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Thread: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

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  1. #1

    Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    An Astral Slide deck won the eighth MTGS Legacy tournament. It beat Hulk Combo, Landstill, and Elf Survival w/NO in the T8. List is below.

    Astral Slide
    Creatures
    4x Eternal Witness
    3x Knight of the Reliquary
    3x Loxodon Hierarch

    Planeswalkers
    1x Elspeth, Knight Errant

    Enchantments
    3x Astral Slide

    Sorceries
    3x Decree of Pain
    3x Life from the Loam

    Artifacts
    4x Chalice of the Void
    4x Mox Diamond
    2x Engineered Explosives

    Instants
    3x Expunge
    3x Radiant's Judgement

    Lands
    1x Volrath's Stronghold
    1x Wasteland
    3x Windswept Heath
    4x Tranquil Thicket
    2x Secluded Steppe
    2x Barren Moor
    3x Ancient Tomb
    2x Bayou
    1x Scrubland
    1x Savannah
    2x Forest
    1x Plains
    1x Swamp

    Sideboard
    3x Lapse of Certainty
    3x Krosan Grip
    3x Extirpate
    3x Ghostly Prison
    3x Ethersworn Canonist

    EDIT: Here is a complete list of the decks Slide beat during the tourney, going 7-0-2.

    2 White Stax builds
    1 Quinn the Eskimo w/Painters servant
    1 Hulk Combo
    1 Landstill
    1 Elf Survival
    1 Threshold Variant

    In the tournament before this, the deck went 4-2.
    Last edited by morgan_coke; 04-08-2009 at 09:45 PM.

  2. #2

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.

    The deck above seems like it folds to any deck running tendrils or LED (ichorid) or even painters stone.

    Basicaly the above looks like 43 lands, beats the heck out of everything but combo and has 4 outs on the play to combo. Might be better than 43 lands but considering that 43 lands isnt insane I wouldnt say its the nuts.
    I c h o r i d - my anti blue
    Manaless Ichorid- At least its cheeper than standard.
    We admit for the sake of the exercise that following is true:
    Landstill > Fromat
    Non-Basic Hate > Landstill
    Basics > Non-Basic Hate
    We can therefore logically conlude that
    Basics > Format

  3. #3

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Great News.

    Congratulations for the success.
    Keep the good work going!

    Quote Originally Posted by undone View Post
    To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.

    The deck above seems like it folds to any deck running tendrils or LED (ichorid) or even painters stone.
    Who is "they" ?
    And so many other decks lose to fast combo, too. So this is really no argument not to play this deck. If it was everybody should play fast combo, then?

  4. #4

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Quote Originally Posted by undone View Post
    To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.
    Interesting proof.

    Basicaly the above looks like 43 lands, beats the heck out of everything but combo and has 4 outs on the play to combo. Might be better than 43 lands but considering that 43 lands isnt insane I wouldnt say its the nuts.
    I don't think anyone has claimed this is "the nuts". It won a set of solid matchups, much like a deck like 43 Lands or Belcher could. It's not "proof" that a community knows nothing about Legacy when one of those decks wins.

    I was playing the Elf Survival deck in the final, which was obviously a rough matchup for me, but the deck seemed to play reasonably well, with Knight of the Reliquary being quite the beating.

  5. #5

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Quote Originally Posted by phoenix33 View Post
    It's not "proof" that a community knows nothing about Legacy when one of those decks wins.
    What he probably meant to say was, "This is the last nail in the 'they know nothing about Legacy' coffin," considering the overall quality and huge aversion to criticism of many of the MTGS posters on these boards.

    That said, the deck looks like it would fold to combo, obviously, but it probably has a decent matchup against Threshold and a passable matchup against LSV-style Counterbalance (what are we calling this again? Baseruption or NLU?). I could see beating Landstill on a counter-light draw.

    This deck just feels underpowered. The most broken play it has is sliding out Hierarch every turn, which isn't that spectacular unless your opponent is beating down with a singleton Goyf and doesn't have Shackles. Not only that, Slide is pretty weak outside of a narrow range of "creature-light, mid-range aggro-control deck" matchups.


    EDIT: I'll echo morgan_coke on the list of matchups here. Aggro decks are actively bad for Slide because the mana denial they run bends you over backwards, and Sliding out one or two guys does jack shit to stop them. Sliding out Hierarch a lot can help slow them down a lot, but this list has main deck Decree of Pain for a reason. Still, I really don't like needing a Tomb that badly to really get into the game in a relevant time frame. I ran Wall of Roots in my Slide decks for a reason: having a fat ass and mana acceleration on one guy is really good.

