[Article] Unlocking Legacy - Playing The Fool

[hi-val]

EDIT:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14873.html

Prince Charles has joined in the uproar over the news that Burberry would be closing its plant in Wales and offshoring the jobs to China. Some wonder whether paying $500 for a bag that cost $25 to produce is actually luxury.

[BreathWeapon]

It's up, and I wasn't much of a fan. It just seemed like the article should have been asking whether or not it was time for blue based control to return in force, and it could have better spent its time evaluating Psychatog or Humility/Decree of Justice based control etc. There's a legitimate surge of non-Landstill control waiting to happen in this format.

[URABAHN]

Of course, Tron is all hanging in the air as a decent archetype anyway because Gaddock Teeg may just invalidate the whole thing if it sees play at all. I doubt we'll see too much of the Kithkin in Legacy because G/W has not, historically, been an amazing color combination. It remains to be seen, however, if it'll see play in enough numbers that, combined with Wasteland, make big mana tap-out decks as what I was going for here a complete waste of time.

I wasn't a fan of the article as well. I'm not really sure how that Tron deck is supposed to build Threshold to activate Coliseum unless it gets into the really late game. I'm not really sure why you'd even want Coliseum in the deck. Finally, I'm not really sure how you're supposed to find the Power Grid with TFK, Ponder, and 2 Intuition. I would've preferred less speculation about Tron and more about Legacy.

[Bryant Cook]

I wasn't a fan of the article as well. I'm not really sure how that Tron deck is supposed to build Threshold to activate Coliseum unless it gets into the really late game. I'm not really sure why you'd even want Coliseum in the deck. Finally, I'm not really sure how you're supposed to find the Power Grid with TFK, Ponder, and 2 Intuition. I would've preferred less speculation about Tron and more about Legacy.

What he said. Also, no Brainstorm?

[FakeSpam]

I was unimpressed. We already have a life from the loam deck that recurs artifacts using academy ruins.

Oh, and everybody knows that cloudpost/vesuva is the new urzatron.

.... I really don't mind that articles talk about legacy. I just wish they would talk about a deck that has had a little feedback from the community. It doesn't even have to be anything in the LMF. I just don't think 90% of the crap in new & developmental requires an article, but at least they have a thread.

[Nightmare]

Oh, and everybody knows that cloudpost/vesuva is the new urzatron.
Cloudpost sucks. Especially in a format with Wasteland. The first time you go:

Cloudpost, Go
Waste your cloudpost, go.
Oh shit, this Vesuva in my hand sucks now!

You'll remember this, and say "Shit! Nightmare is so damn smart!"

And yes, Doug Linn, I know you said it first.

[FakeSpam]

Cloudpost sucks. Especially in a format with Wasteland. The first time you go:

Cloudpost, Go
Waste your cloudpost, go.
Oh shit, this Vesuva in my hand sucks now!

You'll remember this, and say "Shit! Nightmare is so damn smart!"

And yes, Doug Linn, I know you said it first.


True. But then again, that doesn't help the urza land argument either.
If I'm going to run a highly disruptable manabase that produces tons of colorless... eight slots > twelve.

That, and there are fewer decks packing wasteland these days.

[Nightmare]

Ok, then how about the fact that all of your lands come into play tapped?

[Bryant Cook]

Ok, then how about the fact that all of your lands come into play tapped?

Owned. CIPT BLOWS. Ask Faerie Conclave.

[FakeSpam]

Ok, then how about the fact that all of your lands come into play tapped?

Really, only the first one does. After that, the second cloudpost taps for two, so you aren't any further behind. Then, on untap, you are further ahead. The third makes the two others tap for 6 each. So you are behind tron by one mana on the first and third drops.. but then ahead on any extra drops/later turns.

Of course, you could just run exploration or root maze and just make this discussion moot.

And if you are expecting to run into wasteland 2x,3x a game... yet are running this kind of manabase you deserve to lose anyway, 'cause you are an idiot.

[Nightmare]

Really, only the first one does. After that, the second cloudpost taps for two, so you aren't any further behind. Then, on untap, you are further ahead. The third makes the two others tap for 6 each. So you are behind tron by one mana on the first and third drops.. but then ahead on any extra drops/later turns.It's as if you're unaware that the first three turns are the most important ones in this format. If you go turn 1 nothing, turn 2 something that costs 2 and probably gets Dazed, turn three finally something relevant, you're WAY behind - assuming you haven't lost already.


Of course, you could just run exploration or root maze and just make this discussion moot.And now need access to green mana turn 1, which sets you back even further on big mana development.


