Stifle will help keep the opponent from getting basics, then when magnus comes down on turn three it turns into a hard lock. Magnus would then become a clock all by itself that you can ride out like painterservant.dec. Playing it would most likely require a modification of the mana base and maybe a few cards in the board for better synergy but do you think that strategy is playable or just bad?Originally Posted by Einherjer
Grunt sounds cool, but like you I really don't like the anti-synergy with Lavamancer to the point where we have to cut Lavamancer completely. Figure of Destiny has been thrown around a little bit in this thread as a creature to test, and I'm bringing him up again. I'm in the middle of finishing up grad school/moving to new job right now, so I can't test this stuff with my testing partner, but once I get the chance I'm going to see how Figure of Destiny runs. I personally like him because you can pump him at instant speed, making him a nice early 1-drop and a stronger mid-late game drop. I guess the only thing is this - I tend to design my decks to play at instant speed often, but what I want to find out is how realistic is it to expect to get Figure of Destiny to a 4/4 consistently once he drops, assuming he doesn't get hit by removal?
I've tested him back in the day and liked him in a u/w build. He was "alright" but he is vulnerable when you tap out. He fell out of my deck build when better cards like stoneforge and delver of secrets (which I'm curently running stoneforge package of delver ) were printed. You will often find figure of d as a 2/2 and then you will hail-mary-pump (pray he doesnt die before your untap) at pivital moments [during a key attack step, or during opponents end step]to turn into a 4/4. If he DOES pump to 8/8 (which isn't common if you run wastelands) and your opponent can't remove it he will shore up a game quick.
Replying specifically to bolded parts: I tried testing Figure of Destiny in a U/W tempo build before, but I just didn't like it. The difference between U/W and UWR builds are that you have more diverse mana sources available, and this is a plus because Figure of Destiny pumps off both white and red mana. I found in my testing in modern, strictly related to mana base, that Figure just seems to work better with both white and red mana sources available compared to just white in a blue-based tempo build. I don't really see a problem getting to four mana and being able to pump a Figure at eot with a blue source open for a Spell Pierce vs. removal.
I've been having a lot of success with this list:
2 Arid Mesa
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Plateau
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
3 Wasteland
4 Geist of Saint Traft
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Spell Pierce
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Boros Charm
1 Batterskull
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Sideboard:
3 Rest in Peace
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Disenchant
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Detention Sphere
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Force of Will
Far too slow, little tempo and not delver/ thresh style.
It almost becomes a whole different deck. In fact, it does!
To be the man, you gotta beat the man!
I gotta admit that I've given up on the deck, because:
1) the RUG-Tempo-MU is just too bad, and this deck simply cannot be ignored when building a competitive deck.
2) Geist of Saint Traft is too expensive, you rarely want to tap out for him, but in some MUs he is just the nuts - but this is not what a tempocreature has to be - they have to be acceptable in pretty much every MU.
3) While this deck is probably a very good choice versus certain top-decks it has too many flaws when fighting the other part of the Tier1s, and I for my part can't see a way to improve them at all.
RUG just seems to be the best Tempodeck, no matter what UWR or BUG try.
Greetings
I have not tested with this against Canadian Thresh yet, but I do believe you when you say it's not that good. At one of my LGSs though, there's almost no RUG, but lots of Jund. From my testing, this UWR variant of tempo seems to fare a lot better against Jund than RUG does. I've found fighting against Jund with RUG to be very difficult. For this reason, I'm still willing to run this deck.
Does RIP out of the sideboard not help much against Thresh? In my experience, I've found it's really good against Jund (stops 'goyfs, Deathrites and Punishing Fire). I would imagine neutering RUG's 'goyfs and Mongooses to be pretty good.
Cheers
Wow I am surprised someone actually made a thread for this. I have been playing this since the release of Geist of Saint Traft. I don't play the deck as often anymore because I have been playing Nic Fit. But I may switch back to this. Here is my curent list.
