CAB - JaceTM

[Philipp2293]

Do you still think Extirpate is needed as wishtarget, now with survival gone? I'd feel pretty happy about a 2nd basic island, as this would enable me to cast Jace from just basics under a wastelock.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I don't think Extirpate is utterly necessary any more, though it is rather important against the Loam-decks. I'm quite sure you want a fourth color dual in the deck, though, to set EE @ 4 when necessary, so I don't think cutting the Extirpate really lets you replace the Sea with the Island you want. I'd rather cut one of the Tundras and then consider removing the Pulse from the board (depending on how much Zoo and Burn you expect to see).

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Sorry for the double-post, just wanted to mention that, while I didn't write the matchup-guide for the thread, it's now available on SCG:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...with_Jace.html

Let me know what you think, especially what was good and what you didn't like. Wanna make these as enjoyable as possible after all. As for questions, ask away!

[Catitas]

// Lands
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
2 [TE] Wasteland
1 [A] Mountain (1)
1 [A] Underground Sea
4 [FUT] Grove of the Burnwillows
3 [A] Tundra
3 [B] Volcanic Island
1 [A] Plains (2)
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [A] Island (1)

// Spells
4 [FD] Engineered Explosives
2 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [ZEN] Punishing Fire
2 [EX] Forbid
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [WWK] Treasure Hunt
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [A] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 4 [PS] Meddling Mage
SB: 2 [ZEN] Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 2 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [TE] Perish
SB: 1 [PT] Nature's Ruin

I remember back in the extended days where wishes were good, that people only played them when there was a non defined meta so i tryed without them... I also thought about urborg tomb of yawgmoth to make mazes better...

[Spigore]

After some testingy vs Tribal and Zoo, I quicky switched back to the triple Firespout.
Indeed, Maze of Ith & AjaniV is a no-go!

Carsten, although I haven't played the Grove/Fire combo yet, it seems kinda mana expensive and slower than running Factories and Spouts. Sure it is recurring damage and it does keep little critters off the board; Firespout kinda sweeps all...
Besides that, Factory doesn't need Spout to be effective, P. Fire needs the Grove to even get online.
I'm quite fond on Spout in the current meta you are describing in your SCG-article.

Imho, I would stay with Mishra's Factories as a 3/3 blocker backed up with Firespouts for the board cleaning.
It just seems so much more stable and less fragile.

Still loving the deck, very versatile!

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

@Catitas: In a version without Wish, I'd definitly want 1-2 Needles MD to help against Waste-locks and similar stuff. The first card that I think can go is the fourth Fire, it went to the SB because you don't really need four against anything that isn't Tribal and I think it should stay there even without Wish. You'll also want something along the lines of Vindicate, Bant Charm or Ratchet Bomb in the SB (some way to kill Needle outside of EE is important because opposing Needles usually hit EE first, at which point you'll have a really hard time dealing with artifacts/enchantments). I'd also replace the Meddling Mages with a mix of Spell Snare, Spell Pierce, Negate and Vendilion Clique. As good against combo but better against Control and, in particular, Zoo. You really want to cheaper counters that hit PoP there.

@Spigore: Fire/Grove and Firespout-Mishra versions play slightly differently. In the Firespout-version, anything that leads the opponent to overextend is really good (because you have seven mass-removals). Mishra does this by holding back single small creatures, and Maze obviously does. That way Firespout leads to extremely advantageous blow-outs, whose card-advantage you ride for the win. The Fire-Grove version on the other hand doesn't plan to ride card-advantage as its gameplan (though it can do so perfectly well), at least against decks where Firespout would be useful, instead you gain inevitability. If the game keeps going, you'll eventually lock them out of any chance of ever getting a meaningful attackstep through Fire/Grove. Both plans are equally valid, but in my mind Fire/Grove has a few decisive advantages:

- It allows you to do something really unfair other than Jace. Assuming you don't get Wastelanded, simply having a starting hand that contains land, land, Grove, Punishing Fire means Tribal usually scoops. You kill their first guy on two and another one every turn thereafter. Being able to do something so unfair it just wins the game is one of the big things control-decks are missing in Legacy, at least at a relevant cost. Picking up random games because you opened with a certain combination of cards in hand is worth quite a bit in the longterm.

