FoolofaTook
11-29-2007, 11:22 PM
I put this together about a month ago and it has been doing very well, although with occasional inconsistencies.
// Lands (20)
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
4x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Mountain
2x Swamp
// Creatures (32)
4x Mogg Fanatic
2x Flailing Soldier
4x Emberwilde Augur
4x Augur of Skulls
3x Keeper of the Dead
2x Storm Entity
2x Dwarven Miner
2x Nezumi Shortfang-Stabwhisker the Odious
4x Simian Spirit Guide
3x Big Game Hunter
2x Lava Zombie
// Spells (8)
4x Aether Vial
4x Magma Jet
// Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Yixlid Jailer
3x Bloodfire Dwarf
2x Hammer Mage
2x Contagion
The deck plays a little bit like classic Goblins, however it's more controlling and methodical in its approach and consequently slower but more resilient, particularly against cantripping control decks like Threshold.
The ideal turn one play is of course Aether Vial and the deck generally wins if it lands a vial on turn one or two. The other path to victory that happens fairly often is the mana denial draw with some combination of 3 of Wasteland and Rishadan Port.
The creature mix seems a bit esoteric on first glance, with a lot of two-ofs and three-ofs, however everything has its uses in the context of the current Legacy meta.
The 4-ofs are mostly designed to be uncounterable spells for effect off of an Aether Vial.
Mogg Fanatic is to kill Dark Confidants, Pump Knights, Goblin Lackeys, Quirion Dryads, and other early threats.
Augur of Skulls is a discard two device to dig cards out of the hands of Threshold, Landstill and combo before things get too ugly. Once in a long while it actually blocks but generally it pops off a vial during upkeep and is immediately sacrificed for effect.
Emberwilde Augurs are an uncounterable bolt to the face and used the same way, although at 2 power they can also beat if the situation allows it.
The Simian Spirit Guides are used primarily as surprise mana and they can win games by offsetting a Daze allowing Aether Vial to land unexpectedly. They also function very well to power Rishadan Ports when you want to shut down two lands or waste a land and shut down another early on.
The 3-ofs are mainly to kill Goyfs, Dryads, Exalted Angels, Jotun Grunts and the like and they function fairly well in that regard.
One of the hardest choices to make early on is whether or not to freeze Aether Vial at 2 counters or bump it up to 3 for the Big Game Hunters. A control player relying on Goyfs or Nantuko Monasteries backed by counterspells or counterbalance is made miserable when his big beater is removed at instant speed.
Keeper of the Dead is the weaker of the creature control mechanisms due to the fact that he doesn't function immediately, however once he is established he can lock a deck out of its big killers and control things for you.
One of the major effects in the deck is that there are so many things that are irritating to the average opponent and they have nowhere near enough removal to handle all of them. An opponent who has blown removal to get rid of Mogg Fanatic (to save the Dark Confidant he wants to drop as an example) and then taken out a Nezumi Shortfang or Dwarven Miner finds themselves confronting much worse things just a turn or two later, but with no recourse in hand.
The 2-ofs are designed to create an aura of unpredictability about the deck that makes it very hard for people to respond accurately to the threats they perceive as likely to emerge.
The Dwarven Miners would be too slow if not for the fact that they can land at the end of the opponent's 3rd turn off of a vial and then be used during your turn. They can also land after a Wasteland, Rishadan Port opening that has the opponent already staggering.
Similarly the Nezumi Shortfangs can be used effectively early and complement the Augur of Skulls.
Lava Zombies are the creature I'm most conflicted about in the deck. Not because I don't like their effect, because I do, but because they tempt me to bump the vials to 3 counters too often and I'm fairly sure that this is a weak move for anything but a Big Game Hunter. I have considered using Tombstalkers in this slot and may yet make that switch. The one thing that keeps me from doing that is that I can save a critical asset that is being targeted, at instant speed if I have a vial with 3 counters on it. It's still very iffy.
The Storm Entities come in off of vials most of the time and they land as a 3-3 or 4-4 blocker often when somebody has cast a creature for effect and then cast a removal spell and I've responded with my own removal.
The Flailing Soldiers frequently are good for four early damage off of one mana and they make the opponent think too much about how to use his early mana. It's not unusual for an opponent to tap two land to kill a Soldier and then never recover the tempo as a Wasteland drops him back to critically low mana and then a Rishadan Port lands. I started with four of the Flailing Soldiers in the deck, however they are not a good mid game draw for obvious reasons, and I cut it back to two.
