CAB - JaceTM

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

As I landed a sweet little writing-gig at SCG after the talent search, the breakdown and analysis of the current version have appeared in my articles over there. As such, if you're interested in the deck, take a look:

Deck presentation and explanation

Gameplay primer

I'll also keep this opening post updated with my most current list, for conveniences sake.

CAB JaceTM - 04/2011

4 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Treasure Hunt
4 Jace the Mindsculptor

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Engineered Explosives
4 Maze of Ith
3 Punishing Fire
2 Cunning Wish

2 Forbid
4 Force of Will

1 Academy Ruins
2 Wasteland
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Mountain

Sideboard:
1 Wing Shards
1 Dismantling Blow
2 Extirpate
1 White Sun's Zenith
2 Red Elemental Blast
2 Negate
2 Pithing Needle
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Punishing Fire

Don't take the deck to an American tournament with this configuration, especially right now. My metagame is quite different and if you want to succeed in one with more combo, you need a very different Sideboard! Even I switched mine regularly, depending on what exactly I expect to play against this time, and my metagame is reasonably stable, not like the SCG circuit.

Also, for the sake of historical correctness and because there's still a lot of useful information in it, here's the original Deck breakdown and plan I wrote when I posted about the deck here for the first time:



CAB – JaceTM

I've started this thread to unveil team CAB's newest creation. If you've been playing Vintage for (quite) some time, you might remember us because of my SCG-article when I first brought the Gifts Ungiven deck into the limelight in Vintage (yes, before Smmenen :p ).

Since I have moved to Berlin (where nobody plays Vintage but there's Legacy), I have been trying to figure out some way to build a control deck that actually feels good. When I saw the new Jace, I was sure it was busted and set out with my Teammate Maxim Barkman to find the control build to totally exploit it. This is what I think this Deck has done. I proudly present to you

CAB – JaceTM.

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Maze of Ith
3 Firespout
4 Engineered Explosives
2 Cunning Wish

2 Forbid
4 Force of Will

4 Brainstorm
3 Treasure Hunt
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Academy Ruins
1 Dust Bowl
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Tolaria West

1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Island

4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn

2 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Plateau

(yes, I know this is 61 cards. I have had success with the 25 lands, 36 spells setup in past control decks, as it tends to balance mana vs spells quite nicely. If you want to cut something, the 61st card is Tolaria West, the cutting of which would bring you back down to a typical 24 as are used in Landstill)

Side:
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Spell Pierce
1 Forbid
3 Extirpate
1 Pulse of the Fields
1 Wing Shards
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Krosan Grip

(note: I personally only own 3 Jace and don't have the funds to get the fourth atm. Therefore I'm running the deck with 3 Jace 4 Treasure Hunt without any remarkable loss in performance. Still, 4 Jace is optimal.).


Now that you're all on the same level thinking “what a pile”, let me tell you why this pile is in my personal opinion one of the best decks in the format right now (skip to the matchup-section if you wish to be convinced).
First, to provide some numbers in support, me and Maxim are, as far as I know, the only ones who ever played this deck. Our record in tournament games with this version and its slightly different predecessor is a combined 16 : 2 : 7, five of the seven draws being ID's. Four of these happened by Maxim and me drawing in two different tournaments when paired against one another, the fifth ID was me being gracious towards a non-stalling opponent when I was guaranteed to win the tournament even with a draw and he could have stalled for the time-out but didn't. The other two draws came against Dredge, the matchup we actually decided to just give up but somehow still managed to fight to a draw.

First, strategy. This is a hardcore control deck, more defensive than even Landstill. Play it as such or loose. The decks goal is simple: get a Jace into play and keep it there. It will allow you to gain complete control over the game, than ultimate them. If you can keep Jace in play for more than one or two turns, you'll win. Guaranteed.

The Tools:

Maindeck

I)Removal

StP: should be obvious.

Maze of Ith: Maze is a hidden gem, in my opinion, and woefully underused in Legacy, being played only in Lands. It is, after all, an uncounterable zero-cost spotremoval for most creatures that are played in Legacy. The fact that it gets around Counterbalance is incredible in that matchup, as it means you can easily stall out till you can explode the damn Enchantment away. Being able to drop this under an opposing Standstill and thereby dominate all those modern Landstill builds that don't use Decree is just gravy.
In this deck in particular, it also forces the opponent to overextend into your sweepers, which provides card advantage and allows you to set up a board state where a sweeper will allow for a Jace next turn even though the opponent has held back a creature. It dieing to Wasteland sucks, but on the other hand that prevents them from manascrewing you with said Wasteland.
Finally, Maze costs a landdrop, slowing down your manadevelopment. The comparatively low cost of all the answers is therefore mandatory. Considering Firespout is the most expensive answer that cannot be broken down over multiple turns, this has proven to be manageable. I can see where Maze + Wrath would cause problems, though.

Firespout: Having tested many different builds of Landstill, the four-mana mass-removals always seemed far to clunky for me. Firespout costing only three is such a huge upside that you can support some creatures surviving it. Its cheaper casting cost is all the more important because of the use of Maze, slowing down your early mana development.

Explosives is a 4-of because it is one of the most versatile solutions in the Format. In particular, it's a fast answer to Vial, almost always gets by Counterbalance and stops Zoo's triple 1-drop kill hyper-aggro draw. In addition, it gives you maindeck outs to opposing planeswakers. It often working as mass-removal is another bonus and very relevant synergy. I actually don't see why most Landstill variants don't use this as a 4 of, it's just that good.