- You're less reliant on actual card-advantage. Sure, every time you buyback Fire to kill something you create card-advantage, but that isn't the important point. Because of the inevitability Fire/Grove grants you by allowing you to play an infinite number of removal-spells in your deck, you're quite capable of winning even if a (Weenie)creature-deck massively outdraws you as long as you have enough mana online. Immagine Goblins gets to resolve all four of its Ringleaders during the game. You can definitely win against that with the Firespout-version, but the fact that the opponent will only play a creature or two a turn (due to mana-demands) means that you'll quite possibly have to sweep before everything is deployed, leaving you hoping to find another sweeper pronto. With Fire on the other hand, by the time they have so many Ringleaders online, you'll often manage to hold their numbers down, turn after turn, killing the same amount of creatures they can play. As long as the board is stable when the Ringleadered Goblins come down, it remains stable.

- Fire/Grove is a lot better against non-aggro decks. Punishing Fire kills Jace and Mishras, fuels Forbid and is likely even a more reliable kill than Mishra against opposing control-decks. Firespout does none of the above.

- Your removal is cheaper. While it hits only one creature, Fire starts killing stuff earlier, which can be important against either mana denial or when you have a bunch of Mazes in hand you want to deploy but also want to stop taking damage. As such I wouldn't exactly call it slow. Sure, it kills only one creature at a time, but it does so earlier, before things haven gotten as far out of hand.

- Instant speed. No more annoying Warchief or Vial shenanigans at my eot to hit me on a simingly clear board. Also: no porting me out of it.

Advantages of Firespout:

- Better against turn 1 Lackey on the draw.

- Sweeps most of Zoo's board, Fire is somewhat lackluster

- can kill Lords when there are two of them out

- doesn't need help to deal with a bunch of creatures

The reason I'm convinced Grove is better is because of the inevitability it creates in so many matchups. Not having Mishra isn't a big deal to me, most of the time it dies to removal anyway when it gets activated and Punishing Fire mimicks Firespouts CA-generation to a surprising point due to the StP-synergy. Finally, while Punishing Fire clearly isn't a great card on its own, it still gets the job done reasonably well. Enough creatures die to 2 damage that you usually get to pay 2 to kill something, a trade you're fine with, particularly because of the Mazes and once you start buying it back, even if only with StPs, you rapidly approach the value of a Firespout (hitting more than three creatures at once is comparatively rare even with Mazes in my experience). Once you factor in the wider applicability of Fire/Grove, I think we have a clear winner.

With all of that being said, this is only my point of view. If you are more comfortable playing the Spout-version, go for it, you know what fits your playstyle best. Happy you enjoy the deck! (Still, try the Grove/Fire-combo for a few games. Trust me you're missing out on some sick fun)

[Spigore]

Hey Carsten,

I see you made another listing on deckcheck.org.
Must say that I kinda like the Enlightened Tutor to Canonist tech in the sideboard. Looks very nice on paper, have you pulled it off or playtested it?
And you definately have to speak up about that White Sun's Zenith in the board, looks interesting too, and might serve even as a third win condition. How's it working out for you so far?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Well, I knew there was going to be a little more combo than usually in the tournament this time so I wanted some additional form of defense. While Spell Pierces are better there if you get the set in because of their flexibilty (I think), I didn't have room and just having ETutor and Canonist means I get to keep at least three pieces of GY-hate (Crypt, Tutor, Extirpate). Never drew either and only played against combo (Solidarity) once - winning a 45 min game 1 (Forbid + Fire is some good), so there isn't all that much to talk about there. I did however Wish for Tutor more than once in testing. Wish for EE can be some good against aggro, another cute benefit of using this SB configuration. The one thing I'm going to change is turn the Crypt into a Spellbomb, makes it better when boarded in against Loam and you have already dealt with the Wastelands in some other way (or against Vine-decks that don't happen to hit the Vines). Cantripping also means you get another card that does something useful (however minor) against combo.

