Oh ok, I understand! I'll wait, thanks!Originally Posted by Jonathan Alexander
Hey everyone, apologies in advance for the lengthy rundown. It was my first time competing at a Legacy event of this size (52 players, pretty good for a modest sized venue). I was excited to be making that jump, to actually be successful was a pretty big surprise!
Round 1 - Dark Depths combo: This is a match-up I’ve only played once before. Theoretically, I feel Canadian Threshold should be favored in game one - we do have wasteland and stifle working for us - but it gets more difficult post board.
Game 1: He comboed off turn 2 before I could really get anything going to disrupt him.
Game 2: He attacks my hand, takes my FOW, resolves a chalice on 1, Pithing needles wasteland, and comboes.
0-1. This player is very good, I’ve played against him a number of times. He actually took first at the 1K.
Round 2 - Eldrazi: Game 1: my opponent described it as being “rugged”, bolt and wasteland did work, Delver and Goyf finished the job before he can establish board presence. Win.
Game 2: We do a lot of resource punishing in the early turns, he is able to play to the board a little faster than I. Eventually, he was just far enough ahead that I could not catch up. I lose. Now, the interesing thing about this game was, I actually forgot that Stifle was basically dead in the match-up, and boarded out a few Daze instead. So I adjusted my boardplan for G3: -3x Stifle, -2x Git Probe, +2x Krosan Grip, +1x Null Rod, +2x Rough//Tumble.
G3: About as smooth as I could’ve hoped for, Delvers and Goose establish a clock, and I keep him off balance long enough to close out the game. win 2-1
Round 3 - Miracles: The dreaded, yet inevitable match-up. My opponent is one of the friendlier miracles players in the local meta.
Game 1 - I hit the ground running and established a game lock pretty fast, he never resolved a counterbalance, never saw top, couldn’t remove Nimble Mongoose. I win.
Game 2 - I had worked out my board plan for this match that morning, and actually wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget it. So I stuck to the plan. It was a good game, Nimble Mongoose did a lot of work. I established a clock, and land a Sulfuric Vortex but eventually he was able to resolve a terminous to remove the Nimble Mongoose. What follows is a slow grind down. Each time he eliminates a threat, I play another one and keep attacking. Right at the end of the game, he lands a Monastary Mentor, but can’t do enough damage to win the game. He concedes.
2-1
Round 4 - Stoneblade: So this match-up isn’t so bad, it’s winable for Canadian, but it’s very grindy.
Game 1 - We do the typical control match 1-for-1 trading for a few turns before at last, he gets an active batterskull onto the field. He spends half the round grinding me out, and eventually takes the game. lose.
Game 2 - I mull to 5, durdle for a little bit before stablizing the board. He does have a batterskull in play, but I’ve got 2 Goyf (6/7s), and an active delver. He has a Jitte and 3 Mishra’s Factory in play, so he starts equiping the Jitte to the Factories, and attacking with those. Some very careful turns of combat on my part, and eventually we go to turns and I take game 2. Draw.
2-1-1
Round 5 - TES: Well, obviously, this is a great match-up for us. In fact, our utility against Storm is one of the reasons I buit Canadian Threshold in the first place, so I was actually happy about the match.
Game 1 - at this point, I know he’s on combo, I hold up countermagic, keep mana available, establish a clock, and he never hits critical mass. Win.
Game 2 - He attacks my hand a few times, then baits out a FOW with a Xantid Swarm, storm’s off next turn. I let him play it out just to be sure of what he’s on.
Game 3 - The info didn’t really change anything for the sideboard. I mull to 6, keep a 1 mana hand with a stile. Fetch and pass. I have a delver in hand, but I couldn’t play it unitl I drew another land. I drew into 3 stifles and a wasteland. I stifled his fetches, and kept that mana untapped, even went so far as to discard a Nimble mongoose before finally drawing a Wooded Foothills. Delvers to the field, he dies with not a single permanant in play. Win.
