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Thread: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

  1. #81
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Still haven't had much time for testing, but here's what I'm working on right now. Still trying Burning Wish and Enlightened Tutor, but I'm also running a bit of green out of the sideboard for Veils and Reverent Silence. The sideboard's crowded, and maybe kinda bad, but I like boarding minimally while keeping access to both tutorable and wishable haymaker removal/a fifth Brain Freeze/utility singletons. It's lukewarm garbage, and I'll readily admit this deck is trying to do too many things at once, but here goes. Roast me like a—uh, a soon-to-be-roasted thing:

    4x Flooded Strand
    3x Scalding Tarn
    1x Arid Mesa
    1x Volcanic Island
    1x Tundra
    1x Plateau
    1x Tropical Island
    1x Taiga
    1x Snow-covered Island
    1x Snowy Mountain
    1x Snowy Plains

    4x Brain Freeze
    4x Brainstorm
    4x Ponder
    4x Force of Will
    3x Preordain
    1x Spell Pierce (or a fourth Preordain. I kind of hate both cards.)
    1x Seal of Removal

    4x Underworld Breach
    3x Burning Wish

    3x Enlightened Tutor
    2x Orim's Chant
    1x Silence
    1x Seal of Cleansing

    4x Lotus Petal
    4x Lion's Eye Diamond
    1x Grinding Station

    SB:

    3x Veil of Summer
    Reverent Silence
    Stream of Thought
    Sevinne's Reclamation
    Grapeshot
    Pulverize
    Infernal Tutor
    Serenity
    Porphyry Nodes
    Silent Gravestone
    Defense Grid
    Chain of Vapor
    Wear'n'Tear

    Against control, Force and Seal of Removal come out for Defense Grid, Veils, and something else depending on what hate cards I'm up against. Against Chalices and Leylines and such, Chant effects come out for artifact/enchantment removal. I probably need more answers to Chalice. Against hatey-hate-hate people, bring on the Nodes and Chain of Vapor and cut Chant effects. (I might need more removal, too.) Against combo, depending on the combo, Veils, Chain, and Silent Gravestone for one or both Seals and a couple of Wishes.

    I'd give my brewing skillz a B-minus/C-plus. I'm new to the whole Legacy brewing thing. What to cut? What's missing? How overcrowded is this monstrosity? When can I actually get my ass to a tournament again?

    EDIT: I know, I know; I forgot Pyroclasm.
    Last edited by Ronald Deuce; 02-29-2020 at 11:58 AM.
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  2. #82
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by thefringthing View Post
    Sweepers and Mentors are a bit of a nonbo.
    Even in games where Mentor is boarded in, it's only on the battlefield maybe 20% of turns. You have to actually draw into Mentor and control what the opponent's doing first. Once Mentor is out, if it's unanswered, you win in 1-2 turns. It's not out long. If you need removal, you often prioritize removal first. AnziD has a recent stream where he punted a win by going for Mentor instead of just removing the threats on board. Afterwards, he and the whole chat agreed removal first was the better line.

    In the rare case you may have to use a sweeper after casting Mentor, Pyroclasm doesn't kill Monastery Mentor. With any other spell (e.g. Burning Wish -> Pyroclasm, cantrip, Petal), it doesn't kill the Monks either. You could even Pyroclasm to clear the blockers and then attack for the win.
    Last edited by FTW; 03-01-2020 at 09:13 AM.

  3. #83
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce View Post
    It's lukewarm garbage, and I'll readily admit this deck is trying to do too many things at once, but here goes. Roast me like a—uh, a soon-to-be-roasted thing:
    Wouldn't call it garbage, but it is trying to do a lot.

    The first thing I notice is you have fewer blue sources than most (12 vs 14) and only have 8 ways to get basic Island (vs 11-12 in most Jeskai lists). Basic Island is very strong with the cantrip shell. 1-landers with cantrips are normally keepable (AnziD keeps many 1-landers, and sometimes even bottoms his 2nd land on a mull to 6), but that's only a sfe keep with basic Island. Otherwise you could get blown out by Wasteland. With fewer ways to get basic Island I think you'll need more than 16 lands. More lands both to have fewer 1-landers than other lists, to have more blue sources, and to make up for the fact that you're on average losing more lands to Wasteland.

    With the weaker manabase, I have to wonder if all the colors are worth it. How much value is Veil adding vs how bad a topdeck Taiga is? I wonder if those slots would be better as Mentors. With both the ETutor package and the Wishboard you don't have much SB space.
    Last edited by FTW; 03-01-2020 at 09:08 AM.

