
3rd-4th Truffle Shuffle (me) and Pox
5th: Squirrel Ferrrma (!!)
others:
Ichorid, UGw ********, Boros, UGmadness, Goblins

Decklist:

Lands:
4 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 nantuko Monastery
2 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of yawgmoth
2 Temple Garden
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Windswept Heath
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire

Creatures;
4 Loxodon Hierarch - MVP
2 Eternal Witness
2 Gigapede
1 Eternal Dragon - underperformer
3 Krosan Tusker - piggys are great.

Spells:
4 Vindicate
1 Wrath of God
1 Damnation
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Haunting Echoes
3 Perniciuos Deed

Board:
2 Extirpate
2 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Infest
1 Condemn.

1st round: IGGy pop.
Damn, i hate playing against combo.
1st game: i mull a hand with 2 stp, dragon, 4 land, keep a 6er. he keeps. i go land, top. he puts leyline into play, land, petal, d.ritual, igg. damn. but he doesn't win for quite soem time, and top almost puts me into victory, but with him at 2 life, and facing 2 gigapede's, he topdecks a win.
game 2. I side in 12 cards, taking out spot removal, , while he is looking at his library, and says: "i forgot to pull out a proxy from my deck - an Izzet boilerworks for a steam vents". he threatens to leave if we don't let him change, and we let him, because he lent a lot of cards for tourney. At least he takes a game loss. Game 3, i guess he didn't shuffle enough, as all his gas is on the bottom of the library, we checked after the game. Didn't expect to win this one.

2nd round:
Goblins:
I go 1-0 against him, not a very good player, made quite a lot of mistakes, like keeping a wasteland on the table for a few turns, but the sheer brokenness of the deck almost gives him the win. Almost.

3rd round:
Rg Dryad Sligh. 1-1.
When i saw a Hierarch, i won. When i didn't, i lost. Blood Moon wrecks me, glad to at least have those Tuskers.

4th Round:
Pox. 1-2
It was not as brutal as i thought, winning G1, because he never remembered to bring back the Nether Spirit. Extra Discard after board didn't help, though.

5th round:
UGmadness. 2-0.
Deed + StP + hierarch = bad times for him.

Top4:
Rg Sligh. Damn, even IGGy would be better. I didn't see a hierarch in either of 2 games, despite heavy shuffling with fetches and top. Lost 0-2. Pox lost against IGGy in another table.

We thought that Iggy would win easily, but he miscounted his mana in both games, fell 1 mana short both games, and lost.

Anyways, i liked the deck, though it's bad that some random hispanic guy is the fault of this deck's underdevelopment and underplay.

dre4m
05-21-2007, 11:51 PM
PhanTom_It, were you unable to find a lot of the cards for your list? You are running a lot of suboptimal cards like shocklands, three Deeds, one Wrath, and one Damnation. Board sweeping is a major strength in this deck, and you were running very little. Good thing there is no Flash in your metagame. I think Flash is a more recent culprit for this deck's underdevlopment.

PhanTom_lt
05-22-2007, 10:04 AM
PhanTom_It, were you unable to find a lot of the cards for your list? You are running a lot of suboptimal cards like shocklands, three Deeds, one Wrath, and one Damnation. Board sweeping is a major strength in this deck, and you were running very little. Good thing there is no Flash in your metagame. I think Flash is a more recent culprit for this deck's underdevlopment.

Yea, shocklands were in because we don't have enough true duals. There was enough board sweeping, imho. Besides, what would you take out? The 1-1 split of WoG/Damnation was in case of ********'s Meddling Mages. I honestly don't want to take Vindicates out or something like that. Maybe an Eternal Dragon but he can find me a land in case of mana screw cheaply. Tusker costs 2G, and if i don't have it?
I wouldn't play this if i knew that Flash was in. Thank goodness, our combo players think that that combo is too boring and opt for something more 'fun' like IGGy or Spring Tide. And getting all the cards for it when we are unsure of it's existence past June 1st is not affordable in an isolated community. Maybe after june 1st, if it isn't getting banned (although i hope it is)... nah, we'll play Extended instead then.

Nitpick: it's PhanTom_lt, not PhanTom_It. I'm Lithuanian, not Italian.

bigbear102
06-01-2007, 09:39 PM
So, now that we all know this is a viable deck again, here is my current list.

3x Bayou
3x Scrubland
3x Savannah
4x Windswept Heath
1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Plains
3x Swamp
2x Forest

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
1x Haunting Echoes
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Glittering Wish

2x Loxodon Hierarch
2x Gigapede
3x Eternal Witness
3x Krosan Tusker

SB:
2x Loxodon Hierarch
1x Grave-shell Scarab
1x Dueling Grounds
1x Crime/Punishment
1x Putrefy
1x Castigate/Gerrard's Verdict
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Rule of Law
1x???


I really like this build for a lot of reasons:

1. There are 4 Deeds and 4 Vindicates MD. I don't like taking any of them out of the main. I have Crime/Punishment and Putrefy to handle their board slots.

2. Dueling Grounds and the extra Hierarch out of the board make Gobs a pretty decent matchup. You can win most game 1's due to their lack of enchantment removal, and then it's a coin toss games 2 and 3, normally getting 1 isn't too hard.

3. It's just fun to play.

The sideboard isn't tuned yet. I'm not sure if I want GY hate in my board or what it should be if I do. Leyline normally gets blown up by deed, so it's kind of iffy.

I like the wish targets, with Hierarchs the Wishes are never dead.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
06-01-2007, 09:48 PM
I'm still tweaking. I think that, with no WoGs/Damnations main, Culling Sun as a Wish target is really a must. Punishment isn't amazing against Gobbos.

dre4m
06-02-2007, 10:04 AM
So, now that we all know this is a viable deck again, here is my current list.

3x Bayou
3x Scrubland
3x Savannah
4x Windswept Heath
1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Plains
3x Swamp
2x Forest

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
1x Haunting Echoes
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Glittering Wish

2x Loxodon Hierarch
2x Gigapede
3x Eternal Witness
3x Krosan Tusker

SB:
2x Loxodon Hierarch
1x Grave-shell Scarab
1x Dueling Grounds
1x Crime/Punishment
1x Putrefy
1x Castigate/Gerrard's Verdict
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Rule of Law
1x???


Do you really think that you will be Wishing for the second Heirarch more than you would want to Wish for Vindicate? Culling Sun needs to be in your board, and I would replace the second Heirarch with the Vindicate and put a fourth top in the maindeck as well.

bigbear102
06-02-2007, 10:49 AM
I feel like Dave Gearhart here.... The second Loxodon is not a wish target, it gets boarded in against gobs/fast aggro so that you have 7 MD.