Round 6 - Miracles: Now this player, I played before and lost to him. He clearly wanted to put me on tilt, he was playing very hurriedly, but I refused to let him dictate the pace of the game. I played not “slow” but very deliberately during this round.
Game 1 - I open with Goose, we trade off some resources, Terminous gets Stifled, and he dies before he can remove the threats.
Game 2 - He grinds through my threats, lots of StP and such. Eventually he resolves a Stoneforge mystic, gets a batterskull on the field and starts attacking. When he resolved a counterbalance and started countertoping my spells, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to race that. I conceded and we go to Game 3.
Game 3 - I keep a 6 with Goyf, 2 K-grips and a bunch of land. In the early game Top comes down, I play goyf, then use K-grips to keep Counterbalance off the table. From here, I establish a clock with Nimble Mongoose. He tries RIP, I brainstorm in response, i don’t find FOW, but I do find Stifle - so I let RiP resolve, but Stifle the ETB trigger. By this time all the other matches are done, and there’s a crowd of about 20-30 people watching us. Stifling the RIP meant I stil had threshold, and he had no way to get rid of the graveyard. Goose keeps attacking. He plays Stoneforge Mystic, which resolves, and he fetches batterskull. I ponder the following turn, draw a Stifle off the ponder. He tries to Entreat the Angels. I play Flusterstorm. Nimble Mongoose kills him.
4-1-1 - top 8, and we all agreed to split the 1K between us.
Couple things in general. I feel very strongly, that Nimble Mongoose is a valuable weapon in the Miracles match-up. They have a hard time removing it, and if you don’t play into the terminous, they will fold under that kind of board preasure. I know people are experimenting with Hooting Mandrils, but I feel Nimble Mongoose is better in the miracles match-up.
I don’t think the Eldrazi match-up is as bad as people generally think it is. I know theoretically, we are not favored in the match, but for whatever reason, I do have a tendency to win against Eldrazi most of the time.
Tarfire did a lot of work for me at this event. That it is instant speed makes it very easy to fire off safely, and the boost to the Goyf is really nice.
I left a comment before coming here, oops.
I'd be interesting on seeing the SB map, as the list is a little unorthodox. I might have to give this a try, I do miss getting people with stifle.
Hey! This weekend I end up with a 5-3 in the MKM series Madrid. We were 151 people I believe and I ended 39. I had written a report:
My list was RUG 54 + 2 pierce + 2 snare + tarfire + dismember
SB:
2 Rough // Tumble
2 Red elemental blast
1 Flusterstorm
1 Grafdigger's cage
1 Winter Orb
1 True-Name Nemesis
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Sulfur Elemental
1 Submerge
1 Pithing Needle
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
Round 1 vs Infect
Game 1 we both mulligan to 6, it was a very swingy game since we were both drawing very bad, but in the I had like 3 dead draws and he killed me.
SB: -2 Snare, -4 Stifle, +Flusterstorm +Vendilion Clique +Submerge +2 Rough +Pithing Needle
Game 2 and 3 I just had answers for all of his threats, I won both games easily.
2-1, 1-0
Round 2 vs Lands.
Game 1 I had a very aggresive start and in turn 4 I had 2 tarmos, 1 delver and 1 goose on board. I forced his T1 molten vortex. He was dredging hoping to hit glacial chasm and he did just the turn before I could kill him. He could stabilize and attacked me with marit lage some turns after.
SB:-1 dismember, -1 tarfire, -1 bolt, -2 stifle, +winter orb +submerge +needle +grudge +surgical
Game 2 I mull to 6 and open with mongoose and force his exploration, but he has another. The goose attacks for 1 so many turns and I drew more creatures but he gambles for tavernacle and some turns later glacial chasm and estabilizes. I conceded at that point. The hand I mulled was 2 colored lands, 3 wastelands, 1 delver, 1 stifle. Would you keep? I mulligan because a exploration + loam/Pfire would just win the game against it.
He and I had a little chat afther the match where I said that I never won against Lands and it's a deck that it's very consistent, he agreed but said that the early game is tough.