And if you are expecting to run... this kind of manabase you deserve to lose anyway, 'cause you are an idiot.Edited for truth.

[FakeSpam]

Alright. Let's argue here. It's not like there is any other discussion going on around this site anyway right now.

So, you are running tron instead. So turn one you drop... what? Top?
Turn 2?

The list in the article is running Ponder and Twig for one drops. Last time I checked, ponder wasn't colorless.

[Nightmare]

I'm not running either. I think they both suck in Legacy, that's my point.

[FakeSpam]

I'm not running either. I think they both suck in Legacy, that's my point.

You just sucked all the fun out of this.

[DeathwingZERO]

ROFLMAO @ end of argument.

I'm curious, has this deck seen any real action anywhere? It seems the list was just a port from Gift's Tron, given Intuition + Loam instead, and then given less win conditions and a worse manabase.

I almost would have figured that BBS would do better than Tron at this point in time. Maindeck B2B, more access to any/all counterspells, awesome draw engines, maindeck Shackles and a random win condition, seems much better than milling with Loam and hopes that your manabase isn't wrecked.

[Nihil Credo]

In this format you can either build a deck that can ignore Counterbalance/Chalice (and/or play Chalices of its own), or a deck that can comfortably play around Daze.

To do both is nigh-impossible: the only option is to be able to win without playing spells (43 Lands, Ichorid).

[hi-val]

I had figured that it would be a hit-or-miss article for a lot of people. When I was writing it, I felt like it was more of a MaRo style article than, say, a Feldman one.

Just to reiterate, I don't think the deck is playable in Legacy, but I do think that big mana strategies are playable. I'm sure lots of folks can relate to the theme of the article, which is building, testing, tuning, tweaking a deck and then finding out it's just not good enough. There were some good things that I learned in the process that I hope came across in the article.

URABAHN, finding the Tron wasn't actually very hard at all. You see quite a lot of cards during the normal course of play. Look at the UW Tron decks that just tore up the PT; they had similar amounts of draw.

Wastedlife, Brainstorm was a lot worse than Ponder because you usually didn't need to hold up mana and there was a dearth of shuffle effects.

DeathwingZERO, counterspells kinda blow right now. "milling with Loam and hopes that your manabase isn't wrecked" sounds like you're a little inexperienced with Tron decks. You actually tempo a little bit and then own the board with superior mana instead of casting lots of counters. Instead of actively trying to make the Tron, you just let it come to you, which is a luxury you can have with blue mana.

[Elfrago]

I liked it but have you tried alternative ways to make loads of mana?

Things that came to my mind:
Cloudpost - Vesuva (Ok, it sucks)
Vernal Bloom - Forests (Sucks too)
Cabal Coffers - Urborg ( This coulde be fine)

[Bardo]

I realize that like the article spent its time talking about T1.5 Urzatron--which may be viable, maybe not. I don't really know and don't care to test it. But that's all besides the point.

The point of this article is to 'play the fool' and give up some of your tightly held beliefs that such and such is unplayable. I think that is valuable advice. The absolute best deck designers in the world, in the history of the game, have come up with some pretty off-the-wall ideas that were scoffed at initially, but were actually golden.

Anyway, nice article. Good flow. As I mentioned to Anusien on his last article, I would have like more intuitive paragraph breaks. A lot of them seemed pretty random. But otherwise, I read through the whole thing in one sitting, so I can say it least had my attention.

Re: Art in Lorwyn. A lot of it is either uninspiring or just plain flat, but the lands are insanely beautiful. And if you're going to make anything gorgeous, it should be the lands, since -- you know -- they're sitting right on the board for most of the game.

http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6934&page=18

(Page 18 of the Lorwyn thread has some of my favorites).

Again, nice article, good points.

[the slums]

When you are playing ponder over Brainstorm there is something wrong. Besides from that mana base looks like it can be torn apart very easily.Its an interesting idea just don't run into a sinkhole or wasteland.

[Bovinious]

Basically the entire list made me laugh, but maybe thats just me.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

When you are playing ponder over Brainstorm there is something wrong. .

Elgin-ed! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition)

Brainstorm is good because most decks running it have easy access to shuffle effects(fetch-lands, at the very least). Decks running few or no shuffle effects can't really make use of Brainstorm, so Ponder makes sense in its place. The old 7/10 lists from before the 1.5 split ran Serum Visions over BS because the mana base was too full of Workshops and artifact lands to run fetches.