Cunning Wish: This deck is slow as hell. You really can't afford to autolose towards anything running Loam game 1. Pulse of the Fields provides a necessary buffer against Zoo's burn and having access to some form of Edict-effect allows you to beat Progenitus (or Reanimator pre-banning).
Usually people claim Wish sucks because it eats so much of your Sideboard, making your post-board games worse. Thing is, this isn't really the case here. Consider the SB I was going to run before I figured out I could use Wish:

1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
4 Spell Pierce
1 Forbid
3 Extirpate
2 Pulse of the Fields
2 Wrath of God
2 Diabolic Edict
(yes, 16 cards. As I said, this was during the tuning stages)

A ton of cheap countermagic and disruption to slow down combo till you can get Forbid online to lock them out, Pulse to survive Zoo's burn and Edict/Wrath to be able to SB something to handle Progenitus and shroud-guys from Reanimator (R.I.P). You lose basically nothing by going over to Cunning Wish.

The only real loss are the two Wraths against Bant, but the matchup is so incredibly favorable that you practically only ever lose to Progenitus. This means having MD access to Wing Shards and Edict will likely win you far more game ones than you would have won game twos and threes thanks to Wrath.

II)The Countermagic

4 FoW: Again, I don't think I need to explain these.

2 Forbid: Counterspell is clunky already, why would I run something that costs even more? Well, thing is, this deck doesn't plan on countering much early game. That's what the boatload of removal is for. Forbid on the other hand allows you to turn all this dead removal into more countering when the removal is dead (control, combo) and gives this deck a near-hardlock. With Jace on the table, you can draw two cards a turn and Forbid will then allow you to match your opponents one draw a turn with a counter a turn. Considering they're bound to draw some blanks, this translates into a locked gamestate where you can start ramping Jace till they force you to empty your hand, after which you refuel with Jace again. I have yet to lose a match where I got this going. The fact that ramping Jace practically increases their blank-count is provides further sweet locking. In addition, your draw-engine (Treasure Hunt) is likely to fill your hand with a ton of lands. Turning these into counterspells has a similar effect to full-out Jace-locking them.

III)The Engine

Brainstorm and SDT: While common inclusions in Legacy control decks, they have a special purpose here, they serve to set up your early-game draw-engine, Treasure Hunt. Both allow you to accumulate (or even put back) lands on top of your library, turning Treasure Hunt into Ancestral Recall. Due to this interaction, holding back Brainstorm as long as humanly possible is necessary. I _never_ brainstorm early, even if I have Fetchlands, unless I have run out of Landdrops or a game-winning threat is about to resolve for which I'm hoping to draw a solution.

Treasure Hunt: This is were some of the flak aimed at the deck will be incurred. The deck is perfectly set up to run Standstill, it actually works better under Standstill than most real Landstill decks thanks to Maze, Mishra and Dust Bowl. So why not use the Enchantment?
I love control-decks, and as such I have been testing many variations of Landstill before building something else. Truth be told, I've learned to hate Standstill. My cheap draw-spells are meant to allow me to create a boardposition where I'm in control even though I have to drop (and I run) more lands than they do. Standstill rarely provided this for me, as decks come out very fast in Legacy and you need to already have to established an at least stable board to be able to play Standstill, otherwise it will rot in your hand (which is where it was most of the time when I tested it). Aether Vial, the opponent going first and dropping large creatures both turn 1 and 2, opposing Wastelands on my defending Mishra's (or the simple threat of that happening) or even a simple SDT I couldn't yet drop made Standstill dead far to often. That is not to say Standstill sucked all the time. When I started the game, StPed their first drop eot and dropped a Standstill it was godlike. This simply didn't happen often enough for me to make it good.
Both Standstill and Treasure Hunt need setup to function, so lets compare the two depending on situation:

a) The opponent is advantaged and applying a lot of pressure: Standstill is simply dead. Treasure Hunt is, statistically, nearly a draw 2 (29 lands in the deck, 32 spells, Chapin's math from his Worldwake article clocks in a little over 1.9 cards. Obviously this goes down a little over the course of the game as you use Fetchlands. Thing is, in the lategame you'll either be able to setup or not need all that much draw any more). At the very least it cycles to get you closer to some much needed solution. Sometimes you will even be able to Brainstorm one turn to find some defense, then use Treasure Hunt next turn to (statistically) draw 3 cards (one guaranteed land plus the ~1.9 cards a random Hunt will draw you).

b) The opponent is slightly advantaged on the board. Standstill is still nearly dead, as you'll have to topdeck quite some manlands/mazes to stabilize and can't use drawn spells any more to change the situation. On the other hand, in a situation like this you'll likely have the time to abuse Top or Brainstorm to set up at least two lands on top of your deck.

c) The situation is stable, but the opponent has Manlands and Wastes of his own (see Fish): Standstill may work, or they may draw better than you do and force you to throw away the game by breaking it. On the other hand, you're nearly certain to set up the full-value Treasure Hunt with Brainstorm or Top.

d) The situation is 100% in your favor: Standstill is Ancestral Recall. Treasure Hunt likely is at least plus 3, too, though. Both are pretty much win more here, second turn Standstill on the play aside.

Note: I have ignored the benefits of Jace in regards to the Treasure Hunt engine here as having an active Jace usually translates into a win anyway. That being said, Treasure Hunt breaks Jace even further.