As for the Zenith, if you want a SB wincon I think this is it. It delivers a lot of bang for the buck by producing a really fast clock lategame. Actually haven't needed it yet, during the tournament Jace took all the games. I could have won one game off of it a few turns earlier but decided to rather get a Wing Shards to make sure my opponent would never be able to attack my Jace, which was at 7 counters at that point (in testing we usually just scoop things up once it's clear Jace is going to win, more time to get more games in so actually winning doesn't happen that often). Needing a backup wincon just doesn't come up all that often but I like the ability to end games faster than ramping Jace and waiting for them to deck would (when you cast it, it should usually be a two turn clock not counting the turn you Wish for it). As such Zenith should help quite a bit if you have a tendency to time out with the deck.

PS: Oh yeah, my next article will include a report for this tournament in the bonus-section :)

[GGoober]

I can chime in on Firespout v.s. PFires/Groves from testing done in the past. As much as Firespout is well-accepted to be good against tribal, I do not feel that Firespout grants you the trump card unless you follow up with a controllock e.g. Jace or Countertop. Firespout is a 1-turn solution to a messy board, which is why it's that good, however, against decks like Goblins and Merfolks, if you do not rebuild fast, they will rebuild very fast assuming they are not dumb enough to go 100% out against a Urx control deck.

PFires/Groves although being an untraditional approach, is much better against tribal for the various reasons:
1) It will hit any target usually (except double lorded merfolks)
2) Once it starts going, you will always keep check on the board, hitting only the most dangerous targets. They can rebuild, but you will always have card-advantage (they spent 1 card playing their dude, you're using the same card to deal with the new threat). I'll go as much to say that tribal cannot beat PFires/Groves unless they beat you fast enough, so as long as you stop the initial onslaugh e.g. Lackey, PFires will lock up games that Firespout is unable to do so.

Also PFires is much stronger against the control mirror.

People can argue that Firespout hits 3-toughness dudes, this is relevant but only really towards Zoo, where Firespout is also usually too slow. PFires is not that great against Zoo, but regardless, you should be boarding out both PFires and Firespout against Zoo. I've seen good Zoo players just play around a Firespout letting you take 3 damage a turn from a single-cat when the bad control player is trying to wait for the zoo player to play more 1-drop to x-1 the Zoo player. But when you play Firespout with Countertop, that becomes a very solid strategy against Zoo, decks without Countertop can't really use the power of firespout as well as Countertop decks can since they cannot lock out the mid-late post-spout games.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

While I agree Punishing Fire is much stronger against Tribal than Firespout is (for all the reasons you gave), Firespout is actually excellent against Zoo in CAB Jace. Turn 3 is rarely too slow and, different from other control-decks, the Mazes in CAB Jace force even good players that try to ration their treats to overextend into Firespout if they want to win.

[The Treefolk Master]

Newsflash: Casting a wished-for 11 mana White Sun's Zenith when you'r opponent just fowed (becoming handless) your fow to force through a needle on maze (other needle on jace) in order for his vendilion to get to attack causes him to become extremely angry, critisize your deck and quit.

The card is freaking nuts.

[Spigore]

That's quite a nice turn of the table.
I've had some very nice plays with White Sun's Zenith as well. I think it's definately worth having a slot in the board.
Negate in the SB is a charm as well, when going into lategame it really outshines Spell Pierce/Snare.
Unfortunately, haven't been able to playtest the Canonist vs combo yet.

P.Fire/Grove is as discussed in most cases better than Firespout. As mentioned, end of turn vialed in creatures don't get any more hits and in D&T it really outshines Firespout. Loving it.

Although I know it's not a very heavily played deck, I'm afraid Sneaky-Show is a hard matchup;
Though the Mazes can net some creatures, it won't be very effective vs Progenitus or Emrakul's triggered ability.
I'm not sure if our counterpackage is enough to win 'counterwars' versus 4 Daze 4 FoW.
Besides that, is wishing into Wing Shards fast enough to prevent the big creatures from hitting you for lethal?


Will be taking the deck to a 20-30 player tournament on the 26th this month. Definately will make a short write-up.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Newsflash: Casting a wished-for 11 mana White Sun's Zenith when you'r opponent just fowed (becoming handless) your fow to force through a needle on maze (other needle on jace) in order for his vendilion to get to attack causes him to become extremely angry, critisize your deck and quit.