    Traditional Threshold would have a hard time with this deck because of the low creature density coupled with the relative dead-ness of Counterbalance. Baseruption probably has a better time because of the creature theft and main deck Grips, meaning it basically just has to keep Slide off the table to win. I can't see Landstill being a consistently positive matchup, though that's probably build-dependent. Combo is basically an auto-loss, probably even worse for this deck than for Aggro Loam.

    Basically, it's an anti-Threshold deck. I would prefer Aggro Loam in that role, but this probably works too.


    EDIT 2: I guess Sliding out Witness is good, but it's not very exciting when you line it up with, say, locking the opponent out of the game with a two card combo, one of which is in the format's best color. Slide-Witness is the only combo that makes the deck worthwhile, but it won't really help you if you're trying to get ahead because it's so fucking slow and disruption-prone. If you win because of it, you probably had an edge anyway. At least, that's how it's been in my experience.
    Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 04-08-2009 at 05:57 PM.

  6. #6

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    This deck is obviously a "glass cannon". No discussion there. And yes, of course MTGS has a lesser Legacy community than we do- it's a general Magic board and some Legacy players stumble upon it, just as some MTGS forummers stumbled upon Legacy. However, I think it's fair to say it's not just MTGS "people" playing in this tournaments. For one, they are always announced on the Source. Secondly, I seem to recal Nihil winning one of the latest tournaments? Players like emidln and Eldariel are regulars as well.

    Don't bash the community or the tournament setting because of what wins- only bash the single tournament. You're more than welcome to take a "deck with Tendrils and LED" and clean house. There's usually prices to win even, so what are you waiting for?!?
    In other words: would you bash every tournament scene that gets a winner piloting 43lands at some point? I hope not, because it's a deck that wins every now and then, whether you like it or not.

  7. #7
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    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Sometimes metagame calls own. The deck might be good or bad in a vacuum, but since he didn't run into TES (ostensibly), he ended up golden.


    I do find it peculiar that Death and Taxes has ~4x as many posts (1200) as any other archetype, yet it's pretty rare to see anywhere in T8.

    Goblins has about 300 posts.
    Then Burn, then Ichorid.

    Dreadstill has only 13 posts and the overarching Ad Nauseum Tendrils only has 45 posts. "Balanced Threshold" whatever that is has 90 posts.

    On TS, those numbers might be flipped.

  8. #8

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Originally Posted by phoenix33
    It's not "proof" that a community knows nothing about Legacy when one of those decks wins.

    What he probably meant to say was, "This is the last nail in the 'they know nothing about Legacy' coffin," considering the overall quality and huge aversion to criticism of many of the MTGS posters on these boards.
    Pretty much what I meant.

    The deck folds to almost all combo decks, it seems acutaly rough against team america and red tempo thresh as the deck appears (especialy if they draw a tomb) to be fed on non basics and big spells and the LD plan just seems like it will get there against this deck.

    In short its list of good matches (Merfolk, goblins, elves, fae, some thresh varients) are common but it still seems like the deck punts away any deck that isnt the mainstream or even the control mirror, I mean come on, how terrible is slide vs humility.

    The deck may be a narrow metagame deck but I thought lands already had that slot covered.
    I c h o r i d - my anti blue
    Manaless Ichorid- At least its cheeper than standard.
    We admit for the sake of the exercise that following is true:
    Landstill > Fromat
    Non-Basic Hate > Landstill
    Basics > Non-Basic Hate
    We can therefore logically conlude that
    Basics > Format

  9. #9
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    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Proof that nothing is impossible in this format if you put the time and resources into it.

    Another point of proof that you don't need Goyf in every build that runs green.

  10. #10

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Quote Originally Posted by Forbiddian View Post
    I do find it peculiar that Death and Taxes has ~4x as many posts (1200) as any other archetype, yet it's pretty rare to see anywhere in T8.
    MTGS underwent a "reset" of most of its Legacy forum to update the discussion and original posts/primers. Most threads were archived. D&T was one of the few that was up to date and relevant on the archetype, so it was saved from archival.

