[CaNGD - Finalist] TEC - The EPIC Control

[Nightmare]

My SCG Article unveiling this deck can be found here (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15263.html). As I took the time to write it for the site, I'd appreciate if you checked it out as far as the development and history of the deck goes. I'l touch on it, but I don't plan to write another six pages on it.

Basically, this deck is the result of a ton of testing with Lorwyn, a love of cards that draw cards and ones that play well with doing so, an obsession with control, and a hatred that burns with the fury of a thousand suns for the Landstill manabase.

Late in 2007, Ray Robillard held TMLO3. At this event, two important things occurred. First, I found myself single, and with it, found myself with plenty of time to test new decks and strategies. Second, I was paired round two with Dave Gearhart, who was testing a new aggro-control deck using CounterTop and Hoofprints of the Stag. While Dave's list was interesting, I think it left a lot to be desired. He used 4 Hoofprints in the main, which I felt was too many. He ran clunky card advantage spells like Fact or Fiction, and ran too many cantrips. He ran Daze. All of these are card choices I would probably have reconsidered, however I must give credit to him as the person who inspired me to use Hoofprints in control.

Once I saw how good the card was, I discussed it with Di, and we arrived at the point I discussed in the article. For reference, here is the decklist (Now, with sideboard!)

TEC - The EPIC Control

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterbalance
3x Meditate / Thirst for Knowledge
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Tarmogoyf
3x Wrath of God
3x Sensei's Divining Top
2x Jace Belaren
2x Hoofprints of the Stag
3x Vedalken Shackles
2x Engineered Explosives

4x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
4x Tundra
2x Tropical Island
2x Underground Sea
4x Island
2x Plains
1x Academy Ruins

SIDE
3x Extirpate
3x Krosan Grip
3x Decree of Justice
2x Pithing Needle
2x Humility
2x COP: Red

Alternative Sideboard in a Goblin metagame:
3x Extirpate
3x Krosan Grip
3x Pithing Needle
3x Humility
3x Engineered Plague


Matchup Analysis -

Goblins:
Game 1 can be tricky, especially on the Draw. As with most decks, you hate to see the nuts Lackey draw, but you do have 8 ways to deal with it on the play, and another 4 on the draw, plus Brainstorm/Top. Counterbalance is actually pretty solid against them, if you keep Vial off the table. Your best threat game 1 is Goyf, but games 2 and three I usually side them out and focus on winning with Humility/Plague plus Jace, who is extremely effective. Watch out for Wort, she's a bitch. Overall, I think this matchup is more in your favor than it is for Landstill, as you have a more robust manabase, and access to Tarmogoyf. It's not overwhelmingly in your favor, but control is never really that good at dealing with Goblins, no matter what anyone else tells you. It wasn't the best deck in the format for two years for nothing.

Landstill:
Depends on the build. If you're playing against the 4c list without Wasteland or Decree, then have fun kicking their teeth in with Jace. Nice deck, nub. If it's more traditional white based Landstill, their ability to operate under a Standstill is an issue. Game 1, you need to decide when the best time to break a Standstill is. Early game, that's usually now. Remember that their deck is full of an asston of cards that do nothing to you, like Wrath or StP. They have a better chance of drawing irrelevant spells than relevant, so play that to your advantage. CounterTop is actually solid vs. them with your deck, as you can shut them down with it much more readily than Thresh can. Games two and three (if you get there), they need to decide if you have Decree or not, and sometimes it just bites them in the ass.

Threshold:
You dominate them. I'm a little concerned regarding this new build of UGr from the Canadians, although I didn't get a chance to play them this weekend, however the more traditional CounterTop centered builds are pretty savagely behind you. Thresh has always had issues with dedicated control, since their natural tendancy is to extend into your removal. You have almost the same threat base that they do, you have CounterTop, you have frigging Wrath of God, and you have the ultimate trump in Jace. More than any other deck, Thresh cannot afford to lose 20 cards from their library. With such a small threat package, its entirely possible for them to lose the majority of their creatures, and that's not something they can win through easily. Post Board, Extirpate deals with the creatures and other stuff permanantly. It's an excellent matchup for you.

Goyf Sligh/Burn:
Although everyone claims that you have a great matchup based on CounterTop, they still have a tendancy to go to your dome enough to be a pain, especially if they run stuff like Kird Ape out there before you stabalize. You end up at a low enough life that Fireblast just ends it. Since this deck has cropped up so much, I've switched to the COP Reds in the board, which work in the Goblin matchup, too, and pretty much destroy burn. Shutting down 90% of their deck seems fine to me. With the COPs in the board, this matchup goes from marginal to extremely favorable over a 3 game set. Oh, and Goyf gets HUGE in this matchup.

TES:
I suppose it's only fair, since we made both of the decks, that I have some testing in with this matchup. Basically, each deck's matchup revolves around one card - Orim's Chant. TES is the strangest combo deck to play against, because they lose to Force of Will or plow right through it about evenly. Now, Bryant is pretty much the person you should fear with the deck, and he's the only person I'm uncomfortable sitting across from with it. He knows the matchup and his deck through and through, which gives him an advantage others don't have. Still, I find that Counterbalance is all kinds of annoying for him. Combine it with a fast clock like Goyf, and he has a tough time fighting through it. If he goes all in on Warrens, you have plenty of ways to survive, but again, getting Chanted is a pain in the ass. Overall, this matchup is pretty heavily in your favor, but as I said, beware the chanting Orim.

Black Aggro-Control:
Decks like Red Death, Eva Green, and Deadguy were built almost specifically to dominate control matchups. As such, this leaves something to be desired. Still, you have the tools in your deck to make the matchup more favorable for you, and if you manage to get them out there, you should be fine. You need to focus on getting basic lands down wherever possible, and sit on fetches when you can. Utilize Brainstorm reactively, rather than proactively, and run out Standstills if you get a board advantage. Vedalken Shackles is such a beating for them that it's rediculous. Let them invest the time and mana into a Tombstalker or Hippie, and snag it at will. Still, sometimes they can get the nuts, and if that happens, or you hit a pocket of land when you need business (or visa-versa), then you take it in the face. I'd call it even, and highly dependant on draws and the die roll. By the way, Counterbalance is great for you, unless you see a Tombstalker dumped on your head.


That's it for the opener. Between this and the article, you should have something to start with. I'll do my best to answer any other questions in the thread, and listen to Diablos, too, as he knows just about as much about the deck as I do.

[KillemallCFH]

Deck looks great. The UWg Landstill build I've been testing is pretty similar, playing Hoofprints. I've been doing some testing with Sylvan Library as Card Quality/Card Advantage/Svg Combo with Hoofprints. In the end, I think it is probably a "danger of cool things" combo, but I figured I'd mention it anyways. It might be worth considering.

And Jace is a house, especially in this deck. I don't know why more people aren't playing him in blue-based control.

[kabal]

All I can say is WOW. Very impressive looking deck.

Got a few questions for you ...

Have you thought about running Tolaria West to grab Academy Ruins or EE?

On same topic since have so many artifacts/enchantments, have you tried Enlightened Tutor?

[Willoe]

the sad thing about planeswalkers is that they can be attacked by unblocked attackers. A single swing from an unblocked goyf will kill jace. And it's pretty often goyf will be that big you know :P A pretty sweet deck, but don't you need more creatures to protect you? Creatures with vigilance could maybe do? And adding sylvan library would probably not HURT the deck :-)

EDIT: 50th post! :P

[sunshine]

I have a couple of questions/suggestions which may or may not be of some merit. I've been running a similar list which eschews the plainswalker and counter-top package in favor of a sylvan library and LFTL strategy to complement hoofprints of the stag. I read your article on SCG and didn't see any mention of the library (which is amazing with hoofprints) and was just wondering if it came up at all in testing. For reference:

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Englightened Tutor
3 Pithing Needle
4 Brainstorm
4 Sylvan Library
3 Hoofprints of the Stag
1 Pursuit of Knowledge
4 Standstill
2 Krosan Grip
2 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Tropical Island
3 Mishra's Factory
3 Tundra
1 Wasteland
1 Cephalid Coliseum
3 Flooded Strand

is my current list sans sideboard. I never considered using Jace, which is brilliant, and he will most likely replace Sylvan Library number four at the very least as multiples are redundant. Additionally Sylvan Library provides added protection for your counterbalance especially postboard when fearing Krosan Grip. The Library allows you to have a 3cc card on the top of your library right up until you draw and immediately afterwards, leaving no window for split second spells to destroy your counterbalance unchecked - something top alone could not do.

Also, I've found Cephalid Coliseum recursions to be great with hoofprints. While you have no LFTL/crucible it may be worth considering.

Anyway, I enjoyed your article/post a lot and just thought I would present a somewhat different take on the same concept and see if you could get anything from it.

[Bovinious]

This deck looks pretty solid, I remember like a month ago Gearhart ran a very similar deck one time. I dont know why you run Wrath over Deed, or why you run Jace at all. Deed costs less, kills more stuff, and yeah just seems better to me. Also, Jace is basically just Phyrexian Arena for a few turns because hell always get attacked, and using the each player draws ability seems bad almost any time.

[Nightmare]

Have you thought about running Tolaria West to grab Academy Ruins or EE?

On same topic since have so many artifacts/enchantments, have you tried Enlightened Tutor?

@ Tolaria West - While the idea for tutoring for Ruins/EE is nice in theory, in practice Tolaria West ends up sucking more than being awesome. It's a CItP Tapped land, which is more relevant than you'd imagine, and it still tutors for three mana. I'm sure there is a home for it in some deck, but I don't think this is the one.

@ Enlightened - Again, it seems better in theory than it does in practice. I've run it in my board in Landstill before, and it was fine for a silver bullet sideboarding strategy, but that's the most I could fathom using it for here. It locks you into a single strategy, which is something this deck definately doesn't otherwise do. It's not bad, persay, but I'm not overly impressed with it, either.


the sad thing about planeswalkers is that they can be attacked by unblocked attackers. A single swing from an unblocked goyf will kill jace. And it's pretty often goyf will be that big you know :P A pretty sweet deck, but don't you need more creatures to protect you? Creatures with vigilance could maybe do? And adding sylvan library would probably not HURT the deck
The point is for the creatures to not be on the table. Ideally, anyway. If you check the article, you'll also notice that I mention Goyf is a 6/7 wall at times, too, if you're really strapped for that 'walker to survive. In addition, you'd be surprised how often people overlook the fact that Jace is around, thinking that they'll either kill me before he goes to 11, or that they will benefit from the Howling Mine effect more than I will. Either way, I think in all the time I've been playing him, he's been attacked to death approximately three times, zero by Tarmogoyf.

There are a few things I don't like about Sylvan. For ease of reference, I will list them.

It is green. As of now, I run exactly four green cards, which means I never need to expose a Trop when I don't have a Goyf in hand. That's one of the secrets of the basic land count. The less invested in a color you are, the more likely you are to have access to the correct mana when you need it.
It competes with Sensei's Divining Top for space. While in essence, they do the same thing, one is much more significant to my strategy than the other. Top plays extremely well with Counterbalance, as we all know. Sylvan does not. Sylvan works extremely well with Hoofprints of the Stag, and Top works pretty well. Counterbalance is a central theme and a four-of. Hoofprints is a secondary win condition and a two-of. See the idea? Again, there is a deck out there somewhere that will exploit Hoofprints and Library. I don't believe this is the one.
It can only be used once per turn, which means that a fetchland does not show me three new cards, NOW. This is much more of an issue than you would expect, especially with Counterbalance in play.

All that being said, the combo is pretty savage, so get out there and test it. In another deck.


This deck looks pretty solid, I remember like a month ago Gearhart ran a very similar deck one time. I dont know why you run Wrath over Deed, or why you run Jace at all. Deed costs less, kills more stuff, and yeah just seems better to me. Also, Jace is basically just Phyrexian Arena for a few turns because hell always get attacked, and using the each player draws ability seems bad almost any time.
Deed is in two of my tertiary colors. Wrath is in my secondary color (note the 6 white producers, to the 2 each of green and black). Deed kills my win conditions, since they are permanents, as opposed to manlands. It also blows up any Counterbalances that are in play. Wrath kills my guys maybe, and only temporarily. Deed is good in general, but Explosives is better in this deck.

If I honestly have to explain to you why drawing cards is generally better for the control deck than it is for the opponent, and how you can draw three cards to one with Jace forever if you protect him, and how drawing those cards actually helps protect him, then I consider this to be a lost cause.

[Deep6er]

I would like to say that I was NOT running four Hoofprints. I was only running three. Also, you're right about the Fact or Fictions. I was running them because I was afraid of Fact or Fiction in the control matchup. Looking back at testing, if I have Counter/Top in play, I can let an infinite number of Fact or Fictions resolve because Deed will never come into play. Obviously, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

On to the deck, some suggestions that you can get from my deck testing are simple, Burn is a non-issue. Counterbalance beats them. Breakfast game one is pretty easy as well. I will tell you with absolute certainty that Humility is too much. Using Tarmogoyf to block early, then drop a Plague or two will seal the deal. I highly recommend the four Plagues, and no Humilities. I highly recommend Jailer as the grave hate of choice. I know Extirpate has multiple uses, but Jailer is SO MUCH BETTER at shutting down Ichorid. The beauty of Jailer is that Counterbalance makes it so that they can never bounce the Jailer. Thus, they don't get to play Magic. However, Extirpate also shines against Loam, Breakfast (killing their 'Goyf's), and in the control mirror. I would recommend moving up to four though.

I would also seriously look into the Dragon Stompy matchup. It's not necessarily about the Blood Moon effects, so much as the Chalices/Trinisphere. Stax type decks are also a beating. Dragon Stompy is significantly more irritating simply because of the explosion out the gates. First turn Trinisphere, second turn Arc-Slogger is frustrating to the extreme. However, that opening will beat every deck in the format. In a more realistic sense, either Blue Blast, or Deed are good options against them. A theoretical sideboard that I would offer would look like this:

4 Extirpate
4 Plague
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Blue Elemental Blast

Those cards serve multiple purposes. You can bring in both Plague and Blast against Goblins (cutting Counterbalance, Jace, and one Hoofprints) in order to stall the early game, drop Plague + 'Goyf and win. I was never satisfied with Counterbalance against Goblins and Hoofprints rarely helps stabilize. Jace will help them find their Grips as well.