0-2, 1-1
Round 3 vs Goblins.
This round was against the guy who let me the tarfire, and I know him since he is from my town. I was pretty confident in this matchup since I had never lost a match vs goblins.
Game 1 I mull 2 hands with no lands and I keep a very mediocre hand of 2 fetches, 1 force 1 stifle 1 snare. I force his vial but I he goes turn 2, 2 lackeys, and turn 3 can attack with both and put some more goblins on the board. At this point I hadn't draw anything relevant so I conceded. This just wasn't a game.
SB: -2 Pierce, -3 Fow, +2 rough + pithing needle +ancient grudge +winter orb. I know he plays chalice in the SB so I didn't take the snares out.
Game 2 I have a very aggresive start with delvers and goyfs and he is drawing controlling cards that I supposed he sideboarded. I win easily.
Game 3 was a very loopsided game. He played relic of progenitus on turn 1 and I had like 2 goyfs and 1 goose in hand. This game lasted a lot but I try to summarize, he played very smart with his relic, I was trying to bait him to crack it with the first goyf but he didn't, 1 winter orb and 1 rough//tumble later he could assemble a goblin army and I had 3 gooses 1/1. He won.
1-2. 1-2 Out of top8 contention.
Round 4 my opponent didnt show.
2-0. 2-2
Round 4 vs Reanimator.
Game 1 he is on the play and I kept a very good hand consisting of 1 stifle, 1 wasteland, 1 volcanic and some counters and a delver. He goes misty, go and at this moment I know this game has to be mine. I play volcanic, go, he goes bayou go and I waste his bayou, he then tries to crack the misty and I don't let him. He didn't draw any single land after this and I won with the delver. I know he was playing reanimator since he discarded a griselbrand.
SB: +1 flusterstorm, +1 cage, +1 vendilion, +2 REB. -2 Bolt, -tarfire,-1dismember,-1 stifle.
Game 2 I mull to 6 and I have a cage in my starting hand. He ponders, and I play the cage on turn 1 since I had a daze for his daze or fow. It resolves, and plays careful study discarding griselbrand and tyrant. He plays explosives on 1 and I had a delver in hand so I waited to him cracking the explosives to deploy it. He cracks in my eot and tries to exhume on his turn but I had a snare. After this I just attacked with the delver and I had counters for all his reanimator spells.
2-0. 3-2
Round 5 vs Grixis Delver.
To be honest I don't really remember this match, it was a very typical tempo mirror, I know the first game I was on the play but he won and the second and third I won. In the second game I attacked his manabase. The third I had a lot of removal. He was playing stifles by the way, but in my oppinion he commited the mistake of don't taking them out post-board.
This was my SB plan that I think was perfect or close to perfect:
When im on the play: -4 Stifles, -2 fows, -2 snare,
When on the draw: -4 Stifles, -2 fows, -2 daze
IN: 2 Rough, 2 REB, Vendilion, Nemesis, Surgical, Flusterstorm
2-1, 4-2
Round 6 vs Aggroloam
Not a lot to say about this, the two games he had loam + wasteland in his opening hand. And the first game I keeped a hand with 1 land. The second I almost get there but he drew a liliana for my goyf.
+ Vendilion + Pithing Needle +Nemesis +Surgical +Submerge +Surgical
- tarfire -4 stifles -idk
0-2, 4-3
Roung 7 vs Grixis Delver
I was on the draw game 1, I went for his manabase, he sticked an angler but it was too late since my delver was getting him on low life. I finished him with a bolt. Game 2 on the draw as well, he goes t1 DRS and i bolt it and extract it. I see that his hand contains a volcanic, some bolts and no more lands. I drew a wasteland and destroy his volcanic, later deploy a delver that he can't kill since he has no red mana. I kill him while he was still searching for the red mana. To be honest he was prety unlucky this game.