Realize something? Treasure Hunt is better in all those situations where you most need carddraw, as in when you're in trouble. Sure, drawing extra-cards is always good in a control-deck, but it's most needed when you're on the backfoot, when Standstill is worse than nothing (you can't topdeck nothing). Treasure Hunt at the very least cycles and at best removes a landclump to your hand (so that you get to make landdrops) while still finding a business spell.
Both cards need setup, though different forms of setup. Standstill asks you to draw your removal first to set up your draw. Treasure Hunt asks you to find one of your cheap draw-effects first to set up the next stage but is still an expected +2 if you can't. As I said, I see my carddrawing as a way to actually get to a stable boardstate, so I by far prefer Hunt.
So much for the “usability” part of the argument, Treasure Hunt wins, hands down. How about that other argument, the “Treasure Hunt will draw you only a bunch of lands, so who cares” one. Firstly, this is a control-deck, and a very manahungry one at that, even with the low curve (you love doing a ton of different stuff per turn) so being able to make landdrops is a good thing. Secondly, removing a landclump from the top of your deck is like FoF into 5 lands. Sure, it sucks for the FoF but at least you don't have to draw crap for five more turns. Thirdly, you have Forbid, Jace and Brainstorm to turn these crappy lands into actual spells. Fourthly, look at the lands in this deck (yes, this is where Maze comes in again). Four are removal, four are blockers, one is a Tutor, one is a repeatable Stone Rain and one is a recursion engine. That means roughly every third land you draw (34%) is actually kind of like a spell, making the odds of hitting business not seem all that bad. Also, Treasure Hunt is guaranteed to hit at least some business where Standstill might flat-out wiff (I had quite a few Treasure Hunts for 4+).

Jace the Mindsculptor: What can I say about that guy. He's still incredibly undervalued on the source, as far as I can tell. Comparing him to FoF is an insult – to Jace! This guy is so good, its hard to explain if you haven't ever played with him. An active Jace simply ends the game, usually, even though it might take another 15 turns for the game to actually finish. He digs hard for solutions, distracts your opponent from hitting you (especially if they've played against Jace before), bounces attackers in a pinch only to dig next turn when you have had time to untap and his +2 is far better than it seems. Reducing opposing card quality by roughly 50% (and having near-perfect information) is a sweet benefit if you're hitting your opponent with a clock equivalent to a Rhox War Monk (I haven't seen the ultimate not be lethal, ever). This deck was built to abuse Jace, if you try it you'll see what I mean about him being insane.

IV)The Mana

This is the second area where the decks looks extremely weird. Five colors? Only a single Tropical? Wtf? The deck started out as a basic three-color URW control-deck. I soon realized I at least wanted a single off-color dual to be able to use Explosives to blow up opposing Planeswalkers. I chose a Tropical for the ability to “kick” Firespout once in a while to clean the air of Spellstutter Sprites, Vendillion Cliques, Bitterblossom tokens and random Vampire Nighthawks. Finally, I realized that, with Extirpate being the best answer to Loam and Edict being the best out to Reanimator (as it would answer both shroud-guys and Iona-white) wanted Black in the deck. As Extirpate was Loam-hate first and foremost, at least two black sources were necessary so as to not be blanked out if I had drawn the Sea early and gotten it wasted. (I tried removing the Green instead of going five-color, but the benefits of one more basic were marginal compared to being able to hit flyers once in a while).
I agree that the manabase looks freaky, but there are a few secrets that make it work. Number one, you only need UU plus a single mana of the appropriate splash for all your spells to be active (aside from Pulse and Wing Shards in the SB). 15 blue sources (plus Tolaria West, which has been added exactly because of this, it and Dust Bowl were Wastelands for a long time) has been fine so far, and wouldn't be helped by the removal of colors anyway. You also have access to basic lands for your three major colors, providing insurance against getting your removal-colors wasted out.
Number two, the decks is 99% active if you only have URW sources on the board. Explosives is a little hampered (it can't hit 4's, but most other decks using it can't do that at all), Firespout doesn't hit flyers (again, other Landstill decks using this can't do it at all) and you're cut of from Extirpate and Edict, your wish-targets.
Number two: you only need B and G once per game, usually. Considering how rarely they're used, having your off-color source wasted after it being used is usually not crippling at all.
Number three: There are practically no matchups where you actually need all five colors. You will always need either black or green, but not both, making this essentially a four-color deck with a varying splash-color.
Number four: There are only 2 less basics (and 1 more Fetch) in comparison to most Landstill manabases, meaning this manabase is surprisingly resistant to Wasteland. In addition Mazes provide a very good Wasteland defense. They either get wasted (meaning your mana goes unmolested) or they buy the time necessary to recover from the losses inflicted on the manabase by Wasteland. Obviously recurring Wasteland just ruins the deck, though, but that's true for pretty much any control deck. At least this can wish for Extirpate to stop the recursion.
I have tested this deck quite a bit, and as random as it looks, the manabase works. It is somewhat complicated and knowing when to drop what land is one things you simply have to learn by playing. Keep these few basic principles in mind:
1)Never ever crack your Fetchlands unnecessarily for thinning. You should already be doing this in other decks to maximize Top and Brainstorm, but it is even more important here. Fetches reduce your in-library landcount (meaning Treasure Hunt gets all so slightly worse), you have ten Brainstorm-style effects (Brainstorm, Top, Jace), real lands can get wasted and finally an in-play Fetch lets you get whichever splash-color you're missing.
2)Always aim to safely establish URW: This can happen either through getting Tundra, Volcanic Plateau (the reason it is in here instead of more blue mana, I was actually missing it when testing; being able to set up URW in a way that a single Wasteland can never cut you off is pretty sweet) or by setting up the Wasteland-proof Island, Plains, Mountain. Note that it is often preferable to present something they can waste (especially drawn splash-duals that are unnecessary in the matchup) so as to bait them and protect Mazes/Mishras
3)If you're color-light, start by dropping colorless sources. Many players will perceive the threat of blocking with Mishra as high enough to hit it with Wasteland.