In reality, Threshold is so varied at this point that it's difficult to tell you exactly how to board. However, Deed is ALWAYS insane against them, and Grip will allow you to shut down Counterbalance.

Those are just suggestions borne from my own testing. I've worked on that deck for a long time and I hope you have success with it. I also appreciate the credit...deck thief. :)

[Bovinious]

stuff
Wrath is still 2 non-blue colored sources, and if you ran Deed then likely another trop would also make its way into the list, I dont think 1BG would be THAT much harder to get than 2WW, just saying maybe you wanna sweep non-creatures sometimes too, but I suppose explosives does that (kind of). All im saying with Jace is that it will get killed often if your opponent sticks just a few threats because you have 4, count em, 4 creatures to block.

[Nightmare]

@ Dave - While I concur that your board is valid, it's not particularly relevant to my metagame (and sideboarding is where you should be doing the majority of your metagaming). Decree is a must. No one plays Dragon Stompy. No one plays Ichorid. Survival is still a beating (if it's Colin), so Humility is more relevant in that matchup than Plague is.

@ Bovinious - WW is infinitely easier to get in this deck than GB. You run basic Plains. It's also nice to be able to cast Swords to Plowshares, which both requires white mana, and helps with those creatures you keep going on about.

What non-creature permanents are you planning to sweep with Deed that I can't with EE? Keep in mind, if you can cast Deed, I can cast EE at 4.

[Bovinious]

stuff
I dont know what EEs you have, but mine sure dont sweep all cards with CC X or less, so it is concievable that Deed will end up taking way more than EE can, dont pretend this isnt the case. In your current manabase, which I contend is subpar because of all those basics (lol, Plains), maybe WW is a bit easier to get, but just adding a Trop and maybe USea for like an Island and a Plains could make it all the easier to support 1BG...

[zulander]

Deed hits Counterbalance/top/shackles/hoofprints and an unused EE. Why the hell should he play that over wrath? Sometimes I feel you don't read entire lists and just pick on cards because there is a card that is "generally" better than the one being used.

[thefreakaccident]

WARNING* Not trying to pick fights, just pointing some things out!!!*


Deed is good, Explosives is better.

Explosives is deed Jr. that is only close in power when you have threats around the same cc as something that you want gone, Deed is the classic that has been utilized by landstill to good finishes since Nick Trudeau made his famous deck, BHWC Landstill.


Deed isn't just a 4 mana investment. Deed is 4 mana, then another 4 mana or whatever when you actually want to kill something. It's slow and it's weak, color requirements aside.

Deed is 3 mana initially... I would hardly say it is weak, as it is the best sweeper the format has to offer when it comes to flexibility; there is no argument that can be made there in opposition.

I am not saying that P.Deed is for this deck or anything of that sort; I am just saying that it is a strong card that does deserve its' dues, it just may not be for this deck

EDIT: In fact, deed would be terrible in this deck... read Zulander's post # 13

[Bovinious]

Deed hits Counterbalance/top/shackles/hoofprints and an unused EE. Why the hell should he play that over wrath? Sometimes I feel you don't read entire lists and just pick on cards because there is a card that is "generally" better than the one being used.

Huh, valid point, I guess Deed wouldnt be just plain better than EE all the time then. Maybe Nightmare could have told me that instead of "justifying" it by referencing a subpar mana base with Plains (LOL) rather than more duals/fetch.

[Nightmare]

Basic Plains is the second best land in the deck, following closely behind Basic Island. Because you can run more dual lands does not always mean you should. This deck shrugs off Blood Moon effects and Wasteland like no other control deck out there today. For an example of the contrary, look no further than the 4c Landstill manabase, which literally loses to a resolved Blood Moon.

[Bovinious]

4 Island and 2 Plains (lol) seems really excessive even just to combat blood moons, you have fetches also to find these subpar mana producers (oh wait, there arnt even 8 fetches...), so I really dont think 6 basics is needed or desirable in a 4 color deck. Also, i was advocating more duals only if you were going to run Deed, as it stands now Id probably just add 1 trop 1 fetch and cut 2 basics...

[Nightmare]

4 Island and 2 Plains (lol) seems really excessive even just to combat blood moons,And Wasteland, and Rishadan Port, but whatever.

you have fetches also to find these subpar mana producers (oh wait, there arnt even 8 fetches...),Getting WW is particularly important with this deck, and the surest way to do so in the face of opposing Wastes is with basics. Polluted Delta does not fetch a Plains, and as such is not as good as Flooded Strand in the deck. There have been countless times where I would prefer to fetch a Plains [(lol)] but could not. Seven Fetches is the number I have arrived at, and I'm 100% happy with it.

so I really dont think 6 basics is needed or desirable in a 4 color deck. Also, i was advocating more duals only if you were going to run Deed, as it stands now Id probably just add 1 trop 1 fetch and cut 2 basics...
I've been playing and testing this deck for better than a month, and wouldn't have put it up, putting my own credibility on the line, had I not cemented my logic on every single card in the deck beforehand. By no means am I infallable, but I am certain that I have lost games due to Tundra not being a basic Plains. It's an incorrect assumption that duals and fetches are always a more correct choice than basics. If I were to add the 4th Delta, it would be for an Island, not a Plains. In addition, this really isn't a four color deck. At the most, it's three, and even that's a stretch. It's more like a two color deck splashing green.


Youre basically saying "dont you dare question my 6 basics lands, 2 of which are Plains (lol)", whats the point of even posting your deck if you arnt prepared to defend your deck in a logical and non inflammatory manner?I'm saying precisely this: If you aren't willing to present evidence why you believe my card choices are incorrect, but rather continue to declare them as subpar merely by sight, and follow with an lol for good measure, then why should I bother to try and refute you?


Zulander defended your deck better than youZulander took the time to make the explaination that I would hope was obvious. Landstill plays Deed because they don't play permanents other than land. This deck does. Blowing up your own board position with Pernicious Deed does not seem to me to be the right play at any point in the game.

[Nightmare]

K, so I cleaned up that bunch of garbage. Apologies to all, including Bovinious. Let's get the discussion back on track now.

[zulander]

1. Have you tested FoF/Gifts or do you think Jace is the better of the three?

2. Imho Sphere of law > CoP red. Sure CoP red comes down faster but it doesn't stop turn 1 lacky. And the fact that once you resolve sphere of law you can start using your resources elsewhere and not truely worry if you have mana untapped on their turn.

[thefreakaccident]

I would personally suggest just deleting all those posts and start up the thread again, as the thread seems too caught up in the petty argument which is currently ensuing.

It is however funny that an intellectual (Nightmare) and an imbisile (bovinious) (sorry my spelling is atrocious and my spell check is not functioning) are arguing about something as petty as basic lands in a control deck.

I myself play only two basic lands in landstill and am quite fine; I have taken the time to playtest your MU against landstill (UGWB), during the coarse of the night (you posted your article, there is a little bit more time that has elapsed there than a measly 3 hours BTW).

I found that the MU is in Landstill's favor, as they utilize your best draw spell better than you 100% of the time (unless they are incompetent), and they have less dead cards than you do (you have: wrath, explosives, standstill; They have: nothing)

You have an underwhelming amount of protection against their threats, where you only have swords and shackles; they have deed (which hits a very large portion of your deck, except of coarse your jace), swords (hits goyf gladly, and stag tokens), and sometimes edict (but most of them are opting to play spell snare instead, which is a much better option against this deck).

They run more hard countermagic than you, and while your little combo of CB/top is nice, it really doesn't realistically live for longer than a turn or even hit the board for that matter (at least not both parts, specifically the CB).




The goblin MU also seems off, as while I haven't gotten a chance to play this MU (I will concede this) CB is aweful against them. I will usually board out CB against goblins whenever I am playing something that utilizes that combination of cards... goblins has 12 1cc cards, 5-6 2cc cards, and 12 3cc cards (including incinerator for off chances)... you have 2 3cc cards in your entire deck, 11 1cc cards, and 16 2cc cards... Your CB will never counter warcheif or matron, it will never touch ringleader (which you have only Fow against), and it will never touch sgc or Kiki-jiki (for those who still run it).


This is all I have to put out there; Your other analysis of your other MUs seemed about right overall; well written article, well written primer; just a little bit more testing against a couple decks, that's all. I do not mean to be well mean or anything, I am just here to clarify some things that seemed to be misrepresented previously.

[Nightmare]

I would personally suggest just deleting all those posts and start up the thread again, as the thread seems too caught up in the petty argument which is currently ensuing.I tried cleaning up most of the garbage. There was some relevant stuff in there.


I have taken the time to playtest your MU against landstill (UGWB)...

I found that the MU is in Landstill's favor, as they utilize your best draw spell better than you 100% of the time (unless they are incompetent), and they have less dead cards than you do (you have: wrath, explosives, standstill; They have: nothing)Working under the assumption that you're playing with BHWW landstill, or even the Waste-less ones, I'm basically only concerned with a single card - Deed. It's seriously the only card I care about in the slightest, and really only in game 1. As I said in the article, and above, the ability of Landstill to better operate under a Standstill renders mine fairly irrelevant in game 1, and only slightly better in games two and three. It's a known issue, but there are ways to better handle the issue. In general, I'm willing to break the first Standstill, if I either have a mana advantage, or a solid enough hand where I feel like I can push a threat through. It's not simple, and again, Deed wrecks that plan, but it's not exactly an aweful matchup. Jace is still just as good as I said - if he resolves, BHWW has nothing that can deal with him outside attacking with Monasteries. Post board, Decree can wrench that for a while, or just win. It's something I'm willing to work on, but the matchup isn't prevalent enough around me to dedicate that much time to it. I'm generally more concerned with white based Landstill, which is rampant in Syracuse. On the other hand, the principles that work well for one are good for the other as well, like Decree or even Pithing Needle in the board.


They run more hard countermagic than you, and while your little combo of CB/top is nice, it really doesn't realistically live for longer than a turn or even hit the board for that matter (at least not both parts, specifically the CB).I suppose this is true in the perfect world where they open with Spell Snare, Deed, Force, Counterspell, and the mana to play it all. On the other hand, I could just as soon open with Top, Counterbalance, and Double Force backup, with a Shackles in the top three to stop Deed from ever seeing play. It can happen either way - both decks are very good.


The goblin MU also seems off, as while I haven't gotten a chance to play this MU (I will concede this) CB is aweful against them.Generally speaking, I've actually found it better vs. them with this deck than any other one I've played it in, partially because my curve rides a little higher. I actually keep it in post board, believe it or not. They have 8 cards that circumvent it, sure, but you can deal with those eventually, and in the mean time, slow them enough by forcing them to rely on Vial that you have time to find answers to those cards.


you have 2 3cc cards in your entire deck(4 in the MD, with anywhere from 3 to 7 more in the board), 11 1cc cards, and 16 2cc cards... Your CB will never counter warcheif or matron, it will never touch ringleader (which you have only Fow against), and it will never touch sgc or Kiki-jiki (for those who still run it).You didn't mention the 4cc cards or the fact that FoW stops Siege Gang, but that's fine. It's not the best against Goblins, I agree, but neither is Counterspell. Still, with a plethora of removal in the MD, Goyf, recurring defense in Hoofprints, and a TON of help from the board, it hasn't been all that difficult to deal with Goblins in testing.



This is all I have to put out there; Your other analysis of your other MUs seemed about right overall; well written article, well written primer; just a little bit more testing against a couple decks, that's all. I do not mean to be well mean or anything, I am just here to clarify some things that seemed to be misrepresented previously.I'll be sure to test them some more. I appreciate the feedback.

[Michael Keller]

I'll be honest here, Adam:

Your deck looks the strongest and most consistent of all the CaNG d's...at least in my opinion. I've seen it in action and I'm quite impressed. Hats off to a fantastic concoction.

[Jaynel]

Not going to lie, this deck is really awesome. In the three or four games I played on MWS, I've seen that there are just so many BOMBS that need to be answered in the early game, and from such an incredibly diverse range of threats (Creature, Enchantment, Planeswalker).

The only clunky card to me is Wrath of God; then again, I haven't played against dedicated aggro. It seems like a necessary evil against Goblins (or to dodge enemy Counterbalances to sweep Mongooses and/or Tarmogoyfs).

Very, very well done.

[Tacosnape]

I think Standstill is a terrible choice here. You can't drop a turn two Standstill and ever put any pressure on your opponent to break it. If you were to do so, you would be gambling on the fact that your opponent is going to misguess your deck and assume you play a method of backing the Standstill up.

In fact the only times you can ever afford to drop it is if you have a Goyf out, a Hoofprints out, a Jace out, or you have more cards in your library than your opponent.

[Volt]

.

[BreathWeapon]

I found the deck awkward and inconsistent at times, granted I don't have a sufficient number of games to be 100% skilled with it, but most of the games I won were due to the power of the individual cards overwhelming the opponent as opposed to a coherent game plan. Balance/Top couldn't deal with 3cc cards at all, Standstill was just awful with out a Tarmogoyf on the board, which made it win more, and Jace was a dud against all forms of aggro.

I'd be tempted to drop Standstill for Thirst for Knowledge or Intuition/Life from the Loam for consistent card advantage and 3cc cards to prevent Intuition/Loam and Pernicious Deed from resolving on the other side of the table. Either of those cards are strong with Hoof Prints of the Stag and should churn thru' the deck at a higher rate.

Counterspell would also help to shore up the counter wall, a lot of random shit slips thru' Force of Will and Counterbalance, and it's infuriating as all hell.

Edit: Since Wrath of God and Tarmogoyf is a nombo, I'd look into Volrath's Stronghold, given the card is ridiculous in control/aggro-control mirrors and has synergy with Counterbalance.

[Nihil Credo]

I agree with the general evaluation of Standstill.

If your plan is "achieve board superiority, then drop Standstill to draw 3 cards on the spot", then Threshold and Fish can make a better use of Standstill than this deck (because they have more early threats and more countermagic to protect them). Unless you're counting on your opponent waiting forever to break it, in which case they are either bad or playing a deck that operates better than you under Standstill.

