You have enough discard, so substitute a second needle for that thoughtseize.
Also, do not board out crucible. It is a cornerstone for your deck and enables many cards and strategies.
I thought there were some matchups where Crucible Shenanigans were less useful, but then again if I am going to give Crucible a chance I should really give it a good chance.
Yeah. I can't comment on every deck (too awkward on a phone) but noticed oddities like not going the full LD vs countertop, and forgetting crucible give you your mishras and pit back. In the first case remember countertop have no means to recover his lands. In the later case the lands do service, vs merfolk for example, as blockers and for combat tricks.
In some recent testing, this deck is absolutely awesome against combo (that isn't turn 1 like belcher) & control, and enough of aggro strategies that it should be doing better, Engineered Plague eats the Tribal strategies, this deck should be owning right now!
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
Hey guys,
This is my report from a local Tournament that qualifies the Top 2 players to the National Legacy Championship here in Brazil.
My list is the traditional monoblack version with some tunning for the meta I was expecting:
Deck
MD
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
13 Swamp
2 Esnaring Bridge
2 Nether Spirit
2 Cursed Scroll
1 Sensei Diving Top
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of kozilek
4 Innocent Blood
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Sinkhole
SB
3 Extirpate
3 Engineered Plague
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Trinesphere
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Pithing Needle
1 Karakas
Well, first some discussion about my card choices:
In my training sessions I faced difficulties basically with 2 decks (Affinity and Sneak n Show). Since Affinity is not
a common deck anymore and I was expecting a metagame with a lot of Sneak n'Show, plus the fact that I don't have Nether voids
I decided to board in 2 Esnaring Bridge, improving the G1 against this archetype and helping other matchups also.
The same analysis above plus the fact that 1 Iona (coming from Dredge) and big creatures (from Reanmiator) could cost me the match
made me board into the SB a singleton karakas. I was not expecting a lot of grave decks, so I decided to board out 4 Leyline of the Void
and remains with only 2 nihil spellbomb plus the 3 extirpate (that helps a lot with combo decks and burns). The other SB cards are the common choices:
Engineered plague --> Tribal decks and Ichorids (not common, but I have a lot to board out in G2/G3 against Dredge)
Ratchet Bomb --> Empty the Warrens / Zombie Tokens / Artifacts in general
Trinespehere --> Combo Decks / Dredge / Tribals
Pithing needle --> PlansWalkers / Vials / Wastelands (protect my factorys) / Stoneforge (prevents Batterskull from entering early)
Ok now the matchups:
Round 1 - ANT
Analysis: I think this is a good matchup 60/40. Pox can win G1 connecting a lot of early discards (mainly with Dark Rituals). G2/G3 is even better since Pox have a lot of hates.
G1: I kept a good hand with 1 Urborg 1 Factory 1 SDT 1 Smallpox 1 Hymm to Tourach 1 Innocent Blood 1 Sinkhole. He started with Gitaxian Probe and Ponder
and I figured out that he was playing ANT and thinked to myself (my only chance is to draw a dark ritual and connects a t1 hymm to tourach). I draw a land
and play the SDT. On T2 he did the combo for 14 goblins and pass. On my turn he cast Silence, I activate SDT before the draw and found 2 sinkholes and a Liliana. ****.
I play the urborg and pass. On T3 he attacked for 14 and pass. My last chance. Before my turn I activate SDT with the urborg, found nothing. On my turn I draw and activate again SDT.
And the miracle happened. I found Tabernacle on the last card from the top, activate SDT, Draw the Tabernacle and play it, passing the turn. From here the game was mine. he sacs all the
tokens and die a few turns later with factorys.
Out
-4 Sinkhole
-4 Innocent Blood
-2 Smallpox
In
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Extirpate
2 Trinesphere
3 Engineered Plague
G2: I kept a good hand with 1 IoK 2 swamp 1 Extirpate 1 Factory 1 Plague 1 Liliana. T1 he started with the perfect hand and started the combo with Dark Rituals, LEDd into ad nauseam finishing with Tendrils for exactly 20 damage.
G3: Easy matchup, I started with Dark Ritual into Hymm To tourach (discarding Burning Wish and Ritual) and Extirpate on Burning Wish (He had another in hand). On t3 I land a trinesphere and he scoops.
1-0
Round 2: RUG
Analysis: In my trainings I was 8-0 against RUG. For me its a good matchup. Smallpox and land denial are the MVPs on that match. Drop a Liliana after a few kills and LD is GG.
G1: I kept one of the best hands for Pox against RUG (my opinion): 1 Swamp 1 Wasteland 1 Dark Ritual 1 IOK 1 Smallpox 1 nether Spirit 1 Sinkhole.