2-0, 5-3
To summarize I leaved the event happy since I had a record of 4-1 against grixis delver, and 3 wins were on the draw. I love tempo mirrors and I think I played them well. A bit angry about the goblins round but today is the weekly legacy trounament and I will seek revenge.
Cheers!
Its time to get serious about sideboards, i feel like my hodgepodge of one of's is fine for random fun FNM's, but my board doesnt seem to cut it online, lately, in competitive leagues. I'm trying to practice for the Legacy Festival Championships and feel like i need to take a direction on what to hate out. It feels impossible to prepare a board for everything. I like Fire/Ice, Dismember, Tarfire, 1 Pierce, and 2 Snares in my main deck flex spots and this is my current 'well rounded' sideboard:
2 Rough // Tumble
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Flusterstorm
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
2 Submerge
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Sylvan Library
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Winter Orb
Rough is great against D&T, Elves, Goblins, and even Grixis Delver w/ Pyromancer. Surgical is great for Loam decks, Renaimator, and OK vs Dredge. Fluster and the Blasts are typical staples. Submerge is great vs Infect and OK vs Goyf decks; but kinda shitty against Elves, surprisingly. Cage for Dredge and Elves. Null Rod, Sylvan, Vortex, and Orb is my Miracles hate package that have applications against other random decks, too. Grudge and Revelry is your typical artifact and enchantment hate stuff.
So, these cards do their jobs, but i dont see them enough. Even with Ponder and Branstorm, i dont think ive dropped a Winter Orb on a Miracles player, for example, in the last 6 matches against the deck. Its time to streamline.
What decks do you think dominate the online meta, and specifically, which of those decks 5-0'd a League recently that i should expect to see at the Championship? I feel like i want to prepare for the following:
- Miracles
- Grixis Delver other Delver in general
- Lands and other Loam decks
- Eldrazi
- Infect
- Combo, but luckily the main deck is pretty resilient to both Storm and Sneak & Show
Is it wrong to ignore a deck even exists? I've essentially decided that I dont want to add any specific hate for decks like Burn, Dredge (even though you see it alot in Leagues, it doesnt seem to 5-0), D&T (great deck, but Ports are expensive online, so you dont see it too often), or Elves (which will kick my ass without Roughs, but what can you do).
With this information, i'm going to start testing the following board and during testing, hope i beat the decks i'm aiming at. If i play a League and lose to 2 Dredge decks and Elves, so be it, because i feel like lately i need to pick my poison or else i'm soft to just about everything.
2 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
2 True-Name Nemisis
1 Flusterstorm
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Pyroblast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Destructive Revelry
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library
2 Winter Orb
The changes. I feel like Winter Orb and Null Rod are doing the same thing against Miracles, shutting off Top. Which means, i should go ahead and double up on the most effective one. I really like slamming Orbs on Miracle players, its so good right now, in a lot of matchups. Pithing Needle also shuts off Top, but can come in against decks like Lands to stop Thespian Stage, or Infect to stop Inkmoth Nexus. It pains me to get rid of Sulfuric Vortex, but it actually has been stranded in my hand a lot lately. I've lost a lot of Delver mirrors when they play a True-Name, so i'm jumping aboard. It can finish a game so fast with a few bolts, even without equipment like Jitte to make it even better. Plus, TNN complements Goyf vs Eldrazi (except against Smashers, fuck Smashers..) and i've been needing extra cards for that matchup since i typically want to take out Stifles and shave Geese. I'm adding a Lavamancer, which is an obvious nombo with Goose, but i feel like i'll be shaving (or outright eliminating) Goose in Delver mirrors and siding into a build more like Fabiano in some matchups. Plus, when Lavaman is good, he is real good, like vs Elves, D&T, and especially Grixis Delver... i might almost want 2... The Fabiano list looks very strong vs Delver mirrors, but i like the option to play Geese AND True Names vs Miracles.