[the slums]

I cant see how ponder is better its a sorcery.Say your running no fetch and no shuffle effects would you rather have brainstorm in you hand or ponder when facing down a duress. Brainstorm just seems so much better because your able to hide cards that you don't want you opp. to see. I personally would play brainstorm over ponder but im sure others have there reasons for playing ponder.I just don't think its the better of the 2.

[Bryant Cook]

I cant see how ponder is better its a sorcery.Say your running no fetch and no shuffle effects would you rather have brainstorm in you hand or ponder when facing down a duress. Brainstorm just seems so much better because your able to hide cards that you don't want you opp. to see. I personally would play brainstorm over ponder but im sure others have there reasons for playing ponder.I just don't think its the better of the 2.

Instead of this bad idea, we could just add fetch lands and play Brainstorm. Not having to worry about ponder. The deck should play 26 lands anyways, with Loam.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

I cant see how ponder is better its a sorcery.Say your running no fetch and no shuffle effects would you rather have brainstorm in you hand or ponder when facing down a duress. Brainstorm just seems so much better because your able to hide cards that you don't want you opp. to see. I personally would play brainstorm over ponder but im sure others have there reasons for playing ponder.I just don't think its the better of the 2.

98% of the time it isn't. That's what I'm saying.

If you have no shuffle effects, I would rather have Ponder. Ponder lets me dig up to 6 cards deep in 2 turns. Brainstorm without a shuffle effect only lets me dig 3 cards deep in 2 turns.

[DeathwingZERO]

I can agree with Ponder over Brainstorm, for obvious reasons. Just because Brainstorm is arguably the best for what it does, doesn't mean it's going to be the best in general. No shuffling effects, no need for fetchlands, it seems a no-brainer.

Hi-Val, I'm familiar with the Tron lists of Standard, I played against a number of them during playtesting sessions. Extended, not so familiar. But even then, you did put out the exact reason why I think the deck is severely crippled: 4x Wasteland. When a single 4-of can nearly cripple you from most power plays, and it's something the deck can't answer (but can Loam around if not pressured, I suppose), it seems that your at a huge disadvantage for most of the game, and hope Tron falls into place. If it never comes to you, it would seem a majority of the great spells, Mindslaver, Titan, etc...just seem to cloud your hand or graveyard.

Don't get me wrong, I love Tron based decks. I played Blue Tron and Tooth & Nail for quite some time in Standard, but I think Legacy just keeps this deck from being viable. While I would heavily support a Tron style deck actually putting up numbers, I'm not sure that we can even tune something to abuse colorless mana sources in Legacy's near future.

I am curious by one thing though. A buddy of mine had maindecked Propaganda's as a 4 of in his U/R Landstill list, and this deck seems to be able to slowroll just as well as LS does once it hits the table. It's a huge crippling point to EtW storm wins, can stall out most aggro-control decks for a little bit, and is all around just a nuisance in the current metagame. Was there any testing of that MD or SB to see if it'll hold you out long enough to assemble Tron at your leisure?

[Firebrothers]

The use of Phyrexian Furnace stood out to me the most in this article. Has anyone else tested it? It seems like you could throw it in any deck and have a decent chance of beating alot of decks. Testing will tell.

Doug also references other cards like Memory Lapse and Condescend. Although this time the 60 card combination didn't work as planned but as this format grows I think we need to start looking deeper into the cardpool for answers and deck ideas.

Props to you Doug for letting the Legacy environment into your thought process and good luck with your next deck.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

The Ponder vs. Brainstorm question leads me to another thought. If the article is supposed to be about a mindset of challenging assumptions, why do you make the other classic blue mage's default without explanation?


Force of Will is mandatory in the deck, and some element of other countering is required.

I think the article may have come out less as a look at thinking outside the box, and more as just an attempt at a Tron list, whatever your initial intentions may have been. I think less weighing of Tron's options and more exploring of the thought process that got you to each decision would have better served you.

[hi-val]

SOTA, thanks for the criticism. I had caught my little "mandatory FOW" thing in my editing process as something to correct but it slipped my mind to fix. Thanks for catching it : ) In a sense, weighing the options was outside thinking; Twig over Signets, Moment's Peace, etc. I do see what you mean though about putting in more about why I actually thought it would be decent to think about Tron in the first place. The beginning was, admittedly, rather brisk.

DeathwingZERO, I'd originally dismissed Tron completely because of Wasteland, but I actually put the nose to the grindstone and tested it out awhile back with UR Tron against Goblins. I was as shocked as anyone that it didn't actually get too hampered by Wastelands. However, the combination of Wastes + really efficient d00ds makes it a lot harder to get everything in place. I found that when I just replaced everything with Islands, I could still set up Mindslaver locks, play Platinum Angel, etc in real games. It was bizarre, to say the least, and it's given me hope for big mana decks.