Lands: 18
4x Scalding Tarn
3x Flood Strand
1x Arid Mesa
3x Volcanic Island
2x Tundra
1x Plateau
4x Wasteland
Creatures: 12
2x Nivmagus Elemental
4x Delver of Secrtes
3x Snapcaster Mage
3x Geist of Saint Traft
Spells: 29
1x Preordain
3x Chain Lightning
3x Swords to Plowshares
4x Lightning Bolt
3x Daze
3x Flusterstorm
3x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
4x Stifle
2x Ajani, Caller of the Pride --> Boros Charm
Sideboard: 15
2 Rest in Peace
1 Disenchant
2 Supreme Verdict
3 Vendilion Clique
2 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
Notes:
1. So far RIP out of the board completely destroys tempo decks that rely on Tarmogoyf.
2. The 2 Nivmagus Elementals were 2 Grim Lavamancers but Grim Lavamancer wasn't putting enough pressure on my opponents. He is a nice control creature but I want to kill my opponent as fast as possible. Main deck Flusterstorm with Nivmagus has won me many games. No deck can win a counter war with you. Sometimes I just burn through counters so I can pump my Nivamgus with the extra copies of Flusterstorm. I only run 2 because having multiples in play is useless.
3. Ajani, Caller of the Price seems way out of place in legacy but he has served me well. I use him to pump an unflipped delver or add power to my Geist of Saint Traft so I can swing in without him dying. Plus the flying and double strike with Nivmagus has won me a few games really early. But I was thinking about changing it to Boros charm for more versatility. Haven't had the chance to test Boro's Charm yet.
A UWR midrange deck that placed 2nd out of 72 in a Euro tourney, losing to Sneak Attack: http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=10275&iddeck=74877. This deck opted to not run Delver of Secrets or Stifle, but plan for the long game instead of the short, tempo game. I think that regardless of tempo, midrange, or control, UWR colored decks are on the cusp of being legit.
That list is closer to what I expected UWR lists that don't run the Stone Blade package to gravitate towards. I really see this becoming a midrange deck instead of a tempo deck. With Jund everywhere right now, UWR is a good choice. The RUG matchup will probably be overwhelming to play against, but that's the breaks I guess.
It's amazing against thresh, Nimble Mongoose is still a 1/1, but a lot less threatening now and goyf gets to sit there and look expensive.
I've been toying with with UWR Tempo, and it's been pretty succesful. Mainly due to the fact that this deck doesn't rely so heavily on the graveyard (RUG needs Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose).
This is my latest list:
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
3 Tundra
1 Karakas
4 Delver of Secerts
3 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Snapcaster Mage
3 Grim Lavamancer
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Daze
4 Stifle
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
SB: 3 Pyroblast
SB: 3 Oblivion Ring
SB: 2 Rough//Tumble
SB: 2 Rest in Peace
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Disenchant
8 Removal maindeck is awesome against any non-combo deck. And it clears the way for Geist. Moreover Stifling Geist's angel is really really good.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
Why O-Ring over D.Sphere?
How relevant has snare been for your?
No reason at all. Maybe D.Sphere is better.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
Random blast effects seem annoying coming from Omniscience, so not completely..
i'm trying out the deck and I think im going to cut 1 swords to plowshares for 1 thought scour. I felt like the deck drew removal a bit too often and stp is, as mentioned, anti-synergetic. an 8th cantrip seems solid in the list and thought scour is also a personal favorite of mine. i tried out snapcaster in the clique spot and i was unimpressed by it's body and anti-synergy.
I played this deck recently in the SCG DC Open. I feel like in the current meta-game of lots of Deathrite shamans this deck can do really well. (also supported by the fact that a deck very close to mine, got 2nd on the day.)