Either Standstill should be put in Thresh/Fish, or this deck should run a better card drawing engine. TfK would be my first choice to test.

[Nightmare]

To all who are discussing Standstill vs. Thirst, it's been on my list of things to test for a while now. I'm aware of the difficulty in exploiting the card, and it's quite possible that Thirst will be a better use of the slot. I'll be testing it throughout the week, and let you know how it pans out.

[Shriekmaw]

To all who are discussing Standstill vs. Thirst, it's been on my list of things to test for a while now. I'm aware of the difficulty in exploiting the card, and it's quite possible that Thirst will be a better use of the slot. I'll be testing it throughout the week, and let you know how it pans out.


I might be totally out on left field on this, but I feel that Standstill is only better if your deck is designed to win the game while sitting under the enchantment.

Some examples of what I exactly mean are the following. Lets say you have decree of justice, can make solider tokens via cycling under standstill. Lets say you play man lands and/or wasteland to control your opponent under standstill. Being able to make tokens without breaking the enchantment is the key on the inclusion of it. The last good example is Hoofprints of the Stag as Adam plays in his deck.

Since most of these cards are not present in the deck, I believe Thirst for Knowledge may be a better alternative, giving the fact that the artifact count is high enough.

Let us know how the testing does. Good Luck.

[Bryant Cook]

I feel that if you're going to cut Standstill, which I disagree with, it should be for 2-3x Fact and probably a Skeletal Scrying or two. Cutting standstill hurts the 2cc slot for counterbalance.

EDIT: The deck doesnt play enough artifacts to support Thirst even with academy ruins.

[Tosh]

I do think that this deck is good; however, I think I'm going to play the devil's advocate for a bit.

How is this deck significantly different from Landstill? The only significantly different cards I see are Tarmogoyf, Jace and Hoofprints and even then they are not unheard of on the Landstill thread.

How is this deck better than landstill? Some concerns: it runs Goyf, which is bigger but can be countered, as its only win condition (besides Shackle-ing one of their dudes); it runs not nearly as many hard-counters as landstill; you might have to break standstill to play your threats and your threats do not recur - once they're gone, they're gone.

[Di]

How is this deck better than landstill? Some concerns: it runs Goyf, which is bigger but can be countered, as its only win condition (besides Shackle-ing one of their dudes); it runs not nearly as many hard-counters as landstill; you might have to break standstill to play your threats and your threats do not recur - once they're gone, they're gone.

Jace and Hoofprints are still win conditions, as is Shackles as you mention. Landstill runs eight hard counters. You run Force of Will and Counterbalance, which can potentially act as infinate hard counters as well. Also, if Shackles is being used as a win condition against say, Tarmogoyf, you recur it with Academy Ruins.

[Damiles]

I like the name of this deck and the idea of control in legacy.
The only thing I have issues with is Jace, but I've never used the card so I don't know how good it really is. I assume the strategy for it is to draw one card over two turns leaving him at one, and then recharge with the howling mine affect. So the card advantage is -1 for Jace, and -1 every time you use his howling mine. which is paid off after the first two activations. So you only really gain card advantage after four turns which is during a howling mine. I think the mill effect is useless compared to drawing cards. Don't get me wrong, I like milling. But only 20 cards that sound that great. I'm sure there's games that have crept up where it's been used but that's just showing off in light that you've given the player five cards in order to do it when you've could have been drawing into a win condition. Perhaps the real issue of card advantage can be argued that atleast your drawing cards much like cantrips.
I like Jace as a card, but he strikes me as one of those 'cool' cards like Arcanis.

Which brings me to my next point: This deck to me lacks a real card drawing engine (despite Jace over a long game ). I think fact or fiction is a good card that wins games, gifts aswell. The biggest draw back is the casting cost, much like wrath of god. I was wondering if you considered adding more mana excel to the deck to play such spells earlier.

In closing I'd like to say this is by far my favorite deck of the submissions so far, and hope you do well.

[APriestOfGix]

They deck lacks synergy. It's just powerful cards put together...

It rolls and dies to aggro. I have been play testing it, and it's losing to FALSE CURE!!!


WTF! StP their Kavu, and they still win/Rebuff the Wicked it!

[zulander]

They deck lacks synergy. It's just powerful cards put together...
That's how you build decks. You put the best cards of the colors you want to play and just pick 60 of them.

[Tosh]

That's how you build decks. You put the best cards of the colors you want to play and just pick 60 of them.
There are so many decks that do not follow this "rule". For example: Solidarity (Counterbalance? Portent?), TES (Anything really, its got golden lands), Iggy-Pop (Hymn? Counterbalance?), Thresh (Mental Note and Predict straight up suck in any normal deck, I wouldn't consider them as one of the "best cards"), and Goblins (Lightning Bolt?).

The way these decks were built is that the deck designers found cards that fit in with the overall strategy and were synergistic with each other.

[Bovinious]

There are so many decks that do not follow this "rule". For example: Solidarity (Counterbalance? Portent?), TES (Anything really, its got golden lands), Iggy-Pop (Hymn? Counterbalance?), Thresh (Mental Note and Predict straight up suck in any normal deck, I wouldn't consider them as one of the "best cards"), and Goblins (Lightning Bolt?).

The way these decks were built is that the deck designers found cards that fit in with the overall strategy and were synergistic with each other.

Well Mental Note always sucks, but valid point, synergy is important to consider in deck building. However, sometimes a bunch of good cards can come together and make a good deck based on sheer power of the individual cards or unintentional synergies, see PT: Junk decks for instance.

[thefreakaccident]

That's how you build decks. You put the best cards of the colors you want to play and just pick 60 of them.

I would argue that LftL would be bad in both survival and thresh (both of which use grren)....

I would also argue that damnation would be bad in SI...

Such comments are bad for the integrity of these boards and the soul of Legacy as a whole.

[Alfred]

Why not run a couple of Tolaria Wests in the manabase, for finding Ruins, EE and potential cards out of the SB? Because it's a U producing land, it gives a lot of utility for essentially 0 deckspace. It also gets around Standstill, so you could use it to tutor for a singleton land win condition, forcing your opponent to break it.

After boarding, Crypt, Tabernacle and manlands can all be brought in as 1-ofs, increasing the amount of answers the deck can run for minimal mainboard and sideboard space.

[raharu]

@ Zulander: Your format of choice wouldn't happen to be Type 2, would it?

@ The "Problem" of Standstill: TfK is bad. Really bad. In all honesty I would play Council of the Soratomi over TfK for what I thought would be obvious reasons. I would instead sugest Accumulated Knowledge or Ancestral Vision (I think that here I should say I haven't played the deck yet, so I don't know if your deck is too slow for 4x Ancestral Vision). I would advocate AK over Vision because I think it would be the better replacement for Standstill since it doesn't alter your mana curve and it doesn't have any attached delay. The first casting is obviously a little under whelming, but the draw is centered in the late-game, where I would presume you would want/ need it most.

[diffy]

I've tested this deck a little and found it quite nice although you sometimes really have situations in which you only win because your opponent doesn't have stuff and you're applying the pressure. Nothing bad there but a strange feel for a 'control' deck.
I've also found Counterbalance to be not quite as scary as I've imagined it to be. You almost never hit something blindly and only have 4 cantrips (Brainstorm) in comparision to NQGs 8+ to set it up. It's awesome in conjunction with Top, but that's 2 cards and even then with 22 lands and spells you won't really use to counter stuff (cmc3 and cmc4) I've not found it that impressive but maybe that comes from not having tested extensively yet.

Why do people have problems with Standstill? It's still the best draw spell if you're in a semi-good board position and you shouldn't have any problems with starting the game in the late-game so that a competent opponent will always break it as quickly as possible. Decking under this just won't happen and even if, you've still got Academy Ruins to prevent this.
If people are really investigating into some alternative, I once met someone from these boards (sorry, forgott who) on MWS who was playing a Landstill build with Think Twice in the place of Standstill, maybe that'd be an (uncosty) alternative.

[Ch@os]

Sry but i dont get it.
Its a landstill list without manlands, ok zvi build a very similar decklist and in the LS-Primer Goofy also takes his place in some builds.
You put all the ideas together and build a bad deck [i testet it].

I think the right way to play Jacen is a Moat hardlock with humility for example. :tongue:
And Counterbalance seems to be better in many many decks, its fit not into the decklist.

[Lemuria]

I would instead sugest Accumulated Knowledge or Ancestral Vision (I think that here I should say I haven't played the deck yet, so I don't know if your deck is too slow for 4x Ancestral Vision). I would advocate AK over Vision because I think it would be the better replacement for Standstill since it doesn't alter your mana curve and it doesn't have any attached delay. The first casting is obviously a little under whelming, but the draw is centered in the late-game, where I would presume you would want/ need it most.


To abuse AK, he would have to run Intuition as well. That might be good, maybe, but he would have to cut a bunch of things to open slots for it. My bst bet would be FoF. I haven't tested though, it's just my 2,99999999 cents.

[klaus]

I playtested TEC a little bit. Here are my suggestions:

Standstill IS powerful, no doubt about it. Yet it's subpar as part of a starting hand. Counting all threads that potentialy force your opponent to break Standstill, you end up with 8, 6 facing creature-less combo: 4 Goyf, 2 HoftS, {2 Shackles}.
About the same amount of threats goes for a traditional LS lists (4 Factory, 2 Monstery/DoJ/Shriekmaw/Shackles what ever...)
There's a not so slight difference here though. The regular LS player may slip most of his threats in without breaking his own LS - this condition justifies the inclusion of an entire Standstill playset afterall. He may drop blind turn 2 Standstills without even holding a manland, as long as the board is clear. I know all of this sounds completely obvious. Anyway, what I really want to say is that there is a factual imbalance between the amount Standstill copies and the amount of threats in your deck.
Back in the day there have been Madness lists that abused Standstill more efficiently, I would say, due to the fact that they simply ran more creatures+factories and wastelands.

OK here is the thing: I'm not arguing against Standstill in TEC, I would merely cut them down to 3 in favor of another low costed threat + add either 1-2 Wastelands or Factories for the mirror.

Opinions?

[Nightmare]

The changes I'll be testing throughout the week include the following:

-4 Standstill (the biggest complaint, by far)
+3 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Vedalken Shackles (Need an increased artifact count, and this adds a threat)

With that, the mana curve smooths out, too, which is appealing to me. It leaves 11 at 1cc, 10 at 2cc, and 10 at 3cc. Good luck resolving stuff through Counterbalance now.

[zulander]

The changes I'll be testing throughout the week include the following:

-4 Standstill (the biggest complaint, by far)
+3 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Vedalken Shackles (Need an increased artifact count, and this adds a threat)

With that, the mana curve smooths out, too, which is appealing to me. It leaves 11 at 1cc, 10 at 2cc, and 10 at 3cc. Good luck resolving stuff through Counterbalance now.
Like snuff out and Tombstalker? Will do, thanks!!
To be honest I'm not so sure that Thirst is the right draw spell. I think gifts or FoF would be better. Actually now that I think about it Gifts would be a house in here. You could get swords, wrath or humility if you need to remove something, or hoofprints, goyf or shackles to play a threat. Seems pretty redonka donk actually.

[Nightmare]

Like snuff out and Tombstalker? Will do, thanks!!
To be honest I'm not so sure that Thirst is the right draw spell. I think gifts or FoF would be better. Actually now that I think about it Gifts would be a house in here. You could get swords, wrath or humility if you need to remove something, or hoofprints, goyf or shackles to play a threat. Seems pretty redonka donk actually.
The problem with Gifts and FoF is twofold. 1, they cost 4 mana, which is more than I'm willing to invest for 2-3 cards. 2, they don't say "Draw three cards" in the text box, which is the reason I ran Standstill from the get-go. I'm still looking to power up a Hoofprints with the draw engine, so I think for now, Thirst is the best option, although Gearhart runs Meditate (but I think he just wants it to be playable in a deck that doesn't suck nowadays). Thirst has a lot going for it, but I'm always skeptical of the artifact count when using it. Still, 3 Thirst for 8-10 artifacts seems ok, especially with Academy Ruins.


Man, if it didn't suck so much, I'd love a 1-of Mindslaver. GOD do I wish that card was viable in Legacy.

[zulander]

The problem with Gifts and FoF is twofold. 1, they cost 4 mana, which is more than I'm willing to invest for 2-3 cards. 2, they don't say "Draw three cards" in the text box, which is the reason I ran Standstill from the get-go. I'm still looking to power up a Hoofprints with the draw engine, so I think for now, Thirst is the best option, although Gearhart runs Meditate (but I think he just wants it to be playable in a deck that doesn't suck nowadays). Thirst has a lot going for it, but I'm always skeptical of the artifact count when using it. Still, 3 Thirst for 8-10 artifacts seems ok, especially with Academy Ruins.


Man, if it didn't suck so much, I'd love a 1-of Mindslaver. GOD do I wish that card was viable in Legacy.
If you're looking for the word "Draw x Cards" then play sylvan library. Nothing puts counters on your guys like 'drawing' 3 cards.

[Alfred]

Why not run a couple of Tolaria Wests in the manabase, for finding Ruins, EE and potential cards out of the SB? Because it's a U producing land, it gives a lot of utility for essentially 0 deckspace. It also gets around Standstill, so you could use it to tutor for a singleton land win condition (Factory, etc.), forcing your opponent to break it.

After boarding, Crypt, Tabernacle and manlands can all be brought in as 1-ofs, increasing the amount of answers the deck can run for minimal mainboard and sideboard space.

Sorry to quote myself, but I think this was lost at the end of last page, and I think it could be an interesting option for this deck.

[Ewokslayer]

Sorry to quote myself, but I think this was lost at the end of last page, and I think it could be an interesting option for this deck.

Nightmare answers this on the first page


@ Tolaria West - While the idea for tutoring for Ruins/EE is nice in theory, in practice Tolaria West ends up sucking more than being awesome. It's a CItP Tapped land, which is more relevant than you'd imagine, and it still tutors for three mana. I'm sure there is a home for it in some deck, but I don't think this is the one.

[Nightmare]

If you're looking for the word "Draw x Cards" then play sylvan library. Nothing puts counters on your guys like 'drawing' 3 cards.
Like I said earlier, it still sucks with Top in the deck. Soooooo redundant. I'm pretty sure Thirst is gonna work. Give me some time to test, for real.