I feel like this configuration might fold to a lot of decks, though. Am i missing something important? How do you typically plan your boards? Are there better cards against the decks i'm aiming at? Not playing Roughs really makes me nervous, it might be too good vs Pyromancer to leave out. Are True Names not worth it if you dont have access to Jitte, has anyone else tried them in Delver mirrors, or does he just get countered far too often? In a Delver mirror, if i bring in TNN, i guess i have to cut some creatures, which feels awkward.
Any insight or direction would be appreciated, thanks! RUG Delver, in general, feels very streaky where i can 4-1 a few leagues in a row, but the last couple leagues i'm getting pounded and need to make some changes.
Last edited by LewisCBR; 07-15-2016 at 05:58 PM.
OK, so first of all, I think your right, generally, we can't prepare for everything, legacy is too big for that. That being said, we can shore up some of our more problematic match-ups.
Rough//Tumble has done a lot of work for me in the past. Particularly in tough match-ups where I'm likely to be outnumbered. The thing is, it's not just Young Pyromancer anymore. Now we've got Miracles decks with Monastery Mentor, and let's not forget Shardless BUG (it hits Deathrite Shaman, Shardless Agent, making it pretty decent tech against them), and Eldrazi. If the Eldrazi matchup is a worry for you, you need Rough//Tumble in the board. It won't kill their haymakers, but it will clear away their early threats. Also, it's worth it on the off chance you run into Death and Taxes - I don't run Sulfur elemental because its so narrow, but I do run Rough//Tumble, and it's good in the DnT matchup.
TNN - Even with Fabiano running TNN in his list, I'm still not 100% sold on the inclusion. It is a 3-drop we can resolve through Countertop, but that's only one deck. I probably wouldn't want it against any wasteland deck, so I wouldn't use it in any Delver matchup or Eldrazi. So until I see what other people recommend it for, it's not in my 75. As for Miracles, I have a lot of tech for that.
Flusterstorm - I know the storm decks, by and large, do not threaten us much, but I probably wouldn't want to be below 2x Flusterstorm in my side-board. It's a doable match-up, but we do need to be prepared for them. The other thing is, Flusterstorm sort-of dodges the counterbalance lock, so it can be pretty good against Miracles. I also think it's worth bringing in against Sneakshow.
Winter Orb has never been a wildly successful card for me. It's good against miracles and Lands, but not a lot of other decks. I would run Null Rod instead, I feel like the applications are wider.
Why aren't you running Krosan's Grip? It's the single best answer to Counterbalance and Batterskull we have access to, and let's not forget Ancient Grudge does not work on enchantments. You could have rock-solid reasons, but Krosan's Grip, to me, is indispensable.
Anyways, those are my thoughts on the matter. Really it depends on what match-ups you want your board to handle.
I'm running 2 Orb main, and running the following side:
1 Winter Orb
1 Cursed Totem
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
2 Rough//Tumble
2 Flusterstorm
3 REB
2 TNN
With 2 flex slots. Orb is really underrated.
Ok for starters let's talk about what you expect to face and what cards are good in those particular match ups:
- Miracles
- Grixis Delver other Delver in general
- Lands and other Loam decks
- Eldrazi
- Infect
- Combo
So with those decks in mind the sideboard are as follows:
Miracles + 2 pyroblast, 2 flusterstorm, surgical extraction, sylvan library, sulfuric vortex, sulfur elemental, vendilion clique, null rod, winter orb, true name, pithing needle
Grixis Delver + 2 pyroblast, 2 rough
Lands + sylvan library, surgical extraction, pithing needle, price of progress, 2 flusterstorm, winter orb
Loam + 2 submerge, surgical extraction, ancient grudge, sylvan library
Eldrazi + price of progress, ancient grudge, vendilion clique, null rod, true name, winter orb
Infect + 2 pyroblast, 2 flusterstorm, 2 submerge, 2 rough, surgical extraction, ancient grudge, sylvan library, Pithing needle
Combo
Storm + 2 flusterstorm, surgical extraction, null rod, vendilion clique
Sneak and Show + 2 flusterstorm, 2 pyroblast, vendilion clique, Sylvan Library, Surgical extraction,
Now as for some of the outlying cards you mentioned: True name, Lavamancer, Winter orb
True name is good against Miracles and other uwx shells that have lots of removal obviously. He's also great against Shardless BUG. Outside of those decks he's good vs Eldrazi as well which is important. You don't really want him vs other delver decks and here's why: three mana. Some people might disagree with me on this, but the way I look at delver mirrors they are decided by whoever is lower to the ground. True name goes against this idea. It's difficult to land him otd and otp we should be favored anyways as most delver decks are when they're otp. To me personally it seems like he's good on paper, but when you analyze it more the cons outweigh the "super" shroud effect he brings to the table.