The list I played was this:
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Grim Lavamancer
3 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ponder
1 Karakas
1 plains
1 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
Sideboard:
2 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Flusterstorm
3 Submerge
2 Spell Pierce
2 Disenchant
1 Force of Will
2 Sulfur Elemental
2 Echoing Truth
My biggest regret of the day was that I didn't have sideboard rest in piece. Of any card I didn't put in, that was the card that would have turned my losing record on the day into a winning one on its own. Of the 7 rounds i stayed in for, I played and lost to 4 deathrite/tarmogoyf decks. 3 of those matches I won game 1, and then went on to lose 2 close games afterwards.
Other good things to note about the build:
1. I'm almost prone to call this a Geist deck and not a delver deck. Sure it plays delver, but geist is the reason this deck is good.
2. Karakas is great here. The card has a lot of good interactions with both Geist and Vendilion Clique (if i were to build a list that used more Cliques I'd almost certainly want to try and use 2). I know I misplayed Geist with this deck that lead to at least one of my losses. With karakas on the board you can attack pretty much freely with Geist without worry of losing him. Since you can just bounce him at blockers, and replay him in the same turn if you have the open lands. I found a bunch of games where I'd get geist down the same turn they had a blocker that could kill geist if I attacked with him. If I had found Karakas more, that situation wouldn't have been as problematic. You of course also have STP and Lightning bolt for these situations, but its nice to be able to get around it especially if you're staring down a huge Goyf.
3. I like grim lavamancer, but I found a few times where I was stretching for the red mana. Maybe i needed a basic mountain in my build as well. THere was a lot of wasteland in DC.
This brings me to a concept I started to play around with recently: Taking grim lavamance out, and going more aggresively with Geist and Vendilion Clique, in a build like this:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Force of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Spell Pierce
4 Stifle
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Ponder
2 Karakas
1 plains
1 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland
SB
2 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Force of Will
1 Flusterstorm
3 Submerge
1 Spell Pierce
2 Disenchant
1 Sulfur Elemental
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Rest in Piece
Thoughts?
How did you like having 2 Vendilion Cliques? I like the idea, because having another 3 power flier is very good, I found. I like lavamancer a lot, so I don't think I would cut him, butI have been liking the idea of 4 Geist in the maindeck. I think before that, however, I am going to test with 2 Cliques. Can I ask why you had Echoing Truth in your board?
2 Vendilion Clique's were really nice to play. I think I agree with you sentiments on Grim Lavamancer. I like him enough (the build without him is more of an experiment), but when I got Clique it always felt a lot more powerful, since when I cast him I not only prevented my opponent from doing something (or drew myself a card), but I also had a flying threat that most of the time did some damage to their life total. If I ever drew up the second one, i didn't care because many times people have removal for your clique, or you can always pitch Clique to force of will, which really useful as well.
One of the reasons I used 2 in the main, is because I expected a lot more combo than I actually saw. The two combo decks I did play in DC were Hive Mind (which i completely decimated), and Elves, which stifle/wasteland just crippled. On the other hand Clique is nice against Deathrite decks, because it doesn't put the card in the graveyard it puts it on the bottom of the deck..
As for the Echoing Truth. I had partly because it was a card available to me (i don't own any rest in peace, and the guys i went with were playing the Rest In Pieces deck so I couldn't borrow their's). Also I felt if I saw SHow and Tell Decks, and possibly any kind of token deck, Echoing Truth could be really useful. If you played against TES, and they do Empty the Warrens for 16 goblins, Echoing Truth kind wrecks their day. A good player probably isn't going to get totally caught by that but it can give you an edge and some time to win. The other use of Echoing Truth (besides opposing pesky permanents) you can also use it to protect Geist when attacking, though Karakas does this better, its a good use for it in your sideboarded match if you just need to deal some extra damage and they've gotten a late blocker to stop your geist from attacking.
In the end I'm not sure Echoing Truth was good enough. On the day I was seriously wanting Rest In Piece, but it was something to try out at least.
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