  4. #84

    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Top 4ed a Legacy 2K at From the Vault in Syracuse, NY. Played 4C Breach, splash black for Bob, Leyline and Plague Engineer.

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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Keller View Post
    Top 4ed a Legacy 2K at From the Vault in Syracuse, NY. Played 4C Breach, splash black for Bob, Leyline and Plague Engineer.
    Nice! Well done! Today was good for me as well. I won a 1K in Snohomish, WA. I was on a UWr list with Intution + Sevinne's Reclamation, no E. Tutors, no Bolts, no Swords, and a pretty different sideboard. I'll try to post a report in the next day or two. Will be interesting to compare reports and insights. This deck is really powerful and is viable in numerous shells. There didn't seem to be much Breach at this event, but there was another Breach player in the Top 8. I think he was on the Togores list.

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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Keller View Post
    Top 4ed a Legacy 2K at From the Vault in Syracuse, NY. Played 4C Breach, splash black for Bob, Leyline and Plague Engineer.
    Congrats! Is your list online somewhere?

    Where did Plague Engineer help most? I thought most of the problem hatebears are X/2.

  7. #87

    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Congrats! Is your list online somewhere?

    Where did Plague Engineer help most? I thought most of the problem hatebears are X/2.
    Not yet, I'll get it posted soon. Plague Engineer was an additional method to limit tribal decks from getting out of hand, buying time, and doing work against D&T and Delver decks.

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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Wouldn't call it garbage, but it is trying to do a lot.
    Thanks for the input! This might come out as a bit of a garble, but I'll try to address everything you wrote—most of which I believe to be right on—and some other things. (I should also mention that I've changed up the build somewhat, going deeper on Silence effects and removing Veils for now.)

    You're definitely right about Wasteland, but I've found that there are a lot of situations in which getting a basic doesn't do enough. I agree that one-landers with a basic Island or a way to find it are pretty strong in this deck, but a) I keep finding that I'm running out of gas later on with only 16 lands, and b) all our answers to hate cost mana except Force of Will. (More on Force later.) An important play is ETutor into Breach, which is really helped by having a Plateau. I also find that topdecked basics often don't line up with our plan, though I absolutely agree that one of each core color is essential. As a result, I advocate for 17 lands. Sure, I'm only on three basics (and a "bad basic" Tropical for Reverent Silence), but that's more land than I ever ran in Storm, which uses the same cantrip suite, and (at locals) I rarely found Wasteland to be a blowout when I wasn't fishtailing already. FYI, Taiga's out.

    Another thing: I really don't feel comfy running so many fetches with so few things to find. Blood Moon is a beating, Leonin Arbiter/Suppression Field are perhaps worse, and when we thin our deck out too much, we stop finding anything. And as I've said, we should be prepared to expend additional resources to protect the combo.

    My major attraction to Veil is/was that I find this deck is weak to discards, especially post-board. Reactive Chant effects do nothing, Force is actively bad, I personally think Spell Pierce is generally bad regardless of context, and things get worse if we're facing Surgical Extraction. I'm not running Veils at the moment, but I'm definitely interested in finding a way to do so in the future. Anybody who's been working with 4c/5c lists, your input would be appreciated greatly!

    So now I come to Force of Will. I should qualify what I'm about to say by pointing out that I've been pushing the limits of the possible intentionally in my tinkering with this deck. We're working with a new combo, and this is the first time I've had all/most of the pieces to put together something that's really new to Legacy since BReanimator. That explains some card choices (the triple-Scalding Tarn instead of a quad, the Burning Wishes, etc.): I could just stick with a modified AnT, but I want to try things out and see where they lead.

    I think Force of Will is one of the America-colors deck's worst mainboard cards. I've 'boarded them out pretty much every game against anything that isn't combo or Chalice. It regularly does nothing, it requires us to run mediocre/bad cards to round out our blue count, and it only shines against decks with "silver bullet" spells. Against hard control, we have better options in every color except red. Against hatebears, we have better answers in white, black, red, and blue. Against grave-hate, probably 75% of suggested sideboard cards work. Against Chaliceplusfifty-sixblankcards.dec, Force is only good if we have a way to follow up with something that actually changes the game state, and feeding Force a cantrip is counterproductive when we need to find three combo pieces to win. When Force is good, it's great; when it isn't, see above. In light of all that, has anyone tried moving Force to the sideboard? One avenue I began exploring today was to go heavier into other colors in the main deck and put Forces and similar cards like Flusterstorm in the sideboard for rough combo matchups like S&T or Reanimator.