Speaking of shroud goose is absurdly good especially if you think Miracles will be popular (when is it not for that matter?). He's the most efficient threat in legacy period. It's what sets our deck aside from others and at risk of sounding too set in stone I think he's a must. I mean there's just no other good replacement that falls in with the other synergies of the deck. Even in delver mirrors he's a bit slow, but blanks all their removal which allows you to focus on disrupting the other deck.
That's another part of deck philosophy as for delver mirrors. Here's the thing we're the underdog in all delver mirrors. Every other delver deck has Deathrite. That threat will provide more damage than goose on average especially if the game goes long. He also blanks our soft permission and mana denial. After that the other delver decks either have some mix of angler/pyromancer/goyfs/decays. So their anglers/goyfs block ours and their pyromancer can chump/go wide vs our threats all day long. Then finally they have decay to kill our goyfs more easily. To recap other delver decks have: more damage, better threats and because of this for the most part we have to take on sort of a control roll despite how ill-suited we are to do this. There's no getting around it that's just part of our deck.
While all this sounds discouraging it goes back to why goose is good in delver mirrors. The shroud effect is what gives us our own edge. In the delver mirrors your main focus should be disrupting them once you have a threat down. It's just not possible to race or go long vs other delver decks. This leaves only one option which is to try and tempo them out and walk a very fine line between getting damage in and controlling the game. It sounds like a lot of 101 RUG Delver material, but I think it applies more to delver mirror match ups than anything else.
Lavamancer is good vs decks like DnT and Elves. He’s ok vs delver decks and gives us our own pseudo deathrite which is relevant. He still doesn’t have shroud and is very frail so I would be worried about protecting him. Against Grixis Delver I actually really like rough for this very reason that it kills a lot of their small stuff and helps you pick up some tempo if they generated tokens already. Lavamancer is good, but stresses us to have countermagic to protect him. Rough might be easier to play and mop up the board, but has less overall ev. I’m honestly not sure the more I think about it which is better.
Winter Orb I actually haven’t tested a whole lot. I think it’s really good and I played Jonathan Alexander’s list at weekly recently and went 2/2 (my 2 losses were merfolk which are just not very winnable regardless the build). I really liked orb, but I’m not sure without more testing how good it is outside of like miracles, lands, eldrazi and shardless. With that being said if you’re expecting to face 3/4 of those decks I think it’s a worthwhile inclusion in your board.
Now as for comparing Winter Orb to Null Rod I think they serve very different purposes outside of the vacuum of miracles. Even inside that vacuum they serve different purposes. Both cards shut down top in a different way. Orb helps keep our taxing spells live and makes their tops much worse. Despite that they can still filter, fetch, filter etc. Now if we have taxing counters to pair with orb then that’s fine. On the other hand, if we’re just running on a goose in top deck mode against them I would much rather have null rod then orb.
Outside of miracles null rod can cripple some storm hands by turning off LED/Petal forcing them to fetch up volcanic to use PIF lines. Null rod also hits jitte, ratchet bomb and relic against eldrazi all of which are cards that they will bring in and are very bad for us. I don’t think Orb is great vs storm, but I could be wrong. Orb might be a better line of attack against eldrazi, but again I just don’t have a whole lot of experience with the card.