The special lands:
Mishra's Factory: Mishra is just that good in this format. Having your manabase block and provide an additional though rarely used win-condition is quite valuable
Dust Bowl: Manalands don't die to your sweepers, which makes them annoying. Having an additional way to deal with them in your manabase is sweet. This and T-West were Wastelands for a long time, but having another blue source that can tutor up Mazes, EE and Ruins lategame as well as this multi-wasteland won out.
Tolaria West: See under Dust Bowl. This is a rather new addition, meant to help assure regular early access to double blue.
Academy Ruins: The Explosives-Ruins lock is insane in this deck. Games usually go long and you get to build up a lot of mana. This just locks the board at some point, the same way Forbid locks the stack. It also serves as a win-condition in a pinch, making sure you can't deck before they do after you ultimated Jace.


Sideboard

So much for the Maindeck. The Sideboard is comparatively simple, but outdated at the moment as the new banning will likely eliminate ANT and Reanimator from the format, at least until these decks have found a way to adapt or evolve. The explanation will be very short as a result

4 Spell Pierce
1 Forbid
3 Extirpate
2 REB
These were all scheduled to come in versus ANT and Reanimator (before I had Wish), the plan being to use the cheap spells to slow them down till you can get Forbid online (which is why you leave the Forbid in the SB now, having access to it four times), which in turn should buy you time to go into full Jace lockdown mode.
All of these also served as additional tools against Landstill-style control, considering you want to take out 4 StP and 3 Firespout.
Extirpate also fills the role of Graveyard hate, be it against Loam, Survival or other stuff of that ilk. Note that we simple decided to concede the Dredge matchup as there wasn't enough room to cover Dredge, Reanimator and ANT.

1 Edict
1 Wing Shards
Wishable removal that could also kill Progenitus or Iona. The Wing Shards tended to also come in against Reanimator, but again, that's gone.
Pulse of the Fields
Zoo can usually only get you with burn, this serves to make that a lot harder.

1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Krosan Grip
Essentially the two flex-slots in the board. Grip can handle Needle on EE, which is a pain, while also being able to hit SDT, which is why we ran it over other Disenchant-effects.
BEB is mainly Blood Moon protection, but also very important against Price of Progress (that card is so good against this deck, you always have to counter it and just die if you can't).

As you can see, Spell Pierces and Edict were in the SB mainly because of combo and Reanimator. Having 15 dead removals MD, you almost never won a game one against them, which is why you hit them so hard in the Sideboard (the same is true for Dredge, but you can only hit two of the three if you want to be able to have anything else in your sideboard). On the other hand, you are practically preboarded against anything running normal creatures, meaning you don't have much room to sideboard much out there anyway.
This changes with the ban, meaning you don't have to abandon the Dredge matchup any more and will probably still get one or two other sweet spots out of it (more PoP hate is welcome).

The Matchups:

I know people will decry this part of the primer, as I will be claiming so many favorable matchups. The truth of the matter is, this deck is very, very good at killing and stopping cheap non-shroud creatures. Most decks in Legacy (aside from those the DCI just killed) win exactly through these. Hence the high number of favorable matchups.
ATTENTION: If you are not godlike at magic, you will probably have trouble reproducing these results when you pick up this deck. I've been playing control since roughly 1997 and I still had a really hard time getting used to this deck's playstyle. As an example, I went something like 2:8 versus Goblins when I first tested the matchup. By now I'm convinced it's actually a pretty good matchup. The deck is a very intricate puzzle and the correct play is often very un-obvious and counterintuitive. Until one has learned what these plays look like (and they are very different from matchup to matchup), it is pretty much impossible to reproduce our results with the deck. This is not a deck to play cold.

Goblins: Favorable. The more enablers they have, the worse this gets. They can sometimes overwhelm you lategame as Goblins is wont to do against control, but this happens comparatively rarely thanks to Forbid. This means they have to get Lackey or Vial to stick to win most of the time. If they don't, it's usually smooth sailing.

Fish: 50-50 to strongly favored. This has the best matchup against Fish of all the control-decks I have tested. If they play 2 Kira, 4 Stifle, 4 Mutavault, 4 Waste, 4 Vial, 4 Standstill as the build I'm testing against (as that is what I believe the deck should be running) it's about 50:50. If they don't have Stifle as I'm seeing a lot lately, EE eats them alive. If they don't have Kira, Maze does. Finally, if they don't have Standstill (I don't think anybody is stupid enough to cut Vial), they lose the “combo-potential” of turn 1 Vial, turn 2 Standstill. I call this a combo because I haven't found any deck that could consistently beat that sequence of plays if it couldn't be answered before Standstill hit the table.

Zoo: slightly unfavorable to strongly favored. This is utterly dependent on how many Sylvan Libraries and Price of Progress they are running. If they are the maximum speed build (Steppe Lynx, Fireblast, 4 PoP) with Sylvan Library, this is pretty damn tough. With so much pressure, they can usually catch you off-guard and stick a price for the win. Without Sylvan or PoP, they don't really stand a chance (testing against a non-PoP build, more than 50% of my losses – I still won easily more than half the games, PoP really is what makes this tough – were due to them having an early unanswered Sylvan, which not only fueled their burn but also invalidated Pulse).

Aggro-Control of all shapes and forms aside from Canadian Thresh: extremely favorable to very favorable (Wastes and Stifle tend to do better than Counterbalance). If they don't have some form of combo-kill, they might as well scoop this. You ignore counterbalance for the most part thanks to Maze and Explosives and they run far too few creatures to actually get there. Progenitus is their only reasonable way to a W, and you can answer even that (Kira from the SB works once in a while, too, though). The Survival-Iona builds are easier, as you can usually shut of the Survival after a while (or match the CA with Jace, I have done that before) and Iona doesn't ignore Maze as Prog does.