The Magma Jets are there just because they are too good in a context where a little damage can put you over the top and there's always something good to scry for. They are great for provoking a counter before something really annoying is going to land and they can be cast during the opponent's turn to pump up a Storm Entity that's about to land off a vial. Counters tend to pile up in an opponent's hand because of the uncounterable nature of a lot of what the deck does and so the Magma Jets do tend to draw blue.
The sideboard is basically designed to handle combo and particularly graveyard based themes. The Leylines of the Void and Yixlid Jailers are about as much protection as you can hope to have given the main theme of the deck. The Bloodfire Dwarfs are to kill Empty the Warrens.
The Hammer Mages are for artifact-based themes, and individual headaches like Pithing Needle and Sensei's Divining Top and other annoying small artifacts, however the Aether Vials suffer from their presence and I find myself rarely tuning them in. There were two of them in the main deck originally and two in the sideboard and I found the two in the main deck to be largely irrelevant so I removed them.
Contagion is designed essentially to be used against control-based themes that are carefully guarding a True Believer or something similar. It's nice to have an answer that comes completely out of the hand so that they can't win based on reading the board. Combine Contagion with Simian Spirit Guides and you can make a dedicated Dr No absolutely psychotic now and then.
I have looked at Grim Lavamancer for the deck and it's a very strong card, however I wanted more immediate impact and so I substituted the Mogg Fanatics instead.
I also looked at Pyre Zombies as a graveyard recursion mechanism with a vial set at 3 to get them back in play quickly. The problem is the deck really prefers to have the vial at 2 counters for any number of reasons, most notably that it's a lot easier to replace a vial at 2 than to get a vial back to 3 again.
Withered Wretch was in the original deck as an anti-Threshold device which could also spoil recursive graveyard combo. In testing it was just too narrow and it didn't have the impact that I wanted. If the meta became even more heavily graveyard oriented I suspect the wretches would find their way back into the deck somehow.
The last card I looked at seriously was Ashling the Pilgrim. Great effect, but he did not work all that well with the Rishadan Ports and I found him to be not as impactful as I thought he would be because I was choosing to ignore him in favor of shutting down the opponent's mana.
Anyway, I'd be very interested in feedback on the deck. It looks fairly promising to me at this point although it needs tuning.
// Lands (20)
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
4x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Mountain
2x Swamp
// Creatures (32)
4x Mogg Fanatic
2x Flailing Soldier
4x Emberwilde Augur
4x Augur of Skulls
3x Keeper of the Dead
2x Storm Entity
2x Dwarven Miner
2x Nezumi Shortfang-Stabwhisker the Odious
4x Simian Spirit Guide
3x Big Game Hunter
2x Lava Zombie
// Spells (8)
4x Aether Vial
4x Magma Jet
// Sideboard
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Yixlid Jailer
3x Bloodfire Dwarf
2x Hammer Mage
2x Contagion
The deck plays a little bit like classic Goblins, however it's more controlling and methodical in its approach and consequently slower but more resilient, particularly against cantripping control decks like Threshold.
The ideal turn one play is of course Aether Vial and the deck generally wins if it lands a vial on turn one or two. The other path to victory that happens fairly often is the mana denial draw with some combination of 3 of Wasteland and Rishadan Port.
The creature mix seems a bit esoteric on first glance, with a lot of two-ofs and three-ofs, however everything has its uses in the context of the current Legacy meta.
The 4-ofs are mostly designed to be uncounterable spells for effect off of an Aether Vial.
Mogg Fanatic is to kill Dark Confidants, Pump Knights, Goblin Lackeys, Quirion Dryads, and other early threats.
Augur of Skulls is a discard two device to dig cards out of the hands of Threshold, Landstill and combo before things get too ugly. Once in a long while it actually blocks but generally it pops off a vial during upkeep and is immediately sacrificed for effect.
Emberwilde Augurs are an uncounterable bolt to the face and used the same way, although at 2 power they can also beat if the situation allows it.
The Simian Spirit Guides are used primarily as surprise mana and they can win games by offsetting a Daze allowing Aether Vial to land unexpectedly. They also function very well to power Rishadan Ports when you want to shut down two lands or waste a land and shut down another early on.
The 3-ofs are mainly to kill Goyfs, Dryads, Exalted Angels, Jotun Grunts and the like and they function fairly well in that regard.