    Quote Originally Posted by beastman View Post
    I don't see anybody but you "attacking" anyone else on this thread.
    Sure, except from the very first reply to the OP:

    Quote Originally Posted by undone View Post
    To me this is proof they know next to nothing about legacy.
    Which was followed up by general hate on the deck, since it doesn't adhere to popular strategies.

    What is more accurate:

    Quote Originally Posted by mercenarybdu View Post
    Proof that nothing is impossible in this format if you put the time and resources into it.

    Another point of proof that you don't need Goyf in every build that runs green.
    Nor do you need StP is every deck that runs white. Damnation isn't always better than Decree of Pain. Jeez guys, wake up. It took first in a 60 man tournament. It is an amazing look at what is possible in Legacy.

  11. #11

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Quote Originally Posted by CaptShetz View Post
    Nor do you need StP is every deck that runs white. Damnation isn't always better than Decree of Pain. Jeez guys, wake up. It took first in a 60 man tournament. It is an amazing look at what is possible in Legacy.
    Getting defensive much?

    Swords is the best targeted removal spell ever printed. You usually need a good reason not to run it. In this deck, Chalice at one is a pretty compelling reason, but Swords is so ridiculous that it is still worth considering. It is certainly infinitely better than either of the targeted removal spells he has right now.

    The deck is pretty obviously a metagame foil. It may have taken first in a large tournament, but had the meta or the matchups been slightly different, it might not have. While some of the "this sux lol" is unwarranted, there are some pretty big weaknesses in the deck that would keep it from breaking out at, say, a Grand Prix.

    Also, Decree of Pain is better than Damnation in this deck, but probably only this deck. -2/-2 normally isn't enough in this format, given the number of Tarmogoyfs running around. Just about any card can be decent in some situations, but keep in mind that normally Damnation is better than Decree of Pain, Swords is ridiculous, and Tarmogoyf is fucking huge. These things are widely accepted as fact because they are almost always true across a wide variety of decks and matchups. Sometimes being unique simply for the sake of uniqueness is a bad play.

    That said, congrats to m_c on your win. After all that work I sank into Slide a year ago, I would very much like to see an all-around strong Slide deck in the format.

  12. #12

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    Quote Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies View Post
    Getting defensive much?

    Swords is the best targeted removal spell ever printed. You usually need a good reason not to run it. In this deck, Chalice at one is a pretty compelling reason, but Swords is so ridiculous that it is still worth considering. It is certainly infinitely better than either of the targeted removal spells he has right now.

    The deck is pretty obviously a metagame foil. It may have taken first in a large tournament, but had the meta or the matchups been slightly different, it might not have. While some of the "this sux lol" is unwarranted, there are some pretty big weaknesses in the deck that would keep it from breaking out at, say, a Grand Prix.

    Also, Decree of Pain is better than Damnation in this deck, but probably only this deck. -2/-2 normally isn't enough in this format, given the number of Tarmogoyfs running around. Just about any card can be decent in some situations, but keep in mind that normally Damnation is better than Decree of Pain, Swords is ridiculous, and Tarmogoyf is fucking huge. These things are widely accepted as fact because they are almost always true across a wide variety of decks and matchups. Sometimes being unique simply for the sake of uniqueness is a bad play.

    That said, congrats to m_c on your win. After all that work I sank into Slide a year ago, I would very much like to see an all-around strong Slide deck in the format.
    :facepalm:

    That was my entire point.

  13. #13

    Re: Slide wins 8th MTGS Legacy tournament

    The Damnation/Goyf/Swords argument is pretty well encapsulated by AZ above. I agree that in a vacuum, those cards are superior to what this deck runs. But not in this deck, and this is why.

    In this deck Decree is better than Damnation due to cycling and instantspeedyness and the ability to actually hardcast the thing if necessary.

    Knight of the Reliquary is better than 'Goyf here because the drawback of costing one more mana is irrelevant for this decks' purposes, KotR is generally bigger than 'Goyf in this deck, and the deck doesn't have room for "just" a beater. KotR has a secondary ability that is usually ignored but occasionally incredibly useful and is also highly synergistic with the rest of the deck.

    Expunge/Radiant's Judgement are better than StP in this deck due to cycling and not costing one mana. I've tried one mana spells both main and sideboard. Sideboard, Ghostly Prison does what this deck wants better than StP does. Maindeck, one mana spells are just insanely bad and conflicting with Chalice, which is far more important than StP.

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