[DeathwingZERO]

I would hope that the decks could actually exist in this format, but I think the question of Propaganda is still lingering for me. Did you every consider it and just dismiss it, or anything like it for that matter?

It seems the deck would appreciate stopping creatures from hitting it regularly, and basically work it's way into it's pieces at a more leisurely pace. It would also be a great piece at slowing the opponent down to the point that Titan, etc would hopefully put them in the defensive position, like they should. 3 mana is a heavy investment for a prevention/stall method, but I'm curious if it would be enough that it cripples potentially serious attacks from early threats that slip past counters.

[hi-val]

I'll certainly admit that it's a possibility. Perhaps not in Tron, but in some sort of big mana deck. I noticed that some of the Extended control decks were running Collective Restraint at the PT. That's a card that could potentially completely lock someone out.

[Nightmare]

Why would you run a more expensive Propganda in a deck that can only hope to make it a Propaganda (not a better one)?

[Ophidian]

The use of Phyrexian Furnace stood out to me the most in this article. Has anyone else tested it? It seems like you could throw it in any deck and have a decent chance of beating alot of decks. Testing will tell.



I've been using it in decks off and on for the past year or so and have been really happy with the results. Worst-case scenario, it cycles for a card, which makes it a better top-deck than Tormod's Crypt when you need something hot off the top. Plus, you can remove your own cards with it, which is good vs Tarmo.

[Anusien]

Actually, there are a few things to note.
Back before the GP when I tested Tron, I originally did so without Force of Will. for obvious reasons, I quickly added it back in and tweaked the blue spell count to support it. But since there were so few blue spells, and fewer that you wanted to pitch.. I tried to get rid of it.

Vulnerability to Wasteland: There isn't one, or at least no more than many other decks. In the list (and many other similar lists we've worked on), there are only three things you need Tron to really accomplish. Even then with Twig and 25 lands, it's not unreasonable to scale up. In the 1.x builds, I was often winning games by going Land Mox Signet Land Land Razormane Masticore. A similar sequence of plays is not unreasonable here. The Tron builds I had the most success with used Tron as one form of mana acceleration to help put out Trikes, RMM and such. The Slave end-game is nice but not strictly necessary.

Anyway, I don't agree with this specific build, but I like the concept. Then again I discarded Tron about halfway through GP testing because it was solid but it didn't have the potential to just win in nearly the same way as my other high-probability choices.

[hi-val]

Why would you run a more expensive Propganda in a deck that can only hope to make it a Propaganda (not a better one)?

Perhaps I wasn't too clear in my post; I was speaking about it in general. I don't think it's actually better than like Deed or Propaganda in 4c Landstill, but it's neat to think about and I'm sure there were reasons for running it over say, Deed, in Extended.

[Noman Peopled]

I liked it but have you tried alternative ways to make loads of mana?

Things that came to my mind:
Cloudpost - Vesuva (Ok, it sucks)
Vernal Bloom - Forests (Sucks too)
Cabal Coffers - Urborg ( This coulde be fine)

The more I think about it, the more I like Urborg/Coffers, even outside (near-) mono-B. It certainly has a lot more appeal to me than Cloudpost/Vesuva which you have to cast in a specific sequence and while Coffers does nothing the turn it comes into play, neither does Cloudpost or Vesuva. And the mana you get is colored, so it broadens your options and makes for a better early game.
The cons are equally obvious: legendary status, Coffers doing nothing until turn 5, and that's provided you get an Urborg.

I guess the question is, why would I want to play UrzaTron when I can win without it? It just seems to complicate things. Mindslaver is flashy and all, but there are less backbreaking plays at much less a price. I don't want to dominate the board as much as win. Maybe that's just me and my not wanting to go to time regurarly (a friend went something like 1-2-1-drop at Firenze - was I glad to play WW :D ).
That's not to say the article was pointless and efforts put into big mana decks are futile. One of my favorite Legacy decks is Wildfire.dec with Gilded Lotus and Thran Dynamo, after all ... Come to think of it, is mono-brown feasible? Hmm *goes tinker - without the actual Tinker*

[Tacosnape]

I just want to say that despite all the criticism on Lorwyn art, Shriekmaw is a fucking badass picture.

[Barook]

About Coffers & Urborg as a big mana engine: There was an interesting hybrid of Tooth and Nail + The Rock in the Extended PT. More on this topic here (http://www.londes.com/index.php?id=1255).