He started and play tropical and Delver. ("oh he is playing RUG, nice =P").On my turn I risked a Dark Ritual into IOK. Found no Fow/Daze (only stifles). I removed 1 Stifle and played Smallpox (killing Delver, Tropical, discarding another Stifle), I discarded Nether Spirit (almost GG for him).
on T2 he plays a land and a mangose passing the turn. On T3 I play nether spirit (from grave), waste his land and play a cursed scroll. From here the game was totally mine. Nether spirit blocking mangose and eventually a goyf, and cursed scroll and factorys hitting for the victory.
I decided to keep my MD for G2, doing only the trick to shuffle the SB on the MD and removing 15 cards so he didn't know I was siding in 0 cards.
G2: Pretty much the same of G1. I controlled the board with innocent blood, waste and sinkhole. Liliana connected early (t4-t5 I guess) and the game was mine.
2-0
Round 3 - Goblins (splash B)
Analysis: Goblin is a weird matchup. Sometimes I win without difficulties (basically when I have a good hand with board control and spot discards). Sometimes I lose fast =P
I think this match is 45/55.
G1: Don't remember this first game. I started controlling the board but in the mid game I draw 2 sinkholes in sequence and he managed to connect a ring leader and 2 piledrivers, tried to block with factorys but got incinerated with gempalms. gg for me.
Out
-4 sinkhole
-1 Liliana
In
3 Engineered Plague
2 Pithing needle
G2: Preety easy. I land T1 Plague with ritual and a second one on t3 =P. He scooped.
G3: Preety much the same of G1 plus the fact that he surgical my factorys (after a wasteland) and my lilianas. I landed a Plague and a needle for vial. The game got stuck at this point, I trying to remain alive until the second plague and he trying to find a chieftain to nullify the plague.
He found the chieftan first and I died a few turns later with no plague on the top 5 cards =/
2-1
Round 4 - Dredge
Analysis: G1 is terrible since most of my discards, sac effects and LDs are useless. The only chance for me on G1 is try to slow down Dredge with IOK (Breakthorugh, Careful Study, LED) and try to find Tabernacle and Esnaring Bridge to control the board.
G2 and G3 I have a lot of cards to side out and the match turns on favor of Pox (like all other decks against Dredge).
G1: He started agressively hitting with ichorids and lefting zombies on the way. I draw a Esnaring Bridge that gave me a few turns to search for Tabernacle but at some point he reanimates the Flayer and 2 ichorids entering the game finished the job.
Now comes the crazy. I have 12 dead cards against ichorid and 4 more not good (Lilianas). I decided to keep the Sinkholes and removed lilianas.
Out
-4 innocent blood
-4 Hymm to tourach
-4 smallpox
-3 Liliana of the Veil
In (the entire side was boarded in)
+3 Extirpate (bridges, reanimates, ichorids, dredge pieces)
+2 Ratchet Bomb (zombies)
+2 Nihil Spellbomb
+2 Pithing neelde (cephalid coliseum)
+1 karakas (Iona)
+3 Engineered Plague ( zombies or horror)
G2: I think in the end Magic is a lucky game, no matter how good you are and how many answers you have on your deck.
15 cards on the sideboard and I found none on my opening 7. mulligan to 6 and found only a Extirpate. Decided to keep counting on the chances that the others 14 cards was coming (since I have SDT to search for them).
The game was sad, I extirpate his bridge early but died to ichorids, ash gouls and narcoamoebas hitting me before my SDT find one of the 14 answers. =/
that game cost me top 8 later.
2-2
Round 5 - Esper DeathBlade
Analysis: This game is good for Pox. In my trainings i was 8-2, losing only when the Deathblade connected Jace and Batterskull with no answers.
G1: Preety easy. Iok, Sinkholes and Smallpox prevented him to reach the 4 land and Stoneforge didn't stayed on the board to activate Batterskull.
Cursed scroll shines on this match, since it kills all the creatures.
Out
-2 Snaring Bridge
In
+2 Pithing Needle (jace and Stoneforge)
G2: Difficulty match. I made some mistakes, dropping my only card in hand (1 smallpox) before activate cursed scroll to kill a shaman/stoneforge when he was on the board with 1 Confidant, 1 Stoneforge, 1 land. Next turn he draw a land and activate the shaman to reach 2 manas for stoneforge into batterskull.
the game turned on his favor, i went to 2 life but came back with 2 factorys preventing batterskull to attack and die, keeping him with 1 land, and activating every turn my cursed scroll. I managed to draw a innocent blood at some time, opening factorys to attack and killing him a few turns later with factorys and scroll.
3-2 9th place (Dredge went 4-1 and the 8th place was a 3-2 too, but with a better rating.If I had won the G2 against dredge I had made Top8)
Remarkable plays:
+Tabernacle at the first round
+Surviving at 2 life against Deathblade with a batterskull on the other side
Forgettable plays:
-Side in 15 cards against Dredge and can't find them with SDT.