The card is freaking nuts.

Lol! Excellent :mrburnshands: Thanks for the laugh!

@Spigore: Looking forward to the report. If you're expecting a lot of Sneak and Tell you could either run a few additional Spell Pierce/REB in the board or Retribution of the Meek. Happens to be quite useful against Loam, Horizons etc at the same time.

[The Treefolk Master]

@Spigore: Looking forward to the report. .

That

If you're expecting a lot of Sneak and Tell you could either run a few additional Spell Pierce/REB in the board or Retribution of the Meek. Happens to be quite useful against Loam, Horizons etc at the same time

Retribution of the Meek is a sorcery. If you already knew this and you're proposing it as a non-wishable answer, wouldn't Ensnaring Bridge be better?

I agree, the negates from the sideboard are very good. What is found a little underwhelming is E. Tutor. My meta is really heavy on the affinity and elf aggro side (weird, I know), so I've been running 1 Fracturing Gust (still testing, also good vs. stax, it's been good up to know) and 1 Tsabo's Decree (OMG so much win in one card).

@Mon: If dredge is such a bad matchup, woulnd't it be profitable to add a bit more hate?

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Yep, I'm perfectly aware Retribution of the Meek is a sorcery. It's the perfect removal to board in though because it takes care of everything PFire has problems with. The problem with Ensnaring Bridge is you really don't want that as your out to Progenitus from the NoPro decks, they seem to always board in a few Grips because they usually don't have much else to replace the removal they run.
Also: Killing Knight with EE kills Bridge, which sucks, and you often have seven cards in hand, making Bridge really stop nothing but Prog but Retribution also cleans a squad of Goyfs and Knights.

The Tutor is there because I needed room and it can find Needle, Canonist and Crypt, leaving you with a little more room (and the ability to kind of Wish for Needle postboard). It's a fine card but far from necessary imo.

As for Tsabo's Decree, do you really need that? If I live to the point where I can Wish for it, they're usually blown out by PFire or something similar already, otherwise I'd be dead. It is however a great answer to a massive Glimpse-turn that doesn't lead to a win, I'll give you that.
In general both Fracturing Gust and Decree seem like nail-in-the-coffin-type cards, which on the one hand is obviously powerful but I'm not sure it's needed. I always avoided them because they're too slow to help you survive their really dangerous early draws, lategame has always been all about me having fun. If they work for you, excellent, and good to know in case I have to play in that kind of meta at some point.

As to Dredge, well, with the amount of play that deck sees I'm ready to gamble dodging it because otherwise I'd use a ton of space for cards I don't want to bring in anywhere else (Needles are far better against Loam than non-Extirpate GY-hate and having multiple Extirpates makes a second Sea necessary). If you see a lot of it, by all means increase the gy-hate count. I'd be using Nihil Spellbombs, far better against Loam than Crypt because you can cycle it if Loam isn't online but you're under pressure and probably as good against Dredge.

[The Treefolk Master]

Gust and Decree have both saved my ass a couple of times. I'm not sure (yet) if they are win more cards, but I'll let you know how my testing goes.

When the 3rd volcanic arrives (really delayed, not really sure what happened) and my groves arrive (should come any day as from tomorrow), I'll take this to my local tournament.

[The Treefolk Master]

Saw your report in SCG, kudos on beating solidarity.

[Philipp2293]

Thanks for the report. Seems like you didn't have your brightest day, but we're all just humans. I think I might grab this deck, as Wasteland is really underplayed in my meta right now, and combo is held back by countertop variants.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Wow, I forgot to link to the article with the bonus-report here.^^ To correct that:

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...ol_Rising.html

@ Treefolk Master: Thanks :) Beating Solidarity definitely was the highlight of the day, no question *g* Did you get your cards yet?

@Philipp2293: That sounds like a prime-environment to whip this out! Be prepared to face more Wastelands and Pithing Needles soon, at least that's what happened where I play - before that have fun cruisin' *g*.

[The Treefolk Master]

The Grove's, Fires and Wishes arrived today. No sign from the volcanic island though; I'm getting a bit scared now :S (I hate my country's mail)

Once it gets here (IF it gets here), I'll be playing the deck.