[Premium Article] The Iggy Pop Primer

[Smmenen]

I have written an exhaustive 20 page primer on Iggy Pop, explaining the nuances of deck play, matchup analysis, and card choices.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14122.html

Here is the decklist: http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=21572

Since I have been testing Iggy Pop extensively as any Vintage deck in the last six months, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have to the best of my abilities.

[largebrandon]

I have written an exhaustive 20 page primer on Iggy Pop, explaining the nuances of deck play, matchup analysis, and card choices.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14122.html

Here is the decklist: http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=21572

Since I have been testing Iggy Pop extensively as any Vintage deck in the last six months, I would be happy to answer any questions you may have to the best of my abilities.

The first question is - can you copy/paste the primer or the list? I'm not a premium member on SCG.com

[Blaukreuz]

yeah, most people here are no premium members of SCG

[dre4m]

The most lacking aspect of this article is the lack of a Hulk-Flash matchup analysis. This will undoubtably be the most important matchup of your Grand Prix.


B/W

This may turn out to be the second most important match after the Goblins match.

This is quite simply not true. The maindeck Leylines and a relatively fast combo do give you a better matchup than most for Hulk-Flash, but I think it still warrants mention in your article.

[Bryant Cook]

It was alright, alot of it was common sense.

[lukatron2]

Are you gonna post it on here cause I'm not a premium member either...

[Atwa]

Haha, my premium membership expires today, so there has been at least 1 thing in the last year worth reading.

I'll ask questions after I've read it.

[Pyrokinesis]

Analyze Hulk Flash for me. Oh, and you completely overlooked Solidarity, which wasn't dead at the time I presume you wrote this (since you didn't mention Hulk Flash, either).

It seems like you win if you get Leyline on the table, because a lot of builds fold to that game one and can take a while getting rid of it game two. Against the controllish builds it would play out pretty similarly to Threshold from there, with you just getting an Ill-Gotten Gains to stick and beating them to a delicous meat-and-eggy pulp. However, if you don't have Leyline, Flash can just go ahead and pull off one of its wonderful zomgwtfbbq turn zero wins in response to you scratching your nose. Perhaps you should toss some Duress or something silly like that in the board. Hurkyll's recall is pretty redundant, since Stax isn't great to begin with and you can often go off before they put something down... and post-board you have other bounce spells.

Also, this deck is going to get hit with a ton of splash damage thanks to Hulk. Everybody and their mother will be packing Leylines somewhere... but that's what Chain of Vapor is for.

[Smmenen]

My strong suspicion is that Flash will be banned on June 1st (effective July 1st). This article is written for individuals who are interested in learning and getting good with Iggy Pop. So long as Flash is in the environment, there will be little reason to play this.

The question is: when the DCI bans Flash, will the genie go back in the bottle or will people continue to play decks that interact on turn one?

[Smmenen]

FYI: This article is now free to read. I hope you enjoy it!

Stephen

[FoolofaTook]

Is IggyPop still a strong deck? I've been reduced to solo testing it on MWS because nobody in my area plays it. Obviously I don't know how to play the deck particularly well and it's a fairly intricate proposition especially with the Mystical Tutors, as you pointed out in the article.

It seems to have a fairly low success rate at actually going off against Threshold and the B/u control deck I've been playing lately.

I have a couple of questions just based on the testing I've been doing:

1. How does the deck get around having its mana sources countered?

It seems to me like FoW or Daze on Dark Ritual is just a killer in the first couple of turns and then things get really hairy from there on.

2. Does the deck have any real play against Duress, Hymn to Tourach and Engineered Explosives or does it need to go off turn 1 or 2 at the latest in that scenario?

I keep playing through 3 turn scenarios with a lot of black disruption in play and the lack of draw after the first wave of disruption seems to cause the deck to peter out a lot of the time.

BTW, the reason I'm asking is that I'd very much like to play a variant of this as one of my main decks. The ability to randomly twist people for their hand early on and to prevent Threshold from achieving it's aim makes this a very strong looking metagame deck in the new Goyf meta. It just isn't performing that well against Threshold and discard and that looks like a big hole to me right about now.

[Iranon]

Ok, all of this comes from someone who personally dislikes the deck.


0.) It's possibly the most consistent combo deck in legacy; racing it ridiculously unfeasible for most. Not because of its decent rate of ultra-fast kills - it's no slouch there, but other decks in Legacy do this better. What I'm referring to is that it will almost unfailingly kill a disruptionless opponent by turn 4 - something along the lines of 19 times out of 20.