Canadian Thrash: unfavorable. What a difference a 3/3 shroud and some burn can make. Tarmogoyf is a non-issue, but all the Stifles and counters protect Mongoose long enough to get you to the point where they can simply burn you out with triple Lightning Bolt. Shroud is really a bitch against a deck with Maze. I don't see how the Landstill-players in the UW(x)-thread can claim this matchup differently, though, seeing as they have even fewer ways to take out shroud guys.

Landstill: very favorable to slightly favorable. If they are running the versions typically discussed in the thread here (without a fourth color and without Decree), you are very favored. You run more draw than they do, your deck actually works better under Standstill than theirs does, meaning they loose most of their draw-engine and you have more Jaces (they usually only run 2. Considering having Jace online usually beats whatever else the other player does, this is big). You also have the ability to explode their Planeswalkers thanks to the many colors while they have maybe two Jaces to answer yours. Preboard, Forbid provides another huge advantage, transforming dead removal into countermagic as long as you take care not to run it into their counters (they usually have one or two counterspells more than you do Forbids, not counting the Wishes, so don't run Forbid-buyback on everything they play, you're sure to get hit by Counterspell at some point). This only counts preboard, as they're boarding out most of theirs the same way you do.
If they splash the forth color, they draw even on Planeswalker removal, if they run Decree they get their draw-engine back (even though you can slow this down a lot by playing a preemptive EE @ 0). As such your only advantage is having more Jaces and Forbid game 1 at that point, making the game a lot more equal.

Lands: I honestly don't have the slightest idea as nobody plays this here and I haven't tested a single game against Lands. I suppose it should be ok, just try to FoW the Manabond, then drop Fetches/basics into play till you can wish for Extirpate and take Loam out. Postboard this gets even easier, as you have more access to your Loam hate.

Reanimator and ANT: The two bad matchups the DCI decided to be so friendly to remove (even though I disagree with the ban, but this is not the place for that discussion). Preboard you have nearly no chance as you simply don't do anything the opponent cares about before turn 3+ if they are skilled (gets a shroud-guy/doesn't run headfirst into FoW but also doesn't wait till Forbid is fully established). Postboard you are ok, with all the cheap disruption into Forbid-lock but not good enough by far to compensate for the atrocious first game percentage.

Dredge: The conceded matchup. If they run only Ichorid and Moeba, Extirpate on Ichorid can actually win this because you are very very good at picking of Zombies again and again. There is nearly no way to win game 1, though. Thanks to your defensive nature, you can often fight game 1 for quite some time, than screw them with Extirpate in the second and simply survive for the draw in the third (as both Maxim and I managed in our only tournament matches against Dredge). Still, a horrible matchup you'll be happy to escape with a draw. This will get a lot better now that we have room in the Sideboard.

Considering this is Legacy, there are likely a million decks I haven't mentioned. As a guideline, if it uses non-shroud creatures to win, you want to play against it. If it uses spells only to win, you don't.

I hope you'll give this deck a try, as I think the deck is a lot of fun and very good right now. I'll write about the new SB once I have figured it out (if there is any interest) and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks for reading,

Carsten Kötter

Team CAB

PS: If enough people show interest, I'll try to write a guide on how to play each matchup. This is very difficult to simply write down, though, as minor decisions have a huge impact and therefore nothing can replace some solid playtesting.

[Blitzbold]

Thanks for all the work and giving birth to an interesting new deck. Unfortunately, Jace 2.0 is such a pain to get your hands on. As a friend of mine posted on Facebook just today: "So... Jace TMS (0.064 ounces = 80 USD) is actually worth his weight in gold (1 ounce = roughly 1,255 USD). Fascinating."

I also have to differ in finding CB / Top quite good against this. When playing against you with Ur Dreadstill it felt like everything but Jace himself was manageable. Jace is killable with REB, though, so at least such a build could give you some fits. An updated version of Nassif's UGr list might be interesting, too, although it tries to win with non-shrouded creatures.

There's been also some talk about picking up Burning-Tree Shaman in aggressive decks again. This guy can deal quite some damage, especially when paired with some more cats and burn. Did you test against such a build?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Lol, Wizards has figured out the secret all the alchemists were searching for: transmutation.^^

Dreadstill: Hah, you directly caught the first one I forgot.
I don't count Dreadstill among those aggro-control decks, as it is a quite different deck as far as the threats it presents are concerned. Instead of having midsized creatures trying to hit you for a few turns, it has either Naughts, which kill in one to two swings (which makes relying on Maze dangerous because of Stifle/Waste) and Mishra's, which, contrary to the aggro-control creatures can't be exploded away. Add to this that the deck combines both mana denial (in particular Stifle, which makes it hard to actually get through with the EEs) and CB-Top and you have what is likely the hardest of the Countertop matchups. I would call it roughly even and very draw dependant (especially on the Dreadstill side some of draws are very good, others really bad), even though it might actually be slightly favorable for Jace just following my intuition after playing. I haven't played more than a few games against Dreadstill, though.
To comment on our games, we should both not draw to many conclusions from three games, two of which were decided essentially by bad opening hands (me getting naturally mana-screwed game 1, you needing to mulligan to 5 game 2 and having to drop a Standstill on my Top). I'm still annoyed at that stupid early singleton crucible that killed me game 3 as you proceeded to Wastelock me out from turn 4 onward - Crucible-Waste is truly sick in the control mirror! ;) (you are, by the way, the only one to whom I have dropped a tournament match with Jace so far, so congrats!)