Now onto the actual board. Given what’s good vs those decks you listed I think something like this would probably be a good place to start:
2 flusterstorm
2 pyroblast
2 submerge
2 rough
Null Rod
Pithing needle
Sylvan
Grudge
Surgical Extraction
Price of progress
Flex (Vortex/True Name/Orb/Clique)
Has there been any discussion of Gnarlwood Dryad in this thread yet? I don't think there has.
Gnarlwood Dryad
Creature - Dryad Horror {G}
Deathtouch
Delirium: ~ Gets +2/+2
1/1
Not as a replacement for Mongoose probably, but perhaps in some Tarmogoyf slots?
Pros vs Goyf:
- Costs 1 (Not a pro if your opponent has Chalice on 1 I guess)
- Always deals with a big guy e.g. Angler, Smasher that are often larger than Goyf
- Has 1 power and a relevant ability even with a RIP in play
Cons vs Goyf:
- Goyf can outright beat other 3/3s, 4/4s in combat and sometimes upwards of that if there are more types in the graveyard
- Harder to 'turn on' than Goyf (might have to play bad cards like Tarfire or Seal of Fire to work it consistently, Goyf starts to grow with only 1 card in the GY), more easily disrupted by DRS than Goyf is
- Goyf is nearly always bolt-immune and rarely doesn't even die to Dismember; this is always boltable, Dismemberable, and can die to even smaller toughness-based removal like Grim Lavamancer, Darkblast, Rough//Tumble etc if you cast it before it's 'on'.
If you don't look at the top right corner of the cards I think Tarmogoyf is clearly better, but costing 1 mana vs 2 mana is a huge deal and it's not like 1 mana 3/3s get printed every day so I thought it was at least worth a mention
Surgical is great against Miracles, it does a pretty good stifle impression extracting a used terminus in response to another terminus miracle trigger.
There seems to be a lot of differing opinions as to what cards people think are good versus what, lol. I might actually be off the Winter Orb hype for the moment, after testing 2 in the board. I boarded it in a bunch, to give it a fair shake, hit the card a lot... and wasnt as impressed as i thought i would be. I think its a good card vs particular matchups, but maybe not the 90% game winner i thought it could be. I'm keeping one in my board, but at least now i know.
Contract Killer, thanks for the great response. I agree with a lot of what you said, and your sample board is pretty spot on to what i think will work vs the decks i expect to see (Miracles, Lands/Loam, Delver variants, and Infect). I dont have 2 Flusterstorms, though, and not sure i would want 2, so i made that a TNN and the flex spot a Wintor Orb. I still think some of the responses are undervaluing TNN in the mirrors, there hasnt been s game where I landed him and lost, he is a must counter, and the tempo from it getting dazed isnt all that bad. I mean, equipment or not, thats always when i lose to Stone Blade decks, if a TNN lands, gg's. Plus, i like the brick wall he is against Thought Knot Seer and Knight of the Reliquary, and the 5th Goose he represents vs Miracles.
Yeah he might be good in delver mirrors I'm just not sure. Every time I've tested him in those he felt slow and clunky. Despite the shroud he provides I still would get swarmed by yp or deathrite would go around him. Just because stoneforge decks can leverage their game plan around him and win off of that doesn't mean we easily can. My personal opinion is that his place if any in this deck is against miracles, stoneblade, shardless bug, eldrazi, 4c loam and dnt/maverick.
All those decks play a lot of removal (with the exception being eldrazi and I think that match up is obvious why) and he blanks all those providing good virtual card advantage. I'm hesitant to even put 4c loam and dnt/maverick there since they can easily waste/port us out and make it difficult to cast him while developing our mana. Comparing tnn's performance in a stoneblade list and ours differs drastically. The lack of equipment is part of it, but the decks operate differently and so does tnn between the two.
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As a TNN fan ever since its release in 2013, the card doesn't need equipments to screw up your opponent. All it takes is an empty board or a stalled/favorable board position for it to start dishing out headaches.
Do you know what assuming does? It makes an ass out of you and me.
Get it...? Ass, u, me?