    Thank you all for any and all advice, input, criticism (it's deserved), and discussion.
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)


  10. #90

    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Yeah, I seem to be in the “no ban” camp for the card. It just requires a lot of setup and is more skill intensive than people give it credit for. It’s such a fun card to play. Honestly, I think it’s fine in Legacy.

    At this point, we’ve got a handful of “mistake” cards that exist that were basically just printed. Breach to me is just a cool new card that pushes the boundaries. And I’m personally okay with that - especially in a format where you can die from a 20/20 on turn three or watch someone drop a flying Yawgmoth’s Bargain into play turn one.

  11. #91

    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Keller View Post
    Yeah, I seem to be in the “no ban” camp for the card. It just requires a lot of setup and is more skill intensive than people give it credit for. It’s such a fun card to play. Honestly, I think it’s fine in Legacy.

    At this point, we’ve got a handful of “mistake” cards that exist that were basically just printed. Breach to me is just a cool new card that pushes the boundaries. And I’m personally okay with that - especially in a format where you can die from a 20/20 on turn three or watch someone drop a flying Yawgmoth’s Bargain into play turn one.
    Not that I advocate for a ban, but there are here a few things that made me want to react.

    • I may be nitpicking, but the "skill-intensivity" required to play a card has not in the past been a factor in WotC's decision to axe it - see Summer Bloom in Modern - at best does it give the card a small grace period.
    • Literally any combo deck (in Legacy at least) can be hated to the point where it's an unplayable pile of trash - Breach is no exception, especially given the fact it can be attacked on a lot of axis - but the ban decision tends to happen not only based on the possibility to hate an archetype, but on the need to do so (especially, a strong surge in maindecked graveyard or artifact hate in the weeks to come would send a signal).
    • Just because more powerful cards exist doesn't mean a card isn't ban-worthy - and WotC's ban policy, even in Legacy, has shown this before. Brainstorm is arguably way better than a whole lot of the cards currently banned - and yet Brainstorm is free and they're not for different reasons.


    As I said before, this doesn't mean to me that the card should be banned, neither would I be especially relieved to see it go - having a deck that can legitimately pack LED and Force of Will used to be every Johnny's wet dream

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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    I agree with Hollywood. Breach is very powerful but no more degenerate than other tier 1 combos and skill-intensive enough that it shouldn't take over the meta. The skill-intensive part means many Breach players will play it suboptimally, so it doesn't risk dominating the meta.


    Quote Originally Posted by Unlif3 View Post
    [*]I may be nitpicking, but the "skill-intensivity" required to play a card has not in the past been a factor in WotC's decision to axe it - see Summer Bloom in Modern - at best does it give the card a small grace period.
    I wouldn't compare a format where they banned Wild Nacatl to a format with turn 1 Griselbrand, Goblin Charbelcher, or turn 2 Marit Lage or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Modern is banhammer.format. Legacy rarely gets bans unless a card is oppressive or metagame-warping. They've shown they're OK with unfair cards in Legacy as long as the format has tools to police them and as long as players still get to cast their Brainstorms.

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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Keller View Post
    Not yet, I'll get it posted soon. Plague Engineer was an additional method to limit tribal decks from getting out of hand, buying time, and doing work against D&T and Delver decks.
    One thing I noticed about your list other than Bob is the Merchant Scroll toolbox. How is that working out for you?
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    I agree with Hollywood. Breach is very powerful but no more degenerate than other tier 1 combos and skill-intensive enough that it shouldn't take over the meta. The skill-intensive part means many Breach players will play it suboptimally, so it doesn't risk dominating the meta.
    I think 3/8 decks that made top 8 of the Showcase yesterday were Breach. That being said, it could be that Breach is just "overplayed" right now, so the "conversion rate" might be middling, but the rate of play high. Very hard to say at the moment.
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce View Post
    I think Force of Will is one of the America-colors deck's worst mainboard cards. I've 'boarded them out pretty much every game against anything that isn't combo or Chalice. It regularly does nothing, it requires us to run mediocre/bad cards to round out our blue count, and it only shines against decks with "silver bullet" spells. Against hard control, we have better options in every color except red. Against hatebears, we have better answers in white, black, red, and blue. Against grave-hate, probably 75% of suggested sideboard cards work. Against Chaliceplusfifty-sixblankcards.dec, Force is only good if we have a way to follow up with something that actually changes the game state, and feeding Force a cantrip is counterproductive when we need to find three combo pieces to win. When Force is good, it's great; when it isn't, see above. In light of all that, has anyone tried moving Force to the sideboard? One avenue I began exploring today was to go heavier into other colors in the main deck and put Forces and similar cards like Flusterstorm in the sideboard for rough combo matchups like S&T or Reanimator.
    The issue with FOW is that even if its not the "best answer" against Discard or Hate Bears or Silver Bullets or Gravehate is that it is an answer to each of the above AND is an answer for 0 mana. It's just impossible for other cards to replace it unless you are gearing for a specific meta.
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by H View Post
    All three were very similar. Intuition URW Builds with T3feri.
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Not only did they finish 1st, 2nd and 5th, but all three finished the Swiss at 7-1!

