I think the matchup analysis in the OP is correct. I have tested the counterbalance, goblin, zoo matchups and they are about as advertised!
However, some rogue strategies can catch this deck off guard. For example elf combo!!??!!
Has anyone considered the vintage powerhouse Mystic Remora for the board? Seems like an incredibly strong play following a vial against decks that play more than 20 spells. (IE threshold, dredge, counterbalance, combo... pretty much anything except goblins?)
It is also considered one of the strongest anti-combo cards in vintage because it draws you into force of will.
If the main reason you want Jotun Grunt is to keep chaining Wastelands, why not just run a Dust Bowl?
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Originally Posted by frogboy
Mystic remora is hard to keep up in legacy.. you don't have all the moxen/mana crypt/sol ring to help pay for it.
Team FireBrothers
This is true, but if your are vialing your guys for free you can spend all your mana on remora.
Because that's not the main reason we run Grunt.
What gave you that idea? It's a 4/4 body (survives burn, big enough to kill almost anything in the format -- almost always bigger than Goyf even), ruins the enemy graveyard/goyf, puts the best cards we want back in the deck during a long game, etc.
And I'd run Crucible before Dust Bowl. Dust Bowl forces you to tap out. One big strength is you land lock your opponent while developing your board.
I looked up remora (see I'm not as hard-headed as you guys sometimes seem to think) and I noticed that it only applies to noncreatures. In vintage, this is not much of a restriction, but in legacy it seems to make it pretty bad. I can only imagine this being good against a deck with no creatures, and even then only if we have a vial, and only if we have enough pressure to make them play spells. It seems like it tries to be standstill, but I think standstill is better.
You don't really get 4 mana against people, and if you do the game is probably far enough in that you have better things to do with your mana than kill a land a turn, like switching Jitte around or playing more dudes. And Fathom Seer keeps you off 4 lands pretty well too, so Dust Bowl isn't that great.
Grunt is big and drops opposing goyfs, but Cumkeep is horrible, as some games you really just need a creature to stare down an opposing creature (random example, I had Serra Avenger + Jotun Grunt against an opponent who had 7 life and spent all his resources NO-> progenitus. He couldn't attack and I could drop his life by 3 a turn, he top decks a sword after he drops to 4 life and I wait 3 turns of upkeeps without hitting a relevant creature, at which point Jotun dies and I take 10 twice). Jotun is good at recycling cards, and a great card against a certain few decks, but in my opinion this deck doesn't have a fast enough clock to enjoy a ball-lightningesque creature like him. Removing the graveyard is great in several matchups though, so right now I'm not sure he isn't necessary. If you don't use him you definitely need 4 Wastelands though.
It should be noted that with Aether Vial, you can nullify the "wait out grunt" strategy, since you don't play him until you need either to eat his yard, kill an attacker, or Ball Lightning for 8-12. Either way, you only use him when he's going to be very effective.
I really can't imagine the deck without Grunt. He's quite central to the "aggro mode" that the deck can put on, he's critical against Zoo and Aggro Loam (in that he owns them hard and they can't remove him easily), and he's very important in ANY MU where the opponent has Tarmogoyf.
Oh, and I forgot any deck with Loam, Crucible, etc. etc. He's not really bad in any MU that I can think of, he just does different things, so it's hard to pin his exact role down. In some MUs, he's yard hate, in others he's a 4/4 blocker. In others, he's a Ball Lighting on crack (which allows us a deceptively fast clock). In others, he prevents you from decking.
It should be noted that if indeed grunt turns out to be a ball lightning, then we can take advantage of that. Suppose he hits for 8 and your opponent uses 2 fetchlands, and we cash in once with a serra avenger before he finds a swords or something. If he's control (which he almost certainly has to be or else grunt would've hit for 12 because we'd wait for it) then he has to kill pretty much all of our "cantrip creatures" now. If he's running thoughtseize, then we just blanked a bunch of stuff. If we cashed in for 12 with grunt, then now he's at 3, and he has to spend a spot removal or come up with a blocker, with which he can't attack, per creature we play. And then each of our creatures draws us cards or lands. (Or they're avenger, and then can't even be answered by most blockers.)
You'd be a fool to not trade a card for 12 life against our deck. It might even be a stupid play for some decks to not trade a card for 8 life. But this is ONLY the aggro aspect of grunt. It's quite a multifunctional creature.
A single COP: Green may be better than meek stone in the board vs Progenitus?
To the creators:
This deck can be very tricky to play. please give me an analysis of your best play for the following hand. Assume it is turn 1 vs an unknown opponent and we go first:
Plains
Windswept Heath
Mom
Spell Pierce
Daze
Aether Vial
Serra Avenger
This is a very tricky hand.
Turn 1 vial allows turn 2 mom with pierce cover followed by vialed avenger turn 3. Do you use the plains to play the vial or fetch a tundra to activate daze in this case (but be vulnerable to waste)?