1.) Opponents shouldn't really counter your mana sources in the first place. This isn't TES/Belcher where a storm 4, 4 mana is a problem.

2.) The deck can handle discard unless that's backed up by something like Engineered Explosives, graveyard hate or a significant clock. The latter is problematic for your opponent: Casting a first-turn Negator and being turn-1-ed with a fistful of discard spells in hand is a bitch.
Discard doesn't prevent you from laying down mana sources until you topdeck an IGG, and you can dodge it with Mystical Tutor/Brainstorm.

'Fast combo' is often anything but after your opponent mulliganed into every bit of hate they could board. On the upside, your opponent will probably lack a way to apply pressure. They need to answer your combo any time you assemble it. You only need to succeed once and probably start out with more cards in hand.

Since Iggy Pop relies on the recursive loop, you can't really afford to your opponent to recur effective countermagic, which is why your protection is so specialised: Discard/Artifact destruction is a problem but not as much as counters. All of the usual methods have their own problems... which should be rather obvious.

***

In general, IGGy Pop is a solid choice in a combo-friendly metagame, as it's extremely consistent and fast enough to get the job done. Even with Leyline, it's no Threshold-Wrecker and gets tooled by other Aggro/Control because of its intrinsic limitations. At the same time, it doesn't have the 50% chance of killing/flooding the board with goblins on turn 1 that decks like Belcher, Si and to a lesser extent TES do.
While you don't always go all-out with those decks, the capability is important as it forces your opponent to mulligan aggressively.

IGGy Pop isn't exactly a glass cannon, but probably the closest thing combo has to offer: In a given metagame it either shines or struggles.

[Smmenen]

Is IggyPop still a strong deck? I've been reduced to solo testing it on MWS because nobody in my area plays it. Obviously I don't know how to play the deck particularly well and it's a fairly intricate proposition especially with the Mystical Tutors, as you pointed out in the article.

It seems to have a fairly low success rate at actually going off against Threshold and the B/u control deck I've been playing lately.

I have a couple of questions just based on the testing I've been doing:

1. How does the deck get around having its mana sources countered?

It seems to me like FoW or Daze on Dark Ritual is just a killer in the first couple of turns and then things get really hairy from there on.



My article speaks to that issue in pretty solid detail. I devoted a HUGE section to the Threshold matchup.

It should help.



2. Does the deck have any real play against Duress, Hymn to Tourach and Engineered Explosives or does it need to go off turn 1 or 2 at the latest in that scenario?



Those plays are very weak against Iggy Pop.



I keep playing through 3 turn scenarios with a lot of black disruption in play and the lack of draw after the first wave of disruption seems to cause the deck to peter out a lot of the time.



Think about your options. Are you Brainstorming your key cards ontop? Are you digging and tutoring efficiently?

[Sanguine Voyeur]

I have to admit, this article make me want to play Iggy Pop.

I'd build it if it wasn't for the epic budget constraints I'm under.

[FoolofaTook]

Those plays are very weak against Iggy Pop.

Engineered Explosives clears a lot of goblin tokens for essentially 2 mana on turn 2. That's why I'm wondering.

[Phantom]

Well, I'd like to take another look at this deck as I think Leyline maindeck is becoming a decent play even in decks where it has no synergy. My biggest question is where does this deck rank vs TES and Belcher, especially in such a Thresh heavy meta (as I'm assuming we will have for a while after Gen Con). I was always under the impression that IGGy was amazing in a Goblin heavy meta but had more problems with counters than the others.

Thoughts?

[toxic@venger]

Hi Smmenen

Firts of all congratulations for this fantastic primer.
I´m from Spain, and I´m an usually iggy player....I love this deck.
I would like to make you some questions:

1. What dou dou think about Strategic planning instead of Intuition? SP is faster than intuition and it also helps you to have trheshold....I´ve been testing this card and it gives me good results.

2. I think that is very useful to play at least one bouncer meandeck, in fact, I play one copy of Chain of Vapour instead of the fourth intuition. Two meddlings (naming EtW and tendrils) = game lost for you on the first match....and one bouncer can save your life. I personally prefer Chain because it also helps you to make storm.

3. Thresold and fish are hard matchups for Iggy...have you thought on Massacre for the sideboard? It´s amazing to kill meddlings...

Thanks