TLDR: Turbo-Eldrazi won a Mox Jet after going 6-0-1 in the swiss
So I've been working on this project for many months now. The basic principle is to build insane advantage from cloudposts. Stomp the bejesus out of anything blue, compete on fair terms with aggro, and mise like a beast against waste recursion.
Tragically I've found MTG the Source to be rather whiny when it comes to innovative decks. There are individuals here, often softly spoken and lurking who are strong players with great ideas, but the majority are trolls. A great example is like here where we get great quotes from people on the subject of a tangential form of this deck who have opinions like "if this deck ever T8s any major Legacy tourney, I will be truly shocked."
Well be shocked. Shocked that good innovators who are good players can stomp a field with what you call jank. Recently I've been posting and conversing on Italian mtg/legacy forums here simply because they're more open minded and less petty than at least the vocal trolls on MTGthesource. With that gripe aside, here's my report for your enjoyment!
// Lands
4 [MR] Cloudpost
4 [TSP] Vesuva
4 [U] Tropical Island
1 [IN] Island (2)
1 [WWK] Eye of Ugin
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [SOM] Glimmerpost
1 [JGC] Flooded Strand
// Creatures
2 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 [M11] Primeval Titan
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
// Spells
3 [ROE] All Is Dust
4 [ZEN] Expedition Map
4 [FNM] Thirst for Knowledge
4 [AQ] Candelabra of Tawnos
4 [V09] Sensei's Divining Top
3 [GP] Repeal
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [M10] Ponder
3 [UL] Crop Rotation
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 3 [ZEN] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 3 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 4 [R] Energy Flux
SB: 4 [SOK] Pithing Needle
You'll have to forgive me, but my notes seemed to have been forgotten/lost/trashed/neglected somewhere during top 8. So this is all from memory and without details including names. Sorry to all the folk I forget your names! An interesting quirk is that I lost every die roll that day. Even through the Top 8. I'm glad I wasn't playing Mana Crypt!
Round 1: Zoo
Game 1 has him racing me with a nacatl and a qasali pridemage. I end up having to eot crop rotate for a glimmerpost to stay above the 4 life fireblast range, untap and play Primeval Titan which gains me another 14 and then its just scoop time.
Game 2 Ends up with me gaining 52 life from Glimmerposts, having a turn where I cast 2 Primeval Titans into an Emrakul the next turn.
2-0-0
Round 2: Bant
Game 1 has him playing goyfs into a jace,while I have a glorious turn where I cast Kozilek, All is Dust, and Emrakul in the same turn
Game 2 is similar shenanigans. He tutors a Progenitus into play, but I gain enough health for progenitus to not be lethal in two swings, and then gain 14 life with an emrakul in play.
4-0-0
Round 3: Control Thresh
Game 1 has him land a Crucible with wasteland on turn 4. Scoooop
Game 2 is back to normal business as usual against blue. I think I cast 2 spells this whole game. 1 exploration map, and 1 emrakul.
Game 3 is needle on wasteland being a champ, and on turn 6 I cast emrakul who is delayed seriously through multiple stifles.
6-1-0
Round 4: DnT (later play in Finals)
Game 1 is normal Eldrazi shenanigans against non-blue. I cast an all is dust into emrakul, which is the fastest way to game two ever.
Game 2 He jokes that he just wants to go to game three. I end up getting large amounts of propagandas but he has large amounts of Leonin Arbiters, the only card that annoys me the entire day. I make a rather large misplay of not floating mana of a cloudpost from a rishadan port and am caught helpless against a vial'd leonin arbitor. I have to pay 6 mana to fetch a single cloudpost but it is futile against the wave of white wheenie bees.
Game 3 I am able to power out Ugin through a Primeval Titan into Infinite turns of Emrakuls
8-2-0
Round 5: Belcher
Game 1 I lose without getting a turn. hrmph.
Game 2 I play needle on belcher, to which he goes for warrens, and then I play a tabernacle and say go much to his disappointment.
Game 3 Has him play Xantid Swarm go, me go Pithing Needle on belcher go. He storms to 8 for warrens, holding a pyroblast. 16 guys means 2 turns for me. I have to make a serious gamble about fetches versus glimmerpost life gain. It ends up working out as I'm able to expedition map for tabernacle on the pivotal turn. He explains to me afterwards that if he had just storm'd with the pyroblast he had me lethal as I ended the game with 1 life. I would've played differently of course, but this is very likely the case.
