The Long Forgotten Light at the End of the World. Top8 at NoVA Legacy Draft.

[beastman]

dude nice deck. and congrats on the top 8
just wodering if the MD 'tog ever helped or swung
-Kevin Kehoe

[Deep6er]

Once. When he was a three casting cost card on top of my library. Just as an interesting aside. There was in fact ANOTHER 3 casting cost card on top of my library. I just didn't want my opponent to know that I was going to draw Deed. He was NEVER relevant. Didn't pitch him to Force or anything.

@Matt: Vewy cwever Doctah Wenchur.

[beastman]

just more proof that goyf is truly the best creature ever

[Pinder]

just more proof that goyf is truly the best creature ever

Right. Because we needed more of that, somehow.

Grats on the t8, Dave. I need to spend too much money randomly flying to a big East Coast tourney so we can randomly sit next to each other in pairings again.

Good times.

[Deep6er]

Absolutely. Then, I can tell your opponent that he's about to get "HAMMER'D"! It'd be amazing. :)

[Zach Tartell]

Absolutely. Then, I can tell your opponent that he's about to get "HAMMER'D"! It'd be amazing. :)

Then you could sign my Korean Cities.

[Deep6er]

Then your mom could sign my... hm, probably should have thought more about this before I started. How about this... your mom... should sign... your FACE! Booyah! Grandmother!

Wow, that sounds awful. Man, I wish somebody would invent a delete button. Or maybe a "backspace" button. That way, when I make a retard of myself, I could go back and change it. Oh well, the river of time flows in one direction, and this time, it flows in the direction of PWNT! :(

[Nihil Credo]

The correct response was 'Maybe I will sign your mom's face!'. Since it's a forum of non-retards, there would be no need of adding an explanation of the methods of said signing.

[zulander]

Right. Because we needed more of that, somehow.

Grats on the t8, Dave. I need to spend too much money randomly flying to a big East Coast tourney so we can randomly sit next to each other in pairings again.

Good times.

Wtf, you came out? Would have totally liked to meet you. Although, if I did and wasn't impressed then don't worry about it.

[Nightmare]

They sat next to each other in Columbus.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Incidentally, the second Counterbalance is usually a dead draw. Three is a good number.

If the first CB wins you the game, then who cares if the 2nd CB is a dead draw?

[nitewolf9]

If the first CB wins you the game, then who cares if the 2nd CB is a dead draw?

I think adding the 4th counterbalance is probably fine. You really want to see that card in almost every matchup and having 4 makes it easier to force through opposing counter magic and discard.

By the way, I just lost the game.

[Pinder]

By the way, I just lost the game.

FUCK!

And yeah, I suppose Columbus isn't really East Coast as much as it is Midwest. But all those guys trucking over here for the 29th really makes me want to throw caution to the wind and see if I can't get up there for some New York-style Legacy sometime (maybe that thing on the 12th of July?)

[Deep6er]

Come to think of it, you might be right about the 4th Counterbalance Sock Monkey. I'll certainly think about it and see what I should cut to put it back in.

Listen, when Star City holds another Duel for Duals (hopefully) you should totally come out here for that. My track record at those is pretty good, and it's always fun to have "The HAMMER" around when I'm doing well. :)

EDIT: Seriously, you should look into getting a job for the Mafia. With a name like James Hammer, you were fucking born to do it. Holy fuck that'd be cool. Well, up until you either died, or went to jail. Or maybe killed me. That'd be unfortunate. You know what though? Still cool. After all, my tombstone could say "LOL, HAMMER'D to Death". Under that, it would say "- Beatings". That'd be pretty cool.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Come to think of it, you might be right about the 4th Counterbalance Sock Monkey. I'll certainly think about it and see what I should cut to put it back in.

Well, I kept seeing in your report "Counterbalance wins the game, due to retardedness". I would probably want as many of those in my deck as I could get anyway.

(ALso, you play deeds)

BTW: Tog can probably go, if you need a slot.

[Deep6er]

Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

Also, you're probably right about the 'Tog. He's not really been pulling his weight. Like ever.

[Ebinsugewa]

Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

Also, you're probably right about the 'Tog. He's not really been pulling his weight. Like ever.

Yeah, I'd like to hear Dan's thoughts on putting him in there.

[bruno_tiete]

Congrats on the deck and on the result.

In your opinion, could the deck lose the white splash and use Shriekmaw + Stronghold?

Also, if you were to include and evasive beater to go through ground stalls, what would it be? Tombstalker?

I am about to play a large tournament in Brazil and the field is predicted to be Tresholds and randomness. Is this deck a good choice?

Thanks in advance.

[nitewolf9]

Yeah, I'd like to hear Dan's thoughts on putting him in there.