VINDICATE IS BETTER MAINDECK!!!! That is why I have a Putrefy and a Punishment in the board. They do everything Vindicate does except hit land. Having 4 MD allows you to play it without wishing for it first. Against control they know what you have when you do that, I don't like my opponent knowing what I have in my hand when I don't have to let them know. Putrefy and Punishment both take out a Needle on Deed for the same price as Vindicate, and that is the biggest threat in most matches. It also gets around Mage chanting Vindicate.

I haven't found a need for Culling Sun in my gobs matchup yet. It seems to be working fine, but I do have an extra slot so I can try it out.

4 Tops MD is too many in my opinion. They are dead beyond the first, and I don't like dead draws. I like this deck because it has very few dead draws at any point in the game. With 3 you will normally see one pretty quickly.

Illissius
06-02-2007, 11:14 AM
Is four Deeds main and Culling Sun in the board better than three Deeds main and one in the board?

sammiel
06-02-2007, 11:20 AM
4 tops main is good because you always want to drop one first turn if you can, and you can shuffle one away if fyou get an extra.

bigbear102
06-03-2007, 01:56 PM
4 Tops main is too many when you want other cards that do things in the deck. A lot of times Duress turn 1 is the right play, also STP is a good turn 1 a lot of the time. There are also the hands that you hymn turn 2, so a first turn top is irrelevant. I find 3 top to be plenty. If you wanna play 4 go for it.

Again, 4 Deeds MD is very good. It is better than 3 and 1 SB. You have alternate cards in the board that do the same thing. I haven't finished testing Culling Sun yet, but it seems like a decent choice.

Does anybody have an opinion on Gerard's Verdict vs Castigate? I am leading towards Verdict here, but Castigate is very good in combo matchups, problem being casting Wish and then playing Castigate turn 3 is often worthless in the newer faster meta.

Hummingbird TG
06-03-2007, 05:51 PM
And wishing for Gerrard's Verdict then casting it turn 3 isn't? Castigate hits a relevant card, while Verdict hits the cards they need least. In other words, Castigate almost guarantees you a card(and even when it misses, you know your opponent has nothing relevant), while Verdict has to be timed right to get ANYTHING, and thus provides anywhere from 0-2 relevant cards.

tylerwylie
06-03-2007, 05:58 PM
Even though Verdict doesn't hit relevent cards, Duress and Hymn are so good, that I only feel the need to run 2 more discard cards usually, and a 2 for 1 is really nice, relevance or not. So Verdict for me.

Tao
06-03-2007, 06:00 PM
I agree with Bigbear that 3 Tops are enough. I always advocated for Divining Top and 3 is just the right number.

Idea to Bigbears list:

- 3 Tusker
- 4 Hymn to Tourach
+ 3 Wall of Blossoms
+ 4 Cabal Therapy

I always found Therapy to be a stronger card than Hymn in Control decks. Wall is nice, too, against Goblins and Mongoose.

If you go for Cabal Therapy maindeck instead of Hymn you can have an Orzhov Pontiff in your Sideboard as a -2/-2 effect against Goblins combined with killing their Ringleader backup.

And you really have to do something about the weakness against Counterbalance. If they have a Force of Will (4-off in each of these decks) and something with CMC3 (maybe Crucible, Thirst for Knowledge, Trinket Mage, Krosan Grip) in their Top 3 you are in serious trouble. Maybe 2 Krosan Grips in the SB can help against this. And they are a very flexible card in general.

dre4m
06-03-2007, 08:48 PM
I agree with Bigbear that 3 Tops are enough. I always advocated for Divining Top and 3 is just the right number.

If you have a top in your opening hand, your hand is undeniably much better. You can make this happen more often with four in the maindeck, and unless you have one in your opening hand, the top will make sure you never draw another one.




Idea to Bigbears list:

- 3 Tusker
- 4 Hymn to Tourach
+ 3 Wall of Blossoms
+ 4 Cabal Therapy

I always found Therapy to be a stronger card than Hymn in Control decks. Wall is nice, too, against Goblins and Mongoose.


What? Therapy is best in aggro or aggro-control decks, where you can reliably flash it back. The two-for-one card advantage from Hymn is much better than maindeck Therapy in this deck. I would never replace Piggy with WoB, because WoB doesn't get you a basic when you need one, doesn't shuffle your library, and can't beat down ftw in desperate times.



If you go for Cabal Therapy maindeck instead of Hymn you can have an Orzhov Pontiff in your Sideboard as a -2/-2 effect against Goblins combined with killing their Ringleader backup.

The odds of this happening are far to remote to warrant an otherwise undesirable sideboard card, and we dont' want maindeck Therapy anyways.


And you really have to do something about the weakness against Counterbalance. If they have a Force of Will (4-off in each of these decks) and something with CMC3 (maybe Crucible, Thirst for Knowledge, Trinket Mage, Krosan Grip) in their Top 3 you are in serious trouble. Maybe 2 Krosan Grips in the SB can help against this. And they are a very flexible card in general.

I'm actually not all that worried about the 'weakness against Counterbalance.' If they're keeping a FoW on top of their deck in fear of my Gigapede, I'll laugh and cast an Heirarch, which I play maindeck. If they are keeping a CMC 3 card on top of their library, Krosan Grip won't help you anyways, and if they are keeping FoW and a 3cc card on top, that means their draws will probably be suboptimal and I can take my time winning through with a Piggy or an Heirarch or anything else I could fancy.

Tao
06-04-2007, 07:33 AM
Hmm, so every single statement I made is 100% wrong ^^

Well, the Therapy/Wall thing is just an idea, each card has advantages and disadvantages. The main reason for WoB over Tusker is Tempo: with 3 Witness, 4 Deed and 4 Vindicate your CC3 slot is pretty full while you have only 1 mediocre turn 2 play (Glittering Wish) and 1 unreliable Turn 2 play (BB Hymn with only 15 black sources). The main reason for Therapy is similar: it is faster and furthermore more precise. It will definetely hit the card that you are afraid of.

I don't doubt that Tusker and Hymn are "stronger", but they both cost 1 Mana more.

Still, I am not sure about that point, it was just an idea that you can test.


If you have a top in your opening hand, your hand is undeniably much better. You can make this happen more often with four in the maindeck, and unless you have one in your opening hand, the top will make sure you never draw another one.