[diffy]

Just as a quick question:

Are 4 Counterbalances really needed?
Wouldn't you rather want to play some tutor/more dig in the place of the 4th (because of multiples being redundant and stuff and because of them hitting blindly being pretty poor)?

Edit: I do also think that if you're going to cut the 4 Standstills, you should add more Explosives over Shackles as they tend to be pretty mana-intensive.
I'm testing:
-4 Standstill
+2 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Fact or Fiction (as that random 1off lategame bomb, I'm sure you don't want more)
+1 Engineered Explosives

[zulander]

With a top you never hit the 2nd unless you want to draw it. Although 2 in your opening hand sucks unless you have a force.

[APriestOfGix]

I feel so helpless against decks with this. You don't have enough counters, you don't have enough threats. Your have LOTS of CA. But i find myself wasting the early turns trying to find what i need, only to be dead, by the time i can make a token, or drop a Goyf, or StP that Kavu, or Shackles that Goyf.

[Nightmare]

I feel so helpless against decks with this. You don't have enough counters, you don't have enough threats. Your have LOTS of CA. But i find myself wasting the early turns trying to find what i need, only to be dead, by the time i can make a token, or drop a Goyf, or StP that Kavu, or Shackles that Goyf.
Did you plan to make any suggestions, or just bash the deck and move on?

[APriestOfGix]

Did you plan to make any suggestions, or just bash the deck and move on?

Sorry, i was just giving my opinion, and was going to come back and edit after this match (in the middle of testing).

I think the deck needs to drop Hoof. In it's place it can run another threat now, card. that or it needs to drop some CA, and rely on natural draws/brainstorm, and use those slots for ether: more removal, more counters, more threats/blockers.

I could see Dryad being really good in this deck. If you played it like a Legacy version of Gush.

Edit: ok, pull standstill, hoof, and add in something. I'm not quite sure, what the deck really wants, i'm just sure it dosn't have it yet. Maybe Thread's of Disloyality, Manland's, Wasteland's, Dryad's, Counterspell (or mana leak).

[zulander]

Sorry, i was just giving my opinion, and was going to come back and edit after this match (in the middle of testing).

I think the deck needs to drop Hoof. In it's place it can run another threat now, card. that or it needs to drop some CA, and rely on natural draws/brainstorm, and use those slots for ether: more removal, more counters, more threats/blockers.

I could see Dryad being really good in this deck. If you played it like a Legacy version of Gush.
I agree. We should take a control deck and make it into GAT. That is the natural progression that control decks take right?

[Deep6er]

By the way, Meditate is ACTUALLY nuts. In the control/Threshold matchup, it's a ridiculous bomb. Against Goblins, it's ok. I'll grant that it's not stellar in the Goblins matchup, but there are still uses. Seriously though, against Threshold, since they usually try to ride the "one threat" strategy, resolving Meditate is insane. Since the threat is usually Mongoose, you MIGHT take an extra three damage to draw four cards. Which, incidentally, fully powers a Hoofprints token. Seriously, I HIGHLY recommend that card. I can't even begin to describe how nutty it is in the control matchup.

[Kadaj]

I ran this thing through some basic testing and here are the issues I came up against:

First off, Standstill is awful in this deck. Utterly awful. It was only good when I already had a Goyf or CounterTop in play, and frankly, I like my chances if I have Goyf or CounterTop in play. Because of my irritation with it's total ineffectiveness I replaced with Fact or Fiction. Allow me to impress this upon everyone reading this thread: Fact or Fiction is nuts. One hundred percent nuts. That's right, no fiber, no flakes, no-- Oh wait, this is a MtG deck not a cereal commercial. My bad. At any rate, the deck ran much smoother with FoF in that slot than it ever did with Standstill as the main draw engine.

The next issue I ran into is that Jace sucks. Seriously, that card is not good in any way against anything in Legacy. There was never a single moment I was happy to draw it, or play it, or generally be in the same room as it, so I cut it for 2 Thirst For Knowledge, which seemed to be working out fairly well. However, sometimes they felt really clunky in addition to the Facts, so I tried out Shriekmaw in that slot as well for more utility. I'm unsure as to which I actually prefer, as both serve fairly different roles. Still, I can say with certainty they're both far better than Jace is.

After those changes I decided I wanted to throw this deck through the wringer, so I tested it heavily against Goblins, which I usually use as the benchmark for whether or not a deck is actually any good. The basic issues I ran into are thus: Wrath is awful against Goblins, and this deck doesn't run nearly enough lands. Now, these two conclusions led me to question why Wrath was included at all, considering it's really not good against anything else in Legacy, and if you can't count on it to beat the premier aggro deck in the format is it really worth it at all? The more I thought about it the more I figured I really don't think Wrath is at all necessary, so I cut it for 2 more lands and another Vedalken Shackles.

The version with Shriekmaws instead of Thirsts in the Jace slot did marginally better against Goblins as a whole, but the list without wrath and with more shackles and lands actually did far better against Goblins than the land-light version with Wraths did.

Take the above statements as you will, but I think the following changes would really help this deck:
Out
-4 Standstill
-3 Wrath
-2 Jace Beleren
In
+4 Fact Or Fiction
+2 Shriekmaw/Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Vedalken Shackles
+1 Polluted Delta
+1 Island

[Deep6er]

Actually, in Nightmare's defense, he did say that this was prepped for his metagame. In Syracuse, apparently only ONE person plays Goblins, and he's fine with taking a game 1 loss to Teeniebopper to beat him with Plagues game 2 and 3. It seems that in Syracuse, everybody and their mother is playing Landstill. The deck is rather customizable, so we may be able to tune it to beat certain metagames. That sounds like a pretty reasonable plan, right Nightmare?

[Zach Tartell]

WTF! StP their Kavu, and they still win/Rebuff the Wicked it!

I don't mean to de-rail any actual conversation, but this is exactly why I sent in a foil RTW for the winner. That shit is hot.

Anyway, allow me to stress, as several people have, that this is a control deck built to beat control decks. If that's not what you're willing to play, then don't play this. Jace is pretty close to nuts in every match, with the possible exception of Goblins/Agro/Burn (This includes Goyf Sligh). You are able, in most cases, to bury your opponent with card advantage by way of CB/Top or Wrath, and you have to remember that you're drawing too. Also, he's a solid card at 3cc, which roxxorz. He gets boarded out against not-Control/Agro Control/Prison decks, 'scept maybe TES (just for blue card count. But don't quote me on that).

Having actually tested this deck, and played against it, on multiple occasions, allow me to relieve the worries of you naysayers with this statement:

TEC (The EPIC Control), flaws and all, is probably one of the top five submitted decks thus far. If I may speak on behalf of the judges, let me issue this ultimadum:

(This message interrupted by: The Committee for over use of colins)

We like your Rock-y decks. We really do. Fish decks are cool, too. Remember when you would bring an art project back from like 3rd grade, back when your parents were still cool and bought you game boy games/ all 4 N64 controllers/ didn't get divorced? And then congratulated you on your work, and put it on the fridge so you'd see it everyday at breakfast, and so they could show it off to house guests?

These decks so far have largely been like these art projects.

Now, before you start throwing full wine bottles at your computer screen, let me append that statement:
(looks like I love colins almost as much as the {list} function)

We appreciate these decks, just like your parents appreciated your art projects. They show your individuality, and ingenuity. Aww... look! You even signed your name in the corner with dried macaroni! There is only one problem; we're looking for a new Mona Lisa, or at least the metaphorical equivalant of those sketches of that naked dude with his arms out at weird angles.

That is all.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Threshold:
You dominate them... and you have the ultimate trump in Jace. More than any other deck, Thresh cannot afford to lose 20 cards from their library. With such a small threat package, its entirely possible for them to lose the majority of their creatures, and that's not something they can win through easily. Post Board, Extirpate deals with the creatures and other stuff permanantly. It's an excellent matchup for you.
Just to bring up a point I think everyone else may have missed the Jace comment is just wrong and should probably be removed from the opening post. You may have a favorable matchup vs. Thresh but Jace's "remove 20 cards" ability certainly has nothing to do with it unless used 2x. I mean if Thresh is going to win it's before they get to 40 cards left in deck, at that point if you use Jace's "ultimate" ability it's equal chance you'll make their deck better or worse. At any rate what do you side out for Extirpates vs. Thresh?

[raharu]

@ Nightmare: How do you use Jace? Is it mostly for the control MU? If so, why? I think that if you explained to everyone how you play him, then most people would understand what role he plays and quit bashig it.

Why would you need Intuition to play a full set of AK?? I understand that Intuition makes AK faster, but in a control deck (remember kids, this one aims for the long game) AK as a 4-of with no help is fine, just fine.

On the topic of draw, Ancestral Vision is sick. Yes, there is a delay, but this allows you to avoid any akward situations where you cast a large draw spell (FoF anyone?) and you're either forced to spend a Force of Will on it to resolve the draw spell and hope that you draw into more promission or let it get countered and be satisfied with going 1 for 1 (2 if they Force'd it). With AV, you avoid those situations because you have all your mana open to protect it. It may not be the best against agro/ Goblins when you're rocked back on your heels and you're screaming "I need answers NAO!!!", but Nightmare, you've stated that Goblins is not your concern with this deck.

Considering that TEC(H?) is a control deck that aims to out-control other dedicated control decks, you might want to run more permision in the deck (right now you pretty much run just 4 Force of Wills since Landstill, MUC and othe dedicated control have curves centered very high and Counterbalance stops a sub-optimal portion of those decks). I would think that 3-4 Counterspells MD.

Maybe something like this? (keep in mind that I haven't played the deck yet):

-1 CB
-4 Standstill
-2 Jace Belaren

+3 Counterspell
+4 Accumulated Knowledge/ Ancestral Visions*

*(if you run these, your 0cc card count for CB would be 28...)

Is it just me, or is CB looking less and less atractive in the abstract as the discussion progresses? It's not really effective against dedicated control because they have a higher-centered curve, it was effective with Standstill, but now that card is looking for a replacement, and the deck itself has a curve too far spread-out for CB to really be effective. I think that there are better cards for the control mirror that warrant inclusion. It's a bad habit of mine to put more black in every deck, but have you considered putting those SB'd Extiprates in the Main? They BREAK control (which is your main concern, yes?). Playing a playset MD is pretty much an auto-win against Control decks, but the key here is knowing how to play them. You can't just say "hey, I don't like that" and Extirpate it. You should aim to cripple a vital portion of thier deck so that it can't function properly, like the permision, draw, or thier threats instead of trying to weaken the deck as a whole. Well, I'm done now.

EDIT: Or not @ lonleybaritone: not to be an ass, but I really don't think that this could call this a Mona Lisa. I don't say this because it isn't perfect, I say this because it's simply Uwg(b) control. It does the same things that scrubby Uwb control has done with essentially the same cards, just in different colots and it, by chance happened to be put together by Nightmare, which means that is well made. On that note:

@ Nightmare: Again, my tendancy to put black where it may not belong: why did you chose to go with the colors that you did? Surely there are better control options in a Uwb maindeck than in Uwg, so I would naturally assume that there is a reason that you chose to go the way you did. Was it Tarmogoyf? If so, that makes me sad, but I would understand.

[dontbiteitholmes]

We like your Rock-y decks. We really do. Fish decks are cool, too. Remember when you would bring an art project back from like 3rd grade, back when your parents were still cool and bought you game boy games/ all 4 N64 controllers/ didn't get divorced? And then congratulated you on your work, and put it on the fridge so you'd see it everyday at breakfast, and so they could show it off to house guests?

These decks so far have largely been like these art projects.

Now, before you start throwing full wine bottles at your computer screen, let me append that statement:
(looks like I love colins almost as much as the {list} function)

We appreciate these decks, just like your parents appreciated your art projects. They show your individuality, and ingenuity. Aww... look! You even signed your name in the corner with dried macaroni! There is only one problem; we're looking for a new Mona Lisa, or at least the metaphorical equivalant of those sketches of that naked dude with his arms out at weird angles.

That is all.
Wow, just read this and is that really needed. I don't know if you are a fanboy/friend of Nightmare and trying to hype his deck up, but having submitted a "Rockish" deck myself I find this highly insulting. While this is a fine deck for the right meta, and I agree with it being one of the top 5 decks in the contest so far, I could just as easily say it's a mediocre UW control deck with Tarmogoyfs stuck in if I wanted to be a dick, so oversimplifying things to an insulting level is going to get us nowhere and hopefully you don't speak for the judges on that.

Anyways sorry to go there in your thread Nightmare, but I feel that comment was addressed at me. I'm going to go ahead and have to agree with the maybe testing Extirpate in the MD, I mean it just is bad times for control all around, but then again it may be overkill. I'm not really familiar with your meta but does the lack of MD GY control ever hurt you seeing as many control decks have ways of abusing the GY now adays (not to mention Wasteland Recursion). Also does the fact that Tarmogoyf is your main threat ever hurt you post board if he gets Extirpated leaving you with only Hoofprints and to a lesser extent Jace and Shackles. That might be my #1 problem with this deck in a control heavy meta (granted I haven't tested it).

[Nightmare]

Just to bring up a point I think everyone else may have missed the Jace comment is just wrong and should probably be removed from the opening post. You may have a favorable matchup vs. Thresh but Jace's "remove 20 cards" ability certainly has nothing to do with it unless used 2x. I mean if Thresh is going to win it's before they get to 40 cards left in deck, at that point if you use Jace's "ultimate" ability it's equal chance you'll make their deck better or worse. At any rate what do you side out for Extirpates vs. Thresh?Let's clear the air about a few things.

First - Jace doesn't suck. I'm positive you guys are off about this, because he's easily one of the strongest cards in the deck. Certainly, sometimes he's a three mana cantrip against decks like Survival or Goblins, but at the worst he's a three mana cantripping Fog. It happens. Vs. decks like Thresh or storm combo or control, you have the ability to win without using the red zone, where often they have the advantage on defense.