Curiosity. I was trying to figure out if tog was still as good as he used to be. Turns out he really isn't. Tarmogoyf has sped up the game too much, especially versus threshold. Tog might be situationally ok but usually he is either win more, beating in when a mishra's factory would do the same thing because your opponent has 0 chance of winning, or just outclassed by tarmogoyf. He also eats your yard which is bad in this deck considering the almost deceptively huge power of its recursion engines. I was weary about the number of win conditions in the deck, but according to Dave shackles, goyf, and even the lonely witness do just fine. I think he's right. Intuition is really what makes this deck in my opinion. That and playing retardedly powerful cards (deed, counterbalance, vedalken FUCKING shackles...stupid damn shackles, god I hate that card so fucking much).

As far as ditching the white splash I wouldn't. Splashing for swords alone is more than worth it. The deck was originally Ubg but having conditional removal was a huge problem (namely because of tombstalker and mystic enforcer). There really is no replacement for STP.

[Deep6er]

Swords is too powerful. Shriekmaw costs too much to recur.

Honestly, I've never felt the need for an evasive beater. Deed + Swords means that you're opponent will have a difficult time keeping large numbers of creatures on the board. Then, you have time to finish him off with recurring Tarmogoyfs.

If the field is projected to be Threshold and randomness, I would say that "It's the Fear" is a decent choice. You can still lose to Threshold (as can every deck in this format), but with tight play, you can definitely come out ahead.

However, Ichorid is going to be pretty bad for you. Unless you board Leyline, you're going to lose to them. However, my advice here is to really think hard about how much Ichorid is going to show up. If the field IS going to be a lot of Threshold, then it's likely there will be a decent showing on Ichorid because Ichorid's first game against Threshold is amazing. Unfortunately, it could also mean that a fair bit of Landstill will show up which means that you want a board that's similar to what I'm playing now (I'll include that at the end).

You have a strong game against a fair bit of random decks. Swords, Deed, Shackles, Counters, Tarmogoyf and ways to search them up usually will make it fairly difficult for random decks.

Depending on the splash of Threshold, it could mean certain things. The white Threshold builds usually have Swords and Mystic Enforcer which are irritating, but usually the easiest to deal with. The red splash usually means Blood Moon (or possibly Thrash) which can easily be a problem. The Black Splash means Thoughtseize, which can disrupt Intuition. All of them have particular strengths. I would never say that this deck is HEAVILY favored against Threshold, but I would say that's it's mildly favored. More like a 60/40 kind of deal. That's assuming that you play well. The deck's nature (in addition to Threshold's) can easily screw you on bad plays.

The sideboard that I play now is this:
4 Engineered Plague
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Krosan Grip
1 Meditate
1 Eternal Witness
1 Haunting Echoes

The three one-ofs are for Landstill and other control decks. These means that the card advantage war can easily be won with multiple Meditates and recurring Meditates. It also means that an Intuition pile of Witness, Witness, Haunting Echoes is going to be really bad for them.

I board as follows for certain decks.

Landstill:
-3 Pernicious Deed
-2 Engineered Explosives
+1 Eternal Witness
+1 Meditate
+1 Haunting Echoes
+2 Krosan Grip

Krosan Grip isn't awfully useful here. However, if I saw Crucible or Counterbalance or something like that game 1, then I would keep Explosives and board out Swords instead. The point is that Krosan Grip is one of those things that you might need.

Threshold:
-4 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Counterspell
+4 Krosan Grip
+1 Eternal Witness
+1 Meditate

With all of the creature control elements that you're playing, Swords is a little much. Especially considering that it can't hit Mongoose which is the primary concern of the deck. Like most other Counterbalance based decks, you MUST destroy Counterbalance. Thus, four Krosan Grips in addition to the Deeds and Explosives in the main. The two one-ofs are for stabilizing the game and then re-establishing control. If they're playing Blood Moon, add Blasts in as well. Which would mean taking out 3 Intuitions. You do this because that game will hinge on whether or not Blood Moon sticks. You can't really worry about anything beyond that.

Goblins:
-4 Counterbalance
-3 Counterspell
-1 Pernicious Deed
+4 Engineered Plague
+4 Blue Elemental Blast

Pretty simple. Counterbalance isn't terribly useful here since it often requires too much mana to properly account for Krosan Grip. Instead, Intuition up Shackles and give them so many targets that they can't beat it. Plus, with so much spot removal, they'll have a hard time sticking anything.

Ichorid:
-3 Counterspell
-2 Counterbalance
+4 Engineered Plague
+1 Haunting Echoes

This one is pretty bad. I won't go into much detail here. Play Plague, hope to get to Echoes. That's it. Cross your fingers. Theoretically, if you added in Leyline (which I don't think is a good idea unless you KNOW there will be a lot of Ichorid), I'd keep the Counterbalances in order to lock them out if you stick a Leyline (hopefully).

The others should be pretty obvious. Blasts for Dragon Stompy, Krosan Grip and Plague for Enchantress, and so on.

I recommend this deck because it's so versatile. There's an answer for many situations, and it gives you the ability to really make strategic long-term decisions. Outplaying your opponent is a huge plus.

However, on the downside, you could easily outplay yourself. Watch out for the Danger of Cool Things. Make sure you keep a level head and don't let yourself get frazzled. It's easy to fuck shit up and then lose a game you had locked.