    The only other deck to match or beat that record was the 3rd place Moon Stompy list (8-0 in Swiss, lost 1-2 in the Semis to the 1st place guy). Moon Stompy is the heavy favorite (Chalice, 3sphere, Leyline, 7 Moons, Karn, plus bullets like Crypt and Spyglass) so that loss in 3 is just variance.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    All three were very similar. Intuition URW Builds with T3feri.
    It's the Togores build that AnziD has been streaming every day for the last 2 weeks and played at the Dice City Games Open.

    I would chalk that up to the popularity of AnziD's stream. He streams Breach daily and has converted a lot of the regular online players to that build, +/- a few small differences. They've also had a lot of time to analyze and discuss SB strategy for different matchups for that specific list, through the stream, and written up a SB strategy guide that players can load up during online tournaments. Because of that, it's a low-cost-of-entry build for other MTGO players to pick up, and their gameplay is more finely-tuned than players experimenting with other builds.

    Michael Keller's Grixis list looks strong too. There's less streaming and crowdsourcing for analysis/tuning of Grixis and 4C builds, but they may be as or more viable.

    @ those who don't like FoW and prefer Veil to Silence:
    Keep in mind AnziD's a long-time Miracles stalwart who recently tried to brew Scepter-Chant in UW. He pilots Jeskai Breach like a Miracles deck more than a Storm deck and loves casting Orim's Chant. They're basically UW control with a better wincon, and their SB strategy is to turn even more into Miracles (cut LEDs and Brain Freezes, bring in Mentors and StPs/answers) with an "oops I win!" if they draw Breach. That adds some context to his card choices and SB. It isn't the only way to win with Breach, but it fits his UW control-oriented playstyle well, and others are netdecking off him.
    Last edited by FTW; 03-02-2020 at 05:08 PM.

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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    To me, it seems the one under discussed advantage of Intuition Builds over Enlightened Tutor builds is that they run more blue cards to support FOW. Yes E-Tutor is flexible and cheaper, and yes Intuition sometimes acts as a one card combo, but the real difference, to me, is the blue count.

    1-2 Intuition
    1 Sevinne's Reclamation

    vs.

    3-4 E-Tutor
    1-2 E-tutor Target

    The latter package is about 4-6 non-blue cards, while the Intuition package only runs 1 non-blue card. That's a difference of 3-5 blue cards for FOW. That many more blue cards makes FOW decisions much easier and actually improves the deck in the sense that you can FOW and still possibly have that Cantrip afterwards.
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    Re: [Deck] A Cold Day in Hell (Breach Freeze)

    Quote Originally Posted by Cire View Post
    To me, it seems the one under discussed advantage of Intuition Builds over Enlightened Tutor builds is that they run more blue cards to support FOW. Yes E-Tutor is flexible and cheaper, and yes Intuition sometimes acts as a one card combo, but the real difference, to me, is the blue count.
    The real difference is the ability to do this postboard:
    -3 LED
    -3 Brain Freeze
    +3-4 Mentor
    +2 answers

    Or:
    -2 LED
    -2 Brain Freeze
    -2 Breach
    + Mentors
    + answers

    The Intuition + Sevinne trick lets him tutor the whole combo once the game is under control, which enables a sneaky space-saving trick. Postboard they can board out combo pieces and play like a UW control deck, prioritizing taking control of the game and stopping the opponent's interaction. Once they take control, then they can tutor the whole combo up with 1 card and win. That means they have more interactive cards and fewer "combo" slots, improving draw quality in grindy games and reducing vulnerability to hate.

    EOT Intuition: LED, Breach, Sevinne
    Your turn: Get Breach into play. LED. Escape Intuition for Brain Freeze, crack LED for UUU in response.

    In racing matches, they can opt to keep the whole combo in and board out the slow engine (Intuition, Predict) for more protection. They get to straddle the line between combo and control, adjusting to beat the opponent. It's this flexibility to dodge traditional Breach hate and the strong plan B that's winning them matches.
    Last edited by FTW; 03-02-2020 at 09:27 PM.

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