... ffs I was trying to be funny...
It's a powerful card. The biggest problem is the non-bo with Rough/Tumble against creature decks (like D&T). If you're playing 2+ TNN, you may as well remove the Mongooses and playing Jitte instead of sweepers.
I played this in the Legacy Festival Championship yesterday. List is good, draws were not.
1-2 OmniShow
2-1 Nic Fit
1-2 Infect
2-1 Grixis Delver
1-2 Grixis Delver
2-1 Bant
0-2 Dredge
Check twitter (@jonlx) for more information. Summary: Yesterday just wasn't my day.
Don't mind me, i'm just writing about Pauper these days: theweeklywars.wordpress.com
deckstats.net archive
Similar experience as J.A., i played in the Legacy Festival Finals to a 2-4 drop finish, bleh. Was 2-1 at one point and that felt good, but then got shat all over. I saw nothing but tier 1 and 1.5 decks: UR Delver, Miracles, Infect, Eldrazi, Grixis Delver, and then Miracles again, in that order, before i dropped. All very good decks and players!
Mixture of bad plays on my part, bad draws, and the like. I streamed it, if you like to watch VODs it is here: https://www.twitch.tv/lewiscbr/v/79751295
Miracles has been feeling unwinnable lately for me, not sure what to do about it, but i do think Sulfuric Vortex needs to get back in the 75 as an alternate damage dealer that doesnt die to Terminus.
In other news, there was a traditional decklist that took 10th in the SCG Legacy Classic this past weekend, which is nice to see. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...?DeckID=105630
I've been tinkering with this deck a bit and got to the conclusion that nimble mongoose is only really good against miracles (out of the tier 1 decks) (or STP decks) and usually gets outclassed by bigger threats. I've also found that it get worse when DRS are removing lands and spells from your graveyard. I've tryed a diferent approach which i'm going to share with you (5-0 a competitive legacy league on MTGO). I haven't played it much more since then but maybe it's the way to go ;)
It's important to make goyfs bigger then angler (thus the seal of fire and tarfire) and it's important to kill opposing shamans and delvers.
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/446945#online
Hey LewisCBR, I just watched our round 3 match from your point of view. That was really useful, and like you said, one hell of a match. In the second game you had a really good draw with a lot of removal, including the double Submerge, which was the big turning point of that game. And in game 3 that fast Rough absolutely wrecked me. Seeing that now it might have been correct to delay the Glistener Elf one turn and hold up a soft counter just in case of Rough, but I was lured into a false sense of security by the fact that my Spellskite had resolved. Slamming the Rough without fear was definately the correct play there, because the Spellskite makes your other removal much less reliable next turn, so good call on that and well played in generel.
I ended 4-3 that day after playing against a lot of Delver/Wasteland decks.
Canadian is one of Infects worst matchups, so I don't think you need to worry too much about it, just play tight, disrupt, and adapt to the situation, like this deck does so well. But if you do worry and want dedicated sideboard cards, then there is probably no better option than Submerge, which unfortunately is useless against Eldrazi.
Hey there, yeah that was a great match and the last happy moment i had in that tournament, haha. I'm glad you found the VOD and got to see the other side of the table, i always find that fun and educational. Whenever i run into a pro or streamer online, i always hope to see a video series of it later somewhere. Sorry you had to listen to me pee a bunch of times, my mic seems to pick up everything.
Congrats on the winning record for the day, at least. There seemed to be a lot of Delver around.
Last edited by LewisCBR; 07-25-2016 at 07:15 PM.
Hello everyone,
My name is Allen Shank and I recently finished 10th at the SCG Legacy Classic in Columbus. Over the course of the 7 rounds I played against Grixis Delver, BUG Delver, Miracles, 2 Colorless Eldrazi, Aggro Loam, and Lands. My only losses came to Miracles and Lands with my Miracles opponent top-decking Terminus multiple times game 3 and my Lands opponent having a fast Merit Lage both games. Feel free to ask any questions!
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