Part of the reason I think you guys may be having trouble is that you're being too aggressive with Goyf. For everyone who said he's the "main" win condition, he's not. He's more like your first line of defense (Remember that good offense is a great defense). That being said, and more in direct response to the quote, let's assume that you play out a Jace on turn 4, to both keep top mana available and play around Daze. If you drew first, meaning your opponent starts with more cards in library than you, then by the time he even hits the table, they've drawn 10 cards, not counting cantrips or fetchlands. It takes 5 turns to activate Jace including the turn you play him, which is 4 more draws plus the 5 per their turn they'll be seeing. That's 20 cards they've now seen, to your however many you've seen. Again, this doesn't factor in their cantrips or fetches. You activate Jace and remove half of their Library. Now, this is where logic gets tricky. You have basically three possibilities for the outcome of this mill. First, you mill nothing relevant at all, and they go about their business with no concern for Jace at all, which can happen I admit. Second, you hit the nuts, and leave them with minimal threats left in the deck, and clean up with StP and Wrath. This is generally a good thing. Third is of course, a combination of the two, and the most likely scenario. Any of these options leaves them with a decreased threat base or counter base, and allows you to ease the pressure and go about your game plan. It also sets the clock.

If they don't kill you in the next five turns, they flat out lose the game. This is a good position for a control deck to be in. It forces them to over-extend into the other card people seem to hate, Wrath of God. Now, I understand that this is the ideal situation, and that it doesn't always work that way. So don't ramp him up. Sit on him, and go -1, -1, +2 all day long. The decision to ramp or draw is one of the more subtle ones that people seem to screw up all the time (myself included).

As for what I side out for Extirpate, it varies. Versus any given deck, I take out the weakest win conditions, and some number of other stuff. I don't usually have a set strategy for boarding, but I have general concepts on what is good or less good vs. different decks.

[Nightmare]

On the topic of draw, Ancestral Vision is sick. Yes, there is a delay, but this allows you to avoid any akward situations where you cast a large draw spell (FoF anyone?) and you're either forced to spend a Force of Will on it to resolve the draw spell and hope that you draw into more promission or let it get countered and be satisfied with going 1 for 1 (2 if they Force'd it). With AV, you avoid those situations because you have all your mana open to protect it. It may not be the best against agro/ Goblins when you're rocked back on your heels and you're screaming "I need answers NAO!!!", but Nightmare, you've stated that Goblins is not your concern with this deck.Visions is pretty damned slow. I was considering it for the deck at one point, but it's not really worth it. Thirst has been good so far, I'm thinking that might be the go-to card.


(keep in mind that I haven't played the deck yet):DING DING DING!!! Seriously, guys. I know how much of a pile this looks like on paper. My own teammates bashed it in much the same way you all are before they a) saw it in action, and b) played with it themselves. Test it out a little before you go changing the deck all around.


Is it just me, or is CB looking less and less atractive in the abstract as the discussion progresses?That's because you've taken out the cards that are good with it, and replaced them with cards that suck with it. You're concentrating too much on individual cards, and not the overall deck. One of the biggest reasons Thirst or Meditate are so attractive to the deck, is that they cost three mana. The more smooth you can make the deck curve, the more effective the Counterbalances will be. After adding Thirst, I found myself having no trouble with 3cc spells at all, anymore, as I'm running 8 3cc cards to find with CounterTop.


EDIT: Or not @ lonleybaritone: not to be an ass, but I really don't think that this could call this a Mona Lisa. I don't say this because it isn't perfect, I say this because it's simply Uwg(b) control. It does the same things that scrubby Uwb control has done with essentially the same cards, just in different colots and it, by chance happened to be put together by Nightmare, which means that is well made. On that note:I don't think he's saying this is the Mona Lisa, he's just saying that Doran is this year's Life From the Loam. If you made a BWG rock deck or a fish deck, then you're unlikely to win, because how do the judges differentiate between the eight that have been submitted? That doesn't mean they aren't good, it just means there's a lot of them.


@ Nightmare: Again, my tendancy to put black where it may not belong: why did you chose to go with the colors that you did? Surely there are better control options in a Uwb maindeck than in Uwg, so I would naturally assume that there is a reason that you chose to go the way you did. Was it Tarmogoyf? If so, that makes me sad, but I would understand.Read the article, please.

[Nightmare]

Anyways sorry to go there in your thread Nightmare, but I feel that comment was addressed at me. I'm going to go ahead and have to agree with the maybe testing Extirpate in the MD, I mean it just is bad times for control all around, but then again it may be overkill. I'm not really familiar with your meta but does the lack of MD GY control ever hurt you seeing as many control decks have ways of abusing the GY now adays (not to mention Wasteland Recursion). Also does the fact that Tarmogoyf is your main threat ever hurt you post board if he gets Extirpated leaving you with only Hoofprints and to a lesser extent Jace and Shackles. That might be my #1 problem with this deck in a control heavy meta (granted I haven't tested it).The lack of grave hate is an issue vs. decks like Ichorid, sure. You'd think we'd see more of it around here with all the Landstill, too, but we don't. Anyway, if that's your concern, Yixlid Jailer is a massive beating on them from the board. I'd run three. Part of the reason I'm running black at all in this deck is the availability of the "gap fillers" it provides. Between Plague and yard hate, I think black is much better in the board than it is in the MD.

You have a fair game one against Breakfast even without it extirpate in the maindeck (unless they're running my build). Extirpate post-board is generally fine, and you bring Plague in as well (naming Illusion or Wizard).

[zulander]

Naming wizard while bringing in jailer is a bad thing. Stick to illusion or whatever Cephalid Illusionist's types are.

[Nightmare]

Naming wizard while bringing in jailer is a bad thing. Stick to illusion or whatever Cephalid Illusionist's types are.I don't currently run Jailer. And Illusionist is a Cephalid Wizard.

[Kadaj]

Ok, seriously, I have tested this deck. I'm not just drawing conjecture when I say this, but Jace has been utterly awful for me so far. It sucks against Goblins, because he sucks up one random attacking creature and then dies, he sucks against Thresh because he's slow as hell and generally completely irrelevant, and he sucks against combo because he's slow as hell. Yes, Jace is strong against other control where he can act like a Phyrexian Arena without the life penalty, and if your metagame is loaded with Landstill then I can somewhat understand why you'd want to keep Jace in the deck.

However, in general, Jace has been completely sub-par for me so far.

[zulander]

Yes, Jace is strong against other control where he can act like a Phyrexian Arena without the life penalty, and if your metagame is loaded with Landstill then I can somewhat understand why you'd want to keep Jace in the deck.

You hit the nail on the head. The NY metagame consists of Survival, Thresh, and tons of landstill with a few players opting to play combo.

[Nightmare]

Ok, seriously, I have tested this deck. I'm not just drawing conjecture when I say this, but Jace has been utterly awful for me so far. It sucks against Goblins, because he sucks up one random attacking creature and then dies, he sucks against Thresh because he's slow as hell and generally completely irrelevant, and he sucks against combo because he's slow as hell. Yes, Jace is strong against other control where he can act like a Phyrexian Arena without the life penalty, and if your metagame is loaded with Landstill then I can somewhat understand why you'd want to keep Jace in the deck.

However, in general, Jace has been completely sub-par for me so far.If you're absolutely adamant about cutting Jace, I strongly suggest you consider another three mana win condition, rather than an additional draw spell. The fact that Jace is both at the same time has a lot to do with why I like him so much, but as I said, if you're convinced you need to cut him, find something else that wins the game. Maybe Cunning Wish? I don't like the idea of dilluting the board, but it's up to you.

[Bovinious]

If you're absolutely adamant about cutting Jace, I strongly suggest you consider another three mana win condition, rather than an additional draw spell. The fact that Jace is both at the same time has a lot to do with why I like him so much, but as I said, if you're convinced you need to cut him, find something else that wins the game. Maybe Cunning Wish? I don't like the idea of dilluting the board, but it's up to you.

Does Jace's 3rd ability actually win you games? It seems like thatd be a slower and worse win condition than even Hoofprints, especially when you are often drawing your opponent into cards with the +2 ability.

[Nightmare]

Does Jace's 3rd ability actually win you games?Yes.


It seems like thatd be a slower and worse win condition than even Hoofprints, especially when you are often drawing your opponent into cards with the +2 ability.
No.

[georgjorge]

Anyway, allow me to stress, as several people have, that this is a control deck built to beat control decks. If that's not what you're willing to play, then don't play this. Jace is pretty close to nuts in every match, with the possible exception of Goblins/Agro/Burn (This includes Goyf Sligh).

[...]art projects...nice and all...rock-y decks... [Translation: Most of your decks aren't really good]


That comment about it being beat to build control sounds really stupid. Weren't the guidelines for this contest that the deck had to do well against
a) Goblins
b) Thresh
c) Landstill
d) two decks from Established (which MIGHT be control decks) ? Because if they were, "it is designed to beat control" is not an argument at all. Otherwise, I'll gladly send in my Reanimator.dec which "is designed to absolutely beat Aggro (but loses to anything packing counterspells)". That's not supposed to say anything negative about the strength of your deck, Nightmare, but about the argument used to support it.

[Nihil Credo]

You activate Jace and remove half of their Library. Now, this is where logic gets tricky. (snip)

Do not use the "reduce their threat density" argument to defend Jace; it makes no more sense than criticizing Dredge because it "loses you good cards". Milling cards from an opponent's library is, in a vacuum, a zero-EV play, because you're just as likely to take away their good cards as their bad ones. What is important is how many threats they draw, now how many they have in their library.

There are two exceptions. The first is when they use tutoring: in this case, milling all copies of a tutor target also makes dead or less effective the tutor cards themselves, so milling is a +EV play. If they're relying on draw spells, though, you're just as likely to help them as to hurt them; also, if their tutoring involves graveyard recursion (such as with Intuition decks) you're helping them - see below.

The second is when their deck has any graveyard-related bonus; in this case, milling gives them an advantage until you actually deck them. Dredge cards, the Breakfast combo, Cabal Therapy, Eternal Dragon, lands for Crucible of Worlds, everything in Survival. The amount of graveyard hate played in the format should tell you how often this matters.

(Another chance for backfiring is when they have a Brainstorm or a Sensei's Divining Top, where Jace works as a top-of-library-cleaner. But that's very minor.)

[Nightmare]

Do not use the "reduce their threat density" argument to defend Jace; it makes no more sense than criticizing Dredge because it "loses you good cards". Milling cards from an opponent's library is, in a vacuum, a zero-EV play, because you're just as likely to take away their good cards as their bad ones. What is important is how many threats they draw, now how many they have in their library.There is a sizeable difference between losing three cards from your library, and losing 20. They aren't the same at all.


There are two exceptions. The first is when they use tutoring: in this case, milling all copies of a tutor target also makes dead or less effective the tutor cards themselves, so milling is a +EV play. If they're relying on draw spells, though, you're just as likely to help them as to hurt them; also, if their tutoring involves graveyard recursion (such as with Intuition decks) you're helping them - see below.I played 5 games last night in a brief testing session with Fakespam with the Loam deck (basically Eternal Garden) that he is working on. It uses both Intuition and Crucible/LftL in it. Jace was the best card in my deck, and every game I won (three of the five - not bad for what is probably a pretty bad matchup for most control decks) was due to me decking him with Jace, in conjunction with CounterTop negating his recursion.


The second is when their deck has any graveyard-related bonus; in this case, milling gives them an advantage until you actually deck them. Dredge cards, the Breakfast combo, Cabal Therapy, Eternal Dragon, lands for Crucible of Worlds, everything in Survival. The amount of graveyard hate played in the format should tell you how often this matters.Two of those decks are obvious ones where you either draw three total cards from him and let him die, or you side him out. It seems strange that you can't see the validity of drawing three cards off from him as an acceptable play.


(Another chance for backfiring is when they have a Brainstorm or a Sensei's Divining Top, where Jace works as a top-of-library-cleaner. But that's very minor.)It's a non issue if you're even remotely good at this game.

[Ewokslayer]

Do not use the "reduce their threat density" argument to defend Jace; it makes no more sense than criticizing Dredge because it "loses you good cards". Milling cards from an opponent's library is, in a vacuum, a zero-EV play, because you're just as likely to take away their good cards as their bad ones. What is important is how many threats they draw, now how many they have in their library.

There are two exceptions. The first is when they use tutoring: in this case, milling all copies of a tutor target also makes dead or less effective the tutor cards themselves, so milling is a +EV play. If they're relying on draw spells, though, you're just as likely to help them as to hurt them; also, if their tutoring involves graveyard recursion (such as with Intuition decks) you're helping them - see below.

The second is when their deck has any graveyard-related bonus; in this case, milling gives them an advantage until you actually deck them. Dredge cards, the Breakfast combo, Cabal Therapy, Eternal Dragon, lands for Crucible of Worlds, everything in Survival. The amount of graveyard hate played in the format should tell you how often this matters.

(Another chance for backfiring is when they have a Brainstorm or a Sensei's Divining Top, where Jace works as a top-of-library-cleaner. But that's very minor.)

Normally I would agree with you. However, the sheer number of cards that Jace mills at one time is relevant. Especially in Control vs Aggro Control matchups where it often devolves into a war of attrition between the AC # of creatures and the amount of removal left in the control deck.

[crazyroundman]

EDIT: Or not @ lonleybaritone: not to be an ass, but I really don't think that this could call this a Mona Lisa. I don't say this because it isn't perfect, I say this because it's simply Uwg(b) control. It does the same things that scrubby Uwb control has done with essentially the same cards, just in different colots and it, by chance happened to be put together by Nightmare, which means that is well made.



Dear LonelyBaritone,

Eat shit and die.

Love,

some kid's gamer handle

My :b::g::w:-based agro deck is the best thing ever, and will surely win this contest!


Blah blah blah Meddling Mage + Dark Confidant blah blah blah

Instead of calling your deck stupid, I think that LB's trying to say something like this rough translation from douche bag into civil English



I think that the decks that we have been receieveing so far have been kind of all similar, and are, for the most part, :b::g::w: agro/control or variations on fish. While these explored archtypes may vary (and be cool) based upon subtle changes in the lists, we are looking for something new.