That's not true. Top is a lategame card and against decks like Goblins and Threshold with a good start a Divining Top n the opening 7 is not good because you don't have the time/mana to benefit from it. In these matchups Top is a pure lategame card that will let you win the if the game goes longer and so 3 are enough.




The odds of this happening are far to remote to warrant an otherwise undesirable sideboard card


It is not that unlikely. Your opponent has to play Goblins and you need to have Therapy. It is also quite strong against Hanni Fish (Confidant, Mother) and Empty the Warrens token.



I'm actually not all that worried about the 'weakness against Counterbalance.' If they're keeping a FoW on top of their deck in fear of my Gigapede, I'll laugh and cast an Heirarch, which I play maindeck. If they are keeping a CMC 3 card on top of their library, Krosan Grip won't help you anyways, and if they are keeping FoW and a 3cc card on top, that means their draws will probably be suboptimal and I can take my time winning through with a Piggy or an Heirarch or anything else I could fancy.

They will still draw 1 card each turn and even though your cards are superior that won't outweigh the problem that you can't play ~1/2 of your deck. If you invest a card you will always be able to hit Counterbalance or the Top with Krosan Grip.

dre4m
06-04-2007, 03:01 PM
Well, the Therapy/Wall thing is just an idea, each card has advantages and disadvantages. The main reason for WoB over Tusker is Tempo: with 3 Witness, 4 Deed and 4 Vindicate your CC3 slot is pretty full while you have only 1 mediocre turn 2 play (Glittering Wish) and 1 unreliable Turn 2 play (BB Hymn with only 15 black sources).

Fifteen lands that can find or produce black is a lot, in my opinion. You can also do a lot more on turn 2 than cast 2cc cards, like use your Top and StP something or any number of other permutations to make a great deal more than the 2 plays you described.


The main reason for Therapy is similar: it is faster and furthermore more precise. It will definetely hit the card that you are afraid of.


Wow! Your Therapies must read differently than mine, because mine only hit if the card I name is in their hand. The only time Therapy will definately hit is if you know the contents of your opponent's hand.



Top is a lategame card and against decks like Goblins and Threshold with a good start a Divining Top n the opening 7 is not good because you don't have the time/mana to benefit from it. In these matchups Top is a pure lategame card that will let you win the if the game goes longer

You will not autolose to Thresh or Goblins if you play a turn 1 Top. Threshold is as close to an auto-win as you can get with this deck, and Top is an amazing card against them that keeps your draws consistently better than theirs. I will occassinally side out 1-2 Tops vs Goblins, but it is still good T1 on the play, and Goblins does not comprise the entire metagame.


and so 3 are enough.

I broke up these statements because one does not necessarily follow the other, yet you justified the latter with the former. Top is awesome agains thresh and mediocre against Goblins, but that does not mean that three are enough. You didn't justify the number three at all.



It is not that unlikely. Your opponent has to play Goblins and you need to have Therapy. It is also quite strong against Hanni Fish (Confidant, Mother) and Empty the Warrens token.

You forgot "and you have to have a Glittering Wish, then you must cast the Pontiff successfully, hopefully not surrendering any advantage during the 2 turns you took doing this when you should probably have cast Deed or Damnation."



They will still draw 1 card each turn and even though your cards are superior that won't outweigh the problem that you can't play ~1/2 of your deck. If you invest a card you will always be able to hit Counterbalance or the Top with Krosan Grip.

You are only unable to play half your deck if they manage to keep a 3cc and a 5cc card on top of their library, all the while refusing to crack fetchlands or play tutors of any variety. Also, Counterbalance doesn't see all that much play, anyways.

In summary, play 4 Tops, and don't worry about Threshold.

bigbear102
06-06-2007, 06:16 PM
Ok, I don't have a lot of time right now, but I just want to say that Krosan Grip does not stop counterbalance. It is a triggered ability and can therefore counter split second spells.

@Tao, the only reason I want Tusker over WoB is it shuffles for Top. Therapy is in my board, I like it that way. It is much better game 2, with Hymn being better game 1.

@dre4m: Justifying 4 tops by saying that you can side them out against gobs is about the worst reason I have ever heard to play 4 of a card. You admit that Top is not amazing early against Goblins or Thresh, the two most played decks in Legacy. If you admit that it is not needed against two of the most popular decks in the format, then why would you want to play 4 of them??? You have essentially justified running three of them for us, so thanx. And to defend Tao, three does not need to be defended because once you realize 4 is too many, three is the only other option, as 2 is not enough. Three pretty much ensures you will see it in the early/mid game, and not see too many of them.

Also, about Counterbalance.... have you been playing lately? Counterbalance is making its way into a lot of Thresh decks. It was in the GP winning deck also, I know Flash is gone in a couple of weeks, but people will still see the card and play it more. I don't think we can underestimate Counterbalance in the format. Punishment helps there. You also underestimate counter/top, they can fetch and play tutors all day long, that is the point of the deck, and if they do hold their fetches/tutors to keep a 3cc on top, it will be a huge problem as it will be VERY hard to win through that. Most blue decks will also play more than just force and balance, so they probably have more outs to stop the removal.

@Orzhov Pontiff: This guy is kind of interesting. The only problem is the fact that STP negates the haunt, so there has to be another way of killing the haunted man. He will have to be tested.

Tao
06-07-2007, 05:38 AM
For the Balance vs. Grip thing:

If you are in the situation that they have CC3 and CC5 on Top you will usually still get through that with Grip. They have to re-organize their cards before drawing so that they don't draw the CC3 and CC5 card. So between your EoT step, their upkeep and their draw step you will always have at least a 50% chance of hitting with Grip - pretty interesting mind games there. But if you don't reveal that you hold a Grip there is a good chance that they don't know what you plan, and you can hit pretty safe.
Another option is to play strong cards like Hymn to Tourach, Swords to Plowshares or Sensei's Divining Top into their Balance: If they counter it with Balance, Grip is 100% safe. If they don't use their engine, that's good for you, too.

I don't know if Grip is the right card. You already have Vindicate, Deed and a Wishboard so you won't find other matchups where Grip is really needed. But it is not dead, too. It is quite strong in the mirror, against Survival variants, Staxx, Chalice Aggro like Faerie Stompy and rogue decks like Scepter or Affinity.

I can't think of other good options to fight against Balance.

dre4m
06-07-2007, 09:40 AM
@dre4m: Justifying 4 tops by saying that you can side them out against gobs is about the worst reason I have ever heard to play 4 of a card.
When and where did I say that? I'm pretty sure my response went like this:

You will not autolose to Thresh or Goblins if you play a turn 1 Top. Threshold is as close to an auto-win as you can get with this deck, and Top is an amazing card against them that keeps your draws consistently better than theirs. I will occassinally side out 1-2 Tops vs Goblins, but it is still good T1 on the play, and Goblins does not comprise the entire metagame.