Nassif-build: you mean his GP decklist (not UGr)? I actually tested against the original build (not an updated version, admittedly) and stopped when it was 6 - 0 for Jace with not a single game being even close...

I haven't tested against BTS-Zoo, I think the Shaman would probably perform slightly better than KotR, actually, but not make a huge difference (Knight usually deals 0-4 damage, being to slow to work before you've established yourself somewhat. BTS probably will slip through a few points thanks to making Maze a painland). Zoo's creatures all have a tendency to die a lot, though. BTS or no, the matchup will still revolve around Sylvan and PoP resolving.

[Heresy]

Won 2 games in a row against UW Tempo. Did not side anything. First game was one sided once he was in topdeck mode. Second game was closer (ended at 2 life) and despite all his amazing tricks with waste and wayfarer, still got the forbid recursion going on. Firesprout is a wrath except for Jotun Grunt and Jace is amazing as usual.

[Sisyphos]

CAB – JaceTM
Thanks to your defensive nature, you can often fight game 1 for quite some time, than screw them with Loam in the second and simply survive for the draw in the third (as both Maxim and I managed in our only tournament matches against Dredge).

I was just wondering about that statement and my recollection of seeing you use Life from the Loam in several of your games to lock opponents out of the game completely with Forbid. The list in your post does not have a Life from the Loam in it anymore. Did you find it too clunky? Are Jace and Treasure Hunt enough, thus making Loam as another lock engine overkill? Doesn't seem like you forgot to put it in the list unless I miscounted because the posted one has 61 cards.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Heresy: Sweet, someone testing the deck :) The "didn't side anything" is something that you'll get used to against creature-decks. I hope you'll continue to enjoy the deck!



@ Sisyphos:

Argh, this is simply slip-up in my writing. I replaced the card I meant (Extirpate) with its most common target (Loam). I've corrected that. Thanks :)

The games with Loam you remember on the other hand were with a deck that tried to apply the same gameplan through slightly different means (though the mass-removal + Maze into Jace plan and the Forbid-lock were both present in that deck). Essentially the Treasure Hunt engine was replaced with an Intuition-Loam engine in that version and Loam was indeed excellent at allowing you to establish a complete Forbid-lock asap.
In the end, though, the gains from Loam were not worth the effort. Treasure Hunt provides similar card-advantage in a more straight-forward way (in particular because Hunt delivers one business-spell when cast, while Loaming actually costs you a drawstep were you draw only lands) and there are fewer cards you don't really want to draw in the deck. Intuition plus Loam also is 5 mana, while Treasure Hunt comes online as early as turn 2.
In addition, using the Loam-engine sets you up to be blown out by the opponents graveyard hate postboard. Over all, Hunt is cheaper and provides more deck velocity while being harder to totally negate with hate. Loam simply didn't prove worth the effort it took to accomodate it (both overkill and too clunky, as you put it so rightly).

[Phoenix Ignition]

I really like the build and will be testing it in the next 2 days, but can you answer the quick question of why there is no The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale? If you don't own any it is understandable, but it is as underused (if not more underused) than Maze of Ith, and its effect is so profitable for any deck that is creature light that it really should see more play.

There could be cost issues, but why aren't you running it? It seems especially good with the transmute land.

EDIT: Also can you Edit your opening post with the [ cards] [/ cards] tag so it is easier to look through?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Sweet, happy testing :D

There is no Tabernacle for two reasons:
a) I don't have access to one. Simple.
b) I don't want one. In Lands, Tabernacle is great as it forces the opponent to limit his creature-drops and has synergy with the mana-denial plan. JaceTM on the other hand doesn't play any manadenial and wants the opponent to commit to the board as much as possible so as to kill even more creatures with its mass-removals. In addition, Jace doesn't run any Exploration-effects, meaning any non-mana land you drop early actually slows you down by a turn. Mazes make up for that by working as removal on the spot. Tabernacle means you take damage while the opponent doesn't develop his board further. Without the manadenial Lands has, he'll still easily get to three creatures, meaning you take a ton more damage for forcing him to do something that he should be doing anyway - not overextend into your sweepers (That being said, there are certain Goblins-draws where Tabernacle would be sweet, Lackey->SGC in particular. More Firespout/Pyroclasm would be even better, though).

I'll take care of the tags, good idea.

[Rico Suave]

A few of us Americans are fans of yours.

We've been testing this deck, and it has performed very well against Zoo. The interaction of Maze and Firespout is quite potent against aggro. Previously one of the biggest problems facing a control deck was that it would run out of answers before the Zoo player ran out of threats. Maze forcing them to overextend into a Firespout, however, is back-breaking.

And with Treasure Hunt taking advantage of Maze, the deck is quite clever.

Now that M.Tutor is getting banned, previously difficult matches like Reanimator and ANT are now on their way out and there is a lot of incentive to play this deck. We still found it to struggle against aggro-control decks like Merfolk though. Wasteland puts the deck in an awkward position, since it can no longer rely on Maze of Ith to make the aggro player overextend anymore.

My hat is off to you for yet another fine Eternal deck though.