10-3-0
Round 6: Discard B/W
I offer a draw to this guy even though I'm paired down. His breakers go up, and I can still draw in. He's not interested so we play. There are many hymn of tourachs and gerard's verdicts hurled at me and vindicates on cloudposts that make me frowny in the face, but playing straight lands and good use of tops end up with kozilek hitting play just from raw drawing him. When he scoops up for game 1 I offer the draw again and he accepts.
Round 7: ID with guy I never get to play in Top 8 nor find out what he's playing
Top 8. wooo.
Quarterfinals: Michael Caffrey with Lands.dec
This matchup is horrific for me overall. Any loam recursion is just bad bad bad.
Game1:
At this point I think the entire world knows I'm playing Eldrazi in top 8, so Michael keeps a hand of 2 wastelands 1 Ghost Quarter and not much else. Unfortunately I keep a hand of 5 lands, top, and candelabra. and keep drawing mana. I notice he gets extremely upset quite easily as he draws more lands, in a land deck..., and while I don't antagonize him, I take note to take any advantages of self-tilt he puts himself on. The game drags on for 8 turns of me just drawing thirst into lands and more lands while Michael draws lands into more lands. Unfortunately my lands tutor for win conditions, and while I am carefully planning out my winning last turn, Michael angrily scoops up his board.
Game 2:
I keep a hand of Mana, 2 Pithing Needles, and a top. He plays Ghost quarter-go. I play Glimmerpost -> Pithing Needle. He responds and blows up Glimmerpost so I get my glorious island and play Top. 2 mana on turn 1! I never thought it was possible with this deck! The Top finds a 3rd needle and soon there are three needles in play naming Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, and Rishadan Port. This makes Michael go rather ballistic. Primeval Titan ends up making short work of the match. Rather tragically Michael won't shake my hand after the game and storms off. shame.
Semifinals!
Merfolk. Oh Lordie.dec
Game 1:
Has him with an AEther Vial and a standstill down with a wasteland. Normal frown-town situation. However, Vesuva copying Wasteland ends up forcing him to use his Wasteland, a response with crop rotation doesn't find him any forces and I go from 3 mana to 7 quickly. I repeal a Reejery to buy a turn, to which he goes total Merfolk-bonkers and plays 2 reejerys, a lord, and a cursecatcher on the same turn to beat for 10 and a massive lethal next turn. Unfortunately the next turn is All is Dust turn and the Blue men float to the bottom of the sea. Glimmerposts make up the health deficit while I find Kozilek, which ends things quite quickly.
Game 2:
Has him with an AEther Vial again, but no standstill. An early Propaganda keeps his bees off my face for the most part until I hardcast a Kozilek on turn 5. He has squeezed out a Back to Basics which is all sorts of awkward, but I have a big man on campus. I attack with Kozilek and he ends up losing his vial and all his lands, and trades 4 lord'd Silvergill Adepts to trade with Kozilek. We then have a rather long standoff where he can't attack into 2 Propaganda's with anything and I have no mana because of B2B. Vesuva'd Islands end up saving me for several turns of untappable actions, where a top ends up finding me 2 candelabras. The 1st Candelabra gets countered but the 2nd sticks and that's the end of that.
My opponent was a great sport and this game was a nice polar comparative to my previous sour opponent.
Finals! Zomg Lotus and Moxen for all! Rematch with DnT. The only deck in the entire event I really don't want to play again, but I'm still confident I can beat it. He offers to split (He gets the Lotus, I get the invitational points and the Jet) but I want that lotus!
Game 1: There are some fair exchanges, I let a primeval titan and a kozilek get swords'd simply because once the inertia starts rolling on this deck no amount of swords will ever stop it. I end up gaining 26 health from all the swords and glimmerposts and ending the game at 8 health. White beatdown is annoying!
Game 2: The lack of wastes he had in our swiss rounds find their way into game two and three. He has two wastes on cloudposts before they untap in this game. Propaganda's are in hand, but too late to save from mortal death.
Game 3: I end up punting rather subtly but ultimately proves to be my death. I lead with Trop -> Ponder -> pass -> CP -> CP into 2x Candelabra and a Primeval titan without the 2 mana to pay for Leonin Arbiter. If I had led with CP -> CP -> Trop -> Ponder cloudposts I would've had the two extra mana to pay and the game was entirely mine. Unfortunately He swords's my Titan without him able to attack again and my remaining 3 draws are all lands.
Good Games! I get a Mox Jet in the end, and I only miss a Lotus by a misplay on my part. I look forward to my future events at Vestal, NY Jupiter Games and elsewhere!
BONUS ROUND:
Vesuva copy highlights!