Where does that say that siding them out is the justification for playing four? I just said that you COULD side them out.

You admit that Top is not amazing early against Goblins or Thresh, the two most played decks in Legacy.
When did I say that top is not amazing early vs Thresh? It is undoubtably your second-best T1 play vs threshold, second to Duress. Of course it is not good early against Goblins, but neither is Duress. Are you thinking about not playing 4 Duress? I certainly didn't say anything about justifying playing 4 by siding them out, and I would never say that it's a bad early play vs Thresh.
you admit that it is not needed against two of the most popular decks in the format, then why would you want to play 4 of them??? You have essentially justified running three of them for us, so thanx.
I definately didn't say that it wasn't needed. In my opinion, it's always needed, as it's the best card in the deck. That's why I play four of them. I like to play four of the best card in my deck. I never used the phrase "not needed" EVER in my discussion of Top and Truffle Shuffle.
And to defend Tao, three does not need to be defended because once you realize 4 is too many, three is the only other option, as 2 is not enough. Three pretty much ensures you will see it in the early/mid game, and not see too many of them.
When did we realize four was too many? I must have missed your justification for this in the middle of all the stuff that I didn't say.


Also, about Counterbalance.... have you been playing lately?Yes, and "lately" was a format dominated by Flash, in which Counterbalance was much more useful.
You also underestimate counter/top, they can fetch and play tutors all day long, that is the point of the deck, and if they do hold their fetches/tutors to keep a 3cc on top, it will be a huge problem as it will be VERY hard to win through that. Most blue decks will also play more than just force and balance, so they probably have more outs to stop the removal.
I would like you to read this, pause for a second, and then read the quote that directly followed it in your post. The "whole point of the deck" is to "fetch and play tutors all day long." This must be some super-secret countertop deck that I haven't seen yet.

Verbal warning. Tone it down a bit. ~ Nightmare

Cait_Sith
06-07-2007, 10:04 AM
1) Tops are redundant if more than one is in play. Drawing a 2nd top means you did not draw something useful, you only ever want to see one top. If there is a card you only want to see as a 1-of, you run 3 of it. 4 You run if it is a card you MUST see and you don't mind having several copies of it in play. Truffle Shuffle does not NEED Top, but with its large number of shuffle effects it is able to use Top to a much greater extent.

2) Saying Top is your 2nd best turn 1 play vs Thresh when it is one of TWO possible turn 1 plays against Thresh means nothing. It is your WORST possible turn 1 play against Thresh in addition to being your second best.

3) Duress can hit Vial. Top can't. Yes, it is that important. Duress messes with combo. Top doesn't. Duress improves your matchup against aggro by hitting nasty spells (like burn) early on. Top takes time to do that.

4) To answer your question of when did anyone find 4 top to be too many, years ago.

5) Counterbalance is a strong card and people are starting to use it more. Remember that Truffle Shuffle does not have an inflated curve like Stax, or can dodge counterspells like Wombat. Against any deck running CounterTop keeping a 5cc on top of your library is extremely easy (hello FoW) and only Thresh suffers from a severe lack of 3 drops.

Hummingbird TG
06-07-2007, 11:02 AM
If you already have a Top in play, can't you use it with your shuffle effects to shuffle away other Tops?

Anarky87
06-07-2007, 11:13 AM
If you already have a Top in play, can't you use it with your shuffle effects to shuffle away other Tops?

When I used to play Shuffle and I had a Top in hand and one in play, I'd tap the 1 in play to draw a card, put the Top on...top of my library, and then use a shuffle effect and get rid of it. Then play the one in my hand. But 3 is just right. I literally hated drawing multiple Tops throughout any game. I can't imagine being happy with 4 Tops. It's a card that helps filter your draw, but sucks in multiples and is completely useless beyond the first (Unless it was somehow destroyed), so why would you want 4? Running 3 pretty much ensures you'll hit one when you need to in the early turns.

dre4m
06-07-2007, 12:12 PM
When I used to play Shuffle and I had a Top in hand and one in play, I'd tap the 1 in play to draw a card, put the Top on...top of my library, and then use a shuffle effect and get rid of it. Then play the one in my hand. But 3 is just right. I literally hated drawing multiple Tops throughout any game. I can't imagine being happy with 4 Tops. It's a card that helps filter your draw, but sucks in multiples and is completely useless beyond the first (Unless it was somehow destroyed), so why would you want 4? Running 3 pretty much ensures you'll hit one when you need to in the early turns.

How are you drawing a Top if you already had one in play? This is possible only if you forgot to use the Top to stack your draws, or if there is a Needle on Top.

Even if you do draw another one, you can shuffle it away very easily, as you mentioned, unless your Top is disabled somehow.

The issue of multiples arises when you have a situation with a Top in play, and either two Tops on top of your library with no shuffle effect, or two basic lands and a Top on top of your library. Does running one less top really reduce the odds of this happening enough that you are willing to run the risk of not drawing it?

Anarky87
06-07-2007, 12:24 PM
How are you drawing a Top if you already had one in play? This is possible only if you forgot to use the Top to stack your draws, or if there is a Needle on Top.

Even if you do draw another one, you can shuffle it away very easily, as you mentioned, unless your Top is disabled somehow.

The issue of multiples arises when you have a situation with a Top in play, and either two Tops on top of your library with no shuffle effect, or two basic lands and a Top on top of your library. Does running one less top really reduce the odds of this happening enough that you are willing to run the risk of not drawing it?

Actually, yeah, it is for me. Because when I played 3, I saw them exactly when I needed them. And if not in the early game, I'd see one in the mid/late game where I'd play it and start using it. I know that I would not like 4 in the MD, I think that's too many. 3 has always been the right number when I've played the deck and I've never wanted 4, nor felt like my deck was shitting on me because I needed a 4th Top.

The deck has a lot of strength that even if you have a game where you don't see it first turn, your hands will be strong enough to carry you through till you find it. I've beaten Solidarity before without a Top in play, I've beaten Landstill before without Top (Got countered), and quite a few other decks without the need of Top. I think playing with 3 is the correct choice, imo.

dre4m
06-07-2007, 12:50 PM
Actually, yeah, it is for me. Because when I played 3, I saw them exactly when I needed them. And if not in the early game, I'd see one in the mid/late game where I'd play it and start using it. I know that I would not like 4 in the MD, I think that's too many. 3 has always been the right number when I've played the deck and I've never wanted 4, nor felt like my deck was shitting on me because I needed a 4th Top.