[klaus]

Gotta say, I dig the deck's style!
I guess New Horizons, the new kid on the block, should be addressed somewhere, since it's probably a rather tough MU, circumventing both - Firespout and Maze, via tutorable Wastelands, while being able to stifle potential EEs.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Hi Rico, nice to see someone still remebers us :D
Zoo is actually one of the harder aggro-matchups simply because Price is so good against this deck. Wait till you test against blue aggro-control, that's even more fun ;)

@Jaschar: New Horizons should be fairly ok, if they spent all their manadenial defending their creatures, your draw-engines will just take over, usually. After that the additional removal you draw plus Jace (bouncing) into Forbid should clean the board quite rapidly. I haven't played this matchup much yet (more the original Stifle-Bant), but anything that drops non-shroud creatures has such a hard time dealing with the draw-engine coupled with the oodles of removal that I'm not afraid of Horizons at all. It all comes down to the fact that Horizons assumes they will manascrew their opponent at least slightly, which is highly unlikely between 25 manasources, Mazes they kind of have to Waste with only 13 creatures and Stifle having to pull double duty against EE. That means they either have to try to kill you fast (very difficult for the deck as they're all about one big threat) or Jace (the card) will just allow you to take over between Bouncing, Brainstorming and finding Forbid. C-Wish->Wing Shards is also quite insane against this kind of deck.

/edit: Just played another five-game set against Maxim (me playing Horizons, him playing Jace). In the end, Horizons went 1:4 against Jace, which felt pretty much right from the interaction between the two decks. Horizons is really slow to get its beat on (meaning Jace has a lot of time to set up defenses) and mana-screwing Jace is quite impossible, especially as Mazes make throwing away your Wastelands pretty painful.
Now, while these are clearly not statistically significant numbers, trends start to reveal themselves (as in we get to see "what matters"). Turns out, the only thing Horizons does that really matters is KotR. The one game I managed to win with Horizons I drew 3 KotR while Maxim, arguably unnecessarily, StPed an early Terravore and I then ate his Mazes with repeated Wastelands. Whenever Knight didn't survive for more than a turn, the result was basically a one-sided slaughter. So "fight about the Knight" seems to be the right gameplan from the Jace-side. Also: The deck has a really hard time beating Forbid. There is just so much other stuff you need to Force.

[FloSun]

hey, i really like this deck.
it is exactly what i was searching for.

i built the deck and tested it against some of my friends (decks: zoo, goblins, landstill)

at first i made several misplays, but after a couple of matches i learned to play the deck more efficient.
jace is just so good, you almost can't lose the game once he is online!
i think the deck is very strong, if you manage to play it.... i don't think, that i can play it as good as carsten, but i got some good results in testing against the mentioned decks.

PS: If enough people show interest, I'll try to write a guide on how to play each matchup. This is very difficult to simply write down, though, as minor decisions have a huge impact and therefore nothing can replace some solid playtesting.

are there already enough interested people? ;)
I'd like to read that guide =)

[K_Rot_T]

A really really fine looking Deck.
I just have one question: you always say that Maze keeps you from getting colorscrewed by Wasteland. But if Maze would be another Basic-/Dual-/Fetchland, wouldn't that make you safe from colorscrew too? I hope you know what I mean.

I thought hard about the Wish Board, but honestly didn't come up with much, maybe Consume the Meek as a Wishable Firespout+X....but stil,l you already got lots of creature removel and the card isn't really that great.

So thx for the Deck.

[Monochrome]

This deck looks pretty interesting to me as well. Between CounterTop Thopters, Hanni's U/W/x CounterTop Walker, the original Ultimate Walker list, and this, I'm having a rough time trying to decide on what kind of control deck I want to run.

What do you think this deck offers over the others I mentioned? Better match ups overall, better match ups against the decks that matter, or something else?

[deadlock]

Very interesting deck, i like how people start to explore control again: Thopters, Ubg Landstill and now this - great!

Two questions:
- Ugb LS runs Deed as sweeper of choice, compared to your EE (and Spout), what are your thoughts on that?
- What do think of a single Loam as you run Maze in addition to the usual Mishras / Ruins. It would strengthen your manbase against Wasteland too.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@FloSun: Thanks :) I'll try to get to work on the matchup guide soon, lots of stuff to do fo
r university, though.

@K_Rot_T: Sure, replacing Mazes with Fetches/Duals/Basics would make color-screwing practially impossible. Those lands don't stop creatures from attacking you, though. ;) The Maze-defense is one of the things that makes the deck insane against most creature-decks, the side-effect that they usually work as a way to protect your mana is just bonus.

What do you think this deck offers over the others I mentioned? Better match ups overall, better match ups against the decks that matter, or something else?

1.) Absoute brutality against anything with creatures. Maze + EE is just insane against most creature-based decks. Many of them don't run Wastelands, at which point it becomes practically impossible for them to win. In particular, JaceTM is, to my knowledge, the only control-deck that has even to favorable pre-SB matchups against Vial-Aggro and Zoo.
2.) The deck has 4 Jace and Jace is simply absurd. I've lost two games so far through testing and tournaments in which I got to keep Jace for more than one untap. I have raced the CA generated by an active Survival multiple times and weathered the full four Ringleaders in Goblins resolving with him, for example.
3.) You laugh at Counterbalance in most decks. Most CB-decks can only control the 1 and 2 slot with consistency, which means you can still Maze, Forbid, CWish to buy time till you find one of your four Explosives or drop Jace - and Jace is simply stronger than active CB-Top.
4.) Treasure Hunt. Having a card that will usually draw you at least three cards for U1 and doesn't ask you to get ahead on the board first is pretty filthy.
5.) Few actual bad matchups. Dredge, LoamPox with 16 LD and fast combo with protection are the only things I'd really prefer dodging when playing this.

@deadlock:
Deed: I played decks with Deed before and it always felt clunky. Deed also doesn't allow you to kill Planeswalkers and doesn't give you the sick Ruins-lock. EE is faster and more versatile than Deed in most cases. I feel that not running four EE in control-decks that don't have CBs is a mistake due to how good EE is against anything else. That being said, in certain metagames, modifying the manabase and running Deed instead of the Firespouts would make sense (few Zoo/Goblins and many Uwg aggro-control decks/fatty decks).