-Some mistakes on the G2 against Deathblade that could costed me the game,
My thoughts: I was expecting a meta with a lot of Sneak n'Show but found out a very undeveloped meta (this is not good for Pox. Fortunatelly I didn't faced some of the random decks of the event).
Esnaring bridge on the MD din't help a lot with the other matchs (besides Dredge), but it didn't mess my gameplan so I will give it another try on the MD or maybe do the following
-1 innocent blood or nether spirit
-1 esnaring bridge
+2 infernal tutor
(in many games I died with one card in hand and SDT alone didn't found the right answer. Infernal Tutor here can fetch for Tabernacle, Cursed Scroll and Bridge and SB pieces)
Regarding the SB, the singleton Karakas was there for the same reason of the 2 esnaring bridge MD. I don't know if i keep it on the SB anymore (I'm trying to get 1 Chains of Mephistopheles)
That's it. Thanks guys. Comments are welcome.
I will remain with the monoblack version because its a good and solid deck against some of the top decks of the moment (RUG,Blade decks,Combos).
Thanks for the report!
I noticed that you boarded out sinkhole vs goblins, but kept the Wastelands???
Sinkholes was boarded out because they aren't effective against goblins (with relies on vials and 1-2 mana to cast creatures).Originally Posted by Hardcore
Regarding wastelands, I can't board out them without adding at least 2-3 other lands in place. Since my karakas on the SB does nothing against goblin I can't board out them because the chances of mana screw is huge. I know wasteland have the same problem of sinkhole in this matchup, especially because the goblin I faced didn't used Rishadan Post, but wastelands doesn't cost 2 black mana to destroy a land, plus the fact that together with urborg they act like a swamp (reducing the chances of mana screw) I decided to keep them. Also, if a crazy goblin boards in Price of Progress to finish a stucked table I can use wastelands on my own factorys and urborgs , getting rid of 2 non basic lands and 4 damage (not so good cause I lost 2 lands, but it's another way out).
yo man. we never got that list. how did oppression work out for you? seemed like a solid addition
Thanks for the detailed report. It was interesting to see how you played those matches.
Thanks for the detailed report. I also found Affinity very difficult with an mono black deck. How do you side against them? With my Bg Loam Pox I found it much easier to beat Affinity (a resolved Deed is practically gg...)
Dark Ritual into Infest does them in too unless they are lucky enough to get a Master out past the discard that early.
Can chalice on 0 stop affinity? Or can he play land anyway? Follow up question: what is the casting cost once it is resolved?
the artifact lands text starts with ([seat of synod/tree of tales/ancient den/vault of whispers/great furnace/darksteel citadel] is not a spell). So no it won't work.
The casting cost is whatever you pay, but as permanents, their cmc is 0 whether you paid 0,2, 4, etc.
Depending on the build of the affinity deck in quistion, you can use infest to clear the board and survive long enough to stabilize.
Bring in needles, beceuse you can shut down plating and tezzeret.
powder keg cracks his lands, but doesn't creck planeswalkers. Ratchet bomb cracks planeswalkers, but not lands.
Thanks! Affinity is rare but hard match-up.
Thats true, Affinity is a hard matchup. G1 is the worst game since you dont have directly answers to artifacts and must rely on early disrupts (beeter with dark ritual followed by IoK and Hymm. yes in that order since Affinity have a lot of spells that cost more than 3 mana and you need to garantee that hymm will not take them). If you disrupts them enough the battle tends to be a little harder, but still hard since a flying thopter with plating is almost game for him..unless you can stablished the board with sac effects (coming from liliana, innocent blood) and have an active cursed scroll.
G2 and G3 tends to be a lot better, since you can board in Ratchet (to get rid of lands, plating, thopter), needle (for plating, ravager), extirpate and even a trinesphere to stop affinitys costs.
Any deck that can dump a lot of creatures fast is a tough match up, Affinity because it's fast from the get go, & Goblins because they just keep coming, Oh look top deck a Ringleader, pull some more goblins, etc.
Primary legacy deck High Tide primer
E. plague + darkblast can deal with most tribals. Sadly, it can´t deal with affinity...
Ratchet Bomb doesn't take out lands :-)
So I recently went mono black again and I still got some questions about the SB: Infest over E.Plague? I do see the occasional tribal in my meta. Infest does clear the board, but E.Plague (backed up with Bridge and R-bomb etc) looks more solid to me.
if you expect tons of elves and goblins, and tribal in general, go with plagues. For other aggro match ups (gw for example), go with infest.
EDIT: ratchet bomb doesn't take lands, whereas powder keg will. But bomb is MUCH better than keg (planeswalkers and enchantments removal) and you are certainly not going to win against affinity based on land denial (the deck already runs a lot of other mana sources like mox, drums, etc), but despite it's sheer power, it's not so hard to disrupt (I played affinity for a very long time before switching to the rock)
Affinity need key cards to win. A board full of flying 0/2 is not doing much.
Not sure they have any answers at all to stuff you play; like needle.
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