The deck has a lot of strength that even if you have a game where you don't see it first turn, your hands will be strong enough to carry you through till you find it. I've beaten Solidarity before without a Top in play, I've beaten Landstill before without Top (Got countered), and quite a few other decks without the need of Top. I think playing with 3 is the correct choice, imo.

Well, unfortunately, this just forces me to admit that, as far as most 'good' magic players go, I am on the extreme low end of the luck spectrum. So, cards that increase your luck relative to your library, like Divining Top, are my best friends, and I consequently need to maximize my odds of drawing them. It worked for me the first GPT that I played 4 Tops. I never drew it consistently enough when I played 3, and I've never had problems getting rid of spares with all the deck's shuffle.

SouthAlly
06-08-2007, 10:18 AM
Hi boys. I found this deck on another website, but it had a different name. Anyway, there are only a few cards that are different so I will post the deck.

4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
2 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Living Wish
3 Nimble Mongoose
2 Gigapede
4 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Eternal Dragon
1 Savannah
4 Bayou
4 Scrubland
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
2 Swamp
1 Plains

board:
4 Duress
2 Damnation
1 Withered Wretch
1 Bane of the Living
1 Exalter Angel
4 Glowrider
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Godless Shrine

Is Glittering Wish better than Living Wish? Even the board choices related to them are similar in purpose. I can't decide, but maybe there is a reason I haven't thought of. I like the Nimble Mongoose, and I noticed that none of you are using it. It is really good against Goblins early, which I figure is a hard matchup. And it is good against just about everyone in the late game. Have you tried it and decided against it?

dre4m
06-08-2007, 12:40 PM
Is Glittering Wish better than Living Wish? Even the board choices related to them are similar in purpose. I can't decide, but maybe there is a reason I haven't thought of. I like the Nimble Mongoose, and I noticed that none of you are using it. It is really good against Goblins early, which I figure is a hard matchup. And it is good against just about everyone in the late game. Have you tried it and decided against it?

Glittering Wish is better than Living Wish because it allows access to a much better and larger wishboard, including Vindicate, Culling Sun, Castigate, Deed, or many other cards that Living Wish cannot find. Mongoose is bad in Truffle Shuffle because you don't want to play creatures early on, because they will die to your own board-sweeping. 1cc creatures in particular are vulnerable. It also dies to lackey until you get threshold, which will probably not be until turn 4 or so. In the late game, it is worse than Gigapede.

As for your deck itself, the additional LD doesn't really help your strategy that much, and Eternal dragon has been cut for Krosan Tusker because it is just plain better. You are also missing Sensei's Divining Top, which is one of the better cards in the deck, and maindeck Duress, which is a huge asset in the combo matchups.

bigbear102
06-08-2007, 04:51 PM
You want the 4 Duress MD, not in the board. Combo is a very hard matchup for Truffle, and the 4 Duress is very important. One of the most important cards for Glittering Wish to go for is Dueling Grounds against goblins. It lets you win game 1 of a tough matchup.

@Dre4m, Cait Sith hit the nail right on the head there, pretty much with everything she said. Counterbalance was also becoming a very popular card in Thresh, BEFORE Flash was errata'd. Jesse has been playing it in Red Thresh for a while now, and Slay made top 8 of Kadi's with Countertop in his deck. It was good in Flash.format also, but it will stay popular even after June 20. Again, to go with Cait, I figured out 3 was the right number at GenCon last year. Against thresh you want Duress/Therapy turn 1, and against gobs you want STP if you are on the draw, you also don't want to crack a fetch in case of Waste if you can help it.

Now, lets stop bitching about the number of tops to play and get to the rest of the deck. If you wanna play 4, play 4, if you wanna play 3, play 3. This is obviously going nowhere.

xsockmonkeyx
06-08-2007, 05:29 PM
@ SouthAlly. That deck is called Dirt and although it superficially resembles Truffle the strategies are different. Ive tried both and found Truffle to be better because it doesnt bother with the Sinkholes and its manabase isnt ruined by Wasteland. Basically, the LD only helps in matchups that are already good for you and does little to help your bad matchups (combo). IMO Wasteland is pretty useless as you are a slow control deck and you will never get much from the tempo gain. Also, colorless mana producers are utter crap in such a mana intensive deck.

TheAardvark
07-10-2007, 12:34 PM
Took some time off from the deck, but I recently came back to it. Most other decks bore me right now, so I thought I'd give this a whirl again. My current list:

4x Duress
4x Hymn To Tourach
4x Swords To Plowshares
4x Vindicate
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Loxodon Hierarch
3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Damnation
2x Eternal Witness
2x Gaea's Blessing
2x Krosan Tusker
1x Gigapede
1x Wrath Of God
1x Grave-Shell Scarab

4x Bayou
3x Savannah
3x Scrubland
3x Windswept Heath
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Forest
3x Plains
3x Swamp

SB:
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Funeral Charm
4x Gerrard's Verdict/Castigate
3x Dueling Grounds


A couple of notes:

1. I do not like Glittering Wish in the deck. I tried it and it was just too slow and not really very efficient.
2. The fetch count is a little low, but I would probably only add maybe one more Mire/Delta, cutting a Bayou.
3. The sideboard looks odd, but I like to be able to fight combo, which is obviously the worst matchup, and Dueling Grounds really help with both EtW combo and Goblins. I've found that game 1 against Goblins isn't all that bad, but cards like Duress and Hymn are really bad against them most of the time, so I swap those out for Funeral Charm, Dueling Grounds, and one of the Verdict/Castigate slots. Funeral Charm is multi-purpose, as it kills Lackey on the draw, and also can come in for pseudo-dead cards in the combo matchups as an additional discard spell. The Verdict slot should almost certainly be Castigate, as forcing them to pitch 2 irrelevant cards is usually not stellar, and Castigate can hit whatever you need it to hit; Verdict is better in a couple of random matchups, but I think Castigate is much better overall.

Anyway, I've given some thought to playing this at GenCon, mainly because every other deck puts me to sleep at this point. I am just not sure. We'll see.