Loam: Loam would be great in the deck but isn't worth screwing up the manabase. I'd rather run Crucible, if I wanted land-recursion. If you go for the Deed-modification just mentioned and therefore run more green sources anyway, a singleton Loam is probably very good. (We tested a version that used Intuition-Loam instead of Treasure Hunt and using Loam to fuel Forbid is pretty sick. It wasn't really worth the extra effort in the manabase as well as the slower flow and vulnerability to post-SB graveyard-hate though).

I'm happy to see all this interest, keep the questions coming :D

[deadlock]

First of thanks for the quick answer!
I see your point concerning Deed and Loam, i feel a little uncomfortable with the manabase though.
Definitly keep the 4 Mazes, this is hot tech, but i would either concentrate on Uwr (currently prefered) or Ugb.

Ugb gives nice utility from the board and has Deed and Loam.
However Uwr gives you very strong maindeck cards in STP and Spout and live gain in the board.

What do you think of this manabase:

// Lands
3 [B] Tundra
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [FUT] Tolaria West
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [MM] Dust Bowl
3 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
3 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [OD] Plains (4)
1 [ROE] Mountain (1)
1 [MI] Island (1)
1 [B] Underground Sea
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)

EE at 5 is not important i think, the single USea allows for EE @ 4 and a single Extirpate as Whish target. Plateau isnt needed either, just for very few board cards like Pulse of the Field. Having UU for Jace is more important.
Also Play at least one Crypt in the board, as you are already running Tolaria West. A single Chalice is an option too (against combo), but i dont know if it screws oneself too much.

Sidenote: As i see it Treasure Hunt ans Standstill compete for the same slot as a second draw engine beside Jace. I havent played with TH and it could very well be that it is (far?) superior, however one should at least keep Standstill in mind as a possibility in that slot.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

First of thanks for the quick answer!
I see your point concerning Deed and Loam, i feel a little uncomfortable with the manabase though.
Definitly keep the 4 Mazes, this is hot tech, but i would either concentrate on Uwr (currently prefered) or Ugb.

Ugb gives nice utility from the board and has Deed and Loam.
However Uwr gives you very strong maindeck cards in STP and Spout and live gain in the board.

What do you think of this manabase:

// Lands
3 [B] Tundra
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
1 [FUT] Tolaria West
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [MM] Dust Bowl
3 [B] Volcanic Island
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
3 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [OD] Plains (4)
1 [ROE] Mountain (1)
1 [MI] Island (1)
1 [B] Underground Sea
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (1)

EE at 5 is not important i think, the single USea allows for EE @ 4 and a single Extirpate as Whish target. Plateau isnt needed either, just for very few board cards like Pulse of the Field. Having UU for Jace is more important.
Also Play at least one Crypt in the board, as you are already running Tolaria West. A single Chalice is an option too (against combo), but i dont know if it screws oneself too much.

Sidenote: As i see it Treasure Hunt ans Standstill compete for the same slot as a second draw engine beside Jace. I havent played with TH and it could very well be that it is (far?) superior, however one should at least keep Standstill in mind as a possibility in that slot.

The manabase you suggest looks fine, but isn't really all that much of an improvement imo. You still have as many non-basic lands and no additional Fetches (the 8th fetch is what I'd like to get in there most, actually). More Tundras/Volcanics actually don't provide real benefits, as you have basics to assure that you can't ever lose all your colored sources and drawing the duals is not a very large factor (especially as you don't really need double-non-blue mana for anything Wish-bullets aside). If you are looking for greater color-consistency additional Fetches are they way to go.
I rarely ever have trouble getting URW together and having only a single Sea means you lose if they manage to waste it before you can cast your Extirpate (either because you drew it or because you need to set it up early because you don't have more Fetchlands but need the mana for the CWish). As for the Tropical, it's not meant to allow you to EE for five, it's there because without it Firespout often becomes a liability against decks with flyers (all kinds of Faeries most of the time but most importantly Kira). The benefits the deck accumulates through these two additional Islands that happen to produce another color largely outway the minor cost in secondary color consistency as compared to running more Tundras/Volcs. As for the Plateau, I originally didn't have one in the deck but through playing found that I often wanted to set up my first lands as Tundra, Volc, Plateau to make sure I couldn't be screwed out of either of my removal colors by a single Wasteland. I agree that having another blue source in that slot would be kind of nice, but so far I've been very happy with the Plateau.

As for the Standstill thing, the deck would probably work ok with them, simply because you're already well set-up to abuse them, but I simply hate carddraw that doesn't work when you're behind, because those are usually the times when you need carddrawing most. The fact that half the other decks in the meta abuse it better than you do doesn't help, either. Treasure Hunt is, imo, miles better than Standstill and I'd adopt Hanni's Predict engine before running Standstill myself.

[FloSun]

Yesterday I totally got smashed by a monored burn deck. (lavamancer was the only creature in his deck)

I didn't found out how to beat it...

Has anyone an idea??

[Hanni]

After looking at your list, Mon, I'd highly recommend 4 Sensei's Divining Top. I'm not sure how you've felt about that card in testing, but I know from my experiences with other control decks, Top has always been the best card in my deck. I always want to see one in my opener, it's almost always my best first turn play, and it wins me games.

I would think that in your deck, where you attempt to abuse a draw engine dependant upon the top cards of your library (just like Predict for me), that Top would be incredibily important.

Other than that, I just want to ask: how has Firespout been? Have you ever found yourself wanting them to be Wrath of God's instead?