One of the hardest choices to make early on is whether or not to freeze Aether Vial at 2 counters or bump it up to 3 for the Big Game Hunters. A control player relying on Goyfs or Nantuko Monasteries backed by counterspells or counterbalance is made miserable when his big beater is removed at instant speed.
Keeper of the Dead is the weaker of the creature control mechanisms due to the fact that he doesn't function immediately, however once he is established he can lock a deck out of its big killers and control things for you.
One of the major effects in the deck is that there are so many things that are irritating to the average opponent and they have nowhere near enough removal to handle all of them. An opponent who has blown removal to get rid of Mogg Fanatic (to save the Dark Confidant he wants to drop as an example) and then taken out a Nezumi Shortfang or Dwarven Miner finds themselves confronting much worse things just a turn or two later, but with no recourse in hand.
The 2-ofs are designed to create an aura of unpredictability about the deck that makes it very hard for people to respond accurately to the threats they perceive as likely to emerge.
The Dwarven Miners would be too slow if not for the fact that they can land at the end of the opponent's 3rd turn off of a vial and then be used during your turn. They can also land after a Wasteland, Rishadan Port opening that has the opponent already staggering.
Similarly the Nezumi Shortfangs can be used effectively early and complement the Augur of Skulls.
Lava Zombies are the creature I'm most conflicted about in the deck. Not because I don't like their effect, because I do, but because they tempt me to bump the vials to 3 counters too often and I'm fairly sure that this is a weak move for anything but a Big Game Hunter. I have considered using Tombstalkers in this slot and may yet make that switch. The one thing that keeps me from doing that is that I can save a critical asset that is being targeted, at instant speed if I have a vial with 3 counters on it. It's still very iffy.
The Storm Entities come in off of vials most of the time and they land as a 3-3 or 4-4 blocker often when somebody has cast a creature for effect and then cast a removal spell and I've responded with my own removal.
The Flailing Soldiers frequently are good for four early damage off of one mana and they make the opponent think too much about how to use his early mana. It's not unusual for an opponent to tap two land to kill a Soldier and then never recover the tempo as a Wasteland drops him back to critically low mana and then a Rishadan Port lands. I started with four of the Flailing Soldiers in the deck, however they are not a good mid game draw for obvious reasons, and I cut it back to two.
The Magma Jets are there just because they are too good in a context where a little damage can put you over the top and there's always something good to scry for. They are great for provoking a counter before something really annoying is going to land and they can be cast during the opponent's turn to pump up a Storm Entity that's about to land off a vial. Counters tend to pile up in an opponent's hand because of the uncounterable nature of a lot of what the deck does and so the Magma Jets do tend to draw blue.
The sideboard is basically designed to handle combo and particularly graveyard based themes. The Leylines of the Void and Yixlid Jailers are about as much protection as you can hope to have given the main theme of the deck. The Bloodfire Dwarfs are to kill Empty the Warrens.
The Hammer Mages are for artifact-based themes, and individual headaches like Pithing Needle and Sensei's Divining Top and other annoying small artifacts, however the Aether Vials suffer from their presence and I find myself rarely tuning them in. There were two of them in the main deck originally and two in the sideboard and I found the two in the main deck to be largely irrelevant so I removed them.
Contagion is designed essentially to be used against control-based themes that are carefully guarding a True Believer or something similar. It's nice to have an answer that comes completely out of the hand so that they can't win based on reading the board. Combine Contagion with Simian Spirit Guides and you can make a dedicated Dr No absolutely psychotic now and then.
I have looked at Grim Lavamancer for the deck and it's a very strong card, however I wanted more immediate impact and so I substituted the Mogg Fanatics instead.
I also looked at Pyre Zombies as a graveyard recursion mechanism with a vial set at 3 to get them back in play quickly. The problem is the deck really prefers to have the vial at 2 counters for any number of reasons, most notably that it's a lot easier to replace a vial at 2 than to get a vial back to 3 again.
Withered Wretch was in the original deck as an anti-Threshold device which could also spoil recursive graveyard combo. In testing it was just too narrow and it didn't have the impact that I wanted. If the meta became even more heavily graveyard oriented I suspect the wretches would find their way back into the deck somehow.
The last card I looked at seriously was Ashling the Pilgrim. Great effect, but he did not work all that well with the Rishadan Ports and I found him to be not as impactful as I thought he would be because I was choosing to ignore him in favor of shutting down the opponent's mana.
Anyway, I'd be very interested in feedback on the deck. It looks fairly promising to me at this point although it needs tuning.