Nantuko88
07-11-2007, 11:41 AM
I recently played in a local Legacy tournament and placed 1st with a variant of the Truffle Shuffle. It started out as a four color build, but I soon realized it had to be paired down. Here's my list for starters:

Creatures:
2 Exalted Angel
2 Yavimaya Elder
2 Grave-Shell Scarab
2 Eternal Witness
1 Eternal Dragon
3 Wall of blossoms

Instant:
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Putrefy

Sorc/Other:
4 Duress
4 Hymmn
3 Wrath
3 Deed
2 Vindicate
3 Sensei’s Diving Top

Land
4 Windswept heath
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Scrub
4 bayou
3 Savannah
2 Plains
2 Swamp
2 forest

SB:
This was metaed for the random aggro faced, not particularly worth noting but did include cards normally useless like Dead of Night and Sharazzad to screw with people.

I really found Yavimaya elder to be amazing. Yes hes slow, but when dropped he can wait around, chump block and tutor two basics plus draw you a card. The down side to the ol' druid is the double green.

Wall of Blossoms = Amazing. A turn two cantrip that blocks...what could you want more? I found WoB to be a mvp in overcomming random Kamigawa block creatures and other odities. Not to mention WoB also stops many guys in Gobbos and those pesky attacking Mages!

My meta is not tricked our or highly competitive. Mostly casual...so my success here may not mean a thing. But I thought I would share. Thanks.

P.S. I played putrefy because I couldnt find two more vindicates :)

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-05-2007, 03:44 PM
I played this list yesterday;

4x Bayou
4x Scrubland
3x Savannah
4x Windswept Heath
2x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire (should've been the third Delta)
2x Forest
2x Swamp
1x Plains

2x Gigapede
1x Haunting Echoes

3x Krosan Tusker
4x Eternal Witness
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Glittering Wish

4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Condemn
2x Chainer's Edict
3x Vindicate
3x Pernicious Deed
3x Crime/Punishment
3x Damnation

sb:
4x Engineered Plague
3x Tormod's Crypt
1x Grave-Shell Scarab
1x Angel of Despair (might've been better as Death Grasp or Spiritmonger
1x Crime/Punishment
1x Loxodon Hierarch
1x Dueling Ground
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Vindicate
1x Gerrard's Verdict


Round 1 I get paired against Alix playing Breakfast.
Game 1 I win with Deed, Punishment to kill two Vials, and StP in the hand backup. Game 2 I side out Condemn/Chainer's Edict + Damnation for the 7 relevant spells, and find out he's playing Sutured Ghoul. Game 3 I side out the Vindicates + Haunting Echoes for the Edicts and Condemns after he wins G2 with first turn En-Kor into third turn win. It doesn't matter as I draw no early action, a turn 3 Engineered Plague gets Forced, and he wins on turn three.

Round 2 I get paired against Dave Gearhart playing Life from the Loam.
We both get gamelosses for misregistered decks. I win in sudden death because he can't draw a Devastating Dreams for a billion years.

Round 3, Zuhair with Gagomyl
Game 1 a Hymn takes out one land plus the Top I should have dropped instead of waiting to StP his first turn Kird Ape. He Wastelands another source and I fail to draw more mana.
Game 2 I have to mulligan to five just to find anylands. I keep a decent hand, but he gets double Hymn followed by Wasteland.

Round 4, I get paired against Zach with TES.
I forget the exact sequence of these games. I win one of them by nuking EtW tokens, he wins two with Tendrils.

I drop 1-3 and go to the Frog tournament.

Round 1: ShaqFu/Jon with Full Slogger (Empty the Slogger minus the Empty)
This matchup is impossibly ridiculously hard for them. The only real threat is Magus of the Moon, but as long as you know you have to play around it, you're good, just grab basics. I run more removal than he runs creatures. Game two I beat him to death with a Crime'd Arc-Slogger of my own.

Round 2: Phil Soulize with Ugrb Thresh
This matchup should be almost as good as Full Slogger, normally. Game 2 I fail to draw a third land... ever, however. And game 3 He plays a Mongoose and gets early action Counterbalance/Top, rendering the StP and Condemn in my hand dead. A Vindicate on Counterbalance gets Forced, and he hardcasts Confidant. He spends the next three turns Counterspelling, Counterspelling, Force of Willing and Counterspelling all my various answers, going through 5/7 of his hardcounters in about 18 cards.

Round 3: John something. Don't know him that well. With almost manaless Friggorid.
Game 1 is closer than I expect, but I lose for lack of enough answers. Game 2 and 3 Crypt + Plague become quite useful. I win game 2 with a Crime'd Street Wraith that lets me end it in time to also finish game three on turn three after five turns have been called. I had fairly lucky draws this game. It might've been better to concede game 1 and move on, although I always had randomly topdecking Haunting Echoes possibilities.

Top 8: Elan (I think? It was something like that. Memory's terrible) playing "Just-getting-back-into-the-game" White Weenie.
I've got to say that his deck was heads and shoulders above the things I was playing when I first got back into Magic. He was way overloaded on 1-drops, a little mana light, and had too many pump-my-army-of-dorks spells (especially in a matchup where he can't keep an army around ever), but he was actually pretty decent, which apparently won him two rounds in the Swiss. But, even an optimal white weenie deck isn't going to be very good against Truffle Shuffle unless it runs Cataclysm or Armageddon main. We spend some time going over his deck with my making some suggestions, and then I go pick up an Akroma for Pile.

If anyone wants to pick this deck up, I would advise clearing out the three drop somehow, as it's by far the most clogged. I know that it must be tempting to cut Tusker, but I was happy with him all day, as the deck wants both card advantage and land. And I won several games beating down with him. I think Vindicate might be the best card to cut, actually, as Crime/Punishment covers many of it's abilities. I'd lose the ability to randomly win games with Recurring LD with Witnesses, but that might be worth clearing up the curve.

I didn't miss the discard at all, but that might have more to do with the metagame. If it slows down it might be right to bring discard back.

GreenOne
08-10-2007, 11:50 AM
I played this list yesterday;
If anyone wants to pick this deck up, I would advise clearing out the three drop somehow, as it's by far the most clogged. I know that it must be tempting to cut Tusker, but I was happy with him all day, as the deck wants both card advantage and land. And I won several games beating down with him. I think Vindicate might be the best card to cut, actually, as Crime/Punishment covers many of it's abilities. I'd lose the ability to randomly win games with Recurring LD with Witnesses, but that might be worth clearing up the curve.


Well, I never liked Krosan Tusker, isn't Eternal Dragon finding lands and being card advantage anyway while filling the 2cc curve?



I didn't miss the discard at all, but that might have more to do with the metagame. If it slows down it might be right to bring discard back.

I never liked duress too (as being a dead card in some matchups and the fact your 1CC curve is already filled up with cards), but i find hymn important in making early card advantage.