* Opponent's Misty Rainforest to get green mana (round against Ning)
*Opponent's Wasteland to force him using his, followed by my own crop rotation on the targeted land, getting a cloudpost, and playing a vesuva from hand to copy it. From zero Cloudposts facing off a wasteland to two in play! =D
*My own Island to get multiple mana under Back to Basics. Hurray copyable attributes!
*Opponent's Creeping Tar Pit of FAIL! I was told by someone I played in the Swiss that my Top 8 Opponent was playing Landstill. I think "great! I'll keep a land heavy hand without any business." Unfortunately, I ended up figuring out that the person who told me my opponent was playing Landstill was actually a friend of my opponent and was giving me complete opposite advice to make me crash and burn. In a large twist of fate though, my opponent who had scouted me kept a 2 wasteland, 1 ghost quarter hand, which NORMALLY would be amazing, but because I had taken the thwartive advice of my opponent's comrade, I had kept a hand with 5 lands. I copied the Creeping Tar Pit with the thought that I would be racing my opponent under Standstill. Whether through miseing lucksackery or karma, I end up pulling off the win though without ever activating my Creeping Tar Pit of fail. A warning boys and girls! Scouting can lead to dangerous results! Use with caution!
I've had a few people request it, so I posted a link to the primer I wrote on Turbo-Drazi on Tipo1.it's website. The deck has been an ongoing project of mine for many months. While it has been often shot down on these forums as being garbage, the Italians have considerable constructive feedback and I suggest channeling positive efforts there.
Last edited by Rock Lee; 02-14-2011 at 12:31 PM.
Nice, huge congrats to the finish!
It's good to see that innovation hasnt died out and leads to good results as well, nice work. Tinkered myself often to build such a deck but ended up unsatisifed. Seems like you made a stable list here, even if I dislike that ammount of non-basics, but they are necessary i think.
Well done overall
Wow. I am blown away. Sweet report. I do have one quibble:
That's not really a punt, more like second-guessing with the benefit of hindsight. You can't know how the board will develop exactly and leading with trop-> ponder is a perfectly reasonable T1 play instead of delaying that till turn 3 and leading double Cloudpost.I end up punting rather subtly but ultimately proves to be my death. I lead with Trop -> Ponder -> pass -> CP -> CP into 2x Candelabra and a Primeval titan without the 2 mana to pay for Leonin Arbiter. If I had led with CP -> CP -> Trop -> Ponder cloudposts I would've had the two extra mana to pay and the game was entirely mine.
It really wasn't hindsight. Especially against that matchup I'm in zero rush whatsoever, and advancing my mana first and foremost is the top priority. there's nothing ponder could've shown me that would've made my game better. As opposed to say a control matchup with no pressure whatsoever, where digging for 2-3 more lands will essentially ensure the victory.Originally Posted by FieryBalrog
Its less hindsight and more understanding the underlying feel of the deck. This isn't a deck you can just pick up and win events with. You have to playtest it hard and know your matchups. Knowing how to react and build upto every deck is pivotal.
Nice work man. This deck seems really neat. I'll proxy it up and test it out a little bit at some point.
Just a note, not knowing the name of the store you just won power at makes you look really, REALLY bad.
It was 5:30 Am and I had been up for 28 hours on 3 hours of sleep. I'm not changing the post, because I'd like to point out this kind of blockhead comment as being a prime reason why trolling and mtg the source isnt' a place I consider for intelligent mtg conversation.
I can understand your frustration, but being disrespectful to the place that held the tournament isn't the way to change things. I'm not trying to troll you, nor was the person who originally pointed it out.
I have to agree with this. Jupiter Games is a fine location and one of the premier hosts of Legacy tournaments in the country. You shouldn't disrespect them by purposely botching their name just because you have a grudge with the internets. I'd rather not lose those tournaments because of it.
There's no disrespect for Jupiter Games I was simply exhausted while writing up the event report. Eli's events in Vestal, NY are always hoppin and well run. He has extremely minimal downtime between rounds and his location is great. His prize support is always exceedingly generous and he regularly has large sized events. I have gone to 5 events at Jupiter games and enjoyed all of them thoroughly. To imply that I meant any disrespect to Jupiter games is honestly just ignorance.
Congrats on the finish. Beating a lot of (what would seem to be) bad matchups is impressive. I've run into this deck a number of times and it's definitely meni stronk.
