I'd like to discuss this particular package and it's impact on legacy today. Not many decks dip this heavily into black. Because we play in a fetchland and non-basic unfriendly metagame, playing cards that cost BB restricts our ability to play three colors or more colors severely. Stifle, Wasteland and a fast format make it hard for cards like Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole to shine.
Still, Reid Duke has shown us that it's possible to perform well with a deck utilizing this disruption package (Inquisition instead of Seize though). By playing mono black, lots of lands and no fetchlands, he was actually a favorite against Canadian Thresh and was able to consistently fire off Hymns and Sinkholes against any deck.
Delver is a card that makes Hymns and Sinkholes a bit worse. But when coupled with efficient removal spells, they actually prove to be quite powerful because decks packing Delver usually can't gain card advantage in the match, as well as being lite on mana. There used to be decks like Eva Green and Red Death that could Sinkhole/Hymn you early as well as killing your creatures (with Snuff Out or Bolts).
Maybe it's because it has gotten too easy to remove the few threats disruption-heavy decks like these play with UW decks or the resiliency of GW decks but I have a feeling these cards are still powerful enough to see play in legacy.
I'd like to hear some opinions on these cards (played together), any recent experiences with these packages because to me it feels as if they're being underplayed.
BUG Control plays all those cards, and does pretty well in the current meta. Though, its not a suicide black variant, which I think is what we're actually talking about.
I think Suicide can have a decent place in the current meta. Though, like how Eva Green years before decided that Goyf was too good not to splash for, I think going back to Deadguy Ale for SFM/Batterskull is the right call. Something with Sinkhole, Wasteland, Vindicate, SFM, and Dark Confidant could have enough raw power to have a decent chance in a tournament. Likely not Tier 1 capable, but no Suicide variant has ever been tier 1 in legacy as far back as I remember.
I was at SCG Detroit and played against an opponent who destroyed me and didn't let me keep a single land in play in either game.
He was playing UBw, with Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, Smallpox, Sinkhole, Stifle, Vindicate, Snapcaster to flash all of those spells back, and Wasteland. Hell, he even played a maindeck Shadow of Doubt just for spite.
It was wild, but I don't see why it couldn't work well in this meta.
Land destruction suckz ballz against a Vial infested meta - atm Vial is less spread than say a year ago, so yeah: could work.
To me, Dark Horizons is Sui Black's spritual successor. It still retains the heavy disruption aspect (Thoughtseize, IoK, Hymn, Wasteland), but uses White and Green to play sick removal (StP) and creatures (KotR, Goyf, SFM) that it would otherwise not have access to if monoblack.
Part of the issue, I think, is that WotC are deliberately making land destruction weak. They haven't introduced any strong anti-land cards in a long time. Because the power level of everything else has been going up, land destruction has gotten comparatively weaker, and I don't think the long term trend is going to favor it.
That said, Hymn, Smallpox, and Vindicate are pretty solid cards even if you're not running land destruction as a primary game plan.
I think it has more to do with the shifting of power creep. The game started out with an unfair advantage to spells. Compare Ancestral Recall to Savannah Lions. Land Destruction also started out way too powerfully. Strip Mine and Sinkhole. It has never gotten any better except for Wasteland (and arguably Port). I agree with wizards that strategies involving denying the opponent the ability to play spells (Mind Twist, Hymn, Sinkhole, Strip Mine, Wasteland) is lame, but decks like these have to make lots of concessions to be able to run these cards.
The problem is that I'm talking from a legacy point of view and printing cards on a level of disruption like Sinkhole or Hymn would be frowned upon, even if legacy is perfectly capable of handling such cards.
The UBw deck sounds like a blast to play, as well as being competitive. I'm not sure about Smallpox (because you could play Confidant instead which seems very appealing) but flashbacking Sinkholes or Hymns with Snapcaster is very powerful.
Frankly, the guy's deck was garbage (His win conditions were literally just Invisible Stalkers with nothing to pump them, Creeping Tar Pit, and his Snapcasters)--but it didn't fucking matter because he gimped the shit out of me. It was like 2/3 of his deck was devoted to completely disrupting you to a point of no return, and the rest of his cards were throwaway bullshit because he could kill you with anything due to how out of the game you were. He was only playing White for Vindicate and Swords, but Vindicate seems slow and I don't know how important Swords is. I mentioned all of this because I feel like there was something potentially competitive in the guy's deck, especially since Snapcaster + anything at all was completely devastating.Originally Posted by ReinVos
If the deck was able to put you in a position where you can't do shit, then I guess it's fine to beat your opponent down with Confidants and Snapcasters. Couple this with some Delvers and you have deck. The rest of the bullshit finishers could be replaced with some more filter like Ponder (I assume he already had Brainstorm).
You could even throw in two Mindsculptors to fateseal him when he's living of the topdeck, as well as just being another wincondition to compensate for the relatively weak creatures.
Could be UB but a small splash for white seems good as UB only has conditional removal. White gives Swords and better sideboarding options. 1 or 2 Vindicates seem good because they can always be aimed at land and sometimes you can flash one back with Snapcaster, which is amazing.
I know the deck you're talking about. He was my last round opponent, and a pretty cool guy. We talked about the deck a bit. His real win conditions were Jace and Elspeth. I'm not really sure what the unblockable guys were doing in there, but aside from them it was akin to Esper Super Friends. Definitely with some tuning it had potential, but I think he said it was the first tournament he took the deck to, which explains some of the weird choices a bit.
He was definitely a nice guy, but it was a little frustrating to lose to Invisible Stalker and Snapcaster Mage nickel-and-diming me. I think I might have seen Jace, but in three somewhat long games (due to me having my lands killed and my opponent only having 1/1 creatures to kill me), I didn't see a single Elspeth. I was playing a Combo deck so I might be a little biased about the white in the deck because it's garbage against me. I talked about the deck with him too; it seemed more like he just stumbled on something great because he loves killing lands (See the maindeck Shadow of Doubt) than it seemed like he thought he was making a good meta choice or anything like that. Still though, I have to commend him. Do you know what his record was for the day? When I left him, he was 2-1 after beating me.
He was 3-5 at the end of the day.
Say no
I still toy around with Trisomy 21. For those that don't know, it's a Bgw loam/land destruction (or board disruption may be a better term) deck that does its best to cripple the opponent early with Sinkhole, Wasteland, StP, Innocent Blood, etc. I personally love the deck because I love LD and grindy control decks. I have limited exp. with Hymn in this deck but I have tried it and it really seems to be a meta call. I don't have any pointed discard and a singleton Raven's Crime doesn't count.
Hymn and LD don't exactly go hand in hand. I mean, if I can effectively blow up your lands and take care of anything that slips through with removal then I don't need to worry about the Jace in your hand because you will never play it. Does anyone else share this?
Sinkhole is complete crap in a format where you can win on 1 or 2 lands.
Hymn, while sometimes good is to random and can be useless.
Both cards are awful midgame draws and its casting costs limits the decks flexibility
The only BB card thats decent if you build a deck around it is smallpox.
There was a thread started early last year about the decline of Sinkhole in Legacy:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...light=sinkhole
Most people concluded that Sinkhole is not a good card in Legacy anymore for a variety of reasons, including Humprey's point about decks not needing many lands to win anymore.
It's really a shame though. I feel a little sad whenever a classic Magic card's playability erodes over time.
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
Especially because I have a set of Beta Sinkholes :(
Tom? Is that you? I thought you were going to go work on DnD?
I know dat feel, bro.
Any way to get a list?
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