For instance, he's not saying, nor even thinking loudly, that everyone who submitted a rock deck is a mindless bag of dick. Instead he's imploring the masses to come up with somethign that isn't familiar, carbon-coppied from an existing thread or merely based upon something known.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Basically the thing I was trying to say about Jace against Thresh is you have an equal chance of milling the best 20 cards in their library as milling the worst 20 cards from their library. So saying patently that milling 20 decreases the quality of their deck in any way other then bringing them closer to death by milling just doesn't make sense. At the same time the thing I failed to see is that once you mill them 20 you have drawn 4 extra cards and they have 5 turns to deal with Jace through all your answers or death by milling ensues.
How bad is opposing Extirpate for you games 2/3 in testing.

[Nightmare]

Basically the thing I was trying to say about Jace against Thresh is you have an equal chance of milling the best 20 cards in their library as milling the worst 20 cards from their library. So saying patently that milling 20 decreases the quality of their deck in any way other then bringing them closer to death by milling just doesn't make sense. At the same time the thing I failed to see is that once you mill them 20 you have drawn 4 extra cards and they have 5 turns to deal with Jace through all your answers or death by milling ensues.
How bad is opposing Extirpate for you games 2/3 in testing.The far greater likelihood with Jace is that you hit somewhere in the middle, milling a mix of good and bad. It's still a perfectly legitimate form of pseudo removal, as it limits their already small amount of threats to an even smaller number. As Ewokslayer said, it allows you to be much more liberal with your removal, as you can very easily strip them of threats almost, if not completely.

Extirpate is anywhere from a big deal to no big deal at all. It depends on how they use it. The threat base is pretty diverse, so it's no big deal if they snag all your Goyfs, for instance. On the other hand, it's a pain in the ass if they take Counterbalance.

[raharu]

@ crazyroundman: Yeah, not to regurgitate what I've already said, but I only stated that this deck is pretty much just Uwb control, just badassified by Nightmare. Oh well, it's still a solid deck that is quite worth developing (in some form or another. I just can't help running more black in this deck...).

Also, that was rather nice of you to lump me in with the imaginary ass-bags that were hating on Nightmare, considering that I was relatively respectful in that post and I have an admiration for Nightmare's experience and deck-building ability and whatnot.

@ Nightmare: Yes, I've read the article (well structured, by the way), and it offered little stated explination as to why you opted not to run black MD. Tarmogoyf is a valid reason, but there are other cards that would help you stabilize at roughly the same rate (Ghostly Prison, Tombstalker??) and good cards for the 3cc slot (VINDICATE!! <God, I love that card>, possibly Phyrexian Arena, possibly on an off chance Hypnotic Specter).

Even without the 4-of Ancestral Vision (I admited it's slow. I simply didn't know the tempo the deck sets and assumed it woul be rather slow, considering that it out-controls dedicated control. A valid conclusion, yes?), you still run 24 cards that do roughly jack (31 if you consider Wrath of God and Force of Will) with Counterbalance, which is why it's best in land-light decks and less so in control. I'll be the first to admit that you don't have to run 30 cards at 1cc and 20 at 2cc for it to be effective (considering what it actually does <read post #1035 from Kyachi in the Ugr thresh thread>), but more hard permission would be great in addition to FoW.

The only reason that I cut Jace in my sugestions is that I would rather have more control. Maybe there are better slots to give to some CSpells, but the first thing that I saw and didn't instantly love was Jace, so he and a COunterbalance magicly transformed into Counterspells. Really he isn't that bad, I simply have no love for Planeswalkers at any way, shape, size or color, although Jace is the best for the deck (and best of the 5 at point blank).

[Nihil Credo]

There is a sizeable difference between losing three cards from your library, and losing 20. They aren't the same at all.

No, they're the same. You only get your investment back once you deck them.

I'm not arguing that decking is bad - hell, it's a victory, how could I?. I'm arguing that a Jace activation in itself is very likely not hurting your opponent in the least.


I played 5 games last night in a brief testing session with Fakespam with the Loam deck (basically Eternal Garden) that he is working on. It uses both Intuition and Crucible/LftL in it. Jace was the best card in my deck, and every game I won (three of the five - not bad for what is probably a pretty bad matchup for most control decks) was due to me decking him with Jace, in conjunction with CounterTop negating his recursion.

See above - decking them is obviously good, but I'm not claming otherwise. I'm claiming a single Jace activation, on its own (for example, if Jace gets killed afterwards), isn't good.

Let's put it this way - if you weren't playing Jace as a win condition, and offered Fakespam to mill 20 cards for free at the start of the game, he would surely be advantaged by accepting.


Two of those decks are obvious ones where you either draw three total cards from him and let him die, or you side him out. It seems strange that you can't see the validity of drawing three cards off from him as an acceptable play.

True, it's useless to argue about milling when you don't plan on milling in the first place.


It's a non issue if you're even remotely good at this game.
Uhm, Jace you for twenty, in response Brainstorm? I don't think skill can prevent that, except insofar as it lets you resolve CounterTop first.

[raharu]

196397]The far greater likelihood with Jace is that you hit somewhere in the middle, milling a mix of good and bad. It's still a perfectly legitimate form of pseudo removal, as it limits their already small amount of threats to an even smaller number. As Ewokslayer said, it allows you to be much more liberal with your removal, as you can very easily strip them of threats almost, if not completely.[/QUOTE]

It also has a fair chance at strippong MUC of threats entirely.



So don't ramp him up. Sit on him, and go -1, -1, +2 all day long.

SHAZAM!!! And now we see how you play Jace, not always one direction, not always the other. I think that the milling argument is rather pointless, either you hit the nuts or you don't (or as previously stated <ALOT>, it has the effect of putting your opponent on a shorter clock and functions as pseudo-removal either way <which works for pretty much every other deck too and is tech as fuck**> regardless of what happens). The card draw is tech too. You still get CA from the -1, -1, +2 cycle, and it furthers the decking win. All around it's just nice. Nighamare has figured out haw to play planeswalkers (or at least Jace) everyone. Not just one part of the card, not just the other. The 'Walkers, sucky as some of them may be, have internal synergy as this discussion has found. It's a new card type, so of course it's going to take some trial and error to figure out how to play the card.

**Clarification: Psudeo removal = tech as fuck (simply because that sentence structure was slightly confusing).

[GreenOne]

196397]Nighamare has figured out haw to play planeswalkers (or at least Jace) everyone. Not just one part of the card, not just the other.

Well, I play Ajani in MWC (Rabid Wombat) and sure as hell I use all the 3 abilities! Too bad Nightmare decided to teach the world how to play the planeswalkers before I had a chance to. :tongue:

[raharu]

Well, I play Ajani in MWC (Rabid Wombat) and sure as hell I use all the 3 abilities! Too bad Nightmare decided to teach the world how to play the planeswalkers before I had a chance to. :tongue:

Sorry, Mr. Nightmare beat you to it.

[Lego]

I'm a bit late to the party (a new girlfriend will do that to you,) but I figured I'd join you guys anyway.

Number 1) This deck is simply amazing. I've been testing Gearhart's version and iterations thereof off and on since TMLO3. It's an incredibly strong shell, and very customizable, which, in the right hands, makes it a deck that can hack it in most any given meta, and can stick around for a long time, despite meta changes.

Number 2) Meditate actually is nuts. Yes, Gearhart is often driven by what he wants to be true, rather than by what actually is, but occasionally he turns out to be a good player (*Gasp*... I know). Don't run from testing Meditate just because Gearhart suggested it.

Number 3) Sometimes theory discussion gets a little bit ridiculous. This seems to have happened in this thread with Jace. Let's start by giving Nightmare the benefit of the doubt. Assume he's done testing, and grant that he actually believes Jace is good in the deck. Now go test for yourself, figure out why he thinks Jace is good, and decide if you agree. Personally, I haven't played Jace in the deck. But I'm certainly going to test him, and I'm not going to start that testing with the premise that he's terrible.


Man, if it didn't suck so much, I'd love a 1-of Mindslaver. GOD do I wish that card were viable in Legacy.

Don't do it man, don't do it. I know, I want it to be good, too. It's not :frown town:

[Anusien]

Is Jace enough to sit behind Standstill with? What's to stop them from running you up to 7 cards and forcing the Standstill discard? You're using Jace to get tons of cards, which means there's much less of a penalty for them to break the Standstill on your end step.

[Bryant Cook]

Is Jace enough to sit behind Standstill with? What's to stop them from running you up to 7 cards and forcing the Standstill discard? You're using Jace to get tons of cards, which means there's much less of a penalty for them to break the Standstill on your end step.

Doing this still filters chafe out of your hand, like Wrath vs. Landstill. Letting him draw cards with Jace is just one step closer to milling 20 cards.

[Tacosnape]

Number 2) Meditate actually is nuts. Yes, Gearhart is often driven by what he wants to be true, rather than by what actually is, but occasionally he turns out to be a good player (*Gasp*... I know). Don't run from testing Meditate just because Gearhart suggested it.


I third this. My metagame is incredibly heavy black and incredibly heavy control, and I've found Meditate to be worthwhile in my 4C Landstill. While I have yet to get time to test Meditate in TEC, If the metagame is similar, I can definitely see the positives.

[Bryant Cook]

I third this. My metagame is incredibly heavy black and incredibly heavy control, and I've found Meditate to be worthwhile in my 4C Landstill. While I have yet to get time to test Meditate in TEC, If the metagame is similar, I can definitely see the positives.

Nightmare played it last night, from what I saw he loved it.

[Nightmare]

Yeah, Meditate has been pretty insane. I've been testing 3 Meditate with the third Shackles, and it's been pretty solid.

[Deep6er]

You know, I feel it's appropriate to jump in with an "I told you so". Why couldn't you believe me from the beginning? When I told you about it in New York? Seriously dude, give me some credit. I've been testing the deck for a long-ass time. Also, you TOTALLY stole it from me. :)

[Nightmare]

You can say it if it makes you feel better, Dave. I'll give you credit for suggesting the card, certainly, but I'm not going to run it on blind Gearhart faith - I needed to test it first. So I did, and it's good. Actually, it doesn't even suck that bad against Goblins most of the time. Still gets sided out, but oh well.

Thirst was pretty good too, by the way. I think either is fine for that slot, but I like the raw power of Meditate.

While I'm giving credit, TeenieBopper hated Standstill before any of you guys did. He was the first person to test Thirst.

Also, I figured I'd run this out there - I ran Moat in my board this weekend, and was super impressed with it. It's like "Wall of Letting Jace Ramp" and shuts down a TON of decks almost entirely. It gets to the point where you can just protect the Moat, because people can't win through it. The best is when you run it out vs. decks running Krosan Grip, because they have to choose whether to kill it or kill Counterbalance. Good times, all around. I'm probably going to pick up at least one more to run in the SB.

[Nightmare]

First post updated.

[Kundalini]

Did you think about Rings of Brighthearth?



Artifact, 3
Whenever you play an activated ability, if it isn't a mana ability, you may pay {2}. If you do, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy


I think it's still underused in legacy. Ok, let's have a look to the sheer number of cards this deck runs that can be a rings target:

Vedalken Shackles (steal 2 creatures)
Hoofprints of the stag / Pursuit of knowledge (double activation)
Jace Berelen (2 abilities/turn)
Sensei's Divining Top (double draw)
Decree of Justice (double the number of soldiers, draw two)
Academy Ruins / Tolaria West / Rishadan port (hot or not?)
Wasteland (mini-armageddon)
Cephalid Coliseum (draw 6 to feed hoofprints etc.)
Fetchlands (always good)

so... since this is a control deck... worth including (maybe a single copy of) Rings of Brighthearth? Doubling your things can be funny!

[raharu]

@ Rings of Brightearth: ^__^. That may fall under the "Danger of Cool Things" catagory, but if I was to play it in this deck, I would run 2. I'll admit, the interactions are quite insane, but they are too mana intensive to warant 3, and one of's are never a good idea (unless you run touterage, which brings up -1 CB, +1 E tutor for the miscellaneous artifacts and enchantments in the deck).

[Nightmare]

I did not think about Rings of Brighthearth, because the card is terrible and does nothing on its own. Even if it has some "cool" interactions, it's still bad.

[94teen]

In my testing with Eternal Garden, Rings has actually been pretty decent. In a deck that plays lots of singletons, like garden, it saves slots. Using what I'm familiar with as an example, in Garden, rings can be a second Maze of Ith, Cephalid Coliseum, Nomad Stadium, a draw engine with top, a win condition with Words of War/Wind/Wilding (something I've been testing). It enables a deck with enough tutoring/draw power/card selection to save space by using Rings as a second/third copy of multiple cards. So rather than playing:

2 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Maze of Ith
2 Nomad Stadium
etc

I could play
2 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Maze of Ith
1 Nomad Stadium
etc.

and as long as I set up rings, I get multiple copies of all of them for a minimal investment. However, this only works because Eternal Garden is based on finding the singleton answers and setting up artifact recursion via Crop Rotation and Intuition, so I can see where the comparison and following analysis may not be applicable.

The major problem that I see in this deck is that, by the time you could effectively start abusing tricks with Rings, you should be winning anyway. In Eternal Garden you have stuff like Ancient Tomb + Exploration + other mana acceleration. Assuming you drop Rings turn 3, you won't actually start doing anything worthwhile with it until turn 5. So that's a waste of 2 crucial turns in any matchup where you should be focusing on not dying and taking control of the game. In the late game, you should be winning anyway. You shouldn't need Rings shenanigans to win at that point, and so it's completely win more. Granted, it could give you a huge edge in the control mirror as it has for me. It might merit sideboard space so that you can board it in for games that you expect to go long term so that you have the advantage of stronger tricks since rings generates additional effects without needing extra cards.


/rant

Random question:

Does Rings + Decree of Justice work? I think Cycling is the activated ability, and you could copy that, but I think the soldiers is a triggered ability, and so you couldn't copy it. Having checked some rulings, I'm almost certain that you can't double the number of soldiers since that's a triggered ability.


I really like this deck, and I'm looking forward to seeing where discussion takes it.