I think that's an overgeneralization. I glanced through the thread and there only seemed to be that one guy bashing the deck. In this random troll's defense, a lot of decks that, at first sight, appear to be terribly bad are posted in the N&D section, and it can sometimes be hard to take those decks seriously before they post some kind of result.Tragically I've found MTG the Source to be rather whiny when it comes to innovative decks. A Great example is like here where we get great quotes from people like "if this deck ever T8s any major Legacy tourney, I will be truly shocked."
Excellent job. I'm glad to see the hard work has finally paid off.
I'm also glad to see that Glimmerpost has helped shore up what once was a pretty difficult match, and being able to Titan into Glimmerposts seems quite exciting against anything that is trying to be aggressive.
What exactly is Energy Flux for? Is it specifically for the MUD decks?
Suddenly, Fluffy realized she wasn't quite like the other bunnies anymore.
-Team R&D-
-noitcelfeR maeT-
I mention flux and other options in my primer, but here's an overview of the three overtly difficult matchups and their relationship with Energy Flux and Hurkyl's Recall.
*Extremely fast aggro verging on the combo variety*
The only decks I would include in this are Affinity, Elves and Dredge. Having answers to any of these decks that don't give you lots of time to accumulate mana is pivotal. You can invest heavily in an All is Dust versus Elves. Dredge can be stopped with Tabernacle and Propaganda. However Affinity dodges All is Dust and can kill you with a single cranial plated dude so you need something sweeping and preferably kill centric. I haven't tested sufficiently against Bomholt.dec to make as confident of an assertation as I can against the other decks, however I feel strongly that it is also a fast tempo based aggro combo deck.
With Propaganda on the side, the only difficult archtype contenders to deal with are the solely artifact based decks. The major differences between Affinity and Bomholt is that you can die to disciple & Energy Flux.Hurkyl's Recall barely does anything against current forms of affinity with even heavier 0 counts, but avoids Disciple and modular triggers. Against Bomholt.dec hurkyl's will completely halt their attacks and avoid welder tricks, however Energy flux will stop them standalone as opposed to Hurkyl's which requires some backup or gas.
*Pure Combo*
Anything that doesn't let you get turns to plant your lands is bad and you don't run daze/stifle/pierce to buy you early turns. There's more to be said here, but not related to flux.
*Waste heavy Chalice @ 1 Decks*
There are several decks that fit this bill. Lands.dec, Stacks, Stompy variants are a few but not the only ones. Although these decks are all outliers, having no plan against Chalice @ 1 while running 22 1-of's is complete suicide. The choice between Hurkyl's or Flux plans change based off what is the strongest perceived meta threat, but ultimately flux overlapped the most with what I deemed more popular and dangerous, which was artifact aggro. Hurkyl's obviously straight removes Chalice @ 1, and if you feel that lands, loams and stacks are heavy in your meta, I would strongly suggest swapping the fluxes to Hurkyl's.
As an aside you can also abuse Hurkyl's Recall with Candelabras and Tops so they aren't straight dead draws. Having them as a 4-of is just as redundantly strong as multiple Flux's. I forsee myself often considering and swapping Fluxes and Hurkyl's depending on meta calls.
All these were already suggested and discussed on the Italian forums, but intelligent questions and discussion is always encouraged!
This list has developed much more than the Source's post (I wonder why as you pointed out people here on the Source only talk about decks as if every deck has to be played/designed in a certain way to tier decks but fail to see the philosophy and gameplay of a specific strategy).
The list really intrigued me because on first sight it seems way too much ramp/untap, but when you factor in the digging with Top/TfK/Ponders, once you resolve a Titan via force, you will synergistically chain into Eye of Ugin which fetches out win-condition, while at the same time Titan has ramped out more cloudposts to power out the next uncounterable Eldrazi. If you don't draw into Titan, you already have a maindeck heavy on acceleration and digging, so it seems very smooth to draw into the strategy as proposed.
Grats on the list! And I agree that the deck dies to wastelock, but the basis was not to worry about narrow decks playing wastelock, but focusing on the aggro/control matchup that you will trump, while having FoW to not autolose against combo. Trolls will always be trollin, but you do what you need to innovate and win-games. I bet you if blarknob's Meandeck MUD or this list was posted here prior to the competitions, it will receive heavy trolling because people think every deck has to be designed out in theory similar to other existing tier decks, but fail to see how the decks are intended to function. Keep up the good work and glad to see a non Show and Tell Eldrazi deck. In many scenarios, there's the merit on just ramping and hard-casting Eldrazis since it will almost always resolve. Since the decklist is very synergistic in this gameplan, I can see why it has succeeded.