I'm taking up this deck as my first control deck (and i like it much), as I'm usually a combo player. I'm just bad with anything non-combo, so be patient if my comments were already discussed or just suck.

cheddercaveman
08-10-2007, 12:29 PM
Well, I never liked Krosan Tusker, isn't Eternal Dragon finding lands and being card advantage anyway while filling the 2cc curve?



I never liked duress too (as being a dead card in some matchups and the fact your 1CC curve is already filled up with cards), but i find hymn important in making early card advantage.

I'm taking up this deck as my first control deck (and i like it much), as I'm usually a combo player. I'm just bad with anything non-combo, so be patient if my comments were already discussed or just suck.

Personally, I think that I'd rather be able to choose which card I'm getting rid of versus just strict card advantage over the opponent in a random fashion. I agree, that against aggro its going to be a subpar card. Cabal Therapy might be better for you too, it at least hits creatures if you know what your playing against, and sac'ing an E-Witness to recast it isnt a bad play at all.

Finn
08-10-2007, 03:47 PM
Cutting Duress in the current field is simply a bad idea. Goblins will continue to be a hard matchup for this deck, but cutting Duress is not the answer. It is the single best anti-combo card available to you in these colors. Combo is traditionally the hardest matchup facing you, and it is still very good against control.

Justicio
08-11-2007, 09:33 AM
I was curious to see if anyone had made up any alternate side boards, either for legacy, casual or even using unhinged cards.

I was looking at an extended version of a glittering wish sideboard and it did run castigate

What are the communities thoughts on alternate boards?

Justicio
08-12-2007, 09:26 PM
Also someone mention putting genesis main to recur the witnesses

TheAardvark
08-20-2007, 11:24 PM
After playing in the Legacy Champs last weekend, I have decided that I will no longer play Hymn to Tourach unless there is something specific in the metagame that "requires" it. Castigate out of the SB was better overall for me by a wide margin, and Hymn, while relevant, puts it in the hands of chance of whether or not you will get a relevant card from their hand, while Castigate does not. I'd rather play Castigate in the MD because it has just been much better for me.

In addition, I also played Funeral Charm in the SB and it was very strong for me all day. It kills Lackey, can disrupt opponents, and is totally unexpected. I managed to draw an otherwise unwinnable game against Aluren due to the Charm (and I would have won if I'd had 2-3 more turns), and it helped out a couple of other times as well.

I plan on writing a report of some kind with the list I played (finished 20th, with my 2 losses being guys who finished 4th and 9th, respectively), so if you care, keep an eye out for it in a day or two.

goobafish
08-20-2007, 11:28 PM
After playing in the Legacy Champs last weekend, I have decided that I will no longer play Hymn to Tourach unless there is something specific in the metagame that "requires" it. Castigate out of the SB was better overall for me by a wide margin, and Hymn, while relevant, puts it in the hands of chance of whether or not you will get a relevant card from their hand, while Castigate does not. I'd rather play Castigate in the MD because it has just been much better for me.

In addition, I also played Funeral Charm in the SB and it was very strong for me all day. It kills Lackey, can disrupt opponents, and is totally unexpected. I managed to draw an otherwise unwinnable game against Aluren due to the Charm (and I would have won if I'd had 2-3 more turns), and it helped out a couple of other times as well.

I plan on writing a report of some kind with the list I played (finished 20th, with my 2 losses being guys who finished 4th and 9th, respectively), so if you care, keep an eye out for it in a day or two.



It was nice playing you, you were a fun opponent. I really wished I had taken notes to do a report.

TheInfamousBearAssassin
08-24-2007, 05:31 AM
Cutting Duress in the current field is simply a bad idea. Goblins will continue to be a hard matchup for this deck, but cutting Duress is not the answer. It is the single best anti-combo card available to you in these colors. Combo is traditionally the hardest matchup facing you, and it is still very good against control.

A lot of combo is relying heavily on EtW, and some of it goes off before Duress/Hymn. Some more depends on permanents, such as Breakfast, where the extra removal's been plenty helpful. I'm not 100% sold on the no-discard route either, but for right now I think it's interesting to try, and there's certainly situations against the current combo field where the removal's been better than discard. It's also created less dead late-game topdecks. Although I fully concede that Solidarity is an atrocious matchup with that current list.

I'm considering cutting either one or all Glittering Wishes. I think it is better than Living Wish, simply because it can grab control elements, but it's also very clunky. And while it offers a wide variety of solutions to Wish for, often they're not the most efficient ones. Not being able to grab mana, card drawing, or a really solid anti-combo card beyond Dueling Ground is also a pain.

@Castigate: It might not be that relevant, but one of my instinctive dislikes about Castigate in the deck is that it has zero synergy with Echoes. When I do run discard, I like to hit key cards and dig for an Echoes before they topdeck another, say, Cataclysm or Burning Wish or whatever.

Nihil Credo
08-24-2007, 09:21 AM
Then play Distress, since the manabase could support Hymns to Tourach before. But I'd say that RFGing Life from the Loam or Dread Return when you don't get an Echoes may be more important.

TheAardvark
08-24-2007, 12:47 PM
A lot of combo is relying heavily on EtW, and some of it goes off before Duress/Hymn. Some more depends on permanents, such as Breakfast, where the extra removal's been plenty helpful. I'm not 100% sold on the no-discard route either, but for right now I think it's interesting to try, and there's certainly situations against the current combo field where the removal's been better than discard. It's also created less dead late-game topdecks. Although I fully concede that Solidarity is an atrocious matchup with that current list.

One thing to keep in mind is that the discard is one of the things that allows blue-based non-combo decks to be such good matchups for TS; not necessarily to eliminate their counters, but to get rid of cards like Stifle, which can be a problem. As far as late-game topdecks, you usually have Top going by then, and more often than not can filter your draws to reduce the number of dead cards you see.


I'm considering cutting either one or all Glittering Wishes. I think it is better than Living Wish, simply because it can grab control elements, but it's also very clunky. And while it offers a wide variety of solutions to Wish for, often they're not the most efficient ones. Not being able to grab mana, card drawing, or a really solid anti-combo card beyond Dueling Ground is also a pain.

Pretty much what I already said. Wishes are different in Standard or Extended, as efficiency is often second to versatility, and they can win you games more often (Burning Wish for Tendrils/EtW notwithstanding). I just hated drawing Glittering Wish 90% of the time and would have preferred a business spell that cost less mana. Re: Living Wish, I wouldn't play it in a normal meta, but I think it would be more beneficial in a lot of matchups.