[Nightmare]

So, I took it to Running Gagg, and although I won the Berserk for doing the best with a new deck, I only went 3-3, losing twice to the new Blood Moon Thresh, and once to Di with Survival, which is to be expected. I changed my board up a bit, which I'm kinda bummed about because I expected to see some more Ichorid and Breakfast than I did. Otherwise, here's what I've been thinking:

If Blood Moon becomes an issue, and it is, then we need a white way or blue way to deal with it in the board. Now, I ran BEB this weekend, and it was fine, but it has to fight through Counterbalance, too. Often, I'd get the one blue mana source out, and then have my splashes shut off, only to lose to a Mongoose that I couldn't deal with through StP or Shackles. Now, switching the third Shackles for the third EE may fix this, but I'm not positive. Still, I think having a slot in the board that can answer resolved permanents through Blood Moon effects is a must-have. I've done some research, and here's where I am:

If we're looking for bounce, to temporarily deal with a permanent, then our best bet is probably Rushing River, as it can potentially hit two permanents. The single :u: is easy to come by, as you should be fetching basic lands anyway.

If we're looking to destroy it outright, then we have a few options.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/pr/1.jpg
Abolish, while costing :w::w:, has the ability to be played for free, which offsets the mana constraints for Blood Moon effects. Unfortunately, it means you must 2-for-1 yourself. I'm not a huge fan, but it's an option.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/in/14.jpg
D-Blow is pretty good, actually. If it's early, it's a Disenchant that costs enough to dance around Counterbalance (potentially killing the Counterbalance). Later on, its a card advantage spell that can snipe out the Blood Moon, or another pesky permanent. The issue is, we need to have access to the white mana still, which can be a problem at times.

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/10e/51.jpg
Blows up your own Counterbalances. I'm not into it.

The other option is Aura Flux, but that isn't good either. I think D-Blow is the go to card here, assuming you're worried about Blood Moon. It's really the only card that lets Thresh into the game with you at all, so its up to you, if you want to find the room or not.

[etrigan]

If you fear early Blood Moon, then Abolish is a good choice. If you fear Blood Moon in general, it's probably not the greatest choice. You play it because you can ACC it early, but later on, it's just substandard.

Other suggestions:
- Aura of Silence. Blows up stuff for the same cost as Abolish, can be cast preemptively, and can occasionally be used disruptively against Chalice Aggro, Stax, Enchantress, Combo (although better options exist) and Affinity.
- Wispmare. Pretty narrow, but only costs one, gets around Counterbalance, and can sometimes be used as a blocker. I'd probably play this over Abolish.

[Nightmare]

Wispmare may actually be worth testing out. The issue I'm having is justifying the addition of another Naturalize effect in the board, above and beyond Krosan Grip. In general, Grip is better vs. anything that isn't Blood Moon. It's the single damn card that's giving me fits.

[zulander]

Have you thought of 2-3 cunning wishes in the main? That way you can wish for grip/abolish early on, then later when you have a hoofprints in play wish -> Stroke = amazing.

[Nightmare]

I've considered it, but it's advantages aren't really there to offset the amount of sideboard slots I lose to it. It's generally pretty slow, and I'd have to cut something like Meditate for it. It's a question of versatility vs. power, and I'm going with power for now.

Access to Extirpate or Grip game 1 would be welcome, but you're pretty fine without them during game 1 anyway. Really, those are the only two cards (and maybe, MAYBE Pulse of the Fields) that I would have any interest in grabbing from the board.

[Brushwagg]

What the deck really wants is something that can remove problem permanents without wiping out it's own. I'm going to test out Oblivion Ring to see how it works out. It seems like it sould do the job I want it to, since it can take care of a problem permanant.

The down side is that the O. Ring can ge gripped, but I think that small draw back isn't enough to not test it.

[matelml]

Seems like a very good inclusion, but in what slot? I would think in the Hoofprints' slot, I don't feel you need another wincon when you already play 9 and it doesn't do much before you are ready to finish your opponent, unlike Jace, Shackles and Goyf.

Edit: Even if it's Gripped, you just trade 1 for 1 and that Grip won't hit your 'Balance, Shackles or Top.

[Nightmare]

MINI REPORT

No, I will not drone on with endless details about the car ride there or back, nor will I smite you with savage tales of how amazing my life is. Let's say this much - prior to this tournament, I had a total of 9 hours of sleep, over three nights. This was my own doing, because girls simply will not chase themselves, no matter how much you pay them. Still, it was a rather successful week, and so I was willing to risk shitty play at this event in exchange. Moving on.

The MD is the same as the first post. The board is as follows:

4x Blue Elemental Blast
3x Krosan Grip
3x Engineered Plague
3x Yixlid Jailer
2x Moat

The specific discussion on the sideboard choices is coming out on Starcity sometime this week. I'm not going to snipe that out before it's up.

Round 1 - Damon (Parcher) - Aluren
I knew Damon would be playing some sort of deck without Tarmogoyf. Last event, he played Ichorid, so I hoped to see that again. I lost to it before, but boarded Jailers specifically in hopes to deal with that match. He lead with Island, go, and I frowned. Game 1, I realized he was on Aluren when he pitched a Harpy to Force my Counterbalance. Realizing what a brutal match this can potentially be, I focused my countermagic on the combo, rather than the Alurens, and made sure he never got a sufficient number of cards in hand to fight through my counters. A Hoofprints charged by Meditate crated a threat (all the while, he lamented about how bad Hoofprints is), and I rode that, along with Vedalken Shackles, to victory. Game 2, he started to combo, and found that he needed to dig for a Harpy. He Chained the Familiar I had stolen with Shackles, and I bounced it back at his Aluren. This meant he needed to dig for Force of Will instead of Harpy, which he found, and it cut him down to only one more activation of Familar, off a Manowar. After he whiffed, it was smooth sailing from there.

Round 2 - Calosso - UGr Thresh
God, I can't stand playing this kid. I guess we're even now or something, cause I beat him when I was playing fish and he was playing Goblins. Of course, I should lose that matchup, and in this one, I was completely taken aback by the Blood Moons, but whatever. In game 1, he made a Mongoose, and dropped a Blood Moon, while I drew duals and StP's. That will happen. Going into game 2, I realize the plan should be to focus on my primary mana colors, and fetch basics where possible. I do so, and staring down a Mongoose, make a terrible play mistake. I have a Hoofprints with three counters, and a Top in play. He is tapped out. Instead of running out the Stag, I keep three mana open to bluff the Krosan Grip, and he draws and grips my Hoofprints. The Mongoose goes unanswered for the rest of the game, and I lose. Had I made the token, he had no outs for it, other than running into it and bolting it. By the time that became relevant, I could have protected the Stag. This was a pretty big mistake, definately the largest I made on the day.

Round Three - Di - Survival
And so it goes. If I lose, this makes 4(!) straight tournaments that Colin knocks me out of. Fuck you, DCI reporter. It's really frustrating to go into an abysmal match knowing that YET AGAIN, you're out if you lose. Which I do. Colin mulls to 5, and conveniently rips a Survival off the top on the turn I drop Counterbalance. Since I can't top in response, my blind flip misses. The next card down was Tarmogoyf. I lose. Game two, Colin does what he does, and goes to town with more Goyfs than I can muster. No Moat in sight. God I hate him.

Round 4 - Dave Gearhart (Deep6er) - MossNought
Dave is coming down off his Percoset high, and is visibly strung out. Game 1 goes on forever, getting to the point where three turns in a row, he hardcasts a Hulk, and I hardcast Force to counter it. He Deeds away my Counterbalance, I drop the second one in my hand. He Deeds away the second one, I top into Counterbalance, Grip, Shackles. I drop #3. He tries for the third Deed, I counter it. He scoops when he sees Academy Ruins, which can recur Explosives forever. Game 2, he does some weird shit, but I eventually took control. At one point, I'm pretty sure he had three Noughts in hand. He went for Brainstorm, and I countered it with CounterTop, which I believe won me the game. Sorry to knock you out, Dave.

Round 5 - Dan (nitewolf9) - Eva Green
Contrary to his posting record, Dan is a pretty awesome dude and not retarded. I ask if he wants to just go outside and fight instead of playing, and he's quick to say yes. Of course, you would too, if you had been training in Martial Arts since you could walk. The Krav Maga sweatshirt is a tip-off. So we don't fight, but we do battle. Game 1, he rips my hand apart, and a Hyppie goes unanswered to seal the deal. Game 2, I manage to fight through the disruption, and a couple of Counterbalances (one was Sealed) manage to hold off his guys and disruption, while Wrath cleans house. Game three was ALL ABOUT SHACKLES. I got to steal his Shade, which I could pump! Once he dealt with that by dropping a Tombstalker, I dropped a second Goyf to deal with his second Goyf, and took 5 to the face. I topped into a second Shackles to steal his Stalker, and then smashed back. A Hyppie came down to play D, but the Seal didn't show, and he lost to his own dudes.

Round 6 - Jesse Hatfield (Ob Freely) - UGr Thresh
Stupid Blood Moon. This match was irrelevant, but we got deck checked anyway. Lames. Eventually, we started playing, and it went a lot like the Calosso match. Game 1, I drew duals instead of Fetches, and Mongoose + Moon killed me. Game 2, I played lots of basics, and he resolved CounterTop. Like a moron, I walked into getting my Grip countered, and that was pretty much the game. I was pretty unhappy with the way I played that match, but whatever.

Then we all went to dinner, and made fun of TeenieBopper cause he gets drunk and makes bad choices. The end.

[Deep6er]

Heh, Teeniebopper.

"I'M GOING FOR OPTION 3!!!!"

LOLZ.

Anyway, by the time I had played you, the Percoset had completely worn off, and my shoulder/abdomen were starting to give me problems again. Also, I was really frustrated about my losses, and that wasn't good. Seriously though, you draw Counterbalances like it's your fucking job.

It's always a good time though. Hopefully, there'll be another tournament soon, and we can play a for realz match. Preferably where both of us are of sound mind and body. :)

[zulander]

Preferably where both of us are of sound mind and body. :)
Since when have you ever been of sound mind?

[raharu]

@ Nightmare: A good portion of those matches, in the abstract, sounded like you should have won. Aparently the basic-heavy manabase couldn't shrug-off Orbital thresh (what I'm calling moon thresh because it sounds cooler. WTF moon thresh?? Sounds like what Hello Kity would play at a GP...). Do you think that there was anything you could have done differently to affect those matches, or was is just bad draws/ play mistakes? In my mind, Shackles is sounding more and more like a board card. You have enough dead removal against control and combo at any rate, why bother putting more cards in the maindeck that are situationally dead? How do you think you game one TES matchup is at the moment (seeing as you have a good number of cards in the maindeck that are dead in this MU <I'll count later>).

[matelml]

I played some games against TEC with TES (please come up with a different name for TEC) and I had some very good draws, but I won something like 8 out of 11 games. I don't think this is a good indication for the matchup, but it's probably not positive for TEC.

[Elf_Ascetic]

Yeah, I agree. Epic Control's only chance is to find a hand containing both FoW and Counterbalance.

I found standstill rather underwhelming against quite some decks. It's useless against 43land and landstill and a blind standstill sucks most of the time against Survival and Pikula. I'll be trying Meditates instead.

[Mister Agent]

Hey nightmare I was wondering have you considered running wipe away? It could be good against a number of things and obviously split second is a good thing.

[zulander]

What's the most recent list you guys have been testing?

[Nightmare]

I've still been playing the list on the first page, with some sideboard tweaks. Still working great for me.

[Bardo]

After all of the games you've played with this deck so far Adam, what do you still think about Jace? Which match-ups does he shine in, when do you board them out and do you plan on keeping them in the maindeck?

[Nightmare]

I still think Jace is a house. He stays in against pretty much everything, it's more about how to effectively use him against a lot of decks. There are certainly decks where you prefer them not to draw many cards, in those matchups you end up rolling him down, or going +2-1-1 (which keeps him out of Bolt range). When you feel like you've gained control, then you can feel free to ramp him up. Beyond that, he's still a blue card, a cantrip, and a 3cc slot for Counterbalance. He's definately more solid than people give him credit for, and one of the MD staples.

Colin and I are working on something else that abuses him even more, hopefully it ends up not sucking. I'll share once I decide if it does or not.

[Bardo]

How often have you milled your opponent to death? Or is he exclusively a card drawing machine?

[Nightmare]

How often have you milled your opponent to death? Or is he exclusively a card drawing machine?Hard to say, honestly. I'd say at the least I do it between 1 and three times per tournament. More often, people focus on dealing with him, and I draw a few cards off him, or he lets me go nuts with Hoofprints, which makes a faster win when the two combine. I'd say for the most part, he's a draw engine first, and a win condition second, which is a change from how I played him at first. I'm a little more conservative with him lately than I have been.

[godryk]

As you're the first person I see playing Jace in a serious Legacy deck I'd like to ask you if you think it can be included in other control, and maybe agrocontrol, decks and if it needs some kind of setup or card inclussions to worth the inclussion.

[Nightmare]

Well, the better you can protect him, the better he gets. Like I said, Colin and I are working on a horse of a different color, which highlights Jace in a different way. We'll get back to you on it.

[zulander]

I'm going to bring up something brought up in the first page, have you tested out 1x sylvan library? Seems like it would be amazing with an active hoofprints.

[Nightmare]

Sylvan basically is the straight up tits with Hoofprints. And like I said in the first few posts, it's pretty much strictly worse than Top with Counterbalance, and competes for the same slots. It's a matter of one working with one of your win conditions (which wins through the natural progression of the game anyway), vs. the other working with your control package. I think lonelybaritone has been doing some testing with Sylvan + Hoofprints in Enchantress, and it's insane enough for me to kinda want to build that deck.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Sylvan basically is the straight up tits with Hoofprints. And like I said in the first few posts, it's pretty much strictly worse than Top with Counterbalance, and competes for the same slots. It's a matter of one working with one of your win conditions (which wins through the natural progression of the game anyway), vs. the other working with your control package. I think lonelybaritone has been doing some testing with Sylvan + Hoofprints in Enchantress, and it's insane enough for me to kinda want to build that deck.

My instincts are that this will work if you can find slots for the libraries without cutting business. I had a UWG Landstill deck that ran the Sylvan/Hoofprints combo and it was rather effective there. However there was no countertop in that list to make things complicated philosophically; it would look weird here because SDT and Library are so redundant. But if you ignore that weirdness and think of it as having 2 separate engines (which do overlap slightly), Countertop and SylvanHoofprints, then you should be fine.