Or do you simply play Heath then say go keeping spell pierce mana up incase the opponent drops manabond, vial etc? This also gives you the option to daze a lackey or nacatl.
Consider the same hand, only with brainstorm instead of avenger:
Plains
Windswept Heath
Mom
Spell Pierce
Daze
Aether Vial
Brainstorm
How does this change your play?
The play there seems certainly to fetch for a blue source and land vial with daze up. If your opponent plays a creature on the first turn, or simply just makes a land drop, you lost a significant amount of tempo by leading with fetch, go. I would most certainly make that play every time unless I knew my opponent was playing fast combo. If your opponent wastes your land they fall way behind.
Whoever plays this deck alot can chime in, but that's my take on things and I like making random posts.
they haunt minds...
Agreed.
You're either way too smart for this game, or just way overthinking it. The hand is an obvious keep, it's among the best possible six card hands you could have in a variety of matchups. I'd be very confident with that keep against every deck I can think of except Belcher (no Force, but what are you gonna do?). The best play is to do the obvious: Heath --> Tundra --> Vial.
This puts you way ahead in the tempo category, and you can spend the rest of the game dicking around, trying to get in a sweet play with Daze and Spell Pierce as he won't be able to stop the Angel+Mom combination.
If he Forces the Vial, you definitely daze back in this situation (pending his discard... if he discards like a High Tide maybe). But in general, if he has a bomb, he'd save the Force to protect it and you'll get SP up for the rest of the game.
This is terrible, you can still Daze anything they might play turn 1. The minor vulnerability to Wasteland is a bad reason to chicken out of getting a Vial (which can immediately deliver game-winning creatures). Even if they waste you, it doesn't matter. You still have Vial down and a second land, so you'll live.Or do you simply play Heath then say go keeping spell pierce mana up incase the opponent drops manabond, vial etc? This also gives you the option to daze a lackey or nacatl.
Other than the fact that this hand is much worse, it wouldn't change my play at all. It's still an extremely good hand without any glaring weaknesses, so it's a keep. You'll want to get the Vial down immediately and then be able to develop your board with Spell Pierce backup.Consider the same hand, only with brainstorm instead of avenger:
Plains
Windswept Heath
Mom
Spell Pierce
Daze
Aether Vial
Brainstorm
How does this change your play?
And in general, Wasteland is not a scare card in this situation. You already have a Vial out. It would take a desperate opponent and a monster read for him to use his turn 1 from the draw to waste you sitting pretty with Aether Vial and Tundra. The person with Vial will A) not be mana screwed and B) have a big tempo advantage. Whenever I have Vial out, I'm desperately looking to Wasteland my opponent.
And even then at best it's like a 3:1 and only until you draw an out. In the meantime, you're still developing the board, and still hitting at least your next land drop, so you're not even going to miss Daze/Spell Pierce at least for a few more turns.
You still have what? 16 outs left in the deck (any non-plains, colored land or Knight of the White Orchid or Weathered Wayfarer) to activate Daze and Spell Pierce. Oh, and Force.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...daily/deck/369
Deck is currently the deck of the day.
They called in U/W Tempo!
I've been playing toying with this deck for the past few days here are my thoughts:
-4 Fathom Seer seems like 2-4 too many. Let me say first that he has had his moments, like saving me from a lethal PoP and giving me an extra mana while drawing 2. But most of the time he is a 3cc sorcery to nets me 1 card. I don't know yet how I would replace him.
-Vial is one of those cards you really want to play 4 of or none at all. Starting with 1 is always good, but when you draw it after turn 3 or so, it's usually a dead card. I know BS can toss it back in, but still.
-I think Spell Snare would be better than Spell Pierce here. Again, Pierce had won me games that Snare wouldn't have, but Snare stops the biggest threats, namely Goyf (I know grunt can help, but they always play 2x as many goyfs as we do grunts), Counterbalance(which if resolved we usually lose without a vial on board), and lastly Qasali Pridemage if only because you said it best in the OP, Jitte IS the glue the holds this pile together. Even a hymn can outright destroy us if it hits a land.
That's pretty tight, Aaron Wayne just linked me to that shit and I came here to post the link.
I think I got outvoted on the deck name, though.
U/W Tempo is pretty damn descriptive. It's like calling Breakfast Survival/Shapeshifter instead, or calling Team America B/U/G Disruption. It's less flavorful but more descriptive. You can still have a flavor name in addition to U/W Tempo, is what I'm trying to get at. Land Hax is pretty cute, IMO.
"If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.
If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."
-Sun Tzu
Well, yeah, except it's like calling UW Landstill "UW Tempo."
I dunno, I don't really see anything in the deck that adds tempo (other than Aether Vial and then maybe Knight of the White Orchid) and a ton of things that drop or at least try to drop tempo for card advantage:
Weathered Wayfarer, Fathom Seer, Daze, and then in a less direct way Mother of Runes, Umezawa's Jitte....
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