@Castigate: It might not be that relevant, but one of my instinctive dislikes about Castigate in the deck is that it has zero synergy with Echoes. When I do run discard, I like to hit key cards and dig for an Echoes before they topdeck another, say, Cataclysm or Burning Wish or whatever.

Castigate has been amazing for me, because it's less awful late game, and dodges one of the more tech blue SB cards right now: Divert. In addition, like Nihil said, hitting that Loam/Dread Return/LED/whatever with Castigate is really strong. Lastly, I find it easier to cast on turn 2, since I don't have to bend my lands into BB. Regarding Echoes, I don't really play it anymore because it really only shines against other board control decks, and those are rare at the moment. Now, that could very possibly change with the recent shift, but until then I'll keep it that way.

Just my thoughts.

Jak
11-04-2007, 02:00 AM
Thought I would necro this thread up a little.

I have been working with Rabid Wombat for a while, but the resluts were were pretty poor. I tried splashing black and green, but the mana base was atrocious with man lands for a faster clock. Well, I then remebered that this deck existed and was prectically the same thing, sans Humility. So anyways here is my list that probably needs some tweaking.

4 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Forest
3 Swamp
2 Plains

2 Gigapede
2 Decree of Justice
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Genesis

3 Krosan Tusker
4 Eternal Witness
3 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Crime / Punishment
4 Damnation
4 Extirpate

SB
4 Orim's Chant
4 Duress
4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Abeyance
3 Krosan Grip
3 Pithing Needle

I have no clue what to put in the SB, so I listed a bunch of stuff that could or should go in. My meta is mostly aggro-control, like Counterslivers and Thresh, so this deck would work well. We do have TES however so the Duress and Chnats help a ton. Ideas?

honz
11-04-2007, 09:39 AM
I can't see any need for genesis. Since your main wincon (gigapede) returns itself, it seems pretty useless. Eternal witness fills any gaps left by not having genesis. Also, you dont have a decent way to get it into the grave, other than gigapede itself, at which point you should be winning.

The 4 extirpates seem like wasted space. They can be in the SB, and probly should be, but its a meta call. MD is really pushing it. That space would be better used by 4 duress / hymn.

4 damnations seems like alot. I think you would want more edicts, and even innocent bloods / condemns. You might want to drop to 2 crimes, as they are very mana intensive.

As for the SB, your gonna have issues with gobbos / aggro. That is why 3-4 loxodon hierarchs are ussually there. The life gain is so nice, and recured with witness. Other than that, i guess the board is alright. Extirpates in place of abeyenc

Jak
11-04-2007, 12:39 PM
Extirpate is MD because it is really never dead, may be underwhelming in MUs, but has uses. Now, I will probably move them to the Sb, but I have like no room there.

Genesis was just in there for Tusker returns and Witness returns. Also for the annoying blocker thing. It could probably be cut. Now here is something a little different, but I might as well post it.

4 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastery
4 Bayou
2 Scrubland
1 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
3 Bloodstaning Mire
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Plains

2 Decree of Justice
1 Gigapede
1 Haunting Echoes

3 Krosan Tusker
4 Eternal Witness
1 Life from the Loam
3 Sensei's Diving Top

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Vindicate
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Crime / Punishment (or Engineered Explosives)
4 Damnation
2 Extirpate

SB
4 Orim's Chant
3 Abeyance
4 Duress
2 Extirpate
2 Krosan Grip

Now the list has a ton more win conditions with the man lands. This is what I tried to do with Rabid Wombat, but it just didn't work out. This deck is basically the same thing that I wanted to do with Wombat. Thoughts?

throst54
11-04-2007, 08:43 PM
Nice, was just about to necro the thread myself...

I dont think you would want to run manlands because of how it weakens your mana base, not so much of how liable it makes to to Wateland, but because the deck is very demanding for colored mana.

I'd avoid playing Decree with how much mass removal the deck is packing, I've tried it and never really liked it as 1/1s dont really cut it in Legacy (sans Humility), i never found myself digging for it or wanting to recur it with a witness.

I'd suggest putting the the 4th vindicate and 2nd gigapede and SBing Extirpate. Do you really need 4/3 chants/abeyances?

Heres the build i've been playing lately:

// Lands
2 Forest
2 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Bayou
3 Polluted Delta
2 Savannah
4 Scrubland
4 Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 Eternal Witness
2 Gigapede
3 Krosan Tusker
// Enchantments
4 Pernicious Deed
// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Glittering Wish
1 Haunting Echoes
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Crime/Punishment
4 Vindicate
// Artifacts
3 Sensei's Divining Top
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Angel of Despair
SB: 1 Crime/Punishment
SB: 1 Culling Sun
SB: 1 Dueling Grounds
SB: 1 Grave-Shell Scarab
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Loxodon Hierarch
SB: 3 Rune of Protection: Red

Notable differences:
I play Witness/Therapy main, duress doesnt hit 'goyf (and I dont have thoughtseize)
I've always liked wishes, sometimes they can be a bit clunkly early game, though the Top can help you avoid them need be. Against goblins wishing for Dueling grounds gives u a huge advantage game 1.
I'll post more later, have to get going.

n00bas4urus_r3x
11-05-2007, 10:34 AM
Have you guys thought about a singleton Volrath's Stronghold? You should be able to find it if you need it with Top, and it can grab back piggies and witnesses.

Jak
11-05-2007, 07:14 PM
Yeah, I have thought about that and Genesis. I liked Genesis because it can be amazing late game, but stronghold does seem to be better. I like the idea of running that and 4 Therapies, 4 Duress, and 4 Witnesses.

Team-Hero
11-07-2007, 12:04 AM
I've always added a single V. Stronghold. I can tell you it does wonders. When it gets to the late game, it has won me a couple games.

I like running 2 Haunting Echoes because that is one of the best ways to assure the upper hand in a game.

Consider having in the SB a Mystic Enforcer. Who cares if he gets StP, he just gets wished for again.

throst54
11-07-2007, 04:07 AM
Generally, if you have a late game with this deck it already means that you are going to win. While Stronghold is a great card, I dont know if the deck needs it, and if you do run it, i'd run it in addition to the mana base, not replacing any lands.

The SB is pretty tight, you want all your wish spells to be more than just efficient beaters. Im currently considering Recurring Nightmare as a 3 of in the SB (instead of the 3 Runes) to use w/ witness and hierarch

Tao
11-07-2007, 06:40 AM
SB: 3 Rune of Protection: Red

You play 7 nonwhite Mana permanents so you should play Circle instead of Rune.

Think about it, if you boarded that card you play obviously against a Red deck. And how good are the chances that you feel like cycling the card away in such a matchup.