[Nightmare]

if you can find slots for the libraries without cutting business

This is the problem. There are already so many niche slots in this deck that are there for a specific reason that I'm not entirely convinced you can afford to start cranking things around. Consider what I need to keep track of:

Mana cost for Counterbalance (remember the whole point is to have an actual curve)
Color - manabase issues
Color - Blue cards for FoW
Number of cards that do something, instead of just drawing cards

Factor all of those, and it becomes increasingly difficult to find room for anything. I'm not positive that you can reliably remove something like 1x top and 1x Counterbalance to fit in 2x Sylvan. At some point, the deck has to pick a direction and stick with it.

[zulander]

I'd have to agree with Adam, I also think that sylvan/hoofprints belongs in a more white/green deck that does not have access to countertop. I don't know how great it is though.

[Zach Tartell]

I don't know how great it is though.

Oh, god. This is probably the most savage combo ever. Like, other than real combos. Since breakfast has gone downhill I've switched the Ground Seals to the board in favor of 1 extra hoofprints (going to three) and 2 Libraries. Oh, man. It's disgusting.

[xsockmonkeyx]

in a more white/green deck that does not have access to countertop.

This is where I differ in opinion I think. Just because you have countertop doesnt mean that you cannot run sylvan library/hoofprints, it just means that you have less available slots.

@Nightmare. Thats a shame. If there was some way to fit everything in then I think it would be stellar.


Oh, god. This is probably the most savage combo ever. Like, other than real combos.

This man knows his enchantments.

[Ch@os]

I think you all have read Adams article http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15514.html.

And the Island Sanctuary Idea is a really great one. Before Jace was an good card draw element but with Sanctuary he's a bomb.

[Nightmare]

This is kind of a whole new take on the deck, rather than a real change to this specific deck. My entry is still the list posted in the beginning of the thread.

[raharu]

@ Nightmare: what alterations would you make to play this in a stax-infested, relatively random, but optimised, metagame?

[Nightmare]

Well, I haven't tested a ton vs. Stax, but if its there en-force, I'd consider cutting black. The additional basic land and the third Trop are what I'd reccommend subbing, and I'd run either Sacred Ground or additional Art/Ench removal in the board. The one match I played in a tournament vs. Geddonstax I won largely on the back of Goyf + StP. The interesting thing is, Chalice isn't really that good against you. Supression Field, on the other hand, is a fucking beating.

[Wargoos]

when i first saw the list i was not sure bout the choice u did with beleren.
but i tested tec and its incredible.
i won 7 out of 10 matches against ***** , 5 o them with beleren.
hes great, also the deck is.

also i think sacred ground is the best inclusion against geddonstaxx,
maybe a sideboard addition of meddling mage would be great.
he's a 2 drop which infects staxx a delay of some turns, enough to beat em with the goyf.
just experience talkin.

[godryk]

Nice to see TEC has recently been taken to tournament with Top 8 placing (top 8'ed in a 26-people tournament (http://www.deckcheck.net/event.php?event=5%BA+Torneo+Liga+Petrerense+de+Legacy) here in Spain). I really like this deck's concept, I talked about it in my spanish blog, but people were very skeptical about playing Jace, Meditate and this kind of pretty innovative stuff... it's difficult to get people off playing his beloved old mana-expensive control cards.

[Solpugid]

Has there been any more testing done on this deck? I'm getting tired of the glacial killing speed of Landstill, and TEC seems to shore this up quite a bit.

Nightmare, or anyone else who plays this deck, have you ever had problems with the relatively low number of blue cards in this deck (to support FoW)? For example, could a shackles or WoG become stifle, etc.?

[Jak]

Has there been any more testing done on this deck? I'm getting tired of the glacial killing speed of Landstill, and TEC seems to shore this up quite a bit.

Nightmare, or anyone else who plays this deck, have you ever had problems with the relatively low number of blue cards in this deck (to support FoW)? For example, could a shackles or WoG become stifle, etc.?

I agree after counting 17 blue cards. 17 is really low for a control deck. I would add 4 Counterspells or Stifles and cut some non-blue. I have never been able to run a deck with fewer than 20 blue cards and FoW smoothly.

[Citrus-God]

I agree after counting 17 blue cards. 17 is really low for a control deck. I would add 4 Counterspells or Stifles and cut some non-blue. I have never been able to run a deck with fewer than 20 blue cards and FoW smoothly.

It makes sense to run only 17 Blue cards because CB/Top and Meditate helps you recover from card disadvantage from early FoW use and of course, in a deck like this, you will find yourself using FoW more often midgame than actually casting it early game. Also, the deck is like heavy on board control, so you dont need to aggressively use FoW early game when Swords, EE, Shackles, and WoG can keep threats at bay.

[lolosoon]

Hail to you, control lovers !

I'm currently testing TEC on MWS and am quite happy with its faster clock and multiple WinCons compared to classic LandStill ou Uw Control.

Still, I'm not fond on Meditate (@Nightmare & Co. : I know it works great for you, I've not yet dismissed it totally) and I'm wondering if there's some tips we could take from Zvi Mowshowitz's results with Topstill at worlds 2007 (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/15176.html). aka the "TutorBalance" engine.

I know it isn't the idea of the year, still I like idea of TEN 1cc cards which interact completly with CounterBalance and can easily dig for it if it's not in your starting hand.

Plus, E.Tutor helps you getting rid of early Goblin Tokens by fetching your EE EOT and pop it as soon as your own turn2.

And E.Tutor + Top//Jace can help you tutor for one of your 12 targets and play it the same turn mid-late game.

Well, they're new synergies in a deck packing a hell of'em...

Here's the list :

//TEC - The Enlightened Control

Artifacts (7)
2 Vedalkan Shackles
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Engineered Explosives

Creatures (4)
4 Tarmogoyf

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Jace Beleren

Enchantments (8)
4 Counterbalance
2 Hoofprints of the stag
2 Standstill

Instants (15)
4 Brainstorm
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Force Of Will
4 Swords To Plowshares

Sorceries (2)
2 Wrath Of God

Basic Lands (6)
4 Island
2 Plains

Lands (16)
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Academy Ruins

(Crappy-)Sideboard:
Some 1-of like Wheel of Sun&Moon, Runed Halo, Moat//Sanctuary, Threads Of Disloyalty, etc...
3 E.Plague
3 Extirpate
3 Stifles


So, your Tutor targets are as follow :
0cc : 2
1cc : 3
2cc : 8 (!!)
3cc : 2
4cc+ : 0

The 2cc slot is clogged with Counterbalance, Standstills and Hoofprints, but I think it cannot be avoided. I'd like to fit a 4cc target like a 1-of of Humility or Moat but their non-interaction with Goyfs and Hoofprints (for Humility) bothers me...

For now, I've got great results vs Goblins and Thresh but my playtest has just begun, so it might be not that revelant...


Thoughts ?!?

[Citrus-God]

Standstill blows...

-2 Standstill
-2 Wrath of God
-1 Engineered Explosives

+2 Moat
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Back to Basics
+1 Jace Beleren


You also have a good number of Basic Lands to support B2B which is awesome in this format. Moat is insane, why arent you running it? Run it if you're going to use Enlighten Tutor... but if cost is an issue, then playing WoG is reasonable.

[Misplayer]

2 Moat seems like a lot when it turns your 4 goyfs into basically dead draws. 1 would probably get it done with E. Tutor. B2B is strong in the format but will also hose you off of green and shut down 9 of 15 non-fetchlands. That seems bad to me considering you'll have to hit both Plains to cast Wrath or Moat (if included), not to mention it limits your EE flexibility and shuts off EE recursion. That's too much anti-synergy for my tastes.

There seems to be a lot of UBG(oyf)w control lists developed in the past few months (including It's the Fear, TEC and Bardo's Vorosh Landstill) that all run very similar cards. Each list has it's strengths but I like all of them for their ability to abuse CounterTop with multiple cards at 3cc or less (as opposed to Thresh which can usually only hit spells at 1 and 2). These decks can also put the opponent on a clock with Tarmogoyf; something that is uncommon for control decks.

[lolosoon]

@AA : Standstill is indeed one of the weakest cards in the deck, but I can't tutor for a 'better' draw engine like Meditate, TFK or Ancestral Vision (I dunno if the Visions are Legacy worthy btw...).
As a 2-of, those cards are not enough gamebreakers to wait 'til lateGame to draw them and I don't have the rooms for 3 of them in the current list.
So I'm stuck with the standstills -even if I agree they're a bit subpar.

About your suggestion of cutting 1 EE and the wraths, won't you be afraid facing aggro with only 4 StP and 1 EE MD as your only removal ?! Even if Moat can keep'em at bay, a well-timed Grip followed by an alpha-strike could cost you the game.
Still, I'd love to packed 1 MD Moat, this card is nuts... I wonder if 2 explosives are needed when you add 3 ways to tutor for it. I'll test -1 EE +1 Moat


2 Moat seems like a lot when it turns your 4 goyfs into basically dead draws. 1 would probably get it done with E. Tutor. B2B is strong in the format but will also hose you off of green and shut down 9 of 15 non-fetchlands. That seems bad to me considering you'll have to hit both Plains to cast Wrath or Moat (if included), not to mention it limits your EE flexibility and shuts off EE recursion. That's too much anti-synergy for my tastes.
Still, the heavy B2B and Moat routes could be followed easily by cutting Green and Black and adding E.Dragons+Decree as a WinCon replacement to the lost goyfs. Then, as a straight Uw deck, EE might be cut for 2xHumility.

But you then are playing Germany's "Moatility.dec" instead of TEC...


I do believe in the potence of E.tutor coupled with Counterbalance, Top and Jace. I'm glad noone put the "be aware of the cool things" argument yet. It's more than that.
Waaayy more...

[Nightmare]

Now that people are playing around with the deck again, here's my most recent config for the deck:

4x Force of Will
4x Counterbalance
4x Brainstorm
3x Meditate
3x Sensei’s Divining Top
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Jace Belaren
0x Hoofprints of the Stag
3x Bitterblossom
3x Vedalken Shackles
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Moat
2x Engineered Explosives

2x Tundra
3x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
4x Island
1x Plains
1x Academy Ruins

Bitterblossom is pretty much always better than Hoofprints. It deals more damage on average, it doesn't cost mana to activate, it pumps out a constant stream of guys, isn't Needleable, and still maintains synergy with the rest of the deck. I've found myself siding out Wrath effects, which makes Moat much more enticing, and Bitterblossom has good synergy with that as well. I realize the Nombo that Moat+Goyf is, but it's still very worth running both.

[Phantom]

Bitterblossom...Moat...Now we're speaking my language. Some thoughts/questions:

- Are you having problems with the lifeloss of Blossom? I've been running it in a deck with 4 Cunning Wishes (that can get Pulse) 4 Vindicates, and 4 Moats for a while now, and I STILL have problems with it occasionally. This is why I like some sort of split between Hoff and Blossom.

- Are people ever really needling your Hoofs when you run shackles, explosives, and ruins? If so is it even a problem (I usually just build up a million counters and blow up the needle)?

- I've been waffling between 2 and 3 colors in my Moat deck because the three color build gets hit so hard by Land hate (Goblins, Loam, and R/G/B Death are very prevelent on MWS). How is 4 treating you with that many non basics?

- Meditate. I don't want to get into a whole thing about this card (again) but isn't there a chance it's better as either Ponder or Cunning Wish? I'm not going to sit here and explain the strengths of both cards, but I would like to hear your explanation for this card over others.

- Any problem protecting Jace without sweepers? (other than EE)

[raharu]

Nightmare: wouldn't a split between Hoofprints and Bitterblossom be stronger than just one or the other? I couldn't imagine that 1/1 Faries would be better than 4/4 instant speed elemental tokens 100% the time, and Hoofprints has more synergy with the deck. Both serve similar purposes, but I'd think from my experience with Hoofprints (Why is Bitterblossom $25? I hate standard...) that it would be much stronger. It can singlehandedly turn around MUs that shouldn't be won (goblins, fast agro, in some cases burn) if it comes down early enough.

[Citrus-God]

Now that people are playing around with the deck again, here's my most recent config for the deck:

4x Force of Will
4x Counterbalance
4x Brainstorm
3x Meditate
3x Sensei’s Divining Top
4x Tarmogoyf
2x Jace Belaren
0x Hoofprints of the Stag
3x Bitterblossom
3x Vedalken Shackles
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Moat
2x Engineered Explosives

2x Tundra
3x Flooded Strand
4x Polluted Delta
3x Tropical Island
4x Underground Sea
4x Island
1x Plains
1x Academy Ruins

Bitterblossom is pretty much always better than Hoofprints. It deals more damage on average, it doesn't cost mana to activate, it pumps out a constant stream of guys, isn't Needleable, and still maintains synergy with the rest of the deck. I've found myself siding out Wrath effects, which makes Moat much more enticing, and Bitterblossom has good synergy with that as well. I realize the Nombo that Moat+Goyf is, but it's still very worth running both.


I love how I threw that list together three days ago... only difference is that I had 3 Jace Belerens and 2 Bitterblossoms...

Also, if you feel like being ghetto, Humilties will also work (it blows but still better than WoG) if you run Bitterblossom.



@AA : Standstill is indeed one of the weakest cards in the deck, but I can't tutor for a 'better' draw engine like Meditate, TFK or Ancestral Vision (I dunno if the Visions are Legacy worthy btw...).
As a 2-of, those cards are not enough gamebreakers to wait 'til lateGame to draw them and I don't have the rooms for 3 of them in the current list.
So I'm stuck with the standstills -even if I agree they're a bit subpar.

You dont tutor for a draw engine, you tutor for card advantage in the form of Counterbalance and SDT.


About your suggestion of cutting 1 EE and the wraths, won't you be afraid facing aggro with only 4 StP and 1 EE MD as your only removal ?! Even if Moat can keep'em at bay, a well-timed Grip followed by an alpha-strike could cost you the game.

If they Grip it, you still have outs. So they're going to sit there and mobilize their army? If they ever had that much time, you either

1. Have outs. You have Goyfs, Shackles, EE, Swords... if they have time to mobilize, you should too.

2. Slow down their mobilization by using Counterbalance and SDT, because this is a control deck; your job is to limit their options.