The only reason I really pay attention to Magic now is to see if anyone is doing bonkers stuff with 8 bajillion mana or slamming down fatties on the table like a big black dick, so it warms the cockles of my heart to see a deck like this win... whatever absurdly expensive prize you won.
Dear 'cuse players,
If someone builds this deck for me, I'll un-retire from this shitstain of a format and play in the next large event within a three hour radius.
You're calling someone ELSE a blockhead? Why do you even post here if the entire MTGS (note: the premiere internet legacy community) is a bunch of whiny idiots that can't hold intelligent conversation? If you can't see how intentionally misspelling the name of the venue you just received prize structure at could be considered disrespectful, I'm afraid you're beyond help. Grace the store with the proper advertising they deserve.
Congratulations on your finish with an unproven deck, but do us a favour and keep the holier-than-thou shit out of here; nobody wants to hear it.
Kinda surprised at the hate for Sourcers. In fact, I didn't even read too much that was overly negative in the thread you linked to, to be honest. I mean, the world is full of dummies and jerks, some of whom have internet connections, and some of those will post on open forums. Such is life.
Anyway, very cool deck. The fact that there's so much unexplored depth to the Legacy card pool is the reason why its my favorite format right now.
Curious how I became a Magic writer? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onR9Y...eature=channel
I concur with the calling of pretty much everyone on the Source idiots was a really bad move to make. I know that it made myself and several others who have read this rather irritated at you, let alone not even going back and fixing the name of the original post to "Jupiter" instead of "Juniper" once you realized that it was incorrect.
if you recall though two of the three games that we had in the swiss were very close and could have gone either way. and the fact that I only saw two wastelands against you in three full games was you being lucky that and the lack of ports I was getting. They were still all good games and for that I was happy with my loss. I knew that you wanted the 12 points for the invitational which is why I originally offered the split for I remembered how close the swiss games were and figured that it could easily gone either way. what mattered most in the third game of the finals was that I kept a wasteland, wasteland, plains, aether vial, leonin arbiter, mother of runes, serra avenger hand which pretty much I had the first few turns to mess with you and keep you from getting advanced enough in the game to usurp what I was trying to do. I still think that the games we had were all hard fought for and good games.
Cockatrice: EMFry
sorry for the double post, but if anyone wants to know the D&T list here it is:
Main:
4 AEther Vial
3 Flickerwisp
2 goldmeadow harrier
3 Jotun Grunt
3 Leonin Arbiter
3 Mangara of Corondor
4 Mother of Runes
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Serra Avenger
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
12 Plains
4 Karakas
3 Rishidan Port
4 Wasteland
Side
1 Jotun Grunt
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Wing Shards
3 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
Major props go to my friend who let me borrow the deck for the first time I got to play it in a tourney and the winnings let me make my own half foil copy of it.
Cockatrice: EMFry
The split you offered me was "I get the lotus, you get the 6 invitational points and the Jet." That's not a split, that's valuing 6 invitational points at 200$ minimum so I dismissed it immediately.
Its debatable about the status of our first few games as being close. In general if I'm piloting an unknown deck I try to show as little as possible of that deck to my opponent. Both times you ended up Swordsing my Kozilek, once in the swiss and once in game 1 of the finals, I had a force and blue but opted not to counter because kozilek's cards alone will win me the game and often mean an easy win through emrakul, which I did end up doing. I didn't want to show you that I also run primeval titan. If those swords had been path to exiles or we see each other again with my list being known, I will simply forced them.
I also enjoyed our games immensely and look forward to our next matches with whatever decks. You let me reconsider what I thought was a shoe-in matchup and I eagerly await our next games after some practice. With the recorded successes you have in Vestal I'm sure I'll get that opportunity again.
You misread my contempt for the general populace. I am not calling the majority of MTGthesource readers idiots at all. I'm calling them trolls without the ability to think critically. There's a huge difference.
There's a massive difference betweenand
Basically you guys have a massive Troll Infestation and I'm only here to pop in, stock the library with some classics, and hope that next time I visit there are some people reading the books.
Lastly another reference to not changing the title and what I view as hilarious that people are getting riled up over. Eli knows I greatly enjoy his events and his store and that's the only person's opinion I care about on that subject. I've spoken with him multiple times about how his venue is the mostly cleanly run and efficient location in the Northeast. I advertise his store by going to his events, having a good time, and telling others about it. At this point my spelling error is well known and identified, I have linked to the location in question and expressed my sincere and strong endorsement for future players to attend his events. Fixing a spelling error at this point would only prove one point, that I care about my community image more than I do more morals, which will never happen from my own hand.
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